Color Mage (Book 1) (31 page)

“That’s right.”

“Someone who can avoid troops sent to follow.”

“You understand, I see.” Callo took a great slug of ale and called for more. His arm burned. It etched a path of pain from his shoulder to his wrist. This was a bad time for it to grow worse. “You said you have no kin to take the brunt of the King’s anger. I will not lie, however—you will be putting yourself at great risk if they ever discover who aided us.” He wanted to mention reward, the coins Chiss was packing even as they spoke, but he felt, if Ha’star agreed to help them, it would not be because of money.

Ha’star grunted. “I hear the woman Healer is in prison.”

Callo nodded.

“Wasn’t her place to be healin’ folks, you know my lord ku’an.”

“In Righar . . .”

“Doesn’t matter about Righar. You’re here now. I suppose you know what they’ll do to her.”

Callo forced down the anger. The King had used Kirian for what he needed, and then disposed of her. He knew he hadn’t helped, joining Kirian in her disregard of the modesty laws. “I don’t mean to wait to find out. What do you say?”

Ha’star evaluated him with narrowed eyes. Callo stared back, wondering how much of his pain the other man could see. He was beginning to feel odd, too. He held on to his expressionless look as Ha’star thought.

“You’re one of the decent ones,” Ha’star said. “The only decent one by my lights. I’ll do it. I’m on leave now, so I’ve got time. This be my chance to strike at Jol’tan.”

“What did he do to you, this Jol’tan?” Callo asked.

Ha’star made a savage cutting motion with his hand. “None of a ku’an’s business, is it? Not friend or foe.”

“My apologies.” Callo stood, held out a hand. Ha’star took it, but did not smile. “Meet us in the woods to the east of town, just to the east of the tanneries?”

“When?”

“Gods know. What is it now, full night already? We will try to be there by dawn. If we are not there—we could be delayed, I do not know what we go into. Use your judgment.”

“Nothing else,” Ha’star said. “I will be there, horsed and packed.”

“My thanks. You will not regret it, Ha’star.” Callo put all the sincerity of his feelings into that phrase.

“Not for you to guess what I’ll regret,” Hastar said in a voice that held more than a little warning. “Nor to do anything about it either, my lord ku’an.”

“As you say.” Callo nodded to him, and to the keeper, and left. In the security hole, he exchanged a few words with Gri’nel, who informed him that unlike last time, there were no assassins waiting outside the tavern. Wishing the old man the luck of the gods, Callo left.

* * * * *

The horses waited near a vacant part of the stables, hidden in the shadows of new-leafed bushes and the tumbled gray stone of the old buildings. Chiss had tied the packs so that all they needed to carry was their weapons. The packs were small, Chiss had cautioned several times, as if he thought Callo did not realize that one could not bring valus fur and extra pillows on a flight for one’s life. Callo had chosen a time when most residents of the castle would be asleep—except, of course, for the King’s companions, who attended a late party, and the servants who were kept scurrying to attend to their wishes. But that was on the other side of the hulking building, and also in the kitchens. Here near the cells, all was quiet.

They crouched near the arched walkway that Callo had traveled with his guide earlier that day. It seemed a different world now. The moon was a slender crescent, lighting very little. The torches set by the gate for the guards burned snappishly in the unsettled breeze, so that the shadows wavered about under their feet. Callo remembered that there was no outside window in Kirian’s cell; he thought of her alone in the dark, and moved restlessly, anxious to get in.

Callo crept forward until he was hidden from the gate guards only by the lower half of the arched wall. Then he moved fast, sliding behind one of the men and smashing his sword hilt into his head. The guard crumpled.

Callo looked for the second guard. The man lay on the ground unconscious, with Chiss leaning over him, pulling a key from the man’s belt. Then Chiss dragged both men out of sight while Callo kept guard. In a few minutes he appeared again, breathing as if he had been fighting, but he only waved at Callo to continue on.

The gate opened smoothly and without sound. As they entered, clinging to the wall to avoid making an obvious silhouette, Callo checked for more guards. The lamps were lit in the center room, and he could hear the rumble of voices coming from it—and also the clink of pottery. It seemed Jashan was with them, and they had happened to arrive at the guards’ mealtime. Callo could see no one in the dirt-floored passageway at all.

They crouched low to avoid being seen through the tiny windows, and moved down the hall. When Callo thought they had arrived at the proper cell, he lifted his head and peered inside.

He could see Kirian by the light of a torch set at the end of the hall. She sat on the low bench in deep shadow. A tray with a bowl on it lay on the bench beside her, but she did not seem to be eating. She put her head in her hands, and her hair swung forward to cover her eyes.

“Kirian,” Callo whispered.

Kirian looked up, eyes wide, and saw Callo. She jumped up and almost knocked over the tray, but caught it as it tipped. She settled the tray safely on the bench, then hurried to the door.

“Get ready,” Callo whispered, and set the big metal key they had taken from the gate guard into the lock, and tried to turn it.

It would not turn.

Jashan aid us,
he thought, and tried again. The thing would not turn. He looked over his shoulder at the guards’ common room, wondering which one kept the key and how he could get it. Just then a burly man stuck his head out of the guardroom and glanced up and down the hall. His eyes caught on them where they crouched before Kirian’s door.

“Ware intruders!” he yelled in a voice like a lion’s roar. There was a clatter of overturned pottery and a slam as something wooden went over hard. Five men ran out of the guardroom, arming themselves as they went. There was nowhere for Callo and Chiss to go. Giving up on secrecy, they stood. Callo pushed the dizziness and the pain to the back of his mind and readied himself to fight.

“Ku’an!” yelled one of the prisoners. His shout echoed down the passageway, a dull underground reverberation that mixed with the metallic clash of swords as Chiss engaged with the first guardsman. Callo saw another man race forward to strike and raised his own sword, blocking the cut full on his weapon and shaking his wounded right arm to the bone.

Chiss disposed of the first attacker; the man lay on the floor, blood pumping out of a wound in his gut to soak into the dirt floor. Callo’s foot slipped in the blood and he almost went down; his attacker’s swing flew over his head, striking the door behind him. Callo hauled himself upright with his left arm in Kirian’s window and stabbed with his sword as if it were a knife, piercing his opponent’s leather shirt and his heart. The man gurgled horribly and went down, only to be replaced by a fresh and angry guard.

Callo wanted to look around for Chiss but dared not turn his eyes from this new man. He heard Kirian shriek and wondered if Chiss had been wounded. His attacker swung at his unprotected neck, and Callo ducked then lifted his arm to strike back.

The pain swept up his arm into his shoulder, into his neck. For just a moment, every bit of will Callo had would not move his arm. He felt someone grab him by his left arm and pull, hard, moving him away while his vision shaded from red to black and back to normal.

Kirian’s voice, behind him, warned: “Beware, there’s another!” Callo raised his left arm, hoping to get inside his opponent’s guard and block his arm at very close range. He knew he had failed when there was a blur of movement and he felt the agony of a fresh sword cut on his already wounded arm.

The pain screamed up his arm and felled him. He realized he was on his knees on the dirt floor, with Chiss standing in front of him trying to defend him against the three guards that remained. Someone shouted from the entrance, and the gate guards they thought they had disposed of loomed in the hallway, ready to join the fight.

“My lord!” gasped Chiss.

Callo dropped his sword. He ignored the sick, swimming feeling in his head. He forced his shoulders to relax, and fought behind the barrier of his pain. He found the source of the ku’an magery, searched for the essence of the emotion he needed, and shoved it out into the hallway in desperation, hoping this would work. There was no time to finesse the effects of the magery. He said “Sorry” to Chiss and Kirian under his breath as he felt the energy leave him, and heard the sudden silence as the fighting stopped.

“My lord, thank you—I knew you could do it,” Chiss said as he helped Callo to his feet. Callo did not look at him; he didn’t want to see the false trust in Chiss’ familiar eyes.

“Lord Ku’an!” said one of the guards. “Why—I mean, are you all right? I do beg your pardon! Forgive us!” The man actually knelt in shocked repentance. He had dropped his sword; it lay with its tip in a pool of blood on the hard-packed dirt floor.

“Just—give me the key,” Callo said, holding his right arm with his left, trying to fight the dizziness that wanted to bring him down. Blood leaked between his fingers. One of the guards opened Kirian’s door and she rushed out, prying at his fingers to see between them.

“Let me see that,” she said.

“No time,” he said, because the effort to keep all the guards in a trusting frame of mind was tiring him. Between the wound and the strain of the magery, he did not know how long he could keep this up.

Kirian let go his arm and looked up at him. The contrast between the glowing trust in her eyes and the stunned look he had seen days before was too much for him; he looked away.

“My lord, let us help,” said one of the guards. He motioned the other guards back, directed them to see to the fallen men, and accompanied Chiss, Callo, and Kirian to the gate entrance. “I am sorry we did not realize who you were. Let me call a physician. You are bleeding.”

“No, no! I have access to a—a Healer. Go back and take care of your men.”

“We have two dead. Can you send someone to help take them to the priests? We should not leave the prisoners,” the guard said, then added, “I regret the disturbance. We did not know, my lord.”

“Yes, yes. I know. Go back. Go to your men.” The ceiling began to make large, slow circles around his head. He staggered a little. Chiss supported him with an arm under his left shoulder. “Go! You know you can trust me to say nothing.”

“Of course, I trust you absolutely. I will do as you say.” The guard bowed and vanished.

“In about two minutes he will remember I’m not so trustworthy,” Callo said raggedly. “Chiss, Kirian, the horses . . .”      

“I knew I could depend on you to get me out of there,” Kirian said.

Callo ignored her words, knowing they were the product of artificial emotion. They were out the gate, up the arched walkway in full view now, since no one was suspicious—to the side of the stable, to the horses. The night sky swung wildly about him. Callo felt himself lose the magery. He felt the wall seal him in and the others out, dropping on him in massive finality. He cried out in pain, exhausted and sick, no longer sure where he was.

“All the gods,” Chiss muttered next to him. “You did it, didn’t you? Are you still with us, my lord?”

Callo could not reply.

“What
was
that?” Kirian asked, sounding shocked.

“A ku’an at work,” Chiss replied. “Here, help him up. Jashan aid him to keep the saddle until we are out of reach.”

“I’ll—stay the saddle,” Callo gasped.

“Good, Lord Callo; now let me wrap that arm.” Kirian had found something long and soft—a strip of cloth from somewhere about her person—and she wrapped it around the wound with precise, impersonal movements that comforted him in his misery not at all. Although how he should expect comfort from one whose mind he had subverted, even briefly, he did not know. All he could do now was stay in the saddle. He determined he would do that if it killed him, to try to make amends for the wrong he had done both of them.

The night careened about him as he was helped to mount, and Miri moved uneasily under him. “Miri, now go gently, guard him well,” he heard Kirian say to the mare, and he remembered that he had, after all, saved the Healer from whatever foul execution they had been going to inflict on her, and perhaps she would remember that. Then he had to devote every ounce of attention to staying on Miri, as Chiss, on his own gelding, led Miri through the night. He held on through the twists and turns of the city streets, seeing occasional torches like bleary beacons in the late spring night. They stayed away from dockside, went through the merchants’ square, through a twisted alley crowded with leaning houses, through dank, wet spring streets with water pooled in gutters too clogged to drain. He gave up any effort to keep track of where they were. Once he heard Chiss say, “My lord, we are almost there,” but he felt too dizzy to respond. “Are you all right?” Kirian asked, and Chiss said, “We cannot help him until we are there.”

Then the stink of the tannery pierced his haze, and he lifted his head. Miri plodded along under him like a child’s pony; they were keeping their pace easy for him. He looked around, saw the tannery looming ahead, and smelled the bitter stench that drifted east on the wind.

“In the woods,” he told Chiss. “Someone is waiting.”

“Your guide,” Chiss agreed. “You told me, my lord. Easy, we are almost there.”

Callo subsided into confused pain. The tannery stench abated a little, freshened by the fickle spring breeze. His mind felt as if it were filled with wool, and pain enveloped his arm. He devoted himself to hanging on until they had left the scattered environs of the tannery and entered the eastern woods.

The woods was a small patch of wilderness close to Las’ash, free of houses or the makeshift settlements of traveling bands that clustered near the city to the north. The tannery smell no doubt had something to do with the lack of habitation here. As the deeper darkness of surrounding foliage claimed them, Callo felt the difference in Miri’s gait as she began walking on the leafy detritus of a trail. The slim moon vanished behind spring’s new leaves, and he could see nothing. Miri stayed in line with the other horses, and Callo thanked all the gods that he had to do nothing.