Stonewiser (45 page)

The explosion cracked in the air like the strike of a whip.

“What was that?” Sariah asked.

“Over here.” The keeper was already sprinting towards the source, veering off the trail and into the wintering forest. Steam was issuing from a tiny fracture on the ground next to an old oak tree. A bit of bluish liquid bubbled from the ground, a smallish fountain that froze on contact with the frigid air.

“I've never seen anything like it,” Delis said.

Horatio Maliver shook his head. “Maybe lightning struck here?”

Sariah put a fistful of frozen dirt to her nose. She didn't recognize the scent. It was irritating and sulfurous, like the rot, but it was also saltier, like brine. The little fountain sputtered, fizzled, and died.

“I guess that's all there is to see here.” Delis followed the keeper back to Torkel and the Hounds guarding the trail.

Sariah was about to do the same when the ground swelled under her feet. Within seconds, she had risen four or five spans on a thin bubble of frozen earth. A gurgle resonated from within the ground. A jet of blue gas shot from the expanding hole in the bubble's middle.

The oak groaned and tilted to one side. Half its branches snapped in the air. Sariah grabbed on to a root. It broke. She dropped into the swelling's deep crease. For a moment, she lost sight of the sky, buried in the shifting crust. Smothered, she recalled the snail's spastic gut, the box's oppressing darkness. She tried to scream but inhaled a mouthful of frigid dirt instead.

The earth rose beneath her back, shooting her upwards. The sky. She struggled to reach the surface. A face. She groped for a handhold. Horatio Maliver? A stern pull of her hair. Pain. The stink of ozone. Light again.

“Hold on!”

They tumbled down the side of the swell and hit the icy ground hard. Clinging to each other, they scurried away from the thing. It had grown as tall as a tower and as wide as a pond, and it gargled loudly like a full-throated pelican.

Horatio groaned. She realized she had landed on top of him, entrenched between his arms. His heart was beating wildly against her own.

Delis came running from the trail. “My donnis, are you all right?”

“I think so,” Sariah rasped.

Sariah pushed herself to her feet and shook the dirt from her mantle. Horatio was slower getting up. She offered a hand.

“For a skinny thing, you've got some weight to your bones.” He took her hand and gave her a sober gray stare. “I thought you were gone, wiser.”

“Me too.” She helped him up.

Horatio stared at the pulsing boil. “What by the rot is it?”

Sariah was looking at him. “By the rot, I have no idea.”

Sariah had to give the Hounds credit for bringing her from the Bastions to her destination in twenty-seven nights. It was a great distance to cover, particularly when avoiding the main roads and dodging Arron's Shield. The keeper was a quiet, efficient leader. Every member of the outfit was fit, smart and brave, especially the keeper's pride, his brother Torkel, who fueled his fellow Hounds’ courage with songs of the Wisdom and single-minded intensity.

From afar, the place looked like a slumbering giant sprawled on a trash heap. The sparkle of the wall's black and white granite competed with the new snow's shimmer. The dirty town huddling around the walls contrasted with the keep's pristine beauty. But beauty and order were not equal to truth and devotion. Sariah had never wanted to see this place again. Yet here she was, staring at her past and future through a gentle screen of falling snow.

The beam landed squarely between those dreaded walls.

It was time to put her plan into action. The light was beginning to wane. The weather was worsening, promising a fitting night for her errand.

“Any brilliant ideas on how to get in there?” Sariah asked.

“Nary a one,” Horatio said. “But I can't wait to hear yours.”

Her voice's own softness surprised her. “Do you think Grimly has your son? Is that why you agreed to trail me?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Who did you try to bribe to find me? The forester? Alabara? I know Josfan followed me all along, but you're the better tracker.”

Even as Delis and the Hounds surrounded Horatio Maliver, he kept to his gamble. His gray eyes revealed nothing.

“Don't you trust me, Sariah? Don't you remember that you were my prisoner once and I treated you well? That we played snakes and scorpions every day? That our one night together, I did well by you?”

“You did well for yourself, Horatio. There's a big difference.”

“I saved your life the other day.”

“And I had to wonder why.”

“Do you really think I could betray you?”

He seemed so eager, so earnest that Sariah hesitated. It wasn't often she wanted to believe that however flawed, people could change; that friendship could offer a welcomed reprieve. It only happened on days like today, when her little belly weighted down her spine and her feet buckled from her lonely path; when fear lodged in her throat and danger, real and immediate, iced her every breath.

“Horatio,” Sariah said. “You found me only to betray me.”

Delis struck. With her executioner's efficiency, Horatio Maliver was out of his senses in an instant. Sariah had brought him as far as she could. She had given him every opportunity for redemption. He could have chosen to do right, to tell the truth. Meliahs knew, the journey had been long enough and he had had plenty of chances. Instead, he had chosen to undermine her before her friends and to continue with his deception. Even when he acted rightly, he did it for the wrong reasons. Sariah was sure he had saved her life because he had already sold it to Grimly.

He had been a calculated risk all along, but now she couldn't afford the danger of having him with her anymore. The Hounds retrieved their newest defector from the ground and secured him with knotted ropes. For the time being, Horatio Maliver would remain under guard at this very spot, screening Sariah's movements with his stillness. Soon thereafter, he would be on his way to spend the rest of his life serving the Hounds and learning the Wisdom's intricacies. Sariah couldn't help a sense of disappointed sadness. It was a better fate than the alternative. Or was it?

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Sariah asked.

“For a drop of your blood,”
the keeper said.

“For a lick of your life,”
Torkel added.

Meliahs wouldn't be so kind as to grant her a break today. “How about you?”

“I go where you go, my donnis.”

“It's nowhere nice, I can assure you,” Sariah said.

“A trophy garden of noses and ears.”

Were they really going to do this?

She handed out the small pouches she had carefully prepared. “Do you all remember what to do?”

Everyone nodded.

“Timing is very important.”

What did you say to men and women you were sending to die?

“May you die well,” the keeper said.

Thirty-two

 

S
ARIAH FOUND THE
well shack almost solely by its scent, a squat, dilapidated hut made of mud and rotting wood, leaning crookedly against the keep's wall. It was no bigger than a Domainer deck. She had made a calculated guess about its location outside the wall. She could have saved herself the trouble. Her nose alone would have guided her true.

The night was late. The business had been closed for hours. Sariah wasn't surprised when she spotted the watchmen. The Hounds neutralized them easily. Bound and senseless, they wouldn't be found until the next day at the earliest. Of course, the lowly watchmen didn't warrant a key for the well house, so the Hounds went to work on the padlock.

“This is a well house?” Delis whispered while the Hounds wrestled with the lock. “I wouldn't drink a drop in this town if it came from here.”

“Dead water would be the safer choice.” Sariah followed the keeper into the well shack and secured the door behind them. In the darkness, Torkel and his Hounds bent over the next set of bolts locking the well's wooden enclosure. Sariah uncovered her banishment bracelet and held her arm over the locks to give them light. It took the Hounds but a moment to pry open the trap door. A reeking cloud of methane burst from the well.

Delis pinched her nose. “It stinks worse than the rot.”

“That's why I insisted we all bring Domainer weaves.” Sariah stripped her mantle and set it aside. She was already wearing the weave beneath. She took a moment to fasten the scarf over her face. The others followed suit.

They climbed down the iron steps anchored into the well's walls. The descent was not difficult, but the rising fumes were unbearable. Sariah had to master the revulsion that threatened to undo her. She tapped on the stones tentatively, scattering the millions of cockroaches crawling on the wall. Her suspicions were confirmed. The keep's powerful wall wising didn't extend this far out. It made sense. The Guild's arrogance at work. No Guild wiser in their right mind would conceive tampering with, let alone voluntarily come close to, the stinking well.

She arrived at the last step on the ladder. She put in her foot, her ankle, her knee. Curse her luck. It was pretty full. She found bottom when the muck reached her waist. Talk about nasty wading. She started up the gradual incline of the dark and narrow channel which fed the well. At times, she had to turn on her side to fit. The others followed in single line.