Courage Of The Conquered (Book 3) (10 page)

Erlissa sprinted ahead.

She expected to hear the lurching tread of
the charred-man at any moment. That it would pursue her, rather than Lanrik,
she had no doubt. Otherwise, she would have stayed with him.

It was a creature of witchery, brought
into existence for one reason: to kill them. And yet her possession of
lòhrengai singled her out. Ebona hated lòhrens. More than that, after their confrontation
in Caladhrist, she was herself a target of that same personal malice that the
witch honed against Aranloth.

And yet the screams around her faded.

She swung her gaze wildly from side to
side, nearly stumbling. The people nearby showed no sign of fear. They merely
looked at her in annoyance, as though wondering what was wrong with her. Nor
did she hear any sound of pursuit.

She risked a look over her shoulder and
saw nothing. Nothing that mattered, anyway. She came to a sudden stop and stood
there, bent over and panting in the street while people stepped past and gave
her furtive looks. Their expressions said that she was an idiot. 

Lanrik was gone. The creature was gone.
She felt empty inside, and Aranloth’s advice came back to her.
Stay together
.
If he ever learned what she had just done, he would surely think her an idiot,
too.

Closing her eyes, she suppressed the
sobbing that threatened to overtake her. It would not make anyone feel better
but herself. She steeled her mind, opened her eyes and began to retrace her
steps. It was no good running. Lanrik and the creature were gone, and she could
not find them unless she heard screams from the crowd. But there was none of
that.

She wandered the streets a while longer,
desperate to find Lanrik, but to no avail. She saw one of the Royal Guards, and
throwing caution to the wind in a fit of anger, ignored him. But soon there
were more, and she knew the search for Lanrik, and the creature that must
surely kill him, was over.

It was time to take thought for Esgallien.
She
was
a lòhren. She would
act
like one. Time enough to cry
later, when it did not matter.

Soon, there were even more guards, and
against her will she turned her mind to thinking of a way to disguise herself
better. She now carried the staff. It was not a common thing for a woman to
use, though she was not the only one. From time to time old women as well as
men used one to help them walk.

Her description would be circulating
through the city. At any moment she could be stopped in the street. Every time
a group of guards passed her, she walked slowly, as though she did not have a
care in the world, and put the crowd between herself and them. But soon one of
the guards that had seen her near the palace would recognize her, and then she
would be dead.

The first thing she needed to do was to
get off the street and give herself time to think and work through her
feelings. She came to the Hainer Lon, a dangerous place for her, although the
crowd offered even better concealment. Walking carefully, with the staff held
upright against her body, she could almost hide its presence.

Soon, she found a place to hide. It was a
sweetshop. She sat down at a table near the back of the room and ordered some
of her favorite seedcakes. They were strongly flavored and nutty, bound
together and sweetened by wild honey and dusted with exotic spices. She ate one
quickly, and then another. They tasted good, and yet she paid them little heed.
Her mood was too bleak to enjoy anything, and yet the everyday activity settled
her and provided a chance to sort out her feelings.

She knew at once which one was strongest.
Guilt. For some reason, the charred-man had gone after Lanrik. She did not know
why, but she should have anticipated it and not separated. And yet remorse
would not help him now. She must assume that he was dead, though the thought
sent a stab through her heart. But she hardened herself. If he was dead, it was
partly her fault, and she would have to live with that, if she could. But for
the moment Esgallien needed her, and she must fulfill her mission regardless of
how she felt.

And though she must assume that he was
lost, a part of her did not, would not ever, give up hope. He was resourceful.
He had nearly died many times since she had first met him, and yet somehow he
always found a way to survive. He might do so again.

She remembered the first time that she had
seen him, a dark figure in the deep shadows of the Shazrahad’s tent. He had
defied a whole army, infiltrated it, got her out of their grasp and taken the
commander’s prized sword with him. No, her heart would not give up on him, even
if her head had.

Her next step must be to go to the
Haranast where he had said to meet. He just
might
show. Though she knew
that if he did not, a part of her would remain there for the rest of her life,
waiting…

She ate another cake. Money was no issue;
Aranloth had given them both plenty of coin to get by. The lòhrens kept a store
of all the currencies of Alithoras. She put her mind to another question. How
could she walk the streets, avoid guards, and get safely to the Haranast?

Nothing came to her, but she must think
harder. She was a lòhren, was she not? She had to find a way. She
would
find a way. Temporarily, she was distracted by a troop of guards that marched
down the street. She caught glimpses of their hard faces and seeking eyes from
the back of the shop.

The crowd hushed as they passed. The place
had been full of idle chatter, and yet it dimmed quickly when the guards came
into view. Just as quickly, it bubbled up again when they were gone.

Without a doubt, they were looking for
her. They would find her too, if she did not come up with something. But her
thoughts kept straying to Lanrik. He no longer carried the shazrahad sword,
imbued as it was with Aranloth’s lòhrengai. It was the only way he could have
protected himself against the charred-man, but he had left that in Lòrenta. And
for good reason. It attracted trouble to him like flowers drew bees.

She had a feeling that Aranloth’s real
purpose in travelling to the Graèglin Dennath had something to do with that,
and the mysterious prophecy that was behind it all. Certainly, he intended to
fulfill his promise to Ebona, and yet where else could he get information on
the sword better than in the land where it was forged? Even if that was
dangerous.

She forced herself to focus on her own
problems. She knew the city as well as the guards. How could she hide in a
place where everyone might be either looking for her, or willing to turn her
over to those who were? What did Lanrik often say? The best place to hide was
in plain sight. That was such a Raithlin sentiment. Such a
Lanrik
sentiment. But how could she put it into practice? What was the opposite of
what Ebona would expect her to do? She must go back onto the street.
Yes – but the staff? It would surely give her away, and she could not
discard it. It was her biggest problem, unless she somehow hid
it
in
plain sight. Suddenly, she grinned to herself. It was a grim smile, tinged with
memories of Lanrik, for thinking of him had given her the answers she needed
and a definite course of action.

She got up, left the sweetshop, and strode
once more down the Hainer Lon. Only now, she had a destination in mind.

She walked carefully, with her eyes wide
open and her senses alert. Three times she saw guards, and three times she
managed to put the crowd in the street between her and them, and hide the staff
on the far side of her body. She was breathless from anxiety by the time she
reached her destination.

She stepped into the shop. It was a place
oppose the Hamalath, one of several where actors and dramatists bought clothes
and equipment for performances in the open-air theatre.

She took an empty wicker basket from near
the serving counter and wandered around, looking through the bundles of clothes
and different materials. She pulled things out as she found what she was after,
and then she went to the far corner where the makeup supplies were kept. She
took what she needed from there and placed those items in the basket with the
rest. After a final look around, she went back to the counter.

A young boy stood behind it, ready to
serve, though he seemed disinterested in the whole process. He looked over her
items, told her how much it all came to, and she paid. She did not have the
time to haggle, and the goods were already cheap. Most actors were not well
paid.

“Can I change in here?” she asked.

The boy obviously thought it a strange
request, but he waved her toward a little room out the back.

“In there,” he said abruptly.

She went inside and put her new clothes
on. It took her some time until she was satisfied. On the way out, she left the
basket at the counter and gave the boy a goodbye wave. He ignored her, and she
wondered what his problem was. But rude serving boys were all over the city.
When she found a shop with friendly staff, she always went back. It did not
matter that it was all fake, all part of the process of selling her things. She
understood that, but all that mattered was that she had a good time. But
despite the serving boy, this shop still gave her a smile.

She stepped onto the street, but no longer
looked like Erlissa. Or Tamril. The makeup was of a dull gray tone, and it made
the skin of her face and hands look old. And she wore a wig, a thing of real
hair, long and gray and straggly. Her outer clothes, worn over the top of a new
dress, were raggedy. Best of all, they were padded underneath with wool in all
the right paces to make her look fat. And a good job they did of it, too. She
wondered if she would look like that in truth one day. If she kept eating seed
cakes, she would.

She pursed her lips a few times, working
her mouth because it felt uncomfortable. It was dry, for there were balls of
wool pressed into the sides of her cheeks. They made her face look fatter.

Now, she looked like an old lady who
actually needed a staff to help her walk. She hobbled down the street, and
looked carefully about her. Nobody paid her any attention. None at all. She
might as well have been invisible. She was not used to that, but today, it
suited her. She smiled, aware that brown dye stained her teeth and made them
look bad. That made her chuckle, and she changed her voice as she did so into a
semblance of a wheezy cackle.

Then she thought of Lanrik, and the smile
fell from her haggard face. To all the world she was a bitter old lady, and in
truth, that was how she felt.

The charred-man twitched and shrugged.

Lanrik watched it. For a moment, nothing
else in the world mattered. The creature would either dive into the water, or
it would not. He would either live, or he would die.

From afar, he heard the sounds of bird
calls in the park. The real world, the world of light and love and laughter,
was within reach. But here, in this closed off and muted twilight, it was
possible to believe that those things were only dreams. The charred-man was the
one reality that counted, and the malice of Ebona that sustained and drove him.

Lanrik treaded water. His sword was heavy
in its sheath, and his boots weighed him down. He should act. He should
continue to flee this thing, but at the same time, he had to watch and find out
what it would do. Had hope cheated him, faint though it was?

With a body-shuddering shrug and a spasm
of frenzied twitching, the charred-man opened his mouth and screamed. Or scream
it would have been if he voiced a sound. But though his head lifted, and his
neck extended like a wolf howling his misery to the world, no sound broke the
primordial stillness of the aqueduct. Instead, fire and smoke clouded the air
before him as though he was a man whose breath turned into a mist-cloud on a
cold morning.

The charred-man suddenly turned and
lurched away, unable to force himself to dare the waters, no matter that the
sorcery of Ebona drove him. That it pained him was obvious, and even in the
midst of relief, Lanrik spared a though for the man the thing had once been.

For a moment, he closed his eyes. But he
knew the charred-man had not given up. Nor had the guards. He must take the
next step to get out of here, and disappear from those who sought him.

It seemed doubtful that the charred-man
still had the power of speech, though there were other means of communication.
Either way, he must assume that in time his pursuer would alert the guards of
where he was last seen. Therefore, he must get out of the aqueduct swiftly. 

He hoped Erlissa had been as lucky as he
had. For though the creature had pursued him, the streets were not safe. They
never had been from the very start of this quest, but they had only grown
worse. The only thing he could do now was to get into the Haranast and hope to
find her there.

The bright light from above drew his
attention. There were several openings, some grated, others uncovered. No doubt
at times of drought they would all be in use. At the moment, he saw no movement
from above, and no activity of gardeners; but they would be there, or nearby.
Still, it was the way out, for large buckets held by long ropes hung down and
provided the escape he was looking for.

None of the buckets rested in the water.
Most were visible, hanging just below the opening in the dome above, and a few
were in various stages of suspension between.

He struck out toward the lowest one. The
splashing was loud in his ears, for it echoed hollowly from the stone vaulted
ceiling.

Reaching for the bucket, he found that it
was too high. He treaded water, positioned himself better, and pushed up again
as best he could. His hand caught the wooden side of the pail, but he could not
get a proper grip and sank down once more beneath the water.

He came to the surface, more grateful than
ever that his ploy with the charred-man had worked. For if the creature could
swim, he would have been unable to continue fleeing from it. Yet he was still
trapped, whether pursued or not, and he had to reason his way through the
problem and come up with a solution.

After a few moments, an idea occurred to
him and he took off his sword and belt. He tied the end of the belt to the
hardened leather sheath. He held the naked blade with one hand, and with the
other threw his improvised rope over the bucket.

Several times he failed, but he got better
after a few attempts, and at length he managed to spear the sheath through the
gap between handle and bucket.

Having done that, he brought the two ends
of his improvised rope together and hauled himself up.

The bucket swung ponderously from side to
side, but the rope fixed to its metal handle held. The buckets were quite
large, and they were designed to haul up heavy loads of water. Somewhere above
the end of the rope was fixed to a secure post in the ground, and he hoped that
it did not move up there. Otherwise, a gardener might come to investigate.

He managed to stand with his feet on the
bucket and one hand gripping the rope. With the other, he re-sheathed the blade
and then threaded the belt back into the loops of his pants. It was a difficult
job while holding onto a swaying rope, but he persisted until it was done. He
could not climb until both hands were free.

When he was finished, he rested a moment.
The rope stopped swinging so much, and he caught his breath. Climbing would not
be easy, but he soon set to it, using his feet to hook the rope and provide
some purchase, while he heaved himself up by his arms.

He rested several times, for the effort
was great. His arms ached, and his legs began to cramp. But he could not afford
to stop for long.

At length, he neared the opening. His eyes
adjusted to the ever-brighter light, but he could see nothing except blue sky.
It was the faded blue of late afternoon. The day had been very long and sudden
weariness overtook him. But he knew that if he rested too long now, he would
only cool down and stiffen up. He must keep moving.

It was too late to reach the Haranast
today. Tomorrow, he would meet up with Erlissa, for the races started early
each morning and ran at intervals until midafternoon.

With a final heave he lifted himself until
his head cleared the opening, and he looked about him.

He was in the middle of the park. It was
usually just called
the
park, though some people referred to it as
Conhain’s Rest. It was a strange name for a place that the king had never been
to, for the city was only built after his death, although some people said that
his bones were reburied here years after the battle in which he had died. At
any rate, there was a monument to him not that far away.

All about him he saw bright gardens and
green grass. Nearby was some shrubbery, no doubt to hide the wells from those
who enjoyed the park. But strangely, he saw no people. During the day there
should have been scores, even hundreds wandering around or lying down. And yet
it was eerily silent. He could not understand it.

He waited and watched. Soon, the answer
was evident. There
were
people. They rimmed the entire perimeter of the
park, many hundreds of paces away in every direction that he could see. But
they were not civilians. He saw them move from time to time, saw the color of
their uniforms, and the telltale jut of sword sheaths by their side. They were
soldiers. Soldiers, and a scattering of Royal Guards. How could they have found
him so quickly?

He watched some more, cursing under his
breath. And yet they made no move to enter the park. They stayed just where
they were, like a line of sentries, and did not advance toward him or conduct
any kind of search.

Were they even here for him? The longer he
watched, the more he doubted it, and yet why were they here at all, if
not
for him? They looked as if they were guarding something, but there was nothing
of value here.

It was time to move. This was no place to
be caught if a gardener, or anybody else, came along. He put the mystery of the
solders to the back of his mind, and eased out of the well. The stone rim was
smooth, worn from years of ropes rubbing along its surface, and he slipped out
of it slowly, like a snake from a hole. He watched for any sign of movement
about him, careful that his own movements were slow and steady so as not to
attract attention.

He stayed low to the ground, using the
Raithlin Crawl to move to the nearest shrubbery. Once there, he paused. For
now, he was out of sight, but not out of danger. He had escaped the charred-man
and the aqueduct. The park must be next, and yet he could not risk an attempt
during daylight. There were too many eyes nearby, even for a Raithlin.

He moved though the bushes, seeking higher
ground. There was none, but one shrub was taller than the others, reaching up
ten feet or so and thick with dark foliage. He climbed it, careful of his
weight on the small branches, and looked out.

There were no gardeners anywhere. None at
all. And he saw that plants within many rows of flowerbeds had wilted. They had
not been watered for some time.

It was all passing strange, a thing beyond
his understanding, and he could see no reason for it. But the Witch-queen did
nothing by accident, and a reason for the presence of the soldiers, a very good
one, must exist.

The westering rays of the sun glared
brightly now, a final fare of light at just the right angle to blind him, but
soon it would set, and he would be on the move again. For the moment, he
rested, secure in his hiding spot, and drying out. His leather boots would
become stiff and uncomfortable, but that was of little matter. Running would
not serve him now, only the skills of the Raithlin, for he would need to treat
his next movements as though he was a scout in the wilderness, and his own
countrymen an enemy army.

Dark shadows marched across the park. The
first star twinkled high above. It was faint, but the sky deepened like a
slowly shuttered lamp, and soon many more sprang into view.

He slipped down from his hiding spot and
moved across the grass. He no longer crawled, but walked, seeking out and using
all the low points in the ground, stalking between hedges and flowerbeds like a
creature of the night that shunned men.

He moved toward the Hainer Lon. It was a
better place to hide in the evening than it was during the day. And he no
longer carried the staff. At night, he could get by without being overly
worried of being caught, at least until the streets went quiet.

It was not the first time that he had to
try to slip through a line of sentries. Even so, this would be difficult. The
soldiers had been placed at twenty feet intervals. Ebona was taking no chances
that anything would get into the park. Or, he supposed, get out of it. Although
what would get in, or out, was still a mystery too deep to fathom.

He drew nearer to the Hainer Lon, and the
sentries who lined it. It might be dark now, but the moon would rise later and
bathe the park in silvery light. He must be gone before that happened.

A grove of oaks, ancient and gnarly,
angled between him and his destination. It would make good cover if he passed
through it, but it was also a place of fallen leaves and branches, the sort of
environment where it would be harder to avoid making noises that alerted the
guards. Better to move alongside it, than within it. Besides, he did not know
what lurked within. The guards watched for
something
.

As he passed he heard the rattle of voles
in dead leaves, and the hoot of owls. Small insects chirped, and large beetles
clicked their wings in the dark. Mosquitoes swarmed. One, more persistent than
the others, whined near his face, but he ignored it as best he could. He
stalked ahead silently and slowly, until suddenly he froze in place. Something
moved in the shadows of the grove.

A moment later it paced out in front of
him, unaware of his presence. It was a fox. When it saw him, it too stood
still. They both stared at each other, each as surprised as the other. But then
it trotted away, not alarmed or scared, but surefooted and definite in its
desire to remove itself from the area. Lanrik smiled. The fox and he were
brothers tonight.

He moved ahead. The grove dwindled to a
few large trees, and then there was nothing between him and the Hainer Lon but
a hundred or so paces of lawn. And the sentries. He could see their silhouettes
by the light of the city behind them.

It was time for the Raithlin Crawl again,
and he slipped down to his hands and knees and then his belly. He moved ahead,
palms on the earth, elbows close to his body to provide support and eliminate
any chance of being silhouetted himself. His weight rested on his forearms and
one leg at a time, and he lifted his body just enough to avoid making scraping
sounds as he progressed.

The grass was short and provided no cover,
but at least it was green and not a source of potential noise. He crept onward,
aware that from this point he might be visible if he moved too fast or rose too
high off the ground. He took care that each of his movements was only the
minimum needed, and that they were carried out with patience.

The minutes passed. The stars twinkled
ever more brightly. He breathed slowly, moved slowly, and sought out even the
slightest depression in the ground that might help him.

He had an advantage. The sentries stood,
and they would be looking out beyond him into the park. He knew they were
there, but they did not know of his presence. They would not think anything
could be so close, and the focus of their attention would be out and beyond
him.

He kept his head down, for the shine of
his pale face in the faint light of the city would certainly give him away.
From time to time, he rested. He could not see the sentries, but he listened.
He heard no talking, or steps, or any warning that something was amiss. Noise
from the buildings and streets had grown louder as he approached, and that
would help him should he accidentally make any noise of his own.