Vault Of Heaven 01 - The Unremembered (46 page)

Something kept him moving, though, and slowly he crept to within a stride of the creature. Its thick skin rippled with muscle. One hand could easily have fully encircled Tahn’s neck. This close, he noticed fine, dark hair growing on its legs and arms. He stared up into its broad face.

The beast stared back, and bent toward him. The ground vibrated with the shifting weight, and Tahn’s legs locked in fear. His heart thumped in his ears and chest. This was mad. The creature’s arm measured at least the size of Tahn’s leg. He began to feel claustrophobic and started to pant. Waves of hot and cold ran over him, threatening to tumble him to the floor. He turned to look at Sutter, trying to recapture his resolve, and heard his friend moan and his eyes tighten at his unnecessary poisoned dreams. A moment later, Sutter cried out in witless pain.

Tahn whipped around and stood face-to-face with the beast. Its glassy eyes were like large black pools, so close that Tahn could see himself in them. Tahn thought he saw a pain-fed apathy in the creature’s visage. The presence of the beast was dizzying, its silence more menacing than any shriek or cry it might have uttered. Intelligent eyes peered through Tahn, assessing him as the Sheason had done.

For several moments the thing stared at him, unmoving, unspeaking. Then it said in its deep voice, “We are Lul’Masi. I am Col’Wrent.”

The creature said it as if it should mean something to Tahn, but whatever it was didn’t register.

The beast looked back, seeming to consider behind its intelligent eyes. Then its features tightened. “I am Inveterae.”

Warmth rushed into Tahn’s body, like the thaw of winter all in an instant. He knew this word from the reader’s stories. This creature had surely escaped the Bourne. But it was not Quietgiven; it was of the Inveterae, one of the
unredeemed
.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

The Stakes Are Raised

At the revelation of Jastail’s last wager, Gynedo’s face fell, making him look every year of his age. Murmurs erupted throughout the gambling deck. Wendra felt claustrophobic, and struggled to breathe as the smoke and stares seemed to rush in upon her. Darkness stirred within her, but before it found form, her knees buckled and she fell to the floor. No one moved to assist her. Over the lip of the table she could see Ariana, who alone appeared unsurprised.

“And now you, Ariana,” Jastail said softly.

The beautiful young woman looked a moment longer at Wendra. With steady hands she turned over her placards. She did not speak, but sat with quiet dignity waiting for the game to finish.

Gynedo found his composure, his face twisting into a semblance of the amiable smile he’d worn before. He took a long drag at his tobaccom before speaking. “More than a fair price,” the old man said. Then he bent forward and peered into Jastail’s eyes. “You were too young to learn such a game, friend. You have gone past me. Earth and Dust, I hold no value for your life.”

Jastail did not avert his eyes or blink at the strong condemnation. “Will you try to match this wager, Gynedo?” Jastail asked with a mocking reverence.

The old man sat back, looking over the placards, the wagers, and all the faces surrounding them. “No.”

A collective gasp was heard in the room, mutters slowly filling the silence. Jastail sat back in his chair. He and the old man’s eyes locked, each searching the other. Wendra looked up again, noting the disdain in Ariana’s face, but also familiarity in the way she looked at Jastail. The thought of what had just happened left her breathless and tasting bile in the back of her throat. She had been the last raise, the last wager. And something told her it wasn’t merely her life; that vague thought churned like panic in her throat.

“Great Fathers, what is this man?” she mumbled. The roar of the gaming room rose to its previous volume, clouding her mind further. She longed for the Hollows and Balatin and a forgetfulness of this riverboat and its vile occupants.

As Wendra sat dumbfounded on the floor, the crowd went back to their gambling. Two gentlemen clapped Jastail on the back before taking their seats again at their own game behind the low wall. Gynedo stared at the heap of tokens, shaking his head. Soft words fell from his lips like prayers to broken stones, but Wendra could not make them out. Ariana glowered at Jastail, but whether from hatred or jealousy Wendra didn’t know. Her captor remained at the table, a defeated look on his face though his final wager had earned him the game. He laid his hands splay-fingered upon the tokens and swept them into a bag before extending a hand to help Wendra up.

Wendra slapped his arm away roughly and pulled herself up using the wall at her back. Blood rushed to her head, and she steadied herself, waiting for the pressure to ease. The din of wage-makers calling odds and gamblers squealing delight or shouting misfortune rose in a dizzying cacophony. Laughter and angry barks punctuated the chorus of voices. No one looked twice at her now, involved in the play of their own chances.

“Come, it’s time we go,” Jastail said. The command was salt in an open wound. Wendra’s attempt to play this man’s game, to salvage control over her circumstances, had failed in one raise of the stakes. She thought to jump at him and tear at his eyes, but his companions stepped behind the wall as her balance finally returned.

“Hold, Jastail,” the stately woman said. Her words bit, but retained an air of dignity.

Jastail half turned and smiled wanly. “Not tonight, Ariana. I haven’t the patience for it.”

The woman pushed back her chair and exited the rear gambling area without another look at any of them.

“Bring her,” Jastail ordered his men, and started to leave.

“Too far,” Gynedo blurted.

Jastail paused, though he would not look back at the old man, who went on, his words weak against the noise in the room, but clear in their intent.

“I’ve seen it, but only once. Take care, Jastail. You and I, we know the lie of the wager. It is meat for our wine, and tobaccom for our pipe, but always these things sate the user. What you play at now … it will never satisfy—”

“Enough!” Jastail blared.

The old man’s face sketched itself in stern lines. “Don’t forget yourself, boy.” Gynedo sat tall in his seat. “And mark you this: Will you come again to my table? Will the chances of the riverboat be enough to entice you?” The old man reclined again into his chair. “I judge that the game has more of you than you of it. You are too enamored of the stakes to maintain control. You’re reckless.” He took his pipe to his lips. “Do your trade and leave me in peace.”

Jastail left, briskly striding through the game room and out onto the deck. His companions urged Wendra to follow, and reluctantly she made her way past the revelers into the night air.

She found Jastail leaning upon a rail, watching the lesser light ripple upon the water. Without turning, he dismissed his men, leaving Wendra at his back, unguarded.

“You’re thinking to attack me,” Jastail intoned calmly. “Take your chance.”

Wendra stood, her fingers clenching and unclenching as she thought of shoving him over the railing into the river. She’d lost sight of her goal in complying with this highwayman: Penit. She knew Jastail had used the promise of taking her to the boy to manipulate her. The thought darkened her mood further. What use had he for her now, if she was only to be a prize for a game of stakes? And if she failed to find Penit, how meaningless was her struggle in the cave against the fever of her wound? A dark pressure filled her lungs, burning her from within, but also warming her against the night, against this place, this man. She took a step toward Jastail and raised her arms.

“Do you suppose you can do it?” he asked. His words stopped her. “I mean to say that you do not appear to be one acquainted with death.” He spoke evenly, as he might to a friend, but still he did not turn toward her.

“But there you’re wrong,” Wendra answered. “I’ve seen it.” An image flashed in her mind, and she rubbed her empty belly. She lowered her hands, the dark pressure in her lungs subsiding. “I’ve had it coaxed from my body and torn away from me before I might give it a name.”

At that, Jastail turned. His eyes looked strange as he searched Wendra’s face. His lips parted as if he meant to pursue her comment, a wary concern folding the lines of his mouth and eyes. He looked at Wendra’s stomach, seeming to understand a part of her story. But he left unspoken whatever questions he had. After a few moments, the same smile as he’d given Ariana played upon his features.

“Acquainted, perhaps,” Jastail conceded. “But not the cause.”

Wendra came to the railing beside him and looked out at the expanse of river. Moonlight rippled on its surface, a silent dance accompanied by the music of small waves lapping at the prow and the din of gamblers inside the game room.

“No, not the cause … unless the boy dies,” she threatened. “I will find him. Either you will help me, or you will not. But you will not prevent it.”

“Anais—”

“Anais?” Wendra interjected. “I don’t want to hear that word from your lips. You may be smart at the table, and more than a match of wits for those two dogs you keep with you, but I am not blind to your lies and empty promises. You’ve made a mistake in bringing me into the company of others as greedy as yourself.”

Bitter laughter escaped Jastail’s tired face. It fell flat upon the deck and river.

“There is fire in your belly,” he said. “The dust won’t take you easily. But there’s no help for you on this riverboat.” He considered a moment, a more wry smile returning to his weathered features. “In truth, I am your only friend here. You may have need of my protection against other, less friendly passengers.”

“And what if I should cast myself into the river and swim to shore?”

“In this water?” Jastail asked, his smile lingering. “Not likely. Your legs would seize and drag you down before you stroked half the distance.”

“And if I should kill you while you sleep?”

Jastail regarded her. “Then you will never find the boy.” He took up his vigil upon the river, his amusement gone.

Wendra could not divine the truth. Did he know where Penit was? Or was he playing her false until the last?

The chill off the water bit at her skin while she kept her captor company beneath the lesser light and the river carried them south. On another night, the sweep of stars in the sky above the wide river basin and the reflection of their light in the water would have caused her to sing. But Jastail muzzled her, not with hands or cloth, but with vague promises and deadly wagers. And in her lungs, her breath for song scarred like smoke and threatened to give voice to a dissonant rasp like a cough from winter winds.

They watched the river together in silence for some time, and the tranquil rush of water along the side of the boat nearly caused her to forget the strange relationship she shared with him. She might have been standing with Tahn at the edge of the Huber in the Hollows. The thought of her brother suddenly sharpened the pain of their separation. It had been long since they’d been separated, starting—in some ways—with the death of her child and Tahn’s inaction against the Bar’dyn that had coaxed her child from her womb. That moment, the flight from the Hollows, and not knowing now if Tahn was still alive—because she still loved him—made her need to rescue Penit that much stronger.

And as she stared into the cold depths, she heard new sounds, not the water sluicing down the side of the riverboat.

Wendra heard water splashing.

And the zip of arrows penetrating the river’s surface.

Angry voices suddenly barked commands, fear tingeing their orders.
The Bar’dyn,
Wendra thought suddenly, realizing what must be happening. Could they have tracked her once she got aboard the boat?

“Bring her!” Jastail yelled, calling his men to action.

As they rushed down the side of the boat, deckhands stood along the railing firing arrows at the Bar’dyn swimming toward them. Wendra looked toward the shore, where dozens of Bar’dyn rushed south to get ahead of them. Hundreds of strides downriver, the Bar’dyn splashed into the water and began swimming toward the middle to intercept them. The large creatures moved swiftly in the river, their long, powerful arms and legs pulling them with ease against the swift current. Arrows continued to strike the water, some bouncing off of thick Bar’dyn skin. Two men manned the front ballista, firing spears toward the Quietgiven with little accuracy.

Jastail led her toward the stern. The riverboat yawed as the wheelman turned away from the Bar’dyn, hoping to put some distance between the watercraft and the Given. The oars and paddle wheel worked wildly, slapping the water and pulling with the current to increase their running speed. Celebrants lined the gambling room windows, their moon faces peering into the dark with concern. Wendra ran past them, and at the rear of the boat watched as Bar’dyn swam to catch the swiftly moving craft.

They came to the building that housed the horses, and Jastail threw the door wide. His men came from behind and darted into the stable, saddling the mounts in a hurry as Jastail watched the railing for any sign of boarding Bar’dyn. Moments later, the two hirelings emerged with four horses, having appropriated one for Wendra.

“The other side!” Jastail barked.

The men led the mounts to the side of the riverboat opposite the attack. The hull sliced across the current, angling toward the east side of the river. Wendra could see no torchlight marking a dock. The clash of metal chimed in the night air, drawing their attention forward, where strangled cries rose and echoed out across the water. Men and women streamed from the large gambling rooms, filling the deck with chaos and more desperate cries. The large sword-bearing guards of the gambling room were first, jumping to meet several Bar’dyn who were rounding the corner. Given eyes found Wendra, and the creatures broke into a run toward her. Jastail lifted Wendra onto her steed, jumped onto his own, and slapped her horse’s rear. Together they vaulted the railing. Their mounts crashed heavily into the freezing waters. Jastail’s men came directly behind, splashing into the river at their back.