Galen struggled to keep control of his breath. It sounded loud in his ears, loud enough to call the entire watch of the city down on them.
Rhea shivered next to him, her sword still in her right hand, her left clinging to Maddoc. “I don’t . . . I don’t think this is . . . is going very well,” she gasped.
They stood in the shadows between two buildings. Galen knew they were trade shops of some kind—smithies like himself or some other business, though he could not tell in the darkness. The lack of stars or moonlight made everything difficult to see.
At least they were off the street. They ducked down between the buildings as soon as Galen had spotted an opening. The terrain behind the shops was more difficult going but offered them far more cover. An open sewer marked their primary course, occasionally meandering under a rickety fence. They scaled, crawled, dashed, and paused as necessary, making their difficult way eastward with all the strength they had.
“Oh, I . . . don’t know,” Galen said in a hoarse whisper with what breath he could muster. “I think we’re making . . . good time!”
Rhea smiled tiredly. “I agree. For not knowing where we are going . . . we’re making excellent time!”
Galen smiled into the darkness at her joke. “Not true . . . I know exactly where we are going. It’s just that I’m not sure we’re going to . . . live long enough to get there.”
Rhea laughed wearily. “That’s not very inspiring.”
“You see up over that building across the road?” Galen said, pointing with his sword. “That dark line cutting across the sky? That’s the old south wall of the city. Now, follow the line to your left. See where it drops off? That is a breach in the wall. That is where we are going.”
“What’s beyond the wall?” Rhea asked.
Maddoc suddenly spoke up. “Death and glory, my dear, that’s what is beyond the wall. I can hardly wait!”
Rhea shook again in the chill of the night. “Maybe . . . maybe we had better split up, Galen. You’ll have a better chance of making it without us. We’ll meet you south of the breach and—”
“No,” Galen said flatly. “That’s not the plan. We stay together or it won’t work. Understand?”
Rhea nodded.
Galen lifted his head. “They’re getting closer. We’ve got to hurry.”
Galen pushed Rhea and Maddoc ahead of him. Together, they dashed across the street, hoping to vanish between the structures before anyone else noticed them.
Gendrik lost track of the monks. He did not understand them. They always seemed to vanish just when you needed them the most. Now the torusk master was tired, angry, and frustrated. His initial sprint had slowed progressively to a run, then a jog, and finally a weary walk down the center of Southline Alley. He continued to glance down the black spaces between the shops for the escapees, all the while knowing how impossible it all had become. It was not as though he were looking for a lost boot that he would discover politely waiting in some gutter for him to run across. The prisoners—and the monks, for that matter—had vanished into the night, left him behind to take the blame for it, and none of them were likely to step forward now to save his hide.
He ought to just go back to the inn, collect his wounded torusk, and try to think of some way he and his wife could quietly slip into the night themselves. Of course, that was just a pipe dream. His wife was used to life in court and would never put up with being a fugitive. He would get her to flee the city only by tying a rope to her and dragging her out with the torusk.
He was mulling over this interesting picture in his mind when he saw them.
There they were—his prisoners—dashing across the roadway just ahead of him!
He tried to yell but he was so excited that it came out as a single, inarticulate squeak. He cleared his throat, finding his voice even as his feet once more began to give chase. He could feel his legs shaking under him with the renewed effort, but he could not let them escape him a second time. He called after them. “Hey! Stop! In the name of the Inquisitor, stop!”
He dashed between the broken-down shanties, desperate to keep his quarry in view. They were elusive but he was calling on reserves from unknown depths. His alternative to capturing them was to face the displeasure of both his wife and the Inquisitor. These were powerful motivators. He doggedly stayed nearly fifty feet behind them, following step by step as they ran splashing down the thin sewer behind the shacks. He cleared the same low fences they threw themselves over and vaulted the obstacles they pulled down in his path. Several times he lost them among the chaos of the shacks, but each time he managed to find them again. With each moment the escaped prisoners were putting more distance between themselves and the torusk master, but still he did not give up. He could not give up.
Suddenly the hovels gave way. Gendrik saw the great breach in the southern wall that Vasska had made during the siege of the city more than four centuries earlier. Now great stones lay scattered across the landscape, with broken visages of ancient Rhamasian kings lying among the maze of blocks and debris. The ruins seemed to glow with a halo of light. Gendrik could see in the distance a large moon shining down through a break in the clouds, illuminating the wide plains to the south. The River Zhamra shone like a silver ribbon cutting across the Southern Steppes.
The prisoners were running through the debris field toward the open land. The pain in Gendrik’s side was terrible. “Stop!” he gasped in faint hope. “Stop!”
To his amazement, they stopped!
Then the torusk master saw, silhouetted against the steps, a Pir monk with his staff raised.
Gendrik could not believe his luck. The prisoners—all three of them—were in a large clearing among the rubble from the wall. They turned away from the monk, trying to escape by another route, but as if by some miracle a second monk appeared atop one of the broken blocks directly in their path. The prisoners backed away from this new threat, their swords raised in their defense.
Gendrik could only smile through his wheezing breaths. Their swords would be useless against the dragonstaffs.
The third monk walked past Gendrik, holding up his own staff. The prisoners, back to back, were now in the center of the sandy clearing. One of them, the young man, had sheathed his sword, at least, and was holding his hands up in the air. Sensible, Gendrik thought, although it would do him no good.
As though of one mind, the monks turned their staffs to face the Elect. Gendrik smiled once more, slumped over as he was, sucking for air with his hands on his knees. They had asked for it.
The three prisoners screamed and fell writhing on the ground. In moments they lay in an unconscious tangle. Gendrik had seen it before. The Elect can never escape the eye of the dragon.
The monks relaxed and lowered their staffs. It was over, Gendrik reflected as he moved forward. This lot had given him a scare, it was true, but not so bad really now that he thought about it. For that matter, he might be able to get those cages repaired quickly enough to get them all back on the road before anyone was the wiser. They would be certain to frisk the prisoners a bit more carefully this time. All in all, he thought, it had not turned out so badly after all.
He approached the prisoners with the monks. They lay motionless before him: a careworn woman, a man about her same age, and a younger man. What had they in common? Why had they behaved so badly? You would have thought they wanted to go to the war.
“Master Gendrik,” one of the monks said. “If you will help us get these prisoners back to the torusk, I believe we can complete this task without further delay.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Gendrik replied. So the monk wanted to cover all this up, too, eh? Things were going to work out after all.
Gendrik reached down to grab the young man’s arm.
The young man grabbed his first.
Gendrik looked down in shock.
The young man was looking back at him.
In that instant, Gendrik was kicked backward by the young man’s booted foot. He fell ba
ck flat against the hard ground, what little breath that was left in his lungs pressed out with painful suddenness.
The prisoners were all on their feet. The monks stepped back as well, lifting their staffs quickly to their defense. They were useless. The young man held aloft in his left hand a strange globe that flared with purple lightning.
The Eye of Vasska was blinded.
Gendrik’s eyes went wide. He was witnessing evil in its purest form, a power that challenged the holy Vasska. His legs pressed uselessly against the sand, trying to push him farther from the terror before him.
The woman’s blade slashed outward, cutting the dragonstaff in two. The monk, shocked at being disarmed so readily, stumbled backward over a stone and fell to the ground. The woman was on top of him in a moment, driving downward with the hilt of her sword.
The older man stood over the second monk on the far side of the woman. Gendrik watched as he casually picked up a broken dragonstaff and swung it downward. The monk’s sandal kicked once against the dirt and then went still.
Someone yelled to his right. Gendrik turned and could see the final monk running through the rubble back toward the hovels at the edge of the city. The young man whispered something to the sword, then threw it with all his might.
The blade spun through the air, its hilt striking the monk squarely in the back of the head. He fell behind the stones, Gendrik for the moment uncertain of his fate.
Then, inexplicably, the blade was back in the hands of the young man.
It was then that they all turned to face Gendrik.
“Please,” Gendrik said, his voice wavering on the edge of a sob. “Please! Don’t kill me!”
The young prisoner turned toward the breach in the great city wall. The open plains beyond seemed to beckon him. He did not speak to Gendrik but only to his own companions. “Are you hurt? Can you travel?”
“As far as you take us, Galen,” the older man said.
“Then the road is open before us. Let’s go home.”
The prisoners turned toward the breach.
“Excuse me,” Gendrik called.
The young man turned toward him. “You want something?”
Gendrik nodded. “If it wouldn’t be too much trouble, would you do me a very small favor?”
The young man turned away once more, called by some vision beyond the horizon, perhaps, or a road he was anxious to travel.
It was the woman who answered. “What do you want?”
“The monks have an excuse,” Gendrik pleaded, his voice small in the night. “Would you leave me here with none?”
The young man turned back to look at Gendrik.
Gendrik smiled meekly and pointed vaguely at his own head.
“Very well,” the young man said, drawing his sword.
“Oh, thank you!” Gendrik replied.
The last thing he thought of was the glorious welt on his head he could display to the Inquisitor. Then all his thoughts went truly black.
33
Obsessions and Confessions
I am not interested in your excuses or your problems, Master Gendrik!” Tragget raged. The Inquisitor’s voice echoed through the Hall of Truth until even the polished stone in the walls shook. “You have had three days. Three days of my good pleasure. Three days of the full resources of the office of the Inquisition. Three days of searching and you have come up with nothing?”
Gendrik rubbed the lump still prominent on his forehead as much for his own satisfaction as to subtly remind his master that he, too, was a victim—albeit a willing one. “Lord Inquisitor, we’ve done everything you have asked. Your Pir monks have searched all the routes from the city. The crossings have been watched since the first dawn, and the monks seek the roads night and day. Others at Your Lordship’s word are watching the ports of both the Northreach and Cebon seas. Perhaps if we notified the priests of each Kath-Drakonis they could help us search the cities—”
“I will not have the Nobis order apprised of our failure, Gendrik!” Tragget was livid. “We will clean up our own mess without having the Aboths breathing down our necks. No one beyond the Inquisition is to know about this, is that clear?”
“Yes, Lord Inquisitor!” Gendrik spoke respectfully, his eyes averted.
The door at the back of the hall closed. A robe-clothed monk moved silently down the length of the hall toward the throne.
Tragget looked up, his eyes blinking furiously. “So, Brother Lyndth! Do you have news for me?”
“I do, Lord,” Lyndth intoned in a reedy voice. “Does the Lord Inquisitor wish to hear the current report?”
“I would not have asked, otherwise,” Tragget said through clenched teeth. “Have they been found?”
Lyndth shook his head, then spoke evenly. “The traveler monks have found no trace of the prisoners anywhere on the roads or along the banks of the River Zhamra from Gateway east as far as the Leeside Bridge and south as far as Homage. Reports of their inquiries among the towns and settlement farms have yielded no results.”
Tragget was trembling.
“No one has seen them,” Lyndth concluded.
“I have seen them!” Tragget screamed, his body straining forward suddenly, the veins on his neck standing out starkly. His hands went white as they squeezed the carved arms of the throne. The outburst was so sudden that both the monk and the torusk master started visibly. “Don’t tell me they are dead, I know that they are not! Don’t tell me they have vanished, I see them out there in the world laughing at us! I do not care how you do it, who you injure or how far you must go; they must be found, is that clear? Is that clear?”
Gendrik looked at Lyndth as if for help. The monk took a deep breath before continuing.
“There is, however, a curious development.”
Tragget was still breathing heavily from his outburst, struggling to bring himself back in control. “What development, Brother Lyndth?”
“One of our brethren, at your behest, traveled the east road along the northern branch of the River Zhamra. He thought the prisoners might attempt to reach Tempus or one of the eastern ports through Hynton Pass. While in Burk’s Cove, this good brother heard talk of a dwarf in the village who had come out of the Dragonback.”
Tragget raised his eyebrows. “The Dragonback? There are no dwarves in the Dragonback!”
“Which is why the report interested our Inquis brother,” Lyndth intoned. “This blind dwarf was traveling in the company of a human woman. They said their objective was to come here—to Vasskhold—that they might seek redress for some wrong. They started out from some small town named Benyn some weeks ago during—”
“Benyn?” Tragget blinked. “Did you say Benyn?”
“Yes, Lord, but—”
“Did they leave around the Festival of the Harvest?”
Lyndth nodded, his eyes narrowing. “Yes, My Lord. Is that significant?”
Tragget preferred not to answer. “Where is this dwarf now, Lyndth?”
“The dwarf and his companion were stranded in Burk’s Cove when they were discovered. Our brother thought it prudent to forward them to you directly, Lord Inquisitor,” Lyndth replied evenly. “They are in the antechamber awaiting an audience at your pleasure.”
“That is most interesting indeed,” Tragget replied, leaning back in his chair more easily now. “Our brother has done well. By all means, Brother Lyndth, grant them audience.” He then turned to the torusk master. “Gendrik, I am finished with you for now. By all means, take the right hall exit.”
The torusk master bowed, swallowed, and walked gingerly through the right hall archway, hoping that his luck would improve.
Berkita sat as motionless as the stone in the antechamber around her. The stillness helped because a part of her thought that if she moved, her life would tumble out of control and into a chaos from which she might never return.
Berkita’s life had been a tranquil, pleasantly controlled existence. She had known that each day would be much like the last and that to
morrow would be a satisfying, serene variation on today. The tablecloth in her home would be pressed in just such a way and placed on its shelf. A pleasant morning would see her walking into Benyn to the markets and entering into determined negotiations over the relative value of sharp tools to fresh fish. Afternoons would carry the chores of maintaining her household in strict order through hard work, with a place for everything and everything in its place. Her life was ordered to her will and obeyed her whims. Even the selection of her husband had been of her own design. She loved her father but also knew well just what to say and how to say it to have her choice become his.
But now everything in her life seemed to be moving, swept onward as though a dam had broken and the tranquil waters had emptied into a raging river. Her life now bounded between the boulders of one town after another; from Bayfast to Vestuvis to Lankstead Lee, drifting in the eddies of each for any sign of her Galen. Searching the torusk caravans of the Elect dragged them down the “Blood Road,” as Cephas put it, like whitewater through the thieves’ dens of the Hynton Pass. At last their money ran out in Burk’s Cove, a whirlpool of a town where many others had given up hope and never managed to escape.
Yet Berkita held on, determined to get back her beloved and return order to their upside-down lives.
She was working tables at an inn called the Torusk’s Tale, nearly starving herself as she struggled to save enough money to continue, when the Pir Inquisitas came for her. Now the river that had swept her into lands she had only heard about in her youth had once more picked her up and, miraculously, brought her to the place she had struggled to reach.
She knew that somewhere, not a few steps or the distance of a shout from where she sat, was her beloved Galen. So she sat as still as she could lest that terrible river of fate pick her up once more.
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