BRYTE'S ASCENT (Arucadi Series Book 8)

by E. Rose Sabin

  “He’s inside. I don’t know how it works. Hurry!”

  Bryte hurried. In her haste her fingers fumbled. She heard footsteps, turned to see the second guard ease into the room, his good hand clamped over a wound on his arm. He moved cautiously toward her, but he wasn’t using his pistol. It must be out of ammunition like hers.

  She looked at Lina, hoping for a signal that would tell her what to do.

  “Lord Inver’s on his way,” the guard announced. “He’ll be here any second now. You might as well give up.”

  Lina’s scornful snort expressed her opinion of that idea. Bryte kept working at the lock.

  The guard reached her, grabbed her, and hauled her to her feet. Bryte bent her head and rammed it into his wounded arm. He gave a howl of pain and loosened his grip. She twisted free and kicked him in the groin.

  “Good work!” Lina said.

  The guard came toward her again to pry her away from Lina’s cage. Lina had pressed up against the bars. She grabbed Bryte, preventing her from dodging the guard’s grab for her. “Hold still,” she hissed.

  The guard wrapped his hand around Bryte’s neck. Lina reached out and brought the butt of the pistol down on his head. He slumped, releasing Bryte.

  “Take the gun,” Lina ordered. “Hit him again, hard.”

  She pushed the gun out between the bars. Bryte took it and slammed it down on the guard’s head. He’d been trying to rise, but he collapsed again. Another blow and he lay still. Bryte hoped she hadn’t killed him. He’d tried to kill her, but he was only doing his job.

  She resumed the lock picking, working more deftly with the threat of the guards removed. Soon she heard the lock snap open. She stood and opened the latch.

  Lina stepped out and over the unconscious guard. “We’ve got to get away fast, before Lord Inver gets here.” She strode past Bryte to the reception area, pulling behind her the wispy cocoon that held the other guard. “Who’s this?” She pointed to Kanra.

  The answer required too long an explanation. Bryte bent down beside Kanra and checked to see if she was breathing. “She helped me,” she gave the only important detail. “The guard shot her.”

  “Is she alive?”

  “Yes.” Kanra sat up. “It’s not too bad. I pretended to be dying so they’d leave me alone.”

  From down the hall Bryte heard the elevator opening. “He’s coming,” she warned. “We’re too late.”

  “Maybe not.” Lina ran back into the office, pulling the wispy cocoon behind her. Bryte and Kanra followed. “Help me,” Lina ordered, grabbing the unconscious guard by the shoulders and dragging him toward the cage.

  They got the guard into the cage, and Lina also maneuvered the cocoon into it. She pulled the thread she had attached to her finger. The cocoon unraveled, the net of threads retracted into Lina’s hand, and the second guard tumbled onto the floor of the cage, looking dazed and disoriented. Kanra stared in amazement.

  Lina stepped back and closed the cage door. “Be sure it’s locked,” she said to Bryte as she headed back into the reception area.

  Bryte checked the lock, made an adjustment, and the tumbler clicked into place. She gave the door a quick test and headed after Lina. Kanra remained in the inner office.

  “Hide,” Lina whispered, having flattened herself against the wall beside the door, her hand poised to toss the net.

  There wasn’t time; the footsteps had reached the door. Bryte braced herself to face Lord Inver. A figure in black walked into the room. Not Lord Inver. Oryon.

  Lina tossed the net. Her aim was true. It caught him just as it had the guard, covering him with the delicate threads so that he looked like a large fly caught in a spider’s web.

  He struggled, but the web closed about him and formed a floating shroud, as before.

  Bryte stepped into the hallway, looking for Stethan. The hall was empty.

  Lina stepped out beside her. “No Lord Inver, eh?” she said. “He sent Oryon to do his dirty work, the rat!”

  Whatever Oryon had done with Corey, he wasn’t here, and they had to get away before Lord Inver appeared. At least they had Oryon, and he could tell them where Corey was and whether he was still alive. He had to be! Kanra had said Corey was Stethan. She’d have to explain that, but not now, not here.

  Bryte went back to the office. “Come on, Kanra,” she said. “It’s safe.”

  “I want to get away from here before Lord Inver decides to check on his servant,” Lina said, stepping out into the hall. She gave a playful tug on the shroud, making it bounce like a balloon. “Oryon came up on the elevator; we can use it.”

  They hurried to the elevator. Although Kanra had said she wasn’t badly hurt, Bryte noted that she kept her hand clasped over the wound and the sleeve of her robe was soaked with blood.

  “She needs a healer,” Lina said. “Not that we have much chance of finding one.”

  They descended to the ground floor, where they exited cautiously into the dark hallway.

  “Hope I can locate the entrance,” Bryte muttered.

  “I can find it,” Lina said.

  That’s right! Lina could see in the dark. Cat eyes! But they weren’t needed. The front doors opened and light burst through, along with several Peace Officers, holding torches and drawn guns. The guards must have called in an alarm. Bryte despaired.

  Lina stalked forward to meet them. “Thank the gods, you’ve come,” she said. “The guards are upstairs chasing two armed men. One guard is wounded.”

  “Who are you?” one officer demanded. “And what is that thing you’ve got there?” He indicated the floating shroud.

  “Don’t worry about that,” Lina snapped. “Look, our friend here was shot. She’s bleeding badly. Can someone help us get her to a clinic?”

  “After we help the guards,” the spokesman said.

  “But she can’t wait. She’s lost so much blood.” Lina sounded distraught; her eyes filled with tears.

  She’s good, Bryte thought.

  Kanra played along, slumping against the wall, looking ready to faint. Bryte hoped she was only pretending. The priestess was terribly pale, but that could be from fright.

  “The men we left outside as lookouts,” another officer said.” One of them could take ’em.”

  The officer who’d spoken first considered this and said, “No, I need to question them. But you can get them to a car, where they’ll be safe while we deal with the intruders. The rest of you, half will go up the stairs and half by elevator. Stay alert.” To Lina he said, “You sure there’s only two men?”

  “That’s all I saw,” she answered.

  “Well, be careful all the same,” he told his men, signaling them to move off to obey his orders.

  The man delegated to take them outside offered Kanra his arm and helped her toward the door with Bryte following. No one stopped her, but when Lina tried to leave, the spokesman blocked her way. He said again, “I want to know what that thing is you’ve got. How do I know it’s not what your attackers were after?”

  “It isn’t,” Lina said shortly. “It’s just a toy.”

  “Funny sort of toy. Let me see it.”

  “It’s something new,” she said. “Here, but you’re wasting time.” She handed him the thread by which she held the cocoon.

  He bobbed the thing up and down, poked at the shroud itself, and shrugged. “Odd. Never saw anything like this, but I guess it’s harmless.” He handed it back to Lina.

  She joined Bryte in trailing after the officer and Kanra. The officer went to a long black car, its motor running, and spoke to the driver. Bryte climbed into the back seat, and Lina handed her the tether and awkwardly maneuvered the cocoon, which though light was bulky, into the space beside her. “Don’t let go of that thread, whatever happens,” Lina cautioned as she scooted into the front seat by the driver. She leaned toward Kanra and Bryte heard her whispered order: “Faint!”

  Kanra slumped onto the ground. Lina cried out in alarm and to the driver said, “S
he’s wounded—must have lost more blood than we realized. Help her, please!”

  While the officer who’d brought them out lifted Kanra, the driver hurried around the car to lend a hand. Quickly Lina leaned over, locked his door, and motioned for Bryte to do the same with the rear doors.

  Kanra moaned and thrashed about, making it difficult for them to lift her, distracting them from noticing the locked doors. They got her installed in the front seat, propped against Lina. The driver walked around to his side of the car, and the other officer headed into the building.

  “Lock your door and raise your window,” Lina whispered, sliding over to the driver’s seat.

  Kanra sat up and obeyed.

  Lina rolled up her window before the driver reached the door. With a shout he tugged at the door handle. The other officer heard, and ran back toward the car. Lina already had it in motion.

  “Hang on,” she said, and zoomed away from the curb. The driver jumped out of the way, narrowly escaping being knocked over.

  “I haven’t had much practice at this,” Lina said as the car caromed off the opposite curb and weaved down the street at a speed that made Bryte shut her eyes and grab hold of the seat in front of her.

  What would Lina do when they reached the gate? Crash through it? Terrified, Bryte opened one eye. The gate loomed ahead. Open.

  It must have been opened for the Peace Officers and left open as the gate guard joined the officers in pursuit of the interlopers.

  The car sped through and past a blur that must have been the park.

  “Hold on to that thread,” Lina reminded, whipping the car around a corner.

  Kanra screamed, and Bryte squeezed her eyes shut when a tree appeared directly in front of them.

  With a screech of tires and a jolt as it bounced off another curb, the car fishtailed and Lina fought with the wheel to bring it under control. Somehow she succeeded and continued on her erratic way without slackening her speed. Kanra braced against the dashboard, moaning now in earnest.

  Bryte prayed to the Power-Giver and all the gods that they would not meet another car. “W-where are we going?” she finally found breath to ask.

  “The flats,” Lina said. “I need you to direct me to Master Onigon’s.”

  “Why—” She stopped and gulped when the car screeched around a corner on two wheels We’d never make it. Only when the car settled down on all four wheels could she ask, “Why do you want to go there?”

  “He’ll know how to restore my power and help Oryon,” Lina said. “At least, if anyone does.”

  “It’s too far,” Bryte said quickly. “We should go to the boarding house. The Widow Kipley may know. She’s the one that gave me that net thing.”

  “The Widow Kipley! The landlady? The one who talks all the time?”

  “That’s the one. There’s more to her than you’d think. Careful!!”

  The car ran up onto a manicured lawn and took out a small bush before returning to the street.

  “Can’t you slow down?” Kanra gasped.

  “Yes, please,” Bryte seconded.

  “This is a stolen car,” Lina reminded, not slowing. “They’ll be after us.”

  Bryte almost hoped they’d be caught. If she’d eaten any supper, she’d have lost it by now. As it was, her stomach was doing flips.

  “Uh, you just passed the ramp down,” Bryte said.

  Lina hit the brakes, throwing both Kanra and Bryte forward. She threw the car into reverse, swerving back and onto the down ramp. A car came directly toward them—Lina was driving on the wrong side of the street. She swerved frantically and the other driver blasted his horn.

  “Please,” Kanra murmured in a shaky voice. “Please be careful.”

  “I’m always careful.” Lina made a wide turn onto the boulevard at the foot of the ramp. “Now where?”

  Bryte steeled herself and gave directions to the next down ramp. Miraculously they reached it in one piece. But how would they possibly make it across two more tiers and down two more ramps?

  Make it they did, after countless near misses and harrowing turns. When they reached the street the boarding house was on, Bryte breathed a deep relieved sigh.

  Too soon. The car spun out of control and bounded into the yard across the street from the boarding house, where it halted by crashing into a tree.

  “Couldn’t find the brakes,” Lina said cheerfully. “Everybody okay?”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  BACK TO THE FLATS

  Kanra staggered from the car. Bryte got her door open and climbed out, forgetting the string tied to her wrist until the cocoon bobbed sideways against the doorframe.

  “Careful with that,” Lina said, leaning in to guide the cocoon out through the open door.

  By now they’d roused the household into whose yard the car had crashed. Lights had come on throughout the house, and an angry man stormed out of the door.

  “Go wake the widow,” Lina ordered Bryte. “I’ll deal with the man.”

  Bryte was only too happy to take Kanra’s hand and guide the dazed priestess across the street and up to the front door of the boarding house. Behind her she heard angry shouts intermingled with Lina’s conciliatory purr.

  She pounded on the door and it opened immediately.

  The Widow Kipley, who must have also been awakened by the crash, peered out. “Got yoursel’ in a mite of trouble, did ye?” she asked unnecessarily. “And who’s in there?” She indicated the floating shroud tethered to Bryte’s wrist.

  “Let us in, and I’ll tell you,” Bryte said.

  The widow stepped back and allowed them entry, casting her gaze on Kanra’s bloody sleeve. “Ye’re hurt!” she exclaimed. “Better let me look at that.”

  She led them into the stuffy, old-fashioned parlor and lit a gas lamp. “Keep that away from the lamp,” she told Bryte, indicating the cocoon. “In fact, put it where it won’t be in anybody’s way. Back o’ the davenport.”

  Bryte struggled as she might if storing a balloon, the cocoon resisting her efforts by bobbing up and down, but at last she maneuvered it into place behind the davenport, which she then sat on to keep hold of the tether.

  To Kanra the widow said, “Roll up that sleeve.”

  Kanra obeyed. The widow grasped her arm and peered at the wound. “Got shot, eh? Must hurt like thunder.”

  Her words made Bryte cringe with shame. She hadn’t thought about Kanra’s pain; she’d been too concerned about her own problems. And the way Lina’s wild driving had thrown them about had to have made the wound worse. They should have driven her to a clinic instead of bringing her here.

  “Kanra, I’m sorry,” she began. “I didn’t—”

  “Hush, girl,” the Widow Kipley interrupted. “I need to concentrate.”

  She placed her hand over Kanra’s wound, closed her eyes, and furrowed her brow as if in deep concentration. That was all, and Bryte couldn’t see what good it would do. She might have said so, but Lina flounced into the room.

  She halted in front of Kanra and the widow, regarded them closely, and said, “Oh, good, you’re a healer. Who’d have guessed?”

  With that, she flopped into a chair and focused her gaze on Bryte. “Where’s Oryon and what’s he done?”

  Lina had not lowered her voice, and Bryte expected the Widow Kipley to reprimand her as she had Bryte, but the widow said nothing.

  “He’s behind here,” Bryte answered, pointing in back of the davenport. “Lord Inver sent him to kill Stethan, my half-brother I just found out about. He was in the Temple of Mibor. Oryon got there and killed the boy he thought was Stethan, only he wasn’t. Then he got away with the real Stethan, and I don’t know if he killed him or not.”

  “I think you’d better tell me the whole thing, because I didn’t get much of that,” Lina said.

  Before Bryte could comply, the Widow Kipley said, “There, ‘tis done. Took me a while. I haven’t done it in a long time.” She took her hand away from Kanra’s arm, and Bryte saw that the
wound was gone, leaving the arm whole with not even a scar.

  “I want to hear your story, too,” the widow said.

  Bryte nodded and told Lina and the Widow Kipley everything, beginning with the conversation she’d overheard about Stethan when she’d gone into the office building against Lina’s orders and ending with Oryon’s escape with the real Stethan and Mr. Donner taking them to the building that held Lord Inver’s office.

  “I used coercion to get him to take ye there,” the widow said. “That’s another power I haven’t used in a good long while. I’m glad it worked.”

  “Oryon killed a young boy,” Lina mused, shaking her head. “He’d never do such a thing on his own. Lord Inver forced him to do it. Let’s unwrap him and see what he has to say for himself.”

  “No,” the Widow Kipley cried out. “Not here. He’s too dangerous unless you have the power to contain him.”

  “I don’t have any power at the moment,” Lina said. “Lord Inver took it and locked me in a cage in his office, where Bryte and the priestess found me. He said he’d deal with me later, but in the meantime he wanted to keep Oryon and me separated, and Oryon was staying in his apartment. He didn’t say where that was, so Oryon needs to tell us that too.”

  “I’ve got to know about Stethan,” Bryte said.

  But the Widow Kipley was adamant that they should not release Oryon until they could do so safely, which meant with controls in place that no one present could set.

  “Your friend Master Onigon can do it, but ye’ll have to wait to go to him when it’s daylight. Ye’ve all been up all night and must be worn out. I’ll fix breakfast, and then ye can rest a bit before heading down to the flats.”

  “We’ll have breakfast,” Lina said. “I’m starving. Lord Inver didn’t bother to feed me. But then we’ll go to Master Onigon. There’s no time for sleeping.”

  Bryte agreed, though she was finding it hard to keep her eyes open. She had to know about Stethan. She would have preferred to skip breakfast, but Lina was determined that they should eat, and so was the Widow Kipley.

  Eating did make Bryte feel more alert, though she bolted her food without noticing its taste. She ate because her stomach demanded filling, but her mind was on Stethan. If Oryon had killed him, Bryte could never forgive him, though she knew Lord Inver was to blame. Even if Lina found a way to restore Oryon, Bryte could never forget that he’d chosen to go with Lord Inver and place himself where the evil lord could gain control over him.