True Magics (33 page)

The corridor in front of them was storage. The next one led to cells. The keys were hanging on a peg outside the corridor.
Makes sense, I suppose,
thought Thomas.
If you assume no one is stupid enough to break in.

Thomas unlocked the door and led them inside. The corridor had ten identical doors with small barred windows. Thomas peered in the first one and saw the steel ring in the middle of the floor. He shuddered. He’d spent two days chained to the floor of a cell just like that one, while the Inquisitor had droned questions at him. He could still remember the moment when he thought they were going to beat him and realized he was completely helpless to do anything about it.

“Pull it together, Thomas,” hissed Henry, forcing him back to the present. Thomas shook his head and went to the next cell, and the next. Each was identical. Each was empty.

The cries of pain were louder at the next corridor. Thomas opened the hall door. “Keep your eyes out,” he whispered. “If anyone comes…”

“If anyone comes,” said Henry, “we kill them or we die.”

Please don’t let it come to that.

The first two cells were empty. The third held an old man who shied away from the light and cried out in fear, startling Thomas so badly his light nearly faded. The man in the cell huddled against the wall, crying, and Thomas felt sick leaving him there.
It can’t be helped,
he told himself.
I can’t take everyone.

Liam was asleep in the next cell. His feet were shackled to the cell floor.

Thomas whistled softly to get Eileen’s attention. “Here.”

“You found one?” Eileen asked.

“Liam,” said Thomas, as he struggled with the lock on the door. “Chained.”

The lock clicked open and Thomas pushed at the door. It creaked. Liam started awake and pushed himself as far back as he could with his hands behind his back. He had bruises on his face, and gasped in pain as he moved.

“It’s all right,” said Eileen. She pulled a hammer and a short pry-bar out of her coat, then a thick length of fabric. “We’ve come to get you out!”

“Eileen?” Liam blinked in surprise and confusion, then his eyes widened. “Is that you?”

“It is,” she said. “And Thomas and Henry.”

“Thomas?” Liam looked horrified. “You can’t be here! Are you insane?”

“Yes,” said Thomas. “Now stand up and hold still.”

Eileen pulled on Liam’s arm and helped him struggle to his feet, while Thomas knelt before him. Liam smelled of sweat and fear and filth, and it was all Thomas could do to be near him. The shackles on his ankles were held in place by bent iron pins, just as Thomas’s had been. Thomas took the pry-bar from Eileen, braced it against the steel bracelet around Liam’s ankle, and then slid it under the pin. “Ready.”

Eileen wrapped the head of the hammer in the cloth and knelt beside Thomas. With a series of short, hard blows, muffled by the cloth, Eileen straightened the pin. Thomas pulled it out and then braced the bar against the other ankle. In a moment, that pin was straight and out, too.

“Can you get my hands?” asked Liam.

“I think so,” said Thomas. “Just hold still.”

“Can you make any more noise in there?” complained Henry in a hiss from the hallway. “You’ll have the whole building in to see what’s going on.”

“You want to do this?” asked Thomas, not expecting an answer. Eileen went to work on Liam’s wrists, and soon had the shackles undone.

“Now what?” asked Liam.

“We get Jonathan and Charles and Michael and we get out of here.”

“Jonathan
and
Charles
and
Michael?” repeated Liam. “How many of us have they got?”

“That’s all so far,” said Henry from the door. “And if you don’t want it to be more, hurry up!”

Seven cells later they found Jonathan. He wore the same bruises as Liam, and stayed curled in a ball until Thomas helped him to his feet. He shook as Eileen hammered out the pins on his shackles. He nearly collapsed, weeping, when they led him out of the cell. “Thank the Four,” he said. “Thank the Four, I thought I was a dead man. Thank the Four.”

“Here!” called Michael from the end of the hall. “Jonathan, Liam, is that you?”

“Yes!” Jonathan hobbled to the cell. “Thomas! Eileen! Bring the light and the hammer! Hurry!”

In short order Michael was free as well, and all six stood in the narrow corridor.

“Can we get out of here, now?” asked Jonathan.

“Not without Charles,” said Thomas.

“Well, he’s not in here,” said Henry. “That leaves one more place to look.”

“I know,” said Thomas, handing his dagger to Liam. “Eileen, give the hammer and bar to Michael and Jonathan. It’s all we’ve got for extra weapons.”

“It’ll do,” said Jonathan, taking the pry-bar. “In fact, I wouldn’t mind shoving this down someone’s throat right now.”

Thomas led them out of the hallway and to the last door in the corridor. Unlike the others, this one had no lock on it at all. Thomas was about to push it open someone on the other side cried out in pain. This time he recognized the voice.

“Charles,” he whispered to Henry.

Thomas let the light in his hand die, and drew his blades. He gently pushed on the door, opening it just a crack. Now, under the cries of pain, he could hear someone speaking in a gentle, quiet tone of voice.

“All this can end,” the man was saying. “All you have to do is tell the truth.”

“I told the truth!” sobbed Charles. “I told you!”

“More,” said the man.

This time, Charles howled in agony.

Thomas kicked the door open the rest of the way. The room was large, lit by the red light of a pair of coal-filled braziers. There were a dozen devices Thomas didn’t recognize scattered throughout the room. Charles was strapped to a chair, his single hand locked in a device that isolated each finger and had a dozen screws on it. A large man stood beside him, tightening the screws. An Inquisitor sat at a desk in front of Charles, watching.

Thomas charged across the room, the others right behind him. The big man jumped back in surprise, and the Inquisitor knocked over his stool. Thomas’s blade went to the torturer’s throat. “No one moves or we’ll kill you both.”

“I am an officer of the Church,” squeaked the Inquisitor. “You have no right to be in here! You have no right to do…”

Henry punched the man in the face, sending him sprawling. “Thomas, see to Charles.”

Charles’ face was a mass of bruises, his lips were split and bleeding, and one of his eyes was swollen shut. He was still howling. Thomas felt his stomach roil, but forced it down. He began loosening the screws on the device.

“Not all the way off,” said Henry. “We can use it as a splint until we get him to the doctors.”

Charles’ howling turned to moans as Thomas loosened the last of the screws.

“What do we do with these two?” asked Liam.

“Strap them down in the other chairs,” said Thomas. “With luck, no one will look until morning.”

“Which isn’t that far away,” Henry said. “We need to get out of here. Now.”

The Inquisitor and the torturer didn’t resist. “Can you walk?” Thomas asked as he undid the strap around Charles’ body. Charles sagged forward. Thomas caught him and held the battered man’s face in his hands. “Charles! Can you walk?”

“Thomas?” the word was slurred, and Charles squinted his good eye.

“Yes. It’s Thomas. Can you walk?”

“I didn’t tell them anything,” said Charles. “They kept asking but I didn’t tell them anything.”

“You did well,” said Thomas, “Better than any of us would have. Now, can you walk?”

“I… I don’t know.”

“Jonathan, Michael. Carry him.”

They went as fast as they could back up the stairs with Jonathan and Michael carrying Charles between them and Liam leaning on Eileen. The front door was less than twenty feet away, and Thomas desperately wished they could go out it. There were guards outside, though, and there was no way to get past them without raising an alarm.

There’s too many of us to be quiet.
“Back the way we came,” he said. “As quickly as possible. Henry, take up the rear.”

They walked fast. Liam began muttering under his breath, praying to the Four that they wouldn’t be taken again. Their sounds of their boots echoed through the hallways. Charles moaned with every step. Thomas prayed the noise didn’t travel out the door to the guards, and that no one in the rooms above would come to see what the ruckus was. They reached the back door in less than a quarter of the time it had taken them going in.

The alley behind the building was empty and silent. Thomas breathed a sigh of relief and led them out into the night.

19

The temperature had dropped since they’d gone inside, and their breath came out in white clouds. Charles cried out every time Michael and Jonathan jostled him. Thomas kept them all moving as fast as he could, praying no one would sound an alarm and send the Church cavalry to ride them down.

“Where are we going?” asked Michael through chattering teeth. All four of the prisoners were in shirtsleeves.

“My house,” said Eileen. “George is waiting.”

“He will,” said Thomas. “He said he would.”

“We stink,” said Jonathan. “At least, Liam and Charles and I do. They wouldn’t let us…” he glanced at Eileen. “You know.”

“I do,” said Thomas, who’d had the same treatment. “We’ll get you some clean clothes after we get off the streets.”

The walk took forever, but they reached the Street of Smiths without anyone stopping them. George was standing in the door of his smithy his thick walking stick in his hand. He pushed the door wide the moment he saw them. “Eileen! Are you all right?”

“I’m fine!” said Eileen. “We need to get inside! Now!”

Thomas led the others in, the heat of the smithy a shock after the cold of the night. George hadn’t banked the forge for the night, and the warmth from it was a welcome relief from the freezing air outside. George pulled the door shut the moment the last of them were inside.

“We need a healer,” said Thomas. “Charles is hurt. Badly.”

“They tortured him,” Eileen, her voice shaky with relief and horror and pent-up fear. “They broke all the bones in his fingers.”

“And a few in his face, from the look of it,” said Henry.

“We need to get his fingers straightened,” said Thomas. “Otherwise they’ll heal crooked and he won’t even be able to hold a pen.”
He already lost a hand because of me. I’m not letting him lose his fingers, too.

“At least I’ll get out of exams,” said Charles through gritted teeth. They were the first words he’d spoken since they’d left the dungeon.

“No one gets out of exams,” said Henry, helping Charles to lie down. “They’ll make you write with your nose dipped in ink. Better we get your hand fixed.”

“The healer that helped James,” said Thomas. “Get him.”

“There’s one closer,” said George. “The smiths use him.” George looked down at Charles’ hand. His face contorted a moment, and he swallowed hard, as if keeping something from coming up. “He specializes in broken bones and burns.”

“Then get him,” said Thomas. “Please. Henry, go with him.”

They went.

“What about us?” asked Jonathan. “We’re filthy and we stink.” He looked at Liam, who had collapsed in a corner and was curled up in a ball again. “And Liam…”

“I just got you back,” said Thomas. “I’ll not risk having you get taken again. Especially after what we just did.” He looked over the bruises on Jonathan and Liam. “Anything broken on any of you?”

“No,” said Jonathan. “They just beat us.”

“And made us watch the other getting it,” said Liam, from his place on the floor. He pulled his legs closer to his chest and wrapped his arms tighter around them. His whole body shook. “Bastards.”

“Aye,” said Thomas. “That they are.”

“Can we wash up?” asked Jonathan, “And get our clothes?”

“Not yet,” said Thomas, taking up a position at the door and looking out. “Wait until George gets back. Then we’ll go.”

“I’ll get you blankets,” said Eileen. “And water from the fountain. I’ll get some food, as well.”

“I’m going to keep watch outside,” said Thomas. “Keep warm by the forge. I’ll let you know as soon as George and Henry get back.”

Thomas stepped out into the night and the door.
They’ll all be messed up,
Thomas thought.
Maybe not Michael, too badly, but the others…

And there’s nothing I can do about it.

Time dragged. From inside Thomas could hear occasional moans of pain from Charles, and soothing words from Eileen. There was no other conversation.

George and Henry came out of the dark, leading a rumpled, tired looking man with little hair and a large bag. He saw Thomas’s rapier and blanched. George put a hand on his shoulder, saying, “It’s all right,” and guided him forward. Thomas opened the door and got out of the way.