Crowchanger (Changers of Chandris) (23 page)

Now she
really
needed him, and no one had seen him for hours. Damn the man! Where had he gone off to?

Rannon and Jaevan both developed a fever shortly after. Some sort of infection from their wounds was possible, certainly, but she would not have expected it so soon. Rannon had the more delicate constitution so she concentrated on the younger prince first, linking with her kye to try to support his healing. No matter what she did, she could not bring the fever down, and when Rannon and Jaevan were both bathed in sweat, she had to resort to the more traditional method of sponging them with cold flannels. King Deygan called in a servant to assist. Sylas was still nowhere to be found.

Soon, Prince Rannon moaned and thrashed in his fever. Bruises formed on his chalk-white skin where no stone had struck him. Ayriene had to admit she was baffled. If she had had time to collect her thoughts then maybe she could have made sense of it, but two royal princes growing sicker by the minute under her care left little time for anything but keeping them alive.

The king’s apartments became a sick-room. Prince Marklin retired to his own room with a nurse to keep him out of the way. Ayriene was considering a second dose of sedative for the boys when a knock came at the door.

“Who is it?” Deygan barked.

Ayriene did not raise her eyes from Rannon. The child was failing. His skin was almost entirely covered with bruises, and they were spreading fast. His heart beat fast but more faintly by the minute. She could help steady a failing heart, but the boy’s body was collapsing and she could do little more for him. And Jaevan was fading too, despite his greater strength. It would not be long before Ayriene would have to choose to abandon Rannon to help Jaevan. As crown prince, his needs took priority, but it broke her heart to leave Rannon to die. Where in the Creator’s deepest hell was Sylas? There was little enough he could do, if a healer talent was failing, but his absence was inexcusable.

“Beg pardon, Your Majesty. Madam healer,” a nervous-looking servant said. “This man would not be put off, Sire. Says he knows what is wrong with the young prince.” She cast a quick look at Jaevan, his face slick with sweat, tossing and moaning and trying to shake off the blanket that Ayriene had pulled up around his shoulders.

“And is my son the talk of the castle now?” Deygan shouted. “Who has been gossiping? Was it you? I’ll have your back striped for you if it was.”

“No, Sire, no,” she said, eyes darting from Deygan to Jaevan and back. “I swear I said not a word to anyone. But he came here saying it was poison, Sire. I thought maybe the lady healer should hear him, in case it was important.”

“Send him in,” said Ayriene, before Deygan could say anything. She would listen to anyone who had a hint of what was wrong with the boys.

He was an unsavoury looking man, with battered leather jerkin and equally battered boots, and he smelled of sweat and old food and latrines. His hair was close-cropped, and by instinct she noted the broken veins on his face. He drank too much, like as not, and limped like one who was afflicted with gout.

“Your Majesty. My lady,” he said gruffly. “There is a man in the cells claims to know her ladyship.” Ayriene was anything but a lady, but few knew how to address changers, and giving her a rank to which she was not entitled was safer than giving offence.

“In the cells?” Ayriene could not think who she might know who had been consigned there, or how he might have any inkling that Jaevan was ill, or what ailed him.

“Aye, m’lady. Brought here with the Chesammos as attacked His Majesty, he was. He says he’s a changer and…” he looked uncertainly at Deygan, “he did change. Just for a few moments, like, but he did it, by the Creator. He really did.”

“Sylas?” she breathed.

“Aye, m’lady, that was the name he gave. There was poison on the stones they threw, he says. He said I must be sure and say to you that it was esteia.”

“Esteia?” Ayriene said, scrabbling for her herbal. It was not a name she was familiar with, but Sylas had all but memorised the tome. She would not be surprised if he now knew more plants than she. “Is he still in the cells?”

The man nodded, seeming unsure if he should bow when spoken to, and settling for ducking a nervous half bow to each of them when addressed. “My lady, he is tending two of the men what were brought in. One was hurt when they were captured and one has some sort of fever, by the looks. Yon changer man says he is innocent, Sire. But he was arrested along with the others. He didn’t have a bag of stones as they did, right enough, but he did have a sling and—” His eyes dropped and his battered boots shuffled uncomfortably, smearing the Creator knew what onto the carpet. “He said he wasn’t one of them, Sire, and if her ladyship knows him then maybe he was picked up by accident, like.”

“No stink without shit,” Deygan said darkly. Ayriene knew Deygan did not like Sylas being in the castle. It was no accident that there were no Chesammos in Deygan’s household, and Deygan heartily disapproved of his eldest son’s more liberal approach.

For a moment Ayriene wondered if Sylas might have sought out the rebels, remembering his reaction to the Namopaia raid. Just a moment, then dismissed. He would not do anything to harm Jaevan. And if he had—well, she would meet that possibility later. Right now, she needed him.

“If you want me to save your sons, I need my apprentice here. If he is right, and the Creator knows
I
think the boy is onto something, then I can keep the princes stable in their present condition a little while longer. If it is this poison, as he claims, then he needs to find an antidote and make it up.” Her herbal had no mention of esteia, far less an antidote, but she would not admit that in Deygan’s presence. It could be Sylas knew it by a local name.

“Can’t someone else do it? Under your instruction?” Deygan’s white eyebrows drew together in suspicion.

“Does anyone in your household know how to make up an infusion, Sire? And if they do, can they recognise medicinal plants reliably? If they bring back the wrong one they will waste valuable time, or worse, make the princes sicker. Sire, your sons’ lives are at stake. I need you to trust me and let me have my apprentice, even though he is Chesammos.”

The king harumphed and stroked his beard. “Very well, then. But he will be your responsibility. There will be guards on the door and in the room, and if he lays a finger on any of my sons I’ll have him killed without question.”

“Agreed.” She turned to the guard. “If there is an antidote nearby, tell him to fetch it. If not, bring him straight here. And hurry, man. We have little time.”

She turned her attention back to the princes. Jaevan held his own, but she was losing Rannon. Even if Sylas knew the antidote and could find it quickly she was afraid it would be too late for the younger boy. She very much feared Deygan would be short an heir by nightfall.

Chapter 23

S
ylas burst through the door a few minutes later, not stopping to consider that the room he entered in such an unseemly fashion formed part of King Deygan’s personal apartments. He registered the silver-haired man almost too late to skid to a halt and effect a rushed and hardly adequate bow.

“Your Majesty,” he acknowledged the king, who watched him with narrowed eyes and no attempt to disguise his contempt. “Mistress, I think I know what ails the princes.” On the way up the guard had confirmed his suspicions that two of the boys had been hit and were now sick, and that the healer didn’t seem to be making them any better. His eyes flickered to Jaevan, then to Rannon. He gasped at the sight of the younger boy, and Ayriene moved smoothly to block the child from his sight.

“Esteia, the man said. Do you know of an antidote?”

“Yes, Mistress.” If it is not too late. That thought rose unbidden in his head. Jaevan had bruising on his face, but it didn’t seem to have spread beyond his neck and shoulder. Rannon was a mass of bruises, his torso almost completely purple. “Mistress, when the bruising has spread so far—”

She cut him off. “Do you know where to find it?”

“It grows near the esteia. I’d know where to find it in the desert, but here… I would not know where to find it in Banunis, Mistress.”

“Then you must fly,” she said.

His jaw dropped.

“Me? But I can’t change.”

“The jailer said you changed in the cell. Was he lying?”

He hesitated. He had changed back in seconds, but he had changed, there was no doubt about that. “No, Mistress. But you can change better and fly faster than me.”

“And the time you would waste drawing the plant for me would use up any time I gained. To say nothing of the risk that I might bring back the wrong plant, even with a drawing.”

First flight was always accompanied. There was too much risk of an untried changer losing their bearings and flying beyond the reach of the aiea-bar, or overflying themselves and dying of exhaustion, or becoming prey to one of the real hawks that lived on the island. “Will you come with me?” He knew what the answer would be.

“I cannot leave the princes, Sylas. I am giving them what strength I can through the aiea-dera. Without that, they might succumb to the poison so fast that even an antidote would not help them.”

He had given the jailer his linandra bead, as promised, but now had the sinking feeling that the bead might have been the key to his changing. How could he admit to Ayriene that the price of his freedom had been her gift to him?

“Sylas?” When she spoke, he realised he had fallen into thought. “I can pipe for you.”

“I… I don’t know if I can do it again. In the prison I was angry and desperate and…” And he had had the linandra.

“Look at Jaevan, and ask yourself if you are desperate enough.”

His heart bled to see his friend. The boy dozed fitfully, the fever making him restless and pale as death around the blotches that marred his fair skin. “How would I carry it?”

She rummaged in her pack and handed him a pouch. “This is what changers use to carry things in bird form. You’d need to be careful not to stretch yourself, but leaves—leaves?” She raised an eyebrow enquiringly and he nodded confirmation. “Leaves wouldn’t weigh too much. You should be safe enough carrying them back.” Ayriene grasped his wrist. “I know you’ve got it into your head that you can’t change and you’re probably nervous about flying alone, and I don’t blame you. But I wouldn’t ask it of you if I didn’t think you could do it. Will you try?”

Sylas risked a glance at King Deygan. He and Ayriene had been talking in hushed voices and he wasn’t sure how much Deygan had overheard, but he looked older, his face drawn with worry. He stood to lose two of his three children if Ayriene and Sylas failed. As a Chesammos, Sylas should probably be supporting the rebels and refusing to help save the boys, but he saw a father anxious for his sons, not a ruler—not an Irenthi. And Jaevan was his friend, whatever the gulf between them.

“I’ll try.”

She took her pipe from her pouch and blew it, the strong pure note subtly different from Olendis’s, but causing the same stirring of the kye in his head. He heard the same familiar insistent clamour but now he knew which voice he was listening for. It came through clearly.

We fly, changer?

No, not yet. But don’t go. What do I need to do?

His voice sounded breathless in his own head. He must not lose contact.

I will wait for you in the Outlands.

Sylas loosened the collar of his shirt and untied his breeches.

“You hear it?”

“I hear it.” She blew again, and Sylas felt the twisting shock of transformation.
He picked up the pouch in his beak and hopped towards the window.

“You’ll need to change back to fill the pouch,” said Ayriene. How did he understand her, as a crow? This was all so new and strange to him. “I’ll call regularly. If you are in bird form it won’t affect you, but if you are in human form it will prompt your change so you can fly back. I don’t dare give you long. Fly hard, Sylas.”

And she threw open the window shutters to let him out. His first flight, alone, and on a desperate mission. A part of him wished Master Olendis could see him now. A part of him wished Casian were here.

He was too late to save Rannon. The frail six-year-old’s condition had deteriorated too far by the time Sylas returned with the leaves and boiled them to make the antidote. Although Ayriene dribbled the liquid past his lips, hoping against hope that he would rally, the child died in his father’s arms less than an hour later.

Jaevan was stronger, and managed to drink a cup of the potion. Soon after his little brother gave up the fight, Jaevan’s fever broke and the bruises stopped spreading. By evening, Ayriene declared him out of danger. If the antidote had come but a few minutes later they would have lost him, but he lived, though weak as a newborn. Sylas sat by Jaevan’s bed, determined not to move despite Deygan’s disapproval. Just after nightfall, he opened his eyes, and reached one hand out to his father and one to Sylas. A tearful Sylas dropped to one knee by his bedside and swore that as long as Jaevan needed him, he would be there. Deygan pursed his lips in annoyance, but Jaevan smiled and squeezed Sylas’s hand, touching the back of Sylas’s bent neck in the Irenthi manner of accepting an oath.

Lucranne held some of Sylas’s heart, but Banunis held the rest. As he swore his loyalty to Jaevan, he was aware of how the Chesammos would perceive his actions. He was a traitor to them now. A loyal Chesammos would have held his tongue, let the Irenthi brats die, and gone to the gallows proud of his race and his heritage. If he had not been an Irenthi’s pet before, that was certainly how they would see him now. But his choice was made. He was changer and healer first, Chesammos second. He would serve Jaevan, if Jaevan wanted him. He would serve Jaevan for as long as they both lived.

King Deygan attended the hanging of the three Chesammos in person. Neffan was long dead of the esteia, and the man who had been injured seemed barely conscious when they put the noose around his neck.

Prince Jaevan attended the king at the executions, to show the crowd that he lived. Rumours had run wild after the assassination attempt, and Deygan knew the importance of quashing them. Jaevan had to force himself to keep watching, but he stared resolutely at the gallows until his father allowed him to leave the balcony overlooking the courtyard where the scaffold had been erected.

To Deygan’s mind, there should have been another man hanging beside them. When it became obvious that they had failed to kill the king, the conspirators had Sylas send word to Ayriene of what ailed his sons. How better to grant a Chesammos traitor access to the king and his family—to put him in a position where he could strike again? How convenient that the apprentice knew the poison used and where to find the plant to save Jaevan, where the master healer did not. It stank of conspiracy to Deygan. The healer’s boy was implicated and up to his neck in it.

Jaevan still looked as if a gust of wind would carry him away. He had taken to his bed after his brother’s funeral two days before, saying he felt unwell, but each day he grew a little stronger, and Ayriene pronounced herself content with his recovery. The bruises had faded, and his appetite had somewhat returned. As he grew stronger, so did he grow more persistent in asking Deygan’s permission to meet with Sylas.

“Just to talk to, Father,” he begged. “After all, he did save my life. It is churlish not to thank him.”

King Deygan did not voice his suspicions to his son. Jaevan had taken such an interest in the Chesammos youngster that he would have denied his father’s fears without a second thought. Ayriene also maintained that he owed a debt to Sylas, but it all seemed a little too convenient. If Sylas were indeed part of the conspiracy to kill the royal family, best he not know that Deygan’s mistrust of him went any deeper than his known dislike of his race. He had ordered Chesammos entering the city searched and still they had killed his son. The guards had not queried a pouch of flints, never thinking that they could be used to kill one prince and bring another to death’s door.

“I have had word from Lord Garvan,” he told Jaevan. “He asks permission for Casian to attend court to learn statecraft. I have agreed; he will be a suitable companion for you. He knows the Chesammos from the Aerie, I believe, so I will agree to you meeting with the healer lad, but only in Casian’s company. He will be your companion and protector. For as long as this so-called rebellion lasts, your safety is of the utmost importance.” If Jaevan persisted in asking for Sylas, let him at least have an Irenthi companion: one in whose loyalty Deygan had no doubt.

Once back in his apartments Deygan received a messenger bearing alarming news.

The killers had been from Cellondora, and the central role of that village in the rebellion was confirmed by Deygan’s own intelligence. Since the village lay in Lucranne’s territory, Deygan had sent a message to Lord Garvan asking for its destruction. The lord holder had complied. In the short term, Garvan would compensate the lord holder for loss of income due to the loss of a linandra team. In the longer term, Garvan could make other villages increase the size of their teams to redress the balance.

A night raid by three companies of soldiers, two of Garvan’s and one of Deygan’s, should have left the villagers dead and the houses razed to the ground. But reports coming back from Cellondora spoke of people escaping—trained changers taking to the air to elude the soldiers. The messenger estimated up to fifteen escaped that way, and possible unpunished rebels among them.

Deygan sent back a message. The escaped Chesammos must be hunted down. There must be no survivors.

“And where is Master Donmar now?” Jesely rubbed sleep from his eyes as he followed a novice along corridors towards the council chamber.

“He is in the chamber, Master,” said the young girl brightly. “I think he has sent for the other councillors.”

“In that case, you do not need to accompany me,” he said. “I can find my own way to the council chamber, and you must have tasks to be about.”

A flicker of disappointment crossed her face. The council being called at this time in the morning was an unusual occurrence. Jesely guessed she would have been hoping for some snippet of gossip to carry back to the other novices. “You have done well, Kote. Go back to your work now.”