The Crimson Sky

by Joel Rosenberg

  Jeff nodded “Then what we need to do is get back home. There’s been, oh, a death in their individual families, and both Torrie and Maggie need leaves of absences.”

  Thorian Thorsen shook his head. “Look another move ahead. What does he then do? Give up?”

  “Maybe he comes at us again at home.”

  “Perhaps. Or he could try a much simpler move: he could start killing here. One kill, one mauling, just to let me know that he can continue. Then another and another.” He reached through the bars and let the black dog lick his fingers. “How much blood would you have it take to draw me out, to bring me here?”

  Jeff sucked air through his teeth. You can’t protect the whole world, just your little piece of it, and sometimes not even that sure. They could go home, and wait until the Son started killing, and hope that it only killed people that he didn’t care about; they could let the bloody bodies pile high until the weight of the corpses finally tipped the scales and tumbled them back here.

  How high a pile of bodies would it take? “Okay,” Jeff said. “So you’re the wrist, and we offer him the wrist. We use you as the bait and when he goes for you, I nail him. Just like we tried with Torrie.”

  “But not following so closely, eh? He’s smelled you now, and he’ll know you.”

  “You’re saying I’ve been made?”

  Thorian Thorsen shook his head. “Not really. But you will be—‘made,’ you say?—you’ll be made, then, if you follow too close to me. He is several steps ahead of us, this one. He waited last night, and simply observed—in wolven form, where his senses are their sharpest, perhaps? He crouched there, sniffing the winter wind, and now can identify each of the people who were out walking around Torrie last night. If he finds the same smell again, he’ll recognize it. Were he to find your smell close to mine, he’d know you.“

  And all he has to do is take me out, and then he’s got a clear shot at Thorian.

  He wouldn’t even need to kill Jeff, not really, although he might as well. Just distract him for a moment, and it would all be done, as long as he could maintain the element of surprise against Thorsen.

  Thorian Thorsen nodded. “So you have to keep your distance, far enough away that he can’t even smell you, can’t see you, doesn’t know that it’s you …”

  “Unless,” Jeff said, each word sour in his mouth, “you’re not the wrist, but I am.” The Son feared Thorian Thorsen—but more as a strategist than as a fighter. Thorsen wasn’t exactly ancient, but he wasn’t young anymore, his legs full of spring and his eye sharp as a hawk’s—maybe the Son had figured out that the real threat would be whoever was watching Thorian’s back, not Thorian himself.

  You couldn’t play chess with somebody who could see two moves beyond where you saw.

  Well, you could, but you’d lose. Badly.

  Thorsen didn’t look at Jeff as he fed the dog another biscuit. “I was wondering if you’d say that.”

  Were you? Jeff thought. Or were you really just wondering when?

  Chapter Seventeen

  The Scion

  The bars of the cell, the last of six set into the side of the corridor, had been carved from the stone of the cities itself, a latticework of stone that reminded Ian of those crinkle-cut deep fried potato chips that he had always thought were innately too greasy.

  It was lit by a frosty circle set into the outside wall, which looked like quartz. Wan light trickled in, overpowered by the twin lanterns set into the far wall.

  It was still doubly locked, both by the brass padlock that Ian thought even he might be able to pick, and by the long, thin stone slab that slid across the base of the cell door, preventing the door from being removed.

  A simple mechanism, if you even wanted to call it a mechanism. Assuming you couldn’t break the stone—and the stone of the Cities was incredibly tough stuff—you’d have to lift and slide the slab, and that was anchored in place by a brass spike that went through a hole in the slab and into a corresponding hole in the wall. Reed Richards might be able to have enough reach to remove the spike while still in the cell; no human or Vestri could.

  “You haven’t opened the cell yet, have you?” Ian asked the guard.

  Folivan del Folivan—the job of jailer was apparently hereditary—was a fat and ugly man, but well-tanned, despite his job. This suggested that he didn’t spend a lot of time on duty, an impression that was substantiated by the thick dust on the floor and each of the combination bench and sleeping slab in the other five cells. So the job of jailer was probably a hereditary sinecure.

  That made sense. There was a lot wrong with dueling to settle arguments, no matter what rituals you wrapped it in, but it did have the virtue of settling them, of leaving somebody injured or humiliated—or both—rather than jailed.

  Folivan del Folivan gave Ian a who-the-hell-are-you-to-be-asking look, but at a subtle finger gesture from Darien del Darien he shook his head. “No,” he said. “I have not opened it.” No, he might as well have said, I am not a blithering idiot.

  Ian had worked out that the klaffvarer—literally “key-bearer”; less formally, chief butler—had more authority in the Old Keep than the one in the House of Fire had had, but he put that aside for a moment.

  Why was everybody looking at him, though?

  It had started with Hosea looking at him … and that explained it. Hosea had looked to him, as though Ian was in charge, and Ian had, perhaps unconsciously, taken his cue from the Old One. Darien del Darien had found it convenient or expedient to play along, and even Branden del Branden and Herolf, both of whom seemed to want to play alpha male games, albeit probably for different reasons, had done so, as well.

  Folivan del Folivan looked from face to face, and then back to Ian. “Do you wish me to open it?” he asked, his gaze carefully focused on a spot halfway between Darien del Darien and Ian.

  Darien del Darien eyed Ian levelly. “What do you think, Ian Silver Stone?” he asked.

  I think that I’d like this to be your problem, and not mine. Valin had clearly escaped, and that was fine with Ian. The only question was how, although Ian was fairly certain he knew, in general outline.

  If Ian was right, though, Valin should be long and safely gone. And that made helping out the men of the City a line item under the category of Maintaining Friendly Relationships While In A Foreign Country, and not one under Stooling for the Guards.

  “I think he’s gone.” And I sure hope he is. “Herolf,” he said, “do you smell him?”

  The Son growled. “Who are you to be asking me any questions, friend of Thorian the Traitor?”

  “Why, he’s nobody to be doing any such thing,” Branden del Branden grinned. He seemed to have relaxed some since the announcement that Valin had escaped. The idea of torturing information out of a dwarf probably hadn’t gone over well with him, either. “You’re quite right, Herolf. Ian Silver Stone has no authority here, and his suggestion is offensive. Folivan del Folivan, unbar the door, and let us remove it. If—and I say if—the Vestri somehow remains in there, and uses the opportunity to escape, why, it’s none of Herolf’s concern, after all.”

  “Pfah.” Herolf smiled, but there was no warmth or friendliness in the smile. A wolf’s smile was the baring of teeth for threat or use.

  Ian smiled back. Go for it, Herolf. Any time is fine with me.

  The Son sniffed the air once, then again. “There’s been vestri here, but I can’t tell… pfah. Not in this form. My thoughts are clearer, but it dulls the senses.” He looked to Darien del Darien, and, at the klaffvarer’s slight nod, Herolf bent forward, his back arching …

  And he changed.

  Torrie had described it to Ian once, but it was different to see it happen in front of him.

  The worst part of it was the sound. Ian had always assumed that the transformation was a flowing thing, a gentle quick morphing like the movie special effect.

  But the change happened with the crackle of breaking bone and the ripping of flesh, with the smell of
old sweat and a horrible, almost comic flatulence.

  Vertebrae popping like firecrackers, the Son’s back arched, then flattened as he fell forward to land on hands that were already mostly paws by the time they hit the ground. The two gold rings that had been on his fingers tingtinged on the floor, and bounced off somewhere.

  Ian didn’t pay them any attention; he was watching and listening as, with an awful liquid ripping sound, the front of Herolf’s face lengthened into a muzzle, and arms and legs thinned and became spindly wolf-legs, while his chest thickened, ribs snapping into barrel shape, each with the heavy slap of bone against flesh.

  Already sharp teeth shattered and reformed in Herolf’s jaw, but despite the obvious pain, the wolf had already lowered his muzzle to the floor and was snuffling around.

  Herolf stuck his snout through the interlaced stone bars of the cell, sniffing heroically; in a few moments he withdrew it, and then—slowly, stiff-leggedly stalked down the line of cells, growling the humans out of his way, sniffing at each cell in its turn.

  He growled, then barked at Ian, baring his teeth and snarling when that got no reaction except for Ian’s hand again dropping to the hilt of his sword, and Hosea’s hand dropping to cover Ian’s.

  “Noise is only noise, Ian,” Hosea said, quietly. He shook his head. “He says he didn’t smell anything useful. He was there—Valin’s sweat and piss reek of fear, he says—but he isn’t in any of those cells now.”

  Well, good, although there went one theory. It was the sort of ploy that would have appealed to Ian, if he’d been in the cell. Conceal himself in the cell—perhaps under the bench, if he could improvise some sort of screen to mask his presence, or pressed up against the ceiling, at the blind spot at the juncture of the front and side walls.

  Then wait until they unlocked it.

  “There’s a hidden passage,” he said, echoing what all the others were thinking.

  Not that it took much of a stretch. The Cities were known to be littered with such, some so well known and their entries obvious to the point of being used as regular corridors, others hidden.

  Ian himself knew two hidden passages in Falias, the House of Fire—one of them led to the Hidden Way that had first brought the Sons to Hardwood, and later had been used as an escape route by the Thorsen parents and Maggie. He knew that there were others, as well.

  The Builder of the Cities had been perhaps overly fond of hidden passages and hiding places, a fondness that hadn’t abandoned him. Perhaps it had come from the knowledge that he used to have in his head.

  Well, this was going from bad to worse. Here Ian was, suspected of being the Promised Warrior, with an unknown hidden passage having been identified as being in one of the prison cells, a passage that had gone undetected for centuries, suddenly opened and used in moments by Ian’s vestri companion.

  Shit. What other knowledge had Valin been hiding?

  Darien del Darien had been thinking some of the same things Ian had been. “A curious situation,” he said, quietly. “Here we have a talented swordsman who wants to appear to be less than he is, and who says that he is not the Vandestish Promised Warrior. While there’s been no new hidden passage discovered, as far as I know, since my grandfather bore the Scion’s cup, within the day of his arrival here we find evidence that not only is there one, but that one of his companions has used it to flee.” He smiled thinly. “Shall I lock you in this cell to wait on the Scion’s pleasure?”

  “I’m not sure if you’re going to believe this, but I’d rather you didn’t.” If the hidden passage had remained hidden in, of all places, a jail cell, it was unlikely that Ian would be able to figure it out within his lifetime.

  “You’re quite correct; I’m not sure if I do believe it.” Darien del Darien stared at Ian for what felt like a full minute before he turned to Herolf. “I have a commission for you and your pack,” he said. “Search the mountain. Find the Vestri; bring him back, alive, if at all possible.”

  The wolf growled and scampered out the door, nails clicking a rapid tattoo that slowly diminished in the distance.

  Darien del Darien turned to Branden del Branden and bowed, stiffly, formally. “I thank you for your service to the Scion, and to the Sky, and on his behalf, I now dismiss you from that service. I’m sure you’ll want to report what you’ve seen to His Warmth as soon as possible.”

  Branden del Branden nodded. “That may well be the case,” he said, drawing himself up straight and returning the bow, accompanying it with a flourish of his hand that may have had meaning, or maybe just meant that Branden del Branden was the sort of fop who liked to make flourishes with his hand. “I’ll depart come morning, if it pleases you; or now, if you think that His Warmth will be impatient for my report.”

  Even Ian could translate that last to mean I’ll get out of your hair tomorrow or right now; take your pick.

  What Darien del Darien probably wanted to do was have Branden del Branden, Ian, and Hosea killed quietly, quickly, but…

  “But the cat is out of the bag,” Ian said.

  “Eh?”

  “An expression from my homeland—no point in locking the barn if the horse has already been stolen.”

  “Ah.” Branden del Branden’s lips may have turned ever-so-slightly up at the corners. “Here it is: ‘Do not smoke the meat when it has already turned green.’ ” He nodded.

  “So, your advice would be, Branden del Branden?” The klaffvarer’s voice held no hint of alarm; he could have been asking if Branden del Branden thought the Cubs were going to finish last, again.

  “I think you’ll want to have some ordinaries and majors of the Keep looking for that hidden passage. Knowing that it’s there…” He shrugged. “Or you might want to lock Orfindel in there, under watch, and let him try, or find out for sure if he’s lost forever the trick of breaking the stone of the Cities, but,” he shook his head, “I’d advise against it. I know of none who has profited from imprisoning Orfindel, and that’s been tried more than once over the centuries.”

  Promise him that you’ll tell him all you know about this hidden passage, Ian was about to say, in English.

  Shit. More than one man in the Middle Dominion knew English—there had been more movement between Tir Na Nog and the Old Lands than was generally acknowledged.

  That wouldn’t have been a problem if Ian had spoken another language, ideally a rare and obscure one. Hosea had the gift of tongues, after all, and could even bestow languages, unknowingly. Maybe he had thought this out in advance and had given Ian the right tool for this occasion. It had happened with Bersmal, after all; Ian hadn’t even suspected that he spoke it until he had first heard it spoken. Hell, he had never heard of Bersmal until he began speaking it. Maybe Ian spoke Vietnamese, say. Or Linear B. Or even if he remembered any of his high school French, or Hebrew school Hebrew.

  How do you flex a muscle you don’t know you have?

  Just a few phrases stuck in his mind. Ani lo midaber ivreet. No good. Parlez-vous francais? wouldn’t help; Ian didn’t speak Hebrew, or French.

  La plume de ma tante est sur la table. Yiskadal, v’yiskadash, sh’mai rabba. Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir? Honi soit qui mal y pense. Non compos mentis. No, that was Latin, come to think of it—and he apparently didn’t speak Latin, either. Chad gad ya, chad gad ya. Shma, Yisroel… Alons enfants de la patrie, le jour de gloire est arrive. Legion Etrangere. B’nai Brith. Baruch at ah, ado—

  Yes.

  “Make a bris,” he said quickly in English, then switched to Bersmal. “Tell them all you know about this passage, please.” Thank whatever for a mind that collected minutiae. Ian had seen a cartoon, a long time ago, of a white-bearded man in long flowing robes, holding a pair of tablets, with the caption: “You want us to cut off the tips of our whats?”

  B’nai Brith had reminded Ian of bris, which was usually used to mean circumcision.

  But that was only its usual meaning; literally, it meant “covenant.” Make a covenant with them; promise t
hem, Ian had said, that you’ll help them find this passageway. It was possible that it led to a Hidden Way, but unlikely. When you hear hoofbeats, think horses …

  And even if it did, then so what?

  Ian, Hosea said, in a low-pitched sibilant language Ian had never heard spoken before, if I made promises lightly, or easily, I would be required to make them all the time.

  Darien del Darien looked sharply at them. “And what was that all about?”

  “Brick it up,” Hosea said. “I… might have been able to tell you once, long ago, how to access it. But I can’t, not now.” He tapped a long finger against his forehead. “Information that one doesn’t have can’t be given out to the wrong people, eh?” He tapped a fingernail against the stone. Tick, tick.

  “That’s an … interesting position.” Darien del Darien pursed his lips. “I think that this should be left to the Scion, though.” He nodded to himself. “We shall go see him now, Orfindel. You and I and Ian Silver Stone.”

  Ian had thought himself in good shape, but by the time they reached the top of the long staircase that twisted around the spire, he knew better. Perhaps it was the altitude, or perhaps he was just road-weary, but his lungs burned with every breath, with every step.

  What was it with Hosea and Darien del Darien? Darien del Darien looked to be in his sixties, and Hosea was older than mountain ranges, but neither of them showed any real effort, save for a slightly faster rate of breathing on Darien del Darien’s part and a light beading of sweat on his forehead, and perhaps as much as a touch of strain at the corners of Hosea’s mouth.

  Around and around and up the spire the staircase spiraled. There was a railing, a brass helix green with age, but hauling himself up with his sword arm would only tire that out, too, so Ian just kept plodding along.

  The dark disk atop the spire grew closer and closer. Ian found himself looking for openings in it. There ought to be something. Surely the Scion couldn’t have teams of vestri servants hauling supplies up and waste down all the time.