The Hollow Crown: A Novel of Crosspointe (28 page)

He stopped, putting a hand against the wall to steady himself as fear seized him. It couldn’t be too late. There had to be time yet to prepare for the Jutras invasion.
Additionally, it appears that the lights of the Pale have begun to dim. It is quite worrisome.
Nicholas pushed himself away from the wall. Even if he could stop the Jutras, he could do nothing to save the Pale. Without it, the Jutras didn’t matter. Crosspointe would be a land of spawn.

He pushed the thought aside. He’d do what he could—what he knew how to do—and pray to the gods that the Ramplings still had Lucy Trenton in their pocket and that she could fix the Pale a second time.

Keros dumped the regent onto the floor inside the bedchamber and just barely restrained himself from kicking the bastard. He returned to Ellyn and Cora in the main salon. The girl was peeling off her borrowed cloak and shivering. Ellyn had released the illusions disguising them and now Keros did the same for himself. His majick responded better than it had before whatever had happened to him at the inn, but it still no longer felt like it welled from a rich and dense sea as it had done before the fall of the Kalpestrine. Now it felt shallow and thin, like the difference between a hearty stew and a watery soup.

The footmen had stirred the fire and warmth was slowly creeping through the room. Ellyn went to look out the windows. She opened one and peered up and then down before pulling her head back in. Keros gave her a curious look. They both wore glamours that hid their white eyes, but nothing seemed to change the constant flow of lights. He was beginning to get used to it and was no longer quite so distracted by them.

“Do you see anything interesting out there?” he asked.

She shrugged. “I like to know where the exits are.”

He stared at her a long moment. He could hardly see the girl he’d known and loved so many seasons ago. She’d changed in almost every way. She’d always been strong, but then it had been the strength of a green sapling, deeply rooted and wild in the wind. Now she was a weapon—a flashing sword honed to a bright edge. She was dangerous. He was, too, he thought. That was what this life had made of them.

He was shocked to find that for once he did not regret it. Because now he was a man who could curse the local brothels to make men pay for abusing Margaret’s enslaved family; he could help rescue a kidnapped young boy; he could burn this despicable place to the ground when he was done and then he could go help Margaret. He could kill and he could heal—he was a man to be feared, a friend to be depended on, and a majicar with the power to do what he needed to do. Today he was glad to be who he was instead of who he might have been had the Gerent not thrown his entire village into a
sylveth
tide.

“Where is the boy?” she asked.

He concentrated on the link to the bracelet spell. Carston was downstairs somewhere, likely in the cellar. He told Ellyn so, then turned to Cora, who hung back by the door, watching her two companions uncertainly. She wasn’t cowering into herself, he was pleased to see. Her neck was raw and red from the collar, as if it had grated against her skin. It had been roughly made.

“You’ll need to stay here and wait for us,” he told her.

Her gaze fixed on him, her eyes sunken and large. “Who are you?” she asked.

“I’d rather save that until we are on our way,” he said. “Suffice it to say we are the people who took the iron collar off your neck. You’re free.”

She blinked, dazed, then shook her head. “Doesn’t matter. The regent will only sweep me up again. I’ve nowhere to go and no way to live. Besides, we’re in his house.” The last was angry and accusing.

“You don’t have to worry about the regent anymore, and we’ll make sure you get out of here safely.”

She wrapped her arms around herself, her mouth pinching together. He wasn’t sure what she was thinking or feeling. She didn’t look particularly grateful or happy. But, then, she’d not had an easy time of it and she was entitled to feel however she wanted.

“What do you want?” she said, staring down at the floor.

“Me?”

She nodded shortly. “It’s got to cost something, doesn’t it?”

She had learned the rules of survival fast.

“You already paid us. You warned us the regent was coming. If not for you, we might have been in some trouble. But the regent’s kidnapped a young boy and is keeping him prisoner here. Ellyn and I have to go find him. We need you to wait here for us. Don’t let anyone come in.”

She frowned. “What about Mistress Dedlok?”

Ellyn snorted, covering her laughter with her hand. Keros smiled. “
Mistress Dedlok
is . . . indisposed. You need only to divert anyone from entering. Can you do that?”

She nodded, chewing her upper lip. “You’ll come back?”

“We will.”

She nodded and moved farther into the room, giving Keros a wide berth as she went to stand near the fire-place. He went to the door and Ellyn slipped out into the corridor with him.

She led the way, moving swiftly and surely. She’d been here once before for a few days, while serving as Alanna Truehelm’s lady’s maid. It was enough to give her the lay of the land.

She quickly wound a path down to the main level, into the kitchens and through to the wine cellars. They used a glamour to keep from being noticed. She went directly to a rack of whiskey casks and reached between them, touching a spot beneath the third cask. There was a slight click and Ellyn pushed against the rack. It swiveled, revealing a door behind it. She fished some metal tools from her boot and picked it. A moment later they were in the lavishly appointed corridor on the other side.

“I never got any farther than the door before,” she murmured. “Lady Alanna is very demanding and suspicious.”

Keros hardly heard her. He tipped his head, his eyes drifting nearly closed. The lights down the left side were different somehow. They moved strangely. More oily and undulant, slowly billowing. He followed them like a trail. The farther he went, the more they pulsed and bulged. Their colors changed as well—growing red-tinged. Almost bloody. The bright jewel tones muddied and turned flat and dull. A sort of a scent accompanied it—more psychic than real. It was meaty and slightly sweet, and altogether stomach turning.

He glanced at Ellyn, who paced along beside him.

“I see it.” She wrinkled her nose. “Smell it, too, though it isn’t
quite
smell . . .”

Carston wasn’t far. He felt the closeness of the ciphered bracelet. They turned a corner and both stopped dead.

“What happened here?” Ellyn asked, sliding a knife from its sheath on her thigh.

“I have no idea,” he said.

They looked down a wide passage. On the right was a single door. It was closed. Ahead the corridor opened into what appeared to be a lofty room full of expensive flotsam and jetsam. But what stopped them both were the lights in the middle between them and that room—the room where they had to go to get Carston.

It looked like someone had plunged a careless hand into their careful pattern and snatched a clump. Strands hung broken or twisted together in knots and tangles. The color was so dark that it looked black, but even as Keros stared, he realized he was wrong. They were red.

“What is it?” Ellyn whispered.

He started. He’d almost forgotten her. He didn’t answer and instead took another few steps forward. He reached out and touched one of the strands. It sent a flash of heat through him and he felt instantly nauseous. He jerked away, but not before he felt a taste of something he’d experienced once before. The thing inside him pulsed hot as the flavor of it burned through him.

His cods shriveled and his bowels clenched tight. Instinctively he reached out and grabbed Ellyn’s hand.

“Come on.”

He ran forward through the lights, pulling himself in tight to avoid touching them where he could. He fled to the other side, dragging Ellyn like a sack of turnips. When he stopped, he was panting and his skin twitched. It felt like he was being smothered under a hill of ants.

He shook himself and Ellyn did the same.

“What was that?” she whispered. Her face was pale and she still held his hand.

“Jutras majick,” he said around the boulder in his throat. “The remnants of a spell.”

“What? Here?”

“The cracking bastard is working with the Jutras,” he said and spat to clear the taste from his mouth.

“How do you know?”

“I’ve tasted Jutras majick before,” he said. He’d been there in the throne room when they invaded and killed Queen Naren. He’d witnessed the horrors of their blood majick as they tortured and killed two people. If not for Lucy, he’d have been the next under the knife. If the truth be told, that was the reason he’d signed on to help the Ramplings. The Jutras scared him nearly witless and the idea of them overrunning Crosspointe still gave him horrendous nightmares.

“When?”

He hardly heard the question. Pieces of a puzzle were falling into place. He looked at her, horror nearly stealing his voice. “That’s who took Margaret. The Jutras have her.”

She looked sick, but she didn’t really know. She had no idea. If she had, she wouldn’t look merely sick—she’d be digging a hole in the floor to hide in. He stared broodingly back at the spell. “I assume you know the Jutras use blood magic. It’s not just blood, but pain too. They make sacrifices to their gods to fuel their spells. I’ve seen them. I’ve seen them carve the flesh from a living person and then crush every drop of blood from their bodies. They’ll do it to Margaret, or something like it. They’ll sacrifice her to make their magic and she won’t be the only one.

“You asked me before me why I serve Crosspointe. This is why. I’ve seen for myself how brutal they are, how evil. This is my home now. What family I claim lives here. So when King William asked me to help protect Crosspointe against the Jutras, I said yes. You and I may have different masters, but we have the same goals. Do you understand?”

She nodded jerkily.

“Good. Here’s what you have to do. I’m going to start tracking Margaret and the Jutras. Right now. I want you to get Carston and warn Weverton of what’s going on. Tell him to warn Prince Ryland and tell him he damned well better figure out that he’s got to work with the Ramplings if Crosspointe is going to survive. Have you got that?”

“I’ve got it.”

“Once he’s on his way to Sylmont, you follow me. I’m going to need your help. Come as fast as you can. The regent has horses. Take one.” He dropped her hands and ran his fingers through his hair. “Before you go, burn this place. Start the fire down here. Burn it hot. Hopefully it will destroy any spells they might have left behind. This will guide you.”

He spun a thread of majick from his
illidre
. He twisted it around the thread that connected him to Margaret and then slipped the end around Ellyn’s wrist. “Can you follow that?”

She narrowed her eyes, concentrating, her opposite hand closing over where he’d attached the spell. Finally she nodded. “I can.” Her voice had firmed and she looked resolute.

“Good. I’ll see you when I see you,” he said and hesitated. He felt like he should say some other farewell. If he overtook Margaret and the Jutras and had to fight, he might not survive. But what lay between them was both as vast as the sky and as thin as his own breath. “Fair winds and following seas,” he said finally. It was the traditional farewell of sailors and all that he could scrape together.

With that, he fled back through the tatters of the Jutras spell and back through the cellars. He stopped into the kitchen to steal a sack full of food—cheese, hard sausage, two loaves of bread, and a half-dozen apples. He returned to the foyer, dodging footmen and maids, and found his coat hanging in a closet. He shrugged it on, then was forced to wait an eternity while the butler and housekeeper argued over keys and the cleaning of the silver. It was nearly half a glass before both stormed off, leaving Keros free to escape his hiding place. He suffered the delay with ill grace, silently cursing the two and barely resisting the urge to storm out. It wasn’t until after they’d gone that he recalled Ellyn’s stun spell. He was too distracted by the memories of Jutras wizards carving the flesh from their sacrificial victims. He kept imagining Margaret’s face beneath their knives.

It took him a few minutes to find the stables. The barn was warm and teeming with people. Weverton’s three horses had been groomed and blanketed and now were eating hot mash while nearly a dozen men, women, boys, and girls goggled over them. Across the corridor were the regent’s four carriage horses, all equally pampered. With such a spectacle, the crowd would not soon disperse. He’d have to encourage them. The stun spell would not give him enough time.

He stepped inside a supply stall that was full of grain and straw. He leaned back against the wall, holding his
illidre
in his hand. It took him a moment to focus himself. His mind spun with fear of the Jutras and what they might be doing to Margaret. But worrying about it wasn’t going to help her. Forcibly he narrowed his attention to the task at hand.

The half-formed spells that a majicar stored in his
illidre
allowed him to quickly improvise a variety of spells. Keros considered what he could do to clear the people out of the stables. Better still, he could put them to sleep. That would give him time enough to saddle up and depart without being seen. Hopefully it would leave time for his companions as well.

He started with the web he’d created to catch the men frequenting the brothels in town. He’d build sleep into it. He used
Water
and
Stone
for the body,
Blossom
for peace,
Stillness
for undisturbed calm,
Vine
to bind them so they could not easily wake. He threaded the weaving into the web, targeting the spell for the people rather than the animals. It took longer than he liked, nearly a half a glass—when it was done, he was exhausted. A chill sweat trickled down his neck and into the small of his back. The majick was thick and heavy like cold molasses. It was a struggle to draw on it.