by Tim Jones
A little further along, Qualia led them off the main road and into the maze of alleys that led to the river. The smell of the Opthia wormed its way into their nostrils. At last Qualia stopped in a street with a row of houses that stood upright only with the support of their neighbors, like three drunks at a wedding. She knocked on the middle door. After a very long time, a window opened on the floor above them, and a disheveled face peered down at them.
"Wha—?" it said "Viknis! Get down here and let us in!"
The face withdrew from the window. Another long delay. Kendik felt unbearably conspicuous, though a quick survey of the street revealed nothing but a stray dog nosing in a mound of refuse.
At last the door opened. Viknis, still bleary eyed, peered at them uncertainly. "Hello, mum," he said. "Hello, Sezhina. Sorry, the place is in a bit of a mess ..."
Viknis led them into what was incontestably the messiest room Kendik had ever seen. The apothecary's shop had been cluttered and covered in dust, but at least there was the sense that items had been placed where they were for a reason. Here there was chaos. Discarded clothes, empty wineskins, vegetable scraps, half-eaten fruit: the room was a midden. In one corner, there was a fireplace, and Kendik felt a strong desire to sweep everything in sight into it, and burn the lot. Surely only the rats, the mice, and the flies would object.
"I'll just get some proper clothes on," said Viknis, and disappeared upstairs.
The rest of them stood for a few moments in dispirited silence, then Sezhina observed "Your son isn't much of a housekeeper."
Qualia looked at her angrily. "Don't you go criticizing Viknis! I'll fetch the good-for-nothing wretch down here myself." She stomped up the stairs, calling her son's Name in a voice that brooked no argument.
"At least I stashed those three bodies away neatly," commented Sezhina.
"How long do you think it will take before they're found?"
"Hours, I hope. No one disturbs Tesek's torturers when they've settled in to work on a victim. And the rest of the prison is so disorganized that, with luck, no one will realize your cell isn't supposed to be empty."
Unless that weird old man in the cell next door tells them, thought Kendik; but that was outside his control, as was the time they were wasting.
At last Qualia reappeared. In her wake trailed Viknis, unshaven, eyes bloodshot, but clad in his best—or at least most colorful—tunic. He had clearly woken up a little more, because he noticed Kendik, and then he noticed Anarya.
"You!" he said. "Did you hear I wrote a song about you? Come upstairs and I'll play it just for you."
"You don't have time to invite anyone back to your bedchamber," said Sezhina. "You need to get your things and come with us."
"I'm not one of your prisoners," replied Viknis. "Give me one good reason why I should take orders from you."
Sezhina gave him three: three black-clad bodies seeping blood in a locked room. She told him about the friends of the black-clad men, about how they would hunt down whoever had done this to their fellows, about how, if they couldn't find the perpetrators themselves, they would go after their nearest and dearest.
Viknis still had a mulish expression on his face, so Sezhina began to detail some of the methods the Falcons used to extract confessions from their victims. She hadn't got much beyond the rack and the thumbscrews when Viknis held up a hand.
"All right, all right, I'm convinced. Just let me get my stuff."
It came down to the lute or the zither. One was bulky enough, Sezhina told him; there was no way he could take both. In the end, with great reluctance and many a backward glance, Viknis chose the lute, concealing it beneath a voluminous cloak.
They left Viknis' malodorous residence disguised in an assortment of the finest rags and tatters Viknis could find, and continued their winding path towards the West Gate.
As if the prospect of being captured and tortured wasn't enough, Kendik was growing increasingly concerned about Atlan. For the duration of their visit to Viknis' modest establishment, he had slumped in a corner, unmoving, apparently unaware of his environment. Having started to come to life in their cell, he seemed to be regressing again.
"We're getting close," said Sezhina. "You wait here while I check out the gate."
They entered a street in which the houses were solid, three-story affairs exhibiting signs of civic pride: plants in a terracotta pot here, a brightly colored lintel there. While they waited for Sezhina to return, they sat in the limited shade provided by washing hung on lines that criss-crossed from house to house. The occasional passerby looked with disdain at the five disheveled figures who had inexplicably chosen this particular road to settle on. "Beggars," muttered one passerby in a loud whisper. "I've got half a mind to call the guards and have you moved on." The local moved on down the street, nose in the air.
"He won't have to call very loud," said Sezhina, reappearing unexpectedly. "The gate is swarming with them."
"With the Falcons?" asked Qualia, her eyes wide.
"Not unless they're in disguise. No, these are regular guards. They don't seem to be looking for us. They've been lined up just inside the gate, and there's a bunch more of them patrolling the walls."
"Any idea why?"
"I couldn't risk getting close enough to find out. I saw Miratya there, and Azkaron. What would they be doing on gate duty?"
"No idea," said Qualia. "Miratya has trouble guarding her lunch."
"They were jumpy, I'll tell you that, and the gates are well and truly shut. No sense trying to get out that way."
"Where then?" asked Kendik. "The East Gate?"
"Don't think so. One of the officers up on the wall talked about the East Gate contingent. I think we'll have to try our luck with the North Gate."
So they did. They could not risk returning to the central square, so they retraced their steps a little, crossed the road to the West Gate well away from the gate itself, and then took streets which led them north and west. At one point, they came within sight of the wall, and saw guards standing atop it; but they were looking outwards, not inwards.
Something was going on. Kendik would have liked to stop and find out what it was, but Sezhina vetoed that as too risky. None of them was very surprised, when they got near the North Gate, to find it locked against them as well. Disgruntled travelers were milling about or remonstrating with the guards; from an overheard fragment of conversation, they gathered that the gates would be opened briefly in the morning, "if all was well". They moved out of range of the guards to discuss their next move.
"Looks like we need to find somewhere to spend the night," said Sezhina.
Kendik thought about the safe house he and Atlan had used. It was unlikely to be safe any more. Perhaps Atlan's lady friend Uthaia would put them up? But Atlan could not, or would not, tell them where she lived.
"I know where we can sleep," said Viknis. "Perfectly safe, and free as well."
And quite close, as it turned out. It took a lot of whispered argument before Sezhina could be convinced that Viknis might, in this instance, have something worthwhile to offer. At last, and with many a doubtful glance, she suffered the Troubadour to lead them through another maze of streets—he was going to take the Street of Apothecaries, but Kendik vetoed that option—to a carved gate opening onto a courtyard. Just inside the gate was a statue of a voluptuous woman, naked, her arms spread wide.
"These are the Houses of Garlen," said Viknis, "and they turn away none who come seeking refuge and healing. It's a lot better place than the street to spend the night when you've had one too many goblets of wine."
"No wonder you like it," said Sezhina nastily.
The Houses were located on the two sides of the courtyard, fronted by a low colonnade. At the far end of the courtyard was a larger building, from which, as the group advanced, two women emerged. "Welcome to the Houses of Garlen," one said. "We accept all who seek shelter and healing, so long as they mean no harm to the questors of Garlen or to those whom we have taken in
to our care. In return, we will protect you, soothe the wounds of the spirit, and heal the wounds of the body."
The two women approached them and, without touching them, began some kind of assessment or examination. The taller woman's gaze lingered on him, and for a moment, Kendik felt a tingling sensation pass through his body. There was an old man in his home village who had complained of pains in his arm one day, then, without any other warning, fallen down dead. Kendik hoped the same thing was not about to happen to him.
But whatever the women saw or sensed in Kendik did not concern them. It was Sezhina and Anarya who held their attention, so much so that the questors of Garlen called up reinforcements in the shape of a third, older women. She got Sezhina and Anarya to stand apart from the rest of the group, and conducted what were clearly magical tests on them. Lights played about them; they were obscured, momentarily, by darkness; a high-pitched, unearthly note shrilled for an instant in the late afternoon air.
"I wish I knew more about such magic," said Kendik.
"I wouldn't mess with it if I were you, dearie," said Qualia. "It only leads to trouble."
"I can detect no harm that these two mean to the questors of Garlen," said the magician at last, "and nor do they mean any harm to those we shelter. Yet there is something between them, some connection, that I cannot fathom."
"Perhaps I can help you," said Sezhina. "You see, we are family, Anarya and I. I am her mother's sister."
The magician raised an eyebrow, but said nothing further, and returned them to the care of the other two women. Anarya, Qua-lia, and Kendik were all dying to know more, but Sezhina forbade explanations until they had been assigned a room, taken a bath, eaten a simple but filling meal at the long table in the refectory, and returned to their room: simple, even spartan, but a study in order and beauty all the more welcome after the chaos and squalor of the prison. Viknis retreated to a corner and scattered his possessions about him until he felt more at home. Atlan lay sleeping with his back turned to all of them. The rest of them gathered round to hear Sezhina tell her story.
"Do you remember your grandmother Isuassa?" she asked Anarya. "She was your mother's mother, and my mother as well."
"No. I do not believe that I ever met her, or even heard my parents mention her."
"I am not surprised. In the years of your childhood, there were many strange sects and cults within Kaer Volost: cults of despair formed by those who believed that the surface world was closed to them forever. Two years after your mother was born, Isuassa became pregnant with me. The ability to bear more than one child was a rare and precious thing in those days, yet after I was born, my mother sank into despair herself. She found solace in the doom-haunted whisperings of one of the cults that lurked in the deep caverns long since abandoned by the rest of the kaer, and from time to time, sent acolytes to harvest new recruits from the well-lit levels above. Isuassa left my father—who was dead soon afterwards in any case, killed in one of the deep galleries when the roof col-lapsed—and went to live in the depths of the kaer, where members of the Council and their families would never dream of going.
"I grew up in darkness: in dark tunnels, where every glimmer of light was precious, and in the darkness of the cult's beliefs. They were waiting to be eaten, and did not know whether they would be devoured by rock, darkness, or the Horrors they longed and feared to encounter.
"Yet Isuassa loved me in her way, and, I suppose, protected me from the worst the cult might have done to me. We children of the cult made the darkness our home, and played in corridors long abandoned, far enough from the chidings of the priests that we could laugh and sing and bring a little life to that lifeless place.
"When I was sixteen, the cult underwent a schism. News had filtered down that the Council planned to send an expedition to the outside world. Our chief priest announced that we should join that expedition, not to find freedom, but to seek out, and lead back to the kaer, those Horrors who would put an end to the agony of existence."
"Then it was you!" said Anarya, recoiling in horror. "It was you who let the Eaters in!"
"It was not I," said Sezhina. "I had left the kaer by then. But it may be that some twisted plan of the cult resulted in the fate that befell Kaer Volost. If I had had any part in such activities, do you think I would have passed the scrutiny of Garlen's magician?"
Anarya subsided, but she continued to keep her distance from her aunt.
"As I say, there was a schism. My mother and many of her friends denounced the chief priest's plan as heresy. Blades were drawn. I saw my mother cut down before my eyes, and I ran still deeper into the tunnels, into lands where nothing grew and nothing lived that did not share the slow, blind life of rock and stone.
"I could not long survive there. By night, I made my way back through the territory of my mother's killers, twice escaping death by a hand's breadth. I learnt harsh lessons about life, death, and survival. Slowly, stealing food and water along the way, I made my way towards the surface, towards the lighted lands. I saw your mother, and your father, and I saw you, and envied you your childhood and your freedom. But you did not see me, and I passed on.
"I had arrived at an auspicious time. The first expedition from the kaer had gone out. At the time appointed for its return, the side gate had been opened, and as quickly closed again. Those who opened it said that there was nothing outside but blackness, and the smell of blood. All the same, the Council decreed a second expedition. Volunteers were few, and they could not be too choosy about who they included. I volunteered, and I was chosen."
"My mother watched that expedition leave," said Anarya.
"I was cloaked, hooded, booted. She would never have recognized me. We were let out the sally port, and the sun burned our eyes."
Sezhina sighed. "We had seen paintings of the view we were now looking at, but the faded paint on ancient parchment had not prepared us for the clear air, the endless sky. We had never seen anything so beautiful.
"Then, only yards from the door, we found the torn bodies and cracked bones of the first expedition. That gave us pause for a while, but as there was neither sign nor scent of danger in the air, we decided to walk a little further round the shoulder of the mountain. A fever of eagerness had taken me, and, while the others took each step in fear and trembling, I strode on ahead. After all, I more than half believed that I had been born as food for Horrors; now I would come to them, and bid them take me if they dared.
"But they did not take me. Of a sudden, I heard the screams behind me, and then the unearthly howls of laughter, the gnashing of great jaws. I ran down the mountainside, away from the place of slaughter. Though I ran in panic, it saved my life, for the Horrors preferred the easy pickings near the entrance to the kaer. I ran, and the cries diminished, until at last there were none.
"I learned to live under the open air, to hunt for my food, to sleep with one eye half open, and eight days later I turned a corner and saw a young man from another kaer, leading his own expedition to test the air of the outside world. When I had passed all their tests—for they feared me a creature of the Horrors at first—they accepted me into their kaer, and when at length that kaer was opened and the people made their way into the outside world, I went out with my young man, and we lived as man and wife together under the shadow of the mountains.
"One day, I came home from the far fields to find him dead, crushed under a tree he had been felling. Then I took his sword, and found an adept, and went out into the world to live on my wits and the sharpness of my blade. And at length I heard word of you, Anarya, and came back to see if I could find you."
"Why did you not declare yourself right away?"
"Because I have learned caution, and know that there is much in the world which is not as it seems. I had to be sure that you were really you. And now I am sure, and I will call you sister."
Then they embraced, and many tears flowed; and at length tears and stories alike ended, and they slept.
In the night, Kendik woke to
hear shouting and the sound of running feet in the courtyard. Then the voices of the questors of Garlen were raised, and there was quiet again.
They woke before dawn, packed, left a token of their appreciation for the sanctuary they had received, and went out into the streets.
"Quiet today," said Qualia. They were within two blocks of the North Gate when they heard marching feet enter the street behind them. "Keep walking," hissed Sezhina, and they did, stepping to one side as the guards hurried past. Some were in armor. All had swords, and a few also carried crossbows. They hurried on ahead, and Kendik's group followed cautiously behind.
They stopped short at the sight of the gate. It was closed, as would still be expected at this hour, but the wide street in front of it was filled with heavily armed guards, citizens carrying whatever weapons they possessed, and, off to the side, bystanders young and old, watching on with nervous anticipation. Guards with torches patrolled the walls. Suddenly, one fell backwards with a cry, and the others ducked for cover.
Kendik tilted up his head to see better, and as he did, his hood fell off. Before he could pull it back up, an excited young voice called "Duke Kendik! Duke Kendik has come to lead the defense!"
Chapter 12
Kendik's first response was to pull his hood back over his head. But it was too late for that. Although most of the crowd paid no attention to the commotion, a small contingent gathered in front of a tavern called the Wayfarer's Inn began clapping and cheering. "Over here, over here!" called a familiar voice.
Kendik turned to his companions for advice, only to discover that they had gone. He looked around wildly—was that Viknis' cloak, disappearing into the crowd? But the crowd was full of movement, some of its own volition, others because guards were pushing them back to clear the road to the gate. He was on his own.