“I’m fine,” Bray said, pushing herself to her knees. “Help Peer.”
The crowd parted for them, though their gazes held distinct hostility. They were not welcomed here and the Elevated were, that much was clear. Bray forced her frozen limbs to move, hoping to escape before this diverse body of strangers worked up a mob mentality.
Behind her, Peer walked with the help of Su-Hwan, his long arm draped around her petite shoulder. The tips of his boots grazed the boards of the dock, his eyes still glazed and unfocused.
Bray cast worried glances over her shoulder at him. She was tempted to punch him squarely in the face. What the Spiritblighter is wrong with you? You nearly got us both killed!
But looking at his battered face, his diminished form, she could feel nothing but anxiety. Plainly, something was eating away at her brother, killing him slowly. Her stomach formed a tight knot of fear.
I can’t lose another. I can’t.
Ko-Jin pinched the corners of his eyes, an irritated gesture that had become a habit in recent days. His life had begun to feel like a poorly told joke: what do you get when you jam five Cosanta, two Chiona, two deposed monarchs, and a troubled youth into a tiny cottage? Answer: a headache.
“It should be clear, even to you delicate Cosanta, that our primary concern be assassination—”
“Don’t call it assassination. That lends the man legitimacy he does not deserve.”
“Just like a Chiona, to see only the most violent, obvious answer.”
“Must we continue to argue semantics?”
“Must you interpret every comment as an argument?”
Ko-Jin supposed he should cut them some slack. When he and Yarrow had first mixed with Chiona, there had certainly been tension, but all of this bickering just seemed childish. His patience was thinning.
Someone kicked Ko-Jin’s boot and he jerked.
“Well, what do you think?” Roldon asked him.
Ko-Jin made himself focus. He drummed his fingers on the kitchen table. “Quade certainly needs to be eliminated, but I’m afraid that might be the easy part. We also need to break the spell he has over people.”
“If he dies, his gift should die with him,” Arric Denton said. His wife, Mella, nodded agreement. “Take Fernie. Quade’s effect faded.”
Fernie’s head shot up upon hearing his own name. He opened his mouth, as if to speak, but seemed to change his mind.
“Fernie was completely removed, though,” Ko-Jin said. “He was essentially quarantined, and even then it took several days for his head to clear. Quade’s influence seems to spread indirectly—it’s like a disease passed by word of mouth. Even should Quade be killed, his followers could keep his ideas alive through mere conversation. He could live on indefinitely. He could break the world even from the grave.”
The cottage grew uncomfortably quiet at this proclamation, a silence broken only by the howling wind.
“He’s right,” Fernie said at last, his pale cheeks flushed at the sudden attention. “We—I mean, they, the Elevated, have this mantra to say three times a day.” They all waited for him to continue, and Fernie’s face grew steadily redder. “It’s, just, ah… ‘I have been Elevated. It is my responsibility to restore nature’s order, that the strong should lead and the weak should follow. I will do everything in my power to create balance. History forgives all but inaction.’”
Fernie shook himself, as if the words still held power over him.
Ko-Jin ran a hand over his face. “And if he is now using similar tactics on the rest of the Chisanta, this problem could get a lot bigger, fast.”
Ko-Jin gazed around at the diverse faces before him. He was well acquainted with Roldon and Dedrre, but the others he knew little of. Arric and Mella were a Cosanta couple he had never actually met; they apparently spent much of their time abroad. The two Chiona—Trevva, the Adourran woman with a gift for finding people, and Yu-Sol, a middle-aged Chaskuan woman—were totally unknown to him. The truth was, he couldn’t trust any of them. If Arlow could have thrown his lot in with Quade, then everyone was suspect. They had to be.
Ko-Jin rolled his shoulders. He had a few ideas, or the glimmering of thoughts that could turn into ideas. But he did not want to share them. He stood. “I need some air.”
“We need a plan,” Arric said.
Ko-Jin sidled around the table and moved to the back door. “I can’t think in here.”
He strode out into the yard. With fists jammed in pockets, he gazed up at the stars. He stared and stared, trying to find even one familiar planet, the shape of one known constellation. His step-da had taught him to read the sky long ago—an important skill for a man who made his living on the sea.
He had been a great bear of a man, an intimidating appearance completely at odds with his kind disposition. Ko-Jin squeezed his eyes closed, remembering.
“You see that line of stars there?” He’d pointed.
Young Ko-Jin had traced the stars with his finger. “The mast of Dae-In’s Ship.”
“That’s right.” He crouched low, on a level with Ko-Jin. “You follow the line, and just there is the Captain’s Maid. That one never moves, a stalwart lass she is.”
Ko-Jin had spent many nights at the Cape staring at the sky—especially after his step-da had died at sea, brought down by an unexpected storm—desperate for a feeling of connectedness.
But now Ko-Jin could find neither Dae-In’s Ship nor the Captain’s Maid. He was too far south. The night sky, here, was foreign.
The door behind him opened and closed. Ko-Jin turned to find Dedrre walking towards him, stiffly.
A warm hand slapped him on the shoulder a few times. “Hanging in there, lad?”
Ko-Jin shrugged. “You?”
Dedrre normally had such sharp eyes, looking keenly out from beneath bushy white brows. But just then, he looked weary, old. “I have been wanting to ask you…about Vendra.”
Ko-Jin sighed—he’d been dreading this conversation. How does one tell a man that his granddaughter is a murderer? “She’s in league with Quade, has been for a long time it would seem.”
Dedrre’s white mustache drooped. “But she is under his spell, too. She must be. She’s a good girl, Vendra. A little brash at times, likes to go her own way, but a good girl.”
Ko-Jin frowned. “I suppose that’s true.”
It had never really occurred to him that Vendra might not be responsible for her own actions. She seemed so in control of herself, but could anyone truly be held accountable with Quade whispering in their ear? He doubted Bray or Peer would be inclined to forgive, regardless.
Dedrre produced a pipe and the sweet smell of tobacco joined the scent of brine and fire.
“I meant to ask,” Ko-Jin said. “How did you manage to get away? How did you all meet up?”
Dedrre took a long draw and offered the pipe to Ko-Jin, who shook his head; smoking was bad for the lungs. “Before I ever saw the man, I heard his tale of the assassination—that you and Yarrow had killed the king. Well, I’ve known Yarrow Lamhart a lot of years, long enough to know he wouldn’t kill a spirit, let alone his king. Roldon and I talked about it, about how some folk were acting strangely. Quade was coming to address all of the Cosanta, and I just had this odd feeling, like my hackles were up. We decided to leave before he came—Roldon and I.” He drew on his pipe again and puffed out a perfect ring of smoke. “Next thing I know, my name’s in the papers as a rebel and I’m an outlaw. We met up with Arric and Mella by chance shortly before that—they’d been en route back to the Cape, so we warned them against returning.”
“And the Chiona?” Ko-Jin asked.
Dedrre gave a barking laugh. “Met with those young women—” Ko-Jin smiled. Yu-Sol, being somewhere in her fifties, could hardly be called young, “—in Andle. They’d been cornered by some Elevated. Arric wanted to just walk right by, but Roldon wouldn’t hear of it, of course. So, we had a bit of a scuffle and have been together since then. Nice girls, really, underneath all the g
ruff. Wouldn’t have found you without Trevva.”
Ko-Jin hid a laugh behind a cough. He’d heard a bit of this story from Roldon—a more trustworthy source, he suspected. His friend had said something about ‘no good deed going unpunished.’ “You trust them? All of them?”
“Lad,” Dedrre said, “when people are lost at sea, they can either swim together or drown separately.”
Ko-Jin exhaled through his nose. He glanced back up at the sky, wished again that he could find the Captain’s Maid—something constant, untouchable.
But it wasn’t there. There was nothing constant any longer.
Chapter Seventeen
Once the last of the day’s light had drained away, Arlow crept silently from his tent. He had been acting as the site director of Quade’s excavation for the better part of a week, but still found the layout confusing. One wrong step and he could find himself tumbling perilously down some ancient cellar, possibly breaking his neck, certainly dirtying his coat.
The place was eerie by night. Blighter, it was eerie by day, as well. To him, it was like one massive graveyard. He’d watched them, brushing dirt from bones, all excitement. Why not let the dead remain buried? He crept on, eager to be finished with the place.
The children slept in a long row of lean-tos, slapdash structures that barely constituted shelter. Mercifully, they were also quite near the perimeter of the camp—it would be far more difficult sneaking them out otherwise. He headed that way, or at least he hoped so; his sense of direction had never been the most accurate. He’d relied too often on Ko-Jin, who had been born with a mental compass of such accuracy it could not be compromised even by buckets of liquor.
Arlow cursed as he stepped on a twig. To his ears the resulting snap sounded loud enough to wake the entire camp. He paused, heart hammering in his chest, listening. When it seemed his slip-up had gone unnoticed, he continued on more carefully. If his perfidy were discovered, he didn’t like to think what Quade would do to him. It would certainly not be diverting.
As he came upon the last tent before the line of lean-tos, he hesitated. The glow of a lantern within illuminated the canvas, revealing the silhouette of a man stooped over a desk.
Blight it all, the gaoler should be soundly asleep by now, if he had any consideration.
Arlow slunk closer, until his ear was flush with the canvas of the tent. He could hear nothing other than the drone of insects from the surrounding forest. He pulled his watch from his waistcoat, but it was too dark to discern the time. He feared he would be late.
Nothing for it, then. Arlow tested the flap of the tent and found it unsecured, then peeked inside. A gust of relieved breath exploded from his mouth when he saw the gaoler passed out at his desk with the lantern still lit. He swallowed a chuckle as he spotted the near-empty bottle of liquor he’d gifted the man earlier that day. Uncultured Dalishmen were ever underestimating the potency of good Chaskuan spirits. Poor bastard, you’ll regret that indulgence come morning.
The man snored, a robust fellow with a ludicrous mustache and a certain omnipresent stench that hinted at incontinence. Sleep did not improve his looks.
Arlow slipped inside and extinguished the lantern, fearing that a passerby might notice his profile. He waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness before conducting his search. If I were a gaoler, where would I keep my keys…
Arlow opened the sole drawer of the desk, but found nothing other than papers. As he eased the drawer shut, the man let out a great sleepy snort and slapped his lips. Arlow froze. The gaoler merely altered his position, however, and slept on—though, as he moved, a distinct, though muffled, clink of metal sounded within his trousers.
Arlow squeezed his eyes shut and hung his head in frustration. When he’d imagined playing the hero, he’d pictured himself fighting legions, like Ko-Jin, or developing some brilliant scheme, like Yarrow—but of course not. When he, Arlow Bowlerham, finally tapped his inner do-goodery, his moment of heroism just had to entail this: fishing in another man’s britches. Fabulous.
Gritting his teeth and praying to the Spirits above that his heightened luck would serve him, he slipped his hand into the odious man’s pocket. The trousers were tight, pinching the keys snugly between tweed and forcing Arlow’s hand to graze directly against the man’s thigh. With his face so near the bloke’s crotch, he became certain that his previous suspicion of incontinence had been sound. He repressed a shudder and cautiously hooked his pinky around the keyring, then, ever so slowly, inched his hand back, lip clenched between teeth. When the keys came free and the gaoler slept on, he breathed out softly. Thank the Spirits, he thought, that would have been an awkward situation to explain.
He sidled back out of the tent. Above, the night sky shone with far more stars than he was used to seeing, a dizzying magnitude of them, like gleaming dust against the inky darkness of space. He smiled up into the night—it was a fine sky under which to be free.
The children slept. The occasional jangling of chains as one of them shifted in their sleep rang out like chimes in an erratic wind. Arlow peeked into the first lean-to, searching for the face of the young man he had met that first day, the one who had defended his sister. He’d need help to remove these children without detection, and they were likely to call out upon seeing him. He’d played his role as site director well, and so was not liable to have won any love in these quarters.
Arlow found the youth he sought in the third shed. He slept flat on his back, his sister curled against his chest like a bedraggled kitten. They were both terribly thin and filthy, indecently so. Arlow gazed at them grimly. He had long since come to believe that the quality of a society could be discerned by the treatment of its meanest citizens. A true aristocracy existed to helm lower society, not crush it.
He knelt down beside the lad and put a hand over his mouth. The boy’s eyes flew open and his cry of alarm was stifled by Arlow’s glove.
“Shh,” Arlow whispered, “I’m going to set you free. I need you to help me release the others as quietly as possible. Do you understand?”
The lad’s eyes narrowed suspiciously, but he gave one sharp nod. Arlow removed his hand and held his breath. Fortunately, the young man had enough sense to remain quiet. Arlow felt at the manacle around the lad’s ankle, searching for the keyhole. “What’s your name?”
“Darron,” the boy answered hesitantly. “Why you doing this, Mister? Ain’t you one of them?”
“I have my motives.”
“Well, as it’s my hide’ll get the lashin’ if we’re caught, I think you’d better tell me. I ain’t goin’ to trust you otherwise.”
“For the same reason that all men do great things.” The soft click of the manacle springing open greeted Arlow’s ear. “To impress a woman.”
Darron rolled his eyes and began jiggling his foot at the ankle, relishing in newfound freedom. “You awake?” he whispered to his sister.
“Yeah.”
“How ‘bout the rest of you?”
To Arlow’s surprise, soft grunts of acknowledgment came from each of the other eight forms that had seemed to be slumbering.
“I must not be as quiet as I thought if I managed to wake you all,” Arlow murmured, more to himself than them.
Darron chuckled. “When you’re livin’ on the streets, you learn right quick not to sleep too deeply. Pauper’s King calls it vagrant vigilance.”
“How alliterative.”
“We really gonna trust this fella, Darr?” a boy asked, his voice breaking pubescently on the last syllable.
Darron snagged the keys from Arlow’s hand and tossed them to his sister, who promptly divested herself of her binding and set about doing likewise for her companions. The task was completed with amazing speed and soundlessness. “If this fancy man wants to spring us so he can get inside some lady, I ain’t complainin’.”
Arlow choked back a laugh. “Ah, what a delicate turn of phrase.”
The little girl, after freeing all of the children in their own l
ean-to, scurried to the next shelter to repeat the process. Arlow was glad to have this chore accomplished for him—unlocking many dozens of chains sounded downright exhausting.
Time passed with agonizing slowness as they waited, Arlow straining to listen for any approaching feet. He was impressed, however, at how silent these children could be. Not a single one of them called out or spoke above a whisper.
“We ain’t gonna get too far on foot, you know,” Darron said.
“You only need to travel four miles on foot. There is a boat waiting for you along with a number of Pauper’s King men at the Andle River. If all goes to plan, you should be long gone by the time the sun rises.”
Darron turned to him, for the first time appearing grateful. “You’re workin’ with the King? You shoulda said so.” He leaned back and crossed his legs at the ankle. “I knew he’d get us out; I just knew it.”
The little girl stole back into their lean-to like a shadow. “All done.”
Darron got to his feet. “Which way, sir?”
Arlow shook his head at the sudden respectful address—being Chisanta and an elder hadn’t earned him such deference, but apparently being in league with a glorified highwayman was enough to do the trick. “Follow me.”
Arlow led the way towards the forest, heading a herd of begrimed child-bandits. Again, he prayed his characteristic luck would hold, that no camp worker should happen to look out their tents at that moment. His pulse ticked rapidly until they reached the sanctuary of the trees. He guided the band to the place where, a week past, Mae had tied up Poppy Seed—their designated meeting place.
As he approached, Mae rose up from her gig and ran to him with a huge grin, one he could not help but return.
“You really did it,” Mae said, looking around at the scores of freed youths. Spread out amongst the trees, they appeared even greater in number.
Arlow bowed. “Did I not tell you I would?”
Darron, who was still at Arlow’s side, was looking between the two of them with his dirt-darkened face split into a wide, knowing smile. “Your man did real good, missus. You should thank him proper.”
The Complete Marked Series Box Set Page 60
