"Toram wished to find the ancient magic," explained Kid. "He said my kind had a greater sensitivity than others to such artifacts, both beneficial and destructive-especially the destructive kind. As I said, he taught me ways to feel out such objects, to know their history and how they work."
"Godsight?"
"That is what he and Archlis called it." Kid gave another twist of the silver serpent's wings and clicked his tongue when the wings did not move as he expected. "They were partners once."
"You did not mention that you knew Fottergrim's favorite spellcaster when we took the job."
"Archlis used another name when he worked with Toram. Besides, all humans look a bit alike to me. I did not recognize him until I saw Toram's Ankh in his hands and sniffed his scent. Then I realized how he had been throwing so many fireballs off the walls of Tsurlagol."
"What exactly did Archlis do to Toram?"
"He struck him down and left him to die in Anauroch." Kid's entire skin shivered, rather like a horse that had an unpleasant bug walk across its hide. "Archlis thought then that I would serve him as I had served Toram."
"But you didn't stay with him."
"I bit his hand to the bone. You can still see the scar if you look close," said Kid with grim satisfaction. "When he dropped me, I ran away as quickly as I could go."
Ivy remembered when she caught Kid picking her pockets.
"I guess I'm lucky that you didn't try biting off my hand."
"Oh no, my dear," said Kid in his usual gentle voice. He glanced at her, the stony look on his face softening. "I would never hurt you or the others. I told you, I have a great sensitivity to that which is destructive and that which is not. It is like this light." He passed one hand through the candle flame without flinching. "A warmth and comfort shone from you. It has never dimmed, but only grown stronger over the years."
Ivy did not know how to respond, and Kid seemed to expect no reply. With a nod of satisfaction, he pulled the wings apart repeatedly and then snapped them back together again. The belt floated toward the ceiling. Ivy grabbed it and pulled it back down again. Kid twisted the wings, and the belt lay still in their grasp.
"Pull the wings open three times and then shut," instructed Kid as he looped the belt around her waist and fastened the buckle. "And the belt flies. Twist twice to the right and then open to cease the spell."
"Maybe you should wear it." Magical items always made her a little nervous. Such objects rarely worked as she expected.
"No, my dear, it would better for you to have it. Archlis watches me closely, but he ignores you."
"So much for my pride."
"It is because he is a magelord, which means he is even more arrogant than the ordinary wizard," said Kid. "He sees only those who have mastered his brand of magic as a threat. All others are nothing to him. He knows that I knew some of Toram's secrets, but he only sees you as a fighter-someone of no value because they have no magic at all. He is a very foolish man, my dear."
"So, should we see if this works on a live body?"
"Open three times and then shut," Kid repeated, laying his hands over Ivy's gloved fingers to teach her the move.
Suddenly, her feet were no longer in contact with the floor. Ivy was pulled into a horizontal position, face down to the pile of rubble. She bobbed up in the air so quickly that she smacked the back of her head against the ceiling. The force of that blow bounced her back toward the floor. Kid jumped up and hooked one hand through the belt. Now both of them dangled off the ground, but not quite so high. Kid wiggled, and they bobbed up and down a little. Ivy could not feel her own weight or his. For the first time in her life, she was completely unable to tell where the ground was. Usually the earth was pressed against some part of her anatomy, such as the soles of her feet. She stared down. It was there and she was above it, but she could not sense it. If she closed her eyes, she doubted she could tell which direction was up and which was down. She felt like a cloud, just floating along, but without any wind to move her to the next spot.
Ivy bent her chin against her chest to peer cross-eyed at Kid hanging off her belt. "Now what do we do?"
"Try flying, my dear."
"How? Flap my arms?"
"Most probably."
"Of all the foolishness!" Ivy flapped her arms up and down. She kicked her legs. She stroked arm over shoulder like she was trying to swim through a river. Nothing worked. They just hung there, wobbling a bit, but making no noticeable progress in any one direction.
"There may be some other trick to it," said Kid, letting go of the belt and landing lightly on his feet next to the corpse. Without Kid's extra weight hanging off the belt, Ivy floated up to the ceiling. But this time she tucked her head and legs under so the only part that smacked the stone ceiling was her rump. She straightened out and looked down at Kid and the sharp rubble littering the floor.
"Twist twice to the right and then open to cease the spell," Kid reminded her.
"I'm going to fall hard on that pile of rocks. For the second time today," Ivy observed.
Above her, she could hear the scraping of stone upon stone. A tickle of air hit the back of her neck.
"They are prying open the trapdoor, my dear," Kid said. "Quick, or they will see you."
"The gods must truly despise me," Ivy said as she squeezed her eyes closed. "All right. Step back so I don't flatten you."
Tucking her head down on her chest and throwing one arm over her face, she twisted the wings twice to the right with her free hand and squeezed the buckle open. The earth became very evident and very hard as she banged with a teeth-rattling bump into the rubble and rolled across sharp-edged pebbles and potshards.
Above her, she could hear Mumchance calling, Wiggles yapping, and Kid replying, "We are here, dear sir, well enough and safe."
"Speak for yourself," mumbled Ivy, making sure that the scarlet belt was secure and tucked down under her weapons belt. "Next time we get to town, remind me to get some extra protection from falling spells."
"That is it!" said Kid, turning away from the rope that Mumchance had thrown down.
"What's it?" Ivy brushed the dust and less pleasant debris from her gloves.
"The purpose of the belt. It keeps you from falling or sends you falling upward."
"Upward falling?" Ivy turned that phrase over in her brain and decided it just made her head hurt. "How about we just say it makes you float in the air."
"And anyone else grasping it! The belt must have been made to hold up more than one man-or maybe a very fat man."
"We'll talk about it later," Ivy hushed him. She strode under the trapdoor and looked up at Mumchance.
"Couldn't bear to leave me behind?" she called to the dwarf in a mocking tone.
"Wasn't you," replied the dwarf in a much drier tone, his scarred face wrinkled up in a worried frown. "Archlis wants Kid. But he said we could pull you out too if we were quick about it."
"In that case, I'm going first, and Kid can follow." She grabbed the rope with both hands and shimmied out of the hole. Not surprisingly, as she came out of the hole, she saw that Zuzzara had the other end of the rope tied around her waist and was standing there like a stone pillar, unruffled by the tug of Ivy's weight.
Sanval reached out and helped steady her as she stepped out of the hole. "You are well? Is that another scrape on your face?"
"I fell through a hole and landed on rock rubble. Mildly uncomfortable. Not dead yet," she replied. He started to say something but stopped and just gave her a small bow. She nodded back at him. Stuck underground, surrounded by enemies, his formality never stopped. It must be that gleaming armor that keeps him so stiff and proper, she thought.
"Anything down there?" asked Gunderal, watching her sister lean over the hole and haul Kid up on the rope, like a fish through an ice hole.
"Just rubble and an old dead body. Nothing exciting," said Ivy. "What about up here?"
"Archlis says we have to walk very quietly now," said Zuzzara. "And not talk t
oo loudly."
"At least he didn't ask the impossible, like no talking at all."
"No, Ivy, he said that doesn't matter. They will hear us just by our footfalls on the stone when we get close enough," Gunderal sounded even more worried than usual.
"Who would they be?" Ivy was certain that she would not like the answer.
"He says that we have to see to understand," said Gunderal. "But, Ivy, whatever it is, I can tell that it troubles him. What could frighten a magelord with as much magic as Archlis has?"
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Sanval fell behind the Siegebreakers. Though relieved to see Ivy back with them, he also felt a familiar frustration. Why could he not have said anything sensible or even interesting when he helped her out of the hole? Instead, he had just babbled the usual Procampur phrases-completely impersonal, if courteous. He watched Ivy walk ahead of him, her head bent to catch some remark of Kid's. Since the first day he had seen her, striding through the dust of the camp, he had thought that she walked through the world as if she had no cares. No, he corrected himself, not quite that. Rather, she walked as if the world did not own her. Laws, traditions, even the gods themselves, seemed to be unable to constrain that cocky stride and the intelligent, mocking gleam in her eyes. And, Sanval was honest enough to admit to himself, he envied that freedom more than anything else.
Of course, Ivy was nothing like the perfumed ladies of Procampur, the silver-tile court intriguers who whispered secrets behind feather fans, or the red-roof girls who swayed their hips as they sashayed down the street. If there were a contest for the most grubby mercenary, Ivy would probably win. Once, when he had been very young, too young for tutors, he had eluded his nurse and gone out to the stableyard. It had been raining, and the yard was a wonderful, slippery mess of mud, perfect for sliding. Sanval still remembered the pain in his ear as his nurse dragged him upright and held him dangling before her, dripping mud upon her clean white apron. "You are the muckiest kid," she had scolded, slipping into the blue-roof dialect of her sailor father at that moment. "Dirtiest boy that I have ever seen!" Mucky was, he felt, a rather apt description of Ivy. Except, and again he had to be honest with himself as he tried to be with others, her collecting of dirt was that same friendly, joyful, defiant roll in the mud that he had enjoyed so much that day. She did it deliberately, he felt, just to tweak the more proper nose of those Procampur officers who were foolish enough to sneer at her as she swaggered up the hill to the Thultyrl's tent.
Those officers-and he had a couple of satisfying duels scheduled with the most discourteous-did not know how very beautiful and courageous and clever Ivy was. She was much finer than any noble lady born under the silver roofs.
Sanval sighed, remembering how Ivy had looked two nights ago. She had just come from the canvas bathhouse used by the mercenaries and was joking with the others as Gunderal braided Ivy's hair. As he stood there, outside of that circle of warmth and laughter, she turned and looked directly at him. "Hey, Sanval, how do you like me clean?" she yelled. "Come and join us. We're more fun than anyone sitting up on the top of that hill." He almost did it-sat down, had a drink, and shared a joke. But the message from the Thultyrl had been urgent, and he needed to return with an answer immediately. So he had said something polite-stupid and dull, but polite-and gone away again. He had never regretted any action so much.
Now he still had a duty to the Thultyrl. He could not let Archlis succeed in his plans. If he could keep Archlis from returning to Fottergrim, it would give Procampur's army an enormous advantage, perhaps even greater than toppling the western wall. Sanval was convinced Archlis would eventually return to Tsurlagol. He knew that Ivy thought she could safely follow Archlis, but she was wrong. As soon as Fottergrim's troops saw her, they would turn against her and her friends. Even her clever tongue would not be able to talk them out of a quick execution, unless Sanval could come up with a way to keep her safe from Archlis and Fottergrim.
Without intending to, Sanval dropped back until he was walking in step with the two bugbears trailing the group. The larger one growled at him and pointed at his armor.
"Your breastplate is very fine," said the big bugbear in Common. The creature wore no metal armor at all, just well-worn leather over his torn breeches and a few clanking chains looped over his shoulders. "A little small for me. But I could wear it. I can trade for it. I have good things, some of Hackermic's things. Poor Hackermic, poor Hackermic." The bugbear sighed deeply, a rumble in the center of his chest.
Sanval nodded, not to agree but to show his interest in the conversation. The creature seemed surprisingly friendly and he thought he could turn that to his advantage.
"Or I could hit you on the head," the bugbear continued more cheerfully, "if you do not give me the breastplate."
Sanval raised one eyebrow but kept silent.
The other smaller bugbear growled some incomprehensible words.
"His name is Norimgic, and I am Osteroric," said Osteroric, gesturing at his companion. "And he says that Archlis does not want you hit on the head. Not yet. I am not afraid of the magelord's anger, not like this one."
Norimgic snarled, showing off his big yellow fangs. "You are afraid of Archlis," said Osteroric to Norimgic, apparently not too impressed by the display. "Or you would have eaten him when he made us leave Lorie behind. Lorie was Norimgic's friend, his particular female friend. But something ate her," he explained to Sanval.
"Where was Lorie eaten?" asked Sanval, although he thought he knew.
"When we first came into these tunnels, something that we could not see bit off her head and an arm. It was very sad," said Osteroric, "because she was Norimgic's first love. This is the problem of being with a fighting female-they get killed so often. Of course, all our females fight. Which means that we males are often heartbroken. Our lives are tragic."
Sanval had never contemplated the romantic disasters of bugbears and decided after a few moments of reflection that he would rather not learn more. Still, he could understand the problem presented by fighting females and offered his own observations, made over the last few turbulent days of his life. "Fighting females," he said, keeping his voice down and hoping Ivy would not overhear him, "can be a very plague upon the heart, making dreams troubled and honorable thoughts difficult."
"You are poet, like us." Osteroric thumped Sanval on the shoulder, a friendly thump not much more staggering that the recent pats that he had received from Zuzzara. "We three brothers (Norimgic is my younger brother, and poor Hackermic was my elder) are all poets. That is why we left our tribe to roam the world. Because in our pack, they did not like poets. Especially after Hackermic broke the chief's jaw when he criticized Hackermic's five-lined verses with the clever triple and double rhymes. The chief thought we should only make verses in the old forms, and Hackermic should not recite his type of verses, especially before his elders," explained Osteroric. "Also, the chief did not approve of Norimgic's poetry-it is all love songs, because he wants to attract the females. Myself, I make the war chant, the kind that makes bugbears bang their heads with clubs or other bugbears. You know, the kind of chant that rouses the blood."
"It sounds very exciting," Sanval said.
"A good thump-thump beat is necessary," Osteroric said. "But Norimgic's songs move the blood as well. With passion of a different sort."
Norimgic, who must have understood the Common tongue even if he did not speak it, coughed to clear his throat and then broke into a long, drawn-out caterwaul that caused Archlis to glance over his shoulder. The magelord fingered one of the charms on his cloak, and Norimgic shut his mouth with a snap.
"That man has no appreciation for the songs of adoration." Osteroric sighed. "That song begins 'love is a nightmare, a thousand sword cuts can never sting so much; a hard heart makes for hard times.' In Fottergrim's camp, they often call for Norimgic to sing another someone-betrayed-someone love song."
Sanval was now positive that he wanted to know nothing more about the love lives of bu
gbears, but, always polite, he replied, "I regret that I do not speak any of the dialects that Norimgic uses for his love songs and thus cannot not fully appreciate his poetry." Like most gentlemen of Procampur, Sanval's tutor had tried to drum a little literature into his head between training in the sword and horseback riding. "I remember something from my lessons about a fashionable form of poetry, very popular with courting gentlemen and ladies, that consisted of one eight-line verse and an answering six-line verse."
Osteroric said that sounded fascinating although he continued to argue in favor of Hackermic's style of a five-line verse using rhythms created by two short syllables followed by one long one.
Now that friendly conversation had been established, Sanval began to consider how he might be able to sway the bugbears to his side. With great courtesy, he turned down Osteroric's offer of a bent knife for his breastplate, pointing out that his armor had been most excellently made by the best smiths in Procampur. Such armor had not only the natural strengths of the steel plate to keep its owner safe, but also came with certain standard magical protections against arrows laid into it. Such protection was hard to come by, especially underground, and Sanval would prefer to wear it himself-or so he told Osteroric.
"You can keep the chain mail," said Osteroric. "It is too small for me."
"Still, I would not trade my armor for something of lesser value," said Sanval, in as reasonable a tone as possible, because Osteroric was at least a head taller than him and bulging with muscles clearly visible under his furry skin. Remembering one former tutor's advice to know one's enemy, he added, "Why would so powerful a being as yourself need more armor?"
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