Resenting the Hero (36 page)

“Hey,” Karish protested softly.

I looked at him. “Sorry,” I said. “That didn't come out quite right.”

“She has a point, though,” Creol admitted. “Simon was dreadfully incompetent.”

“Why am I here?” That was the thing that was really confusing me. What was the point of my being here?

“Well, you see,” he gestured at the door through which Aiden had been exited, “I got this touching letter from the lovestruck Aiden, begging me not to have you killed. You're a talented Shield, he claimed, and I could use you. I had heard of you, of course, and I knew you were partially responsible for stopping my attack on High Scape. If I had you for my Shield, my plans for High Scape would be all that much easier to carry out. And using the Stallion's Shield offered me a sort of satisfaction. I thought it was at least worth looking into. So I told Aiden to bring you here so I could look you over. But to enable him to convince you to come here, because who volunteers to go to Middle Reach, I had to have Karish brought here.” He shook his head with an expression of regret. “Unfortunately, you won't do at all. Far too stubborn and headstrong.”

I was not a horse. “So sorry to disappoint,” I muttered.

“No need to apologize,” Creol assured me. “I've been enjoying myself. I've had messengers running between High Scape and Middle Reach almost daily. Aiden has kept me apprised of every move you've made. Watching your efforts has been most entertaining.”

“So I guess I'm not sorry after all.”
Zaire, girl, shut up. You sound like an idiot.

He grinned. “But tomorrow the real fun begins.” And he rubbed his hands together in anticipation. I didn't know people actually did that. “Stacius, Jacob, over here, please. We're going to have to put these two with the others.”

“Others?” I said to Karish.

“The other Sources.”

“I'd been wondering where they all were.”

“You really don't want to know.”

“Now, Taro,” Creol chided him, wagging a finger at him. “Don't ruin the surprise for Dunleavy.”

“She won't believe it until she sees it, anyway.”

“No, that's true,” Creol agreed.

He was so damn smug. He really thought he had everything under control. And hey, maybe he did, but did he have to be so blatant about it?

Creol called Lynch back over again. “I'm afraid I need your help again, Alison.”

“It's my pleasure, Stevan,” she said. He crooked his arm, and she took it.

“Shall we get started, then?” he said, and he escorted her out of the building, like a lord and his lady sweeping out of a ball.

I turned to Karish to ask where we were being taken. I was shocked to find his lips curved in a triumphant smile of his own. It surprised me into silence for a moment, as I worried whether the insanity was contagious. “What could you possibly have to smile about?”

“Shoes and ships and sealing wax, cabbages and kings,” he said.

Mallorough, you missed your chance to smack him. You can't do it now.

I was once more picked right off my feet and carried out of the civic center. I thought again about how I wished I had more inches. And a different color of hair. And really chiseled cheekbones.

Chapter Twenty-four

Karish and I were taken past the crowds, who watched us but did nothing to stop the proceedings. We were taken out of the center to a small collection of people standing a short distance away. Aiden was among them, still struggling to free himself and still failing at it. “Dunleavy!” he shouted as soon as he saw me. “You have to believe me! It wasn't supposed to happen like this! It was supposed to—”

“Shut him up,” Creol ordered, the first harsh words I'd heard from his mouth.

One of the thugs applied a fist to Aiden's jaw. Aiden was stunned into silence.

“Alison, are you ready?” Creol asked.

“Aye, Stevan.”

“Then let's get to it.” He released Lynch and stood a bit apart from her. And then, all of a sudden, his eyes went kind of blank, and his posture tensed.

I was a little confused. Had the program suddenly changed? Was Creol feeling something the rest of us were missing? No one seemed alarmed, but the thugs were watching Creol expectantly. They appeared calm, though. And Karish wasn't preparing to channel. So there was no disaster coming, right?

Then the earth started trembling beneath my feet. “Karish!” I hissed at my Source. Do something! Or had his incarceration affected his mind? He'd certainly been acting strangely.

His gaze met mine, and his eyes seemed sane enough. He shook his head once, just slightly. He was making an effort to mute the triumph he was obviously still feeling. Unbelievable. He was a physical wreck, I was an emotional one, something terrible was about to happen to us, there was a disaster coming that he was apparently unable to do anything about, but he was thrilled to bits. It had to be a nightmare.

The trembling grew stronger, and still no one seemed worried. My teeth were rattling, but that didn't stop me from wondering if it was all in my head. I would not scream, I promised myself. I would not screech and clutch at anyone else as if expecting them to save me. I would die like an adult.

The ground opened up. I bit my lip, hard. I would not make a sound.

And still, no one else looked nervous.

Only it looked odd. It wasn't a crack running from horizon to horizon, or a great jutting lip rising high while its fellow dropped to the center of the earth. It was more like a door sliding open right before us. A horrible smell curled out.

Back in the civic center the music started up again. Another martial air. Without thinking I strained against the hands that held me. The thugs weren't worried.

As the topsoil rolled away, there was revealed an underground room or cavern. The floor and walls had been constructed of stone brick. Not a natural formation. A handful of men and women, pale, emaciated, filthy, looking far worse than Karish, lounged on the floor. They looked up at us without surprise or even much interest.

Creol and Lynch relaxed, job done. I stared at the errant Source. He could do it. He could move earth. And call floods? Was he responsible for the flooding the day before? Why would he do that? A test of my abilities, perhaps.

He could really do what he'd claimed he could. We were all going to die.

“Dunleavy, my dear,” said Creol. “Let me present to you the Sources of Middle Reach.” I looked down at them more carefully, trying to put the names I'd heard to the wretches I saw. “The incompetent, the criminal”—he paused, as though waiting for something, and in the interim the targets of his insults didn't even bother to toss any back—“and the lazy. Look at them, Dunleavy, just lying there. When I first put them in there a few months ago, every time I visited them they'd charge at the walls, scrambling to get out and screaming blue murder. Of course, I don't feed them much. And I don't know how much air gets in there. Do you think that has anything to do with it?”

“There is no way you've had them down there for months,” I objected. “Someone would have missed them.”

“Everyone in Middle Reach knows where they are.”

This was unbelievable. “The Triple S, at least, would notice they weren't fulfilling their duties.”

He laughed derisively. “What duties? I do all the channeling here. And Shields write the reports. Sources don't have to. And who knows if the Triple S actually reads any of them.” He leaned a little over the hole and waved at the occupants. Some of them glared back, but that was all the reaction he got. “I'm bringing you two new playmates,” he said cheerfully. “Aren't you grateful?” He looked at one of his henchmen and jerked his head toward the cavern.

With one hard shove Aiden was over the hole, then crashing into it. He, illustrating Creol's earlier description, started swearing and clawing at the nearest wall. He couldn't get a grip on anything. A couple of the thugs watched him, ready to push him back down should he show any sign of success.

“No need for pushing, dear fellow,” I heard Karish say to one of his escorts in the ponciest tone I'd heard from him yet. “I know the way.” Of his own accord he leapt lightly into the hole. Then he looked up at me, his eyes gleaming with unholy humor. “Care to join me, my love?”

Have you lost your
mind
?

Creol sighed. “It's too bad, Dunleavy,” he said; and he almost sounded like he meant it. “You could have helped me destroy the world.”

Should I try to escape? Was there a chance in hell that I could get away from all these men? No. And it would be cowardly for me to leave Karish and the others in there while I ran for freedom. But I couldn't just meekly jump into that pit.

The music was urging me to kill everyone. It was getting hard to think at all.

“Lee,” said Karish. “Come join us.”

That sense of triumph was still with him, and he was looking at me rather intently. He was trying to tell me something. The third man that night to think mind reading was a feasible method of communication.

I had trusted all the wrong people. Aiden. Ryan. Lynch. I'd even trusted Creol, after a fashion. But I'd never really trusted Karish. That didn't necessarily mean I should start, but what the hell. Might as well shoot the whole quiver. And it was always better to jump in than to be pushed.

So I jumped. It wasn't a long drop. The cavern wasn't that deep, just half again the height of an average man. But it felt cold and damp. Perhaps that was just the result of expectation. The reek was not.

I was expecting a bit of a speech from Creol, a poetic farewell, but he didn't seem prepared to give one. Perhaps he lacked inspiration. Or perhaps he didn't feel up to speaking over Aiden, who was screaming threats and demanding to be let out. I stood very still, fighting the urge to charge at the walls myself. The music was prodding me to do something brave and stupid.

Creol and Lynch backed out of sight. I knew they were preparing to move the earth back over us, to seal us in. We would be buried alive. Panic fluttered around the edges of my resolve.

Karish stood behind me. “It's frightening the first time,” he said in a low voice. “But it'll be all right. I promise you.”

Aye, he promised. He was going to be buried in the ground with the rest of us, and he looked like he wouldn't be able to keep his footing in a stiff breeze, but he was making promises. It was a nice thought.

The trembling started again. Aiden's scrambling and screams became more desperate. Any of the other Sources who might have raised their heads during our exchanges lowered them. This was an old show to them. Karish put his hands on my shoulders. A nice tight grip. And I felt my tension easing.

The earth moved over us, sliding like a plate. My throat tightened with the need to scream, to join Aiden in his futile struggles.
Stay calm.
“How is he able to do this?”

“He is able to control the forces to the point that he can hold the earth in place and move it around,” Karish explained quietly. “He's incredibly strong.”

“Stronger than you?” I asked, expecting a nice hearty denial.

“I think so.”

That was just damn wonderful.

Earth met earth. It was black. But I could still hear the music.

“For Zaire's sake, man!” one of the Sources snapped at Aiden, “shut up!”

“He's going to kill us!” Aiden snarled.

“Lucky bastard. We're here for the duration.”

What was said next was lost to me, for Karish let out a whoop and caught me in a rib-crushing embrace. “My girl, thank you!”

I tried to free myself. He definitely smelled. “For what, not killing you?” I asked tartly.

“Dunleavy,” Aiden said to me, “I need to talk to you.”

“I don't want to hear it, Kelly.” There was nothing he could say to justify his actions.

“Don't think you can rule in hell,” Karish commented to no purpose whatsoever.

“I need to tell you what happened,” said Aiden.

“I don't care.” It didn't matter. He had manipulated me and lied to me and tried to force me to kill another human being. His motives were irrelevant.

“Do I have no chance for explanation?” Aiden demanded.

Damn it. “Let me take a stab at it,” I said sarcastically. “You'd been listening to Ryan's sob story for ages and believed it. You thought it would be an excellent idea to destroy High Scape and didn't seem to mind leaving Piers to it—”

“I didn't think he could destroy High Scape!” he protested. “I knew he was going to try to kill Karish, though.”

“Ryan told me. And all that stuff started happening in High Scape and I knew Creol was serious, about that part of it at least. So I wrote to him—”

“And told him he should use me as his Shield in his quest for his manifest destiny, I know, I know,” I interrupted him impatiently. “None of it matters, Kelly. I don't care. I simply do not care.” I'd believed every single word that had slithered from his mouth. I couldn't believe I'd been so gullible, so stupid.

“It's going to be all right, Lee,” Karish said, sounding like he could see what was going on in my head. I hoped not. It was a mess in there. “I can get us out of here.”

Someone started laughing derisively.

“The Darling of the Triple S, charging to the rescue,” was added in a most sarcastic tone.

“You all could do it if you had just paid attention,” Karish snapped. “He came down here every damn day. Didn't you notice what he was doing?”