Furies of Calderon (16 page)

The pair rested fist over their hearts and bowed their heads. Then Odiana slipped up to the swordsman’s side and pressed to him until he circled her shoulders with one arm. The two left, without looking back.

On the floor, Calix let out his death rattle, and his eyes glazed over, mouth hanging slightly open.

“How did you know?”

Aldrick repeated Fidelias glanced back at the dead Rhodesian Count and shrugged. “To be honest, Your Grace I didn’t know. I guessed.”

Aquitaine half-smiled “Based upon what?”

“Too many years in this line of work. And I’ve met Rhodes. He wouldn’t step an inch from his way to help someone else, and he’d cut off his own nose just to spite his face Calix was being—”

“But I think I can respect you, after a fashion. And if it’s to be a choice of who will put the knife in my back, I would rather it be you than Rhodes or one of his lackeys, I think.”

Fidelias felt his mouth tug up at the corners. “Thank you.”

“Make no mistake, man.” Aquitaine turned to face him. “I prefer to work with someone to forcing them to my will. But I can do it. And I can kill you if you become a problem. You know this, yes?”

Fidelias nodded.

“Good,” Aquitaine said. The High Lord covered his mouth with his hand and yawned. “It is late. And you are right about moving quickly, before the Crown has a chance to act. Get a few hours sleep. At dawn, you leave for the Calderon Valley.”

Fidelias bowed his head again. “Your Grace—I don’t have any chambers here, as yet.”

Aquitaine waved a hand toward the slave. “You. Take him to your chambers for the night. Give him whatever he wants and see to it that he is awake by dawn.”

“Fascinating. The course of a century of history can be set in a few short hours. A few precious days. Focal events, Fidelias—and those people who are a part of them become the ones to create tomorrow. I have sensed a distant stirring of forces from the direction of the Valley. Gaius is already arousing the furies of the Calderon, perhaps. History is stirring. Waiting to be nudged in one direction or the other.”

“I don’t know about history, Your Grace. I just want to do my job.”

Aquitaine nodded, once. “Then do it. I will expect word from you.” And without another word, the High Lord strode from the hall.

Fidelias watched him go and waited until the doors had closed behind him to turn to the slave girl. He offered her a hand, and she took it, her fingers warm and soft, her expression uncertain. Fidelias straightened his posture, bent, and placed a formally polite kiss to the back of the slave’s fingers. “Your Grace,” he said. “High Lady Invidia. May I convey to you my heartfelt admiration.”

The slave’s expression flickered with shocked surprise. Then she threw back her head and laughed. Her features changed, subtle and significant, until the woman standing before him appeared to be several years older, her eyes holding a great deal more wisdom. Her eyes were grey, like ashes, and her hair had delicate feathers of frost all through it, though her features looked no older than a woman nearing her thirtieth year—all of the great Houses had that kind of skill at water-crafting (or nearly any other form of fury-crafting one could name).

“How did you guess?” she asked. “Not even my lord husband saw through the disguise.”

“Your hands,” Fidelias replied. “When you washed my feet, your fingers were warm. No slave in her right mind would have been anything less than anxious in that room. She would have had chilly fingers. And no one but you, I judged, would have had the temerity or skill to attempt such a thing with His Grace.”

High Lady Aquitaine’s eyes shone. “A most astute assessment,” she said. “Yes, I had been using Calix to find out more about what Rhodes was up to. And tonight was the night I thought I might get rid of him. I made sure that my husband was in a mood he would not enjoy being taken from and waited for the Rhodesian fool to shove his foot down his own throat. Though I must say, you seemed to pick up on what was happening and ensure that it carried through without any hints from me. And not the least bit of fury-crafting to assist you.”

“Logic is a fury all its own.”

She smiled, but then her expression grew serious, intent. “The operation in the Valley. Will it succeed?”

“It might,” Fidelias said. “If it does, it might accomplish what no amount of fighting or plotting could. He could win Alera without ever spilling Aleran blood.”

“Not directly, in any case,” said Lady Aquitaine. She sniffed. “Attis has few compunctions about blood. He is as subtle as a roaring volcano, but if his strength can be properly focused—”

Fidelias inclined his head. “Just so.”

The woman studied him for a moment then took his hand. Her features shimmered and slid back into the mask of the slave girl she had worn before, the grey smoothing out of her hair, her eyes shading toward a dark, muddy brown, rather than grey. “In any case. I have my orders regarding you this night.”

Fidelias hesitated, “Your Grace—”

Lady Aquitaine smiled. She touched her fingertips to his mouth and said, “Don’t make me press the point. Come with me. I will see to it that you rest deeply in what time you have.” She turned and started walking again. “You have far to go, come the dawn.”

Chapter 8

When twilight fell, Tavi knew that he was still in danger. He had not seen or heard either of his pursuers since he had slithered down an almost sheer rock cliff, using several frail saplings to slow what would have been a deadly plummet to a careening slide. It had been a perilous gamble, and Tavi had counted on the saplings’ frailty to betray the heavy Marat warrior, killing or at least slowing him.

The plan had been only a partial success. The Marat looked once at the cliff and set off at a run to find a safe place to descend. It bought Tavi enough of a lead to attempt to lose his pursuer, and he thought that he had begun to widen his lead. The Marat were not like the Alerans—they had no ability at fury-crafting, though they were reported to possess an uncanny understanding of all the beasts of the field. It meant that the Marat had no vast advantage—like Tavi, he had only his wits and skill to guide him.

The storm settled over the valley in a glowering veil as the light began to fade. Thunder growled forth, but there was no rise of wind, no fall of rain or sleet. The storm waited for night to fall in full, while Tavi kept a nervous eye on both the sky and the barrens around him. His legs ached and his chest burned, but he had avoided the Marat, and just before sundown he emerged from the barrens onto the causeway several miles west of the lane to Bernard-holt. He found a deep patch of shade beside a windfall and crouched there, panting, allowing his tired muscles a brief rest.

Lightning flashed. He hadn’t meant to move so far to the west. Instead of being nearly home again, Tavi would have an hour-long run just to reach the lane down to the stead-holt. Thunder rumbled, this time so loud that it shook needles from the fallen pine beside him. There was a low, dull roar from the direction of Garados, and in a moment Tavi heard it growing nearer. The rain had finally begun. It came in a wave of half-frozen sleet, and Tavi barely had time to pull up his hood before a furious, frozen wind howled down from the north, driving rain and ice alike before it.

The storm devoured whatever meager scraps of daylight remained and drowned the valley in cold, miserable darkness, barring frequent flares of lightning skittering among the storm clouds. Though his cloak had been made to shed water, no fabric in Alera would have kept the rain and sleet of the fury-storm out for long. His cloak grew cold and wet, clinging to him, and the bitter wind drove the chill straight through his garments and into his bones.

Tavi shivered hard. If he remained where he was, he would die from exposure to the storm in only hours—unless a bloodthirsty wind-mane beat the cold to the punch. And though Brutus had surely reached the stead-holt with Bernard by now, he could not rely upon any of the hold-folk to rescue him. They knew better than to expose themselves to a fury-storm.

Tavi peered at the windfall in the next lightning flash. There was a hollowed out space underneath, thick with pine needles—and it looked dry.

Tavi started crawling inside, and the next lightning flash showed him an image from a nightmare. The windfall already had occupants—half a dozen slives. The supple, dark-scaled lizards were nearly as long as Tavi was tall, and the nearest lay within arm’s reach. The lizard thrashed restlessly, stirring from its torpor. It opened its jaws and let out a syrupy hiss, showing rows of needle-pointed teeth.

A thick yellow liquid coated the slive’s front fangs. Tavi had seen slive venom at work before. If the slive struck him, he would grow warm and sluggish, until he sank slowly down to the ground. And then the slives would drag him still alive into their lair. And eat him.

Tavi’s first reaction was a terrified desire to spring away—but fast motion could trigger the surprised slive. Even if the slive missed, the filthy little scavengers would regard his flight as a sign that he was prey to be pursued and eaten. He could outrun them on open ground, but slives had a nasty tendency to remain on the trail of their prey, sometimes following for days, waiting for their target to sleep before moving in for the kill.

Fear and excitement made Tavi tremble, but he forced himself to remain calm. He withdrew as slowly and smoothly as he could. He had just gotten out of the slive’s striking range when the beast hissed again and bolted out of its shelter and toward the boy.

Tavi let out a panicked scream, his light baritone cracking into a child’s higher pitch as he did. He threw himself back from the slive’s deadly bite, got his feet underneath him and started to run.

Then, to his complete surprise, he heard someone call out in an answering shout, one nearly drowned out by the rising winds.

Tavi snarled in frustration. The memory of the Marat warrior and his terrible partner came back to him in a flood of terror. Had they caught up to him?

The wind brought him another shout, the pitch too high to be the Marat. There was no mistaking the panic and fear in it. “Please! Someone help!”

Tavi bit his lip, looking down the causeway toward his home and safety— then facing the opposite way, toward the cry for help. He took a shaking breath and turned west, away from his home, and forced his tired legs into motion again, running along the pale stone of the causeway.