In a few steps, Garan’s back was flush against the wall. He sidestepped. The sound of a pebble bouncing echoed behind him. He flattened himself against the wall and glanced sideways, but no one was there. Then another pebble fell and hit his shoulder. Garan looked up and realized it was a guard’s boot disturbing loose masonry. The guard walked on and Garan relaxed, taking another sideways step so that he could examine the fragile gate more closely. If he pummeled the door itself with his shoulder, the noise would alert the guards. The lock held the potential for silent access. However, in the growing darkness he realized that it hadn’t been opened in a while and had fused shut.
If only he could break it or cut through it somehow. Another pebble skittered off the wall with the guard’s passing. Garan reached into his pocket and felt for a crystal shard. He fingered it, rolling it over and over. Could he? He had nothing to focus the beam with and no way to cover the sound of his humming. Perhaps if he lodged it in the keyhole that would be sufficient, which left the sound to worry about. In the distance, voices disturbed the night. A group of workers, singing and making merry, exited what appeared to be a drinking shack. The rowdy bawling would be sufficient to cover his hum when they drew near.
The drunken men drew closer, their caterwauling almost deafening as Garan jammed the crystal in the rusty lock. He began his hum, timing its peak with when the revelers were alongside him and heading away. He didn’t need much power, not even enough to exhaust the crystal.
Everything was in place. The guard walked above him and paused. Sweat gathered on Garan’s brow as he hummed as quietly as he dared. Still the guard didn’t move on. Too late, Garan knew he had to continue with his plan. Hunching over the lock, he hoped to hide the quick flash of light. He heard the boot crunch above him as the guard walked on. The power erupted from the crystal and the lock hissed open. Garan waved away the smell of heated metal. The revelers dispersed, calling ribald farewells to one another as they went their separate ways, down the alleys between the makeshift abodes. They hadn’t noticed Garan. The guard stopped walking. Garan dared not move or breathe. Time stretched out.
Just when he thought he would collapse with the suspense, Garan heard the guard’s boot grinding grit again as he continued along the wall. As quietly as he could, Garan opened the gate wide enough to allow him to slip through. Once on the other side, he pulled it to, remaining in the shadow of the architrave.
Belle moon was in its last quarter, giving the lean-tos and ramshackle buildings on that side of the wall an oily cast. The smell of decay and sewage was strong. Rats scurried about, rummaging through piles of dark objects that Garan could only assume were food scraps or fallen planks. The howls of stray dogs and the hiss and spit of battling tomcats punctured the silence. Shadow shapes scurried around him, likely rodents seeking scraps.
Unpleasant memories arose unbidden, dark memories of forgotten childhood traumas. It was the smell, he thought, a trigger that unearthed a powerful wave of feeling. As a child he’d been alone, beaten and half-starved. He’d lived on a farm, he couldn’t remember where it was, but he did know he’d been a slave in that place. He’d been singled out for extra punishment because of his fair skin, violet-colored eyes and the shock of dark hair.
Drawing his cloak about him he shouldered his knapsack and, calling the map to mind, he oriented himself and went in search of Fillbe’s house. A sense of urgency made him jog. The prince’s manor was the largest building, centered, but near the far side of the town, with access to the river. He used that to get his bearings. It was several streets away, looming over the other houses.
He turned right. After finding the road he’d been searching for, he headed along it, counting the cross streets until he was at Fillbe’s street. Then he looked for a sign with a set of scales etched on it, above one of the doors. He knew Fillbe traded gems for a living, though worked for the observatory on the side.
When he found it, he saw that most of the windows in the house were dark. That was strange. Stray beams of light escaped from a couple of boarded-up windows across the way. Then Garan noticed that the door stood ajar. With a quick glance in both directions, he pushed lightly on the door and slipped inside. He could smell death as soon as he entered. Turning quickly, he bumped his head on a lantern. He lit it and leaned on the door to shut it. A man sat at a desk, his head flopped back, mouth frozen in a rictus grin. A plate of food sat in front of him and a dead rat lay stiff not far away. Poisoned. Like Thurdon.
He would have to get away from this house and rescue Laidan himself. Turning off the lantern, Garan waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness before he slid out the door. Panting with panic, he rushed into the street and collided with two guards. Before he could recover, he saw that they were holding their weapons at the ready—one wielded a club, the other held a farming implement with a sharp metal prong. Instinctively, he backed onto the stoop, throwing up his hands defensively.
“Who are you?” demanded one.
“What were you doing there?” spat the other.
“I … I …”
The guards advanced, bringing their weapons up in front of them. Garan didn’t know where to run or what to say. He toppled off the step, backing down the street away from the advancing guards.
“Don’t move or I’ll clobber ya,” the guard with the club said. Garan froze, and too late he heard the sound of a footfall behind him just before his head was struck.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Some Rescue
Laidan reclined unmoving on the settee. Judging by the absence of workmen talking and laboring outside, and the moist cool breeze wafting in through the open window, she could tell that night had fallen. The door opened and two pairs of footsteps entered the room.
A man spoke. She thought it sounded like Tuan. “Well, she looks tempting, my lord.”
“Perfect,” Lenk replied, the sound of his steps moving closer to her. “She looks ripe. What do you think?”
Fingers stroked her breasts through the cloth of her gown. “I don’t know how ripe, my lord. I shall inspect her for you.”
“Yes, tell me whether she was the old man’s whore. But I want her to see us. Hey, you, Laidan. Open your eyes.”
She obeyed his command and saw that Lenk’s face was haloed in a rainbow of color. Tuan was closer to her with his face in shadow. She blinked, trying to improve her vision, but the light still dazzled.
Tuan reached forward and ran his fingers along the top of her bodice. Then he tugged with both hands until her breasts peaked out over the top. He tweaked her nipples. Laidan knew she should be outraged, but her brain would not respond.
“Mmmm,” he said. “She’s still young. See, her breasts are not quite full. It is hard to tell; she could be fourteen or an immature sixteen.”
Laidan couldn’t move or physically pull away. Her only reaction to Tuan’s humiliating touch was painful heartbeats. Fear began to stir her blood, bringing Thurdon’s presence to the fore again. Tuan fumbled with the skirts of her gown, piling them up over her stomach. He examined her with probing fingers, nudging her legs apart with his shoulders. “She appears to be still a virgin, my lord.” Tuan managed to sound excited by the prospect. His hands lingered where they shouldn’t. Laidan wrestled with her own revulsion and humiliation. She was much more alert now, but Thurdon’s outrage threatened to overwhelm her and send her back into a stupor.
“She wasn’t his whore then,” she heard Lenk say very close by. “That pleases me. The old man must have been senile or dickless not to have used her before now.”
Thurdon’s presence spiked painfully at Lenk’s words.
Tuan chimed in. “Unless he was keeping her for sale.”
“Perhaps,” Lenk commented as he and Tuan moved away, leaving her there with her skirts up. She struggled to move her arm to pull them down again, but to no avail. It wouldn’t obey her commands.
“Care for some wine?” Lenk offered.
“I will, thank you, my lord.”
“I realize that, Tuan. But for a long time now I’ve desired her. I might keep her. Once she was a scrawny, pathetic creature, but I’ve watched her grow, watched how she responds to me. Often I daydreamed of how she would worship me. Such a rare prize would be a worthy accompaniment to my rule. Everyone else is so stale—used a hundred times. Yet she … is untouched, unblemished and a fair-skinned maiden.” He laughed and Tuan joined in.
“A rare thing indeed, my lord.”
“Then there is Thurdon’s power—a strong aphrodisiac. How could I part with such treasure?”
Their cups banged together with a dull clunk and they laughed again.
“And your visitor? Will he not desire her?” Tuan asked.
“I’ll have her power before he arrives—”
A knock on the door brought silence to the room. “You, see who it is.”
Someone, it must have been Lenk, swam into her vision and yanked down her skirts and righted her bodice roughly.
Tuan spoke. “It appears the guards have captured a man outside the house of Fillbe, the gem trader. He is dressed in the clothing of a Skywatcher. Good thing we dealt with the observatory’s spy when we did. Seems they aren’t content with the death of just one of their agents.”
Lenk stepped away from her. “Interesting. Tell them to bring him in. News has traveled up the mountain fast, faster than it comes down it, I’d say.”
The ruckus of a body being hauled into the room filled the air around her. She found that she could lift her head and her vision has marginally improved. The light had receded to the edges of her vision. Lenk’s swarthy complexion looked normal and the sharp features and slanting eyes of Tuan were distinct. The sight of a large man sagging between two guards, with a graze to his cheek and rips to his shirt, concerned her in a distant sort of way. His sturdy gray cape hung from his shoulders like a flag on a windless day. She knew she should care, but her feelings were dull. Thurdon was still too large in her mind.
“What news from the observatory?” Lenk barked.
There was no answer. Fractionally, she lifted her head again to see who it was. Even though the Skywatcher’s features were indistinct she could make out that the man’s mouth hung open and that his head lolled.
“Fools! You’ve addled his brain. How can I interrogate him when he is senseless?”
“Do you think they know?” Tuan asked.
“Know what? Shut up, you fool.”
Tuan bowed low and mumbled apologies. Lenk ignored him and bellowed at the guards, “You—out! Next time, make sure your captive can answer questions. I’ll decide who we torture here. Not you.”
The Skywatcher sprawled on the ground at Lenk’s feet when the guards released him. The new prince of Vanden booted the fallen man twice in the ribs and stalked away, picking up his mug of wine.
Tuan appeared to glance at the man and then at Laidan before he followed his master.
“Why would the Elders send one of their own here? They have not bothered with us before. As long as we send food and the children once a year then there is no cause.”
“Tuan, have you not been present these last few days? I have seized my brother’s throne. Half the guard have deserted and become bandits or counter-insurgents, and the power that was meant to be mine is locked inside a young virgin. Of course the observatory is interested! Where do you think Thurdon was going? Where he always went. Up there—up to Trithorn Peak.”
“Forgive me. I spoke without thinking.”
“Don’t do it again. You may be a good physic but that doesn’t make you indispensable. You are right about one thing, though. We should be cautious. The Skywatcher may not be what he seems.”
*
The Skywatcher was dragged out of the room when Lenk ordered that he be placed in a cell. Laidan must have dozed after that because the slave, who she had learned was called Mart, came to toilet her and Lenk and Tuan were gone. Laidan was pushed back against the cushions and left on the settee until morning sunlight spilled in the open window and the smell of food roused her to wakefulness. Someone was sitting next to her. She inhaled, smelling the scent of freshly washed skin and spice, and tensed.
“How do you feel today, my lady?” Lenk asked. He traced his finger down her cheek and across her chin. “Forgive my brutish behavior yesterday. I was overwrought. I lost my brother, which saddens me. There is mayhem here. Some rebel plotters killed him and your poor master was caught up in that. Once my rule is secure I can protect you.”
He turned her face to his and leaned forward to brush a kiss on her lips. “Will you take some food?” he asked.
Laidan didn’t answer, couldn’t. Yet when he sat her up and put the savory cactus porridge to her lips she ate it. Then he placed a goblet of watered wine to her mouth and tenderly helped her sip it a bit at a time. He was very patient with her. The last sip of wine was followed by another kiss, more sensuous than the first. She found the effect on her quite perplexing. It stirred her and outraged Thurdon.
“I’m sorry if I have offended you,” Lenk said when she began to moan in response to Thurdon’s raging. “Let me help you to sit by the window. Already the light in your eyes has lessened. Perhaps later you can tell me what happened to you.”
In silence she let him tend her, let his words of solicitude flow over her. He could have done what he liked with her but he didn’t. His restraint confused her. Yesterday she’d thought he meant her ill but it was all so confusing. Words, faces, visions all combined and now she didn’t know what to think.
*
Crisp daylight woke Garan to the groggy realization that he was bound hand and foot. His tongue rubbed against the dry rag in his mouth and the dull thumping headache reminded him of the events of the previous evening. He was in a makeshift cell, possibly in the prince’s manor house, if his jumbled recollections of the previous night held any truth.
Voices approached the cell door, then a key turned in the lock. Two guards strode in and one kicked Garan in the ribs. “Awake are you, scum?” Winded, Garan curled up into a ball.
They hauled him to his feet. “Time to meet Prince Lenk.”
Suspended between them they half-carried, half-dragged him up the stairs.
The first guard spoke. “We’re to drop ’im in the prince’s closet. He don’t want ’im in the sitting room, ’cause he’s busy in there.”
The other guard snickered. “I bet he is. Lucky bastard. Do you think he’ll share ’er with us?”
“Dust mad, you are. ’Course he won’t share ’er—not with the likes of you.”
“Maybe ya could bribe Mart to let ya have a quick go. She’s got a soft spot for ya. You’d share, wouldn’t ya?”
“Shuddup.”
Garan was wondering who they were speaking of when they elbowed their way into a large, sunlit room. An unmade canopied bed dominated one wall and a large window another. Next, he was tossed in among piles of clothes in a spacious wardrobe.
“Should we knock ’im out so he don’t escape?”
“You’re fuckin’ mad. Didn’t ya hear what happened to Jep and Tobe last night? Lucky to have their balls this morning after brainin’ this fella. If the prince didn’t need every man, he would have gutted them, I’m sure. No. Orders were to bring ’im here so that’s what we do. We’ll tell the prince and return to duty.”
Garan writhed on the floor after they left, making no inroads on loosening his bonds.
After a while, the outer door opened and he heard two male voices growing louder as they approached.
“This is useless, Tuan. She has said nothing. I don’t have time to wait for her to gain her senses.” A man of medium height, dark complexion and wearing a finely tailored short jacket strode into view. Lenk! Another man spoke as he too stepped into Garan’s line of vision—a s
maller man with dark hair and slanting eyes, typical of Lim heritage. He wore a knee-length green robe trimmed with black braid. It wasn’t unusual to see a Lim in these parts. Many Lim came up from the sub-continent to mix with Stoli people. These days people were a mix of everything, although given Garan’s coloring, he knew he was mostly Stoli stock.
“Time is short, my lord,” the man called Tuan said, “but much can be gained through gentle patience.”
Lenk threw up his hands. “I do not have time for patience … and being nice is driving me to distraction. Gentle? I want to rip her clothes off, violate her, make her beg—not pander to her.” He stroked his crotch and then grasped his bulge. “I want Thurdon’s power … Now!” He walked out of Garan’s line of sight, toward the window. “The bandits will attack, make no mistake about that. My rule could falter all because you stuffed up the dosage in those berries and killed my one means of gaining supremacy. Now instead of Thurdon’s power I have a silly little chit who lies there bedazzled without saying a word. She responds to requests to move and eat and that is all.”
Tuan spoke, his voice humble. “Yes, the fault is mine, but how was I to know the old man would eat so many and die? Poison is a blunt instrument. You wanted him weak, malleable … and there was no guarantee that if he lived you would have gotten what you wanted.”
Lenk walked back into Garan’s view. He smiled and patted Tuan on the shoulder. “There is some truth in what you say …”
Tuan had smiled at Lenk’s touch. He put his hand over his master’s. “Are you sure you want to be alone, my lord?” Lenk paused and looked at the other man, his eyelids lowered. Tuan undid the neck of his own tunic and pulled it over his shoulders, exposing a hairless and smooth brown chest. He smiled in a way that turned Garan’s stomach. “I can perhaps ease your tension.”
Lenk’s left eyebrow shot up. He seemed to consider him. “Well, if you are offering …”
Shatterwing: Dragon Wine 1 Page 19