by Layton Green
He thought she would scoff at his response, or not relate to it, but she leaned forward into the candlelight and said, “That’s the most honest answer to that question I’ve ever received.”
He didn’t know if it was Adaira that had made him open up, or the fact that he was in a different world. Whatever the reason, it was as far as he was prepared to go. He unleashed his most charming grin and said, “And how many men have you asked about themselves?”
Her level gaze told him she knew he was diverting the topic. “I suspect not as many women as you have.”
He took a sip and didn’t deny it.
“Do you have siblings?” she asked.
His heart surged through his throat at the question. “Two younger brothers,” he said, forcing away the grief and rage simmering just beneath the surface. “And you?”
“No. I wish I did. You love them very much, I see?”
Val swallowed, not trusting his voice, realizing he had done a poor job of concealing his emotions.
It was unlike him.
A cymbal clashed, and he jerked his head up. Adaira clapped once in delight and slid her chair next to his, facing the courtyard. The colored water in the fountain sprayed skyward, and a band of troubadours strode into the courtyard, strumming their instruments as they belted a folk tune.
More delectable courses arrived during the performance, until Val thought he would burst. Waiters in white livery refilled his glass as soon as it was half empty.
“Why cuerpomancy?” he asked Adaira, leaning close to be heard.
He felt the hotness of her breath as she leaned in to respond. “My mother was a cuerpomancer, and I wish to honor her memory. It’s also the discipline most focused on philanthropy.”
Val remembered the enormous sum Mala was forced to give a cuerpomancer for helping Marguerite. He kept his expression blank.
“I know what you’re thinking, but after the Pagan Wars, cuerpomancers improved mortality rates in the Realm by almost a third. And they helped arrest the Black Plague.”
“So why is it so expensive to find a cuerpomancer these days? Shouldn’t there be a few free clinics in the city?”
She scowled. “Cuerpomancers now charge so much for their services, and restrict entry to so few, that it’s become a haven for the powerful and greedy. I’d like to change that.”
Okay, then. This woman is full of surprises. “I’m betting you’ll succeed.”
A troupe of acrobats in masks and patchwork clothing cartwheeled into the courtyard. As the troubadours switched to a rhythmic beat, the acrobats began performing impossible feats: somersaulting dozens of feet into the air, flying in tandem across the courtyard, juggling assorted props using only their minds.
Adaira noticed Val gawking at the performance. She smiled. “Gypsy troupe. Low-level magicians.”
“They’re amazing.”
“Aren’t they?”
She slid her hand over his, and he squeezed it in response. They held hands as they watched the performance, which was backlit by bursts of colored water from the fountain.
“I don’t see many gypsies around New Victoria,” he said.
Adaira waved a hand. “Oh, I’m sure these are sponsored.”
“Sponsored?”
Her mouth curled, and he berated himself for asking what was probably an obvious question. “Talented performers are saved from the Fens by sponsors,” she said, “who speak for their debts. Better some than none, no?”
Better that none go to the Fens at all.
Yet he didn’t judge too harshly. Unlike his brothers, who tended to have doe-eyed visions of the world, Val understood that Utopia was a myth, and some things could never be fixed. It was a depressing fact of life, but there would always be haves and have-nots, on every world.
The acrobats filed out. A squat Indian man wearing a brown robe and turban, with a beard curled like a French horn, strutted into the courtyard. A slender woman in a midnight blue dress covered in stars followed him in. The fountain quieted as they performed a series of sleight of hand tricks.
“There’s something I wanted to discuss with you,” Adaira said, without taking her eyes off the performers. “The acolyte murders. Unless something is done, I’m afraid there will be more.”
“You don’t have faith in the investigators?”
“They’ve had no success thus far,” she said.
“Won’t the wizards step in?”
“They’re watching, trust me. But if an item that can shield its wearer from scrying is involved, what is there to do? Ward the entire city?”
The crowd clapped as the two magicians finished their opening routine. The man raised his hands above his head, calling for attention. When the crowd quieted, he twirled his wrists in midair, and the woman began dancing towards him with a sinuous rhythm. While she advanced, he produced a stoppered bottle from his robe.
“We have something the investigators do not,” Adaira said.
“What’s that?”
“Bait.”
Val paused with his glass halfway to his lips. “Ourselves, you mean.”
“Is it not in our own interest to act? Self-preservation?”
“That’s not how I would term chasing after a murderer.”
“We’re the strongest coterie at the Abbey. The future leaders. I feel we have a duty to act before others are harmed. I’d like to involve the rest of our group, but,” she hesitated, “I’d like you to propose it.”
“So it doesn’t look like the daughter of the Chief Thaumaturge is giving orders.”
A short nod. “I’d quickly offer my support, of course.”
The woman in the star-filled dress danced faster and faster, a tornado of movement, twirling so rapidly it had to be magical. As the turbaned man approached her, the tops of her fingers dissolved into a fine mist, followed by her hands and arms and torso, then finally her head and legs. The crowd gasped as the man directed the mist into the bottle, then stoppered it.
“And we do this how?” Val asked, distracted by the stunning performance. Had that woman really turned into smoke? “By conducting our own investigation? Walking the streets at night, searching for a fight we might not win?”
He gave Adaira credit for bravery, if nothing else. With a constant guard of majitsu, she was in no danger, and didn’t need to step outside of her comfort zone.
“I thought we would begin with an investigation,” she said. “A new perspective on the evidence.”
Val’s eyes flicked to her silver-belted guards. “What about your father? He would never agree to this.”
“He cannot forbid that of which he does not know.”
The Indian man accepted the wild applause with a series of bows. As he moved to exit, he tripped over the edge of the fountain and dropped the bottle, shattering it on the bricks. After gawking in disbelief, the performer tried in vain to grasp the mist as it drifted skyward, releasing a cry of anguish as it seeped through his fingers.
Adaira gasped. A shocked hush overcame the crowd. The swami rent his hair and collapsed in a heap, weeping on the bricks of the courtyard as the essence of his partner dissipated on the night breeze.
Adaira gripped Val’s hand and jumped to her feet, but there was nothing to do. Val lowered his eyes, dismayed by the turn of events. The swami lurched to and fro like a drunkard, bellowing his grief. Just as his anguish became unbearable to watch, the fountain erupted, and his mouth opened impossibly wide. The woman in the blue dress flew out of his distended jaws, somersaulting and then landing high atop the colorful geyser of liquid, balancing on the water as she bowed.
After a moment of stunned silence, the crowd roared its approval. Adaira sagged into her chair before clapping, and Val let out a long breath.
“He fooled me, I must admit,” she said, wiping a tear from her eye and then intertwining their fingers as she peered up at Val. Her hair brushed against his forearm, giving him goose bumps. “So will you help me?”
“No,” he said, ha
ving already decided that it was not in the best interest of his brothers to risk his life chasing down a murderer. This beautiful scion of privilege would have to prove her worth to her father in another way. “I’m sorry.”
She looked as if she thought he was joking, then withdrew her hand and turned away. Val took another sip of wine and sampled the passion fruit mousse, which was delicious.
It was time to talk to Gowan about the Planewalk.
-30-
“Drink.”
The voice had come from Yasmina’s left. She shifted her head and saw the old man with long hair and wintery eyes. In his hand was a cup of water, held out as an offering. He was sitting up on his cot. The two moles snuggled in the tattered folds of his cloak, watching her.
Her brain had cleared. It was an odd sensation, like waking up from a coma or a very long dream.
Only she was still in this strange world, chained to a cot in the death ward of an underground city full of albino dwarves. The dream—the nightmare—was all too real.
She struggled to a sitting position and took the cup of water. It tasted like nectar from the gods. “Thank you. I’m Yasmina.”
“Your fever broke last night,” he said. She remembered the old man saying his name was Elegon. “Once a Breakbone Rash takes hold, not many recover.”
Light-headed and weak, her body felt wrung out by the hands of a giant. She looked down and noticed that the signs of the blue rash had almost disappeared.
“How long did it last?” she asked.
“Two weeks. You are strong.”
She put a hand to her mouth. “My friends, do you know—”
“Hush, child,” he said. “They’re probably in the courtyard cells. The delvers have no reason to harm them, as long as they stay fit. They need their workers.”
“Caleb isn’t strong. He won’t last.”
“Maybe he’ll surprise you. No one knows what one can endure,” he gave her a pointed look, “until one is tested.”
She shuddered at the memory of the journey through the Darklands, the days and nights blurry with fever. The moles in Elegon’s lap started to play, and she looked up. “You did that, didn’t you? Ordered the moles to help me.”
He nodded, gravely. “I didn’t order—I requested.”
“How?”
“I’m a wilder. As, I believe, are you.”
She gave him a blank look.
“You’re not aware, are you?”
“I don’t know what a wilder is.” She looked down, cradling the empty cup in her hands. She didn’t know anything about this world.
He seemed surprised. “A wilder is a roamer, a traveler and steward of the land, who can communicate with animals.”
She swallowed. “You speak to them?”
“I communicate. Have you never,” he said gently, “felt a kindred spirit with the creatures of the wild? Felt as if you could speak with them and they would understand?”
“Sort of. I’ve always felt more comfortable around animals.”
Elegon gave a small smile, as if he had already known.
“But nothing like you did,” she said. “That’s . . . magical.”
He arched his eyebrows. “Have you ever made an attempt to communicate with them? Really tried?”
“I . . . suppose not.”
“There are precious few wilders. Your gift is very rare, my dear.”
“But how do you know?” she asked. “That I can . . . communicate?”
Elegon looked down at the two moles. They started chirping, and his whiskered face broke into a grin. “Because they told me.”
The two moles ran down to the floor and then up Yasmina’s legs, all the way to her face. They nuzzled her cheeks before coming to rest in her lap.
Maybe, she thought, the fever hadn’t broken after all.
If what this man said were true—and she couldn’t deny what she was seeing with her own two eyes—then she had to assume that whatever affinity she had with animals in her own world was somehow magnified here.
Or was it?
A delver came around with jugs of water and bowls of thin gruel. Yasmina forced it down. When the jailer left, she said to Elegon, “Why are you helping me?”
“Because that’s what a wilder does. Helps those in need.”
She turned the information over in her mind. “Can you not use the animals to help you escape?”
He drew his cloak tighter and coughed. He couldn’t seem to stop, and ended up doubled over in his cot. She tried to help him, but she was too weak to rise, and had to sink back down. When the coughing trailed off, Elegon said, “Yes, my dear, I could escape these chains. But where would I go? More important, I was dying when they found me, and my time in this life is short. The Darklands would swallow me within hours.”
Yasmina reached out and took his hand. “How does one become a Wilder?” she asked, sensing this was the question he wanted to hear.
“The only true training is to commune in nature, among the animals. “But here,” he said, raising his hands and waiting for the moles to scamper into his open palms. “Let us begin to understand them.”
The next morning, when Will and the others were sent to mine the blue cavern, he managed to position himself between Caleb and Tamás. He liked the gypsy leader and had some questions.
“Theoretically,” Will said as he swung the pick, his back and biceps glistening with sweat, “if we were to escape this hellhole, how would we return to New Victoria? I was captured east of the Ninth. I don’t know the way.”
Tamás grunted. “Escape?”
“You know, if a nuclear explosion rips off the top half of the mountain and the Navy Seals send in a team to extract us.”
Tamás stared at him, and Will barked a laugh. If he didn’t manufacture some levity, he knew the mines would drive him insane.
“You’ve never fantasized about escape?” Will asked. “As impossible as it is?”
“Every minute of every day.”
“Well, there you go. I like to dream out loud.”
Tamás chuckled. “I appreciate your spirit, my friend. We’ll escape together, perhaps. You’ll be my guest in Freetown. It’s a better place for you than New Victoria.”
“Except my brother’s not there.”
“Ah yes, the missing brother.” He swept a palm around the mine. “The lucky one, eh?”
“Yeah,” Will mumbled, remembering his last image of Val, overwhelmed by skeletons and zombies in the cemetery outside Zedock’s house.
They had drawn the attention of a delver, and Will lowered his voice and swung the pick harder. “But if you did escape and were going to New Victoria, how would you get there?”
“A dreamer with intent, then?”
“I have a potent imagination.”
Tamás shrugged. “I would still travel to Freetown. Cross the lower end of the Dragon’s Teeth, find your way to the coast, then hire a Yith Rider to take you across the Great River. Or, if you lack funds, accompany one of our trading caravans.”
“What’s Freetown like?” Will asked.
Tamás’s eyes grew distant. “A place of great beauty, my friend. Where men are free to live as they see fit, create their own destinies, worship how they please. A place where no one lives in fear of the Inquest, or is forced to tithe their entire income to the Congregation.”
“Sounds like Texas,” Caleb said under his breath to Will.
“We saw something strange yesterday I wanted to ask you about,” Will said. “A humanoid with red skin and horns and a tail, chained to a rock behind the barracks. She was, um, a female.”
Tamás swung harder at his section of tilectium. “The darvish? An abomination.”
“Is she really that bad? She just looked terrified. And sad.”
“Not her. What the delvers have done to her.”
“I don’t understand,” Will said. “Why is she chained up?”
“You’ve never seen a darvish before? Of course you haven’t. Almost no o
ne outside the Darklands has. They’re a very old race, if not the oldest. Ancient enemies with the delvers. A raiding party must have captured her somewhere deep.”
“Deeper than here?” Will asked.
“Legend has it that long ago the darvish fought an epic battle with the delvers. The darvish race was almost annihilated, and driven to the very center of Urfe.”
“Is it just me,” Caleb said, again too low for Tamás, “or are these darvish sounding more and more like the inspiration for the devil?”
Will wiped sweat off his brow. “So . . . what’s up with the water torture?”
“They use her to heat water for the barracks,” Tamás said. “If she doesn’t perform, she’ll die of cold.”
“They’re keeping her chained naked to that rock to heat their bath water?” Will said grimly. “For how long?”
“For as long as I’ve been here. For as long as the tenure of my cell mate, as well.”
“Which is?”
Tamás eyed him as he swung. “Seven years.”
“Good God,” Caleb said.
Will’s stomach fluttered with rage. “That’s why her hands glow? She produces heat that way?”
“I assume so. I’ve no idea the extent of her abilities.”
“Why doesn’t she burn the chains?” Will asked.
“They must be magical. The geomancer lives on the top level of the barracks.”
Caleb’s swing faltered, slipping off the edge of the tilectium. “Geomancer?”
Tamás smirked. “A Congregation wizard. Working in tandem with the delvers.”
“And taking his nightly bath with water heated by a slave chained to a rock,” Will said, unable to stop thinking about her appalling fate. “What do they feed her?”
“I once saw her pluck a fish from the basin,” Tamás said, “and eat it raw.”
Will spent the rest of the shift swinging his pickaxe in double time, imagining he was taking aim at a delver.
Free me, he kept hearing in his mind.
Free me and I can free you.
“We’ve got to try,” Will said. “If we can just get our hands on my sword, we can use it break her chains. Then we find Yasmina and let the darvish girl lead us out of here.”