05 Dragon Blood: The Blade's Memory (24 page)

Thank you
, Sardelle replied, though she winced anew at the idea of tinkering with people’s thoughts. She wondered how those guards stationed all over weren’t noticing Cas’s sword.

He’s bending the light around him, the same way I do to keep from being noticed. Not as strong as an illusion, but it fools most eyes. Yours are an exception.

Again, I’m concerned that this sword is smarter than I thought.

Probably smart enough to object to your plan to stick him in his box and throw him to the bottom of the harbor.

We’ll worry about that later. How do we get to this dungeon, Jaxi? Assuming we can get away from our escort here.

“Fronzo, I need to use the lavatory on the way, please,” Sardelle said, hoping she didn’t risk raising his suspicions.

He sighed. “Of course you do.”

Is that suspicion?
Sardelle couldn’t decipher his tone.

No, I think all of the women ask to use it, and he’s not surprised at all. If he’s annoyed, it’s because he has this duty tonight.

Oh, good. Their escort wasn’t suspicious; he was annoyed.

Fronzo led them past the stony-faced guards standing like posts on either side of the double doors leading to the interior. He turned left immediately and chose one of several corridors leading away from the large foyer, then jerked a thumb toward a short, dead-end hallway. Unfortunately, Sardelle did not see any promising stairways leading to subterranean levels, just an open door to a tiny room brightened by a candle.

“You can go first,” Sardelle told Cas.

Cas twitched an eyebrow but walked into the room.

How do we get to the dungeon from here, Jaxi?

I’m looking. I thought I had it earlier, but realized the door I found leads to a different dungeon that’s only
near
the dungeon where Captain Kaika is being kept. There are pamphlets in a holder on the wall. I think they take school children to this one for tours.

Lovely. Maybe there’s a secret door from that one to the other one? You said they’re close?

Yes, and I’m looking for that. You may need to bring the bloodhound down here to sniff it out.

The “bloodhound” exited the little room less than a minute after she had walked in. What kind of woman didn’t know how to spend at least ten minutes in the lavatory?

One that doesn’t care if her soul snozzle is impressed by how much makeup she wears.

I don’t know what you’re implying,
Sardelle said as she headed inside for her turn,
but I hope you’re finding a dungeon door while you imply it.

Not yet. I can see several guards in there with Kaika—and there are two other prisoners too—but none of them are being polite enough to leave, so I can get a chance to see how they do it.

Can’t you give them the urge to void their bladders?

A noise of disgust came through ahead of Jaxi’s words.
You want me to tinker with a man’s bladder?

How about the part of the mind that responds to urges from it? It should be easy for the soulblade who plucked the information about the family vineyards from a woman’s memory in a mere three seconds.

When Jaxi did not respond, Sardelle did not know if she was searching for some guard’s bladder controls or steadfastly ignoring her suggestion and hunting for the door herself.

Kasandral would do it
, Sardelle teased.

That’s not funny. Now, give me a moment to figure this out.

While she waited, Sardelle took her time using the facilities herself, including a thorough washing of her hands and face. Despite Jaxi’s comment, she hadn’t had an opportunity to apply any makeup in weeks, so she couldn’t pretend to check that. She did polish Jaxi’s pommel for her with one of the silky towels by the sink.

Oops
, Jaxi thought.

Sardelle returned the towel to its holder.
Oops?

It turns out that the part of the brain that tells a man he has to pee isn’t much different from the part that tells him
to
pee. It’s having the same effect though. I’m pretty sure he’s heading for the door.

I can’t believe that in your hundreds of years of existence, you’ve never made a man pee before.

Really, Sardelle, what kind of soulblade do you think I am? Besides, for three hundred of those years, I was buried under a mountain of rock. Bladders didn’t come in my direction very often.

Someone knocked at the door, and Sardelle jumped.

I’m almost out of time, Jaxi. You’ll have to tell me how to get down there soon.
And Sardelle would have to figure out how to escape the escort, too.

I will.

Sardelle opened the door, expecting an impatient Fronzo. Instead, another woman wearing a hood faced her. It wasn’t Cas.

“Sister,” Sardelle murmured and stepped out, ducking her head, hoping the woman’s needs would delay a conversation—or a who-in-the-hells-are-you question.

“May the forest breeze always bring pleasant winds, Sister,” the other greeted and stepped inside.

To Sardelle’s relief, a response did not seem to be required. The woman closed the door without further comment. Cas, Fronzo, and another man in castle livery waited at the front of the short hall.

“I’m ready,” Sardelle said, though she was already thinking of other ways she could delay until Jaxi told her where to go.

I’ve got it. First floor, follow the hallway that parallels the king’s audience chamber, then turn into the corridor that runs behind it. There are a bunch of doors, and the one at the end leads to stairs that go up or down. Go down, obviously, then all the way through the faux dungeon. Pull on an iron ring dangling from the wall in the back. There’s a secret door that opens. Our buddy who is in need of fresh trousers left, but there’s another guard in there. Kaika is at the end of a row of cells. Presumably Puddles will be back before long too. You might want to stage your breakout now.

Aware of Fronzo walking ahead of her, leading the way to stairs that went up instead of down, Sardelle could only respond with,
I’ll do my best. Thank you.

Do you need your escort to be overtaken with the urge to urinate as well?
Jaxi asked.

The urge or the actual bodily function?

Well, I thought that with practice I could refine things.

But they were already up the stairs, and Fronzo was stopping in front of a door, one decorated with two more guards. Unless Jaxi could encourage the need for a group pee, Sardelle did not see how she was going to walk anywhere except into that meeting room.

“Password,” one of the guards stated as Sardelle and Cas approached.

She caught a sideways look from Cas, who probably wondered if this would be the time to fight. Not ideally. If the guards in front of the meeting room disappeared, their absence would be noticed as soon as that other escort came up with the other woman. Even if she spent several minutes in the lavatory, Sardelle knew it would take longer to find those stairs and figure out how to get Kaika out.

“The moonlight glistens on the calm waters of the harbor,” Sardelle said, using the term Jaxi had plucked from the real Sai Forgolen.

“That’s the
old
one,” the guard said, his voice irritated.

“What?”
Jaxi?

That’s all the vineyard girl had floating around in her wine-sodden brain.

“Can’t any of you people remember your codes?” the guard asked. “Some secret organization.”

He turned to the door, clearly intending to go in and ask someone to come out and verify that Sardelle and Cas belonged. Except that they didn’t.

She threw a gust of wind at the door, slamming it shut as soon as the guard opened it. He frowned and started to tug, but then seemed to think something suspicious was going on. He whirled back toward Sardelle. She was already summoning the gust of air necessary to plaster him and his colleague to the wall.

Fronzo stirred. “What’s—”

Cas spun on him, slamming the hilt of her pistol into the side of his head. He stumbled backward, and she followed the attack with a palm strike to the nose and a kick to the inside of his knee. He wasn’t unconscious, but he crumpled. Neither Sardelle nor Cas had brought rope, but Cas cut strips off the hem of her cloak. In impressive time, she tied the man’s wrists behind his back and improvised a gag.

“Better tie his ankles too,” Sardelle said, her voice sounding strained in her own ears. Most of her focus was toward maintaining the battering ram of air that had the guards flattened against the wall. They tried to reach for their weapons, but she slammed their knuckles against the unyielding stone behind them. Holding them this way took a lot of energy, and she worried about the consequences. What happened when that other woman walked up the stairs? Or what if someone already inside the meeting came out?

“We dragging them somewhere?” Cas asked.

“We’ll have to. Here, come tie up these two. I’ll hold them.”

One of the guard’s lips curled back, as if he wanted to deny that she could do that. His lips were all he could move. The other one wasn’t fighting her power so fiercely. He was staring at her with his eyes round.

The room across the hall from that one is empty
, Jaxi said.

Good, thanks.

The guard who peed is back, so you’ll have two to deal with down there.

Understood.

So long as they could
get
down there. Sardelle heard voices from the floor below and winced. The other “sister”? Keeping the guards pinned down was taking all of her concentration, so she could not check. She did manage to lower her hand to open the door behind them. A dark sitting room lay inside, a few chairs and tables just visible in the gloom, along with another door open in the rear. Sardelle couldn’t tell if it was a meeting room or the living area of a bedroom suite. It hardly mattered. She couldn’t imagine it or the door keeping those guards for long once they figured out how to escape their bonds.

“Done,” Cas whispered. “Someone’s coming.”

“I know.”

Again using the wind, Sardelle pushed one of the guards across the hall as she stepped out of his way. She wished she could shove them both in at once, but she lacked that kind of precision control. The headache that had blossomed earlier throbbed in sync with her heartbeat now.

I think it might have something to do with proximity to the sword
, Jaxi said.
You haven’t done that much today.

I don’t know—I haven’t rested much since last night, either. Besides, I haven’t been very far from that sword since we found it.
She maneuvered the second guard into the room, pushing both of them to the far side before knocking their legs out from under them. Perhaps it was a vain hope, but she hoped they would have trouble moving across the room and thumping on the door to get attention.

A woman’s laughter floated up the stairs. “It’s always a delight visiting, Hasham.”

Someone inside the meeting room asked something, but the door muffled the words. That made Sardelle extra aware of how close everyone was and how unlikely it was that this kidnapping would go undiscovered.

“Can you knock them out?” Cas whispered as she dragged Fronzo across the threshold on his back.

“Not when they’re this alert.”

Cas did not say anything else, but Sardelle imagined her wishing she had Tolemek there. His knockout potions never failed to work. Of course, Sardelle could have done damage that would have caused the men to lose consciousness, but she was loath to beat them up any more than she had already. Whatever these people accused her of, she did not want any of it to be true.

As soon as Cas dumped her load and came out, Sardelle closed the door. She took a step toward the stairs, but the laughter came again, closer this time, and she sensed that woman was half way up already. She grabbed Cas’s arm and pointed the other way down the hall. She had no idea if there would be another set of stairs that would take them back down to the main floor, but they would have to chance it. As she and Cas ran in that direction, Sardelle focused on the locking mechanism of the door of the room that now held the guards. She melted it, hoping that would give them a few more seconds.

The woman and her escort had nearly reached the top. There wasn’t time to get to the corner. Sardelle grabbed a door, wincing when she found it locked. Cas grabbed the knob on the opposite side of the hall and shoved the door open, charging inside. Sardelle leaped after her, worried those coming onto the landing had spotted her, and also worried that they would notice the lack of guards.

“What?” someone in the room blurted. “Who are you?”

Cas glanced back, a question in her eyes. Sardelle didn’t know the answer—what to do with the bald, frail man in the middle of dressing. Sardelle grimaced at the idea of beating him into submission, especially when
they
had been the ones to barge into his room. She brushed the surface of his mind, hoping to find some tidbit that would give her an idea as to how to assuage his suspicions in a way that would let them walk out again in a minute.

He’s the castle bookkeeper
, Jaxi said at the same time as Sardelle discerned that their appearance worried him, not because they were intruders but because they were wearing those cloaks which meant they were a part of the queen’s special group.

“Sorry,” Sardelle said, smoothing her features. She was not going to panic because she was in the middle of an infiltration that was growing less likely to succeed with each passing minute, not her. “I don’t think you heard us knock.”

“I—ah.” The bookkeeper glanced toward the door, but seemed more concerned by the trousers around his ankles.

“The queen sent us to inquire about…” About what? Uhm. “Funding for a special project.”

“Another one?” The man wrestled his trousers up to his waist. He struggled with his belt, and they were in danger of slipping down again. The burden of slim hips.

“Yes.” Sardelle tried not to make it sound like a question.

“To the Trim and Tight Landscaping Service again?” Sarcasm thickened his voice. He succeeded in fastening the belt and propped his fists on his hips, recovering his equilibrium.