“I thought so. We can critique my life, but yours must remain off-limits.” She continued walking south along the street.
“Do you still love him?” Lornis asked abruptly.
The question stunned her, and her anger drained away. Why is he asking me this? She turned back. They had drifted near the mouth of an alley while talking. The street gaslight near them had gone out and she couldn’t see his face.
“You once loved him, didn’t you?” His voice seemed to float on the air, disembodied from the shadow of his shoulders and head.
This was the question she’d been avoiding, ever since Jan’s public betrayal. She’d wrapped herself in anger and wounded pride, leaving no room for introspection. “I don’t know if you ever stop loving someone. But love isn’t the point. Not with Jan, because he always gets his way.”
“No one always gets their way.” Lornis’s voice was so soft she had to strain to hear him.
Her back was to the alley. She was so intent on their conversation that she didn’t hear movement—until heavy hands pushed on her back, throwing her forward. She stumbled and fell on the street stones, flat on her front and barely shielding her head with her arm. Her breath was knocked out of her and she heard scuffling.
She pushed herself back up to her knees, her chest heaving for air, seeing three bodies tangling with Lornis. She reached for her long knife, and only felt her ceremonial saber. We’re not armed for street thugs!
“City Guard—we—we’re protectors. Be off—off with you.” Her warning came out in gasps and didn’t have the effect she hoped.
Street thugs fear the Guard, but one of the three attackers turned away from Lornis with a grunt, or perhaps a stifled laugh. He, by his voice, muttered something that sounded like “only protectors for the named.” He stepped toward her with a sword, not a knife, held ready in his right hand.
She drew her saber as she tried to stand, but stepped on her skirts and staggered. From the edge of her vision, she saw the man’s left arm moving, aiming for her head with a small club. She ducked sideways. The heavy blow glanced off her shoulder.
She tumbled down again. Sharp pain shot about her shoulder, but luckily, not on her sword arm. The man who hit her turned back toward Lornis, while she rolled and regained her feet. Her saber was now free and she lunged, slashing at the back of his legs. The man grunted and turned as she propelled herself toward him. With all her weight, she drove the blunted, but not impotent, point of the saber deep into the soft area of his side. He screamed and dropped his sword as they both slammed into the alley wall.
The man was big and he thrashed, hitting her face with his elbow. She stumbled backward as he crumpled. He rolled against the wall as he went down and she yanked at the saber, which was not designed for thrusting.
She felt her saber break. She was left holding the hilt with a handspan of blade.
“Watch!” she yelled, her lungs now working. “Ho! Watch! Help!”
They were only blocks away from almost every watchman in the sister cities, but where were the ones on duty tonight? She heard only sounds of moans, grunts, and scuffling, but no beat of running feet.
She and her attacker ended up just inside the alley. Beside the groaning man, she saw an H&H soaking in a gray puddle as her mind continued to record meaningless details. In the street, Lornis’s saber flew from his hand and skittered along the cobblestones. He jumped forward under a raised sword to grapple with an assailant. The other attacker moved around to the side, then melted away into the darkness.
Were they withdrawing? She took a step toward the mouth of the alley where Lornis struggled with his remaining foe. From the corner of her eye, she caught a spark of light. A match? A covered lantern down the alley? She turned.
The flare of a matchlock touching a powder pan was followed immediately by the flash from a muzzle. The shot deafened her, the alley walls focusing the sound. She was a great target, outlined against the dim light of the street, but she felt nothing. She turned to see Lornis fall, taking the man he was grappling with down onto the stones with him. The man squirmed to the side as Lornis fell on top of him. The assailant got to his feet, apparently unharmed from the shot.
Draius now faced Lornis’s opponent, her sight hampered by bright powder flash. The man circled, only a shadow, and she moved to keep him in front of her. He held a sword designed for thrusting and his arm was moving—she balanced on the tips of her feet—
“No! Not the woman!”
The command came from behind Draius, barely discernible through the ringing in her ears. The man’s thrust stopped. He turned and quickly ran down the empty street to the south, dodging into another alley.
She looked back over her shoulder. The alley was empty and the body of the man she’d gored was gone. Lornis lay at her feet, moaning softly.
She knelt beside him. He had a gash down his face that was bleeding heavily, and a deep cut down his leg. More serious, however, was the bullet wound entering his back and opening his abdomen in his left front side. She heard gurgling sounds, perhaps his breath, perhaps the wound.
“Lornis. Hear me. You’re going to be fine.” She knew she lied, and tears squeezed out of her eyes. She put her hands over the open part of his torso to try to staunch the blood.
“Help!” Surely someone heard the powder gun? She kept yelling so hard, her vision grayed. “Guard officer wounded! Ho, watch!”
At last, after forever came and went, she heard the belated pounding feet of the watch.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Healing
It’s a terrible burden to live with these godless people and their monsters, the soulless creatures that run about the streets. Even the Tyrrans are afraid of them. Only the children can touch them, and only because they don’t know any better. The adults won’t acknowledge the creatures until they are needed for something, like healing. Even then, there are legends that “phrenic healing” will allow the creature to own the person’s soul. This is a laughable concept from a godless people who don’t understand the afterlife. If their souls go nowhere but to the stars in the night sky, as they believe, then what does it matter? What I wouldn’t give for time in the temples of Giada and Falcona, under the warm Groygan sun.
—Report by Ambassador Velenare Be Glotta to the Groygan Council of Lords, in the Tyrran Year 1471
“The Phrenii have been called,” Captain Rhaffus said.
Draius stiffened. Lornis is dying.
The nightmare continued. She helped take Lornis to the Betarra Hospital and then made her statements to the watch. She tried to see him, but wasn’t allowed. Gaflis, the Guard physician, treated her shoulder and told her to go home and get some sleep.
Rest at this point was impossible. After going to change clothes and wash off the blood, she was back in the captain’s office, gingerly sitting in one of his chairs.
“Don’t you need the consent of his family for phrenic healing?” Draius felt her panic rise. There was nothing more revered, or feared, than the capability of the Phrenii to heal. According to legend and superstition, their healing didn’t come free—especially to adults.
“I already told Gaflis he could call them, if needed.” Rhaffus hesitated. “I’m sure of Kulte-Kolme approval.”
A blanket approval for phrenic healing? Her body might be numb, but her intuition was more sensitive than ever. She’d worked for Captain Rhaffus long enough to know he was hiding something.
“Why did you let Lornis test to lieutenant? You’ve never allowed that before.”
Rhaffus didn’t answer.
“Don’t I deserve to know? After all, I had to take him as my deputy,” she said.
“Did he perform adequately?”
“Of course. He was exemplary.” She winced at the past tense. “But I think I should know why he’s different. Why the special treatment?”
Rhaffus hesitated.
She added, “I’ve already seen Jhari single him out,” which seemed to convince Rhaffus. He nodde
d, but insisted she keep the information to herself. She agreed.
“The Kulte-Kolme matriarch came to speak with me personally. He’s her favored grandchild.”
She waited. So Lornis had the special attention of his matriarch—she wasn’t surprised. But this wouldn’t be enough to influence the captain, and neither would the wealth and influence of the Kulte-Kolme.
“Although he was initially trained in the family business, he wasn’t suited for it. She moved him about. Before the age of eighteen, he apprenticed with a local astronomer, as well as for the Borough Guard.”
“He also worked for a locksmith and a chemist. Granted, he’s talented. So?”
“She couldn’t contract him until she had placed him in an occupation, and he had such strange and versatile talents. She finally called for Jhari to do a reading.”
The matriarch had called for a reading, and from the aspect of the Phrenii with the most prescience. Although not individual, each of the creatures displayed a phrenic power more strongly than the others. She remembered the words that Jhari had used, when the creature had encountered Lornis in the upper city.
“Jhari did a reading when Lornis was twenty-four, and predicted that he has an important role to play in defense of the sister cities. Lornis will keep Betarr Serin from falling.” Rhaffus muttered the words as if he had learned them by rote.
Draius gaped. The great sister cities of Tyrra couldn’t fall. They were the oldest cities known to mankind, built with the power of Tyrran engineering and the guidance of the Phrenii. The ancient streets and walls held echoes of powerful magic. “Fall to what? Disaster? Invasion? The Phrenii could prevent either, so what did they mean?”
“You know the answer to that question.” Rhaffus shook his head. “The Phrenii don’t know the details, or they can’t communicate them. Since the sister cities have never ‘fallen,’ this was obviously a reading of the future. I don’t think Lornis knows the specifics and Kulte-Kolme Enkali has told no one else but me. Now I have told you.”
Draius chewed her lip. Lornis knew he faced a special fate. Nothing else explained the attention from the Phrenii, or the fact he was still unmarried; how could Lady Enkali contract him when he had such a destiny hanging over his head? She’d be obliged to reveal the phrenic reading during contract negotiations—and such a future could only be seen as a curse, an impediment to the success of the contract, to the conception of children.
“Of course his matriarch let him move to the sister cities. I started him with you in Investigation, but he will be assigned to City Defense eventually. He may get there naturally, because that is where he must be.” Rhaffus stared at her, defiant. “It’s not his time to die, not from some meaningless street brawl. After seeing his matriarch give him up to his destiny, I know she would allow phrenic healing.”
For a moment, Draius wondered why Enkali hadn’t gone to the master of arms, but it would be more difficult to merge Lornis into the King’s Guard. Besides, city defense was executed under the City Guard, using defense plans created by the King’s Guard.
A watchman came in and whispered something to Captain Rhaffus, who grinned in an unpleasant manner. “I’ve had Andreas hauled in for questioning. Now I might get some answers from him.”
Andreas was in a foul mood, having been rousted from his bed and still in his nightclothes. The watch had probably been under orders to drag him through the streets regardless of his state of dress. The captain would spare no consideration for his nemesis.
“What’s this about, Rhaffus?” Andreas glowered and crossed his arms. “If you’re offended by my critique of the Guard yesterday morning, well, I’ll challenge you before the King’s Justice.” He stood defiantly in front of the captain’s desk and looked ready to march in front of a magistrate, even in his nightshirt.
“Not everything is about your silly paper,” Rhaffus said.
The editor sullenly shot his chin out. Rhaffus pointed to Draius, who was sitting to the side of the door.
Andreas turned and his mouth dropped. “What happened to you?”
She knew how she looked. Her left arm was bandaged to her chest in a sling to immobilize her shoulder, although Gaflis thought nothing was broken. The left side of her face was black and swollen, her left eye barely open. The right side wasn’t much better, being red and scratched. However, she could at least see out of her right eye. She had soaked her face with cool water, but the swelling had not gone down.
“Officer Draius had two attempts upon her life within this last eight-day,” said Rhaffus. “Luckily for her, Officer Lornis was there the first time, but now he’s under the care of a Guard physician and his wounds are serious, possibly mortal.”
She looked down at her boots. This time, it was Lornis who was lucky that I was there. Although her bruises looked bad, she was only superficially hurt, almost as if the attackers had been careful to—
“What does this have to do with me?” Andreas turned pale.
“Do you know the penalty for attacking or killing an Officer of the Guard, Andreas?” Rhaffus asked.
The penalty for harming an Officer of the Guard could be the loss of a limb. The penalty for the murder of an Officer could be death, and all individuals involved could be deemed responsible. The King’s Justice was harsh in these cases.
“Surely you don’t think I have anything to do with this!” Andreas was white.
“You were the first to say I might be in danger,” Draius pointed out.
“But that was only a teaser! I had no evidence! And I had no idea there was any danger to you when I printed that poem.” If the circumstances were different, Andreas would have appeared comical. He buckled so easily when his own skin was at stake.
“You withheld information from us when we talked to you on Millday, didn’t you?” she asked.
“I answered your questions.” His tone was sullen.
“But you could have provided more information. You could have told us about the people Reggis went to after he left your society.” Draius was guessing, but saw she hit the mark. At this point, Andreas would never ask to be questioned before a magistrate: if he was linked to attacks on City Guard members, no judge would protect his “expression of opinions” as support for withholding evidence.
“I didn’t think it important! Besides, you didn’t mention Taalo!”
“But Reggis mentioned him, didn’t he? Does Taalo lead some other society or group? Was Tellina in it?”
“I told you I’d never heard of Tellina before.” Andreas regained his composure. “I don’t know much about Taalo, but Reggis mentioned his name when he said he’d found some people who put action behind their principles. He acted like all we do is sit around and talk!”
Rhaffus cleared his throat. “If you had cooperated with us, Andreas, we could have prevented the attacks last night.”
Her eyebrows shot up, causing a twinge of pain. She felt sure Andreas wasn’t involved with last night’s assault, although the incident gave the captain grounds to question him. Captain Rhaffus walked around his desk to stand beside Andreas, who swallowed convulsively and looked at his feet.
“Where is Taalo now?” Rhaffus asked.
“I don’t know.” Andreas kept his eyes down. “I have leads out searching for him, but he’s gone underground. Deep underground.”
“Figuratively or literally?” she asked. There were tunnels under Betarr Serin, and the current Betarr Serasa was built over an older layer of the city that ringed the harbor.
Andreas glanced at her, perhaps to check if she was poking fun at him. “I meant that figuratively. No one knows where he might be.”
“Who left the poem at your paper?”
“I never saw anyone. I told the truth. It was tacked to my door.”
“Does the handwriting look familiar to you?”
“No,” Andreas answered.
“Anyone else you know who might be associated with Taalo?” She watched the editor hesitate.
“There’s a
clerk here in the City Guard headquarters who might be involved with Taalo. I saw them speaking together, at least an erin ago. His name is Usko.”
The captain shot Draius a look and she nodded: yes, she’d deal with this. The clerks who worked for the City Guard were not true Guard members, given the propensity of the Pettaja lineages to swap the clerks around as if they were a Sareenian guild. But many members of the Guard would think they were betrayed “by one of their own.” She’d have to keep this quiet. However, she now understood Usko’s strange reaction to Taalo’s name.
“We think a group of conspirators is using your society for recruitment,” she said. “We’ll need names of people who were dissatisfied, or who only came to a few meetings before dropping out. They’re all potentially involved in this treachery.”
“I can give you nine names that meet your qualifications.” The editor was now the epitome of cooperation.
“Thank you for being honest with us, Andreas. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” Draius winced as she struggled to her feet.
Captain Rhaffus still had more business with the editor. As she went through the door, he was starting the what-I’m-going-to-do-if-you-publish-anything-about-this threat. This time, Andreas might take the captain seriously.
Although she was satisfied Andreas provided honest information, his answers didn’t address the nightmare of last night. Captain Rhaffus had ordered inventories be done in all Guard armories. All known gunsmiths were being questioned. This was a serious incident: the first case of criminal use of a powder weapon inside the sister cities. Carrying guns was prohibited within Tyrran towns, although they were allowed outside the city walls for hunting. They were considered overly expensive, less accurate than longbows or crossbows, and too noisy for serious hunters. In general, guns were frivolous and faddish, of interest only to collectors who could afford them.
She hadn’t been seen the weapon used last night, but the flash indicated an amateur had loaded the powder. Currently, the Tyrran Guard was moving to muskets with serpentine locks and it seemed unlikely that it’d been one of those; they were in short supply and much more expensive than the old hakabuts. The hakabut was heavy with a hook on the end of the barrel for holding, aiming, and controlling the recoil. The weapon was designed to be fired from behind the defensive walls of a city or ship, not standing and from the shoulder. It was also available in more countries than just Tyrra: the Groygans made a version they called harguebus and the Sareenians called their versions arguebusier.
A Charm for Draius: A Novel of the Broken Kaskea (The Broken Kaskea Series Book 1) Page 20