Carol Berg - Son of Avonar

Beyond grief and mystery lay the tale of enchantment and corruption from another world. Did I believe the disembodied voice that swore the doom of Gondai was the doom of my world, too? And if I believed it, did I care? For so long, I had cared about nothing and no one on this earth. But when I closed my eyes I saw Paulo embracing a nuzzling horse, and Kellea’s head on her dead grandmother’s lap, and Graeme Rowan’s eyes opening in wonder while grieving for his past, and Jacopo laughing as he helped me tend my garden and paying too much for people’s bits and pieces because they needed his silver more than he did himself… so much goodness in this world… and I knew I did care. Only now it was too late.

At some time in the night, torchlight, voices, and the bustling of horses and men announced another party of travelers. The activity took place far across the cavern mouth from where I sat, and the oppressive darkness swallowed up the new arrivals before I saw or heard anything to identify them. Baglos’s body lay in a forlorn heap not ten paces from me until two of Maceron’s men decided it was in the way, dragged it off, and dumped it under the colonnade.

The horrid night dragged on.

An hour had passed since the last change of the watch, and most of the torches had burned out. Rumbling snores echoed through the cavern, but sleep eluded me. When I closed my eyes, I would see Jacopo’s staring head, and Baglos weeping, and D’Natheil straining to catch sight of me as he was dragged into the darkness. My arms and shoulders were cramped from their awkward position bent backward and wrapped around the stone column, and the muscles in my stomach and chest ached and burned so that it was hard to get a decent breath. My fingers had gone numb, too, so when someone started fumbling at the ropes that bound my hands, it took me a few moments to notice it.

Certain that it was the sallow-faced man come to continue his loathsome caresses, I tried to scream, but a thin, cold hand clamped over my mouth. When my hands fell loose, I twisted around, grabbing and scratching the hands that kept such firm hold of me. All my anger and grief was channeled into that battle, but my cramped limbs had no strength, and my small and wiry captor seemed to have four hands. Soon I realized there were two of the bastards, one wrapping a bony arm about my throat and grasping a painful handful of my hair, the accomplice capturing my flailing hands and helping to drag me through the darkness and down a dark flight of steps.

“Would you stop?” The angry whisper hissed in my ear. “You’re going to bring the whole place down on us! If you promise to be quiet, we’ll let you go. Will you promise?” I nodded my head vigorously. But the attacker was no fool. I had barely opened my mouth to yell, when the hand smothered my mouth again, and the villain twisted one arm behind my back until I thought my shoulder would pop out of its socket. I was shoved through a stone passageway and into a room that smelled faintly of horses. A door fell shut behind me, and I spun about and backed away from it into the dark.

“Give us a light, boy,” said the person just in front of me—a woman, breathing rapidly. “She’d best see who’s here before she sets up a holler.”

The darkness parted to reveal a yellowish light… a sputtering lantern with a dark cloth being pulled off it. A flushed Kellea leaned against the wall in front of me, casually brushed her disheveled hair from her face, and massaged the hand that I had bitten three times over. Paulo squatted by the lantern, grinning despite an angry scratch on one cheek. And slumped in the corner on a pile of ancient straw was a wan, smiling Graeme Rowan. His shirt dangled from one shoulder, and blood-soaked rags were tied about his middle.

I was without words.

“She was determined not to be helped,” said Kellea. “I thought I might have to stick her a bit to shut her up. A good thing the boy was with me.”

“But I thought—” I felt a thorough fool. “One of the men up there—You were all—”

“I think I’m altogether more cooperative when being rescued.” The girl ignored my stammering.

“Indeed you are,” said Rowan in a whisper. “The best thing I ever did.” He shifted his position uncomfortably, and Paulo scrambled to support his shoulders.

“They told me you were dead,” I said. Forcing aside the first tears I’d shed in a lifetime, I squeezed Kellea’s small, hard hand, and then hurried across the room and ruffled a blushing Paulo’s hair. Then I knelt beside Graeme Rowan and gripped his hand and pressed it to my brow, giddy with relief that the three were not illusions. “How did you get here?” I said. “What happened to you?”

“We were going to be dead, but she—”

“I’ll tell the story, if you don’t mind,” said Kellea, interrupting Rowan. “You’ll never get yourself together again if you don’t shut your mouth and be still. I can do only so much.”

Rowan smiled weakly, shrugged his shoulders, and began coughing. Paulo grabbed a waterskin and helped the sheriff to a drink.

“We felt them coming up behind us just at nightfall,” said the girl. “Wicked, creeping—I thought I had spiders in my head. The boy told us what the little man had said, and we stuck to the trees as much as we could. But the valley narrowed and the going was slow in the dark, so we decided to go up the side of the valley where the way was easier. Well, I decided. Graeme thought it was risky, but we climbed up. Straight into their arms. The boy was clever and ducked into the rocks before they noticed him, but I got myself royally captured. Graeme was a fool and tried to fight them off alone. Got himself skewered for his trouble. They believed he was dead, and I did, too,”—Kellea looked at Rowan with fire in her eyes—“but he was stubborn and prideful and refused to die as any sensible man would. Just before dawn, when the villain priests finally left off trying to crack my skull from the inside out, he and Paulo came rescuing. Graeme could scarcely sit his horse.”

Kellea twined the string ties of a palm-sized cloth bag about her fingers. “We couldn’t go far with him so hurt, so we hid in the rocks. The devils were so anxious to find your prince that I thought we might be left alone. At first light I went off looking for herbs to dress Graeme’s wound, but didn’t I see them scouring the hillside for us. And so… There’s a plant I know of—astemia. If you chew its roots, it slows the heart enough to simulate death. Wouldn’t have thought of it, except I’d seen the plant while hunting the others I needed. So I made Graeme and the boy take the astemia, smeared Graeme’s blood over us all, and then chewed some of it myself. By the time it wore off, the cursed priests were gone, and we were still alive.”

“And so you followed us here. You might better have gone another direction.”

“That man out there—that sheriff—he’s the one that fired the shop and killed my grandmother. And Graeme told me he’d seen this Baglos talking to him just before the attack. Since you’d said he was bound to obey the Prince, Graeme figured the Prince must know of it. But seeing the sheriff coming after you with the priests, we decided that the little bastard was up to no good, and we’d best come warn you. I guess we were too late for that. Is the Prince dead?”

“Captive,” I said. “The Zhid are planning something for the morning.”

Rowan leaned his head against the wall and closed his eyes. “Sorry I’m not much help tonight,” he said, gasping. His halting breathing—holding every breath and releasing it only when he had no choice—hinted at the severity of his injury. “A few hours sleep, and Kellea will have me up. We’ll get him free.”