The Stealers' War (10 page)

‘Do remember now the healing we talked of yesterday?’ said Alexamir.

‘Yes, yes, that at least is not presently fogged,’ said Temmell.

Cassandra gazed at the traveller with a degree of trepidation.
Is he mad? He truly is insane if he thinks he can fix me
.

‘You look like someone I knew, once, Vandian. Was it the Duchess of Ayak, or perhaps one of my daughters? My loins have produced so many children over the years.’

‘I knew my father before he died. And you are not he.’

‘Your father died badly, I can see that in your eyes.’

‘My father died a hero of the empire.’
Betrayed by my grandmother for the crime of loving my mother
.

‘Yes, one of my daughters. But which one? So many names.’

Alexamir lay Cassandra down on a cot in the corner of the room, rough woollen blankets that had seen better days making her neck itch. ‘You would want to heal one of your daughters, would you not?’

‘No, no,’ muttered Temmell. ‘Not one of mine. Not Gisi. Not Ashavani or little Missa.’ For a moment she thought the mercurial traveller would refuse to inspect her, but Temmell’s moods seemed to change with each second. He drew closer, kneeling by the cot. ‘Roll over Vandian. Expose your spine for me so I may make my diagnosis.’

Cassandra pulled herself over and lifted up the linen tunic. She craned her neck to see the trickster rub his hands together. Then Temmell placed both palms flat against the bottom of her back. His golden skin felt as smooth and cold as porcelain, and she grunted as he pushed against her vertebrae.

‘Yes, I feel the break. Just here. This was no riding accident.’

‘My flying wing was shot to pieces,’ said Cassandra. ‘We crashed escaping to the steppes.’

‘You can fly? Alexamir spoke the truth to me, then. You are of the celestial caste. You are far too young to be any pilot of the empire’s legions.’

‘I was trained to fly a helo, flying wing and patrol ship,’ said Cassandra. ‘By the finest aces of the legion. And I
am
granddaughter of the Emperor Jaelis Skar.’

Temmell chortled. ‘Yes, but there are so many of those rattling around the harem’s corridors. For all of Vandia’s size and power, it is just another family business. But at least you were born to the right family for your empire. The only one that counts.
Currently
.’

‘You know a lot about us, for a race I have never seen or heard of inside the empire.’

‘Oh, I have forgotten far more. You might say I am as broken as you in my own way. But I still retain fragments. The knowing of things is a more reliable blade than any Vandian duelling dagger.’

‘You have the power to heal her?’ asked Alexamir. He sounded even more desperate in the need for a cure than Cassandra. Despite herself, Cassandra felt surprised. Her mother Helrena had cared for her. Duncan and Paetro and Doctor Horvak had protected her and would have given their lives for her. But Cassandra had never experienced a passion for her like this inside the empire. Any suitors there would have seen only the wealth of her house’s sky mines, the blood imperial of the match. But Alexamir had risked his life to rescue her from Rodal, not for her position or her house or her wealth. Just for who she was. And he had continued protecting her when she was as much use as a chocolate cauldron on a camp fire.
That’s a rare thing to find in the world, lady. Perhaps a once-in-a-lifetime discovery
.

‘As far as healing, the proof of the pudding will be in the eating.’ Temmell pointed to a table covered with scale models of flying wings, like a particularly messy counter of a child’s toyshop. ‘Pass me that wooden-handled chisel.’

‘You mean to carve my golden fox?’ Alexamir sounded shocked.

Temmell grinned as he took the tool from the nomad, unscrewed the handle and passed it to Cassandra. ‘Indeed I do, but not with this. Bite hard on the wood, my little celestial caste beauty. Otherwise, you shall lose your tongue before you ever regain your legs.’

‘This will hurt?’

‘Excruciatingly so. Nothing is without cost. I would offer you a good swig of that foul sour milk whisky the clans produce, but I need your flesh unpolluted for this work.’

‘I am used to pain,’ said Cassandra, with a bravado she had to work to feel. ‘I trained every day in the duelling hall.’
Besides, I feel little below my thighs, sad to say.

‘Ha. A connoisseur? Let me introduce you to my wares, then.’

Cassandra was about to ask why the trickster was not going for any of his travelling potions or at least a surgeon’s bag, but instead the man lay his hands back on the bottom of her spine. The sleek golden hands seemed to flatten, almost melting into her skin, joining with her body. And then Cassandra discovered the strength of the sorcerer’s
wares
, only just managing to fumble for the wooden handle, squeeze it into her mouth as a shock like a bucket of acid tossed over her began to eat into her flesh. She screamed through the wood, an undignified trail of drool soaking into the woollen sheets.
Nothing like this. Never!
Cassandra had been trained for pain tolerance using shock foils, thin sabres with pliant metal blades charged from a rubberized hilt battery to deliver agonizing cuts. A bare handful of practice cuts were enough to render a bull-sized guardsman a semi-conscious wreck on the floor. Cassandra might as well have trained with a feather duster for all that it had prepared her for this.

‘Hold her down!’ commanded Temmell, bearing down his victim’s spine with all his weight.

Alexamir grabbed Cassandra as she thrashed insanely. Despite the nomad’s bulk, he was hard-pressed to stop her flailing off the cot.
How can I twist so much?
A minute ago and she was barely capable of crawling unaided across the floor. ‘You are killing her, Temmell. In the name of Atamva, show pity!’

‘I am killing what is dead inside her,’ growled Temmell with a cold detachment. ‘It is only the fire of life her nerves experience. New, beautiful fresh life.’

‘Please!’ called Cassandra through the wood; she had gnawed it to splinters. The word came out as a spittle-flooded
Leaze
.

‘Something new for you, today,’ said Temmell. ‘Something new for the world.’ The heat from his two-handed touch forked down across her spine and into her calf muscles, setting them twitching as though in a fit. They hadn’t stirred for so long, and now,
this
. Temmell chanted in a language that Cassandra didn’t recognize, oddly lyrical for a tongue that sounded so short and guttural, his head nodding as if trying to find a rhythm to match his so-called patient’s pain.

Cassandra felt as though she was tied between a train of horses, that being ripped apart was her punishment. She tried to pass out, seeking the blessed relief of oblivion, but it was denied her. Screams echoed through the hall and they were hers. No one came to end them. Until they were over. For a moment the absence of pain seemed another trick, but she was left quivering across the cot, the woollen sheets so soaked with her sweat that she might have come from a bath untowelled.

‘Cassandra,’ said Alexamir. She wasn’t sure if he had ever called her that before. It was as though she was reborn here. ‘Can you move your legs?’

‘Try, Vandian,’ said Temmell. ‘Swing them off slowly over the side and bear your weight upon them.’

She tried and, amazingly, her flesh obeyed. Hesitantly at first, then more smoothly.
How many times have I woken and forgotten my condition?
Attempted to move and found herself flailing as wildly as a beached creature of the deep sea, shored hard. Alexamir lifted her up under her arms, but not to carry her.
To support me
! Cassandra was standing. After all this time. Something so simple. She moved a leg forward and it obeyed. Her muscles felt like swinging stone and followed as slowly.

‘You see,’ said Temmell. ‘Am I not the greatest force upon this world, equal to the gods? Lucky you are, Vandian, to have fallen in with my company. There are few in all the lands of the people capable of such a feat.’

‘Feat. This is a gods-sent miracle.’

‘Walk around the tables here, bear her up Alexamir Arinnbold. Her muscles have grown stiff and weak for so long without exercise. You must walk her like a young colt, with you as her training rope.’

‘How does it feel?’ asked Alexamir.

Cassandra tottered trying to stay upright. Every step felt like wading through treacle. ‘Like freedom.’

‘Keep going,’ urged Temmell. ‘The more exercise her muscles have now, the better.’

Cassandra did hesitant laps around the model- and plan-littered tables, her flow of blood circulating at last as it was meant to. Just as she was thinking of stopping and resting, a feeling similar to pinsand-needles began to spread across her legs, a sudden flare of pain, and she was felled towards the floor as effectively as a puppet whose strings had been severed. Alexamir lunged and caught her before she hit the side of her head against a table. Cassandra stared up accusingly at the trickster.

‘Freedom has a cost,’ noted Temmell, coolly.

‘What is happening?’ demanded Alexamir.

‘I said she would walk again. I did not say for how long.’

‘The healing has not worked, has not taken?’ Could Cassandra bear the pain again for a second attempt?
I’ll have to
.

‘It has worked perfectly,’ said Temmell.

Alexamir angrily faced the sorcerer. ‘How can you say that?’

‘Because this is what I intended,’ said Temmell. ‘She will walk for ten minutes each day. Tomorrow she will have another ten minutes at the same time. The day after that, another. A pie-maker gives out a free taste of his wares. He does not, however, give his pies away for free.’ He smiled at Cassandra. ‘However pretty the customer doing the pleading.’

‘You must heal her. Forever. Permanently.’

‘Must?’ said Temmell. ‘I have found in the world there is very little I
must
do. If we shall talk about
musts
, let us first talk of their price. And who is to do the paying.’

‘What would you have me do?’ snarled Alexamir.

‘Oh, I don’t know. Conquer the world. Climb a distant mountain and bring me back a rare extinct flower for one of my potions. What
can
you do for me, Alexamir?’

‘Whatever I have to do.’

‘How pleasing. I do have something in mind as it happens. For too long you have boasted about being the greatest thief of all the Nijumeti. The women of the clans have heard this, so too the men. So oft and forcefully have your boasts been repeated that now even I, Temmell, the keenest mind of this or any other generation, have been taken in by them. I have something for you to steal, Prince of Thieves. An item worthy of your self-appointed and self-regarded title.’

Cassandra waited expectantly along with Alexamir to hear what it was to be.
Temmell may not have been born to the clans, but he can certainly bluster with the best of them
.

Alexamir could no longer suffer the suspense. ‘What, Temmell? Name it. Let me hear your price.’

‘It is access to the master copy of the Deb-rlung’rta, a book to be found in the Rodalian capital, Hadra-Hareer.’

‘A
book
,’ said Alexamir, as though he had been asked to steal a cup of horse piss from the stables of the Rodalian First Speaker.

‘If you’re growing bored of life out here, I can recommend a hundred titles from my house’s library,’ said Cassandra.

‘The Deb-rlung’rta isn’t to be found in the shelves of any Vandian house, however well-appointed their library,’ said Temmell. ‘It is the master codex of the wind priests. It details the tidal openings and closings of Rodal’s wind dams, the tables for how the priests should react and coordinate against the weather and which spirits of the air need summoning.’

‘A book of spells,’ said Alexamir, with some measure of understanding.

‘A chapter or two is taken from it and contained in every wind dam and temple, as well as the skyguard stations, detailing local conditions. But the complete compendium for all of Rodal only exists in one place . . . the great temple at Hadra-Hareer. It is updated every year, chapters copied by hand by scribes and illuminators, then sent by flying wing to all the temples and stations of the skyguard.’

‘Look at Alexamir!’ shouted Cassandra. ‘Do you see a Rodalian standing there? He’s a blue-skinned horseman, their ancient enemy. You’re not sending him to steal for you. You’re sending him to die.’

Temmell stared coldly at Cassandra. ‘How touching. I had always wondered if a cat feels any real affection for the hand that feeds it, or if the relationship was only an accommodation. The mysteries of cats are beyond even the Astounding Temmell. Less so, those of people. Do not fret, little Vandian, my power stretches far further than a severed spine. I have a glamour to cast upon your Prince of Thieves before he is to prove his title. It will change his skin colour to a nice pallid tone and soften his noble brow and features towards the Rodalian.’

Alexamir appeared shocked. ‘You mean to change my face?’

‘Only temporarily. Perhaps a little too temporarily. Once my spell is cast, you will need to travel and be brisk about your business. Without reinforcement by me, your face will soon return to its true-blooded steppes form. And it would not do for you to lose your disguise while surrounded by citizens of the Valley of the Hell-winds. A plane will be allocated to you along with one of our budding aviators.’

‘The Great Krul will never allow this,’ said Alexamir. ‘If one our wooden pigeons is seen and reported, all the enemies of the clans will know of our new might.’

‘Yours?’ sneered Temmell. ‘I think you claim too much credit, even for a Nijumeti rider. It is not my thunder I require you to steal. Kani Yargul can be made to grasp the value of this prize. To understand the winds of Rodal is to
control
Rodal. I am not building the first skyguard in the history of the Nijumet to watch it torn apart in storms summoned by the cursed priests of the wind temples.’

‘Do not go,’ Cassandra begged Alexamir. ‘Not for me. Healing me is not worth it.’

‘You are wrong,’ said Alexamir. ‘It is. To me. And the cost is mine to pay.’