Escana (36 page)

'I'm afraid there has been a
terrible mistake on the part of the council.' Kelgrimm rose and
walked down toward his seat at the table. 'Or rather, there have been
a multitude of errors that have culminated in creating this final,
monstrous mistake.'

He gripped the head of his chair
tightly with both hands now, clawing into the surface with his nails.
'I dissolved this council many moons ago and dissolved one of its
more vocal members permanently. Yet this doesn't seem to have phased
you, for here you all are again.' He pulled his chair back with a
screech, causing a few of them to wince at the sound. 'I gave you all
a fair chance to govern your own small parts of the city under my
rule, yet that wasn't enough for any of you.' He settled into the
chair now, glaring at each of them in turn, El-Vador had appeared at
his side at some point. 'Even if you had the power to pry my
reasoning behind the imprisonment of Falarus it would be meaningless.
Falarus is dead.'

A number of gasps greeted that
particular morsel of information, he was getting to the impudently
presumptuous fools quite nicely.

'That's right, hung up in my
dungeons and butchered upon his heinous confessions.' The room was
entirely silent now, he had them in the palm of his hand, his
annoyance was brimming over into anger, it was time to let them have
it. 'There will be no investigation into my actions, they will not be
called into account and I will receive no punishment from the likes
of you for doing what is right.' His voice scaled upward into a roar
towards the end, his finger jabbing at each of them as if they were
conspiring against him. He felt their shame and their fear mingle
into a pool of powerless nothing, yet even then he couldn't shake the
uneasiness growing within him. His mind turned over the illogical
nature of their decision, finding no answers.

'I give you all one final chance.
Depart this room immediately and inform the people of my decision, or
stay and face the consequences.' He let that hang in the air over
them, like an executioner dangling a blade before driving it home.

A few council members shuffled in
their seats, but upon seeing none of the others move they remained in
their place.

Kelgrimm didn't like surprises.
He didn't like the unexpected, it was difficult to manage and divine
and manipulate. Each man sitting still in silent resolve was filled
with a level of fear that should have had him tearing at the doors
blubbering for escape, they all remained seated as one and refused to
be coerced into doing otherwise.

He shrugged mentally, there were
now two options left and he preferred the less bloody route to his
victory.

He nodded at El-Vador, it
promptly took a step forward.

'You are going to agree to what
your Lord Kelgrimm next suggests to you. You will continue to agree
with what his Lordship has said until long after he has dismissed
you.'

The air grew tighter with each
tingling note that the creature spoke, as if he wove the future
around him in a pattern of Kelgrimm's choice. It had taken some time
to get used to the sensation, but whatever else he could fault
El-Vador for, with power like this he remained a useful tool for the
master manipulator. It hadn't escaped him that the power may well be
manipulating him, there simply wasn't any way of knowing.

Kelgrimm spoke now, his voice
carrying itself directly into the minds of those seated before him.
'You will submit entirely to my authority, all malcontent you harbour
towards my person will be extinguished.'

He looked up at Ermentine now, a
familiar glazed look of confusion passing from his eyes.

'Well councilman, do you agree
with what has just been said?'

The man looked back at him
blankly, shaking his head as if waking from a deep sleep or drunken
stupor. 'Submit to your authority? That is entirely out of the
question!'

The rest of the men grumbled in
agreement.

El-Vador drew a breath that
sounded more like a hiss. 'My Lord Kelgrimm, the thirteenth man is no
man, I strongly advise that we depart immediately from the vicini...'

'Then we shall have to do this
the hard way!' Kelgrimm roared over the top of him.

The man on the thirteenth seat
rose and drew his sword, Kelgrimm had no idea how he had smuggled the
weapon past the guards but he was going to pay dearly for it.

He felt a touch of ice on his
wrist, staring down at the pale hand he realised that El-Vador was
holding him fast.

'I warned you that this possible
conflict would cause the destruction of the entire city, yet you
chose to ignore my prescience. I would make light of it at this
juncture but the Emperor will be most displeased and that is entirely
intolerable'

Kelgrimm watched in horror as the
councilmen rushed out past the advancing man with the blade. El-Vador
promptly vanished.

S
he stared
vacantly into the empty streets ahead. He had only just opened his
eyes when she had heard the knocking on the door. She had watched as
The Hermit had picked up Mildred's body with a look of self-loathing
and forced himself to open the door. When she heard the sword cut
through the air she knew they were going to have to run. Why had she
obeyed his instructions? Why did she bolt with Jimmy when together
they could have carried Jakob out?

Jimmy had seemed oddly assured
about the matter at first but as the darkness grew closer his
confidence seeped from him. Neither of them had looked back at the
conflict, they had just put their heads down and sprinted until their
lungs felt like bursting. What if The Hermit knew of Jakob being
wanted by the law? What if his efforts to help and protect were all
the lie she had suspected? The questions kept spinning around in her
head, taunting her for her own stupidity. She had just let herself be
dictated to by a complete stranger and surrendered to it utterly.

'We have to go back for him,' she
finally said.

Jimmy looked as if he was about
to disagree, yet he must have been thinking the same thing as her
when they finally turned back.

It was then that they realised
the true magnitude of the problem facing them.

The city stretched out before
them, a network of alleys criss-crossing in a mind-boggling fashion.
They had dashed desperately from alleyway to alleyway, avoiding the
open streets and dead ends for fear of being accosted, now they were
well and truly lost.

She could feel his frustrations
as he looked at her helplessly. 'I don't know where we are.'

For reasons she couldn't quite
fathom, he patted her on the shoulder. 'We won't find it by standing
still, will we?'

She shuddered as he turned,
wiping at her shoulder and finally following him. 'Keep an eye out
for anything familiar looking,' he said, glancing at her over his
shoulder. 'The Urians appear to have built one alley much like any
other so anything to distinguish them would be helpful.'

It had been a long time since she
felt the need for words, now wasn't the time for them. Perhaps Jimmy
sensed that after seeing his various efforts at engaging her in
conversation fall flat.

He wasn't lying about the alleys.
She hadn't noticed it in the blur of her initial flight but the
structures were identical down to the very colour of the stone used
to create them. Even the positioning of refuse bins and piping seemed
in line with some greater plan that she was entirely unaware of. The
deliberate attempt to replicate something so soullessly filled her
with unease and hopelessness. The place was a maze, they were never
going to find their way back to Jakob.

She halted in the middle of the
street. That was it.

'Jimmy?'

He had already turned around to
see why she had come to a standstill. 'Yes?'

'If we find the main street, the
way to the market can be navigated from there, then we can go on to
the well.'

Jimmy waved his hand in a
circular motion, urging her to continue.

'I think I remember how I
returned from the market, once there we can find our way back to
Jakob.'

He smiled that intensely
irritating smile of his again, as if bad things never happened in his
life. 'Now all we have to do is find how to get out of these
alleyways.'

She looked at the walls
surrounding them, frowning. 'How do you suggest we do that?'

He tapped his ear, smile still
stuck in place. 'The main street will still be packed with people, if
we can't avoid it getting back to where Jakob is then we just need to
work our way closer to it.'

He set off again in the direction
he had been going, as if the conversation were finished.

'How do you know it's that way?'
she asked after a time.

He looked back at her and
shrugged. 'I don't, we have to go some way. Besides, I have a hunch
about this way.'

Fortunately he didn't see the
withering glare she gave him. She knew that it would do no good but
she couldn't help herself. That carefree strut, the beaming smile,
they were both back as if nothing had happened at all.

She kicked a stone with all her
might, sending it bouncing across the alleyway and narrowly missing
Jimmy's legs, she couldn't consciously remember aiming for them.

He looked back one last time, and
she gave him the biggest smile she could. He returned her smile after
a moment of bemusement but didn't say anything.

They pressed on into the
dwindling twilight, their pace becoming more laboured. Ella was sure
they had passed the same building several times but then they all
looked alike from her perspective. She felt very cold.

Jimmy finally stopped, she
guessed his endless reservoirs of optimism had run dry.

'We're being watched. Stay very
still.'

A light chuckling seemed to fill
the alleyway.

'You look exhausted good man.
Mayhap one such as I may sweep you off your feet and place them upon
the cusp of terror to rest but a brief while?'

She heard Jimmy whisper something
that she couldn't catch.

'No? Why my good young fellow,
the request is not a perfunctory one to be shrugged off. In hindsight
you may come to the dawning realisation that it was indeed a demand
of a most sincere kind. Though the rapid beating of your heart tells
me that you are aware of the gravity of your current situation. You
are one of the lucky few to have chanced my acquaintance prior to
this, I can sense it.'

She watched Jimmy fall to the
floor as if in a dream, feeling the need to step forward and help him
yet not finding the power to do so.

'Yes, this good fellow and I are
closely acquainted through completely coincidental means. Which
brings me on to you.'

She stiffened as the musical
voice seemed to transfer itself from the air around her directly into
her mind.

'A co-conspirator or a hapless
follower? Let me gaze into your thoughts and pluck the juiciest
morsels for my delectation.'

Time seemed immaterial as he
gazed upon her mind, she felt entirely aware of what he was doing in
a detached sense. All the hidden doors, all the secrets were spread
for this being to peruse.

'You shouldn't be here,' he
finally said, easing her back into her own consciousness. 'Follow me,
your friend will be with you shortly.'

She saw Gadtor and Thom shuffle
into the alleyway, as if crudely jerked about by a poor puppeteer.
For some odd reason she found the thought of the Escana Warden being
controlled and ridiculed highly amusing. She looked back at Jimmy and
felt nothing.

El-Vador smiled at her as he put
his icy arm across her shoulder, leading her away from the scene.

H
e had been
forced into exhuming another of his cage fellows, a tall skinny youth
with an ugly face and smouldering eyes. He was extinguished in short
order in spite of the blistering heat, having chosen a time to strike
when everyone was watching.

Hern doubted that anyone would
pick a fight with him after this encounter, the numbers in the cage
had diminished to a level that lynching the strongest was no longer a
sound tactic.

Being no stranger to harsh
weather, Hern felt most inconvenienced by the sweltering conditions
that the desert provided him. It would seem that the guild had no
interest in the comfort of his journey, he had seen no preference
from the guard whatsoever, it was entirely likely that they didn't
know who they were dealing with.

Truly the most irritating aspect
of the journey was the stop-start nature of the desert path. The
first time the cage had ground to a standstill Hern had woken to the
thought that they had arrived at their destination, each stop after
that served as an interruption to sleep. The reality of their
juddering progress through the desert was made clear to him on their
course. The maintenance of what could charitably be called the road
was entirely reliant upon the good folk traversing it. It was a small
mercy that they hadn't encountered any of the sand storms that had
caused the path to be completely engulfed for parts of their journey.