The Tainted City (54 page)

Sechaveh smiled thinly. “I know her skill; I will grant your request, gladly. I warn you, though—if Lizaveta claims to find evidence implicating Alathians other than Talmaddis, I will want it corroborated by my own mages.”

“Yes,” Ruslan said, without hesitation. The savage anticipation in his eyes turned my stomach.

Sechaveh clapped his hands once and stood. “Summon Lizaveta, then. She can ward an interrogation chamber and prepare defenses against the Alathians, in case Martennan balks. I will send a message to the embassy the moment she is ready. The sooner we have Talmaddis in hand, the better.” He waved a hand at Edon. “Release him from the spell.”

Edon knelt and removed the sapphire. The sand faded back into its old greenish color. I stepped out of the circles, gingerly.

“I want to see Melly,” I said.

Sechaveh snapped his fingers at a guardsman. “Take him to the child. He may remain with her until the Alathians come.” He surveyed me again, with proprietary satisfaction. “A good bargain, Devan
na soliin.
I regret the loss of Pello…I own few shadow men that are his equal. But you show some promise.”

I nodded as steadily as I could, not wanting him to see how I flinched at his talk of ownership. I thought I’d left that behind me when Jylla and I killed Tavian. But Melly and Cara’s lives were worth far more than my freedom.

* * *

I paced between walls of blue-veined marble, ignoring the guards bracketing the warded door. They’d taken me from Melly’s side only moments ago, saying the Alathians had come, and I was to wait here for Sechaveh and Martennan. The room was yet another of the tower’s waiting chambers; this one was barren of furniture, though shelves cut into the marble held magelights cupped within bone sculptures carved to look like rose briars.

Thank Khalmet, I’d found Melly unharmed upon my return from the audience chamber. A silent servant had brought us food—bowls of delicately spiced meats, accompanied by cinnamon-glazed rasheil nuts and goblets of rosewater. The guards had even given me skin-seal and scouring charms, let me scrub the worst of the grime from myself and tend to my wounds. Melly had helped, with deft fingers. Liana made sure all her Tainters knew how to tend injuries, after difficult jobs.

Afterward, Melly had been droop-eyed and yawning fit to split her jaw. Dawn wasn’t far away; at this hour, she was usually sleeping curled in a heap of her denmates. I was tired too, but nerves kept me as jittery as if I’d eaten a whole jar of Avakra-dan’s beetles.

Especially now. I had to make Marten believe me. But I’d seen his love for Talm. Even if I spoke under truth spell, would he refuse to hand Talm over for interrogation?

Footsteps in the hallway outside, and voices. The wards flashed a brilliant blue, and the guards swung the door open.

Sechaveh strode in. Despite his seamed face and silver hair, he moved with the energy of a far younger man. He murmured to me, “Lizaveta and Edon have the Alathians in hand. Martennan comes now, with Ruslan.”

Marten entered, talking over his shoulder. “I don’t see why we could not—” He saw me and stopped dead.

“Dev?” He stared like he thought I might be an illusionist’s charm-vision. “Talm said you were dead…”

“Strange, isn’t it?” I said. Behind him, the guards shut the door, and Ruslan swept a hand over the wards. “Let me guess. Talm told you he’d seen me and Pello crushed to jelly, that he knew us dead despite Pello’s veiling. He came up with some excuse why he hadn’t saved us…maybe that he tried, but there was too much rubble to stop it all.”

The dawning wariness in Marten’s eyes told me I’d guessed right. I said, “Talm’s betrayed you, Marten. He watched that rubble bury us without even trying a spell. Before Pello bled out from his injuries, he told me Talm had been working with the mage-killer for months now. It was Talm who caught Pello in Alathia and gave him over to the mage-killer to use.”

“No.” Marten’s denial was sharp. “Talm would never betray his oaths to the Council. Pello lied to you.”

“I’m not just accusing him on Pello’s word,” I said. “After Bren, and Avakra-dan, I suspected you had a traitor at the embassy. I just wasn’t sure who it was…not until Talm stood there without lifting a hand while a wall collapsed on us.”

Marten turned on Ruslan. “If this is some new scheme of yours against us, I warn you, I will not fall for it. You hold the child Melly’s blood-mark. I know Dev would do anything, say anything, to protect her.”

Sechaveh said, “Devan
na soliin
is not lying, Captain. He testified under truth spell—a spell cast by one of my own mages, I might add, and not Ruslan. The spell confirmed all he is telling you.”

Marten shook his head. “Truth spells confirm only what a man believes to be true. If Ruslan altered his memories, replaced them with false ones—”

“I could not alter his memories without casting on him and breaking my vow,” Ruslan said.

“Lizaveta, then!” Marten snapped. “She could cast, and you know it!”

For an instant, doubt assailed me. How
would
I know if Lizaveta had fucked with my head? No. If Ruslan had planned this, he’d have set me up to implicate all the Alathians, not just Talm.

That said, I knew how to be sure—and how I might convince Marten. I just wished the idea didn’t make my skin crawl.

“Marten. You want to see if anyone’s been in my head? Come look. See for yourself that I’m telling the truth.”

“Mages of the Watch are forbidden from mind magic without the express permission of the Council,” Marten said tightly.

Ruslan shifted, sudden fury flaring in his eyes. He’d just realized I’d lied about the Alathians’ supposed binding. I allowed myself a small, humorless grin.

“Yeah, but Lena told me you can dodge that rule if someone willingly allows you into their mind. So…I’m inviting you, and I swear I say it of my own free will. I want the killer stopped, and you need to understand that Talm is the key to that.”

Sechaveh said, “Let me be clear, Captain. We
will
interrogate Talmaddis. Your team is in the heart of my power, here in Kelante. You will not escape, and if you fight, you will lose. At which point I must imprison and interrogate you all. But young Devan has argued that you are a valuable asset in the fight against my true opponent. I have seen for myself you are a clever man, Captain. Use that cleverness now, and do not force me to treat you as an enemy.”

Marten said to me, abrupt and clipped, “I would see your mind.”

I offered him my wrist, and flinched when he took it. Smothering pressure in my head, an alien presence sliding through me—I wanted him out,
out
—

Forgive the discomfort,
said Marten.
I don’t have a blood mage’s skill in this. But I must see…
Memory swallowed me. Rocks raining down, Pello shouting and snatching at his barrier charm, Talm watching impassively…then Pello’s hoarse voice in the darkness, damning Talm further with every strained sentence.

Memory vanished, leaving me blinking. Marten took one staggering step back and splayed a hand against the wall. The look on his face was that of a man gutted.

Vicious triumph lit Ruslan’s eyes. My mouth tasted of ashes. I’d wanted to see Marten suffer. Prayed for it, even. Yet now all I could think of was that terrible moment when I’d realized Jylla’s betrayal. How I’d felt I couldn’t get any air, my heart frozen mid-beat, the pain so sharp I’d expected to look down and see my chest slashed open.

Marten pulled himself together far more quickly than I had. He straightened, his face freezing into utterly blank formality. “I agree Talmaddis must be questioned,” he said to Sechaveh. “But do not leap to condemn him until we have heard his answers. There may be another explanation for his actions.”

How he must pray for it.
Tell me I’m hallucinating, that I’m lost in some taphtha vision,
I’d begged Jylla, before rage took hold.
Tell me the last ten years weren’t a lie, that you didn’t just knife me in the back like I was some mark who means nothing!

Sechaveh said, “If Talmaddis cooperates, he will not be harmed until his guilt is proven. But I must be certain we learn the truth. Lizaveta will search his mind. I’m told that memories cannot be properly read without the mage under interrogation remaining conscious; she has the skill and power to keep him that way while she destroys his defenses.”

“Lizaveta is far from impartial!” Marten stopped; took a breath, and lowered his voice. “What guarantee do you have that
she
will tell the truth of what she finds? Far more likely, she will claim all my team complicit, in service to Ruslan’s desire for revenge.”

Ruslan said smoothly, “Captain, if you fear Lizaveta’s honesty…then all you need do is link minds with Talmaddis when she does, and observe as she casts. You will see all that she finds, even as she finds it.”

What a sick, clever bastard.
You want to be certain we don’t condemn the rest of your team without cause? Then you’ve got to experience your lover’s pain while we rip his mind apart.

Marten’s face was gray. “Very well.”

Sechaveh said, “You understand, we cannot risk giving Talmaddis warning. Lizaveta provided a charm that can send him unconscious and allow us to imprison him within her wards, but the charm must contact his skin before she triggers it. You can get close to him without suspicion. Take the charm, go call him out of the audience chamber, and touch him with it—she’ll do the rest.” He held out a thin disc of onyx chased with silver.

For long heartbeats, Marten didn’t move. At last his hand rose to take the charm. “Give me the chance to speak with him before Lizaveta examines his mind, and I will do this.”

“You may speak, but not privately,” Sechaveh said.

“I understand.” Marten glanced at me. “I wish Dev to be present when Talmaddis awakens, so I may see Talmaddis’s reaction to Dev’s survival.”

His eyes said something different.
You were the one to accuse him. You face the result.

I didn’t relish the prospect. Not because of any sympathy for Talm—hell, he’d tried to kill me twice over—but because I didn’t want to watch Ruslan rejoice in Marten’s pain.

Damn it, it didn’t matter if the taste of revenge wasn’t to my liking. If Talm gave us the killer, I could stomach even Ruslan’s triumph.

Chapter Twenty-Two

(Dev)

I
shuffled after Edon and Ruslan into a magelit cell deep in Kelante Tower. Talm lay spreadeagled and unconscious on the rough stone floor. Manacles of sigil-marked silver bound his wrists and ankles, and freshly-laid ward lines coated every inch of the cell’s walls. More lines were etched into the floor around Talm’s body, but unlike the silver wards on the walls, these glowed the sullen red of banked coals. Marten and Lizaveta waited beside the glowing lines. Lizaveta had an air of calm anticipation; Marten’s round face was armored and blank.

Already, I felt queasy. The whole scene reminded me horribly of Kiran in Simon’s cave. Especially when Lizaveta knelt beside Talm, a bared blade in her hand. She’d pinned up her mass of black hair, but she still wore the same rich gown.

“I will release my charm’s spell,” she told Marten. “You may speak with him so long as he does not attempt to cast against his bonds or otherwise resist. If he does, I will not wait to begin breaking his inner defenses.”

Marten nodded without a hint of emotion. After Talm’s arrest, Stevan and Lena had willingly allowed Marten to search their memories. He’d proclaimed them free of guilt, unable to hide his relief. I’d been nearly as glad to hear it, hardly able to believe I hadn’t fucked up after all in trusting Lena. Sechaveh wasn’t yet convinced—he’d ordered Stevan and Lena held in a separate warded room until Talm’s interrogation was complete, saying he wanted further corroboration of their innocence from Talm.

Sechaveh himself had declined to attend the questioning, sending Edon in his stead. He claimed pressing matters related to Julisi’s destruction needed his attention. I suspected the old bastard was simply too cautious to enter a cell holding an enemy mage, even with Ruslan, Edon, and Lizaveta there to protect him.

I hovered as close to the cell door as I dared, not wanting to get anywhere near those glowing lines. Edon folded his arms and watched Lizaveta with dispassionate interest. Ruslan wore a small, eager smile, his gaze locked on Marten. I looked away, my nausea growing.

Lizaveta laid a hand on Talm’s forehead. Talm jerked against the manacles, his eyes flying open. His gaze shied off Marten to land on me.

His olive skin went sallow. He slumped in his bonds and said in weary resignation, “I should have let you fall at the mine.”

He wasn’t even going to pretend innocence? Genuinely curious, I asked, “Why didn’t you?”

“I didn’t know then that Marten would be tasked with investigating in Ninavel, and seek your help. I’ve no quarrel with you, Dev—I’m sorry you got caught up in this.”

He was looking at me as earnestly as Kiran might have. I snorted. “What a comfort, to know your attempts to kill me were nothing personal.”

Marten’s back had gone so rigid it hurt mine to see it. “Lieutenant Talmaddis, you are accused of—”

“I can guess what I’m accused of,” Talm said. “Did Pello survive along with Dev?”

“Yes,” Marten said. “He told us you captured him in Alathia and hid him from the Watch; that you have been working with our enemy.”

Talm’s gaze snagged on Lizaveta’s knife, and his throat moved in a hard swallow. “Let me save you some time, Marten. What Pello told you is true. I’ve done all I can to aid Ninavel’s enemy.” Despite his measured tone, sweat sheened his brow.

Lizaveta smiled and traced a finger along her blade. Marten shut his eyes. His voice remained tightly controlled. “Why, Talmaddis? Were you coerced?”

I expected Talm to leap on that opening. Instead he laughed, a jagged, painful sound. “No. This was my choice. I saw the chance to gain everything you and I have worked for, and I couldn’t pass it by. Don’t you see? So long as Ninavel endures, with its confluence drawing unprincipled mages in droves and Sechaveh granting them free rein, the Council will never relax their policies. But with the confluence and Sechaveh destroyed, the Council will be freed to look beyond fear. Restrictions on magic eased, the conscription laws repealed, future generations of Alathia’s mages given actual choice in their lives…think of it, Marten! Alathia can have the future we’ve fought so hard for.”