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

THERE WAS A CLANK somewhere in the passage below, as if hollow metal struck stone. Thomas paused on the edge of the gap in the floor and thoughtfully fingered the hilt of his rapier. He had seen Dontane come down the stairs from the council rooms, and he had taken the chance on going ahead into the lower passages and catching him here.

This was the large passage Grandier had shown him yesterday, the only unblocked way to the cellar where the Unseelie Court had established itself. Thomas had found a spot where a weak place in its ceiling had partly given way, spilling some debris down onto the floor and creating a hole into the space above. Climbing up through the gap, he had found another narrow corridor which was blocked on one end by a collapse of its own. It led only to more disused rooms and a now-rickety stairway up to the floor above.

A dim light fell down the stairs, slightly alleviating the darkness. Moving silently, Thomas poised on the edge of the gap, listening as the faint noise below became the footsteps of at least two men. Then Dontane passed below, with two Alsene troopers trailing reluctantly behind him. Thomas felt a rush of both relief and tension; he hadn’t been certain until now that he would have his chance. Dontane could have brought twenty troopers with him, but the need to conceal his activities from Grandier must have won out over caution.

Thomas quietly stepped down to a fallen rafter half blocking the gap, then leapt onto the back of the second trooper.

His weight slammed the man into the hard stone floor. He rolled off the inert form and came to his feet against the opposite wall, ducking the flailing sword of the other trooper. Thomas parried the second wild blow, feinted, and put his point through the man’s neck. The trooper sunk back against the wall, clawing at the wound and gasping, then slid to the floor.

Dontane had turned, whipping his sword free of the scabbard. He recognized Thomas and stopped, eyes widening in disbelief. “You still here—”

Thomas moved toward him, making it look like a casual stroll. He doubted he could catch Dontane if the sorcerer bolted toward the cellar. “Afraid of Villon? Things not going quite according to plan?”

He saw the realization of where those things had been said pass over Dontane’s frozen expression, and an awareness of just what else had been said. “So that was you. I thought the boy dreaming when he said something had moved in the floor.”

Dontane rushed forward. Thomas started to bring up his sword to parry but saw the blue flame of spell fire flickering down Dontane’s blade. Instead of locking their weapons together he swept his sword around, deflecting the deadly blade and disengaging. Even then the shock of contact with that power was enough to send a jolt down his arm.

Dontane laughed, but sweat was running down his face and he held his sword en garde, not pressing the attack immediately. Thomas steadied himself against the wall. He thought, Damn, this could finish me. It had taken a moment or so for the blast of power to travel down the long rapier blade to his hand, long enough for him to parry and break contact. If he had connected with the shorter blade of a main gauche he would have a useless arm now. Stupid not to realize that the young sorcerer would have an arcane defense against attack. But Dontane had seen the battle at Aviler’s house and knew he was outclassed in swordplay; Thomas could almost smell the fear on him.

Thomas eased away from the wall. “I hope that isn’t all you’ve got,” he said softly. “It’s not going to be enough.” He circled to the side, trying to get between Dontane and the cellar.

Dontane backed away, preventing him from blocking the passage. Thomas lunged, pulling the tip of his sword up and over Dontane’s parry, nicking him in the opposite shoulder. Dontane cried out and his blade swung wide, the flat of it catching Thomas’s sword arm. The force of the spell fire on the blade sent Thomas staggering. Dontane stumbled back and lost his grip on his sword. Pressing a hand to his wounded shoulder, he turned and bolted down the passage.

Cursing at the pain and forcing his almost-numb fingers to hold onto his swordhilt, Thomas ran after him.

Around the corner he could see the gap in the wall. The unearthly light of the Host had faded, leaving a well of darkness in the old cellar. With the waning daylight outside, the Host must still be quiescent. But Dontane was just disappearing down the stairway and would have every intention of waking them.

Thomas plunged down after him. Dontane was moving more slowly, still holding one hand pressed to his bleeding, shoulder. He turned as Thomas reached the landing and swung a fist at him. They grappled, struggling across the narrow landing. His sword arm pinned, Thomas forced Dontane toward the edge, then felt the stone give way under his boot; the next instant they were both falling.

*

Kade had found enough glamour to make it difficult for human eyes to focus on her and had made her way silently through the cold dark rooms to the Old Palace. Now she crouched in the concealing shadows beneath one of the grand staircases, watching the Alsene troops rush about. Most carried lamps and all seemed to be shouting at each other. They had sprinkled more of the cursed iron filings around the areas on the third and fourth floors where they seemed to have made their main encampment. It was the place where Thomas was most likely being held, but Kade’s glamour wouldn’t last there, not in such close quarters with the lights and so many wary men.

Kade was torn between staying here to look for Thomas and continuing on her way to replace the keystone. Frustrated, she gnawed on her thumbnail and tried to consider her options rationally.

Spells might alert Grandier or some member of the Host. The ether was disturbed enough as it was; Kade didn’t want to stir it up further and give them the idea that she was about somewhere. She couldn’t afford to be caught until she had at least replaced the keystone and driven the Host out of the palace to the waiting Seelie Court.

A page boy in a slashed doublet and heavy fur cloak came down the stairs and stopped a few feet from her hiding place. He rested one small hand on the newel post and watched the frantic activity of the other men.

Kade’s ears pricked. She needed information. Here was someone to get it from who was small enough for her to overpower.

For a moment the landing was almost empty. She waited for the last trooper to step through an arch into the next room and then darted forward.

Kade wrapped her wiry forearm around the page’s throat and dragged him back into the shelter of the darkened stairwell. His choked cry broke off as she put the tip of her bronze knife below his jaw. She hissed, “Be quiet.”

She pulled him further into the shadow and whispered, “Quietly now. Grandier has a prisoner, the Captain of the Queen’s Guard. Where is he?”

She eased the pressure off the boy’s windpipe enough to allow him to talk. He drew breath to scream and she pressed the knife down just enough to draw a bead of blood. After a moment the boy whispered, “The prisoners escaped.”

Well, that’s just fine, Kade thought in irritation. How am I going to find him now? “When?”

“Earlier today, sometime, I don’t know exactly—” His voice was rising, and she prodded him with the knife again to remind him to be quiet.

There was no way to tell if Thomas had left the palace yet or was still trapped inside. Kade decided she would just have to replace the keystone and improvise the rest.

The page was trembling under her arm, but Kade sensed he was angry enough to try to come at her when she released him, instead of the far more sensible act of running away and shouting for help. She shoved him away. As he turned back to lunge at her, she threw a handful of glamour into his eyes. He gasped and stumbled to a halt, staring at her, his eyes widening until they were almost all pupil. She said, “You had a dream. A confusing dream. A jumble of images.”

He was still staring straight ahead when Kade slipped around him and started down the stairs. That should confuse his story long enough for her to accomplish her goal. It would only take a few moments to replace the keystone.

*

Thomas lay facedown, cold gritty stone against his cheek. He levered himself up a little and shook his head, too stunned to think. He caught his breath at the unexpected pain of a hundred new bruises. Then memory returned. He was on the flagstone floor of the cellar. He had fallen down the last flight of stairs.

Thomas rolled over and sat up. His sword was near his hand; he must have held onto it in instinctive reflex until he struck the pavement. Dontane lay sprawled perhaps twenty paces away.

And the Host was stirring around them.

Thomas looked back to the stairs. A dark winged fay with a sleek narrow dog’s head had settled on the landing. It was looking down at them with brilliant red eyes. The cellar’s soft light grew brighter as corpse-lights climbed the walls. Creatures slunk from under the piles of discarded wood and trash, or seemed to rise out of the floor. All were uniformly hideous but no two were alike, with grotesquely distorted heads, jagged teeth, long clawed hands, ratlike tails, or bat’s wings. One of the columns looked as if it had grown fur; Thomas realized it was covered with a troop of brown and dun-colored spriggans. The smell of the place was as foul as the bottom of a bog, and the creatures were still coming out of hiding.

Three misshapen bogles leapt to the ground between him and Dontane, drawn by the smell of blood. Thomas looked for cover, or something else to use as a weapon. To his right he saw a long heap of broken wood, an old scaling tower lying on its side. While its supports and platforms had been made of wooden beams, the pulleys and chains that extended them and the plates that had protected the troops manning it were of iron, and there were no fay near it. While their attention was on Dontane, Thomas snatched up his sword and ran to the broken tower. He crouched next to it, his back against a large rusted iron plate propped up by the rotting wood.

As more fay gathered, the growling mutter of their talk growing louder, Thomas scraped up the bolts and metal scraps scattered nearby into a handy pile. Most of the creatures were moving toward Dontane, drawn by the blood and possibly by the young sorcerer’s magic. But one small fay covered with fiery red scales and straggling hair crept toward