Voice of the Lost : Medair Part 2, page 8
Recalling that strange premonition, Medair grew ever more uneasy. Who had said that all the rules had changed? And were still changing. Ileaha had been within the shield wall when the Conflagration had swept over them, but wild magic had found and changed her. Medair didn't want to be reshaped into a different person, even if that person's life was a more pleasant one.
Could she have already been reshaped, less drastically? Where had that certainty come from? She'd never felt so sure of anything in her life as she was of the fact that Vorclase waited in Falcon Black, but she had absolutely no foundation on which to ground her belief. It seemed far more logical for Vorclase to have perished outside Athere with the rest of Estarion's forces.
"Light ahead," Kel ar Haedrin said, after they had ascended almost two full circles, climbing the hill from the inside. Cor-Ibis immediately extinguished two of the mageglows and sent the last darting into one of his sleeves.
"Probably a set light," he said, after they had all had the opportunity to study the faint, steady glow creeping around the curve of the passage. "Kel ar Haedrin, if you would go ahead?"
Kel ar Haedrin nodded and slipped away, keeping as close as possible to the inner wall. There were no cries of alarm, and very quickly she was back.
"Another gate, Keridahl. A stair is beyond, and other gates. But no guard. I did not go close enough to sense if there is a trip."
"Very well. Stay here."
He took the remaining mageglow with him, leaving them in darkness. Medair took the jewelled ring from her satchel and summoned another glow.
"Another trip," Cor-Ibis said, voice floating back to them. He was quicker this time, and soon they stood clustered around the base of a stair streaked with moisture. Water dripped from cracks and crevices in the ceiling and there were several other gates, all firmly locked.
Beside two of them were bins which contained a collection of grains and root vegetables. Picking out a withered parsnip, Ileaha moved towards one of the gates, then stopped.
"This seems to lead to the predator which hunted last night," she said, eyeing dark stains on the ground. "The blood traces are old."
"Not recently fed," murmured Kel ar Haedrin, as Ileaha moved to the next gate and peered into the darkness beyond.
"Nothing moving," Ileaha said, tossing the parsnip through the bars so that it lay just within the strips of light cast by their mageglows. She tugged at the bars, and found them firmly seated. "If these were unlocked, escape this way will be difficult."
Cor-Ibis examined the lock to the predator cave, then said a word beneath his breath and watched it melt into uselessness. He repeated the process with the next lock but left the gates which did not obviously lead to an animal lair. Then he sent Kel ar Haedrin and Ileaha on their way up the stairs. Islantar was corralled in the centre of the group, as protected as possible.
The stair doubled back on itself repeatedly, the narrow steps worn and slippery. Medair was last in line, keeping nervously close to the kaschen immediately in front of her. She did not like the darkness nipping at her heels, and directed the mageglow she had summoned to trail rather than lead her.
Just as she reached the first landing, a whining growl, high and vicious, rose out of the dark. Kaschen las Cormar immediately drew his sword and moved to Medair's side.
"It isn't the hunting cry," Medair said, not sounding nearly as confident as she would like. "It must be able to smell us, but not get out of its cage."
The kaschen looked up the stair to Cor-Ibis, who nodded once and gestured for them to move on. Medair decided she should take this as a sign that he trusted her judgment. That mattered to her. She wished she could keep her thoughts from the silent question he posed. Far, far too many things had happened in the last day, and until she had a chance to sit down and decide how to feel about it all her heart would continue to trip and stumble and demand she give it thought. And yet the long wait at each obstacle gave her imagination too much opportunity to play with less pleasant futures than one which featured Illukar las Cor-Ibis.
Without doubt all Decia would want her dead, and here she was at its heart, giving them further reason to hate. Off to kill a king because the possible consequences of not doing so were unthinkable. Always, instead of the best, she found herself struggling to make the least-worst decision.
They travelled four flights of slippery steps, then stopped. Medair was too far back to see the problem, and guessed that the extended delay meant they'd encountered another door or trap. Faintly, she could sense magic at work and took a step back to give those above her room to move.
The wait was a long one, and involved several whispered discussions. Finally, there was a too-loud click, then the stair was bathed in the light of day rather than mageglows. Swift movement, and a jingling thud, told Medair the door had been guarded, and that guard had been dispatched.
Then they were moving up and out into a brightly-lit corridor. Squinting as her eyes adjusted to sunlight, Medair looked back at the heavily-bound door through which she had just passed, then to either side. Ileaha was a short distance to her right, standing over the body of a guard.
"Find a place to put him," Cor-Ibis ordered, surveying the corridor. The guard had been running toward a junction further to the right. To the left was a flight of stairs, and a window.
"Medair, do you have anything I can bind him with?" Ileaha asked, dragging the man toward the cave stair.
Faintly relieved to discover Ileaha hadn't simply killed him, Medair helped tie the guard's hands and feet and gagged him with an old kerchief. "You won't be able to do that with everyone we meet," she commented, as they closed the door on the figure lying uncomfortably on the damp stair.
Ileaha nodded. "I've always preferred not to kill by stealth, if the level of risk allows other options," she said, signalling Kel ar Haedrin with three precise hand gestures. It was obviously a command. With an ambiguous shift of expression Kel ar Haedrin obeyed, moving silently to the corner of the junction and peering around it with the aid of a tiny mirror.
"There will be barracks and cells on this level, 'Lukar," Ileaha went on, clipped and assured. "But Estarion might choose to keep a prize like Avahn closer, in the interrogation chambers mentioned in your report on Falcon Black. I would recommend the stair rather than venturing among the barracks."
"Estarion is the one we must reach first," Cor-Ibis said, accepting without comment the role Ileaha now played. "With our companions so recently captured, there is every chance we will find him with them."
Ileaha's assurance had dropped away, two pasts warring behind her eyes, but she nodded and firmed her jaw beneath Cor-Ibis' steady gaze. "The interrogation room is two levels above us. You – your report spoke of the area being heavily guarded, but outside the most frequented areas of the castle."
"Then lead us, and quickly. If we can achieve our object before being discovered, we have more chance of winning free alive."
"Keridahl." Kel ar Haedrin had rejoined them, frowning. "There is something you should see."
Both Cor-Ibis and Ileaha followed Kel ar Haedrin back to the corner, used the mirror to spy without being seen, then returned.
"They are working on the equipment of one of the metal giants we faced on the wall," Cor-Ibis said. "Bolting the mail together. It is almost complete."
"They are called skensai," Ileaha said, with equal calm. She had apparently come to some internal resolution about her role, enough to explain what Cor-Ibis should know in this remade world. "It takes a life sacrifice to animate one, but the casting is within the power of even a minor adept willing to risk an exacting spell. Our best estimate of Estarion's abilities gives him the power to create at least three skensai in a single day, provided he has at his disposal both suitable vessels and the souls to fuel them."
"Life sacrifice?" Islantar murmured. "This I cannot like. Not when our companions are in Estarion's power."
"No." Cor-Ibis imbued the word with a world of meaning. They didn't linger, mounting the stair as soon as it had been cleared of any suspicion of enchantment and climbing the two flights without hindrance.
The stairs opened onto a long, empty corridor which continued around a corner to their right. There was a single door opposite. Ileaha immediately crossed to it and pressed her ear to the fine-grained wood. She signalled that it was clear and, when Cor-Ibis made no objection, opened the door.
"Perhaps not an ideal haven," Ileaha said, surveying the long, panelled room dominated by a highly polished table. There were windows to the left, another door opposite and an archway to their right. Neither secluded nor defensible.
"Keep moving," Cor-Ibis told them, indicating the opposite door, rather than the archway. They hurried across, keeping an eye on the arch as they circled the table. Distantly, Medair could hear a man and woman's voices, rising and falling in conversation. It sounded as if the speakers were at the bottom of the stair she could see through the arch. It only needed a single person to see them and call for help, to make their task infinitely more difficult.
They came out into another corridor, this time with two young women half-heartedly mopping the floor, their faces streaked with tears. Ileaha and Kel ar Haedrin moved in blurred unison, each taking a struggling armful before either maid had a chance to so much as squeak. Only a mop, clattering to the ground, spoiled the silence of the manoeuvre.
"More rope," Ileaha said imperatively, controlling the struggles of her captive with ease.
While the maids were bound and gagged, Islantar investigated the nearest doors and finally opened the end-most onto an empty bedroom. They stowed the maids and continued quickly down the corridor. At this rate, Medair reflected, they would be discovered by the trail of trussed castle inhabitants left in their wake.
"This must be it," Kel ar Haedrin murmured, using her mirror to look beyond the corner at the end of the corridor. "Doors barred from the outside, and one of them guarded. The guard is some thirty, forty paces from us. The corridor widens to the left further on – I cannot see what lies there."
"The invisibility ring," Medair suggested. Cor-Ibis nodded.
"We are painfully exposed here," Islantar whispered, glancing back toward the dining room after handing Ileaha the ring.
"If we are discovered, we can push further in and attempt to barricade," Ileaha replied, almost too softly for Medair to hear. "Retreat down those stairs will gain us little, and being hunted through those woods, having the countryside raised against us, would be close to suicide."
She put on the ring and faded, while they waited, watching forward and back, without even a hint of a footstep to mark her departure, or progress.
The pause stretched, and they balanced on a knife-edge. Any Decian entering the corridor behind them would see them while still out of immediate reach, and the guard around the corner was too far to risk trying to rush. They could cast Sleep at him instead, but it was not a quiet magic, and still Ileaha did not make her move. All they could do was listen to the man shift wearily, scratching at some itch. They could not even look at him for fear of being seen in return; only Kel ar Haedrin was able to watch.
A distant noise, like paper falling to the floor, came, but Kel ar Haedrin shook her head. Medair silently counted to ten to keep herself still, and on nine heard the unmistakable sound of a body falling to the ground, and Ileaha's voice, saying softly: "Clear."
When Medair rounded the corner, Ileaha was carefully cleaning a small knife, and the figure at her feet was as still as Jedda las Theomain had been. And Jedda was another thing Medair needed to consider, when circumstances gave her time to focus her thoughts. She should not forget that she was not necessarily safe among Ibisians.
A glance down the corridor showed an open area, a station for the guards who watched over the interrogation rooms. One booted foot was all that was visible to suggest another crumpled figure. The work of a Velvet Sword.
Kel ar Haedrin was already working on the bar of the door. In a matter of moments they had it open. The room beyond was small, and lushly overwhelmed by a cushioned bed, rugs, a soft chair. It was a prison with all the accoutrements of the bedchamber of a noblewoman, including the noblewoman.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The woman was perhaps forty. She stood very upright in the centre of the room, arms folded. The room was obviously a cell, despite its luxuries, but the woman's stance was as imperious as an Empress in her throne room.
After a pause, Cor-Ibis said: "Princess Sendel?"
"As you see, Keridahl," the woman replied, coldly. She surveyed their small band, eyes disdainful in a thoroughly Decian face: bronze skin, high cheekbones and a hawk nose. Her composure was formidable, though it cracked when she discovered Islantar at Ileaha's elbow. She eyed the boy in surprise, then turned back to Cor-Ibis. "This is not a counter strike."
"Not precisely, Highness," Cor-Ibis replied, ever-courteous. "Your brother's forces were defeated, and he struck at us with a gate as he fled, transporting us here. We have eluded capture, thus far."
"Have you indeed?" The princess strode out of the cell and looked around impatiently, unperturbed by the corpse which lay on the floor. "A quick and decisive battle, it must have been. Well, you need not fear that I will raise the alarm. I objected to Xarus' latest scheme, and rightly so, it sounds to me. He saw fit to confine me here. Expanding Decia's borders is one thing; throwing everything into a fool's obsession with the past is another. How many Decian born did he waste against Athere's walls?"
"There were very few survivors," Cor-Ibis replied.
"And he has slunk back to lick his wounds? Your abduction would be, what, an attempt at revenge or a clutch for bargaining chips?" The princess did not hide her disgust. "Defeat is not a thing Xarus has ever been able to accept. He will not treat you kindly if you are captured."
"No." Cor-Ibis glanced at Ileaha, indicating that she should check the other rooms. "Three of our party have been captured, and we must continue to seek them out. Please accept our protection, if you wish it."
Princess Sendel looked amused. "You may accept mine, Keridahl. There are those still loyal to me in Falcon Black, and I have no interest in prolonging hostilities with Palladium."
As Cor-Ibis negotiated polite obligation with the princess, Kel ar Haedrin opened another of the rooms off the corridor, revealing a Decian youth of about sixteen. His fine tailoring was crumpled, and he eyed the small band of Ibisians with disbelief. One hand strayed to his side, instinctively seeking an absent sword, but Princess Sendel forestalled any confrontation, turning from Cor-Ibis to eye the young man disdainfully.
"You, here?" she asked. "What became of your ambition to stride through the ashes of Athere?"
The youth glanced at Ileaha's bared sword, held far too close for any enemy's comfort. A shift of his coppery features revealed a distinct resemblance to Princess Sendel. Her son, Medair guessed.
"It remains," he said, with grim resolve. "I will see the rightful heir on the Silver Throne."
"Yet you are here," the princess repeated.
"My heart might be with my uncle's cause, Madam, but my duty lies with you," said the youth. "I could not fight at his side while he had you imprisoned."
"Vastly pretty," said Princess Sendel, contemptuously. "Fortune favours you, Thessan. This affecting sentiment appears to have saved your life."
"There is no-one else here, Keridahl," Kel ar Haedrin said in an undertone, as Thessan stared at the princess.
"What do you mean?" he demanded. "Where is the King?"
"Would that I knew." Princess Sendel gathered up her skirts, out of the path of the thin line of blood advancing from the guard's body. "We will find him, shall we? And ask of his war, of his splendid victories?"
"Princess, we must search for our companions," Cor-Ibis said, ignoring the exchange. "Can you suggest where they might be held?"
"The cliff cells, most likely," Princess Sendel said, earning a scandalised look from her son.
"Mother, you can't aid the enemy!" he said, shifting uneasily between Ileaha and Kel ar Haedrin. His gaze settled on Cor‑Ibis. "Why are you here, White Snake?" he spat. "Have you run from Decia's soldiers to try and strike at Falcon Black?"
"At this moment, I seek only three of my own," Cor-Ibis said, mildly. "Ileaha, if you would be so good?"
Obediently, Ileaha gripped Thessan's arm and propelled him firmly back toward the cell.
"Wait!" he protested. "At least tell me how the battle progresses! Have Athere's walls been breached yet?"
"No." Medair spoke quietly. "The war is over, the battle lost. Athere stands. I sounded the Horn of Farak and Decia no longer has an army."
Thessan flinched, incredulity warring with fury as he stared at her. Then he surged forward and spat. Moisture flecked Medair's cheek even as Ileaha quickly pulled him back, then closed and locked the door.
"Medair– " Ileaha began, but Medair shook her head.
"That is something I cannot hide from," she said, wiping her face with tired deliberation. She could feel Cor-Ibis at her back, not touching her, but close by. "My choice cost their lives."
"Medair an Rynstar." Princess Sendel eyed Medair with lively interest, but not the hatred displayed by her son. "None of the tales of your rebirth suggested you would side with the Ibisians."
"With Palladium," Medair corrected. She was slowly finding it easier to accept that decision, or futile to continue to argue against herself, since it was beyond her power to change. Her Emperor had not given her absolution, had not provided the certainty of right and wrong, but hind-sight was offering her no better choice, much as she would be hated for it. She turned slightly, so that she could see Cor-Ibis' expressionless face. "I could not watch Athere fall."
"You should find Xarus' protégé, the one he thinks belongs on Palladium's throne," the princess said. Dark Decian eyes studied Medair. "But perhaps that issue is dead, now."
"Perhaps," Medair said. Killing the supposed descendant of her Emperor, rightful heir or not, was another thing she could not think too hard on, until it was time to face it.
