Clariel: The Lost Abhorsen (The Abhorsen Trilogy Book 4) (19 page)

He clapped his hands again. Four more waiters entered, bearing trays of oysters, mussels, and eels, which they set upon the table. Again, there was far more food than the five of them could possibly eat, and Clariel knew it would only be the first of many courses. She had no appetite, aware that Aronzo was watching her all the time, and Kilp too, that she was of no account to them save as a playing piece in their game of power, and they were preparing to make a move.

“You come from the Palace,” said Kilp, opening an oyster with gusto, using the short, blunt knife provided among the array of cutlery in front of him. “How was the King?”

“We did not see him,” said Jaciel. She speared a mussel from its shell with a needlelike implement of finely chased silver. “He met with Clariel, to receive the kin-gift.”

“And gave one in return,” said Harven quickly, clearly wanting to be in on the conversation. “A most notable gift.”

“He did?” asked Kilp, with a darting glance at Clariel.

“The Dropstone salt cellar,” announced Harven cheerfully. “We will have it in the workshop tomorrow.”

“Really?” drawled Aronzo. “I would like to see that. I have heard of it, of course, but to look at it closely . . .”

“You must,” said Jaciel eagerly. “It is a remarkable work. Kilp, you too. There is so much that we can learn from it.”

“I fear I am overburdened with matters of state, rather than matters of craft,” said Kilp. “It is too often the way, but then I was never as skilled as you, Jaciel. Aronzo will undoubtedly benefit from a study of the work, though I must say I am greatly pleased with his journeyman piece. It will go before the Guild assayers next week.”

“Next week?” asked Jaciel. “Congratulations, Aronzo. You will be one of the youngest masters ever.”

“Should the work be accepted,” said Aronzo with, Clariel was sure, entirely false modesty.

“It will be. You will be a Goldsmith of the High Guild,” said Kilp. He gave Clariel a slight bow. “And a guildmember should be married. When Aronzo sets up his own house and workshop, I would be delighted to see his wife by his side.”

“So should I,” said Clariel sweetly. “Who are you marrying, Aronzo?”

Kilp laughed. Aronzo transformed the beginnings of an angry scowl into laughter as well, a second too late.

“You are playful, Lady Clariel,” said Kilp. “It would be good to plan for the wedding soon, as I fear we will all be busy with the current difficulties, which can only be exacerbated by the King’s ill health—”

“The King is perfectly well,” interrupted Clariel. “And plans for
my
wedding are much ahead of any likelihood of there being one.”

Kilp raised his eyebrows and opened another oyster, tipping the shell back to let the meat inside slip down his throat. He tossed the oyster shell back on his plate and looked at Jaciel.

“Lady Jaciel? I thought this matter was agreed?”

“Not quite,” replied Jaciel smoothly. She looked at her daughter, but Clariel couldn’t tell what she was thinking. “Clariel and I have many matters we must talk about. Let us discuss other things. Your son Aronzo’s work, perhaps. I would like to see his masterwork, if I may.”

“It is not quite ready, I regret,” said Aronzo. “A matter of some minor polishing remains, and there is the question of etiquette, that only the assayers should . . .”

“That doesn’t matter,” said Kilp. He turned to the servant behind him and snapped, “Fetch Lord Aronzo’s goblet from the workshop.”

“Father, it’s
really
not . . .” Aronzo started to protest, but Kilp merely looked at him. The young man stopped, picked up one of his goblets instead, and took a hefty swallow.

“The King is well, you say,” said Kilp, after a minute of awkward silence, though at least Jaciel and Harven had started eating.

“He seemed well enough, though very old,” said Clariel. “He was very kind to give me . . . us . . . the salt cellar.”

Kilp grunted, but did not add anything else. He continued to look at Clariel as he ate, until she became uncomfortable and resorted to helping herself to a portion of eel. She pushed this around on her plate, cutting it into smaller and smaller sections with a knife that was considerably blunter than she thought it should be. She also couldn’t hold it tight enough, because the wound on her palm still hurt.

“You do not intend to be a goldsmith yourself, do you, Lady Clariel?” asked Aronzo blandly, as if they had just met. “What are your plans for your future?”

“I have not been in Belisaere very long, Lord Aronzo,” said Clariel. “I am still assaying the true value of many things here. Sometimes there is only the thinnest layer of gold upon the lead.”

“That’s true,” said Harven. “Remember those counterfeit bezants from that gang in Navis, they skimped on the leaf so much the coins could hardly pass between two hands before it came off.”

“True coin is an ornament of the state,” said Kilp pontifically. “And yet another responsibility of we Goldsmiths. Ah, here we are!”

His exclamation was for the arrival of Aronzo’s masterwork, which, if passed by the guild examiners, would allow him to become a full member of the guild. It was a goblet, carried in the white-gloved hands of the cloth-of-gold-clad majordomo, self-evidently a much more senior servant than the man sent to fetch it, who could not be trusted with an item of such value.

It was a very beautiful piece, Clariel noted with reluctance. A slim goblet of beaten gold raised upon a long stem set with small rubies, arranged so that a red glow wrapped the cup above and the circular foot below, which was also rimmed with rubies or tiny chips of ruby.

Jaciel’s eyebrows rose as she saw it.

“Show me!” she demanded, rising from her seat. Aronzo stood too, and both moved around opposite sides of the table toward the majordomo.

“It
really
isn’t ready, Lady Jaciel!” he said, in his most charming manner. “Please don’t touch—”

Even as he spoke, Jaciel put out one finger and touched the foot of the goblet. It was the slightest touch, a mere graze of her fingernail, but as it passed, tiny white sparks flew from her hand.

“You didn’t make this alone,” said Jaciel, her voice harsh. “This was made by a Dwerllin or Hish, it was forced by Free Magic from the raw gold!”

“True,” sighed Aronzo, and drew his sword in one swift motion. A moment after he did so, Kilp thrust his chair back and drew also. The servants, all save the majordomo, drew daggers. Clariel pushed her chair back, but before she could rise there was a dagger at her throat held by the servant who been standing behind her, and another servant had her weapon at Harven’s neck. Bewildered, he looked from side to side as two more servants moved in front of Jaciel, their daggers ready, though they did not lift them.

Jaciel stood very still, clearly unarmed in her white and gold silks.

“I’m sure we can forget this,” said Kilp. He darted a sharp glance at his son, who looked down and bit his lip. “So my son had some help. It is of no great importance. Let’s sit down and talk, there are many arrangements we need to make—”

“I beg to differ,” interrupted Jaciel. She stood tall and imperious, speaking as she might to a forgehand who had spoiled the work of days. “You have knives at the throats of my husband and daughter. You deal with Free Magic. No.”

She spoke a word then that could not be properly heard or understood, a word that Clariel saw emerge from her mouth in a flash of golden brilliance. A Master Charter mark that was linked to hundreds of other marks, that came out of her mouth all together like a sudden storm of rain, but here the drops were molten gold, spraying out at neck height, passing over Clariel’s head so close she felt the burn of their passage. If it were not for her scarf, her hair would have caught on fire.

The servants in front of Jaciel and the ones behind Harven and Clariel screamed and fell as one, their faces dappled with burning holes. Jaciel stooped and picked up two daggers, wielding one in each hand. She lunged at Aronzo who frantically backed away and parried, and Kilp ran back to the doors and shouted, “To me!”

“Flee!” screamed Jaciel, parrying a riposte from Aronzo with one dagger as she drew Charter marks in the air with the other. The marks were bright as the sun, shining in the air with such brilliance they left afterimages in Clariel’s eyes. She pushed her chair back but the legs stuck against the fallen servant, so she had to writhe under the table to get out, and then drag at her father’s hand. Harven was still sitting there, his mouth open and face aghast.

“Father! Come on!”

She pulled his hand hard. He rose from his chair and they stumbled away. Clariel still had the small, blunt knife that she’d been using to cut the eel. She let go of her father’s hand and charged toward Aronzo’s back, aiming for his neck above his armored coat, but he saw her coming from the corner of his eye and stepped away, and she was only saved from his counterattack by Jaciel parrying with a dagger.

“Go!” screamed Jaciel. She was still tracing Charter marks with her left hand, even as she parried with her right. Clariel had rarely seen her mother practice her swordcraft, but somewhere along the line Jaciel had been taught very well indeed. “Take the small stair!”

“Don’t kill them, especially the girl! Shoot to wound!” shouted Kilp as he opened the doors, a dozen or more of his guardsmen pouring in around him.

But even as he spoke three eager arbalesters fired their crossbows. Quarrels shot through the air, all three aimed at Jaciel. Yet they did not strike true, instead colliding with some invisible, or near invisible barrier, for Clariel saw Charter marks flash as they struck.

Though the quarrels did not strike home, they did distract Jaciel for the barest instant. In that moment, Aronzo landed a cut across her arm. Blood flowed through the silk, spreading quickly.

“You cut as easy as any, for all your magic,” taunted Aronzo, stepping back so he could watch Jaciel and Clariel together, his blue eyes flickering. Harven was still gaping, his hands raised imploringly as if someone might step in to save them.

“Do I?” asked Jaciel. She leaned over and licked the blood from her shoulder, the smear of it frightful around her mouth. She laughed, a laugh Clariel had never heard before. A laugh that made her shiver from crown to toe, the laugh of something being released after a long, long captivity.

Another crossbow twanged, this time the arbalester aiming low at Jaciel’s legs. The quarrel struck the back of a chair, deflected off it at an odd angle, and struck Harven in the middle of his chest. His hands fell, the imploring gesture broken. He fell to the floor, blood pumping from the wound like a flooded gutter overflowing at the eaves.

Clariel felt him die. It was a sensation she knew well from hunting, though she had never realized it was the death sense of the Abhorsens, because she had never been so close to a person in the moment of their death. With animals it was like a fleeting, frozen touch in her mind. Here it was an icy gale that blew through a door that slammed shut again, all in one terrible instant.

A moment later Jaciel’s left-hand dagger flew through the air and the crossbowman who’d fired choked and gargled and plucked at the steel in his throat. Clariel felt his death too, another brief, icy waft deep inside her head.

“Clariel! Go!”

Jaciel’s command was laced with Charter Magic. Before Clariel could even think to fight against it, she found herself at the small door, wrenching it open, the narrow stair below her dark. She turned sideways as she stepped through, fighting the spell, and saw Jaciel throw her second dagger at Aronzo. He parried it too slowly and too close, so the blade spun across his handsome face, opening his cheek from chin to ear. Aronzo screamed and dropped his sword, his hands clutching his face, the blood running out between his fingers.

Clariel had one last glimpse of Jaciel preparing to launch herself at Kilp and his guards. Her mother was casting a spell, a forge spell drawn with a single Master Charter mark, sketched in the air. Flames grew from her fingers as she traced it, long white-hot flames like curving swords.

Jaciel’s daughter saw no more. The spell forced her away, turned her head and sent her stumbling down the stair.

Clariel did not see her mother charge her enemies.

Kilp fled before her, his guards closing ranks behind him. Jaciel killed one, cutting him almost in two. But she was struck herself twice, a terrible wound in her side, and another above her knee. She merely laughed again. Bloody foam dribbled from her mouth as she spun and hacked and drove steadily deeper into the panicked guards, her fiery blades hissing as they cut through armor, flesh, and bone.

The guards fought back, chopping and stabbing in blind desperation at this terrible enemy who wielded fire and would
not
die.

Jaciel was almost through to Kilp when a blow from a halberd took her and the head of the greatest goldsmith and finest artist in the Kingdom flew from her shoulders, to roll bloodily across the floor.

Chapter Seventeen

SEEKING REFUGE

C
lariel ran. She stumbled down the stairs, compelled by the spell. All she could think of was flight. She had to get out of the dark, enclosed stair, get out of the Governor’s House, get out of Belisaere!

Get out! Get out!

She collided with the door at the bottom, and frantically felt for the lever, handle, or bar. But there was nothing, just smooth wood. She hammered on it with the eel knife, screaming, “Open! Open!” until finally someone did open it and she fell out into lantern light, her clothes splattered with blood and the top of her head singed. Hands clutched at her, but she fought them off and ran, ran as fast as she could for the front door through people shouting questions, and then all-too-slowly beginning to run after her.

Then she was outside, the door behind her. Out in the courtyard, crowded with soldiers, and there was an instant, just an instant when no one noticed because it was noisy and everyone was excited with the coming battle or riot or whatever they wanted to call it.

That moment passed as Kilp shouted behind her.

“Stop her! Catch her! Do not use steel!”

Clariel didn’t slow down. Even as everyone began to react, she was running, this time for the gate in the curtain wall. She was halfway there when she heard Kilp again, closer.

“Stop her! Catch her!”

A grinning guardsman stepped into her path, the grin gone instantly as she kicked him in the groin and ducked past, cursing the flimsy shoes she wore instead of her proper boots.

She was almost at the gate when one of her own guards, the grim-faced Reyvin, stepped out from the shadows and thrust her spear-shaft at exactly the right point between the young woman’s knees.

Clariel came crashing down on the flagstones and lost her eel knife. She rolled quickly and got onto her knees, just as the spear shaft came down again, this time to tap her quickly on the back of the head.

It was meant to knock her out, but it didn’t. Clariel rode the blow down, flipped over on her side and kicked up at her attacker, getting Reyvin just under the knee. The guard cursed and went down herself, sprawling on the pavement. Clariel dove onto her, whipped a dagger from her belt, and was up and away again, still compelled by her mother’s spell, Jaciel’s shouted
Go!
echoing in her ears.

She was through the gate before any other guard came close, and then sprinting down the road faster than she had ever run, faster than on any hunt, this time the quarry rather than the hunter. She ran without conscious thought for any ultimate destination, seeking only darkness to shield her, turning off the roads that were lit by Charter-Magic lanterns suspended on iron poles, choosing always the darkest street at every intersection.

Halfway along a dim lane, her mother’s spell began to fade a little. This allowed Clariel to think for moment instead of simply running. She paused to look up at the stars to get her bearings. But there were no stars. The clouds hung dark and low, and a light rain was falling, less wet than the tears already on her face.

There was a great hue and cry behind her, so she went the opposite way from the noise, running not quite so fast, saving her strength. There were people on the streets, as there always were, but few now, for it was full night. They parted before her, as soon as she was close enough to be seen in whatever light fell from house windows or street lanterns. No one wanted to get in the way of a bloodied, crazed-looking woman cradling an unsheathed dagger to herself as if it were a precious jewel.

Eventually, the compulsion faded completely. Clariel came to her senses, or what passed for senses, given the shock of her parents’ murder. She was shivering with shock, her hands ached, her feet were cut and bruised, her soft shoes in ribbons. She looked around wildly, seeing only the dark outlines of tall houses, relieved here and there by the glow of lamps and Charter lights. She was in a residential street, a good one, judging from the size of the houses near her, but she had no idea which one.

Or where she should go. At least it was quiet. Wherever her pursuers were, they were not close. Perhaps she was no longer even pursued . . .

Clariel looked around again, studying the skyline, the patterns of lights. Then she saw it, sticking up above the other houses, the darker, taller shadow of a tower. One of the towers of the old wall.

Perhaps even Magister Kargrin’s tower. This could be . . . it looked like it was . . . the Street of the Cormorant . . . somewhere she had run to unwittingly, her deeper self knowing where some hope of safety lay.

The gold and a disguise, thought Clariel dully. Now I have to go, for there is nothing . . . no one left to me here.

Nothing but death and trouble.

Limping, she walked up the street, keeping to the shadows, crossing the road when a particularly well-lit house cast too bright a light out its many windows.

Near Kargrin’s tower, she slowed, pushing the shock and grief away, forcing it deeper, till some other time. Kilp might well have Kargrin watched, she thought, as a known opponent. She might have to fight her way to the gate, and if it were at all possible, it would be best that Kilp not know where she was until she could be disguised and on her way again. Clariel had no idea how long a Charter Magic disguise would take to cast. Hours? She hoped it was quick, or there would be little chance for her to escape.

Three houses up and across the street, she hid by the front door of a darkened house, and watched the gate of the tower. It was only when she tasted salt in her mouth that she realized it wasn’t just rain on her face. She was crying, the tears flowing for the father who though he had disappointed her, she had always loved; and for her mother, who she must presume to be dead.

But she could not afford tears, not yet at any rate. Clariel wiped her eyes with her sleeve, and watched again. There was no movement on the street. All was quiet, and most of the nearer houses were dark. She could not wait longer, because any search would undoubtedly come here. Valannie knew everywhere she went, and doubtless she would have already told Kilp’s minions where to look.

Clariel crossed the road at a run, went straight to the small portal in the gate, and knocked on it as quietly as she dared. Even so, the knocks sounded very loud in the quiet, dark street. She gripped her dagger harder, ignoring the pain in her hand, tensing for a sudden attack from somewhere. An arrow, or a quarrel from one of the windows opposite, someone leaping out from that doorway—

A head appeared suddenly through the door, thrust
through
the iron-studded timber. Clariel shrieked and jump back, before she realized it was the Charter sending that had opened the door before. It looked at her, its eyes a bright concentration of Charter marks.

“Kargrin,” croaked Clariel. “I need to see Kargrin. Let me in. My name is Clariel. Please let me in!”

The sending’s head withdrew. At the same time Clariel heard running footsteps on the street, hobnails sharp on the paving stones. She turned and saw half a dozen guards in goldsmith livery approaching, long wooden staves in their hands rather than more deadly weapons.

“Drop your dagger!” commanded the leader.

The sound of bolts being withdrawn came from within the tower. Clariel backed up against the door and hefted her dagger. The guards approached warily, staves at the ready.

Clariel stamped backward with her foot, hoping the door would budge. But it didn’t move.

“Kargrin!” she screamed, as loud as she could. But he didn’t answer, and no help came. She couldn’t fight six guards, not without help, and the berserk fury that might have made the difference felt far distant, banished by the shock of her parents’ death, or suppressed by the aftereffects of Jaciel’s spell.

The door groaned open. Clariel turned to duck through it, and in that instant, the guards struck. Several blows rained down on her back and shoulders, sending her sprawling across the threshold of the gate. She tried to crawl through, with the sending just standing there, doing nothing but holding the door open. She felt her legs grabbed as the guards dragged her back out. She twisted around and recognized Linel, who mouthed the word “Sorry” even as she was treading down hard on Clariel’s hand to make her drop the dagger, pain stabbing through her half-healed wound.

Too much pain, and too much endured in too short a space of time. Clariel made one last, violent attempt to rise up and spring through the door, but she was held fast. Her arms were brought behind her back and roped together before she was picked up and carried away from her potential refuge, limp and no longer struggling. For a moment she gazed up at the night sky, crowded in by the buildings on the street. The sky seemed darker than it should, till she realized she was swimming in and out of consciousness, and then the darkness was complete.

Magister Kargrin, flying above in the shape of a beggar owl, granted by wearing a Charter skin, saw the commotion on his street from afar, but despite the powerful beating of his grey wings, he could not arrive in time to tip the balance in Clariel’s favor. For a moment he did consider a rescue, but there were not only the six guards who had taken Clariel, but another dozen coming up the street. Some were Charter Mages, and there would not be time to argue rights and wrongs, so any aggressive magic he used would be countered or negated by these others, as was the nature of Charter Magic. And he could not physically fight more than four or five guards, on a good day, with luck.

Luck had not been noticeably with him so far that night. He had been spying on the Governor’s House, watching the Trained Bands muster, for he knew the soldiers were not being gathered by Kilp to counter a riot in the Flat, since it and all other parts of the city were quiet. He’d seen Clariel come bursting out of the gate, but had lost her in the alleys, and then had lost precious time going to her home, not guessing she would go to his own tower.

He was wondering whether he should follow the guards taking Clariel back to the Governor’s House, and attempt a rescue there, or do something else, when he caught the sound of a distant horn blast.

The great baritone boom of the Charter-Magicked horn that hung on chains atop the gatehouse of the Palace.

The Palace was under attack.

Kargrin let out a screech that was the owl equivalent of violent swearing, and swooped up to catch the wind that would speed him to the northwest, to defend the King. He took one last, yellow-eyed look at Clariel down below, a forlorn figure carried on the shoulders of the guards like a casualty of battle.

They would not harm her, he thought. Kilp needed Clariel, or her mother. Surely, they would not harm her . . .