“A hell-cat if there ever was one!” Tras Sur'tian snapped. A pair of dark, fathomless eyes glared at him through that wild mane. Once again, she spat in his face. This time his free hand drew back, dealt her a vicious, stinging slap. It only made her shriek louder, struggle harder. “Crazy little animal!"
“She's only a child,” Frost reminded him. “Don't hurt her!"
“Then you sit on her,” Tras barked. “She nearly ripped my throat out before I got her off you."
“I said don't hurt her.” Frost knelt slowly, tried to stroke the girl's sweaty brow. The child seemed to calm for a moment, then her eyes rolled up and gleamed with atavistic fury. Frost snatched her hand back barely in time to avoid flashing teeth. “She's about Aki's age,” she observed. “Cleaned up, she'd make a pretty child."
“What made her this way?” Tras Sur'tian asked through gritted teeth.
“What are we going to do with her?” Kimon asked.
A voice boomed behind them. “You'll do nothing with her! Get off my daughter, oaf!"
Frost whirled, her sword coming half-free in the sheath. The exposed steel glinted in the sunlight. Equally swift, Kimon whipped out the dirk he wore on his belt. Yet before either could do or say more, there came a grunt and a sharp curse. Tras Sur'tian, by reaching for his own weapon, had relaxed his grip on his young captive's hands. She struck him uncomfortably close to the groin, twisted, unseated him, leaped up, and ran a short distance. She turned. A low, bitter howling rose from her lips, a keening that chilled mortal bones. Then she fled into the tall grassy fields and disappeared.
“Stop her!” cried the old man who had appeared in the doorway. “Kalynda! Come back!” It was too late. The girl was gone.
Frost let her sword fall back into the sheath. Clearly, such an old man posed no threat. His face, what could be seen of it through the grizzled white beard, contorted with grief and torment as he stared over the fields for some sign of his daughter. His eyes misted; he wrung his hands.
“Who are you, sir?” she asked. “Lord of this place?” She phrased it politely in deference to his age and because she shared some small part of his concern for the vanished child, so ragged, so disturbed.
She regarded him critically. His garments were only a little better than his child's. If he were indeed lord of the manor, then he had declined to a miserable state. She repeated her question.
Grief changed to fury. His eyes shone, mouth twisted in wordless cursing. Clenched fists raised as if he intended to strike her. “This is your fault!” he exploded, finally finding his voice. “She's gone, and you're to blame!” With surprising speed he lunged; hands locked on her throat, began to squeeze.
She gasped and jabbed him in the gut with her fist. He gave a whuff but clung with all his anger-driven strength. Yet his grip had loosened. She swung her arm up in a wide arc, breaking his hold, shoved him backward. Tras Sur'tian caught him in a massive hug, pinning his arms, lifting him off the ground.
She rubbed her throat. “Don't hurt him, Tras,” she croaked. “He's an old man."
Kimon waved his dirk suggestively. “And if he wants to get older, he'll mind his manners."
The old man ceased his struggles. A deadly intensity replaced the manic rage in his mouthings. “You've let Kalynda get free. My daughter may harm herself.” His eyes pinched shut tightly, then snapped open. “Why didn't you just leave us alone! I didn't want to hurt any of you!"
Tras Sur'tian gave his captive a shake that was only half-playful. “I wouldn't worry about hurting us if I were in your place."
But something about his expression, his tone, the sudden calm he exuded, sent a warning shiver creeping up Frost's spine. “Tras..."
“You're as crazy as your hell-cat daughter,” the Korkyran added, and gave the old man another shake.
“I really didn't want to hurt you!” he repeated. “But I have to find my daughter. I can't let you delay me.” His eyes rolled up inside his head; the lids closed. His body went tense until the frail muscles and veins bulged along his neck and bare arms. Lips curled back, revealing teeth.
“What in all the hells—” Kimon started.
“Tras, let him go,” Frost ordered.
The old man's eyes popped open suddenly; his mouth opened. He screamed one word. “Gel!"
A wind exploded from the bowels of the manor, blasting the wooden door off its hinges. A sharp edge struck Tras Sur'tian on the head. He groaned, released his prisoner, fell like a puppet whose strings had been severed.
Gale force buffeted them. Frost fought to hold her ground, but it pushed her back. Kimon cried out. She saw him blown backward. He tumbled head over heels, arms and legs flopping. Tras Sur'tian followed him, unconscious, rolling. Her garments made angry, whipping sounds; they threatened to rip free of her body. Dust and grass, small stones rose up, pelted her with stinging fury. She shielded her eyes with an upraised arm, but pieces of wind-borne matter smashed her, drawing blood where they found unprotected flesh. She stumbled back, giving ground, and with that first retreating step, when for one instant all her weight balanced on one foot, the wind snatched her up and over. Lights burst in her head as she hit the earth; air rushed from her lungs. The wind tossed her, tumbled her along the ground. She clawed for handfuls of grass to stop herself, and the grass tore away.
At the gate's threshold her ordeal ended. She ached all over as if she'd been beaten. Someone pulled on her arm; a voice shouted insistently in her ear.
“Get up!” the voice said. “It isn't over yet. Get up!” It was Kimon, but what was he saying? The ringing in her ears was much too loud. Why was he tugging on her arm when it hurt so much? If only her vision would clear.
Suddenly, the ringing in her ears was replaced with a roaring louder than anything she'd ever heard, drowning all other sound. She felt a deep vibration in her very bones, knew that if she didn't rise, she might never get up again. She struggled to her knees. Kimon locked his arms around her, dragged her to her feet. She nearly fell; he caught her and held on. His lips moved, but she heard nothing over the rushing tempest. Her eyes began to focus. Except for Kimon and Tras Sur'tian at their feet, the world was a rapidly diminishing blur.
They stood at the calm center of a vast maelstrom. Rocks, dust, and chaff from the fields flew tightening circles around them at dizzying speed. Beyond the vortex, she could barely see the outline of the manor house. The old man stood by the door. Another shadowy figure stood beside him.
She knew him now.
Her lips formed the name, but she couldn't seem to speak or, indeed, make any sound. Her lungs burned. She drew a deep breath, but no air rushed in to ease the fire in her chest. I can't breathe, she realized. She fought a cloying panic and tried to warn Kimon. It was clear he already knew. They stared, gasping, clinging to each other.
The rich color of his eyes was the last thing she saw before she passed out. Blue, she noted with a strange serenity, blue like the old man's eyes.
Chapter Nine
When she woke her first sensations were all of pain. She hurt all over. Something rough and hard pressed against her back, her hips, her head. The odor of incense was smothering, the light so dim she could barely see. She shut her eyes and a yawning blackness sucked her down.
A noise brought her back to consciousness. She opened her eyes and found the light a little brighter, not much. She blinked, waited for her sight to focus. Someone else was in the room. The floor creaked under slippered feet. Something rattled, bottles, perhaps. The light flickered. She heard a hiss; the smell of incense thickened.
Surreptitiously, she moved a hand. Her sword belt was gone. The hand moved again, and she froze. Demonfang was gone! She bit her lip, forced herself to remain still, though every nerve in her body screamed to get up and search for the dagger.
The room was suddenly quiet once more. She had that peculiar feeling of eyes upon her. She held her breath, waited for those eyes to turn away. Some instinct, though, told her they did not, would not. At last, she
let out her breath and sat slowly, painfully up.
A red-glowing brazier burned charcoal and incense, casting black-and-crimson shadows around the room. She could make out a few pieces of furniture, some shelves. In a far corner a dark figure hunched over a table, peered at her, shielding the small flame of a candle with his hand. The wavering fire cast strange lightplay on his features as he leaned over it.
“Onokratos?"
He nodded somberly and pushed back the book he had been reading. “I was afraid the light might wake you,” he said. “I'm glad you were not hurt too much."
Her aches and bruises were mute contradiction. On the other hand, she reflected, I'm alive. “You're not exactly what I expected,” she admitted, swinging her legs over the edge of a bare wooden bed frame.
“You're just as I remember you,” he said with the faintest of smiles, “that first time I saw you in the reception hall at the palace. You played your part well for Thogrin Sin'tell. I saw his murder in a dream. Did you kill him?"
“Did you kill Aki for him?"
He ignored her question. “It must have been you. You certainly had a motive, and you knew the palace well enough to slip by the guards undetected.” He scratched his chin and nodded. “I sensed that moment when I saw you that you were unusually resourceful, someone to be reckoned with. I read that in your aura.” He reached out, marked a page, and closed his book. “And I've not been proven wrong. That's good."
That caught her off-guard. She didn't expect compliments from enemies. She got to her feet, but a muscle in her thigh twinged, and she leaned on the bed frame for support. “Good?” she said. “Yes, I killed Thogrin, and you know damn well that I came to kill you, or at the very least to beat some answers out of your treacherous hide."
He waved a nonchalant hand. “Thogrin Sin'tell was no friend of mine. I owe him no grief and seek no revenge. I used him because, at the time, there was no other person who could fill my need."
This is not a harmless old man, she reminded herself. He had a certain disarming charm that made it easy for her to relax with him. But he was a wizard of considerable power. She had experienced that power and fallen before it. Now, she faced him weaponless.
“Where are my comrades?"
“Safe and well,” he assured her. “The old soldier took quite a bump on the head, I'm afraid, and he's still sleeping. The other one awoke some time ago and is taking food at this moment. He eats like a horse, you know."
She bit her lip again. It was not a good sign that Tras Sur'tian was still unconscious. She wasn't sure how much time had passed since their quick defeat in the manor yard, but she sensed it was considerable. It had been daylight then. If it was still daytime, Onokratos would be reading near an unshuttered window, not by candlelight. Tras Sur'tian was tough in a fight, but age took its invisible toll. Could that bump be anything serious?
“I'd like to see them."
“Let's talk about my daughter, first.” He went to a shelf, gathered a bundle of new candles, and dipped their virgin wicks in the flame of the lighted one. He placed them variously around the room. “Better to see each other's eyes and know plainly when truth is spoken,” he said, fixing the last candle in a pool of its own dripping.
“Kalynda,” she said, recalling his daughter's name. She was glad for the extra light. It made the chamber less eerie, drove away most of the shadows and the crimson glow that reminded her too much of tales of the ninth hell. She looked around, saw that many of the shelves contained books and jars of powders. The bed frame on which she leaned was lavishly carved but without a mattress. She knew some mystics disdained unnecessary comfort and surmised Onokratos was such. She returned her attention to her host. “Did you find the child?"
The old man nodded. “She's safe again,” he acknowledged. “I refuse to lock her up. Despite appearances, she's not an animal. I give her the run of the house and use special enchantments to seal doors and windows against her opening them. You broke those seals when you opened the main door."
She shrugged. “Sorry.” She wasn't, terribly.
“My oversight,” he admitted. “But no matter. Gel found her."
That word, she'd heard it before, thought it part of a spell or a word of power. Apparently, it was a name. “Who's Gel?"
Onokratos laid a hand on the book he'd been reading. “You'll meet him,” he said, “tomorrow."
She pursed her lips. It wasn't a straightforward answer, and it hinted a bit too much at some mystery for her comfort. “But your daughter is well?"
With so many candles it was easy to read his expression. Pain flickered over his face, eyes gleamed with sudden wetness, shoulders sagged as if a great weight had fallen on them. His hands disappeared up voluminous sleeves, and he hugged himself.
“No, she's not well,” he answered. “And I don't know how to make her well, not with all my power.” He looked up at her, drew a breath, and straightened, regaining some composure. “You came looking for the child-queen.” He beckoned. “I'll take you to her now."
He took up two of the candles and passed her one. Then he opened the door, led the way into a dark corridor. She could see sconces on the walls, but no torches or oil lamps burned in them. The hall was dusty and smelled of mildew. They passed other doors, but it was clear from the pounce and cobwebs on their thresholds they hadn't been opened in a very long time.
They turned down another unlighted corridor. Conditions appeared no better. The manor seemed as ruinous inside as out. A long web draped from the ceiling; Frost's candle illuminated its plump occupant. Onokratos saw it, too. Bending quickly, he snatched off a thin felt slipper and smashed the spider against the wall. With a wild hand he destroyed its home, leaving not a strand. Then, staring hatefully at the pulped remains of the arachnid, he mouthed a torrent of blasphemous curses.
Frost watched it all in stunned silence and shuddered.
They came to a stairway. She had not considered where in the two-level manor she might be, upper floor or main. She lifted her light higher, followed her unpredictable guide. His candle cast an amber glow against the darkness, but she could not see the stair's bottom. She took the first step, grabbing the banister to feel her way, then snatching back her hand. The rail was covered with a pale, chalky powder, ancient dust. She brushed her palm on her tunic and swallowed.
Down they went, with no end in sight. It had not occurred to Frost that the manor might have levels hidden below the earth, but certainly that was the case. The way wound down and down. The air grew chill, moldy. Onokratos led, head bowed. She saw only his back and the hand with which he clutched his candle. Could it still be a man hunched so in that heavy robe? She felt for her sword's hilt and remembered it was not there.
“Old man?"
Only an echo answered, no other sound. They descended lower, deeper into the earth, the stairs winding tight, ever around and around. It's like a tower, she thought to herself, built in the wrong direction, down instead of up.
A low growl rose out of the ebon depths, freezing the blood in her veins. She stopped. It came again, a snarling that sent shivers racing up her spine. She peered over the edge of the stairs into an abyss, a blackness that her small candle failed to penetrate. She looked back the way she had come, darkness that way, too. Onokratos did not stop; the gap between his light and hers widened. She hurried to close it up.
The growling continued with intermittent pauses. Then came a shriek so loud, so soul-shriveling, she nearly dropped her candle. Hot wax splattered on her hand, it trembled so. For one terrifying moment she feared someone had unleashed Demonfang. But the sound degenerated once more into a series of low, animal snarls. A fine sweat broke out on her forehead and palms. She wiped her hands.
“I thought you were leading me to Aki,” she said. The passage flung back her words. She waited for the echo to subside. “You said you were taking me to Aki,” she repeated. But Onokratos kept his silence, and only the sounds of whatever lived below answered her.
An odor of fil
th and stale urine wafted in the air. It grew stronger with each step until she wrinkled her nose against it. Then the stairs ended. They walked a short distance down a narrow passage and stopped. The light from Onokratos's candle fell on a lonely door.
From behind that door issued the growls and a bestial scratching. The terrible stench had become a foul, pungent taste in her throat. She studied the old man's face, wary of a trap. She had seen such doors as this, with their shuttered portals, in prisons and dungeons. A hot anger began to blossom in her heart.
“Is this where you're keeping a child?” she accused icily. “In a fetid cell?"
He returned her stare impassively, reached up, seized a small wooden peg on the peephole's shutter, and slid it open. He beckoned for her to look inside.
She cried out and staggered back. “Oh, gods!” she moaned, and sagged against a wall for support. “You beast, you devil!” She shut her eyes, but the vision remained to sting her eyes. With an effort of will she forced herself to look a second time through the portal.
It was Aki, barely recognizable, but certainly the child. Her once lustrous hair was a black mass, tangled and wild. She was naked, her flesh smeared with her own excrement. Her eyes, once so full of mirth, gleamed ferinely in the light of Frost's upraised candle. Her small lingers were cut and bleeding from scraping at the walls and floor. In one hand she clutched the half-chewed carcass of a rat. She peered at her guardian from a corner of the cell, then, lips curling back over teeth, she howled. When the echo faded, she pressed the rat's flesh to her mouth and bit deeply. Blood dribbled on her chin.
Frost whirled away, seized Onokratos by his robe, slammed him against the cell door. “Devil!” she screamed. The back of her hand crashed into his head, sending him in a heap to the floor. “What have you done?” She bore down on him, fist ready to strike.
The old man rolled over and pointed one ringed finger. “Stop,” he whispered.
Skull Gate Page 14
