Stonewiser (48 page)

“There is no wisdom greater than the Wisdom.”

“Why are you sending me away?”

“Fierceness in all things. Killing AND caring.”

“But—”

“We have to secure the stone at all cost.”

“Don't make me do this,” the keeper said between his teeth.

Apparently, she was going to have to. She unsheathed her knife and pricked her forearm above the wrist. “Drink.” She offered her welling blood. “Drink!”

Ilian looked like she was about to vomit.

The keeper's tongue lapped slowly at first, but then his resignation turned to anger and his lips sealed on the wound and sucked hard, a small, painful vengeance.

“That's enough.” She snatched her arm away.

He fastened her pouch to his belt and went to the rope tamely, defeated, dejected. Sariah felt his pain, the clash of duty and loyalty, friendship and obligation, pride and submission.

“May you die well, my friend,” she said.

The steel returned to his eyes. “And you.”

“Are you really not going to jump?” Ilian gaped.

Grimly smiled. “Didn't you hear what she said? She can't.”

“Why not?”

“It's none of your concern,” Sariah said.

“Oh, but it is,” Grimly said. “Do you forget who gave you the means to achieve your ends?”

Sariah willed the Prime Hand to keep her mouth shut. She wanted to seal her lips with the heat of the bursting stone. Yet she still needed the woman to get out of the keep.

“She's going to kill us,” Ilian stuttered hysterically. “Why else would she stay behind?”

“Don't be silly,” the mistress said. “She won't do anything of the sort. She needs us.”

“For what? She kills us and she jumps.”

“Are you really that blind, Ilian?”

“Is she afraid of breaking her legs?”

“No, not her legs,” Grimly said. “She's afraid of breaking the baby in her.”

Hackles rose on the back of Sariah's neck. An inexplicable urge to tear out the mistress's throat with her own teeth left her shaking with fury. Instinctively, she reached for the amplifying stone in her pocket and strengthened the protective weave around her womb. For as long as no one knew, the babe had been safely hidden in her body. Now, the cunning witch knew.

The mistress smiled. “You carry small, I give you that. But you're showing.”

“She's—?”

“Aye. Our dear Sariah is with child.”

Ilian stared. “You mean
willingly?”

“What are you?” Grimly said. “Maybe four months along?”

Meliahs help her. The mistress was fingering the stone on her neck, studying Sariah's body as if she were a foaling mare.

“Down the stairs and to the right.” Sariah conveyed a spark of heat to the hostages’ stones as added persuasion. Ilian gasped. Sariah caught a glimpse of Julean's guards retreating at the bend ahead of her. She picked up her pace.

Mistress Grimly spoke. “If you're thinking about escaping the same way you and your New Blood friends did the last time—”

“Be quiet.” Sariah had no doubt that the underground passage had been found and blocked after her escape.

“Why are you so eager to leave?” the mistress said. “The keep is your home. The Guild is your kin. You're welcome to stay here and live in the safety you deserve. Aren't you tired?”

She was tired. Of the journey, of the intrigues, of the intricacy, of running away and seeking and planning and hurting and anticipating, of knowing and not knowing, of trusting and not trusting. She also knew that she had to get out of there. She turned into the secondary corridors behind the kitchens. The mistresses were lost in the maze of narrow servant passages, but because she had spent hours on end doing penance in the kitchen, Sariah knew them by heart.

“Even if you find a way out,” the mistress said, “Arron will be waiting for you on the other side.”

“Then we'll see how much he values Ilian here.”

Ilian croaked. She didn't know either.

“Understand, child,” the Prime Hand said. “As things stand, I can't protect you from Arron if you go outside the keep.”

Sariah had no delusions that anyone would protect her here. It was up to her now. Up ahead, she spotted her destination—the beggars’ vent. It was one of a set of four small, square openings in the wall, typical of the keep's architecture, designed to circulate fresh air through the stifling back kitchens. Over the years, overworked servants had sneaked in bundles of kindling into the kitchens without having to maneuver the stairs and the long march to the sheds. Under the cover of the encroaching town's back alleys, beggars offered bark, dry sticks, cones, and the likes in exchange for leftovers. As a child, Sariah had been a party to a few of those exchanges.

Idle servants scattered like roaches when they saw the black robes. Sariah had been right. Delis and the Hounds couldn't sneak out this way. The wall's protective wising wouldn't allow a living body to pass through the vents. But with a little work, she would.

She put a kitchen stool under the vent and placed the two small stones she had prepared at either side of the window.

“You first,” she said to Ilian, “and don't even think about fleeing when you get to the other side, because my mind can reach a ways.”

Ilian climbed on the stool reluctantly. “But the wising. It won't let me pass—”

“Do as I say.”

“You've wised those two stones to serve as a buffer, haven't’ you?” Grimly said. “They can't affect the wising in the stone, but they can affect the empty space in between. They're triggered by your wiser core. That's why you can get Ilian and yourself through, but not your friends. Marvelous. Well done.”

As if Sariah needed the Prime Hand's praise. She climbed on the stool herself, gave Ilian a boost to make it through the vent, and watched as the woman cursed, slid headfirst down the wall and landed clumsily in the mud.

“You've learned so much since the last time we met,” Grimly said. “You're a treasure, a wiser marvel.”

“Not that it did me any good when I lived here.” Sariah braced herself at either side of the vent. A little heave and she would be through.

“You must understand,” the mistress said. “It's difficult for me. I can't let you go.”

“You have no choice.”

“But I do have a choice,” the mistress said. “An easy one.” She struck.

Pain burst from Sariah's ankle and shot up her spine, a bolt of stinging fire. She looked down to find the mistress's hand clutching her leg. Damn the witch, she had killed herself. Sariah commanded the stone to explode.

There was no explosion, no burst of stone and flesh. The only thing that happened was that the strength ebbed from her body, until her hands withered like dead flowers and her knees failed. Next she knew she was on the floor in Grimly's arms.

Why hadn't the stone burst? Sariah's eyes shifted from the mistress's wrinkled breast to the new faces appearing around her. Guards. The memory of the Prime Hand's long fingers toying with the stone at her neck flashed in her mind. The witch had disabled the stone's inscription. How?

“Don't struggle,” the mistress said. “Try to relax. That was a very clever plan you had. But you made one small miscalculation, my dear. Do you know what it was?”

The world was spinning. Her spine was on fire.

The mistress smiled. “You forgot that you're not the only one capable of learning new tricks.”

Thirty-five

 

F
OR DAYS
S
ARIAH
sat in an isolated cell awaiting news of her fate. The guards had stripped her stones and weapons and manacled her to the wall, just in case she had devised a way to wise the lock away, she supposed. Unfortunately, she hadn't. Frustrated, she watched the silvery haze's advance on her bracelet's red crystals, cursing every precious hour wasted in her solitary confinement.

She had plenty of time to chide herself for her mistakes. Despite knowing that the Prime Hand was dangerous, she had fallen prey to the witch's cunning. Grimly had used the last year and a half wisely. How many of Sariah's wising discoveries had she mastered? What other new or ancient skills had she incorporated into her impressive capabilities?

She had been so close to making her escape. She had secured the prism, but she had to wise it, soon, before it was too late. What if the executioners learned she was trapped by the Guild? Worse, what if they assumed she was dead? She couldn't know for sure, but there was a high probability that the keep walls’ formidable wising could prevent Mia from sensing Sariah at all. She had to find a way to get a message to Kael. She wasn't ready to surrender Ars and neither should he.

Why wasn't she dead? She should be. Her death would effectively end the threat to the Guild's rule and the search for stone truth. It made no sense that she lived on. And what about her baby? She had pledged to herself that if she was able to finish her business, she would find a way to sit out of danger and give the child a chance. Instead, in a moment of stupidity, she had forfeited both their lives.

A clatter of steps sounded outside. Finally, after all those days, a key turned in the lock and the door opened. Wordlessly, Julean and his guards flooded the cell. She was trussed, gagged, hooded and dragged down the steps to yet another room. She recognized the place when the hood came off. The black granite room. The Mating Hall. Word was that Guild wisers came here when ordered to procreate. She was already well on her way. Why had they brought her here?

The chamber was as warm as she remembered. The damage the beam had done in the ceiling had been repaired. Julean's guards forced her into an oversize stone chair, a strange contraption sporting an angular back and a wide seat with a hole in the middle. Fighting them only gained Sariah a cuff to the face. None too gently, they strapped her hands above her head and then roped her knees and calves to the chair's massive legs. Julean checked the bindings before he and his men marched out of the chamber. The two strange sisters stood to one side, holding hands, watching her with oddly rounded eyes.

“I'm afraid it's not very comfortable,” the white sister said.

“A birthing chair is practical rather than comfortable,” the dark sister said.

A birthing chair?
Why was she strapped to a birthing chair? Her baby was hardly half-grown in her womb and she was nowhere near her term. Sweat trickled down Sariah's back. What were they going to do?

Grimly swept into the room like a queen entering her castle. “What a sight,” she said, a little breathlessly. “The dream of a goddess. The gift of a lifetime. Hello, Sariah, welcome to the Mating Hall.” With a twist and a tug, she ripped the gag out of Sariah's mouth.

Sariah moistened her parched lips. “Why have you brought me here?”

“Patience, child,” Grimly said. “All will come to pass, as it must, in time. I thought perhaps you'd want to talk before we proceed. You might want to convince me that you're sorry. You could recant the bulk of your wisings. I could be fair, and you could be useful.”

“Useful?” Sariah said. “How?”

“You could trust me,” Grimly said. “You would, if only you knew how well I love you.”