Healers (31 page)

Lizeth shrugged, “Arco told me to scout their situation out too. I’m supposed to ask people who work at the palace what’s going on with them, but I haven’t had any luck. Probably would have had better luck if he’d given me more coin to grease palms.”

Tarc raised an eyebrow, “Is Arco thinking you guys could break them out?”

Lizeth snorted, “He’d probably go for it if it looked ridiculously easy, but once I tell him there’s a fifteen foot high stone wall with guard cupolas all the way around a substantial palace grounds? No freaking way! Hell, we don’t even know where they’re being kept in there.”

Tarc frowned, “What if they don’t get out for a really long time?!”

Lizeth shrugged, “Norton’ll take care of their stuff for a long time, but eventually it’ll become the property of the caravan if the Ropers never get out.” She turned to look Tarc in the eye, “What about Eva?”

“Well…” Tarc hesitated; he didn’t want to drag Lizeth into their problems. “We’re going to try to get her out.”

Lizeth had been looking at the palace walls. Now she turned to Tarc, eyes startled, “How?!”

I should have said, “I don’t know!”
he thought. He turned his eyes to the palace wall to give himself a moment to think. “Um…”

“
That’s
your plan?! Um?!”

“No! We’ve got some rope. We’re going to loop it through a couple of the crenellations and use it to climb the wall.”

Lizeth stared at him, “Really?!” She snorted, “Even if you can get your loop on there in less than twenty throws, what do you think the guards in the cupolas are going to be doing while you’re tossing the rope up there and then climbing over? You
do
realize they’re supposed
to be watching the walls, don’t you?”

Realizing he’d dug himself a deep hole, Tarc mumbled, “We’ll distract them.”

“We? Who’s the other part of this ‘we’?”

“Daussie.”

“Your
sister
?!”

Tarc nodded.

“Your
sister’s
going to help you sneak into a heavily guarded palace and then break out with your mother in tow?!”

“Uh-huh, and the Ropers,” Tarc said, beginning to feel, despite his and Daussie’s talent, that it really did sound like a dumb idea.

“Holy Judas! Peter, Mark, Mary, and Moses! Can Daussie even climb a rope? Or is she just supposed to hang around outside the wall looking sexy and ‘distracting’ the guards?!”

“Um, sure,” Tarc said, suddenly wondering whether Daussie could.

“‘Cause a
lot
of women aren’t strong enough to climb one, you know?”

Tarc had a sinking feeling in his stomach, “Um, Daussie’s pretty strong.”

Lizeth rolled her eyes. “Use a big rope and tie knots in it every so often so she can catch them with her legs. And have her try it somewhere before you
actually
try to climb the wall! What am
I
supposed to be doing while Daussie’s distracting these guards?”

Tarc looked at her with confusion.

She rolled her eyes again, “I’m surely not letting you do this by
yourselves
. You need help!”

Tarc’s emotions tumbled. Glad to have someone with more experience willing to help. Irritated she didn’t think he could do it himself. Wondering how he was going to get the rope up to hook on the crenellations if she was standing there watching. “Um, maybe you could distract the guard at the next cupola?”

“You want
me
to act sexy?!”

“You can’t?”

“It’s not exactly one of things I’m good at!”

Tarc frowned, “Daussie either.”

Lizeth snorted, “With looks like hers, all
she
has to do is smile up at them!”

***

Tarc and Daussie were eating their supper at a small restaurant just down the street from the Palace Tavern where they had their room. Fidgety, Daussie only picked at her food. Tarc worried about her nerves. Nothing he’d said so far had calmed her though.

She looked out the window and produced a weak grin, “Here comes your girlfriend. Oh, she’s got a bunch of horses!”

Tarc looked as well and saw Lizeth, in regular clothes instead of her guard’s leathers, leading four horses! Getting up, he hissed, “
Not
my girlfriend!” to Daussie. He stepped to the door and called Lizeth’s name. She stopped and looked back at him with a grin. He lifted an eyebrow, “Are you going into the horse trading business?”

She grinned, “Can you believe?! Norton and Arco are actually lending me some of the guards’ horses for our little escapade!”

“Really?! I thought you didn’t think we had a chance?”

She gave him a disbelieving look, “Well,
that’s
not how I sold it to
them
!”

“What
did
you tell them?”

“That we’d found a way to get inside and some guards who would look the other way while we snuck Eva and the Ropers out.”

Tarc laughed, “So, I suppose you’re going to claim you didn’t even tell a lie?!”

Lizeth frowned, “I
didn’t
tell a lie!” She glanced up the street towards the Palace Tavern, “I’ve heard some… less than savory things about this tavern you guys are staying at. You really think we can leave our horses there without somebody stealing them?”

“Let me talk to them with you.”

Daussie stayed outside with the horses while Lizeth and Tarc went in to talk to the tavern keeper. Lizeth would have sworn Tarc
changed
somehow as he walked through the door.

Instead of the affable, innocent-seeming Tarc that Lizeth knew, he strode across the room to the bar like a force of nature. To her astonishment, she saw all the eyes in the room tracking him! The barkeep, who’d been pouring a beer for another customer, suddenly put it down and stepped promptly over to Tarc. The customer waiting for the beer began to protest, but when his eyes had turned far enough to recognize Tarc, he shut up. He turned back forward and dropped his eyes to the bar as if he didn’t want to be involved.

Tarc gave the bartender a hard look and said, “We have four more horses we’d like to put in your stable tonight. Can you
guarantee
they’ll be there in the morning?”

“Yes sir!” the barkeep said, fearfully. Lizeth stared at the barman. She would’ve sworn the man was practically trembling. She glanced around the room full of rough looking characters. They all remained focused on Tarc.

What the hell?!

As the moon set, Tarc stood outside the east wall of the palace, wondering what he’d forgotten. Their horses were saddled and packed with their gear back at the tavern. Though he hoped not to use them, all eight of his knives were in their sheaths. His bow and a small quiver of arrows were strapped tightly to his back with the small pack containing gags and cord.

He had the large coil of knotted rope over his shoulder. Lizeth had been right; Daussie couldn’t climb the rope without the knots. Rather than a noose as Tarc had envisioned, it had a strong but lightweight, padded-wooden cross bar at the end of it. The bar was intended to catch in a crenellation. The loop would have directed his climb up to one of the bumps between the shooting notches, whereas the bar would let him climb up into a notch.

He decided it was as dark as it was going to get. Starlight, and some dim light from a few establishments that remained open at this late hour kept it from being completely black. He sent out his ghost. A patrol was approaching on the shooting platform behind the wall. He waited for them to go past.

Lizeth looked around as Tarc quietly said her name. She saw Daussie walking toward one of the east wall guard cupolas down to their left. The plan was for Daussie to go past that cupola; then start dancing in the street to distract the guard there into looking her direction. Though Daussie’s hair was still short and darkened with bootblack, she’d removed the padding from her midsection and once again looked like a pretty girl.

Now Tarc started walking across the street toward the guard cupola just to their right. A moment later, Lizeth started after him. She stayed out on the street, down a little farther to the right and, feeling like a fool, danced around a little in case the guard looked her way.

Tarc stopped just short of the wall, tossed the coil of rope onto the ground and started swinging the end with the stick on it. A moment later, the stick shot up, went perfectly through one of the shooting notches at the top of the wall, and settled into place with a faint “clunk.” Tarc leaned back and gave it a hard tug.

Lizeth looked on agog. She’d expected it to take 5 to 10 throws before the stick caught properly. She looked up at the little guard cupola and still couldn’t see the guard in it. She couldn’t know he lay slumped in the bottom of his little cupola because Tarc had applied back pressure in the man’s carotid even while swinging the rope. Tarc had had to stop while throwing the rope so his ghost could guide the stick into position, but now he’d started slowing the flow again.

Lizeth sprinted across the street, leapt up onto the rope, and swarmed up the wall. Right before she went over the top, she felt Tarc coming up behind her. Once through the notch, Lizeth quickly turned right on the shooting platform and stepped to the cupola. To her astonishment, the guard was asleep! He woke at the point of her knife and, under her direction, put on his own gag. Then she tightened it further. She bound his hands to his ankles behind his back.

When Lizeth came back out of the cupola she saw Tarc exiting the one down to the left. Not knowing Tarc’s guard had been unconscious the entire time he was being tied up, Lizeth found it a little irritating Tarc had bound and gagged his guard more quickly than she’d done hers.

They quickly descended the ladder from the shooting platform; then Tarc held out a hand for everyone to wait. Tarc had told Lizeth that he and Daussie could hear better than almost anyone, and could also see pretty well in the dark. Lizeth hadn’t believed it at first, but he’d proved it that evening by predicting when men were about to come around corners by hearing their footsteps. Then Tarc had told Lizeth a man was carrying a sword before the guy had gotten close enough for her to see it. Before his little demonstration she would have insisted on leading their foray. Now she accepted that they should go when he said.

Tarc said, “Okay, let’s go. This way.” He trotted quietly off into the darkness between two buildings. Daussie and Lizeth followed, Lizeth wondering at Daussie’s apparent fearlessness.

They came to the next building. By its close set doors, its rooms appeared to be pretty small. The doors looked to be solid, heavy hardwood and had rectangular steel plates behind heavy handles, rather than the simpler latches that had been on the doors they passed earlier. Though it was difficult to tell for sure in the dark, Lizeth thought they might have key holes. Tarc whispered, “These look like rooms where they might keep people or things locked up.”

Lizeth had thought the same, and her heart sunk. They wouldn’t be able to break those doors open without making a lot of noise. A niggling little voice in the back of her mind wondered at how they’d managed to arrive at these particular rooms almost immediately upon beginning their search. She reminded herself they didn’t know yet that Eva and the Ropers were imprisoned in this area. She took a breath to call out their names, hoping no guards were nearby.

Tarc pulled a hand on her arm, “Wait,” he whispered, “there’s a guard just down around the next corner on the right.”

“And how do you know that?!” Lizeth whispered doubtfully.

“I saw him step around the corner just when I got here.”

“Really,” Lizeth said drolly, peering that direction. “I can’t even see the corner!”

“You should eat more carrots,” Daussie whispered, sounding completely serious. “They have vitamin A. It’s good for night vision.”

Lizeth barely suppressed a chuckle at the incongruity of getting health advice while sneaking around a hostile king’s palace.

Tarc said, “I think we should tie up that guard. Can you capture him Lizeth? You’re better at this close quarter stuff than I am. Daussie can tie him once you have him in control.”

“What if he turned the corner and just kept going?”

Tarc shrugged, though he knew very well the guard was just around the corner. “Well, check on it. If he’s gone on, don’t worry about him.”

Actually, having gotten dizzy from poor blood flow to his brain, the guard had settled himself to a sitting position and was shaking his head trying to clear it.

Lizeth quietly moved off down along the building. As she approached, she saw the corner. She crouched and peered around it. At first she didn’t think anyone was there; then she saw the guard sitting slouched against the wall. She didn’t think much of their security here at the palace, this being the second guard she’d found sleeping or sitting down.
They really should have roving supervisors out to give these guys hell when they slack off,
she thought to herself.

She stepped around the corner and took two quiet steps to prick the man’s neck with the point of her sword. “Shhh!” she whispered to the suddenly wide-eyed guard. She held a finger to her lips. “You’re going to stay very quiet and still while my friend ties you up.”

When Lizeth and Daussie came back around the corner, they found Tarc kneeling before one of the doors. He was fiddling out the lock and said, “We got really lucky. They’re here in this room, if we can just get it unlocked!”

Unbelieving, Lizeth said, “And
how
are we going to do that?!”

Behind her, Daussie said matter-of-factly, “We know how to pick locks.”

Lizeth frowned, “What does
that
mean?”

Daussie responded quietly, “You use something other than a key to lift the pawls that keep the lock from turning.” She didn’t elaborate on the fact Tarc would be using his telekinetic talent to lift them.

Tarc looked up at his sister. Even in the dim light, Lizeth thought he looked frustrated. He said, “Daussie! One of the pawls is jammed!”

Daussie said, “Let me try.” She leaned her head down next to her brother’s and put a hand on the knob. The other hand grasped what looked like a small nail Tarc had jammed in the keyhole. She grinned back up at Lizeth for a second, “Sometimes Tarc’s just trying too hard.”

A second later, the knob turned and the door swung open. Daussie had punched a couple of holes in the jammed pawl to break it, but the wide eyed Lizeth couldn’t know this.

Eva woke to Tarc’s voice in her ear. “Hey Mom, we’re here to get you.”

“No!” she said, sitting up in a panic.

Henry Roper wakened at the sudden rattle of Eva’s chains. Usually they only clanked gently because she moved slowly to keep the shackles from gouging her ankles. He sat up in the stygian darkness inside their windowless room. He wondered if something was wrong with Eva—from her exclamation and sudden movement he suspected a nightmare. Then, to his astonishment, he thought he heard Tarc’s voice call her name from outside the door. “Eva?” he called gently across the room.

“Just a minute,” she whispered back. Then she started mumbling frantically to herself like she had earlier in the evening.

Haley sat up in the bed beside him. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know,” Henry answered quietly, sitting up. He felt for his shoes. It sounded like there was noise coming from the door of the room, though not the solid clunking of the big key the guards unlocked it with. Putting on his shoes, he stood up just before the door slowly swung open to admit a little faint starlight.

Haley grabbed his leg, “Sit down Henry!” she whispered. “The guards’ll be…” She didn’t finish saying what she thought the guards would “be,” as three people stepped through the door, then closed the door behind them.

With the room fully dark once again, they heard Lizeth’s voice! She whispered, “Mr. and Mrs. Roper, where are you?”

Henry said, “Here.”

A few moments later Lizeth’s voice came from much closer. “We’re here to get you out of this place. Are you dressed? Do you have shoes? Do you need to get anything?”

“How…?!” Henry realized he didn’t know what to ask.
How did they get in? How did they think they were going to get back out? Where were the guards? How did they unlock the door?
Instead he said, “We’re dressed.” After all, they certainly didn’t have nightclothes here in this prison. “I’ve got my shoes on, Haley do you have yours?”

“Almost,” Haley said. “It can’t be safe to leave though, can it?”

Henry said, “No. But, then it isn’t safe to stay here either, is it?”

“No,” Haley whispered resignedly.

Suddenly Tarc’s voice said, “I hear someone coming. I’m going to go try to stop them before they find us.” The door swung open briefly. A shadow crossed it; then it closed again.

Reminded by the sound of Tarc’s voice of Eva’s presence, Henry said heavily, “They’ve got Eva chained to the floor. There’s no way we’re going to get her free.”

“Oh gods!” Lizeth said, sounding dismayed. Then a little more chipper, “Eva, are the chains attached with a lock? Tarc might be able to ‘pick’ it.”

Even more unbelievably, the next thing Henry heard was
Daussie’s
voice coming from the middle of the room where Eva was chained. “I’m working on it,” she said, “Lizeth, maybe you should try to help Tarc. If a guard raises the alarm, we’re done for.”

“Okay,” Lizeth said.

As opposed to when Tarc had opened the door, they heard Lizeth bump and stumble in the darkness a couple of times before she swung the door open and left. Henry wondered how Tarc had done it. He himself certainly had enough trouble finding the chamber pot in the darkness.
Just lucky,
he guessed.

“Pick?” Haley asked.

“Open a lock without a key,” Henry said. “Takes a set of small metal tools. I’ve heard rumors about it, but didn’t think anyone could really do it.”

They heard Daussie’s voice again. She sounded a little strained. “Mr. and Mrs. Roper, it would be great if you could find your way over to the door so you’ll be ready to leave as soon as I get my mom free.”

Saying, “Okay,” Henry took Haley’s hand and started heading toward the door, his other hand out in front of him. With a leaden heart, he wondered what was going to happen to this great escape when the Hyllis kids realized they couldn’t get their mother free of that chain. He and Haley bumped along the wall a couple of feet, then he found the handle of the door. A little tug demonstrated it remained unlocked.

Henry felt a hand on his shoulder. Daussie said, “Okay, Mom’s loose. Let’s open the door and see what’s going on.”

Feeling his eyebrows ascending his forehead, Henry thought,
How can that be?! I should have heard the chains rattling across the floor even if Daussie
did
pick the lock holding the chains to the floor bolt.
He
slowly pulled the door open and peered out.

Once Tarc left the room, he squatted down into a little ball beside the door and held still, hoping the guard coming around the corner wouldn’t immediately see him and put up the alarm. He reached out with his ghost and began slowing the flow in the man’s carotid. The guard shook his head once in an effort to clear it; then reached out with a hand to brace against the wall. A moment later he sank to his knees.

Just as Tarc rose to go to gag him, he realized another guard was coming from the other direction! This one would find the guard they’d tied up around the corner! Tarc couldn’t deal with both of them at once!

The door opened behind him and Lizeth quietly said, “What’s going on?”