Stonewiser (45 page)

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.

“My donnis,” Delis whispered. “Is this what I think it is? A shit hole?”

“The biggest around.”

“Why would the Guild want to collect their shit in this hole?”

“The dung trade. It's quite profitable.”

“The Guild sells their muck to these impoverished townspeople?” the keeper asked.

“By the pound of slush.”

“But, my donnis, don't these people shit on their own?”

Sariah had to chuckle.

“For the crops, isn't it?” the keeper said.

“Aye, to produce the Guild's required yields, the land around here needs the help.”

“You'd think the people should be weary of taking the Guild's crap,” Delis grumbled. “And now you tell me they pay for the Guild's shit too? They deserve the stink.”

“Shit is coin and the Guild likes coin.”

“What is coin but contempt's truest measure?”
Torkel murmured from down the line.

“How come you know so much about this, my donnis?”

“Pledge duty. Privy pipes.”

Sariah had a memory of herself as a child, dangling from a rope strung through the privy seat, scouring the foul walls after a brutal bout with Mistress Ilian.

“Don't even think about stepping away from the rope,” Ilian had said. “The gutter is deadly, that is, if the rats and the roaches don't eat you first.”

She had never forgotten Ilian's sneer as she lowered a terrified Sariah into the stinking pit. She had used those memories to come up with this plan. She hoped she remembered everything.

“I'm glad I'm an executioner,” Delis was saying. “The only time I get to clean shit is when my charge's death spurt drips on my boots.”

The Hounds chuckled. They really appreciated Delis's warped sense of humor. They sobered up quickly. Up ahead, the red glow of Sariah's bracelet illuminated a thick set of bars built into a narrow arch, dividing a rounded chamber from the channel where they stood. It was as she remembered. It wasn't customary, and it wasn't necessary to do the job, but Ilian, the cruel witch, had dropped her all the way down there to frighten her beyond terror. The stinking muck pool trickled fluidly between the bars.

“Now the real work begins,” Sariah said.

“We'll need to pry those bars from the wall,” Delis said.

“This arch sits beneath the powerfully wised keep's walls. Touch the stone that anchors these bars and you'll die.”

“Will you use your bursting stones, my donnis?”

“Rattle the bars and you'll die as well. An explosion in this place will kill us all.”

Torkel fumbled through his pack. “We'll use the goddess's breath.”

“Fire isn't the best of ideas down here,” Sariah said. “The gas here is as combustible as the belch, as prone to explosion as a rot pit. Give the Guild some credit, Torkel. They weren't risking the keep in the least when they conceded to this narrow gutter.”

With his enthusiasm brutally curbed, Torkel had the grace to look chastened and offended at the same time.

The keeper began to ask, “Then how will we—”

“This is a matter for stone.”

Sariah worked quickly, attaching the stones she had brought onto the bars with weaved twine soaked in frog slime. The grill was about two spans wide and consisted of four vertical bars crossed by a dozen or so horizontal bars. She was careful not to touch the stone wall, placing her eight stones at the innermost bars’ crucible, opposite to each other and above the muck line. She worked them two at a time, pressing her palms against the amplifying stones she placed in between, seeking the stones’ primal heat and stoking it with her mind.

She had done this once before, in the Shield's fortress. It had taken her days. Now she was better prepared. Not only had she selected the darkest basalts she had been able to find, but the addition of the amplifying stone served as a speeding catalyst. Within a few moments, the first set of bars began to glow as red as her bracelet. As soon as the bars gave way, Sariah folded the melted metal out of the way with her weaved hands, and moved down to the next pair.

Delis whistled. Even the Hounds were impressed.

She was a bit dizzy when she was done. “Careful now.” She climbed over the lower bars and slid sideways through the narrow opening. She motioned for the others to follow. “Whatever you do, don't rattle the bars.” She breathed again only after the last man passed through.