The Wizard Hunters (21 page)

They glanced at each other and resumed their conversation. Ilias cleared his throat, shoving his hair out of his eyes. Surprised at the lack of pain from his wound, he worked his arm and shoulder, then reached around awkwardly to probe it with his fingers. What he could feel seemed to be scabbed over.
Huh. Maybe it was just the piece that was still stuck in there
.

He worked his shoulder again cautiously. Maybe he had just needed the rest. And the food.
I don’t even remember falling asleep
.

Then Ilias saw how far down the candle had burned. Swearing, he turned to scramble down the crevice. He hadn’t meant to sleep at all, just to let the women rest and give the howlers time to take their hunt out of this area.

He reached the end of the crevice where it overlooked the passage leading into the bottom well of the surface shaft. All he could see was a faint glow of moonlight falling down the opening from above. It was still night at least. Relieved, he turned back to see the two girls watching him curiously. He took a deep breath.
Right
.

He ruthlessly chivvied them along as they got their belongings together, then lit one of the torches from the candle. He took the knife since without it they were unarmed, but left the candle, the tinder bag and the remaining torch behind. If Giliead was still somewhere down here and stopped to check this cache, he might need them. Ilias hadn’t found a trace of him in any of the other spots they had camped on previous forays to the island and this place had been his last hope. But there were no new trail marks here and no one had disturbed the cache of supplies.

The two women did their best to hurry, though they kept making little alarmed noises, then shushing each other. Shooing them to the end of the crevice, he helped them climb down, knowing this would be much easier if he could talk to them and explain the need for haste.

Whatever language they spoke was just as impossible to understand as the wizards’ speech, though it sounded less abrupt and harsh, more like the way people spoke in Cirenai or Tanais. Their clothes were strangely cut, the bulky heavy fabrics obviously meant for colder weather and the dull colors an odd choice for two pretty girls. And with the strange provisions and the clever little metal boxes for food and the flint-sticks, they had to be traders from somewhere, maybe the far south. Very far south, since neither of them seemed to know what his curse mark was. If they did know, they had both been expert at concealing their reactions to it.

If there were any more survivors from their ship . . .
Hopefully the
Swift
picked them up
, he thought, absently catching Florian’s arm when she stumbled in the dimness. She murmured something shyly and ducked her head. Tremaine, glancing back at the other girl, tripped, and Ilias just managed to catch her too.

He would have to get them out to Dead Tree Point. If Giliead wasn’t there, then hopefully the
Swift
would still be waiting and he could hand them over to Halian’s care. Then go back for Giliead.
He‘ll be there
, he told himself firmly.
And if he isn’t, I’ll find him
.

The first snag in this plan came almost immediately. They reached the surface well, dimly lit by moonlight from above. It was square-cut like the air passages and went up at an angle, the chinks and cracks in the walls bristling with ugly little plants and trailing vines. Fresh air flowed down it, carrying the clean scent of the sea. Ilias breathed deeply; he had been down here so long he had almost forgotten what real air smelled like. Both women looked relieved, pointing up the shaft and commenting to each other. But when he tried to get them to climb, they plopped down on the ground and started drawing something in the dirt.

Ilias gritted his teeth in frustration, planted the torch and sat on his heels to try to figure out what they wanted. After a lot of extensive gesturing he finally realized the drawing was a very bad map of the way back to where he had found them, that they wanted to go back to the harbor cave, or at least to a tunnel that branched off from there. He shook his head emphatically and tried to explain, “That’s not a good place to go.” He drew a line in the opposite direction, toward the surface shaft above their heads and tapped it. “There, that’s the way out.”

They both shook their heads just as emphatically. Tremaine wiped out his line and drew another back toward the half circle that indicated the harbor. Holding on to his patience with both hands, Ilias shook his head again. “No, we can’t do that.”

Tremaine just stared at him and Florian bit her lip. Ilias took a deep breath and tapped the circle in the dirt that represented the surface shaft again. Surely they knew what would happen if the wizards caught them all again. He was considering performing a pantomime of what exactly would occur if the howlers cornered them when Tremaine sat up straight with a thoughtful expression. Ilias tensed in hope; maybe she had finally gotten the point.

Moving deliberately, Tremaine pointed to Florian, to herself, to the empty space next to her, then held up three fingers. Florian nodded urgently.

Ilias drew a sharp breath. Now he understood. “Three of you.” He looked away and rubbed his forehead. “Oh, no.” So they had lost somebody down here too. He looked up to see them watching him expectantly. He pointed to himself and the empty space next to him and held up two fingers.

Tremaine blinked as Florian nodded in sudden understanding. As the two women discussed this revelation, Ilias stared at the makeshift map, not really seeing the crudely drawn image. He had to help them. Even if they hadn’t saved his life and shared their food and tended his wounds, even if they had been openly hostile instead of friendly, he wouldn’t have left the two of them alone here. He couldn’t.

Ilias took a deep breath, formulating and discarding alternate plans. The best option would be to get them to the meeting point on the surface and have them wait there while he went back to search for Gil and their friend.
And you’re thinking as if you know Gil’s not there waiting for you
. One step closer to thinking of him as dead.
No, stop that
, he told himself bleakly. It wouldn’t do any good. Giliead was either dead, at the meeting point, or down here somewhere following Ilias’s trail signs and trying to find him. And if it was the third option, then doubling back this way would only mean Ilias would find him sooner.

I could move faster alone
. He looked up, wondering if he could trust the women to stay where they were put, to wait for him while he went back after the others. He eyed them, noting the patient way Tremaine sat there waiting for him to give in and how Florian kept casting little glances at her for guidance. He thought in resignation,
No
. He couldn’t chance it. Not without being able to explain coherently and extract promises not to follow or go searching on their own.

Ilias took a deep breath. “All right, let’s see.” He tapped his chin thoughtfully, looking at the dirt map again. There was another surface shaft at the opposite end of the city near where their friend had been lost. It wasn’t as easy to reach as this one but it would put them on the surface at about the same distance from the meeting point. He just didn’t like it; it hadn’t exactly been a lucky spot for him before. Ixion had set a family of grend to guard it too but maybe after so long they had wandered off or killed each other for lack of better prey. It didn’t matter, it was still the best option. The only option.

He rubbed the map out briskly, then drew his knife to make a quick trail sign giving the direction he meant to take on the rock wall. Tremaine and Florian watched with interest, then hurriedly got to their feet when he stood up. “We’ll probably all regret it,” he told them, “but let’s do it your way.”

F
  Chapter 9  
F

I
’m beginning to take all this too personally
, Tremaine told herself, trying to be philosophical though she was gritting her teeth with impatience. She, Florian and Ilias were crouched in the concealment of a fold of rock, their feet in another sulfur-laden puddle, as a Gardier patrol moved through the rocky passage just below them.
They want to kill you because you’re from Ile-Rien. There’s nothing personal about it
.

Tremaine was pressed against Ilias with Florian wedged in behind her. She could sense the tension in the hard muscles of his back as he watched the Gardier pick their way through the cave below them, their handlights drawing sparkles of reflected light out of the rough walls slick with purplish moss. The alliance with Ilias seemed to be working well and they were getting better at communicating. They had learned each other’s words for
yes
and
no
and a handful of others. Fortunately, most common gestures seemed to be the same since there wasn’t much time or scope for language lessons down here; the only sort of words they could teach each other readily were
rock, water
, and
ick
, which were all self-evident. But gestures and their limited vocabulary had carried them through the incident earlier when Tremaine had had to explain that he needed to turn his back while she and Florian answered the call of nature. If they could manage that with a minimum of embarrassment, they could accomplish anything.

They were near the spot where she and Florian had lost Gerard, and she was impatient to get moving. She didn’t think he would be there waiting for them—at least she hoped not. If he was, it would have to be because he was dead or badly injured. But there would surely be some clue to which direction he had gone.

They had made their way here by following a narrow tunnel that branched off the sulfur stream and on the way Florian had tried to continue their conversation about Tremaine’s father. “Wasn’t it hard for you to be that different?” Florian had asked her thoughtfully.

Tremaine was starting to regret those confidences. She still wasn’t quite sure how Florian had taken it. Not that she had had many options.
This isn’t exactly the best place to run off screaming
. “Not at first,” she had admitted. “Or I didn’t notice it at first. I think I was proud of it, for a while. That we were different.”

“But it must have been dangerous. Going after powerful criminals, when he was a powerful criminal himself. He couldn’t just go to the Magistrates for help when things went wrong.”

“When my mother was killed, I started to realize it wasn’t a game. And it wasn’t something I could ever really get away from.” Tremaine hadn’t mentioned her stint in the asylum. Honesty was all well and good, but she was willing to take it only so far. Maybe that was when Nicholas had realized it too. That he couldn’t retire, not as himself. If he had ever really wanted to. She had envied him his ability to put on a new persona with the ease of putting on a different set of clothes and just walking away into the night. Free and unencumbered by physical or emotional ties. She couldn’t imagine giving that up.
Except he always came back
.

Below, the last of the Gardier disappeared down the tunnel that curved away into darkness; she nudged Ilias with her elbow. He nudged her back, harassed, but eased to his feet, keeping a watchful eye on the opening the patrol had disappeared through. Tremaine crawled out after him, her bones creaking, and Florian unfolded herself with a smothered groan.

Ilias made them wait on the ledge until the last hollow echoes of footsteps and quiet voices faded. Then they got the torch lit again and he leapt down into the passage. Tremaine and Florian followed more awkwardly and they hastened into the cross tunnel.

After only a short distance it opened abruptly into a larger chamber and Ilias motioned urgently for them to hang back. As she and Florian trailed behind him, the torchlight revealed two other tunnel openings in this side and one bigger one directly in front of them.

“This looks familiar,” Florian said softly, lifting the torch higher to look around.

“How can you tell?” Tremaine demanded. Everything looked the same to her. She had realized earlier that must be one of the reasons Ilias stopped to scratch signs on the stones every so often.

A puzzled-sounding remark from Ilias sent them hurrying to catch up with him. He had gone a short distance down the larger passage and was sitting on his heels to poke cautiously at something on the ground. The torchlight danced as Florian leaned down to see. “That’s our lamp!” She grabbed the handle and lifted it. The glass was smashed and the slide bent and twisted, as if something large had stepped on it.

“You’re right, this is the place.” This was the spot where the hunter-creatures had attacked them. Encouraged, Tremaine moved forward, fumbling along the wall in the dark. She passed the remains of the two creatures Gerard’s spell had killed, just heaps of stripped bones and dark blotches in the sandy dirt. “That other tunnel has to be right here.” Her hand plunged into empty space just as Florian caught up to her with the torch. They found themselves looking down the tunnel that led off from the main passage, the one Gerard had been thrown into by the force of the sphere. Tremaine hadn’t got much more than a glimpse of it before. It was wider, the ground sloping up and mostly dry, and it seemed to curve just before the limit of the torchlight. There was no sign of Gerard.

That’s a relief
, Tremaine thought. Despite everything, she had been half expecting to find his body. She bit her lip thoughtfully, looking around. The torch revealed no bloodstains on the rocky ground. “Even if those things caught him and ate him, there’d be something left,” she said, trying to look on the bright side.

Florian took a sharp breath, wincing as if she didn’t quite appreciate the image. “You’re right, that’s a good sign. Maybe we could—” She stopped, startled as Ilias caught her wrist and steadied the torch. “I think he wants me to hold it still.”

Tremaine shouldered the satchel, watching as Ilias moved around, examining the ground. She followed him, trying to see what he was looking at. “There’s a lot of scuff marks here,” she reported to Florian, leaning to see around him.