The Irda: Children Of The Stars

CHAPTER THREE

“We’ll need something of Jyrbun’s. A bottle, a container of some kind. A charm, or a jewel. I’ll find a slave who knows in whose apartments the Keeper is staying, one we can trust not to tell.”

So easy. It had been so easy. Lyrralt, though obviously stunned, had not questioned her directions.

He had pushed away his plate of half-eaten food, followed her from the noisy audience hall, and gone, quickly and lightly, in the opposite direction, toward the southern end of the castle, toward his and Jyr-bian’s apartments.

The hem of her gown whispered softly on the stone floor as Khallayne escaped the din of the party. She went down, descending into the service passageways of the castle.

As she entered the bustling kitchen, she lifted the hem of her gown off the floor, stepping over a puddle of grimy water. The room was smoky from the huge cooking hearths, humid with the steam of boiling kettles and pots, the uncirculated air choked with the nauseating scent of humans.

Not one of the slaves looked up to meet her quick scan of the room. Just as well. Their ugly pink faces were as disgusting as their scent.

Khallayne snapped her fingers at a small, scurrying slave who wore a serving dress with little grace, as if it were stitched-together cleaning rags.

The girl bobbed a quick but respectful curtsey. “Yes, Lady. May I help you?”

“I need Laie.”

The girl glanced back over her shoulder. “Laie is… occupied, Lady. May I serve you?” She dipped another curtsey, again quick and nervous, betraying her fear far more than did the quake in her voice.

“Occupied? What do you mean?”

The woman bobbed again, never raising her eyes from the tips of Khallayne’s soft leather shoes. “She is-” She glanced behind her for support and found none. “She is…”

“Stand still and tell me where the slave is!” Khallayne snapped, irritated by the bobbing woman and the overpowering smell of so many unwashed slaves.

“Lady, Lord Eneg is in the kitchen!”

Khallayne made a sound of irritation, at last understanding what the mumbling slave was trying to indicate. An Ogre would have to be an outcast to have not heard of the appetites of Eneg.

Khallayne had used Laie many times before, to spy for information, for errands she wanted kept secret. As slaves went, Laie was brighter than most, a wellspring of information, and she knew to keep her mouth shut. If Eneg killed Laie, another would have to be found and trained. “When did Eneg take her?”

“Only just a moment ago.”

Good. There might still be time. It was rumored that Eneg enjoyed playing with his victims.

Khallayne gathered the hem of her gown up above her shoes. ‘Take me to him.”

Still obviously nervous, the woman led Khallayne to the back of the kitchen, through a low door, and into a long, narrow, dark hallway. A supply passage, Khallayne supposed, built for the smaller, shorter human slaves. It was very different from the wide, sweeping hallways in the rest of the castle.

Khallayne had to duck as she stepped through the doorway into a room. A moldy, sweet smell of sweat and the coppery, decaying scent of human blood greeted her as she stepped over the threshold.

Khallayne spared barely a glance for the room, which was outfitted for Eneg’s sport. The important thing was, Laie was still alive, kicking and whimpering as she tried to pull free of Eneg’s grasp.

With a menacing scowl, Lord Eneg turned around as the door banged into the wall. His emerald skin was splotchy and blemished, so dark it was almost black, glistening with moisture and blood..

When he saw who the intruder was, his expression became a leer. “Have you come to join me, Lady Khallayne?”

Khallayne shrugged, shaking her head. She didn’t see how he could stomach the small, low-ceilinged room and the awful stench. The foul odor of the kitchen was a spring morning compared to the rotting air concentrated in this small space. ‘I require the services of this slave.”

The scowl returned. “Get another!”

Laie renewed her struggles to free herself.

Khallayne studied him for a moment, ignoring the slave, then said sweetly, “Lord Eneg, this slave belongs to me. If I had to train another, I would be very displeased.” She rubbed her fingers together, holding her hand up so he could see that the air around the tips of her fingers glowed slightly with the beginnings of a fire spell.

Eneg growled, a rumble deep in his throat so menacing that the slave in his grasp screamed and yanked her hand free. She stumbled and tripped the few feet to Khallayne and fell.

Khallayne gestured toward the whimpering woman. “Surely another slave would suit your purpose as well as this one…”

Eneg took a step toward her. The determination he saw in her face changed his mind. He waved his hand dismissively. ‘Take her. Send another from the kitchen.”

Khallayne swept back down the low hallway without waiting to see if the woman would follow. No doubt the slave was eager to escape from the hot, fetid room.

In the kitchen, Khallayne pointed at the first slave she saw, a young man no larger than Laie. “Lord Eneg requires your services.” She pointed back down the hallway and escaped into the passageway outside the kitchen.

Laie came stumbling behind her, trembling with fear, stinking of Eneg’s playroom and blubbering her thanks for being saved.

“Hush!” Khallayne said irritably, as the slave thanked her for the fifth time and tried to kiss her hand. Khallayne dipped her hand into the tiny pocket in the lining of her vest and produced a small coin. She held it out so that it was visible in the dim light, but pulled it back before it could be snatched by the slave’s eagerly outstretched fingers. “Do you know which apartments house the Keeper of History tonight?”

Eyes fastened on the dull copper which Khallayne turned slowly in her fingers, the slave nodded. “No, Lady, but I can find out. A tray was sent up earlier.”

Khallayne closed her fingers over the coin. “Then do so. But first, go to your quarters and wash, then meet me here. And quickly, or I’ll give you back to Eneg!”

Tense and irritable, heart thudding with anticipation, Khallayne hovered in the shadows of a cavernous doorway until the slave returned.

She was wearing a clean shift and her short, straw-colored hair was mostly combed. “The lady Keeper is staying in Lord Tenal’s guest apartments, Lady.” She curtseyed and thrust out her hand.

With a smile, Khallayne put the copper coin into her palm without touching the slave’s grubby pink flesh. “Fetch a tray of food, whatever the Keeper prefers, from the kitchen.”

The slave’s odd-colored blue eyes grew round and large with fear at the suggestion that she return to the kitchen.

“If anyone asks, say Lord Teragrym has commanded it. And if Lord Eneg chooses you again, simply tell him you belong to me,” Khallayne told her. “Remind him I don’t want to have to train another slave.”

Khallayne shook her head as Laie vanished. In the time it took an Ogre to mature from child to young woman, human slaves went from babies to old and useless. But no matter how old or young, they were worse than children. Slow and dumb and witless, even one supposedly as bright as Laie.

Lyrralt was waiting for them at one of the side exits to the audience hall, leaning against the stone wall.

“The Keeper’s in Tenal’s wing.”

Lyrralt nodded, eyeing the slave who stood half-concealed behind Khallayne.

Motioning for Laie to proceed, Khallayne and Lyrralt started along the passageway, nodding to other guests as they went. “What did you bring?” she asked.

Lyrralt patted a pouch hanging from his belt, bowed once more to an older lady as she eyed the two of them curiously. “Crystals from Jyrbian’s collection.”

Once they were upstairs, in the second-floor hall and away from the strolling party guests, they followed Laie until they rounded a corner and found her peeking around the corner at an intersection. “This is the hallway where the apartment is,” Laie whispered, pointing ahead. “There are guards.”

Khallayne smiled, both at the roundness of the slave’s eyes and at the way Lyrralt’s arm tensed under her fingers.

“Do we kill them?” he asked.

“It’s all right. I expected them.” Feeling less calm than she allowed herself to show, she drew away from him and took a deep breath. She closed her eyes, concentrated, and, as in the audience hall, the sounds and smells of her surroundings grew blurred and hazy.

Lyrralt gasped.

Khallayne knew that he was feeling the surge of magical power she was drawing about her like a cloak. She trembled with the power of concentration, murmuring words she had wrested from the memory of a human wizard. Her hands came up, for a moment covering her face as if masking it, and she uttered the words again, lips moving silently.

Lyrralt gasped again. The slave whimpered.

Khallayne opened her eyes. Where Lyrralt had stood, now there was almost nothing, a disquieting disturbance in the air, a warm, scented breeze as if a ghost had brushed past.

“What have you done?” Lyrralt’s voice, stunned, fascinated, whispered from the nothingness.

“A spell of… of distraction, I suppose you would call it. If we make no sound, the guards won’t see us.”

“It makes my eyes hurt.”

“Yes, there is a small bit of aversion to it. It makes the illusion easier to maintain.” Turning to the slave, she murmured, “Laie?”

The woman was crouched back against the wall, her eyes so round and large it seemed they might burst from her head.

“Laie? Go down the hall. Tell the guards that Lord Tenal has ordered a tray sent to the Keeper. When they let you through the door, make sure to leave it open long enough for us to slip inside.”

With obvious effort, the slave controlled her fear. “But, Lady, what if they won’t let me through?”

“They won’t stop you. Just make sure you keep the door open. Now, go!” Khallayne, who had stepped closer to the woman, gave her a shove.

The slave almost squealed with fright, but she moved quickly, looking back over her shoulder as if she were being pursued.

It went as Khallayne had said. The guards leered. One lifted the corner of the linen napkin to inspect the tray, but they allowed the slave through. Laie paused just inside the heavy wooden door, holding it open with her foot while she pretended to balance the tray. She felt a spectral puff of air, then another, flit past.

One of the guards took the tray from her and placed it on a nearby table. “The Old One sleeps,” he whispered. “Leave it here and go.”

The slave nodded gratefully and hurried out.

The Keeper’s room was as lavish as anything Khallayne had seen since arriving in Takar. Two smoldering torches cast the only light, imparting flickering shadows more than illumination. Even in the smoky dimness, she could see the opulence of the slave-carved wood furnishings, the gleaming mirrors on walls covered with lush tapestries. She was sure, had she been able to examine it in daylight, that she would have found the thick carpet on which she trod to be elf made.

With a whispered command, the distraction disappeared and Lyrralt was visible.

‘This…” she breathed, leaning into Lyrralt in the near dark, pressing her mouth close to his ear, “… this is how I will live someday.”

“Perhaps we both will.” For a moment, his hands hovered near her.

The Keeper was asleep on a low couch near the hearth.

Khallayne had never seen an Ogre so aged; most accepted an honorable death long before the years advanced to such fullness. She stared at the Old One’s face, lined and seamed with wrinkles, as Lyrralt stirred up the dying embers and started a small fire in the fireplace.

From his pouch Lyrralt produced a clear crystal sphere and two faceted crystals, one a double-pointed amethyst, the other a perfect sapphire as dark blue as his skin.

“I wasn’t sure which would be best,” he whispered, holding them out for Khallayne’s inspection.

She chose the crystal sphere, the plainest of the three.

Lyrralt would have backed away, but Khallayne caught his wrist and pulled him close to the Old One. “Kneel here.”

Lyrralt burned to ask what she was going to do and how and where she had learned such things. He watched carefully as Khallayne placed her hands on the Keeper and whispered words that to his ears were unintelligible.

Khallayne placed the sphere on the Keeper’s mouth. For a moment, it seemed as if it would roll off, then it caught and rose, floating less than two fingers above the Old One’s lips as if suspended on the soft exhalations of her breath.

Lyrralt whistled soft and low in admiration.

Khallayne moved to the end of the couch and stood over the Keeper. She fixed Lyrralt with an intense, unwavering gaze. “I’m going to try to use your energy in addition to my own,” she said. It won’t hurt you, but you may feel… tired. After I begin, make no noise, speak no sound, unless you wish to lose it forever.”

He nodded.

Khallayne cupped her hands around the Keeper’s head. She opened her eyes wide and concentrated. The currents of power flowed through the room, tugging at her gently.

She had performed the spell many times, but never before on one of her own kind. Now that she could feel the papery, withered old flesh between her fingers, she wished she’d risked the working of this one, just once, on an Ogre.

Gathering her concentration, striving for confidence that suddenly seemed to be ebbing away, she murmured the words of the spell and sent the pulsation outward. The Keeper moaned softly and rolled her head as if feeling the touch of Khallayne’s magic, then was still.

After a moment, while Khallayne held her breath and waited, a soft, throbbing light began to materialize between her hands. Careful not to allow her exhilaration to overcome her, she raised her arms slowly, tenderly, feeling the pressure against her palms, the thrill of magic coursing through her fingers and arms.

Then Khallayne pressed her palms together lightly. The incandescent light shifted, surged, began to stream into the crystal sphere.

It appeared to Lyrralt that the Keeper’s head was suddenly filled with light, flowing from her lips into the crystal poised above. Power filled the room. The air smelled like the coming of a thunderstorm.

As the crystal sphere became more radiant, filling with a golden rainbow of light, the Keeper grew darker and darker.

Even after the light had gone from the Keeper and was imprisoned in the pulsating sphere, Khallayne remained standing over the Keeper’s body for a long moment. Then she plucked the sphere out of the air and away from the Old One’s mouth.

Lyrralt felt the sudden release like a jolt to his nerves. When he was free of the tug of the spell, he felt a terrible urge to speak.

Clinging to furniture for support, Khallayne edged away from the Keeper. Though she trembled with the weight, she held the pulsating sphere up in the air.

“The Song of History,” she whispered in a tired voice as Lyrralt climbed to his feet and joined her. “It’s done.”

He took the sphere gingerly, and carefully turned it in his hand, holding it up toward the fire to see the light pierce it through. “How wonderful!”

Khallayne sank onto a stool. “Yes, wonderful. This is the legacy thaf s been stolen from us. Kept from us by greedy nobles.”

Khallayne gazed out the large window in Jyrbian’s apartment, eyes roving lazily over the twinkling lights of the city below, refracted and splintered by the beveled glass. How boring, how sad, she thought, to be staring out of one of those houses, looking up enviously at the twinkling lights of the castle.

She, however, was where she belonged, and for a moment she gazed at the dozen miniature reflections of her own face in the panes of glass. The myriad Khallaynes smiled back at her wearily.

“Are you going to tell me how you did it?”

Lyrralt sat on a low stool in front of the fire. He cradled the sphere between his palms, watching the light twist and twine through it. “Are you going to tell me how you did it?” he repeated.

“Magic,” Khallayne answered, her voice unconcerned, barely conversational.

He turned and saw from her broad smile that she was teasing him.

She joined him, kneeling on the floor and taking the sphere from his fingers.

“I know if s magic. Where did you learn to do it?”

She turned the sphere over and over in her hands, then used the edge of her vest to polish it. “From human wizards.”

“What?”

She lifted her chin defiantly. “I took the knowledge from human wizards who were slaves in my uncle’s household.”

When he offered no condemnation, she continued. “I was always much quicker to learn magic than my cousins. When they were still playing with sticks and dry leaves, I could light a fire, boil water, float objects.

“When I was ready to progress, my tutors told me I had learned as much magic as was allowed a child of my station.” The sphere lay forgotten in her lap as she balled her fingers into fists.

“I didn’t like being told no. I didn’t see why I should be restricted. There was a slave on a nearby estate. I knew she was a mage because the lord there was a friend of my uncle’s, and he had bragged that he held her there by keeping her daughter as a hostage. I made a deal with her.

“For her knowledge, I agreed to free her daughter. The spell I used to steal this”-she indicated the sphere — ”was one of the things I learned from her. I’ve spent many years draining the magical knowledge of human mages.”

“You freed a slave!” Lyrralt gasped, more aghast at that revelation than any other.

“Of course not,” she said coolly, standing and taking the sphere to the window. “I didn’t have to, once I learned this spell.”

On the sill beneath the etched glass was a collection of crystals and spheres and rocks, all arranged neatly, sitting in brass holders or dangling from silk thread. She took a larger crystal, placed it in an empty stand, and laid the Song of History in its place. “What do you think?”

Among the grouping of more colorful rocks on the sill of Jyrbian’s window, the sphere was plain and unremarkable. He slipped an arm about Khallayne’s waist. “He’ll never know it’s there. Unless we’re discovered and have cause to reveal it.”