My feet slipped and stuck under me. I twisted wildly and was held in an impossible position, hanging in the empty air, pinned like a fish gutted and racked for smoking. I waved my arms helplessly but felt like I was struggling in thick honey; I soon lost any ability to move at all. With the last of my strength, I twisted my head to an agonising angle and was just able to catch sight of Ryshad and Aiten. They were caught like me, held motionless halfway through a step and a fall. In Aiten's case, his head was only a hand's breadth above the water; I could see the ripples of his breath on the surface.
Battle cries screamed around us as the real fight was joined, now we were immobilised. The sands blushed red and the charnel smell of slaughter mingled with the salt scent of the sea and the sweaty reek of fighting men. High above I could hear the seabirds crying, attracted to this sudden unexpected bounty. Whatever magic had numbed my feet was creeping up my body; I was feeling increasingly remote from the mayhem all around me. My mother had once dosed me with an Aldabreshi pain-syrup after the surgeon had cut an abscess from my back. I had woken fleetingly in the depths of the night to see her by my bed, face drawn tight as she watched every breath I took, but I had been as far away from her anguish then as I was now from the men dying all around me.
I vaguely realised that the screams were changing, losing any sense of words or coherence. I saw one man in brown turn on his neighbour, and abandoning his sword, attack like an animal with teeth and nails, oblivious as they drowned together in the foam of the returning tide. The wavelets rolled a corpse past me, hands clasped tight on the dagger the man had used to tear open his own throat. Two men staggered across my bleary gaze, each bleeding from a handful of mortal wounds as the madness in their eyes drove them to fight on.
Rough hands grabbed me and I was slung across some leather-clad shoulder, my head bouncing helplessly, studs scoring my cheek. In a brief moment, as I was passed to someone else, I saw the path we had come down such a little time before. Brown-liveried corpses were strewn across the shingle and Senior Gorget was moving among the wounded. Some were being helped up but, as I watched, he came to his junior and with a brief shake of his head and a dagger through the eye despatched him to whatever Otherworld awaited these people. Bloody-handed, he screamed a curse that chilled even my numbed and uncomprehending mind but the pace of the black-clad men carrying us did not so much as falter as they turned their backs on their defeated foes, kicking the enemy dead aside with evident contempt.
I realised dimly that this should frighten me but as I was trying to work out why, the creeping insensibility finally reached the last of my mind and everything dissolved into nothingness.
It was quite some time before it occurred to me that I was conscious again. I could not move, not even my eyes, and it took a while for me to realise the featureless white expanse that I could see was actually a plastered ceiling. That thought hung in my numbed mind for a while and then, as my wits slowly awoke, I began to notice tiny cracks, missing flakes, a spider's web clinging optimistically to an inaccessible corner. I was just getting interested in the textures of the ceiling when I realised my hearing was coming back, not that I'd realised I'd been missing it until then. Footsteps marched briskly along wooden boards some way off to the side and an unidentifiable clatter rose from somewhere below. As I tried to establish what these sounds might be and what they might mean, all with my wits as useless as a three-day drunk's, a tearing scream ripped through the silence, ending with shocking abruptness.
It woke me up more thoroughly than a bucket of stable water. That had been a man's scream, not a yell or shout of outrage, but a scream of pure terror. An instant of fear for my companions filled me but vanished in fear for myself; mentally, the shock of that scream might have made me jump twice my height in the air but in reality, I hadn't moved a muscle. I was as helpless as a stunned hog waiting for the butcher's knife.
In the same instant, almost as if my thought had been a signal, the door opened and I heard the soft scrape of boots on the floorboards. I strained uselessly to turn my head but need not have bothered; the newcomer came over to where I lay and leaned over me so I could see his face.
It was the white-haired man from the beach, the mace-wielder. He was handsome in an angular sort of way. The long bones of his face carried no spare flesh and the skin was drawn smoothly over them, patterned with tiny wrinkles and a few small scars. His eyes were deep brown, almost black, pitiless and as alien to me as an eagle's, dispassionately regarding its prey.
He spoke but his words meant nothing. They carried something of the cadence of Mountain speech and a few similar sounds but, at that speed, I was going to make no sense of anything. I tried uselessly to shrug, to widen my eyes, to turn down my mouth to convey my incomprehension. Unpleasant amusement flickered in my captor's eyes and he spoke a slower mouthful of gibberish with a subtly familiar metre.
Sensation returned to my arms and legs. I felt restraining bands around ankles and wrists anchoring me to a hard table. Twisted muscles all began to protest at once and I found I could now grimace with the pain. The confusion inside my skull began to subside, leaving me with a feeling like the worst morning-after head I've ever suffered and I had to concentrate on not throwing up, a bad idea when you're flat on your back. White-hair was still leaning over me, supercilious amusement in his eyes, and I decided that if I were to vomit, I'd do my best to give him a faceful.
'So, I must welcome you to my home. I hope we can reach an accommodation over your visit here.'
He was speaking Tormalin, not the Old Tongue of books and parchments that he might have pieced together from first principles, but the everyday language of that country, accent flawlessly of the south, dialect that of the merchant classes. Any ideas of petty gestures of defiance seemed suddenly ridiculous.
'You have come uninvited to my domain and I have rather strict rules about that sort of thing,' he continued pleasantly. 'However, you are from Tren Ar'Dryen and that is presently an interest of mine. Information useful to me might well count in mitigation of your offences.'
I frowned over the unfamiliar term: Tren Ar'Dryen? Mountains of the Dawn? Something like that anyway; it struck me as odd that these people should have a Tormalin name for our homelands.
He struck the table by my head with a leathern fist, mail-links scoring the woodwork. 'Please pay attention when I am speaking to you.' His mild tone contrasted chillingly with the violence of his gesture. 'You are travelling with a wizard of Hadrumal and two mercenary warriors,' he went on calmly. 'What is your purpose here?'
I could not think of any useful reply so kept silent. He raised an eyebrow in eloquent disappointment.
'You are working on a commission for Planir the Black. Please tell me what it is that you are doing for him.'
I kept as mute as a statue on a shrine.
'You made contact with the thief Azazir. What did he tell you about the lands of Kel Ar'Ayen?'
As I still made no reply, he leaned closer and I could smell soap and bath oils on him. His breath was fresh with herbs, teeth even and white as he bared them in a threatening snarl.
'If you co-operate, things will go well for you. If you resist, you will wish you were dead a thousand times before I let them release you to the shades.'
This might sound like one of the speeches every black-cloaked villain makes in a Lescari drama but he meant every word and I knew it. He must have seen the fear in my eyes; he smiled in calm satisfaction and turned away to pace the room in measured steps.
'What can you tell me of Tormalin politics at the present? Who are the patrons with real influence? Who has the Emperor's ear?'
Why ask me that? I had no idea and couldn't even have come up with a convincing lie.
'What about Planir? What are his relations with, say, the Relshazri, the Caladhrian Council, the Dukedoms?'
What did I know about any of that? Shiv and Ryshad might have some idea but—
As I framed the thought, his boots scraped to a halt. 'Go
od, so at least some of you have the right connections. Now, what do you know that's of use to me?'
I tried frantically to empty my mind but he crossed the room in a few swift paces and seized my head in his hands, fingers pressing into the sides of my skull, his breath warm on my face, flecks of spittle stinging my cheeks.
'Don't try and fight me, young woman. I can walk in and out of your mind as I please and take whatever I want. If you resist, you'll just get hurt, so be a good girl and keep quiet, and perhaps I won't kill you just yet.'
The words were those of a rapist and he violated my mind more thoroughly than that perverted bastard in Hawtree could ever have dishonoured my body. He tore away the self-possession of my adult life and stripped bare the child
I had been, frightened and rebellious by turns as I sought to fit in with a world where others had whole families and their own homes. He ripped through precious memories of the happy times with my father and mother, defiling them with his own derision. Having reduced me to a weeping child, he turned to my meeting with Darni and Shiv, forcing apart my memories to extract whatever knowledge he might find useful. His contempt for my ignorance of their plans seared through me but before he could pursue my activities further, I felt a salacious curiosity invade me. The intimacies of my rime with Geris and others were laid open before him and I felt his lascivious amusement penetrating my mind; I felt soiled beyond belief. My very mind throbbed, bruised, swollen and torn, but he continued to force his questing intellect into me until I feared for my reason. It felt like an ordeal of hours though I doubt it took more than a few breaths.
The shock of release was almost a physical pain. He stood over me for a long moment, a repellent satisfaction and satiation curving his thin lips. I clamped my teeth together to stop myself begging, pleading with him not to hurt me, not to do it again, but I could not control the tears that ran down to dampen my hair.
He leaned down again and whispered confidingly into my ear like a lover, 'There's more I want from you. Now decide if you're going to tell me yourself. Or whether you want me to try and find it inside your head again. Or whether you'd prefer I turn you over to my guards.' He pinched my nipple in merciless fingers and I gasped at the pain. 'There are more ways than one to make people talk and, believe me, I use them all.'
He left abruptly and I heard the door lock behind him. As it did, the bands around my wrists and ankles loosened but when I sat up to rub them, there was no sign of any restraints. I stared at the red lines denting my flesh where I had struggled against the cuffs and shook as I realised they had existed only in my mind. I fought to control the hysteria that threatened to overwhelm me, my breath coming in shallow pants like a cornered animal's. I don't know how long I sat there, incapable and incoherent, but eventually the fear receded and I began to hear more normal sounds filtering up to the narrow window of my prison. My grandmother had called it bloody-mindedness, my mother had called me stubborn; I have always preferred to call it strength of character. Call it what you will, it finally dragged me to my feet.
I crossed the room and examined the casement; it was barred, so offered no chance of escape, and in any case, I saw I was four storeys high up a sheer stone wall. It belonged to a keep, square and defensible from the little I could see by craning my neck all around. Below I saw a busy court surrounded by a thick wall, topped with parapet and walkway and regular patrols. We seemed to be some distance from any high ground and on a rise as well; whoever had built this place understood defensive architecture.
I tapped the glass of the window. It was uneven and discoloured but it was still glass. Down beyond the compound, I could see the glitter of a whole range of hot-houses on the south-facing wall of an enclosed garden. I looked down on the patrolling guards, their black leather uniforms patterned with gleaming metal studs. By local standards of wealth, we had to be in the hands of a major player, which had all sorts of worrying implications - for us in our present predicament and later for Planir and whoever else might find these jokers on their seafront. I realised the tall things sticking up in the distance beyond the wall were ships' masts, ocean-going vessels at that.
So what now? I have to admit I came very close to simply giving up. Part of me could see no way out beyond telling what little I knew and hoping for a quick death. Luckily, the larger part of me is the gambler, and that kept reminding me that the game's never over until all the runes have come up. Eventually, I began to listen. I crossed to the door and examined the lock. It was good, but I reckoned I was better. I was about to detach the tongue of my belt buckle, which is incidentally a useful lockpick, when I heard footsteps in the corridor. I shifted quickly to a corner and sank down, head on knees and buried in my arms, the very picture of fear and despair.
It was not the white-haired man but six of his foot soldiers; this had to be an attempt to intimidate me since they surely knew by now that I worked no magic. I looked suitably terrified and believe me, it was not hard. They marched me off wordlessly and we descended three flights of stairs and featureless, whitewashed corridors. In another empty room, an older man in a soft grey robe stripped me with impersonal disdain and gave me the most thorough search I've ever had. The guards watched with occasional flickers of lust but, by this stage, rape was way down the list of things I feared. I'd had worse when I'd had to visit an apothecary with a dose of the itch in my younger, more ignorant days. When the man with the grey robe and the cold fingers was done, they marched me down more stairs and threw me into what had to be the cleanest dungeon I'd ever seen. I was not chained; I suppose they figured a stark naked redhead would be easy to spot if I were to escape.
I examined my new prison. It was about the size of a stablebox and lit by a grating open to a yard high up on one wall. The walls were whitewashed and scrubbed but stains told me blood had once pooled on the floor and spattered the walls. There was a pail, a pitcher of clean water with bone beakers and a basket of bread and cheese; I noticed the floor was warm here too. I had just decided I would have preferred a filthy Lescari forgettory where I might have stood some chance of being overlooked and thus escaping when the door opened again and Aiten was shoved through it.
'Livak!' He was as naked as me but in a far worse state; fresh bruises and cuts stood out starkly across his pale skin and one eye was purpling. He stared at me and the unbruised bits of his face went scarlet as he waved his hands vainly in an attempt to cover himself.
'Don't be a fool,' I snapped. 'Neither of us has anything new to hide, have we?' It was typical that Aiten, with his store of dubious jokes, would turn out to be as shy of naked flesh as a virgin sworn to Halcarion.
The awkward moment was broken by Ryshad's arrival; he had no obvious injuries but looked shaken and drawn and, like me, behaved as if lack of clothes was the last thing he had to be concerned about. His few days' growth of beard stood out starkly black against his unaccustomed pallor.
'Are you all right?' Aiten and I spoke as one as we helped Ryshad to sit down. I fetched him a cup of water but he waved it away with an expression of nausea.
'Have you been taken to that white-haired man yet?' he asked us shakily, unable to meet our concerned glances.
'I have.' I could not keep the tremble out of my voice. Ryshad looked up and I saw my own ordeal reflected in his warm amber eyes. That instant of shared experience somehow gave me strength and I saw an answering spark of determination rekindled in Ryshad's gaze.
Aiten looked at us, fear in his face. 'I take it this is bad?'
'Yes,' Ryshad said slowly. 'And I guess we're supposed to tell you how bad so that the fear will make it ten times worse.' A trace of the usual steel strengthened his voice. 'So I won't. It's bad, Ait, very bad, but nothing you won't be able to handle.'
I wondered at the conviction in Ryshad's tone and from the fear remaining on Aiten's face, he did too.
'So what happened to you?' I wanted to distract him and to find out what I might be facing when the next set of games were played.
Ai
ten shrugged. 'I was handed over to a handful of them who did their best to knock me senseless. They must have thought they'd softened me up so some rump - some old man started asking questions about why we were here. I didn't say anything so I was stripped and - and searched,' he blushed furiously, 'and thrown in here.'
'Don't feel bad about it, Ait.' I could see it was bothering him. 'Six guards can swear I'm a genuine redhead now. They're just doing it to try and break us down.'
Ryshad looked up from the floor as if our naked state had only just occurred to him. He stared at me rather like a thoughtful horse dealer.
'Did any of them try anything? Do you think any of them might be persuaded—'
'Rysh!' Aiten's tone was outraged.
'It's all right, Ait, honestly.' I put a reassuring hand on his arm. 'Don't take this the wrong way but I'd let them stuff me six ways to Solstice if I thought it would get us out of here. But none of them did so much as help themselves to a quick handful.'
Ryshad flashed me a half-smile. 'Well, that tells us their discipline is better than most troops I've ever met.'
'Sadly,' I agreed with a faint grin.
Ryshad got to his feet and began to examine the cell. As he was looking up at the grating, the door opened once more and Shiv was thrown unceremoniously in. Luckily Aiten was in position to catch him since he was unconscious, hair still matted with blood and clothes stained with seawater.
'How come he keeps his breeches?' Aiten muttered crossly as he laid Shiv gently down, stripping off his jerkin to pillow his head.
'Because there's not much point in humiliating an unconscious man.' Ryshad knelt beside him. 'Which means he's not come round since we were taken.' He looked grim as he examined the wounds to the back of Shiv's head, gentle fingers teasing apart the long black hair crusted with blood.
I shivered. 'I'd be happier if someone wasn't taking the trouble to think things like that through.'
The Thief's Gamble Page 34
