Their homes had been carved out of the mountainside. Tejohn was initially surprised that they lived in little caves, but he shouldn’t have been. They needed every bit of flat ground to grow food, and there was no other way to get out of the incessant wind.
While a meal was being laid out, the Freewell girl pulled Tejohn aside to ask if they dared tell the whole truth. She had a point; there was every chance that the lot of them, upon hearing that the empire was no more, would simply pack up whatever they could carry and walk away. There were unclaimed lands on the other side of the Northern Barrier, he’d been told, although they were rumored to be barren and icy most of the year, and all these people would have to do was walk through Tempest Pass toward them.
Alternately, they might free themselves with the points of their knives. He promised to consider it carefully.
At least thirty people, adult and child, sat down to supper. They had rice and grapes along with roasted alligaunt tail. Tejohn hesitated to take a skewer of the meat, thinking back to those piles of stones and the strange grasping motions they’d made toward him, but he noticed a few of the villagers watching him from the corner of their eyes, so he took one. Fire and Fury, it was delicious.
“So,” Esselba said once the food was served. No one stopped eating, but they all looked to Tejohn. “You say there’s news?”
“A lot of news,” Tejohn said, “and it’s complicated. Before I start in with it, let me ask a pair of questions. Are all of you servants to the same master? Who is that master?”
Everyone began eating more slowly. A terrible tension built in the room. “We are,” Esselba answered, “and we are all bound to Ellifer Italga and the Italga family, most of us for three generations.”
Tejohn nodded and set down the rice ball they had offered him. “In that case, I have three things to tell you. Consider this the first items of news we will report.” He held up three fingers, then lowered one. “First, Ellifer Italga is dead and his family has no living heirs.” There was a commotion from the group, but Tejohn lowered another finger and kept talking over them. “Second, as a tyr of the empire, I transfer your service to me. Last, in gratitude of this fine meal you have placed before us, I release you from your service. As of this moment, you are all free people.”
The group stared at him in stunned silence. Finally, Esselba spoke. “What if we don’t want to be free people?”
“What do you mean?” the herder girl blurted out. “How can you make to reject freedom?”
“Because we are protected here.” Esselba’s tone was plain but placid, as if she were explaining the basics of planting a seed to a child. “We grow our own food and take our own meat. We mine a little copper. We trade with a few broad-minded Durdric travelers. We have no worries that some square of spears from a minor tyr will march upon our lands and put us all to the blade. We are safe.”
“There’s no one left to protect you,” the Freewell girl said. “I lived in the palace before it fell. I was there, at the Festival when everything went wrong. I’m telling you, the Italgas are no more.”
They spent most of the night talking over the events of the spring and summer. No one believed them at first, to Tejohn’s tremendous frustration, and there were many incredulous questions. Over time, though, Esselba Pick became convinced, and most of the others followed her lead.
“Tomorrow, we will need to speak with Prince Ghoron.”
“To what end?” a narrow-shouldered young man said. “The man went hollow years ago. He only grows more sickly.”
“We can restore him,” the Freewell girl said, “with a kinzchu stone.” Kinz, the herder refugee, looked surprised at this. Freewell turned toward her and said, “You’re the reason we escaped with them, aren’t you? And I hate to even think that other name.”
While the herder’s cheeks flushed a little, she ate a rice ball. Esselba leaned forward and spoke in a low voice, “Is that the Fourteenth Gift? A spell to cure wizards?”
“It’s not one of the Gifts,” Freewell said. “It’s the First Plunder. We stole it from an enemy.”
They were offered a cave low on the hill. There were bed frames with thin mats over knotted ropes and a little oil lamp, but only one room. Tejohn didn’t feel comfortable sleeping so near three young girls, but they didn’t seem to care. As they laid out to sleep, Tejohn suddenly realized he’d neglected to share an important piece of news.
“Miss Freewell,” he said as she was about to blow out the lamp.
“At this point, you should call me Cazia,” she said.
He sighed, looking up at the trembling shadows on the cave wall. “Lar told me the same thing, once, but... Cazia, please call me Tejohn. There’s no more need for all this ‘my tyr’ business. From any of you.”
“Thank you,” she said. Great Way, but she sounded as serene and self-contained as Laoni. “What did you want to tell me?”
“It’s about Doctor Twofin. I don’t know how to say this gently, but he was taken captive by the Finstels and forced to... He has gone hollow.”
“We can fix that,” the girl said. Her expression was utterly still.
“So I gather. However, in the meantime, you should understand that he’s done things. Things out of children’s horror stories. Even if you can undo the madness on him, you can’t undo his crimes.”
“We’ll see” was all she said. She blew out the flame and the cave plunged into darkness. He listened carefully for any sound that she might make—he knew she had loved the old scholar—but if she shed any tears, she was quiet about it. Tejohn fell asleep to the sound of the wind whistling across the entrance to their shelter.
At morning meal, the people needed to be convinced all over again, so Tejohn told the story once more, answering every question as best he could. It was exhausting and infuriating, but he needed their help, so it had to be done.
After that, they discussed the way to cure Prince Ghoron with a “kinzchu” stone, as the girls called it. The cliff where they lowered the basket of food to him was at least thirty feet above the tower grounds. It was possible to throw or drop the stone on him, but he could dodge them easily. What’s more, Kinz had a small number of stones in her pouch--Cazia refused to stand within three paces of them when the herder took them out. If they missed, they would have to climb down to the tower grounds to retrieve it.
Which Esselba expressly forbid. Ghoron was barely human, she insisted, but he no longer attacked those who stayed atop the cliff. For those caught on the tower grounds, anything might happen. She said that every once in a while, a couple of Durdric boys got it into their heads to show their bravery by touching the pink stone of the tower. Some made it in and out while the prince slept. Some were burned alive. Some were engulfed in green smoke that washed their flesh from their bones as if it was mud washed away by a stream. No one was to go down there. It was forbidden.
Forbidden for servants, Tejohn wanted to say, but not for him. It was true that the Freewell girls and her friends were sure they could cure the prince, but Tejohn would have to see it before he believed it. And even if it did work, they would have to capture the man, wouldn’t they? He could climb down the rocks under cover of darkness…
How would he tell if the prince was watching? The tower had narrow windows, of course, but the sagging shutters were closed on all of them. The darkness inside would have been maddening for anyone sane, but Tejohn had no idea how it would affect a scholar who had gone hollow. A wizard.
But it meant that he could watch everything they did through the gaps in the shutters, and there was no way to tell when he slept and when he was awake. There was no way to tell when they could sneak up on him unobserved.
“Bring the basket for his food,” Cazia said. The villagers did, and the three girls set to work deciding how best to place their anti-magic stone.
After a great deal of back-and-forth, the princess turned to Esselba and asked, “How does he eat? Does he use a spoon? Does he pick? Does he bring the face into the bow
l?”
“Like this,” Esselba said, then mimed grabbing a fistful of food and clumsily stuffing it into her mouth.
“Perfect!” Kinz said. The girls broke the strips of meat until they were just large enough to cover the stone. The other ends of the strip they buried at the bottom of the bowl with a few thin purple carrot slices. On top of that, they mounded rice, then pressed the stone into the center of the mound and covered it with the small strips of roasted alligaunt.
It looked surprisingly appetizing, and the few bits of meat ought to draw anyone’s attention. “What if he swallows the stone?” Tejohn said. “Or chokes on it?”
The princess frowned at him. She looked very like a disappointed tutor. “You have a very dour outlook on life.”
At the cliff face, the basket was gently swung out on a boom and lowered to the ground below. Esselba struck a tinny gong five times, then leaned back away from the edge of the cliff. Tejohn laid his hand on Cazia’s shoulder and they all moved back out of sight. The highest window on the tower was just below the level of the cliff, so he and the others could still be seen, if the prince thought to look. Assuming he hadn’t seen their cart, of course.
They lay still at the top of the cliff, all five of them, and waited. Tejohn could not help but wonder what the prince would look like. He flashed back to that day at Pinch Hall, when Doctor Rexler had been standing at the top of a stair, flames and iron spikes flying from his hands. When Tejohn had broken through his flank, the image of the man, wearing his hybrid armor and scholar’s robe, etched itself in his memory. Rexler’s tears had made streaks through the soot and mud on his cheeks, but his expression had been as empty as an insect’s, even after Tejohn had thrust sharp iron into him.
Then there was Doctor Twofin, who had seemed almost sane while they were escaping from a Finstel prison tower, but who had turned out to be the worst sort of wizard: he had turned his magic on living creatures, making chimeras of them. And what sign had he given of his crimes? In his brother’s hall, his robes had been the finest Twofin green and his fingers had gleamed with silver rings. Nothing betrayed the madness in him but a stoic expression with the occasional tear.
So, what would betray this prince of the empire, brother to the king, living in exile with his madness? Tejohn realized he was clenching his fist so hard, his knuckles had gone white. Cure a wizard of his madness? The very idea was absurd. What a wizard needed was an arrow in the eye, a spear point in the guts, a sword through the heart. Even the old practice of disabling their magic by taking their fingers was too gentle, as far as he was concerned.
He glanced at Cazia Freewell lying on the rocks beside him. She was capable of actual emotion, so it was clear she had not gone hollow. Had she ever been? Part of him refused to believe it, and yet he had accepted a ride from her and had slept in the same room unprotected.
The tower door suddenly swung inward. They all tensed and waited for someone—or something—to emerge.
A hand. A filthy human hand reached out from the shadow of the doorway and pressed flat on the top step.
“Inzu’s Breath,” Kinz whispered.
Prince Ghoron Italga, last of a line of emperors, crawled from the tower on his hands and knees. He was naked and filthy, his every rib showing through his skin and his gray hair matted with dirt. Every move was cautious, like a predator sneaking up on wounded prey, as he slowly made his way across the tower yard toward the basket of food.
“This is a scholar?” the princess whispered much too loudly. Ghoron did not hear her over the wind, but Cazia, Kinz, and Esselba all put their finger to their lips.
“Yes,” Cazia whispered back, so softly Tejohn could barely hear her. “And a Peradaini prince. Plus, he probably has the power to kill us all, so shush.”
When he reached the basket, Ghoron seemed to sniff at it for a moment. Then he looked around the yard. His filthy face was streaked with tears.
Finally, the old man seemed to be satisfied that he was safe. He knelt on a flat stone and plunged his hand into the bowl.
Immediately, he froze, his every muscle locked and trembling. He threw his head back, mouth gaping with shock and terror. Then he lost his balance, collapsing onto the stones and convulsing.
“We should go down there,” the princess said, crawling toward the boom and rope.
Tejohn lunged across Cazia’s body and caught the little girl by the elbow. “No!” he snapped, dragging her back. “Not while he’s conscious.”
“He might die!” the princess snapped.
“We need him,” Kinz said, her dark eyes narrowed at him. “Is that not why we made to be here? Because we need him?”
“Yes,” Tejohn said, “but—”
Ghoron began to scream. Once, twice, three times. He screamed until his lungs were empty, then he took a deep breath and screamed again. It was the sound of a man being tortured to death, and it made Tejohn’s skin crawl. Still, it was a gentle punishment for a wizard.
All of them looked down at the prince. A yellow-white glow began to flow out of his chest like steam from a boiling pot. It resembled sunlight reflected off choppy water. Why did it seem so familiar?
“It is made the same as the Door in the Mountain,” Kinz said. “Just the same.”
“You’re right,” Cazia said. “It looks like a portal.”
Great Way, they were right. Whatever effect their little stone was having on Ghoron Italga, it was related to the portals, somehow.
The last of the glow flowed out of him and was dispersed by the wind. The prince went limp, his eyes falling shut and his mouth going slack.
“He passed out,” Esselba said.
“Finally,” Cazia added. She began to get up. “Well, let’s—”
“I’m going down there first,” Tejohn said. “Alone.”
The four women looked at him a moment, then shrugged. “Do not make to kill him,” Kinz said.
“Not unless I have to.”
Chapter 12
Tejohn Treygar tied off the rope they had used to lower the basket, then lowered himself down to the tower yard hand over hand. He went faster than Cazia thought possible short of falling, and she had to admit to experiencing a brief twinge of envy at the strength in his arms. How much easier would life be if she had that?
Still, it was a little absurd. Old Stoneface—and no matter how friendly they had become since they saw him struggling among the rocks and decided to offer him a ride, she still thought of him that way—didn’t need to put himself between her and danger. She had faced danger without him, probably more than he had ever faced in his life.
Well, maybe not. He had gone to war, after all. Still, it annoyed her.
Tejohn dropped to the ground beside Ghoron and drew his sword, then he unslung his shield.
“He is making surprisingly careful with the unconscious man,” Kinz said.
“A wizard,” Cazia responded. “He—”
“We know,” Ivy said, not whispering but keeping her voice low. “You have told us enough times.”
Apparently, it still hasn’t sunk in. Cazia kept her mouth shut. Things had been tense with Ivy for the whole trip. The truth was, she wasn’t even supposed to be here.
Cazia had made a deal with Alisimbo and Silvisbemuntu to leave their precious daughter in Goldgrass Hill when she left. They’d even planned to begin her flight west before dawn, to avoid the big scene Ivy would throw if she discovered she was being left behind.
However, by the time they were approaching Peradain, they heard a knocking on the bottom of the cart’s floorboards. Ivy had strapped herself to the axle and, in the darkness, had flown off with them undetected.
The fight they’d had then was the worst they’d ever endured. Princess Stowaway, Cazia had called her, which had broken some part of the complicated Indregai code her people follow when they mock each other. The girl had been livid, but Cazia matched her shout for shout.
Alisimbo would think she’d broken her word. She had promised to leave Ivy
behind, and the girl had made a liar out of her.
It was only Kinz who convinced her not to turn back. The Indregai take insults and broken oaths very seriously, and she did not believe they would be allowed to simply drop off the princess and fly away again. Kinz worried Alisimbo would use their broken oath to confiscate their cart and make slaves of them.
That couldn’t be allowed. Cazia had to give in, which made Ivy smug. Luckily, Kinz stepped in to scold the girl, giving Cazia a chance to calm herself.
Had she ever kept a promise in her life? She had sworn never to leave the empire, had sworn never to reveal the secrets she’d learned in the Scholars’ Tower, to never give magic to anyone without the permission of the king. She’d promised to return Ivy safely to her home--which she had done, technically, but surely it didn’t count if she undid it right away. She’d also lied several times to the Tilkilit Queen, but that didn’t bother her much, considering.
Finally, Lar had commanded her not to go to Tempest Pass. Yes, things had changed since then. Everything had changed, but—
“You,” Esselba said quietly. “May I ask you a question, in private?”
There was no way Cazia was going to move away from this spot. In fact, she was fighting the urge to climb down the rope after Stoneface. “This will have to be private enough.”
The old woman glanced at Kinz and Ivy, then shook her head. “Okay. You’ve seen it, haven’t you? The empire? You’ve seen the state it’s in from your cart?”
More news. That’s what she wanted: more testimony about the state of the world beyond her little village. “It’s not as bad as it sounds,” Cazia said. “There are still humans left out there.” Esselba blanched a little; apparently, the news that Cazia thought better than it could be was worse than the older woman had imagined. “There are people in cities, in holdfasts, burning torches through the night, living under siege from The Blessing. We saw others on the roads, refugees. Not many, I’m afraid, but some. If we’re successful here, we can return to help them. To save them.”
The Way Into Darkness: Book Three of The Great Way Page 14
