The Fire Mages' Daughter (16 page)

Despite the argument, Ly’s henchmen roughly grabbed my arms and hauled me to my feet, forcing a scream from me. “Shit, that hurts! Let go of me, you
animals
! Ow! Gods, that fucking hurts!”

They couldn’t understand, of course. It was Ly who whimpered, hands clutching his head in distress. “Don’t hurt her! You mustn’t hurt her! Don’t drag her, she will walk… stop it, stop it! Oh, ancestors, you will break her arms!”

They took no notice of him, either, half dragging and half carrying me along, while Ly dashed off in front, then back, then forwards again, like a demented fly. A trail of still-voluble protestors followed, out of my sight.

Then I was bumped up stone steps, my shins banging painfully. I was thankful for my winter riding gear, chosen for its warmth while flying, but well-padded enough to protect me from too many bruises.

More shouting from Ly-haam, and the gaggle of loud argument was left behind. Now it was just Ly and his men. There were only two holding me, and I wasn’t sure if there were more. Perhaps it was just those two. Time for an experiment.

A sudden jerk and few wriggles revealed the truth: firstly, that two well-muscled men were more than adequate to restrain one girl untrained in the art of fighting. And secondly, that there were several more just like them padding along at the rear, ready to step into the fray whenever needed.

They were grim-faced men, with something vicious about them. After my pathetic attempt to escape, one of them slapped me so hard I wasn’t sure where I was for a moment. My head spun round, and I tasted blood on my lip. Ly-haam moaned softly, and whispered, “Please, please don’t hurt her.” Then the dragging resumed, more roughly than before.

Another flight of steps, and then, mercifully, a door was thrown open and I was pushed, positively hurled into a great void, so that I ended up in a crumpled heap some distance from the door, my head thumping against a rug. For a moment, I couldn’t catch my breath. My stomach heaved, and I could do nothing but lie still and wait until I felt better.

As I huddled on the floor, there was yet another argument going on outside the door. I heard Ly’s anxious tones, and another, deeper voice, but I had no idea what they were saying. I didn’t much care.

After a while, with an exclamation, boots stomped across the stone floor and a hand shoved me round and flipped me over onto my front. Terror flooded through me, but I was exhausted and helpless, and had no power to fight back. A few quick tugs on my bonds and the rope snapped. I was free! The boots stomped away again, the door slammed and a lock grated.

Not free at all.

Nor was I alone. Ly-haam was still pacing about, this way and that, back and forth, circling nearer to me, then away again.

“Princess?” he whispered. “Are you all right?” But he didn’t wait to hear my answer.

I took a deep breath. Pain washed through my limbs and chest, making me cough. I was going to be bruised all over, worse than when I’d fallen off my horse as a child. But I could move again. I struggled to sit up, then to kneel, and finally, with a huge effort, to stand.

Once I was upright, with blood flowing through my limbs again now that the ropes had gone, I soon felt better. I wasn’t quite up to an escape plan, but I looked about me for possibilities all the same.

My spirits quickly sank. It was not a promising room, despite its massive size. The walls, floor and ceiling were all stone, and the windows were barred. There was one double door, where Ly-haam prowled like a hungry lion, and several smaller doors – a bucket room, most likely, and some closets. The furniture was monstrous, huge and over-decorated, designed to fill the space rather than for comfort. Every available surface was laden with ornaments – vases, pots, mirrors, carved wooden stands whose purpose I couldn’t even guess. And right in the centre, dominating the room, the most enormous covered bed I’d ever seen, the posts carved with horrible gargoyles.

By the nervy way Ly-haam was behaving, I didn’t think we’d get to the bed. Gods, he was irritating, hopping about from one foot to the other. I wondered why he didn’t just get on with it.

“Stop prowling,” I said.

“Princess, I—”

“Don’t call me that! I’m not a princess, and I have a name!”

He flapped his hands appeasingly. “Sorry, sorry, sorry.”

“You’re not sorry at all. You had me brought here, didn’t you? You
kidnapped
me, and now you’re going to rape me.”

“No! No, no, no!” He rocked back and forth in anguish, tucking his hands under his arms.

“Really? Then go away. Leave me in peace. I don’t want you anywhere near me, Ly. Understand? I don’t want anything to do with you. Get out of here, right now. Go on.”

My rage carried me nearer to him, and he backed away, but he was drawn to me, too. Had I been less angry, I could have pitied him, for he couldn’t help himself. Yet he’d chosen to bring me to this room, to shut himself in here with me. He could have gone away. Perhaps he could still go away, although with every moment his will to resist grew less. I saw it in his eyes, the desperate desire to give in.

Then, with a sudden lunge, he reached for me.

I skipped backwards, and reached for the first thing within range – an ugly vase – and hurled it at him. “Leave me alone! Don’t touch me! I don’t want this, I don’t want you anywhere near me.”

He had no power to comply. “I… have… to,” he groaned, shaking his head back and forth as if trying to dispel the idea. But still he came on.

I threw everything at him until the floor was littered with broken glass and pottery. I screamed, I cried, I pleaded with him. I can’t imagine where I found the energy, but perhaps my fury gave me the strength. It was a waste of time.

In the end he caught me and clutched my wrist and then I was swept up in the same madness that drove him. I had just enough sanity left to drag him to the bed, to avoid the lethal sea of shattered glass around our feet. And even as I hurled clothes aside and clung to him and begged him to do whatever he wanted to me, I cried bitter tears of rage and frustration.

Afterwards, he rolled away from me, his shoulders heaving as he sobbed like a child.

~~~~~

I was so exhausted, both in body and spirit, that even the magic inside me wasn’t enough to prevent me from sleeping. I woke once in the night, disorientated for a moment by the vast bed with its sagging mattress, velvet draperies and carved images from nightmares. Was I dreaming? But then with a bolt of grief, I remembered.

Dawn had already coloured the sky, giving me light enough to see by. All over the floor lay the debris from my destructive storm last night. I pulled on my boots and tiptoed through the devastation to find the bucket room, banging this door and that, not caring if I woke Ly-haam. But when I returned, he was not in the bed at all. It took me some moments to spot him, curled up on the floor in a blanket near one of the windows, his arms wrapped round his head like some kind of feral animal. He was such a strange boy.

On a small table beside the bed, a tray held bread, cheese and fruit, cloth-wrapped, with a jug of water. I ate greedily, famished, and drank a little, and then slept again.

The next time I woke, the sun was high in the sky. It must be mid-morning at least. Ly-haam was gone and the floor had been swept clean. My clothes, cast aside in last night’s frenzy, were neatly folded into a pile.

I washed and dressed, then attempted to braid my tangled hair. I soon gave it up. I’d always had servants or waiting women to do such things for me. Besides, I didn’t want to waste time on my appearance. I was alone, with an opportunity to explore. But the big double doors were firmly locked.

As I tried the handle, a murmuring of voices filtered through from outside. Several men and at least one woman, quiet at first, but increasingly raucous. Such argumentative people! I had lived at Kingswell for six years without hearing so many arguments as these people had managed in a matter of hours.

The door opened abruptly, so that I had to jump aside as Ly-haam burst into the room. This time, he wore the peasant’s clothes, not the rich velvets and lace.

“Go away!” he snapped. “I am the Chosen, I make my own decisions. You advise me, that’s all. Now leave me alone.”

The woman started to speak, her voice shrill, but he slammed the door in her face. Turning, he smiled at me. “Ah, you are awake at last. I bring food for you.” He set the tray he carried on a nearby dresser. “Oatmeal, see? Some strawberries, and in here is sour milk.”

“Sour milk? That sounds disgusting.”

“Oh no, it is very pleasant. And see, I have brought your herbs. It is our mixture, but it is very effective, I believe. I thought you would not want to—”

“I definitely
don’t
want a child,” I said, then added spitefully, “Especially not from you.”

He didn’t react to that, merely offering me the mug of steaming liquid, his face solemn. I sipped it gingerly. Some herbs against pregnancy were foul tasting, and my usual mixture was quite bitter, but this was pleasant, with a fruity tang to it. It crossed my mind that he’d given me something different, but perhaps that was just my suspicious nature. I had no way of knowing.

“Who was that woman?” I asked, as he laid out the food on a table. “One of your advisors?”

“My mother.” He lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug, as if to say: yes, she’s dreadful, but what can I do? “When you have eaten, I will take you to my island, if you wish. No, do not be alarmed…” He lifted his hands palm outwards. “I promise I will not touch you. But you will not wish to be locked up here all the time, and I need to get away too. It is the only way to get any peace.”

~~~~~

It took a fraught half hour to get from the castle to the jetty where Ly had a boat waiting. His mother and a group of men harangued us every step of the way, while the vicious-looking men who had bound me the sun before walked alongside, ropes and bows and knives at the ready, in case I made an ill-advised attempt to escape.

They needn’t have worried. I wasn’t stupid enough to try anything, not here in the middle of enemy territory. Even if I’d had a horse and supplies and knew the way, it would take moons to journey back to Bennamore from here. No, my escape would have to be the same way I’d arrived, aback an eagle, and that was going to take some planning.

So I followed meekly behind Ly-haam, stepping into the boat willingly enough, and ignoring the perpetual shouting around me. No wonder he wanted to get away! If that were my mother, I’d have murdered her long since. Yet he bore it with admirable patience, mostly. Perhaps that was the custom here, that parents were to be respected, even when they were a nightmare.

As Ly pushed off and settled down with the oars, gradually the voices faded to a low buzz in the distance and finally disappeared altogether. Then it was just the slap of the oars on the water, the creaking of the boat and the distant calls of a curlew. It was very peaceful, the sun warm on my arms, the breeze gentle. Far off on the horizon a dark line suggested storms later, but for now the lake was benign.

I felt surprisingly well. Perhaps it shouldn’t have been such a surprise, since the previous couplings with Ly had left me abuzz with energy, but I’d taken quite a beating the sun before. I’d expected bruises, aches and perhaps a broken rib or two. Instead I was remarkably healthy. Even my wrists, which should have had some residual marks from the ropes that bound me, were unblemished. It was strange. Perhaps Ly’s magic had healed me. Yet he had come to Bennamore to find mages with the power to heal.

There were hundreds of islands scattered about this end of the lake, but Ly threaded his way confidently between them, to come eventually to one with a small jetty and a paved path leading up into a thick belt of trees.

“This way,” he said, his expression eager. “I think you will like it here. I hope so. At least it is quiet.”

After a while, the trees thinned to reveal a grassy slope, and near the bottom squatted a large stone-built house with curvaceous walls, gazing out to yet more islands.

“You can’t see the shore from here,” I said.

That brought a half-smile to his face. “Indeed.”

“But what if they need you. How will they signal to you?”

He looked puzzled. “Why would they need me?”

“You’re their leader, aren’t you?”

“Well, yes, in a way. And no, also.”

I gave it up. The complexities of Blood Clan politics were beyond me, and with luck I would be away from here before too long and would never see this unsettling boy again.

Ly led me round the house to the far side, where an upper wing jutted outwards on giant pillars to create a covered terrace.

“Here,” Ly said, as proudly as a Kingswell matron showing off her mansion. “This is where I live.”

I stared around, bemused. To one side of the terrace, a square of blackened stones marked an open fire. Nearby sat an array of cooking pots and supports, knives and bowls. Seats were cut into the low walls, and a heap of furs suggested a sleeping place. There was no other furniture or equipment visible. It didn’t surprise me that he liked to sleep out of doors, but it seemed a bit spare, even for him.

“You live here?”

He nodded. “When I can. I am supposed to live in the castle – where you were locked up – but I dislike it. I feel too – I do not know the best word. Like being wrapped too tight.”

“Caged? Confined? Penned? Trapped?”

“Yes. All of those. As if I cannot breathe. I do not like walls around me.” He took a shuddering breath, but then gave me a watery smile. “Well. It is better here. Now, Prin—
Drina
, I shall go and find some food. Do not wander too far in case you get lost. I shall be back before noon.”

He slid aside one of the stone seats to reveal storage beneath. Taking bow, hunting knife and some net bags, he disappeared.

Oh, the pleasure of being alone, after the last couple of suns. It was a relief to see him go. Finally, no one demanding anything from me, controlling me, forcing me to do hateful things.

Now that I had slept and eaten well, I was full of energy. I roamed around the outside of the house, where a few bedraggled shrubs suggested a garden had once been tended. I dug my fingers into the earth, but to my surprise there was nothing – no buzz of energy, no slight awareness of some possibility of magic. It was dead, quite dead.

Then I became curious about this strange house. Why was it here? The Blood Clans never built in stone, so it must pre-date them, but the history books spoke only of nomadic tribes here in earlier times.

The terrace gave me few clues, but the house itself beckoned me to explore. It looked odd to my eyes, curving sinuously about with hardly a straight line to be seen. The terrace was a semi-circle, the pillars bulged and narrowed and swirled, and even the windows were elliptical. The very walls of the building oozed round corners, and instead of doors, sections of wall bent round and overlapped each other.

Inside, I found more curvy walls that divided the space into randomly shaped areas, each one flowing into the next. I tried to imagine the rooms filled with furniture, with servants busy cooking or children running about, but failed. Then the book-lover in me wanted to put in bookcases, yet those twisty walls offered nowhere sensible. There were odd shelves and seats, and even one or two structures that could have been tables, but nowhere straight enough for a row of books.

Nor were there any ovens or sinks, or holes in the floor where plumbing might once have existed. There were only smooth walls and floors, and arched ceilings, and no visible joins anywhere. It was as if the whole house had been carved from a single piece of stone. But perhaps there was a better explanation. My newly sharpened awareness of magic told me that a trace of it lingered here, very faint, perhaps very old, but still clinging. This house had been built with magic.