The Water Road (9 page)

Alban slumped and swallowed hard
before answering. “It was Rangold’s summary, then, I take it,” he said in a
deflated tone. “Is that what you were reading?”

“Yes, Alban!” Antrey yelled at him.
“That is what I was reading!”

“I see,” Alban said, taking a step
away from her. “Then I can understand how you might be so…upset.”

“Upset, Alban? Upset? I moved past
upset well before you arrived,” Antrey shot back, stepping towards him to
narrow the distance.

“Fine, fine,” Alban said, putting
up his hands. “I understand that. But I also understand that you are smart
enough to realize that, once you think about the context of what was going
on…Look, I can loan you the copy I make and you can read it in detail. Maybe
then…”

“Context?” Antrey asked. Without
thinking about it, she erupted in laughter. “Context? What sort of context do
you think might calm me down? Explain to me the context that would allow for
someone to propose setting a people upon themselves. To encourage their
slaughter at their own hands. And no one, not a single person, raised a voice
against it. Not one.”

“It’s very complex, Antrey,” Alban
said. “Those were different times. You must remember, the war had just…”

“The war had been won!” Antrey roared.
“The Neldathi had been defeated. Sirilo was dead. And, of course, this mighty
alliance had been formed. What threat was so great, what danger so immediate,
that the only solution was such an underhanded ploy?”

“Now wait one minute,” Alban said,
pointing a finger at Antrey. It looked like he was digging in. “I know you have
a different view of the Neldathi than we do, much less than they did back
then.”

“Because I am one of them!” she
yelled. “Have you forgotten that?”

“Only a part of you,” Alban said,
shaking his head. “Regardless of that, you can’t simply ignore what happened
during the Rising. People all along the Water Road were killed, tortured, and
chased from their homes for more than thirty years. Three decades! Think on
that, Antrey. For longer than you have been in this world, families along the
Water Road wondered when Sirilo and his army would come knocking at their
doors. The Neldathi proved that they were…” He stopped abruptly, as is he
realized he was about to say something he would regret.

“Proved they were what, Alban?
Barbarians? Savages? Animals? Would it have been better if Sirilo and his war
council had sat down in one place to make these plans and have someone write
down every word that was said?” She pointed to the library in the next room
over. “I’ve read almost every book in there, you know. In pieces, a few pages
at a time. The history of Altreria is soaked in blood, just like the Neldathi.
The Telebrians fought for years over that tiny stream of theirs, like it was
the Water Road. The Arborians battled themselves up to the day the Triumvirate
was founded. Even the Guilders, Alban, your own people, used to fight amongst
themselves and with the cities in the Arbor. Why can your people come together
in common cause, but mine can’t?”

“Antrey, you know how happy it
makes me to see you so involved with books,” Alban said, adopting a fatherly
tone, “but your grasp of history is rather shallow at this point. Bringing
together the Guilders, the Arborians, and the Telebrians has brought out the
best in all of us. It has shown that we can work together peacefully in common
cause.”

“Can you actually hear yourself,
Alban?” Antrey asked. “How can you make that argument, to me of all people, in
the face of this enthusiastic embrace of bloodshed? I know you, Alban. You are
such a good man. If not, I wouldn’t be here right now. Why would you, of all
people, defend this?”

“Because it’s worked, damn you!”
Alban shouted, all pretence of respect and calm shattered. “Because in the
century since the Neldathi revolt was put down and this alliance was formed the
Neldathi have stayed where they belong, in those horrible mountains south of
the Water Road. Their nature is base. They seek only conflict and know only
strife. Better those urges be turned on themselves than on us.”

Antrey staggered under the weight
of his words, unable to respond for a moment. “Is that it, then, Alban? No
matter how distasteful the means, so long as your people benefit, the suffering
of others is all right? You care nothing for the Neldathi who dies, cold and
alone in the falling snow, in the wake of some pointless battle?” Although she
spoke calmly and chose her words with care, Antrey’s fury was still present and
had begun to focus itself. Her initial reaction to the Triumvirate’s policy had
been abstract, a rage against something done long ago by people long since
dead. All that had changed, however, the more Alban talked. Now the anger in
her was directed at the man in front of her. He was her employer, her mentor,
and her savior. Still, she hated him for the secret he kept and the way he kept
it.

As she had come around the desk,
Antrey had somehow picked up the pikti, the ancient Sentinel fighting staff,
that was normally propped in the corner of Alban’s office. It was so light that
it felt like barely anything was there. The weight surprised her. She had held
a sword once, a small one, and by comparison it was a clumsy weapon, a weight
that hung on the end of her arm like a dead limb. Not the pikti. Even when she
took it in both bands, it felt like a part of her, an extension of her will. As
if it would do whatever she commanded. She held it out in front of her, hands
about a foot apart.

“Antrey, put that down,” Alban
said, raising his hands again. His tone had softened considerably since he,
too, noticed the weapon in her hand. “You have no idea what that can do, and
you’re liable to hurt yourself. Neither of us wants anyone to get hurt, right?”
He started to back away from her slowly.

Without a word, she lunged at him,
aiming the end of the pikti towards his midsection. Alban dodged the blow, just
barely, and retreated towards the library. In an earlier life, Alban had been a
nimble and powerful fighter, imbued with all the training that being a Sentinel
brought. But that was years ago, decades ago. Combat skills had no place in the
Grand Council chamber.

Antrey advanced slowly on Alban,
matching his pace and driving him more towards the library and away from any
other exit.

“Really, Antrey,” Alban said,
starting to plead. “There is no need for this. Put the pikti down. We can talk
about this some more.”

“What more is there to talk about?”
Antrey said, taking a quick jab in his direction, just to throw him off
balance. “If you take this away from me, I’ll be in irons before it hits the
floor. I’ll be cast out of the compound to who knows where, if not simply
executed for the trouble. Then you’ll go back into that chamber and keep
justifying what your people have done. Just like you always have.”

Alban must have known she could not
be convinced to stand down. Rather that keep talking, he tried to bolt quickly
around her towards the corridor that led to the public entrance to the clerk’s
office. With a well-placed slash of the pikti, Antrey took his right leg out
from under him. He went crashing to the ground with a scream of pain.

“Antrey!” Alban yelled, rolling
onto his side and grabbing the lower part of his leg. “You broke my leg, you
halfbreed bitch!”

That was the last thing Antrey
heard. Without a second thought she grasped the pikti like a club, both hands
together near one end, and brought it down with all the force she could muster
on Alban’s head. The staff made contact with a sickening crack against his
skull, which muffled Alban’s cry of pain. Antrey swung again and the pikti
cracked bone again, this time penetrating several inches below the scalp. She
did not pause to note the damage she was inflicting. Over and over again,
Antrey brought the pikti down on Alban’s head, turning it into an
unrecognizable pulpy mass of blood and brain.

After a dozen swings, maybe more,
Antrey stopped. The enormity of what she had done struck her immediately. She
saw what was left of Alban’s head and then noticed the blood trickling down
onto the carpet from the end of the pikti. She flung the staff down, turned
around, fell to her knees, and retched. What had she done? The man who saved
her life, plucked her from the street and made her a part of his family was
dead at her hand. She sat on the floor and stared at his lifeless body. As she
drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, Antrey began
to weep.

She was crying so hard that Antrey
almost did not hear the voice. A voice from the public entrance, up the hall
from where Alban’s body lay, called out, “Alban? Are you there, old friend? We
were to meet this afternoon, remember? At the Hare? Is everything all right,
Alban?”

Antrey did not recognize the voice
at first, but that did not matter. She knew she needed to get away. She stood
up and quickly looked around. She could not go out the public entrance,
obviously. Nor could she flee into the Grand Council chamber, as the doors
leading out from it would be locked. Getting out of the room would not be
enough. She needed to flee the compound. The city.

“Alban?” the voice called out again
from up the corridor. This time Antrey recognized the speaker. It was Jamil,
the Arborian she had met at the reception before the Grand Council session
began. If he had a scheduled meeting with Alban, he would eventually make his
way back here, regardless.

Antrey turned and faced the
balcony. It was only about ten feet off the ground. The jump might hurt her,
but it was better than staying in this room and waiting for whoever that was at
the counter to jump the desk, walk down the corridor, and find her. She ran to
the balcony and flung open the glass doors. Before she stepped out onto the
cool marble platform, Antrey turned and took one last look at the scene behind
her. Then she turned, slung one leg at a time over the marble railing at the
edge, and jumped off. The landing was clumsy and painful, but it did not appear
that she had broken anything.

From the open window above her
head, Antrey heard the voice say, “Alban, really, are you… oh my…”

The voice trailed away behind her
as she ran.

Antrey’s first instinct was to race
through the sun-filled courtyard to Alban’s apartment, her home, the only safe
place she had ever known in her life. But she realized that would be suicide. Someone
was there now, in the office, looking over the scene and trying to come to
terms with what happened. The bloodied pikti lay on the floor. The doors to the
balcony were wide open. It would not be difficult for someone to figure out
that the killer must have jumped from the balcony out into the courtyard. Nor
would it take long for someone to suggest Antrey as a suspect. Of course the
halfbreed beat her mentor to death—did you expect anything else? Sentinels
would be sent to the apartment, if not to search for Antrey then to protect
Onwen and the girls.

She had heard people talk about
tunnels, a network of warrens that ran underneath the entire compound. She
hadn’t had a good reason to pay attention to such talk. It sounded so fantastic
and unlikely. Now she wished she had paid a bit more attention, as knowledge of
the tunnels could make escape much easier. She pushed the disappointment out of
her mind.

While she worked out what to do,
Antrey absentmindedly wandered out into the courtyard before she realized how
exposed she was. She stopped and tried to think. There was one bit of luck on
her side. Because she had been in the Grand Council session this morning,
Antrey was dressed conservatively, in a long dress with sleeves that covered
most of her arms. Only the light turquoise skin of her face gave away her
heritage. Unless someone was looking specifically for her, she was unlikely to
attract attention. Thankfully, her clothes were not themselves covered in
blood. Small drops here and there could be explained away, if needed.

Antrey walked quickly, but did not
run, to a large tree with ample shade set in a corner near a storage building.
When she reached the tree, Antrey looked around and confirmed that there was no
one following her. Not yet, at any rate. Safe for the moment, she collapsed on
the ground, propping her back up against the massive trunk. Her heart was
racing, her breathing shallow. Perspiration ran down into her eyes. She took a
deep breath, trying to calm herself. It did little good. When she closed her
eyes, all she saw was Alban’s dead body lying in the office and bathed in
sunlight. It illuminated the blood and brain spilling onto the floor. In her
mind, there was no way to hide from what she had done. She forced herself to
open her eyes. All this—the guilt, the pain, and the sorrow—would have to wait.
Now there was only one thing on which she needed to focus: getting away.

But where would she go? She did not
know, and her mind, as rattled as it could be, was not in the place to make suggestions.
She needed to get off the island, at the very least. That would be difficult
enough. She could worry about other details if she made it that far.

Aside from the clothes on her back,
Antrey had nothing useful or of value with her to aid her escape. She cursed to
herself as she remembered even leaving her pouch behind, in the niche of a room
that had been her office. There was certainly no possibility of going back
there. As much as she dreaded the thought, Antrey knew she had to go to the
apartment. She had to gather what belongings she could to take with her as she
ran. Anything that was not immediately useful could be traded or sold.

She cursed again, realizing that
her key to the apartment was in her pouch. Even if she made it into the
apartment somehow, what would she tell Onwen? She would be suspicious of her
sudden appearance, at best. At worst she would be hostile. Assuming she could
make it in, there was no guarantee that Antrey could make it out. But she had
no other choice.

Antrey stood up, took a deep
breath, and scanned the courtyard. The sun crept slowly towards her spot by the
tree as it traveled across the sky. Unexpectedly, Antrey laughed. She had
forgotten what a beautiful sunny day it had been. On days like this, Onwen
tried to take the children out so they could play. If Antrey was lucky, Onwen
had taken them somewhere out of sight of the apartments, so that she might slip
in unnoticed. That also meant that the front door would almost certainly be
locked, but that was an obstacle she could overcome. Antrey formulated a plan
and realized that she had precious little time to act on it.

Before leaving the safety of the
tree, Antrey scanned the courtyard again, this time looking and listening
closely for any sign of pursuit. It was quiet. There was no suggestion that
something awful had just happened nearby. Convinced this was her only chance,
Antrey began to walk across the courtyard. She did not run, lest she draw the
attention of some passerby.

The apartments were on the opposite
side of the courtyard, about a quarter of a mile away. As she walked, Antrey’s
eyes were in constant motion, scanning back and forth in front of her, vigilant
of everything. She resisted the temptation to look over her shoulder to see if
anyone was following her. The farther she went, the more the silence began to
frighten her. She expected uproar. She expected the hue and cry to go up. The
ordinary nature of the day made her question everything she knew she had to do
to get away. Her mind whirled with possibilities. What if no one had discovered
the body yet? Unlikely. What if the search was already underway, but was
focused on the Grand Council building itself? More likely, she told herself.
But it didn’t matter. Either Sentinels would come for her or they wouldn’t. She
could only hope it was the latter.

Antrey’s mind shifted as she
approached the front door of the apartment. It was impossible to tell if anyone
was home, but she needed to come up with a story to explain why she was there.
Something Onwen and the girls would accept. Her heart sank at the first thought
of those two girls, now without a father. Antrey adored the girls, and they
treated her like a big sister. She pushed aside the pain and put such thoughts
into the back of her mind.

The plan was simple. First Antrey
would go to the front door and try to open it, as if nothing was wrong. If it
was locked, as she expected, she would have to find another way in. If, by some
luck, it was open, she would try and slip past anyone that was inside. If
someone was there, she would tell them that Alban had forgotten an important
paper in his study and she needed to find it and return right away. That would
give her some cover to gather a few things and get back out of the house.

Antrey climbed the stairs and gripped
the doorknob. She took a deep breath and gave it a turn. The handle moved
slowly with her hand and she heard a “click” as the bold slid out of its tab in
the doorframe. It was unlocked. At least she would be able to get in. She
opened the door slowly, stepped into the foyer as lightly as possible, and then
closed the door quietly behind her. Before she walked further into the foyer,
she turned and locked the door behind her. If she was alone here, the racket of
a key in the lock would at least provide some warning if someone else arrived.

She stood in the foyer for a
moment, listening for sounds of life from the other rooms. She heard nothing.
Unless everyone was asleep in the middle of the afternoon, Antrey was alone.
She did not deserve these two strokes of luck, she knew, and was determined not
to waste them. She dashed up the stairs to the third floor and into her room.
Looking around at her belongings, she knew there was only so much she could
take with her. Aside from the problem of exhaustion if she tried to carry too
much, running through the streets laden with things would undoubtedly attract
attention from Sentinels and others. She went to the small closet where many of
her things were kept, dug around in the back, and found a small satchel she could
wear on her back. She also pulled out a long, dark-brown cloak that had been
put away after the winter.

The satchel was big enough to hold
a change of clothes, a few personal items, and a few necessities, but not so
large that it would slow her down. She put in a set of clothes that would be
more practical and comfortable for living in the countryside than the long
dress she had on. Then she took a few trinkets that might have some sale value,
and put them in as well. Finally, she found the journal Alban had given her as
a gift for the new year, along with the fountain pen that came with it. The
journal was empty. Antrey had never had anything she felt the need to write
down. Until now. It occurred to her that she would have to put down some of her
thoughts about what she had done.

She put on the cloak, then slung
the satchel over her shoulder. Once everything was secure, she ran down the
stairs. At the second floor, she paused and looked in on Alban’s study. That
was where she had been taught to read, with Alban sitting behind his desk and
Antrey perched across from him. It was where he had given her the tools to
learn about the world around her. Tools that she had turned against him. For
the first time, she grasped the mistake that Alban had made by being so kind to
her, by bringing her into his home. His faith in her had been rewarded with
violence and a family shattered.

Before she returned to the stairs
and left the apartment, a gleam of sunlight from inside the study caught her
eye. It was light reflecting off a glass display case that sat on one of the
bookshelves behind Alban’s desk. She walked into the room to take a closer look
at the case and what was inside. The case was made of a fine-grained
light-brown wood, with a clear glass top. To Antrey it appeared to be seamless,
with no way to put anything in or take anything out.

Inside the case was an elaborate
ceremonial dagger. It was a gift Alban had received when he retired as a
Sentinel and became clerk of the Grand Council. It had an expertly wound
leather grip and a gleaming steel blade, polished to a high sheen. On the hilt
were small jewels of various colors, mostly red and black. Each end of the hilt
curved into a carved head of some kind of beast Antrey did not recognize. Like
so many things Antrey had seen from the Guildlands, it was both beautiful and
entirely functional.

It quickly occurred to Antrey that
the dagger would fit in the satchel. A time might come where she could use a
weapon. The small blade would be easy to wield. In addition, such a fine piece
of craftsmanship would bring a high price in trade, if it came to that. She
picked the case up in her hands, pushing past the twinges of guilt in her gut.
Alban did not need this anymore, she told herself. She needed it to survive. Convinced,
if only barely, Antrey closed her eyes and flung the case to the ground. The
glass shattered and the dagger fell free, clattering to the floor. She picked
it up and put it in the satchel, next to her journal.

She slipped out of the study and
quickly made her way downstairs. In the kitchen, she stopped and looked around
for anything else that might be useful to take with her. On the table there was
a tall, slender glass bottle with a cork stopper. She picked it up, removed the
stopper, and was greeted by the strong smell of alcohol. She went to the window
that opened onto the back garden, opened it a few inches, and poured out the
contents of the bottle. Once it was empty, she went to the cistern and filled
it with water. She put the stopper back in place and slid the bottle down in
her satchel. There was a loaf of bread perched on the sill of another widow,
left to cool after coming out of the oven that morning. She found a dishcloth,
took it, and wrapped up the bread, then put the loaf into the satchel, crushing
it to make it fit.

As she closed the satchel and slung
it back over her shoulder, Antrey heard a sound that made her shudder. It was
the sound of jammed metal being scraped against itself over and over again.
Someone was trying to open the front door. After a few moments without success,
the metal scraping was replaced by three slow, loud thumps on the thick wooden
door.

“Missus!” called a voice from the
outside, muffled by the door. “Missus, this is Davik. I am a Sentinel attached
to the Grand Council,” he continued, nearly shouting.

Antrey froze in fear, uncertain
what to do next. There was at least one Sentinel, and probably many more, not
fifteen feet from where she was standing. Were they looking for her? Were they
just looking for Onwen and the girls? Did it matter, at this point?

“I am very sorry to disturb you,
missus, but we need to speak with you,” the muffled voice said. “It is quite
urgent. About your husband. Something has happened.” There was silence for a
few moments, followed by a new series of pounding on the door. He struck three
times, purposefully and calmly. “Missus?”

There were no windows in the front
door or around the frame into which anyone could see. Antrey crept from the
kitchen towards the door, careful not to make any sound that would carry
through the thick wood and alert the Sentinels to her presence. She knelt down
and looked through the keyhole of the lock. It was just big enough for her to
see that Davik was not alone. He was flanked by two others, to whom he turned
and said something. Antrey was able to pick up a word here and there before
Davik and one of the others walked away. One was left behind, either to await
Onwen’s arrival or simply guard the door.

Antrey cursed silently at the
Sentinel who remained, blocking her easiest escape route. At least, she
thought, they had not tried to force their way in. She looked out the keyhole
again. The remaining Sentinel was standing at the bottom of the steps leading
to the front door, leaning on his pikti. He seemed amazingly relaxed, given the
incident that prompted his presence there. Antrey realized she was assuming
that any of these Sentinels would know the entire story. Perhaps all they had
been told was that there was an incident, without getting details.