King of Assassins: The Elven Ways: Book Three (23 page)

Ceyla clawed her way through the bush and when she was certain, how could she not be, of the den’s location, fell to her hands and knees and crept forward.

The animal could be vicious. It was, under any circumstances, unpleasant. But she would approach unthreatening, not weak if different, and unchallenging. Ceyla calmed her breathing and moved, slowly, bit by bit, her eyes watering as the odor grew more and more vile. She could hear the rustle of the harsh grasses and needles and a grunt. She could feel the body heat rolling off the roused beast and hesitated a moment, savoring the warmth. The howling behind her grew louder, and she could now hear the individual barks and bays of the pack tracking her. She hadn’t much time.

Her palm slipped on a glob of mucus. Repelled, she snatched her hand back and the stinkdog growled deeply in warning. She wanted to shake her hand clean, but this was what she’d come for! Teeth clenched, she wiped her hand over her scarf and hair. Then she crawled forward into more of the disgusting stuff, until she found a patch she could lower herself into and roll. Gods. She shuddered as she did so and her throat clenched, holding back her desire to vomit. The stinkdog opened its eyes. They caught the glow of the barely revealed moon in the sky as it looked toward her. Ceyla froze.

It opened and closed its jaws as if yawning or chewing. It moved about on its bed to face her. She could hear it snuffle.

Did her eyes reflect a stare back into its own? She held her face steady, crouched on the ground, lower than the head of the beast, tensing to get to her feet and run if it decided to charge.

The stinkdog chomped and slurped its jaws again, then put its muzzle down and closed its eyes to mere slits. Not a welcome, exactly, but not hostility either.

Ceyla finished coating herself, in quick, sure movements. The mucus stuck to her from head to toe until even her nose eventually gave up and refused to function, overcome by the stench. She would, she thought, smell it in her dreams until the day she died.

Which, hopefully, would now be a long way off.

She did not get to her feet and leave the den until the glowing, slit eyes closed and she could hear the creature’s deep breathing. Then she moved off, careful not to slough off any of the coating as she went, and when she had gotten downslope, she turned in guilt. The hounds would scent her this far, if no farther. She could not leave the animal on its own.

Tired, weaving on her feet, the bridge within sprinting distance, she closed her eyes. Ceyla let herself sink, sink, and sink until she found the edge of sleep in her exhaustion. And on that edge, she found the rhythm of the stinkdog in its sleep and she sent it a picture of peril, of dogs baying in killing excitement as they charged toward it.

Then she opened her eyes and ran.

Behind her, she could hear the animal get to its feet with a muffled bellow as it prepared its defense instinctively. She could do no more than give it warning and let it choose its fight.

The rest, short as it had been, gave her a last jolt of stamina. She sprinted toward the suspension bridge, torches placed upon its length to illuminate it in the darkness, its base well buried into the side of the mountain, its scalloped sides an artistic rendering of cable and steel. Only the ild Fallyn Talent could have built such a structure, for they had the inherent ability to levitate, making the building of such possible. She had crossed it once, many, many years ago, young and small and fighting her captors, but she had made note with her sharp eyes and memory of this eventual road to freedom.

Unfortunately, the very slime and scum that disguised her scent would impede her ability to climb. Couldn’t be helped. Her hands were already raw. Ceyla ducked in under the foot of the bridge and pulled loose some well-woven rope and stout but pliable leather she had been secreting for seasons. When she had prepared herself, she reached up. The underside of the bridge was as she remembered . . . she having thrown herself off the wagon bed and tumbled down the hill to nearly fall off the cliff’s edge into the river, so that she could lie underneath the structure and spy on its construction. Then, the span between hand and footholds were beyond a child’s reach. Then, the structure had seemed insurmountable, yet another obstacle she could not hope to defeat.

Now she had hopes.

Far behind her, the howling of the hounds broke up. Faltered. Faded and then regathered strongly, then stuttered again. Fighting? Scattering? Confused? She could only surmise.

Once under the bridge, they had little hope of tracking her.

Ceyla tightened her harness and took hold of the rough metal and wood that was the underside of the soaring structure. Night had fallen deeply and, under the shadowed bridge, she could see little even as her eyes adapted. She lay back on a strut and shut out the sounds around her: the foaming river below, the baying hounds in the distance, the creak and sway of the bridge itself as it moved in the wind. She concentrated instead on the structure, on the rough surface with its many angles and joints, places that might be climbed and swung from, caught and crossed by . . . if only she could see. If only she knew what she faced. Or had faced.

Ceyla brushed her hand across her pack and liberated her herb pouch. She could not see the small bags tied within, but each had been wrapped and knotted differently so that she could identify them by touch alone, if she had to. A slim bag came open reluctantly as she undid it, and the faint, musky smell of the cured leaves within stained the air. She drew a pinch, only the merest of a pinch to her lips. Dare she? She did. The crumbling herb left a smoky and bitter taste behind as she retied the bag and secured it back in her pack. A sip of water did little to dispel it. More water would dilute it and wash it out of her system quicker, so she had to endure the bitterness. Better if she had taken a flint and set it alight so that she could inhale the smoke, but that might draw attention when she could not afford it. So, instead, Ceyla wrapped her arms tightly about her strut and waited for her mind to catch the bit of dreamspark she’d ingested. It grew in her. She could feel it uncoiling and reaching, stretching throughout her body, hot and sharp, and then it hit her mind.

She could let it carry her off into dreams unwanted, but Ceyla had no intention of closing her eyes to unhampered power. She curled the herb like smoke through her vision, twisting it, until she stood, sun dappling her body, murmuring voices behind her, the restless stamp of horses, the smell of fall leaves crushed underfoot, and she made her way down the embankment carefully.

“Take care, m’lady.”

The words, male-voiced, so far away behind her as barely to be heard at all, filled with concern and—what? Authority. She must take care. She had been given no choice, but neither did she have time. Only the briefest of moments to look back under the bridge, to look back at the way she had traversed in the dead of night, and see what she had accomplished. Only a breath or two in which to examine the feat and to know, to remember, what it was she had done. Ceyla slid to the bottommost anchor of the span, wrapping an arm about a bit of shrub that stubbornly split the rocky foundation and grew, as spindly as an old garden rope—and as strong.

She narrowed her eyes and put her free hand up for shade. She could see the underneath of the span now. Where handholds and footholds might be gotten. How long the swing out must be in the dead center of the underbelly, right over the frothing, raging river down below. It made her breathless to look at it, to think that she had crossed it at night, how perilous it had been, and how she could only have made it because of this moment, looking back.

She examined it for every breath she could manage, aware of the male figure coming up behind her and putting an arm about her waist as if to steady her . . . or reclaim her. The ild Fallyn who’d built this had used magic to do it. Ordinary craftsmen could not have accomplished it. But once built, one did not need levitation to scale its underside. This she knew. She stood here, did she not? Stood and looked back? But in a hundred other visions, she did not finish her journey. The hunters and dogs found her, pulling her from her perch. Or the river claimed her falling body. Or the harness she’d wrought so cleverly had tangled and she died, dangling there, hanged. But in this moment, in this vision, she examined the bridge and sent her thoughts backward, ever backward, so that a slave running for her freedom might catch them.

All it took was one vision seen rightfully.

In the heat of the day, in the cold of the night, Ceyla shivered and sweated. The dreamspark boiled from her body, from her pores, her skin stinking of its odor and then, in another breath, all had faded.

Ceyla dragged her hand across her forehead, and then scrubbed her hand dry on the seat of her pants. She could hear again, from far away, the sound of the hounds. They were on the trail once more. Her whole body shook as she clenched her eyes shut for a moment, could feel the sweat even from her eyelids; moisture poured from her body as the dreamspark violently burned its way out. And then it was gone, leaving her shaking like a newborn thing, about to mewl in distress, helpless and weak, the price of the seeing she’d done. In this moment, it might serve her, or she might yet fail. In another moment, somewhen else, she would gather the strength to go on. Or she could muster it now. In this self.

Ceyla tried to swallow, but she nearly choked on the dryness in her throat, left behind by the quick ravage of the dreamspark through her system. She could hear a hound bell, not so far now, a pack leader telling his mates that here, here, here, he’d found a scent despite the slime, despite the stink of the beast, here was the trail.

Ceyla fastened her harness and pushed off, swinging through the night. She’d done it, once. She’d come back to look at what she’d done, so that she might remember it when she looked forward. A tangled vision but true. Only once.

That would have to be enough to carry her through.

E
VEN IN THE DARK OF NIGHT, Bistane saw shadows. A warlord, son of a warlord, he could not discount nerves but neither could he afford to court them. Yet, he felt the quickening of movement, sensed more by the stirring of air and leaf and gravel around him than by sight, and even this had begun to change. He could see things others couldn’t, not the threads of the physical, but what he feared was not physical. He reined his horse in as they drew near Lariel’s stables. This was not his home, but Bistane had been here often enough that he knew it well and it mattered little that he did not walk on his own ground. The feeling of oddness, of a presence where there should be none, stalked him whether he was astride, as he rode now, or walked in the light of day where shadows ought to be expected. In those times when the eerie sense followed him, he thought he saw his father, Bistel Vantane, pacing with a warlord’s marked confidence next to him and then marching away, off on some ghostly business that Bistane could neither detect nor decipher.

It was only habit and imagination, he told himself. His father’s death was but recent and his presence such a strong one that it was difficult to perceive a world without him. For what reason would he be haunted than by sheer familiarity of his father’s authority and advice in his life? No other that he could think of. He had been a good son, a strong and temperate son, and there had been little strife between them once he had grown “into his boots” as the elder Vantane liked to put it. Bistane had little regret with reference to his father. Their only contention had been when Vantane sired another son and brought him to the hold, but even then, there was no doubting that the warlord held enough love for them both. And, Bistane had been grown by then. Matured. He held no shame that he had a Dweller-blooded half brother although his father thought it best to keep the relationship quiet. Verdayne had been raised somewhat like a frolicking puppy until he grew sturdy legs and a love of the land that all Vantanes held. The aryn trees seemed to listen to him. He filled a hole that neither Bistel nor Bistane had known existed until Verdayne occupied it proudly. Bistel liked to say that Verdayne held the best of the Dwellers within himself, but Bistane knew only that his younger brother held a consistent joy he did not, and he shared it.

Bistane dismounted in the lee side of the Larandaril stables and stretched his legs, taking stock of the lateness of the night and the quiet of the yard and wondered if Verdayne saw ghosts, too. He should ask him sometime. And then, disquiet hit the chill and damp air, a feeling of being held back as strong as if a firm hand had fallen upon his forearm to pull him aside. Bistane put his hand on his horse’s muzzle to keep him quiet and shouldered him back into a corner until he knew what had fallen on him, what shivered his senses in the air about him. He took caution even in the heart of his queen’s kingdom, for he’d passed Alton ild Fallyn on the road a few days ago, in the black-and-silver livery of his bloodline and wrapped in a temper darker than the shadows of midevening that shrouded them both, lashing into his horse. He had used his sword to clear his path of stray branches as though he were cutting down bandits, hooves drumming as he disappeared. Bistane had felt his lip curl back over his teeth as he sucked a breath inward. Well enough that he had pulled aside, out of caution. There was no love at all between the ild Fallyns and the Vantanes, and under these circumstances, yes, Alton might well have attacked him, claiming that he had been lying in wait to do the same. Blood spilled here and now would do no one any good, although doubtless the ild Fallyn could twist it to their advantage, regardless if Alton lived or died. Another of the few grievances he and his father had had between them. Bistel had counseled him: “You cannot feud with the ild Fallyn, even if they are as treacherous as the centuries are long, and they are, make no mistake of that. But there is no good end to fueling such hatred between our Houses, and no end at all until one side or the other is obliterated from the face of Kerith. So stay your hand, my son, and let time, and others, work the vengeance you seek.”

He inhaled lightly. Still ghost-ridden, Bistane stayed himself a moment or so longer, thoughtfully, before taking the backdoor through the kitchen after turning his horse into pasture under the still sleepy-eyed guardianship of the stable boy who had spared him a grateful salute for the coin tipped into his hand.

The warmth of Lariel’s manor rose to meet Bistane. It enveloped him, smelling of yeast for risen dough about to be put into the ovens and of flowers which dotted the various counters and tables and of the scented oils which burned softly in the wall sconces and ceiling lanterns. He found comfort in Lariel’s home as he did within his own walls. Once little more than a hunting lodge, it had been built upon over the centuries until it sprawled, a gracious and secure manor house, and the touch of its female ruler could be felt throughout every beam, brick, and weaving. As a lad, he could remember the fierce Warrior King, who’d held court in these buildings, his voice like steel cutting through ethereal distance and solid wall to find and beat down whoever he could when displeased. The old Anderieon, as Bistel had often referred to him, was a lean and shaggy war dog who could and would just as soon sever your tendons with his fangs as give you a lick in welcome. He remembered being afraid to his bones of the towering man with the fine, high cheekbones that cut the panes of his face into a terrible severity. The old Anderieon. Bistane shivered a bit in memorial before entering the manor.

Farlen met him. He bowed deeply. “Warlord. The Queen is in consultation.”

“Not recovering from Lord Alton’s spat of ill-humor?”

“You knew he was here?”

“I passed him on the road. It seemed wise to not let him be aware of me.”

The corner of Farlen’s mouth quirked. “I suspect it is he who needs recovery, if any is needed. No, she is having words with Lord Dardanon.”

“Oh, Sevryn’s back, is he? I should like to hear what he has to say, as well.”

A cloud passed over Farlen’s features. “She’s not to be disturbed. They just went behind closed doors. I cannot tell you if it will be long or short.” He put a hand on Bistane’s shoulder. “Alton came to put in Tressandre’s claim that she carries a child from Jeredon.”

“What?!”

“Yes, well, it would indeed be miraculous. Whoever’s son it is, he’ll find her teats like ice when he tries to suckle. But there will be enough discussion on that in the morning. Let me see you fed, and your room made up, and you can rest from your journey. A bit of sleep might do you good.”

“If sleep could.” He did not rest well at home. He doubted he would rest well here, particularly with that news to chew on. The only bed that gave him much sleep at all was hard ground, and little enough of that. One did not ride, these days, or make camp, without caution. You slept, if at all, with one eye open. He managed a smile. “A hot meal sounds appealing.”

He ate in his chambers, unwilling to speak with anyone until he’d heard whatever Lara would tell him. She kept her own counsel and he disliked not being privy to many of her ideas. She hadn’t seen fit to send him news by bird, but then she knew he was already on the road and would hear soon enough. They warred arm in arm, but she did not hold the same trust in him that she had in his father. Why would she? He had not proven himself, not in her eyes and not in his.

Suddenly tired beyond measure, he wrapped himself in a blanket and sank into whatever sleep he could find.

He woke deep into the night. No sound, muffled or otherwise, echoed through the old wood and stone of the great manor house. He brought his own hot water up from pots always kept simmering on the kitchen hearth to make himself fit for the queen, whenever she decided to send for him.

He sang to himself as he stripped down to wash what he could of the road dirt off him, enjoying the hot water even if not a full bath.

Bistane dashed his razor into the last of the bathwater, cleaning it, as his voice trailed off. He couldn’t sing for her anymore. She’d lost her joyousness when she’d lost Jeredon. When she did listen to him at all, it was to hear the echoes of his father’s voice within his words, the refrain of his father’s advice and wisdom. It was as though he, as himself, did not exist at all except as a reflection of Bistel Vantane. He peered at himself in the small mirror, propped against the wall, and saw little to shore up his estimate of himself. He knew who he was before his father’s untimely death. Now . . . he had doubts, he supposed. Not that he was untried in life or in battle. He had not been at his father’s side when he was cut down. He had failed in that regard.

Bistane looked down, realized his fist was clenched. He opened his hand slowly. He must have had it clenched for long moments, for his fingers had gone both stiff and pale, cramping when he tried to open them. In that regard, he was definitely his father’s son. He could have a stubborn will when set to it.

He picked up a towel to dry his face. Time to show that will, then. He was tired of waiting for Lariel to acknowledge his presence, to summon him; whether she had deigned to give him a night’s peace or had forgotten about him altogether, he had no idea. Whichever it was, he wasn’t going to suffer it a moment longer.

Bistane straightened his shirt, pivoted on heel, and went to find the woman, deep into the night or not.

He passed two servant girls on the stairs. They ducked their heads and said nothing although he could hear faint giggles in his wake. Did they know he was headed toward the queen’s apartment? Or did they simply giggle because that’s what young lasses did? He used to understand such things, he thought. Or maybe that was because, once, he used to assume the attention was directed on him. Further doubt marked him when he heard one of the girls’ last words as they turned the corner, “Lord Tranta makes me blush, too . . .”

He turned down the spacious wing where Lariel lived, had lived, with her brother. The traitorous seneschal Tiiva had had rooms here, too, he remembered although he had never been inclined to visit them. Tiiva, in her voluminous gowns of silk and satin, with a dagger sheath hidden in her sleeves. Disappeared and hoped dead, deceitful, alluring Tiiva.

You can never tell an enemy by the foulness of their features or words.
Yes, my father, I remember your saying that well. Bistane neared the doors marked discreetly in the far corner with Lara’s crest and slowed, brushing the palm of his hand over his hair. Did he still have that wild lick of hair that always showed up when he’d been sleeping? He thought he’d combed it down when he’d washed, but—

Bistane bit off a curse under his breath. It did not matter. Nothing mattered but that Lara turn her eyes on him and finally see him and not the late, great Bistel. He was as deeply loyal to her service, but he was his own man. She had to see that of him, sooner or later. Did she not?

Bistane stopped in his tracks. The door hung slightly ajar, latch out of place. Hastily entered or exited, he could not tell. But amiss. He drew his dagger hissing quietly from its sheath, put a booted foot in the door to ease it open, and slipped in.

The rooms were draped for nighttime, the heavy curtains still down on the windows of the far wall. But she had neither dined nor slept in the first two rooms, and he turned the corner beyond them, to enter a room he had seen a few times in his capacity as his father’s aide when she conferred with Bistel. An odd room, spare, with a table and a heavy wooden chair that sat, throne-like, in front of a window that took in the horizon of the forested hills of Larandaril. He could see as he moved into it that the drapes had not been brought down here, and silvery moonlight bathed the room.

A muffled sound drew him closer. When he came to the chair, he saw Lariel, tied to the arms, slumped as if asleep and fighting a dread nightmare, her body twitching and her face etched deeply in strain and tension, her mouth half-open as if she tried to scream. “Lara!”

Kneeling, he cut her bonds. Was this how Sevryn had left her, or had someone else been in this room? He cradled her face between his hands. “Lara. You’re all right. I’m here. Wake. You’re all right!”