Honor Among Thieves

Chapter Eleven: A Traitor’s Blood

Honor sat in stoic silence as the adept probed theclockwork in her arm with a slender metal tool.

“The mechanism is broken,” he announced. “I fear it’spast repairing. It will need to be replaced.”

“Remove it, then.”

Rhendish shook his head. “That would take months.Years, perhaps. It would be a terribly painful process, and there’sno guarantee that you would survive it.”

“And if I did, you would have no guarantee that I’dbe of further use to you.”

“A harsh assessment,” he said, “but truenonetheless.”

“Give me my sword arm back, and I’ll serve you of myown will.”

The adept smiled. “As much as I appreciate the offer,you must forgive me if I prefer my own proven methods to yourunproven word.”

Honor pulled the dagger from her belt and laid it onthe worktable. “You offered me a position if I decided not toreturn to the forest. Well, I’ve decided. Everything you said wastrue. The dagger will condemn me, for the rose blooms at the touchof a traitor’s blood.”

She picked up the dagger and pressed it deep into theopen wound.

Blood flowed into the blade, rising up a tiny pipeAvidan had hidden in the long stem of the rosebud. It flowed intothe tightly furled rose, and then into tiny, petal-shaped chambersbehind the rosebud, each petal thinner than a whisper’s shadow. Toall appearances, the rose was blooming in response to a traitor’sblood.

Finally the blood reached the last rose petalchamber, where Avidan’s latest alchemical marvel waited.

The substance ignited at the first touch of Honor’sblood. Rhendish watched, entranced, as light dawned in the heart ofthe blade and gained brightness and power until it seemed that therose itself might catch fire.

Honor jerked the knife from her arm. “That is what mysister expected the other elves to see. I intend to ensure theywill not.”

She rose and hurled the dagger at the wall. Itshattered like lost innocence. Crimson light hovered around theshards for a breath or two, then faded.

Rhendish regarded her with narrowed eyes. “Was thattruly necessary?”

“Would you do otherwise, in my position?”

“Perhaps not,” he said. “And if I employ you, you’lltake me into the Fox’s lair?”

“If I can,” she said. “Before we left for StormwallIsland, Delgar shifted the passages beneath the city beyondrecognition. I’m not sure I can find my way back into the passage,much less locate the den.”

The adept rose and began to pace. “So. The dagger isdestroyed and I do not have the thief.”

“What does it matter if you find his lair? Fox isdead. They’re all dead. A dozen witnesses saw the fairy shot out ofthe sky. The explosion destroyed Muldonny’s workroom and collapsedthe escape shaft. If your concern is, as you said, ridding Sevrinof a band of thieves, you have achieved your goal. Define another,and I will help you achieve that as well.”

Rhendish came to a stop beside a curtained alcove.“And what do you want in return?”

She removed Muldonny’s ring from her coin bag and putit on the table. “I want this back. When you remove thegears and metal shafts from my arm, put the crystal back. In timethe crystal will grow together, like human bone.”

A low, sly smile crept over the adept’s face. “Thereis a quicker way.”

He pulled the curtain aside with a flourish.

Hanging in the alcove was an elven skeleton, adelicate marvel of luminous pink crystal.

Rhendish brushed his fingertips over the ribcage as abard might sweep the strings of a harp. Faint music touched theair, like echoes of fairy bells or the memory of childhoodlaughter.

Beneath the eerie sound lay one no human ears couldhear. The sound of magic vibrated through the crystal-a magic asfamiliar to Honor as her own heartbeat. Surely these bones couldbelong to none but her twin-born sister.

“Asteria,” she whispered.

The adept waited until the heartbreaking sound diedaway before speaking.

“No, my dear. Your sister is very much alive.”

That wasn’t possible. “But who. . How. .”

He spread his hands in a gesture of apology. “I’mafraid that some of the details of your history altered somewhat inthe telling. There was a tribunal meeting in your forest grove, andit ended in blood before the traitor was named. That much is true.But that winter night occurred years ago. You have been with meever since.”

Not seasons. Years.

The room tilted and swam as Honor struggled to takethis in. She wanted to deny it, but she could not.

“As you pointed out,” Rhendish said, “the livingcrystal that is elven bone grows. It is amazing to me how swiftlyit grows, and how intelligently. Truly marvelous, what the properapplication of alchemical knowledge and the passage of a few shortyears can accomplish.”

A terrible possibility stirred amid the whirl andtangle of Honor’s thoughts. What this her crystal shadow, born ofher bone?

“Ah, you see it now,” Rhendish said in tones roundedwith satisfaction. “But you’re not yet sure you believe.”

He reached for the skeleton and lifted one delicatehand as if he were a courtier about to honor a lady with akiss.

Honor’s hand lifted in a mirror-true reflection ofthe crystal bones.

The adept dropped both the compulsion and theskeletal hand. “I will restore your sword arm now,” he said. “Therest you will have to earn.”

Horror pounded Honor in crushing waves. She could donothing to resist this, nothing to fight against the magic thatheld her captive.

Magic.. .

Of course! Why had she not seen it before?

The strange compulsions, the crystal ring that placeda target on Muldonny, the grim experiments Rhendish had worked onher-these were not the work of alchemy. Whatever he claimed to be,whatever face he showed the world, Rhendish was a sorcerer.

And there was no magic that elven crystal could notfocus and magnify.

It occurred to Honor that there was a lot ofelven crystal in this room.

She darted toward the worktable and snatched upsharp, slender metal tool.

Perhaps Rhendish would force her to thrust it intoher own heart. Perhaps he would hit the tool with a burst ofsorcerous lightning and shock her into immobility. Perhaps shewould slip past his guard and plunge the metal into his eye, endinghis life and with it, her only hope of restoration.

Honor lunged at the adept, determined to break hishold on her whatever the cost.

Rhendish lifted one hand in a swift, sharpgesture.

Compulsion slammed into her, stopping her as suddenlyand effectively as an invisible wall.

Honor’s first impulse was to fight it. Instead, sheopened herself to the adept’s magic, drew it deeper into herbeing.

Agony seared through her, bone and sinew. Honordropped to her knees as the weapon fell from nerveless fingers.

She was wrong. Foolish. The sorcerer’s magic was toocrude, too harsh, too powerful, too alien. No elf could ever singin tune with such magic.

And yet, elves could gather energy from starlight.From bonfires, even blizzards.

She did not have to assimilate Rhendish’s magic. Sheonly had to use it.

The compulsion was still an overwhelming, discordantnoise, but surely it contained familiar notes. Honor found one,drew it out in a thin stream, and sent it toward the pale roseskeleton.

For a moment she was back in the Starsingers grove,among a chorus of elves attuned to starlight. She gathered energy,focused it, shared it and received it back in a cycle that went onand on until every elf in the clearing sang with silent power.

Slender crystal arms rose, delicate crystal fingersencircled the adept’s throat.

Tightened.

Rhendish’s eyes widened in shock. He tugged at theskeletal hands for a few moments-the instinctive struggle of anytrapped creature-before he remembered who he was, and what he coulddo.

Unseen threads of magic slipped from the room insearch of the clockwork guards. Honor gathered the threads into asingle cord and sent her own will coursing through it.

Four guards clanked into the room. They dropped toone knee before Honor and raised mailed fists to their chests in agesture of fealty.

Honor turned toward the blue-faced adept.

“Release him, sister,” she said.

Crystal fingers came away from Rhendish’s throat,crystal arms dropped to the skeleton’s sides. The gentle tinkle ofbone against bone sounded like distant, faintly mockinglaughter.

The silence that followed was broken only byRhendish’s rasping breaths. To his credit, he faced Honor withoutflinching, and he offered neither pleas nor blustering threats.

Of course, the effects of his near-throttling couldhave a lot to do with the latter.

“You need my help,” he said at last. “You haven’tbegun to understand how much, or in how many ways.”

Honor could find no words to refute this. “You willrestore my sword arm now,” she said, tossing his words back at him.“As for the rest, it would appear that we both have a great deal tolearn.”