Bells of the Kingdom (Children of the Desert Book 3) (10 page)

He went up the fourteen white marble steps with considerably more care than he’d taken on the rougher, muddier streets along the way. Somewhere, there had to be a plainer entrance, but he hadn’t taken the time to find it before and didn’t feel he had the time now: the Freewarrior’s Hall seemed more solid sanctuary than any church or temple might offer.

What he remembered of Captain Ash suggested the man would stand up even to an enraged desert lord, if the matter involved a Hall hire.

The massive double doors, at least, weren’t necessary. Two smaller, plainer doors, one to each side of the main entry, were far more suitable for everyday use; especially for a shivering, soaked, and slightly muddy new hire trying to avoid drawing attention.

Inside, four windows, each one a match in size to the giant formal doors, let in grey streaks of light that barely shifted the edges of the shadows to a lighter hue. Multi-headed candelabra caught and absorbed the grey into a further mottling of silver; the thick white candles filling each holder had never been lit. Great axes, swords, shields, and suits of armor hung along each long wall, and tapestries with various red and gold designs filled in any blank spots available.

Lit by afternoon sunlight during Tank’s first visit, the main hall had been a welcoming, safe, very nearly sacred space; at the moment, it resembled nothing so much as the anteroom to a torture chamber.

Tank moved forward a cautious pace, then another, listening for any sound. The hall seemed utterly deserted.
Dead.
Had Ninnic’s Guard gotten to this place after Tank left? Had the death of that vile, mad creature not been
enough,
after all?

“Welcome back,” a dry voice said behind him.

Tank shrieked like a child, spinning in place so fast he almost fell over his own feet.

Captain Ash’s dour face creased in a broad smile for a moment, then sobered again. He moved forward from his spot beside the door—Tank had walked right past him and never noticed—and clapped Tank on the shoulder.

“At least you didn’t piss yourself,” he noted. “Last two new hires I startled like that wound up mopping the floor.”

Tank gulped for breath, struggling to calm his racing heartbeat.

“Captain Ash,” he said, and completely failed to find anything to add to that.

The man’s dark hair looked to be growing out from a recent shearing, and his skin had a sallow hue further darkened by the dim light. His steel-grey eyes held as much warmth as the stone around them.

“About time you got back,” he said. “I was about to cross you off the books.”

“I said I’d be back.”

“People say things. Doesn’t mean they happen.”

Tank shrugged, not inclined to disagree with
that.

“You still need sworn in properly,” Captain Ash said. “Rules and such. You didn’t sit still long enough to hear them before, and they’re more important than ever—since I can actually count on
enforcing
them now.” He dug into a belt pouch and produced a thick wooden disc, about the size of a coin. “Here’s your permanent marker. Don’t lose it. Don’t let it get stolen. You stamp anything you send us with this, it’s good as a signature—half the hires couldn’t use a pen right way round if their lives depended on it, anyway. Notice I don’t ask if
you
can.” He tossed the wooden disc to Tank.

Tank turned the marker over in his hands, his mouth quirking in a sour grimace. The crossed-swords symbol of the Bright Bay Freewarrior Hall had been burned onto one side, crossed feathers carved in high relief on the other. He hadn’t realized how much the sigil he’d chosen would resemble the typical Aerthraim Family symbol. No help for it now; he shrugged and dropped the marker into his belt pouch.

“Second room on the right is open,” Captain Ash said, pointing to a door at the end of the main hall that led to hire quarters. “Go take a day to sleep, you look like hell. Take two, if you need it. You look like a half-dead and drowned redling rat; I can’t take you seriously that way. Remember where my office is? Meet me there when you’ve cleaned up and rested.” He paused, sniffing lightly, and wrinkled his nose. “Baths are downstairs.
Take
one. Take five, if you like. You stink of ship.”

He stalked away without waiting for a reply.

“Yes, Captain,” Tank said anyway, more than happy to obey that order, and hurried off.

Feeling, for the first time in days,
safe.

The darkness seemed like a live thing, creeping into Ellemoa, filling her from toes to crown. Her only respite came when
teyhataerth
or Rosin visited. Both brought pain, but both also brought
light;
and she craved light the way she’d once craved love, the way she’d once felt hunger for physical food.

Pain wasn’t so bad, measured against being alone in the darkness. Being alone was much worse than anything else. She’d had Kolan, for a while, but they’d taken him somewhere else and not brought him back. Maybe she’d killed him.

Memory hazed.

How long had she been here? Where was
here,
beyond
somewhere in Bright Bay?
When
was
here?
She slapped her hands along cold, dank stone walls and found no answer to any of her questions.

She couldn’t see the stars. Or the sun. Heard nothing, in the darkness, other than the hoarseness of her own breathing. The sound of bells drifted in, now and again; but human voices, whether screaming or pleading or singing their madness, had long since stopped.

Stars...
She had lain out on the soft cool grass of Arason and counted the constellations with Kolan. She remembered. He had told her stories about Payti’s Torch and Eki’s Dagger. He’d made her laugh with stories about Payti’s Trickster aspect, and awed her with tales of Syrta’s boundless love. He’d treated her as an equal—as human.

He’d been
kind.
Not at all like Solian...

She slapped her hands against the walls until the pain drove all memory of vast speckled skies from her mind, then began walking. She paced in carefully measured circles; lost count at five thousand steps and started over again. When her legs gave out, she slid to the floor. When her legs stopped hurting, she stood and began pacing again. How many times had she done that? Usually it took a hundred iterations of five thousand steps before someone came, but now she’d lost count completely.

She probably had killed Kolan. He’d been her only friend, the only one who tried to help her, and she’d killed him. It would be just like her, because she liked pain. That’s what both Rosin and
teyhataerth
said, anyway, and they knew her better than anyone. The screams did feel good... even when it was Kolan writhing. No, she wouldn’t have let him die. He was too much fun. Rosin wouldn’t have allowed it, either.

This was all Kolan’s fault. The thought felt grey, dull, and worn. She couldn’t even remember where that belief had begun.

They’d all abandoned her, in the end, as she’d expected. Even
teyhataerth
had left her. Rosin had left her. They’d found someone more interesting. She knew it. She’d
seen
him, as he passed within her limited range of other-vision, some time ago: a boy with red hair, bright blue eyes, a handsome rugged body. Rosin wouldn’t let her near this new toy; no, this one had to go straight to
teyhataerth
for some reason.

Had it been because she couldn’t give Rosin and
teyhataerth
a child? She’d tried. She’d
tried;
but whether the fault lay in herself or in them, somehow an essential connection hadn’t ever quite been made. They’d abandoned her, and her only child was long gone into the darkness. Rosin said her son was dead. Said she
had
to give another child, had to, must, needed to—and she couldn’t.

Kolan said her son was alive. Rosin said her son was dead. She didn’t know who to believe.

She heard
teyhataerth
murmuring and singing in the other-darkness, enjoying the new toy.

No—that was past. That had been a thousand paces ago. Ten thousand sets of paces ago. She couldn’t tell. She’d lost all count.

Rosin would come for her soon. He would. He had to. He wouldn’t abandon her
completely.
He liked her too much. He said so. Said she was
best,
his favorite, his marvel. He never lost faith in her, that she’d provide a child one day, that she
could
if she really wanted to. He was the only one who could help her do that, he was the only one who truly understood her. He had said that, too, over and over, until she’d really seen the truth of it.

The boy didn’t want to play with
teyhataerth.
He yelled and fought; and
teyhataerth,
instead of overpowering the boy, screamed as though hurt—but surely it was only playing, it wasn’t
possible
to hurt
teyhataerth.

Teyhataerth
sent the boy away, and screamed and screamed and screamed. Something was terribly wrong.

They would come for her soon. Would come to bring her pain, and to give
teyhataerth
healing, and to bring her
light.

She heard a scream, a ground-shaking, breath-stopping shriek that doubled and tripled and echoed. A million daggers wrenched through her heart. Everything went silent.

No—no! That was past, as well. That had happened already. She didn’t know how long ago. A hundred steps, a thousand, a hundred thousand sets of five thousand—she couldn’t tell. Time was only an illusion, something to separate the times of pain from the not-pain. There had been a lot of the not-pain since
teyhataerth
screamed. It had begun turning into an entirely different sort of pain—recently? She didn’t know if that was the right term.

A pair of grey eyes opened, casting a brilliant light across her, like a hazy lantern. She stared, transfixed, as a face took form around those eyes: a slender, pale young face, so like her own—but he wasn’t looking at her. He was near but not in the cell with her. He was following someone, some human, some
man.

She screamed and reached out, slamming her whole body into unyielding stone in an effort to reach him. Only one creature could have those eyes, that face—he wasn’t dead at all.

My son! My son, alive, and just out of reach—don’t go, don’t go, come back to me!

For a moment, she thought her cry might have reached him. He blinked and turned his head, looking almost at her. Then he blinked again, and the vision faded, leaving her alone in the dark once more.

Ellemoa lost control then, screaming and writhing and battering herself against the walls; uncaring if this was another of the torment-dreams
teyhataerth
so often sent to test her. The vision had split open her mind, cleared the mist, awakened a vast hunger for freedom.

She would escape and find her son. She
would.
And she would get them both free of this evil, stinking place, where humans turned ha’ra’hain into slaves and animals to torture; they would go home. To Arason. To the cottage by the lake. And they would be safe.

Darkness and silence answered. She had no idea how long she spent screaming. She collapsed, finally, and wept for a while more, then slept.

She awakened to the sound of a sledgehammer hitting the door of her prison: the sound of escape.

There was a servant waiting patiently outside Idisio’s room when he returned from his bath. Idisio’s first thought was:
Scratha must want to talk to me;
followed, dimly, by a habitual tickle of anxiety:
I didn’t do anything wrong! Did I?
Maybe he was about to be taken to task over some impropriety during that bath after all. Anada had seemed perfectly serene and content as he left—but then, kathain were obviously trained to look happy even when—

He stopped
that
train of thought, fast. He really didn’t want to get upset right now. The bath and the conversation had left him with a drowsy contentment he’d rarely felt before. He didn’t want to lose that.

Two steps later, perspective shifted: the servant wasn’t standing in front of his door, but Riss’s, and was watching Idisio’s approach with a quiet alertness that clarified the situation. Not messenger, but
watcher—
someone important was in Riss’s room, and the servant was here to be sure that someone wasn’t harmed or bothered.

The list of names that Riss would allow into her private quarters was short, in Idisio’s considered opinion; and as he was standing in the hallway and Lord Scratha almost definitely occupied elsewhere, that left only one real possibility: Gria, heir to Scratha.

He nodded vaguely to the servant and went into his room, unwilling to test whether his status would get him past that direct, unafraid stare. No reason to try, anyway. Something about Gria always made him deeply uneasy.

He considered the book laid out on the small writing desk, then shook his head, stretched out on the low bed, and let drowsiness intensify into a light doze.

Some unmeasured stretch of time later, he opened his eyes to find Riss letting herself quietly into the room. He propped himself up on his elbows, smiling, more rested and relaxed than he could ever remember being before, and said, “Enjoy your talk with Gria?”

She shut the door behind her, slowly, then turned to face him. Some of his ease faded at the expression on her face.

“Enjoy
your
little visit with the kathain?” she said blackly.

He sat up the rest of the way. “What—”

“I
heard
her,” she snapped. “They wouldn’t let me in—they said the room was closed to all but the
chaal—
the important people. Desert lords. And you. But I heard plenty from outside.
Plenty.
I heard you laughing. I know you were in there! And I heard—her
—them—
I know what was going on.”

Idisio drew in a long breath, shaking his head. Anada had told a series of lively jokes; he’d laughed without worry about volume or being overheard. He’d even planned to tell Riss a few of the jokes. That seemed like a bad idea now, given that he’d have to admit the provenance eventually.