Gemmel stood up and closed his overrobe about him, hiding the strange uniform and the stranger holstered sidearm. "Their couriers are heading for Cerdor even now, and I am heading for the Empire."
"Where?" asked Dacurre, rising from his own seat. "Maybe we can help you…"
"You, help me?" That Gemmel didn't laugh out loud was only out of courtesy. The mocking laughter glittered in his eyes just the same. "No. I shall start at the center, in Kalitzim, and work outward from there. The Emperor's sister owed Aldric the favor of a life and I intend to collect the debt. Just remember this. What I said before holds true: I lost a day thanks to the pair of you, and if that lost day has hurt me and mine then I shall hurt you and yours. Revenge, my lords. You Albans know the word, I think…"
There was a sound like thunder and a blue-white flash like lightning that made both clan-lords blink; and then there was a short sharp bang as air rushed in to fill the space where Gemmel Errekren had been…
Voord had achieved something like a sound sleep for the first time in many nights, only to be woken from it by a polite, persistent rapping on his bedroom door. Two seconds before he became sufficiently aware to mumble, "Yes, what?" in a tone of entirely justified irritation, there was a shortsword out of its scabbard and in his hand. At times he wondered what it had been like to sleep easily and to awaken unafraid; but even the recollection of those times had been forgotten long ago.
It was Tagen again. There had been a time when Voord would have expected him to be there, but he had tired of handsome young men with heavy muscles and was growing still more tired of finding this particular example of the breed lurking outside his doors at all hours of the day and night. Indeed, he was growing simply weary… of constants: constant fear, constant plotting, constantly keeping two steps ahead of the knives that sought his back whether they were simply political or real steel. And most of all he was weary of being in constant pain. Giorl had done her best, but that best was based on ordinary medicine rather than the ailment which infected him. As he sheathed the sword and beckoned Tagen in, Voord realized that what he wanted most from life at this moment was an ending to it. The one thing that he was denied…
"Good morning, sir," said Tagen. "A very good morning indeed. We have them both."
Voord blinked, the significance of the words eluding him for a moment. Then he remembered and made himself smile, since that was evidently what was expected of him. Yet he knew that just now he didn't care. There had been nights when he had lain awake beside the sleeping body of whoever had been sharing his bed, staring at the ceiling and wondering what his imagination could create for Aldric Talvalin if and when there was ever the opportunity for such a diversion. There had been nights, too, when his lovemaking or his sleep had been sweetened by those same dreams of atrocity-to-come. But this night, with the opportunity for making dreams reality placed in his grasp, all that he could think of was trying to recover the stillness and the rest that Tagen's arrival had stolen from him.
"Then have them placed somewhere secure. I'll see them later in the morning."
Tagen stared, plainly astonished at this lack of eagerness. Voord returned the stare with a gaze as blank and expressionless as that of a lizard on a stone. Right now he was unwilling—no, unable—to share Tagen's bottomless capacity for violence. The gilt wires twisted through his flesh were hurting him, and the cuts and gashes they held shut were hurting him, and even his head was hurting him as well. Looking more speculatively at Tagen, he wondered whether spreading the pain would not in fact reduce his own—or at least take his mind from it for just a little while.
"Do as I command, Tagen," he said. "Then come back here." The thought faltered, faded, and one hot and hurtful memory was replaced by another just as hot, just as painful, but far more recent.
"No. Instead of that, I'll come with you. Help me dress. This is supposedly official business, so it had best be uniform." Voord sat up, slid sideways and got out of bed, moving as carefully as an old, old man for fear of ripping open one of his wounds. The burnt flesh of his legs stung him as if to emphasize his recollection of what had brought them to such a state, and he glanced down at the wrapping of ointment-smeared bandage which had been all Giorl could do. There had been Dragonfire and raw, unfocused power in the courtyard of Egisburg's Red Tower. He had been within an instant of becoming no more than a silhouette etched into the stones at the base of the Tower, but with shape-shifting and the speed that granted him, he had escaped… all but the pulse of force that leapt from the spellstone in Talvalin's hand, blue fire, white fire, heat and light and noise… and, inevitably, pain.
"What about their gear? Was everything brought here?"
"Everything; even their horses are stabled in the Guards Cavalry block."
"Good." Voord spoke with the neutrality of mild interest, taking care not to betray what was forming in his mind for fear that Tagen would object and, given suffi-cient time, work out some way to thwart the plan. "And them: have they said anything yet?"
"The girl, Kyrin, alternates a sullen silence with inventive oaths. The man Aldric is still unconscious."
"Unconscious? I said that neither was to be harmed."
"There was a brawl during the arrest, sir." Tagen began talking much faster; he knew of old that coldness in Voord's voice, and had no desire to be the recipient of his rising anger. "The Alban had a sword with him, and the woman stole one during the fight. By the time he was knocked out four Kagh' Ernvakh men were dead and a fifth isn't expected to last the night."
"Just now I don't care about Kagh' Ernvakh! The clumsy fools had their orders. Which of them hit him?"
"A Fleet hautmarin called Doern, sir—in the city on leave over the holiday. He was in the Playhouse where the arrest took place. It seems he knows the man Talvalin from somewhere else; he's been asking questions… and mentioning the use of sorcery."
"Has he indeed? All right." Voord stamped into his boots and waited while Tagen knelt to buckle them. "Then this afternoon I'll have this quick and observant Hautmarin Doern presented with a fat bounty and a promotion for assisting in the capture of a dangerous enemy of the state. That should convince him how important a catch he's made; and how pleased with him I am."
"And once he leaves the fortress, he's to be 'robbed and murdered,' sir?"
"Not this time. It would look overly suspicious." Voord hesitated, considering, then glanced down at Tagen and patted him on the head as he might have done a dog or a precocious child. "All the same, put someone on to him while he remains in Drakkesborg and have them report back twice daily. If Doern finished his leave and returns to his ship, well and good; but at the first indication that the gold or the rank-tabs haven't shut his mouth, I promise that I'll let you kill him."
"Sir!" The boots dealt with, Tagen sprang to his feet and saluted, all bounding energy and quivering eagerness. Had he a tail, he would have been wagging it. "What about Talvalin and his woman, sir… ?"
Good dog, Voord thought, coming very close to saying it aloud. "In my good time, Tagen. I'll let you know when that time will be, never fear. But I think I should take a look at them first, don't you?"
Kyrin had drifted in and out of an uneasy doze since they were brought to the fortress. Between cat-naps she stared through the gloom of the poorly lit cell toward the pallet where Aldric had been laid. Shackled by one wrist and one ankle to the bed on the opposite wall, stare was the most that she could do.
Kyrin had had only the briefest chance, in the snowy bloodstained darkness outside the theater before the pair of them were dragged unceremoniously away, to make sure that his skull had not been fractured. Certainly there was a lump the size of her fist, and without light there was no opportunity to check for pupil dilation or any of the other signs of concussion. Aldric's head was notoriously hard—he had said as much himself—but Kyrin doubted it was hard enough to take the sort of impact that Doern had delivered and still remain intact.
What concerned her most of all was the gentlenes
s with which they had been treated. After the deaths of four of their comrades, she had feared rough handling at the very least from the remaining Secret Police. Instead, the worst that it could have been called was unmannerly. It suggested either that they, or more probably Aldric, were being held as bargaining counters for the Empire to gain some sort of concession from Alba—or that there was much, much worse to follow.
The cell door opened and two guards carrying lanterns came inside. Now that there was light, she was surprised at how spacious their confinement really was.
Apart from the massive door and the wrist-thick bars on the little green-glazed windows, it didn't look too much like her idea of a prison cell. No chilly damp, no sodden straw on the floor, no stinks except for the smell of oily metal that wafted from her manacles every time she moved and a faint, sourceless almost medicinal odor; and no rats. That, too, wasn't much of a comfort, and for the same reason; after all this softness, how hard would the truly hard become?
Their lanterns hooked to metal fixtures in the wall on either side of another door she hadn't seen before, the guards glanced toward her and as they went out again exchanged some remark that made them both laugh. It was an unwholesome laughter, the sort that went with the image of several drunken men meeting one woman in a lonely alleyway. Kyrin shivered and tried to put the thought out of her head by wondering what was behind the other door; only to discover that the sort of suggestions her mind was putting forward were even worse than thinking about the laughter.
"I bid you welcome to Drakkesborg, Tehal Kyrin," said a suave voice, "and I bid you welcome to my house."
Kyrin's head jerked up to see two other men standing in the doorway of the cell; she had been so lost in her own thoughts that she had neither seen nor heard them come in. One was a young man, big and broad-shouldered, with a face she would have called handsome had it not been for the shuttered eyes that gave his expression a disturbing vacancy. It looked not so much as if he was concealing what went on inside his head; rather, that nothing went on there at all except what he was ordered to do. And the most likely source of those orders was standing right beside him.
"I know you," said Kyrin softly, trying not to be frightened of the man she had last seen aiming a telek at her face: the man who had killed Dewan ar Korentin that time in Egisburg, when Dewan took the dart meant for her. The man Aldric had called Commander Voord, and therefore the same man who had—Kyrin was suddenly very conscious of the bed beneath her—raped Kathur the Vixen two months past in Tuenafen.
"Good," said Voord, and pressed one hand over his heart to give her a small mocking bow. "I have a certain reputation; it pleases me to see it spread."
"Your reputation!" Kyrin's mouth twisted in a sneer she didn't even try to hide. There was most certainly nothing she could do to make their situation any better, and probably nothing to make it any worse. "As a murderer and a traitor—"
"And most recently as Grand Warlord." Voord was unruffled by the insults, and even smiled faintly at her recitation of what he probably considered virtues. "Which makes all the rest a little insignificant." Then he turned from her and looked at the big man who stood at his side. "Tagen, you told me their gear was brought here, too. Where is it?"
"Sir, he's an Alban kailin-eir, one of their clan-lords and for four years before that he was an eijo, a landless warrior who lived by his sword. Until we check every piece of clothing and equipment for concealed weapons, I don't dare take the risk of leaving anything where he might—"
"That stuff doesn't concern me; where's his sword?"
"That would be the worst thing of all to—"
"Enough. I ask again, where is it?"
"In the armory with everything else. It needs checking too, just in case there's more to it than just a sword."
Voord's head snapped round and as his eyes met Kyrin's, he smiled. She had betrayed no reaction at all to his words, but evidently he had sensed something… or it amused him to let her think so. "I don't know about the rest of it, but you may well be right about the sword. Have it brought in here."
"Here? Now… ?" Tagen was aghast. "But sir, you know what this man is like! Bringing a weapon anywhere near him would—"
"Tagen, shut up. He's unconscious and hardly likely to stir for a long while yet. So do it." Voord glanced around the cell, considering. "Bring one of the armorers with you—and whatever materials he might need to fix the weapon to that back wall."
Tagen hesitated for maybe one whole second, as close to disobedience as he had ever been, then shrugged instead of saluting and left the cell. As Voord watched him go out Kyrin could see an odd expression on his face: anger that his authority had been challenged, mingled with shock that the challenge had come from this of all sources.
"What's wrong, Commander Voord? Was your dog threatening to bite?"
Voord shot her a quick angry look, but paid no further heed to the remark. Instead he walked over to where Aldric lay and gazed thoughtfully down at him, then put out his hand—the unmaimed right—and laid its widespread fingers across the Alban's face.
"Leave him alone, you bastard!" Kyrin yelled, jerking forward to the full length of her chains and lashing out at Voord with one futile fist.
"Make me," said Voord, and smiled. "Did he ever tell you about a certain use for the drug ymeth?" Kyrin glowered but said nothing. "To get inside a man's mind, to learn what he knows, what he thinks—and what he fears. Useful things like that. Nothing held back, nothing hidden, nothing lied about. I need no drugs, not when he's like this." Voord took a deep breath and his fingers tightened until they seemed about to sink into the skin of Aldric's face.
Kyrin had been expecting Aldric to cry out, or to try to pull his head free, or to do something. Instead he did nothing; even the quick, shallow rhythm of his breathing remained unchanged. Voord, however, turned his own head and gazed at Kyrin with such lascivious amusement that she blushed scarlet and looked away. "Yes, indeed," said Voord. "Nothing hidden." Then he glanced back at Aldric with the suddenness of one finding exactly what he was looking for, and laughed as he released his grip. "Good," he said softly. "Welcome to your nightmare…"
Tagen was back in a matter of minutes, with Widowmaker held in both hands and slightly away from his body as if he didn't want even the scabbarded blade to come too close. The armorer was at his heels, a stocky, silver-bearded man in a leather apron with a canvas bag of tools and equipment hanging from one hand as though a permanent part of his anatomy. He glanced incuriously from Voord to the shackled prisoners and then back, plainly seeing nothing until he was told what he was supposed to do.
"You brought all you need?" asked Voord.
"I did, my lord." The armorer fished noisily in his bag for a moment before holding up a piece of forged metal for Voord's inspection. "Two of these clamps, three strips of steel, ten masonry spikes and my best hammer. Do you wish the weapon capable of being drawn, or not?"
"Emphatically not. I want the whole thing immovable. But also I want as much of it on view as can be managed—you understand?"
"I had already suspected as much, my lord. Hence the clamps, one for point and one for pommel, and the steel stripping to hold the crosspiece and the scabbard snug."
Voord looked quickly at Tagen, but guessed that wherever the armorer had gleaned his information it hadn't been from that source. Tagen was still looking too worried about the whole proceeding to have realized yet what was in Voord's mind. But the woman knew; she was glaring hatred at all three of them, blue eyes venomous as those of a basilisk. Voord smiled back at her, quite unaffected by her gaze. "Yes, my dear," he said. "Expressly to frustrate the pair of you… and especially him." He jerked his head toward Aldric, and his smile went thin and nasty as he patted the innocent blue-white crystal that was the taiken's pommel-stone. "This… Ah, this sword's the only thing that makes him what he is. We'll see how he fares when he can see it and speak to it, but can't get at it…"
Aldric's eyelids fluttered, squeezed tight shu
t and then ventured open. "I think I'm going to be sick," he announced in a fragile voice, and abandoned any attempt to sit upright.
He closed his eyes to blot out the sight of two of everything, wishing fervently that he hadn't opened them at all. It didn't seem to matter that he was lying flat on his back and looking nowhere except straight up; the entire world appeared to be making a slow spiral progress through his throbbing head, with exactly the same effect as watching the real world do the same thing from the deck of a heaving ship. It made him want to heave as well.
There was a sound like little bells jangling in his ears and mingling most unpleasantly with the thumping of his own heart, every beat of which sent another dull spike of pain jolting from the back of his neck to the backs of his eyes. There were a few minutes just after he moved when he thought that he might die; and then a few more when he fervently hoped he would.
"You were hit on the head," said a voice like Kyrin's, sounding very far away and almost drowned out by the noise of those damned bells. "I suspect that you have a concussion."
"I suspect nothing of the sort," said Aldric. Even his own voice sounded far away, and he had to pronounce each word carefully to make sure that it was the right one. "I know I have a concussion… and that I was hit on the head. It's happened before. Either that or the Playhouse fell on me."
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