Spirit Gate: Book One of Crossroads (74 page)

“I’ll help you up,” she said.

He stared at her tight sleeveless vest and short kilted wrap. The rig showed her figure to advantage, and she knew it. She smiled, amused by his stare.

From above, a snap like the sound of a door slid hard shut cut the quiet.

Her smile vanished as quickly as it had come. She stepped forward to examine him, and the floor of the cell, under the glow of the globe light. He became aware of what he must look like and how he must reek. For the first time, he got a good look at the coating of dried grime that had slicked the floor, every possible thing he could disgorge from his body: blood, vomit, diarrhea, urine, the worst sort of spume.

She lifted the globe to the level of his eyes. “Did they try to poison you?”

“I don’t know. I ate a little rice earlier. It—stayed down.”

“Follow the light.” She moved it slowly from side to side, but she watched his eyes. “Did you take a hard blow to the head?”

“That I did.”

“Ah. Sometimes that will make you cast out your stomach. Yes, you’ve quite a few signs of that illness. You’ll want a bath and your clothes washed. We best hurry, for this is taking longer than I had planned for. Can you walk?”

“I don’t know.”

By the way she tilted her head just a little to the right and then back a little to the left it seemed she was considering options and discarding them.

She touched the globe to those rich lips. Its light extinguished immediately.

“I’ll put it back in its warm setting, my sweet,” he said hopefully.

She looked at him sidelong in a way that would have set him aflame if he wasn’t feeling and smelling and looking like a dead rat well run over and left in the dank to get really ripe. Then she tucked away the globe, slung a strong arm around his waist,
and helped him over to the rope. There was nothing seductive in the action. She tied him up in the rope to make it a seat around his hips. He was so dizzy from moving that he couldn’t even say what he would like to say about where her hands were working because the words went awhirl and he had enough to do to stay on his feet as she rigged him up and left him standing there. She climbed swiftly up the knotted rope and eased herself gracefully out of the hatch. A moment later, the rope drew tight, strained, and he grasped with all his strength to avoid pitching backward as she hauled him up. He rocked. He shut his eyes, but decided that was worse. His knee rapped the hot surface of the lantern, but not hard enough to shatter anything, by Ilu’s mercy.

The room above, which he did not remember, was a holding cell with rings along the far wall where folk could be chained up until ready to be moved. She had used one of these rings as her lever, with the rope pulling over it, and when his head came up past the opening she tied it securely, crossed back to him, and used main force with her arms hooked under his armpits to drag him up and onto the floor. There he sprawled. While he panted, trying not to sway although he wasn’t moving, she cut him loose from the rope now tangled around his legs.

“You’ll have to walk the next part.” She stepped back and pulled up the lantern.

“Where are the guards?”

She knelt beside him. There was a pleasant smell to her, like jasmine, but under that a scent he recognized with a kind of delayed shock: She smelled of eagles.

“You’ll need this.”

Her hands were cool as she lifted his head enough to slip a leather thong over it, settling it at his neck. He groped at his chest, found the bone whistle. He groaned, would have wept had he retained water enough for tears. “What bell is it?”

“Middle night.”

“I can’t use this until daybreak. Once they discover I’m gone, they’ll search for me.”

“Which is why we must hurry.” She got an arm under him, and with her help he stood. The whistle gave him strength.

“I can walk on my own.” That he was so helpless, and she so competent, irritated him enough that he nudged her away. “Where do we go?”

After all, she was not immune. A smile chased across her lips. Her eyelids drooped, and for a moment she had the sleepy look of a woman woken after a night of passion, smug and certain and well pleased. “Does this mean you trust me now?”

He’d be a fool to try to walk unaided, this close to freedom. He grasped her arm just above the elbow. She had satiny skin, and taut muscle under it.

“I’m Joss, but you already know that. What’s your name?”

“Zubaidit.”

“Ah! Such poetry! ‘Where the axe hewed, the man was stricken.’ ”

Now she was amused. “Not everyone knows the story of the woodsman’s daughter.”

He would have leaned in to speak intimately close beside her ear, had he been clean and sweet-smelling, but he was not, and although she had as yet made no slightest sign of finding him foul in his current state, he didn’t care to chance seeing
a grimace of disgust cross her face. After all, if he survived this, he would recover his strength, and take a bath, and then she would see what it meant to meet her match.

So he smiled at her, as well as he was able. “It’s one of my favorite stories from the Tale of Fortune. Especially the ending.”

She laughed, a clear sound that she made no effort to muffle or disguise. What in the hells had happened to the guards? But he didn’t ask again. It was time to take his chances, and see where this tale of fortune led him.

“You would say so,” she said with a smirk. “Come, now. We have to go see someone.”

She doused the lantern, led him down the corridor, helped him up a set of stairs and through an open door into a spacious hall swallowed in night but which he recognized by the carved railings at one end as Assizes Hall. She moved smoothly, graceful despite the darkness, and he, leaning on her, was able to stumble alongside creditably. No one was about. It was weird how very quiet it was, all the guards lost. Murdered, maybe. And who in the hells were they going to see?

“It’s a strange way to murder me,” he muttered, unable to help himself. “Or have you some other more convoluted plot in hand?”

“I do, but you’ll need all your powers of persuasion to help me. Now, hush.”

They came to the wall of screen doors, all closed. A faint, wavering light could be seen through the papered screens. Nimbly, she slid a door halfway open and eased him onto the wide front porch that ran the length of Assizes Hall. A stocky man carrying a small lantern was waiting at the foot of the steps. Beyond him, Assizes Court was empty, all in shadow, no lamps at all.

“What of the eagle?” she whispered, dropping her voice now that she was outside.

“Without me, he won’t fly until it’s day. I can’t call him until dawn.”

She helped him down the steps. The man who waited was master of a handcart, which was empty except for a cloak bundled in the bottom.

“This is my friend Autad,” she said. “He owns the Demon’s Whip, a tavern in Merchants’ Walk. He’s agreed to cart you, since I wasn’t sure how far you’d be able to walk on your own.”

“You’ve thought of everything. Where are we going?”

She tilted her head back as if she’d heard something, and sprang up the steps to vanish into the hall, sliding shut the door behind her. She was gone as quickly as if he had only dreamed her.

“Get in, ver,” said the man in a genial voice, pitched low. “Hurry. I’ll cover you with the blanket.” He moved up beside Joss, and even in the night Joss could sense that terrible grimace. “Whew! Begging your pardon!”

“Where did she go? Where are we going?”

“Where she tells me, ver.”

“Do you trust her that much?”

“She’s a true servant of the gods, that one. Very pious.” The man hesitated. “If you wouldn’t mind, ver.” He indicated the cart, coughed, gagged a little. “Geh. Well. Best if we do this quick. If you don’t mind.”

Once in Haya, one summer when he was a lad, he’d been out swimming with his
friends and been grabbed by a rip current that had dragged him out into the sea. But you learned growing up on those shores to let go instead of fighting what you could not resist, because fighting would kill you. Eventually, of course, the rip current had slackened, and he had worked free of it and swum back to land.

“Thanks, ver,” he said to Autad. With the man’s help, he clambered into the belly of the cart. Autad flipped the cloak over him. The cloth smelled of hay, but it was a good, honest, clean smell, one he appreciated. The cart rocked beneath him as Autad lifted and pushed and began walking. The wheel rumbled over stone. The movement jostled him.

For a long way Joss just lay there, thinking of nothing, really, too drained to fret or scheme. The streets were quiet around them. Evidently in Olossi people did not commonly walk out at night, while he was accustomed to the streets of central Toskala, which were more or less awake at all hours. Sometimes it seemed they rattled up a hill, and sometimes it seemed they rolled down one, and only once in that journey did Autad speak, in the manner of a man who has been mulling deep thoughts in his mind and finally found words to express them.

“I’d do anything for that girl. I do owe her, for saving the life of my sister. She had that rash that eats the skin. Poor thing, suffering so. Zubaidit spent her own coin to buy the oil of naya, which is the only unguent that cures it. I couldn’t afford such a luxury.”

“But—”

“Hush! Now we’re coming to where folk are about. I don’t want anyone suspecting. I’d lose my license, and be subject to exile. Or worse.”

They moved into a neighborhood where there were, indeed, a few folk out even at this late hour, judging by the sounds of footfalls and soft conversation and the occasional clink or clatter of unseen objects changing position. Joss’s hip was bruising where it pressed against the bottom of the cart, and every time they lurched forward his right shoulder knocked against wood. Autad hadn’t brought any padding, more’s the pity.

Abruptly, the cart rocked to a halt and Autad pulled the blanket off. “Can you get out?” He stood back, not offering a hand.

Joss got first to his hands and knees, and then awkwardly clambered out by levering his legs out first and following with his body. He was weak, but damned if he would inconvenience the man with his stink, when it was so obvious how appalling it was. They stood in an alley of towering white walls, both ends lost in shadow. A lit lantern hung from a hook protruding from one of the walls above doubled doors. These were broad and high enough to admit wagons, and a smaller “walking” door for foot traffic was set into the larger door. All around, the cobblestone pavement had been swept clean; there was no trace of litter or noisome debris. Indeed, it was pretty obvious that the only nasty thing in this tidy alley was Joss himself.

“Wait here,” said Autad. He probed in his sleeve, withdrew a ball of rice rolled up in a se leaf, and without
quite
touching Joss gave it into his hands. Joss was so hungry that he ate it at once, trying not to choke on big bites, forcing himself to chew. Autad moved off with the cart while Joss had his mouth full, but when Joss tried to
speak, the other man paused, hoisted the cloak, took a whiff, and tossed it at Joss, then with the cart trundled off down the alley until he vanished into the night.

Joss finished the rice, then chewed up the se leaf—beggar’s food, as they called it, but despite being stringy and tough, it was edible and it settled lightly in his stomach.

Neither bell nor device adorned the door, by which a man could signal that he stood outside. Any night noises were here muted by the walls and the isolation. He could not even tell how long the alley was, or how far it reached on either side, but he guessed that he stood between two large compounds that were likely either temple establishments or the households of rich men.

For a few breaths he simply stood there to quiet his heart, calm his mind, and consider his options, alone in the dark city with a chance to escape. Definitely his best bet at this point would be to turn and walk away and hope to make it out of the city without being stopped, although it would be tricky to get past the gates of the inner wall.

Without warning, the “walking” door opened and there stood Zubaidit.

“The hells! Come inside quickly! Anyone might see you out there!”

Since he could think of no clever rejoinder, he followed her into a wide court with trough, cistern, hitching posts, stable, and a small warehouse. Here tradesmen could bring their provender without sullying the main entrance of the rich man’s home, for certainly a rich clan’s compound was what this was.

“Over here,” she said, indicating the trough. “Best hurry. There’s a change of clothes. He’ll never speak with you if you’re not cleaned up a bit.”

“Where are the guards?” he asked.

“Right there.” She indicated the opening of the stable, where a trio of men were trussed and gagged, but still alive by the way they twitched their shoulders and waggled their feet to get his attention.

“What game are you playing?”

“There is only one,” she said with a smile, pressing a bag of rice bran into his hand. “The game of life, death, and desire. We haven’t much time.” She turned her back and folded her arms.

Though he was shaking with weakness, and could not trust her, the entire night’s adventure had taken on such an air of unreality that he let himself be dragged onward and outward, as into the sea. He stripped, with some difficulty prying himself out of the tight leather trousers, and tossed trousers, jacket, shirt, and cloak to one side. All were unbelievably foul, soaked through, matted, dried, and stiff in spots. A bucket stood beside the trough. He filled it and dumped it over his head, filled and dumped, filled and dumped, until he was soaking. Using handfuls of the bran, he scrubbed himself, working quickly, finding all the worst layers of grime. After, caught by a sense of impending doom, he dressed in the simple shirt and knee-length jacket provided, draped and tied into place with a sash. She did not once turn to look, although he had wondered if she would. He crossed to the cistern, took down the drinking ladle from its hook, dipped, sipped, and hung it back.

“Ready,” he murmured.

“This way.”

He followed her into the warehouse, whose walls in this darkness he could not perceive. If folk slept here, he did not hear or see them.