True Magics (32 page)

“After last night how can you even
think
you’ll get to stay out of it, George?” demanded Thomas.

“It’s not me I’m worried about!”

“It
is
you you’re worried about!” Thomas snapped, barely remembering to keep his voice down. “Since this whole mess started it’s been you and your reputation you’ve been worried about!”

“I don’t want to kill anyone else!” George bellowed, shaking the room. Then his whole body began trembling. George looked down at his hands in horror, then collapsed onto one of the benches. “Oh, by the Four. Not again. Not now.” The trembles became shakes, and George clutched at the table.

“George?” Eileen’s voice was filled with alarm. She put her hand on her brother’s shoulder.

“DON’T TOUCH ME!” George shoved her away hard and jumped to his feet, both hands in fists. Eileen flew back, slammed into the cupboard and hit the floor. Thomas and Henry jumped to their feet.

George stared at his sister, his face pale and tears in his eyes. Then he turned and slammed his fists against the table, making it jump. Eileen’s hand went over her mouth. Thomas, unsure what to do, moved toward George.

“Don’t!” said Henry. “Stay back!”

George’s fists crashed down on the table again and again until the long boards of it cracked. His jaws gritted tight together and tears streamed down his face. Then his legs gave out and he collapsed on the floor, burying his face in his hands.

Long, racking sobs shook George’s body. Henry circled around him and sat down on the floor out of reach. Thomas helped Eileen to her feet. She clung to him, her own face white with shock.

“How long?” asked Henry. “Did they start right after we got back, or just recently?” George didn’t answer. “You should have told me, George.”

“Told you what?” George’s voice came, broken and hollow, from behind his hands. “That I lie in bed crying like a baby every night? That half the time I sit in the back of the forge with the door shut, shaking in the dark? That sometimes I go to the tavern in the middle of the morning because the smell of the fire reminds me of the caves? That it’s turned me from a man into a wreck?”

“Yes,” said Henry. “All of it.”

“What good would that have done?”

“You wouldn’t have been alone,” said Henry. “Eileen, go get Linda.”

“No!” George tried to grab Henry, but couldn’t reach. “She can’t see me like this!”

“She can if she actually loves you,” said Henry. “Does she?”

George didn’t answer.

“Henry,” said Eileen. “What’s going on?”

“It happens,” said Henry. “Sometimes after a man’s first battle, sometimes after a war. I knew one knight who was fine for years before it happened to him.”

“What is it?”

“Horror,” said Henry. “It catches a man and holds him, rather than going away. Then this happens. George. George!”

The last one snapped out as a command. George’s head came up. “It will be all right,” said Henry. “It takes time, but it will be all right. Eileen needs to get Linda because we need to go and you shouldn’t be alone right now. Do you trust Linda?”

George hesitated. Then he nodded.

“Good. Eileen, go get her. Tell her your brother is ill and that we need her help. Go now before she goes to service.”

Eileen went, her feet clattering on the stairs as she ran out.

“I didn’t know,” said Thomas. “George I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”

George looked wretched and didn’t say anything.

“We’ll find another place to go,” said Thomas. “We can take them back to our apartment.”

“No,” said George. He didn’t raise his eyes, but he shook his head. “No. You bring them here.”

“Are you sure?”

“I won’t have them hurt,” said George. “I don’t want anyone else hurt.”

Thomas nodded. “Thank you, George.”

***

Thomas and Henry managed to get George off the floor and upstairs to his bed before Linda came over. Linda took one look at him and promised to sit with George for the day.

“I didn’t even think about it,” said Henry on the way back to their apartment. “I just thought he was tired of being involved. The more fool me.”

“Will he be all right?” asked Eileen.

Henry hesitated. “I’ve seen men who had it worse pull out of it.”

Thomas frowned. “And?”

Henry sighed. “And I’ve seen some not get better.” He took Eileen’s hand. “Your brother is very strong. He’ll pull through this.”

“What… what do I do?”

“Wait,” said Henry. “Listen to him. Make him take time with Linda, and get out of the house and around people. It seems to help.”

They were silent for the rest of the walk back to the apartment. The last of Thomas’s energy was rapidly fading, and he wanted nothing more than to collapse. Eileen was stumbling as she walked, and Henry was looking glassy-eyed with exhaustion.

“We sleep until dinner,” said Henry. “Then we get organized.”

Eileen and Thomas curled up together in Thomas’s bed, holding one another until they both fell asleep. Thomas drifted in and out of sleep, dreams of blood and violence chasing him through the day.

At dinner time a messenger delivered a small sealed envelope. Inside was a map of the Church of the High Father’s main administrative building with the note:
Back door.
Go left. Third corridor, all the way through, then right, fourth door
.
Keys on peg at bottom of stairs. Burn this map before you go.
The three stared at the map until they’d memorized it and threw it on the fire.

Thomas and Eileen went out to buy dinner and came back to find Henry cutting up one of his robes to make black scarves for their heads and faces. As they ate Henry taught Thomas and Eileen simple hand signs so they could work without speaking, and touch signs to use in the dark.

After the second bell of the night, they left.

Just after the midnight bell, Thomas stood in the alley behind the High Father’s administrative building, his rapier and dagger in his hands. Eileen and Henry were right behind him.

“Anything?” whispered Eileen.

Thomas once more scanned the dark alley between him and the door, as well as the windows of the building in front of them. There were some lights flickering from the higher windows—lamps from those working late, Thomas guessed—but he couldn’t see the inner light of anyone, or anything, alive. “Nothing. Wait until I get the door open, then follow.”

Thomas forced a deep breath into his lungs, then a second. When he was fairly sure his heart wasn’t beating hard enough to be heard outside his body, he stepped across the alley. He turned in a circle, checking the rooftops and windows of the buildings behind him. No one was there, either. He sank down to his haunches in front of the door. It was old-fashioned, with a large keyhole. Praying he was remembering Sir Walter’s lessons correctly, Thomas pulled out his lock-picks and began working.

It took longer than he wanted, and Thomas felt like he was going to be caught at any moment. Finally, he heard a click and when he turned the handle, the door opened. Thomas let out a breath he’d been holding far longer than he should and pushed the door the rest of the way. It swung silently open.

Thomas stepped inside and was surprised to see candles in sconces lighting the corridor. He listened as hard as he could. There was nothing. Thomas leaned back outside and waved. Eileen and Henry slipped across the alley and inside. Thomas pointed at himself and circled his hand once—Henry’s signal for scouting.

He slipped ahead to the end of the short corridor and looked out.

The halls were wide, with polished marble floors and high ceilings. Five-headed sconces filled with candles dotted the walls, making the hallways light enough to easily see anyone in them, if not actually bright. There was no one.
Really wish Sir Walter had mentioned that they leave candles burning all night.

Thomas waved again. Henry and Eileen joined him. Thomas stepped out into the corridor and walked casually down the middle of it.
Act as if you belong,
had been Henry’s suggestion
.
As long they don’t see us, they’ll assume the footsteps belong to someone who is supposed to be there.
Thomas reached the first of the cross-hallways and peeked around the corner. The next corridor was empty. Thomas waved and waited.

Eileen came after Thomas, moving at the same casual pace. She passed him and kept going to the next corridor. A flip of her hand showed the coast was clear. Thomas signalled and Henry followed a moment later.

“If they hear a bunch of footsteps at once, they’ll come looking,”
Henry had said.
“If they just hear one set, they probably won’t even look up from their work.”

Thomas watched Henry stroll down the corridor as if he hadn’t a care in the world, past Eileen to the next corridor. Thomas gritted his teeth and waited, watching the hallway. All it would take was for one door to open at the wrong moment and they would all be lost.

They’re empty,
Thomas reminded himself.
They were all dark and there’s no one in them.

Of course, that’s only this hallway.

Henry flipped his hand, and Eileen walked up to join him. Thomas gripped his weapons tight and walked to where the other two leaned against the wall. Thomas stepped around them and looked down the other corridor.

Right, same again.

They covered the ground between the back hall and the front in casual steps that belied how tense they were. They saw no one and heard nothing except their own harsh breathing and beating hearts until they reached the end of the corridor.

The sconces in the walls were closer together here, and candelabras decorated the ceiling. The hallway was higher and wider, and they could see the main doors from where they stood. Thomas looked around the corner, then pulled his head back fast.

Two men were walking together down the hallway, directly towards them.

Thomas flattened himself against the corridor wall and shoved Eileen back as well. Henry faded back into the wall behind them. The men’s footsteps and voices grew louder with every passing moment. Thomas waited, wondering if they could manage to subdue the men before they raised a cry. He didn’t think he could bring himself to kill them out of hand, even though it was the fastest way to make sure they weren’t caught.

“So how should we handle it?” asked the one of the men.

“Carefully,” was the reply. “First, spread the word of the blasphemy that has been committed beyond our borders, and of the necessary sacrifice that has to be made to end it.” The men were just about at the corridor. “Then talk of how the merchants’ financial support may allow us to bring in mercenaries to fight the war, rather than their sons…”

The men walked past, neither of them noticing the black-clad figures pressed hard against the corridor wall. The conversation and the men’s footsteps slowly faded into the distance, until Thomas heard a door open and shut. He managed to keep his sigh of relief quiet and looked out into the corridor again.

One of the men was coming back.

Thomas ducked his head back in and slipped across the corridor to press his back against the other wall. Eileen and Henry came beside him in a flurry of black fabric.
Please don’t let him come this way. Please don’t let him come this way. Please…

The man kept going right past them without stopping or looking.

Thomas didn’t let his breath out until the man’s footsteps faded in the distance.

The hallway was clear when Thomas looked out again. With the same forced, casual pace, he walked to the door that led to the cellar and pulled on it. It opened. Eileen, then Henry slipped down onto the staircase below. Thomas stepped in, closing the door behind them. There were no candles to light their way down the steps. Thomas sheathed his dagger and cupped his hand, making a ball of light that was just bright enough for them to see the steps in front of them.

The steps went down father than Thomas remembered.
Of course, I was being dragged by a pair of guards that time.
The hallways below were as black as the stairs, but not as silent. In the darkness Thomas could hear someone crying, and someone else swearing. And further away, muffled by distance and the walls around them, someone crying out in pain.

Thomas let the light grow brighter. The hallway was long, with stone walls and floor, and an arched stone roof above. Four other hallways branched out from the one they stood in.

“Well,” said Henry, breaking his own rule about speaking. “This should take a while.”

“Not too long,” said Thomas, keeping his voice low. “The hallway they dragged me through had a locked door at the end of it. My cell had a barred window in the door. If the rest do, too, we should see who is in them quick enough.”

“Then get moving,” said Henry. Somewhere in the darkness someone screamed in pain, making them all jump. Henry shuddered “Before whoever is causing
that
decides it’s time to take a walk.”