Dragon Blood h-2 Page 9

  I stared at the worn pottery pitcher.

  To survive, I'd have to throw away that control and trust my instincts. Trust that even drugged, I wouldn't fight the pain.

  There was a murmur outside my door. " … take four men this time, Jerron won't be using that hand for a month."

  Guards.

  I took the pitcher in my hand and remembered the sour taste of fear, knowing that I had to deceive two wizards into believing they'd broken me completely. Or I would lose.

  Drinking that water was one of the most difficult things I had ever done. Only losing would have been harder.

  Writhing monsters came into my cell. One had yellow snakes with black eyes growing out the sides of his head. They stared at me with dead eyes that laughed at my struggles to break free of the myriad hands that gripped me.

  The monsters took me to see the green-eyed mage. He did things to my head and to my body, things that left me shaking and nauseated, things that didn't leave so much as a bruise.

  He used magic to hurt me, but it was only pain. I knew its nature and its name; it had nothing more to teach me. When the wizard brought agony in liquid waves over my body, I accepted it and became it. My body cried out and fought, but my mind rode the fiery demon and was untouched. I had my limits. I could tell that eventually the pain would devour me, but for now I was safe.

  The wizard didn't see. He observed the surrender of my body, without seeing the patience that waited beneath.

  After a few days the demons who dragged me from cell to wizard's den and back quit being frightened of me. When I cried, they seemed sad.

  "He was a rare fighter," said one. "I'd have liked to have him at my back."

  "You want an insane man fighting at your back," bleated a little sheep—

  "Lad," corrected my little voice. "Just a boy, not a sheep." As always the pain had made the voice closer to me—if I wanted to, I could see as the voice did. Later the remnants of the session would make it difficult to hear my silent, hidden self. I blinked carefully and saw a boy, younger than Tosten.

  The monster under my left shoulder grunted. "If you think this place holds the mad, you haven't been paying attention, boy."

  There was fresh water waiting, and after the monsters left I picked it up in shaking hands,

  "Drink," urged my little voice, already growing fainter. I pressed the clay rim against my lips and drank it until the pitcher was dry.

  6—TISALA

  My aunt says that if common goals make good friends, common enemies make better ones.

  Tisala sat in the private room of the tavern and watched the door. She'd sent out a message over an hour ago, but there was no telling when Rosem would get it. She sipped at her drink and then leaned her head against the wall. The hood of her cloak shielded her eyes from the candlelight and she fell asleep.

  "I thought you were dead," said a quiet voice, waking her. "Let me see your face."

  Tisala blinked at the man standing beside her table. He was shorter than she, but broad through the shoulders. A scruffy, bright red beard hid the features of his face except for the wide nose that had been broken more than once. She pulled the hood away from her face. "Hello, Rosem."

  "Gods, girl," he said, sitting across from her. "When the house you were rooming in burned down, I waited for you to turn up for a full week. Then I wrote to your father."

  "The house burned?" she said. "Did everyone get out?"

  Tight-mouthed, he shook his head. Tisala swallowed and rubbed her face, as if that would wipe away the faces of the people she'd lived with for the past few years. Jakoven must have had the house burned to cover her disappearance.

  Rosem reached out and caught her hand, pulling it into the dim light of the tallow candle.

  "Who took you?" he said.

  She pulled her hand back. "Jakoven." She explained how she escaped and where. "So you see that I owe the Hurogmeten. Can you get me into the Asylum?"

  The Asylum was a beautiful building about a mile from Jakoven's castle. The pyrite-flecked marble of the facade made it look more like a temple than a holding pen for society's embarrassments. There was even a pond just big enough for the two swans in the small but meticulously groomed lawn.

  Tisala's flesh crawled as she shuffled in beside Rosem. It had taken him a healthy bribe to the woman whose place she took to get Tisala in again. No one would notice the switch because the cleaners were practically interchangeable. The woolen robes they wore were designed to let them fade into the background as they went about their work. They talked only to one another, never to the inmates or the guards. It was a system designed to keep the cleaners ignorant of what went on in the Asylum, but it kept the guards ignorant of the cleaners' world, too.

  They crossed the marble entrance hall quietly, keeping to the left-hand side near the velvet wall hangings. Doubtless had there been another entrance to the Asylum, they, as lowly cleaners, would have taken it; but there was only one way into or out of the building.

  Past the entrance hall they walked through the model cells. Six largish apartments, three on one side, three on the other, were displayed for perusal. Each cell was carpeted, with a padded chair and a brocade-covered bed. Furnished with nothing an inmate could hurt himself with, but with subtle luxury nonetheless. Four of the cells held actors paid to pretend to be mad, but mildly so—nothing that might disturb the family who came to see if the Asylum was safe for their old uncle or mother who had become difficult. Two were left empty in case a family wanted to visit a patient. He or she would be cleaned up and drugged or magicked into some semblance of happiness and settled into one or the other cell an hour or so before their visitors arrived. Unscheduled visits were not allowed.

  Tisala wondered how many of the people who'd incarcerated their problems in the Asylum really believed in the fiction they were presented with. How many of them, when Alizon shut the place down, would exclaim in horror, knowing that as long as they plead ignorance, no one could blame them?

  Silently, Tisala stepped shoulder to shoulder with her guide through the wooden door into the real Asylum. As always, the first thing to assail her was the smell: feces, urine, and covering it all the strong, spicy scent of the brew the cleaners were given to scrub the cells with.

  Without speaking to her confederate, Tisala turned left and entered a small room filled with buckets and mops, and grabbed one of each. Then she moved back into the hall to stand in the silent line that waited to fill their buckets.

  Not that the hall itself was silent. Shrieks and groans echoed wildly from behind the barred doors. Eventually, Tisala knew, she would even get used to that. But always, the first few minutes of it were difficult. She wanted to plug her ears, but that would draw attention. At last she filled her bucket at the stone font that was full of something Jakoven's wizards had brewed up. There was nothing magic about it, herbs and alcohol mostly, or so she'd been told.

  The guard who was in charge of the cleaners gave her the cell numbers she'd expected as he always did. She didn't know if he was one of the rebels or if it was some little trick of Rosem's, and she didn't ask.

  She trudged through the next set of doors with her bucket and mop and shuffled through the maze of halls. She'd memorized a map before the very first time she'd come here, and now she didn't even have to count hallways. She didn't pause when she passed the dead-bolted doors leading into the mage's wing where Ward must be, though she wanted to. That wasn't her assignment today.

  At long last she stopped in front of the solid door of a cell that looked just like the one next to it, except for the number over the door. Setting her bucket down, she pushed the bar up out of its cups. Several doors from her, a guard watched. As long as she didn't scream, or the patient didn't barrel out of the door, he wouldn't interfere.

  She left her mop beside the bucket and got a flimsy wooden hay rake down from the wall in the hallway and entered the cell. The little room had nothing a patient could hurt himself on, but that was the only resemblance
between it and the «show» cells near the entrance. The floor was strewn with straw rather than carpets. A hard wooden bench was attached to the wall. It was, barely, wide enough to sleep on if the patient were careful. There was no discreet chamber pot under the bed here.

  Tisala, her nose already hardened to the smell of the Asylum, raked out the foul hay. She found little difference between this and mucking out stalls—though she knew that the man who lay on the bench with his back to her didn't feel the same way. Rosem made certain that everyone who came to visit this cell knew how this inmate felt, and behaved accordingly.

  She did a good job, piling the soiled hay in the center of the hallway, where she or another cleaner would collect it later. That done, she took her mop and bucket and shut the door behind her while she wiped down the floors. She heard the dull thud as the guard barred the door, sealing her in.

  The man didn't stir, so she started to scrub the floor, ridding the room of the smell of human waste. Finally he sat up, but she didn't stop cleaning until he spoke.

  "Tisala, I was glad to hear that you weren't dead."

  She put the mop down and dropped to her knees before the bedraggled, rag-clothed, painfully thin man who sat cross-legged on the bench.

  "Your majesty." This man was the truth of the rebellion. It was Jakoven's younger brother, Kellen, whom Alizon worked to put on the throne.

  Though he was sitting, she knew from previous visits that he was half a head shorter than she, and in better times his build would have been stocky. Her father would have said "built like a wall." His hair was curly and dark with a light frosting of gray. He was barely twenty-six. He'd been fifteen when his much older brother had incarcerated him in the Asylum.

  The public story was that Kellen had been struck by a mysterious illness. Although he recovered physically, the pain had driven him mad. Jakoven built the Asylum for his brother, a peaceful resting place where the aristocracy could safely stow their unwanted members. For the past decade Kellen had been in this cell—but some people had not forgotten him.

  Kellen had once told her that one of Jakoven's wizards had gone to Menogue and received a vision that if the king killed his brother, Jakoven himself would die a hideous, painful death. So when the king decided having a charismatic younger brother was too unsettling, he created the Asylum.

  "Tisala," said Kellen again. "Rosem told me you were taken by my brother?"

  It was not really a question, but she told him her story, including as many questions the torturer had asked as she could. She told him why she'd run to Ward of Hurog—not just the danger to Beckram, but the more personal reasons as well. When she was finished, he was quiet. She waited patiently.

  "You appear well." It wasn't a casual comment, the years in the Asylum had made him distrust most people.

  "Sire, the Hurogmeten has a wizard skilled in healing. Though he could not repair all the damage, the healer's work seems to have hastened my recovery." She showed him her hands with the nails partially regrown and turned her left hand so he could see the ugly new scar tissue.

  He smiled his rare smile. In all the times he'd called her here, she'd only seen him smile once or twice. "So there is still magic in Hurog. I was told it was so, but I am glad to hear of it. We have need of all the magic we can."

  "Sire, Ward is not sworn to your cause." It hurt to make the warning, but it was her duty not to mislead him.

  "I know, Tisala, but Jakoven will take care of that for us—if his killing of Erdrick has not already done so." He paused. "I rather liked Erdrick, you know. But Ward … " Kellen shook his head, eyes lost in the shadows. "Who would have thought that his stupidity was feigned? I knew him before his father ruined him—I would not have though he had a duplicitous bone in his body."

  "Survivors can't always choose their methods," she said.

  He nodded his head, the smile dying. "I suppose I should have remembered that Ward was the only person I ever met who could beat me at chess … Speaking of which, we have a game to finish."

  Tisala stood up and sat on one end of the bench. Kellen scooted back until his back was against the wall.

  He'd carved a chessboard on the bench with a sharp rock, and from a bag he'd hidden on his person he withdrew finely carved jade and jasper chess pieces. He set them up quickly, remembering the moves that they'd made the last time she'd been there months ago. Rosem had told her that Kellen played chess with a lot of the people who visited him, remembering each game as he did hers. It gave him a hobby, kept him sane.

  They had time for three moves each before Kellen stored the pieces back in his bag.

  "I enjoy playing with an opponent as good as I," he said pensively. "There aren't many who play as well as you."

  "My father taught me," she reminded him.

  "Yesterday, Rosem said you were here looking for Ward," he said.

  "Yes, sire."

  "No one I know here has been able to find out where they have him. But there's something going on in the mage's section. Jade Eyes has been here every day, and the archmage as well."

  "I thought that's where he might be. His wizard can't find him."

  "Ward is mageborn," said Kellen. "I remember that Ward could find things that were lost." He stared at the empty board on the bench for a moment. "I'll see if we can't get you into the new section in the next few days. What do you intend to do when you find him?"

  "His wizard thinks he can get Ward out if I can find him."

  "He'll lose Hurog," said Kellen softly. "If you are not very careful, Lord Duraugh and Beckram will lose their lives over this. I can't afford to lose Hurog—I've been counting on their support."

  "If you tell me so, sire, I will tell them that I could not discover where he is." She knew as she said it that she lied—she'd never lied to Kellen before. "If Jakoven holds Ward, Duraugh will support any party that opposes him."

  Kellen thought of it for a bit but shook his head. "You can't cage an eagle for long without destroying it. Get Ward out. I'll think about how to use this; it will give me something to do. Go ahead and see what you can do to get Ward out. I'll tell Rosem to give you what aid we can." He gave a nod of his head in dismissal and she bowed and finished mopping the floor while he lay back down on his bench and turned his back to her again.

  After she'd knocked on the door to let the guard know she was finished he said softly, "I liked Ward."

  "Me, too," she whispered back. And then the guard drew the bar and opened the door.

  "Took you long enough," he said shortly.

  He wasn't supposed to talk to her so she just bowed her head and nodded. It took her five trips to the straw room to cover the entire floor of Kellen's cell with a thick layer of straw. She finished and without a look at the still man on his bench she shut the door and bolted it behind her.

  Tisala stopped at a public bathhouse to strip away the odor of the Asylum before her meeting with Oreg. It was just full dark when she got to the designated tavern, about the time she'd told him to expect; but from the empty mugs in front of him, Oreg had been there for quite some time.

  He took one look at her face and turned away to gulp down the contents of a mug.

  "I'm going back tomorrow," she murmured. "I can get into the mage's wing then. I'll find him."

  "It's bad," he said, almost to himself. "He's hurting."

  Tisala felt herself pale. She knew some of the things that went on in the Asylum—but usually they picked their victims carefully from those whose relatives wouldn't care. She'd assumed that Ward, with Lord Duraugh and Beckram awaiting audience with the king, would be safe enough—even with Jade Eye's attention.

  "We'll get him out, Oreg. I promise."

  He gave her a look and his eyes were far, far older than his face. "You are in no position to promise anything. And I am too old to believe in promises. We will do our best and only the gods know if our best will be enough. Come, Lord Duraugh will be expecting us."

  "Us?"

  He nodded. "The king is go
ing to make us wait while his 'healers' examine Ward more closely. Lord Duraugh decided to rent a house rather than stay in the allotted rooms in the Residence, since it was made clear that there wasn't enough room for Duraugh's men. We've managed to shed the king's guards and spies. As long as we're careful getting in and out of the house, you should be able to stay there. Lord Duraugh wants to keep on top of this."

  She'd been staying at Rosem's, but Duraugh's would significantly reduce the risk to Rosem. If someone looked too hard at Rosem, they might realize that the meek man who'd worked at the Asylum for the past decade was Prince Kellen's man, his body servant and guard.

  "Give me the address of Duraugh's house and I'll find it," she said. "I have to stop by and let the people I was staying with know that I've found somewhere else to stay."

  "Do you want me to accompany you?" he asked.

  She shook her head. "I'd rather go alone. The people I stayed with don't like strangers."

  He rattled off an address in a genteel district close to the Residence. "There's a park nearby with an oak tree the children climb on. Meet me there and I'll see that you get in unobserved."

  "It may take me a while," she warned.

  "No matter. Come when you're ready." He settled their tab with a few coins on the table, then left.

  Rosem's home was a fair walk from the tavern, but when she got there, she continued to walk past it. She had a pilgrimage to make.

  The buildings on the streets grew smaller and less well kept. Businesses were mostly run out of single-room dwellings without public licenses or signs. Here an old woman sold bruised fruit purchased at a discount from a regular merchant, while across the street a younger woman advertised her trade with bared breasts and fluttering eyes.

  Tisala pulled up the hood of her cloak as if she were cold and turned down an alleyway to find the place where she had lived. It had been a small building built behind a narrow two-story house that faced the street. The only way into or out of it had been through the alley, and even then it was easy to miss behind the tall, old stone structure that had once been a part of an outer city wall.