Betrayals (14 page)

“We have most of the upper floor fixed up for our own use,” Alsin said, gesturing me along with him toward the stairs. Naran already followed close behind Rion’s limp body, looking slightly less worried when a third man joined each group of two to help get the Unconscious men up the steps.

“The front of the floor looks perfectly normal with crates and bales,” Alsin continued, “but those crates and bales are just for show. Behind them is where our people stay when, for one reason or another, they can’t go home. Sometimes, like tonight, they stay because there’s work to be done.”

“And what do you do when you’re not rescuing people who are rightfully the next Seated Blending?” I asked, finding it easy to keep the bitterness out of my tone. I felt much too tired to be bitter, but possibly tomorrow I’d be able to manage it.

“What do you mean, rightfully the next Seated Blending?” he asked, staring at me with a frown. “You and the others lost the competition, but you’re much too valuable in spite of that to let the nobles dispose of you. That’s why we worked to keep track of you afterward—I’m babbling. Please tell me what you meant.”

“I meant what I said,” I replied with a shrug, stopping near the stairs to give the men doing the carrying a chance to get up them. “We were about to win the competition, we knew it beyond all doubt, and then suddenly we were unconscious. I asked Lanir about it before I left, and he admitted they’d put hilsom powder in our underclothes. When it became clear that we would win, they had some talents shake the underclothes so we’d breathe in the powder. Once it forced us loose from our abilities, Middles in Earth magic put us to sleep. That’s why we dropped as though poleaxed, and that’s why we stayed down.”

When he heard that he growled under his breath, looking as though he would prefer to snarl.

“Excuse me for that,” he said after a moment, his anger under slightly better control. “We were sure they couldn’t possibly do anything underhanded with thousands of people watching, but they did it anyway. And the neutral judges were a waste of time, with their talk of needing to be circumspect and not arguing about what they were allowed access to! We can’t be unreasonable, they always insist—! I should have remembered what happened at the challenge for Seated High in Earth magic….”

“I can’t see how you could have prevented what happened without you and your people being in power,” I said, understanding his anger all too well. “They had everything their own way, but it won’t be the same the next time we go up against them. Why were you able to trace me and Rion and Valiant, but not Jovvi and Lorand?”

“We had people watching the amphitheater, of course,” he answered, only partially distracted from his irate regrets. “You and one of those men were taken away from it in private carriages, and the House insignia were perfectly clear. The other man was put into a wagon with nothing to show who it belonged to, but a female noble questioned the wagon driver rather closely, and my watcher recognized her. Which was a lucky thing, because no one was able to follow the wagon. Or wagons, since Dom Coll and the other lady were taken away in wagons of their own.”

“Why wasn’t anyone able to follow them?” I asked, aware of the frown I wore. “Most wagons don’t move fast enough to suit anyone, since most people end up getting stuck behind them. It should even be possible to follow one on foot.”

“Normally you would be right,” he agreed with a nod filled with annoyance. “Following a wagon is effortless even if you don’t want to follow it—except when a large number of guardsmen stop all traffic to let the carriages of nobles go first. The wagons had already gone past the line of guardsmen, and by the time my people were able to follow, there was no sign of them.”

“I’m suddenly furious with myself,” I said as an abrupt realization hit me. “If Eltrina Razas was able to have Valiant brought to her, she knows where he was taken. That means she might also know where the others were sent, and I made no effort to question her. Of all the stupid oversights …”

“No, you’re wrong,” he said, looking as though the same sort of revelation had struck him as well. “I’m the stupid one, because I was told when Dom Ro was brought to the Razas woman, and I made no effort to find out if the watchers followed the wagon back to where it had come from! Damn! It’s too late to send for the men now, but first thing in the morning—!”

He turned and took the stairs two at a time, able to go all the way to the top and beyond because the men with their burdens had already disappeared. A glance back showed that our coach had also left, and the wide door was once again closed tight. That left nothing for me to do but raise my skirts and follow everyone upstairs, although I wouldn’t have minded being carried myself. It been a long, tiring day, and was destined to be even longer.

By the time I reached the top of the wide staircase, the only one in sight was Alsin Meerk, striding back in my direction. All around were the shadowed outlines of the bales and crates he’d mentioned, looking faintly ominous in the dimness. At another time I might have felt nervous, at least until I saw Alsin Meerk’s expression.

“Dama Domon, I’m so sorry!” he apologized even before he reached me, embarrassed mortification riding him heavily. “I didn’t mean to abandon you like that, but finding out that we might not be at a dead end after all—! I usually have better manners than that, and I hope you’ll forgive my thoughtlessness.”

“If you happen to have a hot cup of tea hidden up here somewhere, I’ll probably be willing to forgive quite a lot of things,” I returned, adding a smile in an effort to ease his very obvious discomfort. “In fact, if you want the real truth, I’ll settle for cold tea and then simply warm it myself.”

“No decent host would put an honored guest to the trouble of warming her own tea,” he replied with a grin that softened his craggy features almost to the point of attractiveness. “If you’ll be so kind as to follow me, I’ll show you to where you can sit and enjoy that cup of tea.”

His bow and gesture weren’t entirely serious, but the courtliness wasn’t a complete mockery either. I acknowledged his gesture with a matching nod before going along, wondering where all the comforts he’d mentioned were hidden. The vast floor looked completely filled with all the things warehouses are reputed to be filled with, leaving nothing but narrow aisles here and there among the looming shadows.

“Here we are,” he said after leading me all the way to the right and in front of a larger than usual crate. “The ‘merchandise’ stored up here was carefully made by some of our members, and are works of art that can even stand up to close inspection. This entryway, however, isn’t the same, so we keep it locked when it isn’t in use.”

As he spoke he pushed on the front face of the crate, and it swung silently inward. That made a doorway almost as wide as the one we’d come into the warehouse through, one which showed a good deal more light and warmth beyond it. Alsin gestured me forward with a smile, so I stepped in and looked around while he closed and locked the unusual door behind us.

From where I stood it was possible to see nothing but two long corridors, one stretching straight ahead on my right, and the second doing the same to the left. We stood in a fairly wide entrance area that was lit with lamps, more lamps spaced along the walls of both corridors. There was nothing in the way of decoration to be seen, and in fact the place looked as though it were made of crate facings.

“Your friends were taken that way,” Alsin said, pointing up the corridor to the right. “I’ll show you where they are on the way to that hot cup of tea, so you won’t spend your time wondering.”

I appreciated the thoughtfulness of that, once again finding myself surprised that this was the same man who had brought Hat to the residence and then had threatened Lorand. Remembering that, I had a sudden idea.

“You didn’t just happen to get involved with Hat, did you?” I said, trying not to sound accusing. “You deliberately did something to make him beholden to you, just to gain access to us.”

“The opportunity was much too good to pass up,” he admitted, looking a bit shamefaced. “We don’t often get access to those who test for High, and the reason for that is another story. When I came across that boy trying to drown his sorrows in drink while gambling away every copper he had, I believed his claim about having a friend who had certainly passed the test. No one else believed him, though, so I had no trouble becoming the one he lost his money to. It was a good thing I did, too, because he was making every effort to cheat.”

“I can’t say I’m surprised,” I commented, glancing through the occasional doorways we passed on our left. Most of them were empty, but one held Paisin and a group of men seated around a table. We seemed to be in an area of conference rooms, and I wondered if Paisin was in the process of passing on whatever orders Alsin had given him.

“The boy wasn’t a particularly nice person,” Alsin agreed with a sigh. “He kept muttering things about how Dom Coll had stolen his rightful place, so when his debt to me mounted really high, I was able to order him to a place where he would see all the hopefuls pass by in their coaches on the way to their practicing. That was how he spotted Dom Coll, whom he immediately pointed out to me. I told him I knew the coach driver, which wasn’t a lie, and was able to put him in contact with Dom Coll that way. I went along the second time to make a contact of my own, which worked out better than I could have hoped.”

“Were you ever able to locate Hat after that farce of a challenge?” I asked, suddenly curious all over again. “Lorand said you weren’t able to, but was that the truth?”

“I wish it weren’t,” he said, frustration clear in the words. “The boy disappeared completely, and I can’t help feeling that if I’d located him I’d have some idea about where your missing friends are. I also can’t shake the conviction that something is going on that none of us knows about, something the nobility is involved in that they don’t want us to know about.”

“Lanir said he had no idea where my friends were, but now I’m wondering if that was the truth,” I admitted with a sigh. “It might have been possible to force him into telling me what he knew if I’d tried, but now it’s much too late even if I wanted to go back to that house.”

“He’s dead, then?” Alsin asked after a very brief hesitation, obviously trying to be circumspect. “He was the Seated High in Fire magic, but you had no trouble besting him? That alone should be part of the proof we need….”.

“It won’t really do you any good,” I told him, my head-shake having caused his words to trail off. “Lanir wasn’t dead when I left, just burned out. He was no more than a fairly strong Middle, but he knew I was a High. He tried to force himself past a Middle’s natural stopping point in an effort to match and defeat me, but ended up burning himself out instead. We can’t really say I bested him, because I never had the chance to.”

“But you could have, couldn’t you?” he persisted, looking as though he thought furiously. “That should be enough, especially when they promote his first alternate and try to protect the man the way they protected Porvin. A challenge has to be held no later than one week after the man is Seated, and if we spread the word it will be very well attended. We also have enough of our people in positions that will let us enter our own candidate for the challenge, and once their pet loses there won’t be anything they can do about it”

“Personally, I’d hate to be that winning candidate,” I said, trying to be gentle about bringing him down to earth. “Do I have to tell you what’s most likely to happen to the person? They’ll be able to insist on seeing to the winner themselves, away from all those witnesses in the audience. At that point they’d be able to do anything to him, possibly even causing a fatal ‘accident’ after neutralizing him with hilsom powder. Do you really want to throw someone’s life away like that?”

“No, you’re right of course,” he admitted with a deep sigh, his previous enthusiasm dying. “As long as they’re still completely in charge of things, someone put into their hands would have no chance at all. It’s just that it’s now become worse than ever, to accept having them running things when I know for a fact that they don’t deserve to. And your friends should be in there.”

We’d turned a corner to the left, which, after a few steps, led to a widening of the corridor. Rooms stood closer together in this area, but the doors also stood closed—except for the one at the end, which didn’t seem to have a door. The room Alsin had pointed to was on the right, and I opened the door quietly to peek inside.

A number of cots were arranged in a row, six to be precise, and Rion and Valiant Ro lay stretched out on two of them. Naran lay on a third, but the cot had been pushed as close to Rion’s as possible, and she held his hand tightly between both of her own. She looked at me and smiled when I put my head in, so I returned the smile and withdrew again.

“I’m sorry I didn’t mention this sooner, but I’m afraid you’re going to have to find someplace else to put Valiant Ro,” I said once I’d closed the door again. “He can’t abide small, closed-in spaces with no windows, and if he wakes up in there he’ll suffer quite a lot. Is there anything you can do?”

“As a matter of fact, there is,” Alsin agreed, nodding as though I’d said nothing unusual. “Dom Ro isn’t the only man with a problem like that, and it made no sense to exclude a man from our ranks just because he has an unusual need. One of these rooms is built against a wide access-window, one that hasn’t been used since another warehouse was put up really close to this one. The window faces a blank wall, but if necessary someone could climb out of it and shinny down the pulley rope, which was left for precisely that reason. I’ll have him moved right away.”

We’d been walking toward the room without a door as we talked, and now Alsin moved ahead to enter it first. When I followed I saw a large room containing a number of tables and chairs, with another doorless entry directly opposite the one I stood in. Although there was seating for more, the room only had three small groups of men, seated separately. Some of the men ate and some simply drank whatever was in their cups, and Alsin had walked over to one of the groups. After he spoke to the three men, they nodded and rose and left the room the way we’d just come in.