The Magicians and Mrs. Quent (67 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

E
LDYN SET DOWN the broadsheet—the latest issue of
The Messenger
—and knew that, for the moment, they were safe.

“I want to go out,” Sashie said.

She paced before the door, turning every few steps, for the room was cramped. Eldyn had not chosen this inn for its comforts but rather for its paucity of windows and their narrow breadth—insufficient for even a slender young woman to pass through.

“Come and have an orange,” he said, taking a pair of fruits from his coat pocket. “I bought them for you. I know how much you like them. They came all the way from across the sea.” He held out one of the oranges.

“I can’t breathe in here!” she cried, twisting her hair around a finger. “There’s no air. I’ll go mad if I can’t go out, I swear it!”

She grabbed the door handle and tried to open it, but the door did not budge. Eldyn had locked it from within, and he kept the key on a chain around his neck. At first he had kept it in his pocket, until he woke one night to discover her trying to pilfer it.

Now she came to him and flung herself on her knees by his chair. “Please, dear brother. Please, you must let me go out. I can’t bear it in here any longer. I’m suffocating.” She turned large, pleading eyes up to him. “I only want to see the sun, to feel the wind on my face. Just for a moment, that’s all. I’ll perish if I don’t.”

She
did
look wan and faded. All the same, he shook his head. “You know that’s impossible, dearest. You can’t leave. Not until I am certain you understand—not until I can trust you to do what’s right.”

“You can trust me, dear brother.” She rested her cheek against his leg. “I will do what you say. You must believe me.”

He set down the orange and stroked her head. “I want to believe you, Sashie. I truly do. And I know you want to do what’s best.”

“Then you’ll let me go outside?” She raised her head, her eyes wide and unblinking.

Eldyn sighed, then shook his head. “No, dearest.”

At once her eyes narrowed, and her fingers dug into his leg. “I hate you!” she hissed, and leaped to her feet. “I hate you more than I ever hated Father! At least
he
didn’t hold me prisoner.”

She snatched up one of the oranges, then sulked to the little alcove that served as her bedchamber and jerked the curtain shut. Eldyn did not go to her; it was better she stayed in there, away from the one grimy window. Again he picked up the broadsheet, and for the first time in the days since they had fled the apartment over the shoemaker’s shop, he smiled.

“Even
he
can’t be in two places at once,” he said.

Earlier, he had dared to venture out to buy the oranges, hoping to cheer Sashie with them. On his way back to the inn he had passed a boy selling broadsheets, and a notice on the front page had caught his eye: H
IGHWAYMAN
M
AKES
O
FF
W
ITH
M
URGHESE
G
OLD
. Eldyn had read the first lines of the story, and when the boy complained that only the large print was free, he paid his penny and took the broadsheet back to the inn.

According to the article, the gold—a thousand crescents marked with the seven stars of the empire—had been on its way to a magnate in one of the western counties and represented the handsome profits from a trading venture. The shipment was heavily guarded, but one of the guards had been in a conspiracy with the highwayman. When the thief accosted the shipment, the guard turned on his fellows. One of the guards was shot dead, and the others were bound with rope while the highwayman and his accomplice made off with the Murghese gold.

In the fray, a bullet grazed the highwayman’s head, knocking off his hat and sending his mask askew. While none of the guards got a good look at his face, enough was seen to be able to offer a general description of the highwayman: he was youngish, tall, and broad-shouldered, with hair as gold as the coins he stole. The thieves were last seen riding west and were certainly on their way to Torland with their ill-gotten fortune. That the gold would find its way into the hands of would-be rebels was a certainty.

The incident had happened only two days ago. Again Eldyn calculated the possibilities. Even if Westen (and there was no doubt in his mind that he was the highwayman in the story) rode as hard as possible to Torland, handed off the stolen gold, and came back by the swiftest coach, it would still be eighty hours at the earliest before he could return to Invarel. Which meant it did not matter if Sashie showed herself in front of the window. And which also meant they had time to make their escape.

They would book passage on a ship down the river, to County Caerdun in the very south of Altania. They could begin their life anew, far from Invarel—far from anyone that knew who they were. True, he did not quite know how they would live when they arrived in Caerdun. He had little more than the money to pay for their passage and no time to earn more before they left.

Not that he would still have a job if he were to return to Sadent, Mornden, & Bayle. There was no point in going back to the trading company. When he did not show up several days ago, his chair would have been given to the next man waiting in line for a job. He hoped Chubbs was well and avoiding Whackskuller’s baton.

He felt a momentary pang when he thought that he would never again see Chubbs, or his old college companions, or (with an even greater pang) the theaters on Durrow Street, but it was the only way they could be safe from Westen. It was the only way they could be free.

Hardest to bear was the thought of not seeing Rafferdy again. While they had seen each other little of late, the thought of being so far away from his only true friend was painful. However, there was no choice. He would write to Rafferdy and tell him only that he was going away; he would not say where, for fear Westen might try to extort such information out of him. And perhaps someday, when Eldyn knew it was safe at last, he would be able to return to Invarel and tell Rafferdy all about it over a cup of punch.

He picked up his orange, turning it over in his hand, marveling that it had come so far from the place it grew, on a ship all the way from some sun-drenched orchard in the Principalities across the sea, on the eastern edge of the empire. He peeled the orange and ate it, savoring its sweetness. Then he left the chamber, locking the door behind him, and went to book passage for himself and his sister on a ship of their own.

T
HE DOCKYARDS WERE down in Waterside, and since the weather was fair (and since he wasn’t certain exactly how much passage on a ship down the river would cost), Eldyn forwent a hack cab and walked instead. The night had been short, the lumenal was to be longish, and the air was already growing sultry. As he walked in the sunlight, he could imagine he was already basking in the gentle climes of southern Altania, beginning his new life there.

Perhaps it was thinking of the future that made him nostalgic for the past. Besides, he was walking through Waterside already, and it was hardly out of his way. He turned down a narrow lane and walked past the fuller’s and the brewery. Then he rounded a corner, and the Golden Loom came into view.

The inn looked drabber than he remembered. Had Mr. Walpert’s health taken a turn for the worse so he could no longer keep the place up? No—it was only that Eldyn’s memories of the place were overly kind. For a time, he and Sashie had been happy there. After what they had endured of late, it was no wonder seeing the Golden Loom filled him with fond thoughts. But far gladder times lay ahead of them, in Caerdun in the south. Besides, his thoughts would not be nearly so fond if Miss Delina Walpert were to come out the door and see him there! Eldyn hurried on, giving the inn a wide berth.

Just ahead, on the other side of the street, a tall figure appeared from around a corner.

The capacity to move, to breathe, fled Eldyn. The soles of his boots adhered to the cobblestones of the street. It could not be that he was here. He was in Torland, gloating over his ill-gotten gold. That was what the story in
The Messenger
had said.

Westen walked toward the Golden Loom on long legs, his boots and the brass buttons on his coat gleaming in the sun, his gold hair loose about his shoulders. He moved not furtively like a criminal but like a lord in his own land. A few more strides and he would be even with Eldyn. All he had to do was turn his head just a little to the left. The street was neither wide nor crowded, and nothing would hide Eldyn from the highwayman’s gaze.

Even if he could have moved, Eldyn dared not for fear the motion would attract attention. Westen reached the door of the inn. He started to open it—he was going to go inside.

The highwayman paused. Perhaps it was some feral, robber’s instinct that let him know he was being observed. He stepped back from the door, then turned around.

Night fell.

The sun was extinguished in an instant, but there was no moon, no stars, no streetlamps or glowing candlelit windows. All was black as the Abyss. Eldyn staggered, hands groping before him. Had fear struck him blind?

A hand fell on his shoulder. “This way,” spoke a voice in his ear.

He was aware of a slender silvery shape beside him.

“Quickly now, follow me,” the voice said.

Who or what the silvery figure was, Eldyn did not know, only that it was not Westen. The shimmering form held out a hand. He grasped it in his own, then lurched after the other as he was led through darkness.

Eldyn felt them turn left and right, and several times his boots caught on something rough and hard, but each time the silvery figure kept a grip on him and pulled him onward. At last he could run no further. He staggered to a halt, his sweating hand slipping from the other that grasped it.

“It’s all right,” the voice said. “I think we’ve gone far enough.”

A silvery hand moved, and the sun appeared, burning the darkness away in an instant. The light dazzled Eldyn’s eyes so that for a minute he was as blinded as he had been in the preternatural dark. At last he blinked the tears away, and he saw the Lowgate just ahead up the street. They had come farther than he thought, to the edge of the Old City.

“Are you well?” said the voice beside him.

He turned and saw that his companion was not some shimmering wraith but rather a young man in a black coat. He was of a height and age with Eldyn, but light where Eldyn was dark. His eyes were sea-colored, and his hair was bound with a red ribbon behind his neck. His features were fine, but a squared-off jaw, pronounced brows, and a short blond beard lent him a manly look.

“So that’s who you’ve been running away from,” he said.

Eldyn shook his head, still trying to understand what had just happened. “What did you say?”

“I know you’ve been on the sly. Moving out of your apartment so quickly, the way you’re always casting glances over your shoulder. By the look on your face when that tall fellow came into view, I can only guess he’s the one you’ve been trying to avoid. Bad luck to run right into him, wasn’t it?”

Eldyn frowned. “How do you know all that?”

The young man gave a sheepish grin, then chewed his lip.

“Have you been following me?” A fresh dread came over Eldyn. “By God, are you in league with him?”

The other laughed. “Would I have helped you escape from him if that were the case?”

Eldyn was forced to admit he had a point. But if the other had helped him to escape, how had it been done? It was as if the shadows that usually cowered from the sun by day, in corners and beneath grates, had crept out to cloak them….

The bright light burned the last of the gloom from Eldyn’s brain. It had been an illusion, of course. He looked again at the young man and realized it was not the first time he had seen him. The beard was a new affectation, but otherwise he looked just as he had that night on Durrow Street, outside the Theater of the Moon.

Only it wasn’t just outside the theater Eldyn had seen him, was it? He thought of the silvery form he had glimpsed in the darkness.