The Element of Fire, Martha Wells [books for new readers .txt] 📗

Thomas’s shoulder felt dislocated but as he tried to push himself up he realized the chains had far more slack now. The spike holding them to the wall had been pulled half out by the force of the fay’s grip.

The creature turned on Aviler, snarling, and he scrambled back against the wall, swinging a loop of his chains at it. Thomas stretched and hooked the brazier with his boot-heel, bringing it closer with a frantic kick and grabbing the handle. He flung the brazier at the fay’s back just as it leapt again at Aviler.

The iron struck the fay and it staggered.

Thomas got to his feet and leaned his whole weight on the chain in one solid jerk. With a spray of wood chips and plaster, the spike came out of the wall.

He grabbed the spike just as the fay reached him again. Its claws sank into his shoulder and it hauled him up and almost off his feet before it felt the tip of the iron in its chest. It tried to shove him away, its other hand finding his throat. With instinct greater than sense, he grabbed its arm and fell against it, driving the iron spike through its thick skin. It fell backward, dragging him down. From the blood on his hands he knew he must have given it a killing blow, but it still had the strength to snap his neck.

Then Thomas fell against the wooden floor. The fay had vanished. He tried to sit up, looking around, braced for it to appear somewhere else. Then he saw the heavy gray dust that covered the floor, the spike, his hands, and that even the creature’s blood had disappeared. It had vanished, but in death, dissolving into dust.

His buff coat had protected his shoulder, but his neck was covered with shallow scratches from its claws; he was lucky it hadn’t managed to tear his throat out. Aviler started to speak and Thomas shook his head hastily. Dontane would not have sent all the guards away, only those not bribed to silence.

After another moment, Thomas managed to stand. He gathered the chains up and quietly moved along the wall to the door and stood beside it, waiting tensely. Without having to be told, Aviler slumped against the wall, trying to look like a corpse. In the dim light, and for a few moments only, it would fool someone; Thomas would not have long to move. Moments crept by, and Thomas thought impatiently, You can’t sit out there forever; you have to see what happened. Come on, damn you. There had to be at least one man out there, to make sure that the fay had done its work. The difficulty was that the one last guard didn’t have to sit out there forever, only until Dontane returned with reinforcements.

Then Thomas heard a low scuffling in the anteroom, someone cautiously approaching the door. He flattened back against the wall and stopped breathing. The swordpoint came first, and there was a hesitation; the trooper had seen the spilled and battered brazier, and Aviler’s apparently lifeless form. He stepped inside, and Thomas slipped the loop of chain around his neck.

The trooper made the mistake of dropping his sword to grab onto the chain. He staggered forward, trying to slam Thomas against the wall. Thomas held on grimly, feeling the strain in his shoulder. The man fell to his knees abruptly, dragging Thomas with him. He felt something give way under the chain and the trooper collapsed. Thomas held on long enough to make sure the man was dead, then glanced back to check the anteroom. It was empty and the fire was guttering in the hearth.

He searched the trooper’s corpse thoroughly and savagely, keeping one eye on the door. Besides the rapier, the trooper had a main gauche with a half-shell guard and a small dagger. He would be armed again at least. After more searching he angrily shoved the body away. “It would be the one without the goddamn keys.”

“What now?” Aviler asked, grimacing.

Thomas took the trooper’s narrow-bladed dagger and began working at the lock of his manacle. It’s been a long time since I’ve done this, he thought. After a long tense wait, the manacle gave and he shook it off and started on the other.

The chains holding Aviler were of slightly different make and took longer to open. After Thomas had worked over the first one for some time unsuccessfully, Aviler said grimly, “It’s not working. Get out of here before they come back.”

“I,” Thomas said through gritted teeth, “do not have time for theatrics.”

Aviler stiffened, but didn’t voice any more objections.

The manacles came free finally, and Aviler got to his feet in relief.

Thomas slipped the plain leather baldric of the trooper’s rapier over his head and handed Aviler the main gauche. They passed through the anteroom quickly, hesitating only to make sure the troopers had left behind no other weapons.

As Thomas stepped out the doorway onto the landing, he knew he had made a mistake. He heard Aviler gasp an incoherent warning and Thomas dove forward, rolling. This didn’t help any of his various bruises and when he came to his feet, he staggered. But Aviler was struggling with the trooper who had waited for them beside the door, and as Thomas reached them, Aviler managed to plunge the main gauche up into the other man’s rib cage. The soldier collapsed with a choked-off gasp and Thomas and Aviler rolled the body back into the anteroom. Breathing hard, Aviler explained, “He moved just as you went out and I saw him. Was he there all along?”

“No, he could have easily taken me when I was strangling the other one. Probably came looking for him when he didn’t come back for the others.” Thomas cast a look back to check the landing, which stretched quietly into darkness in either direction, doorways leading off it and the staircase opening directly in front of them.

Aviler stripped off the soldier’s baldric and tossed the extra main gauche to Thomas. The High Minister slung the baldric over his shoulder and picked up the trooper’s fallen rapier. Something that jingled as it hit the floor fell from the trooper’s baldric and Aviler nudged it with a boot. “This was the one with the keys,” he said, with an ironic lift of an eyebrow.

Thomas snorted. “My luck.”

They stepped out onto the landing. Hesitating a moment to get his bearings, Thomas saw the bob of lamplight on the stair below. “This way,” he said, and led Aviler down to another doorway. It opened onto a progression of rooms that, if Thomas was where he thought he was, would eventually give onto another staircase. The rooms were as dark as the pit, but they had been meant to be viewed as a set, so the doors were all in the same position on the left-hand side of the hearths and were unblocked by furniture, making it relatively easy to cross them even in almost complete darkness. They had made it through the third room when they heard a shout of alarm and running footsteps from the landing.

They stopped to listen, but no one came in their direction. Aviler whispered, “I don’t suppose they’re going to think that thing ate both of us, killed the two guards, then wandered off.”

Thomas smiled grimly. “They could try to tell Denzil that, but I don’t think it would be very well received.”

They came to the last room, and through its open door, Thomas could see the landing of the other stairwell, lit wanly by one candle in the silver and rock-crystal chandelier hanging above it. Across the threshold was the body of a young woman, the gray and brown of her skirts marking her as a servant. Thomas stepped over her without bothering to pause. He was growing used to seeing dead women and had stopped looking for familiar faces; since it was likely he would be killed at any moment himself, it hardly seemed to matter. After a moment he heard Aviler follow him.

Just as they came out onto the landing, the muffled explosion of a pistol shot destroyed the silence. They both instinctively dove for the stairs. They reached the landing below and cut through another dark suite back the way they had come. The first room was unlit and crowded with dark shapes of furniture. Soldiers were pounding down the stair behind them and Thomas could not find the doorway. He stumbled on a low table, then turned and put his back against the wall. The men coming after them would have oil lamps, and the light would be momentarily blinding. Then there was a muffled thump and Aviler gasped in pain, then said harshly, “Over here, a door.”

Thomas made his way toward Aviler’s voice and found the edge of a narrow door. Aviler whispered, “It’s a servants’ stair.” He climbed down a few steps, and Thomas stepped inside, closing the door after them.

In the unfamiliar room, it was doubtful the Alsene troopers would find the stair, which had a door meant to blend into the paneling, but Thomas didn’t breathe easily until he heard them clatter through the room, cursing and knocking things over, then retreat. After some moments of silence he said lightly, “I won’t comment on your clumsiness since it saved our lives.”

“Someone else wasn’t so lucky,” Aviler replied out of the dark. “There’s a body down here.”

Yes, there would be fay roaming here. This is not going to get any easier, Thomas thought, straightening up and feeling for the wall to guide him down.

“He didn’t come down here without a lamp,” Aviler was muttering. Before Thomas could point out that he might very well have, Aviler said, “Yes, here it is.”

After more fumbling, Aviler found the man’s tinderbox and managed to light the lamp. “Good God,” he said softly, standing up and looking down in disgust at the corpse the wan light revealed. “What could have done that to his head… No, don’t speculate; I’d rather be surprised.”

They heard footsteps in the rooms overhead and voices from below, and moved a few steps down the narrow stairs. But the door with its heavy covering of carved paneling and flocked paper cut much of the noise from outside.

Aviler looked around, lifting the lamp high. The original stone of the wall was to one side, radiating cold like a block of ice, and the wooden bones of the lath and plaster facing to the other. The air was stuffy and thick with dust. This was technically a servants’ passage, though it had probably been installed more with an eye to moving about quickly and unobtrusively in the event of a palace coup. The years before the reign of Ravenna’s father had not been calm or untroubled.

“We’re on the west side of the Old Palace,” Aviler said quietly. “We could get out through the siege wall into the Old Courts…”

Thomas sheathed the rapier and drew the shorter main gauche, which would be more effective in these close surroundings. “If we can get there. The King’s Bastion is probably still sealed off from the other side. Most of the troops are quartered right below us.” He took a soft step down the narrow stairs, careful of the creaking boards that would betray their presence.

The bogle dropped from above. It landed on Aviler, knocking him forward. He dropped the candlelamp and the flame guttered wildly, threatening to leave them in darkness. Aviler stumbled into Thomas, who caught himself against the wall. He turned, getting a grip on the thing’s greasy skin below its neck and dragging it off the other man. It turned on him more swiftly than a cat, claws flailing, and he stabbed it with the