Stonewiser (19 page)

“Alfred said something strange. Something about you being Orgos's old flame?”

Kael's fingers faltered on the knots, but then resumed the work.

“He said this time Orgos will get his price.”

“Over my rotted carcass,” he muttered. “Damn these ropes.”

“What is it that he wants?”

“Something he's not getting.”

“He wants you. Doesn't he?”

“Me? No. He wants my arse. Or, more to the point, he wants the hole in between.”

Meliahs help them all.

The door crashed open, but it wasn't Meliahs. Alfred entered the room, grabbed Sariah by the back of her weave, and dragged her out.

“Where are you taking her?” Kael said.

Alfred delivered a mind-numbing kick to Kael's head. “You won't care now.”

Alabara's marcher was more or less what Sariah expected. If Alfred was a camel, Orgos was a bull, a red bull with broad hips and a long coarse beard which dangled as a single clump from his chin. He wore his hair long, to hide the absence of his earlobe perhaps. But the brutality of his appearance was misleading. Sariah would not make the mistake of underestimating Orgos's intelligence. Practical wit brimmed in his hazel and gray eyes.

“So you're the banished stonewiser everybody is talking about?” Orgos leaned back in his chair and slammed his boots on the table. “Not a lot to look at presently. They say you're dangerous. But you don't look so dangerous to me.”

“What a difference a strand of rope makes,” Sariah said. “From where I stand, Orgos, you look the part of quite fearful.”

The man's impressive belly quaked with laughter. “They said you wield a sharp tongue. They're right. I've made a deal with your little mob out there. They're waiting for you. Aren't you going to beg for your life?”

“Beg? If you'll spare me, I'll gladly beg, but I have a feeling such begging will be worthless, so I had more a mind to use persuasion in the bargain.”

“It's the mob that needs to be persuaded. Care to try?”

“I'd much rather take my chances with you.”

“Now, sweetheart, you're confusing my good humor for mercy. You're as dead out there as you are in here, but your death is more profitable and less problematic to me if they kill you.”

“You may be right, but only in the short term.” Sariah was thinking on her feet. “Let's see. What have they offered you? I know. They offered not to tell the executioners that I was here, so you don't have to pay the huge fine incurred for having this conversation with me.”

Orgos didn't admit to it, but neither did he deny it.

“But a man with a keen business sense such as yourself wouldn't settle for erasing fines. No. They offered you more. A cut of my death ransom, I think.”

The man's smile was his only gloating admission.

“A large cut, more generous than the offer you received from the one who came to warn you about me.” Sariah paused. “Or could it be that you favored the mob because the other alliance was too dangerous even for the likes of you? Who was it, Orgos? Was it someone from the Guild?”

“You're clever,” Orgos said. “But that hardly counts for anything with me.”

“This might be a good opportunity for you,” Sariah said. “But it's not a secure venture. After all, they have to take my dead body back to the executioners before they can charge their mob's earnings. Then, they'd have to return to Alabara to bring your share. I hope they come back, because you might have the brawn to control Alabara, but beyond that, no other marcher in the Domain would take up your cause. How will you collect your share then?”

Orgos slammed his fist on the table. “I mind my business well enough. Did I ask for your advice? You're going to the mob.”

On the shelves behind Orgos's chair, standing among the flashy ornaments adorning his quarters—mostly copper and bronze trinkets and the occasional gold-plated forgery—Sariah spied their weapons belts, Kael's purse, and Leandro's game sack. It was a small consolation. At least she knew where the game was. If she could only devise a way of getting out of Orgos's lair alive. She had to think like the Guild wiser she had once been. What could she trade Orgos in exchange for their lives? The blurry outline of a plan began to take shape in her mind.

“I've been thinking.” Sariah strained to make her voice sound calm. “What if my life could profit you greater than my death?”

Orgos flashed a smug smile. “You have nothing of value to me. I don't like stones and I don't care about wising tales. You have no coin. We all know you live on Ars's charity. What could you possibly offer me?”

“You have a problem, a big problem, one you don't know you have. I'm the only one who can help you.”

“Lizard's gills. You're good. I almost believe you.”

“You should, if you want your little kingdom to prosper.”

“It won't do you any good regardless, but spit it out, you little viper.”

“The channel's arch stone, the one that holds the passage to Alabara. When was the last time it was wised?”

“Why do you ask?”

“I'd say about twenty years since the last wising? The lifespan of a good deck, wouldn't you agree?”

Orgos tapped his beefy fingers on the table. “I'm bored.”

“The wising is spent. The stone is weak. You've excavated it to a fragile thinness in your quest for red dye. Soon, it will no longer protect you from the rot flow.”

The man's eyes preyed on her face. “Liar. There's nothing wrong with Alabara's stone.”

“Haven't you noticed the new cracks fracturing the stone midway through the channel? Didn't you have to post a deep dead water warning by the gate where the bottom gave way? What's causing the palisade to tilt at odd angles in several places?”

“Stone cracks and shifts all the time.”

“Not as fast as it's happening here. Not as severely, either. Any day now, the channel bridge will collapse and the ridges will crumble. Alabara comes after that, and with it, the end to your rule. Heed my wiser's sworn warning.”

That caught Orgos's attention. His head snapped up and his eyes were on her again. Sariah withstood his glowering. In reality, Alabara needed an extended visit from a Hall of Masons’ stonewiser. Trained in the geology of sacred stones and experienced with quarries, a wiser from the Hall of Masons would have been much more helpful to Alabara. To be truthful, Sariah didn't know exactly how long Alabara's wising would last. It could be a day, a year, a century, but she could swear with certainty that the wising was weak. Sooner or later, Alabara would fall to the rot.

“Let me guess,” Orgos said. “You can fix the wising?”

“I can. In exchange for a few favors.”

“Wisers always want favors.”

“A deck, a bit of red dye for the road, our possessions returned, safe passage from the mob, our weapons, and our lives. No sense in working for free.”

The man threw his head back and roared a string of booming hacks. “The daring.” More laughter. “I can pay a wiser to come to Alabara. Why grant you all those favors?”

“Wisers aren't so common in the Domain. They're busy and far from here. It would take a lot of persuasion on your part to entice one here. Depending on your methods, you may not get the wiser to do as you wish.”

“Whereas you, coincidence of coincidences, are conveniently here.”

Sariah opted for silence. If she could convince Orgos of the need to wise the stones, she was as good as on her way. With her hands freed and a bit of stone, she could defeat the guards, fetch Delis, rescue Kael from the cell, get the game, meet the others, and get out of Alabara. It was not perfect, but it was a plan.

“It would take a long time for a wiser to come.” Orgos pulled at his beard thoughtfully. “But if what you say is true, and the stones are too weak to hold…”

Sariah held her breath and prayed to Meliahs that Orgos saw the need for her services.

“I tell you what, wiser. You've got yourself a deal. Wise Alabara's stones and you'll get your deck, enough red dye to help finance your wanderings, weapons, possessions, safe passage from the mob, and your life, as you asked. I swear it on my marcher's oath.”

Sariah thanked Meliahs from the bottom of her soul. Then she realized Orgos had omitted something important from her list. “You forget Kael.”

“Forget? No. Him, I'll keep.”

“My offer is all or nothing.”

“Don't be so quick. Consider your options carefully. I get Kael. You get safe passage from the mob. It's a fair trade.”

“Fair? How?”

“Will it change your mind if I told you I don't intend to kill him?”

“Oh? Why do you want him then?”

“The lad has a special place in my heart.”

The air flowed out of Sariah's lungs and didn't return.

“So, have we come to an agreement?”

Why was Orgos willing to negotiate with her when he had what he wanted most anyway? It didn't make sense. It was more like a bribe than a negotiation. He was almost rewarding her to go away and leave Kael behind. Unless Orgos wanted something only his deal with Sariah could achieve. Realization dawned on her. She resisted the terrible notion.

“You understand what I want from you, don't you?” Orgos said. “You are not dumb.”

Curse Meliahs and all her boulders. She had been playing Orgos's game all along. If Orgos killed Sariah, if he delivered her to the mob, he would lose whatever advantage he had over Kael. But if Kael thought Sariah would go free, Orgos believed Kael would submit to him. It was a cold, calculated game, and given the present circumstances, it was one Orgos could very well win.

Sariah set out to destroy Orgos's notions right away. “What makes you think Kael will yield to you on my account? I'm nothing but a stonewiser to him.”

“You lie again. You don't do it very well. I've wondered about you. There were rumors, talk he'd fallen prey to your witchcraft, that he'd left Ars for you, that he'd bled on the quartering block and almost died, all for you.”

The pain in her chest kept her silent.

“I wondered what unearthly power could do this to a man like Kael. Is it some sort of stonewiser trick? Is it sorcery? It has to be. Some say he took you by the ways of the blanket. That's where your value to me lies. You see, you'll bring Kael to me in the only way I couldn't have done it on my own—willingly.”

Fifteen

 

S
ARIAH HAD A
vision of Kael's body strung on the quartering block. No. It wasn't going to happen again. She swallowed the fear weakening her throat. When she spoke, her voice was strong, calm and clear. “You give me too much credit, Orgos. But I'm willing to try it your way if you'd like, as long as you stand by your oath to me.”

Surprise flashed in Orgos's eyes. Perhaps he had expected she would argue and plead. Perhaps he thought she would refuse his offer upfront. He had been ready to force her into his game a moment ago. Now he was shocked and not a little bit disconcerted.

“The man has been a good tool to my endeavors,” Sariah said. “But you must understand, nothing can stand in the way of the stone truth.”

“You wily bitch,” Orgos said with a hint of admiration. “What won't you do for your stones?”

Honesty was easy. “There's nothing I wouldn't do for the stones.”

“Is it true then, that he'll do whatever is necessary to save your life?”

It pained her to admit it.

Orgos's blunt features came alive with his emotions. She saw the hunger on his face, immense and insatiable, fixated on the one man his power couldn't grant him. Wistful hope flashed in his eyes as he beheld his fantasies coming true. Then the deep lines on his ruddy face set like dried mud. This was Kael they were talking about. She knew what Orgos was thinking.

“See this?” Orgos yanked a fistful of red hair out of the way to display the side of his head where his ear's intricate canal sunk into his head without the lobe's protection. “I asked for so little then, just a lick of the lobe to warm my loins.”

Sariah had to keep her mouth closed. A tear escaped Orgos's eyes. That Orgos had feelings was discovery enough; that his feelings for Kael were as strong as they seemed was unbelievable. It mattered little to Orgos that Kael had killed his men and burned his quarters. What mattered to him was that Kael had denied him his price and spurned his advances. For that, Kael had to pay him back, and not with his life.