Fortress Draconis (37 page)

But being ofsullanciri blood, now that was something else. That thought had pounded around inside Will’s skull until he thought his head would burst. He tried to think back to his earliest memories, but he’d never heard the name Norrington associated with himself. He had been told his mother had died in a brothel fire, and that he had survived the fire, but he didn’t even know that for certain. He didn’t have any scars to prove it. No one he currently knew had the story of the fire from any source but him. He didn’t even know if he’d heard it right.

But he had no doubt whatsoever that before Estafa, no one had ever called him a Norrington. He’d have remembered, too, since there were things worse than being a nameless orphan, and being called a Norrington was one of them. They had them in the Dim, men and women who went to work for the Yslin Constabulary, preying on those who used to be their friends. They were called Dim Lancers by some, but applying that label to a fellow denizen of the Dim, even in jest, would earn someone a beating.

The thing in the cave, the way it had come through and spoken, that did make him wonder what was going on. He thought back to what the goat-thing had said, how it had spoken to him. It had known who he was, and it was Nefrai-laysh, the one they said was his father.Had it really spoken to me the way my father would?

Will shook his head defiantly. That was magick, and everyone knew that magick could go as wrong as easily as it could go right. And he was asullanciri and everyone knew they couldn’t be trusted at all. Neither could Crow and Resolute.My life was fine before those two interfered with it, before I had anything to do with magick.

Will, with a stubbornness born of the streets, decided that Crow and Resolute and Estafa and anyone else who thought he was a Norrington was just flat wrong.I’m not a Norrington, and that’s it. He’d nodded once, solemnly, and put the whole problem out of his head.

It was good that he did, since he had lots of other things to think about. He stripped off the Apprentice robe pretty quickly, just in case the magickers could track him through it. He traded it to a rag picker for some clothes that weren’t truly horrible, then quickly enough slipped into a house and stole more suitable attire.

By midnight, the only thing he had of his journey were memories, and that suited him just fine. He knew he couldn’t go back to Marcus and Fabia right away, largely because Crow knew about them and that would be the first place searchers would look. Officials coming and questioning Marcus would cause a problem for Will when he tried to return to the flock, but he figured he could steal something good and Marcus would forgive him. If Marcus wouldn’t and Fabia liked the prize, she’d defend him.

I’ll get a beating, but it won’t be so bad.

The first night he needed a place to stay. He hunted around for a couple of hideaways he’d known about, but squatters already occupied them. Moving through shadows, he managed to elude city watchmen. While it seemed they were doing nothing more than making their normal rounds, Will felt pretty certain they were there to lure him out. He refused to fall prey to their plans, however.

He worked his way through the Dim, getting closer and closer to the Downs. He found Lumina easily enough, and it was just as well he had. She was in an alley with a coin-mate, her skirt high, her thighs outside his, but he wasn’t happy. He started hitting her and swearing at her. A hand rose and a knife blade glinted dully.

The first stone cracked the man’s wrist and sent the knife flying. The second stonethwocked off the man’s forehead as he turned toward Will. His eyes rolled up in his head and he crumpled into a squat pile there in the alley. Lumina, chest heaving, right hand over her mouth, looked down at the man, then at Will.

“Glad I found you, Lumina.” Will dropped to a knee and liberated the man’s purse, then stood and took her by the hand. “It’s me, Will. You remember me, right?”

“Yes, Will, you’re my Arel’s-get.”

“Fortune’s child, that’s me.” He pulled her along with him. “You still living over the dyer’s shop?”

“Yes.” She let her skirts fall to cover herself and came along with him. “Will? Will. Where have you been?”

“To the mountains and the moon and back. I need a place to stay.” He tossed her the flaccid leather purse. “Not much there, but will it buy me a night?”

“Yes, my little hero, it will.”

At that point Lumina took the lead and conducted him back to her home. It struck Will as odd that two months ago her chambers had seemed so luxurious; he’d had better accommodations, cleaner and easier on the eyes, while on the road. And she’d been the most beautiful woman he’d known before his trip, but compared to Sephi, Lumina began to seem haggard. And compared to Alexia … Well, it was best she wasn’t compared to Alexia.

Lumina’s gratitude, however, erased the world outside her chambers, wiping awareness of it from Will’s mind. Never before had Will experienced anything quite so intense. While he had kissed and fondled girls before, that had been all giggles and breathlessness, curiosity and innocence. It had been fun, and some of the memories could redden his face, but those memories were part of the world outside her rooms.

Lumina showed him passion, unstinting and unfettered. She guided him in some things with words, and in others with a motion or a sharp intake of breath. Likewise she deciphered his moans, groans and gasps, navigating by them to bring him up steep inclines of pleasure. The plateaus just concentrated things, focusing him on himself and the feel of her fingers on his skin, her warm breath on his body. Then up again and up, further and further, to the point where he thought surely he would explode or go mad.

Another plateau, rise and plateau—heights undreamt of.

Dawn greeted him after what seemed like a year of burning from the inside out. He lay there, tangled in her sheets, a boneless, sweat-dappled mass of flesh. Smiling took a supreme effort, but he managed it for her, then fell asleep.

He awoke again before dusk and Lumina brought him watered wine and some bread. She kissed him gently and bade him eat. Between mouthfuls of food he asked after Marcus and Fabia, and begged her not to let them know he’d returned to Yslin until he figured out what to do.

Lumina, whose beauty benefited from the soft yellow glow of tallow candles, smiled. “No fear on that, Will. Marcus kicked Fabia out a week ago, maybe a bit more. She was heartbroken and took to drinking. She fell asleep in the street, didn’t wake up when the tide came in. She’s gone, and it’s his fault, so he’ll have nothing from me, and I’ve told him such.”

Will finished his meal and thanked her. “I’m going to see to some things tonight, so I don’t know where I’ll be.”

She nodded. “You can come back here if you want.”

“Really?”

The woman smiled. “You’re a thief. I couldn’t keep you out if I wanted. Besides, tonight I’ll be with Predator.”

“Oh.” Will felt his heart tighten.

She reached out and stroked his cheek. “Will, you know…”

He kissed her palm and gave her a wink. He was glad she accepted that because he knew he couldn’t speak. Will slid from the bed and pulled his shoes on. He lingered over a shoe a moment, swallowing the lump in his throat away, then gave her a smile.

“If you need me, I’ll find you.”

She lied to him with a nod and he left. Making his way down the stairs to the alley running behind the dyer’s shop, he threw back his cloak and invited the cold in to armor his heart. In the previous night, when the world was just him and Lumina, he had let himself believe she loved him. In the real world he knew that wasn’t true. It stung, a lot, but every step away from that bed lessened the pain. The cold wreathing his heart numbed it and Will didn’t see a reason to hope for a thaw anytime soon.

lam Will the Nimble, KingoftheDimandowns.He gathered his cloak around him.The king has returned.

He emerged from the alley to see Scabby Jack and Garrow, along with their crew of urchins, beating up on someone. One of the kids grabbed a fat purse and held it up like a trophy. Looking past her, Will caught sight of their victim. He knew him, then realized he’d been recognized himself. The victim held a hand out toward him, begging for help.

Will raised his hands as Scabby Jack glanced at him, and two of the kids started for him. “Not my fight.” He jogged off down the street, then crossed it and ducked into another alley. He worked his way along it, then up a rickety staircase and across a roof. He leaped the gap to another roof, then softly padded his way across it to where that building butted up against another. He scaled the taller building’s wall at the corner, then went up a tiled roof on all fours.

Getting to the ridgeline, he headed along about halfway. He got down on his belly and grabbed one of the tiles. Wiggling it back and forth, he slipped it free, then peered down through a gap in the planking.

The opening gave him a good look at the common room where Marcus kept the kids who worked for him. Marcus, slender, dark, and with a nasty cast to his close-set eyes, stood at one end of the room. A rafter kept cutting off sight of him as the man paced, but Will could hear his voice just fine.

“Most of you know Will. Even though he’s been gone for a bit, you remember him. I’m needing to find him. You have to find him. You have to tell him he’s to come here. No hard feelings, no, none. I’m proud of Will, and any of you would be happy if I were as proud of you as I am of him.”

The short hairs on the back of Will’s neck began to rise. Marcus’ cold tone of voice belied what he was saying, but the kids, they were all nodding in agreement with what he said. That struck Will about as odd as their all being seated on the floor, in even ranks and rows. They’d even lined themselves up such that the youngest were toward the front, where they could see easily. The oldest were at the back and no one was whispering or slapping or carrying on. Even Ludy wasn’t mocking Marcus, which was just not natural.

“So, get yourselves going. Out now, out. I need you to find Will. I’ve a gold Gustus going to the one who brings him.” Marcus brandished the bright coin in his right hand. “It’s yours, you find him. Go on, out.”

The kids stood, front rank first, then the next, and so on, filing out quietly, all heading downstairs to the street. Will watched them go and realized he was safe, since none of them had gone into the south room to climb the ladder and take to the rooftops. Most who got to Will’s age shied from roofs when they got their growth, and the younger kids just weren’t very sharp.And the way they went out. Very odd.

Marcus turned on his heel when the last one left, and entered the west room, which spanned that end of the upper floor. He’d shared it with Fabia, and the only time Will had seen the inside of it was when Fabia needed help doing something or Marcus intended to administer a beating. Will did know something about the room, however, and slipping the tile back into place, he turned that knowledge to his advantage.

Back on hands and feet, he catted his way over to the chimney. A little heat and a bit of smoke rose from it, but Will figured that was from down the first floor. Marcus had a fear of fire—or so he said—and that meant they were never allowed to have one, even in winter. Will thought the man was just too cheap to pay for fuel.

The thief clung to the side of the chimney and listened. The damper had long been broken in that apartment, and Will had made himself an invisible party to conversations between Marcus and Fabia before. It had saved him a beating or two, and even had allowed him to supply one or the other of them with something they’d just discovered had run out.

Marcus’ voice survived the ride up the narrow flue pretty well. “They’re out there. They’ll find him.”

The reply to his statement came sibilant and seemed to slither up the chimney instead of echoing the way his did. Will was pretty sure this wasn’t just because it was a female voice. “Splendid, sweet Marcus. You please me.”

“And you, me. What you did with the children …”

“It was nothing. I shall shew you how.”

“There are many things I would like you to show me.”

“I know, sweetness. Perhaps, like this?”

Silence reigned for a moment or two, then was overthrown by an explosive grunt and groan from Marcus’ throat. Will wondered for a second or two where he’d heard a similar sound before. His previous night’s adventure drifted back on him and his face burned.But, but, that took hours…. How could… ? It was two heartbeats, maybe three.

Ashiver ran down his spine, then a bitter taste in his mouth made him spit. The way the kids had acted, and Marcus, something was not right at all. What made it worse was that he was pretty certain sorcery was involved.That means hiding will be tough.

Will’s eyes narrowed.I’ve never liked hiding anyway. I need to find out who is looking for me. And when I do that… He smiled. When he learned who was after him, they’d have to learn that to tangle with the king was an invitation to disaster.

Alyx awoke—then amended that, since she was conscious but couldn’t possibly be awake—in a misty place suffused with soft light. She felt neither warm nor cold, and the vapor had a bluish tint to it. This confused her because she would have thought she was dreaming, but she never dreamed in color.

She rose from a crouch, but didn’t remember having crouched in the first place. The white gown she wore had no sleeves, and that struck her as odd. She owned no such garment. Her sleeping gowns were all utilitarian, made of warm flannel, with full sleeves. In a pinch any of them could double as a gambeson under her mail.

The gown not only had no sleeves, but it had been woven of a fabric she didn’t recognize. It was white and light and sheer, with a half cloak that hung over her back from the shoulders, and seemed to have little more substance than the mist surrounding her.

The moment she thought that, however, things changed subtly. It wasn’t so much that the fabric shifted, it just felt different. And then, after a moment, she couldn’t recall it having felt any differently before. Now, though, flat bands of scales covered her from nipples to stomach. More scales ran down her flanks, all the way from the armpit to hem, and the cape seemed scaled as well.