The second knife came to his hand as Isileth Widowmaker came from her scabbard, and he sliced off the foulness with something of the same grim satisfaction as delivering a perfect taiken cut… except that this time nobody would die.
Kyrin continued to pull the stitches tight. They were, quite literally, a drawstring to keep the infected and the healthy separate.
"Now the water." She was talking to Ryn, who had done the best and wisest thing he could and stayed out of their way. "Make sure it's not too hot, then use it to flush out the wound." Ryn came forward with the pot of water, cooled by now to little more than blood heat, and sluiced it carefully into the incision.
"Save the rest," said Kyrin. "Wash it out some more as I suture up to the skin."
She was working with the curved needle and length of gut just now lifted from their bath of alcohol, sewing membrane and flesh with tiny neat stitches that were very far from the hasty, clumsy wound-closures Aldric had seen employed by some military surgeons.
He watched for a brief moment before glancing at his hands. There was blood on them—but good blood, this time. Living blood, not dying blood, if the smile Kyrin had given him was a true judgment. They wouldn't know for a while yet, but at least he—he—had done something with a blade that wasn't part of slaughter.
Kyrin tied off the last suture and wiped all clean with a spirit-soaked pad. AH that remained of the incision was an assymmetrical criss-cross of stitches, and those were being covered by a swathing of bandages just as the child stirred. The pad over Mai's face had been dry for some minutes now, and since then she had been breathing the heavy fumes of the sleep-drug out of her lungs without its being replenished. It would be a while yet before its effects had worked out of her bloodstream, and in that time the intrusion of steel and stitches into flesh would be a poppy-muted ache.
"Ryn," said Aldric gently at Kyrin's prompting nod, "wrap up your daughter in these clean blankets and take her somewhere warm."
The man said nothing more than his "Thank you," in a voice so faint that the words were barely there at all. But it was more than enough for Kyrin. She watched through bright-blurred eyes as Ryn lifted and wrapped his limp little burden and hurried her quickly to another bed in another room.
"Will she be all right?" asked Aldric after Ryn had gone.
"Wha… ?" Kyrin straightened from her slump against the wall and tried to listen to him. "I hope… yes, I think she will. Strong child; healthy. Her mother will check, of course, but I doubt even the best surgeon in Drakkesborg would find fault with how you did in these circumstances. Or any others, damn it! You were wonderful…"
She threw her arms around him and hugged him tight, then backed away slightly and looked at his face. "Anything wrong with that?"
"Not with what I did, especially if it works out—"
"Which it will!"
"But I don't like the idea of us being quite this noticeable."
"Ah. I see what you mean."
"This is Drakkesborg, don't forget."
"Love, you remind me every few minutes. How could
I forget? So you think we should just…" Kyrin waggled her ringers in a walking kind of gesture.
"Yes. Very quietly. There's nothing further we can do for Mai now, is there?"
"Not really. She'll heal in her own good time; we can't speed up the process." She glanced at the crystal set in Widowmaker's pommel as Aldric returned the longsword to his belt. "At least, not without attracting even more attention to ourselves, huh?"
Aldric smiled crookedly and covered the spellstone with his hand. He made a small sound of affirmation, nothing more. Now that all the tensions and worries were past he was tired, dog-tired after a day that would have been busy enough without this little side excursion into the world of the cutting-surgeon.
"All right then," he managed at last. "Let's slip away before anyone comes back and wonders who we really are."
"And get something warm inside us," Kyrin suggested.
Aldric's mouth twitched indecisively, halfway between a rueful smile and a quirk of disgust. "I'd as soon not think about warm insides right now, thanks very much," he said; then looked down at his hands, clean now, as if seeing life-blood in the truest sense still on them. "But I deserve a drink, at least."
"You deserve a hero's toast, my dear," said Kyrin, linking her arm through his as they walked softly toward the street. "And I'm buying…"
Chapter Seven
"Where is my son?"
There had been a time, an instant ago, when Aymar Dacurre and Hanar Santon had been alone in the Hall of Kings, working over new reports or collating old ones. There had been a time when, except for the crackle of fires in the nine hearths and the rustle of papers, the hall had been silent. That time was past, ended when Gemmel Errekren stepped from the core of a howling spiral of azure flame and dismissed the clamoring blue fire with a single strike of his staff against the echoing floor.
The sound of Gemmel's thunderclap arrival had broken two windows, and the blast of icy air arriving with him had blown a week's worth of paperwork from the desktops and sent it swirling in a blizzard of disorder almost to the ceiling. And it was obvious to both the Alban lords that Gemmel didn't care.
"I ask again," he said, for all that it was a demand instead, "where is my son?" The old enchanter took a step forward, then paused and sent a green-eyed glare up and down the Hall of Kings, a glare that started fierce and finished rather puzzled as he took in the reverberating emptiness, the lack of the usual guards and the white cloth covering the High Seat. "And where is Rynert the King?"
Dacurre looked at Santon; Santon returned the look and added a raised eyebrow to it. "You don't know?" the younger man asked. "Nobody told you on your way here?"
"I wouldn't be asking if I did," said Gemmel irritably.
He smiled an enigmatic little smile. "And I didn't meet anyone on the road I traveled."
"Quite so." Aymar Dacurre was doing his best not to be over-awed by Gemmel's presence, but the overflow of power that sleeted from the dragon-patterned black stave in the enchanter's hands made that exercise in control something of a strain. "You seem… well, out of touch with current affairs. Rynert the King is dead. Twenty-three days now. Long enough even for a wizard to learn what goes on in the capital city of his country."
Gemmel gave none of the looked-for signs of surprise at the news of Rynert's death. Instead he repeated his enigmatic smile, the smile of a man who knows more interesting things than he's ever likely to be told. "But Cerdor isn't my capital, and Alba isn't my country. I have been in my home, which I have never regarded as Alban sovereign territory… and about my own affairs. Yes, Lord Dacurre, I am indeed out of touch with the events of this world." The way in which he put emphasis on this sent icy-footed spiders running up and down Dacurre's back. "Now, my lord, I grow tired of repeating myself, but… where is my son Aldric?"
"Son?" echoed Hanar Santon, then quailed as Gemmel stared at him with a gaze that seemed for just an instant as hot and crazy as a goshawk's, sighting down his blade of nose—and down the suddenly-leveled Dragonwand that looked to the young lord more deadly than any more familiar weapon.
"Now don't you start," Gemmel warned. "I've had this from better men than you, so…"—the old enchanter drew in a long calming breath—"just don't."
"Ilauem-arluth Talvalin is somewhere in the Drusalan Empire," said Dacurre. "Doubtless, like yourself, about his own affairs."
"Why… ?" said Gemmel; but the word was soft enough for both lords to know that it didn't need an answer, at least no answer that they could supply. And then he struck the black staff against the floor so hard that it drove into ceramic tile as if into a loaf of stale bread. "No." He spoke with the voice of a man denying that which cannot be denied; Dacurre had heard it often enough. "Not the Jewel. Not alone. I released him from that charge…"
"Jewel?" Hanar Santon stood up slowly and carefully, not wanting to attract the same level of attention that was still sendi
ng after-shock trembles down his limbs. "Gemmel-purcanyathy do you mean the… the Warlord's Jewel? The Regalia?"
"Yes, I do." Gemmel both looked and sounded flattened. "I was going to recover the bloody thing myself— in my own good time. And now he… When did you hear of this?"
"Two days ago." Dacurre had put his animosity aside as he might have taken off a garment; he knew well enough that he was no longer looking at a sorcerer but at an elderly man whose son (Aymar glossed over the inaccuracy as easily as Gemmel had done) was unexpectedly going into danger in an attempt to do some favor for his father—though he found Gemmel's use of the word recover worthy of curiosity. "If it's any solace, the… informant made it quite clear that Aldric is as capable of taking care of himself as he always has been. But may I ask the reason—"
"You may ask," said Gemmel, too shocked to put any snap into what he was saying. His preoccupation with other matters was evident just from that. "At least he's carrying enough documentation to let him travel freely anywhere within the Empire's borders…"
"So where's the problem?" asked Santon. "Except of course for the fact that he'll have to steal the Jewel. Voord's hardly likely to hand over the insignia of his rank."
"Voord? What about Voord? What are you saying?"
"You won't have heard," Dacurre said. "It's not even public information in the Empire yet. There's a new Grand Warlord: Voord Ebanesj. We know of this one— he was in the Secret Police, and probably achieved his promotion by the usual method." Lord Dacurre drew one thumb across his throat. "He's been a thorn in Alba's side for a long while, but now he seems more taken up with his own concerns."
"The name is familiar enough," said Gemmel with venom in his voice. "What worries me is that Aldric won't know of it. And Voord knows him."
"Gemmel-purcanyath, Voord has known of the Talvalins for a long time; he was the one who planned Duergar Vathach's spoiling-raid on Dunrath and—"
"Was he indeed? Then damn him for it!"
The Dunrath affair was past, all that Voord had done was past and there was no passion in the way that Gemmel spoke of it. All his concern was for what the Grand Warlord might do in the days to come: a concern that was not political, not patriotic, but purely emotional. He had lost the son of his own blood to the Drusalan Empire and its Warlord—he was not about to lose the son he had adopted in the same way.
No matter that Aldric had the same documents as Gemmel carried, declaring them scholars and guests of the Empire, Aldric also had things that Gemmel lacked: enemies who knew him by sight. Enemies among the Secret Police—and now an enemy not only highly placed but in the very place where Aldric would be going. Unless he learned the truth very soon, he would walk all unwittingly into what was an unpremeditated trap.
There was Ymareth the Dragon—but Ymareth was also about its own affairs and no longer obedient to Gemmel's summons. The recollection of the last discussion with his monstrous creation was still something close to nightmare. Maker-that-was, the dragon had called him, angered by the way he had tried to make use of Aldric by laying a spell into the young man's subconscious so that he would do…
What he was doing now, unbidden. Gemmel had lost much honor by that spell, and the removal of it had not been enough to bring his honor back—or his control over the dragon, which amounted to the same thing. A. control based on honor was all very well when that being controlled could make no comparisons; but he had also given Ymareth the faculties of reasoning and judgment and that had been his downfall.
Gemmel had attempted to set matters right by commending Aldric to its protection, as it had once been constructed and given life to protect him—but what Ymareth had gained instead was freedom, and freedom of choice. It had provided awesome assistance in Egisburg and seen them safely on their way; then heeled over on one vast wing and flown out of sight. Ymareth was still out there somewhere; but wherever that somewhere was, it was not close enough for Gemmel to dare include the black dragon in the plan he suddenly, desperately, had to put together. Whatever plan that might be…
Giorl's grim talent with blade and pincer was such that it required no more than twenty minutes—during which the unharmed taulath in the chair witnessed his companion suffer three full torments and a fourth barely begun— before he made it quite clear, despite his bonds and the choking-pear stuffed in his craw, that he was entirely ready and willing if not yet able to talk. Directly the interrogation assistants made him able, all manner of interesting things came pouring out, the words tumbling over one another so fast that the Recorder's flying pen was barely able to keep pace.
Woydach Voord listened to the stream of secrets and betrayals, editing out the occasional blubbering plea for mercy as being irrelevant. "Quite fascinating," he said, speaking as was customary to the Recorder and the Questionmaker but loudly enough for the taulath to hear. "To learn so much so fast, I would have thought we might need something like," he looked toward Giorl, "Thirty-seven."
In response to his cue, she administered Thirty-seven to the other Subject, so that for a short space conversation became impossible. Voord distanced himself from the noises that echoed within the tiled and spattered chamber. He could see only the movement of mouths as both men screamed and begged and spilled out everything they knew in the hope of making Giorl stop or prevent her from shifting her attention. They aren't breeding tulathin as tough as they once did, he decided. The hiring-fees should be reduced. Then the Question-maker tapped him on the arm and showed a fresh list of questions based on answers to the first set and augmented by various matters which had been revealed unasked.
Voord nodded, there was already enough information to provide excellent leverage on certain of his lords and generals, who until now had seemed pure as the snow and quite free of any handle he could employ to bend them to his will. Not any more… He smiled, lifted a pen and marked the questions of particular interest, then looked as the first Subject lost consciousness and the room returned to reasonable quiet.
The Drusalan Empire had long ago considered the various aspects of torture as a means of gathering information; there were those who said that the victim would answer any and all questions with whatever his interrogators wanted to hear, just so long as they would stop. Another school of thought insisted that if a man was put under sufficient stress his mind could no longer formulate convincing lies to protect himself or his associates, and the only thing left for him to tell was the truth. Voord was of a third persuasion: that everything a Subject said, whether pressed or not, should be noted down and collated with known facts, and that pressure should then be applied to discover any deviation from the recorded testimony. It was wryly known as the let's just make absolutely certain shall we method of interrogation, and the best way of all was with two Subjects, playing one's pain against the other's fear of it. Of course, even then the information had to be cross-checked—in the appropriate fashion…
"Leave that one be for now," said Voord. He glanced again at the list of questions, and then at their ultimate source sitting shivering and immobile in his iron chair. "Get me confirmation of these instead."
As the implications of the Warlord's words sank into his fear-fuddled mind, the other taulath began to thrash to and fro, trying impotently to break free of the padded steel bands holding him in place. "I want you to consider Question Seven," said Voord's voice over the rattle of unyielding metal, "concerning what you mentioned about Hauthanalth Cohort-Commander Tayr. Help him remember with Chair, ah… Chair Three. But don't light the heating-wick until I tell you."
Voord watched with mild curiosity for a few minutes as Giorl's assistants operated screws and levers—he and she both considered Chair torments a deal too crude for her personal involvement—then returned his attentions to the newly-corrected question/answer sheets which the Questionmaker had given him.
He gathered together the various other papers which had resulted from the interrogation and got to his feet.
"Enough for now," Voord said briskly, patting the pape
rs together. "Clean up." He met Giorl's unspoken question without blinking, and nodded. "Yes, and finish up. I'll not need to interview either of these two again."
"My lord Woydach … ?"
"Yes, Giorl, you're dismissed. And thank you for good work." Voord laid a hand against his side and felt no more than a dull, hot ache. "In both respects, I hope the child will soon be better…" But he was speaking only to the assistants; their chief was already gone. He shrugged and followed her out.
"But what about us?" demanded Aymar Dacurre.
"I told you before, my lord," said Gemmel. "This is not my country, and its concerns are not my concerns except in the matter of my son."
"And what of his concerns, Gemmel Errekren?" snapped Hanar Santon. "You seem to forget that he's a high-clan-lord and as such has certain obligations, certain duties—"
"You mean that he should mobilize the Clan Talvalin troops, lock himself up in Dunrath-hold and snarl like a manger-dog at every other lord who dares approach? I doubt he'd see the need to bother."
Dacurre looked at the enchanter and said nothing. Gemmel was right. None of his fellow clan-lords had acted toward Aldric in any way that would incline the young man to return. When Rynert had sent him off to the Empire on whatever crazy mission had been in the dead king's mind—and Dacurre didn't have all of the details even now—those of the council lords who might have taken Aldric's part had remained silent, so that the only voices heard were those of men glad to see him gone. Some of course were merely conservative old men expressing conservative opinions—but there were others, Lords Uwin and Gyras especially, who even then had had an eye on the Talvalin lands. Scarcely a memory that would make either Aldric or his foster-father look on the present troubles of those lords with anything but a sense of poetic justice long delayed.
He began to wonder, as he had done more and more frequently in the past few days, whether it would not be better—or at least more practical—for himself and Santon to abandon the echoing corridors of the palace where they had done little good that any of them could see, and simply run for the shelter of their citadels as everyone else had done. So far no one had moved to use the situation either for advancement or for profit, but once the last two stable influences joined the rest on the edge of anarchy, falling over that edge would be only a matter of time. Probably their flight alone would be enough, either through misinterpretation or because someone like Diskan of Kerys chose to regard it as deliberately provocative.
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