Kirin dreamed. He knew that he dreamed, for Maia was there. Maia, laughing and whole as they completed another perfect performance of Malik and Mercia in the Bazaar. A crowd cheered and threw money at their feet while she glowed on his arm. Later that night, in their tiny room in the Sulfur Serpent, the glow had been for him. Grief stabbed him repeatedly, ten thousand cuts that he couldn’t heal.
Then Maia’s face changed into another woman, someone extraordinarily beautiful and enthusiastic, but no one he knew. Yet she called him Lord, and they made love to each other in sumptuous surroundings that were strange yet familiar. Beneath the pleasure lurked a sadness in his heart that he didn’t understand.
He awoke, panting and frightened. He knew that room. It was the Prince’s bedchamber.
The warm presence at his back went from comforting to threatening. Kirin barely stopped himself from throwing off the blanket and rolling away. A chilly gust hit him as the blanket’s front edge lifted a little, and he shrank back under it. Cold ruled the air outside their hiding place. No moons lit the narrow canyon.
He won back control over himself before he woke the prince. The soft steady breath against the back of his neck didn’t change. Kirin breathed deeply, forced calm on himself.
Why am I dreaming about him bedding his concubine? No, why am I dreaming about being him while bedding his concubine? This is madness, when Madness isn’t even in the sky!
He became aware then of the steady flow of warmth from the prince into his own back. Not only warmth; the glowing Light within the man spilled out and into him. His Shadow nestled quietly under his heart, contentedly swallowing the flow. It’s drinking from him again, like a vampire. The thought sent a quiver down his spine; could his Shadow be draining the Prince’s life? But the man breathed normally, he certainly wasn’t gasping for a final breath. Kirin got no sensation of personality with the flow, nothing like he’d received when he killed Darnaud’s soldier in Aretzo. That had been a single giant gulp of life, the living whole of the man uprooted and swallowed as casually as a farmer plucking a radish for lunch.
The dead soldier’s memories rose in his mind like a haunt bidden to appear. Kirin shrank from the tumbling images and struggled to submerge them before they could trigger worse ones. For a moment the memory of Gerlach hovered at the edge of his waking mind, a stalking horror about to pounce, with the dead hyena at his side.
Then the soothing flow of Light gently submerged both memories, and he could be safely himself again. Whatever mystical power he received from the Prince right now, he didn’t think it included either the man’s life or soul.
Mother Umana, Kirin prayed in silent anguish. Forgive me for what I’ve done. I don’t want to be a blood sorcerer or a vampire. I’m sorry I used my power to kill people—well, to kill the soldier anyway. Gerlach needed killing even if I did do it by ripping out his life. I beg you to pour over me your Water of Forgiveness and grant me absolution for those terrible sins. Even though it was them or me . . .
His prayer collapsed in a welter of confusion. He couldn’t wish that he’d died too, not when Grigor’s tiny life had depended on him. Heartsick fear for his infant son vied with helplessness as he struggled to think of anything he could do for little Grigor. At least Dona Zella and Dona Abbie were overseeing his care.
And tomorrow the prince wanted him to explain why he had kidnapped him. Did he have any way to do that without earning the man’s utter contempt? His mind cringed away from the memory of how stupid he’d been to fall for Chisaad’s plan. As for admitting that to Prince Terrell—I’d almost rather he has me hung for treason.
Stop this or you’ll go mad, he told himself. You’ve got to keep your mind on your goal; rescuing Pieter. Get the Prince to Sulmona and get him to free Pieter. That’s what matters.
Nothing else. Just that.
He forced himself to stop thinking and mentally chanted a child’s prayer for sleep. He never noticed when it worked.
CHAPTER 47: KIRIN
Kirin woke to a poke in the ribs and a voice in his ear.
“Wake up. You, Kirin, wake up! I can’t move until you do.”
A faint predawn light filtered through the opening to their hiding place. Kirin peeled the blanket back. The rush of chilly air hit him as he pushed their makeshift concealment aside and crawled out.
Rough sandstone cliffs towered over him. The canyon lay deep in gloom but a peak above the northern wall glowed redly. Dawn had already come to the rest of Silbar.
“We’ve got to get moving,” he said blearily. “I didn’t mean for us to sleep this late.”
The prince crawled out after him, dragging the blanket and Kirin’s pack. “Agreed. The One only knows how soon there will be searchers following us.” He handed over the pack and began to fold the blanket while casually asking, “Have you decided what you’re going to tell me?”
Kirin gulped. Dung! His mind tried to scramble for words even as his gaze shied away from the prince’s eyes. “Umm, yes. Err, no. No, I mean yes!” He stopped to pull out the water sack and swallow a single gulp from it. That eased his throat and triggered something like brains to work inside his head. “My tongue takes a while to wake up, Highness. Give me a moment.”
“Why?” The prince inquired in a bland voice. “Will more time change what you have to say?”
Dung dung dung! Kirin barely avoided looking at the prince’s eyes as he blurted out, “No, Highness! I was stupid to believe Chisaad, but I wanted you to meet my family! If you knew us, you’d know my father couldn’t be a murderer, no matter what Duke Darnaud told you.” Kirin choked off the flow of words as despair rose in him. Wait! I’m telling this all wrong!
Prince Terrell’s voice took on an aha! tone. “Murderer and Darnaud. I remember the last time those two items were together. Is your father that acrobat who Darnaud accused of murder?”
“Yes, Highness, but he couldn’t have done it. Please, I know I did the wrong thing, but you’ve got to believe me,” Kirin pleaded, keeping his gaze below the prince’s chin. “He’s innocent! Please, please, let him out of the sulfur mines.”
“I didn’t send him there,” Terrell contradicted. “I commuted his sentence to one night in prison. He should have been home the next day.”
“But I saw him marched away in the prison coffle!”
Terrell’s voice turned doubtful. “Are you certain? There were quite a few condemned criminals that tenday. Might you have mistaken someone else for him?”
“You saw him in the courtroom, saw the scars on his head,” Kirin answered angrily. “They cut off his hair and stole his silver order-rings, but I know my father and he knew me. He tried to talk to me, but the guards wouldn’t let him.”
“Ah,” Terrell said bleakly. “Chisaad left my office right after the clerk of the Law Court. I suspect that my commutation never reached the judge.” The prince took a slow deep breath, let it out, and clenched his fists. “He laid his plans deeply, that wizard did.” Then the prince stared at Kirin closely. “On the strength of that false condemnation, he bought your treason?”
Kirin’s mind whirled, sickened to find matters even worse than he’d thought. He wasn’t only a fool for trusting the Wizard, but twice a fool for distrusting the Prince. “Yes,” he answered mechanically. “I’m the one who kidnapped you, but only because Chisaad said—I mean, I didn’t know he was going to make you his prisoner. I thought he’d help me keep you with us. With my family.”
The prince’s voice grew dry again. “You meant me to be your prisoner instead?”
“No! I mean, only until you knew us and understood!” Kirin stopped, miserably sure that his runaway tongue had wrecked everything and hung him beside. He dropped to his knees and put his hands together in supplication as he bowed his head before the prince. “Highness, I know I’ve done wrong. I’m a fool, I’ve committed treason, I deserve to hang. Kill me if you want, but please, please, please, free my father. That’s all I ask.”
He saw the prince drop the
blanket, revealing Kirin’s own belt knife in the royal hand. The blade gleamed wanly in the morning light. Father had always taught him to keep it clean and sharp. Would the prince execute him with his own knife?
A cut throat is supposed to be a fast death, Kirin thought hopelessly. Maia, I’m so sorry. Mother Umana, Father Haroun, please take me to her. He closed his eyes, raised his chin, and waited. Would it hurt? Probably, but he could face a little pain to be with Maia again. Though she was surely bound for Heaven, while he didn’t see any escape from the Pit for himself.
Cold metal forced its way between his clasped palms. Startled, he opened his eyes and found his knife-hilt in his hands. He gaped at it.
“Time enough to discuss treason when we’re out of here,” Prince Terrell told him quietly.
Kirin raised his eyes, met Prince Terrell’s blue ones looking down at him, and—
He looked down on himself kneeling, seeing a stunned expression on his own face that would have been funny if he hadn’t journeyed so far into despair—
* * *
Terrell gazed up at himself, standing tall and grave after taking an enormous risk. This young fool was an admitted traitor for all that he’d been coldly manipulated into it. Possibly a blood mage too, there was still that eerie darkness he had conjured that didn’t feel like a demonic Shadow, but certainly looked like one—
* * *
“I’m not a blood mage, please God I’m not!” Kirin blurted, even as the sick memory of the soldier’s life ran through him and away into the Darkness. His mind shouted, *I don’t want to be a vampire!* Ymera herself had assured him that he wasn’t one—
* * *
Terrell’s guts twisted as the horrible memory ran through his mind. The victim’s life flew through him in an eyeblink, barely time for the man to know he’d been killed. But Terrell also saw the soldier’s sword swinging in that moment. This was a death, yes, but no slaughter of an innocent. Could this youth be a blood mage if his victim wasn’t innocent and didn’t suffer? It wasn’t the death that drew the demon-familiar, but the suffering of the innocent coupled with the deliberate maiming of the perpetrator’s soul in pursuit of power. And here all the suffering seemed to be happening to the mage. As for being a vampire like Ymera—
* * *
Kirin writhed at the Prince’s revulsion and pity, shamed beyond bearing. He pressed his knife-point against his own chest even as he prayed. *Oh God, why did you give me this power? I don’t want it!*
* * *
Shame stormed through Terrell, years of being showered with contempt for his ears, his skin, the slave tattoo on his thigh, Osrick’s jealousy and bitterness, Maia’s murder, Pen’s absence like a missing tooth, all snarled together until Terrell couldn’t separate Kirin’s memories from his own. But the despair—his hands flashed out to seize the kneeling acrobat’s clenched fists.
* * *
For a moment they struggled over the blade, its point perilously threatening them both. Then Kirin stopped. That warm flood of Light was back, pouring through the Prince’s hands into him and soothing, soothing, quieting his Shadow’s insatiable hunger. He could kneel like this forever and his Shadow would want for nothing more. He gulped air, tasting the desert harshness of it, seeing every line of his own face through the Prince’s eyes and knowing Terrell saw his own the same way.
*What is this?* Kirin asked wonderingly. *What are you doing to me?*
*Me? Only stopping you from taking your own life. * Terrell answered. * Is this a spell? I hear your voice, but your lips aren’t moving.*
*Neither are yours,* Kirin protested. *I don’t have any magic but magesight. I never have. Even Magister Chisaad couldn’t teach me how to cast, but he figured out that I can eat spells right down to the roots, using my Shadow.*
*Is that what this dark thing is?* Terrell’s mind brushed against the Shadow like a blind man trying to understand a statue by running his hands over it. *I thought it might be a demon, but it’s nothing like the Shadow-bears at Storm Pass.*
*Careful!* Kirin twitched. *It killed Darnaud’s soldier. It killed Gerlach.* Memories of that horrific night in the blood-mage’s basement stormed through him, ending with him staggering out of the mage’s burning house as the awful taste of Gerlach’s twisted soul coursed across his mind. *He tried to sacrifice me to conjure a demon.*
Terrell withstood the horror. *Mother Umana save you! What an evil man. You were a child?*
*Yes.* The memory faded from Terrell’s mind, replaced by Pieter finding him covered in blood and wandering in the street. A wash at a Temple fountain with the help of gentle hands, food and drink, and strong arms to hold him while he cried out the dregs of terror. Then being carried into the DiUmbra’s home, falling asleep to the quiet words, “This boy is now my son, and will ever be.”
Wonder from the prince, mixed with admiration and a dash of envy. *Then he wasn’t your body’s sire? I wondered if your mother came from Gwythlo.*
Old bitterness renewed. *Some raping Gwythlo soldier sired me.* Shifting images of his brown-skinned mother, her vacant stare too-rarely animated with any semblance of mind. *Pieter DiUmbra is my Father in every way that matters. Please, Highness, do what you want to me, but free him.*
*I will free him, if I live. I swear that much to you. Your father and my dearest friend are both in Sulmona. We must go there, but I need your help. It’s taking all my strength to walk. I need you to find the way, and find us food and water.*
Kirin got to his feet, still holding the Prince’s hands as the warm Light flowed into his Shadow. *I can do that.* He barely suppressed a gasp when Terrell released his hands and the flow stopped. His Shadow quivered under his heart as if it wept at the loss. Resolutely he sheathed his knife, picked up his rough broom, and waved Terrell to precede him.
They walked for hours, alternating blazing sun with cool shadow as the canyon twisted. Once they found a pile of washed-down rubbish with a stick long enough to make a decent handle and Kirin rebuilt his broom. After that his back complained less when he swept away their footprints.
But more and more they were able to stay on the old road following its shelf above the river. At times it climbed until it hung more than twenty feet above the stony floor. Once a landslide had carried it away and they had to backtrack to find a way down, then follow the hard bare canyon floor for an hour before the road descended to meet them again. Miles steadily passed beneath their aching feet as he listened for pursuit. Twice Kirin thought he heard voices echo in the canyon behind them, but never clear enough to be sure.
In all that distance they didn’t once find water.
They finally stopped for a rest during the brutal afternoon heat. The pavement leaped another twisty side canyon that writhed away into the wilderness, and underneath lay blessed shade. The arch offered easily enough headroom to stand erect in the middle, but Terrell crawled aside until he could sit leaning against the cool abutment. Kirin sat beside him with the broom between them. Both of their throats hurt with thirst, mouths painfully dry and their water bottle as empty as Chisaad’s promises.
Kirin winced a little at the pain in his feet, then understood it wasn’t his own feet that hurt. *Do you want me to re-wrap your bandages again?* he asked silently.
The reply came back the same silent way, sparing both their throats. *No, not until we have unneeded water to wash them. I’m not losing much blood anymore and the wrappings are catching it.*
*Good. Let’s rest a while before we move again.*
The prince gave him a wordless assent. Kirin leaned back against the huge cut stones of the bridge foundation. The bottom row tilted back enough to support him comfortably and the shaded rock cooled pleasantly. Prince Terrell’s relief flowed through him, and he knew the prince also felt his. The knowing wasn’t as comfortable as the feeling.
*This is a remarkable talent you have,* his charge commented. *This conversing without speech. Are you sure it’s not a spell?*
*Me? I told you I’m not
doing this. It must be you.*
*I assure you, I’ve never had any such talent before today.*
*So maybe you’re a late bloomer. Ought to be handy for a king to be able to talk to people without being overheard.* Kirin paused. *Or could anybody hear us?*
A long pause followed while the prince’s busy mind turned over the implications.
*That’s a very good question,* Prince Terrell answered slowly. *The only way to find out will be to try it.*
Kirin found himself oddly flattered that the prince had taken him seriously. He turned his head aside to gaze out into the main canyon. The brightness outside the bridge’s shadow made him squint.
A rock rattled.
Kirin tensed, forced himself to relax and listen. He could feel the prince doing the same, both of their ears alert for a repeat.
Gravel crunched, then footsteps slapped on flagstone. A voice, uncomfortably close, panted, “Sir, I still can’t find a trace of their tracks. Since we’re almost out of water, may I respectfully suggest—”
“We are not turning back,” a familiar voice growled. “You heard those echoes. They are somewhere ahead of us and we are going to find them. The other men will catch up to us with extra food and water soon enough.”
Kirin’s mind heard Prince Terrell’s exclamation. *Fenman!*
*Is that your guard?* he asked, grateful for the ability to speak silently. If he really was . . .
They both waited in frozen stillness, not even daring to think, as the footsteps crunched closer. There were two sets, and both men were panting hard. One of them stumbled on the bridge and a dropped shield clattered.
“Watch yourself, Cottar!” Fenman’s low voice snarled.
“Sir,” bleated the tracker’s voice. “Begging your pardon, sir, but a moment of rest would be a fine thing, sir.”
Fenman gusted a sigh. “All right.”
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