I stood there staring at the door as it closed and locked, knowing that part of my inaction was the result of not knowing if Sheo were ally or enemy. I still didn't know. The door had a small grille and I pressed my face against it shouted, “Sheo, he has the last King's amulet!”
His voice drifted back down the corridor, mildly irritated. “Shut up, Sumto.”
So, I thought to myself, my face pressed against the grille, now what?
108
I stood still for what seemed a long time, still a little bewildered by the ease with which I had been captured, disarmed and thrown into a cell. I hadn't been ready to act, not ready for violence. I reasoned that it was because I knew I was surrounded by hundreds of Alendi in the keep and thousands outside it. Violence wouldn't work, I had assumed. Guile and stealth were the way forward. An image of the Alendi lying on the stairs, his neck broken, flashed in my mind. Violence worked well enough for Sapphire, I thought.
“Yes,” I said to myself softly, “but I'm not Sapphire.”
“Who are you then?”
I started, banging my head on the door and spun around. I had not realized I was not alone. There were two beds in the cell and on one of them, sitting with his back against the wall and looking at me with mild curiosity, was a man of the city. He studied me with casual indifference, as though he had been waiting for a servant to bring him a plate of tidbits and was mildly puzzled as to why I had been brought instead. I could tell that he was a patron by his dress, by the fact that he was clean-shaven, and that he was looking at me in contempt and had asked the question with the mild curiosity of one who does not really care to hear the answer, as I was bound to be a social inferior and therefore beneath notice.
“Tahal Samant,” I said.
“No, that's me.” He sighed when I did not respond, judging me a man of little wit no doubt. “I asked you first.”
“Sumto Merian Ichatha Cerulian,” I said.
“The drunk,” his lips curled in mild contempt. “Just as I imagined you.”
“I came to rescue you.”
“Oh, thank the gods, I'm saved,” he gestured airily, looking to the heavens.
He was beginning to irritate me. “Orelia asked me to come and get you.”
He sighed. “How like her. And what are you going to do now you have found me? Pour me a drink? Sing me a song? Dance a drunken reel? Tell me a ribald joke and laugh uproariously at your own surpassing wit?”
That's when I lost my temper.
109
Tahal was sulking.
I gave him his due. He'd been keen enough to fight, coming up off the cot as I took two quick steps toward him, but the first kick in the face had smacked the back of his head against the wall and that had taken the fight out of him. It had been more or less a one way beating after that. I felt bad about it, but not very. I'd made sure he wouldn't drown in his own blood and then made myself comfortable on the other cot.
When he woke up he lay on the cot glaring at me, nose broken and eyes blackened. “Bastard,” he's muttered at last, the epithet mumbled through swollen lips.
“Best remember that and keep the insults to a minimum,” I'd told him.
After a very long silence, during which I stared at the door and tried to think, he said something else that I didn't catch.
“What?” I asked.
“Is that a stone in your forehead?”
I nodded. I had also been toying with the ten carat stone that was still on my finger and that Tahal had obviously not seen. I knew that Sheo would not have overlooked it, would not have left me with it by accident. I just nodded absently and he was quiet for a while, evidently thinking.
“You don't have any magic do you?” It was an accusation, tone rising in surprised mockery.
“None worth talking about.”
He snorted, then winced in pain. “Typical.”
“Shut up,” I told him absently. I was trying to think.
He was silent for a good while but couldn't let it go.
“I do. Let me attune it and I can get us out of here.”
I thought about it. It wasn't easy to think, as hung over as I was. The dogs had begun to bay some time ago, picking up my scent as I sobered. I could almost feel them getting closer, slowly getting louder. “I don't think that's a good idea.”
“Oh no,” he muttered. “Far better to stay and rot in here.”
“You tried to escape then?”
He didn't answer until I looked at him grimly and made to move.
“Yes, yes, I tried.” He sounded angry to cover his fear of me. He was in no shape to go another round and knew I had it in me to beat him bloody. “I pretended to change allegiance,” he sighed, deciding he had better explain and not knowing where to start. “There is a necromancer,” he began patiently.
“Kukran Epthel, “ I nodded.
“No. Ishal Laharek. He…” Tahal hesitated, deciding how much to tell.
“Tortured? Intimidated?”
He sighed, expression falling into tired and bitter lines. “Tried to persuade me to join his cause. Kept hammering on about freedom, the evils of the city, slavery, how he and his would put us down and make a new free society in our place. As if any society could be more free!”
He paused and I supplied a nod of agreement, though my ideas were doubtless a little better conceived than his.
“There were other persuasions. Examples of what other ways I might serve. I pretended to relent. I was afforded some measure of freedom until I tried to escape; yesterday I think, or the day before, it's hard to tell time in here.”
“What did he have you do?”
He frowned at me. “Write letters. Try and gain support for the cause among the knights. Give false information to the patrons. I doubt anyone paid much attention to them. I worded them carefully.”
I nodded. I knew what he meant. Our grammar is a little complex and the language subtle. One clue at the end of a letter would let you read it and interpret everything anew, gaining a whole new meaning.
“And?”
“Information. I told him a lot of truth, some of which will lead them to underestimate us. Numbers of our army, and so forth.”
I nodded again. The truth is that we have an army of four legions, and right now they were far away and engaged in another war. The fact that we could raise armies quickly was another matter.
“You did okay,” I told him.
His face twisted in contempt. He didn't need or want my approval. Or anyone's. He was a patron of the city. No further vindication was needed.
I let it pass and ignored him for a while, listening to the dogs baying in my head. I had really gained only one thing from what he had told me. There were more Necromancers.
“Is he a lich?”
“What? Who?”
“Never mind,” I told him.
