by Dora Machado
She was happy to step away from the wind and into the protection of the spacious cave the Hounds had found to make camp this night. Exposure was likely to kill anybody who braved the weather tonight. A quick foray beyond the mouth of the cave confirmed that the beam continued to lead them in the same direction it had glowed the night before. Part of her was glad for the consistency. The other part was terrified.
She made her way down the dark passage. For an instant, a ripple of movement tripped her balance. Pebbles and dirt trickled from the ceiling. She hunkered against the wall, just in case, but it was only a mild earth tremor, nothing like yesterday's bone-rattling quake. Regardless, the ground was too restless since they left the Bastions. Sariah prayed it had nothing to do with the rot.
A plan was beginning to take shape in her mind, dangerous by all accounts, but viable. She wished, not for the first time, that Kael was with her. She missed his mind's brilliant strategic eye as much as she missed his body's warmth next to her every night. He wouldn't be such a fool as to undertake a journey on a night like this. Would he?
The campfire's orange glow burned in the cave's safe depths. Sariah smiled to the sentinel and halted just beyond the light's reach. Her Hounds loitered around the fire. Some of the warriors were sharpening their claws, some were sleeping, some were sipping hot cups of the thick brew they favored, listening to Torkel, who sang verses from the Wisdom in a mesmerizing raspy bass.
Horatio, Delis and the keeper were engaged in quiet conversation apart from the others.
“I don't understand,” Horatio Maliver was saying. “At least she gave me something once. But you two, you follow her like tame pups after a full teat. You're not so deluded you think she may let you suckle, are you?”
“What I am to her, she is to me,” the keeper said. “Quiet strength and subtle beauty is always simple and done.”
“The Wisdom.” Horatio Maliver sneered. “And what do you get for your troubles? Not what your blood-licking fellows get for theirs, that's for sure.”
“She who comes from the night must learn to enjoy the sun's glare.”
“And you're a very understanding chap.” Horatio laughed.
Had the keeper ever had any expectations from her? Had he waited patiently for her to realize those expectations?
Horatio Maliver shifted targets. “And you, rot spawn, why would you choose her as your donnis?”
Delis didn't answer.
“I've watched you. You have a weakness for a sound pair of teats and a round arse.”
“The heart's reasons are for the goddess's ears alone,” Jol said.
“Is she really your pet?” Horatio asked. “Or are you her fetching mongrel instead?”
“What would a mangy dog like you know of the donnis honor?” Delis spat. “You're not even worthy of a rotting leper.”
“I wouldn't speak too loudly, if I were you. You stink worse than a leper to Sariah's very fine nose.”
“Wise is he who refrains from judging the unknown. Understanding will favor him.”
“Poor blood-licking keeper.” Horatio pouted mockingly. “What is it that you keep? A vigil? A pathetic, slobbering wait for what? A taste of her blood?”
The color rose in the keeper's cheeks. Delis's hands fisted by her sides. What sick pleasure did Horatio Maliver derive from taunting her friends?
“Can't you see?” Horatio said. “She despises your blood-licking ways. She abhors your executioner's blood. She has already chosen her beast. He's no better than you, but she doesn't care. She flaunts her indulgence before you like the carter waves the carrot in the asses’ noses. She's like a splinter: The more you scratch the itch, the deeper she sinks into your soul.”
Sariah was furious with Horatio Maliver, for mocking her friends, for stirring matters that were best left alone. Too late. She saw the provocation in Delis's blue and violet eyes, the hurt in the keeper's frown. Horatio had stabbed them in the gut and left the wounds open to fester. Furious, she twisted the bracelet around her wrist. The sight of the coupled rings adorning Loyalty's link enraged her even more.
Sariah couldn't explain the need that fueled her actions. Was it outrage against Horatio Maliver or a loyal defense of her friends? Was it an act of revenge or an act of justice? Was it a sudden settlement between her oaths and her obligations or a spontaneous release of her own dark cravings?
In three steps, she knelt between Delis and the keeper and laid a hand on each of their shoulders. She closed her eyes and summoned all the gratefulness that dwelt in her being, the devotion she felt for those who had extended to her even the strangest forms of friendship, the passion she had for their lives.
It came out in the form of affection, the emotion she was most used to conveying. And even as it poured from her palms, it flared with new and unique furor. There was something self-indulgent about the act, a tenuous flirt with sedition to the oaths she had made to Kael, to the stones. But this moment was due. It was fair and necessary to cure the wounds Horatio Maliver had inflicted, to enable her friends to heal themselves, to free herself from every instance of neglect and regret. It felt right.
Delis and the keeper gasped in unison. Their bodies tensed and trembled beneath her hands. Affection. Passion. Elation. She allowed the bulk of her emotions to pour out, until the keeper's eyes bulged and Delis's throat issued a whimpering moan. In the end, Delis's unfocused eyes and the keeper's white-lipped release proved Horatio Maliver's taunting right and wrong. It didn't, however, prove her friends’ loyalty lacking or her own trust misplaced.
The explosion cracked in the air like the strike of a whip.
“What was that?” Sariah asked.
“Over here.” The keeper was already sprinting towards the source, veering off the trail and into the wintering forest. Steam was issuing from a tiny fracture on the ground next to an old oak tree. A bit of bluish liquid bubbled from the ground, a smallish fountain that froze on contact with the frigid air.
“I've never seen anything like it,” Delis said.
Horatio Maliver shook his head. “Maybe lightning struck here?”
Sariah put a fistful of frozen dirt to her nose. She didn't recognize the scent. It was irritating and sulfurous, like the rot, but it was also saltier, like brine. The little fountain sputtered, fizzled, and died.
“I guess that's all there is to see here.” Delis followed the keeper back to Torkel and the Hounds guarding the trail.
Sariah was about to do the same when the ground swelled under her feet. Within seconds, she had risen four or five spans on a thin bubble of frozen earth. A gurgle resonated from within the ground. A jet of blue gas shot from the expanding hole in the bubble's middle.
The oak groaned and tilted to one side. Half its branches snapped in the air. Sariah grabbed on to a root. It broke. She dropped into the swelling's deep crease. For a moment, she lost sight of the sky, buried in the shifting crust. Smothered, she recalled the snail's spastic gut, the box's oppressing darkness. She tried to scream but inhaled a mouthful of frigid dirt instead.
The earth rose beneath her back, shooting her upwards. The sky. She struggled to reach the surface. A face. She groped for a handhold. Horatio Maliver? A stern pull of her hair. Pain. The stink of ozone. Light again.
“Hold on!”
They tumbled down the side of the swell and hit the icy ground hard. Clinging to each other, they scurried away from the thing. It had grown as tall as a tower and as wide as a pond, and it gargled loudly like a full-throated pelican.
Horatio groaned. She realized she had landed on top of him, entrenched between his arms. His heart was beating wildly against her own.
Delis came running from the trail. “My donnis, are you all right?”
“I think so,” Sariah rasped.
Sariah pushed herself to her feet and shook the dirt from her mantle. Horatio was slower getting up. She offered a hand.
“For a skinny thing, you've got some weight to your bones.” He took her hand and gave her a sob
er gray stare. “I thought you were gone, wiser.”
“Me too.” She helped him up.
Horatio stared at the pulsing boil. “What by the rot is it?”
Sariah was looking at him. “By the rot, I have no idea.”
Sariah had to give the Hounds credit for bringing her from the Bastions to her destination in twenty-seven nights. It was a great distance to cover, particularly when avoiding the main roads and dodging Arron's Shield. The keeper was a quiet, efficient leader. Every member of the outfit was fit, smart and brave, especially the keeper's pride, his brother Torkel, who fueled his fellow Hounds’ courage with songs of the Wisdom and single-minded intensity.
From afar, the place looked like a slumbering giant sprawled on a trash heap. The sparkle of the wall's black and white granite competed with the new snow's shimmer. The dirty town huddling around the walls contrasted with the keep's pristine beauty. But beauty and order were not equal to truth and devotion. Sariah had never wanted to see this place again. Yet here she was, staring at her past and future through a gentle screen of falling snow.
The beam landed squarely between those dreaded walls.
It was time to put her plan into action. The light was beginning to wane. The weather was worsening, promising a fitting night for her errand.
“Any brilliant ideas on how to get in there?” Sariah asked.
“Nary a one,” Horatio said. “But I can't wait to hear yours.”
Her voice's own softness surprised her. “Do you think Grimly has your son? Is that why you agreed to trail me?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Who did you try to bribe to find me? The forester? Alabara? I know Josfan followed me all along, but you're the better tracker.”
Even as Delis and the Hounds surrounded Horatio Maliver, he kept to his gamble. His gray eyes revealed nothing.
“Don't you trust me, Sariah? Don't you remember that you were my prisoner once and I treated you well? That we played snakes and scorpions every day? That our one night together, I did well by you?”
“You did well for yourself, Horatio. There's a big difference.”
“I saved your life the other day.”
“And I had to wonder why.”
“Do you really think I could betray you?”
He seemed so eager, so earnest that Sariah hesitated. It wasn't often she wanted to believe that however flawed, people could change; that friendship could offer a welcomed reprieve. It only happened on days like today, when her little belly weighted down her spine and her feet buckled from her lonely path; when fear lodged in her throat and danger, real and immediate, iced her every breath.
“Horatio,” Sariah said. “You found me only to betray me.”
Delis struck. With her executioner's efficiency, Horatio Maliver was out of his senses in an instant. Sariah had brought him as far as she could. She had given him every opportunity for redemption. He could have chosen to do right, to tell the truth. Meliahs knew, the journey had been long enough and he had had plenty of chances. Instead, he had chosen to undermine her before her friends and to continue with his deception. Even when he acted rightly, he did it for the wrong reasons. Sariah was sure he had saved her life because he had already sold it to Grimly.
He had been a calculated risk all along, but now she couldn't afford the danger of having him with her anymore. The Hounds retrieved their newest defector from the ground and secured him with knotted ropes. For the time being, Horatio Maliver would remain under guard at this very spot, screening Sariah's movements with his stillness. Soon thereafter, he would be on his way to spend the rest of his life serving the Hounds and learning the Wisdom's intricacies. Sariah couldn't help a sense of disappointed sadness. It was a better fate than the alternative. Or was it?
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Sariah asked.
“For a drop of your blood,” the keeper said.
“For a lick of your life,” Torkel added.
Meliahs wouldn't be so kind as to grant her a break today. “How about you?”
“I go where you go, my donnis.”
“It's nowhere nice, I can assure you,” Sariah said.
“A trophy garden of noses and ears.”
Were they really going to do this?
She handed out the small pouches she had carefully prepared. “Do you all remember what to do?”
Everyone nodded.
“Timing is very important.”
What did you say to men and women you were sending to die?
“May you die well,” the keeper said.
Thirty-two
SARIAH FOUND THE well shack almost solely by its scent, a squat, dilapidated hut made of mud and rotting wood, leaning crookedly against the keep's wall. It was no bigger than a Domainer deck. She had made a calculated guess about its location outside the wall. She could have saved herself the trouble. Her nose alone would have guided her true.
The night was late. The business had been closed for hours. Sariah wasn't surprised when she spotted the watchmen. The Hounds neutralized them easily. Bound and senseless, they wouldn't be found until the next day at the earliest. Of course, the lowly watchmen didn't warrant a key for the well house, so the Hounds went to work on the padlock.
“This is a well house?” Delis whispered while the Hounds wrestled with the lock. “I wouldn't drink a drop in this town if it came from here.”
“Dead water would be the safer choice.” Sariah followed the keeper into the well shack and secured the door behind them. In the darkness, Torkel and his Hounds bent over the next set of bolts locking the well's wooden enclosure. Sariah uncovered her banishment bracelet and held her arm over the locks to give them light. It took the Hounds but a moment to pry open the trap door. A reeking cloud of methane burst from the well.
Delis pinched her nose. “It stinks worse than the rot.”
“That's why I insisted we all bring Domainer weaves.” Sariah stripped her mantle and set it aside. She was already wearing the weave beneath. She took a moment to fasten the scarf over her face. The others followed suit.
They climbed down the iron steps anchored into the well's walls. The descent was not difficult, but the rising fumes were unbearable. Sariah had to master the revulsion that threatened to undo her. She tapped on the stones tentatively, scattering the millions of cockroaches crawling on the wall. Her suspicions were confirmed. The keep's powerful wall wising didn't extend this far out. It made sense. The Guild's arrogance at work. No Guild wiser in their right mind would conceive tampering with, let alone voluntarily come close to, the stinking well.
She arrived at the last step on the ladder. She put in her foot, her ankle, her knee. Curse her luck. It was pretty full. She found bottom when the muck reached her waist. Talk about nasty wading. She started up the gradual incline of the dark and narrow channel which fed the well. At times, she had to turn on her side to fit. The others followed in single line.
“My donnis,” Delis whispered. “Is this what I think it is? A shit hole?”
“The biggest around.”
“Why would the Guild want to collect their shit in this hole?”
“The dung trade. It's quite profitable.”
“The Guild sells their muck to these impoverished townspeople?” the keeper asked.
“By the pound of slush.”
“But, my donnis, don't these people shit on their own?”
Sariah had to chuckle.
“For the crops, isn't it?” the keeper said.
“Aye, to produce the Guild's required yields, the land around here needs the help.”
“You'd think the people should be weary of taking the Guild's crap,” Delis grumbled. “And now you tell me they pay for the Guild's shit too? They deserve the stink.”
“Shit is coin and the Guild likes coin.”
“What is coin but contempt's truest measure?” Torkel murmured from down the line.
“How come you know so much about this, my donnis?”
&n
bsp; “Pledge duty. Privy pipes.”
Sariah had a memory of herself as a child, dangling from a rope strung through the privy seat, scouring the foul walls after a brutal bout with Mistress Ilian.
“Don't even think about stepping away from the rope,” Ilian had said. “The gutter is deadly, that is, if the rats and the roaches don't eat you first.”
She had never forgotten Ilian's sneer as she lowered a terrified Sariah into the stinking pit. She had used those memories to come up with this plan. She hoped she remembered everything.
“I'm glad I'm an executioner,” Delis was saying. “The only time I get to clean shit is when my charge's death spurt drips on my boots.”
The Hounds chuckled. They really appreciated Delis's warped sense of humor. They sobered up quickly. Up ahead, the red glow of Sariah's bracelet illuminated a thick set of bars built into a narrow arch, dividing a rounded chamber from the channel where they stood. It was as she remembered. It wasn't customary, and it wasn't necessary to do the job, but Ilian, the cruel witch, had dropped her all the way down there to frighten her beyond terror. The stinking muck pool trickled fluidly between the bars.
“Now the real work begins,” Sariah said.
“We'll need to pry those bars from the wall,” Delis said.
“This arch sits beneath the powerfully wised keep's walls. Touch the stone that anchors these bars and you'll die.”
“Will you use your bursting stones, my donnis?”
“Rattle the bars and you'll die as well. An explosion in this place will kill us all.”
Torkel fumbled through his pack. “We'll use the goddess's breath.”
“Fire isn't the best of ideas down here,” Sariah said. “The gas here is as combustible as the belch, as prone to explosion as a rot pit. Give the Guild some credit, Torkel. They weren't risking the keep in the least when they conceded to this narrow gutter.”
With his enthusiasm brutally curbed, Torkel had the grace to look chastened and offended at the same time.