House of Blades (The Traveler's Gate Trilogy) (35 page)

“No,” she said. “I never had any children. What is this about?”

Alin cast about in his mind for an innocent reason that might bring a crowd of thirty country villagers to a city woman’s door. He came up empty-handed. What he said instead was, “We’re looking for some friends of ours.”

The woman gasped, which told Alin what he needed to know. This woman was hiding something. But instead of admitting her guilt or trying to run, she shook her head vigorously.

“No one like that here. No one but me.”

“You won’t mind, then,” Alin said gently, “if we come in and check?”

“Of course not,” she replied, and stood to one side.

There was no way the entire group could squeeze into a house meant for one family. Alin followed Keanos, who sniffed around every corner of the floor with intense fascination. Simon came in afterwards, since there was nothing Alin could do short of rudeness to keep him out, and Chaim and Nurita followed. Stern words from Nurita served to keep everyone else in the street.

From the start, Alin could tell they had the wrong place. The house was all one room, stone floors covered in a layer of rugs, with a single reed mat in the back corner for sleeping. A second window, which he hadn’t seen from the front, sat in the side wall and looked out on a dirty alley. A shaky table stood in one corner, covered in pots, pans, and half-chopped vegetables. What possessions she owned were meager, even by the standards of Myria.

Maybe the old woman hadn’t been hiding anything after all. It wasn’t like there was anywhere to stow prisoners in this hut.

Nonetheless, Alin didn’t let that slow him down, glancing out of the side window and in each corner, just in case. Chaim lifted the few pieces of furniture, peering at the floor underneath. Nurita kept up a stream of questions directed at the woman, though she didn’t seem to be getting any helpful answers.

Simon, on the other hand, just lounged against one wall. Sulking, probably, though his head was cocked as if he were listening. After a moment he raised one hand to look at—a doll? A little girl’s doll? Where had Simon found that?

Well, it wasn’t important now. He’d ask later.

It only took the three of them about five minutes to realize the woman wasn’t hiding anything. Keanos just ran around the floor in apparent confusion, still following the scent.
 

The house’s owner stood in the center of the room, patting her hair in a vain attempt to keep it in place. Her eyes bounced around like she was trying to find a place to run.

Alin walked up to her. “We’re sorry for our poor manners, and we will leave as soon as we can. Have you heard of the group we’re looking for? There would be about ten of them. Villagers, like us. Men and women both.”

“Haven’t seen anybody new around here,” the woman responded. “Please, take your dog and go. My husband will be back soon.”

“We will,” Alin promised. Embarrassment flooded him, and he fought to keep it from showing on his face. The party from Myria had followed him, trusting in his abilities, and he had let them down. He would look useless.

“Hold on a minute,” Simon said. He kept leaning against the wall by the door, arms folded, but his eyes stuck to the woman. “Ma’am, would you move?”

Alin was about to say something to shut Simon up—gently, of course, he didn’t want this looking like a child’s fight—but the woman’s face went visibly pale. And she didn’t move her feet from the rug.

“I can’t,” she said, and Alin realized that Simon had been right.
 

“What’s under the rug?” Alin asked. She glanced from side to side, looking for a way out, and caught a glimpse out the window at the same time Alin did. Two uniformed soldiers in Malachi’s colors were walking by, patrolling the streets for one reason or another.

Alin lunged forward to grab the woman, to stop her from shouting, but there was nothing he could do. He wouldn’t make it in time. She filled her lungs, preparing to scream.

Then Simon was there, behind her, one hand clapped over the woman’s mouth.

“Shush,” he whispered into her ear. “Just relax.” Her eyes strained so far to the side that almost nothing showed but the whites, and Alin got the impression she was trying to see behind her without turning her head. But she didn’t even whimper against Simon’s restraining hand.

Nurita walked over to the window and casually drew the curtain so that the soldiers wouldn’t happen to see anything. Alin looked back out the doorway, hoping the rest of the Myrians had been smart enough to avoid standing around in a crowd. They had, lounging in much smaller groups on either side of the street, seemingly engaged in taking in the sights or haggling with a street peddler. The soldiers took a quick look around, since the street was still more crowded than they were probably used to seeing it, but in the end they walked away.

Alin turned his attention back to Simon. “How did you do that?” he asked. He tried to make his voice demanding, but he was afraid he just sounded impressed.

“Do what?” Simon asked, though Alin could tell that he knew full well.

“How did you get there before me? You were way over there.”

“We Travelers have to have our secrets,” Simon said gravely. “You understand.”

Alin glared, but let it drop. Simon could be so...irritating, sometimes. But the mature response was to leave it alone.

“In a moment,” Alin said to the woman, “my friend is going to take his hand away. If you shout, or try to run, we’ll have to hurt you. Stay quiet and we can all be friends. Understand?”

The woman nodded enthusiastically, kerchief-covered hair bobbing, and Simon removed his hand.

“You’re Travelers?” the woman asked. Her voice was barely above a whisper.

Alin nodded, and she visibly relaxed.
 

“That explains the...” She gestured one-handed at the gold-armored hound sniffing around her house. “I thought to my self, ‘who would have a great big glowing dog?’ and I thought it had to be...but then you didn’t say what you were supposed to, and I wasn’t sure.”

“Move the rug,” Simon said. The woman stepped off and dragged the rug aside, one-handed, holding her other hand against her back as if it pained her.

Like the rest of the bare floor, this patch was made of stone blocks. But the block that had been covered by this particular rug didn’t fit quite as closely with its fellows. There was just enough of a gap between one stone and another that one might be able to slip something between. Alin nudged it with his toe, and it didn’t budge.

“I can’t open it,” the woman said quickly. “I can’t. It takes—”

She was interrupted by Simon bending down and slipping his fingers into the crack, lifting the stone block out with one hand. It was a rectangular chunk of rock, two feet to a side and eight inches thick, that Alin would have wanted to lever out with two men and some tools. But Simon lifted it easily in one hand and set it to the side.

“Seven stones,” the woman said again. “Can all you Travelers do that?”

Alin did his best not to look as awestruck as everyone else. “As well as many other things,” he said. Simon snorted without looking up, but the woman began patting her hair again.

Underneath the block of stone was a hinged lid of wood. When Simon pulled it open, someone down below gave a weak scream. Only one voice. Where were the others? Or were they just too scared to scream?

Maker above. What had happened to them?

“They moved them here about three days ago,” the old woman said, “when they thought somebody might come looking. I didn’t have any choice. You have to believe me. I didn’t have any choice.”

She was shaking, now, as if she thought they would beat her. Alin gave her no sign whether or not he would hold her responsible, simply conjured a ball of golden light and holding it above the trap door so it shone down into the darkness. She flinched away from that as if from a bloody knife, wrapping both arms around herself.

The light revealed a rickety ladder set into the side of the hole, and just a glimpse of a pair of grimy hands far below. Hands bound in thick, coarse rope.

Alin moved to head down the ladder himself, but he wasn’t fast enough. Simon had already jumped.

***

They found only one person bound in that filthy basement: Leah’s half-sister.
 

Simon knew her. Not well, true, but he had grown up around Nurita’s family even before Leah had moved to the village. Seeing this girl cringing, broken, and dirty, hurt. But what hurt worse was the fact that there were nine captives missing.

Out of ten captives, one remained. And Leah wasn’t here. Simon knew that shouldn’t matter, that getting Leah back didn’t matter any more than any of the others. But somehow he couldn’t feel like he had succeeded until he saw Leah free.

And now she wasn’t here. His stomach twisted in knots.

Once the girl—Simon couldn’t remember her name, except that she was Nurita’s niece and Leah’s sister—had been freed, watered, and brought up the ladder, she still wouldn’t speak for fear that the Damascan soldiers would return. Only once her aunt had convinced her that she was safe, that she would be taken out of the city and returned home, did she tell her story.

She spoke of being taken through a moon-lit wasteland, probably someone’s Territory. She told about sacrifices chosen each day at noon, and how the soldiers said that some of them had a chance to live, but none of them had believed that. She spoke of being beaten, threatened, neglected.

Only after she had spoken for almost half an hour did she tell Simon what he wanted to know.

“They killed the others,” she said, her voice shaking. “Every once in a while they’d come take somebody...they killed them. They told us they did, and nobody ever came back. Everybody else is dead, Simon. They’re dead.

“But that’s not what happened to Leah.”

Simon heard Alin draw in a sharp breath. He stopped leaning against the wall, walking over to join Simon.

Simon cursed under his breath.

“What did happen to Leah?” Alin asked.

The girl shook her head. “She’s different, somehow. They took her too, but they didn’t kill her. I don’t think they ever even beat her. Alin, they treated her like she was somebody important.”

“What do you mean, important?” Simon asked.

Right on top of him, Alin asked her, “Rutha, where is she?”

Rutha, right, that was her name. Simon had always just thought of her as Leah’s sister, or Nurita’s niece.

Rutha glanced at Simon, but replied to Alin. Probably because he had remembered her name. “The Overlord took her himself. I think they brought her to the Overlord’s house. That’s what it sounded like they would do, anyway.”

Simon clenched his fist, wishing for Azura’s hilt in his hand. Summoning it in a house this small and crowded would kill somebody, but part of him still wanted the comfort of steel in his hand. The Overlord had taken a personal interest in Leah. Why?

Alin stood up and dusted himself off, visibly gathering himself for a speech. “Chaim, Nurita,” he said, and they came. Simon couldn’t believe it—Nurita should have slapped him for his tone alone—but they came.

“Take everyone back out of the city,” Alin said. “I’m going in for Leah.”

They protested, of course, but Alin wouldn’t hear it. He held up a hand to stop their words. “I don’t need your help. I may need to fight the Overlord himself, and in that fight you won’t be able to help me anyway. Besides, someone needs to get Rutha back safely. Don’t worry, Simon will protect you.”

Simon rose to his feet. “I’ll do what?”

“They need someone to keep them safe on their way out of Bel Calem,” Alin said calmly. “I don’t know much about this Hall Territory, but I’m sure it will be enough to get the job done. Besides, any Traveler is better than none.”

There was so much to hate in that sentence that Simon felt anger choke his words off for a moment. When he finally got hold of himself again, he said, “I don’t care what they need. I’m going for Leah. You want to protect them so bad, you do it.”

Alin sighed, as if he were a parent facing down an unruly child. He locked gazes with Simon and spoke in a low, earnest voice. “Simon, you and I can do things that nobody else here can do. That means we’re responsible for their safety. Do you understand? It’s like we’re soldiers, Simon, and we need to keep the ordinary people safe. But sometimes soldiers have to learn to take orders.”

Alin put a hand on Simon’s shoulder, in what he no doubt imagined to be a comforting gesture. “I’m ordering you to take them out of the city, Simon. I know you’re brave enough to go face the Overlord with me, and I admire that. I really do. But I need somebody to take care of them, and you’re the only one I’ve got.”

For the next few seconds, Simon couldn’t see anything past an image of his fist splitting Alin’s lip. When his vision cleared, he twisted his mouth into a sheepish smile. “I guess you’re right,” he said. “Let her know I wanted to come along, will you?”

Alin nodded gravely. “I’ll make sure she knows.”

“Thanks.”

After clasping hands with Chaim and enduring a few last-minute words of advice from Nurita, Alin walked out of the hut. That armored dog let out another of those piercing barks and followed.

“Okay then,” Simon said, as soon as Alin and his hound had left. “You two can get everybody back to Myria on your own, can’t you?”

Nurita and Chaim shared a glance.

“Alin told you to stay put, young man,” Nurita said.

“Yeah, I’m not going to do that. What right does he have, giving me orders?”

Chaim shrugged. “In that case, yes, we can get everybody back just fine, assuming we don’t run into any trouble. Tell you the truth, I’d be more comfortable if we had you along. Just in case.”

Simon looked at the Damascan woman, huddled in the corner of her house, trying to avoid notice. He barely noticed her; his mind raced ahead, thinking of everything he still had left to do.

“Honestly, sir,” Simon said, “you’re probably safer without us. I get the feeling we’re about to make a lot of noise.”

C
HAPTER
E
IGHTEEN
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