Bells of the Kingdom (Children of the Desert Book 3) (22 page)

He’d known as soon as he’d met Rat, Breek, and Frenn in the grey mist of a Bright Bay morning that
face
would be critical, and that his relative youth would make him a target for every trick and game they knew. The invitation to drink meant he’d held his own throughout the day; he couldn’t afford to lose that edge now.

“Hate this damn town,” Breek muttered, cutting a sideways glare to the equally sullen stares of the locals. “Feels like they’re planning a knife in my back or a grab at my purse.”

“You ain’t got enough in your
purse
for even the slick to care about,” Rat gibed.

Breek turned his attention to Rat. “You watch it,” he said without emphasis. “You watch it, Rat. I’m not in a mood for your shit.”

Rat blew a derisive raspberry. “Throw the damn dice,” he said. “Play reverses, you’re on.”

The thick bone cubes rattled across the table. “Three and four.”

Frenn scooped them up. “Two and three. Damnit.”

Rat picked the dice up, threw, his stare never leaving Tank’s face.

As the cubes rattled to a halt, Breek said, “Five and four.”

The silence tautened as Tank weighed the dice in one hand, not exactly meeting Rat’s glare but not avoiding it either. He threw without looking, as Rat had done. A moment later, Breek breathed out hard and said, “One and two.”

Tension released; Rat scooped in his take.

Tank lost the next two rounds, then stood, lightly tossing the three remaining bits toward each of the other players. “I’m out,” he said.

They nodded, barely glancing up at him as they sorted out their stakes.

He went outside and inhaled clean air, sharp with chill and his own vivid relief. Overhead, a vast spread of stars gleamed like shards of polished glass. A thin moon offered pale illumination. The ground was dense and soggy underfoot; the air hung thick with the reek of a swamp at low tide.

Tank made a face and wandered further from the tavern. Not far away, a stone-walled enclosure overlapped the marsh. Grunts and hisses came from behind the chest-high, slanted wall; curious, he went over to investigate.

Lizards. Huge ones, as large as asp-jacaus, and fat. They glared up at him, their tiny dark eyes studded with reflected starlight. Tank had never seen lizards this large; a single haunch would feed two people to bursting.

Something sharp, like a knife held by an uncertain hand, wobbled against his side. “What d’you think you’re doing?” someone screeched in his ear.

Tank held still, more annoyed that he hadn’t heard the man approaching than truly worried. He could smell the liquor on the other man’s breath; hells, it was practically seeping from his skin.

“Looking at the lizards,” he said. “That a problem,
s’e?”
Slowly, he turned his head.

For a disorienting moment, he thought Dasin stood beside him; but even under the dim light of a half-moon and stars, the man was too old, face too sallow, hair too lank. He stared at Tank with wild, hazed eyes. Tank had a feeling that the man had been drinking hard for days.

“Get away from my gerhoi!” the man snapped.

“Get your knife out of my ribs.”

The man looked down as though startled, then stepped back, holding up a short stick. He cackled. “Tricked you,” he said triumphantly.

Tank edged three cautious steps back.

“D’you like my gerhoi?” the man demanded. He dropped the stick.

“They’re very large,” Tank said. “How long have you been breeding them up?”

“Hah!” the merchant said, then repeated it: “Hah!” He stared at Tank for a moment. “You have no idea.
No
idea. They were bred up special, for a king. A king, mind you. I sold direct to the king’s own kitchen.” His shoulders drooped. “But Oruen doesn’t like gerho. He... doesn’t...
like...
gerho.” His hands clenched into fists, and he spat to one side with a bitter passion. “Bloody kings,” he muttered. “Bloody bastardy kings.”

Tank edged back another two steps.

“I put a lot of work into these lizards,” the man said, staring at the beasts. “I sold my soul, you might as well say. And now—it’s gone. All gone. Even my daughter’s gone.”

Tank knew he ought to quietly ease away, but the raw pain in the man’s voice held him still. “Where did she go?” he asked.

“She’s dead,” the man said, turning a ghastly grin towards Tank. “My fault. All my fault. I didn’t listen to her, you see, and so some bastard dragged her out into the swamp and killed her. I should have listened.” He sucked in a trembling breath. “Can’t even bury her proper. No priests left to do the service. After all I’ve done. After all I’ve paid. They promised. And now there’s a new king, and I’m left with nothing. A bumbling hymn from a man who can’t read, a grave with all the other commons. A life’s work, worth nothing.” He looked at the lizards again. “She was supposed to be burying
me,
grandchildren by her side.”

His speech had the odd clarity of the beyond-drunk. Tank couldn’t think of anything to say; the silence began to drag out into tension.

One of the lizards hissed loudly. Another let out a distinct fart.

Tank bit his lip against a hoot of laughter.

The other man didn’t seem to notice the sounds. “You came in with that merchant, didn’t you?”

“Yes. Merchant Venepe.”

“I’ve got to get rid of these damn beasts. They won’t sell here. What the king won’t eat, his nobles won’t touch. D’you think—”

“He deals in cloth,
s’e,”
Tank said. “Not livestock.” He hesitated, then added, with care, “South of the Horn, though, lizard’s a very popular dish.”

The gerho merchant rubbed a hand over his eyes, swaying slightly. “I don’t know,” he said. “Dealing with the barbarians....” He peered at Tank, squinting. “What do you know about it?”

“I’m from the south,
s’e,”
Tank said, and waited for the sneer of disbelief.

“Oh,” the merchant said. “How would I approach the barbarians on this matter, then?”

Tank opened his mouth, ready to say
We’re not barbarians, you ignorant cretin;
took another look at the man’s pale, miserable expression and let it go. “I can only speak to how to approach one Family,” he said, deciding to risk a bit. “If you send a message to Aerthraim Family, you’d address it to—”

The man’s stifled yelp cut him off.
“Aerthraim?
You’re one of
them?”

“No—” Tank said, his gut lurching. “No, no, I just know something about—”

The man’s hands came up and crossed at the wrists, fingers splayed out, thumbs curved forward.

“I’m not a witch,” Tank protested, indignant.

“Stay away from me,” the man said. “Stay away from my gerhoi. I won’t have it. I won’t have it! I already lost Kera. I won’t have it!”

Tank backed up a few more steps. “I’m not doing anything to you,” he said, putting his own hands out, palms angled up. “I’m not a witch,
s’e.
I was trying to help. I’m only a simple mercenary,
s’e,
out for a walk before bedtime.”

The gerho merchant stood still, shivering now. “Go away,” he said. “It’s too late. I can’t do any more. I can’t help you. Go away. Leave me alone.”

Tank shook his head. The man had been drinking for a long time.

“Good night,
s’e,”
he said. “Gods hold you gently and—”

“Damn the gods! The gods got me into this,” the man cried, then spat toward Tank’s feet. “Go away!”

Caught between pity and disgust, Tank retreated, turning his steps to the inn. Walking through the village didn’t seem so interesting any longer.

But it took him a long time to fall asleep, and his sleep was filled with the shifting gleam of gerho eyes and the despair of a man whose own dreams had failed.

The darkness pressed around Idisio, chill and thick; he kept his left hand on the wall and fiercely pretended that only open space lay to his right. His fingers slid across dozens of changes in texture: from dry roughness to slick damp to an oily, moldy sensation that almost made him pull his hand away. Only fear of a recoil accidentally sending him sideways into the other wall kept his arm steady.

Lord Evkit was a silent, stalking
presence
at his back, which made Idisio even less happy about the situation; but if the teyanain had intended harm, he and Deiq wouldn’t be free now. Or relatively free. These tunnels were going on much longer than he’d expected, and their path had turned round on itself multiple times, by Idisio’s uncertain reckoning.

He wondered if this was another of Evkit’s odd games; if the offer of freedom in exchange for a promise not to return to the Horn had been a lie.

“No lie,” Evkit said.

Nerves already too tight, Idisio startled forward and crashed into Deiq’s back. The elder ha’ra’ha stopped, turning. Idisio could
feel
his glare, even in the inky darkness. Behind him, Evkit yipped his dry, teyanain chuckle.

Idisio swallowed hard and backed up a careful step: feeling for the wall, blinking hard. Flashes of grey came and went across his vision, bringing almost-clarity. Fear kept sliding sideways into a simmering, scalding anger: he pushed anger aside and went with fear, with projecting
weakness
and
non-threat,
as a much safer survival strategy at the moment.

“Stop
blinking,”
Deiq said, his breath hot and sour, entirely too close to Idisio’s face. “You can see fine. And stop letting that little shit intimidate you.”

Evkit made a soft, thoughtful sound; hairs prickled all the way up Idisio’s back.

“Stop—how do I stop
blinking?”
Idisio demanded, stifling anger once more. If being angry at Evkit felt unsafe, being angry at Deiq was ten times so.

“You don’t need to,” Deiq said, his tone impatient and irritated, but backed up a step as though sensing Idisio’s annoyance. “It’s a
human
reflex. Set your sight and don’t blink until you’re ready to switch back to human-normal.”

Idisio blinked again, squinted a little, and found black clearing to a blurry grey vagueness; he tried again and managed a grainy, half-light vision, enough to see where he was going. Not blinking was more of a challenge. He held his eyes open until they began watering, muscles throughout his face insisting that he
had
to blink; kept them open, waiting for the strain to pass. Instead, it grew, doubled, and redoubled. He let out a faint whimper as the strain flared into a ripping agony and squeezed his eyes shut, tears streaming down his face, his whole body trembling.

Evkit hummed a few notes that echoed in the red-laced darkness behind Idisio’s eyelids, then said mildly, “We go now, please.”

“When he sorts himself out, godsdamnit,” Deiq snapped. “You’ve pushed enough, Evkit. Even on your lands, you’ve gone beyond the bounds. You
wait.”

Idisio stood very still, frozen in abrupt panic. He’d thought being caught between Lord Scratha and King Oruen was bad, but that was a candle flame compared to the bonfire that scorched around him now.

Deiq slapped him on the shoulder. “Ignore him,” he said. “Ignore all of these
ii-shaa ta-karne.
Open your eyes. Try again.”

Evkit made that soft, thoughtful sound again. Idisio’s knees wobbled a little. He forced himself to open his eyes and blinked a few times, paying attention to how his vision shifted with each blink. When he reached the clearest version, he held his eyes open and found much less strain rising in protest; more a memory of habit than a real need.

He could see features now: Deiq’s, Evkit’s, those of the two guides waiting in the tunnel ahead of Deiq. The rock wall to either side proved far too close, and the ceiling too low, as he’d feared; but being able to see it made the confined space marginally easier to bear. He glanced at Deiq and nodded.

“Good,” Deiq said. He paused, then added, tone heavy with sarcasm, “Lord Evkit, thank you for your patience.
Teth-kavit.”

Evkit hummed again, then said, as bland as Deiq had been dark, “We go now,
please.”

They went on without speaking. Deiq walked with a slight stoop, putting up a hand to check the low ceiling every so often. His brooding, simmering anger made the space feel even more dangerous.

Every so often, Evkit whistled or hummed, as though thoroughly enjoying himself. Idisio, remembering the servants at Scratha Fortresses, suspected this was another code, and that any questions would be met with an even less helpful response.

To distract himself from thinking about that, he said, “Are all the passages this small?”

“No,” Evkit said.

“Of course not,” Deiq said at the same time. “We’re being taken through
special
passages. Ones that don’t connect to the main areas.”

He clearly regarded that as yet another insult. Evkit hummed a seemingly random series of notes, then said, “We go, please.”

Deiq’s nostrils flared, his eyes narrowing; then he turned and resumed walking, his seething silence darker than ever. Idisio felt a fine sweat break out across his whole body. He was beginning to think these tunnels went on forever, and that Evkit was perversely trying to provoke Deiq into exploding with rage.

Idisio didn’t want to be caught anywhere near Deiq losing his temper, and especially not in such crowded conditions.

Blood slicking the walls—
he cut the memory of the vision in Scratha Fortress short, remembering Deiq’s reaction last time, and thought instead about numbers and letters:
Two and two, that’s... four. And four apples feed four people and leave nothing behind. Apple. A-p-p-l-e.

Lord Evkit yipped teyanain laughter. “Apples good,” he remarked. “Apples to apples make more apples.” He yipped again.

“Stuff it up your rear and choke on it,” Deiq muttered, then added, privately:
You’re right. He is trying to get one or both of us to lose our tempers. Don’t ask why, it’s too long a story. Say the damn numbers out loud. It’ll distract both of us. Godsdamned teyanain games... Two and two, go on from there. Hurry up.

Idisio recited mathematics with grim determination, Deiq occasionally correcting him or posing a more complicated problem, until grey daylight showed ahead. Seemingly between one step and the next, they were emerging from the tunnel. Idisio’s eyes stung, his vision whiting out. He blinked hard several times, his eyes watering.