Bloodfire (The Sojourns of Rebirth) (44 page)

Catelyn looked up, smiled and embraced Silena. She
honestly had not been expecting that Silena would make the
decision to come with her, but she wasn’t disappointed to have
heard Silena make the suggestion. Catelyn was in fact overjoyed by
the idea that Silena was willing to come with her and leave the Seat
forever. The two women held each other a moment, quietly
weeping. After several whispers, they released each other and
resumed their planning.
For the next three prayers, they went over their plan in
every detail, until the both of them could recite it by memory.
Neither of them quite knew what the likelihood of their plan
working was and she presumed that it was at best a slim chance,
but for the first time, Catelyn felt real hope that her circumstances
might finally change.
Catelyn had spent the remainder of that evening enjoying
a meal with Silena, before the older woman excused herself to get
some sleep. Catelyn wasn’t feeling tired enough for sleep herself,
and she decided to find Ortis to tell him their plans.
As she walked through the apartment, she grew impressed
by the size of the space Ortis had carved out for himself here. He
had managed to occupy the entire top floor of the building, though
Catelyn was hard pressed to understand what he had been
intending to do with all of the space. She could see that the top
floor had at one time been comprised of four separate living units,
but Ortis had removed the doors separating them to create one
massive living space. He had occupied one corner, the northwest,
leaving Catelyn and Silena to take up the rest.
Catelyn’s “room” was more like an apartment unto itself. It
had once been the main living area of one of them, now converted
into an extra room, though completely lacking in furniture. Even
the pile of blankets which she had found covering her earlier that
morning were probably taken from somewhere else in the home.
It seemed strange that a man like Ortis would have a
secret residence to begin with, much less one that was nearly
barren and four times larger than he needed for himself. Many
things about the man didn’t make sense, but she knew that Silena
was right to suggest that they would need to figure out a way to
work with him, at least until they got out of the Seat.
She found him sitting in a wide backed chair, with his eyes
closed and his hands crossed in his lap. He appeared to be
meditating, but as she moved into the room where he sat, his steel
blue eyes snapped open and pinned her to the spot where she
stood with their intensity.
For a number of breaths, they simply stared at one
another. Catelyn looked at the structure of his face, at his intense
energy, and unexpectedly came to the conclusion that Ortis must
have been an incredibly handsome man in his prime. He still bore
his looks well, but age had taken its toll, and she wondered what he
must have looked like in his youth. She wasn’t sure why such
thoughts would have crossed her mind, and she set them aside.
Instead, she recalled his confession for the crimes he had willingly
admitted to.
“Silena, her friends and I are going to be leaving the Seat
before the end of the span. We’re going to need your help,” she
said, as simply and as bluntly as she could.
Ortis stared into her eyes for a handful of breaths, then
simply closed his eyes again, and said a simple “No.”
Catelyn was completely frustrated by this man. Nothing he
did made sense to her, and at times it felt as though they came
from two completely different worlds. Perhaps they did, in some
ways. How else could she explain his willingness to live most of his
life in subservience to a madman, killing and destroying on a
whim?
And all he wants is for me to kill him
, she thought.
Standing there, thinking about this man and his crimes,
she began to wonder why it was so hard for her to answer his
request. If anyone in this place deserved death, it was the man
sitting in the room before her. Despite her distaste for killing, she
had done so before, in the defense of her life and that of others, but
that was the part that was nagging at her.
Whatever Ortis was, what he had been before he had met
her, the man who sat here now was different. She knew it as surely
as she knew anything. She had seen the man begin to show
restraint, begin to show signs that indicated to Catelyn that the
man was no longer the same thoughtless butcher he had been.
She had witnessed for herself that he hadn’t lost his
capability to kill, of course. She only needed to close her eyes to
remember the efficiency with which he’d dispatched the three
Imperial soldiers on their way out of the Citadel. She hadn’t
specifically asked, but she could imagine that there might have
been others that he had been forced to eliminate on their way to
this hideout of his. But even in the face of that, those deaths had
been to prevent their escape attempt from being stopped.
If Catelyn was honest with herself,and she was fully aware
that her ideas might be naive, but she felt as though the man
sitting before her would never again simply kill indiscriminately,
and that some part of him genuinely regretted his past actions.
What other reason could he have for expressing his wish to have
his life ended? If he didn’t feel such overwhelming guilt and
regret? The man seemed overwhelmed with remorse at having
abdicated his humanity for so long on behalf of the Emperor.
What she couldn’t fathom though, was why he insisted
that his death come so suddenly, and that it had to be her to do the
killing.
She realized that when she considered the monumental
scope of his crimes, that yes, she probably could kill him if
necessary. But she was going to need that lethality of his if Catelyn
and her friends were going to get into Belkyn and through the
Grand Gate. Catelyn still needed to convince Ortis however, and
she thought for a moment longer before she spoke.
She knew Ortis to be a man of few words, so she tried to
keep her arguments concise.
“Ortis, it’s not safe for my friends or I here. Not any
longer. We can’t remain indoors forever, no matter how secure and
secret you’ve made this...compound.”
Ortis’ eyes flickered open, and he looked directly into her
own eyes. His intense gaze was intimidating, but she made a point
to stand her ground and she stared right back at him as she
continued.
“But you know, better than anyone, that we can’t simply
travel the streets in the bright of day through the Seat and into
Belkyn. Would you agree that it would be a mistake to do so?”
Ortis nodded slowly. Catelyn sighed.
Progress, at the very least
, she thought, carefully
formulating what she would say next.
“A man with your knowledge, and your skills, might be
able to get us through the Seat undetected. You’ve kept this place
for sojourns, I can tell, and you feel safe here. Safe enough to bring
the three of us here when we are all no doubt the subjects of a citywide Imperial man hunt. That can only mean that the Emperor is
unaware of this place.”
“Uriel is aware that I have a refuge somewhere in the city,
but he never asked where it was,” he admitted.
Catelyn nodded.
“But Silena and I can’t stay here. She has her girls and
Erich to get back to, and I intend to leave the Seat or die trying.
You said yourself that the rations would run out, and we can’t very
well just go down to the market to restock. I know that Silena said
the Seat looks normal from where we are, but you and I know that
your former men will be searching the city for all of us.”
“I cannot help you,” Ortis said again. Catelyn was not at all
surprised by this reply, but she was growing more and more
frustrated by his stubborn refusals.
“Why?” Catelyn wanted to know.
He stood and crossed to stand in front of her, and she
became very aware of how tall he was. She stood her ground, and
craned her neck to look up at him, but once he stood close enough
to touch, he knelt on the ground, putting his head at her eye level.
He tilted his head back, exposed this throat to her, and produced a
sharp, wicked looking dagger from somewhere on his person and
held it out to her. She considered herself quite observant, but she
hadn’t known he was armed, and she wondered how many other
weapons he had on him.
“I care not what you do, but you must kill me,” he croaked.
She could see tears spilling from his closed eyes. She reached out
and took the dagger from his hand, considering. Her heart
hammered in her chest as she thought about his life in her hands,
felt the cold metal in her palms.
She supposed that if they had to, she and Silena could
figure out a way to get out of the city without him. He seemed as
though he would never give up this foolishness. Was he more use
to them dead than alive?
She looked down at the dagger, and then up at Ortis. He
was breathing heavily, anticipating the slash across his throat
feeling as though some force were propelling her. She raised her
arm and placed the edge of the blade against his stubbly chin. She
saw him swallow.
She let the blade sink into his flesh, and watched as it drew
the tiniest drop of blood. The crimson fluid fell along the blade,
tracing a line along the razor sharp edge of the blade. She let it
linger there a moment, and then she removed the dagger from his
throat, making her decision.
He opened his eyes, and glowered at her.
“Are you a coward?” he growled.
Catelyn looked directly into his eyes, meeting his intensity
with her own, as she explained herself.
“I suppose I can understand why you would so readily
welcome death. And I would give it to you.”
She raised the dagger, showing him the line of blood along
the edge.
“This blood is my promise to you, that when the time
comes, I will finish what I began here today. I will kill you, but I
need one more thing from you first. When I am done with you;
then, and only then, will I release you from your pain. You asked if
I were a coward. Allow me to return the favor. Are you a coward,
that you can’t withstand that pain until then?”
She turned the dagger over, wiped the blood from the
blade with her palm, and placed the blade in the waistband of her
pants.
Ortis looked at her, pondering. Then, something happened
she had never expected to see. Ortis smiled.
“I accept your terms,” he said smugly.
Catelyn nodded her head in agreement and in
acknowledgment of their deal. She turned and made her way
towards the door, and at the threshold, she stopped and looked
back at Ortis. He was watching her, a strange expression on his
face. She had to ask him.
“Why does it have to be me?”
Ortis smiled again, and once more she was reminded that
Ortis had been a handsome man, a fact which surprisingly
saddened her in the face of the ugliness of his actions throughout
the sojourns.
“When the time comes, and you finish what you started, I
will tell you,” he replied.
Catelyn paused, disappointed, and then turned from the
room, calling back over her shoulder.
“Fair enough.”

Catelyn, Silena and Ortis spent half of the next day
finalizing the last of their plans for their escape from the Seat,
discussing and mentally rehearsing the plan until they each knew
their parts thoroughly as they needed, to be put into motion the
following day. Ortis had insisted that he would leave first, making
his way through the streets at midday. He was convinced that
alone, he could navigate around the Imperial patrols and prepare a
place for them at the boundary of the Seat, just inside the Belkyn
Channel. He told them of a long abandoned warehouse in the
industrial district, far from Imperial eyes, and Catelyn and Silena
agreed that it sounded like a safe place to hole up in midway
through their journey.

Silena would leave next, and make her way to her man
Erich’s home. He had taken to living and sleeping at her home the
past sojourn or so, but when she had agreed to help Ortis with his
escape attempt of Catelyn, Erich had taken the two girls to his
home instead, where they no doubt awaited word from her. She
would wait until midday on the following day, and then all four of
them would make their way across the Seat towards the agreed
upon meeting place at the boundary of the Belkyn Channel.

Catelyn would wait until the evening of the second day,
and would make her way across the rooftops to the warehouse
where the others would be waiting. If everything went as planned,
then all of them would be making their way up the Belkyn Channel
by the morning of the third day.

Ortis assured them that he knew of an alternate path
through the highly trafficked Belkyn Channel. That was, according
to him, going to be the easy part. The hard part was going to be
getting to the Grand Gate in Belkyn without being stopped and
questioned, or searched. Ortis was clear that he expected to be
recognized by many of the people in Belkyn, having just conducted
a campaign against the “uprising” there mere spans ago.

Ortis had explained to Catelyn and Silena how there had in
fact been no uprising to speak of. There had been some grumbling
among the local laborers, that had not even amounted to more
than a few loudmouths complaining to one another in a dingy
tavern. But the men had been talking loud enough for the local
Imperial officer nursing a bottle at the other end of the bar to
overhear them, and submit his report to his own superiors. As was
common for any report of this nature, the incident was quickly
escalated and then exaggerated, and before the day was out, Ortis
found himself being ordered to Belkyn to “quell an uprising”.

Ortis had done as ordered, but those orders had left their
mark on the citizens living in Belkyn and upon the man who had
carried out those orders. But Catelyn insisted that despite this
problem, they were going to have to carry out the first part of their
plan and make it into Belkyn, where the Imperial presence there
would potentially be less focused on three fugitives and more
focused on maintaining general order.

All of these factors would make certain parts of their plan
easier, and other parts potentially harder. They wouldn’t truly
know what awaited them until they exited the Belkyn Channel into
the city proper.