Sword of Flames

13 Through Earth

This isn’t going to be easy, Zanna warned herself as she crept out of the lower entrance to the servants’ quarters and darted back across the broken flagstones toward the kitchen. Though her talk with the Lady Aurian had stiffened her courage and given her hope, the Mage had not been able to provide the food and sleep that she desperately needed. Zanna’s mind was dulled; her limbs felt heavy with fatigue—but there could be no rest for her in the foreseeable future. The Lady could not be there to help her should she make a mistake or run into danger. She had only her own wits to rely on now. The hours before dawn would be brief indeed for all she had to do—and there was no guarantee that she would succeed at all.

It took more courage than she had known she possessed for Zanna to go back into that kitchen with its uneasy sleepers—and, worse still, its lingering memories of Janok. Though she had taken the Mage’s advice and replaced her torn, bloodstained rags with warmer clothes from the abandoned closets in the female servants’ dormitory, she shivered with more than the cold as she carefully lifted the latch and opened the heavy door just enough to edge her slight body through the gap.

The cavernous chamber was darker now, for the fires had burned down, but as Zanna slipped inside and closed the door behind her, she heard a sleepy, querulous mumble from the shadows near the hearth as one of the menials stirred and rolled over, disturbed by the sudden draft. Without thinking, she dived into the dank, dark space beneath the sinks and froze, heart hammering, her knuckles pressed tightly to her lips to still the sound of her breathing. Eventually the stretching silence reassured her that the sleeper had gone back to his dreams, but she waited a little longer, afraid of disturbing him again if she tried to move out of her bolt-hole.

Remembering her previous lucky find of the knife beneath the sinks, Zanna groped cautiously around her in the darkness, but such good fortune could not be expected twice in one night. All she found beneath her fingers was greasy dirt, and the stiff remains of an ancient floorcloth. When she finally encountered a cluster of clinging cobwebs whose owner scuttled across the back of her hand before dropping to the floor, that finished it. She snatched her hand back with a shudder, biting her lip to stifle a scream, and decided it was about time she got moving—even though the small, detached voice of common sense that always lurked in the back of her mind was pointing out the irony of someone who’d had the courage to stick a knife into a man twice her size being afraid of a little spider.

As she crept out of her hiding place and ghosted through the silent kitchen, Zanna went through the Lady Aurian’s instructions in her mind. It was fortunate that she was sufficiently familiar with the contents and organization of the room to find what she wanted without a noisy search, or the need to risk a light. Nonetheless, she picked up a handful of candles and a tinderbox, knowing she would need them later. Moving as quickly as she dared, she took one of the shallow baskets that were often used to carry food and crockery to and from the Mages’ Tower, dumped her candles inside, and added three goblets, wedging them carefully so that they would not rattle and clink.

Crossing the kitchen to reach the pantry, where Janok kept (had kept, Zanna reminded herself with a shudder) his immediate supplies, was the worst part of the business. She had been dreading the moment when she’d be forced to pass close to the huddled sleepers near the hearth. Holding her breath, she crept carefully past them on tiptoe, gripping the handle of her basket so tightly that the twined wicker of the handle dug into her palms. Each time one of the humped figures near the fire turned in its blankets or sniffled or sighed in its sleep, she froze like a hunted animal, so that her progress was slow and achieved in a series of halts and scurries, like one of the mice that darted by night across the kitchen floor—the same mice whose frantic scamperings for cover she could hear when she finally gained the relative safety of her goal.

It was pitch-black in the pantry, so she closed the door behind her and risked a candle, though it was difficult to strike a spark when her fingers shook so badly. Securing it to a shelf with a glob of dripped wax so that she could have both hands free, Zanna rummaged quickly among the stores for bread, cold meat and cheese, then checked the wooden racking beneath the shelves for wine. When the cool, smooth side of a flask met her questing fingers, she dumped it into her basket with the rest of her gleanings, blew out the candle, and left the mice to their feasting with greater sympathy for the little beasts than she had ever known before. Retracing the nerve-racking journey across the kitchen as quickly as she dared, she slipped back outside as silently as she had come, and ducked across the narrow alley to the infirmary that had once been Lady Meiriel’s domain.

For a dreadful moment, Zanna thought the door was locked, but a sturdy shove proved that its handle had simply stiffened from disuse. It shot open with a protesting groan and a bang that brought her heart into her throat. Damn, oh damn! Not in the dead hour of the night when the noise would carry. Not when she was so near the gatehouse…

Zanna’s inarticulate prayers were drowned by the clatter of running feet across the courtyard. Instinctively, she looked around for a place to hide, but there was nowhere to go except the infirmary—and that would only buy her worse trouble than she already had. An attempt to run at this point would get her an arrow in the back and no questions asked.

And then it was too late for thinking. A massive shadow loomed in front of her, and she shrank back against the door frame with a cry of terror as the point of a sword was pressed against her throat.

“Why, bugger me—it’s a girl! Marek, stop standing there picking your nose, and bring that lantern over here.”

Zanna blinked as a dazzling light shone into her face. Beyond it, the two guards were still nothing but anonymous, hulking shadows.

“Aren’t you the Lady Eliseth’s little maid?” the same voice demanded. “Thara’s titties, girl—I bloody nearly gutted you for a prowler! What in all the festering hells are you doing out here in the middle of the night?”

Almost absentmindedly the guard lowered his sword, and its absence came as such a relief to Zanna that she found her voice, and her wits, at last. “It wasn’t my idea,” she muttered, with just the right note of sullen resentment. “Lady Eliseth can’t sleep, can she? So she hauls me out of bed—after I’ve been up half the night in any case ruining my eyes with her wretched sewing—and sends me down to fetch her something to eat.” For proof, she held up her basket.

“Listen, girl—I don’t know what your game is, but the watch before we came on duty told us that the Lady had gone out just after midnight. She slipped past the gatehouse and never said nowt, but young Feddin saw her all right. And she hasn’t come back while we’ve been on duty, so what do you have to say to that?”

“You must have been asleep on watch, then,” Zanna retorted brazenly. “Why, the Lady came back hours ago. Would you like to come up with me to the tower and explain that you didn’t see her?” She stood rigid to keep her knees from trembling, and prayed to all the gods that they wouldn’t be brave enough to catch her out in the lie. “I wouldn’t if I were you,” she added, seeing them hesitate. “She gets madder than a scalded weasel when she can’t sleep.” For good measure, she pushed back her hair from her face to let them see the bruises that Janok’s fists had left.

Fortunately, as she had guessed, these muscle-bound mercenaries were all very much in awe of the Weather-Mage’s temper.

“That’s all very well, but what were you doing in the infirmary?” the other guard demanded, changing the subject hastily.

Zanna sighed with relief. Here, at least, the truth—or almost the truth—would serve. “She wanted some herbs, to make a sleeping draft. And I’m late already, because I dropped my lantern in the courtyard and I didn’t dare go back for another. Please—won’t you help me find what she wants, so I can get back as quick as I can? The way she is tonight, I’m scared to keep her waiting.”

“Of course we will, lass,” the first guard told her kindly. “I’m sorry we stopped you, like, but it’s our job. Hey, Marek—give me that bloody lantern. The poor girl needs to see what she’s doing, you know.”

Because the Lady Aurian’s instructions had been very explicit, Zanna found the herbs she needed with little difficulty. Bidding a grateful farewell to the guards, she hurried back across the courtyard to the Mages’ Tower on shaky legs. Gods, that had been a narrow escape—and the danger wasn’t over yet. Why the blazes had the Lady Eliseth gone out tonight, of all nights? Now, Zanna could only pray that she’d have time to free her father before the Magewoman really did come back, and give the game away.

Zanna had been glad to see the back of the two courtyard guards, but her relief was short-lived. The two unsavory-looking specimens who guarded Vannor’s door in the tower sent her heart sinking into her shoes. Peering round the bend in the staircase, Zanna thanked her stars that she and the Lady Aurian had already come up with a plan to deal with this part of the escape, for there was no reason for the girl to be wandering around the upper stories of the Mages’ Tower at this time of night. No reason, that is—except one. Zanna took a deep breath, and stepped forward to climb the last curving flight of steps to the landing.

“Could you two handsome, hard-working gentlemen use some wine to cheer your night? I brought it for Lady Eliseth, but she’s asleep—and we wouldn’t want to waste it, would we?” Zanna held out her basket hopefully. Since she had never in her life tried to be coquettish, and was forced to take her example from the antics of the kitchen maids—and memories of the way her elder sister used to behave with boys—she could only hope it came out right.

Zanna’s knowledge of soldiers was as scant as her experience of flirting, or she would have been less surprised at the success of her ruse. When it came to an offer of wine, the purveyor would need to be a whole lot plainer than herself to be rejected. As it was, the faces of the soldiers who guarded Vannor’s door lit up like beacons. They were an unprepossessing pair, the first a mangy bear of a man covered as far as the eye could see in a mat of curling red hair. The second, smaller and wiry, might have been handsome once, but his face was disfigured down one side by a ragged red scar that twisted his mouth awry. That in itself was not so bad, thought Zanna—but his eyes were cold and narrow, with the feral, pitiless gaze of a man who lived to kill.

At least the big ruddy-haired guard was smiling. “Why, that’s a kind thought, little lass,” he said, reaching greedily for the flask.

“Just a minute,” the other, more suspicious but less quick on the uptake, cut in. “Why in the name of all the gods should some skirt be bringing us food and wine at this time of night?”

“Not because she fancies you, that’s for sure,” his companion jeered. “Why d’you think, you idiot?” He took a long swig from the flask. “It gets lonely down in them servants’ quarters, doesn’t it, my pet?” He turned to Zanna with a lewd wink.

“Oho,” said the small man, catching on at last. “Don’t hog the lot, then.” He made a grab at the flask. “I’m sure the little lass can’t have meant it all for an ugly old bastard like you.”

“Help yourself. It tastes a bit off to me—but I suppose it’s just the sort of horse’s piss that these Magefolk bastards would like.” The big guard handed over the flask and wiped his mouth. “I’m more of a beer man, myself,” he added. Just as Zanna was reflecting that she needn’t have bothered looking for the goblets, she found herself swept up in a pair of hairy, brawny arms. “And a woman’s man,” the guard went on, leering into her face.

Zanna gritted her teeth, forced herself not to struggle, and, from somewhere or other, managed to dredge up a smile. “We’ll have to see about that, won’t we?” she replied—and wondered how she could keep her voice steady as she felt his hand creep up beneath her skirts.

“Here, hold on!” A rough hand grabbed her arm and spun her away from her admirer. “What about my turn, you stinking sack of dung!” The second guard, scowling darkly, thrust the flask of wine into his companion’s hand. “Here—you didn’t have much,” he said with mock generosity. “You finish it, while I get acquainted with the little lady.” Forcing Zanna against the wall, he covered her face with slobbering kisses while she fought against nausea and forced herself to keep still and endure it.

“Rot you!” The first guard drained the flask and flung it away to crash against the wall. “Give her back, you pox-ridden little bastard. I had her first!” With a meaty hand that covered most of the smaller man’s shoulder, he pulled his rival away.

The little killer grunted a curse and went for his knife, and Zanna seized the moment to wriggle free. “Quiet!” she hissed. “Do you want to bring the Magefolk down on us?”

As the thought penetrated what passed for their brains, the guards stopped grappling and turned to gape at her sheepishly. Zanna forced another smile. “There’s no need for all this fighting,” she said winningly. “Why, we have the rest of the night in front of us.”

“What a clever little lass you are,” the big guard beamed. “Come on, lovey—what about a kiss for me?” He reached out to embrace her—and toppled, choking, with his rival’s knife between his shoulder blades.

The man with the killer eyes planted a booted foot in the other’s back and wrenched his knife out of the body. “And now we have all night—just the two of us.” Clutching the bloody blade, he advanced on Zanna, grinning nastily as she backed away. “Don’t be shy, little lass. To start with, let’s see what you’re like under all those clo—”

Suddenly, his eyes glazed over. “Gods, what’s happening? You bitch, you’ve poisoned me…” He staggered and went down like a felled tree as the handful of powdered herbs that Zanna had dumped into the wine took effect at last.

Zanna slumped against the wall, breathing deeply, until the dizziness cleared from her brain and the urge to throw up was under control. Then, stooping swiftly, she scrabbled at the belt of the big, ruddy-haired guard, searching for his keys—her task made all the more difficult because she couldn’t bring herself to look at him. A lecherous fool he might have been, but he’d seemed harmless enough—after all, her behavior had seemed like an open invitation—and he had spoken to her kindly. Now he was dead, and it was all her fault. “I didn’t want this. I only meant to drug them,” she muttered helplessly, but it did nothing to erase the sick sense of guilt that rose up to choke her.

To confound her expectations, there was no ring of keys on the guard’s belt, but after a fair amount of cursing and a further rummage through the dead man’s pockets, Zanna finally found what she sought. Praying that it really was the right key, she fitted it into the lock—and sagged with relief as it turned over with a click. She took the key with her as she glided silently into the room beyond, and closed the door behind her.

There was no light in the living chamber save a cluster of dull rubies that must be the dying embers in the hearth. Zanna, familiar with the placement of the furnishings, crossed over to the table and lit a candle—but what she saw there in the growing light sent her reeling backward with a stifled cry of horror. The once-smooth wood of the tabletop had been gouged and splintered, and its surface, like the floor below, was stained and spattered with rusty smears of blood. “No,” she whispered, stricken. “Oh, dear gods, no!” Surely, after everything that had happened—after all she’d been through—she couldn’t be too late?

Zanna fought the most difficult battle of her life not to run right then. She didn’t want to know, couldn’t bear to see what might await her in the next room. Yet she had to know: she couldn’t risk not knowing. “Don’t be a bloody fool,” she snarled angrily at herself. “Would the Lady Aurian turn tail like a coward and run?” Holding on to the thought of the Mage for courage, she picked up the candle—ignoring the stinging drops of hot wax that spilled across her shaking hand—and walked resolutely into the bedchamber.

He lay across the bed like a broken toy with limbs askew, his body limp and unmoving and his sunken face a ghastly, ashen gray. Blood streaked the green silk coverlet where it had seeped from a bundle of inexpertly wrapped rags that were bound around his right hand. Try as she would, Zanna could see no movement of breath beneath the gory ruin of his shirt. Try as she would, she could not make herself approach him. “Dad,” she tried to whisper, but the word could not struggle past the choking constriction in her throat. She took a hesitant step toward him, and another, but it seemed the very air had turned solid to resist her.

“Dad—oh, Dad!” With no memory of how she had come to be there, she found herself kneeling by the bed and sob bing brokenheartedly into the cool silk of the quilt. Once released, her tears could not be stemmed. Without a thought for her own danger, Zanna abandoned herself to her grief, her body shuddering with great, racking sobs as she mourned the father she had come too late to save.

“What… Who… Zanna?”

But it wasn’t the voice that first penetrated her grief—it was the cold, weak hand that stroked and rumpled her tousled hair. Zanna sprang backward with a yelp of shock, stumbled, and sat down hard on the floor. She looked up to see her father, propped weakly on one elbow, squinting blearily down at her.

“It is Zanna. What are you doing here?” he croaked. “I thought I was dreaming…”

“I thought you were dead!” Zanna cried, still half-afraid to approach him: not daring to believe that her dad was really there, and living, and talking to her.

The ghost of a smile softened the merchant’s haggard face. “No, love, I’m not—though the way I feel, I’d probably be better off.”

“Don’t say that!” Zanna felt a surge of anger. “Damn it, if only you knew …”

“I’m sorry.” He reached out to hug her—and fell back limply, his face blanching bone-white with agony as he moved the injured hand.

Zanna flew to his side, exerting all her strength to haul him up and prop him against the pillows. Sweat sprang out on his brow, and she saw him clench his teeth against crying out—so that, as he imagined, she wouldn’t realize how much the movement hurt him. She hugged him as hard as she dared, so glad to see him that she wanted to weep again—but now that she knew he was still alive, there were priorities more urgent than rejoicing, more important even than finding out just what the Mages had done to him. There was so little time to spare, and hurt as her father was, how the blazes could she manage to get them both out of the Academy?

“Is there any water?” Vannor whispered.

Zanna ran to fetch a goblet and, as an afterthought, added a dash of strong spirits that she found in a flask on the night-stand nearby. She held it for Vannor as he drank, noting with some relief that a little of the color was returning to his face. “Dad,” she told him urgently, “listen carefully. I’ve come to get you out of here—this is our one chance to escape, but we’ll have to hurry. I’ve—” But the words stuck in her throat. How could she tell her dad, who still thought of her as his little girl, that she had killed two men tonight, and they must escape before the bodies were found? “Look,” she temporized, “the Lady Eliseth has gone out into the city, but she could come back any minute, and we have no time to waste. If I helped you, do you think you could manage to walk?”

The old well-remembered gleam lit her father’s eyes. “To get out of this accursed pit of vipers? I’d crawl on my hands—” He swallowed the word as if it pained him. “Well, I’d crawl, anyway,” he finished lamely. “Come on, lass—help me up. And bring that brandy with you, if you can carry it. We might need it before we’re done, if only to keep me going.” He grinned at her as though she were another man, a comrade in arms, and Zanna’s heart swelled with pride. “I do take it,” he added, “that having achieved this much, you have a plan to get us out of here?”

“Blast it!” Zanna struck her forehead with her open palm. “I almost forgot about the bloody key!”

“Zanna!” Vannor’s reproof was a father’s instinctive reaction. “You never learned that kind of language from me!”

“Yes I did, though,” Zanna chuckled—but as her head was buried, at the time, in the depths of the Lady Aurian’s closet, she doubted that he’d hear her. She rummaged quickly through the folded clothing within, until she found a faded old gray robe, such as the Magefolk wore. Pulling it out of the stack, she dipped her hand into the pocket as the Lady Aurian had instructed her, and sighed with relief as her fingers closed around an intricate shape wrought of ice-cold metal. She pulled it out, and there it was, glittering in the candlelight—an intricate key that looked like a twisted filigree of polished silver. Aurian’s key to the archives—and Zanna’s key to freedom.

She thought she would never get her father down the twisting staircase of the tower. To Zanna’s overstrained nerves, the descent seemed to take forever. Even though he was clinging to the banister with his left hand and his daughter supported him with her shoulder beneath his arm on die other side, Vannor still stumbled occasionally, staggering like a drunken man. Time after time, she thought that he would send them both tumbling—and though the curve of the stairs would prevent them falling right to me bottom, she knew his injury would not withstand such a battering, and didn’t want him passing out from the pain. Added to that danger was the ever-present risk of meeting the Lady Eliseth, coming back from wherever she had been.

By the time they reached the bottom of the staircase, Zanna could have wept from a combination of relief and weariness. In addition to helping her father, she was hampered by the basket with its essential food, that she had picked up on the landing where she had left it beside the bodies—one sleeping, one dead—of the guards. It proved useful for carrying the two flasks, one of spirits and the other of water, that she’d dipped from the ewer in her father’s rooms—but even with the wicker handle hooked into the crook of her elbow, the basket was clumsy and awkward to carry, and it effectively tied up the hand that she needed to hold on with, should Vannor fall. Already she was trembling from the strain of supporting her father’s weight—and who knew how far they still had to go?

As they crossed the threshold, the cold night air seemed to revive her—that and the escape from the oppressive atmosphere of the tower itself. Fortunately the journey across the courtyard to the library was not a long one, though it took much longer than it should have, at the slow and halting pace that was all Vannor was able to manage. The moon was almost dark and, in any case, had set long ago, so there was no light to betray the fugitives. No guards appeared to stop them, and no Lady Eliseth, terrifying in her wrath, leapt out of the shadows to demand an accounting of the two escaping Mortals. It was almost too good to be true; but Zanna, shivering in the predawn chill, had a sinking feeling in her bones that she had already stretched her luck about as far as it would go. She could not rely on it forever—or for long.

The library, in darkness, was a maze of obstacles, and Zanna was forced to find the way to the inner door with only her memory as a guide. Time and again she heard Vannor’s muffled curse, and felt him stagger as they collided with unseen hazards—tables, chairs, and protruding stacks of shelves. At least, she comforted herself, they would not have to worry about leaving a trail. The fastidious Lady Eliseth had been spending a good deal of time in the library lately, and had come up with a spell of Air to get rid of all the cobwebs and dust.

When they reached the rear wall, Zanna was forced to leave her father resting while she groped her way along the wall with outstretched hands, feeling for the grille of wrought iron that was the archive gate. At last she found it, and fumbled for the lock plate by touch alone. After a desperate struggle to fit the key into its hole, Zanna felt the door swing open on its well-oiled hinges, making not the slightest sound to disturb the profound peace of knowledge’s domain. Quickly, she groped her way back along the wall to fetch Vannor and found him by touch, slumped at the table where she’d left him.

“Dad! Come on—you can’t sleep now!” Though she shook him as hard as she could, it took him a long time to awaken. Mumbling a string of lurid curses that, had he been in full possession of his wits, he would have killed anyone else for speaking within his daughter’s hearing, he staggered after her, dragging on her hand like a shipwreck victim clinging tightly to the one last floating spar. Zanna pushed him through into the archives ahead of her and, reaching through the metal grille, locked the door behind her and pocketed the key with an audible sigh of relief.

It was not over yet, however. Despite the fact that they had escaped the Magefolk, for the time being at least, the worst was still before them—as Zanna soon found out. Dragging Vannor behind her, she groped her way through two turns of the passage before risking a light—but when she finally dared set a spark to one of her candles, she was glad she had waited no longer. The fragile flame revealed a narrow, low-ceilinged corridor with rough-hewn walls—and, not half a dozen paces in front of them, a steep stairway that plunged downward into who knew what depths of darkness.

That was too much. Trembling at the narrowness of their escape, Zanna decided that she and her father could go no farther without rest—not if all the fiends of the infernal pit were howling at their heels. Vannor needed no convincing. Even in the time it had taken her to light the candle, he had slid down the wall into a huddled heap by her feet. Zanna cursed aloud. It’s not fair, she thought wildly. Through most of her life, her dad had taken care of her. How had the tables suddenly turned?

The thought reminded Zanna of the Lady Aurian. Had she, too, felt this hopeless rage, this sense of helplessness, when she had been forced to flee Nexis? Well, she managed, Zanna thought sturdily—and so can I.

Nonetheless, it took a little time to revive her father.

Fishing the single goblet from her basket, she mixed another measure of water and brandy and held it to his lips. The drink seemed to revive him—if only in part. Vannor spluttered, opened his eyes, and looked around him dazedly. “Where the bloody blazes are we?”

“In the catacombs, below the library—at least we will be when we get down those stairs.” Zanna fought the urge to clutch her father’s sleeve. “Dad—I know you told me that the archives lead eventually to the sewers where you used to hide out, but do you know the way from here?”

“No, lass.” Vannor shook his head. “Not from up here. We should keep going down, that’s all I know. Keep heading for the older parts and the colder parts—that’s what Elewin said—until we reach a cave and a crack and a tunnel with a rotted iron ladder. It leads to the sewers, and then we’re halfway out…”

Wonderful, Zanna thought ruefully. That’s a lot of help. Still, if we get lost down here, it should be beyond even the ken of the Magefolk to find us—and I’d rather suffer any fate than fall back into Eliseth’s hands.

Smothering a sigh, she hooked her basket back over her arm and picked up the candle in the same hand. Putting her free shoulder under Vannor’s arm, Zanna helped her father struggle to his feet and, half leading, half supporting him, she guided him down the steps and into the unfathomable darkness that lay beyond.