Magic Steps tco-1

by Тамора Пирс

  Nurhar opened his medicine pouch and selected a pain ball. He forced it down the mage's throat and held his jaws shut until the mage had swallowed. That would ease the dragonsalt pangs.

  "Why can't you just let me die?" he asked bitterly when Nurhar released him. "It's not that far off for me anyway."

  "You die when we say," Nurhar snapped. He groped under the bed. "And you go with us," he said, pulling out the carry-frame he'd made after their escape from Rokat House. "If you can't make yourself useful, we'll dump you off the keep. You'll die then, but it'll hurt." He giggled, liking that idea.

  Alzena didn't care for a husband who giggled, but she needed to get some Rokats while the dragonsalt made her want to. She helped Nurhar strap the mage to the carry-frame.

  * * *

  The duke had returned to the Citadel by the time Sandry emerged from the tent on Wehen Ridge. On some level of her exhausted mind, the girl was relieved. She knew her uncle might be alarmed if he saw her now, and she hadn't the strength to reassure him.

  Do soldiers ever feel like this? she wondered dully as the cart rumbled down Harbor Road to Summersea. Like they marched and marched until they just want to fall down and die, only to be told they have to keep marching?

  She was cold. She was wet from the rain and from the showers that had cleansed her once she finished the net and locked it away. Most of all, she was so tired her bones hurt.

  If Tris had been home where she belonged, instead of jauntering to parts unknown, at least Sandry wouldn't be quite so cold and wet. Tris would have sent the storm that continued to buffet Summersea on its way, to make things easier for her friend.

  Get some rest, Lark had advised when Sandry got into the cart. Now the girl curled up on the pallet some one had left there, thinking she would never be able to sleep. The thought of sliding across the bed of the cart until she fetched up against the ebony box that held the net gave her the horrors. Looking around, she saw ropes that anchored the canvas cover. They were securely tied, with plenty left over. Sandry called the ends to her wearily. Only when they had wrapped themselves firmly around her waist, holding her away from the box, did she close her eyes.

  She woke briefly when the ropes let her go and some one lifted her out of the cart. She looked around one of Winding Circle's top mages, Dedicate Crane, was carrying her into a cellar. "Where are we?" she mumbled.

  "It seems Durshan Rokat has a secret entrance to his home," Crane replied in his usual, energyless murmur. "Now no one will know we're in his house. It's a good thing he volunteered to be bait, is it not? Rest while you can."

  She was about to tell him that he was strong for someone so bony. Instead she slept. The next time she woke, she was being gentry placed on a divan and covered with a blanket. She muttered and curled up, not wanting to open her eyes a moment before she had to.

  She napped until she heard a familiar voice: "Is she going to sleep forever?"

  Sandry opened her eyes and saw Pasco. "Are we ready?" she asked, yawning as she sat up. The welcome scent of rose-orange tea met her nostrils. With Pasco be side her, Sandry followed her nose to the kitchen. Lark smiled and pressed a large mug of tea into her hands.

  "You left me with the little monster for hours and hours," accused Pasco. "She worked me to death!"

  The tea was just cool enough to gulp. Sandry took a large swallow, then replied, "I'm sure the experience was good for you."

  "Why do people always say too much work is good?" complained the boy. "I never thought so!"

  "But you are lazy to the bone, my lad," replied Lark. "And that's one of my best friends you're calling a 'little monster. " She gave Sandry two thick pieces of bread with ham and a sliced-up tomato between them. Sandry ate gratefully.

  "But she is a monster," Pasco argued. "She's trying to kill me." He helped himself to a slice of the iced cake that sat on a counter.

  "Can you do that dance exactly?" Sandry wanted to know.

  Pasco grinned, smug. "Yazmнn says if she puts a mark on the floor I can land on it on my toes ten times of ten. She says I have perfect body memory."

  Sandry glanced at Lark, who winked at her. For someone who called her a monster, Pasco seemed very pleased by Yazmin's praise.

  "You have to get it absolutely right," Sandry told Pasco solemnly. "You won't be able to see my net at all."

  "I know? he said impatiently. "I've only been told a thousand times!"

  "Actually, we found a way to cope with that," Lark told Sandry. "Come." She led the girl and Pasco through a doorway as Sandry continued to eat. They entered what had probably been a dining room before the furnishings had all been taken out. Now there were only whitewashed walls, candle sconces, and a tile floor. The entire room—floor, walls, and ceiling—had been thoroughly cleansed by Winding Circle's mages.

  Sandry blinked at the floor and began to smile. She doubted that the central pattern of red and white clay tiles—a pattern that matched her net precisely—had been part of the original floor.

  "Are you ready to start?" Lark asked her. "It's after one. We fixed the starting time for when the Citadel clock strikes two. That's when Durshan Rokat will leave the inner keep." When they had worked out their plan, the mage council had suggested the Dihanurs would be less suspicious of a trap if they had a reason to come to the net, like following a quarry on his way home.

  "He is a volunteer?" Sandry wanted to know.

  Lark nodded. "His grace talked to Durshan himself. Your uncle insisted on making sure we had a genuine volunteer."

  Sandry took a deep breath. "I need something sweet," she told Lark, "another mug of tea, and time to use the privy. After that, I'll be as ready as I can ever be." She had a case of the shakes. Somehow she had the feeling they weren't going to go away—she would just have to work around them.

  Lark walked them back to the kitchen. As she cut a slice from the cake, she looked at Pasco. "Go through that door and find the musicians—they're in the front parlor. Tell them we're almost ready. And once your part is done, go home with them. No one will think anything of servants leaving the house."

  "Leaving?" cried Pasco. "But I want to see what happens!"

  'Absolutely not”

  Sandry had never heard herself use that tone before, though it sounded like a combination of the duke and Tris. "You are to get away and stay away, understand?" she demanded, holding the boy's eyes with hers, "This isn't a game. I will not tell your parents you got killed because I let you stay and watch like this was a performance!"

  "For one thing," Lark pointed out, “we don't know they'll even come now. We hope the net will bring them quickly, but if they aren't in this part of the city when Durshan Rokat leaves the Citadel, it may take them a day or two to hear about him…"

  "Please, Lady Sandry,” whined, the boy.

  Lark took, him by the shoulders, turned him around, and thrust him through the door that led to the front hall, "Musicians. Go," she said firmly.

  Pasco looked back, hesitated, then obeyed.

  As Lark, poured a fresh cup of tea and. added honey, she asked gravely, "Was it' very bad, dear? Spinning the unmagic. Tying the net."

  Sandry shivered. "It likes real magic more than any thing," she whispered. "It isn't happy if it can't cat what you have, and it never stops trying to get in."

  Lark smoothed her hair with a gentle hand. "I would have given anything to spare you that."

  Saedry hugged her teacher. "I know."

  She finished her cake and her tea, went to the privy, then washed her hands and face in a bucket of water. When she next entered the empty dining room, the musicians stood in the door that led to the front of the house. Pasco waited in a corner. Other council mages came to watch: Crane, Winding Circle's Dedicate Superior, Moonstream, the Duke's healer, Comfrey, and Sky- fire, who was the head of the Fire temple, and a handful of others. Sandry knew the plan was that these mages would be outside the house, concealed within spells, standing guard. When Pasco finished the net dance, they would sprink
le the lines of ash across the ways into the house. There was a chance the Dihanurs might leave footprints. If they did, the watchers could give Sandry some warning of the killers approach.

  The Guildhall clock struck two. Up at Duke's Citadel the play they were staging for the Dihanurs was just starting. It was Skyfire, a one-time general, who had devised this part of the plan with the help of the duke and Erdogun. They had no way to know where the assassins were they might be in the duke's residence, trying to get at the Inner keep once more, in the outer bailey of the Citadel, or somewhere between the Citadel and the waterfront. With that in mind, everyone had to act as if their quarry could see them at any moment, from the time Durshan Rokat walked out of the inner keep and demanded to go home. The handful of people who were to create the charade and keep it going had orders to make as much noise and fuss as possible. That way, even if the killers were not watching they would hear Citadel Guard or city gossip about the crazy old man who turned down, the duke's hospitality.

  Durshan Rokat would be walking out of the inner keep now. It was time for Sandry and Pasco to add the power of their net to the killers' discovery that one Rokat was available to be murdered.

  "Have we soldiers to arrest the Dihanurs?" Sandry asked Lark as she opened the ebony box where the net was kept.

  "In

  the cellar and upstairs," Lark replied.

  Sandry looked down into the box. Her shadowy creation was invisible against the black wood, but she could feel it there. Tying and knotting the net, she had become attuned to unmagic. It was stronger now, the knots in creasing its power as it fed back on itself.

  Her skin ringing with fear, she gathered her net in her arms. She had left bits of her own power like yarn ties at the corners so she could find them. Taking the first corner, she placed it on the north point on the pattern, over a round socket in the floor. Lark knelt and fitted an ebony peg into the socket to anchor that corner of the net. Sandry then went to the eastern point of the tile pattern and set another corner of the net there; Crane anchored it with an elderwood peg. South came next; Dedicate Skyfire anchored the unmagic with an oak peg. Last was the west corner; Sandry nodded her thanks to Healer Comfrey, who placed a hawthorn peg to hold the net.

  Now Sandry moved back from her creation, trying to ignore the dark film that lay over her clothes. Everything she had worn or used for this working would be burned when this was over. In her vision the dark cords of the unmagic net were stark against the red and white tiles of the floor pattern. Best of all, they matched it perfectly.

  “Pasco," she whispered.

  As he walked in, Dedicate Skyfire stopped him and pressed a leather pouch into his hand.

  "Once you complete the center square," Lark said, pointing, "drop that in the middle, understand?"

  Pasco opened the pouch. Moonstream said, "Don't," and Skyfire barked, "Careful with that, boy," as he peeked inside.

  Pasco glanced at them, then lowered his nose close to the mouth of the pouch and gave the tiniest of sniffs. When he looked up, he surveyed everyone with eyes that were huge with reproach. "This is dragonsalt."

  "That it is," replied Skyfire crisply.

  "It's illegal," the boy persisted. "Having it gets you ten years in the granite quarries up north."

  Skyfire uttered a bark of laughter. "Nonsense, young Acalon—no one survives ten years in the quarries."

  Pasco stared at the tall dedicate, his mouth stubborn. "Selling it gets your guts ripped out on Penitence Hill."

  Sandry put her hands on her hips. "We know it's bad, Pasco," she said quietly "It's how their mage has done so much damage without his unmagie eating him alive. It's bait, all right? Otherwise he'll see the net and never step onto it. We'll have the other two and not him."

  Pasco nodded and closed the pouch, tucking it into his pocket. He came to stand at the north corner of the net. As the musicians played the opening of the dance tune, Sandry heard him, whisper, "Come to me, rats!"

  When Pasco heard his cue, he jumped lightly into the center of the first net square. He danced beautifully, his toes flicking one way and another, pointing to each corner. Then, he was on to the next square, and the next.

  Sandry watched, and sweated, terrified he would miss a step and brush the nothingness. Soon she realized there could as well have been, yards of space between his feet and those invisible cords for all the closer he came to them. Yazinin had given him movements for his arms and torso that seemed to add to his magic. With each change of position the silver fire left in his wake grew brighter.

  Sandry's other fear, that leaving the dragonsalt pouch in the center square might throw the boy off, was soon banished. She didn't even see him reach for it, but as he jumped to the next square, the pouch slid from his hand. It struck the midpoint of the center square with a soft thump.

  Almost before Sandry realized it, Pasco was skipping lightly over the north peg. He stopped, twirled, and bowed deeply to her. The silver fire that had trailed him knotted and sprang back into the pattern of his dance, enclosed on all sides by the unrnagic.

  "Very good,” Skyfire told the boy. "Your part's done now. Scat.

  "You heard him," added Moonstream, her face kind. "Very nice work, young Master Acalon. Now go, before your fish swim into this net."

  Back inside the duke's residence, Alzena scouted the inner keep again. Perhaps there was a route she had missed, one not so closely watched. She left Nurhar and the mage in a tower room that gave them access to the roof. Then she went to see what she might find, after taking a second dose of dragonsalt. It was amazing stuff. She thought so much better with it in her veins, even if it did make her irritable. Maybe she wouldn't give it up, once she returned home.

  What she found was enough to make her start killing everyone she saw, if it hadn't been for her family duty. There were three ways to come at the inner keep—she learned that by listening to servants. When she tried them, she found that entire squads of the Duke's Guard were actually camped in the halls—bedrolls, equipment, and even the Guards themselves clumped so closely together that an approach was impossible. No matter how careful she was, the litter of soldiers and possessions guaranteed she would bump into something or someone and rouse the others.

  She stood there, hands clenched with furry glaring at these insects that were ruining her plans. It took a few moments for her to realize that something had stirred the insects up. When their officers were not looking they were muttering to one another. The subject was the mad old man who had just stalked out of the inner keep declaring he would go home.

  Alzena listened. Could it be? Had a Rokat walked out of his hiding place?

  She trotted off through the palace corridors, listening to the talk as she went, When, she reached the main hall, she found all the gossip she'd heard was true.

  "I have business matters that will, not wait!" A richly dressed man in his sixties was shaking his walking stick at a tall, bald black man whose nostrils curved as if he smelled something bad. The crossed keys badge on his tunic marked him as the duke's seneschal, Erdogun fer Baigh. "If those murdering beasts have not struck by now, it's because they’ve given up. What do they care for us little fish, anyway?"

  "Master Rokat," began the bald man.

  "Don't you 'Master Rokat me,’ Baron fer Baigh!" cried the older man. "My kinfolk will huddle in that dungeon you call the inner keep if they wish, but Durshan Rokat is going home!" He turned to a cluster of muscled women and men who could only be bodyguards. "I don't pay you to gorge on his grace's food and laze!" he snapped. "We are leaving. Call my chair at once!"

  A bodyguard ran to do as he was ordered. Erdogun fer Baigh snapped his fingers for a footman. "Since Master Rokat no longer desires our hospitality," he said, his voice clipped, "tell the watch commander I require two squads of Duke's Guards to accompany him home. Two squads, mind. I want all Summersea to know this man is under the duke's protection." He turned away and began to climb the broad stair that rose from the hall. "You'd think these
people didn't want to stay alive," he muttered.

  Alzena watched the old man and his guards leave, wondering. They were so close to the inner keep and all those Rokats, but there was that carpet of guards to think of. Perhaps no one here had thought to watch the keeps upper stories as well as the ground floor, but it didn't seem likely. And here was a Rokat—an old one, as old as Palaq Dihanur had been when Rokats cut off his head—who insisted that he return to his house.

  Every instinct clamored for her to go after the old man. Her Dihanur masters had taught her that as one of her first lessons take the weak and easy prey first. No matter that his was one of the houses they hadn't scouted before they killed Jamar Rokat—tracking Durshan would be as easy as breathing, with all those guards around him. People would talk of their passing for hours the Dihaeurs need only follow the gossip.

  Take the weak, easy, and stupid prey first. Those families in the inner keep were going nowhere, and finding that carpet of guards had discouraged her. A killing today would improve her mood. Letting this prey escape was mad. What if he reached his house, stayed a few hours or a day, lost his courage, and returned? She wouldn't even have his head to display somewhere—somewhere like this large, drafty entrance hall. Maybe the sight of a fresh head would give this cursed Duke Vedris another heart attack. In the confusion of his collapse, who was to say they wouldn't relax their guard on the inner keep?

  This sense of Rightness was the most powerful feeling she'd had in a long time. She knew it in her gut Durshan Rokat's killing would break this cycle of frustration.

  When she reached the room where she had left her husband and the mage, she found Nurhar wild with energy and the mage shivering. Quickly she told them about the old man and the human carpet. "He's a spoiled elder with no more brains than a rabbit," she told Nurhar. "I want his head."

  Nurhar caught fire over the idea, too. He hoisted the mage into his carry-frame. "Cover us well," he told their charge as he tightened the straps. "No slip-ups."