her instruments 02 - rose point (35 page)

“Flux in the elderly can be dangerous,” Hirianthial said. “Please. Allow me to attend him. It will take only a moment.”

“We appreciate your offer,” the priest said. “But he should not be disturbed. He is resting.”

“I won’t wake him. If you’ll allow me to return to the palace for my instruments? I will be back in half an hour.”

Now at last he came to the moment he’d been expecting since the man arrived with the story. “The Church can take care of its own, thank you. When the Elder is once again receiving we will send for you.”

Hirianthial said, “Of course. Tell him I asked after him, please.”

“Lord Hirianthial. We shall.”

They wouldn’t, because Urise wasn’t sick. The only question that remained was what exactly had happened to his mentor, and why. A blood-robed priest suggested his brother’s involvement, if Liolesa’s intelligence on the matter was correct: he had come home, someone had told Baniel, and Baniel had learned that he was meeting regularly with Urise. It would be very like Baniel to attempt to block those meetings, whether he knew their purpose or not.

But if he did....

He could force his way into the cathedral and try to find Urise, but there were catacombs beneath the capital and the most extensive ones were here, beneath Ontine and its cathedral, near the edge of the sea cliff. He could lose himself in that warren and never find a way out again... and when he extended his senses in a hesitant probe, he found the entire building impervious to his investigation. How had they done that? And could he learn? He ran an invisible hand over its surface, admiring the work despite its frustrating his aims.

So he left. Pulled himself onto the dull mount he’d borrowed from the palace stables and sent it cantering back to Ontine, where he dismounted stiff from the wet chill. He returned to his borrowed room and sent for a bath to begin his preparations for the second day of court.

He had just finished dressing when a curt knock announced a guest several seconds before that guest slipped in, and there was Belinor, looking pale and breathless. “My lord, forgive me but they have taken the Elder!”

Hirianthial reached for his sword belt. “Tell me.”

“When I woke up this morning he was already gone, and they tried to tell me he’d taken ill but refused to allow me to attend him. That was the first warning because what is a novice for but to care for his tutor? So I left, and snuck back in later to see if I could hear something, and they’ve taken him, they took him to the viewing chambers!” At Hirianthial’s blank look, he said, “They use those for the interrogation of mind-mages!”

“And there have been so many of those?” he asked, startled.

Belinor scowled. “Of course not. They only take people there they say are mind-mages, and then use that as an excuse to kill them.”

“Do you know the way?” Hirianthial asked.

“Yes!”

“Then I follow.”

The palace catacombs could be accessed from the chapel storeroom, and it was there Belinor led him; true to his claims, he was fleet-footed, and it didn’t take long for them to find themselves in the maze. No one knew what had hollowed the corridors out of the cliffside, but they’d been in use since the first Queen of the Eldritch had set down from the ship, and there were signs still of occupancy even in the most desolate corners. And always, in every nook, one heard the occasional whistle of a high, thin wind, trammeled off the ocean.

Canny Belinor stopped him at intervals; when Hirianthial realized he was listening for people, he began to extend his senses to help. In this way, they moved toward the edge of the cliff until at last they reached their hall.

It was guarded, naturally.

“There,” Belinor whispered after they’d drawn back. “He’ll be in one of those chambers. We have to get him out!”

It would have been impolite to reach for the priest’s mind, but Hirianthial could at least grasp toward a sense of his presence, and that he found too easily: Urise was conscious and in pain.

His eyes narrowed.

Belinor, having crept toward the corner again, brought from beneath his robes a belt-knife. Before he could have himself killed, Hirianthial said, “Stay you, prithee.”

“We can’t leave him here!”

“No,” Hirianthial said. “We can’t. And we will not.” He rested his back to the wall and drew in a long slow breath. On the exhale, he let his consciousness seep outward, gather all the glows of other minds. He cupped the first and began to dim it, trembling with the delicacy of it, until it went from aware to unconscious. In the corridor, amid the whisper of the wind on the floor, he heard someone fall.

He slid to the ground and began again. There were only six people to attend to, and fortunately four of them were in separate rooms. The fifth and sixth he had to do at the same time, and he was not altogether sure he would be capable. The consequences if he failed and snuffed one permanently—

Two final thumps in the hall. He breathed out. “Go.”

Belinor darted past him, the wind of his passage pulling at the lace at Hirianthial’s throat. It was damp; he would have to change before court if he wanted to be presentable.

He did not mark the time, only his exhaustion, how cold the stone was beneath him, how his joints throbbed, as if the effort had exacerbated the ache that had begun to dog them in the past few decades. But Belinor returned with Urise hobbling alongside him, and Hirianthial rose. He didn’t have to look at the priest to feel the extent of his injuries.

“Back to my room,” he said, anger clipping the words.

It took more time to return but they did, and Belinor laid his master gently on Hirianthial’s cot. The medical tools he’d brought from the
Earthrise
were no replacement for a true Medplex, but they were far and away more than any Eldritch would hope to see in a lifetime on the homeworld. Hirianthial put them to use. He was washing his hands when Urise opened his eyes.

“Sa,” Hirianthial said, bringing his fingers to the priest’s mouth without touching them. “Rest. You need not speak.”

“No,” Urise said, hoarse. “I am afraid I must, my son.”

“Then if you must, use your inner voice and spare your body the effort. I grant you permission.”

Urise’s mental chuckle sounded dusty.
Very well, my son. I will not argue with a doctor.

“Good,” Hirianthial said, and began stripping his sweat-stained coat. “What is it then that is so urgent?”

Your brother knows why you have come to me.

Hirianthial paused. More slowly, he resumed unbuttoning his blouse. “My brother, who is charged with the removal of excess talents.”

Just so.

Belinor handed him a damp cloth, and he began using it to towel himself off, absently, his mind elsewhere.

“What is the usual procedure? Do you know?” he asked at last.

For what? The disposal? I imagine it involves disappearing the guilty. The process is not witnessed. If it were, no one would permit it, no matter the memory of Corel.

“Then we don’t know what he’ll do next,” Hirianthial murmured. He frowned. What was Baniel planning?

“My lord,” Belinor said, “you will be late for court if you do not dress faster.”

“Is it so close to the hour already?” He looked toward his time candle and started. “God and Lady.”

“Let me help you,” Belinor said. “I have some experience with it.”

“Please,” Hirianthial said, and endured the feather-soft brushes of the youth’s mind that came with his fingers on the buttons: pale impressions of worry and anger and worry again. When Belinor reached for the brush, he held out a hand. “Not that.” As he settled with it, he said, “Run now to the White Swords. Tell Olthemiel or Beronaeth that I am entrusting your master to their care. Make sure he’s guarded while I’m gone.”

“Yes, Lord!” Belinor exclaimed, and flashed from the room.

Is that necessary?
Urise asked.
They are quit of all use of me.

“I don’t know that they are,” Hirianthial said. “So I will assume that they are not.” He went to a knee beside the priest in the cot and rested a long hand on its edge. “For what they did to you, I am deeply sorry, Elder.”

It was not your fault
, Urise said and huffed, an audible one through the throat.
In older days I would have seen him coming and I certainly wouldn’t have let him find out about you. But your brother is very good with shields and better at going into minds.
He looked at Hirianthial.
He’s very strong. Don’t underestimate him.

“I won’t,” Hirianthial promised.

Belinor skidded back in. “They’re coming, and you will be late!”

“I go,” Hirianthial said. “But I will return.”

I’ll be here,
Urise said, closing his eyes.
Don’t fear on that count.

He ran then, because Belinor was right; he was late. Not for the court, for he had discharged the formalities on the first day, and could now come and go to the remaining sessions at his leisure. But he had not wanted Reese to be without escort to her presentation. She knew so few people, and would perceive herself to be with so few allies. To deprive her of a friendly face... he couldn’t countenance it. Not only that, but now he had the additional worry of what his brother planned to do with his new knowledge. Hirianthial couldn’t imagine him choosing a confrontation before the court, but he had been wrong about Baniel before.

He reached the stairs, took them two at a time, and paused on the second floor long enough to catch his breath and straighten his clothes before striding down the hall for her suite. He must present the proper semblance of composure, so as not to exacerbate her anxieties. She would need him.

Irine opened the door at his knock. “Oh, good, you came!” She beamed, ears perked. “And you look so handsome!”

“I am glad I am on time,” he said. “Where is—”

But she was there, by the fireplace, talking with Sascha while Felith straightened a few folds here and there on the skirting of a dark blue gown... and she looked beautiful because it suited her: suited her carriage, her unapologetic forthrightness, the neatness of her figure, compact but strong. Her aura was like a cloak to mantle the richness of her clothes, sparkling with excitement and pleasure, and if there was a tremor of nervousness in it, it served only to make the colors shimmer.

He was painfully struck by the thought that she might not need him after all. She could walk into that hall and take on every contemptuous courtier in it, and all their disdain would only make her more determined to follow through on her course.

And then she saw him, and the glitter of her aura erupted over a bright coral color warm as flesh and soft as skin, and he nearly backed away at his reaction to it. Instead, he managed, “Lady. You look truly lovely.”

Reese resisted the urge to look down, make sure she hadn’t missed any tiny button or fold. She’d assumed he’d realize she was planning to go in a dress, but from the look on his face—as obvious as any she’d ever seen on him—he hadn’t. She hoped he didn’t think she was trying to mimic the culture, or give offense or... or...

And then he spoke, and she exhaled. Painfully, since her ribs hated her for the corset. “Oh, I’m so glad you’re not upset.”

Behind Hirianthial, Irine put her face in her hand.

“Upset!” He said, and drew closer. “No, Lady. Not at all.”

“And now,” Reese said, hesitant, “I put out the wand, like this?” She glanced at Felith, who nodded one of those almost imperceptible Eldritch nods. “And that lets you touch it to greet me. Right?”

He rested two fingers on the wand, a jeweled thing in bronze that Felith had lent her. “If I am a good acquaintance. If I am a stranger, I use the haft of my knife.”

“And if you’re a friend?” Sascha said from behind Reese.

“If I am a friend...” He trailed off, asking with his eyes. She nodded, trying not to look as nervous as she was. “Then you permit me to rest my hand on yours, thus.”

The touch of his gloved fingers on her wrist made her heart race. It was because he was beautiful, like something out of a story in his fine dark coat and swords... just like a faerie king, who stole away some mortal woman to live outside of time with him beneath a hollow hill. Except the women in those stories always suffered, and the faeries lived forever without them. She wondered what in all hell she was doing, having palpitations at the touch of someone who would never—he was so far beyond her. This was not one of her stories. She was not a princess. Gowns did not make poor human girls from Mars into royalty.

“And I bow over it, if I feel inclined to do you honor,” Hirianthial finished, and put action to words. His hair slid over his shoulder, and there, exposed, was the dangle the crew had made for him. It was his only ornament, gleaming rose and steel and glass.

Faerie king or not, he was still their friend. He might never be more than that, but at the very least... they had touched him. How many in the Alliance could say such a thing? Understanding that, she could breathe again. Well, as much as the corset permitted.

“And then,” Sascha said from behind her, “You go, because you’ll be late.”

“Right,” Reese said. “The bag—thank you, Kis’eh’t.” She looked in it: tablet, apple, vial. “All right, I’ve got everything. Hirianthial? Where do we go?”

“This way,” he said, and led her out as the crew wished her well. She hated closing the door on their faces, and the silence in the hall felt oppressive, made her far too aware of how exposed she felt in the fragile gown, armored corset or not. She followed Hirianthial and struggled to master her emotions, and was so busy with that she almost didn’t notice him pausing in the stairwell.

“You sure it’s not presumptuous?” she asked, to have something to say.

But he sounded confused at the question. “I beg your pardon?”

“Dressing like one of you,” she said.

“I was just noting that you are not entirely so, are you?” he said as he resumed his descent.

“Oh, you mean the boots?” Reese grimaced. “I have to pull this thing up to keep from tripping on it going down the steps. You weren’t supposed to see those.”