by Dora Machado
His hands went numb. His fingertips turned blue. The sword fell away from his grip. The pain struck at his knees and the floor came straight at his face. He curled up against the corner, trying to stop the pain, but it was no use. He groped for the flask in his belt but remembered it wasn’t there anymore. He thought of his father. He thought of Ethan, Robert and Harald, of their last moments of life. He thought of Lusielle. Part of him was fighting still. Part of him was shamefully relieved. The last thing he heard was the woman, laughing.
Chapter Seventy-seven
LUSIELLE HAD JUST FINISHED HER MINISTRATIONS when the padlock clanged on the door. Despite the pervasive darkness and the lack of tools, she had managed to cause a small leak in one of the wine barrels stored in the cellar by wedging one of her measuring spoons in between the boards and the iron rivets. True, it had taken a while, but once the wine began spurting, she soaked her kerchief in it and added a generous measure of turmeric powder and a fistful of birch bark leaves—both identified by touch and smell only—and produced a compress to reduce the swelling on Vestor’s face.
“It’s too soon for Orell to be back,” Vestor whispered, removing the compress from his face. “It’s dark in here. Should we try making a run for it?”
Lusielle listened to the voices outside. “Could you manage a sprint?”
“The thug got my face, not my legs.”
Lusielle thumped hard on the door then she and Vestor tucked themselves in the corner by the door, behind the barrels. They waited for the door to open. A beam of light from the corridor stretched over the floor, interrupted only by the shadows of the guard, who hesitated at the door.
“They’re not here,” he said, surprised.
“What do you mean, they’re not there?” someone else said. “Didn’t you just hear the racket?”
As the guards strode into the cellar, Lusielle made her move. She darted behind them, cleared the threshold, dodged another set of legs and dashed down the hall with Vestor on her heels. Shouts rang in the hallway. As she gained speed around the corner, she avoided yet another man and accelerated towards the stairs at the end of the hallway.
The light of a brilliant sunset spilled onto the steps through a high window at the top of the landing. It dazzled Lusielle’s eyes. A dark shadow stood in the way, obstructing the only path to the stairs. Without slowing down, she lowered her head and tried to swerve past the obstacle. For an instant, she thought she had avoided the hurdle, until the shadow stole the light from the room.
Lusielle collided against an unmovable mass of rippling flesh. Her face brushed a stack of clattering chains and sank into layers of combed wool and supple rolls. With a grunt, a tight hold enfolded her in a staunch embrace. She fought to break the hold, but there was no give to those arms.
By the sounds of struggle coming from behind her, Vestor had also been caught. Twisting in her captors’ arms, she looked up wistfully at the sun-drenched landing. They had almost made it.
The scents smothered against her nostrils raised the alarm. The pungent smell of excess mint paste tried to mask the stench of the glandular sweat reeking of roasted garlic. Lusielle gagged. It had to be a coincidence, a trick of her addled brain, because the scent was one she knew. The foul odor stemmed from the pervasive digestive troubles of the body she had tried to heal despite the mind that refused to care for it.
“No, please,” she begged the gods in a little voice. If she shut her eyes, if she didn’t look ….
The breath stinking her world matched the voice wrenching her back to the past. “There you are,” Aponte Rummins said. “Hello, beloved.”
Chapter Seventy-eight
HATO STOOD AT THE FOOT OF his lord’s bed, waiting. It would not be long now. He knew the pattern all too well. Like his brothers before him, Bren had fallen into the fitful sleep. He tossed and turned in terrible pain, mumbling rants, whimpering at times, prey to the nightmares that would snuff the last sparks of his once formidable intellect. Within the next hours, the madness would begin. Then he would fall silent and gasp his last breaths in the grasp of the excruciating rigor that would finally kill him.
So close. His lord had been so close to beating the curse. And yet the curse had prevailed, robbing Bren of his strength when he needed it most, teaming up with hopelessness to thwart his last brave efforts. Hato was left to wonder if another sip from the woman’s potion would have bought his lord the time he needed. Perhaps had she lived, Bren would have found the strength to continue. As it was, Hato had been forced to witness the slow death of his lord’s heart before his body.
A rumble outside the chamber caught his attention. A muted discussion ensued. Hato strode to the door and opened it. The balance of the Twenty stood guard in the hallway. Somber faces turned to Hato.
“What have you, come to mock our lord?” Cirillo’s strapping girth blocked someone’s way. “Go back to your airs. Our lord deserves to die in peace.”
“Khalia?” Hato motioned for Cirillo to stand aside. “Why have you come?”
“To see him,” Khalia said.
“So you can apprise Laonia’s enemies of my lord’s latest condition?” Hato sneered. “I think not.”
“You can’t refuse a Chosen of Teos.”
“This is Laonia’s hall and we won’t bend the knee to a traitor.”
Khalia’s back stiffened. “Woe to those who see with no eyes.”
“Shame to those who feel without a heart.”
“You’ve come too far to allow grief to cloud your reason.”
“And do you grieve for no one?”
Khalia drew in a deep breath and, stepping close to Hato, pulled out a small globe flickering with tiny witching flames and several vials from her sleeve. “We can ease the agony of the rigor when it comes.”
“You could kill him, too, and make your friends happy.”
“I did it for my lord Harald,” Khalia whispered. “I can do it for my lord Brennus.”
It was the first time in thirty years that Hato had heard Khalia referring to herself as “I” instead of using Teos’s compulsory “we.” It was also the first time ever Khalia had mentioned Harald or his death. Had Khalia truly been at Harald’s bedside when he died?
Khalia cocked an inquisitive brow. “Do you see why we must talk?”
Hato stepped aside and allowed the woman entry. Khalia’s bejeweled gown rustled as she entered the room and closed the door. Her eyes took in the chamber, the hangings, the windows. Four spiraling shells clattered in her palm.
Vermilion shells? Hato recognized the rare wares, but Khalia crossed her lips with her finger and placed a shell alongside each of the four walls in the room, taking care to put one on the windowsill and another one on the table next to the door, setting them in such a way that the trumpet-like openings faced away from the room.
Khalia must think Hato was a country simpleton. “You’ve misplaced your shells,” he said sullenly. “They won’t work facing away from the sound you seek to capture.”
Her eyes darkened to a pewter gray. “I don’t want the shells to capture our conversation. On the contrary. I made a timely discovery just days ago. Did you know that used in reverse the shells can also help deflect others seeking to pry into this room? You’re not the only one who has developed a talent for learning things others wouldn’t want you to know. At last, we can speak freely.”
If she thought he was going to volunteer any information that could compromise his lord or Laonia, she was mad. He didn’t trust her, and to make his point, he said precisely nothing.
She approached the man in the bed, sniffing the air. “The scent of death is strong. His time is short.” She ran a long-fingered hand along Bren’s cheeks. “He’s in the fitful sleep, but he hasn’t gone into the madness or the rigor yet.”
Hato’s doubts that Khalia was telling the truth were instantly dispelled. The woman had indeed been present during Harald’s death. It was the only way she could have known the intricate details and the unusual se
quence of the curse’s foul death.
“Brave and handsome are the sons of Uras.” Khalia caressed the scar on Bren’s face. “Valiant were their efforts. I nursed poor Harald into his death. I eased his way with my sweetest scents.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Hato asked.
“There was nothing to tell.”
“Were you there when Harald went into the madness?”
“Harald was already mad by then, but yes, I was by his side when he died.”
“What were his last words?”
Khalia sighed. “He said she was merciless. He said she had toyed with the line of Uras. He talked about a roiling cauldron from whence lies couldn’t be separated from truth.”
“Is that all?”
“That’s all he said.”
Hato’s disappointment tasted like bitter roots. “You should have sent word anyway.”
“Teos is ever present,” Khalia said. “Teos is always watching.”
“And yet here you are, wielding your wares, pretending you care about my lord. It’s a little late, Khalia. Why are you here?”
“Haven’t you been counting? Thirty years I’ve been away.”
“So?”
“What’s the code’s established time for obligation? What’s the minimum mandatory service for Teos’s Chosen?”
Hato’s dry mouth refused to voice the astonishing number. Thirty years. Had it really been that long? But few of the high Chosen quit after so many years of service and at the height of their power. Was Khalia considering—? Was she trying to say that—?
“For a mind as bright as yours, you’re thinking rather slowly these days, husband.”
Husband? There was a term she hadn’t used since the day she left Laonia.
“Never once did you deign to contemplate my lords’ plights with interest or mercy,” Hato said. “Never once did you acknowledge Laonia’s interests or aided us through our difficulties.”
“And what would any of that have achieved, other than attracting unwanted attention?”
“You were always faithful to Teos.”
“Teos’s business is peace.”
“Teos’s business is power.”
“That too,” Khalia said. “But you should know better than most. These days, you’ve got to have the latter to reach the former. Isn’t it peace we seek for Laonia?”
“You didn’t care about Laonia before,” Hato said. “Why should you care now?”
“Whose patient and subtle work has kept Teos neutral, ensuring the fairness of the inquiries that have cleared Laonia from wrongdoing?” Khalia placed her little globe of witching fire on the table next to the bed and pulled off the cork from one of her vials. “Whose airs presided over the inquiries that protected your lord from condemnation? And who do you think requisitioned those expensive and exotic ink-sensitive powders from the lands beyond the sea, and stowed them away among Harald’s things so that you could tell true brands from fakes?”
Hato couldn’t utter a sound. Could it be true? Had Khalia secretly contrived to advance Laonia’s cause?
“Why do you think I clawed my way to the top of Teos’s hierarchy?” she said. “Why did I rise so high and so quickly if not because I foresaw this day and tried to avoid this moment? Have you wondered why Ernilda, my best friend since childhood, revealed her secrets to you? And why—my faithless husband—do you think I undertook the arduous challenge of driving the yearlings to the sea on this particular season, if not because I learned that you might be struggling on the river?”
Thirty years of suspicions slammed Hato back into disbelief’s dark corner; thirty years of loneliness, despair and desolation. The spurned lover in him could only fathom that Khalia was engaged in a calculated game. The abandoned husband couldn’t embrace any scenario that didn’t involve outright desertion.
“If you wanted to help us so much,” he said, “why did you kill the woman?”
“I didn’t kill the woman,” Khalia snapped. “The reckless chit jumped off my galley.”
“She was with you and she died. Isn’t that enough harm?”
“I didn’t want her to die. I was going to take her to Teos.”
“To kill her, as you’ve done with every oddity that comes Teos’s way.”
“You’re such a fool.” Khalia glared. “Do you believe everything you hear? She wasn’t going to come voluntarily with me. By the Twins, the foolish girl wanted to be with him!” She pointed to the lord on the bed. “The airs should’ve done the job—mind you, they almost did—but she’s got better lungs than most. So I had to try to disable her.”
“Disable her?”
“A stab to the limbs with a blade covered in the sleeping lard usually works. A wound is a good excuse to bring oddities into Teos without raising suspicion, for we excel at healing and many bring us their sick.”
“But the proscription—”
“We don’t kill oddities. We collect them. We study them. Lusielle was one of them. Just as I was.”
“You?”
“Why did you think Teos wanted me so badly? ‘Cause I was gifted, that’s why. I knew I was talented before anyone else noticed. Scents were clear as daylight to my senses. Nuances were easy prey to my nose. I could’ve worked the airs without instruction, as I did before Teos came calling, as I wanted to do. But when Teos came, I was tempted by knowledge and experience no one else could provide. I was also persuaded.”
“Persuaded?”
“Do you remember what happened thirty years ago between the kingdom and Laonia?”
“Riva’s first attack at the Narrows,” Hato said. “Edmund defeated Riva in a series of battles.”
“Riva claimed it was Edmund who had attacked the kingdom first. Remember?”
“So?”
“Teos threatened to declare against the house of Uras if I refused to go to the sacred island. So I went, to ensure fairness for Laonia. And in the bargain, I lost you.”
The cold seeping from Hato’s bones chilled his soul. Could he have really misjudged Khalia as badly as that?
A billow of pink smoke rose from Khalia’s fiery globe. Deftly, she tightened the lid and, inserting a small line into the globe’s single hole, drew from the hose. An exquisitely perfumed mist blew from her lips, scenting the room and drifting over the man lying on the bed. The airs seemed to quiet Bren’s restlessness. The scowl on his face eased. His knotted body relaxed.
“There,” Khalia said, relaxing herself. “It’ll ease his pain a little.”
“But can you spare him from death?” Hato said.
Khalia’s gray gaze dimmed with sadness. “I’ve spent a great deal of my time at Teos studying the notion ailing your lord, but no, I haven’t found a cure.”
“You turned to scholarly work?”
“It’s why I had to go into confinement for the last ten years.”
“Did you study the plight of the house of Uras?”
“I studied the copies that the Chosen brought back from Laonia when you called for Teos’s help.”
“I expected you to come.”
“But I couldn’t, Hato. I was born in Laonia. I was still rising in the island’s hierarchy. Had I answered your call, my loyalty to Teos would’ve been questioned. The entire inquiry would’ve been compromised. I had to bide my time. I had to study the riddle and the verses from afar.”
“How can you know about the riddle and the verses?”
“Teos is ever present,” Khalia said, “and Teos was very interested in learning more about your lord’s plight.”
Hato gaped. “You put spies on me?”
“I did what had to be done.”
“How can I ever trust you?”
“Like you never got regular reports from your agents here at Teos?”
The truth tempered Hato’s outrage. “Why is Teos so interested in Laonia’s plight?”
“That’s a question you ought to be able to answer yourself.”
“It’s the kind of power Teos can’t co
ntrol,” Hato said.
“It’s the kind of foe that Teos fears the most.”
“It’s also the kind of power Teos would love to have.”
“My dear husband, how well you’ve come to know us. It’s as The Tale says: He who can control the tides of men can change the river’s course. Have you noticed who seems to control men and river more often than Teos these days?”
“Riva?”
“Teos isn’t thrilled about it.”
“Teos would challenge Riva?”
“Teos would do anything to ensure the peace.”
“And here I thought—”
“I know what you thought,” Khalia said. “What I don’t know is if I’ll ever be able to forgive you for it.”
“Forgiveness will be a moot point if my lord dies.”
She sighed. “Thirty years of work, for nothing.”
Hato’s heart fractured with the pain. Hope—the notion that in a different world he could have had a future with Khalia—hurt even worse. “With all your years of study, is there nothing you can do? For my lord? For us?”
“I’m afraid my efforts have yielded only theory,” Khalia said. “Not even I can defeat the evil that ails your lord. I’m sorry, Hato. Your lord only had one chance and even then, we didn’t know if it would help.”
“What chance?”
“It was her,” Khalia said. “Lusielle’s brand was true. She survived the airs as no other branded has done. Moreover, her mark reacted to the truth-seeking exhalations with a written answer, blood on flesh. Do you remember the riddle’s question: Tease, chance, fate?”
“Yes?”
“The answer was fate,” Khalia said. “But she’s dead now, and your lord has no hope.”
