Renegades Magic

by Robin Hobb

  He shook his head. Tears filled his eyes and some spilled. His voice had gone squeaky. “Someone has to be punished for this. You both made a fool of me. Someone has to pay. ” He looked at me and suddenly the whites showed all around his eyes. There was no rationality there. “You came back as a Speck. You were seen. You killed all those men, all my men. You made them pay with their lives for what I had done. And now you’ve come back to kill me. ”

  “I don’t want to kill you,” I lied. “Just the keys, Thayer. That’s all I want from you. ” I took a slow step toward him. He retreated from me, as smoothly as if he were my dance partner, moving toward the hearth rather than his hanging sword. Good. Again I advanced and he retreated.

  “Someone has to be punished. Someone has to pay. ” He repeated the words like a prayer. He held up both hands, palms out toward me. “Did you know I’m to be flogged tomorrow? I ordered that. I’m not afraid. I know I deserve no less. Doesn’t that satisfy you?”

  “No. It doesn’t. ” I couldn’t conceal my disgust with the idea. “And you shouldn’t do it. Flogging yourself and then hanging an innocent woman will not change anything. They’re a coward’s way out of admitting the wrong you did. If you want to be a man, stand up and admit what you did. Clear my name for me. Give me back my life. ”

  For an instant, it all seemed that simple. Here was a man who could clear me, one who could reconvene a military court and clear my name. There had never been any real evidence against me. Heads were cooler now. Hope for redemption glimmered before me. He shattered it.

  “No. ”

  “Why not?” He had retreated another step. I didn’t advance. I waited for an answer.

  “Because…because everyone would laugh at me. Everyone would know how you both deceived me and cuckolded me. Everyone would know what a fool I’d been! And you—” He pointed a sudden accusing finger at me. “You killed that whore. Everyone knows it. You did wrong, and wrong must be punished. I must be punished!” He all but shouted the words and I flinched. I didn’t want the Sergeant to hear an outcry and try the door.

  “No, Thayer. ” I said it quietly. My hopes for a sane resolution died. The man had no sanity in him. Now all that mattered was freeing Amzil and getting her safely away. Abruptly, I was aware of time passing. Surely the Sergeant would soon expect the Captain to appear and dismiss him from his duties for the night. Time to put an end to this charade. I took a breath, steadied myself, and edged closer to him. I tried to keep my voice reasonable while my heart pumped hatred for the man. “You don’t need to be punished. No one needs to be punished any more than they have been. You were a man drilled hollow with grief. You weren’t yourself that night, when you said and did those things. And you didn’t do what you think you did. You didn’t kill me. You see me, don’t you? I’m right here. You don’t need to be punished. And I think you know that Amzil killed that fellow in self-defense, of herself and her children. She doesn’t deserve to hang for it. ” I spoke quietly, calmingly, easing closer to him as I did so. I wanted to leap on him and throttle him, but even more than that, I reminded myself, I wanted to get the keys from him and get to Amzil’s cell without him raising any sort of an alarm.

  “Oh, no. She deserves to be punished, too. She’s a whore. She can deny it, but she’s a whore. She…it was her fault. I went out there once, to Dead Town. She said she wasn’t a whore, but she was. She was. ” He was nodding to himself now. My mind was trying to take in what he had just said. My head spun with what he had just admitted. No wonder Amzil had hated him so. As if either she or I had needed more reason.

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  He pointed an accusing finger at me. “She was a whore. And you were a murderer. And my wife was a slut!” His voice rose to a near shout on the last word. Then he dropped to a hoarse whisper as he retreated toward the fireplace. “And you all made me do bad things. And all of us have to be punished now!”

  “You’re insane!” I said. I tried to draw my saber from its scabbard. The notched old blade hung up on the tattered leather. I jerked at it, and the scabbarded weapon came loose from the worn belt. And then he spun, snatched up the fireplace poker from its rack, and rushed at me with it raised over his head. I tried to block the descending poker, but only succeeded in softening the blow. It hit me on the collarbone, and I muffled my cry of pain. Must not alarm the Sergeant outside. The descending poker rolled off my shoulder and down. I caught hold of the end of it as it passed and rammed the handle of it into the center of Thayer’s chest. He gasped with pain and his eyes bulged. I dropped my useless weapon and grappled with him. Foolishly he chose to hang on to the poker. I hugged him tight, not giving him enough room to swing it again.

  His teeth were bared like an animal’s and there was no human intelligence in his eyes. He snapped at my face. I jerked my head back and then slammed it forward, crashing my forehead into his. I saw stars and he managed to get another short flailing swing in with his poker. It hit my hip. I was taller than he was. Hugging him, I managed to lift him off the floor and then threw my weight against him. We slammed to the uncarpeted floor together, and I was sure we made quite a loud thud. I had to finish this quickly before the Sergeant came in. I grabbed the man by his collar, sat up on top of him, and slammed the back of his head, hard, against the edge of the hearth. For an instant, his eyes unfocused. Then his hands darted to my throat. I tucked my head down tight to my shoulders, and while he struggled for a grip, I bashed his head against the stones again.

  The third time, his head smacked wetly when it hit the masonry. Suddenly he was boneless, limp beneath me. His eyeballs jiggled in their sockets. I felt queasy, but forced myself to keep my grip on his collar. I would not be tricked. His head turned to one side. He made a peculiar sound. His eyes were open, his mouth lax.

  I was shaking as I climbed off him and stood up. Blood was spreading slowly from under his head. Was he dead? Had I killed him? I didn’t care. I dropped hastily to one knee and rifled his pockets. The ring of keys, heavy brass ones, were exactly where I thought they would be. I took them.

  I wanted to flee. I knew I must not. I stood, caught my breath, smoothed my hair, and recovered my hat from the floor. I straightened my jacket. Then I stepped to the desk. I gathered up all the love letters I’d written to Carsina, and my sister’s two letters to her. I picked up my enlistment papers, and the vicious little note my father had sent. I refused to read it. I glanced in the desk drawer where he’d kept them. A medicinal smell rose from it. There were no more papers in the drawer, only two empty bottles, a half-full one, and a large sticky spoon. Gettys Tonic. I took the letters to the fire and dropped them in, one at a time, stirring them with the poker until I was sure that every page was burning well. Then I carefully put the poker back in its stand.

  I glanced at the Captain. He hadn’t moved. As I stared at him, his chest lifted slightly. Still alive, then. I recovered my useless saber, shoved it fully into its sheath, wedged it inside my sword belt, and hoped it would pass a cursory inspection. Soundlessly I walked to the door and unlocked it. Then I moved back to Thayer’s side. His eyes had sagged shut. I took a deep breath and dropped to my knees beside him.

  “Oh, no! What’s wrong! Captain Thayer, what’s wrong, what’s wrong!” I raised my voice even louder. “Sergeant! Sergeant, come quickly! Something terrible has happened. ”

  No one came. I sprang up, went to the door, and jerked it open. The Sergeant was just coming back in from outside. He gave me a guilty look. He smelled of strong, cheap tobacco. I flapped my hands and babbled at him. “He said he didn’t feel well. Then he gave a sort of a twitch, and his mouth started working. And he fell to the floor and started jerking! Sergeant, I’ve been calling you and calling you! The Captain has had some sort of fit! He’s fallen and struck his head. He won’t speak to me!”

  As the man rushed past me to look in on his fallen commander, I shouted, “I’ll get a doctor. Don’t leave him alone! He might choke.
Which way is the infirmary?”

  “Down the street to your right! Hurry, man!” he shouted over his shoulder.

  I ran out of the building, slamming the door behind me, and turned left, toward the jail. The street was mostly dark. Light leaked from some windows, and lanterns burned outside the entry to a barracks. I ran in and out of that pool of light as soundlessly as I could, wondering if my wild tale had been foolish or bought myself more time. The Sergeant would stay with the Captain for some time, assuming help was coming soon. When no one arrived, eventually he would go to the door and shout for help or perhaps run for the doctor himself. This time of night, most likely the doctor would have to be roused from his bed. It would be some time before anyone had leisure to wonder what had become of the Captain’s late-night visitor. I reached the jail. I paused and caught my breath. My imagination peopled every shadow in the dimly lit street with crouched figures. Nonsense. Focus on the real danger. There would be two of them. Some element of surprise would help. I stood in the dark, calming my breathing and trying to create a story for why I was there with the keys. I couldn’t think of one and time was trickling away from me.

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  I went silently down the stone steps. This door would open onto the cell level. My hands shook as I felt for the keyhole in the dark. There were four keys. The third one turned the mechanism with a sharp “clack. ” I froze, listening. Nothing. No. A voice, muffled by distance or a closed door, inside the building. A man’s voice. I opened the door, eased through, and shut it behind me. I was in a stone-flagged hallway, one I remembered too well. A single lantern burned on a hook, yielding dim illumination. The cell doors that opened off it were staggered. Each had a small barred window at eye level, and a slot for a meal tray at the bottom. I went past the cell that had been mine without looking inside it. She wouldn’t be here. Spink had said she was in a “punishment” cell, one without a window.

  I passed six cells and came to a second door. It, too, was locked. Luck gave me the correct key the first time. I turned it in the lock, then I pressed my ear to the door. The man’s voice was louder, a droning monotone. There was no window in the door. Stronger light spilled in a puddle from under it. I took a breath, unsheathed my sword, and opened the door.

  Another hall, this one lit by a succession of lanterns on wall hooks.

  At the end of that hall, a door was ajar. Light and the man’s voice were spilling out of it. I listened a moment. Was he singing? No, reciting something, over and over. I moved stealthily closer. I was halfway down the hallway before I recognized it.

  It was the same night prayer my mother had taught me. The man was repeating it over and over in a horrid, breathless way that spoke of fear beyond measure. It made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. Swift and silent as a plains cat, I padded down the hall and then peered around the edge of the door.

  It took me a few moments to make sense of what I saw there. There was a small guardroom with a table and two chairs, and beyond it, a locked door. One guard sat at the table, his head slumped forward on his chest. The other sat stiffly in his chair, laced up to attention. He was the one speaking, saying his hopeless, helpless little prayer over and over. Every surface in the room, the walls, the floor, the tabletop, the guards themselves were netted over with pale white root. The only parts of the room innocent of the spreading filaments were the iron hinges and reinforcements of the door. As I watched, a network of rhizomes worked its way up over the slumped guard, as if spinning him a shroud of white lace. It sank into him as it worked, tattooing his clothing to his flesh as it dug into him as ivy digs into a stone wall. He was definitely dead.

  But the other guard was as emphatically alive. His arms were bound to his sides with roots and his legs were clenched tight together with them. I wondered how they could have both been overcome so quickly and so thoroughly, and then didn’t want to know if the roots could truly grow that fast. The man looking at me gave a sudden squeal and then said, “Oh, god, oh, god, oh, god!” In horror, I watched as the roots began to thread themselves into his ears. He squealed again, and then abruptly the noise stopped. The guard suddenly spoke in a very calm voice. “He says he does what you should have done before you left the town that night. And she says, she says, she says she wants all of you, she always wanted all of you, that she wept when the old god stole parts of you away. Come to the tree outside, she says, and she will gently take you in. ”

  He spoke conversationally, in such a rational voice that I answered him the same way. “I don’t want to come to you, Lisana. I want Amzil. And as much of my own life as is left to me. ”

  The man did not speak again. He made a gargling sound and then shook his head back and forth in a sudden, vigorous negative. His mouth opened, and a wet wad of bloody root spilled from it to cascade down his chest.

  And from the other side of the locked door, I heard a woman give a muffled scream.

  “Amzil!” I cried, but I doubt that she heard me. In the instant of silence that followed my horrified shout, I heard a small voice behind me.

  “Mummy?” Kara asked in a terrified whisper. I whirled. She stood behind me, staring in horror at the root-wrapped men. She wore only a short white nightshirt, and she was barefoot. Where had she come from?

  “Get back!” I bellowed at her. “Don’t let the roots touch you, Kara. Get back!” I swung my gaze back to the small room. “Get out of my way, Lisana. I don’t want to hurt you, but I’m coming through!” I touched my bared sword to the stone floor. I pushed it into the room, and the tiny tender roots that webbed the floor parted and writhed back from the deadly touch of the iron. A stouter one resisted, but then parted with a snap and curled back on itself. Panting fear, I trod the narrow path my blade created. The small room seemed to stretch a mile. I reached the door and had to free my right hand to try a key. It didn’t work.

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  “Mummy? Is she in there?”

  I glanced back. Kara had returned to the doorway. I silently cursed whatever moron had let the child escape supervision. Why had she come? How had she gotten here? But there was no time to even think of that. The rootlets were webbing across the floor behind me, obscuring my path, and creeping out the door of the chamber toward the child. “Kara, get back!” I roared at her. “Stay away from this room! I’ll bring your mum to you, but you must stay back!”

  She gave a wail of fear and anger at my angry response. She retreated, but I feared it was only a few steps. I turned away from her and shoved the second key in the lock. It fit, but would not turn. Something tugged at my boot. I looked down to see roots creeping across the leather toe. I could feel the tiny invasions as it thrust little anchors into my boots. I ripped my boots free of it, stamped my feet angrily, and then tried the third key. It wouldn’t go in. Neither would the fourth. I didn’t have the key! And on the other side of the door, I could hear Amzil wailing. “I’m coming. Amzil, I’m here, I’m coming!” I shouted through the thick wood at her, but could not tell if she heard me.

  I slashed again at the creeping roots, and the smaller ones fell away as before. But some of the webbing was thicker and stronger now and it did not yield. I started through the keys again in desperation. As before, only the second one would fit the lock. I shoved and rattled it and then, inspired, pulled the key out a tiny bit and turned it again. It gave. I pulled the iron lock free of the hasp and furiously threw it on the floor behind me. It landed on the roots and they retreated from it as if I’d thrown a hot cup of water on thin ice.

  I pulled at the handle of the door, but it did not budge. The roots that had flowed across the edges of the wooden planks held it fast. I screamed in fury and slashed at them with the blade. Behind me I heard Kara’s voice again. “Nevare, will they kill her? Are the strings eating her?”

  “Get back!” I roared at her again, and with a mighty wrench, I tore the door open.

  The revealed chamber was no
bigger than a cabinet, forcing the occupant to choose between standing and crouching, and it reeked of old urine and fear. Amzil screamed as the door opened. She was pressed into the corner of the tiny chamber, dancing to keep her feet free of the questing roots. Tiny wounds on her legs were bleeding and the little white roots wriggled happily as the drops of blood fell on them.

  “To me!” I roared at her, as if I were rallying my troops for a charge. “Amzil! To me!”

  I do not think she recognized me, but she leapt, first to my arms and then swarming up to my shoulders. She was making terrible little panting cries that changed to a shriek of horror when we both heard a little voice crying, “Mummy! Mummy, help me! Nevare, help, help!”

  I tried to turn. I could not. My feet were laced to the floor and I roared in fury as the little roots penetrated the leather and bit into my flesh. I pivoted and saw little Kara, shrieking at a root that had wrapped her thin, bare leg. The pallid white tendril suddenly flushed pink. “Save her!” I yelled at Amzil, and tore the woman I loved from my back to hurl her across the small chamber. She landed on the writhing mat of roots, yelped in fear, and levitated like a cat on a hot stove. She did not appear to touch the ground as she flew across the room and out of the door to Kara. I dragged at my feet but my boots were held firm. I felt the roots as little white worms that burrowed into my flesh. I slashed at them but I had stood still too long. The roots had grown thicker. The iron scored but did not part them.

  “Kara! Kara!” Amzil cried. She was dragging at her daughter, but the root only wrapped around her leg more tightly, biting into the child’s meager flesh.

  “Cut her free!” I roared and threw her the saber. I saw her catch it by the blade and cry out as it cut her fingers, but then she turned it, seized the hilt, and flailed at the greedy root that gripped her child as if she were whipping the floor with the blade. In my mind, I heard an exclamation of pain as the root parted.