by Martha Wells
Gerard’s worried gaze never left Nicholas’s face. “At the very least, they would be able to copy the new circle’s symbols. We can’t allow that.”
Nicholas was nodding. “I recommend you wait there until Niles can re-create the new circle and send you word that the attack is over.” He lifted a brow in ironic comment. “Really, Gerard, don’t look so dramatic. I am planning on leaving the house before it’s blown to bits.”
Gerard swore, passing a hand over his face. “I realize that.”
Ilias pounded back down the stairs, his pack and Tremaine’s bag slung over his shoulder with his sword and one of the wooden cases the Syprians stored their weapons in under his arm. Giliead appeared with Cletia in tow, carrying their packs and weapons and the other cases. Cimarus came up the stairs from below, taking the packs Cletia passed over to him. Tremaine smacked herself in the forehead, knowing she should have been moving already. She started for the stairs. “Gerard, do you have any notes or books here, anything you need?”
He looked around, distracted. “Yes, in my case downstairs.”
Nicholas took the pistol from her, moving to cover Balin while Tremaine hurried downstairs. She found Gerard’s case on the table in the salon and as she grabbed it up another bomb blast reverberated down the street. Her jaw ached from gritting her teeth and she tried not to imagine the faces of the people she saw on this street, the women and children living in the houses, the people who worked in the shops. Remembering that Ilias had said it was cold in the other world, she grabbed Gerard’s overcoat from the bench in the hallway, slid to a halt and caught up the coats that must belong to the Capidarans.
As she reached the top of the stairs Giliead was carrying the wounded man, wrapped in a blanket, into the ballroom, with Meretrisa and Vervane following uncertainly.
Tremaine went after them but stopped in the doorway, startled by the sight of the damage. The conservatory windows weren’t just broken, the whole back section of the room was charred and blasted. A shoal of broken wood and plaster chunks had fetched up against an invisible barrier where a ward had stopped the debris from flying across the room. The air smelled heavily of smoke and sulfur.
Nicholas was covering Balin with Tremaine’s pistol and Gerard was herding the others into the circle. Cletia looked stoic and Cimarus nervous, an attitude also shared by the two Capidaran women. Ilias just looked impatient and Giliead grim. Gerard told Nicholas, “The wards will linger a short time after we go, so you’ll have a few moments.”
Nicholas nodded, and as Tremaine dumped the case and her armload of coats inside the circle, he passed the gun back to her. “Wait a moment,” he added, and pulled a handful of ammunition out of his coat pocket, dropping it into hers.
“Thanks.” She threw him a look. He lifted a brow at her and she couldn’t think of anything to say. She jerked her chin at Balin, telling her in the Aelin language, “Get over there.”
She shook her head stubbornly. “I won’t go.”
Another blast sounded nearby, close enough to rattle the sconces and remaining windows, and cause a shower of plaster dust.
Nicholas moved before Tremaine could, catching the woman by the arm and propelling her into the circle. Tremaine hurried after, grabbing Balin by the collar and shoving the pistol into her side.
Nicholas stepped back. Gerard looked up at him, saying, “Good luck.”
Nicholas just smiled. It was a particularly evil smile, and didn’t promise well for the Gardier. Bastard, Tremaine thought. He enjoys this kind of thing. Somebody had to, she supposed. As Gerard whispered to the sphere she held her breath and felt the rush of vertigo, then the world turned dark.
Florian hurried down the alley and paused as she reached the street behind the old house, relieved to see its distinctive roofline over the shorter town homes surrounding it. Nearly there, she told herself. See, I told you you could do this.
The air had been heavy with smoke the whole way and it was much worse here; her lungs were starting to ache from coughing. The harbor launch she had ridden in from the Ravenna had just reached the dock when the bombing started. The Port Authority and the government buildings she was familiar with all seemed to be targets, which only made sense. As a victim of many Vienne bombings, she had decided to try what the Siege Aid people always told you never to do: to make her way across town back to the house.
Navigating rubble-blocked streets and dodging fire brigades, floods from broken water mains, patrols of Capidaran constables and soldiers as well as panicked civilians had been harder than she had thought. But the launch pilot had said the Ravenna had escaped and she had seen an airship crash into the harbor, and another go down near the Port Authority, so she told herself the attack couldn’t last much longer.
Florian stepped out onto the walk, getting a better view of the empty street, and halted in shock. Half the buildings were piles of smoking rubble, leaving their house and a few of the town homes on either side standing like an isolated island. “Oh, no,” she murmured, sickened by the sight. They knew, the Gardier knew we were there. They had to be looking for Arisilde.
She scanned the overcast sky hastily, but there were no airships in sight. She knew that only meant they might be hiding up in the clouds. Or that the Gardier had landed to attack the house from the ground. She whispered the words of her favorite concealment charm. It made her feel a little better, though not much.
Gritting her teeth, Florian darted across the street toward one of the few houses left standing, reaching the shelter of its set of stairs. She could smell gas and groaned under her breath; a broken gas main was all this situation needed.
Florian hesitated, knowing she was being stupid, but she had to see if the others were in the house, if they were trapped or… She started forward, hugging the side of this building, the rough texture of the bricks scratching at her clothes, and reached the edge of an alley. Overgrown grass came up through cracks in the pavement but it was free of garbage or rubble. She hurried down it, grateful for the shadows that hid her from above, nervous at how trapped it made her feel. This charm didn’t exactly have a great record of success at fooling Gardier crystals or the smaller belt devices.
The heavy silence was making her ears hurt. She could hear the distant sirens of the Capidaran militia but no hint of movement or voices from the houses on either side of her. The inhabitants must have fled, but it was unnerving.
Florian reached a heap of rubble that had been someone’s garden wall and edged around it, getting a view of the alley behind the old manor house’s back court. The wooden gate was closed. She bit her lip, seeing that the conservatory windows on the second floor were broken out and the bricks around them singed. Gerard must have been there, he could have warded the house against fire. They must be all right. She needed to make sure no one was in the garden before she went through the gate. Glancing around, she stepped back to the rubble, putting one foot carefully on a broken pile of bricks and reaching to grab the part of the wall still standing. The rubble moved under her foot, making a loud chink of brick against brick; she froze. Nobody could have heard that, she told herself sternly, and started to boost herself up.
Someone clapped a hand over her mouth from behind and yanked her off the rubble, pinning her arms to her sides. Terror giving her extra strength, Florian didn’t bother to try to scream, just bit down into the gloved hand with all her might, mentally fumbling for a defensive spell.
He dragged her back against the wall and an almost voiceless whisper in her ear said, “Florian, it’s Valiarde.”
Oh. Feeling like a fool, Florian released his hand. It was Nicholas, Tremaine’s father, dressed in the dark overcoat and suit he had been wearing last night. She noticed irrelevantly that he had cut himself shaving that morning. He was also giving her a mildly annoyed look. She saw the teeth imprints in his glove and winced, whispering, “Sorry.”
He held a finger to his lips, telling her to be quiet. Just then Florian heard movement on the other side of the w
all and a low mutter of voices. Voices speaking Aelin, the Gardier language. She threw a frightened look up at Nicholas. They were standing close together, so the concealment charm probably covered both of them, but the men behind the wall must have a crystal and she was fairly sure they weren’t deaf. She heard footsteps start along the wall, heading toward the gate at the far end.
Nicholas grimaced, releasing her arm and stepping away from her. He motioned for her to stay where she was and she nodded rapidly. She knew very little about Tremaine’s father except what Tremaine had told her: that he was crazy and that it ran in the family. Knowing Tremaine, she found that oddly comforting at the moment.
Just as the man on the other side of the wall reached the gate, Nicholas called something out in Aelin. The steps hesitated, then the man asked a question in the same language.
Nicholas stepped to the gate, his boots soundless on the wet grass, standing just beside it. The gate jerked open and a man in Gardier brown stood there, suspicion etched on his features. His expression didn’t change as his eyes passed over Florian and she knew her charm was working for the moment. Since the fallen brick had been enough to betray her to Nicholas, and she still hadn’t a clue what shadow he had sprung out of, she held her breath and kept absolutely still.
It had been a while since she had seen a Gardier in person. This man had the cropped dark hair but his skin wasn’t the unhealthy pale of the Gardier she had seen on the Isle of Storms; he was even a little sunburned. He wore the same roughly tailored brown uniform they all did, with some of the smaller spell devices attached to his belt, made from chips off the larger sorcerer crystals. He also had a pair of the Gardier version of aether-glasses around his neck. But he didn’t step out of the gate into Nicholas’s reach.
Nicholas waited just out of the man’s view, his eyes narrowing with impatience. Frowning, the Gardier reached for the aether-glasses around his neck. He’ll see me anyway. Oh, what the hell. Before she could change her mind, Florian gestured the charm away.
The Gardier started, staring at her, and took that fatal last step. Nicholas was on him instantly, an arm wrapped around his neck, and the man went down with a strangled gasp. Florian skipped out of the way, seeing blood splatter across the dingy gray stones. God, I didn’t see the knife either, she thought, shocked. Nicholas had produced it out of nowhere.
Shouts from the house told her the attack had been witnessed. The Gardier collapsed and Nicholas yanked something off the man’s belt, not one of the crystal devices but a metal tube with a handle. He twisted the handle and flung it over the wall toward the house.
Taking her arm, he hurried her down the alley, saying calmly, “We had better report this to the Capidaran authorities. I don’t suppose you know where there’s a working telephone?”
“Was that a bomb?” Florian asked, not wanting to go through the whole encounter without at least getting a word in edgewise.
Nicholas didn’t need to answer her: As they reached the alley the incendiary exploded.
Tremaine landed with a thump on solid stone. She staggered but managed to stay on her feet. The darkness was absolute and it was cold; someone jostled her shoulder, making her stumble. She kept her revolver planted firmly in Balin’s back and tightened her hold on the woman’s collar until she heard a strangled gasp. She didn’t care; she didn’t intend to be jumped in the dark by a Gardier. She just hoped she wasn’t jumped in the dark by anything else. Uh…I hope we’re in the right place….
“Stay where you are,” Ilias said sharply, cutting across murmurs of confusion and dismay. “There’s a cliff nearby.” He had spoken Syrnaic and Gerard repeated the command in Rienish, which caused the jostling behind Tremaine to stop abruptly.
A cold breeze brought her the smell of water and a clean mossy scent, and she realized that background rush was a river cascading over rocks, somewhere not so distant. Her eyes were starting to adjust and she could make out the arch of the overhang just as Ilias and Gerard had described it, where the opening to the gorge was outlined with a faint sheen of starlight. Then light blossomed behind her and she glanced around to see a misty ball of white sorcerous illumination forming over Gerard’s head.
The light revealed the large domed cave, the half columns carved into the arching stone walls. Scanning the chamber with a preoccupied expression, Giliead said, “We need shelter for the wounded man.”
“Yes, there are rooms back here that should be less exposed,” Gerard said, his voice echoing oddly as the wispy light drifted toward the back of the overhang. “Everyone keep together,” he added. “We didn’t have a chance to search this place thoroughly.”
Tremaine followed the light, prodding Balin along in front of her, only realizing they had gone down a corridor when she bumped against a cold stone wall. She groped her way through a door into a very dark room. Gerard gestured again and more wisps of light appeared, revealing a big drafty chamber with smooth stone walls marked by bands of geometric carving. There was a circular stone rim in the center about a foot high. Though the room was out of the direct path of the wind, a strong draft came from the doorway and cold seemed to radiate off the stone like one of the Ravenna’s refrigerated storage cabins.
Giliead carried the wounded man in, lowering him carefully to the smooth floor. Meretrisa and Vervane hurried after him, pulling their coats off to fashion a makeshift pallet.
“We need firewood,” Gerard muttered, looking around. “And we didn’t see anything combustible up here.”
“There has to be a passage outside.” Giliead stood, looking down at the unconscious Capidaran with a worried frown.
“There doesn’t have to be,” Tremaine had to point out, giving Balin a shove to get her further into the room. They should have brought some of the furniture from the house, since it was destined to end up as firewood anyway. “There could have been stairs leading up from the river that collapsed.”
“Tremaine—” Gerard didn’t sound in the mood for random speculation.
“Should we search the place now?” Ilias was at her elbow suddenly, Cletia behind him. “We know this passage is empty and there’s room to hole up here for the night.”
“No, you’re right, we’ll wait till the morning,” Tremaine told him. It would be ridiculous to wander around here in the pitch-dark when they could fortify this room. Then she hesitated, Ander’s words echoing in the back of her brain. “Is that right?”
Ilias snorted and gave her a light thump on the head, apparently the Syprian gesture that meant “don’t be stupid.” He headed back for the door, calling for Giliead, Cletia following him.
Tremaine looked around, trying to decide what to do with Balin, who was standing in sullen and merciful silence. Cimarus approached then, carrying his and Cletia’s packs, asking, “Should I give them the blankets we brought?”
Tremaine saw that Meretrisa and Vervane were huddled on either side of the wounded man, trying to keep him warm. One of Gerard’s light wisps hovered protectively over them. “Yes. No, wait, I’ll do it, and you watch her.” She nodded to Balin. “She’s a Gardier, and she’s already killed her guard and escaped once, so if she moves, gut her.”
“I will, daiha— I mean, Tremaine.” There had been a Syrnaic word in there Tremaine didn’t know, and she eyed him suspiciously as he handed over the packs. He put a hand on his sword hilt, gesturing Balin back into a corner. The Gardier woman obeyed, watching him angrily.
Ilias paused in the corridor to tell Giliead, “We should post a guard at the stairwell.”
Giliead looked up and down the stone passage, brows drawn together in thought. One of the floating balls of curse light had followed them, but Ilias saw it didn’t provide much useful illumination. Shadows clung heavily to the corners and the other doorways were just cold black holes; they needed to find something they could make torches out of. “None of these rooms had other doors?” Giliead asked.
“No, just these out to this passage.” Ilias gestured as they moved along the corrido
r, Giliead stopping to look into each room, using the curse light to make sure each was still as unoccupied as Gerard and Ilias had found it earlier. Cletia trailed after them. Ilias thought he had been fairly successful at ignoring her so far, and meant to continue.
Giliead found the end of the passage, where narrow stairs curled down a round shaft. Cold air flowed up it, but the draft wasn’t as strong as the one that seemed to be blowing straight in off the snowcapped mountains across the gorge. “Let’s put everyone else in that first room, and if anything comes up these stairs, there should be plenty of time to give warning.”
Ilias nodded absently, looking around for a good spot for the sentries to sit. The corridor was a drafty place to rest in, the air damp and heavy with the scent of the river. “Nothing’s getting up that cliff face. Not unless it can fly.” He hesitated, thinking that over. “Or come through the curse gate,” he added, frowning as he looked back down the passage. He could see Gerard there, studying the circle, another of the wispy balls of curse light floating around him.
Giliead lifted a brow, resigned. “We need a sentry there, too.”
“What can I do?” Cletia demanded. She threw a look at Ilias, her features stark in the faint white light. “I want to help.”
Giliead considered her for a moment. “Watch the stairs.”
Ilias was already heading back up the passage. They needed to fix a blanket over the doorway to the overhang chamber or it would be too cold to sleep. If they had to stay here longer than one night they would have to find a way down to the forest; a good fire and a screen of brush for the doorway would make this place almost cozy.
Carefully avoiding the circle, Ilias went to where Gerard was standing near the ledge, staring up at the sky, paging through a sheaf of papers. He glanced up as Ilias stopped beside him, reflected starlight glinting on the glass over his eyes, and explained, “I’m trying to find out where we are.”
