City of Bones (29 page)

“I can’t, he’ll kill me,” Shiskan pointed out reasonably.

“You’re going to confuse each other,” Khat told her.

“Hush,” she said. Her voice hardened as she spoke to Elen again. “Give us the book.”

“Elen, please, you must,” Sagai said, taking a step toward her with his hands open. The next instant he was locked in a struggle with the man nearest him. Arad was moving, flinging himself forward to trip the other.

Shiskan moved, shifting her weight and balance, and the knife point came away from his neck. Before she could realize her mistake Khat caught her wrist and pushed himself up, dumping her off him. The one he had wounded earlier made an awkward attempt to rush him, and Khat stepped out of his path and tripped him. The man sprawled helplessly, and Shiskan was gaining her feet again. Khat grabbed his knife from where it had fallen, and looked up to see another dark form coming down through the louver.

Sagai shouted, “Run!” and everyone seemed to bolt for a different doorway at once.

Khat saw Elen vanish down the hall toward the outer door and darted after her. She still had the book, and the pursuit would concentrate on her. He hoped Sagai or Arad would remember to get the winged relic, and he hoped more that Shiskan and the others would not bother to chase them.

One of their pursuers had followed Elen already. Khat overtook him at the outer doorway, spun him around, and smashed him into the wall. Knowing the others were right behind him, he leapt down the steps without pausing to finish him off.

He caught up with Elen midway across the square and dragged her toward one of the arches leading off from it. The night air was hot and heavy, stagnant in his lungs. He stopped in the shelter of a roofed arbor, looking back at the darkened square. It was empty and suspiciously quiet.

“Did the others get out?” she asked, her voice a breathless whisper.

“I think so; it’s that book they’re after.”

“I know that.” She was still clutching it tightly to her chest. “What are we going to do?”

Khat heard a careless step on the arbor roof above them, and whispered, “Run.”

They ran down the narrow court, emerged into an almost equally narrow garden, crossed it into another sheltered colonnade. He was glad again for her night sight, even if it was a Warder trick; she avoided potted flowers and low pools and found steps that would have left him staggering at this pace. At the end of the colonnade he stopped her again to listen, and she whispered, “I meant, when you followed me out here, didn’t you have some sort of plan of action?”

Somewhere back the way they had come he could hear shouting. Shiskan’s people would hardly need to shout; it was probably the Academia’s vigils, finally awake to the notion that something odd was happening. “Didn’t you have a plan of action when you ran out here?” he asked her.

“I see your point.”

“They shouldn’t have been able to take that drop from the ceiling without breaking legs; is flying another Warder talent you forgot to mention?”

“There are Disciplines, mental exercises, that allow the human body to overcome pain, to be physically stronger for a short time. Riathen said Constans was always very good at Disciplines.”

“Very
good” is something of an understatement
, Khat thought. He wanted to work his way to the outer wall, where once over it they would have the whole city to hide in. His worst fear was of getting cornered down one of these blind courts. He tugged her sleeve and led the way down the colonnade, at a slower pace so he could hear their pursuers.

“I know,” Elen whispered suddenly. “Why don’t we leave the book somewhere, toss it through someone’s window, then lead them away from it?”

Khat had considered that, but it didn’t alter the fact that if they were caught with the book or without it, they were dead. And once he had his hands on a relic, he didn’t like to let go until it was absolutely necessary. Especially a relic like this.

He started to answer her, but she halted abruptly and he stumbled into her instead. Before he could protest he saw the darkness just in front of them move. Something was there, shapeless but alarmingly solid, as if a piece of one of the dark walls had stepped forward to challenge them. Elen grabbed his arm, and together they backed away, instinctively slowly, though Khat couldn’t have said where the conviction that quick motion would antagonize it came from.

It passed out from under the colonnade and into the moonlight, and for an instant lines of dim red light shot through it, revealing something vaguely human-shaped, but with a rounded crest spread out behind its head and an oddly formed body. The hackles on the back of Khat’s neck itched.

It hovered, as if uncertain. “I don’t think it knows we’re here,” Elen whispered, almost soundlessly.

Suddenly it moved like lightning, darting first away from them, and then directly toward them, coming so close the smothering cold of it forced Khat back a step.

It stopped, then drifted toward them again, slowly and deliberately.

“It knows we’re here now,” Khat said grimly, pulling Elen back with him.

It was moving them toward the dark opening to a court. Khat tried to step past it, and it moved quicker than thought, blocking escape and herding them again toward the court.
Because it can trap us in there
, Khat thought, desperate.

“Is it a ghost?” Elen said. “Like the one at Radu’s house?”

“I was hoping you knew.”

“My education didn’t cover this area. It’s getting stronger, or something. Can you feel it?”

He could. The air was turning chill around them, forcing them back under the arch of the entrance to the court. It acted like a ghost, it felt like a ghost, it would probably kill them like a ghost, but he had never heard of a ghost you could see as a blot of darkness. They were only visible if they stirred dust or knocked things over.
Maybe everyone who ever saw one like this is dead
, Khat thought, which was a theory they might be about to prove.

They were trapped. The court was small, with high windowless buildings to either side and a wall behind.

Abruptly the chill in the air was gone, and the thing seemed to be swirling about, caught in some internal struggle. Then it shrank in on itself until only a point of red light remained.

And Aristai Constans was standing behind it, blocking the exit from the court.

Elen took a deep breath, muttered, “Oh, no.”

Constans gestured, and the last of the red ghost light winked out. He came toward them unhurriedly, and said, “Well, I think we know what I’m here for.”

Khat was moving forward, no real plan in mind except to distract him so Elen could perhaps run out past him. The next moment he was on the ground, the breath knocked out of his lungs, his legs numb and unable to move.

Constans said, “Stay out of this for a moment, Khat, if you can.”

“Leave him alone,” Elen said. She held out one hand, eyes narrowed in concentration. The air between them seemed to thicken, shadows taking substance, growing heavy with the presence of power. Constans stepped through it, and the delicate structure was swept away, scattered like straw in a sandstorm. He said, “I haven’t time for games, Elen. Give me the book. Riathen was a fool to let it out of his keeping. Don’t add to his foolishness by opposing me.”

He thinks it’s Riathen’s copy
, Khat thought, startled, then tried not to think at all.

Elen shook her head, wisely not sparing breath to answer or correct his mistake. She flexed her hand, trying something else, something that made the air around them grow brighter, brought out the muted color in the tiles in the court’s pavement, then turned them gray with its intensity. Khat wanted badly to look away but didn’t dare. The feeling was coming back into his legs, and he cautiously levered himself up off the pavement a little. It hadn’t hurt as much as being hit with a painrod, but he was willing to rank it high on the list of the most frightening things that had ever happened to him. He remembered the lictor Constans had killed so easily out at the Remnant and supposed he should feel lucky.

Elen’s face looked terrible in the unnatural light, pale as death and tense with pain. No wonder she hated to use her power, and never did anything but small simples that often as not refused to work.

Constans stopped, regarding her thoughtfully. He took another step toward them, this with more effort, but said, “I see Riathen’s teaching hasn’t improved with time. You didn’t even realize Shiskan and the others were on the roof, Elen. Is your skill at soul-reading still so poor?” Abruptly Elen’s wall of light was scattered, caught in some invisible wind that trapped it in a miniature dust devil and sent it swirling away into the night sky.

There was lamplight from behind the wall suddenly, and someone shouted, “Look, over there!”

Constans swore and started forward.

Elen was faster. She flung the delicate text up and back, over her head and over the wall and down to whoever had shouted.

Elen fell back, and Khat managed to catch her, dragging her out of Constans’s reach, but they were both still trapped against the wall. Suddenly a large group of vigils, air guns ready, appeared in a blaze of lamplight at the end of the court. Constans flung himself to the right, at the steep wall of the house, scaling it as if it were a ladder. Khat heard the crack of pellets striking stone and slumped back to the ground, pulling Elen down with him. The firing stopped abruptly, and he risked a look.

Constans had vanished. The vigils filled the little court, pointing and shouting directions to each other, lamps swinging.

Elen sat up, holding her head in both hands as if it hurt too much to move. She was breathing hard and trembling. “Are you all right?” Khat asked her, trying to see if she had been hit.

“I think so.” She rubbed her eyes. “Where’s the book?”

A rifle barrel came down between them suddenly, lamplight glinting off the chased silver arabesques along it, and Khat looked up at a grim-faced man with a subcaptain’s chain of office. “Your friend won’t get far,” the vigil said. “Tell us who he is.”

“You don’t want to know,” Khat said. Anyone chasing Constans at this point would be lucky indeed not to catch up with him.

Elen said, “I’m a Warder. Which one of you has our book?”

The subcaptain sneered. “You’re a thief. When I—”

She was on her feet before he could react, her painrod just lifting his chin. He was a head taller than she, but it didn’t seem to matter much. Her voice low and shaking, she said, “I’m not going to tell you again. Give me the book.”

Khat stood, slowly so as not to distract her, wondering if the others would try to shoot her and what he could do about it if they did.

But the subcaptain said, “Your pardon, Honored.”

After a tense moment, Elen stepped back. One of the other vigils gingerly held out the leather-cased text to her. She tucked it under one arm, and said to Khat, “We’ve got the book. Are you all right? We should go find the others now.”

He nodded. The physical effect of what Constans had done had disappeared completely, though he would certainly remember it for a long time. The vigils were blocking the front of the court, most of them staring as if they were at a theater. “Make them get out of the way,” Khat suggested helpfully.

There was a muted scramble in the ranks to clear a path, except for the subcaptain, who stepped out of their way slowly and gave Khat a look that should have melted bone as they went past.

Elen was heading determinedly for Arad’s house, and Khat was glad, not knowing if he could talk her out of it if she stormed off somewhere he didn’t want to go. They needed to find Sagai again, and if anyone could help them brazen this all out it was going to be Arad-edelk. Because he was curious, and to see if she was in her right mind again, he asked, “Did he set that ghost after us or did he send it away?”

Elen frowned. “I don’t know.” She sounded more like her normal self, at least. “It did look like he sent it away, didn’t it?”

There were now vigils guarding the doorway of Arad’s house, and as they went up the steps Khat could hear Scholar Ecazar’s voice, the sarcasm in it discernible even at this distance. The vigil subcaptain motioned for the others to clear a path, and moved in front of them to lead the way, though he was careful not to jostle Elen.

There were more vigils in Arad’s workroom, and Scholar Ecazar was pacing back and forth, saying, “At the very least you have jeopardized your work. This mural is the most important commission given to any scholar this year, and if you are mixed up in any illegal dealings…”

Sagai stood nearby, composed and watching Ecazar thoughtfully. Arad-edelk was shaking with rage at being accused. Neither looked any the worse for wear for their experience.

When Ecazar paused for breath, Arad said, “Your accusations are ridiculous. I was attacked, in my house, by…” He gestured angrily, obviously buying time. “By…”

“By thieves,” Sagai murmured.

“By thieves, and was only saved from death by the presence of my friends here, who came to consult with me on another matter.”

“Friends.” Ecazar was contemptuous. “You hadn’t seen them before today, you said so yourself this afternoon. And what about this?” He shook something under the smaller scholar’s nose, and Khat realized with a sinking feeling that it was the little winged plaque that had gone unnoticed by Shiskan and the others. “They accused you of purchasing it from some Fourth Tier thief—”

“Not an accusation, merely a question,” Sagai objected.

Ecazar saw Khat and Elen, and shook the plaque in their direction. “I might have known you would have something to do with this when I saw you here again today.” It was the first time he had spoken directly to Khat since he had ordered him out of the Academia after Robelin’s death. “And you, Warder, what are you scheming with this kris relic thief?”

Elen stalked forward, still clutching the book. “I am on Warder’s business, and that is all you need to know.”

“What is that book?” Ecazar asked, distracted and frowning. He might be a scornful old pedagogue, but he knew a Survivor text when he saw one. “Where did you get it?” the scholar demanded.