The Gate of Gods (Fall of the Ile-Rien) (34 page)

He asked her bluntly, “What do you think you’re doing?”

Waist deep in the green water, Cletia looked up with a frown. “You wanted me to leave the boy in here?” She handed the dripping child off to Eliva, who carried him away, scolding him and drying him off with a corner of her shawl.

“With Ilias.”

Her frown deepened and she climbed out of the water, wringing out the hem of her shirt. But she didn’t meet his eyes. “Nothing.” She started to brush past him.

He caught her arm, saying deliberately, “I’m a Chosen Vessel until the god says otherwise. Don’t lie to me.”

She pulled free, standing stubbornly, still not looking at him. “It’s not a real marriage,” she said through gritted teeth. “Everyone knows that. She lets him do whatever he wants.”

He lifted his brows. “Everyone’s different, Cletia. If you ever really talked to anyone outside the upper rank of families in Cineth, you’d know that.” He eyed her for a moment, reminding himself she was younger than she looked and acted, that Pasima and her mother had kept her closer than they should, trying to make her into their own image. “You’re telling me you want Ilias? Or you just want to make Pasima angry?”

Now she did look at him, her eyes furious. “I’m not a child.” She started away, still dripping dirty water.

“Tremaine knows that, and she won’t treat you like one when it comes to it,” he said after her. She didn’t stop and he shook his head at himself, grimacing. He hadn’t handled her particularly well, but her interference made him angry. Ilias and Tremaine had a hard enough road in front of them, they didn’t need this. And knowing he might not be there to help them on that road just made it all the worse.

F
lorian bit her lip in concentration, carefully rolling the small toadstone in the saucer of dried salamander’s blood. Niles only had half a jar of salamander’s blood left, and she couldn’t afford to waste any. And just looking at the powdery substance made her want to sneeze.

She sat at the writing desk in the room assigned to her, which she hadn’t slept in once yet. It was one of the smaller First Class rooms, with a bed, a small seating area with a set of overstuffed armchairs, and a dressing area and attached bath. It was also bare of any of her possessions, with the somewhat depressed air of an unused hotel room, and far too quiet. But she couldn’t do this in the suite in front of Kias and Gyan, no matter how enlightened they had become about Rienish magic.

Frowning in concentration, Florian lifted the now dust-covered stone and wrapped the wool thread around it, setting another word of the charm each time the strands crossed. This was the tenth one she had done and she no longer had to glance at her notes to make sure she was getting the pattern right.
I don’t know why I’m making so many—chances are I’ll only be able to use one, if that.
She wasn’t looking forward to taking those chances.

Tying off the last strand, she put the little stone on a square of colored foil borrowed from a discarded candy packet and wrapped it neatly, setting it aside with the others. Checking the clock above the bed to see if she had time for any more, she winced. The electric clock had never been reset for time in this world, but she knew how many hours it was off. Outside, past the dark green curtains and the metal dead lights that covered the portholes, the sun was setting over the sea.

Florian was starting to dread the evenings. She pushed her chair back, rubbing her aching neck, and got to her feet. Despite everything, her stomach grumbled and she realized her throat was dry. She went to the attached bathroom but there was no cup or carafe, so she drank enough from her cupped hands to survive until she got to the dining room. Pocketing the foil-wrapped stones, she hesitated.
I have to convince Nicholas to take some.

Of all the defensive spells and charms she had researched that she felt she could perform, this was the one that would most likely be of use against Ixion. It also didn’t require her to obtain anything that belonged to the sorcerer or to be in contact with him at any time.

The charms were called turnbacks, meant to turn any spell back against the caster. The best thing about them was that the charm was all contained within the toadstone, ready to be released at the first touch of hostile magic, so they could be used by people who had no magical ability. They were a traditional magic of Rienish hedgewitches, who had used them against Bisran Priest-Sorcerers in the old wars, and kept the art of making them concealed until this century. The only disadvantage was that they worked only for a limited amount of time, so you could only use one just before you thought someone was about to cast a spell on you. Florian had to admit that it was a pretty sizable disadvantage.

Surely she could talk Nicholas into carrying a few with him. She cast the familiar concealment charm on herself, then stepped out into the quiet corridor, locking the door behind her. She knew Nicholas’s room was down one deck, so she went to the nearest cross corridor and down the narrow flight of stairs to the deck below.

Florian heard voices somewhere up the stairwell, but this corridor was also empty and too quiet, the lights too dim. Suppressing a shiver, she dropped the concealment charm and knocked at the door. She froze as it drifted open at her touch.

For a moment she thought the room was empty. She could see Nicholas’s black overcoat, thrown over a chair, so she was sure she had the right room. Then the shadow by the dressing table moved and Ixion was suddenly there, watching her.

She backed away into the corridor, cursing herself for dropping the concealment charm too soon. “What do you want?” It took every ounce of willpower not to drop a hand to the pocket where the turnbacks rested, but she couldn’t let him see her do it.

“Now what do you think?” He stepped out into the corridor, tugging the door shut behind him. “I want you to bring me one of the spheres. Every wizard on board has one except for me. It seems unfair.” He smiled at her, showing perfectly even teeth. “Tell your friend Niles you wish to practice with it.”

Oh, I knew that was coming.
Florian took a sharp breath, knowing this was it, that there would be no putting it off this time. Because his coy manner infuriated her and she wanted it out in the open, she said, “Or you’ll kill one of my friends, correct?”

His expression went blank. It was more frightening than the smile, than shouting, than threats. “Would you like me to?” he asked quietly. “I’m not playing a game, like your friend Valiarde.”

Florian swallowed in a dry throat.
Where is he? What did you do to him?
she wanted to ask, but knew it was a mistake. She had told Nicholas she wouldn’t make any more mistakes.

“Yes, I know you speak to him. I have those on board now who tell me things. They don’t know they tell me things, but they do.” Her expression must have given away her shock. He shook his head, mouth twisted in annoyance. “Oh, your little man in the sphere is not so powerful as you think. He can’t see everything I do.”

“How do you know he isn’t just giving you enough rope to hang yourself?” Florian tried.
I hope that’s what he’s doing.

“What a clever expression.” Ixion gestured back toward the room, adopting the smile and the teasing manner again. “I was hoping to find Valiarde here, you know. I wanted to witness the results of my afternoon’s work.”

Oh, no.
If he had done something to Nicholas, she had to get to Niles immediately and pray it wasn’t too late. Florian stepped back, gesturing sharply and mouthing the last word of the illusion charm she had prepared. It was only a brief obscuring of the lights, just enough for her to bolt up the corridor to the nearest cross passage, ducking down it.

Behind her, as she pounded up the stairs, she heard Ixion laughing.

An alarm blared through the ship’s loudspeaker as Florian reached the top of the stairs, punctuating her urgency. It was the one that meant “go back to your cabin or station and stay there,” which was confirmed by a hurried announcement immediately afterward. She ran down the corridor to the foyer where First Class passengers entered the ship and bolted up the stairs into the main hall.

She slid to a startled stop. A few Capidaran and Rienish sailors, some men and women in civilian clothes she didn’t recognize, and a couple of men from the Viller Institute were clustered around a makeshift stretcher made from a bed mattress. They were taking it forward, toward the other stairwell that would lead downward to the deck with the ship’s hospital. They were speaking in an anxious angry mutter and between the men supporting the mattress she saw something half covered by a blanket, something with dark scaly ridges…

Oh, God.
Her stomach trying to turn, Florian bolted down the corridor toward the First Class smoking room. Reaching it, she stumbled to a halt in the open doorway.

Niles stood beside the table in his shirtsleeves, flipping through a book with an annoyed expression. Giaren sat in one of the chairs, writing in a notebook, and Nicholas was sitting on the edge of the worktable, eating an apple. Beside him the sphere was serenely quiet, not even spinning. Niles glanced up, took in her frazzled demeanor, and said in alarm, “Florian, what is it?”

Stepping into the room, Florian flinched as the ship’s alarm blared again from the loudspeaker not far above her head. She had assumed the figure on the stretcher was Nicholas, but Ixion must have done whatever he meant to do to someone else first. “Nicholas, Ixion knows I told you about what he said to me—”

“Said what?” Niles demanded. “What did he say— Wait, when did you see Ixion? He’s supposed to be under guard—”

“He’s been slipping past his guards and running around the ship at night,” Florian told him impatiently. “But, Nicholas, he said he’d take care of you.”

Nicholas nodded, imperturbable. “Good. You found him in my cabin?”

She blinked. “Yes. But—” The telephone on the desk interrupted with a shrill ring and Giaren moved hurriedly to answer it. He listened for a moment, an expression of increasing consternation on his face. He turned, covering the receiver, and said urgently, “It’s Colonel Averi. He says Lord Chandre’s been injured— He’s not clear on specifics but he says it’s obvious it’s a sorcerous attack.”

Niles frowned in confusion. “What sort of sorcerous attack?”

Florian’s jaw dropped as the light dawned. She stared at Nicholas in horror. “You didn’t.”

“Didn’t what?” Nicholas lifted a sardonic brow. He set the apple core on the coffee tray and dusted his hands. “I believe you’ll find Ixion used strands of Chandre’s hair, taken from a brush or comb on his dressing table. I talked to Giliead about Ixion, back in Capistown. All of Ixion’s favorite transformation spells for people who inconvenience him use hair from the victim.”

Florian just stared at him. She had seen Nicholas go into Chandre’s rooms.
He took the hair from Chandre’s brush and planted it in his own room, then antagonized Ixion. So Ixion took it, thinking it was Nicholas’s.
“That’s just—” She couldn’t think of the right word.

“Oh, God.” Niles shut the book, looking appalled. “What did he do to Lord Chandre?”

“What have you done?” Ixion’s voice, breathy with rage, echoed the question right next to Florian’s ear. With a yelp she spun around, backing away.

“Funny, I was going to ask you that.” Nicholas sounded unperturbed, but he slipped off the desk, facing Ixion. Florian darted a look at Niles, who stood calmly, the book still in his hands, watching Ixion. Giaren, she saw with relief, had simply removed his hand from the telephone receiver, so Colonel Averi, hopefully still on the wire, could hear everything.

While Ixion’s gaze was locked on Nicholas, Florian put a hand in her pocket, twisted the foil off one of the turnbacks and palmed it as she pulled her hand out.
Let this work the way it’s supposed to, please,
she thought fervently, not certain who she was appealing to.

“You tricked me.” Ixion’s voice was a low growl, his face twisted with fury. He took a step into the room, and the telephone wire suddenly sparked and burst into flame. Giaren dropped the receiver with a gasp and gripped his hand, grimacing in pain. “You foreign motherless bastards tricked me. How dare you—”

Florian used the opportunity to clap a hand over her mouth, apparently in horror, and popped the turnback in. Swallowing it was unexpectedly difficult and it scraped her throat painfully. After a moment of struggle she got it down.
Don’t cough, don’t cough,
she begged herself silently.

“How dare I?” Nicholas said mockingly, stepping away from the table. “It was easy. You fooled yourself.” He added, as if it had just occurred to him, “Having your head cut off must not be very conducive to constructive thought.”

“Let’s see how you like it,” Ixion snarled, lifting a hand. But Niles struck first.

Florian staggered backward, shoved by an invisible force, buffeted until she tumbled over the chair behind her. She landed hard, pushing herself awkwardly into a sitting position. She saw Nicholas thrown back against the table and slammed into the hearth, and Giaren lay on the floor and Niles reeled against the table, teeth gritted, face red with the effort of keeping on his feet. Ixion staggered back and gripped the doorframe to support himself.

Florian took a gasping breath, suddenly aware the air had been sucked right out of her lungs and the room was freezing cold. She knew what had happened: a flurry of spells and counterspells from Niles and Ixion had charged the ether in the air, temporarily giving it a physical presence. If Ixion and Niles were both incapacitated…

Then Ixion shoved himself free of the doorway and pointed toward Nicholas, who was still struggling to stand.

Florian gasped, scrambled forward and threw herself in front of Nicholas. She heard someone shout in horror and felt the spell hit like a blow to her chest, knocking her back so she sat down hard on the floor. She felt the turnback move in her stomach, a weird sensation that made her yelp. Something formed in the air just in front of her, made out of the gathered force of the spell. For a heartbeat she saw an impossible creature with no head and several gaping maws, writhing in midair, flailing with far too many clawed hands. Then it flung itself back toward Ixion.