Several rows ahead and to her left, Andomerys stood as well. Ree sucked in a breath. Her eyes searched for her mother, wondering if Arthura, Priestess of Morrin, might also stand up for her daughter’s cause, but wherever her mother was, she didn’t stand up.
It was exactly what she expected from her parents, yet she was still torn between disappointment and bitterness. They weren’t going to spend their social currency for a boy they didn’t know, not even if Ree asked them to.
Andomerys didn’t wait to be called on. ‘I healed that boy when he was suffering from a heavy death curse. He was brought to my house. He was polite. I don’t think he’s in danger of anything but boring people to death.’ She nodded at the council and sat down.
‘You healed an upworlder?’ someone yelled.
‘You slammed the door in my face last week when that ghoul bite got infected!’
Andomerys crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair. ‘I don’t owe you healing, Ungoth.’
There was a muttered, ‘But it hurt!’, nearly lost among the susurrus moving through the crowd.
Ree took a deep breath. ‘We can’t kill Smythe,’ she said. Again, that feeling of eyes crawling over her. She wanted to yank up her hood and hide under a chair, but she gripped her skirts with white fingers and set her jaw. ‘He saved my life.’
Tarantur rolled his eyes. ‘From a mind snare, we know. We can hardly take that into account when you have the means to learn to defend yourself.’
‘Why not?’ This was from Yngrid, who’d taught Ree skeleton blind spots as a child. Her curly hair was the colour of crusted blood, and her once warm brown skin was dusted slate grey from using the Craft. ‘She’s one of us, isn’t she?’
‘Is she?’ Symphona again. She threw Ree a narrow-eyed look. ‘All she does is scurry around the tunnels like a rat. She doesn’t respect the Craft.’
Necromancy wasn't the only magic. Ree swallowed hard, her cheeks burning, fighting a sting in the corners of her eyes. And a person's value ought to be more than their knowledge of the Craft.
She wanted badly to flee. Her knees shook; she locked them. She said, ‘I’ve never betrayed you. Neither will Smythe. If you’re worried about him telling people about us, just don’t let him leave. He’s already expressed a desire to stay.’ Her eyes found Smythe; his hair was rumpled, his glasses askew. Sweat drenched his shirt. His eyes filled with pleading. ‘If he becomes a denizen, we have nothing to worry about.’
‘Sounds reasonable,’ called Yngrid.
‘But … the blood sacrifice,’ said Symphona.
Ree’s shoulders raised. She held her breath as the argument continued. She felt Emberlon’s eyes on her, weighing. She prayed to her mother’s goddess that he would speak up for her and Smythe even as she knew that he never would. Emberlon shied away from politics like a horse from snakes.
And all the while Smythe was looking at her, suspended between two minions, while the town argued his fate.
‘It’s not practical,’ said Tarantur. ‘Who will make sure he doesn’t leave? Young Ree? We can barely stop her from wandering. And the rest of us are too busy with our research.’
Ree locked her hands behind her back to hide their shaking and tried to school her expression to stillness, worried everyone would see the rage burning in her eyes. What gave him the right to speak about her as if she were some wayward child? She did important work for this town that he had benefited from nearly every week. And still her father was silent beside him.
‘Enough of this,’ said Kylath. ‘Let’s put it to a vote. Should the upworlder be used in a blood sacrifice, yea or nay? Yea?’
A thunderous shout went up.
‘And the nays?’
Ree faltered with the word, as paltry others shouted with her. It was feeble, worthless. Her eyes flicked to Tarantur; he didn’t bother to hide his delight.
‘The yeas have it,’ said Kylath. ‘We’ll sacrifice him at sundown. Now, onto our next order of business. Someone has been digging up the graves near Volturo’s tomb, and it’s making the dead there restless. We also need to discuss acceptable garden plants, the knotweed is getting out of hand —’
Ree stood there, stunned, as the town meeting moved on without her. There was pressure on her arm as Emberlon eased her back down into her seat. ‘He didn’t do anything wrong,’ she said in a low voice, struggling to keep her volume in check. In the background, two necromancers got into a shouting match over who had precedence in one of the newly discovered tombs. ‘He’s harmless.’
Emberlon nodded. ‘They’re doing what they think is right. They’re scared. The world out there isn’t kind to necromancers.’
‘They’re cowards,’ said Ree. She gripped her chair, tension making her entire body ache. ‘They’re cowards and they’re greedy. They don’t really think Smythe is dangerous, they just want another blood sacrifice.’
Emberlon shook his head. ‘This is the way the world works, Ree. You’ve lived here all your life — longer than me, longer than all but the first settlers. You must have known that this would happen.’
But she hadn’t, not really. She’d been worried, but she knew these people. She’d had a plan. If Usther hadn’t — but Usther had. Ree burned at the memory of the smug look on her face.
At the end of the meeting, the denizens gradually filtered back out of the Old King’s Tomb, away from the golden light and sparkling marble and back to the damp and gloom of everyday life. Smythe was still imprisoned on the dais. Ree ascended the steps and approached the council, fists clenched at her sides. ‘I want to say goodbye.’ Her voice was hoarse with repressed anger.
Tarantur waved at Smythe. ‘As you please. He’s right there.’
‘Pa.’ Ree looked to her father.
He gazed back, expressionless.
‘Pa, please.’
He sighed and rubbed his face. ‘Let him loose, Tarantur. It’s not like he can get far.’
Tarantur barked a word in the old language, and his minions dropped Smythe and stepped aside. Ree pulled him to his feet. ‘I’m so sorry, Smythe.’
This wasn’t right.
Smythe tried to smile, but his mouth wobbled back into a frown. ‘Serves me right, I suppose, wandering into the crypt alone. It just seemed like such an opportunity, and I — well, never mind.’ He shook his head. ‘Ree, I just wanted to say —’ But he looked at the council and the words died on his lips.
This wasn’t right.
Ree’s chest ached. Her stomach churned. She felt like at any moment, she might retch.
Smythe looked at the floor. ‘Will you be there for me? When — well, you know.’ He stopped and cleared his throat. ‘I would appreciate a friendly face, as it were.’
She had to make this right. ‘Of course I will.’ The words were thick in her throat. Her hand moved toward the belt on her pouch.
‘Um. Ree?’
She spun and threw herbs in the faces of Tarantur’s minions. Their eyes closed; they crumpled where they stood. Tarantur shouted; power gathered behind her like the first rumblings of an avalanche. She grabbed Smythe and lunged down the dais, heading not for the double doors but the back of the tomb.
‘Ree, what’s —’
‘REANIMA!’ Her father’s voice thundered after her. A curse smashed an urn to her left; another exploded on the step just behind her. She kept her grip on Smythe’s hand, pulling him after her.
‘Keep close!’ she gasped.
Behind her, Tarantur shouted, ‘They’re getting away! Igneus —’ His voice cut off in a gasp.
‘If you try to curse my daughter ever again, there will be nothing left of you to bring back,’ her father said in a low voice.
Ree didn’t look back, she plunged down a narrow walkway, little more than a snake-trail of clear footing. Smythe waded after her, scattering coins. ‘Where are we going?’
‘Morrin forgive me,’ she muttered, ‘I hope it’s really here.’
They came to the wall, to an elaborate mural of
Death standing over the Old King. It looked like a dead end, but she was the Archivist’s apprentice and Tombtown’s only cartographer. She knew more of the crypt’s secrets and pathways than anyone else in town. Her hands scrabbled down the lacquered marble. ‘Find the sarakat, find the —’
‘Is this —?’
More shouting. The pressure in the room was building. She looked over her shoulder; the town hall was flooding with necromancers, their minions stumbling through the chairs. A few spectres breezed past them, their red eyes fixed on Smythe.
Ree nudged Smythe aside and dug her fingers into the sarakat, finding a groove around the arch of it. She tugged. A small doorway swung open, just the height of the image of the Old King. ‘Come on!’ She shoved Smythe through, then kicked the door closed behind her.
I’ve been remembering the masters today. The colours they wore on their faces, the music they played. I remembered my choosing, deep in the Wilds, far from the village that birthed me. I remember the animals closing in around me: a wolf, a bear, and a stag with gore-tipped antlers.
They could see the wildness in me. So they put a knife in my hand and sang me the ancient teachings and led me to my first kill and my first skin.
They were rare even then. There are no masters now. Perhaps there are no therianthropes at all. Certainly, I have met no others since the witchkillers purged the Wilds.
I enjoy being special. It affords me stature in the King’s underkingdom that I would otherwise not enjoy. But I do not wish to be the last, and I have not managed to find an apprentice, nor anyone worthy of the teaching songs.
I am not so foolish as the necromancers — my magic might extend my life, but nobody lives forever.
Tomorrow, whether the King wills it or not, I will write my book. And one day, someone with wildness in their heart will read it and therianthropy will live beyond me.
~from the journal of Wylandriah Witch-feather
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CAST OUT AND CURSED AT
They ran until the cries and curses and hammering on the marble wall faded into a distant whisper. Ree stopped and hunched over, panting. Smythe crashed into her.
‘Ow! Do you mind?’
‘Terribly sorry.’ He was panting as well. ‘I’m not used to running for my life through the dark. It’s … sort of thrilling, isn’t it? The excitement, the danger, the not-being-dead. Heady stuff.’ He smiled at her. His smile froze on his face. ‘... Ree?’
‘We should keep moving.’ Ree straightened. ‘There are five or six intersections within this passage. Between them, they might know at least a few of them.’ She frowned; Smythe was still staring at her, his smile slipping into something like horror. ‘What?’
‘It’s nothing, nevermind.’ He straightened as well, then opened his mouth as if to say something. He shook his head and started to walk off, stopped, and said, ‘I’m terribly sorry, but … your eyes.’
Ree rubbed her eyes and blinked a few times. ‘What? Is there something wrong with them?’ She wondered fretfully if one of the curses had landed without her noticing. She’d been so focused on running she’d barely given a thought to her mental shields.
‘They’re glowing,’ said Smythe.
‘Yeah, well, it’s dark in here,’ replied Ree, whose parents had performed a darksight ritual for her when she was five years old. ‘You can hardly expect me to blunder around blindly just because I couldn’t bring a torch.’
‘That’s exactly what I expected,’ Smythe whispered, half in fear, half in awe. ‘Could you do that to me? So I could see in the dark?’
‘We don’t have time. And I’m not a necromancer.’ She nudged him with her boot. ‘If you can’t see the way ahead, just stay close to me.’
She jogged off. After a moment’s hesitation, Smythe followed.
Even with darksight, Ree wished she had a torch. The tunnels were painted hazy blue to her, with darkness tucked into corners and cracks, and every flash of light was like staring into a solar flare. It was also silent but for the patter of their feet on dirt and stone, and the occasional, ‘Oops! I am terribly sorry about that,’ as Smythe bumped into her in the dark.
Ree was no stranger to darkness, or silence, or wandering the lonely, forgotten passages of the crypt. But it was a very different experience when straining for the sound of muttered incantations and shuffling feet, and squinting ahead for the telltale shadow of black magic.
What was she doing here? What had possessed her, that she’d decided to grab Smythe and run? Tarantur’s curse had been aimed at her. She’d marked herself as the outsider she’d always sworn she wasn’t.
She didn’t make reckless decisions. She was cautious, considered. She had survived for seventeen years in this crypt without magic. She had built a place for herself and earned her way. And she was risking it all for … what? A man she hardly knew. A debt she’d already paid.
‘Ree?’
‘This way,’ she said. She took his wrist and guided him around the corner.
They would let her back. Necromancers had a terrible rage but were easily distracted, and none of them really wanted her dead. They knew her, they’d watched her grow up. But in the heat of the moment, filled with bloodlust and righteous power, they would curse first, think later.
But she had some advantages. In her mind, she was envisioning the maps she’d found and annotated, or drawn herself, assembling a collage in her mind, a multi-level diagram of where they’d come from and where they needed to go.
If they turned left at the next junction, she could take him across the shallow stone bridge into the eastern levels. If they spent the night in the tower there, she could take him to the surface in the morning without passing any of the denizens’ usual territories.
There were sometimes ghouls in that part of the crypt, and ghouls were far more troubling than any lesser dead or minor minion, but if they took care to ward one of the upper rooms, she was confident they could —
‘What was that?’ she held out her arm, stopping Smythe in his tracks.
‘What was —?’
‘Shh!’ She could hear it now. Low voices, nearly inaudible, echoing down the narrow walls of the tunnel.
There was no guarantee they would be able to outrun them. It could even be a trap — scare them into running on, and chase them right into the arms of another group. Necromancers usually hated working in groups, but they were crafty and had minions at their beck and call.
She looked frantically about. What did she know about the construction in these parts? Were there any secret doors, were there high ceilings, any crumbling walls she could take advantage of?
They needed to hide. Needed a tomb or a tunnel or — yes!
These tunnels were often flooded, having been built beneath a lake. Most tunnels in these parts had large drainage systems. If she just looked down —
She seized Smythe’s wrist. The voices were getting louder.
‘What’s happening? Should —’
‘They’ve found us.’ She dragged him back and to the wall. Yes, there was the drainage trench, and a little further along — ‘Down here, Smythe.’ She crouched beside a narrow tunnel that only came up to about knee height. ‘You crawl in first.’
Smythe scrambled over to the tunnel, ducked his head, then dithered. ‘I don’t think I’ll fit!’
‘Then get lower!’ She hissed. She shoved him in and crawled in after him.
‘Eurgh, disgusting! It’s all wet!’
‘Shh!’
When she got in, she grabbed his ankle. ‘Wait a minute.’
‘And on my good adventuring trousers, too,’ he whispered.
Ree decided the best bet to get him to quieten would be to ignore him. She crawled into the crossway of the tunnel, ignoring the freezing damp climbing up her robes. She turned, crept closer to the entrance, and waited.
Footsteps on the cold stone floor. Torchlight, flickering and warm, announced their presence. There was a splash. ‘Eurgh!’
‘
Ungoth! Shh!’ That sounded like Symphona, one of the acolytes Ree’s age.
‘I think I stepped in a puddle. It’s probably ruined my shoes.’
‘Shh! They could be nearby.’
There was a pause. ‘Where?’
There was a thumping sound. Ree was fairly certain Symphona had hit Ungoth.
‘I’m sure they were here a moment ago.’ The footsteps grew closer. Ree held her breath as Symphona’s legs stopped in front of Ree’s hiding place. ‘I swear I could hear that drippy upworlder whining.’
Ree thanked the gods that Smythe managed to hold in whatever indignant bluster she was sure that mark elicited.
It made her uncomfortable that Symphona was hunting them. The older girl might only be an acolyte, but she was cruel and ruthless. It had made her the unofficial leader of the younger necromancers — all but Usther, who reacted poorly to being given orders. If Symphona was out looking for them, all of the acolytes would be.
‘They must have run on, got away from us.’
‘No, not possible. I have a spectre up there waiting to report.’ She started tapping her foot.
‘Then what? Do we double back?’
Ree’s knees began to ache and the cold soaked all the way up to her belly. Just leave, she willed them. Keep walking.
Symphona was silent, thoughtful. Ree continued to will her to leave with all her might, wishing she could mindpush, like in the old stories of psychophages and telepaths.
Symphona turned.
Leave, leave …
A pause. Symphona’s face filled the tunnel entrance, her curly pink hair stark against her dark skin. ‘There’s my little sacrifice.’ She smiled. The air thickened as she drew power. She started to mouth a spell.
Ree flung a handful of water and grit into her face. She spluttered and reeled back.
Books & Bone Page 10
