Tyrant Trouble (Mudflat Magic)

by Phoebe Matthews

  A thought stirred in my mind. “Was she fond of Tarvik?”

  “She was like a grandmother to him, protecting him in all things, even against Kovat's discipline. Why do you ask?”

  “Maybe she's the one who showed him the passageway. If so, it may extend to her room.”

  As there was no way to silently open Tarvik's door and go past the guards to the courtyard, the secret passage had to be explored. We slipped back behind the rug and felt our way toward the other direction of the corridor until it ended in a blank wall of stone. My fingers searched until I found a slightly indented stone, which I did not want to press, but what were my choices?

  With Nance sniffling behind me, still horrified by her sight of Tarvik, I shivered violently at the thought of what might happen when I pressed the stone. Would a door swing inwards to a brightly lit room filled with Ober's guards? We'd die together, Nance and I, and if Ober had given him poison, rather than a sleeping potion, Tarvik would die alone in his chamber. Ober would tell Kovat the three of us had died of fever, and would Kovat ever know otherwise? It's not like these folks did autopsies.

  Given any other choice, I would have taken it. Biting my lower lip, determined not to scream no matter what happened, I closed my mind to visions of disaster and pressed the stone.

  A door indeed opened. It was a narrow stone slab set so well it pivoted into the passageway without creating any sound. I reached through the doorway and touched a rug backing. Moving it slowly to the side, I peered into a dimly lit room.

  If some fears had been unfounded, so had some hopes. There was no one in the room, but it wasn't an unused room. The heavy swords and capes hanging from the walls above the sheepskin covered floor, and the one lamp flickering in a wall bracket, showed too clearly that guards slept here and came and went often enough to leave the lamp burning.

  Nance caught my hand.

  I whispered, “We have a little luck. The door to the hall is open.”

  Nance followed silently as I led the way across the room, into an empty corridor and around a corner and through an open archway to the starlit courtyard. It was a small space, perhaps once used as a private place to take the air, an empty square surrounded on three sides by blank palace wall and on the fourth side by an outer wall twice my height. If anyone came down the deadend hallway and looked through the archway, there we would be. The courtyard didn’t have any hiding places.

  We knelt by the grill and hoped none of Ober's guards would notice us, black shapes in the darkness.

  I leaned down and whispered, “Are you awake, magician?”

  I was answered by a long silence that I was afraid to break in case a guard might be standing in the cell.

  Finally the magician whispered, “Who asks?”

  “Stargazer.”

  “Have you given the potion to the guards?”

  “There are no guards here.”

  “How am I to escape?”

  “I don't know. But I need your advice. Something has happened to Kovat's son. His eyes and mouth are open, he breathes, but his skin is cold and he's unconscious. I can't wake him.”

  “Ah, the lady Ober has outwitted you.” He sounded too weary to be either pleased or frightened.

  “Can I save him?”

  “No.” In the long silence I could imagine him thinking through his choices. Finally he said, “But perhaps I can. I must see him.”

  Fortunately I could not see Nance's expression in the shadows. I knew what she was thinking.

  “We cannot save Tarvik ourselves,” I told her and pressed her hand. To the magician I said, “Have any suggestions?”

  “Do you wear a sash?”

  “Yes.”

  “How long is it?”

  Okay, I knew what he wanted. “I have two of them. Tied together they would be twice my height.”

  “That will do,” he whispered. “If you can lift aside the grillwork, tie one end of the sash to it and drop the other end to me.”

  “No, certainly not,” Nance said but as she said it, she reached under her cloak and untied the sash from her tunic and handed it to me. Together we struggled to lift the grill, with little Nance bearing most the weight.

  I was not surprised the old man could climb sashes to the courtyard. All these people were hard-muscled, and even Nance, though she was a head shorter than me, had twice my strength. He came up hand over hand, reached the level of the courtyard, leaned his head on his crossed arms on the edge of the opening, and then pulled himself out and onto the floor.

  Silently we replaced the grill, retrieved our sashes and crept back towards the empty room. Or rather, I thought it would be empty. No such luck. As we neared the door, we heard someone stir inside. A glance through the doorway showed a guard stretched full length on the sheepskins with his face to the wall. We stepped back into the courtyard and tried to blend into its darkness.

  “We came through a door at the back of that room,” I whispered to the magician. “I don't know any other way out.”

  He looked back at the courtyard wall. We did not bother to discuss it. Even if we boosted each other up, it was too high to climb.

  “The guard was there when you came through?” he asked.

  “No, the room was empty.”

  “Then he only now returned to rest. We must wait until he sleeps.”

  And while we waited, would other guards return to the room, going in and out, taking turns at sleeping, until the night and Tarvik's life ebbed away? My thoughts raced desperately between climbing the impossibly high wall to taking a chance on dashing through the room. I even leaned around the doorway to take a better look at the guard, thinking that if it was Artur I would ask him to help us. Sure, it wouldn't be us he cared to help, and he might be angry that we'd freed the magician, but he would do whatever was needed to save Tarvik.

  We were not that lucky. The guard was no one I recognized, and he was working very slowly, hanging his sword on the wall, then sitting down on a sheepskin and carefully unbuckling his belt. I wanted to hiss at him to hurry up and go to sleep.

  Nance showed considerable control for someone who usually gave way to screaming. I could feel the agitation of her thoughts, almost as though she was drumming her fists on my shoulders.

  Time slowed, the way it always does when waiting, but at last we heard the heavy rough sounds of the guard's breathing and knew he slept soundly and with his mouth open...

  At other times of danger I had hesitated. This time all I thought about was getting help to Tarvik, and tiptoed silently across the dimly lit room.

  As I passed the guard, he rolled over and uttered a sound. His outstretched hand grazed the hem of my cloak. Every muscle in my body tightened. My skin went cold.

  He rolled away to face the wall, his hand clutching the sheepskin, and sucked in a noisy breath. The sound was probably the buildup to a snore. I found myself on the far side of the secret doorway with no memory of my last few steps.

  When the magician and Nance were beside me, I pressed the stone to seal the entrance. We led the magician to Tarvik's room.

  The old man bent over him and touched his skin. He ran his fingers over Tarvik's throat until he found the faint pulse, then peered closely.

  “Is he drugged?”

  The magician shook his head. “He is alive, which is good. Drugged, yes, not poisoned. He will remain like this through two risings of the sun.”

  “Two days! We will have to hide him for two days.”

  “It could be worse, dark woman. With a deathwalker in the castle, I feared much worse.”

  “That servant of Ober? What could he do?”

  To my surprise, the magician looked frightened. He shook his head, refusing to speak any more of the deathwalker.

  “But why would anyone drug Tarvik?” Nance asked.

  I said, “To give herself time to do what she wishes, without Tarvik's interference.”

  “It is you, Stargazer. She wants to destroy you.”

  “Or both o
f us.”

  “But why?”

  The magician said, “One who knows this drug also possesses drugs to control the mind. If she has access to the prince, she can make him do her will.”

  I didn't know why he explained this. He didn’t care about Tarvik's fate. Perhaps he was concocting the worst reason he could think of so we would believe we needed his help. Or else he was telling the truth.

  Didn't matter. We could not take a chance on Ober's control. If Kovat's battles kept him away throughout the winter, he might return in the spring to find he no longer ruled his city. And Nance and I would be long since dead.

  “Can you wake him from this trance?”

  He shrugged. “From a potion? I owe you that for my freedom. But I see nothing here and my own powders were taken from me.”

  “What is it you need?”

  “Leaves. Roots. They could be gathered and mixed but I cannot wait to be captured again.”

  “If you had the plants you need, how long would it take you to mix your powders?” I asked.

  “A few moments.”

  “And how quickly would Tarvik waken?”

  “By morning.”

  With no assurance he spoke the truth, I decided to accept his offer. Without Tarvik, we were all in big trouble. “So we need to hide Tarvik for now.”

  Nance and the magician shouldered Tarvik's weight between them, scuttling sideways in the narrow passage. I walked in front of them, feeling my way in the dark, my fingertips grazing the stone walls until we reached the end where I opened the outer door. Because it seemed likely the magician might try to leave us, I mentioned to him that our guards waited by the trees. Without the magician, the best we could do was hide Tarvik in the temple for two days or more and hope his mind returned, a plan filled with way too many possible disasters.

  However, the magician stayed with us, despite old Lor's arrival and scowl of distrust.

  “He is the only one who can save Tarvik,” I whispered.

  Lor grunted, touched Tarvik's face which was now as chilled as death, then said, “Cover the magician's eyes.”

  When the magician did not protest my wrapping my sash across his eyes, I knew he had decided we were his best chance. We carried Tarvik through the stable to our chambers in the temple.

  Nance said, “Lor must gather the plants. Tell him what you need, magician.”

  “They cannot be found in the dark,” he objected.

  “I can find them,” Lor said.

  The roots and leaves that the magician required were common plants. Lor knew the hillside. He said he could put his hand on any plant from memory as well as sight.

  Although we did not remove the magician's blindfold until we were inside the temple, it seemed to me a useless precaution. Anybody would know from the smell that he had been led through a stable. When we reached Nance's chamber, I pulled off my black wool cloak and tossed it to the shivering magician, then handed him the bread left over from our supper and a mug of mead.

  Following the magician's directions, Nance and I shouldered Tarvik between us and walked him up and down the length of the room.

  His chin dropped forward on his chest. He breathed in ragged gasps, and sometimes not at all. When he fell silent we both panicked and shook him until his head rolled back and forth and he again began gasping for breath. His feet dragged and his knees buckled.

  It took all my strength to hang onto him and I stumbled sideways with one shoulder wedged under his arm and both of my arms around his body. I thought Nance, Tarvik and I would all end in a pile on the floor.

  Just about when I was ready to give up and collapse, Lor returned with the roots and leaves. He took my place supporting Tarvik while the magician ground the herbs to bits. The bits were then covered with boiling water to brew into an evil-smelling tea.

  Partly to gain distance from the yukky smell, and partly to pull myself together after way too much tension, I wandered out to our private courtyard. Took a deep breath of clean, cold night air and gazed up at the stars in the silvered sky. I noticed a few embers in the fire pit.

  And the gate open.

  I caught a glimpse from the corner of my eye and moved carefully. My back was to the side wall near the gate. I did it slow step by slow step, kept looking at the stars, acted casual until I felt the wall against my spine. Slowly I lowered my head, let my eyes move sideways, saw him.

  He, too, was pressed against the wall in shadow to one side of the door. Watching me. Inside the deep hood all I could see was the dark glitter of his eyes picking up the reflection of the fire pit. Or maybe his eyes really were red.

  “Don't move.” He slowly crossed the court toward me.

  Okay, this guy was tall and from his reputation I had to guess he was strong and could deliver a wicked punch. I could shout for help but obviously he had dismantled our guard again. Lor would come running, a strong old man but no match for this creature.

  Halfway across the court he reached out one long bony hand. If it hit my windpipe, I’d be dead. Lor might throw a knife if I screamed. Would that help?

  This creep was a deathwalker, no heartbeat.

  Could a deathwalker be killed?

  Maybe I should run out the open gate, down the hill screaming. And maybe Ober's other guards were out there waiting.

  Fighting was pointless because even little Nance was twice as strong as me. Okay, Claire, think. If you got no strength, what's left? Oh yeah, wits. Maybe I could talk him to death.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked and tried really hard to sound calm.

  “Where's the prince?” he whispered.

  “What prince?” I asked, a tad louder.

  “If you call the others, they all die.”

  If he wasn't called deathwalker for nothing, we were in trouble. Still, I wasn't good at the suicidal thing, not if I could avoid it, and I glanced at the fire pit behind him

  Maybe I could lower my head and run, butt into him, maybe knock him into the fire?

  “Where is the prince?” he asked again.

  A form moved in the doorway behind him and I knew it was Lor. Did he have a knife or some other weapon? That might work. Or not.

  Could this man be harmed? I had to let Lor know the problem, so he could grab the others and get them out through the stables and so here I was playing sacrificial whatever, not my normal personality. Still, maybe they could bring a bunch of guards and I could hope they got here before I did my final check out.

  “You know what?” I said, loud enough to hold his attention and warn Lor and also cover any sound Lor might make. “You've got no heartbeat, fella! How come?”

  He hesitated. With his back to the fire his eyes still glowed red, not a pleasant sight. “How do you know that?”

  “I'm magic. That's what I do. I know things. You have no heartbeat, so I guess that means you're already dead, guess that means it's too late to kill you. Are you a vampire?”

  “What?” He stopped and waited, not worried. He knew he had me trapped and so he wasn't in a hurry. That did not make me feel better.

  “Vampire. A dead thing brought back to life, that can be offed with a wooden stake. Or a cross. Or garlic.” I went through all my memories of vampire movies and ran out of information.

  He started moving toward me again, so I was also running out of time.

  “None of what you say means anything. I cannot be destroyed. But you can.”

  With one more step he was in reaching distance, grabbing while I was ducking, his hand going past me into the wall. My luck ended there. His other hand dropped and caught my shoulder, sent me spinning. I hit the wall so hard I thought I heard my bones break.

  Pain shot from my shoulder to my neck to my head. There were lightning flashes in my eyes and for a second I couldn't see, couldn't hear. Unfortunately, I could feel. Something warm and sticky, which always means blood, streamed down my face from a burning pain on my forehead.

  My hands went numb under me, fingers popping. I tried to
push away from the ground to get up, but I couldn't move. Then my fingers closed around dirt and I managed to pull together a handful.

  Those skeleton fingers hauled me up and I tossed the dirt into the open hood. He shoved me back against the wall so that I was facing him and rubbed at his eyes with his other hand.

  “You're dead,” he hissed.

  Behind him shapes moved. I had to hold his attention. I did what any city girl knows to do. When all else fails, scream.

  I shrieked, “Dead like you! You're dead, dead, dead!”

  His fingertips touched my throat, started to push. I couldn't move away so I kept screaming until my voice cut back to a gurgle. My breath caught, going nowhere, stuck. I tried to kick him, couldn't lift my leg. The moving shapes, the fire glow, the red eyes, all started blacking out on me.

  And then the hand fell away and he let out one rasping howl. I slid slowly down the wall, sat on the ground, breathed. When I could see again, I really liked what I saw.

  Lor held the deathwalker while the magician reached around him and wound a rope. They had dropped a blanket and the rope over his head, worked together those two, and snared the man. When his arms were bound to his sides, they tossed him on the ground and tied his thrashing legs and feet. Crisscrossing ropes held the blanket around his hooded head. We could hear muffled curses.

  “Take care of Tarvik,” Lor told the magician. “I'll get this one.”

  I scraped myself off the ground and followed the magician back inside. The magician's tea was ready.

  It was a good thing Tarvik was unconscious because that was the only way he could have got his nose past the smell to drink it. The magician dribbled the mixture down Tarvik's throat, as well as down the front of his tunic.

  He said, “Keep him on his feet and he will wake sooner. Now you must let me go.”

  I agreed, not so much for his salvation as for ours. Given enough night cover, he could be free of the city and into the hills before his absence was discovered. I doubted the guards would bother to check his cell until time for his morning meal. The success of his escape mattered as much to us as to him. If caught, he would be forced to tell how he had escaped and who had helped him.