“That you used on Lyasanna.”
Irina rounded on Ralun. “Did you used the Book of Maladies?”
Ralun took a step back. Irina was much shorter than he was, and quite a bit smaller, but there was something about the force with which she said it and the intensity in her gaze that seemed to have almost pushed him back.
“She took him from me.”
“You said you didn’t know about him,” Irina said.
“I didn’t, not until I went after the paper they’d stolen. When I was there, when I saw her, she told me what had happened.”
Sam frowned. All of it began to make a different sort of sense. Ralun had gone to Verdholm because he had wanted revenge for what Lyasanna had done. He had poisoned her, and likely Marin, because they had taken Tray from him. But he hadn’t known that Tray lived, not before then.
“When did you learn about him?” Sam asked.
“I learned then. I didn’t know about him before then.”
Sam struggled to understand what they were telling her, though it made a certain sort of sense. “What do you mean when you say they were exiled?” she asked Irina.
“It is a long story. Those who you know as the Anders once lived in our lands. They began to use the knowledge we acquired in a way that runs contrary to everything we believe. They began to twist it and apply it on others and charged for restoration.”
“They claim that you created the Book and still have it. They blame you for it.” And yet, hadn’t Sam seen a copy of the Book in Helen’s home? Could that be the same book? “How many volumes of this were there?”
“By now, there probably are many. Especially given what has come through your university over the years. The Book—or books—are their way of maintaining power,” Irina said.
And if Helen had one, maybe it was the same volume that had poisoned Tray.
“I think I know how to help him.”
“Without the Book, there is no help,” Ralun said. “That is something we have long ago learned. Even the Recorders have failed to restore those who were lost to the Book.” He looked down at Tray. “Regardless, he can’t be moved. If he is, he will suffer.”
Sam sighed. She couldn’t take him with her, but there might be something she could do for him. If she could find a way to destroy the page in the Book, it might be possible for her to help him. But, to do so, she needed to better understand exactly what Helen might be after.
“Why would a Scribe need Kaver blood?”
“You are a Kaver. You understand the purpose of the bond,” Irina said.
“No. This is different. Why would a Scribe need Kaver blood without a living Kaver?”
Irina frowned. “Where have you seen this?”
“It happened to me. She nearly killed me. There is a woman in the city, a master physicker—a Scribe—who has begun to drain Kavers of blood. We haven’t been able to figure out why, or what she intends, only that whatever it is—”
“There are few reasons such a thing would be useful,” Irina said, staring at Sam with a strange expression. “None of which she should have known.”
“Such as what?”
“With the right amount of Kaver blood—what we call the Spark—she would be able to do much damage.”
“Even if the Kaver was gone? Even with the Kaver dead?”
“Their death would be captured in the blood. That would be the point of it, especially if it were done in such a way that the blood was not tainted. It would grant power, and possibly enough power to cause incredible destruction.”
Sam frowned. “What kind of destruction?”
“The kind that would destroy everything we have here.”
Sam stood, looking down at Tray. Seeing him like this pained her, but she felt a measure of hope that she hadn’t in some time. “What if I told you that I might know of some way to help him?” she asked Ralun.
“If you know where the Book is, you should help him, especially if you care about him the way you claim you do.”
Sam nodded. “I do, and I’m willing to, which is why I’m asking you for help.”
Ralun stared at her for a moment. “What do you have in mind?”
25
A Dangerous Plan
The inside of the tavern felt dreary. There was a heaviness in the air, and a palpable sense of sorrow, one that struck Alec as his fault. Bastan sat at a table in the tavern, slowly sipping from a mug of tea, his eyes reddened.
“Have you found anything at all?” Alec asked.
Bastan looked away. “No. Whatever Helen plans, it is not active now. Perhaps you thwarted her by saving Samara.”
“I doubt it. She plans something, and Lyasanna—”
Bastan turned his head to look at Alec. “Does it matter?”
“You care about the city, Bastan. Whatever else you say, you care about it. You have told me over and over again that you care only about your section, but I know that’s not true. You care about all of the city, and I have seen that you will do anything to protect it. Help me now.”
“What is there to help?” Bastan asked. “We don’t know what Helen intends, and there has been no activity, nothing that would tell us that she threatens in any way. For all we know, she will not attack.”
Alec had a hard time believing that she wouldn’t attack, especially since it seemed she had spent so much time and effort demonstrating exactly what she would do.
“Sam would want us to help,” Alec said.
Bastan rested his hands on the table. “Samara would have wanted to save her brother, and she failed at that. I think… I think it’s time that I return my attention to my section, my business, and focus only on that. Anything more… Well, anything more is a waste of my time. All it does is distract me from the people I care about. Had I not gotten involved, had I not allowed Samara to get involved—”
Alec leaned forward and smacked his fist on the tabletop.
Bastan blinked and looked over at him.
“Do you really think you could have stopped Sam from getting involved? You know Sam as well as I do, possibly better. She would have gotten involved regardless of what anyone said to her. That is the way she is. And now that she’s gone—maybe gone—we need to figure out what Helen is after, stop Lyasanna, and…”
And then what?
He knew what Sam wanted. Though related, it wasn’t the same as what truly needed to be done. She wanted to find Tray and was willing to sacrifice everything to do so, which in the end, maybe she had.
This was something else.
“And protect the city,” he finished. He had to believe Sam would have done that too. She would have done it if only for Bastan.
“If you have any way of starting, I would like to hear it,” Bastan said. “Otherwise, I think we need to allow Jalen to rule. Continue to let the city run as it has. And we can let everything get back to being the way it once was.”
“Neither of us wants the city to return to the way it once was,” Alec said.
He stood and tapped the table.
“I’m going to see what I can find Helen. I’m going to see if there’s anything in the Book we found that will provide us some answers. And I’m going to stop her, with or without you, Bastan.”
“And when you do, Physicker Stross, what then? Will you go after Samara? Will you traipse across the swamp, risk yourself in the forest, and dare to go into the Theln lands?” When Alec didn’t say anything, Bastan shook his head. “I didn’t think so. No. What you will do is return to the university. You will settle into your studies. And you will begin to forget Sam. In time, she will become but a memory for you. But for me, the memory of her will never go away. I will never forget about her. She will always be something more to me than someone that I could just allow to disappear.”
“Bastan,” Kevin said, approaching the table. He wiped his hands on his pants. “You know better than that. You know how Sam felt about Alec, the same way I can see he feels about her. The boy feels bad enough about what
happened. Don’t make it worse.”
Bastan glared at Kevin. “I know he cares about her, and he knows I care about her, but what does it matter when we keep finding these dead Kavers? Even if Sam were here, I’m not sure I would want her roaming the city.”
“What you mean? What dead Kavers?” Alec asked.
Bastan shrugged. “While you were gone, I came across three more like the others. All with wrists slit, and all drained of blood. There wasn’t anything that could be done for them.”
Alec frowned, leaning forward and resting his chin on his hand. There had to be some purpose for the bloodletting, but what would Helen use it for? What purpose would she have in draining Kavers of blood? He couldn’t think of anything that would make sense, not with the traditional relationship of Kaver and Scribe, which meant there was some other way to use Kavers than what he knew.
And it was using the Kavers. It wasn’t as if they were working together, not the same way as Alec and Sam worked together, blending the two components of their magic. This was just using blood.
And Alec had seen something like that before.
“Would Mags be able to help us with this?”
Bastan glanced over. “Be careful saying her name.”
“At this point, I don’t know that it matters if I’m careful or not. We’re looking for answers, and she’s the only person we’ve seen who uses blood like that. If there’s anything she knows that would be able to help, don’t you think we should use it?”
“She’s an artist, Alec, and that’s it.”
Alec frowned. He’d met her once, but there had been a sense about her, a power that came from something more than simply artistry. He might not know what she was, but it was more than a mere artist. “She’s not only an artist. No one in these outer sections is quite what they seem.”
Bastan watched him for a moment. “You should be careful, Physicker Stross.”
“Bastan, I know you want to help Sam. And we both know there is more to the city than what it seems. And if Mags can help, why shouldn’t we take advantage of that?”
Bastan took a sip of his tea. He sat quietly, considering Alec for a long moment. “You know that it’s dangerous to go back there.”
“I know that it’s dangerous in any of these outer sections. That’s why the central canal separates the outer sections from the inner sections.”
“You mean lowborns from the highborns.”
Alec leaned forward. “No. I do not.”
Bastan took a long sip. When he was done, he set the mug down and pushed it away. “Let’s go.”
Alec blinked. “Now?”
“If you intend to help Samara, we should go.”
Alec looked around the tavern. There were a few other men here that he recognized, all Bastan’s, and he turned his attention back to Bastan. “How many men are you going to bring with us?”
Bastan shook his head. “No other men. Not there. Not to see Mags. If we brought anyone else, they likely wouldn’t return.”
Bastan tipped his head in a nod to Kevin and guided Alec out of the tavern. Once out on the street, Alec felt a chill in the air. This close to the steam fields, feeling the chill was surprising, though maybe it was imagined more than real. He didn’t like the idea of returning to Mags. The last time he’d gone there had been a necessity so that he could help Sam, though wasn’t that why he was going now? Wasn’t it a necessity now?
He believed it was. Anything he could do that would help Sam needed to be done, and that meant he needed to understand what it was Helen was after. Without knowing that, they would be left floundering, struggling to figure out what the next step would be, and then the next, and then the next.
Bastan glanced over at him as they crossed between sections. “She’s not expecting me.”
“Does that matter?”
Bastan nodded. “It matters. If she were expecting me, I wouldn’t be quite as nervous, but…”
“You’re nervous?”
Bastan fixed him with a hard gaze. “If you were smart, you would be nervous too.”
When they crossed into the next section, Bastan unsheathed. It made Alec wish he had a weapon, even if he had no knowledge about how to use one. Even a belt knife, something better than what he had. His was a short blade, meant for cutting up leaves and roots and other medicines. It wasn’t intended for attacking or protection.
Bastan looked over again as he pulled a long-bladed dagger from a hidden sheath and handed it to Alec. “You can’t be coming here with empty hands. Doing that is a death sentence.”
“I have you here.”
“It might not be enough.”
“It was enough last time.”
“That was last time.”
As they hurried through the streets, Alec had the sense people were trailing after them. Every so often, he would look back, the memory of what Sam had told him about avoiding detection ringing in his mind. She had advised that they take a meandering path when heading someplace to prevent others trailing them, but Bastan was heading directly through the city.
“We’re being followed,” Bastan said.
“And that doesn’t bother you?”
“It bothers me, but there’s damn little I can do about it.”
They reached a bridge crossing over to the next section. Three men stood guard on the bridge, though none of them wore the colors of the palace. Each man was armed with a long sword, and one of them held out a crossbow. Alec shivered.
Bastan paused for the first time, clenching his jaw. “Be ready,” he said. “These aren’t my men.”
“Ready for what?”
Bastan didn’t answer and started across the bridge. The man with the crossbow brought it up and aimed it at Bastan.
Bastan glared at him. “You intend to prevent my crossing?”
“I know who you are,” the man said. He was balding, and there were wrinkles around the corners of his eyes, but he was still solid and muscular. He was not the kind of man that Alec would trifle with.
Bastan, on the other hand?
“If you know who I am, then you know what I’m willing to do.”
“What you’re willing to do? Are you threatening me?”
“Only if you decide to prevent my crossing.”
The other two men raised their swords.
“There are three of us, and I see only one of you with any sort of weapon.”
“You don’t know who this man is? This is the deadly Davis. I’m sure you’ve heard of his skill with daggers.” Bastan glanced over, and Alec held up the dagger. He probably should have been more threatening with it, or maybe held it more confidently, but as it was, the other two men with swords simply smirked, looking over to Bastan.
Bastan tipped his head in a nod. “If that’s what this will be.”
He jumped.
It was a cloudy gray sky, but daylight. The last time Alec had been with Bastan, and the last time he had seen the man fight, it had been night. Sam suspected Bastan was a djohn but knew very little about what that meant other than that he had some natural abilities. They were skills that made him dangerous and skills that had given him a certain reputation.
His jump carried him toward the two men with swords. Bastan didn’t jump with the same speed or fluidity as Sam with an augmentation, but there was a brutal sort of strength to it. When he came down, he slashed his sword down, cutting the arm off one of the men. He turned quickly to the other man and slashed his blade across his chest. The man fell, and Bastan stepped back to avoid the spray of blood.
It left only the man with the crossbow. That man stared at Bastan for a moment too long before his finger found the trigger. By that time, Bastan had already sunk his blade into the man’s belly, twisting it as he pulled it free.
He wiped his hand and blade on the man’s jacket before standing and motioning Alec to follow. “Now we had really better hurry.”
“Now?”
“This will draw attention.”
They hur
ried across the bridge, and Alec noted commotion behind them. He glanced back to see several other men on the bridge, but they paused, not chasing Bastan. They seemed to regard him warily.
“They will send for others,” Bastan said.
“I thought you controlled all of the crossings throughout the city?”
“I control many of the crossings throughout the city. There are pockets where my control does not—and cannot—reach.”
“Are these the Shuver’s men?”
“No.”
“Then whose are they?”
“Someone whose attention I try to avoid.”
They moved quickly through the street, and Alec followed Bastan, keeping pace, not wanting to let him get too far ahead of him. There were others in the street, and whenever they encountered them, they veered off, disappearing into the shadows. At first, Alec thought that was good, but the more often it happened, the more he realized they were likely going off to get reinforcements.
“Tell me again why you didn’t want to bring more people?”
“More doesn’t mean better. More doesn’t mean faster. Right now, we need speed.”
“I’m not particularly fast.”
“So I have seen. It doesn’t matter. What does matter is—”
Bastan grabbed his arm and jerked him down an alleyway. Alec nearly stumbled but managed to stay on his feet, and they raced along the alley, emerging on another street. This one was empty, though that didn’t make Alec feel any more comfortable.
“Are we close to Mags?”
“We’re close, but not nearly as close as we need to be. Not nearly as close as I would like us to be, especially with that,” he said, motioning toward the end of the street.
There had to be a dozen men approaching. All were armed, though most of them only with swords. None, thankfully, carried a crossbow that could kill from a distance. When they saw Bastan and Alec, they surged forward.
Bastan swore softly under his breath, using a word that Alec didn’t recognize, and pulled him the opposite direction along the street. They ran, twisting through the street, turning along alleys, and when they reached the canal, Bastan turned them up and ran along the canal, heading toward a bridge.
Exsanguinated Page 21