The Tattooed Duchess (A Fire Beneath the Skin Book 2)
Page 30
“Yes,” Talbun said.
“How long do you think this will take?”
“There’s no way to know,” she said. “The place is vast.”
“Can you guess?”
“Let me put it this way,” Talbun said. “Last time, we ended up eating the goat.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
Tchi had ordered one of the wizards to watch the duchess at all times. They took shifts, constantly renewing the sleeping spell as they headed south.
Jariko had pretended to agree with Prullap: It was far too dangerous to try to get the secrets of ink magic from the captive. Prullap had been relieved.
But secretly Jariko made his own plans and had concocted a potion that would help him. He’d had most of the ingredients with him and had found the rest growing wild in the forest.
Jariko went to relieve the other wizard, two guards in tow.
As the junior wizard, Prullap had been stuck with the night shift. Jariko found the man, hunched at the dwindling campfire, bleary eyed. The two guards with him leaned against nearby trees. They looked tired too. Although they all knew the duchess was dangerous, guarding her sleeping body had become routine.
“The night passed without event?” Jariko asked.
“Yes,” Prullap said. “I am dead. I just want to sleep.”
“Go, then. I’ll take over.”
“It’s time to renew the sleep spell. Shall I do it before I leave?” Prullap offered.
“I’m just as capable of renewing the spell as you are. Go on. Get some rest.”
Prullap shrugged and motioned for his guards to follow as he departed.
Jariko watched him go. He watched another minute after Prullap disappeared into the trees toward the main body of the camp. It had been Jariko’s suggestion to Commander Tchi that the prisoner be kept on the edge of the camp instead of in the middle. He’d told Tchi that if by some circumstance the duchess managed to get free, then Jariko would be able to wield his most powerful magic without endangering the men. The gruff one with the eye patch had spoken against the idea, but Tchi had overruled him.
What Jariko had really wanted was privacy.
He motioned to the two warriors. “Come with me.”
They followed him to the cart where Duchess Veraiin slept, still bound by chains. He looked down at her a moment. She looked young and peaceful, oblivious to what was happening to her.
He’d remedy that soon enough.
“Bring the cart,” he told the men.
They looked at each other, then back at the wizard. “We have no orders to move her,” said one of them.
“The orders were given to me, and now I’m telling you,” Jariko said impatiently. “Stop wasting time. We’re trying something new today.”
Strictly speaking, the wizards were not in the military chain of command.
But a wizard was still a wizard. They took hold of the little cart on each side and followed Jariko deeper into the forest.
When he thought they’d gone far enough, he told them to halt.
“Sit her up.”
He had to hurry. Prullap was right about one thing. The spell would wear off soon. And then he’d be in peril.
The soldiers sat the duchess up in the back of the cart. Her head flopped to one side.
Jariko took a glass vial from his pouch, uncorked it. He held Veraiin’s head in one hand, forced the vial between her lips, and emptied the dirty brown liquid down her gullet. He massaged her throat to make sure she swallowed every drop.
If Jariko timed it right, the potion would take effect just as the sleep spell wore off. Some bit of overlap was to be expected, but the effect would be eventually as desired.
Now to wait. It wouldn’t be long.
***
She felt like she’d been swimming through a dream for a long time.
A world of swirling images had closed over her like an arctic sea, dimming light, muffling sound. Afloat.
At times she felt herself floating upward, no longer simply adrift, but speeding to the end of something, and she’d reach, so close, mere inches from her fingertips. And just when she thought she might break through to the surface, she was pushed back down into the depths, sent tumbling, a cottony veil pulled down over her eyes.
This time there was a light. It was so far above that it could not possibly have anything to do with her, but some current took her, and she began to move toward it.
Rina picked up speed, hope blooming, the light glowing closer. She felt weightless, paddling toward it. The cold sea above her receded and—
Her eyelids opened slowly.
Rina would not have been surprised to hear them creak as if on rusty hinges.
A strange face hovered before her, an old man, long moustaches, obviously Perranese.
She tried to reach out, grab his throat. Her arm refused to obey. She tried to sit up, tried to kick him, anything. Her muscles refused to obey. She tried to scream. Her mouth didn’t even tremble.
“Good,” said the old man. “You are awake. I can’t very well question you while you slumber, can I? But the potion makes you equally helpless, yes? You are paralyzed and will stay that way. I am Jariko, a Perranese wizard. But all you need to really know is that I am your master now.”
Jariko drew a dagger and brought the tip to within a fraction of an inch of Rina’s eyeball. “Your fate is completely a matter of my whim. I can see in your eyes that we understand each other.”
She tried to flinch away but couldn’t.
Her body sat limp in the cart, head lolling to one side, but within her a panic raged. She reached for the spirit, but it was as if some elastic barrier had stretched between her and it, forbidding access. She tried to twist her body, move a hand, wiggle a toe. Anything. To no avail.
Rina Veraiin was trapped inside her own body.
EPILOGUE
Far to the north in Tul-Agnon, one of the university’s master engineers labored over a hot forge. His name was Wexton. Sweat dripped from every part of him. The project was finished for all intents and purposes, but there was just one bump along the thigh that seemed imperfectly shaped.
Wexton wanted it just right. The man paying him probably did too.
Most journeymen engineers felt themselves too good for the sweaty hands-on work. They poured their efforts into design work, drafting detailed sketches, but left it to the blacksmiths to actually put the muscle into it. Such engineers would never be truly great until they overcame such pretentions.
Working the metal itself told him things he could never have guessed sitting at a drafting table. He developed instincts. A feel for the metal.
And he enjoyed it.
“I’ll be finished in a moment, my friend,” Wexton said. “You’ll be pleased. I promise.”
The hulking brute of a man grunted from the far corner of the blacksmith’s shop. The man had said he preferred to sit in the shadows because he was always so hot. Wexton rather thought the man was in hiding and didn’t want to be seen. Perhaps he was a fugitive.
Not that Wexton cared. The man had gold to spend. He’d given Wexton an extraordinary amount to do the work, with a promise of double upon completion. He’d also paid to have the best steel imported for the job, and there would be enough left over for Wexton to use in one of his own projects.
All things considered, Wexton didn’t care if the man had set fire to an orphanage. The engineer was being paid enough to look the other way.
Wexton dipped a ladle into the water bucket and cooled the bit of thigh he was working on. He looked over the entire leg, squinting at every inch of gleaming metal.
It was perfect.
“Come, my friend,” Wexton said. “Come and see.”
The brute rose from his shadowed corner, balancing awkwardly on one leg, the man’s cloak hanging down to cover the stump of the other. With a crutch he managed to hobble over to Wexton.
“Most men would have settled for a wooden peg leg,” Wexton said.
�
�I’m not most men,” the brute said. “And I have work to do and no time to hobble on a peg leg.”
“Look here at the ankle,” Wexton said. “And here at the knee. The pulleys and counterweights. It’s perfect. Come, let’s try it on, and I’ll show you.”
The brute unclasped his cloak and let it drop.
Wexton gasped and stepped back.
The man was covered from head to toe in tattoos. Wexton imagined that his missing leg must have been too.
More than that, a light steam rose from the man. His muscles and skin seemed almost to pulse.
“You said you ran hot,” Wexton said. “I didn’t think you meant . . .”
“The tattoos,” he said. “It’s like a fire beneath the skin that’s always burning. I live with it. Come now. The leg.
Wexton fit the top part of the steel leg to the man’s stump. “Lamb’s wool. Very soft for your stump. Very comfortable. But let me know if it hurts. We can make adjustments.”
“No,” said the brute. “It feels good.”
The leg was kept in place by a series of straps, around his waist, over his shoulders. Wexton cinched them tight and buckled them. “Too tight? Just tell me.”
“No. It’s fine.”
“Try it out,” Wexton said. “You have to sort of swing your hip so the leg will go forward, but it should be perfectly balanced.”
At first the leg seemed like a complete failure, and the brute almost fell several times. But he was patient. In five minutes, he found a rhythm, the steel leg swinging out and planting as he walked. In another five minutes, he walked like a man with a severe limp, and five minutes after that like a man with only a minor limp.
“It’s wonderful,” he said.
Wexton beamed.
“You must be very proud of your work.”
“I am,” Wexton said. “And I am happy you are pleased.”
“It must be difficult,” the brute said. “You probably want to tell your peers. To tell them of this accomplishment in engineering. I’m sorry.”
Wexton looked at the leg wistfully. He had been tempted to show his colleagues on a number of occasions. He sighed. “It’s okay. You paid for my discretion. I’ll honor our bargain.”
“No,” the brute said. “I mean, I’m sorry.”
Wexton understood what he meant at the last second and darted for the door, but the man was impossibly fast. He grabbed Wexton’s throat and squeezed. A quick snap, and Wexton’s body thumped to the ground.
The brute had come prepared. He put on a pair of baggy breeches to fit easily over the steel leg. An oversized boot for the foot. He put his cloak back on and left the blacksmith’s shop. He could have been anyone as he joined the crowd on the street, perhaps a war veteran with a slight limp he’d earned in some far-off battle.
The ink mage known as Ankar headed for the Great Library.
He had work to do.
To be continued in Book 3 of A Fire Beneath the Skin . . .
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Victor Gischler was born in Sanford, Florida. He is a world traveler and earned his PhD in English from the University of Southern Mississippi. He received Italy’s Black Corsair Award for adventure literature and was nominated for both an Anthony Award and an Edgar Award for his crime writing.
He currently lives in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and would grill every meal if his wife would let him.
Please join Victor on Twitter for hijinks and nonsense: @VictorGischler.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
CONTENTS
START READING
PROLOGUE
EPISODE ONE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
EPISODE TWO
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
EPISODE THREE
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
EPISODE FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
EPISODE FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
EPISODE SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
EPISODE SEVEN
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
EPISODE EIGHT
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
CHAPTER FIFTY
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
EPILOGUE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR