The Sleeping Life (Eferum Book 2) (27 page)

"You're being very obliging," she said at last. "But if you imagine I'll release you, prepare for disappointment."

"No?" Prince Helecho didn't look perturbed, perhaps simply didn't believe her. "And yet I heard you were liable to collapse after even a little casting. Do you think you can bring the shield about this place down? I had trouble even detecting the pattern of the thing, at first, though I've had plenty of time to make a study of it since. What will you do when the need to rest overwhelms you? Even now you've stood in place for too long."

Rennyn moved, not bothering to glance down to see the cause of the faint tension and release, though noting that the roots did not hurt until you pulled them away. She looked instead at the ceiling. Was there a shield there? There was certainly something, but it was hard to distinguish it from the hum of the vines. And then she shook her head, not denying her Wicked Uncle's point, but emphasising the only decision she could make.

"You're a killer. A true monster. I won't exchange my life for the lives of however many people you might attack in the future. By any measure of common good sense, I should cut your throat now."

He laughed. It was a tired sound, but held a note of genuine amusement. "You won't do that."

"No," she agreed. "Not being a killer—at least not of someone so defenceless. But nor am I going to release you."

"Giving up? How dull."

Rennyn had expected desperate anger, even pleading, but he seemed almost unmoved, studying her flatly. She felt that his gaze dwelt on her throat, on the scar he had left there, but she refused to allow herself to hide it.

"Here is a question for you, then," he said at last. "What is the goal of this place? Are all these humans in the walls still people, or just hanging sacks of meat? How many more will it take? And who might join you, beneath the leaves?"

The strongest of mages. Would Sebastian's distance protect him? And what of the Sentene mages, certainly within reach at Aurai's Rest? Sukata and Sarana, Lieutenant Meniar: were any of them as strong as those already taken?

But that did not alter the simple fact that exchanging one threat for another was not a solution. Whatever she did, it could not involve leaving her Wicked Uncle free to kill.

Without his help, however, escape was unlikely if there really was a shield about the whole of the building. She did not currently have the strength to overcome one by sheer force, and even if she could, she would almost certainly collapse immediately after bringing it down.

"Do you still have my focus?"

"Feel free to search me."

Rennyn chose not to notice the smirk, answering her own question by seeking the echo that would betray the near presence of her focus. Nothing. But it could be in the building, reachable without needing to pass through this supposed shield. Once she had it…well, she could be truly destructive, perhaps enough to at least ensure that this place could steal no more mages. That would mean sacrificing the current captives...would it be better to attempt rescue? Pulling one of them off the wall without killing them—without alerting the guards—might be the larger challenge.

Her other option was to learn as much as she could before she was pinned to a wall, and then hope that she could somehow be found, and that whatever those vines were doing to the captive mages really could be reversed. Illidian would not spare a moment in searching, of course, and she could not let herself think about how he would be feeling now, about the poor timing of their last conversation.

She gazed around at leaf litter and vine, pushing herself past unpleasant obstacles, searching for practical measures, a way to maximise her chances. Then she crossed to where she had originally fallen, and picked up the largest piece of glass.

"What's this?" her Wicked Uncle asked. "Have you found some dramatic and unexpected solution?"

"You could say that", Rennyn replied, advancing on him. "I'm going to take out your teeth."

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

For the first time in her experience of him, Rennyn's Wicked Uncle looked disconcerted, his gaze fixing on the glass in her hand. But then an eyebrow quirked, and his features relaxed as he decided she could not mean her words in their most literal sense. The mocking expression he produced after that was deliberately assembled, an assumption of unassailable calm entirely familiar to Rennyn. He shared one of her weaknesses: pride.

"You think you can control me?" he said. "Well, I suppose you've already demonstrated your taste for very obedient men."

Ignoring this jab, Rennyn stopped in the nearest beam of sunlight and held up the piece of blood-smeared glass so that it glittered. The power-sapping vines were a factor she could not compensate for, only hope that they would not weaken the casting of someone they weren't actually attached to.

"You're not going to give me the option to choose death over chains?"

Rennyn did not lower the piece of glass, turning it to find the angle that would capture the most light.

"Those are the only two options," she said. "I can't leave the problem of you for someone else to deal with. Though if death really is your preference, let me know now before I waste energy casting."

"And then collapse into a self-righteous heap?"

"I'll have to take that chance. If I manage to stay awake, what will I need to do to get you off that wall?"

This time his smile was cold, and not at all pleased. "After you've served me revenge flavoured with hypocrisy and collected another dog at your heel playing protector?"

She had found the brightest point of sunlight, and held the piece of glass motionless as she surveyed her distant uncle. "I'm defanging you, not making you into a pet. What you tried with me—let alone the situation I'm in with the Kellian—are nothing I wish to repeat. Your choice is to be killed, or to never kill. Which is it?"

His face, the only part of him he seemed able to move, went very still: a statue of a starving man, covered in ivy. This was not a small decision: Eferum-Get were killers at their very core, hungry for the lives of others. Being bound against killing would diminish him, force him to adapt to the living world, if a month bound to a wall in this sunlit room had not already done so.

It seemed silence was to be the whole of her Wicked Uncle's answer. Sunlight shimmered as Rennyn began to draw power. Only a Symbolic casting had any chance of producing a binding he could not break—especially with her limited energy stores. There was little enough at hand that she could choose to represent her intent, but what she wanted was simple enough.

The shard of glass was hot between her fingers as she lifted it and drew it across the scar that she hated, and could not erase. A representation not just of death, but of blood, and all the pain, the multiple injuries her Wicked Uncle had dealt her. Then she stepped forward, and cut his throat.

oOo

"Well, at least you didn't fall over."

Rennyn, leaning temporarily against the nearest wall, didn't look at him. Her body was already crying for sleep, and it seemed particularly cruel to be in a place where she could not risk sitting down. She was at least fairly certain that the casting had taken, despite the presence of those vines. She had chosen "do no harm" rather than "do not kill", weakening the injunction by broadening it, but given her Wicked Uncle's apparent enjoyment of inflicting pain, it would not have been enough to bind him only from death.

"How much damage will taking you off that wall do?" she asked, forcing herself to shift a few feet. "Are you going to start dying if I get you down?"

"I shouldn't think so. I don't need to breathe."

Rennyn blinked, and glanced at the nearest unconscious mage. "It's in your lungs?"

"That seems the major focus of the infestation. From this angle. Are you ready to leave now? Am I sufficiently diminished?"

His voice was dry, all hint of his reaction to her casting locked under a surface layer of sarcasm. The diagonal slash she'd made across his throat had already healed, leaving a thin white line. Her own neck stung, not so easily mended, though at least she'd managed only a shallow wound.

"I get you down, you get me outside this shield?"

"That's the idea. Or do you feel a need for another layer or two of injunctions?"

"I don't have the energy for that. I shall have to discover the value of your word."

He made a noise she did not mistake for laughter. "This is going to be educational for both of us, then."

She surveyed him flatly. "I presume you have some semblance of a plan."

"A sketch. The guards are the problem. When you get me down, they will come. I won't be able to move immediately, and you have as much chance of fighting them as of developing a sense of humour. You need to get me off the wall, then hobble to where they put you up, and look suitably bag-like until they're gone. If they follow the previous pattern they'll knock me out and string me back up. Get me down again, before the infestation is re-established."

"How intelligent are these guards?"

"Well, they've not treated me to any sparkling repartee. Functional."

Few constructs—golems—were as capable of decision-making as the Kellian: one of the reasons constructs were not in more common use. They would not necessarily make a connection between her introduction to the room, and a near-escape of an older captive. But they might check her.

"I am very tired of limited options," Rennyn said, and pulled away from the white strands that were reaching to bind her to the wall.

Blocking out distaste, she first approached the problem of freeing her Wicked Uncle by moving anything not firmly stuck to him. Then she studied the major points of connection, the sections she would have to pull aside when she switched to fast movement. And that could not begin until she had dealt with those two thick spikes into the back.

She could not pull him forward as far as the woman, and barely managed to crane up far enough to catch a glimpse and confirm the spikes were there. Her legs trembled, and she moved away a few feet to break the ever-eager roots that had taken the opportunity to fasten to her ankles.

"One chance," her Wicked Uncle murmured. "And you are not filling me with confidence."

Leaning against the wall, Rennyn took slow deep breaths in preparation and reflected that, if she failed, she at least would not have to listen to him. It was bad enough that she was going to have to touch him. Best to do that without looking at his face.

Gripping her useful piece of glass, she wished she could trade it for intact feet, and started forward.

The narrow gap between his back and the wall would only just fit her hand. Rennyn felt for the first of the spikes, plotted once again every move necessary, and then sawed. Her main fear had been that the spikes would be too tough, tree roots in comparison to the tendrils, but the first parted like butter, surprising her into nearly jerking back. She cut her palm in her effort to keep hold of the glass, then poked the shard wildly to where the second spike was barely within her reach. There...no. She jabbed again, urgently.

Her Wicked Uncle sagged several inches, and she dropped the glass, tearing at the vines that crossed his chest, lifting the largest above his head. Then she pulled his arms inward, as if she were trying to remove a shirt. When most of his upper body was exposed, she grasped him by the shoulders and used her weight to drag him forward.

Numb feet stole her balance and she fell, thumping down onto her back. Her Wicked Uncle had sprawled face down, no longer attached, though bleeding from a cut across his back between the stubs of the two spikes. He was only inches short of the nearest beam of sunlight, but did not so much as twitch—or sizzle.

The thought of getting up again was almost unbearable. Rennyn groaned, and compromised by twisting onto to her hands and knees. She had to move. Move!

The weight of the stone door worked in her favour. A low grating noise gave her bare warning, and she flung herself upright, well short of her original position, but at least in a patch without other occupants, where she could twine her arms through vine. Trying to control her breathing, she dropped her head, closed her eyes, and went limp.

Rustling. Rennyn's shoulders tensed, and she worked on relaxing them, on being unconscious and uninteresting and nothing that needed attending to. This was not the kind of thing she was good at: she had too much curiosity, and was far from a natural actress. But, though the faint noises scraped along her nerves, she would not risk even a glance to see what she was up against.

More than one. They were not loud, these glass guards, but she was able to track their swift progress across the room to where her Wicked Uncle lay. A faint Efera discharge followed, accompanied by a muted grunt, as if someone had been struck hard enough to hurt. And then…yes, they were lifting him now, the noise increasing, leaves shaking.

Something touched her head. Rennyn did not flinch, not quite, but she could not help clenching her jaw and screwing her eyes more tightly closed. The touch came again, cool against her cheek, and then multiple…fingers lifted her.

The way she stiffened would be obvious to any half-competent observer, but the guards simply raised her higher on the wall, tucking more of the vines around her. And then the contact was gone.

They could not be overly intelligent. Almost, Rennyn risked a slit-lidded glance as the faint sounds suggested movement toward the door, but she held the impulse back, waiting for the grating that signalled the door had been closed.

It did not come.

Had they all gone, and simply left the door open? Or had one remained, suspicious, watching? Rennyn breathed. She would count to ten. Ten breaths.

Twenty breaths.

Thirty.

She pictured a thousand tiny roots sprouting, everywhere the vines touched her. Imagined something pressing into her back, below the shoulder blades. One or the other would paralyse her.