Lynn Flewelling - Shadows Return

It did no good, of course. The cries continued for a little while, then stopped just as abruptly. He kicked the door in frustration. “You heartless bastard! He’s just a child. How can you do that?”

He jumped back quickly as a key rattled in the lock. The door swung open and there was the alchemist, whip in hand and furious. Ahmol stood just behind with Sebrahn’s limp little body in his arms.

“You killed him!” Alec snarled.

Yhakobin strode in and grabbed Alec by the hair, dragging him back to the doorway.

“Him, you say? Look at its hand,” he ordered, giving Alec’s head a hard shake, and then shoving him to his knees for a closer look.

The rhekaro’s left arm hung limply down, and Alec saw that its entire hand had been cut off this time. Something was dripping from the terrible wound, but it wasn’t blood. As with the last one, it was thicker, and almost clear.

“You are a fool, Alec, if you think this thing is in any way human,” the alchemist said sternly. “And you are a greater fool to insult me. I’ve no patience with you-or it-tonight.”

He barked out an order and two strapping men appeared and held Alec while Yhakobin drove the bodkin into Alec’s finger and yanked his hand to the rhekaro’s slack lips. After a moment the lips closed around it and it sucked weakly, but its eyelids didn’t even flutter.

Yhakobin shoved Alec’s face closer to the severed wrist and he saw five little nubs protruding from the stump, the same sort as he’d seen when Yhakobin had cut the fingers off the first rhekaro he’d made. It was the beginning of a new hand.

If it was healing, then perhaps it wasn’t dead, after all.

His relief was short-lived. Yhakobin handed his whip to one of the men. “Good night, Alec. Pleasant dreams.”

The beating that followed involved not just the whip, but fists and boots as well. By the time it was over Alec was spitting blood and both eyes were swollen shut. They left him on the floor. The last thing he heard was the door locking after them.

As consciousness spun away, he comforted himself with the knowledge that his new pick was still hidden. Freedom was his when he chose to grasp it. Next time he wouldn’t hesitate.

THE WEATHER TURNED rotten before Micum and Thero could set sail from Gedre. Lashing rain and high seas held their vessel in port for three days, then the wind was against them, forcing the captain to tack endlessly to make any progress at all. The Osiat was deeper than the Inner Sea, and the storms fiercer, especially heading north toward the Strait. But the ship was a sturdy, sleek little caravel, lateen-rigged and well ballasted, under the command of a Gedre named Solies.

It took nearly a week to reach Virésse. Thero used the tooth to keep track of their quarry; so far Notis was still in the harbor town. The Gedre khirnari had given them letters of introduction, but Micum seemed increasingly uneasy as they neared the port.

“Would it be fair to say that Seregil and Ulan í Sathil aren’t exactly on cordial terms?” he mused as they sat in the galley, trying to keep their salt meat and turab from sliding off the table as the ship pitched and rolled.

“I’ve been thinking the same,” Thero admitted. “And if Seregil were here, I think he’d be reminding us that he’s never one to go in the front door when he has a chance to do otherwise.”

Micum grinned. “Are you turning nightrunner on me, too?”

“I wouldn’t go that far, but there’s much to be said for caution.”

“Can you magic us somehow, so we don’t stick out in the crowd?”

“I could, but remember where we are going. My magic is more likely to call attention to us than it is to shield us. I think an attempt at stealth might be the better plan.”

“Well then, I guess we’d better ask Captain Solies if he knows of any back doors.”

As it happened, the captain did, and put in that evening at a secluded inlet a few miles west of Virésse harbor. Sailors swam their horses ashore for them, and Captain Solies went with Micum and Thero as they were rowed ashore, looking less than pleased with the plan.

“Keep those letters with you in case you’re challenged,” he warned. “I’ll be left explaining our anchorage here if anyone comes asking.”

“We’ll be back in a few days,” Thero promised. “And I’ll do my best to send you word if it all goes wrong.”

They spent the night under tall pines, wrapped in their blankets against the damp chill.

“I had my first taste of this with Alec, when the Plenimarans took us,” Thero admitted, huddled near the little fire Micum had coaxed to life. “I must admit, I miss my tower rooms at times like this. Nysander and Magyana were better at this sort of thing.”

“You’ve hardened up nicely, though.” Micum lifted the little kettle of tea off the coals and poured Thero a cup, then took out his pipe for a smoke. Settling with his back to a tree trunk, he took a few puffs. “It’s been a while for me, too. Feels damn good to be sleeping rough again.”

The following morning found the forest thick with fog. Thero would have been hopelessly lost, but Micum, who seemed to have an infallible sense of direction, soon found a narrow cart track leading in the right direction.

Micum kept up the horses at good pace through the morning as the mist burned off under the rising sun. By the time they dismounted by a roadside spring to eat, Thero noticed that his limp was more pronounced.

“I think I can help you with that,” Thero offered. “Nysander taught me a bit of healing, and I learned more from Mydri in Bôkthersa.”

Micum sighed. “I can’t say no to that, I suppose. What should I do?”

“Just sit on that rock there. I’ll have to put my hands on you.”

“Go on, then.” Micum sat down and stuck out his bad leg.

Thero knelt beside him and carefully pressed a hand to the front and back of Micum’s thigh. He’d never laid hands on a man before, and felt a little awkward, but Micum just watched with interest and showed no sign of discomfort.

Thero hadn’t seen Micum’s wound since it had healed, but he could easily trace the long, uneven ridges of scar tissue through the thin leather of Micum’s breeches. They ran from behind his knee to just below his buttock. Closing his eyes, Thero whispered the healing charm Magyana had taught him to take away pain. The tense muscles under his hands relaxed a bit and he heard Micum’s grateful sigh.

“That’s a bit better.”

“Wait a little.” This time, Thero summoned the deeper healing Seregil’s sister had taught him-one he’d used often to help Klia through the long, painful days of healing, when her remaining fingers threatened to curl permanently into withered claws. As the spell took hold, he could feel the rush of blood through muscle and the tension of tendon along bone. He imagined warm sunlight and sent the heat of it deep into the flesh.

“By the Light!” Micum murmured.

Thero held on until he felt the thick, hardened skin loosen under his fingers, then sat back and opened his eyes. “I can do more later. Do you think you can ride some more?”

Micum stood and tried the leg. “Hell, I think I can run! Now, is our friend Notis still there?”

Thero took the tooth from a pouch at his belt and pressed it between his palms. “Yes, and he’s ashore, too. I think I can find him now that we’re closer.”

They reached the outskirts of Virésse that afternoon. The sprawling white city embraced a deep, broad port, and was protected at its back by mountains. Pausing on a hill overlooking the harbor, Micum sat on a stone fai’thast marker and counted well over a hundred ships of all sizes moored there, and not a few of them carrying the striped sails of Plenimar.