The Soul Weaver (29 page)

My sluggish mind riffled through thoughts and images as if they were pages in a crumbling book. Holy gods, what had I done?

The pain was real, the agony of each breath, the screaming fire in my hands, the dangerous dull throb in my gut. But this pain could not be mine.

I squeezed my eyes shut, afraid to see. But the darkness was too tempting. If I kept my eyes closed, I would sink into sleep just to escape the pain, and then I—whoever I was—would die. So I opened them again and saw what I was terrified to see. My legs were long, perhaps two handspans longer than they should be. And my arms were long, like a scarecrow's I—he—had always said. But he'd never seen the strong back and shoulders that held them together. And the shirt that hung in tatters on my bleeding chest was not the blue silk the Guardian had provided me, but the rough brown kersey my friend had worn since the dwarf had acquired it for him.

If I could have shrunk from myself in horror, I would have done so. In my zeal to save Paulo's life, I had violated every oath I had sworn since leaving Zhev'Na. I had taken possession of my friend's body and had no idea what I had done with his soul.

Stay awake. Breathe.
Only the necessities of staying alive held horror and revulsion at bay.

How was I to get him back? When I was in Zhev'Na and had done this thing—taking another's body for my own use, for my pleasure—I hadn't cared what became of the soul I had displaced. The bodies died when I left them. I didn't know why or how, only that they did, and it didn't matter for they were Zhid or Drudges or slaves who existed to serve my need—my power. But this . . . I had to find Paulo, put him back, and put myself back where I belonged.

Holding one arm tight around my ribs, I eased to my feet. One step. Two. Slowly, using the flogging post, a bloodstained headsman's block, and the implement racks to hold myself up, I staggered across to the wall where the maintainers had hung the keys to the young master's cell—my cell—on a peg. Cold, shivering, I had never hurt so much in all my life. After every step I had to stop and rest, trying not to heave out my insides.

It took an agonizing time for me to get the key, insert it in the cell door, and make it turn. Only two of his fingers were of any use at all, and they shook ferociously, refusing to cooperate until I was ready to scream.

“Cripes! You've got to do what I tell you!” I yelled, and almost turned around to see where Paulo was. But it was me, using his voice . . . even his words . . . as I'd used his very thoughts while I was wrestling with the maintainers. As I fumbled with the key, I considered what had run through my head in that time. Not just my own thoughts, not by any measure. Paulo had been there, too, with ideas and feelings I had no way to know. That I had no
right
to know.

An hour it seemed until the cell door swung open, and I saw my own body lying insensible on the floor. So many bizarre things had happened to me in my life, but unshackling my own wrists and ankles, and dragging myself out of my prison cell, were truly among the strangest. At least I was breathing.

Once I had my body out of the cell, I sank to the floor beside it, waiting for the waves of pain and dizziness to recede so I could think what to do next. If Paulo was still somewhere inside this body, then maybe all I had to do was get out. I had to hurry. The Guardian could come at any time, eager to see if his will had been done. But first . . .

Gods and demons, my head was in a muddle, and everything hurt. The light began slipping away from me, as if the torches were falling down a deep well. I reached down the well, trying to catch them. My life depended on it . . . Paulo's life . . . but I lost my grasp on the light, and lost my footing, and tumbled into the depths after it. . . .

 

“Cripes, are you going to sleep all day? I thought I was the one busted up, but you've got a head like a rotten melon. We've got to get out of here.”

“Can't you be quiet? My head hurts.” Why was I talking to myself, when all I wanted to do was stay asleep?

“Let somebody crack a rib or three for you. Or put a boot in your gut. Make you forget your head.”

I was still leaning against the flogging post, holding myself together with my bloody, smashed hands. I looked more than half dead. But how was I able to see it? And why was the filthy stone floor pressing so brutally against my face at the same time?

I sat up quickly, ignoring the aches that were so trivial next to those I'd experienced earlier.

Paulo
was leaning against the flogging post. Somewhere in the mess of his face was a particular crooked grin I'd not seen since we'd left Windham. “Got to stop traipsing after you. Man could get himself killed.”

“It's you,” I said, gaping like a fool. “And I'm—Oh, blast it all, I must've been dreaming. I don't want to go to sleep ever again.” My head felt like a mountain had fallen on it. But at least it was my own head, and my own arms and legs attached to it.

“Wasn't no dream.” His smile had vanished, but the anger that should have displaced it didn't follow.

Not a dream . . .
He should be furious with me . . . revolted. He should feel violated, but he just sat there looking at me, waiting for an explanation. I wanted to be sick. “I'm sorry. I don't know how I—I didn't mean to do it. I swear.”

“Didn't
mean
to? And here I thought you'd done magic just to keep my hide in one piece. Ragged, but one piece all the same.” A laugh burst out of him, though it sounded more like a hoarse whoop.

“Well, of course, I meant to help. But not that way . . . taking you. Never that. I didn't know I could. Not any more. Only when I was a Lord. When I had power and did it on purpose, the person always died after. I don't know how this happened. I just wanted to help.” It sounded so childish, such a pitiful excuse for an act so reprehensible.

“You saved my life. I was a dead man. I
wanted
to be dead.”

“It's an evil thing. I could have killed you.” I still wasn't sure why I hadn't.

“I won't argue that it wasn't a touch fearful. It's not something I'd want to do over again . . . or even to talk about. Not yet. And one more thing”—he jerked his head at the dead maintainers—“I don't
ever
want you that riled at me.”

“No time to figure it out right now. We've got to get you someplace I can take care of you.”

I didn't know how long I'd been insensible, and Paulo wouldn't be able to move fast. How well I knew that. I got to my feet and across the floor, ignoring the way the walls seemed to dip and swirl as I squatted beside him.

“I'm as ready as I'm gonna be for a while.” He was shivering so badly he almost couldn't get the words out. His breath came in short, tight gasps.

“Don't try to talk.”

“Don't forget the others.”

“Others?”

Paulo waved toward the cells lining the block. “Other prisoners.”

Earth and sky . . .
“All right. Hold on. I'll be right back.”

I grabbed a torch and the keys I'd dropped, and then ran the length of the room, unlocking every cell door and throwing it open. Most cells were empty. In one I glimpsed a dead man. He had been dead a long time, but I think he'd been foul even before that. He had scales.

In another cell I found the disfigured girl from our first day, sitting in the middle of the floor watching the door. I waved my hand impatiently. “Come on, you're free.” She didn't move.

I stepped into the cell and offered her my hand, but she refused to take it. “I must stay here for punishing. We took Joca down from his fastness. They'd tied him to its wall.” She gripped her knees, and tears rolled down her cheeks. “He was so broken. Bleeding terrible. The Guardian's servants grabbed me, but good Singlars carried Joca to safety. I wish no more hurting for him. Ah, Joca . . .”

She looked half starved, but no one could call her weak. Not by half. It took me an eternity to persuade her that allowing the Guardian to punish her would not save her friend, that Joca would surely come for her and risk more punishment himself.

“You're doing the right thing,” I said, when I finally got her moving. “Take care of each other. Just be careful. Don't let anyone see you.”

“I would never want Joca's hurting. All I want is goodness for him . . . and being with him.”

“Things will change,” I said. “I'll see to it before I go. You and your friend can be together as you should be.”

She knelt and took my hand, bowing her head over it. “You are all kindness, mighty king.”

I shoved her toward the stairs and closed my eyes for a moment so everything would stop spinning. I was in too much of a hurry to explain that I had no intention of being her king.

The last cell in the row appeared to be empty. But just as I turned to go, a slight movement caught the corner of my eye. A rat, most likely, assuming they had vermin here. But the infernal place was as dark as pitch, and I'd left my torch behind when I'd taken the Singlar girl to the stairs, so I stepped through the doorway and squinted to get a better look. “Come out,” I said, just in case it wasn't a rat. “You're free.”

A chip of stone smacked into my bruised head. Ten more followed it, stinging all the wrong places.

“Stop that!” I yelled. “Are you crazy? I've come to set you free.”

I fumbled around in the dark, fending off a flurry of ineffective blows, and dragged the prisoner out into the torchlight. No sooner had I shoved the fellow up against the wall, than I dropped my hands and stepped back, confounded.

The bedraggled, furious person before me was a girl very near my own age. Though her fair hair was matted, and her face streaked with dirt, she was no Singlar. She had no obvious deformity, and her torn and filthy garment had once been white satin. Even more astonishing, she looked vaguely familiar.

She darted out from between me and the wall, and grabbed an ax from the implement rack, keeping her eyes on me the whole time. “Don't touch me, you villainous scum. My father will cut off your hands. He'll put out your eyes for looking at me. Don't think he won't.” Though her voice quavered a bit, she brandished the ax with some authority.

“Your father?”

“My father. The King of Leire.”

“Roxanne?” The rock-throwing prisoner was none other than my long-ago playmate, the Crown Princess of Leire. Though shorter than me by a handspan, she'd grown up considerably since I'd seen her last.

I had been eight or nine years old the last time King Evard had come to Comigor to visit. He had sent the two of us off riding with six grooms and six ladies-in-waiting. It had been a miserable afternoon. Roxanne spent the entire time tormenting her servants, arguing with her chaperones, and calling me names. I spent the hours mute and paralyzed with terror that she'd spot me working some sorcery and have her father burn me to death. A most uncomfortable acquaintance. Tomas and Philomena had planned that I would marry Roxanne, but on our return from our ride, the princess announced to her father that I was the stupidest boy in the world, and she'd sooner marry her horse.

“You needn't be afraid,” I said, holding up my hands, palms open. “We'll take care of you. My friend and I were prisoners here, too.”

She snorted as if she were sitting in her salon in Montevial. “You don't look like you're capable of caring for your boots, much less me. And as for him”—she glared at Paulo, who was looking like a particularly grotesque gargoyle on a castle battlement—“I've seen livelier fellows at their own hanging. If you want to ‘help,' then you will show me where I can take a bath, find me a decent garment to put on, and send a message to my father to come for me. He'll kill every nasty villain in this hellish place.” She did not lower the ax.

Paulo started choking, and I forgot all about the princess and hurried back to him, worried to death until I realized he was laughing and about killing himself with it. “Oh, damn . . . oh damn . . .” He held his ribs, gasping for breath.

“Don't turn your back on me, boy,” the princess yelled at me, brandishing the ax. “I said—”

“You listen to
me
, Your Highness,” I said, crossing the space between us in two steps. We had no time for this.

Ready to dodge, I raised my hand as if to strike her. She swung the ax. Ax swings are not easily recovered . . . especially by someone inexperienced. In one swift movement, I ducked the blow, grabbed her arm and the ax handle, and yanked the ax from her hand, throwing it across the dungeon well out of reach. Though she wriggled and hissed, I gripped her arms tight while I gave her the rules.

“I don't know if you have any idea where you are or how different is this place from anywhere you've ever been, but if you ever want to see Montevial again, you'd best take heed. I don't give two coppers for you, your father, Leire, or anything else you're likely to care about, so if you cross me, I'll leave you behind. There are people here who would as soon eat you as look at you. By the remotest twitch of chance you've fallen in with someone who not only might be able to get you home, but also knows that when you were nine, you stuffed three cherry tarts into your jumper, and ended up with them leaking all down your leg. You were so angry at your own stupidity that you ripped your jumper and told everyone you'd been chased through the woods by bandits and fought them off with your riding crop. It was lucky a whole village wasn't hanged for it. So I know you, and you'll not pull your tricks on me.”