“Welcome to Rymuah. Orn Lorgen,” he said. “This is my son, Ozel.”
The women came forward and were treated to shallow bows. Both men eyed Sezee’s trousers uneasily. Tyen smiled in sympathy.
“So,” Orn said. “These Empire men are chasing you. Did some damage.” He nodded at the aircart.
There was no point denying it. Tyen nodded.
“Their cart was damaged, too. How long do you think we have before they fix it and return here?” Veroo asked.
“Not long enough,” the stranger said. “There’s a village not far north-west of here. The Empire’s men will land there. You have a couple of hours, no more.”
“Are there more sorcerers there?” Tyen asked.
Orn nodded. “There’ve always been arguments about who owns what land around here and has the right to fell the trees and sell the wood. The Empire’s sorcerers settle them for us. Always in their favour of course.”
Sezee turned to Tyen. “Could you fight them off?”
Tyen grimaced. “I don’t know. Depends how many there are.” And what then? He didn’t want to have to kill anyone. “We should leave. We can build another aircart.”
“It’ll take time,” she protested. “They’ll tell the Academy where you are and send more sorcerers and Darts here to hunt for you. By the time we can fly again it won’t be safe to take to the air.”
“If I was you, I’d continue on foot and get some distance between you and here,” Orn said. “I’ll advise you on the route.”
“Thank you.” Tyen sighed. “Trouble is, we can’t get where we’re hoping to go on foot.”
The man’s eyebrows rose. “Over the mountains, eh?” He walked towards the aircart, the young man close behind. “How much damage?”
“Some struts need replacing, and the capsule has to be patched.”
“Can you help us?” Sezee asked. “We can pay you.”
The man pursed his lips, then puffed out his cheeks. Finally, he let out a soft pop of breath and nodded. “I think we can. If I get word to some friends who live hereabouts they can take the cart apart and move it. The Empire types will think they’re scavenging it. You can come back when they’re gone and put it back together again.”
Tyen looked at the man in amazement. That he was willing to go to so much effort for them was humbling. He met Orn’s eyes. “Are you sure you want to risk helping enemies of the Empire?”
Orn nodded. “I don’t know why you’re running from them, but that’s enough for me to want them not to find you. An enemy of the Empire is a friend of the Rymuan.”
Tyen smiled. “I’m starting to think I should adopt a similar policy.”
“Where should we go in the meantime?” Veroo asked.
Orn paused as he considered. “You are welcome to stay at my home. It is some hours’ walk away but well hidden.”
As the man moved away to inspect the aircart, Sezee touched Tyen’s arm.
“Are you sure about this?” she murmured.
He shrugged. “No. But even if he somehow managed to fix the aircart in time, they’ll spot us as soon as we fly above the trees and the chase will start again. They’ll catch us before we can cross the mountains.”
“No, I mean trusting him.”
“I don’t see we have much choice.”
She turned to Veroo, who nodded. “He’s right. We should get our bags.”
With a sigh of defeat, Sezee moved to the cart and began removing their bags from within the chassis.
“I hope you don’t intend to carry all of those,” Tyen said.
She shot him a dark look. “No. You will. After all, we hired you as our porter.”
“Sounds like it’s time I quit.”
Sezee looked down at the bags. “But … can’t you use magic to carry them?”
Veroo chuckled. “And create a clear trail of Soot to track us by?”
“Then we shall take the smallest bag,” Sezee decided. “Let’s repack.”
“Quickly,” Veroo added.
In a few minutes the women had stuffed a few items into the smallest of their bags. They handed it to Tyen then stuffed the larger bags inside the chassis. The man spoke quietly to the youth, who nodded and raced away.
“Follow me,” Orn said, and started walking.
Tyen looked at Sezee and Veroo. They frowned back at him, but did not object. Straightening his shoulders, he tightened his grip on their bag and set off after the Rymuan.
Orn set a steady pace, not hurried but with few pauses. He chose a trail so slender it was barely wider than his shoes in places. Other paths crossed it, so often that Tyen wondered if the forest floor was one huge maze. Several times he saw the imprint of some sort of animal. Fallen trees occasionally lay across the path. At first Tyen stopped to help the women over them but Sezee, unencumbered by skirts, had no trouble negotiating most obstacles and stayed close to Veroo, offering the older woman a steady hand when needed. He settled on walking behind, the rear guard, ready to help if they asked for it.
The further they walked the more often they travelled uphill than down, and the steeper the path became. They crossed rough wooden bridges, first spanning narrow streams then the vertical sides of steadily deepening, vegetation-filled ravines. Whenever they crested a rise Orn slowed and searched the sky.
None of them spoke for a long time, until Sezee called out to Orn and asked if they could stop for a drink soon. He nodded, eventually halting before a rock face down which water trickled, fresh and cold. He offered them some strips of salted meat and in return Veroo produced some dense cakes made of nuts, grains and dried fruit bought before starting the sea crossing. Orn enjoyed these more than the women did the hard meat.
The forest slowly darkened as the last rays of the sun retreated from the treetops above. When the air grew chilly, they buttoned up their coats and drew gloves from the pockets. With the starlight obscured by trees, they were soon tripping over roots and rocks in the darkness. Orn stopped again.
“I know my way well enough,” he said. “But you can’t go on without a light.” He looked at Tyen. “We’ve passed between two arms of the mountains, so they’d have to be above us to spot it, and we’d hear their propellers if they were that close.”
Tyen nodded. He created a tiny flame and set it hovering just above the ground. Another flame appeared beside it and he looked up at Veroo. She shook her head then looked pointedly at Orn.
So he can use magic, Tyen thought. The man gave Veroo the same assessing look as Tyen was giving him, no doubt because Tyen had clearly assumed the flame was hers. She shrugged and a third flame appeared. Orn smiled and set off into the forest again.
Though Tyen suspected the rest of the journey was shorter, it did not feel like it. The chilly darkness pressed in on all sides. The constant rustle of leaves and wind far above was a constant reminder of the trees, which had become a looming presence now that they couldn’t be seen. The forest seemed noisier, too, with deep, guttural growls to high-pitched shrieks and peeps echoing around them.
The path took ever tightening turns and grew ever steeper. He could hear the women’s strained breathing over his own noisy panting, until all was obscured by the sound of gushing water. In front, Orn’s flame began to rise in the air as he started to climb a flight of rough stone stairs. Sezee and Veroo stopped, breathing hard. When Tyen reached them they smiled and waved him on before them.
By the time the stairs ended Tyen’s throat was raw from the breath rushing in and out of his lungs, and his legs were shaking. He stumbled to a halt as he saw that Orn was waiting for him, the air misting before his face the only indication that he was breathing faster than usual.
Then Tyen realised Orn was standing on the porch of a house built into a crack in a rock wall. Beneath the porch ran a stream, which plunged into a crack in the ground. The source of the sound of running water.
A woman and two younger men stood with Orn. Tyen could hear them speaking but only caught half of their words. M
uffled by the cascade, footfalls behind him told him that Sezee and Veroo had arrived. His legs felt stronger, so he turned and offered them an arm each to sag against as they recovered from the ascent. Mist from their breath combined into a cloud as they mutely gathered their composure.
Sezee was the first to move, a little unsteady as she pushed forward. Veroo immediately followed. Tyen joined them as they approached Orn and the house. The Rymuan and his family stepped down from the platform to meet them.
“Welcome to my home,” he said. “This is my wife, Ael, and my older sons, Onel and Onid.” He introduced Tyen, Veroo and Sezee to his family.
The woman smiled. “Come inside. You’ll be safe here. We’ll see you rested and fed.”
After the long walk, everything seemed to happen quickly and efficiently. Ael and one of the sons prepared them a meal. A small girl appeared briefly, gazing at Sezee shyly before she was shooed back to bed. When asked how they came to be chased by the Empire’s sorcerers Tyen told them that he’d been set up by one of the Academy professors to take the blame for a theft. Sezee interjected that he’d have been caught if she and Veroo hadn’t helped him escape.
“Why come south?” Onel asked.
“They’re headed over the mountains, of course,” Onid replied. “The only place the Empire hasn’t conquered yet.”
“Which is why you need the aircart repaired,” Orn finished, smiling.
Tyen nodded. “Or we could make a new one.”
“If all goes right, there’ll be no need,” Orn said. “I sent Ozel, to Kel,” he explained to his family. “He and the boys should be able to move the cart somewhere safe and out of sight.”
Sezee smiled. “Thank you so much for your help.”
Tyen nodded. “I am in your debt twice over,” he said, humbled by these people’s generosity. “As Sezee said earlier, we can pay you. I have some remaining money, which I doubt will be legal currency in the south.”
“There is no need t—” Orn looked at his wife, who had elbowed him in the ribs gently. He sighed and turned back to Tyen. “If you want, we’ll put any coin you don’t need to good use helping the local people put out of work or off their land by the Empire.”
Tyen smiled. “I can think of no better use for it.”
“Well, looks to me like you could all do with a good sleep,” Ael decided. She rose and began arranging for the others to bring bedding into the front room of the house. Soon the family had disappeared into rooms deeper within their strange home, leaving their guests stretched out on mattresses on the floor.
Which were more comfortable than the aircart chassis, Tyen mused. But though tired, he lay awake, hearing Sezee’s breathing deepen into the slow rhythm of sleep, then Veroo’s. Meeting Orn was another great stroke of luck, but would it be followed, as it had the last two times, by another setback?
As he drifted towards sleep it occurred to him that most of the good luck he’d had was really only meeting people who disliked the Empire enough to help him. Perhaps luck didn’t come into it.
But if that was true, what would he do once he reached the Far South, where most people either didn’t know of or had no reason to hate the Empire?
PART SIX
RIELLE
CHAPTER 17
For the first hour or so after admitting her crime, Rielle felt lighter and, strangest of all, freer.
She had been hiding something for as long as she could remember, and now she didn’t have to. Since the day Narmah had realised her niece could see Stain – and Rielle had few memories from before then – she’d had to be careful. Now that she no longer needed to it was as though her limbs moved more easily, or the air was less resistant, or she had access to energy that had previously been spent keeping secrets.
She knew it would not last long, but it did not fade when she entered the temple or when Sa-Elem related her crime to the other priests. Nor did it go when he led her down into the passages below the building, guarded by a young priest. It only died when the gate of her cell clanged shut.
Sitting down on the cell’s single piece of furniture – a plain wooden bench – she’d let the fear and guilt flood in and accepted it as deserved and inevitable.
All she could guess of her likely future was based on what she had seen others suffer. Yet she hadn’t been subjected to torture with magic as her abductor had, probably because she hadn’t resisted capture or tried to use magic. If she continued to co-operate, would they spare her the parade of shame through the city streets, as they took her away to who knew where?
Surely the priests would arrange a more private exit for the daughter of a wealthy merchant family. The great families would not want to draw attention to the possibility that richer members of society could be tainted.
But they might also use this opportunity to distance themselves from the Lazuli family, pointing out that dyers were artisans and therefore more likely to be drawn to magic. After all, dye was another form of stain.
It would ruin her family.
Or would it? Her parents had fought against the stigma of being dyeworks owners all their lives. Her father tolerated nothing but the most respectable behaviour from the workers. Her mother could be, as she knew all too well, ruthless in promoting their business. They would do all they could to salvage their reputation, and if that meant casting out Rielle, they would do that, too.
Though it hurt, Rielle hoped they would. She did not want her own mistakes to harm them or the people they hired. And if they blamed her, they wouldn’t blame Izare.
They might anyway.
The sound of a door opening saved her from contemplating that. The guard priest closed his book and stood up as Sa-Gest walked into view, carrying a lamp. Rielle’s stomach sank.
“I’m to relieve you,” Sa-Gest said.
The guard nodded. He picked up his own lamp and left without glancing at Rielle. Sa-Gest’s expression was blank until the door closed, then his face relaxed into a lazy smile.
Though her heart began to pound as he walked over to the gate she kept her face as still as possible, hoping that no fear showed and thankful that the cell was large enough that he couldn’t reach through and touch her.
“Well, well,” he murmured. “I’ve never had a woman go to such extremes to avoid me before. It’s actually rather flattering.”
She stared back at him and said nothing. Chuckling at his own joke, he took hold of the bars. The memory of how deceptively strong those fingers were made her shudder. He grinned and shook the gate. Its rattling made her jump. He had magic. He could force his way through to her. He might even have the key.
But he wouldn’t. The other priests wouldn’t allow harm to come to a prisoner, even a tainted.
Sa-Gest smirked. “Just checking you’re securely caged. Wouldn’t want you escaping on my watch.” He leaned closer. “Though if an opportunity comes, I might be persuaded to help you,” he whispered. “In exchange for a few favours.”
She kept her stare level and cool. He would not suggest such an exchange if he was free to assault her.
“On the other hand,” he continued. “If you say anything about me approaching you and the favour I asked of you, I will ensure you, your family and your lover suffer all the humiliation and—”
A clunk and a voice calling his name covered his last words. He let go of the bars and stepped back, a flash of alarm crossing his face, then composed his expression and slowly turned to face whoever had interrupted him. It was the young priest who had been guarding her earlier. A frown of annoyance creased his forehead.
“Sa-Elem wants to speak to you at once.”
Sa-Gest nodded. “Thank you.”
With unhurried steps, he strode away. When Rielle heard the door close she drew in a deep breath and slowly let it out.
The guard examined her, eyes narrowed in suspicion or thought, then took the book he had been reading earlier out of his robes and resumed ignoring her.
She thought about Sa-Gest’s offer and thre
at. Well, that confirms it. He was working on his own, not trying to scare me into returning to my family. She considered if this made it worse or better. She decided on worse. Nobody would believe her if she told them of his threat. At least imprisonment gave her some protection from him, and once she was gone from Fyre there was no point in him making Izare’s life harder.
Izare. Even thinking of his name was like a stab through her chest, leaving an awful twisting ache. What did he think of her now? Had he believed her, or did he still think she had tried to abort a child? She longed to tell him everything, to make him understand why she had done what she’d done, and to tell him she was sorry.
Oh, Angels. Am I never going to see him again? The turmoil and pain were too much. She closed her eyes and willed herself to stop thinking and feeling. After a while she found that, if she imagined herself painting, she could stop her thoughts spinning and find a kind of fragile calm.
The sound of a door opening again jerked her out of it, however. She cursed silently, wondering who had come to torment or gloat now. When Sa-Elem walked into view her heart froze. The priest’s gaze snapped to hers, and his mouth thinned into a disapproving line. Another, older priest accompanied him.
“Wait outside,” he said to the guard, his eyes never leaving Rielle. The young priest closed his book and left.
Sa-Elem picked up the chair, carried it over to the gate of the cell and set it down, then indicated his companion should sit. The older man was carrying a book, pen and a small inkwell with a flat spike attached to the side. Settling on the chair, he opened the book and slipped the spike of the inkwell down into the spine.
Rielle could not help feeling a twinge of fascination. How ingenious. I could use such an arrangement to paint outdoors with—
“Ais Rielle Lazuli,” Sa-Elem began.
The sound of a pen scratching followed, as the other man began recording their conversation. So this was to be her interrogation.
“Yes, Sa-Elem,” she replied.
“Earlier today you admitted to using magic.”