Northlight (41 page)

 “Whatever else I might have been,” Montborne said, “I have been and always will be loyal to Laurea. That — ” with a shiver and a glance back toward the Starhall, “ — is a lesson I won't have to repeat.”

Terris locked his eyes on the general's, and I wondered what he saw there. In the dawning light, his face had gone to shades of gray, like marble. “I never thought you acted out of self-interest,” he said.

Montborne offered to escort us to Esmelda's house, but Terris answered, with a perfectly straight face, that one Ridge-trained Ranger and one meaner-than-piss horse doctor were protection enough.

“I'll see you tomorrow, then, at the Inner Council meeting.” Montborne strode off westward.

Silently Terris watched him disappear into the fading darkness. His shoulders sagged a little as we started off toward Esmelda's house. I watched the shadows for any sign of trouble — military goons, kids, more City Guards with dart pipes.

“There've been some changes since we left,” Etch commented.

Terris made a strange sound, half hiccough, half sneeze. I realized he was laughing, and I couldn't understand what was so funny.

“My visions were right after all. My mother's become Guardian of Laurea,” he said when he could talk straight again, “and not even pro tem. The real thing. Montborne doesn't know Avi's back, so he thinks I'm Esme's heir. That's why he humored me so long, trying to find out what I knew. And the best part is — it was some damnfool crazy precedent, some emergency loophole, in one of those archives I busted my ass dredging up that put Esme in power so quick. I never thought — I'd find such a practical use — for my academic career!”

Terris was staggering by the time Etch and I got him to Esmelda's house. It wasn't just the night without sleep or even the journey north when he hardly slept or ate. The Light had changed him, given him gifts he didn't want and taken something away, too — what, I wasn't sure yet. Then there was whatever the Starhall gate had cost him. And facing Montborne down afterwards. I knew this man, I'd watched him run mile after mile when he couldn't catch his breath and his muscles screamed like hell. He didn't give up. Not then, not now. He gritted his teeth together and his eyes wove in and out of focus. He leaned on me more and more, but when we reached his mother's doorstep and pushed me away. With a twist of his mouth, he stood on his own, his shoulders back.

The door slammed open just as we reached it, and the mouse-woman steward and Avi came bursting through. Avi took one look at us and said, “Drat,” just as Terris collapsed. Etch caught him as he fell.

I shoved my way into the house. The table just inside the door heaped with papers and books, the staircase with its carved bannister, the dimness broken by the brighter light from the right-hand room, were just as if the place had stood untouched since I was last here.

“Kardith, what's happened?” Avi said.

I spun around. “Does he have a room here?”

“Right,” she said, and jerked her head toward the stairs.

Etch maneuvered Terris's body around the bannister. Both Avi and I moved to help, but suddenly one of my arms was caught — not trapped or grabbed hard, just touched so I couldn't move.

The old dragon herself.

“You,” she said, meaning Etch and Avi, “get him to bed, and then yourselves. Lys,” to the mouse-woman steward, “get Cherida. And
you,
” meaning, of course, me, “go sit down,” propelling me with a feather touch toward the living room, “until you can give me a full report.”

Everyone did exactly that. For a moment I hesitated to walk across the sand-colored carpet or touch the plush, upholstered furniture. I was so tired I couldn't stand up and so fired up I couldn't sit still. There wasn't a part of me that wasn't stinking filthy with dried blood, trail dirt, crusted sweat or grime from the Starhall gate world.

I threw myself into the nearest chair.

A few minutes later, Esmelda entered the room. I remembered the first time she spoke to me, the day of Pateros's funeral. The night I begged her help for Avi, the night Terris found me on my knees in the plaza and swore he'd find a way.

She'd looked over the milling crowd, as if scenting the yet-unspilled blood.
“My son's out there...”

“I found him for you,” I said. “I found
both
of them.”

As for the story, I stumbled around, putting together bits of what I'd heard Terris say to Etch and Jakon. I saw from Esmelda's expression that she'd heard some of this before — maybe from Avi, maybe from her own sources. What happened in the Light, though, that was none of her business.

Like Avi, she interrupted me with questions, “You saw this yourself?” being the most frequent. Unlike Avi, she kept her opinions to herself.

Some time in the middle of my rambling story, the steward came back with Cherida, the red-haired medician who'd tried to save Pateros. They bustled upstairs and then, after a while, back down. Cherida stopped by the living room, patted Esmelda on the shoulder, and said, “He's exhausted, that's all. Let him rest.” Esmelda, with no visible change in expression, went right on questioning me.

Finally she nodded, but I knew it wasn't the end, only a pause before we started all over again. Maybe she was just tired of the smell.

The mouse-woman steward, Annelys, led me upstairs to a cot made up for me in a room that used to be Avi's. Avi herself was no more than a snoring lump in the corner, behind the old desks and wooden storage crates and wicker baskets overflowing with mending. Outside the door I found a bathroom with a tub filled with steaming, herb-scented water and a wicker stand bearing fluffy towels, soap and bath oils, scrub brushes, real Archipelago sponges.

Annelys handed me a long, velvety-soft robe. Pink, of course. Was every single Mother-damned bathrobe in Laureal City
pink
?

“I've put some clothes on the foot of your bed,” she said. “They're clean and they ought to fit you.” She didn't say whose they were or that she thought mine weren't fit to be worn again. “You'll want to sleep in, then. I'll leave your breakfast in the kitchen for whenever you come down.”

I looked down at the bath. The water was a light

blue-green with some kind of fragrant salts. I felt myself drifting, falling into it, my head swimming with the curls of sweet-smelling steam.

Ah yes, Laureal City...
I gripped the edge of the tub hard enough to cramp my hands.

“Where's...Terris?” Whose voice is saying that, mine?

“Terricel.” She gave me a funny, sideways look. “Asleep. At the end of the hallway, in his old room. With that older man. The two northers,” she didn't quite sniff, but looked as if she'd like to, “I put
them
in the back, downstairs.” Then, before I could ask any more annoying questions, she shut the door on me.

Wishing I had my long-knife, I laid the two currently in my possession — the buckle knife and the City Guards knife — at the side of the tub, within easy reach, and sank into the hot water. For a blessed five minutes, I let the bath and my aching muscles think they were winning. I scrubbed everything twice, including my hair, and went over my body with a brush. The water was brown the first time I drained it, but soapy clear the next.

I toweled myself dry, dragged a comb through my hair, wrapped myself in the robe and tiptoed into Avi's room. She was still asleep. I slid into the borrowed clothes and low-cut house shoes. They were a bit narrow, but so buttery-soft they stretched out to fit.

I opened the door at the end of the hallway just a crack to make sure Terris was there. The walls, I noticed, were a depressing shade of blue. Hell, I'd probably have painted my room that color if I had to live here, too.

Noiselessly I shut the door and sat with my back to it, my arms folded over my knees, the way I passed many a night on the Ridge or before that in the Brassa Hills, in between skirmishes, with my fingers resting on the hilt of my knife. A house-snake rippled by, its eyes glowing like opals. It tasted me delicately with its tongue, decided I wasn't edible and slithered on in search of dinner.

Me, I slept lightly. Very lightly.

Behind me, a boot sole scuffed over a smooth wood floor and the latch hinge rattled. Before I could think, I was on my feet and ready.

The door cracked open. Terris glanced down at the drawn knife in my hand. Beneath his beard, his face was pale, the skin under his eyes purplish. I heard Etch snoring somewhere in the depths of the dismal-blue room. I put the knife away and stepped back.

Terris eyed me as he closed the door behind himself. “As usual, you're up early...” he began, then paused, his brows drawing together. “You slept
out here,
didn't you? On my doorstep like some kind of watcher — ”

I set my jaw. This was going to be harder than I thought.

“What the hell do you think you're doing? Do you think you're made out of iron?” he stormed at me. “Did you think I was in danger here? This is Laureal City, not the gods-damned steppe, and, more than that, this is my mother's house!”

With two northers downstairs, still armed for all I knew, gangs of crazed Brigade kids in the streets and Montborne on the loose. Terris could swear at me by whatever misbegotten gods he liked, but I wasn't sleeping down the hall.

He narrowed his eyes. “You
did
sleep?”

I shrugged. He grabbed my shoulders and spun me around toward the staircase. “Then you are now going to eat breakfast.”

No argument there.

“We damned well better be ready for his next move.” Avi leaned over the breakfast table and gestured as she made her point to Esmelda.

“We will be ready for him,” Esmelda replied calmly.

Neither of them looked up as Terris and I walked in. Their heads — black and steel-gray — almost touched over the clutter of crumb-covered dishes and papers scrawled with notes and figures that hid a dining table big enough for a dozen people. Beyond them, a sideboard held a ceramic tea urn, pots of jam and butter, a huge glass platter overflowing with peaches and cherries. The fruity smell mingled with the tang of cheese and the yeasty aroma of new bread. Annelys the steward bustled through the kitchen doorway and put two crusty loaves on the cutting board.

Terris took a plate from the sideboard, and loaded it with fruit and cheese and three thick slices of still-warm bread. He shoved it into my hands. For a moment, I couldn't think what to do with it. He carried his own plate to the table and cleared a place for both of us by sweeping the nearest papers into a heap with the back of one forearm.

Avi looked up, tossed back the heavy black hair that had fallen forward across her face, and scowled at him. “How could you do it? Take Montborne to that toxic world or wherever it was — and then bring him back!”

“Montborne truly believed he was doing the right thing for Laurea. He didn't understand where his desire for better weapons would inevitably lead,” Terris said in between bites of bread. “He thought all that stuff the gaea-priests spout at us was just empty words. Hell, so did I, so did everybody.”

“Whose side are you on, anyway?” Avi snapped.

“Avi's right,” Esmelda said. “Montborne won't give up. Not when he's devoted his life to a single goal — the ultimate defeat of the northers — and believes he's the
only
one who can accomplish it. No matter what he said or did last night, this morning he'll feel justified in using any means available to achieve his goals. Beginning with eliminating
you.
”

“I was there with him. He saw — he
understood...
”

“Do you think a few minutes in some outlandish place will make any difference to a man like him?”

“What else was there to do?” Terris said. “I couldn't leave him there.”

“You could,” I said, laying down my half-eaten cheese. “And you should have. He deserved it. Have you forgotten who sent those goons in the night and who had Pateros killed? I haven't. What did you bring Jakon here for — to bring Montborne to justice or to let him go free?”

I did not add that there were certain things that changed a person forever, for good or ill. Montborne might have been the true hero the Laureans thought him. Once. But some bloodstains didn't wash off.

Terris's eyes went opaque for a moment, staring through me to Mother-knows-where. I wished I'd kept silent.

“I have no intention of letting him
go free,
” he said tightly. “He must stand trial for what he's done. But I am not his judge, and certainly not his executioner. He didn't deserve to be abandoned in that...place.”

“There's no point in recriminations,” Esmelda raised one hand for quiet. “And Montborne hasn't won yet.”

“Oh no?” Avi demanded, bristling. “What's to keep him from marching his men into this morning's Inner Council meeting and staging a military coup?”

“For one thing, Orelia's doubled my security, and for another, I've arranged a location change from the Starhall to the Senate Building. The meeting won't be with the Inner Council but the entire Senate. And Montborne won't find out until the last minute.” Esmelda's mouth twitched in what might have passed for a smile.

“But we must do more than neutralize him as a threat,” Esmelda added. “He must be held accountable for his acts. The people will never accept a treaty with Clan'Cass as long as they believe the northers were behind the assassination of Pateros. Montborne must be eliminated
and
proved responsible.”

“We don't have enough hard proof yet,” Avi said, frowning. I could almost see her thoughts churning, her mind settling into the habits of so many years ago. Moment by moment, she revealed her mother's training. “Just Terr's testimony about the attempt on him — and Jakon's that his people had nothing to do with either time.”