by Tom Deitz
“A mask conceals a face,” Zeff replied, “and a face conceals a skull. And sometimes one cannot tell mask from face. Perhaps something lies behind the faces you know, which my clan has chosen not to reveal.”
“They've revealed it now!” Crim snorted recklessly. “Whatever mask you've worn—by your clan's leave or in defiance of it—has now been torn asunder! Whatever happens, there'll be no going back.”
“Not to the world that was, perhaps. But why go back at all?
Why not move ahead to a world that might be? One in which—” “You control the strings?” Crim finished for him. “Enough!” Zeff snapped. “You asked what I want, and I'll tell you. I want to know where you've hidden the other gems.”
“What other gems?”
“The gems you surely have found over the years and kept secret from us all—until that fool of a boy brought them to light.”
“You invent what isn't true,” Crim replied, utterly dumbfounded. “Do you think I would support him if he'd acted in defiance of the good of my clan—which betraying our secrets would certainly be?”
“It doesn't really matter, does it?” Zeff chuckled. “Because what I want more than any gems you have is their source.”
“The mines, of course.”
“Which are blocked,” Ahffin growled.
“Nothing is forever,” Zeff went on smoothly. “Besides which, there must be as many ways into the mines as there were into this hold.”
“So you say.”
“So you will say.”
“You've wasted enough time,” Nyss broke in roughly. “There's only one way to get truth from this woman. Words have failed, for words are born of thought. The body speaks more eloquently and more loudly, as do the emotions.”
Zeff paused thoughtfully. “That's true,” he conceded. “And we, who practice no formal crafting sometimes forget … certain things.”
Kylin could almost hear Nyss's lips curl in a fiendish smile. “This woman values her honor,” she purred. “But I've no doubt she values her pride more. For one such as she, pride is linked with skill in making. And if she could make no longer …”
“Crush her fingers,” Zeff commanded. “A joint at a time, starting with her left hand.”
Kylin heard Crim gasp, which he imagined she regretted. The woman he knew would not display even that small weakness before anyone by choice.
“It's actually very humane,” Zeff continued. “We'll damage nothing she needs to live, only what she needs to be happy.”
“In other words,” Nyss laughed, “we'll destroy her access to her craft.”
Heavy boots sounded, as Crim was hauled, none too gently, to her feet.
“Use that table,” Zeff ordered.
It wasn't until he heard boots approaching that Kylin realized that they meant the table behind which his grille was hidden. He had no choice but to back away. And was just as glad that choice had been made for him, because it meant he was two turns away before he heard the screaming.
He moved in truth then. Heedless of the noise he made, he backed down to where the duct in which he crouched met the larger one he'd planned to follow. If his intentions had been unclear initially, they were that way no longer. He had to get out, and quickly, and he had to get word to Avall.
As to how that might be accomplished, beyond some notion of trying to connect with Div—well, he supposed, that was for Fate to determine.
CHAPTER IX:
PARTING IN THE NIGHT
(ERON: TIR-ERON: ARGEN-HALL-MAIN—
HIGH SUMMER: DAY XLIII—EVENING)
Strynn found Merryn in Argen-Hall's war court, clad in full armor and wearing the colors Law required of her: the maroon of Argen, which was her birth-clan, quartered with the crimson of Warcraft, which was her skill of choice; beneath, over all, the embroidered crown that marked her part of the Royal Guard even when off duty. There was another tabard specifically for that more formal role, but Merryn never wore it.
Black-cloaked and stealth-shrouded, Strynn watched her patiently from the darkest corner of the arcade that squared the court. Beams from three moons cast strange shadows upon the pavement there, while providing light enough to see without a lantern, though torches flared anyway, at the center of each wall.
That brighter light flashed off steel, brass, and gilded bronze. Most particularly, it flashed off the long, keen edge of a sword. Strynn recognized the set of moves Merryn was rehearsing. “Dancing with dust motes,” it was called, from the intricacy of the pattern. And indeed it was a dance, for every part of Merryn's body moved in a complex weave of dodge, twist, and parry.
It was what her bond-sister did to relax, Strynn knew, as she also knew why relaxation was necessary.
She dared not interrupt now. The dance was not yet over, and Merryn would never forgive her if she destroyed her momentum. Not that Strynn wanted to, for she'd never seen that suite of moves executed with such violently elegant precision. She tried to fix the image in her memory and lock it there: silver-blue walls embracing jet-black archways; a sky of royal blue dappled with stars; and Merryn in the middle, a symphony of muted red and flashing silver, bound by shadows that rippled like black moonlight on water.
And then it was over, and Merryn was walking straight toward her, the sword a bar of light before her, still unsheathed. “I knew you were here,” she panted, when she reached the requisite span that polite speech required.
Strynn grinned back. “I'd be disappointed if you didn't. It's part of your Night Guard training, isn't it? To see everything, even while your attention is focused on one thing alone.”
“You have beer, I assume?” Merryn replied pointedly, neatly sidestepping the query.
The grin widened, but Strynn shook her head. “I have walnut liquor.”
Merryn sheathed the sword. “Even better.” And with that she sank down where she was, shoulders against one of the ar-cade's pillars. Strong, deft fingers skinned off mail gauntlets, then fumbled with the fastening of the helm.
Strynn squatted in turn, reached over to undo the buckle for her, then flopped back against the other pillar while Merryn removed the helm and arming cap beneath, revealing black hair so soaked with sweat it looked like enameled metal.
Neither spoke. Though this was in part a spontaneous moment, there was still ritual to be placated. Reaching to her hip, Strynn unhooked a padded leather pouch from which she removed a hand-sized, blown-glass bottle, protected by a cage of bronze filigree. Matching cups went with it. Merryn would recognize them, too: the first things she had made for Strynn, back when they'd sworn sisterhood. A pause, while she undid the hasp that held the cork closed, and the strong smell of walnut filled the air.
And still no one spoke until Strynn had filled both cups and both had been drained once.
“I knew you'd be here,” Strynn smirked when the ritual was complete and the cups had been refilled for sipping. “I also know you're planning to leave tonight, because you haven't seen anyone today, and I know you hate good-byes.”
Merryn frowned at her. “Then why are you making me say one?”
“At least I'm sparing you the one you dread most!”
A brow quirked up. “You know me that well, do you?”
Strynn regarded her levelly. “Look at me straight and say it's not your brother. Whatever we two feel, it's him you don't want to leave, because—”
“This time it may be forever?” Merryn drained her cup with a flourish. “There: I've said it. What you don't want to hear.”
“I'd rather know than wonder.”
“So would Avall.”
“Which is why I'm here: so I can tell him. When it's the proper time to tell him.”
“When I can't be recalled?”
“That's right.”
“I didn't think it would be like this, sister,” Merryn sighed, folding her arms across her breast. “I don't know what I thought our last meeting would be like, but this isn't it. Still, things never work as you expect them. Life isn't
a painting or a play you can revise over and over.”
A deep breath, and Strynn said what she'd long been thinking but nevertheless feared to say. “This isn't our last meeting, is it?”
A shrug, which was just like Merryn: reducing strong emotions to subtle gestures. “It might be. Once I leave the Gorge, I only know that I'll know where I'm going when I arrive. And xno, I'm not fool enough to think you don't have some idea where I might begin. You know I've always wanted to go west. But ‘west’ is a big place, and most roads from here lead west, one way or another. But I may not be taking the roads.”
“But you will come back?”
“I want to come back,” Merryn conceded. “But I probably won't be back until I've settled my mind about some things.”
“Kraxxi?”
A tiny pause, but one Strynn noticed. “That's one of them.”
“Krynneth? You know he'll think you're running away from him.”
“Haven't you heard?” Merryn snorted, shifting her back restlessly. “He's run away from me! He's been gone a whole eight now. Headed south with a trek of masons bound for War-Hold, and that's all I know, except that I think Elvix was with them. In any case, I've never had him—in any way you want to construe that. I liked him a lot, and during the war we often kept company because we'd both been at War-Hold when it fell. And then afterward, I guess we were each other's anchors. We shared the bond of being outsiders in War-Hold but pledged to that clan. And we—”
She broke off. To Strynn's surprise, she was crying. “I'll say it for you, sister. You shared what you thought was betrayal. You both thought you could've stopped what happened.”
Merryn's eyes were bright when she looked up again. “Truth.”
A deep breath, from Strynn. “So that's another thing this is, then: another reason you may not come back. You want to assuage your guilt for the destruction of War-Hold, and to do that, you have to do something bigger than that, but it has to be a good thing. You're out to make yourself such a hero that no one will remember what happened down south.”
Merryn managed a wicked smile. “Ah, but you're forgetting something, sister.”
“What's that?”
“That this is a secret mission. When I ride out—in two hands, if things go right—I won't be riding out on a royal errand. I'll be going as a Common Clan woman—which is more than I should tell you right there. Not that it matters, since I've plans to change disguises like you change clothes.”
“But you expect to return a hero,” Strynn retorted. “And the only way you can do that is if you discover something important.”
Merryn grinned again. “I could return as queen of Ixti.”
Strynn nodded, only then noticing the ring Merryn wore on her right hand. A red stone: one of three. Avall had one just like it: a gift from the man they were even now discussing. “But you've told Kraxxi otherwise. Have you changed your mind?”
Merryn shook her head. “No. But that doesn't mean I won't change it. A year ago, I couldn't have imagined that my brother would be King. Nor that we'd have proof positive of magic—or something. Nor that we'd be on the brink of civil war.”
“You think it'll come to that?”
“Not before I return, I hope.”
“And if you don't return?”
“Well, obviously if my brother goes to war without me, I won't be happy.”
Strynn chuckled grimly. “So if we want you back, we have to start a war?”
Another shrug, while Merryn studied her empty cup. “I just want to do this right, sister. If I do as my King bids me, I'm doing what's right, by Law. If I remove the regalia from reach, I'm doing everything I can to make things like they were, which will be good for the Kingdom. Avall wants his legacy as King to be that of the man who fixed things when they'd been broken. I don't entirely agree, but I understand.”
Strynn drained her own cup. “So do I.” She rose abruptly, giving her bond-mate a hand up. “What, I wonder, did my husband do to deserve two such wonderful women?”
“What did I do,” Merryn countered, as she clasped Strynn in a rough hug they both knew was all they dared, “to deserve so wonderful a sister?”
And then, harsh as a sword cut, she broke the embrace, turned, snatched up her helm and sword from where she'd left them, and strode off down the arcade, leaving Strynn alone in the moonlight with a new ache in her heart to join those already lodged there.
CHAPTER X:
WALLS AND WATER
(NORTHWESTERN ERON: GEM-HOLD-WINTER—
DAY XLIV—AFTERNOON)
The timeless period after he'd overheard the invaders' plans and the torture session that concluded it was the worst of Kylin's life. Thwarted in his efforts at finding a way closer to ground level than he'd already ventured, and frightened beyond reason of being discovered—which could only result in him being interrogated and possibly tortured himself—he was reduced to a furtive existence a rat would not have envied. At least a rat would've risked showing itself for food. Kylin couldn't. Many times, as he made his way through the ductwork maze that had become his world, he caught the sounds of voices he could not approach and the scent of food he could not access. Fortunately, he did manage to find a rift in the wall of one of Woodcraft's private pantries, where he'd snared enough dry bread and cheese to sustain him, along with a skin of good ale. He made a special point of remembering where that place was, too, in case he needed to return—which he did, twice. Unfortunately, the suite beyond was occupied by the invaders, which ruled out assistance from that quarter. He was trying harder than ever to be systematic now, to explore every twist and turn and remember it. But his greatest frustration was that he'd found no more stair-shafts.
All of which was of minimal import when reality was rapidly collapsing beneath a weight of urgency he could not assuage—because he could not escape. So on he went, exploring this way, probing that. Sometimes he crawled over mounds of fallen stonework or squeezed around them. Twice he found standing water, and three times came upon places where the sewage drains had ruptured, with attendant awful odor. Once, too, he smelled what could only be rotting human flesh, from which he divined that the damage, while not truly extensive, was far from minimal in some quarters.
And, always, he listened: straining his hearing for voices he could trust, but finding none. From the rest, the invaders, he determined how the explosion had occurred, and that efforts were being made to reach those trapped in the mines, but that Liallyn, who'd caused the cave-in, had been far more thorough than even she had anticipated. It would take eights to reach the mines, not days.
And, of course, he slept. But he came to dread those lapses into timelessness as he once had welcomed them, for he always awoke wearier and hungrier than when he'd begun, and more disoriented. He had a constant headache, too, and his body was a mass of scrapes and abrasions.
Even so, he wasn't prepared when he awoke from a particularly dull and heavy slumber to find something nibbling his fingers. He flinched reflexively, only to be rewarded with a sharper pain as his knuckles scraped rough-dressed stone. Forgetting where he was, he screamed. His voice echoed in the closed space, but of more concern was the soft scrabbling of whatever he'd hit, which indicated it hadn't gone away. It had been warm and furry—or at least not cold and sticky—which was some relief. But the only warm, furry things that ought to be sharing his space were rats, and hold rats could reach more than a quarter span in length.
He flinched again—and his foot impacted something soft. The recoil brought him in contact with another, and the recoil from that struck something hard enough to evoke a squeak before teeth bit down on his leg just above the big tendon at his heel. Something squeaked back, close to his head, and that was more than he could endure.
He had no idea how many rats were attempting to share the crawl space with him, but one was one too many. Still halfasleep and closer than he dared think to being terrified, he thrust himself forward. The duct was low here, and he had to worm his way along wi
th his forearms—which, he suspected, meant that this was one of the older parts of the hold and probably a good way from the bulk of the edifice. The air was warmer, too, for no reason that made sense, but it smelled musty where it didn't smell of rats.
The bad thing was that he couldn't turn around. Worse, this was new territory, so he had no comfort from anticipation as he continued onward.
Nor were the rats ignoring him. More than once he felt one nip at his toes or heels, and one even dared run up his leg to stand atop his shoulders. Fortunately, the duct was high enough there that he could arch upward to scrape it off against the ceiling.
Unfortunately, when he flopped back down, it was atop another that had tried to crawl beneath him.
He screamed again, and then once more when it bit him savagely on the chest. Blood washed warm down his belly, even as he reached beneath him and, in an effort worthy of an epic poem, snared the wretched beast and threw it with what little strength remained back down the duct behind.
The result was not what he expected. Rather than being cowed, the rats gave chase. And though his bulk blocked most of the passage, that didn't prevent them taking increasingly frequent and stronger nips from his legs and buttocks. Before he knew it, he was crawling as fast as he had since coming there, with no concern for logic, no attempt at counting paces.
All that mattered was escaping the wretched rodents.
He was still bleeding, too, and that seemed to have triggered some reflex in what passed in the beasts for brains, so that they became more venturesome yet. And then one sank its teeth into his left calf and absolutely would not let go. Not only that, it was gnawing; more blood trickled past those sharp little incisors.
“Go away! Go away! Go away!” he shouted recklessly— even if the invaders found him, they'd be unlikely to eat him alive. And while his rational aspect reminded him that they'd also try to torture him into betraying his friend and King, he could not make that matter.