The Tenth Power (11 page)

Look there.
Halasaa pointed to a set of steps cut into the wall ahead.
They must lead to the Lazar-House.

‘I hope so,’Tonno grunted. ‘I’m a sea-man. I wasn’t meant to creep around underground like a rat.’

Halasaa smiled.
We won’t return this way. Darrow can open the
locks with chantment, and you and I will shield him from the touch of the
lazars. We are not chanters, the sickness cannot harm us. We will all walk
out together.

Tonno looked down at himself. He was spattered with muck, and his legs were caked with foul slime. Halasaa was even filthier. ‘I never walked the streets of any town, looking like this. And even after a turn of the moons at sea, I never smelled so bad.’

Steadying themselves against the slick, mossy wall, they scraped off as much dirt as they could then squelched up the steps.The door had been installed for the use of the sewer engineers; it was bolted on the inside, and obviously had not been opened for many years. With a mighty effort, Tonno forced the bolt and peered out into the Lazar-House.

As soon as the door swung open, they realised there was no need to be quiet, nor to worry what they smelled like. The place stank almost as much as the sewers, though the smell was different, a fetid waft of stale bed-linen and urine and musty air.Trouble-makers and sick chanters alike were dragged to the Lazar-House by the Protectors, and once imprisoned the lazars could earn greater comforts by acting as guards. There was no one to care for the ill, to change their sheets or strew sweet herbs.

Halasaa and Tonno had been expecting the hush of the sickroom or the grim silence of the dungeon, but the Lazar-House rang with shouts and groans. Somewhere nearby, a tin cup scraped against stone, while someone screamed ‘
Shut up!’
A tuneless song echoed through the corridors. There was a tramp of boots and a clatter of plates, and a handbell clanged while one of the guards bawled, ‘
Dinner!
You miserable worms, wriggle out and get yer dinner!’

Tonno touched the hilt of his knife. ‘Ready?’

Halasaa nodded, and they moved off down the corridor, leaving the door slightly ajar.

The Lazar-House was heavily fortified on the outside; the walls were made of thick stone, and the high windows were all barred. But every internal door gaped open, and the inmates wandered freely about the place. Listless men and women shambled down the corridors and slumped in doorways.

Halasaa spoke into Tonno’s mind.
Do not walk so straight, my
brother. You must try to look ill.

‘That’s not hard,’ muttered Tonno, queasy from the stench that clung to them.

Anyone who looked closely would have seen that their faces were not pale enough for lazars, especially Halasaa with his coppery skin, but they were filthy and bedraggled enough to blend in with the other inmates, and no one gave the pair more than a casual glance as they shuffled through the Lazar-House. The green and brown uniforms of the Protectors were nowhere to be seen.

‘Where’s Darrow, I wonder?’ muttered Tonno.

Halasaa grinned.
Why not ask?

Tonno snorted, then shrugged. ‘Why not?’ And he thrust his head around the nearest doorway.

A group of four men, wrapped in striped blankets, sat on dirty straw, playing clumsily at knucklebones. They glared at Tonno. ‘You want something?’

‘Prisoner called Darrow,’ growled Tonno, just as surly. ‘Know where we could find him?’

A man with thinning hair and a sly face like a weasel looked up with a faint spark of interest. ‘Darrow, the iron-crafter? What’s it worth?’

Tonno grimaced. Nothing in Gellan came without a price; they were prepared for this. ‘Two silver bits.’

‘Make it six, that might jog my memory.’

‘Four.’

The weaselly man shrugged, and Tonno handed over the silver pieces.

‘They got him gagged and guarded, up in Traitors’ Tower. That way – the tower in the south, overlooks the grave-pits. Where they keep the dangerous ones.You won’t get in
there
just by asking.’

Tonno began to thank him, then stopped. Instead he said, ‘If you want your freedom, there’s an open door to the sewers.’

The four men looked at one another. One of them chortled. ‘Freedom?What’s that worth?There ain’t nothing for the likes of us out there. In here they feed us and give us a dry place to die.’

‘Your friend know you’re coming for him?’ The weaselly man gave a ghoulish grin. ‘Maybe he’d rather stay here.’

‘He’s not sick,’ said Tonno through clenched teeth.

A sour-faced man chuckled. ‘Maybe he weren’t sick before. But I’ll bet you a gold bit he’s sick now.’

With one swift movement, Tonno jerked him to his feet. ‘Liar!’ he snarled.

Halasaa laid a hand onTonno’s arm.
Peace, my brother!The man
is ill.

Tonno gave the sour-faced man a shake, like a dog with a rat, then threw him aside. As he and Halasaa made their way down the stinking corridor, he said fiercely, ‘Darrow wouldn’t
let
himself get sick.’

Darrow is strong, and quick-minded. Do not fear for him.

Tonno grunted and they walked on. But both were more anxious for their friend than they were prepared to admit. ‘All these Gellanese are liars, curse them. Can’t trust a single one of em.’

There is good and bad inside every Gellanese, my brother, just as there is
inside every other person.

‘Every person? So there’s good inside Samis, is there, may his bones rot?’

Even Samis is not wholly evil. He wishes to unite Tremaris, and for the
lands to help each other. That is a wish we all share.

Tonno snorted.

A group of lazars were shuffling into a cramped dining hall where some kind of slop was being ladled out of vast cauldrons. Half a dozen Protectors in their green and brown skirt-coats, and some lazar-guards with chequered armbands, lounged against the walls, looking bored and yelling abuse. One of them glanced up asTonno and Halasaa passed the doorway. His eyes met Halasaa’s.The man stared at him, unblinking, then his eyes flickered away, as though he was willing them to disappear.

Strange
, mused Halasaa, as he hurried afterTonno.
He seemed
to know us, and yet he let us pass by.

Tonno walked faster. ‘Mebbe they don’t care if anyone breaks in. Everyone inside these walls is going to die, no matter what.’

We will not die, my brother. And nor will Darrow.

They made their way cautiously through the Lazar-House, until they emerged onto a bare, windswept terrace. The dull red flagstones underfoot were slippery with snow, and the edge of the terrace dropped away steeply, with no wall or guardrail. Far below spread a bleak field, dotted with stones and ringed by a high wall. The sky was a leaden canopy above the city, almost low enough to touch.

Fighting the wind, Tonno peered over the edge of the precipice, then recoiled. At the foot of the cliff were dozens of bodies, sprawled where they had fallen. The deep cold had preserved their flesh; no one had collected the corpses for burial or burning. ‘These Gellanese don’t respect the living, nor the dead. Look at that! Just throw the bodies over and leave them there to rot!’

Halasaa looked sombre.
I wonder how many throw themselves
down, rather than wait for death.

Tonno turned away with a shudder and stared up at the round tower that reared above the terrace. It was a grimy reddish-brown, the colour of dried blood. ‘This must be Traitors’Tower.’

They found a blackened door; it was locked, but Tonno’s sturdy fisherman’s boot made short work of the rotting timbers. The two lazar-guards inside were taken by surprise. Tonno felled one with a well-aimed blow to the jaw, and Halasaa wrestled the second to the ground.WithTonno’s help, he deftly bound both guards with the lashes of their own whips and used their gloves to gag them.

‘That was easy,’ panted Tonno. ‘Thought there’d be more guards.’

Yes
. Halasaa frowned.
Very easy
.

Tonno was already thudding up the stairs. Dozens of tiny cells honeycombed the tower. The knucklebone players were right: every door was bolted shut. One after another, Tonno and Halasaa flung open the doors and pale, wretched figures stumbled out. These were true prisoners, the enemies of the Guild, and they didn’t wait for explanations.Those who could walk staggered down the stairs, barely glancing at their rescuers in their haste to be gone.Those who were too weak to move cried out feebly, but the stronger ones ignored their pleas for help.

‘Darrow? Where’s Darrow?’ shouted Tonno.

‘At the top!’ came the reply, and Halasaa and Tonno sprinted up the winding stairs.

Tonno yanked back the last bolt and threw open the door. Darrow was sitting upright on a bench beneath a high window, unbowed and seemingly unharmed. Chains bound his wrists and ankles, and he was gagged with a grubby strip of cloth. Darrow’s grey-green eyes came alive with a mixture of delight and anxiety. Tonno’s knife flashed from his sheath and with a single cut the gag was gone. Darrow rasped out a chantment, the chains fell away, andTonno pulled him into a glad embrace.

‘Thank the gods! You all right?’

‘I’m not infected.’ Darrow stepped back. ‘But my luck could not have held much longer. Come on!’ He led the way, pelting down the steps, stumbling slightly on legs stiffened by the cold.

They were quick, but not quick enough. At the foot of the stairs a group of Protectors was waiting. The tip of a whip flickered through the air.Tonno cried out; his hand flew to his cheek and came away stained with blood. Darrow threw back his head and with fierce energy, growled out a song of ironcraft. Instantly, the whips twined in the air like searching snakes, tangling the arms and legs of the Protectors, writhing into knots. The guards yelled, and swarmed up the steps. Tonno unsheathed his knife with a roar and strode down to meet them. Halasaa kicked out and sent the nearest Protector sprawling back on top of his fellows.

Step by step the three friends fought their way forward, down the stairs, then out onto the terrace. It was sleeting hard. Darrow sang fiercely; his chantments tripped the Protectors’ boots beneath them, made gloves fly up to hit their owners in the face, and twisted whip-handles from the grip of those who held them. An icy wind blasted across the terrace, driving everyone back against the wall.

Slowly, slowly, Darrow and the others struggled across the slippery flagstones. Sleet stung their faces. One by one the Protectors fell, tangled in the lashes of their own whips, or slumped on the stones. ‘This way!’ cried Darrow. The wind tore the words from his lips as he beckoned his companions toward the edge of the terrace.

Tonno gripped Darrow’s arm. ‘Have you lost your wits?’ he yelled, his thick black eyebrows crusted with ice. Darrow shrugged off his hand and bent forward into the wind.

Look out!
Halasaa called a warning. Another group of guards had burst from the building behind them, a mixture of Protectors and lazar-guards with their chequered armbands. Darrow glanced over his shoulder. He mouthed to the others,
Come on!
and fought against the wind toward the precipice. Tonno and Halasaa followed through the driving sleet.

The yells of the guards and their drumming footsteps were lost in the screaming wind. Darrow was close to the cliff; he launched himself forward and slid on his stomach to the edge. With a howl, one of the lazar-guards leapt after him and gripped his ankle just above the boot. Darrow kicked wildly, but couldn’t shake him off; his trousers ripped, exposing bare skin, and the lazar-guard wrapped both hands around Darrow’s shin.

A big, dim shape loomed like a bear out of the sleet.Tonno grabbed the lazar by the shoulders and wrenched him aside. Darrow wriggled forward and disappeared over the precipice.

Come, my brother, come!
Halasaa was at Tonno’s side, tugging him onward. Tonno screwed up his face, then plunged.

An arm’s-length below the edge, the cliff angled back steeply into the red rock; somehow the three managed to cling with fingers and toes to clefts and crevices, their cheeks pressed against the icy stone. For a few moments they hung there; above their heads the guards scanned the drop, shook their heads, and, unable to see the fugitives, let themselves be driven back, whipped by the wind, into the shelter of the Lazar-House.

Stiffly, Darrow moved one limb, then another, groping for handholds.Where he could, he used chantment to deepen the cracks in the rock where the others clung, or carved out new ones. Little by little they eased their way down, until they came to a narrow ledge where they could rest for a time, buffeted by the freezing wind. After that, the going was easier, and they crawled down, aching all over, but alive, to the foot of the cliff where the frozen bodies of the lazars lay tumbled.

TONNO
HAMMERED ON
the door of Matifa’s house. Behind him, Darrow and Halasaa stamped and shivered, their hair dusted with snow. The afternoon’s storm had helped to conceal them; the streets were almost deserted, with people forced inside by the driving snow and sleet.

‘Open up, for pity’s sake!’ Tonno roared, and his fist was raised to strike again when the door opened a crack and Matifa’s emerald eye peered out. At once Tonno shouldered his way inside. ‘We need blankets – hot soup – a fire!’

He shoved past her and up the stairs into the stuffy, overcrowded parlour, with its garish wall-paintings and fat-bellied stove. Halasaa whisked the striped blankets off the couches and threw one to Darrow. Matifa stood in the doorway, her hands pressed to her mouth, her cheeks flushed beneath their rouge. ‘Didn’t you hear me?’ barked Tonno, tugging off his grime-caked boots and throwing them into a corner. ‘We need hot soup, something to warm us. We’re frozen through!’

‘I’ll fetch some tea,’ said Matifa, her bright eyes gleaming with excitement. ‘And something better: a surprise!’ She winked mysteriously and whisked from the room, with a busy rustle of her layered skirts.

‘Just the tea will do!’ growled Tonno, then, turning to Darrow, ‘Come on, man.Take off your coat before it freezes to your back.’