He risked a glance at the other boy, and saw fear in his face, but not, as he expected, residual fear of the innkeeper. No, Talian was afraid of Jerek himself. Afraid of what trouble, in these unsettled times, a stranger might bring. As for the woman, bully or not, there was surely a healthy line of fear under her aggressive caution. But also something stronger than her fear.
“I’m Jerek Firoxi—I mean Brightwing,” he said finally. “Soria used to work for my mother, before he retired. He was one of our guards. It’s not the old man himself I want,” he added. “It’s somebody who might be with him—or he might know where she is.”
“‘She,’ is it?”
Jerek’s ears grew hot and his tongue stumbled.
“While Soria was with us, he was good friends with our Factor’s daughter, treated her like a daughter of his own. It’s Nessa I’m looking for now.”
“She’s left your employ as well, then?”
“Yes. She . . . yes.”
“Like to talk her into coming back, would you?”
“No.” That came out more bluntly than Jerek had intended. “That is . . .” His throat closed. I’ve run away. That sounded childish and silly. “I’ve left home.”
The innkeeper shook her head. “Are you sure? You said it was your mother’s place, so is it yours now? Or have you older siblings?”
“No, but it’s my father’s place until I come of age. He decides what happens: who stays, and who goes.” He might as well tell them the rest. “When the Halians came, they said that for now I’d keep my mother’s land, but that my father could petition to have the land come to him.”
Now the woman nodded. “You’d be right not to rely on anything the Halians can change, I’d say. Still, you’d be the first-born, you’d inherit even if your father remarried, just not so soon. As for the Halians . . . well, let me tell you, this is a bad time not to have a firm and obvious place to belong.”
Jerek pressed his lips tighter.
“Well, never mind that. I can see you’re someone who knows his own mind.” The woman nodded and narrowed her eyes in thought. “I’m Goreot,” she said, holding her hand out across the table. Jerek found himself taking it without hesitation. “Now that I know the way of things, I can get a message to Bed Soria. Mind, it may take a day or two. Old soldiers like him are being careful about who can find them. I can’t send for him. You’ll have to be content to wait for the right people to come in. Though that shouldn’t be a problem, eh, Talian? Mostly, the right people do come in, don’t they?”
Talian nodded, smiling at Jerek from where he leaned against the table still covered with papers. Goreot rose and shifted the small table, giving Jerek room to move.
“Are you hungry?” she said, gesturing toward a metal pot keeping warm to one side of the banked fire. “We can give you a bed here, and food if you have money to pay for it.”
• • •
In some ways Goreot’s establishment really was very little more than an alehouse. Everyone, including Jerek, slept on the second floor, but there were no other rooms for hire. Jerek had a bed of his own, but he shared the room with Talian and his huge brother, Alento. Fogtail was stashed away in one of the many small sheds and enclosures that formed a yard in back of the building, where Jerek himself spent most of the day in caring for the beast and teaching Talian how to ride.
A cook came in every morning, bringing bread from the baker on his way—again, not quite the usual thing for an alehouse. Jerek was asked to wait until the morning rush of workers and others breaking their fast had been and gone before coming into the common room himself.
“Some of these folk haven’t learned not to be curious,” Goreot said. “Best not to draw any more attention than absolutely necessary.”
No one minded if the cook saw him. The man might as well have been mute for all the conversation Jerek ever heard him make. And there were one or two others, regulars apparently, who could be trusted to ignore him.
Little as he was encouraged to linger, it didn’t take Jerek very long to realize that more went on in Goreot’s alehouse than the selling of food and drink. In the evenings, the tables were filled with card players wagering on hands of Seasons. In the late mornings, before the rush for the midday meal, people came with items they were obviously trying to sell or perhaps pawn. These visits often necessitated a trip to the yard and sheds by Talian or one of the others. One afternoon a horse, saddled and bridled and carrying full packs, waited for two hours for a cloaked and hooded man to come and ride him away, with neither words nor money exchanged.
On the morning of the fourth day, two guards came in just as Jerek was coming down for his breakfast, and he stepped back into the doorway of the room he shared with Talian. Goreot seemed not in the least put out, however.
“Has it been a whole week?” She poured them out a mug of beer each, and Jerek watched her pass a small pouch to the older of the two. Jerek sucked in his breath, everything suddenly becoming clear.
“It’s a payoff,” he said under his breath.
“Better not let them hear you say that.” Talian came up beside him. “They like to think of it as a gift in appreciation of their hard work.” The other boy’s smile didn’t reach his eyes.
“I don’t understand,” Jerek murmured. Goreot’s operation was obviously well-established. “How did your aunt run an illegal business with Talents all around you?”
Talian’s eyes widened until he was the picture of innocence. “What illegal business? It’s not illegal to lend people money at interest. It’s not illegal to help people move their goods from place to place.”
Jerek blinked and finally nodded. He’d never thought about it, but why would Talents get involved, if no one ever complained to the Law?
On the fifth morning Jerek was brushing Fogtail when Talian crept in, closing with care the old shutter that served as the shed door. The boy looked paler than usual, though there were two red spots high on his cheeks and marks that could have been recent tears. Before Jerek could speak, Talian lifted his finger to his lips.
“Listen,” he said. “You’ve got to get away. Here, I’ve brought your things.”
Except for Fogtail’s saddle and bridle, the rest of the gear that Jerek had brought with him was now hanging from Talian’s shoulder.
“What is it?” He kept his voice down to the low murmur the other boy was using. “The Halians?”
The other boy shook his head slightly from side to side. “Nothing like that. It’s old Goreot. She’s never waiting for Bedeni Soria. She sent for your father.”
“What? Since when?”
“Since always, you chump. She never meant to help you find Soria, she always meant to sell you back to your dad—providing the price was right and you were wanted back.”
Jerek’s knees began to fold, and he caught himself on Fogtail’s shoulder. He swallowed, tasting bile. “How long have you known?”
Talian looked away. “Always. It was the plan right from the start. I saw from your saddle and your clothes that you might be worth something, so I brought you in.”
Jerek blinked fiercely, gritting his teeth against tears of anger and betrayal. How easy it had been. All they’d had to do was pretend to distrust him, to be afraid of him. He’d been only too ready to convince them he could be trusted. All too ready to believe that they had to be what they seemed to be.
“So why are you telling me now?” he said, keeping his voice hard. “What’s changed?”
“Goreot said she’d let us go, Alento and me. But now she says she’s never said any such thing, and if we go, she’ll send the guard after us as thieves and pledge breakers.”
Jerek opened his mouth to protest that Goreot couldn’t do that, that Talian could call for a Talent and the truth would come out. But he remembered where he was, and why, and closed his mouth again. There were no Talents anymore.
/> “You want to leave your aunt?” Jerek didn’t bother pointing out that Talian had been ready to do to him what he was angry with Goreot for doing. If Talian wanted to escape, Jerek could see the beginnings of a plan.
“Yeah, like she’s my aunt. When you’re on the street, everyone’s your auntie.” With a sour grimace Talian glanced over his shoulder. “Our cut of selling you would bring enough to pay out our fostering, but if she’s not gonna play fair by me, I’m not gonna play fair by her. Here’s your stuff. Go now.”
Before I change my mind. Talian didn’t have to say the words aloud. Jerek could read them in the set of the boy’s shoulders. He shoved Fogtail’s brushes back into their pouch and grabbed up his saddle. “What will happen to you?” he asked. “You’d better come with me.”
There was a flash in Talian’s eye, and just for a moment Jerek thought the boy would say yes, but then the light faded. “Pony won’t carry both of us,” he said. “I’d only slow you down. And there’s my brother.” He shook his head, and Jerek could see how much it cost him. “Go out the back way, go left, away from the street. Head west as soon as you can and go to the woodcarver’s square. You’ll find your old soldier there.”
So close? Biting down on his anger, Jerek wasted no further time, but hefted up Fogtail’s saddle and swung it over the old pony’s back. The beast shied, and snorted, as if to give his opinion of young boys who wanted rides on old ponies.
“Shhh, chah,” Jerek murmured, rubbing Fogtail’s nose. Talian had squeezed himself into the corner to help with the buckling of the bridle, when the shutter was thrown back, and Goreot’s square body and smiling face appeared in the opening.
“There you are, boys. Going somewhere?”
Talian’s face didn’t change, but Jerek saw his hands tighten on Fogtail’s bridle.
“Thought I’d give Talian a lesson with the saddle.” Jerek couldn’t tell whether his voice sounded normal or not.
Old Goreot’s eyes shifted down and to the left, to where Jerek’s pack had been next to the opening. Jerek held his breath, but Goreot’s expression never changed. Jerek risked a glance of his own, found the corner empty. There was a chance, then, that Talian wouldn’t get into much trouble. Especially if he could sneak Jerek’s things back into his room.
“Come with me, boy, I’ve got something to show you.” But Goreot didn’t turn to lead the way. Rather, she stood and let Jerek sidle past her, and then followed him across the small yard and into the rear of the alehouse. It wasn’t an unfriendly gesture in itself, but it meant he couldn’t lag behind, or slip out the gate. He was being herded.
The taproom was dim after the sunlight outside, and it took a moment for Jerek’s eyes to adjust completely. Not that he needed much light to recognize the silhouette in front of the other door. Or the sheepskin overcloak that wrapped the man’s shoulders. No. Jerek knew who it was even before the man turned around. Talian’s change of heart had come too late.
“Hello, son.”
Exhaustion made Ker grateful to settle into the leather-covered seats on the council’s dais. This time the cavern was empty, the darkness and the echoes making it feel all the larger. This time they were seated together, with the rock wall behind them, and a clear semicircular space between them and the Feelers’ council.
The quiet, sullen man, Midon, was already there when Ganni brought them in. In minutes, Sala, the tall dark-skinned Speaker with the military bearing, joined them, leading a skipping Larin by the hand. The old woman wasn’t with them. Norwil came in looking worried, his brow furrowed. Hitterol, the older, red-haired woman, rushed in last, wiping her hands on a long apron and glancing around as though she expected someone else.
They’d been given a chance to wash the dust off their faces, and to eat something, but Ker found that her eyes kept threatening to close, and her hand kept straying to her side. The wound felt like a bad bruise, or like that time she’d cracked a rib in training. But she knew she hadn’t dreamed the feeling of the shaft touching her heart.
Wynn looked at her, laying her fingers on Ker’s wrist, and Ker smiled, hoping that would reassure the young archer.
Sala cleared her throat and Ker’s attention, along with that of everyone else, shifted to the Speaker. “There’s a friend of yours missing, Griffin Girl, but we won’t wait for him any longer.”
Ker drew her eyebrows down in a vee. Did the woman mean Weimerk? Surely he couldn’t fit through the tunnels to get here? But Sala was continuing.
“Not to say you are not most welcome, Griffin Girl, but none here expected to see you again so soon. Are we to take it your welcome at Hall and Wing was not as warm as you had hoped?”
Ker drew in a lungful of air, still a little surprised that she could. She straightened her shoulders. “No.” She cleared her throat and tried again. “No, not at all. But Temlin Hall we found destroyed, the Talents murdered, and the buildings torched.”
Ker took another deep breath, blinking her stubborn eyes open. She didn’t want to be the one in charge, the one speaking, the one responsible. She looked again at the faces around her. Larin smiled and winked at her. Tel shifted so that the back of his right hand touched her knee. Wynn seemed to still have that irrepressible twinkle in her eye.
“There’s a prince of the blood in the Peninsula.” Ker laced her fingers together. “With the Luqs gone, the Wings—especially those who haven’t encountered the Halians yet—may waste time sorting out a new leader and by the time they do that, it could be too late. But if we bring them the prince, they’ll unite behind him.”
Sala was nodding. Trust a soldier to see exactly what Ker was getting at.
They were supposed to help her, Ker thought. And Sala had called her “Griffin Girl.” “Is there an exit we can use closer to the Valpen area?”
“The more important question is whether we should let her go.” Norwil patted the air in front of him with his hands as Larin jumped to her feet, tiny fists on her hips. “Now hear me out, Larin.” The child subsided but with her lip well curled. “She’s fulfilled the Prophecy, hasn’t she? We’re talking to the griffin, aren’t we? I wasn’t happy about letting her go when we thought she was heading somewhere safe.” He shook his head, but Ker felt her eyebrows rise. “But to let her go gallivanting off into territory we know is controlled by these Halians? And for what? To find some Polity prince? Let these others go if they must, but the Griffin Girl belongs here, with us. It’s our Prophecy, isn’t it?”
Hitterol looked thoughtful, and even Midon seemed about to nod in agreement.
Ker squeezed her eyes shut. She had to speak up, but her brain was working so slowly.
“Well, no, since you ask, Norwil, it isn’t your Prophecy.”
Ker spun around, shock bringing her halfway to her feet. Impossible. This was the friend Sala had meant? The last time she’d seen the tall, gaunt man picking his careful way through the empty cavern he’d been wearing the black tunic of the Inquisition. Now in homespun, with the sleeves of his tunic too short, Luca Pa’narion looked taller, and even thinner. He strode into the lighted area as if it was his own parlor. Ker shook herself. Now wasn’t the time to wonder how and why the Inquisitor had appeared here and now.
“You started without me, Speaker for the Mines and Tunnels?” Somehow, coming from Luca’s mouth, those words sounded more like a title than they had before.
Sala threw up her hands, a twisted grin on her face. “I sent for you, Inquisitor. How long were we to wait? Now explain yourself.”
Luca gave the Speaker a short bow before turning to the others. “‘Let all the peoples of the land awake and listen,’” he intoned, the music of his voice lifting the words. “‘For the day of joining comes.’”
“‘It comes near.’” All of the small council spoke in unison.
“That’s the Prophecy. I believe. Isn’t it, Larin?” Tilting his head, the Inquisitor swiveled
his eyes toward the child.
“It is,” she said, her voice suddenly deeper, as if to mimic his.
“All the peoples of the land, Norwil. Not only Feelers, not only Talents. Not even only the citizens of the Polity. It’s everyone’s Prophecy, Norwil. All of us.”
Norwil threw up his hands. “I’m just saying she’d be safer in here with us, is all.”
“I’m not so sure.” Luca grabbed a chair from the edge of the platform and swung it into place between Sala and Ganni. Now that he was closer to the light, Ker could see how pale he was, how tired. “The Halians will be coming here, not for you, but for this. I was out searching for it when you sent for me.” Luca reached into his pouch and drew out a lump of red stone, like the ones she’d seen in Flashes, but uncut, without facets. She jerked back, and Tel took hold of her hand.
Ganni reached out, and Luca laid the jewel in the older man’s palm. “Sure, I’ve seen this before, still in the rock. There are small veins of it, here and there.”
“And some larger, which is where I found this one,” Luca said. “You’ve seen one like it in use, haven’t you, Kerida Nast?”
Ker nodded, shivering, glad of Tel’s hand on hers, and of Wynn’s warm presence at her side. “In Flashes. But they were faceted.”
Luca took it back from Ganni. “This one isn’t active. None of the old documents in the archives tell of how that’s done. But I believe it’s the basis for the mages’ power.”
Larin also reached out for the jewel, and Ker gasped in warning, but no one else protested. Larin eyed the gem on her palm from all sides, frowning intently, before closing her fist on it and shutting her eyes. When she opened them again, her pupils had expanded until there was no color in her eyes at all.
“The one comes,” she said, and her voice was older somehow, plainer and more tough. “The time of light is upon us. We have seen the First Sign. The horses of the sea. The Second Sign shines on us. The wings of the sky. The griffin and the girl.” She held up her closed fist. “The Third Sign comes. Blood and fire. Bones of the Griffin. The Third Sign must not pass us by.” She turned her sightless eyes on Ker. “You must watch for the Third Sign, lest it kill us all.”
Halls of Law Page 29