Tempest (28 page)

“The bones shall be your lever,” Kiaran explained. “Fill those spaces with slivers, and they'll help to weaken the magic. When it is weak enough, we'll simply be able to lift the grate off the top. That'll be the first problem solved.”

“I don't understand you,” Nichol said wonderingly. “Not at all. You aided in Colm's capture, yet you brought me along to look after him. You're helping us to facilitate his escape, yet it's your own father who cast the spell to keep him here. What are you after? Truly?”

“I always see my visions through,” Kiaran replied. “I tried to change the future once, just once, and it wreaked havoc on my life. I have no desire to anger the gods by ignoring their warnings another time.” He smiled suddenly. “But that doesn't mean I can't nudge them a bit to get me closer to what I want.”

“And what is that?”

“Nothing you need to bother yourself with,” Kiaran said. “You two will be gone by that time. You'd best get back to work, Nyle. Kith is an indolent man, but he won't hesitate to beat you if you don't get the work done.”

“I know,” Nichol said glumly, but returned to unpacking the trunks after a final glance at Colm.

Kiaran turned to the tank and leaned into it. His face seemed to follow Colm's despite the blindfold over his eyes. “And you,” he said, “must be prepared to give them a show. No cowering in the back. You must be worth every drop of blood that was shed to claim you, or none of my workings will save you in the end.”

Chapter Twenty-One

The Roving Spectacular's first show was the next day, and Colm soon discovered that it was much less amusing
being
one of the exhibits than it had been simply watching them. The people of Devanon reacted with awe and fear upon seeing him, and Colm hated seeing the little children dart behind their parent or sibling as soon as they laid eyes on him. Several of the folks who came through screamed, and one actually fainted, which led to Nichol having to carry the lady out of the tent. Naturally, that only piqued people's interest, and the flow of gawkers stayed steady from morning till night.

Colm, remembering Kiaran's admonishment, didn't let himself settle in the bottom of the tank no matter how mortified he felt inside. He stirred up the bones with his tail, he crept in tight circles around the perimeter of the glass, he pressed his long webbed fingers to the surface and drew his face close. He never opened his mouth, though. There was a line for Colm between making his audience uncomfortable and making himself uncomfortable, and baring his sharp teeth to them crossed that line.

Outside, Colm could vaguely hear music, the drums and horns that he remembered from his own visit in Caithmor, and the laughter of the people who listened to it. He remembered the jesters and the players, and the man with the hump-backed spotted cat on its metal lead, daring people to put their heads between its massive jaws. It had all seemed so thrilling, even the House of Horrors to a certain extent. Not anymore.

Nichol did surprisingly well in his new role as a rover. He affected a loose and confident air, smiled easily and charmed people into believing he'd been at this ever since he could walk. He offered up a dozen different stories for how he'd come to the profession, none of them even remotely close to the real thing, but each one had been believable enough to garner him sympathy, jealousy and admiration, sometimes all at once.

Colm knew Nichol. He knew how he thought and how he felt. Colm knew that even though Nichol would probably never admit it, probably didn't realize it himself, there was a part of him that was greatly satisfied to be having an adventure, even one as ugly as this. Nichol's sole goal for years had been a commission with the navy, and without that goal and the friends that came with it, he'd been lost. He might not be at sea now, but he was traveling and experiencing a new side of life, and the worry that had plagued him, that Colm was dead, had been assuaged.

These small sources of comfort were all that kept Colm going some days, when the crowds were less afraid and more disgusted, when someone actually threw a clod of mud at the tank and was jerked out of the House of Horrors by an angry Nichol. Fear, anger, even fascination were emotions that Colm had had quite enough of.

By the second week, the only thing Colm looked forward to were the nights, when Kith went off to drown in booze and women and Nichol lit a lantern, and they sat together and Nichol talked about his day, about another act or sometimes about nothing at all as Colm quietly, carefully worked tiny slivers of bone into the crevices between metal and glass. When he ran out of the tiniest slivers, he made more of his own, scraping the bigger bones with his sharp, hard teeth until shards broke off.

Colm had expected Nichol to be disgusted by it at first, but Colm was rapidly coming to the conclusion that nothing he could do would disgust Nichol. Nothing drove him away, and he was the one to badger Kith into doing the spell that cleaned the water once a week, so Colm didn't have to float in too much of his own filth. Colm was sure that Nichol's devotion to him was motivated as much out of misplaced guilt as true affection, but he wasn't going to reject it no matter what the source of the constancy was. It was such a terrible relief not to be alone. First Rory, now Nichol… Colm didn't know how he'd gotten lucky enough to earn such loyalty from his family, but he felt every bit of his luck every time he saw Nichol smile, or heard him laugh.

There was only one night when Colm found himself without Nichol's company. Nichol, or Nyle as they all knew him, was a young man running from his past. It made sense to all the other young men that he would want to drown his sorrows, and to put his peers off every night with excuses had the potential to make them wary. When he couldn't delay any longer, Nichol went with them, finding a way to let Colm know that he was going to be reluctantly gone before he left the tent to Kith's surveillance for the evening.

Colm was sorry to see him go, but he didn't want to be selfish. Despite Nichol's protestations to the contrary, Colm knew Nichol couldn't be blamed for his transformation. He deserved a chance to relax, to be with other people,
real
people, who could speak to him and touch him and make him feel welcome. Colm watched him leave, and then spent the rest of the evening pretending not to watch Kith, who was already stumbling drunk.

The more he drank, the easier he got with himself, less self-conscious about the turmoil of his belly. He sat down a few feet from the tank and hoisted his flask over and over as he stroked his stomach, murmuring to it so softly that Colm couldn't hear what he was saying. He was almost treating it the same way Colm remembered Desandre doing, talking to her own stomach when she was carrying children, only no pregnancy that Colm had ever seen led to such permanent distension. It was one more mystery in the layers of mysteries that surrounded the Roving Spectacular. Colm's true form might be one of the biggest secrets, but it was far from the only one among the rovers.

By the time Nichol got back that night, Kith had left, gone to refill his flask and staying gone. Nichol pushed back his hood and stepped close to the tank, shuttering the lantern he carried so that it only let out the tiniest sliver of light. Colm could just see the bridge of his nose, and the soft skin of his cheeks where his dark beard hadn't quite grown in. “Don't think I'll be doing that again,” Nichol said quietly, leaning his forehead against the tank. Dark curls tumbled forward, and Colm wished he could touch them. He could barely remember the feel of their silk between his fingers. He clenched his clawed hands tightly and focused on listening.

“Wes leads the other men into all sorts of mischief, with his money as a lure. He had plenty of ideas about things to do to you, but I…persuaded him it would be a bad idea.” He grinned and ducked his head down, and now the light caught on the edge of his eyes, one of which was swelling up.

Colm keened very, very softly, and reached instinctively for Nichol's face. “Don't fuss,” Nichol chided him. “He's worse off, and he won't be trying anything. That's the important bit. Couldn't have him ‘buggerin' up me livelihood,'” he added sarcastically. “It's all right. Now I've got a reason to avoid them, and I'd rather be here with you anyway.”

Colm was genuinely surprised by the earnestness in Nichol's voice. He knew that Nichol had come along on this awful adventure to be with him, because he felt guilty and—yes—because he loved him, but Nichol's preference for his company, when Colm could barely even communicate, still astonished him.

“Shall I tell you what idiot things they confessed to doing outside of Caithmor?” Nichol asked, settling down on the wagon next to Colm.

Yes
.

Nichol smiled for him, and spoke, and Colm listened as raptly as he ever had.

Things stayed manageable up until the very last day of the Roving Spectacular's stay in Devanon. The rovers would be breaking down camp the next day, and some of them had already started. Nichol had been called away by Kith to help with something, and so when Colm's heart broke all over again, there was no one to witness it who understood this time.

The crowd was just a trickle, probably because it was a cold spring day out judging from the mud that decked their boots and hems. Colm swam his tight, cramped circles and swayed, and tried not to let on how ungodly bored he was with the whole thing. Why couldn't it be nightfall? He was almost a third of the way done with the grate, and he could
feel
the spell that bound it on weakening, feel it in the way the cracks widened, minute but definite progress. He circled lazily and glanced out at the people watching him and saw a thin girl in a familiar woolen hat push her way to the front—

No. Oh no. It couldn't be. It was impossible. Colm plastered himself to the glass, scaring some of the watchers back. “Baylee,” he tried to say, but all that came out was his usual hiss.

“Gods, it sounds awful,” one of the other young women said, drawing back even farther. “Told you it was a horror, Lee. Come on, let's go.” Baylee didn't move, though. She stared wide-eyed at the tank, and Colm stared right back, achingly desperate to know more.

What was she doing in Devanon? How had she gotten here, and why? She looked at him so intently—did some part of her recognize him? Could she help him? Colm spread his hands and kept his lips closed so his teeth wouldn't scare her. He reached out as best he could, imploring, so close to his dearest sister he could almost feel the warmth of her arms.

“You were right, Glena,” Baylee said after a moment. “It is rather horrible, isn't it?”

“I told you, din't I? Had to look for yourself, and now we'll be late gettin' back to the caravan. C'mon, Lee.” Glena took Baylee by the hand and led her toward the exit, and Colm—

He couldn't just watch her leave. It was like watching his own execution. “No,” he tried to yell. “No!” The few other spectators left in a hurry, disturbed by the noise despite how the water muted it. Baylee's friend hustled her through the doorway, and his sister cast a final glance back before vanishing from Colm's sight.

“
No!
”

That one was loud enough to make Colm's head hurt. The vibrations of his noise bounced back at him from the smooth glass walls, and he covered his ear holes with his hands and curled into a heap on the bottom of the tank, more miserable now than he'd been when he'd first been put in here.

“What did they do to you?” he heard Nichol shout as he ran back into the tent. “What did they do? What happened?”

“What happened?” That was Kith, who sounded more engaged now than he'd been since they first came to Devanon. “Y'should ask the people who were watching, not the mer. It can't speak like a man.” His voice turned speculative. “Why do you expect it to?”

“I don't,” Nichol blustered, but Kith wasn't buying it.

“I think perhaps you are. Is there some trick going on here that I don't know about? Do you have some magic after all, Nyle? Can ye speak to beasts?”

“I don't have any magic,” Nichol insisted. “I just got worried, that's all. I've never heard him make that sound before.”

Lies, lies.
Nichol had heard that sound the last time Colm's heart broke, but he couldn't exactly tell that to Kith. Colm knew he was being worrisome, that he was putting Nichol in a bad spot, but he couldn't quite muster the willpower to turn over and act like everything was all right. Baylee had left home, left Anneslea, and her path had somehow led her…here? Why not through Isealea, why not down the main roads? Was she being taken care of, did she have money, did she have a plan? These weren't questions that Colm had the answer to, but they plagued his mind now, all the worries he'd harbored since he first learned that she would do anything to escape being forced into marriage.

Not that there was anything he could do. He was impotent, useless. She didn't even know who he was, and how could she? Baylee remembered a tall, fair man, with brown hair and a gentle voice. Not a mer. Not a monster. It was probably for the best. He couldn't speak to her even if she'd known him, and had no means of reassuring her, not when he and Nichol didn't know what they were doing themselves.

“Colm.”

He turned his head farther into the floor.

“
Colm
.” Nichol's voice was soft but insistent. “Kith's gone now. I think it'll be all right. Colm, look at me.” He didn't move. “Please, love,
please
look at me. Let me know what happened.”

Colm wanted to. He wanted to comfort Nichol's fears and receive comfort in return, but it was too much right now. The pain was still too close, the cacophony of his own changed voice still rang too loudly in his own head. He pressed a hand back to rest against the tank, palm flat, and he felt the faint vibration of Nichol's own hand coming to rest on the other side of the glass. Nichol didn't ask again, but he stayed put for a few minutes, until Colm could just barely feel the warmth of Nichol's hand seeping through, before he was called away to begin packing things up. No one else would be venturing into the House of Horrors today.

Not until much later, not until it was dark outside and Kith had drowned his suspicions in rotgut and most of the Spectacular was sleeping, did Colm finally make an effort to reassure Nichol. He ate the fish that Nichol offered him—freshly caught; he must have bargained hard for it—and met his eyes in the bright moonlight, and tried not to let his sadness overcome him again.

Nichol pressed his face to the glass, close enough that Colm could feel the vibration of his voice. “Tell me what happened,” he murmured. “Did you see something upsetting?”

Colm knocked on the glass once.

“Was it a thing?”

Two knocks.

“A person, then?”

Yes.

“Did they say something that hurt you?”

Colm shook his head in frustration. Yes, her words had hurt, but not for the reason Nichol was assuming. He could handle the imprecations. He had heard every epithet under the sun.

“This is the wrong direction, isn't it?” Nichol said. “Did this person remind you of someone you know?”

Yes. Yes. Yes.
Colm knocked, not in rapid succession, but in an effort to get his point across. Nichol looked surprised, and considered him for a moment.