The Sleeping Life

Chapter Twenty-Six

Kendall, tramping through endless dream forests, heard a familiar voice and woke with a start, then bit her lip on the little noise that burst out of her at the sight of Rennyn, awake and wearing a long-suffering expression as she was poked and prodded by Lieutenant Meniar. She looked as calmly herself as if it was any other morning, and just smiled at Kendall, and then at Sukata and the Pest. It was still early, barely past dawn, and cold enough to be glad someone had built up the fire.

"The immediate concern is infection in the feet," Lieutenant Meniar was saying. "I used the strongest scours and cleanses I know on them, and I think I’ve arrested what was present—along with giving them the tiniest hurry-along in the healing process. Since we’ve limited supplies, and I’m not seeing discharge, for now I just want you to stay off them."

"I think I’ve done enough walking for a while," Rennyn said. "You’re not generous with your pain suppression, Lieutenant."

"Full relief just encourages people to damage themselves more," he said. "I remember when Keste broke an arm…" He trailed off, glancing south unhappily.

"I expect Lieutenant Faral will be at the forefront of any search party," Rennyn said, which was an easy bet. None of the Kellian liked when they didn’t know where their mages were, even if they didn’t have a high opinion of them generally. And Kendall was fairly sure Lieutenant Faral liked her partner a bit more than that.

"I’ve tried communicating, of course," Lieutenant Meniar went on. "But I’m guessing we’re four to eight days' travel from the Rest, so chances are high that my message-waft won’t reach them—not to mention I had to write it on a dried leaf. I didn’t want to try one of the more power-hungry workings until I knew what I’d need here." He shrugged, then prodded at one of the purplish patches on Rennyn’s wrists. "Do these hurt? The only thing I’ve seen like them are spider bites, but I couldn’t divine a poison and…well, I certainly hope you weren’t bitten as often as this suggests."

"Not bites," Rennyn said. "It does hurt, but only a little, and it’s part of the larger problem we have to overcome."

"So stop just sitting there and get on with explanations," Kendall put in irritably.

Rennyn only laughed at the interruption, but then she did explain, and Kendall could only listen in complete disbelief to a story that started with waking imprisoned in the same room as the demon prince. And instead of sensibly killing him, exactly as they’d all set out to do, Rennyn had wasted her energy putting a spell on him. And then just let him walk off.

"But…" Kendall said, trying not to sputter. "But you had to kill him to break the miscasting! How…why?!"

Rennyn shrugged. "I found I would rather spend my time tired than be a person who kills helpless prisoners. Even hateful ones. Besides, to be strictly pragmatic, I doubt I would have managed to get out of that place without putting him to use." She glanced up at Captain Faille. "I can still work on trying to rid myself of the miscasting, which I certainly couldn’t do while dead or pinned to a wall."

Captain Faille didn’t say anything. He had probably been really looking forward to killing Rennyn’s monster uncle.

His Imperial Smugness Samarin had been staring out over the little islands where there was supposedly some hidden cellar, but turned back to ask: "Do you believe you’ve neutralised Prince Helecho as a threat?"

"For the moment. He will find it very hard to break the Ban I put on him—harder even than what he did to me, since mine was no miscasting, and the symbol I used very powerful." Rennyn absently touched the red line cut into her neck. "He remains a superlative mage, and do no harm is broad enough that he might manage considerable mischief about the edges, but I think the rapid adaptation forced on him during his captivity is as much a force as my casting. The Eferum may well have become dangerous to him as a result."

"We will judge him by his future actions, then," Samarin said, in the pompous tone he slipped into occasionally—when he was reminding them he spoke for his Emperor. "The situation with the stolen mages is the more immediate concern."

"I thought a straightforward reconnaissance to start with. Given its sunken aspect and partially open ceilings, I planned to simply walk around the outside of the thing, to see if there was anything more illuminating than mage-studded ivy."

They paused then for breakfast and privy visits, and quibbling over whether they’d all go, or send an advance group. All the Kellian were clearly being extra-alert—even more so than they had during the walk north. Just because Herself seemed to think her monster uncle had been dealt with, and wasn’t lurking about waiting for a chance to attack, didn’t mean anyone else was going to be so silly.

Had Herself really given up her best chance of recovery? Kendall didn’t know whether to be angry, or to try to understand why being pinned to a wall made a monster any less a monster. And what did Rennyn’s choice mean for Kendall’s plans? She’d been going to stay until Rennyn was better, and had expected that to happen almost immediately after Rennyn’s obnoxious uncle had been killed, maybe even bringing forward their return trip to Tyrland. And what about the whole Tyrian winters would probably kill me thing that was a big part of why they’d gone to Kole in the first place?

Kendall noticed the Pest gaping at her, but he turned his head quickly away when she shot him a glare. She’d make a remark about how good an idea a muting spell had been, except that now she knew the Pest had spent the entire journey trying not to die she couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for him, rot him. Getting that strangling enchantment off him was probably the main reason he wanted to be Rennyn’s student in the first place—along with being the sort of person who was almost as much in love with magic theory as Sebastian.

And that was the answer to Kendall’s question. Rennyn was surrounded by people who thought the sun shone out of her whatsie, and it wouldn’t make any difference if Kendall wasn’t around. Kendall could go get the sort of training she wanted without having to worry whether Herself was being looked after. Though best to put off leaving until they were back in Tyrland, or she’d end up having to learn Foreign before she got to the useful stuff.

Lieutenant Meniar and the Imperial Smugness were talking glass golems now, listing off historic instances where mages had thought glass of all things was just the stuff to build servants out of. A lot more than Kendall had expected because apparently glass worked symbolically for animating constructs. Someone called Dia Dessal had ridden around on a glass stag. The founder of Kole had met the Dawnbringer in a palace whose inhabitants were all glass. Some mage who couldn’t walk had had a pet glass golem that fetched him anything he pointed at. Another had a little army of glass warriors. Some of the stories, like the one about Dia Dessal, were even set in Semarrak.

The debate about who should go look at cellars ended with Darian Faille and Sukata trotting off first, to make sure nothing would attack them just for making a circuit of the island, and everyone else trailing along in a slower second group, so they would at least see if the scouts got eaten by vine-monsters or glass golems.

Rennyn, riding along in Captain Faille’s arms, was looking about all interested and relaxed, even though golems meant a mage, and a pretty powerful one to have stolen all these others and made shields and walk-things and whatever. Typical of Herself to behave as if they were visiting a fair and not in deadly danger.

Captain Faille, after a murmur from Rennyn, turned so Rennyn could more easily talk to the Pest as they walked.

"If I observe you later while you sleep," Rennyn asked, "do you believe that will trigger the Ban that has been set on you?"

The Pest shook his head firmly, looking stupid-happy. He really did want nothing more than for Rennyn to work out his enchantment.

"I’m sorry it took me so long to realise there was something wrong, Fallon. I offer you no guarantees, but I am certainly going to try to help."

Was the Pest going to cry? He looked like he was biting the inside of his cheek to stop himself, while making a feeble sort of gesture to acknowledge Rennyn’s promise. Would it be a bad idea if the Kellian taught him their hand signs? Would trying to write or sign an explanation make him choke, or would something happen to his hands instead?

"How is your head, Kendall?"

Kendall started, then muttered: "Fine. Hardly feel it."

"All those exercises lifting things weren’t such a waste after all," Herself said, with one of her more irritating sorts of smiles. "I’m very glad you managed it."

Kendall shrugged. There was no need to make a big deal out of that.

"You can have a break from your exercises, at least for today. Tell me tomorrow if the headache hasn’t gone."

Kendall refrained from pointing out that she’d had no intention whatsoever of spending her time turning leaves or bowls—or even grand necklaces—over and over just for the sake of it. Instead she pointedly looked ahead over the series of small interconnecting bridges to where Sukata and Captain Faille’s mother had reached the island that had supposedly been planted with vine-covered mages.

That island looked almost empty, with just a low rim of foundation stones marking the edge of whatever had been there long ago. A biggish building, that took a few minutes to circle, but there was so little of the structure left above-ground that the scouting party weren’t blocked from view at all during the circuit. They mostly kept back from the edge, but after completing the circle, Darian Faille walked right up and stood on the very rim, staring inward. When nothing boiled out to attack her, she turned and walked back with Sukata, alert but unhurried.

"The shield makes it difficult to untangle any other enchantments," Sukata said evenly. "But I located no detects, or any sign that the active mass of casting responded to our presence. There are at least two groups of constructs. Approximately twenty individuals. They did not appear to notice us, and I sensed no directed threat from them."

"Very well," Captain Faille said, and they walked on.

The whole thing felt unreal to Kendall as they continued over the small bridges, having trouble with the last because one side of the smooth arch had cracked and fallen away into the lake, so they needed to go single file. They must look a sight, with the Kellian picked out in a delicate glow by the early morning light, and Rennyn and the Pest swamped by too-large coats over nightclothes, and all of them a good deal mussed and crumpled after sleeping in piles of leaves. They looked more like they needed help themselves, rather than being rescuers.

Two tumbled pillars marked the ramp of the entrance. They passed it by, circling left, but only for a quarter turn about the island before Rennyn indicated that she wanted a better look and they walked right up to the edge of the exposed cellar, all the Kellian alert but detecting no imminent attack. Kendall couldn’t sort out anything from the swirl of magic that had become increasingly clear as they approached the island: a shield, yes, but even that felt tangled and complicated.

Craning on tiptoe, Kendall gazed over a cellar that was an even square in shape, a patchwork of open spaces and areas where ivy twined through ceiling grids of stone. Other than being everywhere, the ivy didn’t stand out particularly, but Kendall still shivered to look at it, imagining roots trying to burrow beneath her skin.

"I do not believe there was ever an upper building," Captain Faille said. "This has been constructed to be precisely what we see."

"A sunken garden?" Samarin asked, but nodded as he said it. "The other buildings have far more fallen stone—and there’s no sign that anyone has been here to salvage it. Nor any hint of movement beyond the glass constructs."

Kendall had spotted one of the mages. Or a person-shaped lump, at least, in the room directly beneath them. That was an ear, and there a hand. She traced the bumps on the walls, struggling to see clearly through the stone grid, and decided there were six. Six people, just below her, with roots burrowing beneath their skin, and spikes in their backs.

"The flowers only grow where people are," she said, in a voice almost as thin and thready as Sukata’s. "And they’re the wrong sort of flowers for ivy anyway—ivy gets tiny green nubby sorts of flowers, not blowsy big orange ones."

"I still see only two patrols of the constructs," Sukata added. "They do not appear to enter the room below us—perhaps not any of the rooms containing mages."

"Except to put them on the walls, and respond to disturbances," Rennyn agreed, and then no-one spoke for a while because one of the little swarms of glass…caterpillar-ants was moving in their direction.

In a way they were almost pretty, all blue or blue-green, like a collection of glass vases that had been stacked together. With legs and little waving antenna. There weren’t any spikes or barbs or teeth or anything that looked like a weapon, but if they’d fought Rennyn’s monster uncle and won, they were nothing to sniff at.

Once the patrol had moved away, Darian Faille pointed to the scouting party’s left. "They enter this room, even though it appears identical to the one directly below us—with a ceiling grid and a stone door."

"Not yet occupied," Lieutenant Meniar muttered. He was looking a bit sick—probably because he was the healer mage who was going to have to figure out how to get a couple of dozen people unpinned without killing them.

"They also groom the ivy of dead leaves," Dezart Samarin said. "Gardeners, guards or both? In either case, a limited range of function, and clearly not much scope for reacting to events outside their area of duty."

"I would like to see how they respond to a shield across the door of a room," Captain Faille said.

"You think they could simply be bottled up?" Samarin moved a little further along the wall. "Is it a shield that can be cast through? I can’t tell."

A little surge of magic from Rennyn was all of her response, and the stone blocking the doorway of the room below rolled to one side. They waited, tense, but no swarm of glass guardians responded, and Kendall couldn’t feel any change to the thrum of set casting.

"Block the guards off, break the shield, rescue the mages?" Lieutenant Meniar suggested.

"I can’t break this shield," Rennyn said. "Perhaps with my focus, but not otherwise. I could create a temporary door, as my Wicked Uncle did, but then I would go to sleep. I am going to have to compose a Sigillic that one of you can cast…and can’t quite see a method to use. I’ll need to think it over."

"There is no guarantee that these patrols are the only defenders," Captain Faille said. "I would like a view of the central courtyard: it seems larger than the others."

"Block the guards, open a door, investigate the centre," Dezart Samarin said. "There is no point rescuing the mages only to have them stolen again in a month’s time."

"We could risk a short flight over the top," Rennyn said, but only shrugged when no-one else seemed to think this a sensible idea, and suggested instead they find a spot to sit for a while so that she could concentrate on untangling the layers of magic.

Captain Faille found a rock near the cellar and sat with Rennyn on his lap. Kendall could see that Lieutenant Meniar and Sukata were also concentrating hard, trying to work out how all the enchantments had been constructed by listening to the vibrations they made. It was all just humming to Kendall, so she stuck with trying to spot the Mystery Mage behind it all. The Pest, though, sat down and went to sleep. Maybe he was trying to see something with the enchantment he could use while sleeping, but if that was the case he mustn’t have found anything, since he only looked vaguely disappointed when he woke up right after Rennyn had finally had enough and said they could go.

They continued on around the strange cellar, trying to confirm the number of glass constructs and spot all the lumps concealing mages, all while discussing ways of getting them unpinned alive. Then it was Rennyn’s turn to fall asleep, almost mid-sentence. Lieutenant Meniar shook his head over her and said that the cuts meant she’d need even more rest than usual for a few days.

Walking back, Kendall decided that Rennyn’s good mood was not just because she thought she’d taken care of her uncle, but also because she’d postponed having to probably kill the Ten. But she wouldn’t manage to stay cheery next time she dropped a cup of soup down her front.

Lagging at the end of the scouting party with Sukata, Kendall muttered: "She’s swapped that monster’s life for hers—but the wrong way around."

The squinch of Sukata’s mouth told Kendall that was exactly what Sukata thought as well. But then the Kellian girl said: "Would you have killed him?"

Kendall was about to say of course!, but hesitated, thinking about what it would be like to kill anyone.

"He enjoyed hurting Rennyn so much."

"I know. And to have to deal with him for the sake of survival…that is not a decision I would have enjoyed. But the Duchess' reasoning is true. What Prince Helecho did in Tyrland—excepting the injury to the Duchess herself—was at the orders of Queen Solace. Very probably controlled almost as much as we."

Sukata’s voice, already barely audible, slipped away, and Kendall gripped her hand, knowing her friend was remembering being pressed to the back of her own head, her body used as a tool by someone who didn’t care one speck about her. Kendall needed to remember that Sukata—like all the Kellian—had had a horrible experience only a few months ago. Just because she was always so quiet and prepared didn’t mean the aftermath of the Black Queen’s return had been any easier for her than it had been for Rennyn with her more obvious injuries.

Glancing up, Kendall saw that the Imperial Smugness was watching, and without even meaning to, she dropped Sukata’s hand. Then, trying to look only at her feet, Kendall saw from the corner of her eye Sukata’s long, pointed fingers curl and then straighten. And hated herself.

Every time she thought they had worked their way back to a comfortable place, Samarin’s stupid questions would pop into her head, and Kendall would do something to make everything even more awkward and wrong. How could she put them out of her thoughts, or find an answer that could begin to be believable? How could she stop hurting the best person she’d ever known?