Company of Strangers, #1

by Melissa McShane

  Alaric’s hand closed into a fist. “So why are you here?”

  He shrugged again. “Rumor is the bastard child of lies. I do not care for it.”

  Sienne stared at Alaric. “Lost knowledge?” she said.

  Alaric grunted and went back to searching the walls. “Don’t worry about it. I’m mad, remember? And this whole search is for nothing. Just stand there until I prove I’m insane for looking for things that don’t exist.”

  “I can hardly think you’re mad if I don’t know what you’re searching for. What’s wrong with wanting to find lost knowledge?”

  Alaric stopped again and threw his head back, closing his eyes as if trying to keep his temper. Dianthe cleared her throat, an obvious warning. Without opening his eyes, Alaric said, “I’m looking for rituals. Does that satisfy you?”

  “Rituals?” Too late Sienne realized how appalled she’d sounded. Alaric turned his gaze on her. His mouth was a tight line, angry and tense. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way. Just…rituals are evil. Why—”

  “No, all the rituals anyone knows about are necromantic,” Alaric said. “There are—were—other kinds of ritual in the before times.”

  “No wonder they think you’re mad. There’s never been any evidence of that.”

  “Fine. I’m mad. Now let me finish searching, please.” Alaric turned his back on her.

  Sienne persisted. “I didn’t say you were actually mad, I said I could understand why people thought so. Why do you believe in non-necromantic ritual?”

  “That’s not something I feel like sharing.” Alaric finished his circuit of the room. “I can’t find anything.”

  “Neither can I,” said Dianthe, “which is rather more telling, given that you aren’t always the most perceptive person.”

  “Thanks. I haven’t been insulted enough already.” Alaric glared at Sienne, who reddened. “Is the floor hollow?”

  Kalanath shook his head and tapped his staff on the floor again, making the steel ring out against the stone.

  “Then I suppose that’s it. Let’s head for home, shall we?” Alaric left the room without waiting for them.

  Dianthe grabbed Sienne’s arm and held her back when she would have followed. “Don’t press him on this,” she said in a low voice. “I mean it.”

  Startled, and a little hurt by the sharpness in Dianthe’s voice, Sienne said, “I didn’t mean to. I won’t.”

  “Good.” Dianthe released her and stalked away. Sienne trailed behind, feeling lost. She didn’t think Alaric was mad, and she wasn’t interested in prying. She just loved a challenge. And if Alaric thought there was such a thing as ritual that didn’t involve raising the dead, she wanted to know why. Except the topic was clearly off limits. Fine. If he wanted to be aloof and stand-offish, that was his business.

  She hurried to catch up to the others as they passed through the kitchen. That reminded her of the coins she’d found, which memory cheered her. It didn’t even matter how much money they brought. They represented her first find as a scrapper. Maybe she ought to ask if she could keep one.

  The open mouth of the tunnel wasn’t as bright as before. More cloud cover, probably. Sienne couldn’t see much of it anyway, given that Alaric was at the head of the group and blocking her view. She sped up again until she was right behind Kalanath, then had to back up a few steps to avoid being jabbed by the end of his staff.

  The light brightened as Alaric left the tunnel. An instant later, thunder boomed, making Sienne cry out and cover her head instinctively. That had been right on top of them. The sky hadn’t looked like rain, so what—

  Someone shouted, and Kalanath surged forward. Sienne followed him, clutching her spellbook close to her chest and sidling as rapidly as she dared. She emerged from the tunnel and had to dodge so as not to run into Kalanath, who’d stopped right outside the entrance.

  Alaric lay face down on the ground, his arms and legs splayed out limply. The rest of them stood very still, facing four strangers. Two were armed with swords, one guarding Dianthe, the other Perrin. One, an Ansorjan, held a short knife. The last held a spellbook he was in the act of closing. Sienne took another look, and gasped. They weren’t strangers, after all.

  “Thanks for retrieving our prize,” Conn Giorda said.

  11

  “You bastard,” Dianthe said, her voice choked with tears. “How did you find us?”

  “Guess you weren’t as careful as you thought.” Conn’s triumphant, sneering grin took all of them in. “Ham-fist leaves a trail a mile wide. You were easy to follow.”

  “He’d better not be dead.”

  Conn shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not,” he said. “Osfald, get the artifact.”

  The Ansorjan with the knife came forward and crouched to cut the ropes tying the box to Alaric’s back. Dianthe took a step forward and hissed as the Giorda woman—Alethea—pressed her blade closer to Dianthe’s throat.

  “Fit, eh?” Conn said, ostentatiously looking down at Sienne. “Clever. I would have used fly, myself. Oh, but you probably don’t have that spell, right? A beginner like you?”

  Sienne said nothing. She calculated how quickly she could get her spellbook open. Faster than they could slit her companions’ throats? She was fast, but not that fast. And there wasn’t anything she could do in any case. The one offensive spell she knew would catch all her friends in its effect. She was helpless.

  “Let’s see what else you found. Empty your pockets,” Conn said. No one moved. “Don’t make me kill one of you as an example to the others,” he warned.

  Sienne set her spellbook down and reached for her pack. It was a mistake. Conn’s eyes lit on the book. “I’ll have that,” he said. “There’s probably nothing worthwhile in it, but it’s worth looking.” He stepped toward her with his hand outstretched.

  Kalanath leaped forward, bringing his staff around in an arc at Conn’s knees, which was all he could reach. Conn jumped back, cursing. With a flick of his staff, Kalanath knocked the spellbook out of his hands and then thrust the staff high with both hands, catching Conn under the chin and knocking him on his back. Dianthe high-kicked Alethea in the knee and vaulted backward, rolling away and coming to her feet. The Giorda with his sword pointed at Perrin’s heart stepped back in astonishment at Kalanath’s attack, leaving Perrin free to turn and run toward Alaric. He ducked between the legs of the man with the knife, who held the box in his hands. The man danced awkwardly backward, but Perrin ignored him, crouching to roll Alaric onto his back.

  Sienne scooped up her enormous spellbook and ran to join Perrin at Alaric’s side. Kalanath went for Alethea, who brought her sword up in time for Kalanath’s staff to sweep it out of the way. Faster than Sienne could follow, he spun, hooked her left ankle with his foot, and knocked her down. She yelped, parried his next blow awkwardly, then had to roll out of the way of the staff that slammed toward her chest. The other Giorda approached from behind, sword raised. Without even looking at him, Kalanath whipped the staff around and caught him square in the stomach with the steel-shod end, making the wind whoosh out of him with an audible gasp. The Giorda folded and fell to his knees.

  Conn let out an enraged scream and sat up. His spellbook flew into his hand, springing open with a force that made the wooden cover slap his skin with a loud crack. He spat out angry, hard-edged words that sounded cut with acid. Sienne recognized an evoking spell when she heard it. “Everybody duck!” she screamed, flinging herself to the ground half atop Alaric’s unconscious body. Another enormous thunderclap split the sky, this one louder with an echo that shook Sienne’s bones. She braced herself for the impact of whatever force he’d flung at them, strong enough to break bones, turn organs to jelly, knock a man unconscious. Instead a loud grinding, crashing sound filled the air, and then the pounding of a thousand hammers, and the lights went out.

  When she was sure she wasn’t going to die, Sienne raised her head. Gray light filled the air from a hemisphere of glowing energy surrounding all of them, even Ka
lanath, who was close enough to the edge of the dome Sienne winced at the thought of him being caught halfway in. Stones and invulnerable beams pressed in on it from all sides. Perrin sat nearby, looking up at the dome with a slack jaw and wide eyes.

  “Oh, my lord Averran,” he whispered, “you are generous beyond measure.”

  Kalanath, who had a protective arm across Dianthe’s shoulders, helped her to sit up. “It is a surprise,” he said.

  “To me more than anyone,” Perrin said. “I did not know protective blessings were so strong. But we should move. It will not last, and then the rock fall will resume.”

  “Alaric,” Dianthe breathed, and scrambled to his side. “Alaric!”

  Perrin stood unsteadily and knelt next to Alaric’s head. “He is breathing,” he said, “but I believe healing is in order. Let us remove to a safer location.”

  The rock fall, and the dome, had extended the tunnel some five feet. With some effort, Dianthe sliced the protective dome open, making the rock fall sag in a way that propelled them all into action. Sienne made more lights for Kalanath and Perrin, who carried Alaric down the tunnel and into the kitchen. Once he was safely on the floor, Perrin waved the rest of them aside. He removed one of the healing blessings from his riffle of paper.

  “What is it you say?” Kalanath asked.

  “Beg pardon?”

  Kalanath made a fluttering motion with his hands. “When you make the…blessing…work.”

  “Oh.” A ruddy flush visible even in the pale light crossed Perrin’s cheeks. “If you must know, it’s… ‘Stop being a cranky bastard and be useful for once.’ It is not exactly respectful, but I think it amuses him.”

  Kalanath laughed. Sienne had never heard him laugh before. “I like your avatar,” he said. “Though I still do not understand how God can be other than God. But it is for another time.”

  “Indeed,” Perrin said. He muttered his invocation under his breath. Green light shone from Alaric’s half-open mouth and beneath his eyelids, making him seem to be wearing a flesh mask. It was so unsettling Dianthe cried out in horror, and Sienne covered her mouth to hold in her own cry. The paper blessing burned to ash. Then the light was gone, and Alaric lay still on the ground, breathing slowly but otherwise not moving.

  “It didn’t work,” Dianthe said. “Why didn’t it work?”

  Perrin’s eyes were wide and fearful. “I know not. It should work. That is, the light means it worked, but…I fear he may be injured in ways my healing cannot mend.”

  Dianthe grabbed Alaric by the collar and slapped him. “Wake up!” She slapped him again, but Kalanath took her wrist when she would have done it a third time.

  “He breathes, so there is hope,” he said. “Let us wait.”

  Outside, a thunderous crash heralded the end of Perrin’s protective dome. “I’m going to look at that,” Sienne said.

  No light shone from the mouth of the tunnel. Sienne picked her way along by the light of her magic until she reached the end. Conn had knocked part of the keep’s wall down, what was left of the northeast tower based on how it had fallen. It was a good thing they’d rescued the box first… the box that was now in the Giordas’ hands. Sienne swore until she felt better. The way Conn had looked at her, so dismissive… she wished she had him there right now to punch him in the face, or hit him with her spellbook.

  She took a closer look at the rubble. She could see slivers of light beyond it, which meant there wasn’t much between them and freedom. They could probably break through, and then hunt down the Giordas and get the box back. Sienne grabbed a stone to test her theory.

  A painful shock went through her, stopping her heart for one terrifying moment and making her eyes water. She let go of the stone and breathed heavily. Her heart, once it started beating again, fluttered erratically for a few beats before settling down. The force spell was still tangled up with the stones. There was no way they could move them. They were trapped.

  Sienne ran back down the tunnel. “We can’t get out,” she said.

  Dianthe looked up at her. Tears streaked her face. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “If he’s dead—”

  “He’s still breathing, isn’t he? He’s not dead.” Sienne hoped she wasn’t giving the woman false hope.

  “He’s not moving. What did that bastard hit him with?”

  “Force. It’s concentrated magic, sort of magical lightning. He used it to bring the tower down on us, and now the stones are charged with it and we can’t get out.”

  Movement caught her eye. Alaric shifted one arm and turned his head. Dianthe cried out. “Too loud,” Alaric said in a whisper. “I can’t move.”

  “I think it will come back to you,” Perrin said. “I fear I have no medical training, just the blessings Averran bestows upon me. Are you in pain?”

  “No. But everything feels heavy.” Alaric opened his eyes. “What happened?”

  Sienne looked at Dianthe and raised her eyebrows in a “you tell him” gesture. Dianthe said, “The Giordas ambushed us. Conn hit you with a…a magical lightning bolt, and then he stole the box and dropped a tower on us.”

  “Stole the box?” Alaric’s shoulders quivered, and Sienne guessed he’d tried to sit up. “How did they find us?”

  “The scrying showed no one within two miles of us,” Perrin said. He closed his eyes and cursed. “But scrying can be deceived, if another priest knows he may be thus observed.”

  “Why didn’t you mention this earlier?” Alaric said.

  “Why did you not tell me our putative followers might have a priest at their disposal?” Perrin shot back.

  “I—” Alaric closed his eyes again. “You’re right. It didn’t occur to me. Dianthe, should we have guessed the Giordas would be on our trail?”

  “How could we?” Dianthe said. “They’ve never followed us before, and there was no reason to believe they’d do so this time. Besides, last I heard, they didn’t have a priest working with them. Kalanath?”

  Kalanath shook his head. “They had no priest when I worked with them.”

  “There’s no point in blaming anyone. What’s done is done,” Alaric said. His shoulders quivered again, and this time he sat up. “We need to follow them, quickly.”

  “Then we have to find another way out,” Sienne said. “The tunnel is impassable.”

  When Alaric was capable of standing, they all walked back down the tunnel to look at the rock fall. Sienne had to grab Alaric’s hand to keep him from touching the stones. Being force-blasted twice in half an hour couldn’t be good for anyone. Alaric crouched to examine the rock fall, putting his hands behind his back as if he needed help remembering not to touch. “There’s not much there,” he said, standing to look at the top of the pile of rubble. “We could dig our way out in a couple of hours if not for that damned magic.”

  “There must be another way out,” Perrin said. “It is simply a matter of finding somewhere that will not collapse the building upon us.”

  “We could try climbing down the outside of the tower,” Dianthe said.

  “We’d need rope for that,” Alaric said. “I used mine to tie the box to my back, and that’s in pieces.”

  “The rope we were carrying shrank with us, and the rest of it is on Button,” Dianthe said. She grimaced. “Poor Button. I hope they didn’t hurt him.”

  “What about the hole to the outside?” Sienne said. “Didn’t you say that door on the second story led to it?”

  “I said it probably did. And it was solidly blocked.” Dianthe shook her head. “It may still be our best bet.”

  “It means ascending once more,” Perrin said, frowning. “And then climbing down from there.”

  “Let’s just see if it’s possible,” Alaric said.

  They ran back through the keep to the base of the northeast tower. Alaric pushed on the door. It didn’t budge. He put his shoulder to it and heaved, but the rotten wood moved not even a quiver. “Break it down,” he said. He and Dianthe and Kalanath went at it with
their weapons, prying away huge chunks of wood.

  “I could use break on it,” Sienne suggested.

  “We’ve almost got it,” said Dianthe. Sienne shrugged and turned away. Perrin was standing in the middle of the empty room, staring at nothing. Sienne joined him there.

  “I wonder what this room was used for,” she said.

  Perrin said nothing. She was about to walk away and leave him to his boring reverie when he said, “There must be something here we are missing.”

  “But what? We’ve already searched it.”

  Perrin bent, licked his fingertip, and drew a short line on the flagstone where he stood. “There is no residue of any kind,” he said, displaying a clean and slightly damp finger. “I find that goes beyond unlikely into the realm of the impossible. There is something unusual about this room, and I believe—” He took out his riffle of paper and plucked out one with a violet smudge on one corner. “Averran granted me this same unfamiliar blessing two days in a row. I believe it may be useful here.”

  Alaric swore, and Perrin and Sienne turned to see what was wrong. They’d broken down the door to reveal a solid mass of stone blocking the space beyond. “Those are too big for me to move even at my normal size,” he said. “We’re not getting out that way.”

  “Sienne, will that magic effect wear off the stones eventually?” Dianthe asked.

  “I don’t know. Probably. But we’re talking a matter of weeks before it does.”

  “By which time we all die,” Kalanath said.

  “There may be an alternative,” Perrin said. “If this room holds secrets as I believe.” He held up the scrap of paper. “I have worked out the meaning of part of this sigil. It hints at…revelation, I believe, is the most accurate word. To show what cannot be seen.”

  “Are you sure?” Alaric said. “What about the part you don’t understand?”

  “As to that, I simply lack the knowledge. I am yet new to the priesthood and I acknowledge that is a drawback. But I am certain it will not do us harm.”