Chapter 40
Reisil rubbed her eyes. Her stomach growled, and her shoulder itched just out of reach of her fingers. Sighing, she shoved back the book and slumped down in her chair. ~What time is it?
~Near dawn.
~That late? I’ve been here for hours. And so has Kvepi Debess. What is he doing in there?
Since Baku and Yohuac’s capture, Reisil had not been allowed into Kvepi Debess’s laboratory. Instead he’d set her to studying the rinda. He never mentioned his two prisoners. Reisil didn’t ask about them, not wanting to give the impression she cared. She never pretended not to know them. Tapit would quickly have exposed her lie, having seen them together in Koduteel. She had instead maintained a manner of professional interest. When Kvepi Debess asked her about her relationship with the two, she shrugged.
“I spent a great deal of time with them. I hoped they could help me with the plague and the nokulas. But they couldn’t give me what I needed.” She smiled, her jaw tight. “You gave me that.”
“Do you think they came looking for you?”
“They probably thought I needed rescuing. Most people thought you wouldn’t welcome me.”
She didn’t know whether he believed her, but she still was not allowed into the laboratory, nor did he discuss his work with her. Unable to do anything else, she submerged herself in the study of the rinda. If she was going to free Baku and Yohuac, she would have to know how to read the spells.
Behind her, she heard shuffling footsteps. She swung around as Kvepi Debess wandered into her study room.
He yawned, scratching his stomach. “You’re still here, Reisil?” He smiled approval. “I’m feeling a bit hungry myself. Join me in the kitchens?”
Reisil nodded, shutting the book and following after him. “I have been meaning to ask you something,” she said as they stepped out into the brisk night air.
“Oh?”
“I wondered if it would be possible for me to observe Kvepi Uldegas in his work.”
“Uldegas? Whatever for?” There was a thin line of suspicion in his voice. Uldegas had Yohuac.
“He’s a healer-mage. And while you say that my major talents aren’t in healing, nevertheless, I know at least a bit about it. I thought if I watched him, watched his spells, I could learn something about how the rinda work. I’ve tried sorting out the spells on my lights and my bathtub, but it’s like looking at an already painted picture. I’ve no idea where one would start. If I understood how things connected, it would help me remember better.”
She held her breath, waiting. All night she’d practiced the speech, trying to sound logical.
Kvepi Debess turned into the main building and trundled down the stairs to the kitchens, Reisil trailing behind. Inside the kitchens, the baking crew was hard at work. A boy was dispatched to serve Reisil and Kvepi Debess, and he swiftly supplied a tray of cold meats and cheeses, bread, pickles and steaming kohv sprinkled with nussa. Kvepi Debess piled together a hearty sandwich. Reisil sipped her kohv, watching him over the rim of her cup.
“It’s a good idea,” he said finally around a mouthful of sandwich. “But you know Uldegas. He’s crotchety even when he’s in a good mood. Still, you’re a journeyman and have healing experience. I expect you’d be far more helpful than that brace of apprentices he’s always nattering on about. I’ll speak to him—but mind you, only for a week at the most. I’ll have need of you soon myself.”
Reisil nodded, hope soaring. “Does that mean I’ll get to help you with the coal-drake?”
He shot her a look from beneath his grizzled brows. “Could use you. But mind, I don’t want any foolishness!”
Female foolishness. Hysterics. Reisil smiled. “You won’t get any of that from me.” And he wouldn’t. She bit hard into her sandwich, enjoying the feeling of her jaws grinding the food. Hysterics weren’t going to help Baku and Yohuac. She was going to have to watch their suffering. She was going to have to make it worse. She was going to have to torture them herself. It was the only way to free them.
Though a part of her cringed at the thought, she refused to let herself be overpowered by guilt. This was war. Kodu Riik was at stake. What sacrifices were required, she’d make. Even if it meant sacrificing the blood of her friends.
She felt a warm sense of approval radiating from Saljane. Reisil went very still. Her mind fled back to the moment when Tapit had put the ilgas on Saljane. At that moment Reisil had forgotten herself. She’d been insane with grief and rage. She’d forgotten who she was. What she was. The relief at getting Saljane back hadn’t diminished the fear of losing her again. It gnawed at Reisil like a pack of starving rats. Only now she feared something more.
A shaft of ice drove down inside Reisil and for a moment she couldn’t breathe. It had never occurred to her before that she might have to do this without Saljane. But it could come to that, couldn’t it? And she could either destroy hillsides in wild grief and fury, or she could do what she was called to do. She swallowed, coughing, and reached for her kohv.
~It can’t happen again. We aren’t more important than Kodu Riik. We’re ahalad-kaaslane, whether we have each other or not. Baku’s the same. That’s why he can’t give up on Yohuac. We can’t just surrender to our emotions and give up. We have to keep fighting.
Easier said than done. But if it came to it . . .
~Yes. Whatever comes, we will continue on. Despite the undercurrent of apprehension underlying Saljane’s mindvoice, she spoke proudly and defiantly.
Black-robed bodies sprawled across couches and floors and slumped over the arms of chairs. Some of the Kvepis had fallen asleep facedown on the table, drooling. Snores resonated through the dining hall, intermingled with moans. A few men had turned gray and clammy; others twitched and muttered.
Reisil picked her way through the bodies. She wore the clothing she’d arrived in, her sword in her right hand, Saljane on her shoulder.
There was Uldegas. He slept upright in a chair, his mouth gaping open. His breathing was high and light, and Reisil wondered how much of the henbane tincture he’d ingested. Not taking any chances, she’d put some in the wine and more in the platters of herb-roasted salmon. The feast had been in honor of the Patverseme new year, when the sun began to wane and the Dark Lord waxed in strength. Ironically, it was also Lady Day. Reisil took that as an omen. Today the Kvepis abandoned their laboratories and spells for a few hours of wine and food and merriment. Today she could drug them all in one sitting.
Reisil swung her sword around, poking Uldegas’s throat with the tip. Blood beaded on his skin. ~This one I wouldn’t have minded seeing dead. Or better yet, thrown into one of his cages, where he could rot forever.
~Kill him now. Saljane’s voice offered no judgment.
Reisil hesitated and then slowly lifted her sword away.
~He’s helpless. I won’t be like them. Not today of all days.
It had been four weeks since Yohuac and Baku had been captured. In all that time Reisil had wrestled with a plan to get them out. She’d been overjoyed when she learned of the new year’s celebration. With all the Kvepis incapacitated, she had time to free her friends. If she could figure out how.
Satisfied the henbane would not soon wear off, Reisil retreated outside.
She paused to check on the two horses she’d cached in the trees near the entrance to Uldegas’s workshops. They remained where she’d left them, saddles and packs intact. Indigo greeted her with a nicker. The other was Tapit’s leggy gelding. She scratched the bay’s starred forehead and fed them each a handful of grain before setting off.
Uldegas had been as jealous as Kvepi Debess of his wards. But Reisil had listened vigilantly and finally discovered the keys to the spells. She entered easily. Inside was a long, oblong room with a row of tables down the middle. They were separated by fifteen feet. Each was set on a pedestal carved with rinda. More rinda etched the floors, the tables, and the straps dangling from their sides. Chunks of quartz and amethyst crystals dangled down over eac
h table, serving as reservoirs for collected energy. Along the left wall were a series of workbenches and storage cabinets. Here Uldegas performed dissections of flesh. Here he stored his instruments in all their grisly array. Here he mixed potions and poisons. Here were jar after jar containing bits and pieces from nokulas, from humans, from Lady knew what else.
Cells lined the opposite wall. Their outer doors were made of heavy planks without openings. The cells contained cages much like those in Kvepi Debess’s workshop. Inside, Uldegas stored his victims like potatoes in a cellar. Reisil had never seen any other but Yohuac, and wondered who else suffered in these walls.
She shunted the thought aside, feeling Saljane’s steel resolve winding around hers.
~Let’s get him out of here.
Yohuac lay on a table midway down the room. His eyes were open and fixed on the ceiling above. He was naked, his head shaved smooth, as was the rest of his body. Straps inscribed with complicated rinda lay across his forehead, chest, waist, thighs and ankles. They weren’t fastened down, and they glowed with a faint green light. There was a patchwork of bandages all over his body and a bucket of bloody rags on the floor. His skin wrapped his protruding ribs and bones shockingly tightly.
“Yohuac? Can you hear me?”
He didn’t move.
~We’ve got to get him off the table.
But how? Reisil bent to examine the straps. These rinda were more complex than she understood. She stood up, scrubbing her hands over her face. They were meant to hold him paralyzed and senseless. Perhaps that’s all they did. They shouldn’t be dangerous to the wizard working over him. That would be foolish. She licked her lips. If she was wrong—But he was going to die if he stayed here, and she didn’t doubt he’d rather have her try than leave him here for Uldegas.
Reisil drew her sword, and the sound of it rang in the silence. She edged the tip beneath the strap across Yohuac’s ankles and then twisted sharply upward, flinging the offending strip into the air. Nothing happened. She repeated the process. His thighs, his waist, his chest, his head. When she’d flung the last one away, she sheathed the sword and bent over him again.
“Yohuac?”
He blinked. He drew a long rattling breath and then began to cough, deep racking coughs. She slid her arm around him and helped him sit up. He clung to her, his fingers shaking. She continued to hold him for long minutes. At last Yohuac regained control of himself and began to breathe more easily. He couldn’t stop trembling, and Reisil hugged him against her firmly, careful to stay away from the bandaged patches.
“Who are you? What’s happened?” he rasped.
“I’m Reisil,” she said, realizing suddenly that he couldn’t see in the darkness. “The wizards captured you,” Reisil said. “I still have to get Baku. Can you walk?”
“Whatever I have to do,” he said haltingly.
“I’ll find clothes.”
She eased out from under him and began rummaging through the storage bins where she knew Uldegas stored what he called artifacts. In one she found Yohuac’s clothing neatly folded. His weapons lay beneath the clothing in the bottom of the bin. Everything had been cleaned and mended. Even his armbands, earrings, and hair beads were there. As if Uldegas ever meant him to wear any of it again. What made her stomach clench were the four other bins full of clothing. She stared at them a long moment and then returned to Yohuac. She helped him dress, wondering how he’d ever get out of the valley, much less make it all the way to Mysane Kosk. He touched his head as she pulled on his tunic.
“What have they done? I don’t remember—”
“I don’t know,” she said.
She helped him with the rest of the clothing. More than once he moaned or flinched as she brushed the bandaged places. When he was dressed, he sagged back onto the table, his head dangling low, his entire body wilting boneless to the side.
“Let me see if I can find some food or drink.”
“A light,” he whispered. “I want to see.”
Reisil retreated to the outer room, rummaging until she found a drawer full of candles. She grabbed one, unwilling to think what Uldegas might use them for. Certainly not light. Next she found a jug of water and a quarter loaf of stale bread. She took them back to Yohuac. She lit the candle with a tendril of power and poured him some water.
“Not too much. You’ve not had any food for a while.” Then she dipped the bread into the other mug and let him have a bite.
He took the bread from her, chewing slowly.
“Will you be all right a moment? I want to look in the cells.”
Yohuac nodded, his eyes bleary.
~You must not tarry long.
~I won’t.
Reisil went to the first plank door and opened it. There was no one inside, and she inspected two more before she found anyone. A woman sat inside the cage on the floor facing Reisil. She was naked, her head and body shaved. There were no marks of torture or experimentation on her. She sat still and upright.
Reisil knelt beside the cage. “Are you all right?”
The woman lifted her head. Reisil scuttled backwards in shock.
Her eyes were just like those of the nokulas: silver and opaque, like the curved bottom of a spoon. The bones of her skull had widened, and her cheeks ridged upward. The skin covering the rest of her very human body was pale as milk. She was beautiful in a terrifying, alien way.
She tipped her head at Reisil, fixing one eye on her like a crow. “You’re not him,” she said in a voice that reminded Reisil of rain.
“No.”
“Can you free me?”
“I don’t know.”
“Will you try?”
Reisil hesitated. “I don’t know how.”
“Ah.” The woman bent her head down, dismissing Reisil.
Reisil examined the cage. The rinda glowed in rainbow light, layered one on top of the other, much like those holding Baku. She felt like spitting. She knew many of the symbols, but not the configurations, and she didn’t have the slightest idea how to unravel them. But everything in her rebelled at leaving this woman—or whatever she was—inside. She examined the cage again. There was no lock, only a latch. But clearly the latch was warded, and there was no way to turn it without dangerous repercussions.
“Do you have magic? Is that why you’re in here?” Reisil asked, wondering exactly how the spells on the cage were focused.
“Some. I’m a plague-healer.”
Reisil froze. “A what?”
“A plague-healer,” she repeated.
Reisil had sunk to her knees. “How? I can’t even touch it.”
The woman tipped her head again in that birdlike way. “The plague has no harmony. I sing it back to joy.”
Reisil stared uncomprehendingly. “Sing it?”
“I would like to leave here. It calls, but I cannot answer.”
A cure for the plague. Was it possible? Reisil’s stomach churned. Given that the woman was locked up in a wizard’s cage, Reisil was inclined to believe the notion. Though she could be lying just to trick Reisel into letting her out. Reisil swallowed. But what if her story was true? Reisil snarled. She should have killed Uldegas. She levered to her feet. She had to free the woman; there was no longer a choice, not if there was a remote chance of stopping the plague. But how? Again Reisil examined the rinda on the cage.
The cage was undoubtedly designed to suppress the magic of those within and make it impossible for them to free themselves manually. But the wizards never expected to have to counter an attack from without. She just needed an object. . . .
Reisil turned around, her hand falling on her sword hilt. No. She didn’t want a magic sword. She needed something else. She retreated out of the cell, alighting finally on Yohuac and the gold armbands sitting beside him. She snatched one up and returned to the cell.
“You did not leave.”
“With any luck, we’ll leave together.” Reisil set the armband on the floor and stepped back.
~Stay apart, Sa
ljane. If this doesn’t work, leave Yohuac. Get to Juhrnus, and tell him what we’ve learned here.
She waited for Saljane’s reluctant agreement, felt her withdraw. Ruthlessly Reisil suppressed the pang that shot through her. Then carefully she extended a tendril of magic to the armband, anchoring it firmly. Next she turned her attention to the cage. The rinda were brilliantly active. She should be able to siphon off their power much as she had sent her own excess magic to store in the hunk of quartz. She stretched out another careful tendril. It touched the cage.
Magic flashed, incandescent as the afternoon sun. Reisil closed her eyes against the painful brilliance. Power sluiced through her. She staggered and dropped heavily to the floor. She couldn’t let go. She had no strength to do anything but hold on. Hotter and hotter, spurting and spitting, gushing through her like a torrent of lava. Reisil felt the patterns of the rinda softening, dissolving in the flush of raw magic. As they broke apart, Reisil at last understood their patterns and purpose. One after the other they lost cohesion. As each unraveled, the deluge surged and then dropped, dribbling away to nothing.
Reisil opened her eyes, feeling the hard stone of the floor against her back. She blinked. Spots of white and yellow danced across her vision.
“Cage is opened. Free others, yes?”
Reisil drew a shallow breath, all she could manage. Her lungs ached as if they’d been seared black. The rest of her body felt battered as though she’d fallen over a cliff. She sat up with a gasping groan. Between the spots on her vision, she saw that the cage was twisted and black. Unusable. She smiled in grim triumph. She clambered to her feet, leaning against the doorjamb, her head spinning.
“Free others, yes? Yes?”
“I’ll try,” Reisil answered hoarsely. She couldn’t leave any of them here. Plague-healers. She almost sobbed. Please let it be true!
“Come. Before he returns.”
The woman gestured toward the door, uncaring or unaware of Reisil’s pain. Reisil bent and picked up Yohuac’s armband. It glowed softly in her spellsight, and she tucked it in her hip pouch.
There was a man in the next cell. He might have been the woman’s twin. This time as Reisil examined the cage, she understood the scrolling rinda. This one for pain, that one for stealing magic, that for sleep, that for locking the cage, the other for dampening magic. And more. The rinda were stacked together like overlapping bricks, repeated on every surface. Removing one, the right one, undermined the rest.
Path of Honor Page 41
