Knight Exiled: The Shackled Verities (Book Three)

by Tammy Salyer

  She strangled that thought dead. Soon, something would happen, something significant enough to change everything. She just had to hang on long enough. A day, maybe two.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Symvalline had become a cocoon of imagined heat. For the last few hours, she’d huddled against the well chamber’s wall, barricaded by all the containers found there, masked by the shadows of the waning daystar. Cold, drenched, and clinging to the hope that Agatha would be there soon.

  She’d spent that time considering all the warm things in life. Hot cider, a blazing hearth fire, Ulfric’s embrace, the feel of Isemay against her bosom when she’d still been an infant. These thoughts sparked a poor facsimile of heat, but it was enough. It had to be.

  Only two people had come to draw water since the urzidae had drunk its fill, proving she was at the outskirts of the settled areas of the Minothian valley. The knowledge that Isemay was close, being held in the gate tower until Tuzhazu arrived, was its own kind of torture. She weighed the option of going on without the aid of Agatha and Widin but talked herself out of it. She’d have one chance at succeeding in this endeavor. Impatience and rash action could end it before it began.

  Yet, if Agatha and Widin didn’t arrive soon, she would have to go. She hoped Tuzhazu would be delayed by the discovery that she was missing and Akeeva the Charlatan’s, as Symvalline couldn’t help but label her, reaction to this news. But she was determined to mount her rescue attempt before he did arrive, if that was still his intent. Her chance of success was better without the cunning, cruel Archon’s presence.

  Enough time passed without her coconspirators appearing that she could wait no longer. Rising to her feet, she pushed away the vessels concealing her and stepped into the center of the chamber. Stiff, sluggish, and tired, her limbs threatened to put an end to her journey right there, and she leaned against the wall to await their cooperation. With sheer force of will, she began to run in place, lifting her knees nearly to her chest, swinging her arms wildly, doing what she had to get blood flowing to her extremities and stoke whatever tiny spark of warmth she might still have in her. The process took time, but finally, she felt ready to go.

  Her first step had just hit the bottom stair when a patter of footsteps came from above her. She rushed beside the stairway and crouched, hoping she was well enough hidden in the shadows to be able to surprise whoever would be descending. The bludgeon she’d taken from the guard at the Cosmoculous Tower and the dagger she’d taken from the man Tuzhazu had killed slid into her hand almost as if by their own volition.

  Before the situation came to that, however, a voice she recognized called, “Is anyone there?”

  She glanced up and saw a mellow light glowing at the top of the stairs. “Aga—” Her voice, like the rest of her, had frozen. She had to clear her throat before trying again. “Agatha?”

  “It’s me.” The rustling sound of the woman descending into the chamber followed, Widin a few steps behind. When they got to the bottom, Agatha held out a small, glowing lantern with one hand and a bundle of clothing in the other. “Change quickly. These will help you hide your face.”

  Symvalline took the bundle, unimaginably grateful for the feel of dry cloth under her fingers. Widin turned away so she could slide her frayed and bedraggled Vinnr shirt and trousers off and the Minothian garb on, followed by a jacket with a deep hood. Being dry brought her leaps and bounds closer to feeling renewed, once more like one of the living rather than a cold corpse.

  “Thank you,” she said. She wished she had more time to fully express her gratitude, but time was not a luxury. “Do you know where Tuzhazu is?”

  Widin replied, “No one passed us on the main road to the maze. Don’t think he’s arrived.”

  Luck seemed to be holding. “You’ve done so much for me already. Now, I have to ask for a little more. Here’s how I intend to get inside the tower. Agatha, you still have my bag?”

  When Symvalline held it, reassured by the weight of the Archon’s book, she quickly explained her plan. “These,” she pointed to the makeshift petards, “are small bags of explosive powder. They will make a lot of light and sound, and be dangerously hot and destructive to anything nearby when ignited. Here’s how you do that.” The two listened without interruption.

  After demonstrating how the rushlight fuses worked, Symvalline handed the bundle of them to Agatha. “I need you to create a diversion away from the main entrance to the tower using these, then hide quickly. Ensure you’re at least twenty feet away when they go off. You should have the space of four deep breaths to get away in plenty of time. They should draw most of the guards and keep them focused on something besides the tower itself. Which,” her eyes landed on Widin, “is where you’ll be taking me.”

  The old man, almost to her shock, actually smiled as if the idea delighted him.

  Symvalline ran her hand under her chin, thinking. “The question is how you’ll get close enough to the gatehouse unseen to be able to use these.”

  “That won’t be difficult,” Agatha stated assuredly.

  “Your dark clothing will help, but they have the advantage of height to observe…” She trailed off as Agatha seemed to disappear before her very eyes.

  The woman’s voice came from right where she’d stood. “It’s called yielding. All women can.”

  Finding her voice, Symvalline whispered, “Simply wonderful.” And solves one problem easily. This could work, she began to realize.

  She quickly outlined the rest of the plan, rough and incomplete as it was. To her surprise, neither balked at the daring ploy.

  Shortly, she was once more under a shroud inside a wooden wagon made to carry the dead, this time harnessed to an urzidae. Agatha and Widin had brought it as their means of traversing the labyrinth. She had the company of Widin lying beside her. The shroud was heavy and warm, smelling of things she couldn’t identify, not unpleasant but unique to her. Spices, maybe used to prepare bodies? Or a type of mold, perhaps. Or maybe it was the elderly man who carried the odor. Either way, she knew she’d remember it long after this perilous adventure was over. If things had been different, she would have reveled in exploring this realm and learning all its unique secrets and gifts.

  The cart’s wheels bumped along cobblestones, and before too long, they rolled to a stop. The two barrow tenders had explained to Symvalline that this side of the valley consisted of scattered farmhouses and crops that flanked the mountainsides. Agatha had driven the cart to a barn and stables used for the supply wagons. It was far enough away from the gatehouse tower that they wouldn’t be noticed, and from there she’d walk to a safe place to deploy the petards, far enough away to avoid startling the other urzidae inside the stable.

  Agatha’s footsteps receded toward the gate, and Widin whispered, a touch of excitement painting his voice, “That’s our cue.”

  “Remember,” Symvalline pressed, “if there’s trouble, take Isemay to safety, I beg you. Her first. I can take care of myself.”

  “I’ll do what I can, Vinnric,” he assured her.

  Cautiously, the two peeked out from beneath the shroud into the dark night. Except it wasn’t as dark as a normal night—the uncannily bright glow of the three moons covered the landscape with a blanket of cool luster. Sneaking anywhere, much less into the guarded gate tower, would be trickier than it should have been.

  Agatha had left the wagon on the side of the stable not visible from the gatehouse, giving them a bit more concealment as they climbed out. Widin jumped clear, grunting the grunt of a man with old bones that weren’t prepared for being jarred.

  The two snuck around the building until they could see the road. Though in daylight there would be absolutely nothing to conceal them between the stable and the tower, at this hour and with where the moons were in the sky, the tower’s shadow created a road of its own of complete darkness.

  Symvalline hated the exposure, but there was no other choice but to creep straight up to her daughter’s prison across a r
elatively flat plane with sparse vegetation, in full view of the tower, while the guards’ attention was occupied elsewhere.

  Glancing to Widin, she dipped her chin and waited for him to acknowledge he was ready. Oddly, he pulled his wings up high and spread them overhead like someone trying to hide beneath a cloak in the rain.

  “Put your wings down,” she whisper-shouted. “They’ll see them.”

  He regarded her with a puzzled look for a moment, and she wondered if his age had addled his mind. Then he gave her an impish grin. “Ah, you Vinnrics don’t know much of our ways and qualities, d’you?” As if to torment her, he waggled the tips of his wings slightly. “These old leather flaps will conceal us. Got a bit of the yield to them, too. You just step under here, and I promise they’ll not see a thing from up there.”

  She hesitated, wanting to trust but afraid to. And again, in a refrain that was becoming tiresome, she asked herself, What choice do you have?

  As she huddled at his side, the waiting and watching for their sign to break for the tower began. After a moment, Symvalline asked him, “Are you certain you want to do this? The consequences for getting caught…”

  He gave her that grin again, but the sharp impish edges of it smoothed into something kinder. “You’re a strange-looker, Vinnric, and seem to be made from troubles sewn to troubles. But all I had to do was take one look in your eyes to know your heart is true and good. I’ve looked into Tuzhazu’s eyes, and that’s…not what I’ve seen in them. I’m not going to live forever, and I want to be able to tell my wife when I see her beyond the shadows that I ended my days doing something true and good, or at least helping someone who was.”

  She was too overcome with gratitude to do more than put a hand on his arm and squeeze, hoping he understood.

  The night felt too quiet as they waited for Agatha to light the petards. Symvalline scanned the base of the tower, the guardhouse, the high terminus wall of the labyrinth, and the base of the steep-walled mountains to either side, wondering where the woman would perform her deed. The tower stood to the east, looking as if it nearly touched the mountain beside it. The maze wall attached to it about five stories up, and the gatehouse, the only entrance to the tower, conjoined both at the tower’s base. Sentries would most likely be atop the wall, but it would be hard to see anything directly below them, which was completely immersed in shadow. If Symvalline were in Agatha’s place, she’d light the petards as far west of the gatehouse as she could, just at the bottom of the wall—

  There, the sharp bangs of the petards, followed by a bright bloom like a flower of blue and red fire, just where Symvalline was thinking.

  “Let’s go,” she said.

  It seemed her trust in Widin was not misplaced, and they arrived at the tower without an alarm—at least not one directed at them. Symvalline saw four figures racing across the wall toward Agatha’s diversion as she and Widin approached, and perhaps three poured out of the gatehouse door. How many would still be in the tower?

  The tower rose before them like a finger pointed angrily at the sky. Alarmed shouts and commands rang from the distance, but not many. Symvalline appreciated their relaxed outlook when it came to protecting the valley. Arc Rheunos, apparently, was not a realm that was on familiar terms with threats or war, the kinds of things that made building dungeons and maintaining full armies necessary.

  Widin and Agatha thought the likeliest place they’d be holding Isemay was the second story, closest to the guards’ barracks and central hearth, which had several empty rooms with locking doors and no outside access. Prisoners were a rare occurrence in Minoth, so they had no need for a proper jail within the tower. Widin suggested that the best place to enter would be in the upper stories, which would be the least likely to have wandering guards, so long as they stayed out of sight of the watchtower guard.

  Presently, he made a twirling motion with his fingers, and after she spun around, he placed his arms beneath her armpits and around her torso. With a vigorous sweep of his wings, they began to rise.

  “Oof, didn’t know your kind would be so heavy,” he heaved but managed to get them aloft.

  The tower walls, as straight and smooth as the labyrinth’s, passed by, and Widin went directly to a window near the top as swiftly as he was able. No fire burned inside, which gave Symvalline hope the room was unoccupied. Gripping the window’s right frame, she managed to crawl onto the wide sill and crouch there as she gazed through the murky glass. She could see nothing in the blackness. Carefully, she pulled on the wood frame of the left pane and felt it move slightly, but then it stopped short. Locked from the inside.

  “Widin, go back down. I’m going to break the glass. It’s better if you’re not here if someone hears it. Find somewhere safe to stay concealed, and keep your eyes on this window. When you see my signal”—she closed her eyes and send illumination through her Mentalios for a moment—“like this, but much brighter, come back for her. Then me, if there’s still time.”

  “I hope you find her,” was all he said, then dropped back into the gloom.

  Using the bludgeon, she struck the glass. It broke with a sharp crackle, but she didn’t hesitate to see if it had been heard. She’d be an easy target sitting out on the ledge. Reaching in, she found the lock and undid it, then pulled the window frame out and climbed inside.

  After shutting it again, she whispered the incantation to release the dimmest of lights from her Mentalios. She didn’t want it to be visible from any cracks around a door. The room seemed to be storage, walls lined with crates and broken furniture. A quick glance around told her there was nothing particularly useful to her.

  Once more, she carried her bag from the healers chamber, now holding only the book, the small dagger, and the sleeping potion. In her left hand, she gripped the bludgeon and crept toward the outline of the door at the far side of the room.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Isemay’s head shot up at a noise, and she realized she’d dozed off. Shouting came from beyond her cell, guards’ voices, but growing distant. She was on the second floor of the tower, at the end of the hallway near the stairway, and could hear them—some running up the stairs, some down it.

  Da? she wondered. Surely it was too soon for him to reach her. Mum?!

  She tried to jump up, found herself woozy, and rose carefully instead, using the wall to steady herself like an elderly person. A cold sweat broke out on her forehead, clammy like when she’d been feverish with the pox as a child. Using her sleeve, she wiped it away. Dirt stuck to her forehead, and she knew she must look a mess. Won’t it be a pretty reunion when Salukis gets here? she thought.

  With her ear pressed to the door, she tried to make out what could be happening. Both the voices and footsteps had receded into silence. Had they left a guard to watch for her?

  The only light came from cracks beneath and above the door and through the keyhole. Crouching, she tried to see through it, and was rewarded with a tiny view of a gray stone wall across the hall. She didn’t smell the smoke of torches, which made her wonder what the Minothians used to light their interiors at night. The Zhallahs had the Churss and many permutations of glowing stones and reflective light from their daystar and three moons to provide illumination in their houses and buildings. Did Minothians have Churss stones here, too?

  After several moments passed with no sound or movement visible, she risked what she’d been considering for the past couple of hours. She might be able to escape.

  Using the stolen dagger, she pushed its point into the crevices of the door’s lowest hinge. Wiggling it, she found the hinge apparatus was not dissimilar to some kinds in Vinnr. Shortly, she had the hinge pin removed. The top hinge was too high up to get adequate leverage, but the door was narrow enough that she could climb up, wedge her left big toe in a waist-high crack in the mortar on the wall, and hold up the bulk of her weight by her other foot resting atop the door handle. She used the free pin as a kind of grip for her left hand by shoving it into another mortar c
rack and pulling downward so the pressure of the angle kept it locked in place. That left her right hand free to use the dagger against the other hinge. Soon, her arms and knees began quaking, but she held on determinedly until the second came free too.

  She jumped down as the door settled its weight more heavily on the lockbolt, now the only part of it attached to the wall. Whenever a guard came for her, they’d have to use force to move the door and would be caught well off guard when the whole thing came crashing in. If she was lucky, they’d by shoving hard enough that their momentum would carry them into the room and she could scurry out and find somewhere to hide before they could catch her. It seemed prudent to have a backup escape plan in case the Minothians had no intention of reuniting her with her mother—and if whatever had raised the alarm made them…angry.

  Nothing happened for several minutes, and Isemay stood beside the door, still gripping the dagger in one hand and the hinge pins in another. She thought she could hear voices after a while, speaking in normal tones down on the first floor. Had whatever had caused the disturbance passed already?

  She crouched once more and peaked through the keyhole. A gray eye stared back. With a gasp, she lunged away from the door in surprise.

  “Isemay?” a voice whispered.

  Her mum’s voice.

  “Mum?” she cried, her voice cracking in nearly hysterical relief.

  “Isemay, shh, stay quiet. I’m going to get you out.”

  Scurrying back to the door, Isemay lowered herself to speak through the keyhole. “Oh Verities, Mum, I’m so…I didn’t…I—”

  “Shh, shh, I know, Crumb. Me too. But I’m here. I just need to get the lock open.”