King of Assassins: The Elven Ways: Book Three (26 page)

She had to sit to put the shoes on. Sturdy leather creaked as she tried her feet in them, found them adequate, if too wide. She had Vaelinar bones, after all, and when she stood, her skirt would be several hands too short. Sliding her left hand into her pocket, her fingers touched upon iron and traced its curvature and length. A wicked blade, a pruning knife, sharp and hooked. A long pocket on the right hip held a short sword. An errant sting in her fingers told her that it had retained its sharpness over the years. Rivergrace breathed deeply. Dressed and armed, by the ill-fortune of another. Had the wisewoman, Kernan witch born, also heeded the call of the water? Had she drunk from it, caught thirsty in this dry and dusty tunnel? Grace pushed her hair back from her brow. She would remember not to.

She moved on, every now and then catching the smell of the water, and then finally hearing it, faintly, pooled and yet dripping within the depths ahead of her. If the water did not sing her out as it had sung her in, she might be lost and wandering for quite a long time, her fate not much different than that of the skeleton she’d stumbled over. As she walked, the echo of her steps changed, and she became aware the ceiling grew higher and higher still until she could look up and see splinters of sky and cloud. That eased her a bit. She could feel her dread of closed-in places lift a little, even as dirt and pebbles skidded down from the roof opening to shower her. Grace eyed the roof carefully. She might not be able to climb out, but that did not mean something could not fall in. Moving cautiously, she started forward again.

The tunnel began to curve to her left, and the sound of water became clearer with every step until split rock overhead let in waning rays to cast a wavering light upon a pool in front of her, where the entry widened into a small cavern and she could feel the dampness in the air. She knelt upon the slick stones that formed a lip at her end, and stretched her fingers out to the pool. As soon as she broke its cool, wet surface, sparks of light green seemed to emanate and mist off the water and a voice intoned, “Welcome.” It came from everywhere and nowhere.

Drops trailed from her fingertips as she sat back, craning her neck to look about her, shadows draping close and revealing little. The stone beneath her knees vibrated still, as if it had been struck to produce the sound, and she wondered if she had truly heard it or simply felt its resonance throughout her body. She watched as the last droplets of pool water fell from her hand, each sending up a glowing splash and a ripple as it hit. If she were a wee creature, with soaring antennae from her brows and wings buzzing on her back, would she feel the striking of the drop on the water just as she, human, had felt the shock of speech against the very rocks? Rivergrace frowned. She dashed the last of the dampness from her hand and scrubbed it dry against her skirts vigorously before she became lost in thoughts she seldom thought or had time to dwell upon. The philosophical lassitude which had enveloped her immediately faded. Bespelled. She had nearly fallen headfirst into its net. The corner of her mouth twitched wryly. Nutmeg would never have succumbed to such a trap. Ever practical, ever in motion, the Dweller in her sister did not lend itself to windy platitudes. Do and be done with it! Then tell a colorful tale describing the deed. That would be the Dweller way.

She looked down at the cavern’s lake. It pooled power. It reeked of power and because it did, she knew she had to be circumspect. She could not charge at it like some child with a bully stick and hope to beat it into submission. Like water itself, it would be fluid and slippery and damn near uncatchable.

She tilted her head. “You called, I have answered.”

“Many are called. So few answer.”

The sound this time came faintly, scarcely audible and far short of the power available, leaving her unable to decide if the remark queried or complained of her. The contact felt like nothing she had ever experienced before. This was not the River Goddess she’d sheltered once only to lose to the insanity of Cerat the Souldrinker. Another God? She didn’t think so. The only power she knew of, inside these tunnels, was that of the Mageborn, and they had not been alive to touch the peoples of Kerith in a thousand years or more. So what had called to her, and how, and did they call to her or just to anyone? Had there been magic in the long gone rockeaters which had carved these tunnels? That, in the few tales that Rufus had told her from early Bolger days, had never even been hinted at. It was the venom and spittle of the rockeater serpents, and the rough scales of their hides as they bored, that ate through this stone, not magic. Not power. She could not call herself a true judge of magic, however, for even among the Vaelinars she was untrained and knew little. From what she did know, Vaelinars did not work magic. The effects were the same, but they saw the world with eyes of varied and remarkable colors, a seeing of the threads and strands which comprised the many elements of the world and which could be plucked, strung and unstrung, knotted and severed, rewoven and cast aside, like an instrumentalist with their instrument. It was not magic. It was the seeing and touching of what they saw which gave them their myriad powers. Not that they meddled more than by the merest of touches. Most had not the capability to do what they might dream of with what they perceived. Only once in a while was a great reworking accomplished, a Way, which might establish the fortune of a Vaelinar bloodline for generations to come. Mostly, Vaelinar magic consisted of a small pluck here or a faint strum there. A larger effect would come from a strike or a hammer upon the elements. And then, there were those unspoken disasters, those attempts to alter reality, which exploded upon the world and for which an entire bloodline could be sentenced to death. Vaelinar justice. Reach for power, but suffer the consequences if you fail.

A small chill ran across the back of Rivergrace’s neck. There were whispers that such a happening had sentenced her own family to termination and that her father had fled to an even harsher taskmaster who had promised him hiding and given him enslavement. Did she believe that Fyrvae now named Narskap had come from such a background? She did not know. She hardly knew herself, let alone a father and mother she had lost when very young. It could be true. It equally could not be true, and used to mislead her. If the Vaelinars were experts in the weaving of the elements of the world, they were even more masterful at weaving the emotions and thoughts of those who lived upon it. Her Dweller upbringing had hardly prepared her for the insinuations of the Vaelinars. Her first lessons had been hard given and harder to receive, but she was learning. It did not mean that she had no friends among her own people, but that her people held a different code for the world and how it was meant to work. If you asked Tolby Farbranch how the world should work, he would tell you of seasons, seasons of planting and nurturing and harvest and storage for the seasons of want. He would tell you of teamwork and family and trust and love and courage. He would tell you of unwanted rain and the fury of wind untold and the gentle touch of a spring sun. If you asked the Vaelinar, they would tell you of Houses and Strongholds and Fortresses, of warlords and Warrior Queens and cunning craftsmen, of heralded Ways and fouled pools of failure where no man could hope to live, of a heritage torn away by a mysterious enchantment, and of a heritage returned by an even more mysterious Ferryman. They might tell you of their superiority and the yoke that this world placed upon them, and of their eternal longing to return to that which birthed them. They might tell you of the burden of living centuries in a lifetime, anchored to a land of commoners, dreaming of uncommon abilities. Every once in a while, you could find a rare one who would speak to you of family, friends, honor, and love. Such a man she loved.

Rivergrace waited a few more heartbeats before standing.

As if suddenly remembering her, the lake woke. “Look,” the power whispered. “And see.”

She dropped her gaze to the still waters of the deep pool, its surface barely lit by the light which trickled down from above, a thin and wavering orange illumination that smudged more than it delineated. If she saw more than herself, it was only as a shadow in the deep dark pool. Rivergrace saw a ripple across the pool, and felt her whole body tense as something she could not describe or hear filled her senses. A mist rose from the edges of the water, ringing the area, giving it a border as if it were a dark and foreboding mirror. The air grew deadly cold. She could feel the frost without seeing it, yet her skin burned with the icy touch.

Without her willingness, her gaze was drawn to the dark water. Rivergrace knew that she would see what was going to be shown to her without her approval. She feared for her soul as the power stripped away the very permission she had fought throughout her adult life to gain for every action. She saw Sevryn and images that made little or no sense to her in their savagery. It caught her breath in her throat and she gritted her teeth against her reaction, not wanting to give the images more power than they already had. She watched and did not understand, and feared. Would she remember later or would the visions disappear into her very soul, forgotten but infusing their power into everything she thought and did? She bent her head to watch more closely, willing herself never to forget. Understanding would come later.

Visions faded. She knelt down, hand out, chasing them. “More.”

“More?” The power shivered about her.

“I have to
know
.”

“And if knowing unmakes you, unravels you again?”

“Then it’s my willing, not yours. Not theirs. Mine.”

“You asked,” said the voice of the dark water. “I grant.”

Silver glinted off the water pool mirror. It seemed to splash off the ceiling and walls of the small cavern, dancing sparks that spit and shimmered over the dirt and stone. They did not fade but held wherever they touched, small stars drawn down and pinned to the earth, giving off an aura of being untouchable for all their closeness. She became the silver among the inky darkness, and her thoughts raced away.

She felt the coursing halt and she tried to pull back, feeling herself fall into another flesh, captured, possessed, and she fought, rearing up in fear. Dark magic coiled about her strongly.
Wait. Watch. Know.
Rivergrace laced her fingers close and prayed it would be anchor enough and let her mind stay where it had been sent, and she became another.

A
STRANGE SKIN HELD HER. The smell of the sea enveloped her, as did this other, this one who thought of herself as Roanne. Rivergrace let herself slide deeper into the other’s thoughts and hoped not to be perceived. She stood upon weathered planks. The dock shifted uneasily upon the harbor’s tide, the ship tied to its side rolling with it, dockworkers cursing as their footing unbalanced on the plank ramps and their loads grew unsteady. The edifice had not been made to be permanent or hold adamant against the tug of the ocean. It had been built hastily, and illegally, and would be torn down the moment the ship shoved off, its boards dried and fed into fireplaces scattered throughout the small port. No sign of their leaving would remain other than a wake upon the waves which would, as in the way of all ocean’s faring, last but a moment or two. No trace of their mooring, no track of their leaving, no sign of their traitorous plans would remain behind save for people who knew that a trading ship had put up its sails and nothing more than that.

A morning wind rose up, stiff and cold and brisk, a few drops of rain slanting upon it. Roanne drew her cloak close about her in a futile effort to stave off the cold uneasiness that tugged at her. All passengers were already aboard, and her parents had yet to come to the docks. She had come from her dorms, with what items and books she had carried with her into her apprenticeship, and they were coming from the family’s country home with their things. She had seen little enough of them over the past few seasons, except to make this plan, and now she fretted.

Captain Galbert’s first, Nethen, shouted down. “Make ready to cast off! The Tide Caller waits for no man!” His voice softened a bit as he added to her, “Lady Marant. We can hold no longer. All our informants, all our omens, say that now is the time, if we are to follow the Tide Caller.”

The Tide Caller. Black phantom. A God or Demon? No one knew. Only that he had appeared, tearing a hole in their ensorcelled world, and the philosophers of magic held that he would disappear through that same hole . . . and beyond him, perhaps, freedom. He rode a tide that Queen Trevilara could not control, could not block, could not send a plague against. His was a singular magic, which the old tyrant did not hold and should be unable to counter. Or so they prayed. So thin a grasp to believe upon, just as she held now. Something flickered down a long alleyway. “I see a carriage. Please.” She shaded her eyes to look across the morning fog and haze where, amid the smoke of the plague bonfires, she could indeed see the carriage, the two-in-hand approaching. The crest on the doors had been draped over, but she knew the horses, knew them well. One of them she had helped birth and then wean before the horse master took over to train it to harness as it grew. Roanne held her breath. The carriage halted a cautious length away, horses restive, and her father leaped from inside. He did not wait to help another occupant out, and her heart quailed inside of her.

“Mother?”

“She’s not coming.” Her father drew close enough that their voices would carry only between the two of them, the din of the dockworkers readying to shove off and the thin wail of the sea wind cloaking their words.

Roanne’s hand went up in entreaty. “Go back! Convince her. Tell her this is our only chance. Tell her she has to come with us! I can beg the captain to wait a little longer. Please. We can’t leave her behind.”

“I’m not coming either.”

Cold pierced her chest. “No.”

“She came down with a fever last night. We can’t take a chance, Roanne, on infecting you or the other passengers. A ship is close quarters.” He turned his face away for a moment. “It’s better this way.”

The coldness in her chest spread outward, infected all of her limbs. “It doesn’t have to be the plague. We’ve been resistant. Let me go to her. It could be any one of a handful of spring fevers. The alphistol bloomed early, she always gets wheezes and hives from them. It could be something minor. Father, I can help!”

“No.” He cut the air between them with his hand, his gloved hand, and she realized he wouldn’t touch her. Not truly. “This isn’t a chance we’re willing to take, and Captain Galbert would be the first to agree. You have to go for us, Roanne. Follow the Tide Caller. Do the House of Marant proud, as you have always done. When it comes to it, I—I admit I haven’t the courage. You sail to a rift in the very fabric of the world itself. Who can hope to survive that? I can’t. I know you do, and I pray you will, but I can’t go with you or even follow after. Your mother is sick, but her reason becomes my excuse. Forgive me.”

“Father.”

He shook his head. She saw the track of tears down his cheek.

“You’re not a coward!”

“Oh, I am. Just never in the ways I thought I would be.” Someone high up on deck yelled something incomprehensible down at them, but Roanne knew it must be an exhortation to hurry. Her father beckoned to the driver who set the handbrake and climbed down, pulling a shroud-covered chest from under the seat. The driver carried it to the plague bonfire, showed it to the priestess standing there who inspected it, ordered the shroud off and burned, and gave permission for a loader to take it aboard. Roanne watched her even as her voice threatened to freeze in her throat.

“Father, please . . .”

He looked into her eyes, the only way he would come close to her. “Our heritage and history rests in there. It’s the best we can give you, Roanne. Daughter. The chest is air- and watertight, within another chest that is also airtight and watertight. The handles on either end are sturdy. It will act as a float, and can hold you up, if need be.”

If the ship came to grief. But she was already held fast in grief’s grip, her eyes tight upon her father’s face. The House Marant, one of the queen’s oldest and most loyal families, had fallen to this, their death and despair as the queen became inexorably a thing too awful to bear. If her mother did not have the plague, if her father did not sicken as well, could they withstand much longer that thing of darkness that ruled their country? They faced death, and worse, by staying. Her fleeing would endanger them, and she’d no doubt her father knew that well.

“Have you . . . other plans?”

“We do, but I won’t speak of them here.” His steady gaze flinched. He touched a gloved finger to her cheek. “Gods willing, there will come a day when we . . . when we meet again.”

“Lady Marant!” First Mate Nethan called hoarsely. “We are weighing anchor! We cannot wait longer.”

Her eyes brimmed. She knew she couldn’t dissuade him, and she didn’t have the courage inside her to stay and face with him what she knew they would face. “Please. Don’t hate me for leaving, Father.”

“Never. And you must not pity us for staying. You go for all of us. Carry our love and pride, always!” He choked. “Now . . . go,” he said, his voice coarsening, and she heard the tears checked within it.

Roanne leaned to kiss him, and he flinched backward, fastening a scarf over his face quickly. He grabbed her hand and put it to his chest in the only salute of farewell he dared allow. “Live well and long and in love and honor,” he told her. Then he took her hand, steering her to the bonfire where the cleansing priestess awaited.

Smoke and cinders puffed in her face, stinging her eyes, and when she had blinked them away, her father’s hand had left hers, and the carriage itself was pulling away in haste, before either of them could change their minds.

The priestess looked her over. She could feel the woman peeling away the layers of her skin, searching, digging, for signs of plague. The dowager had never liked her and had scorned all her clumsy attempts at learning in her apprenticeship, but they knew each other well. She had other teachers she valued and revered, but fate had made it this one who would see her take her good-byes. The woman’s thin lips peeled back from her teeth in distaste as she bit off her words. “Burn the cloak,” the woman said. “Then board.”

As reviled as her former teacher was, Roanne knew that the priestess had been born to be a healer and now all that was left to her was the scourging, the purging against the plague that ravaged all of their people. Her natural Talents had been honed, sharpened, to do one thing: identify and then burn away the disease. She could not heal. She could only destroy the source, help stand against the contagion. And when this ship pulled away from the dock, the priestess would be the one woman left in the small village who knew exactly who had boarded and what their intent had been. They would not let her live with that knowledge. She felt an unbidden surge of sympathy for the woman. They had knocked heads because Roanne had refused to sharpen her skills for cleansing only—repudiating the course the priestess had been forced to take. Yes, the scourging might prevent the plague but to relinquish the hope of healing it . . . that had been a possibility Roanne could not sacrifice. Did the two women hate each other because of their choices? Once. But not today. She saw an expression pass over the dowager’s face and knew that she would not be betrayed even as the consequences frightened the priestess.

Roanne began to shrug out of her cloak, her sleeve covering her face and said quietly, “Leave. Cut your tongue out and run as fast as you can. It’s the only way you’ll be safe.” She dropped a handful of coins into the hand held out for the offending garment before draping the cloak in place.

The priestess’ eyes widened as the color drained from her face. She answered with the barest nod of her head.

The tongue would grow back, in time, for she was a healer yet, of sorts. But it was the only way those who would kill her would tire of trailing her and let her slip away, thinking their job was done anyway. Tongue gone and fled, she would not, could not, betray them.

Roanne kicked off her outer gown for good measure, dropping it as well onto the bonfire. She had dressed in layers, new clothes, untouched, under the old, for just such a measure. Smoke puffed up, rank and thick, obscuring the priestess from her view and trailing upward to a canopy strung over it, protection from the dreary skies. What must burn would burn. As she ran for the boardwalk, it began to rain in earnest, hard, sleeting drops that stung her skin like fiery ice. It did not taste at all like the salty tears already wetting her face. Two sailors handed her on board, helping her up the last few steps, throwing the ramp off behind her, the ship groaning as it prepared to shove off. She shook them off and clambered her way to the upper deck. The coldness stiffening her began to thaw a little. First Mate Nethen held her elbow to steady her as she stood at the railing and watched the ship being towed out upon the tide. All ties loosed. All ropes cut or thrown aside. All hatches for boarding and loading battened shut. All land and family and kingdom and alliance abandoned.

Roanne knotted her hands upon the railing. She tried to find a word or two of hope to throw into the wind and rain and felt them leave her throat but could not hear them over the creak of wood and rope and the cries of the sailors.

Through a thin veil of smoke, she saw the priestess move away from the fire and lift one hand in a sign of benediction.

So be it.

Rivergrace sat with her hand to her mouth, jolted back to the reality of cold stone and broken sunlight filtering through the escarpment. Tears dried on her cheek. She blinked upward, even as a small rivulet of sand and grit began to trickle down from above. She swallowed, feeling the movement of her tongue between her teeth. Had this other girl truly suggested that it would be better to have a tongue cut out than be forced to speak?

She dropped her hand and touched the lip of the pool. Dark water licked at her fingers like a hungry pup and she drew her hand back hastily. No water for thirst here. It would consume her long before she could take a drink. The feeling of it, almost like slime, dripped off her hand in thick plops. She wanted to wipe it off on her clothes but feared spreading the contamination. Thoughts tumbled through her head. The plague had come from Trevilara with the Raymy, a weapon of war. The Tide Caller could be none other than Daravan or his phantom brother Ferryman. The rift, on one side at least, was opening wide enough and often enough that people sailed to it, hoping for escape. She closed her eyes tightly. She knew of no refugees being taken in, but the First Home had a vast coastline. She had much to think about, and pushed back on her heels to stand.