BRYTE'S ASCENT (Arucadi Series Book 8)

by E. Rose Sabin

  “Didn’t see or hear anyone,” Bryte said crossly, realizing the pain in her hand had so filled her mind that she hadn’t listened for sounds of pursuit. But surely—

  The noise of booted feet tramping up to the front door drove home how wrong, how foolish she’d been. “They’re here,” she cried. “Peace Officers.”

  “This way, quickly!” The Widow Kipley steered them toward the rear of the house before the pounding on the front door confirmed Bryte’s announcement.

  They drew near the rear exit, but Bryte raised her uninjured hand in a signal to halt. “They’re out there, too. They must have the house surrounded.”

  “Don’t let the girl call out,” the widow warned.

  But Ileta gave no indication of wanting to make her presence known. She’d grown even paler, if that were possible.

  “Come with me,” Widow Kipley said, as the loud pounding gave way to the sound of shattering glass. She led them into the hall between the dining room and the parlor and opened a door to a linen closet with sheets, towels, and blankets stacked neatly on shelves. Reaching under a middle shelf, she pressed something. The shelves swung back, revealing a narrow stair. “In there,” she said. “Hurry.”

  The footsteps and shouting grew closer. Bryte pushed Ileta in ahead of her and followed her onto the stairs, with Kanra close behind. The shelves swung back into place behind them, plunging them into darkness. Ileta gave a cry of fright.

  “Shhh!” That was Kanra. They huddled on the darkened stairs, while Bryte listened, the pain in her hand forgotten.

  She heard a peace officer bark out, “Where are they? It’s useless to hide them.”

  “I’m hiding no one,” the widow responded. “I run an honest boardinghouse.”

  “We saw the criminals come in here.”

  “I don’t know what ye’re talking about,” the widow said indignantly. “Ye may search all ye like, but please try not to disturb my boarders.”

  A thump against the wall suggested that they had pushed the widow out of the way. Bryte could hear them tromping through all the ground floor rooms and up the stairs to search the second floor. By the different steps she judged that there were at least six peacekeepers in the house, possibly one or two more.

  She, Ileta, and Kanra huddled together on the stairs, scarcely daring to breathe; talking was out of the question.

  Bryte could feel Ileta trembling. She put her arm around the girl’s waist and hugged her close. Her other hand, the injured one, rested on Kanra’s knee.

  The footsteps clomped on through the house, sometimes so close that they could all hear them, at other times far enough that Bryte was sure they were audible to her alone. More than once she heard the closet door open, and once the shelves rattled, but no one found the latch that opened the way to their hiding place. Still, the search went on, and the officers kept returning to the Widow Kipley, demanding to know what she’d done with the criminals. Accompanying the questions were the sounds of blows—they were beating or kicking the poor woman! Through it all, the widow continued to deny knowledge of the abduction.

  The thump of a falling body followed the sound of a final blow. Bryte heard a rough voice say, “Leave her.” The footsteps retreated. She tried to count, to be certain all the men left, but it was impossible to be sure. Some went out the front door, others the back. Most had left, but one or two might have remained behind. The ones who went out were tromping around the outside, trying to find some hint of where their prey had disappeared to.

  “We’ve got to get out and see how badly they’ve hurt Widow Kipley,” Bryte whispered, rising to her feet.

  Kanra stood, too, but Ileta remained on the stairs, too frightened to move.

  Bryte and Kanra tried to find a way to open the hidden door, but they could find no latch or lever. “Maybe it can only be opened from the other side,” Kanra whispered.

  “If that’s so, and if they’ve killed the widow, we can’t get out,” Bryte said. “At least, not the way we came in. We’d better find out where these steps lead to.”

  “How can we in the dark? I’ve been trying to form a light, but I can’t. Can you make yours?”

  “Don’t think so,” Bryte said, after a few moments of trying. “I’m angry enough, but the light won’t come.” She might have added that she was too scared, but that would only frighten Ileta more.

  “I think we should wait here and give the Widow a chance to let us out,” Kanra said. “She may be waiting until she’s sure it’s safe.”

  “They beat her,” Bryte said. “I heard her fall, and I don’t hear anyone moving now. I think she’s unconscious—or dead. They didn’t take her with them, so either they’ll be back or they have no more use for her.”

  Ileta groaned.

  “Look, these stairs may not go anywhere at all, but I’m guessing they do. I mean, if this was just a hidey-hole, there wouldn’t be any stairs, right? There’d just be a little room, nothing else. I think we need to see where they lead.”

  “But that’s the trouble—we can’t see, not even each other.”

  “We’ll have to feel our way along,” Bryte said, trying to sound brave though she was as frightened as Kanra.

  “I don’t like this,” Ileta whimpered. “It isn’t fun anymore.”

  “It never was,” Bryte said. “Look, I don’t like the idea of going down these stairs blind, not knowing where they go or what we’ll find at the bottom of them. But I think it’s pointless to stay here. For one thing, if the widow’s still alive, we’ve got to get help for her. We can’t help her from in here, now can we? And for another thing, the air in here doesn’t smell good, but it’s not as bad as it would be if it was a tiny closed-in space. There’s fresh air coming in from somewhere, I’d bet on it.”

  “I guess you’re right,” Kanra conceded. “We’d better get started.”

  “I’ll lead. Ileta, you come next and hold on to my waist. Kanra, you go last and hold on to Ileta. We can’t get separated. But don’t hold on so tight that if I fall, you’ll fall with me. I’ll go real slow and feel my way along, but I could slip or trip over something.”

  Bryte started down, her good hand pressed against the wall, her feet sliding along the step until she felt its edge, then one foot easing downward until it found the next step. Progress was painfully slow. No one spoke; their fear was too deep for words.

  The steps went on and on. Once Bryte thought she’d come to the end, but groping across what seemed a floor, she almost fell when she encountered more steps. She had only found a landing. She communicated the discovery to her followers and started down these steps. The hand she kept against the wall swept through cobwebs and grit that she was just as glad not to see. Throughout the descent she listened for any sound that might bring a hint about where they were, but she heard only the breathing of her two companions, a sound that echoed loudly in the silence.

  Bryte became convinced that the steps were taking them below the level of the house. They’d started out on the ground floor, and if the steps led only to a basement, they would have reached the end by now. Once more she thought she had reached the bottom, only to find more stairs, and these she found by nearly toppling down them. She would have, had Ileta and Kanra not grabbed her and steadied her. As soon as she’d caught her breath and stopped shaking, she began another descent. Wherever they were, they were out of the immediate reach of the Peace Officers.

  Her hand had begun to throb again. Perhaps it had never stopped; she’d just been able to put it out of her mind to concentrate on the harrowing descent. It was hot and swollen, and she thought about what would happen if the Widow Kipley was dead or if they could not somehow get back to her. Kirsie would have told the peacekeepers about her injured hand, and they would have alerts out for anyone going to a clinic or doctor with that complaint.

  Bryte’s foot hunted the edge of a step and found no edge. Another landing? She eased forward, felt the wall, expecting to encounter a corner. The wall and floor continued
. Further exploration led her to another straight wall on the other side of a floor little wider than the stairs. They had reached a corridor, and perhaps the end of their long descent.

  Bryte hesitated to say so for fear it might not be true. She did not want to create false hope. But as she moved forward she felt a light breeze against her face. And heard—music!

  She quickened her pace, and as she proceeded the music grew louder. Kanra said, “I hear something. Sounds like music.” So the others could hear it, too.

  Best of all, the darkness was lessening. She could see, faintly, the walls on either side of her and the floor beneath her feet—a plain wooden floor, nothing remarkable about it, but the sight of it brought her joy. She looked behind her and Ileta’s pale face was visible past her shoulder. Behind Ileta she could just make out Kanra’s face, a light oval framed by the priestess’s long hair.

  “We’re reaching the end,” Bryte proclaimed.

  “But where are we?” Ileta asked, her voice faint.

  “I don’t know. I just know there’s no more stairs.”

  But as they continued to move forward along what was now a straight, narrow, slightly sloping corridor, the music became clearer, and it sounded familiar. It was a bouncing, jaunty tune produced by a barrel organ—the music played to attract customers to the puppet theater in the bazaar.

  Yes! The very same music, no doubt about it!

  That meant that they were coming out onto the first level. It was no surprise, after all the steps they’d gone down, that they were on the next lower tier; it seemed to Bryte that they’d gone far enough to reach the flats. But that they were coming out at the bazaar was a cause for alarm.

  Peace Officers were always patrolling the bazaar. She knew how to avoid them; she’d had a lot of practice at that. But with her injured hand and with Kanra and Ileta in tow avoidance would be more difficult.

  She saw, still some distance ahead, light pouring through an open doorway. Whether it was sunlight or artificial lighting she was still too far away to tell.

  She glanced at her hand and immediately wished she hadn’t. Her fingers were reddish-purple and grotesquely swollen, resembling fat sausages. The veins on the back of her hand were distended and red, and that red extended up into her arm. Seeing the damage brought back the full impact of the pain.

  Fortunately, Kanra distracted her by saying, “That music sounds so close, we must be almost to its source.”

  Bryte nodded. “Better let me go on ahead while you two wait here. Let me see exactly where this comes out and check for peace officers.”

  “You won’t be long?” Ileta asked, her voice quavering.

  “Not unless I get caught.” Bryte saw no point in denying that possibility, though she meant to do everything in her power to prevent its happening.

  Ileta gave a moan, then straightened and said, “I should go out. If they’re looking for me and they see me, then they’ll stop hunting you.”

  “No.” Bryte listened for any sound that would indicate someone near enough to overhear the conversation. “Listen, Ileta,” she continued when she was satisfied that it was safe to talk so long as they spoke softly. The music was loud enough to cover the sound of their voices. “You’ve been real brave, and you haven’t hollered out and tried to give us away. I think it’s time to tell you why we took you—not for ransom but to try to persuade your father to rescue a young boy, Stethan, from Lord Inver and exchange him for you.”

  “Why would you think my father would do that?” Ileta said. “He wouldn’t go against Lord Inver even for me.”

  “Maybe he will and maybe he won’t,” Bryte continued, noting Kanra’s frown and guessing that the priestess knew what she was about to reveal and would have argued against it had Bryte given her the chance. “What you have to know is that Stethan is my half-brother. He’s also yours. He’s the son of your father’s third wife. And I’m the daughter of his second. I’m your half-sister. My mother was—or would have been—your stepmother. But Lord Hallomer—our father—rejected my mother and sent her away because he found out something about her he didn’t like. I was born after she left him, and she tried to keep me hidden away from him. No time to explain why now. You probably knew Stethan’s mother. She’s dead now. I never knew about her or Stethan until just a couple of days ago. But Lord Inver wants to kill Stethan, and I gotta save him if I can.”

  Ileta listened quietly to Bryte’s recital, but at its end she gave a squeal, threw her arms around Bryte, and hugged her until Bryte cried out from the pain in her arm.

  Immediately Ileta drew back. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry. But you’re my sister! I can’t believe it! I’ve always wanted a sister. Is it really true?”

  “It’s true,” Kanra put in. “I’m Stethan’s aunt—his mother’s sister. I want to save him just as Bryte does.”

  “So I have a brother as well as a sister,” Ileta said in wonderment. “Well, I want to save him, too. I’m coming with you; you won’t leave me behind.”

  “No,” Bryte said as firmly as she could. “You and Kanra stay here until I see what’s out there.” She nodded toward the open doorway. “Let me see if it’s safe.” She refused to yield, and they gave in. “I’ll come right back,” she promised.

  She hurried toward the doorway but slowed as she reached it. She could see now that the light was artificial, but it was too bright for normal lighting. She felt suddenly that a spotlight was trained on her. She didn’t like that feeling. The corridor was too narrow to allow her to step out of the beam, and the light was too bright to permit her to see its source and what lay beyond that source. It smelled of a trap, one she did not relish walking into. But she could think of no alternative short of climbing up all those stairs they had just climbed down and waiting in back of the door of shelves for someone to let them out. Since it was highly likely that no one ever would, that did not seem a reasonable alternative, even if they had the strength to make the climb, which, weary as they were, they did not.

  The loud music blocked all other sound, making her in effect deaf as well as blind. This must be worse than what she did to people when her light blazed forth.

  She had to go forward, and judged it best, since she could not hide her presence, to get through the door and out of the beam of light as quickly as possible. She ran straight ahead, through the doorway at the end of the corridor, Now there were no walls to her sides; she was in an open space. She still could not see what lay beyond the bright light shining on her. She had to get past that light. She raced on.

  Something grabbed her, halting her with a suddenness that took her breath away, and in that same moment the music died and there was a brief utter silence followed by a roar of sound that after a moment she recognized as applause, and it went on and on while something held her motionless like a fly in a web, something with long-fingered hands that were hard and smooth and cold. Not flesh, definitely not flesh.

  With a loud swish, heavy curtains swept from the sides and met at a spot directly in front of her, blocking the merciless light. She blinked several times and could see.

  The Dire Lord was right; it is different here from where I was before. But I don’t like it, and I’m just as trapped as I was that other time. The Dire Lord says I’m safe here. Hah! That’s not the way it feels. He isn’t cruel, but neither is he kind. He talks a lot, and he’s making me think, but I still can’t feel.

  I don’t want to think.

  That high-pitched piping of his is unnerving. I ask him why he plays those pipes so much, and he says because he must, because the music serves to guide and call and direct. I don’t understand, but it gives me something to puzzle over, keeps my mind occupied. It’s better than thinking about nothing but how I hate it here and will I ever get out, what is Lina doing, what is Bryte doing, is there anything at all they can do, or am I doomed to spend the rest of my life here in this place I hate, or would hate if I could feel that strong an emotion, but I can’t, not until my soul is ret
urned, if that ever happens.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  PEPPET AND PEPPINE

  When her vision cleared, Bryte looked at what was clamped around her arms. What she saw was hands, long-fingered, brown, with an incredibly powerful grasp. Not living hands, but made of wood. She saw the grain, the painted-on nails, the varnish covering the whole.

  She turned to see behind her a life-sized wooden puppet, male, dressed in clothes of an earlier era. Its hinged jaw moved and a gruff voice said, “Well, you brought the play to an unexpected but highly successful conclusion. Who are you and how did you get here?”

  Here was a stage with painted backdrops portraying flowering trees, a fountain, and a gravel walkway. In front of the painted fountain was a real bench with a small table beside it, the type to be found on a patio. The opening through which she’d come looked like no more than a dark spot between trees.

  “Well, girl,” As the gruff voice spoke, the hinged mouth moved up and down. “Cat got your tongue? Speak up.”

  She pointed toward the opening. “From there.”.

  “Not really an answer, that. How did you get there?”

  “Who—who am I really talking to?” she dared to ask.

  “Why, right now you’re talking to me, Peppet the puppet.” The pressure on her arm increased, intensifying the pain of her injured hand.

  “You aren’t real. And you’re hurting me. Let me go.”

  “Not real, eh? Not real. You know so well what is real and what isn’t, then?”

  “I can see that you’re made of wood,” she said. “And I know you’re part of the puppet show in the bazaar.”

  “Well, yes, I’m a puppet, but I’m a real puppet, aren’t I?”

  “I don’t want to play games. My hand hurts and I need to get back to my friends.”

  “Friends? You have friends here?”

  “They’re waiting for me.” She almost added “in the passageway,” then thought better of it. “I told them I’d be right back.”