The Wizard Hunters (44 page)

It didn’t matter, she didn’t have time to think about it. Now she needed to stall Niles and Averi from doing anything that might prevent their return to the other world. She said, “Look, at least let me try too. I know some people in the Ministry who may still be in Vienne. If I can speak to one of them, get authorization, will you agree to let us use the ship to cross over?” It wasn’t quite a lie, the Valiarde name did still have some pull in the Ministry. But it was the trustees of the Viller Institute who knew the right people and Tremaine wasn’t sure if any of them were still in Vienne.

“Miss Valiarde . . .” Averi shook his head wearily. “I’ll give you all the help I can.” He turned and walked away, disappearing into the shadows of the other room.

Niles looked at her gravely. “Tremaine, if Averi doesn’t receive permission to use the
Ravenna
, I’m going to use my sphere to send your friend Ilias home. We can take one of the small sailboats from the hotel’s boathouse; from what you’ve told me, he should be able to manage it alone.” He leaned forward, regarding her seriously. “I think you should go with him. Florian too, if she agrees. And the Damal sphere should either be destroyed or go with you.”

Tremaine lifted her brows, taking a sip of the cooling coffee to give herself a moment to think. She leaned back in her chair. “Why do I get the free ride?”

“If I could send everyone at the Institute with you, I would. The Syprians may find themselves under attack by the Gardier once they’ve finished with us, but at least there’s a chance.” Niles sat back, looking away, his face tired. “It’s what Gerard would want. In his absence I feel an obligation— And surely it’s what your father would have wanted.”

Tremaine rubbed at a crack in the table’s polished surface.
My father would have wanted me to think of a way to sabotage the Gardier base while I was there the first time, so we could have come back that first day with a huge victory and they wouldn‘t have given up hope
. She said only, “I’ll think about it.”

I
lias woke all at once, freezing into immobility, trying to think where he was. He lay sprawled facedown on a little bed, covered with blankets that had a faint musty smell. He heard voices and lifted his head cautiously. He was in an area separated from a larger room by metal-framed fabric screens. There were wizard lights here too, a cluster of them set high in the ceiling, but colored glass shields made the light dim and soft and more natural.
Right, the other place
, he remembered. He heard Tremaine’s voice, arguing with the other wizard in their own language. He took a relieved breath, relaxing a little. Tremaine sounded annoyed but not afraid. Of course, with her it was nearly impossible to tell.

He pushed himself into a sitting position, pulling the blanket around him, and digested the fact that the only thing he was wearing was a loose white shirt that hung down to his knees.
Well, that could be a problem
. His hair was still damp with seawater, so he hadn’t been unconscious long. He worked his arm thoughtfully, rubbing his wrist. The skin was still bruised, but there was only a ghost of remnant pain. He shook his head a little. He should have known it was possible, since Florian had made the cut on his back heal faster. But this was the first time he had really believed curses could do something that wasn’t destructive.

Sitting up on his knees, he leaned over the metal headboard, edging the rough white cloth aside to peek past the screen. Outside was a large room, parts of it sectioned off with more screens, with several tables and chairs and polished wood covering the walls and floor. One wall opened into a big dark room, with graceful carved wooden archways and elaborate glass shapes like clumps of icicles covering the wizard lights.

Shaking the hair out of his eyes, he looked around for his clothes and found himself staring at a captured sunset, blazing above the sea. He squinted in disbelief until he realized it was painted on the wall across from him.

Ilias climbed out of the bed, shivering as his feet touched the cold wood, and stepped cautiously toward the painted wall. Fascinated, he leaned close, but the waves weren’t really rolling up the beach, they just looked like it.
That’s just incredible. How do they do that
? He lifted a hand, tempted to touch, but decided against it.

He spotted his clothes draped over a straight-backed chair and his knife on the little table next to it. If that wasn’t a gesture of good faith, he didn’t know what was. The clothes were still damp and a puddle had formed on the floorboards beneath, so he grabbed a blanket off the bed and wrapped it around his shoulders. He hesitated over his knife, but if they had made the gesture of leaving it out for him, he could make the gesture of not carrying it.

Ilias shifted a screen aside and stepped out. The sphere, sitting on a table nearby, clicked at him. The wizard looked up, making a comment to Tremaine, and she glanced around with a worried look. “Are you all right?” she asked him in Syrnaic. “Do you want us to try to get the sphere to let you speak Rienish? Niles might be able to—”

“No,” he interrupted, eyeing the wizard cautiously. “No more curses.” He was willing to admit the healing had worked, but he really didn’t want to take any more chances.

Niles stood up, gesturing for Ilias to take his chair. With another comment to Tremaine he took the sphere off the table and went out through the archway into the bigger room. Relieved, Ilias sat down, tugging the blanket around him. “Where are the others?”

“They’re back there.” Tremaine nodded to the screened-off part of the chamber. “With the healers. Florian is all right, she’s just asleep.” She frowned. “Ander is still unconscious.”

“He’ll be all right,” Ilias told her, more hopeful than realistic. He knew how terrible head wounds could be. He reached across the table and took her hand.

She blinked suddenly, her eyes bleak, and for a heartbeat he could see she trembled on the edge of control. She took a sharp breath and squeezed his hand, her skin icy cold. Then she pulled away, her face shuttered again, all the walls back in place. Ilias watched her worriedly. She and Giliead were a lot alike.

He just hoped Giliead was still alive. Ilias looked away, rubbing his forehead. And Halian, Dyani, Gyan, Arites, all the others.
Karima will be alone
. He had said the
Swift
didn’t have to live with herself afterward and maybe that had been tempting fate. The
Swift
was gone now, with no chance to save the part of the prow where her soul lived so they could build her again.

Tremaine glanced up and must have noticed his expression. She blinked and reached for the metal pot on the table and poured another cup of whatever was in it, pushing it across to him. “Try some of that.”

He sniffed it cautiously, tasted it and winced. The smell was good but the liquid itself was incredibly bitter. At least it was warm, though. He looked around, noticing more of the wall paintings that seemed so real, trying to distract himself. There was a big one of a deep green forest that reminded him of home. The trees cascaded down rolling hills to a stretch of beach with a little village sprawled across it. He glanced at Tremaine. “What are those?”

It took her a moment to understand what he meant. “You mean, the paintings? Landscapes, mostly. You don’t have paintings like that, do you?”

“No. It’s curses?”

She shook her head. “Sorcerers can put magic into paintings, but those are just oil paint and canvas. Oh, here.” She took a little white pitcher and added milk to both their cups. “This should help.”

The trees in the painting looked real enough to touch. It was hard to believe it was just paint and skill. He felt better about this place now. This building was obviously old, but just as obviously it had been made by people who liked beautiful things. “This is better,” Ilias said.

“The coffee?” Tremaine looked vague. “The milk did help.”

“No, this.” He made an uncertain gesture, indicating the room. “It looks like people live here.”

“It does?” Tremaine looked around frowning, as if she hadn’t noticed it before.

“It doesn’t look like the Gardier,” he clarified. He told himself the Gardier wouldn’t understand what Giliead was, it wouldn’t be the same as if he had been captured by a wizard like Ixion.
Unless you didn‘t just imagine you saw him
. ... He shook his head determinedly. If he let his thoughts go that way, he wouldn’t be able to think. “When can we go back?”

Tremaine stirred a little. “When we didn’t return on the first day, they sent most of the men and the sorcerers who were here away to fight the Gardier.”

He stared at her. “What does that mean?”

“Niles said he would send you back—and he wants me and Florian to go with you—but we wouldn’t have any help to go after the others.”

“But they will send us back?” Ilias said deliberately, wanting to be absolutely sure of it.

Tremaine nodded, still distracted. “Yes.”

Ilias leaned back in relief, feeling his heart unclench a little. As long as they sent him back, he could find some way to get to the island for the others. It was just being stuck here he couldn’t stand.

He had never been anywhere that he couldn’t walk, swim or sail home from before. And if he died here where there was no one to perform the funeral rites ... He had been in distant lands or isolated places where it was unlikely anyone would find his body, but that had been with Giliead. Then at least they had known that if they ended up as lost wandering shades, they would still have each other for company. And there was always the chance that someone would find their bones and put them to rest. Death in this strange faraway place seemed much more . . . final.
Don’t think about it
, he reminded himself firmly.

Tremaine tapped her fingers on the table thoughtfully, and as he watched, the expression in her eyes went from vague to razor-sharp. Ilias sat up a little straighter, suddenly hopeful. Whatever it was, he was certain she had just had a great idea. She looked at him, one brow quirking, and said, “Want to go to Vienne with me?”

G
erard blinked as the Gardier prodded him and the other surviving members of the
Swift’s
crew out of the patrol ship’s hatchway. The hold had been pitch-dark and now even the watery sunlight that shone through the damp mist was too bright. As his eyes adjusted he saw the patrol ship was docked against a long stone shelf in a rocky cove. His hands were manacled; the Gardier had chained them all and dumped them into separate compartments.

A rifle butt prodded his back, reminding him to move. He stepped off the gangway onto the stone dock but apparently not fast enough; a second shove sent him staggering. He stumbled into Halian, who braced his feet until Gerard could catch his balance. “Thank you,” Gerard murmured, careful to speak in Syrnaic.

Halian gave him a tense nod. The Gardier shouted and made threatening gestures with their weapons and the two men moved along. Gerard saw Giliead was a few men ahead and a quick glance back showed him Dyani behind him, Gyan and Arites further back in the line.

While still in the water, Gerard had thrown away his spectacles and the pouch containing his aether-glasses and the rest of the contents of his pockets. He hadn’t thought of removing his boots, the one article of clothing he was still wearing that would mark him as Rienish, until the Gardier had been about to fish him out of the sea. Several of the older men wore their hair cropped as short as his, but he knew he was unreasonably pale for a Syprian sailor.

At least Tremaine and the others got away
—
with the sphere
, he thought in relief. He had felt its power join him to dissipate the spells that had created the sea creature. The sphere had become more precocious, more .. . aware each time it was used. The idea of the Gardier getting access to that kind of power was horrifying.

As they drew closer to the end of the dock he saw the Gardier were using a small harbor, a half circle constructed of bundles of the long log-shaped stones the island’s original inhabitants had favored. It had been built up right out of the side of a sheer cliff face, the stones simply piled up in the sea until they rose high enough to provide breakwaters and a dock. Gerard would have liked to get a closer look at it, but the Gardier prodded them along the dock, giving them no time for observation. They passed under the high curved arch that led back into the caves, under the heavy dark vines that cascaded down the cliffs overhead, cutting out the misty daylight.
Oh, God
, Gerard thought wearily,
not the caves again
. It had been hard enough getting out of the place.

They passed into a large chamber lit with strings of electric bulbs, where crates and tanks of various supplies were stacked to one side. The Gardier were steering them into a narrower corridor, running them through a gauntlet of guards. Gerard saw several men with recent burns; it wouldn’t incline the Gardier to be merciful toward the Syprians, but then he didn’t suppose that had been an option anyway.

As Gerard passed the guard nearest the corridor entrance, he heard a yelp behind him. The guard had Dyani by the arm, hauling her out of the line as she kicked and struggled. Giliead turned back, slamming his shoulder into the man, sending him staggering. Another guard shoved forward to club him but Gerard used the distraction to catch Dyani’s arm with his bound hands and pull her to his side. A guard took a swing at them with a rifle butt and Gerard twisted to take the blow on his shoulder. Dyani clung to him and Halian shoved forward to shield them with his body.

There was shoving, pushing, confusion. Giliead fought his way to their side, but Gerard knew it was useless; there were too many men with too many guns for them to make a successful break. Then he heard Halian curse, sounding as if the words had been forced out of him by pure shock. He saw Giliead freeze, staring.

The shock seemed to spread through all the Syprians like a ripple. Gerard looked past Halian and saw a man, obviously different from the Gardier despite the fact that he wore one of their uniforms. He had skin like a drowned corpse and his face was far too smooth, his features subtly malformed, as if he had been badly burned and no amount of sorcerous healing had been adequate to make the damaged flesh grow again.