Sartor (35 page)

“I think that tunnel takes you to the palace,” Irza
said. “I know that this way goes under Eidervaen, branching out—”
And she rapidly named different city districts.

“Here is where I have to go on alone.” Atan knelt
down to address her little cousin eye to eye. “This is the most dangerous
part of our plan. Julian, I don’t think you should come into the tower. I
don’t know how many enemies I will find there, or how many will chase me.
I would feel safer if you stayed with everyone else.”

Julian leaned against her. “But she’s going.”
Julian pointed at Lilah.

“I’m going to guard her back,” Lilah said,
also kneeling down. “And I have a way to fight if one of those nasty
Norsundrians comes by. But you don’t have a way to fight.”

Merewen closed her eyes, then opened them. “You have
to stay, little one,” she said. “And be brave.” Again, she
said it, then looked puzzled, then very unhappy.

Everyone turned her way, Atan quickly, Lilah in
apprehension, Irza impatient. To Irza, Merewen seemed half-mad, and certainly
negligible as far as future social position was concerned.

Julian said, “Why?”

Merewen squatted beside Lilah, her thin cotton tunic
fluttering around her bare legs. She seemed immune to the cold. She pointed
upward. “The tower magic, it might swallow you up. I can’t explain,
but I can’t
see
you there. It troubles me. I hope it means you’re
safest here. I don’t know. It’s just... feelings I get here.”
She touched her heart. “I don’t hear any words here.” She
touched her head, not telling them that she could sense the Loi as a kind of
blue presence somewhere outside her thoughts. She suspected that the Loi were
trying to send her words, but she couldn’t hear them. This was not the
time to explain her shortcomings and add to Atan’s worries.

Irza stepped forward, hands on her hips in a way that Julian
instantly recognized. “Julian may remain in my charge. Arlas and I know
how to watch over her. She will be safe with us—or at least as safe as we
ourselves will be.”

Atan let out a cloudy breath. They were all in danger, but
she knew hers was by far the worst. “Yes, that’s a good idea. Julian,
please stay. And—and if I’m successful, you come stay with me
again, and you don’t ever have to go somewhere else, unless you want. I
promise.”

Julian sighed, too, her cloud smaller. “I’ll
stay.” Her reward was a slight easing in Atan’s troubled face.

“Let’s go quickly then.” Atan kissed
Julian’s brow, got to her feet, and walked swiftly away.

Hinder caressed Julian’s cheek and followed. Lilah
grinned at Julian, Merewen looked troubled, then they were gone, too.

When the sounds of their splashing diminished, Irza saw
Mendaen about to speak, and forestalled him. She was the leader, not him. “It
is time for us to split into our groups and get busy rousing Eidervaen.”

Without looking at him, she turned and motioned the crowd of
kids into their groups; most had already separated, some moved, but others gave
her irritated glances and stayed right where they were. They would move when it
was time.

Mendaen lifted a hand to his group and started off without
any more speech. He never spoke to Irza if he could avoid it. She was
indifferent; he had no rank. She watched in satisfaction as he and his group
departed down another tunnel, their footsteps slow and tentative.

“Now, you stay close by,” Irza said to Julian. “You
will have to run, for we must be swift. We’re going this way, into the city.”

Julian had been looking down the tunnels, then back up at
the grating where it was light.

“Atan said to stay,” she said. “I
promised. I’m going to stay.”

Irza firmly controlled the spurt of anger that made her hot
inside. Julian was small, and getting more tiresome every day, but she might
one day be a princess—Atan’s heir—and she would need a
guardian.

Irza had to make sure the child knew obedience, or what was
the use?

She looked around. Mendaen had vanished down one of the
tunnels, the sounds of splashing feet echoing back. She turned back to the
child, whose solemn six-year-old face and unreadable Landis eyes stared back up
in the weak light reflected from the grating.

“You must. Come. With. Us.” Irza bit off each
word.

“No. Merewen said I could stay. I’m going to
stay
here
. I promised Atan. She will come
here
for me.”

Irza glared, her palm itching to slap. “This is
not
the time to act willful,” she said. “She meant for you to stay with
us, not stay in this gutter.”

“No.”

Irza gritted her teeth, then forced her voice to be even. Reasonable.
“You promised to help. Obeying is helping.” Her tone sharpened. “Being
a brat is
not
helping.”

The word ‘not’ rang out, sending sharp echoes
down the tunnels. Irza’s group waited, some sidling looks in a way that irritated
Irza even more.

Julian pointed back to the hole next to the wall. “I
can help by being here,” she said. “Nobody can put that thing back.
Hinder worried. Atan worried. Everyone worried.”

“That’s true,” Arlas whispered.

“Quiet,” her sister ordered in a fierce whisper.

“So if I stay here, you can find me. But if
they
come, they will think I fell down here.” Julian crossed her arms. “It’s
my
plan. Hinder would listen. He’d let me stay.”

Vanya said, “Leave her. At least we know where she is.”

“And we’re
all
in danger, she no more or
less,” added Dorea.

Irza hated to even listen to a mere curtain runner, but Atan
had selected the teams, dividing up the aristocrats among all those of lesser
rank. She wavered, then realized that standing about was not going to win them
any glory at all.

She bent over Julian. “A princess,” she
whispered, “would do her duty and listen to her elders.” She
touched Julian’s face—not in a caress but, quick and sharp, she
pinched her ear. Hard.

Just like Julian’s mother used to when she talked
about being a princess.

Julian’s jaw jutted, and her eyes narrowed.

Irza felt better. To forestall the brat’s wailing
again, she straightened up and turned away. Maybe it was better not to be
slowed by the brat. “Very well,” she said. “
We
must do
what we promised, at least.” She turned a last glare at Julian. “As
for you,
stay here
. And be quiet and careful.”

She walked away, and as Julian faded from sight she faded
from mind, for the familiar turnings of the tunnels harrowed Irza with memory.
She motioned to Dorea, whom she’d made certain to be included in her
group, and said, “You should be able to find out where we are.”

“I never ran in the drains,” Dorea said.
“But I’ll try.”

Julian heard Dorea’s voice echo, then all she heard
were the diminishing footsteps.
Let them go
. She smiled. She had a job,
a real one, an important one, that no one could take away or pretend was
theirs. And nobody was going to pinch her ear and call her
prin-cess
.

She sat down on the old tile, swept clean by years of water,
tucked her ragged hem around her feet, pulled Merewen’s soft, warm
yeath-coat around her, and looked up at the sky through the open hole left by
the shifted grill.

As it turned out, she hadn’t long to wait.

o0o

Kessler’s instinct was to capture Rel and choke from
him the reason he was here in this kingdom, how many he led, and where they
were.

Very soon, he began to wonder if his first
reaction—that this was some kind of ruse—might be true. Rel’s
unaccountable presence and his shouted command in the Mearsiean language was far
too inexplicable, and the timing suspect. That suggested a deflection or decoy.
Kessler would accept Darian Irad at the head of a mysteriously raised company,
but not Rel.

So he wheeled his horse out of the line and waved at them to
continue their pursuit.

He rode hard back to the city. His horse had nearly
foundered when he reached his reinforcements, who were advancing exactly as he’d
ordered.

“I think it might be a feint,” he said to the
leader, and broke the would-be strike force into smaller groups, taking under
his own command the greater number. Pausing only long enough to make one of the
warriors exchange his fresh mount for Kessler’s spent one, he rode off,
leading his new search force.

Fog swallowed them, in some places so thick they were forced
to a walk. Though Kessler could hear the others behind cursing and fuming, it
gave him time to think.

If in fact Rel of Tser Mearsies was running decoy here in
the south, it meant that whoever he was protecting was probably somewhere in
the north. The old magic tower lay at the west end, attached to the palace,
which couldn’t be patrolled. If an army was on the attack, they’d
go for the gates. But if it was magic they were after, the tower would be the
target.

Magic.
Kessler dropped his hand to his pocket. Dejain
had departed without giving him one of her transfer tokens.

He cursed, then said, “To the north side of the city.
We’ll have to search along the walls.”

o0o

Dejain had been brooding about what she’d discovered
to be true, and what not. She’d also reflected on the unlikelihood of any
child being able to transfer thirty or forty people at once from under a
landslide, which meant they’d been able to hide somehow. Every
explanation opened disturbing possibilities.

The thought of going back to the palace walls was sickening.
She loathed cold, but more than that she loved her command, and the way to keep
it was to be thorough, to avoid disaster first, but if defeat seemed
unavoidable, to make certain that Detlev could find no blame to ascribe to her.

That meant she must force herself back to the hills where
Kessler had last seen the children, and search for magic traces herself.

She didn’t think it likely, but it was always possible
that some of those old animal caves were disguised morvende tunnels. She hadn’t
heard of any geliaths this far east. Everyone knew that morvende after the Fall
had honeycombed deep in the western mountains, but their geliaths were
protected by very old magic that was far beyond her abilities to break. Anyway,
if the ancient geliaths still existed, no one had reported seeing morvende popping
in and out.

If a rabble of brats could find an abandoned, empty geliath,
so could she.

A morning’s fruitless search in the cold and
increasing fog had steadily diminished her hopes when she heard the sounds of
pursuit. She transferred up to a hill at the edge of a wood in order to look,
and found herself surrounded by even thicker fog.

A lone figure on horseback rode past her, followed by a
thick swirl of such magic-charged mist a faint shimmer coruscated on the edges
of her vision.

She tried to blink it away as the rider glanced back. An ebb
in the swirling haze outlined a vaguely familiar shape. The low sun shone on
black hair and a handsome profile that she’d last seen in Kessler’s
desert camp in ’33. She frowned. That couldn’t be that big one
Kessler had taken prisoner from Tser Mearsies, could he? What was his name?

It didn’t matter. She continued her search, until she
discovered herself surrounded by Kessler’s own picked guard.

“Where’s the force?” the patrol captain
asked Dejain. “We were ordered to pursue them.”

She peered past him into the glittering vapor, and made out
vague shapes.

Oh.

“There is no force,” she yelled, furious. “You
idiots! This magic—it’s nothing but illusion! It’s a ruse!”

A ruse?
They whipped round and thundered back down
the road.

Dejain whispered, “Landis.”

Why hadn’t she considered what that meant? If a real
Landis heir had shown up, who knew what powers she’d been taught, or would
re-emerge in her name?

Trouble wasn’t just possible, it was
here
.
Now
.

She transferred back to the base to get the last ditch
defenses she’d prepared.

At least the water running along the slough was warm, Atan
thought. Perhaps this was because of all the fires above, kindled in kitchens
and on hearths as more people woke up from the enchantment each day. Either
that or some strange, mysterious old magic that she would have to learn about...

Mind. Stop wandering. Pay
attention. Danger will not go away just because you want to hide.

The drain water was also clean, save for leaves and grass
and the detritus of autumn, which meant it had to be part of the river, and not
just snowmelt. The walls varied in the type and size of stone used, but all of
it looked very, very old.

“This way,” Merewen panted, when they reached a
fork.

Atan sensed a weak tug of whatever magic guided Merewen so
unerringly, and changed direction to follow. Hinder and Lilah plodded grimly in
her wake, Hinder gripping his bow and looking in all directions. Lilah kept her
hands balled in the pockets of her black clothing. She wasn’t going to
tell anyone, but after she’d been so sure about ‘a way to defend
them’ to little Julian back there, she’d remembered all those
plunges in into water, and had surreptitiously checked her pockets.

Sure enough, the Lure had turned to a mass of rotted leaves.
Only the faintest whiff escaped the bag, meaning that the blossoms’
effectiveness had completely washed out somewhere in the morvende hot baths.

All right, so she’d learned other skills. Now it was
time to put them to use.

They ducked around a new waterfall coming down from a street
grate, and found themselves at another crossing. Merewen frowned.

“I think we had better go alone,” she said,
pointing to herself and Atan.

Atan stared. Merewen’s face was a pale blob in the
weak light from a distant grating. “Is it the enchantment?”