A Play of Shadow (65 page)

What came after “spell” blurred into a sameness. Someone had used magic against her.

Was she not magic?

Jenn let go, willing to become her other self.

Nothing changed.

She thought frantically of the blue room and the sei’s power, which was so much more than she dared hold, but for Bannan, she’d take it all, be whatever it demanded . . .

Nothing changed.

Heart’s Blood. She was nothing. Could do nothing.

Was this death?

“Don’t fight, Dear Heart.” The cloth, for it had been that, lifted from her eyes and passed its coolness over her cheeks, then across her forehead. She clung to the sensation; it was the only thing real.

If she wasn’t to fight, she mustn’t think of—of anything but home. Home was safe and predictable. Piglets strayed and the mill wheel turned. Home was where roses bloomed—

Melusine’s roses.

Mother, Jenn thought then, finding herself surrounded by tiny buds on thickened stems. Spring, surely, for the buds uncurled and expanded into serrated leaves, dark and glossy, while the tips of brown twigs shot forth bright green stalks heavy with the buds of what would be flowers.

And couldn’t she smell them, as if they’d already opened and had summer and now cast their petals into her hands—

Jenn Nalynn opened her eyes, unsurprised to find her hands clenched over her heart. She didn’t try to sit up, but pulled the little bag of Melusine’s petals from her bodice, pressing it over her nose and mouth.

She took an endless breath, through cloth, through roses, feeling strength course through her like fire.

~Elder sister!~

Pouch and petals crumbled to dust in her hands. Jenn looked up to meet the
knowing
eyes of the artisan who, like Wainn, like Wen, was part of more than this world. He clapped. “You’re back!”

She sat, then rose to her feet, discovering she now wore a plain brown tunic and pants; by the loose fit, the artisan’s spare clothing. The house toad gazed up at her. The kruar—hers—glowered. He’d ripped an opening in the fabric of the stall and stood with his head shoved through, like an ill-tempered version of Wainn’s Old Pony.

Leott squatted by the toad, and patted it on the head. “You can thank your friends,” he exclaimed, bouncing back up. “They brought you to me.”

~And the nyim,~ the toad added, ever generous. Giving her a name for the turtles of the edge, though she couldn’t imagine them as friends and had a good notion where her earrings had gone.

“But not Bannan.” Jenn regarded the kruar, who lifted his head uneasily. “Why?”

~He didn’t jump the wall with you, elder sister,~ the toad explained. ~People were coming. I am your guardian. I but did my duty.~ With new trepidation, for a hot, bright glow reflected within its eyes.

Because she was turn-born. Jenn hastily returned to flesh, though relieved to be no longer trapped.

Not that trapped was how she felt, as herself. Never that. Her mind must still be hazed by the spell. “What was done to me?”

“An ill wishing,” Leott replied. “The result you felt. I found the remnants on your boot.”

Heart’s Blood. She’d stepped into Bannan’s hands after he’d gripped the sill of Lila’s cell, pulling himself up to look inside.

“It was a trap.”

As hangovers went, this must be the worst he’d ever had. Something he’d likely declared more than once, Bannan reminded himself, hangovers thankfully being forgettable. Served him right, though, drinking when he was—when he was here with—

Who was he with—?

Something
burned
against his neck.

Jenn!

Ancestors Despairing and Lost, he’d been taken beyond the edge. But where? His eyes wouldn’t open, so Bannan tried to say her name, to cry out. His lips cracked and bled and refused to obey him. His arms and legs might have been tied down to some hard surface.

Were they?

The truthseer froze at that, keeping his breathing even and slow. He’d been captured, once, by his own carelessness. Spent a night tied to a tree and innumerable days thereafter enduring snide comments on young idiots and their fool luck. Seen his captors fall before his eyes, his “fool luck” having been an earnest and deadly response by his patrol.

To this day, Tir refused to let him forget, not that the man would be more sympathetic this time.

A trap. Something on the wall they’d climbed or embedded in the stones of the windowsill he’d recklessly touched with bare skin. A trap to stop escaping prisoners, perhaps one in particular. Or to prevent a rescue such as they’d planned.

Which hardly mattered now. Heart’s Blood, he was every sort of idiot to have brought Jenn with him into this, to have gone blindly forward as if the Ancestors always smiled on those who leapt without so much as a look ahead.

She’d gone over the wall. She might have escaped.

Or been taken beyond the edge with him and—

Bile rose in his throat and his head spun. No. NO! He wouldn’t think it, let alone believe it. Jenn Nalynn was safe, somewhere. He had to get out of here. Find her. He tried to move his fingers, at least that.

“Sir.” From behind his head. “He’s awake.” Something poked him in the ribs—a stiffened thumb by the feel. He’d have grunted, but whatever held him in thrall wouldn’t allow it.

“Ancestors Tedious and Tardy. At last.” Another speaker, his Naalish cultured and fluent, yet with the slightest of accents. Not from here, the truthseer thought, grasping for any clue. “Douse him.”

A thick moist mass was pressed to Bannan’s face, smothering his nose and mouth. He gasped and fought to breathe, a struggle worsened by a smell so vile gorge rose in his throat and for an instant it was an even bet if he’d choke to death in his own vomit or suffocate in whatever they were using against him. His head began to spin, his lungs burn—

The mass lifted away. He spat out a slimy remnant, realizing at once if he could spit, he could move! Tensing every muscle, Bannan leapt for freedom—

—and went nowhere.

He opened his eyes, turning his head from side to side. His first unpleasant surmise had been correct. Ropes wrapped his arms and legs, two more across his chest, securing him to what was, he could now see, a long wooden table.

Yellowed sheets, their bottoms stained, covered chairs set in a row before a wall. The lower halves of the wall’s panels were swollen, what had once been rich dark wood coated in powdery rot. At a guess, the room had been flooded more than once by water that hadn’t, yet, reached the portraits above the chairs. Thick frames, more dust and cobweb than gilt, surrounded women and men in uniforms crusted with medals, who stared at the truthseer as if he interrupted a discussion, then resumed their grim outward gaze.

From the vaulted ceiling hung a chandelier twice Bannan’s height, a scant handful of its flames still burning. Shadows crowded close, hiding the rest of the room’s size and shape, keeping secret any windows or doors.

All this he gleaned from the quickest possible glance, being more urgently interested in his captor.

And the truth.

“Fair evening.” The cultured voice. The man sat in a chair, its cover tossed to the mud-streaked floor, set midway between Bannan and the wall of portraits. His back was straight, feet together in tall polished boots, and his hands, long fingers well-manicured, rested on his knees. He was dressed for a social function, his white shirt and collar trimmed with black lace, a jacket, also black, but textured with embroidery. He wore black billowing trousers clasped at the knee by golden straps, and looked every bit the Naalish but for the addition of a short wool cloak about his shoulders.

Beneath sparse fair hair, his face was even-featured, comely, aside from a nose that looked to have been broken more than once and eyes like blue ice.

Not a face he’d seen before, Bannan decided. Not one he’d forget.

Older by ten or so years, taller, more slender. Bookish, like Kydd, which made him more, rather than less, a threat.

“What, no courtesy?” the man inquired, lifting a brow.

“Untie me,” Bannan suggested.

“Of course.” A smile quirked his lips up and to the side, then the man snapped finger and thumb.

The ropes snapped too, their ends slithering to the floor.

“Sir!” A protest like any of Tir’s, but the guard stepping forward was of different stuff.

The man wore a constable’s livery, wanting only the plumed helmet and nightstick. It wasn’t his, by the strained seams, and Bannan hoped the original wearer had lost only his clothing and dignity.

By the flat stare of those eyes, the dour set of the jaw, it was a faint hope, lessened further by brass at the knuckles. The truthseer kept his hands in plain sight as he sat, slowly, discovering in the process he was filthy. Dragged through a significant amount of mud and debris, that meant, and no need to guess by whom.

He swung his legs over the side of the table, fighting a wave of dizziness. To disguise the effort, he scrubbed the last of the vile substance from his face with the cleanest part of a sleeve.

Outrage, Bannan decided, lowering his arm, and set his face in an offended scowl. “Who are you? How dare you—”

“You don’t know me. And I dare many things,” the cultured man said smoothly. “A pleasure I’ve long anticipated, meeting you at last.”

“I don’t know who you think I am.” Had the trap not been for Lila? Bannan did his utmost to look flustered, which wasn’t difficult. “I’m a simple merchant—”

“Ancestors Witness, you’re anything but that.”

The truth.

Well enough. In Channen, did he not wear more than one disguise? This could work to his advantage. Sitting straighter, Bannan went for scorn. “Then you know I’m a Keeper of the Source. The Shadow Sect—”

“Greedy fools who’d wet themselves if they knew what they tended.” The man’s smile held a disconcerting appetite, as if he watched a feast being spread before him. “Not that they don’t have their use. We do one another small favors, from time to time, making convenient— but enough of business. Hearts of my Ancestors, I am truly Beholden. Bannan Marerrym Larmensu, here.” Sharply. “Don’t waste my time and deny who you are.”

Ancestors Desperate and Dire. The truthseer bowed his head, gathering his wits. What was a name? All manner of people knew his. People in Vorkoun and other, farther places. “Who are you?”

“Glammis Lurgan,” too easily said. “You won’t have heard of me. I’m a private man. A collector, of sorts. I’ve patrons with like interests, you see, and am known for my—quality.”

True, and oddly disturbing. Bannan fought for calm, fought to remember he was the truthseer and should be able to deal with this Glammis, but he wasn’t calm, not at all. Tempting to think it the aftermath of the spell, tempting but wrong. There was something about the other man that shook him to his core, and he was afraid he knew why.

“What is it you collect?”

“Today? You.” Glammis waved a generous hand. “And your sister, of course. I’d thought to catch her here, so conveniently alone and unknown, while you were brought down from the north.” An exaggerated shrug. “Alas, Lila’s proved elusive. No matter. You’ll make fine bait. Welcome to Channen, truthseer and key!” He leaned his head back and laughed. The chandelier’s dusty pendants sang like discordant bells in echo.

As the enormity of his folly sank in, Bannan was left with one clear thought.

Lila’d have his ears for this, if Jenn didn’t take them first.

It was then he felt tiny hands seize his hair in a desperate grip, as if afraid of falling.

The yling!

Jenn rode a hunting kruar across the mist-cloaked rooftops of the Shadow District, a toad clenched under her arm, and wondered rather desperately how she’d explain this to her sister.

Assuming they made it home for her to explain.

~Elder sister?~

“I’m a little busy.” And she was, busy holding on. Though in the semblance of a horse, the kruar moved across sloped tile or flat stone with equal ease, but tended to pounce without warning, there being pigeons at roost for the night. She’d grown almost used to the crunching, it being the kruar’s nature after all, but the leaping? That usually involved a drop to a lower level, leaving her stomach behind. Still, they were almost to the Distal Hold. She could see the palace lights.