Sartor (34 page)

Atan’s throat hurt. “Julian, when I go into the
tower, I might have to go alone. The worst danger will be there, where I am.
But if, that is, when I finish, then I’ll come for you, first thing. But...
if I have to go alone, will you stay with the others?”

“Not in the caves,” Julian said, hiccoughing
again.

“Not in the caves,” Atan agreed in defeat.

“It’s time for quiet,” came Hinder’s
soft voice from the front of the line. “Take hands, for we will be
walking in the dark the last little way.”

Atan’s fingers were tight in Julian’s grip. She
reached with her free hand to take Lilah’s square, capable hand. Somehow
she felt a little better, though she knew that nothing was better, their task
was still impossible.

The darkness closed in. Atan listened to the quiet shuffle
of their feet. To distract herself, she tried counting steps until light
shafted ahead, cold air rolled in, causing shivers, and they emerged from the
tunnel into a wintry day.

Lilah dropped Atan’s hand so that the Sartoran
princess could go to the front of the group and do the magic fog spell
she’d prepared. Urgh, Julian trotted after, and Lilah hoped that the
little one wouldn’t get hurt. She didn’t want anybody hurt!

She turned away, and amusement spurted through her when she
saw Irza poking about the entry. Did she think she was fooling anyone,
pretending to fix the tie on her shoe as she scanned for some sort of sign?
I’ll
bet anything they’re going to change this tunnel as soon as we’re
out of sight,
she thought, chuckling to herself. Why would Irza want so
badly to know how to get in and out? She didn’t seem to be interested in
the caves all that much. Maybe she was one of those who liked knowing secrets
just because they were secrets.

From the silver world to the gold world, Merewen thought
happily as she took in the peachy-yellow early morning light. The morvende and
the surface worlds were both beautiful, and so different!

Mendaen searched the horizon all the way around for
warriors. His breath hurt, he was so worried. Atan was a mage, but what if
Norsundrian warriors found them? He wished Rel was there to lead them. How
could they possibly fight off Norsundrians? He gripped his sword hilt in his
sweaty fingers.
Defend Atan. Fight until I die
.

While he watched the horizon, Atan completed her spell, then
looked around at the early sunlight shafting between the big snow clouds
drifting across the morning sky. The hills lay smooth and white around her and
her band of kids as they picked their way down a rocky ledge that the wind had
swept clean. An icy wind buffeted their faces. Here and there, low-lying
tendrils of fog coalesced and drifted along the ground in puffy cotton snakes.

She breathed in the dank-stone smell of fog, sensed no magic,
and appreciated the subtlety of light magic, with just the right very minor
spell, drawing moisture upward out of the water-saturated ground, air and
breeze mixed naturally. Dark magic would have forced a fog so heavy and so pervaded
with magic that it would warn every mage who saw it, and the effects would rile
the weather patterns for weeks. Or longer.

“Try not to leave prints,” Mendaen muttered to a
couple of the smaller kids, who had ranged away from the rocky trail into the thin
layer of snow, glancing around anxiously.

Atan took in the morning-lit faces, red noses, and hunched
shoulders as the kids hastily backtracked, scraping their feet to blur their
tracks. They didn’t really have warm enough clothing for winter, but no
one said anything. Atan could see in the sharp angles of skinny shoulders, the
stiff or nervous fingers, the quick glances that everybody was aware that today’s
work would either permit them to change their clothes, or clothing would no
longer matter because they’d be dead.

It was time to move.

Atan bent, put one palm on the cold rock, and jumped down to
the next level. She half-lifted Julian down, then they rounded a huge boulder
and skidded to the flat ground. Julian gave a soft laugh after skidding. Atan
was relieved to hear the sound, but then the worry closed in the sharper
because Julian was so small.

Atan looked around. The wind scoured over an overturned
wagon, one wheel spinning with lazy slowness.

“Oh,” someone said.

They surrounded the wagon, and a couple of the smaller kids searched
around in the snow, finding a broken basket and a bundle of cloth that had
frozen solid. Atan’s stomach churned. The wagon had been looted more than
a hundred years ago, the drivers killed and gone—but it had happened
recently to the Sartorans they would soon meet. The kids stared at the wagon in
muted horror, some turning anxious glances at the road.

Atan gently disengaged her hand from Julian’s so she
could lay her hand on the wood, old and not old, but before she took two steps,
a flash of light color startled her, and Merewen stood between her and the
wagon.

Merewen did not seem to mind the cold any more than the
morvende did. She gazed up into Atan’s face, her own anxious in the strengthening
sunlight, as she said, “I—I don’t know why. But I wish you
wouldn’t touch that thing.”

“Why not?” Atan asked.

Someone muttered about splinters, but Merewen frowned at the
ground, then at the sky, and shook her head. “Fire. I saw fire, here.”
She touched her head. “And here, too.” She laid her hand over her
heart. “When you started toward it.”

Atan drew in a slow breath. “Of course. I know, that
is, I think I know what it means. Tsauderei has taught me about the standard dark
magic wards when they want to prevent someone entering a place. There are
probably fire wards on every single conveyance within half a day’s
travel. They do not know that we are walking.”

Merewen looked troubled.

Atan lowered her voice. “I thank you for the warning,
but please don’t get between me and danger. Then two of us are
threatened. Just shout at me. Or grab my braid or something.” She tried
to smile.

Merewen tried to smile back, but her round, sky-colored eyes
were wide, and her forehead was puckered with concern.

Atan said to the others, “Smooth down the snow, and
let us go.”

Mittened hands worked quickly to eradicate their traces as
much as possible. Wind had blown most of the snow against the east and south
sides of the road bank. Ice puddles and rock-hard frozen ground curved south
toward the city. Drifts of her fog began to swirl northward. Atan thought she
could make out the city’s towers, gray pencil marks on the white horizon.

It was home. And not home.

They began to walk toward those distant towers, Irza in the
back looking around with a troubled, intense air, and Julian so small and so
trusting, once more between the sisters.

Atan wished she hadn’t spoken. Irza had guarded
Julian, always knowing where she was, and insisting on meals and bed and baths
when Atan would have forgotten such things, not being used to the care of a
small child.

Here is the truth
, Atan thought.
I should not have
let her come
.

But Atan could not send her back because she could not
promise they would return for Julian. Who was right? Irza marched along, not
looking her way.
She thinks I endangered Julian,
Atan thought
sorrowfully.

Irza wasn’t thinking about Julian at all. She had
greater concerns, like the future and her position in it. Her hints and
questions and wanderings had produced absolutely nothing with respect to those
morvende accesses. Her overt admiration of their music and weaving and other
arts had not netted her any invitations to inner secrets.

She surveyed the featureless snowy countryside. The prospect
for glory was nigh, and it was her duty to see that the Ianth name was among
those sung at the triumph celebrations.

Atan turned to Lilah. “Rel must be well on his path by
now and we have a long road ahead of us as well. Let’s run.”

o0o

Rel urged his fresh, mettlesome young horse toward Eidervaen’s
south gate. He was impressed with the speed with which the morvende had
produced not just the horse, but the news that Kessler was currently south of
the city on a tour of inspection.

Though the morvende weren’t in any way a military
culture—he hadn’t seen a sword anywhere except for his stolen one
and the few belonging to the kids—they seemed to have quietly and
efficiently developed a formidable defense strategy.

They weren’t unequipped for a fight, either, for what
he did see were bows, mostly made of ash, and knives. Old ones. These were mostly
stone, and a few made of very old steel. It made sense, he thought as he
breathed in the foggy air. Fighting with long blades in uneven tunnels was a
fool’s game. It made better sense to strike and run, and use the dark and
confusing tunnels to get away. In the big caverns, arrows would be useful. Those
steady breezes from the air vents underground meant little would spoil your
aim.

He’d learned that trust among new allies had to go
both ways. He would give no sign that he’d noticed how the carvings on
the various stones set about so decoratively around some of the tunnels varied
between one dip in the bathing pools and the next. It also happened with
certain cleaning frames, for a dash through them would zap one with more magic
than cleaning frames in sunsider houses had, and the next tunnel would have
different markings.

He suspected they were being transferred incalculable
distances (close or far), but he didn’t ask. The morvende had their
reasons for not explaining.

The horse shimmied sideways, then halted, flicking its tail,
ears flat. Rel made out the soft thud of hoofbeats in snow.

This had to be Kessler’s outer perimeter. That didn’t
mean he was with the riders. In fact, that seemed too great a coincidence—unless
the morvende had somehow managed to guarantee it wouldn’t be any
coincidence, by letting him out the entrance nearest the enemy. If so, their
abilities to spy far surpassed his guesses...
Later.

Rel stared into the thickening fog as it eddied and whorled
away from the riders intersecting his path. He made out two, four, six, eight
shadows, and a ninth at the lead. Despite the bitter cold, Rel’s palms
were damp, his armpits soggy, and he hoped the little stick he’d been
given by way of magic token wouldn’t fail to work because of the damp air,
like tinder failing to spark.

A gust of frosty air revealed the foremost rider. His cheeks
and nose were blotchy red, and fog-damp hair slung in curls across his
forehead, so sharply did his head turn. Rel did not recognize Kessler until he met
those blank blue eyes.

He broke the stick he’d been given, clamped his legs
against the horse’s sides, and raised his fist as if in signal. His heart
lifted when he saw the ghostly forms of riders appear, helms gleaming.
Atan’s spell!

Time to ride.

Kessler recognized Rel and frowned in confusion. Rel was a
part of the past, last seen in Mearsies Heili.

Then Rel shouted something in Mearsiean, wheeled his horse,
and clucked for the animal to gallop. Behind him, barely visible in the fog, rode
a good-sized host of helmeted and mail-clad riders.

Ruse or not, this had to be dealt with. Kessler said to his
aide, “Back to the city. Order the southern roads sealed off.”

Then, whipping his tired mount into a gallop, he set off in
pursuit of Rel and his ghostly entourage, the rest of his patrol riding in
perfect formation at his back.

o0o

Atan and the kids ran, sides aching and mouths open,
sometimes slipping and falling in icy patches, while Kessler’s aide
galloped flat out for the city gates.

The aide reached the gates, shouting Kessler’s order.

Sentries on the gate shot fire arrows upward in signal. The
pinpoints of flame turned the grim, cold city into an ant-swarm of activity.

The Norsundrian guards had been bored and cold. They were
delighted at the prospect of action. Quickly they assembled outside the south
gates, one wing to guard, and the other as reinforcement to Kessler’s
patrol. They rode south to the expected attack.

About the time they reached the outer perimeter and the wing
commander spotted a patrol to hail for the latest report, Atan and her group
reached the northwest wall of the city.

The fog was thick, and though the sun was almost as high as
it was going to get on this wintry day, the sentries on the gates could see and
hear nothing amiss from the mist-obscured ground. Everyone’s attention
was either southward or on the roads directly below the gates.

When the kids began to make out the wall through the
thinning mist, Atan waved Irza to the front to take the lead.

Irza did so, trembling with excitement. She was now the leader!
Fear curled through the excitement: what if her memories were untrustworthy?

Then she spotted the very same juxtaposition of wall and old
vine-wreathed trees that she had seen so long ago, and waved at the others.
Oh
yes, glory at last!

In silence they spread to search. It was Hinder’s
group who found the grate first, almost at the foot of the old mossy wall.

Mendaen, Brick, Pouldi, and Sana struggled with each corner
of the grate, but they managed to shift the heavy iron. Below, in the
dank-smelling darkness, water rushed and tumbled. Hinder sent a comical grimace
at Atan, then lowered himself down.

Splash!
Atan mouthed the words,
Thank you!
to Irza
before she followed Hinder. Arlas and Irza followed, joyous, almost giddy with
triumph. Why, this was easy!

One by one, the kids jumped down, their feet splashing in a
thin stream of rushing water below the city. Irza gestured for them to follow a
little ways away, gathering on a broad flat area that (Irza explained rather
self-importantly) had been a tiled terrace four thousand years before. Lilah
gazed about in gratifying amazement.