by Dora Machado
A blood-curdling scream issued from the woman's toothless mouth, a high-pitched, sinister shriek that pierced Sariah's eardrum and blasted her face with a rush of fetid breath. An invisible gate toppled. The madness in the room spilled into pandemonium. A man sprang from the floor and began to trot in pointless circles. A woman sat on her haunches, shouting a song without melody. A number of bodies contorted on the floor or climbed over each other, howling. A man dangled from the rafters bellowing obscenities.
The door crashed open. Men poured into the room. Frogs spurted in by the thousands. Hysteria took over the boarders. The caretakers swung their bats without pause. Kael was struggling to rid Sariah of the mad woman's clutch.
“Beware of the one who always wins.” The crone's slobbering mouth pressed hard against Sariah's ear. “Beware of the one who plays the stone and not the game. His tales are your demise.”
There was a sequence of muted thumps. Blood spurted from the crone's nose, spraying Sariah's face. The old woman's head caved in on one side. A clump of white hair sunk in a puddle of blood. Something struck Sariah hard. The room spun like a wobbling wheel. Croaks and shrieks deafened her senses.
The next blow, to her forearm, shattered her inconspicuous cast. Her bracelet's red glow spilled through the cracks. She looked up to see Kael above her, still wrestling. She heard the sickening crack of wood against bone and watched helplessly as his face tensed and then went slack. The last thing she remembered were his closed eyes and a trail of blood trickling fluidly over his forehead.
Fourteen
“LOOK WHO'S AWAKE,” Alfred said. “Welcome, Sariah, isn't that your name? Welcome to the house of Orgos.” The man's camel lips flapped with his version of a smile, and whatever haze still shrouded Sariah's mind evaporated with the chilling show of fangs.
She remembered the commotion at the atorium, the old crone, Leandro's wised gaming pieces. Wised! She remembered the caretakers, knocking people's heads with their bats. Many more had come. One had obviously carved a knot on her head—
Kael. Where was Kael? She craned her neck to look around, testing the ropes binding her wrists and ankles. They were sturdy enough. She found Kael lying face down next to her on the floor, trussed like hunted fowl. The side of his face was crusted with dry blood and his eyes were closed, but thank Meliahs, his respiration seemed steady and strong.
“I have to say, you both have iron balls showing up here,” Alfred said. “You must be Stonewiser Sariah. The banished vanished. The Domainer who doesn't belong in the Domain. The lad who is not a lad. Yes, I looked in all the places I shouldn't, and confirmed all of it.”
“So you can tell gals from guys?” Sariah said. “How impressive.”
Alfred's boot collided with her stomach and left her wriggling like a stomped maggot.
“Watch your mouth, you little trollop. There're a couple of nasty posses clamoring for you outside the gates. I'd be happy to feed them pieces of you.”
Breathe. If she curled around her knees, the pain throbbing in her middle became bearable. Breathe. Never show fear to a growling dog.
“The mob?” she rasped.
“They're waiting,” Alfred said, “and I have no doubt that as soon as Orgos returns, you'll find your end at their hands.”
That explained why they hadn't been killed yet. Orgos wasn't currently in Alabara and Alfred was waiting for his boss to return. He wouldn't move without Orgos's approval. Damn, her middle hurt. Perhaps he had broken a rib or ruptured her bowels. How long did they have before Orgos returned?
“You can tell the bastard that Alabarians don't forgive fire and blade.” Alfred toed Kael's inert body with the tip of his boot. “I might have missed him if we hadn't been warned. This time he won't get off so easy.”
So Alfred hadn't recognized Kael after all. Who had warned Alfred and why? Choice or duty, Sariah regretted Kael's presence in Alabara. If only he hadn't been so stubborn.
“You knew, didn't you?” Sariah wheezed. “About me. That I was coming here?”
“Wouldn't you like to know?”
Someone was tracking her and closely. Could it be the same man who had spoken to the forester? Or was it the burly mob leader? Was it Arron's or Grimly's agent? Perhaps it was another executioner sent after Delis? They had to find their way out of Alabara. What about Mia, Malord and Delis? Had they been caught?
No. If little Mia felt threatened and unleashed her power in Alabara, the whole settlement would know it. They must be hiding. There were more crannies and nooks in the watery basement of Alabara than in Meliahs’ maze.
“Don't think I didn't find the stones in your braid,” Alfred said. “We heard about those. They're deep in the rot flow, mind you.”
She shook her head and found her plait undone. The stones were truly gone. Whoever was tracking her must have seen her attempt to use the stone at the executioners’ nets. The loss, however, was not as poignant as she first thought. The bursting stones she carried were too powerful to help them in Alabara. The settlement's structure was too frail to withstand an explosion. It could cause parts of the settlement to collapse, killing them as well as a whole lot of other people. She made a mental note to consider this problem later. If they survived.
She had to get them out. Perhaps she could get a message to Delis. She looked over her shoulder to Kael. Like hers, his weapons belt was missing and so was Leandro's game. She couldn't leave without it. Leandro wouldn't have gone through the trouble of imprinting those little stones unless he had something important to say, hopefully about the pure. What had Alfred done with their possessions?
One of Alfred's men barged into the room. “Trouble at the gates. Will you come?”
“I want these two guarded at all times,” Alfred said. “They're very dangerous. Orgos will be happy to profit from the woman's fate, but he will be even more delighted to see his old flame. Maybe this time, Orgos will get his price.”
Old flame?
The door closed, leaving Sariah in a darkness tinted red from her bracelet's glow. Outside, the hasp fit over the staple and the padlock clicked in place with horrifying finality. Sariah sat against the wall and found it solid. They weren't in the flimsy part of Alabara, but rather in the second or third level, where the floor boards were two stones thick and the walls and ceilings were built of petrified wood. The weather had turned steamy again. The tiny room had no windows, no vents, no openings of any kind. It was as if they were in a locked box. Box.
The memories crushed her like a rockslide. She remembered her knees jammed under her nose, bruised and scratched from hitting the wood; the darkness, bearing down on her child's mind like a hammer's blow; the growl of her empty stomach almost as loud as her cries before her voice had eroded into hoarse wails; the acrid taste of blood trickling in the desert of her mouth. She had been what? Maybe five years old?
“Kael.” She whispered against his ear. “Wake up. Kaelin?” She leaned against his shoulder and shook him. “Please. Get up.”
She didn't know she was crying until Kael stirred. With a grunt and a heave, he turned on his back and sat up groggily. “Sariah? Are you crying?” He pressed his face against her cheek. “What is it? Are you hurt?”
Where had these tears come from? “I'm fine, I swear. And you? Is your head badly wounded?”
Against the tinted darkness, she spied his head's slow motion as he leaned it carefully against the wall. “It's aching some but I think I'll live. Are you sure you're all right?”
She was fine if she didn't mind her heart. It was pounding against her breastbone, a deserter trying to jump out of her throat.
“We have to get out of here.”
“It's this place,” he said. “You can't stand the tight space. Try not to remember. It's not that bad. I've been in worse places. And with your bracelet's glow, I can even see some of you.”
“Don't make light of this,” Sariah said. “You're a wanted man in Alabara.”
“But yours is the only light I need.”
He sa
id it factually, naturally, as if she were his sword, or his sling, or his lamp, and yet the words were like a bandage to a ruptured stitch. Sariah laid her head on his shoulder. Orgos's cell was not so bad. It was small and hot, but she could move and breathe and he was right, her bracelet's glow helped her to make out her surroundings.
“Do you recall the fray?” Kael asked.
“I think those were Alfred and his men who broke down the door.”
“Aye, perhaps the caretaker sent word to him.”
“Leandro's gaming pieces are wised. I have to have them. And the crazy old crone, she knew something too.”
“I seem to recall she's dead. She can't help us now.”
“The mob's out there. Alfred was here, gloating.” She told him about her conversation with the thug.
“I wonder when Orgos is expected,” Kael said. “Turn on your side, let me see if I can work on your ties.”
“Alfred said something strange. Something about you being Orgos's old flame?”
Kael's fingers faltered on the knots, but then resumed the work.
“He said this time Orgos will get his price.”
“Over my rotted carcass,” he muttered. “Damn these ropes.”
“What is it that he wants?”
“Something he's not getting.”
“He wants you. Doesn't he?”
“Me? No. He wants my arse. Or, more to the point, he wants the hole in between.”
Meliahs help them all.
The door crashed open, but it wasn't Meliahs. Alfred entered the room, grabbed Sariah by the back of her weave, and dragged her out.
“Where are you taking her?” Kael said.
Alfred delivered a mind-numbing kick to Kael's head. “You won't care now.”
Alabara's marcher was more or less what Sariah expected. If Alfred was a camel, Orgos was a bull, a red bull with broad hips and a long coarse beard which dangled as a single clump from his chin. He wore his hair long, to hide the absence of his earlobe perhaps. But the brutality of his appearance was misleading. Sariah would not make the mistake of underestimating Orgos's intelligence. Practical wit brimmed in his hazel and gray eyes.
“So you're the banished stonewiser everybody is talking about?” Orgos leaned back in his chair and slammed his boots on the table. “Not a lot to look at presently. They say you're dangerous. But you don't look so dangerous to me.”
“What a difference a strand of rope makes,” Sariah said. “From where I stand, Orgos, you look the part of quite fearful.”
The man's impressive belly quaked with laughter. “They said you wield a sharp tongue. They're right. I've made a deal with your little mob out there. They're waiting for you. Aren't you going to beg for your life?”
“Beg? If you'll spare me, I'll gladly beg, but I have a feeling such begging will be worthless, so I had more a mind to use persuasion in the bargain.”
“It's the mob that needs to be persuaded. Care to try?”
“I'd much rather take my chances with you.”
“Now, sweetheart, you're confusing my good humor for mercy. You're as dead out there as you are in here, but your death is more profitable and less problematic to me if they kill you.”
“You may be right, but only in the short term.” Sariah was thinking on her feet. “Let's see. What have they offered you? I know. They offered not to tell the executioners that I was here, so you don't have to pay the huge fine incurred for having this conversation with me.”
Orgos didn't admit to it, but neither did he deny it.
“But a man with a keen business sense such as yourself wouldn't settle for erasing fines. No. They offered you more. A cut of my death ransom, I think.”
The man's smile was his only gloating admission.
“A large cut, more generous than the offer you received from the one who came to warn you about me.” Sariah paused. “Or could it be that you favored the mob because the other alliance was too dangerous even for the likes of you? Who was it, Orgos? Was it someone from the Guild?”
“You're clever,” Orgos said. “But that hardly counts for anything with me.”
“This might be a good opportunity for you,” Sariah said. “But it's not a secure venture. After all, they have to take my dead body back to the executioners before they can charge their mob's earnings. Then, they'd have to return to Alabara to bring your share. I hope they come back, because you might have the brawn to control Alabara, but beyond that, no other marcher in the Domain would take up your cause. How will you collect your share then?”
Orgos slammed his fist on the table. “I mind my business well enough. Did I ask for your advice? You're going to the mob.”
On the shelves behind Orgos's chair, standing among the flashy ornaments adorning his quarters—mostly copper and bronze trinkets and the occasional gold-plated forgery—Sariah spied their weapons belts, Kael's purse, and Leandro's game sack. It was a small consolation. At least she knew where the game was. If she could only devise a way of getting out of Orgos's lair alive. She had to think like the Guild wiser she had once been. What could she trade Orgos in exchange for their lives? The blurry outline of a plan began to take shape in her mind.
“I've been thinking.” Sariah strained to make her voice sound calm. “What if my life could profit you greater than my death?”
Orgos flashed a smug smile. “You have nothing of value to me. I don't like stones and I don't care about wising tales. You have no coin. We all know you live on Ars's charity. What could you possibly offer me?”
“You have a problem, a big problem, one you don't know you have. I'm the only one who can help you.”
“Lizard's gills. You're good. I almost believe you.”
“You should, if you want your little kingdom to prosper.”
“It won't do you any good regardless, but spit it out, you little viper.”
“The channel's arch stone, the one that holds the passage to Alabara. When was the last time it was wised?”
“Why do you ask?”
“I'd say about twenty years since the last wising? The lifespan of a good deck, wouldn't you agree?”
Orgos tapped his beefy fingers on the table. “I'm bored.”
“The wising is spent. The stone is weak. You've excavated it to a fragile thinness in your quest for red dye. Soon, it will no longer protect you from the rot flow.”
The man's eyes preyed on her face. “Liar. There's nothing wrong with Alabara's stone.”
“Haven't you noticed the new cracks fracturing the stone midway through the channel? Didn't you have to post a deep dead water warning by the gate where the bottom gave way? What's causing the palisade to tilt at odd angles in several places?”
“Stone cracks and shifts all the time.”
“Not as fast as it's happening here. Not as severely, either. Any day now, the channel bridge will collapse and the ridges will crumble. Alabara comes after that, and with it, the end to your rule. Heed my wiser's sworn warning.”
That caught Orgos's attention. His head snapped up and his eyes were on her again. Sariah withstood his glowering. In reality, Alabara needed an extended visit from a Hall of Masons’ stonewiser. Trained in the geology of sacred stones and experienced with quarries, a wiser from the Hall of Masons would have been much more helpful to Alabara. To be truthful, Sariah didn't know exactly how long Alabara's wising would last. It could be a day, a year, a century, but she could swear with certainty that the wising was weak. Sooner or later, Alabara would fall to the rot.
“Let me guess,” Orgos said. “You can fix the wising?”
“I can. In exchange for a few favors.”
“Wisers always want favors.”
“A deck, a bit of red dye for the road, our possessions returned, safe passage from the mob, our weapons, and our lives. No sense in working for free.”
The man threw his head back and roared a string of booming hacks. “The daring.” More laughter. “I can pay a wiser to come to Alabara. Why grant you all t
hose favors?”
“Wisers aren't so common in the Domain. They're busy and far from here. It would take a lot of persuasion on your part to entice one here. Depending on your methods, you may not get the wiser to do as you wish.”
“Whereas you, coincidence of coincidences, are conveniently here.”
Sariah opted for silence. If she could convince Orgos of the need to wise the stones, she was as good as on her way. With her hands freed and a bit of stone, she could defeat the guards, fetch Delis, rescue Kael from the cell, get the game, meet the others, and get out of Alabara. It was not perfect, but it was a plan.
“It would take a long time for a wiser to come.” Orgos pulled at his beard thoughtfully. “But if what you say is true, and the stones are too weak to hold…”
Sariah held her breath and prayed to Meliahs that Orgos saw the need for her services.
“I tell you what, wiser. You've got yourself a deal. Wise Alabara's stones and you'll get your deck, enough red dye to help finance your wanderings, weapons, possessions, safe passage from the mob, and your life, as you asked. I swear it on my marcher's oath.”
Sariah thanked Meliahs from the bottom of her soul. Then she realized Orgos had omitted something important from her list. “You forget Kael.”
“Forget? No. Him, I'll keep.”
“My offer is all or nothing.”
“Don't be so quick. Consider your options carefully. I get Kael. You get safe passage from the mob. It's a fair trade.”
“Fair? How?”
“Will it change your mind if I told you I don't intend to kill him?”
“Oh? Why do you want him then?”
“The lad has a special place in my heart.”
The air flowed out of Sariah's lungs and didn't return.
“So, have we come to an agreement?”
Why was Orgos willing to negotiate with her when he had what he wanted most anyway? It didn't make sense. It was more like a bribe than a negotiation. He was almost rewarding her to go away and leave Kael behind. Unless Orgos wanted something only his deal with Sariah could achieve. Realization dawned on her. She resisted the terrible notion.
