Behind Talmon, Roger’s eyes glowed strangely.
“Your Grace,” he said, his eyes roving Rafen’s bony body in a way Rafen recognized and feared, “before the shooting—”
Talmon faced Roger, eyes narrowed.
“—will you give the boy some mercy, and let him play one more time?”
Chapter Eighteen
Beyond
the Palace
Rafen’s stomach twisted.
“No!” he screamed, struggling to tear himself from the rope Mainte was tying around his wrists.
Swearing, Mainte kicked his knees, slamming Rafen’s calves against the post.
“Let him play?” Talmon murmured, eyeing Rafen and then Roger. “What do you want, Roger?”
“Justice,” Roger said.
“You will play with him?” Talmon sneered.
“Of course.”
“And me, Your Grace,” the guard by the door to freedom said, leering. “If you will allow it.”
“That would be best.” Talmon’s eyes were still fixed on Roger. “Mainte, if you will—”
“I won’t do it!” Rafen shouted, tears streaming down his face now.
Talmon ignored Rafen. Mainte had already freed Rafen’s wrists, a twisted smile on his face. As Mainte prepared to hand him over to the other guard, who now lingered near Roger, Rafen threw his weight backward, trying to escape.
“Stop it.” Mainte raised a hand to strike Rafen.
Another courtyard door flew open and two Tarhians dragged a staggering, dark-skinned merchant to the king. Mainte’s hand dropped to his side. Still clutching Rafen’s left shoulder with his other hand, he stared at the merchant.
“I said I was not to be interrupted.” Talmon glared into the man’s dark eyes. “Someone will die for this.”
“Your G-Grace – S-Sianians,” the Ruyan merchant stammered in thickly accented Tongue, falling to his knees. “Sianian ship, in harbor… I want—”
Talmon’s face blanched. “You’re lying.” He grabbed the front of the merchant’s embroidered tunic.
The blood had rushed to Rafen’s face. He swung himself around to face Mainte and slammed his knee between the general’s legs. Mainte gave a high-pitched scream, released Rafen’s shoulder, and staggered backwards. Rafen flung himself toward the door to freedom.
“Rafen, you waste your time.” Talmon raised a hand to stay the two guards and Roger. “It is locked.”
When Rafen’s hand slammed on the serpent handle, he noticed the blanket of ivy hung differently than before, obscuring the new lock Talmon had installed. Desperately, he pulled. The unlocked door swung fully open, the hinges silent, and the ivy falling away in crackling showers. Beyond, the narrow dusty path sloped toward the city of Setarsia.
Phil had been here first.
Looking like he was in a horrible nightmare, Talmon flung the Ruyan to the courtyard flags and raised his pistol. Rafen was already out the door.
The sunlight was stronger here somehow. Blinded, he rushed down the path, nearly overcome by his reeling senses. Fresh air intoxicated him with its sweetness. Colors crowded themselves into his vision – the bright green of the wavering grass and confused thickets, the murky brown of the odd thatched house, the smoky gray of the walled city Setarsia, and the bright, phosphorescent white of puffy clouds above. Birds overhead called to each other, which in the recesses of his mind awoke memories of the smell of salt and the feel of spray. Phil had told Rafen about gulls, which looked to him like forms with long fingerless limbs, wheeling in the sky.
The clamoring behind him climaxed as he sprinted, and feet pounded after him. The path curled sharply to the right, bringing Rafen to a settlement of three houses, a tannery, and a dilapidated mill, buildings Rafen recognized from Phil’s numerous descriptions of the outside world. Suspicious of the men wandering around these buildings, Rafen veered off the path and flew across the grass, which was blissfully soft after stone-floored corridors and steel tracks. His eyes still watering furiously, he leapt onto a wide, wheel-rutted road leading away from Setarsia.
Behind, Talmon screamed, “Shoot him down! Shoot him down!”
They were catching up; they had gotten over their initial shock. Rafen quickened his pace, knowing he was going to be snatched back any moment, because his lash wounds were searing, and he was weak. But adrenaline burned in his veins, and every second that passed was a second of freedom. The world was beautiful.
The clatter of Tarhian boots sounded on packed dirt behind. His pursuers had gained the road. Bullets whizzed past him, missing by inches.
The road wound to the left, following a raised bank of land, and the sea slipped into view. Rafen had never imagined so much water. His heart had stopped; he thought he was dead, and this was a dream. Ahead of him, a jumble of carts covered the road and partially obscured the distant harbor. Swearing merchants yowled at each other from their seats.
His lungs and back burning, Rafen leapt off the road and crashed onto the beach, sending up clouds of something Phil had never told him about – white-yellow grains, impossibly fine, so fine that it appeared at first sight like liquid. Blinking furiously to dislodge the grains from his eyes, he leapt up and ran.
The guards and Talmon landed on the ground behind him with muffled thumps. Rafen’s legs were tiring on the loose mounds. Another volley of bullets narrowly missed him. He slipped and fell face down, his back searing. Someone grabbed his shoulders and jerked him to his feet.
“No!” Rafen screamed, struggling desperately against Mainte’s grip, the pain from his lash wounds blinding him. Mainte tried his pistol against the side of Rafen’s head, and for one heart-stopping moment the click sounded ineffectively. Out of bullets. He cursed and seized a knife from his belt.
Dangerously close now, Talmon spoke calmly for the first time. “Gut him.”
More footsteps approached from behind as Mainte’s knife flashed toward Rafen’s neck.
Chapter Nineteen
On Board
the Phoenix Wing
Someone punched Mainte fully in the face. Mainte’s grip slipped, and he collapsed onto the sand, his knife slicing part of Rafen’s tattered shirt when it fell. Rafen found himself thrown over someone’s shoulder. He thrashed, his lash wounds on fire. The man holding him started running, a strange and solid wall of light fanning out behind him to protect him from the Tarhians’ bullets. They hit the wall with muted plinks. From behind, someone in a long tunic sheathed a blade and ran on ahead of the man carrying Rafen.
“Let me go!” Rafen howled, pounding the man’s back with his fists.
Talmon and his men had found their way around the radiant, protective wall. Bullets peppered the air, and the man threw himself sideways to avoid them, nearly falling before continuing his mad sprint to the harbor. At last surrendering to his exhaustion, Rafen lay limply across his shoulder.
Talmon ran furiously on the loose yellow ground, shrieking orders to Roger and the two guards from the courtyard. Unconscious, Mainte sprawled some way back. The man holding Rafen dashed up some wooden stairs to the left now, entering the harbor. A swarm of people engulfed them: men carrying huge crates or rolling barrels across cobbled ground; men gesticulating extravagantly while they held up strange, brightly colored cloths before other men’s noses; and men drinking from huge, pewter vessels. Rafen’s savior let him down in the middle of the crowd, still supporting him with one hand. Reeling, Rafen stared around himself.
Setarsia harbor was a semi-circular enclosure of stone. Over a dozen merchant ships from countries Rafen had never heard of were at berth within it. Around the harbor, four or five wooden piers stretched out over calm waters, supported by stone pillars. In places, ugly metal balustrades extended along the harbor’s edge.
“Thank you, Arez.” The man supporting Rafen nodded to his companion in the tunic, who skirted through the crowd towards the ships. “For the kesmal.”
“It didn’t work quite as I planned.” Arez shook his head. “I’m
out of practice. Quick, Alexander.”
He lunged deeper into the throng of people, vanishing from sight.
“Where’s Jack?” Alexander asked, looking around wildly.
Rafen glanced up at him.
His rescuer was muscular, broad-shouldered and towering. He wore a plain white shirt, brown breeches, and knee-high black boots that needed polishing. His tanned face was covered with scars and gray black stubble, and the wind rustled in his disheveled hair. His pale brown eyes roved the crowd, the watchful wrinkles in his face deepening.
“Where in Abaddon is Jack?” He turned around completely. His accent was identical to Etana’s. “I can’t leave him – oh, here they come.”
To their right, the heaving crowd parted. Roger’s pale, sweaty face appeared amid merchants. Rafen seized the giant man’s arm, pulse drumming.
“It’s all right, boy,” Alexander growled, grabbing Rafen and flinging him over his shoulder again. The pain from Rafen’s back blinded him. The man lunged toward an elegant, red-sailed ship at the harbor edge. A harried sailor ran down the gangplank, tucking a long scarlet carpet under his arm.
“Get on board, get on board!” he screeched when he saw them.
“Where’s Jack?” Alexander bellowed.
Talmon had reappeared before his men. Roger and the two soldiers had broken free of the crowd and now charged toward the man holding Rafen, pistols raised.
A wagon rolled across their path, blocking them from view. The horse pulling it paused to nibble at the pale green weed growing between the cobbles. Alexander flew up the gangplank, and Rafen glimpsed the short wagon driver beneath a large floppy hat. Phil flashed a sad smile at him, and Rafen’s heart jolted.
Alexander was now on the ship. He lowered Rafen gently. Another man leapt on board and pushed past him, gasping for breath.
“Jack!” Alexander sighed with relief.
“Cast off!” someone yelled from another area of the ship.
Someone screamed sharply from below. Everyone stared over the ship’s railing. Phil had abdicated his driver’s seat, and Roger and the guards were forcing the horse out of the way. His face waxen, Talmon had shoved through the merchants around Phil’s wagon and made a mad dash toward the rising gangplank. It was too high.
Alexander guffawed. Rafen was looking desperately for Phil. He had never thanked him.
They were now moving in the slowest, most imperceptible way Rafen had ever felt. His eyes were tired. He felt warm, inflamed, somehow. Was it joy? Sorrow?
The harbor gradually became distant, until it looked like a mere rock formation on the coast. Another ship had joined them now; Rafen saw it only dimly. Alexander spoke to someone else in rapid Tongue.
“We may have time. He had only one warship in the harbor, but two vacancies. It seems he has concentrated his efforts on Sirius Jones too early. If we gain Fritz’s Current we—”
“Are you certain it’s him this time? The last three lads you picked up got rather a shock.”
“I’m certain. He was pursued by Talmon himself. Has Etana seen him? It’s been half an hour since he came.”
“She’s had rather a lapse again, I’m afraid. The excitement maybe.”
The light was diminishing, and the pain in Rafen’s back became his only reality. Warm darkness fell over him.
Chapter Twenty
Free
Rafen’s eyes flicked open. He was in one of those white fluffy clouds he had glimpsed when running from the guards, Roger, Mainte, and Talmon. The air smelled clean and crisp. He didn’t dare move for fear the infinite comfort around him would dissipate. His back seared dully in the background of the foreign luxury surrounding him.
He lay on something so thick and soft his body sank into it. His head rested upon something even downier than this. His hands moved up to it. It was a pillow. Great white hills of delectable-smelling fabric rose on either side of his face, and a mass of rolling covers had been thrown over him. He stared down at the blankets covering him – pale whites, bright reds, extravagant golds, all humped and wrinkled into little landscapes over his body.
His eyes wandered slowly from the bewilderingly bright covers to the woodwork frame beneath him.
A bed. I’m on a bed.
His brain jammed.
“Are you all right?” a beautifully familiar voice said to his left.
“Etana?” Rafen turned his head.
Etana sat across from him on a bed of her own. Her face was extraordinarily clean, her skin more perfectly ivory than he had remembered. Freckles sprinkled her upper cheeks. Apart from the shadows under her blazing blue eyes, she looked healthy – healthier than any other child of her age Rafen had seen. Her dark red hair, streaked with golden, fell past her shoulders in a glistening, smooth mass. She wore a deep crimson dress which drifted down to her ankles. Beneath the hem, her little white feet were visible.
“Please be all right,” Etana said, her face clouded. “And don’t roll onto your back, otherwise you’ll hurt yourself.”
There was a long pause. Then she asked, “Do you like it?”
“Like it?”
“I’m sorry.” She was genuinely worried. “I can ask Father to change it for you.”
“No,” Rafen said quickly. “No. It is very good.”
As he spoke, Rafen became aware of a sensation he’d been experiencing a while. Was he moving? Swinging from side to side?
“What is this rocking?” Rafen said.
“You’re on board my father’s ship,” Etana said. “I do wish Curtis could have come too, but we really didn’t have enough time.”
Memories crossed his mind in flashes. The door to freedom swinging open; a bright light; the sea rolling toward shining yellow ground that was hard to run on; Mainte being knocked out; a giant carrying him through the harbor; Phil appearing out of nowhere and then vanishing before Rafen could say goodbye; Talmon crying out as if he were in pain.
“We’re not in Tarhia,” he said stupidly.
“You’re quite right,” Etana said, “and I’m very glad of it.”
“I’m on a ship.”
“Well, yes. I told you that. Are you having trouble remembering things, Rafen? Perhaps you’ve got amnesia.”
Whatever else she said was swallowed up by a miraculous revelation. Rafen’s lips were working, trying to form the word that had once been only a taunt to him.
“I’m free,” he panted, unable to breathe. “I’m free. Free.”
“Of course.” Etana’s face broke into a smile. She reached across from her bed and squeezed his hand. “You’re free, Rafen. No more guns or people shouting at you or Talmon. You’re free.”
“Thank you,” he choked. His eyes blurred. “Thank you.”
“It wasn’t really me,” Etana said matter-of-factly. “I suppose I pestered Father enough, but it was really Alexander and Jack and Arez who did the hard work.” She released his hand and rose. “I’m going to get you some food. I suppose you’re very hungry.”
“Food?” Rafen echoed. He had gotten so used to ignoring hunger.
“Yes, food. You got little enough in Tarhia, that’s what Father said. Please don’t roll over onto your back while I’m gone, because Arez and I worked so hard to bind your wounds, and we don’t want them reopening.”
“Who is Arez?” Rafen questioned while Etana moved toward a door outside his range of vision.
“A philosopher.”
“What’s a philosopher?”
“Oh, Rafen,” Etana said, a hint of exasperation in her words, “you’re going to have to learn so much. A philosopher is one who discovers the sciences of life and is learned in the art of kesmal. Tarhians call them sorcerers because Tarhians are stupid. Please don’t be offended. Now, only philosophers, royalty, Secrai and Runi may do kesmal.”
A shadow flitted across Rafen’s mind. Talmon’s Master had mentioned kesmal. “What is it?”
The creaking of an opening door stopped. Etana sighed.
“Kesmal?
” she said. “Well, it’s very beautiful, Rafen. It’s not ‘sorcery’ at all. Kesmal is really an imbalance in the nature of something causing a supernatural result. Now allow me to get your food, otherwise you will never eat.”
While Rafen awaited his food, he noticed his arm, lying on top of the sea of slippery covers, wasn’t black. Nor did his skin itch. Raising his hand to his nose, he inhaled luxuriously. He smelled clean. No longer did he smell of the mines, of thousands of days of sweat, of blood, of dusty coal, of pain, of weariness… Someone had bathed him while he had been unconscious.
Phil believed cleanliness to be an important difference between the slaves and the free. He had always smelled fresh and sterile, a scent which had reminded Rafen of a woman who had worn fine clothes that were comfortable to nestle against. These were Rafen’s only memories of his mother.
Rafen, too, wore fine clothes now. His shining white shirt had spacious sleeves and silver buttons down the front. Concealed beneath the covers, his legs were encased in some comfortable, close fitting pants.
His lash wounds had been bound too, and the stinging infection seemed to be gone from them. Rafen clasped his hands as if in prayer and stared at the shiny wooden ceiling above.
The door creaked again, and a mouth-watering smell stole into the room. Etana reappeared bearing a wooden tray laden with food. Pulling a small table into view, she laid the tray on it.
The tray carried a glistening white plate with an entire slice of bread on it. The bread had been soaked in some gravy and was spread with something yellow. Unlike the bread in Tarhia, it looked soft and fresh with no flies or dirt clinging to it. On a separate plate, which was painted exquisitely with crescent shapes, a brown, shining, steaming mass sat. Phil had once smuggled Rafen some dried meat on his birthday. In contrast, this was succulent and tender. Near it, some soup in a large bowl sent the most savory odors up, and a silver jug brimmed with milk. A blunt silver knife and some other metal instruments Rafen had never seen before were provided for him.
“This is for you,” Etana said, and Rafen stared at her in shock. “Father warned me you might find it surprising, even though it is a small meal. Please, eat.”
Rafen (The Fledgling Account Book 1) Page 11
