by K. C. May
Brawna shook her head, but it was Calinor who explained, “We didn’t find her. When we got to the inn, her room was empty, but she left my horse there. We searched the streets, asked everyone we saw. Brawna talked to someone who seen her.”
All eyes turned to the young blonde battler. She swallowed and straightened her shoulders. “A woman said she saw a dark-haired First Royal carrying a knapsack. She only noticed because the battler was on foot, walking down the street as though she had somewhere to go, not on horseback. From her description, I’m sure it was Cirang.”
“She didn’t say where the battler went?”
Brawna shook her head. “I searched in the direction she said, but nobody else remembered seeing her.”
Gavin pondered the news. “Maybe the lordover’s armsmen killed her for some crime. What else could explain why she’s gone from my sight?”
“Is there a way she could hide from your hidden eye?” Daia asked.
“Underground?” Brawna asked. “There’s an old mining tunnel in the south part of Ambryce. Maybe if she’s in there, you can’t see her?”
Everyone turned to look at her, and a blush flooded her face. “That’s a very good question,” Gavin said. “It’s worth a look. We’ll go at first light.”
“How come we don’t go now?” Brawna asked.
“If she’s hiding in there,” Gavin said, “she’ll come out at night to get food. She might see us afore we see her.”
Daia nodded. “If we go during the day when she’s hiding, we have a better chance to catch her.”
“No,” Gavin said. “There’s no catching her. She dies on sight.” He looked at each of them in turn. “Agreed?”
They all did.
Chapter 42
Cirang awoke to the rattle and clang of metal, followed by the creak of the cellar hatch opening. She leaped to her feet and pulled the bag of powder from her boot.
A robed figure climbed down the ladder carrying a flickering candle. The hood and veil had been pushed back to reveal the fresh face of a young girl, perhaps sixteen, probably the one who’d been filling the cups at the sacramental font. Her white robe had not even a single cuff band, indicating she’d only recently taken her vows.
The girl reached the bottom of the ladder and took a step forward before stopping short. She gasped. “Who—who are you? What are you doing here?”
Cirang’s gaze was drawn to the rounded bump of her belly beneath the robe. She smirked. The nun’s story was a cliche — unchaste, unwed, unwanted, and now unloved except by her god. “I’m First Royal Guard Cirang Deathsblade. What’s your name, Doma?” The girl probably hadn’t been conferred the title of Doma yet, but Cirang had found that overstating respect, even falsely, was more disarming than showing the proper level of deference.
“Altais, named for the dragon’s head constellation.”
“I need your real name, not your acolyte name. I have a message.” She tapped a little powder into her left palm.
“Oh! Is it from Dafid? Please tell me.”
Cirang gestured at the woman’s swollen belly. “I’m sure you can understand the personal nature of the message. Tell me your name so I don’t reveal secrets meant for another.”
“It’s Marita. Marita Sorae.”
“Marita, yeh. You’re the one. I need to tell you this...” Cirang lifted her hand and blew the powder into the nun’s face.
The girl staggered and darted out both hands, one still holding the candle, to steady herself. Cirang took the candle from her, turned to set it on the crate, and then stepped in with her left foot and threw a right punch, twisting her hips to drive more power into the blow. She felt the pain in her knuckles as they met the flesh and bone of the girl’s left cheek.
The acolyte’s head snapped back, and her feet flew out from under her. She landed hard on her back with a grunt.
Cirang fell to her knees atop the girl, grabbed her head and twisted. When she didn’t hear the crack she was expecting, she did it twice more, and then pressed her forearm across the soft throat until there was no pulse. The last thing she wanted was to have to use her knife and get blood on the acolyte’s clean robe. Or the final death shit and piss, for that matter. She quickly pulled the girl’s robe and shift off to keep them from getting soiled.
Damn it, she thought, clutching her injured side. She really needed to rest for a few days to give her body a chance to heal.
She looked down into the staring eyes and gaping mouth, smirking. “I’m Altais now, named for the dragon’s head.” After taking a moment to catch her breath, she dragged the naked body to the corner, thinking she could use the darkness of night to find a place to hide it.
The temple’s bells tolled twelve times, the last chime for the night. Soon the bell-ringer would find his bed, and the temple would be dark and quiet.
Cirang removed her sword, mail, and clothes, changed her wound’s dressing, and pulled on the acolyte’s shift and robe. She pulled the lace veil down over her face, placed the hood atop her head and looked at herself in the sliver of mirror. Though she was confident she couldn’t be identified, she wasn’t pregnant. She thought about wadding up her own clothes to make a false belly, but she didn’t have a way to strap it to her abdomen. Well, she had bloody rags. If someone asked, she could say she miscarried.
She took the candle and waterskin, and climbed the ladder.
The temple was dark. The candles on the altar had been extinguished. Cirang stood in the doorway and listened for someone moving about. All was quiet.
She went up the steps of the dais, cursing softly when she stepped on the hem of her robe and tripped. Because Asti-nayas didn’t strike her down for cursing in the temple, she made a rude gesture at the statue and laughed. “Nasty-Eyes, hah! You’re a weak, pitiful god unworthy of all this adulation.” Standing before the font, she raised the candle to get a better look at the embodiment of Asti-nayas.
The granite statue was about twice the height of a man, with amazing detail on its angular face and slender hands, down to the ridges on the knuckles and line of cuticle at the base of each fingernail. The gold skull cap atop the smooth head was reputed to provide the means for Asti-nayas to energize the statue with His holy power, thus blessing the water in which it stood.
That gold cap would buy her passage to Nilmaria and then some.
A stone ledge atop the font’s retaining wall was about the width of a hand and roughly the height of her knee.
She set the waterskin on the floor and the candle on the edge of the font. With one foot on the ledge, she placed her other foot on the knee of the granite god, grasped its elbow, and tried to step up. Her higher foot slipped off the smooth knee and splashed down into the water, wetting her boot and the bottom of her robe. “Shit!” Now that the sole of her boot was wet, she couldn’t get purchase on the god’s knee at all. She tried switching legs, but her left leg wasn’t as strong because of the injury to her hip. The hat was out of reach unless she used the cellar’s ladder. First things first.
She climbed back down and picked up the waterskin. The pious people of Ambryce would soon commune with their god in a way they’d never imagined.
She uncorked the skin and emptied its contents into the sacramental font. The sound of the water falling into the font reminded her she needed to piss. She couldn’t wait to hand cups to worshipers the next day and then watch their faces when they drank the water of the enlightened, changing their lives forever.
When the waterskin was empty, she replaced the cork and put it back into her bag. She lifted her robe and the shift underneath and sat on the edge of the font. As she let more water trickle into the font, she wondered how long Kinshield would stay in Ambryce searching for her.
News of the twice-blessed water at this temple would spread quickly, and if the king were still here, he would know where to find her. Perhaps she should have waited until he was gone, but it was too late now. With the help of some indebted worshipers, she could trick him into riding to
some faraway city, like Keyes, leaving her free to return to the site of the landslide to fill a few dozen skins. She could travel to other cities, negotiating with High Clerics across the country for their temple to become so blessed by their esteemed god. Soon, it wouldn’t be a blessing from Asti-nayas but from Altais, a god in her own right.
Chapter 43
Gavin spent the night with his wife, both overlooking their disagreements. When she brought up her concerns about the children being alone, he reassured her they would survive in the palace for a few more days. “You’re leaving tomorrow, aren’t you?” he asked her. She lay with her back against his front, wrapped in his arms.
“No,” she said, “I want to visit with the children once more and pay my respects to Asti-nayas before I go. I’ll leave first thing the next morning. What about you? When will you be home?”
“Hopefully a few days after you. I don’t want to leave afore I find Cirang or her corpse.”
“Hurry, Gavin. We need you home.”
He smiled in the darkness and kissed her neck. “As soon as I can. I promise.”
He arose shortly before dawn and woke Daia, Calinor and Brawna, eager to get going. Disguised as a burly warrant knight slightly different from the burly warrant knight he used to be, Gavin led his companions to the entrance of the old mine shaft in the south district of Ambryce.
Homes and shops surrounded the mine entrance as if it were just another building in a moderately populated neighborhood. He’d never known it to be actively mined and suspected it had dried up many years before he was born. The entrance had been boarded up, though now and then, a group of mischievous boys would pull off enough wood to create an opening large enough to wriggle through.
That stopped when one of them fell and broke a leg, requiring the lordover to organize a rescue. From that day on, anyone caught tampering with the barricade was guilty of trespassing and imprisoned. Years ago, he caught two adolescent boys trying to sneak in, but he hadn’t the heart to arrest or brand them. A harsh reprimand from a huge, scarred warrant knight was usually enough to make a young boy think twice next time he was tempted into mischief.
It was dawn when they reached the site of the mine entrance and dismounted. He’d been certain they would find Cirang here, but the entrance to the shaft and the hillside it burrowed into looked undisturbed. The boards covering the entrance were old and weathered, nailed together haphazardly. On the sides of the shaft opening, the boards appeared to be affixed to the hillside with mortar and nails as thick as Gavin’s thumb. He tugged a few boards and found them secure.
“Is there another entrance?” he asked.
The others shook their heads slowly, arms crossed and faces reflecting Gavin’s disappointment.
“It was a good guess,” Calinor said. “I was sure she’d be in here.”
“You there!” an armsman called, approaching on horseback. “Get away from there. The mine shaft is off limits.”
“Awright,” Gavin said. “We’re leaving.” He motioned with his head for the others to mount up. “Did you patrol this area overnight?”
The armsman eyed him warily. “I did.”
“Did you see a woman battler with short, dark hair?”
“No, now move along, ’ranter.”
Gavin was tempted to let his disguise drop and ask the armsman to repeat himself, but others were in the area, people going about their early morning chores, and he didn’t want someone else to accidentally notice him, and so he let it go. He climbed into his saddle and started north. “Let’s ask Trayev if he’s seen her since yesterday.”
The innkeeper at the Good Knight Inn greeted Gavin warmly and enthusiastically with a strong left-handed handshake when he walked in. Trayev had lost his right hand to a beyonder as a child and often bartered his rooms in exchange for help with repairs and other labor he and his son couldn’t manage themselves. Gavin had stayed at this inn many times during his time as a warrant knight because of his willingness to work for his room.
“Listen, Trayev,” Gavin said, “we’re looking for a swordswoman with short, black hair and thick lips. Have you seen her?”
“Yeh,” the innkeeper replied, “your friends there...” He pointed at Calinor and Brawna with two fingers. “...were asking about her last evening. She paid for a room yesterday and put up her horse, but she was gone when we checked. Didn’t take the horse, though, so I suspect she’s still in Ambryce. Fine warhorse, too. Well, you’ve seen it. That buck took it, said she stole it from him.”
Gavin nodded. “Yeh, it’s true.” He asked Calinor, “Did you leave the white mare you were riding?”
“No, I didn’t want to give her an easy escape out o’town. Left her at the lordover’s stable.”
Daia asked, “Have you heard rumors of a horse theft?”
“None since the woman got here,” Trayev said. “Odd that she’d abandon the horse and leave on foot. If you’re here to ask if she’s been back, I ha’n’t seen her, and the rooms are just as they were.”
Gavin clapped the innkeeper’s shoulder. “My thanks for your help, Trayev.”
“Good to see you again, Gavin— er, I mean, King Gavin. I’m damned proud to know you.” Trayev offered his hand and Gavin shook it once more.
“My wife’ll be at the temple soon,” Gavin said.
“Brawna and I’ll head over there now,” Calinor said. “We’ll look for Cirang in the crowd. Just in case.”
“Awright. I’ll see if I can spot her from above and meet you there.”
“Mind if we leave the horses with you?” Calinor asked the innkeeper. “There’s apt to be a big crowd.”
“Not at all,” Trayev said. “The boy’ll keep an eye on them.”
Brawna nodded at Gavin before following Calinor out. Though she was shy and quiet, there was a determination in her face that gave Gavin confidence the young battler wouldn’t let Cirang get past her.
He tapped into Daia’s conduit gift and lifted his mystical sight through the ceiling and over the rooftops, though he didn’t expect to see his escaped prisoner. Unless he found some evidence she was still alive, he would soon be forced to give up the search for her. From his vantage point above the city, he saw himself, Daia and Trayev at the inn, and Calinor and Brawna walking down the street, stopping passersby and talking to merchants on their way to the temple, but still no sign of Cirang.
“I don’t see her.” As much as he wanted to think Cirang had conveniently met her end, Gavin couldn’t rest until he found her corpse. He donned his magical disguise, choosing the wild red hair and beard to go with a round face and green eyes. “How’s it look?”
Trayev laughed. “That’s remarkable! I’ve known you for what? Five years? I’d never’ve guessed it was you. Even your scar is gone.”
Gavin smiled, showing the illusion of four missing teeth in front and the rest crooked and yellowed. “It’s good, ain’t it?”
Trayev slapped the desk with the palm of his hand. “Your teeth. Hah! Look at ’em.”
Daia was smiling as well. “All you need is a mouthful of tobaq and the disguise is complete.”
“I got some if you want it,” the innkeeper said.
Gavin wrinkled his nose. He’d never developed a taste for the stuff, though his papa had chewed it for years. “I only need people to not recognize me.”
“Then we’re ready,” Daia said. “If Cirang’s still alive and planning an attack on Queen Feanna, we’ll find her and stop her.”
People had begun to gather outside the temple, though they hadn’t formed a large crowd yet. The lordover’s men-at-arms stood near the door, turning away would-be worshipers. In his wild red hair and beard disguise, Gavin asked one of the men gathered what was happening.
“They aren’t letting anyone into the temple, but they won’t say why. My guess is the queen’s coming to take her sacrament.”
The advantage of being so much taller than everyone else was that he had a good view of people. He scanned the heads, look
ing for Cirang’s short, black hair. “Still don’t see her,” he told Daia. “Let’s go stand between those two buildings so I can look for her haze. Don’t want to stand here in the open when the disguise drops.”
They found a place where Gavin could look for Cirang without being noticed. From the vantage point of his hidden eye, he didn’t find her, but he did see people in all the nearby buildings except for one: the temple. There appeared to be no one inside.
He released the mystical vision and restored his disguise. “Didn’t see her, but something’s odd. The temple looks empty to my hidden eye. Why would it be empty if Feanna’s coming to take her sacrament?”
“Let’s go find out,” Daia said.
They made their way to the temple’s front doors where they were stopped by the two armsmen guarding the entrance.
“The temple is closed this morning. Come back later,” one said.
“We need to ensure the inside is secure,” Gavin said. He leaned closer and whispered, “For the queen’s visit.”
The two guards looked at each other. “All right,” the first one said. “The First Royal can enter, but you’ve got to stay out here.”
Gavin opened his mouth to object, but Daia said, “That’ll be fine. It’ll only need a moment.”
He supposed he could have given himself a disguise that included the mail and ribbons of a First Royal, like what Adro wore, but it was too late now. He could reveal his identity to the guards to gain entry and chance drawing the attention of the gathering crowd, or trust Daia to handle this task without him. He trusted her implicitly, but it annoyed him to have to wait outside and let someone else take care of important matters like this. He supposed that, as king, he would need to get used to delegating more tasks.
Daia opened the door to go inside, but she stopped at the threshold, looked down at her right hip and tried entering again. “Odd,” she said, opening her coin pouch. She withdrew the ring with the blue moonstone and handed it to Gavin. “Hold this for me, will you?” After he took the ring, she entered without further incident. He fingered