by Jim Butcher
Aric flinched at the words, more than he had from his father's blows. "Don't thank me," he said. "Don't talk to me. Please." He gathered himself to his feet and picked up the bucket. "Still have to lay out the tar. The ice didn't stick to the roof, but I have to tar it tonight or he'll feed me to the crows."
"Aric-" Isana began.
"Be quiet," Aric hissed. He shot a glance at the door. Then said, to Isana, "Snow's starting up again."
He left, and bolted the door behind him.
Isana frowned at him, trying to puzzle out his meaning. She took the second cup of water and took a bit more for herself, then gave the rest to the semiconscious Odiana.
Outside, the wind rose. She heard men moving around the steadholt. One of them walked past the smokehouse and banged on the walls, letting out a few crude phrases. Odiana flinched and whimpered. More raucous talk and rough laughter went up from somewhere nearby-probably the steadholt's great hall. What sounded like a fight broke out, ending in cheers and jeers, and all the while it grew darker, until only the red coals gave any light to the smokehouse's interior.
There came a bang against the wall, wood against wood. Then steps. Feet on a ladder. Someone set down a weighty object on the roof, and then hauled himself onto it.
"Aric?" Isana called quietly.
"Shhhh," said the young man. "This is the one other thing."
Isana frowned, staring up. She followed his weight as he moved from the edge of the slightly sloped roof up toward its crown, directly over the circle.
Without warning, the naked blade of a knife sprang through the shingles, dropping bits of tar-stained wood and droplets of water in. The blade twisted, left and right, opening a larger hole. Then it withdrew again.
Aric proceeded around the roof slowly, and Isana could hear him slopping tar from a bucket he must have carried down onto the roof. But every moment or so, the knife would sink in again, opening a small hole between
shingles. Then it would withdraw. He repeated the action several times, and then without a word he clambered down from the roof again. His feet crunched through snow and into the night.
It only took a few moments for Isana to realize what Aric had done.
The interior of the smokehouse was smoldering hot, and its heat rose up to the roof above and warmed the materials there. No ice had stuck to the roof the night before, Aric had said, but if the roof hadn't been sealed properly, swelling of the shingles and beams would set in after they had been soaked. They would have to be sealed immediately in order to prevent leaks, especially if the construction had been slipshod to begin with. The roof would require fresh tar consistently to keep it closed against leaks.
Against water.
Droplets began to fall through the holes Aric left with his dagger. Water that pattered to the floor, first in the occasional drop and then, as the snowfall evidently increased, in a small, steady trickle.
Water.
Isana's heart suddenly thudded with excitement, with hope. She leaned forward, across the ring of coals, and caught the nearest trickle of water in one of the empty cups. It filled in perhaps a minute, and Isana lifted it to her mouth and drank, deeply, water coursing into her with a simple, animal pleasure. She filled the cup again and drank, and again, and then gave more to Odiana as well.
The collared woman stirred, at the first cup and then more at the second. Finally, she was able to whisper, "What is happening?"
"A chance," Isana said. "We've been given a chance."
Isana reached across to fill both cups again, as the trickle came down a bit more steadily. She licked her lips and looked around the circle of coals, searching for what she thought would be there. There, where Aric had slopped the coals in a particularly careless fashion. A spot where no fresh coals had landed, and only old, grey, soft-edged coals remained.
Trembling with excitement, Isana reached out and poured the water over the coals. They sizzled and spat. She refilled the glasses and did it again. And a third time. A fourth.
With a final sputtering hiss, the last of the coals went out.
Shaking, Isana caught another cupful of water, and reached out through it for her fury, for Rill.
The cup stirred and quivered, and abruptly Isana felt Rill's presence
within the water, a quivering life and motion swirling within it frantically. Isana felt tears springing to her eyes, and a moment later felt Rill gently easing them back from her, felt the fury's affection and relief at being in contact with her again.
Isana looked up to Odiana, who had leaned out to catch another trickle of water in both cupped hands and who had a distant, dreamy smile upon her face. "They're talking about us," Odiana murmured. "So many cups. They're going to use me until the heat has killed me. Then it will be your turn, Isana. I think-" She broke off, suddenly, her back arching with a little gasp-then flung the water away from her, shaking her head and clapping her hands over her ears. "His voice. No, I don't want to hear him. Don't want to hear him."
Isana turned to her and caught her by the wrist. "Odiana," she hissed. "We have to get out of here."
The dark-eyed woman stared up at Isana, her eyes wide, and nodded. "I don't know. I don't know if I can."
"The collar?"
She nodded again. "It's hard to think of doing things that wouldn't p-please him. Don't know if I can do them. And if he speaks to me-"
Isana swallowed. Gently, she drew Odiana's hands down from her ears and then placed her own over them. "He shan't," she said, quietly. "Let me."
Odiana's face paled, but she nodded, once.
Isana reached out for Rill and sent the fury down through her touch, into Odiana's body. Rill hesitated, once within, refusing to respond. Isana had to focus with a sharp effort of will before Isana's senses pressed through and into the other woman.
Odiana's emotions nearly overwhelmed her.
Tension. Terrible fear. Rage, frantic and near mindless-all of them trapped beneath a slow and steady pleasure, a languid pulse that radiated out of the collar, threatening at any moment to reverse itself into unspeakable agony. It was like standing within the heart of a storm, emotions and needs spinning past, whirling by, nothing steady, nothing to orient upon. With a slow shudder, Isana realized that Rill had let her touch only lightly upon the water witch's emotions, on the frantic whirl and spill of them in her mind. She realized that Rill had meant to protect her from exposure to what could all too easily spill over into her own thoughts, her own heart.
Isana frantically pushed that storm of the soul away from her, struggled
to focus on her purpose. Through the fury, she sought out the other woman's ears, the sensitive eardrums. With a sharp, nearly frantic effort, she altered the pressures of Odiana's body, within her ears. Distantly, Isana heard Odiana let out a pained gasp-and then the drums burst, another explosion of pain and wild emotions-glee and revulsion and impatience predominant.
Isana withdrew her presence from the watercrafter as quickly as she could, jerking her hands and her face away. Even after the contact had been broken, the wild spill of Odiana's emotions remained, flooding over her, against her, making it difficult to think, to focus on the task at hand.
Odiana's voice came to her then, very quiet, very gentle. "You can't fight it, you know," she half-whispered. "You have to embrace it. One day, they're all going to come in, holdgirl. You have to let it have you. To do otherwise is… is mad."
Isana looked up to see the water witch smiling, a smile that stretched her mouth in something near a pained grimace. Isana shook her head and pressed the emotions away from her, fought to clear her thinking. Tavi. Bernard. She had to get free, to get to her family. They would need her help, or at least to know that she was all right. She hugged herself and struggled, and slowly her thoughts began to clear.
"We have to get out of here," Isana said. "I don't know how much more time we have."
Odiana frowned at her. "You've put out my ears, holdgirl. I can't hear you, can I? But if you're saying we should go, I agree.
"
Isana nodded toward the floor on the far side of the ring of coals. "Kord's fury. It's guarding the floor out there." She gestured and pointed at the ground.
Odiana shook her head, disagreeing. Her eyes fluttered for a moment, and she gasped in a little breath, fingertips moving to touch the collar. "I… I'll have all I can do just to go. I can't help you." She bowed her head and said, "Just take my hand. I'll come with you."
Isana shook her head, frustrated. Outside, a door banged open, and Kord's drunken voice bawled, "It's time, ladies!" followed by a hoarse cheer from several throats.
Panicked, Isana rose and took Odiana's hand. She reached out to Rill, sent the fury questing about the roof of the smokehouse, as the men grew closer, gathering up all the liquid water the fury could find. Isana felt it inside her, an instinctive awareness of what was there, of the water in the snow-filled air, the meltwater within the smokehouse and in the ground around it.
Isana felt it and gathered it together in one place and then, with a low cry, released it.
Water flooded down from the roof in a sudden wave that washed over the coals in a swirling ring. The coals spat and hissed furiously, and in seconds the air was filled with thick, broiling hot steam.
Without, there was a cry, and Kord's feet pounded closer. The heavy bolt to the door slid back, and it flew open.
With another flick of her hand, Isana sent the steam boiling out into Kord's face, out to the men behind him. Cries and yowls filled the yard, as men scrambled back from the door.
Isana focused on the ground before them, and at the edge of the now-guttered coals, water condensed from the steam into a shining strip of liquid as wide as a plank. She had never attempted anything like that before. Holding clear in her mind what she wanted Rill to do, Isana took a deep breath and stepped out onto the plank of liquid. There was a tension in it, wavering, but there, and it held her weight without allowing her foot to sink through to the floor.
Isana let out a low cry of triumph and stepped out onto the plank, tugging Odiana by the hand. She led her to the door of the smokehouse and leapt out onto the earth without, Odiana faltering, but staying close.
"Stop!" Kord bellowed, within the cloud of steam. "I order you to stop! Get on the ground, bitch! Get on the ground!"
Isana glanced at Odiana, but the woman's face was distant, her eyes unfocused, and she stumbled along in Isana's wake. If the collar forced a reaction to Kord's voice upon her, she gave no sign of it.
"Rill," Isana hissed. "The nearest stream!" And with an abrupt clarity, Isana felt the lay of the land about them, the subtle tilt down and away from the mountains and toward the middle of the valley, to a tributary that fed, eventually, into one of the streams that ran down through Garrison and into the Sea of Ice.
Isana turned and ran over the cold ground, now using Rill only to help her know the way to the nearest water, to keep her blood running hot through her bare feet to help them resist freezing. She could only hope that Odiana would have the presence of mind to do the same.
Behind them, Kord bellowed to his fury, and the ground to her right erupted with writhing, vicious motion, ice and frozen earth and rocks thrown into the air. Isana swerved her course to run over deeper snow, more
thickly crusted ice, and prayed that she would not slip and break her leg. It was only that coating of frozen water that gave her any sort of protection at all from the wrath of Kord's earth fury.
"Kill you!" bellowed Kord's voice behind them, in the dark. "Kill you! Find them, find them and kill them! Bring the hounds!"
Her heart racing with fear, her body alight with excitement and terror, Isana fled into the night from the sounds of mounting pursuit, leading her fellow captive by the hand.
Chapter 31
"What do you mean, they missed?" Fidelias snapped. He gritted his teeth and folded his arms, leaning back in the seat within the litter. The Knights Aeris at the poles supported it as it sailed through low clouds and drifting snow, and the cold seemed determined to slowly remove his ears from the sides of his head.
"You really do hate flying, don't you?" Aldrick drawled.
"Just answer the question."
"Marcus reports that the ground team missed stopping the Cursor from reaching Count Gram. The air team saw a target of opportunity and took it, but they were detected before they could attack. The Cursor again. The two men with Marcus were killed in the attack, though he reports that Count Gram was wounded, probably fatally."
"It was a bungled assault from the beginning, not an opportunity. If they weren't forewarned before, they are now."
Aldrick shrugged. "Maybe not. Marcus reports that the Cursor and the Steadholder with her were subsequently arrested and hauled off in chains."
Fidelias tilted his head at Aldrick, frowning. Then, slowly, he started to smile. "Well. That makes me feel a great deal better. Gram wouldn't have arrested one of his own Steadholders without getting the whole story. His truthfinder must be in command now."
Aldrick nodded. "That's what Marcus reports. And according to our sources, the truthfinder is someone with a patron but no talent. House of Pluvus. He's young, no experience, not enough crafting to even do his job, much less to be a threat in the field."
Fidelias nodded. "Mmm."
"Lucky accident, it looks like. There was a veteran that was going to be set out with nearly two cohorts tertius, originally, but the paperwork got done incorrectly and they sent out a green unit instead."
"The crows it was an accident," Fidelias murmured. "It took me nearly a week to set it up."
Aldrick stared at him for a moment. "I'm impressed."
Fidelias shrugged. "I only did it to lessen the effectiveness of the garrison. I didn't think it would pay off this well." He wiped a snowflake from his cheek, irritably. "I must be living right."
"Don't get your hopes up too far," the swordsman responded. "If the Marat lose their backbones, all of this will be for nothing."
"That's why we're going out to them," Fidelias said. "Just follow my lead." He leaned forward and called to one of the Knights Aeris, "How much longer?"
The man squinted into the distance for a moment and then called back to him, "Coming down out of the cloud cover now, sir. We should be able to see the fires… there."
The litter swept down out of the clouds, and the abrupt return of vision made Fidelias's stomach churn uncomfortably, once he could see how far down the ground was.
And beneath them, spread out over the plains beyond the mountains that shielded the Calderon Valley, were campfires. There were campfires that spread into the night for miles.
"Hungh," Aldrick rumbled. He stared down at the fires, at the forms dimly moving around them for several moments, while they sailed over them. Then turned to Fidelias and said, "I'm not sure I can handle that many."
Fidelias felt the corner of his mouth twitch. "We'll make that the backup plan, then."
The litter glided to earth at the base of a hill that rose up out of the rolling plains. At its top stood a ring of enormous stones, each as big as a house, and within that circle of stones stood a still pool of water, somehow free of the ice that should have covered it. Torches rested between the
stones, their emerald flame giving strange, heavy smoke. It gave the place a garish light. The snow on the ground gave the whole place an odd light, and the pale, nearly naked Marat could be seen keeping out of the light of the nearest torches, watching them curiously.
Fidelias alighted from the litter and asked the same Knight he'd spoken to before, "Where is Atsurak?"
The Knight nodded up the slope. "Top of the hill. They call it a horto but it's up there."
Fidelias rolled his ankle, frowning at the pain in his foot. "Then why didn't we land at the top of the hill?"
The Knight shrugged and said apologetically, "They told us not to, sir."
"Fine," Fidelias said, shortly. He glanced at Aldrick and started up the hill. The swordsman fell in on his right and a step behind him.
The slope made his feet hurt abominably, and he had to stop once to rest.
Aldrick frowned, watching him. "Feet?"
"Yes."
"When we wrap this up tomorrow, I'll go get Odiana. She's good at fixing things up."
Fidelias frowned. He didn't trust the water witch. Aldrick seemed to control her, but she was too clever for his liking. "Fine," he said, shortly. After a moment, he asked, "Why, Aldrick?"
The swordsman watched the night around them with neutral disinterest. "Why what?"
"You've been a wanted man for what? Twenty years?"
"Eighteen."
"And you've been a rebel the whole time. Fallen in with one group after another, and they've all been subversives."
"Freedom fighters," Aldrick said.
"Whatever," Fidelias said. "The point is that you've been a thorn in Gaius's side since you were barely more than a boy."
Aldrick shrugged.
Fidelias studied him. "Why?"
"Why do you want to know?"
"Because I like knowing the motivations of the people I work with. The witch follows you. She's besotted with you, and I have no doubt that she'd kill for you, if you asked her to."
Again, Aldrick shrugged.
"But I don't know why you're doing it. Why Aquitaine trusts you. So, why?"
"You haven't worked it out? You're supposed to be the big spy for the Crown. Haven't you figured it out yet? Analyzed my scars or poked into my diaries, something like that?"
Fidelias half-smiled. "You're honest. You're a murderer, a sellsword, a thug-but an honest one. I thought I'd ask."
Aldrick stared up the hill for a moment. Then he said, tonelessly, "I had a family. My mother and my father. My older brother and two younger sisters. Gaius Sextus destroyed them." Aldrick tapped a finger on the hilt of his sword. "I'll kill him. To do that, I have to knock him off the Throne. So I'm with Aquitaine."
"And that's all there is to it?" Fidelias asked.
"No." Aldrick didn't elaborate. After a moment of silence, he said, "How are your feet?"
"Let's go," Fidelias said. He started back up the hill again, though the pain made him wince with every step.
