Every Grakkurd in the little room said, “Oooh,” in unison.
It had given Ellinca time to grasp hold of the jumbled facts before her. Marla did not seem injured. The bludvoik had helped her, whereas absolutely everybody else here was determined to dispose of her. Besides, if they killed him, she might be next.
“Listen to him,” she squeaked.
Marla held up her hand. Color had returned to her face. “Wait. What have you to say, creature?”
He shot Ellinca a grateful glance. “I am not a bludvoik...anymore. Of that I assure you. I am Doster Ex Burgla’le, eighth son of the Imperator, Uster the Fourth. I may still be of the undead and for that reason I believe I am almost unkillable, but I am not a bludvoik.”
He was royalty, a noble, if undead – the class that made all the rules. They owned the world. His family had made the rules that would condemn her to death for being a mage, if they caught her.
Ellinca was pushed and went stumbling forward. The curtain burst inward as a horde of Grak warriors invaded the room brandishing glinting sharp weapons of every description.
“Stop!” Marla’s voice whipcracked, halting the men in mid-stride. “Three of you stay, the rest go.” Reluctantly, and with much grumbling, the warriors withdrew. “I will talk with you...” She kicked a few cushions into a pile as far from Dost as the room would allow and sat. “From over here.”
Dost slipped back the cowl from his head and started unwinding the bandages. “On the twenty-ninth day of the month of Julius, this was done to me.”
Though the top half of his head was that of a healthy, blue-eyed man in his early twenties, with thick blond locks for which any woman would give a good sum of money, the lower half was a ghastly ruin. Where his jaw was were parallel strips of raw wounds running down onto his neck. He had no lips. A gaping hole was punched through one cheek and tattered pieces of flesh hung from it. What skin and flesh remained was colored a mix of bluish-gray and brown.
Nothing bled or oozed fluid. Nothing stank, but where bone was laid bare the shreds of tissue that clung to it had dried like brown paper.
Ellinca flicked her gaze from his mouth to throat to chest. He’s not breathing! He just takes in air when he needs to talk. How did I miss that? This is who the Finder was chasing! This is what was trying to kill us! Dismay wrenched at her stomach. What had she done?
From her uncle’s library she had taken and read Conformatio Corporis Humanis, the great text of the human body, though he had forbidden her some of the pages about the ruder parts. A few times she had watched him dissect animals hunters brought in. The secrets of the circulation of the blood, the way the lungs acted as a living bellows to draw in air – she was goggle-eyed to see these things and others revealed. Though gruesome, she knew the animals were destined for the pot whether dissected or not, and the knowledge she gained was precious in her healing.
Once he had placed the jelly-like brain of a quoll in her hand and pointed out the interesting bits. The brain was, as in all animals, enclosed inside the top of the skull. Her uncle had insisted the brain was the center of one’s being, not the heart as most believed.
Here was proof that he was right. She would bet her last fennig that the heart in Dost’s chest was as still and cold as a graveyard at midnight.
“I have vowed to find the person who did this to me and destroy them. Not just for petty vengeance...but to stop this happening to others.” He picked up the swords and threw them back. They skidded and tumbled along the floor to land at Tracc’s feet. “Take those back, and give me my freedom and I will give us all justice.”
Marla clicked her tongue. “First, please, replace your mask.” While he did so she carefully adjusted her clothing. Then she smiled. “Good. Now explain yourself. How will you do this thing? Give us justice?”
It was impossible not to admire how easily the woman sat there talking with an undead.
“If I am...restored to my former self...I can give you a voice in the Imperator’s court. I can influence things, change decisions. I can perhaps stop this war. I may be the eighth son but I know how things are arranged at court. I know how to get things get done.”
“Would you take your father’s throne?”
“No! And hear this. Blood ties, my family, are my anchor in this world. I will not harm him in any way.”
“A pity.” She hesitated. “Still, a voice on our side at court. Our spies... Ah! Does that shock you?”
He shrugged. “You have them, so do we.”
“Hmph!” Marla looked so smug Ellinca wondered if that had been a test of some sort. “Yours, of course, don’t make it very far before they’re detected.” She inspected her fingernails for a moment. “Our spies tell us that the eighth son is...was...a scholar of languages, an athlete, a mediocre philosopher and absorbed with his own self, a man more prone to spend his days in the court library or practicing archery or swordcraft or calligraphy.”
“Then you also know I had a particular interest in your people. I studied you, I know your ways, and I’ve always admired you. And, now, I wish to help you end the war.”
“How did you become...partially restored to humankind?”
“How? I cannot tell you but I wholeheartedly believe I can become human again.”
How could he be so sure?
Aquamarine eyes bright with intelligence, he looked quietly around at the guards. One of them, with shaking hands, aimed a small crossbow at Dost’s head. “And, believe me, when you’ve been undead, you come to understand how stupid and senseless and wasteful killing is. You have nothing to lose, and so much to gain.”
Marla leaned back against the cushions, narrowed her eyes and clicked her fingernails together.
“Tracc?”
“Yes?” The man, sword now sheathed, stood quietly at her side. Though he was outwardly calm, a trickle of sweat meandered down the side of his face.
“What say you? I cannot judge the truth in this matter.”
“You cannot?” Lines of concentration marked his forehead. He tapped the hilt of his sword for a long while. “Yus. Without truth perhaps we should try to kill him, to let him survive and go out to our enemies with no way to tell if he will betray us? A troubling thought.”
“Yet...” Marla pursed her lips. “The Burgla’le do not honor their ghosts as we do. They do not comprehend our ways. He...it has seen the other side and is closer to crossing over than any. What better ally could we have than a reformed bludvoik?”
Ellinca half-opened her mouth. If she helped them perhaps the Grakks would help her. “Place your hands on his head. Some parts of it are human.”
Those piercing eyes swung her way. “And risk my life? Are you in league with him?”
“Bludvoiks, I have been told, can be killed by cutting off their head.” The raised eyebrow from Marla encouraged her. “Put a sword to his throat while you touch him.”
This time Dost flashed her a glare and rolled his eyes. He sighed. “If need be.”
Marla nodded. “Very well. Not you, Tracc, this one with the muscles.”
“I am Krueger.” He rattled off something in Grakk.
“He says he will use a garrote wire.” Tracc smiled. “It cuts nicely, as if flesh were made of butter.”
Though he was only a bludvoik, the sight of that lethal wire looped around his throat brought Ellinca a surge of unease. I must be mad. Who would care if a bludvoik dies...if you can call it that? He’s done worse to others. Those soldiers on the road...he tore them apart.
Anxiety gripped her. If he’d been lying... Anything might happen.
Her mouth dried as Marla gingerly moved over, stretched out a hand, and touched the top of Dost’s head. Nothing. No ice formed. Had that been imaginary? No screams, no tide of red running up her arm.
“Speak the truth.” The words sounded thick, as if spoken through mud. “Can you return to being a human?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Will you help to end this war, in every way po
ssible?”
“Yes.”
“Can you be trusted by us, the Grakkurd race?”
“Yes.”
Her face pale, Marla moved back and slumped against the cushions. “Release him. He speaks truth.” Krueger obeyed.
Relief poured through Ellinca. Now they would surely let her loose.
“Hear this. I say yes also to your proposal, though how you are to become a man again...” She addressed Dost, shaking her head slightly. “I cannot tell you. One other thing...the situation in Carstelan has changed from what you might expect. There are riots, fires, unexplained deaths. So expect trouble.”
“Why? What has caused this?”
“We have no more idea than you do.” Only her mouth moved. As if she deliberately kept her face expressionless.
Tracc cleared his throat. “So. We will release you. For the sake of our people’s harmony, you must leave very, very soon. We will send two of our best warriors to...help you in Carstelan. Before you go, tell me, how did you find our camp so easily? We had thought ourselves well concealed.”
He paused. “I smelled you. I find that I can now smell humans...from a very great distance.” The cloth across his mouth shifted. Did he smile?
“Ah. A useful skill...”
“I suppose.” Dost untangled his legs and rose to his feet. “Any help you can give is acceptable. And...the girl must come with us.”
The girl! Me! Alarm made Ellinca’s eyes open wide and prickles run up her scalp. She wanted to go there but not with him. “Wait!”
Marla shrugged. “The girl can go with you also. She must leave us one way or the other. But two things – the bindings stay on her until she is gone from here. We cannot ascertain her truthfulness. And you will go nowhere without a set of guards that I will appoint. When, or if, you change back into a human, we need insurance that your ideas will not also change.”
“Wait!” Ellinca held up her hands, wildly jangling the chain linking the manacles. The room fell silent and all looked to her. A flush crept across her cheeks. “My apologies, but I’m not a part of whatever you and he are planning. I’ll make my own way with my friend, Pascolli.”
Marla regarded her coldly. “Then you’ll go to the Bheulakk. Your friend has passed my test and can stay with us until he heals.”
“What?” She spluttered. “After I just helped you? That’s not a fair bargain.”
“Fair? You’re an unknown factor, my dear. I can’t read you, and we’re at war with your people.”
“You think I’m a spy, or something? Me!”
“I make no assumptions about who or what you are.” She straightened her back and pointed one long accusing finger. “Once in Carstelan you are no longer my problem. Make your choice. There or the Bheulakk. Which?”
Calm. I must be calm. Carstelan is where I need to go. Sir Alexander Blissman is there. There will be Grakk guards with us. It should be safe. But why oh why does he want me to come?
It was like speaking with a rock in her throat. “Carstelan.”
“Good.”
The Grakks might believe their truthsayer, their auratrist, but she would watch the bludvoik’s every single step. Or lurch. Sometimes he definitely lurched. Why hadn’t she spotted that?
Chapter 12
The Fledgling
On leaving the alcove, Ellinca found herself facing a room full of eyes.
Everyone must have heard.
“Wishk!” With that one incomprehensible word Tracc ordered his people back to their tasks. “In short time, we will eat,” he told her. “You both stay here with Dayna and Krueger.”
She had never seen a man like Krueger. He had no neck and his limbs were thick and sinewy like an ancient tree wrapped in parasitic vines. She half expected him to trip over his own legs when he walked.
The last time she had tried to see Pascolli they had stopped her. She looked at Dayna and pointed to the corner where she knew he lay, but Dayna slowly shook her head then folded her arms.
“You can fold your arms all you like, I am not moving from this cave until I get to see him. My feet hurt, I’ve had nothing much to eat for I have no idea how long, but I am staying here.” She caught herself from swaying to the side. Thinking about food was a bad idea.
The tiniest frown line marked Dayna’s forehead. Krueger did nothing. If only she could speak their language. She tried fingertalk. Also nothing. Of course, Dost spoke Grakkurd. She eyed him warily, trying not to feel ill. With those face wrappings he was as unreadable as stone.
“Have you decided? Am I monster, or not?” he asked, startling her.
He was still pretending friendship and that he cared what she thought. Ugly he was, inside and out. She could also pretend.
“Not exactly.”
“Oh.”
“I mean...you can’t help how you look like underneath those...”
“Could you do something for me?”
She hesitated. “Maybe. What is it?”
Slowly he closed his gloved hand into a fist, opened it and extended the hand. “Shake my hand.”
She stared at him. Was this some sort of joke to him?
“Please.” The yellow glove dwarfed her hand. She made as if to grip his hand but found her arm shaking. Would he be insulted? Her fingertips touched the leather of his glove – warm. Strangely he too trembled. Why? She snatched away her hand.
“Sorry. I can’t.” She shook her head. She wasn’t sorry, though. The memory of that night...her heart raced. Terror wasn’t her father threatening to smack her for sleeping in. It was something cold and dead sliding up from the river’s depths in the black of night, something scratching and scratching at the underside of the log as it tried to get at you. She shuddered.
She raised her eyes. Can this thing really be a person? How can I ever look at this and not recall that night?
“No matter,” he said, and there again was that sickening gurgle.
He turned his hand over as if seeing it for the first time, as if he searched for something. Something about his eyes reminded her of her mother when she knew she was dying. Despite hugging her mother tight, despite how she vowed to never let her go, her mother had looked so terribly alone – alone and very afraid...
Words stumbled across her tongue. “Will you help me? Talk to the Grakks?” How ashamed she was to have to ask that.
“Why should I?” He let his hand fall to his side. “Look. I aim to see a man called Alexander Blissman in Carstelan. Your friend Pascolli babbled that you have the same aim.”
Understanding dawned. This was why he had asked that she come with him.
“Oh! Yes. To see if he might, well, tell me more...explain...” She flapped her hand vaguely. “...things.” Of course she couldn’t tell him why.
The crinkling around his eyes made her certain he smiled. The sadness she saw in him seemed to lessen. “I know the man well. We should talk of this later.”
“You do? Um. Yes. Perhaps, but what I want... Can...can you help me get past these two idiots?”
Dayna pursed her lips at this – obviously she understood La’le far more than she spoke it.
“I can tr – ”
“Okay! Okay!” Dayna stepped to the side. “Go to frund. But must be quick, und no tricks.”
“Thank you.”
She hurried over, glancing back. Dost followed at a distance. Several well-armed men shadowed him from a few yards back.
Pascolli lay pale and still on a timber and canvas stretcher in a dimly lit corner. His eyes flickered half-open. He freed one hand from the blanket to sign to her. “Hello.”
“Hello, yourself.” She sat on the cold floor beside him and put a hand on his forehead. He was, as far as she could tell, not feverish. A cluster of golden punctology pins stood out from his brow like a miniature fence. From the bulge under his shirt, thick bandages were wrapped around his chest.
“Good to see I’m alive, hey?”
“Yes, it is. I thought you were going to die on me back th
ere.”
He half closed his eyes again then bent his arm up at the elbow to sign to her. “Getting better. Girls like scars.”
“Hah! Next time think before you go crazy and try to hit a soldier.”
“Ellinca. I might go crazy and make mistakes sometimes but I do it because my heart tells me to. That way you know they’re the right sort of mistakes. Always follow your heart.” He slumped, his arm flopped down, and he began to breathe the deep, relaxed breaths of the sleeping.
She smiled. Typical Pascolli, spouting deep, meaningful gibberish. She eyed him for a moment – definitely asleep. She brushed away a lock of hair and leaned in to kiss his cheek, thinking with a strange sort of regret how they’d never tried kissing for real.
Someone knelt on the other side of the stretcher.
“Oh.” Ellinca sat up.
It was a woman with a shaven scalp and a blood-stained tunic and breeches. Around her waist was a belt with several pouches attached to it. In the soft wrinkles of her face, Ellinca saw kindness.
“You are a friend? From Burgla’le?” the woman asked. “I am Garmea.”
“Yes, I’m his friend. He was so ill...”
She smiled. “He is not fully recovered yet. He has swallowed many vials from my stock of micropath potions. I did the punctology you see there.”
“You’re a needle master?”
“A punctologist. It is the same, I suppose, as your needle master. I removed the piece of wire. Your friend has lost two, maybe three years of his life span as a result. I think he will recover with rest. Right now he’s sedated but I hope that soon he’ll be at least strong enough to walk.”
“You did what? I mean, you removed wire?”
“Yus. That was the source of the infection. There were whip scars on his back. Was it from that?”
Ellinca rubbed her hands across her face. “I could have saved him from this. He didn’t want me to touch him. Thought I might hurt him.” She was whispering.
Magience: second edition Page 12
