He followed her out, down the stairs and through the sweaty crowd. Someone shouted her name as they passed, but she nudged him onward, out onto the street, where everything was cold and quiet. The wind played with a thin layer of snow, which collected in the cracks between the cobbles.
“We need somewhere you can rest afterward. Can we go to yours?”
Rime thought about Prete and the rest of the servants. Uncle Dankan and his children. It suddenly occurred to him that he hadn’t seen them in weeks. The An-Elderin family home was more theirs than his now. He shook his head. “No, but I know where we can go.”
He adjusted his cloak and pulled her after him through the alleyways, past the taverns and the sound of men drinking themselves into a state of exuberance.
Lindri’s looked deserted. The river was high, almost covering the poles the teahouse rested on. Rime opened the door and ushered Damayanti inside. Lindri was the only person there. He was throwing a log on the fire. He looked up. “Rime-fadri …”
“I need a favor, Lindri. You have a room, right? The one Hirka used?”
Lindri’s eyes shifted between him and Damayanti, and Rime suddenly realized how wrong it looked. “I’m asking because I have no other choice. And because I trust you. This isn’t what it looks like.”
Lindri made no attempt to hide his disappointment. “You should be mindful of the company you keep,” he said.
Rime seized on the opportunity to deaden the pain with anger. “Be careful what you accuse me of, Lindri.”
Lindri rearranged the logs using a poker. “I was talking to her, Rime-fadri.”
Rime felt like he’d been punched. Lindri looked at Damayanti. “The last friend he brought in here died amid the stones this morning.” The tea merchant gave a tentative smile. Rime’s jaw clenched. Not with all the time in the world would he have been able to explain this. Not to anyone. Not even to himself.
Damayanti gripped his arm. “Really?” she whispered. “Here? You want to do this here?”
Rime shook himself free. “Lindri, listen to me. Hirka’s not safe. I’m not here to betray her. I’m here because I need somewhere I can be without anyone knowing.”
“For a day or two,” Damayanti said. “And I won’t be here, if that’s any consolation, old man. You needn’t worry about me turning this place into a whorehouse.”
“It’s been called worse,” Lindri replied. “The rot house, I’ve heard. I don’t think you could drag it down any farther, young lady.”
Rime looked around. Apart from Lindri, they were alone. On a day like this, after a duel like that, the teahouse ought to have been packed. Clearly word had spread that the child of Odin had stayed here.
Lindri waved them into the backroom and led them up a stepladder. “A friend of mine from Himlifall says things will get better. He says they’ll forget all about her soon.” Lindri opened a door. “But then, he’s never met her.”
Rime knew all too well what he meant. Forgetting wasn’t an option. He’d tried.
Lindri gestured into the room. It was small, with a bench that doubled as a bed and a peephatch looking out across the annex below. Snow had settled on the window ledge. Wooden boxes and burlap sacks were stacked along the walls. There was a smell of tea and spices. “It’s just a storeroom, nothing much, certainly not what you’re accustomed to, Rime-fadri.”
“I’m used to a straw mat on a floor in Blindból, Lindri. I haven’t been an An-Elderin since I was fifteen.”
Lindri opened his mouth but then closed it again, apparently deciding he was better off not pointing out that only four years had passed since then. The old man stepped aside and let them in. “There are a couple of blankets in that box there. I normally leave them out for patrons, but …”
Rime understood. There weren’t any patrons to use them.
“I’ll get you something to eat. I have smoked trout and pickled onions.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Rime replied, but Damayanti cut him off.
“Thank you. That would be wonderful. Do you have any soup?” She sat down on the bed and started untying her shoes. An embarrassing warmth flooded Rime’s cheeks. She wasn’t exactly making things easier.
But Lindri could think what he wanted. Svarteld was dead, Hirka’s life was in danger, the Council was in turmoil, and the blind were making forays into the eleven kingdoms. He couldn’t waste time worrying about how things looked.
Lindri nodded. “I have fish stock. I can make a soup.” He disappeared back down the ladder.
“So what do you need?” Rime sat down next to Damayanti. She lifted his cloak from his shoulders, folded it, and left it at the foot of the bed.
“I need to be sure that you know what you’re asking me to do.”
He nodded, unable to say yes, because that would have been a lie.
She continued. “And I need a promise.”
“Name it.”
“This is your choice. Not mine. Remember that, when you want to kill me for what you wanted to do.”
“So not an entirely painless process, then?” he said dryly.
She ran her fingers through his hair. There was something in her gaze that was different than before. He was used to her trying to draw him in, to own him, to bend him to her will. Now she hesitated, and it seemed genuine. That was probably what scared him most.
They sat in silence until Lindri came back and set a tray down on one of the boxes of tea. Two bowls of fish soup and a lamp. The glass was cheap, giving everything a greenish tinge.
“Thank you,” Damayanti said. “And don’t worry if he screams. I promise not to hurt him.” Her smile had regained its power. She leaned against Rime and ran her fingers up his thigh. Lindri turned his back and left. He closed the door behind him, the frame groaning.
Rime tore her hand away from his thigh. “That’s not why we’re here.”
“No,” she replied. “But it helps if he thinks that. Because you will scream. Lift your arms.”
She loosened the lacing at his throat, pulling the cords slowly, as if afraid of what she might find. She pulled his shirt over his head and let it fall to the floor. She looked at him with her mouth half-open, an involuntary reaction that she covered up with a satisfied smile.
“So it’s true what they say about Kolkagga,” she said. “Lie down, Rime.”
He did as he was told, lying back on the bed. She rolled up his cloak and put it under his neck, tipping his head back. Then she dug two containers out of a small bag and put them on the stool. They were small bottles, shaped like spearheads. One made of silver, the other of black glass. She set the beak down next to them. It gaped at him.
Three bizarre objects next to something as commonplace as soup bowls. Damayanti rested her hands on her thighs, steeling herself.
Rime was afraid she might change her mind. He knew what he was doing. He knew there was no other way. She knew that too, but there was still a danger of her backing out. He couldn’t let that happen. He had to make sure she went through with it.
“Come on,” he said. “I don’t want the entire city finding me here with the likes of you.”
She gave him a frosty smile, recovering her former resoluteness. “Drink this,” she said, giving him the silver bottle. He drank. It was grainy and bitter.
She let a couple of red drops fall from the black bottle onto the beak, which she then rubbed in her hands until it was sticky. The smell of blood filled the room. She lifted the beak up to her face and whispered to it, almost lovingly, as if soothing it. Her hands as red as a butcher’s. Though he didn’t understand the words, Rime knew it was the language of the blind.
“You speak …” He stared at her.
“It can only be woken by its mother tongue,” she replied. Rime was speechless. All this time he’d longed for knowledge of them, anything that might help him understand, and here she was, speaking the language of the deadborn. A language none of the learned in Mannfalla knew a word of.
What am I doing?
/>
“Find the Might,” she said. Her dark hair tumbled down over her chest. She tied it in a knot at the nape of her neck. He did as she said, binding the Might, filling his body.
“What are you waiting for?” he asked.
“For your heart to stop.”
Rime jerked, trying to sit up. Damayanti pushed him back down again with one hand, as if he were a powerless child. Pain ripped through his chest and out into his arms. He could hear his heart pounding in his ears. Then slower. Slower. Until it was no longer beating at all.
He could still move, though only just. His body was cold, and he knew he was hovering somewhere between life and death.
Damayanti worked quickly. She let a couple of drops of blood fall into his mouth before pushing his chin up so he wouldn’t see what she was doing. But he felt the blade of the knife against his throat, felt her make the incision. His breath stuttered. His body protested. His mind went blank. The Might became frantic with fear. He wanted to throw her off him, to flee. Nothing about what she was doing was natural. This was blindcraft. He was about to sacrifice himself.
This was what you wanted. Take the beak. Take it.
Rime repeated the words in his head. He thanked Svarteld for everything he’d taught him about mind over body. Svarteld. Dead now. They were both dead, in that moment.
She pushed the beak into his throat. It forced its way in as if of its own free will. She pressed the edges of the wound together. Her eyes were steely. Suddenly unfamiliar. She grabbed the bottle and dripped blood over the wound. Rime felt it heal over, a cold draft giving way to warmth as it closed, shutting the beak inside him. He was no longer alone.
Damayanti brought her lips to his throat and whispered in the same strange language as before. Rime wanted to retch but managed not to. He couldn’t get air into his lungs. He had a beak in his throat. A raven beak. Bigger than what ought to be possible, but there it was.
Damayanti slammed her fist into his chest. His heart reawakened. His back arched. He gasped for breath. For life. He was alive.
“Drink the rest,” Damayanti said, giving him the black bottle. “It’s blood of the blind. It might not feel like it, but it will heal you. Faster than anything else you’ve heard of.”
Rime fumbled with the bottle. His fingers were shaking. The Might quivered within him. He managed to steady the bottle, then drank, the blood spreading across his tongue. Sweet. Metallic. Trying to find a way past the foreign body lodged inside him.
Then the beak awoke. Twitching. Gaping. Rime’s eyes bulged. He gripped the bed and rolled over onto his side. Pain ripped through his throat. It felt like the beak was taking root, burrowing into him, growing like veins, outward, up toward his jaw, his temples. Into his head. He was being torn apart from the inside. He wanted to scream, but his jaw had locked. His stomach tried to empty itself, but nothing could get past the beak.
Damayanti got up and backed toward the door, keeping her distance from him and the horror unfolding. He reached out to her, fingers grabbing for something, anything. A bowl fell to the floor and smashed. The smell of fish soup mixed with the smell of blood. His throat spasmed and spasmed.
“It’ll be over soon,” he heard Damayanti say, from what sounded like another world.
The spasms abated, finally easing off. He swallowed again and again. He propped himself up onto his elbow but couldn’t lift his head, so he collapsed back onto the bed. He tried to cling to the Might, to bind, but he had nowhere for it to go.
All that existed in that moment was the life in his throat. The roots sending rhythmic jolts up into his head. Pain pulsed through him. Then he went numb.
“Rest now,” someone said. And he did.
DAMAYANTI’S FALL
The smell of blood. Tea. Dried fruit.
Rime sat up in the bed. He was sore all over, like after a training session with Svarteld. Then he remembered. He’d clashed swords with his master for the last time.
He found his shirt on the floor and put it on. It felt like someone else was doing it. There was still a bowl of fish soup on the box. Someone had been in to mop up what had ended up on the floor.
Lindri. What has he seen? What does he know?
The pain was still fresh in Rime’s mind. It was hard to relax his shoulders, knowing it could come back at any moment. What had she done to him? What did it look like?
He remembered Urd, at Bromfjell, before the deadborn dragged him off. Rotting. Tailless. A wreck of a man.
Rime raised his hand to his throat, expecting to find a gaping wound where the beak was, but he didn’t feel anything unusual. Just a raised welt beneath his voice box, barely noticeable to the touch. It hurt to swallow, but he was ravenous. He’d almost forgotten what that felt like. He rested the bowl on his knees and ate. The soup was cold, with a skin on top, but he devoured every last drop.
She knew. That was why she asked for soup.
She’d hesitated. Been close to changing her mind. Even though he was certain that this was what she’d wanted all along. He knew what it meant. And he knew what he’d done.
What would Ilume have said if she could see him now? If she’d witnessed blindcraft? The destruction of all that was right? Perhaps nothing. She would have been more troubled by what he’d done to the Council. And to Svarteld. Augurs removing the mark of the Seer from their robes would have enraged her more than him having blindcraft in his throat.
He got up and his legs wobbled. He found his strength again and flung his cloak over his shoulders. Drew his sword. Checked his reflection in the steel. Distorted and blurred. Bruises under his eyes. A pale line ran down his throat, like an old scar—the only remaining trace of his nightmare. Damayanti must have washed the blood off him.
He sheathed the sword. Left a pile of gold coins on the box. Too many, most would have said, but he was paying for more than food and lodging. He was paying for silence. And he knew Lindri wouldn’t accept if he tried to give them to him directly.
Rime strapped his swords to his back and left the room. Climbed down the stepladder to the teahouse. Outside, day was fading into night. People peered inside but continued past. Nevertheless, Lindri had water heating over the hearth, and a row of cast-iron pots on the counter.
“You were here the night she left us,” Lindri said, sliding a cup of tea across the counter. “And ever since it’s seemed that the Ravenbearer has been ruled by a broken heart, and that was the reason for the chaos in Eisvaldr. But now I don’t know what to think, Rime-fadri.”
Rime wasn’t able to hold back a grimace of pain. “I didn’t touch the dancer,” he said hoarsely.
Lindri nodded and let the matter drop. Rime wanted to say more, to prove he wasn’t crazy, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to do it with conviction. Not anymore. He wanted to assure Lindri that Eisvaldr was still standing. That the Council still had a handle on things. That Svarteld had died of his own free will and that there was a reason for everything he was doing. That it was all a part of the fight against the deadborn. But there were no words. Not if he were to preserve what little faith Lindri still had in him.
He took a sip of tea. The heat seared the open wound in his throat. He coughed.
What have I done?
He thanked Lindri, got up, and left the teahouse. He was long overdue for a chat with an ancient blindling who craved freedom. A deadborn who dreamed of being where Rime was now. And now Rime was his slave.
He followed the alleyways in the direction of Damayanti’s place. It was said to be the easiest place to find in all of Mannfalla, even though there was no sign outside. All you had to do was follow the crowds of men. This time he heard them before he saw them. A fight?
He rounded the corner and saw a group scattering. The door opened and a broad-shouldered man emerged, dragging a smaller man behind him. He flung him into the gutter. “And stay there!” he grunted, before disappearing back inside.
The man in the gutter started ranting at Rime. “There’s no point going in. She ain�
�t dancing tonight. Ain’t danced in two days! Don’t stop ’em taking your money, though, does it?” He dragged himself up and staggered off down the street.
Rime went inside. The stage at the other end of the room was empty, but there were still plenty of patrons. Drinking was always an option, dancing or no dancing. In any case, the night was still young, and Damayanti wasn’t the only dancer, so they were bound to get something.
Rime went upstairs and knocked on Damayanti’s door. One of the girls who attended her opened it. “You’re early. She didn’t expect you till tomorrow.” Discreet as ever. The girl had never once used his name or his title.
She showed him in. He waited for her to gesture toward one of the chairs, but she continued through the curtain. “Come.”
Rime followed her down the corridor, past a number of doors, the sound of all manner of illicit encounters carrying from within. At the end they came to another staircase, and the girl pointed at a door on the next floor. He thanked her, went up, and knocked.
Damayanti opened the door in a green dress with a laced bodice. For once it wasn’t see-through, like her dresses often were. Her hair hung in a dark braid down her back. Her eyes looked naked. No make-up.
“I hadn’t expected you for another day or two,” she said.
“I’ve no time to waste.” He stepped inside. The room was small and cozy. Candles of various sizes were burning in small niches along the stone walls. An open fire in the middle of the room was surrounded by benches covered in sheepskins. She sat down and stared into the flames. He sat down across from her.
“I expect you’ve got some sort of act prepared,” he said. “That you’ve planned what’s going to happen now and rehearsed what you’re going to say. I suggest we skip that and let the beak speak for itself. Just tell me what to do.” He could hear the coldness in his own voice. Rougher than usual.
She looked worried. Fearful. She looked nothing like a dancer sitting there like that, with her arms folded across her chest and her shoulders hunched. She looked cold.
He leaned closer to her. “You asked me to remember that you didn’t do this. This was my choice, and right now I don’t have time for you to find your long-lost morals. I need you to finish what you started. I’ve learned that the hard way. Now it’s your turn. Do what you’ve been planning since we first met.”
The Rot Page 28
