Lisa Shearin - Raine Benares 02 (33 page)

“Why
didn’t you answer me?”

“You
told me not to talk.”

Couldn’t
fault his logic. “We need to cross—”

Sirens
wailed and lightglobes set into the walls flashed red. Prison break discovered.

I
swore. “Take my hand. I can’t see you and we can’t get separated.”

He
did and we ran.

Shouts
and the pounding of booted feet joined the sirens. One voice bellowed over the
chaos.

“Lockdown!
Lockdown!”

The
sirens went ominously silent, though the red lights continued to flash. Then I
saw them, descending from the top of every hall opening and doorway. Gate
wards. Glowing green and nasty. They looked like the bars of a jail cell,
except these bars made sure magic users stayed put.

We
ducked under one gate ward and ran faster.

“One
to go,” I panted.

It
was on the other side of an open office area. It was going to be close, too
close.

“We
can’t make it holding hands,” came Piaras’s voice from beside me. “Let me go.”

He
was right. I didn’t like it, but I did it.

I
dove under the ward and it hissed when it reached the marble, leaving black
scorch marks on the floor.

“Piaras?”
I whispered.

The
sharp point of a blade pressed into the back of my neck. I froze. I was still
on my belly. Two pairs of black boots stepped into my line of vision.

“Put
your hands behind your back,” ordered a deep, male voice from above me.
“Slowly.”

I
couldn’t see the speaker, but both sets of boots were military issue. One of
those boots planted itself in the middle of my back, knocking the air out of
me, and pinning me to the floor like a bug.

“I
said hands behind your back!”

I
heard two sharp thumps of a blackjack, two grunts, and then two unconscious
embassy guards were sharing the floor with me.

“It
was the least I could do after punching you in the balls.” Piaras sounded
pleased with himself.

I
wanted to smack him. I wanted to hug him. I couldn’t see him, so I couldn’t do
either one.

I got
to my feet. “We’re almost there. Stay close.”

Set
into the wall just ahead was a curved alcove with a bench. Cozy. According to
the blueprints, that coziness came complete with its own concealed door. Tanik
said the trigger looked like a knot in the wood. There it was. I pressed and a
small section of the bench and wall opened into darkness. I might just have to
start liking Tanik Ozal.

We
went through and the wall clicked securely closed behind us.

“Will
they look down here?” Piaras asked almost too softly to be heard.

“I
don’t know, but let’s act like they will.”

I had
to risk making a lightglobe. It was completely dark and a light would announce
us to anyone lurking down here, but I’d take that over falling and breaking a
leg.

I
focused on my palm. A spark bloomed and wove itself into a sphere. I could see
Piaras now. “Your fifteen minutes of invisibility must be up,” I told him.

Piaras
looked down at himself. “That timed out right.”

“Yeah,
it did. Take off the pendant and put it somewhere safe. You should be able to
use it again in another hour. Hopefully you won’t need to.”

I
smelled damp earth, wooden crates, and not much else. I shone the globe in an
arc in front of us to get my bearings. I saw something on the floor and
stopped.

Piaras
saw what I saw and went for a dagger. I thought it was a good idea and joined
him.

A
dead elf was sprawled on the edge of the globe’s light. We moved closer. Oh
yeah, he was definitely dead, and from the blood still pooling around him, he
hadn’t been that way for long. He was lying on his side. I used the tip of my
boot to roll him the rest of the way over. Piaras sucked in his breath.

I
recognized him. He had been one of Banan Ryce’s boys. A Nightshade.

He’d
literally been sliced to ribbons.

The
first cut hadn’t killed him, and neither had the next dozen or so. I thought it
was a safe assumption that the slit throat had done the trick. From the angle
of the cuts, the blade had been razor sharp and curved. Someone liked to play
with their prey first. I increased the globe’s glow. Farther down was another
corpse.

The
lightglobe would announce us to what was down here, if it hadn’t already.
Dousing it would leave us fumbling in the dark; and the dark would just make
the things that’d killed the Nightshades more comfortable while they killed us.

I
exhaled. We’d probably be safer back in the embassy. Taltek Balmorlan was the
lesser of the evil that was down here with us.

Playful,
sadistic bastards with curved blades.

Khrynsani.

Piaras
swallowed hard and stared at the body. He didn’t know
what had killed the Nightshade, and I was going to
tell him. He needed to know. From talking to Tanik, I knew there were two ways
into, and out of, the embassy basements— through the embassy itself or through
the harbor tunnel.

Khrynsani
goblins certainly hadn’t strolled in through the front door of the elven
embassy. That meant there was an undetermined number of Khrynsani between us
and our only way out.

I had
plenty of questions, no answers. One question rudely elbowed its way to the
front of my mind. What the hell were Khrynsani doing under the elven embassy?

Piaras
started to say or ask something.

I
shook my head with the least motion possible. Piaras remained absolutely still,
his dark eyes intent on shadows where there could be anything or nothing.

I
dimmed the lightglobe and motioned for Piaras to follow me. There were two
crates stacked on top of each other that would give us some cover but still let
us see anything coming at us. Maybe. Goblins were fast, especially these
goblins.

I
stood on tiptoe, my lips next to his ear. “Khrynsani.” I said it in a whisper
so light that I barely heard it.

Piaras’s
only sign that he’d heard was a single nod. I was impressed. Though after being
arrested, kidnapped, imprisoned, charged with murder, and interrogated, and
escaping in the span of just a few hours, being told there were murderous
goblins in the basement couldn’t come as that big of a shock.

Time
for a brilliant plan, Raine. Problem was, the bad guys were sitting back with
the good cards and a heaping pile of chips. We were stuck with a really crappy
hand and were down to our last, lousy chip.

I was
at the top of the Khrynsani’s most-wanted list, and worse yet, their boss
wanted me alive. Rudra Muralin had used Piaras to attack Justinius, but I
didn’t know if he had an interest in Piaras beyond that, though Muralin knew
that gifted spellsingers like Piaras were rare and highly prized.

Highly
prized for their voices—the sweet magic.

Oh
hell.

I
knew why the Nightshades were down here.

I
knew why the Khrynsani were down here killing Nightshades.

I
knew Piaras and I didn’t need to be anywhere near here.

Sarad
Nukpana said Muralin had come to Mid to reclaim what my father had stolen from
him. Muralin had no use for the pitiful efforts of a starved Saghred. He needed
it at full power, and for that he needed sacrifices. And the Saghred liked
nothing better than spellsingers. Banan Ryce and his Nightshades had been
gathering spellsingers. Tonight they’d captured three more. What better place
for the Nightshades to keep their growing collection than under the one
building on the island that Mychael, his Guardians, and the city watch couldn’t
legally search.

Banan
Ryce had done the work; Rudra Muralin was moving in to reap the benefits. When
the Nightshades had stormed the dressing rooms at Sirens, Muralin had said that
once again elves were unknowingly doing his work for him.

Ugly
didn’t begin to describe how bad this was going to get. Bloodbath sounded about
right. Me, Piaras, and those spellsingers were going to be caught in the
middle.

Piaras’s
eyes were intent on my face, noting every change in my expression. I hadn’t
bothered to keep what I was thinking from showing on my face.

“Tell
me.” He kept his voice down, but his tone told me he wanted to know. Now.

Piaras
knew about the first three spellsingers. He didn’t know who had been taken this
evening—and that Katelyn Valerian was one of them.

“The
spellsingers may be down here. I need to check.”

Tanik
had told me the basic layout of what lay beneath the elven embassy. Piaras and
I were in the main basement, directly beneath the embassy building. More than
likely the dead Nightshades had been trying to get upstairs for help. They
obviously hadn’t made it. If they had, Giles Keril would have been looking for
a place to hide, not for his specs.

Beyond
this room were storerooms of various sizes on several levels. Naturally, it
wasn’t a straight shot from where we were to the tunnel. We had to go through
some of those storerooms, and down three levels. Tanik hadn’t mentioned any
rooms with prison cells. But from Piaras’s encounter tonight with elven government
hospitality, I’d be willing to bet there was a prison block tucked away down
here somewhere. A place where inquisitors wouldn’t have to worry about screams
disturbing the nice bureaucrats upstairs.

I
didn’t have Megan’s brush or Ailia’s locket with me, but I’d linked with both
girls a few times. If they were close by, finding them shouldn’t be a problem.

“Keep
watch,” I mouthed silently to Piaras.

He
nodded.

Seeking
was quiet. If Muralin or Ryce were down here, they wouldn’t hear what I was
about to do.

I
didn’t close my eyes, but stared instead at the side of the crate. I clasped my
hands loosely together as if I actually held Megan’s hairbrush. I remembered
the sharpness of the bristles against my bare palm, the cool smoothness of the
silver, the feel of the intricate scrollwork.

I
linked and I saw.

Khrynsani
shamans had the spellsingers, and they were all in one cell. Katelyn was
kneeling next to an unconscious Ronan Cayle, wrapping what looked like a strip
of fabric from her gown to bind a nasty gash on the maestro’s head. Talon was
pacing in feline fury. I had been able to hear the spellsingers before, but not
now. Was Rudra Muralin using stronger wards? He’d been sacrificing spellsingers
for a long time. If anyone knew how to protect himself from terrified
spellsingers who knew they were going to die, it would be Muralin.

I
couldn’t see Rudra Muralin.

That
could be good—or that could be really bad. He had to be somewhere, and just
because I couldn’t see him in that cell block didn’t mean he wasn’t down here.

And
down here was dark. Really scary dark.

The
spellsingers were somewhere below us. There was no doubt in my mind. The link
pulled at me through the soles of my feet like weights attached to my ankles,
dragging me down.

I
didn’t want to go down; I wanted to get out. But no one had asked me what I
wanted.

No
one had asked those kids or Ronan what they wanted, either.

I
unclasped my hands and broke the link. “All six spellsingers are down here.” I
sounded about as enthused as I felt.

Piaras
looked confused. “Six? I thought you said there were—”

“There
were three; now there are six.” I really didn’t want to tell him, but he needed
to know. “After you were arrested, three more were taken from Sirens: Talon
Tandu, Maestro Cayle . . . and Katelyn.”

Piaras’s
face drained of all color. It wasn’t from fear. It was all rage, cold and
focused.

“Now
the Khrynsani have taken them from the Nightshades,” I said. “A goblin named
Rudra Muralin is their leader.” I didn’t mention that Muralin was ancient and
psychotic. I was holding on to the slim hope that Piaras wouldn’t be finding
that out. “He’s a shaman and a spellsinger. He used to wield the Saghred, and
now he wants it back.” I paused. “He’s also the goblin who used your song
against the archmagus.”

Piaras’s
dark eyes narrowed. “What did you see?”

“The
spellsingers are in one cell. Ronan is unconscious.”

It
was my turn to watch the thoughts flow across Piaras’s face. Frustration put in
an appearance several times. Piaras was realizing what I already knew only too well.

We
were the only hope of help for those six spellsingers.

“Even
if we could get out of here, we couldn’t go to the paladin or the watch.”
Piaras didn’t ask it as a question. He knew the answer as well as I did. “We’d
be arrested if we showed our faces in the city.”

I
nodded. “And if we didn’t get ourselves arrested, they still couldn’t help.
We’re under the elven embassy. That makes what we’re standing on sovereign
elven soil. Mychael’s an elf, but he’s also the paladin. Neither he nor the
city watch can search the embassy grounds—or what lies under it.”