“All the more reason to get you out now,” she said.
“It’s not possible, Briony. This is not simply a barred enclosure—it’s a cage, with bars on top and bars on the bottom that are sunk in the earth.” He kept his voice low, but she could hear stirring among some of the other captives. “I do not know exactly what the autarch plans, but he is obsessed with Southmarch and thinks somehow if he can take the castle he can awaken a god. Are you with Shaso or Brone? Can you tell them that?”
Briony laughed, but it was painful. “Shaso is dead,” she said. “I’m sorry, Father, but he was burned in a fire in Marrinswalk. Brone is either a prisoner in the castle or a traitor—maybe both. Hendon Tolly is holding the place, but I hear he has been bargaining with the autarch about something.”
“Then how did you get here? Are you with Barrick?”
“Never mind. We have to get you free.” But suddenly Barrick’s name was working in her like a spark slowly growing into a flame.
“You can’t! It’s too late for me, my dear one. But you must not be caught. Get away! Get away before the guards come back.”
“No.” And now it was burning inside her, a fire she had kept banked for months. “Why did you lie to me? Why did you do that, Father?”
He sounded surprised but not shocked. “What do you mean?”
“You never told me about . . . your curse. About Barrick. About what happened that night his arm was broken.” She bit her lip, fighting the tears again. “Why did you lie to me?”
Long moments passed. Her father had been holding her arms, but now he let go and even took a half step back from the bars. “I’m . . . sorry.”
“But why? Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you tell us?”
“I was ashamed, girl! Can’t you understand? Ashamed that I passed my tainted blood to those I loved most in the world. Ashamed that I almost killed my own son!” His whisper was hoarse. “And now it is beginning again.”
“What is beginning?”
“The poison! The poison in my veins—I can feel it again. Oh, merciful gods, Briony, I might have been a prisoner for much of the last year but I at least I was free of my cursed blood! Can you understand? For the first time the madness that used to afflict me nearly every moon did not touch me. But as we drew closer and closer to the castle—to my own home!—the affliction returned. Even now I can feel the gall boiling in my veins . . .”
“But I would have helped you! You should have told me! We could have found a way to cure it—Chaven would have found something . . . !”
“You cannot cure someone of their own blood,” the king told her in a bitter murmur. “Not unless you slit their throat and hang them up like a slaughtered pig.”
Briony began crying again. “Then it’s my curse, too, Father. You had no right to keep it from us.”
“Don’t you see?” He came back to the bars then, caught her shoulders, and pulled her against the cold metal so that he could put his cheek against hers. “I would have done anything I could to keep it from you. You and Kendrick showed no signs of it.”
“But what is it? Why us? Why the Eddons?”
“Because of love,” he said. “Because of treachery and death, too. But mostly because of love.” And then he told her a tale so astounding that for a few moments Briony forgot everything else and thought of nothing but her father’s pained voice.
“We have . . . fairy blood?” she asked when he had fallen silent at last. “The Eddons . . . ?”
“The Qar claim it is the blood of a god,” Olin said. “That is what the autarch believes as well. That is why he keeps me, he says . . .”
“To do what?”
Her father tried to explain, but at last shook his head—she could feel it moving violently against her hand. “I do not understand it all for certain, but remember—we have only until the midnight at the end of Midsummer’s Day to prevent him—he has told me that hour is when this will all take place. It’s only a scant few days away now.” He hesitated; she could feel him deciding not to frighten her more than he had to. Had he always been so transparent to her? Or was it Briony herself who had changed? “Quickly,” he said, “while we still have time, tell me all your news about . . .” But he never finished the sentence. Voices were approaching the tent from somewhere behind her. Olin quickly stepped away.
“Hide,” he muttered. “Quickly!”
She had barely an instant to back away from the spot and hide before the tent flap flew back and a guard stood in the opening with a torch. As Olin turned toward the light, she saw her father for the first time and her heart flooded over with love for him. He was so thin! A group of children were ranged behind him, almost a dozen in all, sitting or lying down on the straw piled at the bottom of the cage.
Briony watched a tall, thin old man in a minutely decorated robe step in beside the guard. He gestured and another guard began unlocking the bars. “Tell your young friends that if any of them come too close to the bars, they will be killed,” the old man said. “I want no trouble, King Olin. It is time for you to go back. Whoever those bandits were, they have fled. The White Hounds are after them and will make short work of them.”
“I prefer not to go back now,” said her father, his voice pitched a little louder than it needed to be. “I like it here with the other prisoners. They are but children, you know—no one has showed them any kindness at all. I thought better of you, Vash.”
“I do the autarch’s work, King Olin. And I credit you for your sympathetic heart. but that is all the more reason you must go back—I do not want you fomenting revolts among the children.” He said something in Xixian to the guards. The lock clanked and the door creaked, and Olin let himself be led out by a guard at each arm.
“Very well,” her father called back over his shoulder, as if to the other prisoners. “Just remember, I love you all. Have courage—there’s hope as long as you remember who you are!”
Briony was weeping as the flap fell back. The guards were long gone before she dared to move or speak again. A few quiet conversations proved that the child-captives could tell her nothing interesting. She felt terrible leaving them to their unknown fate, but there was nothing else she could do. At the next distraction she slipped out of the tent.
I love you, too, Father.
Briony hurried across the darkened green. With luck, she would be back in Eneas’ camp by midnight and they could think of a way to save King Olin.
If love has cursed our family, perhaps it can save us as well.
17
Defending the Mystery
“The village was in mourning because so many of the young men of the town had died during the Great War between the gods, which the church calls the Theomachy. The castaways were welcomed with great kindness
. . .
—from “A Child’s Book of the Orphan, and His Life and Death and Reward in Heaven”
“T
HEY ARE TOO MANY!” the young Funderling shrieked as he rushed past. His face was dirty and flecked with blood, and he had dropped his weapon and shield somewhere. “The autarch’s army has overrun Moonless Reach . . . ! Run!”
Ferras Vansen turned to grab him, but Malachite Copper was equally determined not to let the soldier’s panic affect anyone else. He caught the fellow’s arm first and hit him hard with a flat hand on the side of the face. The Funderling soldier stared at Copper in surprise, took a wobbly step, then crumpled and fell to his knees.
“Now get up, man, and show that there’s some mortar where your stones don’t fit true. What’s going on?”
“Forgive me, Master Copper . . . !” The young fellow was terrified—it was clear that all he wanted to do was to keep running.
“Give us your news,” Copper said, “like the sworn apprentice to the Stonecutter’s Guild that you are.”
The soldier’s lip trembled, but he did his best to harden his expression; it was a less than perfect show. “They’ve broken down the last barrier, and they’re driving Jasper and the rest back like sand fleas, Master Copper. It was terrible.” He turned to Ferras Vansen and the others as if they had disagreed. “Terrible! Flames and something like burning oil all over—people screaming . . . and the smell, Masters, the smell . . . !”
“What could that be, Physician?” Vansen asked. “Chaven, did you hear?”
“Ah, ah, what are we discussing? Yes, the flames, that would be some blend of naptha and resin.” The physician appeared slightly befuddled, as though he had only been half-listening. “War Fire, as they used to call it in Hierosol.” He turned to Vansen. “There is nothing you can do against it except try to douse the flames, but they burn cruelly hot.”
“I do not believe that,” Vansen said. “There is a defense against any weapon—Murroy used to tell me that.”
“Who?” The physician looked surprised.
“Never mind.” He turned to the frightened soldier, who had calmed a little. “Do you bring any message from Sledge Jasper? Does he live?”
“I . . . I do not know, C-Captain.” The Funderling looked frightened of Vansen now, finally realizing how badly he had acted. “When the guardhouse came down . . . and then we were attacked . . . I should have . . .”
“But you thought you were the only one who could carry the news,” said Cinnabar Quicksilver, who had been silent thus far. “We understand, son. Was Dolomite still holding his section when you went past? Think. He was? Good—now go and find the quartermaster’s fire, and he’ll give you something to drink and a place to lie down. We’ll get help to Jasper and the rest.”
“Th-thank you, Magister.”
As the young soldier limped off, Malachite Copper had already begun finding reinforcements to help Sledge Jasper and the rest keep their withdrawal back to Ocher Bar from turning into a rout.
“I wish you had not done that, Magister,” Vansen quietly told Cinnabar. “He deserted his fellows. He did not even wait to see if his commanding officer had survived . . .”
“These are not true soldiers, Captain,” Cinnabar reminded him. “They are brave men, but they have not learned the ways of an army. I don’t think they will, either—we just don’t have the time. But I will do my best in the future to let you discipline them as you see fit.”
Now Vansen felt a little ashamed. He was not a Funderling so he could not understand them—was that what Cinnabar was trying to tell him? Ferras Vansen swallowed his resentment. This was not the time.
As more of Jasper and Dolomite’s troops arrived, they told a story much the same as the first frightened warder’s, but with an unexpected ending.
“The autarch’s men did not follow us or press their advantage as we fell back,” the survivors reported. “They did not even follow us down the passages toward Ocher Bar and try to keep us from reaching the rest of you here!”
Vansen could make little sense of it. “They had the perfect chance to destroy almost half our force as we retreated. Why not?”
When Dolomite and Sledge Jasper at last returned, limping and bloody but more or less whole, they confirmed what the others had been saying. They stood with Vansen and the rest looking over the maps Chert had made, trying to understand the southerners’ intention.
“See, they have come under the bay from the mainland on Stormstone’s secret road, the Great Delve,” Malachite Copper said, making a few quick strokes on the map with a piece of charcoal. “But if they wish to move on Funderling Town and then continue up to the castle, why should they turn down through Iron Reach? That way leads nowhere except into the depths.”
Cinnabar frowned. “They will not even be able to circle around behind us without a great effort and much engineering. They would have to go miles through the narrowest of tunnels to come at the temple any other way!”
Vansen’s eyes grew wide. “Perin’s Hammer!” he swore. “So it’s true—the autarch is headed for the Mysteries themselves!”
“Which leaves us little time to make a terrible decision,” said Cinnabar. “Leaves
me
little time, to be frank, since I carry the Astion here for the Guild.” He frowned in dismay. “Another few hours and the autarch’s men may have driven down past us here in Ocher Bar. After that we will be unable to accomplish anything more than harrying them from behind.” He hung his head and stared hopelessly at the maps. “What other choices do we have? Captain, where are these fairies who claimed they were our allies?”
Vansen knew enough of Cinnabar now to know how agonizing this responsibility was to him, and also how few men of any height he would rather have trusted to make the judgment. “The Qar have sent no word yet of what they plan, but I’ll send another messenger to them. Then we can only wait,” Vansen told them. “But in the meantime, Magister, you must decide what your people will do next. Let the autarch go by, and concede them the Mysteries while we retreat to defend Funderling Town?” He raised his hand as Cinnabar and Jasper both groaned aloud. “I know that cuts you to the heart.”
“It is the Funderlings’ Mount Xandos,” said Chaven suddenly and loudly. “Their holiest place.”
“I know,” Vansen told him. “Let me finish, Chaven Makaros. We can let them go and save our small force to protect Funderling Town, or we can make a stand below Five Arches and try to keep them out of the Mysteries. We would at least have the advantage of knowing the terrain.”
“But with the numbers and weapons they have, they will overwhelm us at last,” said Malachite Copper. “No matter how well we fight, they will push us back—that is inevitable.”
“Yes, and when they push us, we will give way,” Vansen said, “—but slowly, and we will kill as many as we can. If we cannot win,” and suddenly he thought of his family, nearly all lost now, and the princess who had been lost to him from the moment of his humble birth, “well, then, I would just as soon die here with you lot as with any others.”
“You honor us, Captain Vansen,” Cinnabar told him with a sad smile, “but are those truly our only choices? Give up our most sacred place or resist and be massacred? That is grim.” He reached into his pocket and withdrew a shining circle of black stone, reverently touching it to his chest before setting it down on the table. “You see that I have taken out the Astion—the seal of the Guild is now on all our talk. Let us hear more about each choice . . . and do not hold back your opinions! I won’t sleep well no matter which I choose, but like anything painful that can’t be avoided, I say the sooner broken the sooner mended. By the Elders! I wish Chert Blue Quart was here, since we also have that mad proposal of his to consider.” Cinnabar sighed. “Ah, well, nothing to do but make cement with the sand we have. Tell me all so I can decide how we should die.”