BRYTE'S ASCENT (Arucadi Series Book 8)

by E. Rose Sabin

  The panther, if that was what it was, lashed its tail and growled so fiercely that Bryte backed once more to the doorway. But the animal loosed its hold on the man’s throat. Blood oozed from the wounds its teeth had made.

  The man’s eyes, wild with terror, stared up at the panther, then cut to Oryon. “Call it off, please,” he begged. “I never meant any harm.”

  “You climb in over the balcony and break into my room, and you say you meant no harm.” Oryon’s voice was cold and cruel. “What was the purpose, then, of the knife you had clenched between your teeth?”

  A knife with a curved blade, like those used for gutting fish, lay near Oryon’s feet.

  “To defend myself if you caught me, that’s all, I swear. He made me come, see, to steal back the box.”

  “He? The man who commissioned it? The one you said you hadn’t seen in weeks?”

  “He came not more’n an hour after you left. He asked for the box, and I told him I sold it to a market vendor. I wasn’t going to tell him about you, but …” A glazed look came over his face.

  “But?” Oryon prompted.

  “I don’t know,” the man said slowly. “It’s all vague, but I think I told him everything I knew about you.”

  “Hah!” Oryon exclaimed. “He put you under a spell. But I wonder why he sent you for the box instead of coming himself. He did send you, didn’t he?”

  The man closed his eyes and breathed heavily. Oryon waited. Finally, the man said, “Please, don’t hurt me. I couldn’t help myself. I had to do what he said.”

  “Coercion,” Oryon muttered. “Powerful.” He bent and picked up the knife, careful not to touch the blade.

  “I think it’s safe to let him up now,” he said, again addressing the panther.

  Slowly the animal lifted its paws from the man’s shoulders, leaving blood welling through the rips in his shirt. It stayed beside the man for a few moments, its teeth bared in warning. With a parting growl, it turned and stalked through the balcony doors. The curtains prevented Bryte from seeing whether it stayed on the balcony or left as mysteriously as it had come.

  The man sat up and rubbed his shoulders. Oryon regarded him in silence.

  Bryte heard the sound of approaching footsteps. Still a considerable distance down the hall, they might be those of a guest heading for another room, but a stealthy quality about them alerted Bryte. “Someone’s coming,” she said, sorry she hadn’t shut the door when she came in.

  Oryon glanced around as if aware of her presence for the first time. He looked surprised. “I don’t hear anything. But get against the wall there.” He motioned toward the wall separating his room from Lina’s. “Be ready to duck into the bathroom if there’s trouble.”

  She positioned herself by the bathroom door, but she would not be able to “duck into” it; she’d left it locked from the other side.

  The footsteps drew closer. There was no longer any question that they were approaching with extreme caution.

  “I wonder,” Oryon said, backing toward the door of the room while keeping his eyes fixed on the hapless leatherworker, “I wonder whether you were intended merely as a decoy.”

  He spun to face the door just as a tall man with stooped shoulders appeared in the doorway. He had a long, narrow face that reminded Bryte of a horse. Perhaps it was the generous nose and the shaggy brown hair that hung to within an inch of his shoulders and fell over his forehead like a mane. When he opened his mouth to speak, Bryte almost expected a whinny.

  Instead his voice was deep and forceful. “I’ve come for the box,” he announced. “It was made for me. It can mean nothing to you.”

  Bryte heard the slide of the bolt that locked the bathroom door. Lina must have returned to her room. Bryte couldn’t imagine how or when.

  “I was attracted to the symbols on the box,” Oryon responded. “I know the meaning of some of them, but I’m uncertain and intrigued by what they signify in combination.”

  The man laughed. “It’s well you did not learn that,” he said. “It might have cost you your life.”

  “I doubt that,” Oryon replied. “And the box is mine now. I paid good money for it. You no longer have any claim to it.”

  Bryte heard the knob of the bathroom door behind her turn slowly and the door ease open.

  The leatherworker was squirming toward the balcony, trying not to be noticed, though to Bryte each small movement produced a thump on the carpet.

  “Young man,” the newcomer was saying, “I advise against any rash action. I can see that you have power, but I doubt that yours is any match for mine.”

  “Shall we test that assumption?” Oryon asked.

  “We shall if that is the only way I can recover my box. However, I bear you no ill will and would not see you come to harm. I am willing to reimburse the money you paid for the box plus an added sum for your trouble.”

  “I’m not interested in selling.”

  This strange man was dangerous. Oryon was being foolhardy. A hiss behind her told Bryte that Lina felt the same.

  The leatherworker no doubt shared that opinion. He had continued to creep backward and by now lacked no more than a hand span of reaching the balcony doors.

  Bryte could have sworn that Oryon had never taken his gaze from the tall stranger and could not have noticed the leatherworker’s retreat. Yet still without sparing him a glance, Oryon called out, “You’re leaving your knife behind,” and tossed the knife behind him.

  It rotated in midair and flew, hilt first, to the leatherworker. Startled, he let it clatter to the floor beside him. He reached out and picked it up gingerly as if it was burning hot. Maybe it was. He dropped it immediately. With a terrified look he jumped to his feet and bounded out onto the balcony, leaving the knife lying on the carpet.

  The stranger arched his neck and smiled an enigmatic smile.

  As the leatherworker made his leap, Bryte heard a low whisper from Lina: “Move aside.”

  Bryte edged to the side. She expected Lina to burst into the room, but the door remained open only the merest crack and Lina stayed where she was.

  Her movement, however, attracted the stranger’s attention. “Who is this child?” he demanded. “What is she doing here?”

  “She’s a guide,” Oryon said. “We’ve hired her to take us about the city.”

  “And you’re keeping her with you in the hotel?” The stranger’s tone was incredulous.

  “What if we are? What business is that of yours?”

  “None,” the man conceded. “But this is no place for a child. I would not want her to come to harm.”

  “Neither would I,” Oryon said. “Bryte, go to the other room.”

  Bryte stepped forward, planning to go out to the hall and then through Lina’s room to join Lina in the bathroom.

  “Not this way.” The man’s nostrils flared, making him look more horsey than ever. “Doesn’t that door behind you lead to an adjoining bath? Go that way.”

  If she opened that door, she’d expose Lina, who she assumed was staying safely out of whatever trouble was about to erupt between Oryon and Horseface. “Why should I leave?” she asked with unfeigned indignation. “I’m not a child, and I’m not afraid.”

  “If you aren’t afraid, you’re even more of a child than I thought,” the man said, addressing her but continuing to watch Oryon. “I mean to take what is mine by force, and that force could spill over on you.”

  “Huh! I don’t see why that old box is so important. There were dozens like it at the booth where he bought it.”

  “You know nothing, child,” the man said. “There is no other box like that one.”

  “I saw ’em,” Bryte insisted, hoping the lie would protect Oryon. “What do those funny marks mean, anyway? They’re different from the pretty pictures they usually put on stuff. I guess that leatherworker liked the design so much he used it on a bunch of boxes.”

  For the first time the stranger aimed his full gaze at her. “That can’t be,” he said.
“The man swore … You’re lying!”

  “Why would I lie? That dumb box don’t mean nothing to me.” She made herself sound stupid, guessing that the man would be more inclined to believe her if he took her for no more than an ignorant child of the flats.

  “If so, the leatherworker will suffer for it,” Horseface declared and turned back to Oryon. “I hope for your sake, too, that the child is lying. I’m certain she is. If there had been other boxes like this, I doubt that it would have interested you. I’ll check, of course, but right now I want the box you bought, whether or not it is the only one made.”

  “And whether or not it is the only one of its kind, it is mine now, and I don’t mean to give it up.” Oryon pointed his wand at the box, which sat on the dresser. The box flew through the air to Bryte’s hands.

  Despite her startlement, she caught it.

  “Go to the other room and take it with you,” Oryon ordered. “Hurry!”

  She clasped the box to her breast but otherwise did not move. A force shoved her to the door, similar to what she had felt coming off the mound those two nights ago, when she had been led to her encounter with Oryon and Lina.

  Unable to resist, she opened the door and backed through it into the bathroom. When she pulled the door shut, Lina stepped out of the shower stall and grabbed the box from her hands, cautioning silence by a look before Bryte could voice an objection.

  Badly shaken by the weird happenings, Bryte did not argue. She had seen the impossible—objects flying through the air, a shove from someone across the room from her. She had no doubt that it was Oryon who had shoved her, though how he had done it she could not imagine.

  Lina motioned her toward her room. Knowing she could still hear from there what was being said in Oryon’s room, she was willing to obey. But before she could, a loud boom came from Oryon’s room, followed by crashes. Lina threw open the door and ran into the room. Bryte followed more cautiously, her curiosity outweighing her fear.

  She could scarcely believe her eyes. Fire spouted from Oryon’s wand and fountained toward Horseface, framing him in a flaming circle. The fire did not touch him, yet the carpet in front of him was scorched, and a sulfuric odor filled the room.

  The dresser had toppled and the glass of the balcony doors had shattered, scattering shards over the carpet. That explained the crashes. As for the boom, it might have had something to do with the room lights being out, the illumination now coming entirely from Oryon’s flaming wand.

  The circle of fire around Horseface bent away from him, took the form of a fiery arrow, and sped toward Oryon. Bryte gasped, but the arrow failed to reach its goal. As though striking an invisible shield, it broke up into a shower of sparks about two hand spans in front of Oryon.

  Small fires erupted on the carpet where the sparks fell. Oryon waved his wand over them, and they gathered themselves together into a burning dragon, which took wing and flew at Horseface, breathing smoke and flame. It veered before reaching him and flew back toward Oryon, veered again, and circled harmlessly between them, looking like a dog chasing its tail, growing thinner and duller until it was reduced to a ring of smoke, and the death of the flames plunged the room into darkness.

  Lina backed into the bathroom and flipped the switch, turning on the light above the bathroom mirror so that its light spilled into Oryon’s room.

  “I win,” Horseface said and laughed, a hearty roar of laughter that so startled Bryte that she stepped back into the doorway.

  “I haven’t conceded defeat,” Oryon said.

  “True, and I won’t ask you to. I’m impressed with your talent. You can’t harm me, but to harm you would require a greater expenditure of energy than I care to use. The box is not that important to me, though I intend to have it eventually. But more than I need the box, I need a man with your abilities. Let us declare peace between us. I offer you employment—quite lucrative employment.”

  “What sort of employment?” Oryon asked. “And who are you, anyway?”

  The man laughed again. “I’m called many things,” he said. “You may call me Lord Inver. I hold a high position in the Ministry of Internal Affairs. I’m in charge of certain types of investigative work, and your abilities would aid me in carrying out my responsibilities.”

  “That isn’t very specific,” Oryon observed.

  “I cannot be more specific at this point other than to assure you that my work is done with the full knowledge and consent of the Triumvirate and is, therefore, fully legal. And, as I said, your wages would be quite generous. Are you interested?”

  “I might be. I’d intended to look for work here. Where are your offices?”

  “On the fifth tier. Why not let me take you there? We can talk more privately, and I can show you where you would work and on what.”

  “When?” Oryon asked.

  “Why, right now. It’s not that late, and I have a carriage outside.”

  Oryon frowned and chewed on his lip.

  “Don’t trust him,” Lina warned.

  Both Oryon and Lord Inver ignored her, Lord Inver waiting patiently, Oryon obviously considering his offer. But they must have heard Lina. Surely Oryon would heed her advice. Bryte could not believe that Oryon would trust this horse-faced man. Who knew whether he was truly what he said he was? And even if he was, she very much doubted that the job offer was legitimate.

  “All right, I’ll go with you and learn more about this.” Oryon straightened and looked Lord Inver in the face, his expression defiant.

  Lina sprang forward. “No! Don’t be an idiot!”

  Oryon pushed her out of the way. “I’ll be all right, and I’ll come back as soon as I can,” he said, still wearing that air of defiance as he followed Lord Inver out of the door.

  “No!” Lina ran to the door and into the hall, but fell back into the room with a force that indicated she’d hit some sort of barrier.

  Bryte went to her and helped her rise, then stepped carefully into the hall. The elevator door clanged open at the hall’s far end. She walked toward it—and into an invisible barrier that felt like strong netting. Or like a fly being caught in a spiderweb.

  Lina grasped her shoulders and pulled her back. “I have something that will break this,” she said. “I’ll get it, but it’s probably already too late. The fool! I’m certain that he’s walked into a trap.”

  Bryte knew that Lina referred to Oryon, whom she had never taken for a fool. Yet she agreed with Lina. Horseface—Lord Inver—was dangerous, and Oryon should not have gone with him.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  POWER

  Lina returned in moments holding something that she thrust toward the barrier. “This should get us through.”

  “This” was a circlet of braided gold set with five different gems. It appeared more valuable than anything Bryte had ever seen before.

  “It breaks wards,” Lina explained, an explanation that was meaningless to Bryte. The mysterious barrier dissolved, allowing them to move forward.

  They raced to the elevator, where Lina stabbed frantically at the call button, then paced back and forth in rapid, angry strides until at last the metal box clanked to a stop and its grillwork gate folded open.

  The elevator carried them to the ground floor with painful slowness. When at last it opened, Lina burst from its confines and dashed outside, Bryte following.

  The street in front of the hotel held a couple of cabs and a horse-drawn carriage but no sign of Oryon and Lord Inver. Lina questioned the cabdrivers and the driver of the carriage. The cabdrivers could tell her nothing, but the carriage driver said that he’d seen a young man and an older one fitting Lord Inver’s description board a waiting carriage and drive off.

  “Fancy rig it was, too,” he elaborated. “Shiny black with a gold crest on the side. And a team of all-black horses. Private outfit, not a carriage for hire.”

  What he couldn’t tell them was what the crest had looked like. He claimed to be unable to recall a single distinguishing feature. And alt
hough he could point out the direction in which the carriage had headed, the street was one-way, so that revealed nothing, and he hadn’t watched to see whether the carriage turned off it.

  “We’re wasting time,” Lina declared in disgust. “I’ll just have to hunt them my way.”

  “You’ll want a carriage, then?” the driver said hopefully.

  Lina shook her head. To Bryte she said, “Go back to the room and go to bed. One of us might as well get some sleep.”

  “But I want to go with you,” Bryte objected. “You don’t know your way around like I do. You’ll get lost.”

  “I never get lost,” Lina stated. “And you can’t go with me—not the way I intend to hunt. Now do as you’re told, and don’t delay me with an argument.”

  Rather than arguing pointlessly with Lina, Bryte headed back to the hotel and to Lina’s room, her mind roiling with worry about Oryon and more. The most fascinating employment she’d ever had could soon come to an ignominious end, and then she’d never get her questions answered about the mysterious “power” Lina and Oryon spoke of. Furthermore, if Oryon failed to return, if something happened to Lina, could the hotel hold her responsible for the damage in Oryon’s room or even the bill for both rooms? Maybe while neither Oryon nor Lina was here to stop her, she should just sneak away and go back to the flats and her shelter under the bridge. But then how would she ever solve the mysteries that now confronted her?

  Oryon would return. He had to.

  What she had witnessed had shown her something of what he and Lina meant when they spoke of power. She did not understand it, but she knew she wanted it. She could not get it by stealing back to the flats.

  So she stayed, and after a while she slept, and in the morning Lina returned but Oryon did not.

  “I couldn’t find them,” Lina admitted crossly. “I prowled all around the fourth and fifth tiers and even went up to the sixth tier. I couldn’t get into many of the buildings, and the buildings I did get into were like mazes. I’m going to get some sleep, and then if Oryon isn’t back, I suppose I’ll have to try again.”