Point of Hopes (65 page)

She looked surprised when she saw Rathe, and then
relieved. “I thought it would have to be you, Nico.”

“
I’m glad you had faith in me,
Asheri love. Are the boys in the other room?” Rathe asked. This
lock was more complex, better built than the one on the main door,
and he could feel the knife point slipping on its works without
making contact.

“
Yes.” She stuck her hand out the
window, pointed to the door across the corridor. “Though why they
think they have to separate us, I don’t know.”

“
I wouldn’t imagine the situation
is conducive to misbehavior,” Rathe agreed. “Ash, keep the other
girls quiet for me while I try to get this door opened. Then get
them out and away from here as quickly as you can.”

“
Would this help?” Eslingen said
from behind him, and held out a ring of keys. “It was hanging by
the door.”

Rathe took them gratefully, found the right key on
the second try, and swung the door wide. The room was full of
children, all girls, all in the crumpled clothes they’d worn when
they’d been taken. Someone—Rathe doubted it was Timenard—had given
them straw and blankets, but the improvised beds just made the room
look more pathetic. They were all standing now, the largest group
huddled together as though they were cold. A tall girl with dark
brown hair and wearing a green dress stood near Asheri—she had to
be Herisse Robion, Rathe thought, and was almost surprised to
realize he had never seen her before.

“
It’s all right,” he said aloud,
and hoped he sounded soothing. “I’m from Point of Hopes, we’ve come
to get you out of here. The doors are open and the guards are busy
elsewhere. I want you to head back down the mountain—follow the
stream, not the path, it’ll take you to the road—as fast as you
can.”

Robion nodded, grabbed the nearest girl, and shoved
her toward the door. “Come on, let’s go.”

The urgency in her voice seemed to reach even the
most frightened, and they began to file out the door, slowly at
first, then faster. Eslingen shook his head, looked at Rathe. “I’ll
cover them from the main door,” he said, and turned away, the
matchlock still at the ready.

Asheri said, “I’ll stay with you, Nico.”

Rathe shook his head, trying the next key in the
lock. “No, get moving, we’re not done yet.” The lock snapped free
at last, and he pulled open the door.

This room looked much like the other except that it
was filled with boys watching warily, poised to run or attack.
Asheri said, “It’s all right, he’s from Point of Hopes.”

“
Nicolas Rathe, adjunct point.” It
seemed foolish to introduce himself there in the darkened
strongroom, but he hoped it would make them listen. “We’ve got the
doors open. Head down the mountain as fast as you can—follow the
stream, the girls are ahead of you.”

“
They’ve got guns,” a voice said,
and there was the sound of a slap.

“
Stupid. You want to stay
here?”

“
We’ve drawn off the guards,” Rathe
said, and hoped it would still be true. “Now, get moving. Asheri,
go with them.”

The boys began to move, Asheri with them, and Rathe
made his way back to the doorway. He drew his pistol as the boys
began to dart across the yard, heading for the downhill path and
the stream, and joined Eslingen by the door.

“
No sign of the guards?” he asked,
and Eslingen shook his head.

“
Are you thinking this might have
been the easy part?”

Rathe nodded, grim-faced. “I wonder how Istre and
Denizard are doing.”

“
I haven’t heard them in a while,
so I guess they’re at the mine.” Eslingen drew back as the last boy
shoved past them. “Maybe they need our help. I’m pretty impure. Do
you suppose the less innocent a person is, the quicker the mine
could be polluted?”

“
Only one way to find out,” Rathe
answered, and in the same instant, heard a shout from the
hillside.

“
Damn kids, get them!”

Rathe swore, heard himself echoed by Eslingen. He
could see the first of the guards scrambling down out of the trees
clutching his musket, and lifted his own pistol, saw Eslingen level
the musket he’d taken from the guard.

“
Mine, I think,” Eslingen said, and
fired. The sound echoed in the greying darkness, bouncing off the
rocky hills, and pulling the guards up short as though by a rope.
They were out of range, and knew it, but the leader waved his arms,
drawing his men back toward the yard.

“
This is not a good spot for a
pitched battle, Nico,” Eslingen said, and set the now-empty musket
neatly in the corner of the door.

“
Even I can see that, but what
choice did we have?” Rathe demanded.

“
None, but now we have to think of
something else.”

“
I’m open to suggestions,” Rathe
said.

“
I’m glad to hear it.” Eslingen
said, and drew his pistol right-handed. “If we can make it to the
mine itself, that’ll give us some cover, and some time,
right?”

“
Right.”

“
Go.” Eslingen said, drawing his
sword, and he charged for the mine entrance. Rathe pounded after
him, practically treading on his heels, knife in one hand, pistol
in the other. He heard the snap of shots, and then the angry shout
of the leader reminding his people they were out of range. Then
they’d reached the entrance and plunged into the darkness. Rathe
collapsed against the nearest wall, catching his breath, and peered
out into the yard.

Outside, the guards stopped abruptly, unwilling to
go in after them. And not unreasonably, Rathe thought, when all
they have to do is wait for reinforcements. The mage-light seemed
to stop a few yards in front of the entrance, casting almost no
light into the mine itself. Rathe blinked, dazzled by the contrast,
and wondered if there were magistical reasons to keep the mage-fire
out of the mine itself. Everything felt ordinary enough, from the
mud under his feet to the solid rock at his back, and he shrugged
the thought away, looking at Eslingen. “Now what?” he asked, and
hoped that, from all his soldiering, the other man might have some
cache of ideas for handling what could rapidly become a siege
situation. Before he could answer, however, both men caught sight
of a light behind them, and Eslingen whirled, leveling his pistol
by reflex.

“
Easy,” Rathe said, recognizing the
footsteps. Denizard’s dark lantern clicked open, throwing a fan of
light across the rocky floor.

Denizard and b’Estorr stood behind the wedge of
light. In the shadows, it was hard to see their expressions, but
Rathe thought they looked sober, and the air teemed with the chill
currents of b’Estorr’s ghosts. He felt the hair on the nape of his
neck rise and said, “Were you able to do anything?”

Denizard half nodded half shrugged. “Oh, polluting
the workings was no problem. But if Timenard has taken as much gold
as I think he has, and if all that gold has been processed into
aurichalcum…” She shook her head. “b’Estorr’s right, it’s too much
just to be politics, but what in all hells would require that much
gold?”

“
Istre?” Rathe turned to the other
magist.

“
I don’t know. I don’t even want to
hazard a guess. But whatever it is, Nico, whatever he’s using it
for or making with it, it will give him incredible
power.”

“
This is all very interesting,”
Eslingen began from his place by the entrance, and stopped
abruptly. They could all hear it now, a sudden confusion of voices
and the sound of horses’ hooves first on stones and the hard-packed
ground of the yard, and then echoing on the bridge over the stream.
Rathe swore again, and moved up to stand across the entrance from
the soldier, peering cautiously out into the yard. The magelight
had changed, strengthened, was enough to throw shadows now, and
Timenard, an oddly foreshortened figure on a magnificent sorrel
horse, had reined in at the center of the yard, seemingly oblivious
to the way the horse sidled and danced beneath him. It was truly a
gorgeous creature, enough to draw Rathe’s eye even under these
circumstances, and he heard Eslingen give a soft whistle of
admiration. The magelight seemed to gleam from its pale coat and
the brighter strands of its mane and tail, turning them to gold.
Behind him, a child cried out, and then another, and half a dozen
guards appeared at the head of the path, dragging four of the
children. They fought back hysterically, shrieking at the tops of
their lungs, but the guards dragged them inexorably over the
bridge.

“
Shut up,” Timenard said, almost
conversationally, and they were instantly silent. He had not looked
back, but Rathe could feel the focus of his attention change,
center on the mine and the dark entrance. He was sure Timenard
couldn’t see them, no one looking out from the waxing mage-light
could see into that darkness, but the magist’s eyes were fixed on
the spot where he and Eslingen stood.

“
And is this how you repay
maseigne’s hospitality?” Timenard went on. “We have very strict
notions of correct behavior for guests here in the Ile’nord, you
know. I strongly suggest you come out of there right now. Or these
children will die for your rudeness.” His tone had not changed in
the slightest, as though he considered bad manners worthy of a
capital punishment. Rathe scowled, torn between anger and a sudden
deep fear, and he saw Eslingen stir.

“
Oh, right,” the soldier muttered,
his eyes roving over the magist and the guards. “And how’s he going
to do that? I don’t see any weapons on him, and his people have
their hands full with the kids….”

His voice trailed off, less confident than the
words, and b’Estorr took a step forward. “He can do it,” he said.
“Dis Aidones, can’t you feel it? He can certainly do it.”

Denizard nodded, wordless, her face pale. The
lantern trembled in her hand; she looked down at it, frowning, and
braced her free hand against the rock of the wall.

Rathe could feel it himself now, a shifting in the
air like the presence of b’Estorr’s ghosts, or the tingle of an
oncoming storm—and most of all like the clock-night, the unnatural,
uncanny wrongness of it. He could feel the ghosts shy back from it,
a cold current nipping his ankles before retreating toward the
mine, and tasted dust and heat and something strangely metallic,
like lightning gathering. The mage-light was stronger than ever,
clustering into motes of light that swarmed like insects around
Timenard and his horse, and Rathe was abruptly certain that the
magist could do exactly what he’d threatened. He stepped fully into
the entrance where the reflection of the light could reach him, and
lifted a hand.

“
Timenard! Killing the children
won’t do you any good at this point. And you need them—”

Timenard made a dismissive gesture and the motes of
light seemed to follow, a streak of pale gold in the thick air.
“There are others, others more easily obtained than these. My work
is too close to completion to be so easily thwarted, and I don’t
intend to argue with you. Come out now, all of you, or these
children die. It’s a simple equation.”

He crooked his fingers, and the motes of light
swerved and clustered, gathering around his hand. Rathe could hear
a faint drone, a humming just at the edge of audibility, like the
echo of a swarm of bees. “And what happens to us?” he called,
struggling to find the words that might delay the magist, stave off
whatever powers he called for even a moment longer. “Our deaths for
theirs—I don’t know—”

He broke off at the sound of hoofbeats from the
Mailhac road. The guards swung, startled, and the biggest of the
children wrenched himself half away before the man holding him
could grab him again. Rathe swore under his breath, seeing that,
and Eslingen cocked his pistol.

“
It could be Coindarel,” he began,
and in the same instant de Mailhac and a good dozen of her
household swept into the clearing. She was hardly dressed for
riding, a battered traveling cloak thrown on over the silk dress
she had worn to dinner, the embroidered skirt hiked awkwardly up so
that she could ride astride, showing practical boots over delicate
fancywork stockings.

“
What in all hells have you brought
down on us, magist?” she shouted. “There’s a royal regiment on the
Mailhac road, and the woods are full of your damned
children.”

Timenard ignored her, his eyes still fixed on the
mine entrance, but Rathe heard the humming fade, felt the unnatural
pressure ease a little. De Mailhac lifted her face to the skies,
her hair tumbling unbound over her shoulders. “You stupid,
ambitious bastard, you’ve finished us. We’ve lost, and all we have
left is barely enough time to get away from here and over the
Chadroni border.”

Timenard sighed then, and swung in his saddle to
face her, his voice still bizarrely calm. “Why should we flee? Why
on earth should we flee? This royal regiment will arrive too late,
maseigne, a week ago they would have been too late. My work is too
far advanced now, they cannot keep me from its completion. Now.
I’ll need your men to help me rid the mine of these intruders.” He
turned back to the entrance, raised his voice again. “I’m reluctant
to shed your blood in the mine itself, but I will do it. And I will
kill these children.”

De Mailhac swung herself down from her horse, skirts
flying, and started across the yard toward Timenard. She carried a
sword, Rathe saw, incongruous over the bright green silk, and there
was a small pistol jammed into her sash. Clearly she intended to
fight, and Rathe wondered if there was any way they could make use
of that.