BRYTE'S ASCENT (Arucadi Series Book 8)

by E. Rose Sabin

  She dropped the necklaces back onto the table and looked around to find Oryon and Lina.

  They had come together at a stall offering leather goods on the opposite side of the aisle and several booths down. They were conversing with the vendor, probably negotiating a sale. At almost every booth buyers and vendors bargained, while along the aisles browsers carried on animated conversations with companions or chatted with acquaintances they chanced to meet. Through it all, children shouted, babies squalled, and dogs barked. Only because Bryte knew the sound of Oryon’s and Lina’s voices was she able to pick them out from among the cacophony. She didn’t know the vendor’s voice, but when she heard Oryon say, “Then who makes these goods?” she listened for a statement that might answer the question.

  The words “artisans in the flats” sounded like what she wanted, and she concentrated on characteristics by which she could identify the speaker again.

  “I’ll take the box.” That was Oryon. After that, Bryte lost the conversation; a large and boisterous family with several rowdy children, all shouting back and forth to one another, created too much interference. Frustrated, she pushed through the crowd, dodging several of the younger children, who seemed intent on tripping each other and any hapless shoppers who blundered into their path.

  Once past the family, Bryte picked up Oryon’s and Lina’s conversation again, though they were moving away from her, strolling toward the pottery section.

  “I tell you, it’s powerful.” Lina’s words made Bryte regret having missed so much of the exchange.

  “Can you pinpoint the source?” Oryon asked.

  “I’m trying. Stop a minute.”

  Bryte halted when they did. She had neared the display of leather goods by that time, so while she waited and continued to listen, she pretended interest in the belts, purses, wallets, pouches, and boxes spread out on the table, but she saw nothing out of the ordinary and couldn’t imagine what had so caught Oryon’s interest.

  “I think I have it,” Lina declared triumphantly.

  Bryte not only lost her employers’ voices, but all the sounds of the bazaar faded, blending into an indistinguishable dull roar.

  Assailed by a wave of weakness, she had to brace herself against the table to keep from falling. Her whole body trembled; her knees threatened to give way. She clutched the edge of the table and concentrated on keeping her balance.

  With a rush the sounds came back, catching her unprepared for the onslaught of noise. She would have fallen had Oryon and Lina not reached her side at that moment and grasped her arms.

  The weakness had gone but not the fear. Especially not when Lina spoke into her ear. “So! It was you. What were you doing?”

  Totally bewildered, Bryte could only stammer, “N-nothing. I w-wasn’t doing anything. I just felt funny all of a sudden.”

  Lina glanced at Oryon, who said, “Is it possible she doesn’t realize?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Bryte said.

  “You were doing something just before we came back to you,” Lina insisted. “What was it?”

  “I was just standing here, looking at this stuff.” She swept her hand above the leather goods. “I knew you’d bought something here, and I hoped you got a fair deal.”

  “You were doing more than just standing here,” Lina insisted. “And how did you know that we bought something? You weren’t with us. You’d wandered off on your own.”

  “Only ‘cause you each went off in different directions. I was trying to keep track of you both, and I saw you come together here, so I was trying to catch up to you, but the aisle was too crowded. But I got close enough to see you buy something.”

  “I bought this box,” Oryon said, unwrapping the paper from the package he carried and thrusting a leather-covered box toward her. “Can you tell me anything about it?”

  It was not large; probably designed to hold jewelry, or maybe writing paper. Bryte shook her head. “It’s a nice box. Well-made, it looks like.”

  “What about the design?” Oryon persisted. “Do the symbols mean anything to you?”

  Engraved lines braided like a rope formed the upper and lower borders of the cover. Between those braided lines were spirals on either side of a circle of knots. On the box’s sides were stars with flaming points.

  Bryte shrugged, seeing no point to this interrogation.

  “Look at the other goods. See anything like it?”

  She swept her gaze across the array of items. All were decorated, mostly with flowers or animals. A few bigger items had scenes of hills and trees and rivers. Nothing like the box Oryon showed her.

  She frowned. “Guess maybe whoever made this couldn’t draw as well as most of the leatherworkers.”

  “Or maybe he had a talent they didn’t,” Oryon offered.

  “I still want to know what you were doing while you were standing here,” Lina returned to her question.

  “I told you—I was looking at the stuff here in the booth, that’s all.”

  “No, it wasn’t. I don’t believe you were interested in these goods at all.”

  As if Lina’s remark was the last straw, the vendor said, “Look, unless you intend to buy something more, move on. You’re blocking the way for other customers.”

  “Sorry.” Oryon held Bryte’s elbow and steered her away from the booth. Lina walked beside them. The interruption provided Bryte a moment to think, and in that moment it dawned on her that what she had been doing was listening—specifically, listening to Lina’s and Oryon’s conversation. Something she had no intention of admitting.

  Oryon guided them to a side aisle leading to a display of caged birds. The vendor was engaged in serious bargaining with a young couple whose child had his gaze fixed on a particular bird and was determined not to depart without it.

  They moved past the couple with the demanding child and stopped where they could talk quietly. “Now,” Lina said again, “I know you were using power, and I want to know how and for what.”

  “Power?” Genuinely puzzled, Bryte.protested, “I don’t know what you mean. All right, I was doing something I shouldn’t. I was trying to slip one of those little coin purses off the table. I gotta live, and I take stuff to sell in the flats so I have enough to buy food with between guide jobs. I didn’t take it, just because this dress doesn’t have a pocket to put it in.”

  Oryon laughed. “So. Like you tried to steal my wallet yesterday evening, eh?”

  Bryte nodded, hanging her head as though ashamed. She’d convinced him, at least.

  Not Lina, though. “You’re lying,” she said flatly. “You were doing something else.”

  “Well, what?” Bryte cried, exasperated. “What do you think I was doing?”

  “If I knew I wouldn’t have to ask, now would I?”

  “Maybe she was using power to keep the vendor from seeing her steal,” Oryon suggested.

  There it was again—power. The word captivated her. She had to know what they were talking about.

  She didn’t see how her acute hearing could be described as power.

  Lina caught her gaze, held it, and asked, “Have you stolen anything here today?”

  When Bryte told her she had not, Lina laughed and turned to Oryon. “If she’d used the power I felt for stealing, she’d have something to show for it.”

  “Well, it seems our Bryte has a mystery, and until we solve it I think we’ll keep her with us.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  THE FLATS AGAIN

  They followed their noses to the food booths, where sausages sizzled on a grill, chickens browned slowly on spits over coal fires, and meat patties garnished with onions and peppers fried in pans, spreading their mouth-watering aromas through the air. Complementing the meats were vegetables fried, boiled, and raw; fruits of all kinds and colors; and breads in loaves, sticks, and braids.

  Bryte had been in the bazaar many times, had walked hungrily past these same booths, had even pilfered a bread stick here or a meat
pie there, but never had she been invited to select anything she wanted and as much as she desired. With a plate filled to overflowing with one of as many different items as time and Lina’s patience permitted, Bryte trailed her to one of the tables provided for diners. Oryon laughed when he saw her selections. “If you eat all that, you’ll be sick, and we’ll have to go back to the hotel if not to a clinic,” he said. “Unless there’s a healer nearby.”

  It was a casual comment, but she caught a hint of serious intent behind it. “Healer? I think this bazaar has a medical station, with a nurse on duty most of the time. I won’t get sick, though.”

  She hoped she wouldn’t. She wasn’t used to large meals and never ate three a day—few in the flats did. She took a single bite of each item she’d selected so that while some might go unfinished none would go untasted.

  Lina’s plate held several kinds of meat and little else, while Oryon ate sparingly, mostly vegetables and fruits. Another difference between them. Bryte wondered anew what bond drew them together.

  After lunch they put their plates in the bin to be washed, Bryte gazing with regret on the food remaining on hers. Again she cursed the absence of pockets in her lovely dress.

  “I want you to take us to the flats and help us find the artisan who made this box.” Oryon again displayed his treasure.

  Bryte expected to lead them next to one of the shrines or even to the fourth tier, since Oryon had expressed an interest in that level. The last thing she wanted was to return to the flats. “There are hundreds of leatherworkers,” She said, her dismay causing the wild exaggeration. “Find the one who made that particular box? That’s crazy.”

  “Crazy or not, it’s what we’re going to do.”

  Lina grimaced. “The child is right,” she said. “It’s a pointless waste of time.”

  “I’m not a child. And the flats aren’t a good place for strangers. Besides, it’ll take us a long time to look through all the leather-working places.”

  “Then we need to get started right away,” Oryon said, the firm set of his jaw defying argument.

  Lina yielded, saying, “I suppose if we’re to have any peace we’d better go.”

  On the way down the ramp from the first tier, Bryte considered where to start the search. Leather-working shops were scattered throughout the flats, but many were concentrated in an area dedicated to small manufactories of various types. That seemed the logical place to begin. The way there led past Master Onigon’s shop and the hill where she held her one-sided conversations with her half-sister. It seemed odd to pass Master Onigon’s without turning in. Odder still to go by her special place and feel the slight sense of dread emanating from it even this early in the afternoon.

  Bryte was in the lead with Lina and Oryon walking side by side behind her. Hearing a sudden intake of breath followed by the halt of their steps, she turned.

  Oryon had frozen, his face white. Both he and Lina were staring at the empty mound.

  “What’s wrong?” She hadn’t expected them to fall prey to the terror that afflicted people here, especially not in the full light of day.

  “This place,” Lina said. “Do you know it?”

  “Sure. I come here often.” She did not explain why.

  “Little fool,” Oryon muttered, scarcely breathing, but the words were clear enough to Bryte. “It’s a nexus.” He stared at the mound as if unable to tear his gaze away.

  Lina grasped his hand; her fingers interlaced with his. “It can’t reach us,” she said. “Not now.”

  He didn’t answer, didn’t shift his gaze from the mound. Lina didn’t speak again either, but worry lines marred the smooth beauty of her face.

  “It scares a lot of people,” Bryte said in an effort to bridge the awkward silence. “It scared me at first, but not anymore. It’s never hurt me.”

  “It could,” Oryon said in a dull monotone, still staring as though he saw something not visible to Bryte.

  “Come away,” Lina urged in a gentler tone than Bryte had heard her use. “We’ve put all that behind us.”

  In the end she had to tug him past the mound, after shoving Bryte forward with her free hand.

  They went some distance and the mound was safely out of sight before Oryon relaxed and disengaged his hand from Lina’s. “Don’t ever take us near that spot again,” he ordered.

  “Why? What is it? What’s a nexus?”

  Oryon shuddered. It was Lina who answered. “It’s a gateway, a point of contact between this world and the Dire Realms. It’s a place of power, but very, very dangerous.”

  She’d used that word again: power. Bryte knew that when they used it, they referred to something very specific and beyond her understanding. She didn’t intend to let it stay beyond her understanding, but for the present she said, “You believe in the Dire Realms? Isn’t that just superstition?”

  “It’s real,” Oryon said, a far-away look in his eyes. “I’ve been there.” He paused, then added as an afterthought, with a nod toward Lina, “So has she.”

  Bryte might have thought they were teasing her, were it not for Oryon’s haunted look and the pallor of his face.

  Anger flashed in Lina’s eyes. “Enough!” she said, placing her hand on Oryon’s arm. “We will not speak of this again.”

  Oryon, too, recovered himself and said coldly, “You were leading us to the leather-workers.”

  Bryte nodded and headed on without another word.

  Finding the leatherworker who had made Oryon’s box did not prove difficult after all, but neither did it provide enlightenment. In the third shop they visited, a worker recognized the box as his. The man, small and wiry with warts on his nose and cheeks, swore that the designs meant nothing to him. He’d copied them from drawings provided by a stranger who’d commissioned the box and promised to pick it up by a set date. The date passed and the stranger did not return, so the box was sent to the bazaar with other goods from the shop.

  The artisan described the man who’d commissioned the box as being tall, slightly stoop-shouldered, and approaching middle age. He had not noted the man’s hair or eye color or any distinguishing marks. By his speech the artisan took him to be a resident of Tirbat, not a tourist.

  Unable to get more information, Oryon left his name and the name of their hotel with the artisan, bidding him contact them if the man ever returned for the box. They left, and Oryon decreed that they should return to the hotel before it grew too late to find a carriage.

  After dinner they returned to their rooms, and Lina told Bryte to get ready for bed while she and Oryon met in his room to plan their next day’s activities. Bryte argued that she should be involved in the plans, but Lina was adamant. So Bryte obediently drew bath water and climbed into the tub. She splashed about, making noise to allay their suspicions.

  Then, relaxing in the hot water, she listened. The thin walls made it easy, though they spoke softly.

  “We seem to be at a dead end with your marvelous find,” Lina was saying sarcastically. “Unless you intend to go all through Tirbat hunting a tall, stoop-shouldered, middle-aged man. In a city this size there can’t be more than a few hundred or so.”

  “I know,” Oryon answered in a tired voice. “I wonder how he planned to use the box and why he didn’t pick it up. Those symbols carry powerful magic, I’m positive.”

  “Yes, but since you don’t know how to use it, the box won’t do you much good. I suppose you could keep your wand in it. Who knows, it might have an effect.”

  Lina was still being sarcastic, but Oryon answered seriously. “That’s not a bad idea. I’ll do that.”

  “If you’re looking for a way to increase power, there are surer ways than that.”

  “I’m looking for a way to acquire new powers, not just increase what I have. These symbols on the box … they hint at so many possibilities.”

  “It’s just wishful thinking. You know very well that in themselves they won’t do anything. If it’s other powers you want, you should go back to
that nexus. That’s where you’re likely to find them.”

  A silence followed her statement and went on so long that Bryte wondered whether something had interfered with her hearing. But then Oryon said, “How can you make light of—How can you suggest—You couldn’t possibly have felt what I did this afternoon. Did it affect you at all?”

  “I felt … something.” Lina spoke slowly as though reluctant to confess. “Something that urged me to change. But I knew I must not.”

  Bryte wished that she could see their faces. If she could see their expressions it might help her to understand what they were talking about.

  “So,” Oryon said. “I was not—”

  Glass shattered, accompanied by a loud crash. Noise of a struggle. A shout from Lina, and then what sounded like the snarling of a large cat.

  Bryte leaped from the bathtub and grabbed a towel, dropped it, and yanked on her clothes over her wet body. She raced through the room she shared with Lina and out into the hall. She skidded to a stop outside the door to Oryon’s room and listened.

  The snarls and growls were louder. A man screamed. Oryon’s voice shouted, “Hold!”

  Bryte opened the door and peered into the room.

  And jerked back into the hall, ready to run.

  Slowly she gathered her courage and stepped into the doorway so that she could view the room.

  A man lay writhing on the floor, a huge black cat standing on his chest, its claws sunk into his shoulders and its jaws around his throat. Oryon stood nearby, holding a slender white wand. The doors to the balcony stood wide open, the curtains billowing. Lina was nowhere in sight.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  TROUBLE

  Bryte eased into the room, keeping a wary eye on the cat and its victim. As she drew nearer and got a closer look, she recognized the man as the leatherworker who’d admitted making Oryon’s box.

  “Hold him down but let him speak,” Oryon said, apparently addressing the cat.

  It was not a house cat like Master Onigon’s pets, but a much larger animal. In the Tirbat zoo Bryte had seen a similar animal, though it had been brown, not black like this creature. The label on the cage had read panther.