All Spell Breaks Loose (10 page)

“It’s beautiful, Tam,” I said quietly.

A ghost of a smile played across Tam’s lips. “Yes, it is.”

What wasn’t so beautiful was the boarded-up windows, broken shutters, and a sign nailed to the front doors that I couldn’t quite make out.

“What does it say?” I asked.

“Tamnais Nathrach, traitor to his king and his people,” Nath said.

“What’s the small print?”

Nath waved a dismissing hand. “Property of the king, trespass under pain of torture, death, dismemberment, etcetera, etcetera.”

“And that’s where the Resistance is holed up?” I asked. “Uh, isn’t that a little obvious?”

“The Khrynsani have searched it more than once,” Jash said. “And they continue to keep it under occasional surveillance, which is why we’re never seen on the surface. Sometimes the best place to hide is the most obvious.”

Nath flashed a huge grin. “We could hardly call ourselves the Resistance if we didn’t spit in the king’s eye every chance we get.”

Words had been painted on the boards covering the windows. I could see those just fine. “Murderer” and “traitor”
were some of the nicer things written about Tam on his own home. The others made my blood boil.

Tam was completely unruffled—at least on the outside.

“Khrynsani penmanship?” Mychael asked.

“Unfortunately not,” Imala said. “The king has organized our youth into a feeder organization for the Khrynsani. You join or your loyalty and that of your entire family is suspect. Sathrik sees it as a way to get new blood from the old families. Young minds, easily influenced. Young men and women who are held up by Sathrik as the models of our next generation. The king honors them, promises them power, and fans the flames of hate and bigotry—then handsomely rewards those who act on his poisonous ideology.”

All signs of playful humor were gone from Nath’s eyes. “More than a few of them have turned in their own parents as traitors to the crown.”

“And people think I’m trouble,” Talon muttered.

The tunnel to Tam’s house was guaranteed not to attract attention
. Why disguise a doorway with magic when muck worked even better? The door looked like the rock around it; no seams indicated that anyone had ever thought of cutting a door through there. Then there was the icing on the disguise cake. Slimy and smelly icing. Icing no one would want to get near, never mind touch, at least not with bare hands. And to ensure that the slime and fungus growth didn’t stand out, an entire section of the tunnel, both walls and ceiling, had been seeded with the furry fungus, gradually fading as it got closer to where the sun shone faintly from a grate in the street overhead.

The door opened into a wine cellar. Though there wasn’t any wine here anymore; I guess that just made it a cellar.

Tam looked around, bemused. “Been drinking much, Nath?”

“On the king’s orders, Sarad Nukpana confiscated all of
it when you left,” Nath said. “As well as anything else he liked. The house has been pretty much stripped.”

Tam didn’t say anything, but I could see the additional items added to the tally of what Tam planned to take out of Sarad Nukpana’s hide.

Racks lined the stone walls and ran in rows everywhere else. They were all empty. One rack had been made to hold casks. Likewise empty, except for a few smashed ones on the floor. The cellar was lit by small torches. Looked like we were expected. There were fine crystal lightglobes suspended from the ceiling, but they were dark. I guess even small light magic could attract Khrynsani patrols.

The torchlight was barely bright enough to reach the floor, but it was enough to see that the floor was covered with broken dark glass. Wine bottles. Someone had tried to clear a path to the stairs on the far side of the cellar, plies of glass shards mounded on either side of a path of exposed flagstones.

An elderly goblin stood motionless at the end of one of the racks. His clothes were dark and formal, and looked like a uniform of sorts. They had been carefully mended, and were as neat and proper as they could be, but they had clearly seen better days.

The old goblin stood straight and dignified.

Tears stood in Tam’s eyes. “Barrett.”

The butler indicated the wooden tray he held holding a single bottle. “The king appropriated the silver and the crystal, and either took or destroyed all of the wine. However, I managed to hide a case of your favorite port. I didn’t think you would be inconvenienced by partaking from the bottle.” He bowed slightly from the waist. “Welcome home, Your Grace.”

Tam crossed the floor to Barrett in three strides, taking the port in one hand, and wrapping his other arm around the old butler’s thin shoulders, pulling him into a hug.

Barrett’s voice was muffled against Tam’s chest. “Sir, this is unseemly.”

“Yes, it is,” Tam agreed, his voice thick with emotion, hugging him harder.

A voice came from the shadowed stairs.

“Will I get such a warm greeting?” said a low, feminine voice from the shadows. She stepped forward, the torchlight illuminating a silken sheet of hair so black that it had blue highlights. Her dark eyes shone with a sharp wit and keen intelligence. The goblin woman held herself with exaggerated dignity, as if she was uncertain of the reception she was going to receive—or undecided on what reception she was going to give.

Tam released Barrett, but other than that, he didn’t move.

“Mother,” he said quietly.

“I am glad you are home.”

“Are you?”

“I am.” Her half smile came tinged with sadness. “Though if I were not, could you blame me?”

Tam didn’t hesitate. “No.”

No one said anything for one long and very awkward minute. At least. Anything I could have said wouldn’t even have put a knick in the tension in that air, so I kept my mouth shut. And yes, it is possible.

I didn’t need any kind of link with Tam or to be a mind reader to hear the words between the words. Tam had hinted over the years at the damage done to his family when he embraced black magic, and again when he’d been forced to flee Regor after his wife’s murder.

Wordlessly, Tam gave the bottle of port back to Barrett and walked slowly toward his mother, stopping just out of arm’s reach. Wise man.

“I have shamed my family, my family name, and the
ancestors who gave it to me,” Tam said. “I do not expect nor deserve forgiveness for my choices and actions. I have come home to offer my service, my devotion, and my life if need be. I only ask that you would do me the honor of accepting it.”

Lady Deidre Nathrach took one step toward her son and, for a few silent moments, did nothing. Then she gently put her hands on either side of Tam’s face, drew his forehead down to her lips, and kissed him softly. With a trembling sigh, she touched her forehead to his.

Tam’s breath shuddered.

I sniffed. A couple of others sniffed from the shadows.

Tam’s arms remained by his side, and he bowed his head farther.

Deidre Nathrach’s hands dropped from Tam’s head to his shoulders, wrapping her arms around her son in a fierce embrace. With a soft cry, Tam returned the embrace, lifting his mother’s feet off of the floor.

“Candle smoke,” Nath said, noticing my sniff. “There’s no accounting for cheap wax.”

I dabbed at my eyes. “So that’s what it is.”

Deidre released Tam, but their heads remained close, whispers between a mother and son that no one else needed to hear.

When they parted, Tam introduced Mychael, Piaras, and me. No doubt, Lady Nathrach knew Imala and Prince Chigaru.

Once again, he stopped when he got to Talon.

Talon was standing in the shadows, as close to the door we’d come in as possible. Tam glanced at him and winked. The kid didn’t move. If he hadn’t still been standing upright with his eyes open, I’d have said he’d quit breathing. Tam seemed confident of his mother’s reaction to a half-breed grandson. Talon was only going to believe it when he heard and saw it.

“Remember when I was eighteen and went to Brenir for the summer?” Tam asked his mother.

“How could I forget?” Deidre said. “A few of your more memorable antics nearly caused an inter-kingdom incident.”

“That’s not all,” Tam said.

Terrified or not, Talon’s sense of drama wouldn’t let him pass up an entrance line like that. “He got an unexpected souvenir.”

Talon’s bravado ended there. Oh, he still stood straight and tall, his trademark devil-may-care expression on his face, but the truth was that Talon did care. Nath had accepted him readily enough, but Lady Deidre Nathrach was a woman whose opinion and regard Tam clearly cherished. Tam had accepted Talon, risking his reputation, high social standing, and even his life to protect him.

Talon was terrified of losing all of it.

Terrified that if Deidre Nathrach rejected him, Tam might be forced to do the same. I knew it was ridiculous, but what was running through Talon’s mind right now had nothing to do with logic and everything to do with keeping his knees from knocking together.

Tam’s mother didn’t move. “Come closer,” she told Talon.

Talon did. Reluctantly. He’d been standing in the shadows. Between him and his new grandmother was light, not a lot of it, but enough. Deidre noted Talon’s light skin and his aquamarine eyes. He inclined his head to her and clearly thought about leaving it there. But he took a breath, raised his head, and unflinchingly met his grandmother’s sharp eyes.

She spoke to Tam, but her eyes stayed on Talon. “Is he impulsive, stubborn, arrogant, and believes himself irresistible to women and impervious to death?”

Whoa, that sounded familiar. I bit my bottom lip to stop a grin.

Tam suddenly looked like a schoolboy who’d been caught doing all of the above. “Yes, ma’am.”

“And how much trouble does he either create for himself or attract on a daily basis?”

“All of it.”

Deidre looked at Talon, her lips curling slowly into a crooked smile. “If that is the case, you are most definitely your father’s son.” She turned to Tam and smiled until her fangs showed. “Payback is indeed hell, isn’t it?” she all but purred.

Tam sighed. “You don’t know the half of it.”

“I’m quite certain that I will be finding out.”

Tam gave his son “the look.” “You won’t find out because there will be nothing to see since Talon will be on uncharacteristically
perfect
behavior. Do I make myself clear?”

“Perfectly,” Talon replied without hesitation.

The kid’s eyes had a twinkle that didn’t bode well for any promises, stated or implied. Tam had merely asked Talon if he’d understood him. The kid understood just fine; it didn’t mean he was going to do it.

It wasn’t like Tam to not cover all contingencies. Seeing his mom again after a couple of years must have rattled his cage. Though anything Talon promised not to do was going to get done anyway if the situation presented itself. Tam should have simply saved his breath.

Besides, Talon keeping his nose clean would signal the end of the world as we knew it.

Unless Sarad Nukpana and the Saghred beat him to it.

Imala and Tam were greeted with smiles and handshakes. Prince
Chigaru was welcomed with respectful bows.

I felt about as wanted as something that came in the house on the bottom of someone’s boots.

It wasn’t disgust exactly, more like they saw me as something useful, but something that no one wanted to be anywhere near. Kind of like a having a rat problem and being forced to get a really big snake.

“Ain’t it grand to feel wanted,” I muttered.

“Pay them no mind, Raine,” Imala said. “It’s your power
that frightens them. You’ve become quite legendary, you know.”

I snorted. “If only they did know.”

“And they can’t,” Imala whispered back while smiling reassuringly to an older gentleman who looked ill at ease in his armor. He had a single long dagger tucked into his belt. Probably the only weapon they trusted him to have. Others looked much the same: all armed, all scared, but all determined to topple their king.

It was a mass suicide waiting to happen.

They were probably hoping that I’d go first.

Deidre Nathrach ushered us into what she and Tam called the dining room. I would have called it a banquet hall, albeit a banquet hall that’d had a rough time of it recently: shredded wallpaper; most of the gilt trim hacked off; and holes either punched, kicked, cut, or chopped into the walls.

However, the dining room had the benefit of being in the back of the house. The windows were boarded up from the outside and the curtains were drawn on the inside. We could light candles, but couldn’t have a fire in the fireplace and risk smoke from the chimney giving us away. The table was intact. I guess it’d been too big for Sarad Nukpana to get it out the door, and he decided not to have it chopped to bits. The thing was big enough to seat at least two dozen people. The Khrynsani had left enough chairs so that we all could sit down. My feet and back had never been so grateful. Our supply packs were necessary, and they weren’t particularly heavy—for the first couple of miles. After that, I’d started wondering how much I actually needed food and weapons.

“Tell me what happened to Father,” Tam asked his mother.

“He had taken a team to intercept a shipment of weapons going from the harbor to the Gate construction site. Your father knew we needed those weapons.” Force of will kept any emotion from her face. “They were ambushed.”

I remembered the old goblin with the one dagger. Perhaps it was all they’d had to give him.

Imala scowled. “Betrayed.”

Deidre nodded once. “The Khrynsani were waiting for them. Four were killed; the other four captured. Cyran was among those captured.”

“Do you have proof that he’s still alive?” Tam asked.

“One of our lookouts witnessed the attack. They saw Cyran loaded into a prison wagon. He’d been wounded, but not fatally.”

Tam shifted uneasily. “I take it he knows where all the cells are based.”

“Yes,” she said tightly.

That one word said a lot. It implied another word. Torture.

“We’ll be in another location before tomorrow night,” she added.