Waterdance

by Logston, Anne

  “All I want is—” Peri began, then fell silent as she heard the outer door open. Too late—the Whore had returned, and now all she could do was hope that Atheris had enough faith in her to follow her lead.

  Seba stopped a short distance from the bars.

  “You look resolved,” she said, smiling. “Have you decided to accept my offer?”

  Peri hesitated.

  “What about the Bonemarch?” she said. “Are they just going to let me go, just like that?”

  Seba laughed.

  “They can’t prevent what they don’t know,” she said. “Tonight you’ll escape. It’s as simple as that. There will be a search, of course, Bone Hunters dispatched to find you. But with a little care on my part, it will be some time before your absence is discovered. Few are permitted down here at all, so you shouldn’t be missed too quickly.”

  Peri paused thoughtfully for a moment, then nodded briefly.

  “I’ll go back,” she said. “I’ll take the signet and make sure they know what really happened to my grandfather. That’s what you want, isn’t it? But I want something in return.”

  Seba laughed.

  “In return! I offer you life instead of death by torture, and that’s not enough?”

  “I want him,” Peri said, pointing at Atheris. “I still have to get back through Sarkond. I had to travel in disguise before, and his magic was all that kept the Bone Hunters from finding us more than once. Without his help I might never reach the border alive, and that won’t serve your purposes, will it? And you can’t exactly give me a guard escort, can you? Besides,” she added practically, “my own escape will look a lot more credible to the Bonemarch if they believe I had the help of a heretic trying to escape his own punishment, won’t it? Give him a priest’s robe and we can actually make it through Sarkond without someone killing us.”

  Seba chuckled.

  “And how do you think your family will react when you bring your Sarkondish lover home with you?” she said gently. “Well, no matter.” Her voice hardened, and her gaze held Peri’s. “You swear on your honor you will return to your family?”

  “Don’t worry,” Peri said grimly. “I’ll return the signet to my kinfolk, and I’ll make sure they know what really happened to my grandfather. I swear on my honor, on my sword, and on the blood of my family.”

  A faint hint of surprise, then puzzlement flitted across Seba’s expression, but she nodded at last.

  “Very well,” she said. “Both of you will be released when darkness falls.”

  “What about the geas on us?” Peri asked.

  Seba smiled slowly.

  “Those need not be removed,” she said. “Atheris’s will be negated because we are releasing him, and you—well, you will have no need to take your own life, will you?”

  “I gave my word,” Peri said shortly. “I’ll keep it. But if I come home reeking of Sarkondish magic, they won’t even let me in the door long enough to deliver your message.”

  The faintest scowl of impatience troubled Seba’s brow.

  “Oh, very well,” she said. “I will see that the geas is released in one day, then—time enough for you to reach the border. You’ll leave here tonight, at low watch.”

  “One more thing,” Peri said. “I need to see my grandfather.” When Seba’s scowl deepened, Peri said, “All I’ve seen is a signet. That could’ve come off his dead hand. I’ll be returning to my family an outcast, with no honor, and they won’t want to believe me. If you want me to convince them, I’ll have to be able to tell them I saw him here alive.”

  Seba was silent for a long moment, then smiled.

  “I see no reason to refuse,” she said, shrugging gracefully. “Although I fear you’ll find the old High Lord something of a disappointment.”

  She disappeared into the shadows and returned shortly with two guards. The guards unlocked Peri’s cell and opened the door, stepping aside to let her out. Peri half expected to be manacled or geased, but to her surprise Seba seemed content with the two guards to protect her and prevent Peri’s escape.

  Peri did not look back at Atheris as her captors led her out of the cells.

  They emerged in a hallway Peri didn’t recall from her earlier hurried flight through the temple; there was no way of knowing how far or from which direction she had been brought while she was unconscious. For all she knew, she could be hundreds of feet underground, past a dozen locked or even bespelled doors and several dozen armed guards. She was, after all, an important prisoner at a crucial time in the temple; security would be tight.

  Some of her suspicions were confirmed as Seba led her through several halls and down four successive flights of stone stairs; there were guards everywhere, all armed and alert. Provisionally, however, Peri was encouraged; where there were guards and locks and keys, magical safeguards became less likely.

  As they descended, the dampness of the air, the dripping of water, the fungus on stone became more apparent, and Peri felt the sense of massive subterranean waters steeped in magic closer and closer. Old, cold, trapped in chains of stone ...

  Sleeping?

  Seba stopped at an iron door heavily barred and secured by no fewer than three locks. The guards unlocked two, but the third, a padlock, took a key produced from a gold loop on Seba’s belt. The door opened with a loud creak of protest.

  The room within was plain but clean and, despite the damp air, relatively dry; rugs and rather shabby wall hangings absorbed some of the dampness and chill, and a medium-sized fire burned in a fireplace with a narrow, carefully barred chimney. The few pieces of wooden furniture—bed, chair, table, cupboard—were rough but sturdy, and the bed was thick and piled with covers. A chamber pot in the corner stank of urine, but at least the odor seemed relatively fresh. But there was neither lamp nor candle to help light the room, nor any sign that one might be used—no books, pen, or paper, as might be expected in the cell of such a carefully tended noble prisoner.

  “He’s in the bed,” Seba said, gesturing. “Go on, look for yourself if you like.”

  Peri stepped gingerly into the room.

  “Grandfather?” she said softly.

  No answer.

  Peri walked slowly to the bed, aware to her disgust that she was tiptoeing, holding her breath. Yes, the bedding seemed mounded a bit higher than might be expected from even a most generous number of covers. Was it her imagination, or did the lump of covers move faintly and regularly, as if with the breathing of one beneath?

  Peri leaned over the bed, and her breath whooshed out in a single sigh of shock.

  The man who lay in the bed was not emaciated or scarred or maimed. His white hair was neatly groomed into a single braid that now lay negligently draped across the pillow. He was very pale, of course, after so many years hidden from the sun, but no more so than Seba herself, and the faintest remnant of his Bregondish coloration could still be seen. His open eyes were the rich, dark brown of most Bregonds.

  Nonetheless, it took some moments for Peri to recognize in the old man who lay before her the proud High Lord of Bregond she had seen depicted in the portrait hanging in Aunt Kairi’s castle or the miniature hanging in her mother’s room.

  His flesh was sunken on his bones, lax with age and inactivity; the pale hands that lay limply on the coverlet, one finger deeply indented where the signet had rested, were thin and flabby, not with lack of food but simply because they had not been much used. The eyes that stared upward were utterly empty. No human soul lived within that horrible still frame. The heart beat, the lungs breathed, it ate and slept and excreted, but it was not her grandfather.

  Only a shell.

  Peri felt a presence approach, glimpsed Seba out of the corner of her eye.

  “What did you do to him?” she whispered. “Torture? Some kind of magic?”

  “You needn’t whisper,” Seba said, chuckling. “He can’t hear you, you know. At least not as far as I can tell. Torture? No. He was badly injured when he was taken, from what I’ve been
told, and went some time without proper care, but I quickly saw that he was attended by the best healers in Sarkond and he mended quickly. He’s been quite well treated, as you can see for yourself. Magic? I suppose you could say that. His mind broke years ago, striving against the geas that held him here and prevented him from taking his own life. You’ll be proud to know it took him a long time to break.” She glanced at Peri. “Much longer than the few other Bregonds we’ve managed to set a geas on in time. The geas is probably all that keeps him alive now, forcing him to eat and drink. He has no will to do it himself, of course. At least he uses the chamber pot and doesn’t soil the bed.”

  Peri closed her eyes, fighting to stay still, silent. She wanted to scream, to vomit.

  Grandfather. High Lord of Bregond. My mother’s father. A leader daring enough to bring together two countries who had warred for hundreds of years, with nothing but his headstrong daughter, a controversial Agrondish Heir, and a dream.

  And, oh, Grandfather, how you paid for it.

  Peri turned away.

  “All right,” she said tonelessly. “I’ve seen enough.”

  “And you acknowledge that this is High Lord Elaasar, your maternal grandfather?” Seba asked almost kindly.

  “Yes,” Peri said flatly. “It’s him.”

  Seba smiled, a secret smile.

  “If it comforts you, I assure you he’ll continue to be well tended until the sacrifice,” she said. “It isn’t a pleasant death, unfortunately, nor a quick one, but I very much doubt he has enough awareness to even feel pain now. I don’t imagine he’ll even scream.”

  Peri closed her eyes again, sickened. It was all she could do not to turn and attack, to strike, to kick, to bite, to tear away that honeyed smile.

  Apparently Seba sensed that her prisoner was near the breaking point, for she said nothing more, merely led Peri back to her cell.

  “Tonight at low watch these same guards will come to lead you out of the temple,” Seba said when the cell door was safely locked again. “They’ll return your belongings, and I’ve taken the liberty of supplying you horses and supplies, more than enough to reach Olhavar. It will be six hours, perhaps eight, before your escape is detected and the Bone Hunters loosed upon your trail. I suggest that you make all haste for the Barrier. Even with the best horses I can manage, you’ll have a hard ride of it to make the Barrier before the Bone Hunters begin seeking you, and I assure you, their magic travels far more swiftly than their horses. And although I have every reason to want your life spared, the Bonemarch will no longer need you alive, and unfortunately its they, not I, who control the Bone Hunters.”

  Seba stepped forward, her face almost pressing the iron bars. Her eyes shone with intensity.

  “So ride fast for your life, young Perian,” she murmured. “When nothing else in the world remains for you, not kin, not country, not rank, not honor, you’ll find that although your life has no value to anyone else, it suddenly becomes quite precious to you.”

  Peri crawled into the corner and sat down on the hay, not speaking. Her face felt cold and hard as stone. She would gladly die before giving Eregis’s Whore the pleasure of seeing her weep.

  The intensity faded from Seba’s face, and for a moment she looked almost lost, bewildered. Then her eyes settled into that strange and distant innocence again.

  “Rest, young ones,” she murmured. “Rest and grow strong for your journey.”

  Then she was gone.

  There was a long moment of silence; then Atheris scooted over close to the bars.

  “Peri?” he whispered. “Was it him? Your grandfather?”

  “Yes.” Peri didn’t trust herself to say anything more, didn’t trust herself to look at him. The sickness and anger ran too deep in her blood right now. She was afraid that if she looked at him, she’d see not Atheris, not friend or man or lover, but Sarkond. Enemy.

  Atheris slumped against the wall, leaning sideways against the bars.

  “Perian, I did not know,” he said softly. “I swear to you, I learned only when she told you. I think that secret has been carefully kept inside this temple.”

  Peri said nothing. She could barely imagine what this news would do to her mother, or to Aunt Kairi. Or to the people of Bregond’s faith in the ruling house. She knew that for her own part, those empty eyes would haunt her as long as she lived.

  “Is he—” Atheris said hesitantly.

  “He’s dead,” Peri said harshly, “in every way that matters. A piece of breathing flesh, that’s all.”

  Atheris closed his eyes.

  “I grieve with you, Peri,” he said softly. “But in a way—in a way it is merciful, I suppose.”

  “Merciful!” For a moment the swelling hatred was more than Peri could bear. She clenched her hands hard, HARD, until her nails bit deep into her palms.

  “Merciful!” she spat. “What do you know about mercy, you—you—” Then her voice broke and she covered her face with her hands, and she felt tears sting in the nail gouges in her palms.

  The dead were treated with care and reverence in Bregond. They were burned in a very private, intensely personal ritual of mourning, their ashes carefully scattered by their closest kin so that Mahdha would bear their spirits to all corners of the land, and from there, the world. Only when those ashes were scattered was the spirit freed from the confines of the flesh. Defilement of the dead, failure to properly observe the rituals was one of the most serious crimes in Bregond because it denied the spirits of the dead their freedom. Only those who died in battle, or those who took their own lives to avoid capture, were believed to be spirit-freed at the moment of death by the glory of their act.

  Her grandfather would never fly on Mahdha’s wings.

  Peri turned to Atheris.

  “If what you believe is true,” she said fiercely, “then destiny’s going to have its way no matter what we do. Right?”

  Atheris did not retreat from her intensity.

  “Yes,” he said softly.

  “Then promise me,” she said, very slowly, “that you’ll help me do what I have to do, and I swear I’ll see to it that your blighted prophecy comes true.”

  “How can you do that,” Atheris said suspiciously, “when you swore that you would return to Bregond and—”

  “I know what I swore,” Peri said grimly. “I know exactly what I swore. And I know what I’m swearing now. And I’ll keep both oaths, because no traitor and self-styled prophet takes my honor away from me. It may be all I’ve got left, but by Mahdha’s fury, it’s mine. And you’re going to help me, Atheris, because now that you can’t buy atonement by torture and death, you’re going to have to find your redemption somewhere else, and I’m offering you that chance.”

  Atheris was silent for a long moment.

  “All right,” he said. “I have little enough honor left to me, Peri, but beyond the survival of my people I have nothing now to claim that honor. If you can keep your oaths, my assistance is yours in whatever form you wish it.” He bowed his head. “I ask you only this—tell me nothing until we are free of this place. Spare my conscience that much.”

  Peri chuckled mirthlessly.

  “Gladly,” she said. That would certainly pose no difficulty; she had only the barest skeleton of a plan herself.

  Despite the fact that the advice had come from Seba, Peri wished she could sleep, if only to make the time pass more quickly; there was no possibility of that, however, with her mind and heart in such turmoil. At last she stood wearily and stretched, beginning her breathing patterns. If she couldn’t replenish herself one way, she could another.

  I am Perian. I am warrior. She felt her thoughts fall into order, calm replace turmoil. I am earth, deep-rooted and strong, mother of steel. Strength returned; the fatigue weighting her limbs retreated, tension transformed into focus. I am wind, swift and light. She faltered ever so slightly, almost lost the pattern as she was swept into that old, cold power she could feel beneath the temple. She turned her thoughts resolu
tely. I am fire, steel’s father, dancing, all-consuming. I am water, unbounded and ever changing. I am warrior. I am Perian.

  She flowed smoothly out of the last of the stretches, calm and sure once more. She would do what she had to do. And when the time came, she’d know what had to be done.

  Chapter Eight

  Judging from what light Peri could see through the high, small window, it was almost exactly midnight when she heard the scrape of a key in the lock of the outer door. Atheris was on his feet before she was, herself.

  The guard said nothing, only unlocked Peri’s cell, then Atheris’s. He waited until they stepped out of their cells, then, rather incongruously, locked the cells again.

  “Our belongings?” Atheris said softly.

  “Outside,” the guard grunted.

  He led them through the tangled maze of corridors and stairways without another word, glancing back over his shoulder occasionally to be certain they were following closely. Peri tried to remember the twists and turnings as best she could, but while she could track a lopa for hours through high grass over hardpan in twilight back home, here, underground, with no stars, no wind, no point of reference except that vague and all-pervading awareness of cold, ageless, deep water beneath her, she knew she’d never be able to find her way again. She could only hope that Atheris was more oriented than she.

  The guard stopped in mid-corridor, so suddenly that Peri almost collided with him; when she stopped abruptly, Atheris bumped her and swore softly. The guard turned, blocking her view with the broad expanse of his back, but Peri guessed he was pressing some hidden lever or switch in the wall, for a section of the stone slid smoothly inward, revealing a dark, narrow passageway. The guard stood aside, gesturing Atheris and Peri to enter ahead of them. Peri barely hesitated, then stepped in; no sooner had Atheris followed her than the opening behind them slid shut, the guard on the other side.

  Peri steadied herself against a damp stone wall. It was roughly cut, irregular stone, not carved smooth as the more formal passageways she’d seen.