Which left a big red target painted around Savaad Rallant, still in their custody.
A part of him wished he could just cut their connection. Rallant had seduced him deliberately, used him for access to Blaze Company command, then controlled him when the coup came. He was, by all measures, an enemy.
Yet he'd confided secrets to Linciard, both before the coup and while incarcerated. He'd spoken freely of his nature to Scryer Mako and the captain, and hadn't pushed the boundary between himself and Linciard even when Linciard made it possible. He was a prisoner as much because he couldn't be fixed as that he couldn't be trusted—and every time Linciard thought about the hook in his mind, his heart hurt. He didn't want to care so much, but he couldn't help it. They'd been too close for him to shake it off.
It wasn't love, but it still mattered.
He had to go down there again. Reassure himself that Rallant was all right, even though it was outside the normal visitation schedule.
Still, he knew better than to visit on his own, so as soon as he was free of his meetings, he went in search of Scryer Mako.
The chatter on the earhook network had died down to the occasional sentry report, so he expected to make contact with her easily. But she was off-hook, unresponsive, and all anyone knew was that she'd gone off-duty—like most of the staff. A general state of sleep-while-you-can had been declared, with muster for the first assault scheduled in six marks.
This forced Linciard to hoof it over to the mages' mini-compound in Shadow Folk territory to find her. He hadn't been there much, not liking to cross the Blaze/Shadow border, so had to ask for directions twice before being properly directed to a little cul-de-sac of doors. Two players sat at a card-table in the circular space before them: Mako's Illanic apprentice Izelina, hard-faced as always, and far milder Warder Tanvolthene, their probationary ex-mercenary. Both cast him inquisitive looks as he closed in.
“Lieutenant,” said Tanvolthene politely. “Something amiss?”
“Just looking for Mako,” he answered, glancing at the doors. There were five, set in a rough circle and painted with wards, but with no indication of who lived where.
“She's—“
“Over there,” the girl cut in, pointing at the second door on the right. Linciard glanced that way, then to them again, marking the peculiar challenge in Izelina's expression and the doubtful look Tanvolthene gave her.
“Ah...is this a bad time?” he hazarded. “She's not asleep, is she?”
“No. Go right in.”
Tanvolthene said nothing, and Linciard couldn't think of what would be wrong, so with a shrug he strode to the door. It had no lock, only a handle—same as all doors down here—and when he gripped it he felt just the faint tingle of a soundproofing ward.
Pulling it open, he said, “Sorry, excuse m—“
And stopped.
Mako likewise halted to stare at him, riding crop upraised. She was naked to the waist, having shrugged off the top half of her under-robe, and had a wine goblet in her other hand and her bare foot planted on Magus Voorkei's bare ruddy buttcheek. The ogre-blood magus pushed up from the bed to blink at Linciard, black hair plastered to his broad brow; from the corner of the room, Magus Presh gave a squawk and fumbled with his own goblet and robe.
“Yes, lieutenant?” Mako snapped.
Linciard found no answer. Stepping back, he pulled the door shut—then cracked it open again, struck by a sudden need to check if what people said about ogre-bloods was true.
“Go away, lieutenant!”
“Sorry! Sorry!” He skittered away from the door, the faint hiss of its sealing wards overpowered by the burst of laughter from behind him. Turning, he found Izelina grinning openly and Tanvolthene shaking his head.
“I apologize. They're, ah, working out their tensions,” said the Warder. “I was hoping they were done.”
Izelina snorted. “Admit it, you wanted to see that too. Oh, lieutenant, your face is so red!”
Linciard took a deep breath, ran his hands over his hair, and pushed down the urge to kick the girl's chair out from under her. “Well, look, just...alert me when they're...not busy, all right?”
The girl plucked at her necklace of silver runes, which Linciard recognized belatedly as Mako's earhook-network anchor. Either the girl didn't know how to answer network queries, or she'd ignored them. “Sure, but they tend to take a while. Is it important?”
“No, it's fine, I'll, uh...”
Unable to think of a graceful way to exit, Linciard just turned and went. In his wake, he heard Tanvolthene say, “You are a mean girl, Zeli,” and caught the apprentice's giggle.
Flustered, he stalked past a handful of doors before he realized he didn't know what to do now. Wait, probably, but the need to see Rallant had become like a pressure on his back, and the more he told himself he shouldn't go, the more it felt imperative. If the captain had a plan to execute Rallant on the sly, surely this was the time he'd carry it out. Right now, when they were on the cusp of a great action and such liabilities could no longer be permitted.
I can't let that happen—
I have to. For the company.
I can't let go without saying goodbye.
That reason rang right in his head, so he clung to it and kept walking until he crossed paths with more Shadow Folk: two women with handcarts hauling crates down a side-hall. They detailed the quickest route to the detention block, and he started that way, truncated toes twinging, through the endless maze of stone and concrete and smoky orange lighting.
There will be agents on guard, he told himself. It's not like we'll be alone.
Still, as he made the turns and passed the landmarks, his steps slowed. He'd visited Rallant several times since being put on medical leave, but always with Mako in his head, eavesdropping on their conversation and watching his thoughts for any suspicious change. So far Rallant had been completely compliant; it was always Linciard being reprimanded, either for touching the bars or getting too heated in his words. Even with the mantra, he couldn't seem to help himself.
I shouldn't be doing this. I have to—
Break him out, said a desperate little voice. Run away together.
No! No, shut up, that's stupid. That would betray my men, betray my captain, and I won't do it. It's within the captain's right to execute any traitor. The company comes first.
But—
He pushed the thought away and just focused on the walls, with their mix of raw stone and concrete, their inset light-globes and raised-notation guidance plaques. Not written in words but some kind of code meant to be read by fingers in the dark, as alien to him as Gheshvan runes. No matter how long he stayed down here, he knew it would stay strange.
By the time he came to the barred archway, he felt calmer. More in control.
The Shadow agent on duty, a burly dark-marked Illanite, eyed him dubiously but unlocked the gate when he indicated his company fledges. The captain had gotten them embroidered on armbands to differentiate Blaze's officers, which was something the Shadow Folk didn't seem to do; there was no visible difference between Enforcer Ardent's gear and this man's.
“Lieutenant Erolan Linciard here to see Savaad Rallant,” he said, glancing automatically around for changes. There was a privacy-screen hiding the back wall of the sentry alcove, typical of Shadow-travel, and a game of solitaire splayed across the desk among files and cups. Down the detention hall were the usual complement of barred gates, offset so no cell could stare into its opposite.
The Shadow agent made notes in a logbook, then gave him another look. “Alone?”
“It's fine. I'm usually alone.”
“Yes, but at this time—“
“It's personal, all right? I won't get close to the bars—you can watch me. He can't do anything from a distance. We just need to talk.”
The agent frowned, and prickles ran down his spine as he saw shadows stir behind the privacy-screen. Then the man shrugged and gestured to a camp-chair folded against the wall. Linciard
hefted it with a nod, squared himself, then headed down the hall toward the end.
Some of the detainees perked as he passed; others just lay in their bunks, indifferent. They were all Seething Brigade members, the intransigent ones that had either refused to cooperate or that Scryer Mako had deemed hostile. Passing them was like walking down a hall of mirrors, for the vast majority were fellow Wynds.
He stared ahead, unwilling to meet their eyes. Bad enough that he'd been stuck with so many of his people during his tenure with Blaze Company, and before that in Captain Terrant's lancers. The last thing he wanted was to engage with the sort of log-headed obstinate asshole who would stick with the Empire even now. He'd quit the Gold Army to escape that type.
I'm such a hypocrite. I was one of them not long ago.
The cells emptied out in the latter half of the hall. By the time he reached the final one, he was out of earshot of the penultimate prisoner.
There, perched on his bunk as if waiting, was Savaad Rallant.
He looked bad, his fair hair a tangled mess, insectile eyes shadowed, mottled skin sickly-pale. For convenience, he was bare-chested, his breeches exchanged for a southern-style sarong; with his hands shackled, it meant he could still do his private business without a guard's help, but from his unwashed state it seemed they had taken that as permission to ignore him. His ankles were shackled too, with a short chain that would force him to hobble on his clawed feet.
No new bruises, though—not that Linciard could see in the rusty orange light.
Automatic anger swelled up in him, and he swallowed it down. He couldn't blame the Shadow Folk for not trusting Rallant, especially since Tanvolthene was no longer warding his cell. It wasn't practical to make the mage run back and forth constantly. Still, every time he visited, he was struck by the wretchedness of his ex-lover's situation. At least the chamberpot was fresh, leaving just the faint honey-musk scent of the man himself.
Determined to ignore it, he unfolded the camp-chair and seated himself, then stared in, unable to find words.
“Erolan,” the senvraka murmured, searching his expression with those segmented eyes. “Something wrong?”
He missed the illusion of the man—the one he could look at without feeling the atavistic shudder that screamed danger! Still, there was warmth in that monstrous heart; he had to believe it. Gathering his will, he said, “We've been given a mission. Since I'm finally off medical leave, I'm included, but...I don't know how it'll go. It's a much bigger risk than usual.”
“You're afraid?”
Linciard nodded slowly. “For my men, for the rest of the company—for you. If we start a fight and someone grabs you by that hook, or if it's just decided that you're too dangerous to keep around… When Ticuo attacked me, he dropped me into this box—concrete, no doors, no light. They could do that at any time, and I...”
He couldn't force the words out, or look Rallant in the eyes. Now that he was here, the obsession was ebbing as it always did, and with it the paranoid fear of the senvraka's sudden execution. Still, they both knew it was inevitable; Rallant could never be reintegrated, and eventually the balance between utility and threat would tip the wrong way.
“You think the captain would allow the Shadow Folk to carry out his dirty work?” said Rallant.
“In this situation? Yeah. Bringing you out would risk an escape attempt. Doing it here—there's not enough space for the whole chopping-block business. Letting the Shadows just pull you into their realm, though…” He spread his hands wordlessly, trying not to think of the eiyets hissing in his ears, pinching his skin. They were far less kind toward the specialists.
“And you support that?”
“No!” He was half-out of the chair and reaching for the bars before he caught himself. Even then, he had an instant's indecision over moving forward or returning to his seat. Duty won, and he settled again, then waved to the peering Shadow agent to show he was fine.
“I don't want to,” he said in a lower voice, “but I've made my choice. I'm sorry. I wish I could've helped you somehow. But if you can't be fixed—“
“Not by any of yours,” Rallant agreed quietly. “Not for lack of wishing.”
“If we found your handlers, killed them...”
“The hook is still there. Any mentalist with one of the tokens could contact me, perhaps spy through me. Scryer Yrsian has tried to fix it but she can't. They are not being spiteful. I understand.”
That calm, level tone infuriated Linciard, because he couldn't understand. Not emotionally. It made all the sense in the world, but it was too hurtful, too cruel to be right. Everything the Palace and the Emperor and the Inquisition had done to its followers, its soldiers and converts, was just so wrong that now that they were free of those powers, there had to be a way to put things right.
But there wasn't. There was only the aftermath: broken people and endless night.
“There has to be some other way,” he murmured, staring down at his hands. He didn't like the waver in his voice, or how his fingers twitched like they were considering acting on their own. “Something we could do to prevent it. If we—“
A thought struck him then, sudden and unformed but as powerful as possession. Before he could stop it, he said, “If there was another Light, would that affect you?”
Rallant's expression went blank, mask-like. “Another Light?”
“Yeah, if we found something like the Emperor, but not. Because he's gone, Sav. It's been confirmed. He's gone and the Palace has fallen and everything's a wreck, but there's supposed to be another Light. The true Light.”
“And where would you find such a thing?”
“Just, if it exists, would it help you?”
Rallant turned his head slightly, honeycombed eyes shifting. It was never easy to say what, precisely, his gaze was fixed on, but Linciard could feel that it wasn't him. “There is no other Light.”
“There is. The Archmagus said—“ He caught himself, suddenly aware of the breach he'd made, and felt the rest of his knowledge trying to claw its way up his throat. The cage beneath the Palace, the imprisonment of the Crown Prince, the battle-plans… That honey-scent filled his nostrils, fresh, cloying, rolling down his throat and filling his lungs with heaviness. His shoulders slumped, the whole world suddenly soft and slow.
Through a soporific daze, he watched as Rallant rose, foot-talons scraping on the concrete floor. Despite his state and his chains, he moved fluidly to the cell door, his proximity sending another flood of pheromone-musk through Linciard's senses. Thin needles peeked out from beneath his index- and middle fingernails as he gripped the bars.
“The Archmagus said what?” he prompted softly, fangs showing just behind his canine teeth. “Has Blaze Company been in contact with him? With his agents?”
Words tried to form on Linciard's tongue, but he struggled against them even though it was like flailing in jelly. Rallant deserved to know—Rallant was meant to know. Rallant was—
master
“No. No,” he forced out through benumbed lips. His heart was thundering in his chest, not from fear but excitement, and he realized to his horror that the tingle on his cheeks and neck was a flush, the ache in his groin not actually pain.
“Oh Erolan,” breathed the senvraka, “you don't need to protect them from me. I can't do any harm here. Look, I can't even reach you.” As if to demonstrate, he slid his arms up the cell door, wrist-chain rasping softly, until all Linciard could see was gold-mottled belly. With his hips pressed to the bars, the slit in his sarong came clear, running right up the line of one thigh.
“I'm the prisoner,” he purred. “You have all the power—don't you remember? You can do as you like. Try it. Touch me—haven't you missed me?”
Yes, he thought. Yes, he had. He remembered that smoky golden world, empty of all but Savaad—no fear, no confusion, no pain, just his beloved's presence and his own joyful surrender. It had been better there. He wanted to go back. Wanted—
Can't. Can't!
>
His hands hit metal. Without realizing it, he'd risen, reached out—and there Savaad was, so close they could almost share breath, those golden eyes hooded down to alien slits, those fine lips curled slightly over the double set of teeth. Pitying, contemptuous, a thread of sourness weaving its way through the thick honeyed fog.
Linciard pushed away from the bars, ignoring the protests of his legs and crotch and foolish heart. The sting of betrayal gave him just enough strength to stagger to the wall.
“Come here,” Rallant commanded, the velvet withdrawn from his voice to expose steel. Linciard shook his head and fixed his gaze on the ground, feeling the aftereffects already rising: nausea and headache to chase away the honeyed lassitude like a shot of vinegar. He didn't understand how Rallant had done this without touching him, just knew he had to get away before it happened again—before it overrode the last bastion of his independence.
Thrall, whispered his fear, but that couldn't be so. Thralls couldn't think, couldn't disobey, and the scryer had cleared him of any such latent control. He was fine.
Right?
“Come back,” Rallant snapped.
He swayed toward the cell involuntarily, then put all his will into stumbling away. Step by step, like wading through treacle, he forged a path toward that distant exit, the camp-chair as lost in his wake as if he'd left it at sea. A chilling hiss rose behind him like the rasp of chitinous wings, and the surge of nausea it provoked nearly dropped him to his knees.
Then he was past the worst of it, the air no longer congealed around him, the flush on his face gone to greasy sweat. A pressure remained on his back, insubstantial as sunlight, but it couldn't hold him—and soon it just pushed him forward, down the detention hall and away, nose running, eyes wet, skull tight as a vise.
Jeers followed him from the other cells, but nothing more from Rallant.
*****
Savaad Rallant twitched the muscles that retracted his injector fangs, then swallowed the residual toxins. He'd already pushed off from the bars and turned away; he didn't care to watch Linciard flee.
The Drowning Dark (The War of Memory Cycle Book 4) Page 73
