Looking up, Ebon saw many soldiers gathered at the cliff’s edge, and they were beginning to come down the stairs. They were clad all in the red leather armor of constables, and his heart skipped a beat.
Gregor was up now. Ebon’s limbs obeyed him at last, and he scrambled up, expecting the giant to come for them—but instead he turned and ran for the docks. He leaped into the boat there, nimble as a cat, ignoring the cries of the constables. With a dagger from his belt he cut both mooring lines, and then his huge arms pulled at the oars to launch the boat into the Great Bay.
“Time to go,” said Mako, teeth bared against the pain of his shoulder. He pulled Ebon along with him, and Kalem hurried after as they ran for the sewer entrance from which they had come. Theren was there, and to Ebon’s stark relief, she was up on her knees and looking about, blinking.
“What happened?” she said. “Where is Gregor?”
“Gone,” said Ebon, pointing out to sea. He and Kalem took her arms to help her up.
“No!” cried Theren. She reached out, and light sprang into her eyes as she tried to clutch Gregor’s boat with magic. But he did not slow, and the magelight winked out almost at once.
“He is gone now,” said Kalem. “And we must leave as well.” He flinched as an arrow struck the stone by them, though in truth it was not a very close shot.
“No truer words were ever spoken, goldshitter,” said Mako. “Into the sewers once more.”
THEY HAD NOT EVEN ROUNDED the first corner when they heard shouts at the sewer entrance and the tramp of feet behind them.
“I hope you are faster than you have shown yourselves to be, boys,” grunted Mako. “Otherwise Theren and I may be forced to leave you behind, for the redbacks will surely catch you.”
“You cannot abandon us down here!” cried Kalem.
“He is having a joke,” said Ebon. “Though he should save his breath for running.”
Mako grinned. “I know my way around these sewers like a wolf in its own den. They will not be able to track us.”
But his boasting seemed a lie, for they could always hear their pursuers behind them in the tunnels. When they reached the area they had dropped down before, the Yerrin guards were gone—many ridges in the stone floor thrust through the muck to show where they had been trapped, but the stone was chipped away, and Ebon guessed that they had managed to dig themselves out. Mako helped them up the ladder and into the tunnel above, despite his wounded shoulder. There they felt sure they would lose the constables at last. But in no time they heard their pursuers anew, voices echoing with shouts and cries to halt.
I wonder if anyone ever does, thought Ebon. Just stops in their tracks and waits to be captured.
“How do they keep finding us?” said Kalem, voice heavy with fear.
Theren said nothing, but Ebon caught her looking at Mako. He followed her gaze and saw the blood that still flowed steadily from the bodyguard’s shoulder. It ran down his arm to his elbow, and from there it splashed to the stone floor every few steps. Some of it sank into the muck in their feet, but much of it showed on the stone.
That was how the constables were tracking them. But what could they do? Ebon would not abandon the man who had saved them all so many times already.
Without warning, Mako skidded to a stop. “Here we are,” he said. “The street above is just outside the Academy. The three of you must climb up and return to the citadel. I will lead the redbacks away.”
“You cannot,” said Ebon. “You are hurt, and they are tracking you by your blood.”
“Do you think I did not spot that?” growled Mako. “Loss of blood has not yet made me a fool. But I was hampered by you and your stumpy little friends. Without you, I can finally lose the constables, as I would have from the beginning if it were not for your useless hides.”
Kalem seemed taken aback by that, but Ebon only fixed Mako with a keen stare. “Very well,” he said quietly. “Only do not let yourself be captured.”
“Do you forget with whom you speak?” said Mako. “You need not worry yourself on my account.”
“Who said I was worried for you?” said Ebon, shrugging. “I worry only that if they caught you, it would go ill for the family.”
That earned him a smile. “More like a proper Drayden every day. Now shut your fool mouth, for they will be here in a moment.”
He lifted them up one by one, and they broke out blinking into the light of the afternoon sun. Then he ran off again with light, springing steps. Ebon and his friends hurried away from the sewer entrance.
“Will he be all right?” said Kalem.
“Of course,” said Theren. “And even if not, do you think he would spare any worries for us, if our positions were reversed?” But she could not hide the concern in her eyes as she looked back over her shoulder.
“What time is it?” said Ebon. “If it is still the afternoon study period, we should not enter the front doors.”
“The sun is too low,” said Kalem, pointing to it. “It must be after the bell.”
“If you say so.” They ran around the corner into the street just before the Academy. “I know the first place we should go, for I think we all need a bath.”
Theren outpaced them for a moment and reached the front doors first. They were shut—and something in the back of Ebon’s mind shouted a warning at that fact—but she had them open at once and bounded inside with the boys just behind her.
And there they stopped.
Before them were arranged almost the entire faculty. Ebon saw Jia present, and Perrin, and Dasko—Dasko who looked at them all with smoldering eyes. But Xain was at their head, and Ebon saw a look of fury upon his face—fury, and triumph.
In his hand he held the amulet of Kekhit.
For a moment Ebon and his friends stood rooted, unsure of what to do. Instinct told Ebon to run. Reason told him he would never escape before the instructors there—wizards, all of them—stopped him with spells. Terror told him to throw himself at their feet and beg for mercy, to say it had all been Theren’s idea. Pride told him to hold his head high, to demand to know what they were all there for, and to deny any knowledge of the whole affair.
But no emotion won, and so he stood still.
“Drayden,” said Xain. His voice was like a serrated blade in a sheath of velvet. “Do you know what I hold in my hand?”
“Dean Forredar,” said Kalem. It sounded as though he were trying a diplomatic tone, but his voice cracked, ruining the effect. “The three of us were—”
“Shut up,” said Xain. Kalem did. Xain lifted the amulet a little higher. “This is the amulet of Kekhit. An artifact from the Academy vaults. Stolen from them. Stolen by you.”
“That is not true, Dean,” said Theren. “The three of us—”
“SILENCE!” Xain’s voice was like a bolt of thunder. The air itself crackled with the force of it. “Silence. The three of you are done talking. You have done too much of that already, and all of it has been lies. You have been behind the mindwyrd from the first. You concocted this story about Isra, when in truth you had killed her long ago and thrown her into the Great Bay. It was you who killed Credell, and Vali, and Oren. You three: a Drayden, and his accomplices.”
Theren’s shoulders slumped in defeat. She bowed her head, casting her hair into her eyes.
“Now you have my son. My son. You cannot know the lengths I have gone to for him already. And now I make you this promise: if he has been harmed in any way, there are no words for the pain I will make you endure.”
Slowly Theren turned to her friends. She met Kalem’s eyes first, but only for a moment before she looked straight at Ebon.
She gave him a little smile.
“I told you,” she whispered. “From the first, I told you. Now run.”
Ebon’s brow furrowed—and then at once he understood. He lifted a hand. “Theren, do not—”
Magelight sprang into her eyes. Xain’s eyes flared in defense—but she did not attack him. With a blast, she threw K
alem and Ebon through the Academy’s open front door and into the street.
“Run!” she screamed.
Then with her magic she seized the front doors and flung them shut.
THOOM
Kalem got to his feet and ran for the doors, where they could hear the sounds of blasts and explosions inside. But Ebon seized the back of his collar and dragged him away.
“We cannot leave her!” said Kalem.
“We will help her!” cried Ebon. “Somehow. But we must run. We must.”
They did—and every time he heard a spell hammer against the iron doors behind him, Ebon hoped it was not the sound of his friend dying.
THEY FLED TO ADARA’S HOME. When he woke there the next morning, Ebon could not remember why he chose hers, and not his family’s manor. Doubtless Halab would have taken him in. Doubtless she would have protected him. But he could think only of Adara. And by some blessing of the sky, she had been there when they arrived, and had ushered them in without question—though she had many questions once they were safely within.
Ebon told her everything. Kalem added a word or two here or there, but mostly the boy sat in the corner and wept. And when he thought Ebon was not looking, he glared. How could Ebon blame him? The right thing to do—the honorable thing—would have been to return to the Academy and throw their lot in with Theren. But Ebon knew that they would never convince the faculty of their innocence—especially not Xain, who had hated him from the first. And mayhap outside the Academy they could come to some solution.
Adara left once they had finished their tale, but only to put word out through the lover’s guild. By the next morning they learned that Theren was not dead, but was in the custody of the Mystics. Ebon knew full well what that meant. His mind filled with visions of Lilith when he had visited her before, when she had languished under torture for days. To imagine that pain being visited upon Theren … his stomach clenched when he thought of it.
After that first night, Ebon fully expected he would have to find another hiding place. But the moment he mentioned it, Adara shook her head and insisted that he and Kalem remain with her.
“I will not turn you out,” she said. “And I may be of help to you.”
“So might Mako, or others in my family,” said Ebon. “I should return to the manor. I should have gone there from the first.”
Adara arched an eyebrow. “That would have been your death,” she said. “Do you not think that that is the first place the constables and Mystics would have gone to search for you? Doubtless they have agents posted in the streets around it even now.”
Ebon frowned, for indeed he had not thought of that. “But still, I only put you in danger by remaining here,” he said. “Mako knew of us, and he cannot be the only one.”
“He very well could be,” said Adara. “Think of it—even the Lord Prince did not know until you appeared by my side, and he has his eyes and ears in every corner of the Seat.”
Kalem straightened where he sat on the floor. “The Lord Prince! He must know that the constables seek for you. He could expose us.”
“I have sent word. He will not intervene, though he is not happy about it,” said Adara flatly. “But while he will not act to harm us, for he believes me when I say that you are innocent, neither will he help us. He will only keep trying to find Isra before she wreaks more havoc. For that is still what is most important, Ebon. Even with Theren’s peril, you cannot forget that. Isra means to kill again.”
“Aye, and she means to kill goldbags,” said Ebon, folding his arms and slumping in his chair. “All of them, if she can. And now none of us are there to stop her, and the faculty do not even believe she is alive.”
“What do you mean to do about it?” said Kalem, a strong current of annoyance in his voice.
“We must flee the Seat,” said Ebon. Kalem gave an angry snort, and Adara looked at him in surprise. Ebon spread his hands. “It is the only way. What else is there? We can never prove our innocence now—not until Isra acts, and that may not be for a long while, until all this furor has died away.”
“You mean to flee?” said Kalem, rising to his feet. “You would leave Theren here, suffering as the Mystics put her to the question? Often I defend your name to others, Ebon, but this is just in line with the dark tales your family seems to attract.”
“Of course we will get Theren first,” said Ebon. He felt the heat of his blood rising in his ears. “Do you think I am so faithless? Stop looking for evil in my heart, Kalem. You are as bad as Xain.”
Kalem glowered, but he lowered his eyes. “How do you mean to get her out?”
“I do not know,” said Ebon quietly. “We need someone who … can do that sort of thing. We might tunnel up from beneath the Mystics’ holding cells, but it is risky, and I would not know how to get there in the sewers. I hope that Mako shows himself soon, though that is one thing I never thought to hear myself say.”
“You mean to abandon the Academy, then?” said Adara. “You will let Isra kill the other children of merchants and royalty within it?”
Ebon could not meet her gaze. “I do not know what else to do,” he said softly. “If we try to stop her, we will only be caught and killed ourselves. Of course I will try to help them, if we can think of a way to do it.”
She rose from the table. “I will not say if this counsel is good or bad,” she said. “But I urge you to think on it. We have little else to do, for a while at least.”
By their third day of hiding, Ebon began to feel as if he was going mad. Adara’s home was no hovel, but it was no mansion either. He could only stand so much of her four walls and coarse wood floor and Kalem’s sullen glares. And of course Kalem’s presence made time alone with Adara impossible, so there was not even that outlet for relief.
“You are certain no one will find us here?” he said, not because he was dissatisfied with her answers the previous times he had asked, but because there was nothing else to say or to do.
Adara fixed him with a look that told him she was growing annoyed. “Yes,” she said. “Only the others in the guild of lovers know of our arrangement, and they will never breathe a word of it. And even if someone did, there is a hiding place beneath the floor. I will stow you there if Mystics should come knocking—or mayhap I will stow you there now and leave it locked for a while.”
“I am sorry,” said Ebon, and he meant it. “I only wish there was something we could do.”
“I have sent word to your family as you asked, but they are … inscrutable. It will take time for my note to reach them.”
Then, from across the room, Kalem shot up from the floor. “Alchemy!” he cried, his eyes wild.
Ebon stared at him. “What?”
“Alchemy,” said Kalem, quieter this time. “That is how she did it. Isra, I mean. How she provided the corpse. She found some alchemist—and it must have been a powerful one—who took a corpse and turned it so that it looked like Isra’s corpse instead. She must have done it almost the moment she kidnapped Erin.”
“So long ago?” said Adara. “That shows incredible foresight. Isra may be devious, but she is only a girl.”
“Likely Gregor had her do it,” said Ebon, glaring at the floor. “Or whoever else in the family Yerrin commands Gregor.”
“At least now we know,” said Kalem. “That is one mystery solved.”
“Can you prove it?” said Ebon, heart racing. “Is there some trace of her magic on the corpse that we can show to another alchemist, and thus establish our innocence?”
“Well, no,” said Kalem. “But we have an answer.”
“Knowledge without a course of action is useless,” said Ebon, scowling. But when Kalem’s hopeful expression fell, he felt guilty and tried to ease his tone. “But you are right, in that at least we have an answer. I am sorry. It is only that I am grown irritable with inaction.”
“Think nothing of it,” said Kalem with a sigh. “I feel much the same.”
Adara stood. “It is time I was going, for
the guild will need me tonight. Do not get into trouble before I return—at least not more trouble than you can get yourself out of.”
Ebon rose to see her out. “We will not. Kalem, if you are still bashful about such things, turn away; I have been an annoyance to the love of my heart, and I must kiss her well to make up for it.”
Kalem did indeed turn away, and Adara gave Ebon a wry smile. “What makes you think I want a kiss now? You have not bathed since you arrived.” But she showed her words to be a lie by gripping the front of his robes and pulling him in. For a long moment they held each other. She put her lips to his ear and whispered, “We will solve this. Together. We share it, as in all things. Even peril.”
“Even peril,” he whispered back. “Thank you.”
Then she was gone.
That left them alone for some hours. To distract himself, Ebon drank, and Kalem joined him at the table and in his cups. Ebon had tried to withhold himself from wine since he arrived; though Adara offered it to him often and insisted it was no bother, he had no wish to drain her cabinet, which he knew he might do if he gave himself free rein. And besides, who would want to sit drunk in the home of their lover for hours?
But now he and Kalem let themselves relax into one of Adara’s fine vintages. When the bottle was nearly done, Kalem concocted a plan to rescue Theren that involved melting the front door of the Mystics’ station, and Ebon nodded sagely that it was a brilliant idea. Then Ebon, in turn, decided that it would be better to recruit a firemage, some sellsword wizard, and have them burn the place to the ground. Somehow they would get Theren out before the flames and the smoke killed everyone inside.
He knew their ideas were beyond foolish, and he knew that Kalem knew it as well. But after two days of sitting and reflecting on their own hopeless situation, it felt good to speculate upon the ridiculous. Somehow they drank another bottle, though Ebon did not remember getting up to open it—mayhap, he reflected in the back of his mind, Kalem had done it, though he did not remember the boy rising from the table, either.
The Academy Journals Volume One_A Book of Underrealm Page 74