Light of Eidon (Legends of the Guardian-King, Book 1) (23 page)

He expected others, officers of the city, men from the villa, civilians. But
there was only the boy and the dog.

The Esurhites, who had hesitated as the dog approached, now thundered
after Eldrin. He yelled at the boy to go back, and the lad stopped, but the
hound raced on, tearing the leash from his hands.

No time. Eldrin angled off the quay, feet landing painfully on sharp, wet
stones. He slipped, touched water—

Purple light flared in the darkness.

“STOP.” The voice was not loud, but it carried an authority impossible to
resist. Eldrin’s body wrenched itself to a stop, teetering at water’s edge, arms
windmilling.

Behind him, the baying silenced with a yelp.

Now the Gamer loomed on the quay above him, thumbs hooked into his
belt below an amulet that glowed like a malevolent eye. He grinned. “I knew
there was fire in you, my Kiriathan prince.” He spoke in the Tahg to the men
beside him, and they descended to Eldrin’s side. Rough hands hauled him
back up the quay, then bound and gagged him.

The boy hung limply in the grip of a henchman, his pale face streaked
with tears. Beyond them lay the still, dark form of the dog. Did they mean to
take the boy to their galley, too, then? Surely he was too young….

As Eldrin was shoved into the shore boat, the Gamer stuffed a folded
parchment into the boy’s belt and gestured to Windbird, now a dim and indistinct shape behind the rapidly thickening mist. He spoke softly, then
jumped down into the stern sheets of the dinghy and they shoved off.

The boat slid silently across a sea of black glass, oars dipping and rising in
near silent unison, heading for the nearest of the galleys. All too soon they
were swinging up alongside it, a rope boarding ladder tumbling down from
the gunwale as the oarsmen secured their paddles.

The Gamer stood and pulled Eldrin to his feet, chuckling softly. “You are
far too trusting, hechami,” he murmured. “Let that be your first lesson for
the Games: never trust anyone but yourself.”

Eldrin stared at him.

The Esurhite’s grin widened. “You are going to make me a very rich man,
Abramm Kalladorne. A very rich man.”

Carissa lurched up in her bunk, breathing hard, staring into the darkness.
Something awful had happened. She had dreamed….

A round gray stone hanging in the air, a dog’s frantic baying, a dark figure
looming up to drag her into a dark hold where scarred, malevolent faces
leered around her in a purple light. A symbol of glowing lines floated up from
the shadow, a rampant dragon filling her vision, exploding her brain into terrible, burning pain—

It was only a dream. Yet her head and chest and arm still burned, and
nausea spun in her middle.

She sat holding her head in her hands, catching her breath and feeling the
pain ebb. Something had happened to Abramm, again. This was like the
dream she’d had before they’d left Springerlan. The dream she’d had years
ago when Gillard had lured Abramm to a secluded corner of the palace and
beaten the spit out of him. Humiliated, hurting, miserable, Abramm had
crawled away to a hiding place and collapsed. They never would have found
him if not for Carissa’s dream.

She didn’t understand this linkage she had with her twin, didn’t know if
he had reciprocal dreams about her-she only knew it was real and should be
acted upon. Except … she had no idea what action to take.

She got up and poured water with trembling hands, sloshing some on the
thin carpet beneath her feet. The tallow dip burned dimly on its brass pan,
casting ogrelike shadows on the cabin walls as she gulped the water. Images whirled before her mind’s eye: the shadowed hold, the dark faces, the glowing dragon….

A horrible suspicion made her drop the ceramic cup to the table with a
clatter, then tear her cloak from its peg and wrench open the door.

Cooper slept outside, as was his wont, sitting with his back to the bulkhead, legs bent up, head drooped forward. Careful not to wake him, she hurried past onto the deck.

A mist had come up in the night, swathing harbor and sky in thick black
wool. Two lanterns hung athwart the ship’s waist, their light constricted into
muzzy yellow pools, limning the crewmen’s huddled forms, asleep on the
planking but ready to rouse and make sail at a moment’s notice. Though in
this breathless mist, sail would do Windbird little good.

She paced to the port gunwale. The lanterns of one of the neighboring
galleys showed as blurry lights in the darkness, but she could just make out
the dark hulls, five of them, still there. Somewhere a hatch shrieked, followed
by muffled thumping, then silence. The faint aroma of roasting meat waxed
then waned on the air.

She grimaced, caught in a flurry of agitation. Part of her wanted to
awaken the captain and send him over there to assure her that Katahn wasn’t
intending betrayal after all. As soon as the Esurhite had left yesterday she’d
been beset with doubts-that he was really a Gamer and hadn’t bought
Abramm earlier because he didn’t know who he was. Maybe because of her,
Abramm would be plucked from the kettle and thrown to the flames.

True, the captain, upon his return, had affirmed the difficulty of freeing
Abramm from the temple and said he’d heard a rumor that a slaver had
recently delivered a number of young men over to the temple priestesses.
Moreover, the activity they’d observed ashore this evening was indeed due to
the search for an escaped slave, though Kinlock believed the man had
belonged to one of the villa owners, not the temple.

Still, with all the commotion tonight, if Katahn had freed Abramm, he
might well and sensibly have gone to ground, might even now be making a
run from shore.

She stared into the darkness, every sense straining for something that
might foretell his approach.

Windbird creaked around her. A cricket sang somewhere below. The scent
of burning tobacco wafted on the still air from the lone sailor at watch well forward of her. Around him lay his slumbering mates, their snores muffled by
the mist.

If Katahn had come out and bypassed Windbird to go straight to his own
vessel, the watchman would have notified Danarin….

Suspicion wrenched at her again. What if he had? What if Danarin had
deemed it unimportant and done nothing? That way, Katahn would take
Abramm, and Danarin’s orders from the king would be fulfilled.

She hurried forward to ask the man herself, but he assured her there’d
been nothing. Clearly the Esurhite had not returned.

Go back to bed, she told herself. There’s nothing you can do here.

Sleep, though elusive, did claim her finally, and the next thing she knew
gray daylight filtered through the wide stern window. Her first thought was
that no one had come to her with news of Abramm’s rescue. Her second was
that the ship still stood at anchor.

Quelling incipient panic, she washed her face, combed her hair, and
pulled on a blue woolen shift. Cooper stood awake outside the door now,
giving no sign he had ever been other than standing there at attention. She
passed him without comment, avoiding his gaze.

Captain Kinlock stood near the starboard companion in counsel with
Danarin and the second mate. As she stepped into the cold, misty morning,
they turned to her of one accord, their faces grim, and her heart fluttered.

Immediately she turned to the port railing and the five black-hulled galleys. They were gone.

She stared at the empty place on the gray water and her knees turned to
jelly. “Please, no,” she murmured. Not that…. He’d never survive that….

“I’m afraid so, lass,” the captain said, proffering a wide white envelope. It
was grubby and crinkled, but she recognized the fine paper, the watermark of
Haden’s Mill. Her name was flawlessly and flourishingly lettered in black ink
on the front:

Her Royal Highness

The Princess Carissa Louise Mariellen Kalladorne Balmark

The wax wafer was broken-Kinlock had read it first. She frowned at that
but said nothing as she withdrew the note. In the same beautiful calligraphy
she read:

Your brother was actually sold at auction five days ago to a wealthy
official of the Qarkeshanian government who employed him as a scribea dreadful waste of his potential, in my opinion. I could not have told you
that, of course, or you would have never sent me to rescue him, though I
must confess, your gullibility surprised me. It is a prime example of the
stupidity of your people and a demonstration of why it will not take us
long to conquer you.

I will make far more than four thousand sovereigns on your royal
brother in a single match. Warriors will bid with each other for the amusement of defeating him in the arena. I will, of course, do all that I can to
prepare him for his contest. Obviously the longer he lasts, the more money
I make. Perhaps you will find comfort in that.

In Destiny,

Katahn ul Manus

“Our stowaway and his dog there”-Kinlock gestured to the ship’s waist,
where an auburn-haired youth stood watching them beside a grizzled blood-
hound-“caught up with them just as they were leaving. The kid’s lucky he’s
not with them now. Katahn gave him the letter.”

She advanced to face the boy, who was all arms and legs, with the big
floppy feet of adolescence. The top of his head just reached her shoulder, and
his curly hair flew wildly save for that which someone had gathered at his
nape and tarred into a tiny pigtail. Like the caning and forced labor, it was
one more rite of initiation imposed upon all those who dared stow away.

It hadn’t cowed him, though. In fact, the erectness of his carriage along
with a certain fineness of feature and the direct way he met her eyes made
her think he might have been a nobleman’s son. In fact, he looked familiar,
now that she thought of it. And as she knew too well, noblemen’s sons could
have as good reasons to run away as any other.

She wondered why he had come back with the letter, though. And how
he had managed to be in the right place and time to get it in the first place.
The sense of familiarity washed over her again, more urgently now. She had
seen him somewhere. Recently.

At one of the parties she and Rennalf had attended in Springerlan?

“You saw the man this Gamer took?” she asked.

He nodded. “He was dressed funny, and his hair was short, the way they
wear it around here, but I’m sure it was Prince Abramm.”

It wasn’t at a party. The palace maybe? But he was too young to attend
court, so …

“Have we met before, boy?”

The boy’s face went dead white, every freckle standing out in sharp relief.
All his confidence evaporated. He swallowed. “I … don’t think so, my lady.”

He could’ve been a page. Many young men of noble blood served in that
capacity at the royal residence. Except she wasn’t likely to notice any particular page. They were like furniture-useful, always there, but you didn’t
really look at them. So why would she—

The page from Raynen’s apartments. That’s who he was. The one caught
spying while she’d been there, who’d twisted free of the chamberlain and
fled.

Suspicion rose crazily within her, her passion reflected in the rising alarm
on his face. She seized his arm, waving the letter before his nose. “Did you
write this? Where is he? Where have you hidden him?”

He flinched backward. “My lady, no? The Gamer took the prince. I swear
it. And he gave-“

“Who are you? Why are you on this ship? Why were you spying on the
king that day? Tell me?”

He grew even whiter, gray-blue eyes flicking to Captain Kinlock and Danarin, who had come up behind her. “I-“

She shook his arm. “Did Saeral send you? Where have you hidden my
brother?” She realized this accusation was absurd, realized she was out of
control, but could not seem to stop herself.

“Saeral?” the boy choked. “Never?”

“Wait!” Kinlock interjected. “You were spying on the king?”

The boy wilted. He looked at the deck, then said quietly, “I had to know
what was going on. What he’d done with my brother.”

“Your brother?” Carissa demanded.

“Captain Meridon, my lady,” the boy said.

Carissa gaped, seeing the resemblance now, plain as day.

“I knew the man they executed wasn’t Trap,” he added hurriedly, that
whatever was going on, the king was behind it. When you came in that day,
my lady, I was dusting in the next room. It was hard not to hear you. Then
he starting talking about Trap and I-“

And you thought you’d conduct your own private rescue?” Empathy
overrode Carissa’s anger.

But the boy’s face hardened. “He’s a Terstan, and you were interested
only in the prince. I thought, if I slipped along, I would cause no trouble and
buy him free in Qarkeshan.”

The words stung, and for a moment Carissa said nothing, embarrassed.
Then, “So why the dog?”

The boy shrugged. “He’s my brother’s, and he knows his master. More
than that, he’s got a nose some say is magical. That’s how I came upon the
Garners last night. Newbold followed Trap’s scent to the pier, and I found
them. And it was Prince Abramm, my lady. I saw him before we left Sprin-
gerlan-the night he came to the palace-so I know what he looks like.”