The Element of Fire (34 page)

Lucas said, "Send someone else, Thomas. Or I'll go."

"No, it's a fool's mission. I'm not Roland, to send someone off to die on an idiot whim." Thomas glanced around. The argument, though low voiced, was attracting the attention of the city guards who were loitering in the stable and of Lord Aviler himself, who was watching from the narrow second-floor balcony where an arched door led into the rest of the house.

Lucas noticed and made a concentrated effort to appear calm. "You're going alone?" he asked.

Thomas found himself curiously reluctant, as if he were admitting to something. "No, Kade is coming with me."

Lucas winced.

"She's a sorceress, and she can get me back in without a fight."

"I know, I know." Lucas hesitated. He looked toward the other men who were saddling the horses, or waiting half-nervously and half-impatiently for them to get on with it. "She could do it by herself. You don't need to go with her."

Thomas shook his head. "She's not invincible, she only thinks she is."

"So do you." Lucas looked back at him, saying deliberately, "In your condition, you'd probably slow her down."

"Then it's no loss to anyone if I don't come back."

Thomas had spoken with more heat than he had intended, but Lucas seemed to realize that line of argument was not going to get him anywhere. He said, "I'll wait for you here."

"I need you to go with Falaise."

"Gideon can do that. He's not a fool; he'll get her there."

They were both silent a moment. Thomas didn't want to force the issue, not here, not now, and not with an audience. He said, "All right, then, but keep a couple of the men with you. And don't wait too long. If it takes more than a day, we'll have to hole up somewhere for the night, and this place may not be safe much longer. If something starts to happen, get out and ride like hell for the gates."

Lucas nodded distractedly, then without looking at him said, "You know that girl's half in love with you."

"Falaise will keep." Thomas looked over at the Queen, who sat her horse with a kind of delicate ease, a few ringlets escaping from her hood. "If anything, it will make things easier in the long run--"

"I'm not talking about Falaise." He hesitated. "You didn't see her when she thought you were dying. I did."

There was only one other "her" he could mean. Thomas said slowly, "Well, she's the excitable type."

"It was more than just that."

"You're mad," Thomas told him, but couldn't help thinking about a woman who chuckled wickedly to herself at odd moments and offered to kill people for him.

"I'm only telling you to watch yourself, that's all," Lucas said, his expression serious. "She's not exactly an ordinary woman."

"I realize that," Thomas said.
Believe me, I realize that.

"You think you do, but I've known you a long time and you've got a blind eye when it comes to this type of woman."

Thomas said, "Now I know you've gone mad," and turned and went back toward the others. Gideon was holding the bridle of Falaise's horse and looked up as he approached. Thomas said, "Do you think you can get her back to Roland without losing her somewhere along the way?"

The younger man's eyes lit up at the chance to redeem himself. "I'll get her there safely if I die for it."

"Don't die until she's out of the city."

Falaise leaned down and said, "Captain, remember what I said."

"I will, my lady," he answered, thinking,
Let's all survive the day at least before we start plotting again.

Kade was waiting beside the sorrel gelding Thomas had chosen for their outing. He had managed to get his buff coat back from her, and she was wearing instead a thick wool doublet that Berham had scavenged for her over about a dozen other layers of assorted clothing. She asked, "What was all that about?"

He checked the girth, then swung up into the saddle. "None of your concern."

"I'll wager it was."

He looked down at her. "Would you like to be left behind?"

"Not particularly," she answered brightly, dropping the matter with an insight that shouldn't have surprised him. She held up a hand and after a moment he leaned down and helped her climb up behind him. Two grooms opened the carriage doors, allowing in a wave of frigid air, and she said, "What a nice day this is, except for the prospects of being killed and freezing to death and all that."

Thomas, feeling the light pressure of her weight at his back, tried to avoid thinking about what Lucas had said.

He guided the horse out onto the street and waited until Gideon, Falaise, and the others had started on their way to the city gates, then turned back toward the palace. The sky was gray, almost the same color as the dingy snow piled deep in the streets, and the wind played roughly over the tops of the houses. He was reluctant to take the direct route they had used to escape, but the first side street he picked was blocked halfway down by rubble and a pile of collapsed scaffolding, some noble's building project that had not withstood the shock of the attack, let alone the test of time.

They backtracked, then cut through an alley to the next street. It was slow going, the horse picking its way through the knee-deep drifts with some difficulty. The town houses towering up on either side gradually gave way to the more dilapidated structures of the trading classes. The shingled roofs became wood instead of slate, the brick facades showed signs of wear, and ramshackle balconies overhung the street. It was hard to tell how much damage had been done here; the windows were tightly shuttered as if for night, and there was no sign of life. Thomas was keeping an eye on the tops of the buildings, and spotted the fay before it saw them only because he noted the unevenness in the spacing of the ornamental gargoyles atop the roof of an aging church. Kade said, "Wait," and he reined in, the horse sidling uneasily. The quality of the light around them changed as Kade covered them with illusion. They moved slowly on beneath the waiting presence, unnoticed.

They had ridden a short distance down the deserted street when Kade said suddenly, "I wonder why they did it."

"Who?"

"The Unseelie Court." He felt her shrug. "The Bisran document said they wanted souls to trade to Hell for their immortality, but that's nonsense. Not even the Host trades with Hell. Besides, you can't just send someone there; they have to go on their own. So what did Grandier give them?"

Once Thomas had known who Grandier was, the plot had started to peel away like the layers of an onion, but there was still much they didn't know. Grandier's motivation for helping Denzil for one; Thomas refused to believe Grandier was acting simply out of madness. "Maybe it isn't what he gave them, but what he's promised them. What would they want?"

"The only thing that stands against them is the Seelie Court. And iron wielded by humans."

"Destroying us isn't going to do anything to the Seelie Court, is it?"

"No, they don't care about anyone."

"So... They can't destroy our ability to make iron. No matter how badly they ravage the countryside, they can't get every blacksmith." He paused as an errant gust of freezing wind whipped down into the street, momentarily making breathing difficult, then continued, "Bisra will invade long before they can get around to that, and they'll have another iron-wielding army to deal with."

Kade sounded thoughtful. "Will the Bisrans come here?"

"No, they'll strike at Lodun. It's closer to their border, and they have to eliminate the sorcerers there before they advance any further. If they move fast, if our crown troops are still trying to retake this city, they just might succeed." Lodun had been a small town before the founding of the university. It had since outgrown its confining and protective walls and depended on the strength of the border garrisons for its defense against possible attack from their longtime enemy. With the capital in chaos and unable to send provisions or fresh troops, those garrisons could be swept away. "There are some powerful sorcerers there, but without troops to back them they can't hold off a large assault. The Bisrans would have to cross a countryside where there would be a peasant in every bush with a matchlock; but of course that wouldn't do more than delay them. They would finish us, then tear through Adera and Umberwald." It would be a long bloody war.

"Human sorcerers," Kade said suddenly.

"What?"

"I was wrong. The enemies of the Unseelie Court are the Seelie Court, iron, and human sorcerers."

"Which Lodun is well supplied with. Grandier could have told them that he would destroy Lodun. And he will. Bisra will do it for him." It was a neat bit of reasoning, but it didn't explain Denzil's position. Could he possibly be bargaining to be a puppet princeling under Bisra's domination? There wouldn't be anything left worth ruling; the Bisran Church would condemn as a heretic everyone from Lodun sorcerer-philosophers to the peasants who kept a sprig of rowan over their doorways. "Right now Grandier has us over a barrel. We're on the defensive, forced to react to whatever he chooses to do. If Bisra invaded again, we would have to forget an attempt to retake this city and use the troops to fortify Lodun and the border."

"But Grandier must hate Bisra, hate it worse than anything," Kade protested.

Thomas reined in. "There's something coming down the street."

Kade leaned around him. "I can't see it."

"It was near the ground."

The horse reared suddenly, and it took Thomas all his strength to wrestle it down. Kade slipped off and staggered in a high drift, and Thomas dismounted. He held onto the reins and tried to soothe the horse as the animal whinnied and jerked its head. Behind him Kade murmured a curse. He looked down and saw white mist rising out of the snow. It was no more than a foot or so above the ground, but it was becoming thick and solid with alarming speed.

The horse made a violent convulsive movement that nearly yanked Thomas off his feet; he let go of the reins to avoid being knocked down. The horse bolted awkwardly away, leaving a trail of blood in the snow. It was only able to make a short distance up the street before it staggered and collapsed, felled by whatever was rising out of the ground.

The nearest building, a three-story stone structure that seemed to be leaning slightly under the weight of the snow, had a staircase running up its side to the roof. Though it looked casually put together and was slippery with ice, it seemed a safe haven at the moment. Kade had already retired to a step above the rising mist, and Thomas quickly climbed after her.

"It's a boneless," Kade said. She was digging in the pockets in her smock and muttering to herself. Above her rough gloves, her wrists were dotted with blood where she had touched the ground to catch herself when she had stumbled. "This may be a problem. It doesn't have eyes to fool, and I don't have a spell that can hold it back, the way it oozes around obstacles."

Thomas said, "Go further up."

They climbed to the second floor and Thomas stopped to see what the creature would do. The mist had taken on a kind of half-solidity, becoming a white undulating form. On the step above him, Kade shifted impatiently.

It reached the stairway and hesitated. A white translucent tendril touched the bottom step, then it flowed onto it and began to climb after them. "I didn't know it could do that," Kade said, obviously taking the thing's action as a personal affront. Thomas gave her a push to get her started and they climbed up to the third floor.

The houses were so close together that the street might have been lined with one continuous structure. The garrets of one hung over the next roof, and the overhanging balconies were awkwardly shoved together. There was a slippery step down to a projection of ice-covered roof, then a brief scramble over the wooden rail to the next house's balcony. Kade climbed like a monkey.

They went that way down the street, balcony to balcony, taking to the icy roofs only when it was absolutely necessary. They were more exposed to the wind up here and the cold was intense. Thomas kept up a good pace, trying to ignore the aching wound in his leg.

They reached the end of the street, which opened into a square with the far side formed by the palace wall and the Postern Gate.

It was deadly quiet. Before the attack, this area had been a small marketplace, crowded with street vendors, musicians, pickpockets, and madmen proselytizing new cults. Now it looked as if it had been run over by a cavalry charge. The ramshackle stalls that had grown like spiderwebs between the pillars of the large countinghouse were smashed, and the statues atop the public fountain were broken off, their naked copper pipes leaking trails of ice.

The last house had partially collapsed, and the nearest stairway to the street level was blocked by wooden debris.

As Thomas wrested the heavy wooden boards aside, Kade said suddenly, "What are you going to do afterward?"

"After what?"

"After this is over."

He stopped and stared at her. She was holding onto the wooden railing and shivering with cold, and had put the question with the same puzzled intensity she had shown during their speculation over the Host's motives. He said, "Don't you think that question is a bit premature?"

"Would you accept Falaise's offer?" she persisted.