House War 03 - House Name

by Michelle West

  If she moved silently, she’d survive.

  She did both, now.

  The crawl space was not tall enough for Devon to stand in; Jewel could have, but she chose to stay close to the ground. She inched forward, following the tunnel’s path; Devon was behind her, and he was a comfortable shadow in this place that cast none; he moved when she moved and stopped when she stopped; she didn’t even need to tug at the rope to give him direction. He touched her calf to navigate, and she was tense enough in this darkness that it didn’t make things worse; it was, for once, a simple touch. A way of speaking without words or sight.

  She listened for him.

  She listened for other things: movement, voices.

  But she had not expected to be stopped by something she could see. And when she stopped, her stillness was so complete and so sudden that Devon bumped into her.

  She could see the darkness. And she felt, as she rested on her hands and her knees, that if she were not careful, if she were not utterly silent, the darkness would see her. It moved. It was—she knew this—watching, alive. It had a voice, and if there was one mercy in these tunnels at this moment it was this: She couldn’t hear it. But she could feel it, and that was enough.

  She reached out, reached back, connected with the curve of Devon’s shoulder, and held tight. It was meant to be a warning, but it came out wrong; her hand was shaking. He didn’t speak, didn’t move.

  Unseen voices broke the silence, if not the stillness.

  “I said all life.”

  “It is done, Lord.”

  “You are certain?”

  “As certain as I can be.”

  “Good. Your existence depends on it. Now, stand out of my way.”

  “Lord.”

  No movement of bodies indicated who had spoken. But she didn’t need those now. She saw the darkness unfold, black against black, illuminated by movement, as if that were the whole of the illumination it knew. She saw it reach out, one flat sweep in all directions, and for a moment, she saw the jagged entrance that led to—and from—the undercity.

  Her breath came sharp, short, as if she were in pain; she felt Devon’s hand tense, and then she felt the cool absence of his hand on her calf. That hand now traveled in the darkness, touching her shoulder, the side of her neck, reading the lines of her face, her slightly open mouth. She said and did nothing; she didn’t even flinch. All of his touch was a silent question, and here silence was survival.

  But it helped that he touched lightly, and his fingers never closed, never pressed; that the answers he sought were not, in the end, the response to demands.

  The world enfolded in darkness shifted, as if it were being devoured. No, as if infinitely thin layers of it were being peeled off, one at a time, like onion skin and heart. She saw the jagged hole shift, the edges sharpening, and then she saw them change, and she understood on some level that what was being peeled away was time, the effects of time: A door stood where the hole had been, and it was not a small door, not a thin, cheap one; it was runed and engraved, and it sat astride a rectangular stone frame.

  And then, even that was gone, and the stone itself lost its definition, lost its structure, vanished as if it were slowly being eaten away.

  She had been so disappointed with Meralonne APhaniel and his use of magic; only once had he shown both power and majesty, and on that day? She’d been watching The Terafin and the parody of Rath.

  But today she wanted to see small fires and pipe smoke and hear his indolent and arrogant tones of bored frustration. She wanted to see no more magic, no more power, no more of the ancient and the mysterious. Ever.

  She knew what had happened to the entrances to the undercity: They had been unmade, unraveled, the slow march of time absorbed and destroyed.

  She knew when it had ended and knew, in that instant, that she was too damn close; they were too damn close. Rocking back on her knees, her hands suddenly seeking purchase in stone, she felt Devon’s hand in the small of her back, and she rested there a moment, as if she could somehow absorb his calm, his detachment.

  She turned, and he turned as well, both of them still close to ground.

  “Jewel,” he whispered. Her name, in the stillness. She wanted to tell him to shut up. She lifted her hands in the flat imperative of den-sign. But he couldn’t see it, and she couldn’t force the words past her lips. She held onto them as if her life depended on it.

  He pushed her forward, past him; he took the rear, as he had on the crawl toward the entrance. She moved past him, aware of the way her clothing scraped against the ground. She held her breath until her lungs gave out and then forced herself to breathe as evenly as she possibly could; it was what Devon was doing.

  But it was hard to move quickly.

  They’re not coming yet. They’re not coming yet.

  But they would be, and soon. No time, no time. They would walk as slowly as they had when they arrived, and she could almost hear the first of those careless steps; they would carry no light, but they needed none.

  When she crawled in the dark, stones cut her knees, and her palms were scored; she bit her lip more than once to stop from crying out or cursing. She knew she was moving too slowly. And she knew that in this darkness, there was no other way to move; standing or attempting to run would only leave her on the ground again, but with far less control.

  She prayed. It was almost wordless, it was so incoherent. But the fear had to go somewhere, and prayer was silent. She felt Devon’s hand in the darkness, not as a threat or an encroachment but as an anchor. His breathing never changed, and the silence of his movements told her that even on his hands and knees, he was graceful. She wanted that grace.

  But want it or no, she moved, biting her lip, ignoring the small sting of stone in her palms and her knees; she bruised her elbow at least once when the tunnel walls crimped.

  Kalliaris smiled for a second time that day; they reached the entrance into the basement. The footsteps had grown slightly louder, but they were not yet close; she still had time.

  Her knees had practically locked into their cramped position; she felt her muscles tense and stretch as she rose. They were shaking; she was shaking. She ignored it and reached above her head until her palms hit the warped, old surface of unfinished planking. Drawing breath, she tensed and pushed.

  The planks creaked. In the still darkness, the sound echoed like the cry of gulls in the early morning. It was too much. They were heavy, and she couldn’t move them without making noise; she’d drop them, or she’d failed to push them aside in time—

  Devon’s hand closed on her shoulder. She almost screamed, but his hand’s weight was now familiar. He pushed her, firmly, to one side, and this time, when the planks creaked again, they scraped stone; she heard them move. It was not the only movement she heard.

  Devon’s hand touched her knee, and then her foot; she nodded, although he couldn’t see it, and instead of speaking, she tugged the rope twice, lifting one foot. Felt his hands lock beneath that foot. He gave her the boost she needed to get her arms over the jagged but damp wood, and she scrabbled out of the hole.

  Devon followed far more quickly. She heard the movement of cloth, felt the slight tug of rope, and then saw, briefly, the dim glow of magelight. It was harsh, now, and it was brief. She stared at it, blinking, both fearing it and wanting it. Light. Vision.

  Devon grabbed her hand. She saw the magelight beneath his fingers; it turned his flesh orange. He didn’t speak a word. Instead, he began to run, and she had no choice but to follow. Maybe that was the idea. She didn’t know. Didn’t care.

  From the moment she had seen the perfect arch simply vanish into dirt, her entire body had wanted nothing more than to do as she was doing now: run. It wasn’t a fast run; in these tunnels, in the very scant light that Devon’s barely revealed stone let out, it couldn’t be. But it was movement, and compared to the long and agonizingly slow crawl, it was speed itself.

  He no longer let her lead; it was no longer neces
sary. He knew where he was going. He retraced their halting steps without any marked hesitation and came to the T-junction in the tunnel.

  Her hair rose along her arms and the back of her neck as it sometimes did when the storms in the harbor were fierce. She turned to look over her shoulder and stumbled; Devon didn’t let go of her hand, and a stumble was all he allowed her. He didn’t let her fall.

  But she cried out, tried to cry out, in warning. She could see over her shoulder, spreading across the tunnel at their back, far faster than their feet had traveled, even at a run, a lattice of livid, red light. No words escaped—just sound.

  He heard her. He didn’t pause, didn’t ask her what she’d seen. Tightening his grip on her hand, he yanked her around the corner of the junction.

  At their back, the light they’d all but denied themselves erupted across the stone, and with it, red and white and orange heat. Fire. It lingered, bouncing off walls, and if the intent had been something as quick as a painful, burning death, its effect was momentary illumination.

  Jewel could see the trapdoor that led to the interior yards of the Merchant Authority. She could see a hint of a light that wasn’t death, and she wanted to weep because it seemed so damn far away.

  They ran. The fire that still lit the junction at their back burned in a silence that was so cold it almost denied heat. But the cold didn’t last, couldn’t last; it was broken by fire, and this fire, unlike the last, didn’t end at wall; it lapped at feet, at legs, it singed hair. The air grew hot and breath burned.

  She heard Devon curse. For the first time since she’d met him, his breath was as labored as hers, but his hands, when they pushed her roughly to one side of the rocky wall, were steady.

  She pushed up at the trapdoor; her curses were louder than his, wasting air. Her hands felt thick and heavy, but they did what she needed them to do: They shoved the trap up, and she heard it skitter against the floor.

  She rose when Devon lifted her; he wasn’t gentle. It didn’t matter. She hit the ground with elbow and knee, and rising, she threw herself the rest of the way clear, leaving space for Devon.

  Devon. Turning as if, for a moment, he was one of her own, she saw his fingers at the edge of the trapdoor, and she saw him rise, vaulting into the air, feet over head. He hadn’t learned that at the Trade Commission.

  His fingers were still gripping the edge of the opening when fire gouted up from below, and she saw it envelop both air and his hands. Devon grunted. Just that. But his hands were blistered, the skin dark and raw, as he forced them to let go. He rolled back, controlling his fall; he landed on his feet in a defensive crouch, his hands up and in front of his curved body. She reached out and caught his shoulder to steady him, and he stiffened.

  He did not, however, hit her. Releasing his shoulder, she grabbed not his hand but his elbow, and she dragged him—inasmuch as she could, given their disparate weight and height—to his feet; he followed the motion, adding momentum to it.

  They ran, deserting the docks. It was coming on early evening; she saw that clearly from the slanting light. The Merchant Authority would not—yet—be closed for the day, although it would be much less crowded.

  The crowds might have been a blessing; it was hard to tell. How many people would their pursuers be willing to kill? How many people had they already destroyed?

  She made it down the long and narrow halls that led to the main trading floor, and only when she was in sight of the heart of Averalaan’s commerce did she pause. She was practical, had always been practical, and she now drew her dagger, releasing Devon’s elbow. He didn’t seem to see it, which was bad.

  But she wasn’t going to stab him, after all; maybe he only noticed the details that had some chance of killing him. She bent, grabbed a fold of the voluminous and much disliked skirt, and ran her knife along its lower seamed ruffle; she came up with a yard of torn and jagged cloth.

  She wound it around his hands, working quickly.

  They were bleeding.

  Blood, she thought, would leave far more of a trail than witnesses. She repeated this process, shortening the skirt, until both of his hands were bound. They wouldn’t be useful, but they didn’t have to be; there was nothing to fight. If they were discovered, if they were caught, they’d be dead.

  He nodded at her once, his face slightly gray, his lips so pale they seemed almost white. Then she darted forward, into the sparse crowd, and he followed. She didn’t take care not to be seen, not here; there was no point. She didn’t know what Devon was doing, but she knew he didn’t shout and didn’t correct her; that was good enough.

  They reached the outer stairs, the wide, flat marbled surface now reflecting some hint of pink and the pale purple that blue goes when the sun sets. She turned to look over her shoulder, and he shook his head. “Go.”

  And really, what else did he have to say? She started to run; she’d wanted to run since the moment she’d set foot in the tunnels. The Common was made unfamiliar by the urgency. She had no desire, now, to visit the old friends in those areas she knew well; she had no desire to lead their pursuers to them.

  Devon was in pain, but he had fought through pain before; he ran, slightly slowed, in Jewel’s wake. He had seen none of what she had seen, but the fire had been unmistakable; magic, there. Magery. It was not slight.

  What disturbed him now, besides the burns that had made his hands so instantly raw, was the fact that that magery was confined in the hands of men who had no need at all for even the simplest of light. They had walked those tunnels in utter darkness, and they had not—from the sounds of their strides—scrupled to walk them with care; they had never misstepped, never taken a wrong turn, and if they touched walls for guidance, it had not slowed them at all.

  He wondered whether she was aware of it. Aware or not—and he thought she might not be, not yet—she had done well here. Better than many and better, if he was honest, than he would have said she would, had anyone asked. He flexed his fingers, grimaced, and let them be; she had bound his hands, and that was smart. Even pursued, she had taken only enough time to reach something resembling safety, and she had done just enough to lessen immediate danger.

  Nor had she run and left him behind.

  Amarais Handernesse ATerafin had always been an impressive woman; she balanced the wisdom of experience with the impulse of instinct. What she had seen in Jewel Markess, Devon now understood, and he let that thought guide him as he followed her through the city streets to the footbridge that led to the Isle.

  She did not, however, slow until the Terafin manse was in sight, although he told her, as often as she looked, that there was no pursuit.

  Their only argument was in the foyer of the Terafin manse itself. Jewel’s hands, dusty and lined with dirt, now folded themselves onto her almost nonexistent hips for emphasis. “Where do you think you’re going?” she said, her tone so sharp he raised a brow.

  “We must report to The Terafin. At once.”

  “We must report,” she replied, mimicking his quiet force, “to the healerie. At once.” She glared at his hands. Blood had seeped through her bindings, but not enough to fall upon either stone or earth.

  “I will see Alowan, in all haste, the minute we’ve made our report.”

  “I’ve made reports to The Terafin. You are not standing in her rooms for three hours while your hands are like that. And Alowan doesn’t have appointments running from here until the end of the world.”

  He was torn between the desire to snap at her and the desire to laugh. Neither was particularly useful, and he discarded both with an obvious grimace. “You are not my lord,” he told her, quietly. “And if The Terafin feels that the report can wait, I will attend Alowan. Will that suffice?”

  She glared. She was, Devon thought, with enough amusement that it dulled the pain, quite good at it. She accepted defeat with poor grace, but she did accept it.

  The debriefing did not go well. It started out with the tense and formal stiffness that Jewel disliked. She
hadn’t been allowed time to return to her wing—or, more important, to Ellerson—and was aware of how dirty and underdressed she was. The Terafin, of course, looked perfect, if perfection had that slightly grim and pale cast to it, and Morretz hovered in silence like a shadow that couldn’t quite stay attached as much as it would like. Devon was not in any shape to meander his way through an explanation, and he’d come directly to the point: The tunnels of the undercity did exist, but they were being unmade.

  He had not, unfortunately, been able to see what had unmade them and therefore couldn’t actually answer the questions his statement provoked; he’d left that to Jewel. She didn’t appreciate the privilege, but she was tired enough at that point to stumble her way through an answer. The fear that had driven her flight from the holdings to the Isle had deserted her, but with it had gone the nervous tension that had kept her awake and aware.

  She wanted to go home.

  Instead, she stood and answered the questions. She tried to describe what she’d seen in the darkness. No one asked her how, mind. They accepted what she offered at face value. She was too tired to be nervous or worried about this fact. Rath would have been angry.

  But Rath, damn him, wasn’t here. He hadn’t listened.

  She tried to pull back from that thought, because she knew where it went: to her father. To the day she had finally become an orphan in the streets of the city.

  Meralonne’s unexpected appearance, and his quiet assertion that what she had seen was impossible, helped. For a value of help that was not entirely easy to appreciate. Instead of pulling out his pipe and smoking it in a way that irritated everyone present, he’d pulled out a chair in front of one of the smaller tables, and he had had Jewel describe exactly what she’d seen.

  Then he’d recreated it, in miniature, across the table’s surface. How, she wasn’t certain, and she wasn’t in any position to ask—but had she not been so tired, she would have been fascinated. As it was, the magical display—an illusion of some sort—had done what her words alone couldn’t; they had made clear what she’d seen.