Клейтон Эмери - The Halls of Stormweather

Habrith’s hand dropped away from her throat. She rummaged behind the counter, pulling out a change of clothes, which she thrust at Larajin.

“Take your uniform off,” she said, “and put these on. That should keep them guessing. Wait here, and open the door for no one. I’ll have a word with these fellows who have been bothering you, then I’ll come right back.”

Larajin held the clothes in her hands. “But—”

Habrith pressed a finger to Larajin’s lips. Then she smiled. “We’ll speak more when I get back,” she said. “Be sure to lock the door behind me.”

After changing into the clothes Habrith had given her and waiting a few moments to ensure the baker wouldn’t see her leave the store, Larajin made her way through the sewers to the Hunting Garden. She didn’t see any malformed rats, this time. The only thing that slowed her down was an overactive imagination. Every splash behind her sounded like the footsteps of the green-cloaked elf. She whirled around more than once, a knife from Habrith’s bakery in her fist, to confront what had proved to be only a shadow.

Inside the garden, she hurried to the spot where she’d last seen the tressym. It mewed in response to her call—but so faintly that Larajin barely heard its cry.

The winged cat lay at the base of the tree, barely looking up when Larajin stroked its fur. It looked even more bedraggled than it had two days ago, its fur wet and matted and its wing feathers shredded. A large lump over the broken portion of its wing was oozing pus.

“Oh, kitt,” Larajin said, tears welling in her eyes. “I should have come back sooner. I’m so sorry.”

She touched a hand to the lump on the tressym’s wing. It was hot under her fingertips, despite the fact that the creature was shivering. The tressym growled softly but made no other protest.

Larajin wanted to pick the wounded creature up and carry it back to the temple, but she was afraid that if she moved the tressym, it would die.

She did the only thing she could: she prayed. First to Sune, then to Hanali. She begged whichever of the goddesses was listening to save the tressym, to prevent this beautiful creature from dying.

Larajin caught a whiff of something sweet: Sune’s Kisses. Or, as she knew it now, Hanali’s Heart. The flower was nowhere to be seen. The Hunting Garden was shrouded with snow. Yet the scent grew steadily, as if dozens of the tiny mouth-shaped flowers were suddenly blooming.

The tressym began to purr. Larajin looked down in alarm, mindful of the old wives’ tales that spoke of cats purring just before they died. She was surprised to see that the tressym’s fur looked a little less matted, that the lump on its wing was a little smaller.

Most surprising of all, her hand that lay over the lump had a rosy red glow. It pulsed out from her fingers and into the tressym, beating with the steady rhythm of Larajin’s own heart.

She swallowed down her wonder. If this was magic—if she really were channeling the power of the goddesses—she didn’t want to lose it. She concentrated on the wounded tressym, putting every ounce of her will into her desire for it to be whole and well.

She heard voices headed in her direction. One, she recognized—the Hulorn. Every instinct told her to flee, but she continued to focus upon the tressym, doing her best to ignore the approaching danger. The only sign of her rising panic was a slight tremble in her hands.

Finally she heard something that broke her concentration.

“… this blasted ring,” the Hulorn said. “It seems to bear a curse. It regenerates flesh but twists it to its own dark design.”

The other voice, also male, was unfamiliar. Now Larajin could hear feet crunching on the snow.

“Its magics seem to be linked to that of the wand,” the second man said with a wheeze. “I cannot dispel the magic of one without affecting the other. You will have to make a choice: both, or neither.”

The tressym stirred under Larajin’s hand. The lump was almost gone.

“By the gods! Who is that?”

Larajin looked up. Not more than a pace or two away stood the Hulorn, his half-serpentine face twisted with alarm and rage. Behind him was a tall, dark-skinned man who leaned on a knotted staff. Clad in smoke-gray robes that made him little more than a shadow in the snowy forest, he stared at Larajin with an expression that was equally surprised.

“Who is she?” he asked, his voice wheezing.

“What does it matter?” the Hulorn said. “She’s seen us together. She’s seen this.” He held up his bird-taloned hand.

The dark-skinned man nodded. He moved his staff slightly. “Shall I?” he whispered.

Fear coursed through Larajin in a violent shiver. She had no idea who the dark-skinned man was, but she understood the look in his eye. The Hulorn had just condemned her to death, and the dark-skinned man was to be her executioner.

Larajin crouched, too frightened to move, as the mage pointed the knobby tip of his staff at her. In that same moment, she felt the tressym stir under her hand. Finally healed, it rose to its feet and stretched brilliantly colored wings wide, fluttering them and testing their strength.

The Hulorn laid a hand on the staff. For a moment, Larajin thought she had been reprieved.

“Wait a moment,” the Hulorn said. “The tressym cost two hundred suns. I don’t want it damaged.”

With a loud howl, the tressym launched itself into the air, fleeing into the treetops. Larajin stood, holding up her hands and begging for her life. “Please. I didn’t mean to trespass. I found the injured tressym and just wanted to—”

The end of the dark-skinned man’s staff crackled with magical force. Black sparks spat from its tip. Larajin started to turn but knew she’d never escape. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a bolt of crackling black force leap from the staff…

In that same instant a figure hurled itself from behind a tree. Still turning, Larajin caught only a glimpse of him: green cloak, feather-tipped braid, narrow tattooed face. Then the bolt from the staff took the leaping figure full in the chest. The wild elf screamed in agony, body suddenly going rigid. Sparks leaped from the tips of his fingers and booted toes, then his clothes and hair burst in tatters from his body. His charred husk fell to the ground, smoking against the snow.

Larajin gaped in horror at the blackened corpse. Now a sound registered in the silence left by the explosion.

An urgent whisper, in a language she didn’t understand. Again, in the common tongue: “Run! Run!”

She needed no urging. Somehow her feet found their footing in the slippery snow. She caught a glimpse of another cloaked figure leaping down from a tree branch onto the Hulorn, who had drawn his sword, and yet a third cloaked figure rushing out from behind a bush at the dark-skinned mage. As she ran through the woods, her heart pounding, she heard two more explosive crackles behind her.

With frantic haste, Larajin scrambled over the lip of the fountain and wrenched the grating free. She’d barely wriggled through when she heard thudding footsteps approaching the fountain above. Sobbing, she realized that they had followed her footsteps in the snow. They wouldn’t be able to trail her through the sewers. However there were too many twists and turns in the darkened tunnels—and sewer water didn’t hold any tracks.

She leaped down into the tunnel, and fled with splashing footsteps through the darkness.

Larajin slipped in through one of the servants’ entrances of Stormweather Towers, still panting from her run across the city and stinking of sewer water. She’d seen no signs of pursuit—neither the Hulorn’s guard, nor the dark wizard, nor even wild elves. She was reasonably certain the Hulorn wouldn’t be able to identify her if he saw her again, since nobles tended to see only the uniform and not the servant underneath. That didn’t mean she was safe, though.