Hand of the King's Evil - Outremer 04 (27 page)

And would be decided soon, Jemel thought. If there'd been a Patric army mewed up in there, the Sharai would have been willing to stay for a long siege and months of bloody fighting, as they had before to deny the infidel a foothold on the margins of the Sands, a firm grasp of the holy schools at Selussin. As it was only a stolen wife and a renegade Sand Dancer who held her, they'd expect Hasan to settle the matter swiftly, by parley or by force.

The Sand Dancer was the one who counted, in Jemel's mind and so he was sure in the minds of all the Sharai. It was the Sand Dancer who had stolen Julianne, he was known and named. The other people in there were Patrics or Catari out of Outremer, farmers and peasants, not worth dwelling on. Though they had stolen Marron, or so it seemed, and done so with a power that could silence or turn his Daughter: it wasn't, it couldn't be their own power to do such a thing, no mortal magic, and so he could still dismiss them. And then there was the 'ifrit, and that was curiously hard to think about at all; it shifted shape in his mind, fluid as a cat and insubstantial as its shadow, he could get no kind of grip on it. How could you think about a creature that might know what you were thinking, and so change
...
?

So when he thought about what might happen beyond those concealing gates, he thought about killing Morakh, all the many ways he wanted to kill Morakh. Let older heads and wiser minds consider the 'Ifrit and how to defeat it when it knew your plans and all your moves already, let them consider the strangeness of the band from Outremer. He would kill Morakh, then kill anyone else who came between him and Marron; he would kill everyone in the
castle
if he had to, if that was the only way to break the spell that gripped his friend.

Or see them dead, at least. He couldn't kill them all alone, which was why he needed Hasan and his troops. Hasan, it seemed, needed old wise heads; Hasan had snapped at him already for being slow of delivery, and now was turning and twisting his camel before the gates, heedless of the chance of arrows from above as he called to Jemel's companions in a fret, almost a frenzy of impatience.

'Where have you
beent
I sent for you to meet me at the gates of Selussin—'

'—And so we did, but there was all your army between us~~—'

'—And then to join me at the head, did the boy not say?'

"There would have been no point in his saying; we could not have reached you with Rudel. Better to travel carefully, and to arrive.'

'What is the matter with Rudel?' The warlord seemed suddenly to register how quietly the older man sat his quiet camel, and how unusual that was. 'Is he sick too?'

'Sick of a great sickness,' Rudel said himself, surprising Jemel as much as Hasan; they were the first words he'd uttered in a while, and the voice at least was stronger than it had been in the town. 'I have met a darkness tonight, and all but lost myself in it. I need to think
...'

'He
needs to sleep,' Coren said flatl
y. 'Let him seek a bed among your men, and take your counsel with me tonight, Hasan, for what good it will do either one of us. I am tired myself, and devoid of ideas.'

Hasan grunted, and turned his back to the castle. 'Come, then. Rudel shall rest, and think until he sleeps; you and I, Coren, we will eat and speak together. I do not believe that the King's Shadow is helpless, here on the borders of the King's country
...'

Jemel sat still on his camel and watched them go, thinking that the King's Shadow was not helpless, no, only outplayed and defeated, his powers blocked by a greater. Hasan would learn tonight, Coren would teach him; an army was no more use than a magician, if you did not dare to use it. So long as the 'ifrit watched her, Julianne's life was forfeit however they approached the
castle
. And Elisande was somewhere, doing something, he had no way to find out where or what; and Marron
...

Wondering how he should pass the night, sure that there was no point in his trying to sleep, he turned to gaze at the

prohibiting gates again; and would do so unrelentingly while other watchers came and went around him, while they ate and talked and slept perhaps a little, and so would be the first to see them open.

9

Out
of
All Shel
ter

No sunlight ever broke into the cell through that single slit of a window, high though it was; high only to her, Julianne thought, high only in here. Out in the yard, she fancied, it would lie at ground level, and the height of the
castle
's walls must keep it in perpetual shadow. All her days were grey and her nights were black dark, punctuated only by the ceaseless glare of the 'ifrit s eyes which cast no light but seemed rather to suck it in, to make both day and night darker.

Terror had abated long since, under the dragging weariness of immeasurable time. She knew herself to be bait and nothing more; neither Morakh nor the monster had any interest in her, except to keep her here and well guarded. Once in every day the door would be opened and she would be brought food, hard bread and dull flat-tasting water in a wooden beaker. Until now it had always been the Dancer himself who brought it; today, though . . .

Today she'd been playing games in her head, dreaming rescue, not with any hope of
its happening but only to pass
another weary hour, to find some way to break the endless monotony. She didn't need to close her eyes any more, in order to dream; it was better not, indeed, because sometimes in the private darkness of her mind she thought that the 'ifrit was looming over her, its patience at last exhausted, its hot gaze searching for her soul and its jaws already reaching for her throat. Then her eyes would snap open again and she would be shaken and scared again, little comforted by the sight of the creature still crouched where it always was crouched, quite unmoving and unmoved, only watching and watching.

So she dreamed awake when she could, she dreamed alert; and today she had dreamed of the door swinging wide and a hero striding in to slay the monster and whisk her off to freedom. Not the first time for such dreams, not the hundredth; the chill numbing shadow of these days was bearing heavily on her spirit, grinding the blaze of her imagination down to its last fitful glow, where the only thought that survived was the thought that somehow she might escape this place. She couldn't do it by herself, she needed rescue, and so she dreamed of heroes.

Hero-fathers, hero-husbands, hero-friends: she didn't care, she wasn't choosy. Any or all of them would be welcome. She was past worrying about them now, long past praying that they not come after all. The nobility of self-sacrifice was something else that she'd lost, had let dwindle slowly far beyond recovery. All she yearned for now was a miracle, a breath of hope that could rekindle the fading spark that was herself, that was so drained by the 'ifrit's relentless stare and the unremitting ache, the slow slow grind of time against her bones.

She had gazed at the door and seen it shatter, seen the twisting fury of Elisande s djinni in its frame and the small solid figure of Elisande herself in the passage beyond, her hand cocked ready to cast a knife that would transfix the 'ifrit s eye and kill its glow, drive deep into its skull to kill the creature entirely.

She had gazed at the door and seen it shine with gold, bright enough to dim even the fierce red of the 'ifrit's glare; she had seen the spectral figure of her father walking through it, holding out his hand and drawing her into his mystery, leading her away before monster or Morakh could find any answer to him.

She had gazed at the door and seen it oudined with dim red fire, Marron opening a gateway that she could dive through into the land of the djinn, fast and easy and the way closed instandy behind her so that she would be safe with him in that strange and sunless country.

She had gazed at the door and heard its bolts drawn back, had seen it open to her friend Jemel, his scimitar bloody in his hand and his eyes alight with battle; or else to Rudel, his clever fingers signing her to silence, to be swift; or else to her husband Hasan with his warriors at his back, or else wonderfully to her husband Imber in all his panoply of war, his laughing cousin at his side
...

At last, she had gazed at the door and truly heard its bolts drawn back, had seen it swing open for real; and then she had gaped, gasped, reached to rub at her eyes to assure herself that this time she actually wasn't dreaming.

There was light out in the passage, that must be falling through an open doorway or a wide embrasure; by contrast with the murk in the cell where darkness seemed to be woven into the very air, it was bright enough to dazzle. She needed a moment to blink her eyes clear, and a moment more to realise that the man who stood out there was neither Morakh nor any of her imagined rescuers.

Realising that she knew him regardless, recognising his silhouette even before she saw his face - that was an act stolen utterly out of time. How long he waited, how long she stared - that was beyond counting, as the fact of it was beyond wonder.

Then, slowly, forcing her mouth to shape his name and her voice to utter it, she said,
‘
Blaise
...
?'

He stepped into the cell, she took an equal pace back; shadow engulfed him.

'Blaise, what are you doing here?' He wasn't dressed as an Elessan sergeant now, rather as a peasant: a disguise, surely, and she kept her voice soft in response, but why Morakh should have let any peasant into the castle she couldn't understand. Nor why it should be Blaise who came to rescue her, when she'd thought him long since fallen out of her story, left behind at Roq de Rancon several adventures since
...

Both his hands were full; he held them out, and she took bread and water uncertainly. She was close enough to read his face in the dimness, and it might as well have been carved from wood. No wink or smile, not the slightest hint of a message, no recognition at all.

Neither did he speak. His duty done, he turned and walked away. Julianne reached out to stay him, then drew her hand back to abort the gesture. She'd seen the shift of a shadow out in the passage: Morakh, perhaps, watching his new and bewildering servant, ready to snare her if she tried to slip away? That might explain his silence, his care not to reveal himself. He might think it enough that she knew he was here.

And so it had been enough, at least for a while. Now she need not dream of rescue, now it was here - somehow, bizarrely - and she had all the strangeness of its source to marvel at, to feed her starved mind as she chewed mechanically to feed her uninterested body.

She didn't give much thought to practicalities, how Blaise meant to steal her from the cell under the unending watch of the 'ifrit. If he were here - and he was, no fever-dream; she'd smelled his breath, she'd almost touched his fingers taking this goblet from him, she could still feel the warmth of his grip in the wood - then she had her miracle already, and the rest was mere detail. Any god who could conjure someone so unlikely into such a place could conjure the pair of them out as easily; no god would go this far and then betray her when she'd been so helpless. She felt safe already, and only cast into astonishment by the means of her salvation.

So she had sat and dreamed again, but this time dreamed of herself outside the cell, her hand clasped securely in Blaise's as he guided her to the wall where a rope lay coiled and ready, or else to the gate that he'd left unbarred and standing ajar. She had dreamed of stars and wind, of freedom, and not at all of Morakh rising from the shadows to challenge their escape.

And later, after the cell had darkened, when she'd heard again the sounds of the door being unbolted she'd been certain that this was Blaise come back to claim her and to lead her out. She'd risen to her feet, heedless of the motionless 'ifrit, and his name had been half on her lips already when the door had opened and not he but two other men had come in, with a body slung unconscious between them.

This time there was no light, in the cell or outside, but she was alert in darkness now, finding messages even in the movement of air. The bulk of their bodies crowding through the doorway and the sounds they made counted their number for her, and had her scuttling back against the wall just before she could betray herself with an eager whisper of Blaise's name.

Her mind reeled under a crushing disappointment, all dreams forsworn. These men were as silent as Blaise had been, and they paid her as little attention, less. He at least had handed her a meal; they simply laid their burden on the floor and departed.

Confused, distressed, she heard the bolts slammed shut and still stood where she was, hands and back pressed against cold stone, shuddering against the loss of hope. It took a while before she could move at all, a while longer before she was certain that the 'ifrit would not. At last, though, a rising curiosity overcame both fear and despair. A few short, stumbling paces took her to where the newcomer lay sprawled on the floor, unconscious or even dead, perhaps. She dropped to her knees beside him and reached out nervously to let her fingers discover what her eyes could not.

It was a man, a young man to judge by his slimness, the smoothness of his face; not Blaise, then, at least there was that to cling to. She might have thought him a Patric, except that he wore the robe of a Sharai
...