“No.” Ipper pulled out his chair and sat down. “And his news wasn’t promising.”
“Oh, dear.” Jewel sat as well.
Rugar continued to stand. He would hear this all out.
“Quest managed to get into the Tabernacle, but he wasn’t able to become a Black Robe with a high rank. He figured he could get into position to do that better from the inside. The problem is that only two of the Black Robes know what’s in the poison—and they’re the ones who create it. They must touch it at all times. He isn’t even sure he can become one of them. He’s afraid he will die right away.”
“He’s checked this information?” Rugar asked. “He’s sure that his person doesn’t have the information wrong?”
“Oh, he’s sure. All the religious types know that learning the secret to the poison is one of the perks of that job. It is as if a Fey can switch his magickal talents as he becomes more experienced. It would be as if I learned Visions or how to be Solanda.” Ipper sighed. “I think, since Tel didn’t appear, that he tried to become one of the Black Robes and died.”
“Otherwise he would have been able to come see us,” said Frill. “He knows better than to miss a meeting. He hasn’t since we’ve come to Blue Isle and I’ve worked with him.”
Rugar swore under his breath. Of the six Doppelgängers he had brought along, three had died in that Tabernacle. Two had died in the palace. One remained at risk in that Tabernacle and might be dead even as this discussion took place.
“Papa?” Jewel said. Someone had been speaking to him.
“Sorry,” he said. “Thinking.”
“Forgive me, sir,” Ipper said, “but I’m thinking we should get Quest out of there. If he can’t learn anything without dying, then he’s not going to be of value to us.”
“I can’t think of a better place to have him at the moment,” Rugar said.
“But he’s the only Doppelgänger we have left,” Jewel said.
Rugar frowned. The anger had come back, thick and strong. He hated being trapped there. He hated being at the mercy of the Islanders’ poison. He needed to think his way out of this, but in a year of trying, he had come up with very little.
“When are you meeting him again?” Rugar said to Ipper.
“Tomorrow,” Ipper said. “He hoped he would have better news for us then.”
“Did he have a plan?” Rugar said.
Ipper shook his head. “Only that he would observe the two Black Robes who make the poison and see if it was a part of them. If it wasn’t, he would meet me in his new form.”
Rugar let out his breath slowly. It seemed nothing on this island was easy. “If he is in his new form, he will know the answer to the poison, am I right?”
Ipper nodded.
“If he’s not, he will have trouble or die getting the information.” Rugar glanced at Jewel. She was watching him intently. “When you meet him tomorrow, have him come back to Shadowlands.”
“No matter what?” Ipper asked.
“No matter what.” Rugar templed his fingers together. “If we can’t discover the secret to the poison this way, at least we’ll know who to torture to get it.”
SIXTY-FOUR
It had been weeks since Alexander had been out of the palace. The wind ruffled his hair, and a strand fell in his eyes. He had borrowed one of Nicholas’s leather thongs to tie it back, but his hair was shorter than his son’s, and it didn’t stay as well.
He wore the breeches and tunic of his guards in an effort to be inconspicuous. Lord Stowe worried that the Fey might try to assassinate Alexander to weaken the morale of the Isle. While that might have been a serious crisis a year before, it wasn’t now. Nicholas had grown into his role as Prince, and he was ready to become King. If anything, Alexander’s death would rally his people to fight the Fey even harder.
Still, he went everywhere with a contingent of guards. Since he was going outside the palace this afternoon, the guards were all around him. Some had even been planted along the route. Just once he wished he had the freedom to go where he chose when he chose. But he did not. He was valuable, not just to himself, but to Blue Isle.
The keep was located at the back of the guards’ quarters, on the other side of the palace gate. The keep itself was isolated from the rest of the town by a row of trees, planted in a square around the building. Guards stood inside that grove of trees, watching the entrances anytime there was a prisoner. The punishments were very harsh, since the guards used this building to discipline their own.
When Monte had come to him saying that they had a Fey prisoner whom Monte did not want to bring to the dungeons, Alexander’s senses went on alert. Any captured Fey disappeared in captivity—or, if they lacked the ability to do that, they found a way to kill themselves. No Fey prisoners taken in any of the battles and skirmishes had come back to Jahn alive.
Nicholas had wanted to interrogate the prisoner himself, but Alexander wouldn’t allow it. He had heard that the Fey could charm and enchant, and he suspected that such a thing had already happened to Nicholas when he’d met the female Fey the day of the invasion. Nicholas, because of his youth and inexperience, might be too susceptible to this kind of magick. Alexander shouldn’t be interrogating the prisoner himself, but he wanted to judge whether the prisoner was bluffing or not. Alexander planned to maintain as much distance between himself and the prisoner as possible.
When he reached the keep, he found Monte waiting for him at the door. Alexander handed one of his guards a vial of holy water and kept his distance while the guard tested Monte. Then Monte nodded, and Alexander followed him, stepping inside.
The building smelled of sweat, fear, and urine. Torches hung from the wall more than an arm’s length between each door. That meant that the big oak doors were cast into darkness. Sometimes, through the small slit carved eye level in the door, he could hear rustling as prisoners moved in the straw or cried for help. The keep had five prisoners now, not counting the one Alexander was coming to see. Two of the five had been imprisoned for theft in the palace itself, one was in for dereliction of duty, and two for attempting to desert their position in the guards when the Fey invaded. Privately, Alexander had understood that desertion: they had both claimed that they wanted to make certain their families were all right. But the King’s guards all took an oath which put their God and King above their family, and so abandoning their posts was a serious crime.
The other fifteen who had done the same thing had already been executed. These two Alexander could not quite finish punishment on: both were so young and innocent, they reminded him of Nicholas.
Monte took him down a corridor he had never been in before. It twisted past the first row of cells, toward the back of the keep, where the ancient torture equipment was kept. Finally Monte stopped in front of a door. He took a torch from its peg, handed it to one of Alexander’s guards, and bade the guard stay away from the prisoner. Then, using the ring of keys attached to his belt, he unlocked the heavy oak door and went inside. After a moment Alexander and two of his guards followed.
Alexander took a deep breath. He had not been close to a Fey since that girl over a year before. She had frightened him with her fierceness and certainty. Even though she had been his prisoner, he had had the feeling that she was stronger than he was.
This cell was shaped differently from the others. The floor was made of stone. There were pegs on the walls beside the door. Monte used his torch to light the other torches.
The additional light revealed another structure inside the room. A square area had been blocked off with bars, and there was another door with a lock in that square. Also inside were a pile of straw and food and water. The room smelled faintly of urine, but due to the room’s size, the odor wasn’t as bad as it had been in the corridor.
A small man stood just inside the bars, with his hands wrapped around them. He watched the contingent as they came toward him. Alexander was stunned at the man’s size. He had always thought that Fey were tall and thin. He
had not expected someone shorter than he was, and much heavier, although he noted that the heaviness was due to the little man’s stocky build, and not to fat.
“I don’t remember this room,” Alexander said.
“It is, I believe, the first room built in the keep.” Monte smiled and set his torch on a peg. All of the pegs were way out of the prisoner’s reach.
Alexander turned to the little man and asked in Islander, “What’s your name?”
The little man answered with a guttural word that Alexander didn’t quite catch. That was a good sign. The little man wasn’t trying to hide his knowledge of the language. Then the little man smiled. “The translation in Nye means ‘Scavenger.’”
Alexander told him how to pronounce “scavenger” in Islander, and the little man practiced for a few minutes, delighted at the sound. Alexander stood in front of the bars, out of arm’s reach, and watched the little man.
He had that same upswept look that the woman had had, only on his square face it looked as if someone had sketched in his features too quickly. His eyebrows were dark and rode like wings onto his forehead, a Fey trait. His black eyes snapped with intelligence, and his cheekbones were so high that they made his cheeks concave. His skin was paler than any Fey’s Alexander had seen before, and his clothing was covered with brown stains. He had an odor to him that was faintly suggestive of death.
Alexander clasped his hands behind his back. “Monte tells me that your own people tried to kill you. He says you want protection from us in exchange for information. It sounds to me like the perfect setup on the part of your people: to get us to trust one of you and to have you betray us all.”
The little man, Scavenger, stopped laughing. He pushed as close to the bars as he could get and peered back at Alexander. “Who are you?” he said. “Clearly someone important. Those men beside you act as if you’re worth all the land in the world.”
Alexander wasn’t going to identify himself. “I’m the last person you’re going to talk with. And then we’ll decide what to do with you.”
Scavenger sighed. “Once powerless always powerless,” he muttered. He leaned his forehead against the bars. “Look, I’m going to be honest with you. Things can’t get much worse than they are now. I can’t go back to my own people, and your hospitality leaves a bit to be desired.” He looked up, his dark eyes glittering in the light. “My people don’t need someone as inept as I am to spy for them. We have Doppelgängers.”
He said the word as if Alexander should know what it meant. This was going to be a long afternoon. “ Doppelgängers?”
“Fey who can mold themselves into one of you folks. There were three in the palace area that I knew of.”
Alexander’s mouth went dry. He remembered the look of terror on Stephen’s face, and Nicholas’s voice: He’s not Stephen. If he was Stephen, he would not need to be frightened of the holy water.
The little man smiled at Alexander’s silence. “Ah, I see you’ve met one of them.” His smile grew. “They are able to kill, of course, but only in the process of changing bodies. Which makes them great spies and terrible assassins. In case you were wondering how you managed to stay alive with vipers in your lair.”
Alexander had been wondering, but he wasn’t about to let the little man know that. “Who are the three?”
“I know them as”—he said three words Alexander did not recognize— “which means Quest, Tel, and Silence. I have no idea who you would know them as. That could change from day to day. Have you found any odd bones lying around or perhaps a few puddles of blood? Those are the traces a Doppelgänger leaves, especially one forced, due to circumstances, to clear the area of change quickly.”
A shiver ran down Alexander’s back, and he straightened his own posture to make certain his unease did not show. At least one Fey in the Tabernacle, and three in the palace. The idea terrified him. “How many Doppelgängers live on Blue Isle?”
“About six,” the little man said, “unless some of the youngsters came into their magick, and had Doppelgänging ability.”
Six. Six could have done a great deal of damage in a year’s time.
The little man gripped the bars tighter. The smile left his face. “See how valuable my information can be?” he said. “I suppose you haven’t seen a stray cat around here, have you? She is one of our most gifted Shape-Shifters. They claim to be the most perfect Fey, although I have my doubts about that.”
Alexander cleared his throat. “I haven’t asked for this information. Why are you telling it to me?”
“Because I want you to believe I am sincere,” the little man said. “I want you to know that we are on the same side. I have no home with my former comrades. I thought I might get a home with you.”
“A home?” Monte’s voice held surprise. Alexander held up one hand for silence.
“What do we get if we allow you to live in our midst?”
“My knowledge of Fey magick and hierarchy,” the little man said. “I know everything you need to know about how to fight them.”
“We seem to be doing quite well on our own,” Alexander said.
The little man shrugged. “Until they discover the secret to your poison. Then they will use all the information they have gathered and destroy you.”
“Threats don’t scare me,” Alexander said.
“It’s not a threat,” said the little man. “It’s the truth. I have lived through the Nye campaign. I know the history of my people. We do not lose.”
“Then what happened here?” Monte asked.
The little man’s smile was back. It touched his lips but made his eyes seem empty. The look sent more chills through Alexander. “You have won the battles, but the war continues. We are Fey. We do not quit until we have won—at all cost.”
“That’s not what I’m asking,” Monte said. “You say your people do not lose, and yet you have been trapped here for a year, with no reinforcements, and no way of defeating our holy water. That seems like a loss to me.”
The little man sighed. For the first time he seemed rattled. “It is unusual, I will admit. And that is why they are taking desperate measures. They begin with lowlifes like me and will progress upward. They are trying to determine what makes your poison work. They were going to pour some on me to see if I survived. They figured I would, because I have no magick.”
“Do you believe that would happen?” Alexander asked.
The little man shook his head. “Would you take that risk? Would any sensible person? I know of two Red Caps who did not return from the First Battle of Jahn. This tells me that they died, and Red Caps are never in the middle of the fighting. We do all our work after it is over.”
“What work is that?” Alexander asked.
“We strip the bodies of useful parts,” the little man said.
Bile rose in Alexander’s throat. “You decapitate people?”
“Nothing so crude as that. We strip the skin, muscle, and blood tissue from the bone. But the victims are already dead. The bodies would rot anyway. And our Spell Warders use the parts in spell development. Children use some parts as they gain their magicks. It would be a waste to allow such good material to rot.”
Alexander couldn’t speak through his shock. The little man seemed so calm about all of this, as if it were normal. Apparently it was for him. Alexander couldn’t even imagine what it was like doing that kind of job, let alone believing it was necessary.
“That shocks you,” the little man said.
Alexander glanced at Monte. Monte looked away. Neither of them liked how perceptive the little man was. “What do you gain from coming to us?” Alexander asked. “If we win against your people, you will have no way to return home. And if we lose, you will be killed for betraying them. We have a different culture, different beliefs, and we could just as easily slaughter you here. Now.”
The little man smiled. “I gamble on your lack of aggressiveness. I also know, from your actions, that your lack of knowledge about the Fey will eventu
ally lead to your death, if not the death of your people.”
“You seem confident of that.”
“It takes little to be confident of that,” the little man said. “You didn’t know you had spies in your midst. How close did one get to your person, Your Highness? For you are the King, aren’t you? No one else I have seen in this city has such a protective retinue.”
Alexander started, although he struggled to suppress the response. If this perceptive man was one of the lesser Fey, how clear-sighted were the real Fey?
The little man’s smile grew. “I am adept at seeing power, Your Highness, because I lack it. Not all of my colleagues are as gifted. Most of them rely too much on their magicks. Since I have none, I rely on myself. It hasn’t gotten me anywhere, except to this place, but at least it works.”
Sacrifice: The First Book of the Fey Page 54
