02 - The Barbed Rose (33 page)

Kallista pulled Kami out of the chair and into a hug, squeezing her tight, too tight to move. “Hush, little sister. Peace. We will keep her safe. But the Reinine has sent us here for another purpose.”

“What?” Kami’s tone was sullen, but she seemed to be listening now.

“To learn what these rebels are doing. To spy on the demons that direct them. To—”

Kami pushed out of Kallista’s embrace to stare in horror at her again.
“Demons?”

Kallista shrugged and nodded. “They’re real, too, just like the stories of the godstruck.”

“Dear Goddess in heaven. Next you will tell me the One has come down to walk among us.”

“Not so far. But if it happens, I wouldn’t be surprised.” Kallista tried a smile and was relieved to see a faint, quavery one in return. “Have you seen Fox in town?”

“Fox?” Kami seemed bewildered by the abrupt change in topic. “No. Why would I? Didn’t he go with Stone and Aisse? I thought he sired—”

“He did. He was with them when they ran into some trouble, and I think he’s here now. Alone. In the rebels’ hands.”

“Are the others all right? Your babies?”

Kallista took a deep breath, trying to hold on to her calm, but it took Torchay’s hand on her shoulder to succeed. “They’re fine. Safe, the last time we heard.”

Which had been three long weeks ago. Twenty-seven days. Surely trouble would have come to her through the links, as it had with Fox’s demon encounter, and as it had when he’d been injured at his capture. She had to trust in that connection.

“I haven’t seen him anywhere in town,” Kami was saying. “But I haven’t been looking. I can do that, go and look.”

“No.” Kallista shook her head. They had discussed plans on the road, but now she could scarcely recall what they were. She had to stuff her worry back in its box. “Don’t change your regular activities. Look for him while you’re going about your business, but nothing more. I don’t want you in more danger than you already are.”

“I’d invite you to stay with us, but considering our watchers, it probably isn’t best.” Kami’s smile twisted.

“True. We don’t want them watching us, too.” Kallista winked.

Kami hugged her tight. “If you hear anything—If you need anything—”

“Actually—” Joh interrupted the farewell. “If you know of cheap lodgings somewhere—” He gave Kallista’s scowl an innocent look. “An inn also has too many watchers. We need to move on as soon as we can. We discussed this.”

“Yes, we did.” Kallista rubbed her temples. “Is there anything else I’ve forgotten?”

“Communication.” Joh didn’t hesitate. “If you cannot use farspeaking with your sedil, then—”

“Farspeaking?” Kami caught Kallista’s arm and pulled her around to face her again. “You don’t have farspeaking magic.”

Kallista’s head throbbed harder. “Actually, I may. I used it in an emergency in Arikon, but haven’t tried since.” She smiled at Kami’s incredulous expression. “This godstruck magic keeps surprising me. So warn Karyl. I don’t want to surprise her. If I can manage to do it again.”

Kami didn’t respond, other than to eye her with suspicion.

“If it doesn’t work—” Joh stepped into the silence. “We’ll send one of our men, or send one of yours. It would be best if you sisters were not seen together.”

“You might ask Karyl to try farspeaking to me first,” Kallista suggested. “Maybe she can explain a bit about how it works.”

Kami continued to stare. It made Kallista squirm. “Don’t look at me as if I’ve suddenly grown another head. I’m still me.”

“Maybe,” Kami said. “But you’re not just you anymore, either, are you?”

“Yes,” Kallista insisted. “I am. Just me. Nothing more.” She hauled her sister into another hug. “Give your iliasti our love. And be careful.”

“I will. We will.” Kami studied Kallista’s face another long moment. “You be careful, too.” She put up a hand when Torchay moved to the door ahead of her. “You don’t have to walk me back.”

“It’s dangerous near the docks,” he said. “I’ll walk you.”

“Allow me.” Obed put on the wide-brimmed Filornish hat Joh had worn, shadowing the paint covering his tattoos. “In the dark, my imperfections do not show so clearly. And you have not yet eaten tonight.”

Before any of them could think to argue, had they wanted to argue, Obed swept Kami out of the room.

A few days later, they moved into a room over a stable on the edge of a moderately prosperous part of Turysh where the craftsmen and rising clerks paid to have their horses cared for, or rented horses if they didn’t care to own their own. The ilian’s rent for both people and horses was free, with enough coin for meals and a bit over thrown in, in exchange for work. Work done primarily by a prinsipella, a former lieutenant and a major.

Torchay and Obed were needed to spy out the situation. Because Kallista could not be separated more than ten or so paces from Joh or Viyelle, they had to move as a unit. Skulking and spying were not group activities.

Neither were mucking out stalls, pitching hay and harnessing carriage horses, but they managed. Kallista had more trouble reining in her impatience than doing the work. On the journey, they had agreed that it would be best to learn the things commissioned by the Reinine and her generals first.

How many troops did the rebels have? How were they disposed? What was the mood of the city? How many “true believers” in the Order of the Barbed Rose and its heresy were in Turysh? What was their plan of attack? And on and on through the list of a thousand and one other things the generals wanted them to discover. This would give them time to locate Fox and the information necessary to formulate a rescue with some chance for success. But it was taking too damn long.

At least keeping them hidden from the demons had become easier. Kallista still had to shore up the veiling several times a day and night, but when she had linked with all of her iliasti in the inn’s attic room, it had occurred to her that she didn’t have to hide their physical existence from demon sight. She only had to hide the magic—a much simpler task—and make them all appear to be nothing more than ordinary drovers stopping for a time to work before heading out to the plains.

Even with the backbreaking stable work, which Joh and Viyelle tried to do in her place, Kallista was able to rebuild her strength, now that the magic was not draining her so. And as her strength grew, her patience dwindled.

Torchay and Obed had to have counted every soldier, every musket, every sword—hell, every
dagger
in Turysh. They had tracked the Master Barbs on their rounds of the city and marked their bolt holes. They had listened at doorways and beneath windows. They had peeked at maps and lists of provisions. And still they had not laid eyes on Fox.

The whole ilian had even gone to worship on Hopeday at the Mother Temple in hopes of finding Fox. The Barbs had booted the temple ilian out of their home and replaced them with their own people, leaders of the rebellion. Kallista could smell the lingering stink of demons in the central sanctuary though apparently they’d been driven out, at least for the day, by the presence of true worshippers.

Was that why Fox wasn’t there? Because a demon rode him?

Kallista whispered a little prayer, asking protection for him. He was close, perhaps elsewhere in the temple itself. She could sense his presence through the link, might even have been able to call his magic if the link had not been squeezed so tightly shut.

She had turned, taken a step, following the magic’s lead. Joh stopped her with a hand on her arm. His raised eyebrow asked a question, but she couldn’t answer it here.

Nor could she leave the worship to go poking around in the temple, especially with Joh and Viyelle trailing after her like so many ducklings behind their mother. So they stayed through the service and went back to their room afterward.

Torchay and Obed continued with their spying, focusing more on the area around the Mother Temple, without any results other than more numbers and more rumors, until Secondday rolled around again and a full week had passed. Kallista was ready to tear out her hair.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

O
n Thirdday, almost halfway through Katenda, Viyelle was paying the tavern keeper’s son for the supper he’d brought from his father’s place of business around the corner while Kallista and Joh finished the evening feed. They seldom left the stable and never in company with Torchay or Obed to avoid being seen together. The confinement did not help Kallista’s patience.

Torchay would return soon to trade spys’ duties for bodyguards’ with Obed. They refused to leave her without a guard, and though Joh’s skills improved rapidly, he had not yet passed Torchay’s standards. Obed was their night spy. Kallista wondered when one or the other of them would keel over from lack of sleep, but they didn’t seem too bothered by it so far.

Viyelle waited with the supper basket by the ladder-stair to their room above. Obed rose from the mounded hay where he’d supposedly been napping—and perhaps he had. He awakened as instantly as Torchay. Kallista handed the grain scoop to Joh who tossed it in the bin and lowered the lid as they passed.

Halfway up the steep stairs, Kallista paused. Something felt…strange.

“Is something wrong?” Obed asked from below her. “Are you all right?”

“Yes.” She knew that much. Kallista hurried the rest of the way up the stairs. Nothing was wrong. Just different.

It wasn’t until she reached the top of the stairs that she knew what had changed. The link with Joh had formed.

She twined a finger—or whatever the magic-using equivalent was—around the tender new strand and drew on it, gently, slowly. Until Joh gasped with the slide of magic through him where he stood three paces away, inside their room. Nowhere near touching distance.

He turned, stared at her. Kallista smiled. She let the magic slip back into him, then eased it out again. His hand fumbled for the tabletop’s support, and her smile went wicked.

Viyelle stared from one to the other of them. “What is it? What’s happening?”

Obed moved Kallista away from the stair landing so he could pass. “She is playing with the magic.”

Kallista plucked the cord that was Obed’s link, staggering him with the pleasure. Staggering them both. “Don’t complain, love, unless you want me to stop playing with yours.” She sauntered into the room after him.

“I don’t understand.” Viyelle frowned. “Whose magic is she playing—”

“Mine,” Joh interrupted her, taking the basket she held when she made no move to open it.

“But you’re over here and she’s—”

“The link has formed,” Obed said. “Between Joh and Kallista. She can call his magic without touching. He can pass beyond yesterday’s limit without collapse.”

“Good.” Torchay slid in through the window from the roof. “We’ve been waiting for that. We need someone who won’t sweat off his disguise.” He wiped away the brown droplets trickling down his forehead, leaving faint streaks of stain behind. The red of his hair was beginning to show through the brown.

Kallista plucked Torchay’s magic hard, choking off his chuckle, then she released all three of them. They shared out the meal and sat down to eat. Breakfast and supper had been the only times lately when they were all together. They had tended to become planning sessions.

“Why do we need someone with a better disguise?” Kallista cut a bite off her slice of smoked pork and ate it.

“No disguise, actually,” Torchay said with his mouth full. “Except maybe for tucking that oversized queue inside his shirt. Don’t know why you won’t let us cut it.”

“Because. But I thought you and Obed have finished the Reinine’s work.”

“Mostly. There’s a few bits more we could do, but what we have is enough.”

“Well then?” Kallista glared at him. She wanted to flick a spark at him, but didn’t want the conversation to degenerate. “I told you, I can follow the link to Fox.”

“But if we don’t have a plan, how will we get him out?”

“How did they all get us out of that Tibran prison? They didn’t have a plan.”

“Of a sort, we did,” Obed said. “We also did not face demons. Nor were they prepared for us. And we knew where they had taken you before we went in.”

Kallista slumped in her chair. “I need to do something. I feel useless.” She sighed. “And we need to get the information you’ve gathered to the Reinine, in case something goes wrong.”

“Call your sister,” Torchay said. “Send her what we have and have her send it on to Arikon.”

Karyl had
called
Kallista mind-to-mind that very first night. The conversation had disturbed Karyl so much they’d kept it short. Karyl should have been used to this sort of communication, but admittedly, a new farspeaker popping up at Kallista’s age could be disturbing.

“I want it to go out overland as well,” she said. “To be sure it reaches her.”

“Of course.” Torchay wolfed down the rest of his meal. “Just let me write down today’s observations.”

“Should I still go out tonight?” Obed watched them all, seeming idle, but Kallista could see the alertness behind the facade.

“To make contact with the boat master,” Kallista said. The woman, like a number of others, still traded with royalist sectors of Adara. Their interest tended to be more in personal profit than in rulers or government, but this boat master had no fondness for the rebels. Kallista trusted her to get the papers into the hands of her contacts, if little further.

“Give me what you have.” She took the stack of papers from Torchay, leaving him the last page for scribbling his additions. “I can start sending it to Karyl to relay on to Arikon.”

“Can she do that?” Viyelle asked. “Talk to two at once?”

“Better than I can.” Kallista called magic through her three local links. The addition of Joh’s magic made the whole harder to move, not because his magic was more reluctant, but because it made it all somehow weightier. More.

It also snapped the connection with Karyl into place all the quicker, with an addition. She could see Karyl’s dining room, see Kami and Deray clearing the dishes, as if she saw through Karyl’s eyes.