Codex Alera Book 1 - Chapter 9

Isana woke to the sound of feet pounding up the stairs to her room. The day had pa.s.sed and night had fallen while she slept, and she could hear the anxious rattle of rain and sleet on the roof. She sat up, though it made her head pound to do it.

"Mistress Isana," gasped a breathless Beritte. She tripped in the darkness at the top of the stairs and stumbled to the floor with a gasp and an unladylike curse.

"Lamp," Isana mumbled, forcing out a familiar effort of will. The spark imp in the lamp flickered to life on its wick, giving the room a low golden glow. She pressed the heels of her hands to her temples, trying to sort out her rushing thoughts. Rain pounded, and she heard the wind gust into an angry howl. Lightning flickered outside, followed swiftly by an odd, bellowing thunder.

"The storm," Isana breathed. "It doesn't sound right."

Beritte gathered herself to her feet and bobbed in a hasty curtsey. Holly-bells, the scarlet flowers just beginning to wilt, dropped petals to the floor. "It's horrible, mistress, horrible. Everyone's afraid. And the Steadholder. The Steadholder is here, and he's badly hurt. Mistress Bitte sent me to fetch you."

Isana jerked in a sharp breath. "Bernard." She pushed herself out of bed, rising to her feet. Her head throbbed with pain as she rose, and she had to rest a hand against the wall to keep herself from falling. Isana took a deep breath, trying to still herself against the rising panic inside her, to steel herself against the pain. Dimly, now, she could feel the fear and anger and anxiety of the rest of the people in the steadholt, rising up from the hall below. They would need strength and leadership now, more than ever.

"All right," she said, opening her eyes and forcing her features to smooth out. "Take me to him."

Beritte rushed out of Isana's room, and the woman followed her with short, determined steps. As she stepped out into the hallway, the anxious fear flowing up from the room below began to press more firmly against her, almost like a cold, damp cloth that clung to her skin and began to seep inside her. She shivered, and at the top of the stairs paused for a moment, forcing the cold sensation away from her thoughts, until it no longer pressed so tightly against her. The fear would not simply go away, she knew, but for the moment it was enough that she distance herself from it, make herself functional again.

Isana then walked down the stairs, into Bernardholt's great hall. The room was fully a hundred feet long, half as wide, and made entirely of bedrock granite long ago raised from the earth. The living quarters above had been added on, wood beam and brick construction, but the hall itself was a single shaped piece of stone, wrought by long and exhausting hours of furycrafting from the bones of the earth. Storms, no matter how fierce, could not damage the great hall or anyone sheltered within it or the only other such building in the steadholt-the barn where precious livestock lived.

The hall was crowded with folk. All of the steadholt's residents were there, representing several large families. Most were gathered around one of the several trestle tables that had been set out earlier in the evening, and the food that had been in preparation since before dawn had been taken to the tables and laid out upon them. The mood of the room was anxious-even

the children, who normally would have been screeching and playing games of chase as the storm gave them a virtual holiday, seemed subdued and quiet. The loudest voices in the hall were tense murmurs, and every time the thunder roared outside, folk would fall silent, looking toward the doors of the hall.

The hall was divided. Fires burned in the hearths at either end. At the far fire, the Steadholders had gathered at a small table. Beritte was leading her toward the other, where Bernard was laid. Between them, the holdfolk had gathered in separate groups, close together, with blankets laid by for sleeping on, should the storm last through the night. The talk was subdued- perhaps due to the confrontation earlier that day, Isana thought, and no one seemed to want to be too near either of the fireplaces.

Isana strode past Beritte and toward the nearer fire. Old Bitte, the steadholt's furycraft teacher, was crouched down beside where they had laid Bernard out on a pallet near the fire. She was an ancient, frail woman, whose long white braid hung to the small of her back. Her hands shook as a matter of course, and she couldn't walk far, but she was still confident, her eyes and her spirit undimmed by the years.

Bernard's face had the stark pallor of a corpse, and for a moment Isana felt her throat tighten with terror. But then his chest rose and fell in a slow, ragged breath, and she closed her eyes, steadying herself again. He was thickly covered with blankets of soft wool, except for his right leg, which was smeared with blood, pale, and uncovered. Bandages, also soaked in blood, had been wound around his thigh, but Isana could see that they would need changing shortly.

"Isana," Old Bitte croaked, her voice gently ragged with the roughness of her years. "I've done all I can for him, child. Needle and thread can only do so much."

"What happened?" Isana asked.

"We don't know," Bitte said, sitting back. "He has a terrible wound on his thigh. Perhaps a beast, though it could be a wound from an axe or a blade. It looks like he managed to put a tourniquet on it and to let it out once or twice. We may be able to save the leg-but he lost so much blood. He's unconscious, and I don't know if he'll wake up again."

"A bath," Isana said. "We need to draw him a bath."

Bitte nodded. "I've sent for one, and it should be here in a few moments."

Isana nodded, once. "And get Tavi over here. I want to hear what happened to my brother.'

Bitte looked up at Isana, dark and keen eyes sad. "Tavi didn't come home with him, child."

"What?" Fear flooded her, swift and chill and horrible. She had to fight to push it aside, covering the effort by pulling tendrils that had escaped her braid back from her face. Calm. She was a leader in this steadholt. She had to appear calm, controlled. "Didn't come home with him?"

"No. He's not here."

"We've got to find him," Isana said. "This is a furystorm. He'll be defenseless."

"Only that poor idiot Fade would go out into the storm at all, child," Bitte said in an even tone. "He went out to make sure the barn doors were sealed and was the one who found Bernard. The furies watch over fools and children, they say. Perhaps they will help Tavi as well." She leaned forward and said, lower, "Because no one here can do anything about it."

"No," Isana insisted. "We have to find him."

Several of the men of the steadholt struggled down the stairs, carrying the big copper bathtub. They set it down on the floor nearby and then began, with the help of some of the children, to relay buckets of water to the tub from the spigot on the wall.

"Isana," Bitte said, her voice frank, almost cold, "you're exhausted. You're the only one I know who has a chance of bringing Bernard back, but I doubt you'll be able to do even that, much less find Tavi in this weather."

"It doesn't matter," Isana said. "The boy is my responsibility."

Old Bitte's hand, warm and surprisingly strong, gripped her wrist. "The boy is out there in that storm. He's found shelter by now, Isana. Or he's dead. You must focus on what you do now-or Bernard will be dead as well."

The fear, the anxiety pressed closer, in tune with the terror rising inside of her. Tavi. She shouldn't have let herself become so distracted with the preparations, shouldn't have let Tavi deceive her. He was her responsibility. The image of Tavi, caught in the storm, torn to shreds by the windmanes, flashed to the front of her thoughts, and she let out a quiet sound of frustration, helplessness.

She opened her eyes to find her hands shaking. Isana looked at Bitte and said, "I'll need help."

Old Bitte nodded, but her expression was nervous... "I've spoken to the hold women and they'll give you what they can. But it may not be enough. Without skilled watercrafting, there would be no chance at all of saving him, and even with it-"

"The hold women?" Isana snapped. "Why not Otto and Roth? They're Steadholders. They owe it to Bernard. For that matter, why aren't they caring for him already?"

Old Bitte grimaced. "They won't, Isana. I already asked."

Isana stared at the old matron, startled. After a moment, she asked, "They what?"

Bitte looked down. "They won't help. None of them."

"In the name of all the furies, why not?"

The matron shook her head. "I'm not sure. The storm has everyone nervous-especially the Steadholders, worrying about their folk at home. And Kord has been working that for everything he can. I think he's hoping to stop the Meet."

"Kord? He's in from the barn?"

"Aye, child."

"Where's Warner?"

Bitte grimaced. "The old fool. Warner nearly flew at Kord. Warner's boys took him upstairs. That girl of his talked him into a hot bath, since they've not had a chance to bathe since arriving. Otherwise, they'd have been at one another's throats an hour ago."

"b.l.o.o.d.y crows," Isana snarled, and rose to her feet. The men and children filling the tub blinked and took a cautious step back from her. She flicked a glance around the hall and then said, to Old Bitte, "Get him in the tub. They'll help my brother, or I'll shove those Steadholder chains down their cowardly throats." She turned on one heel and stalked across the hall toward the trestle table at the head of it, where several men had gathered-the other Steadholders.

Behind them at the fire were Kord's sons, the mostly silent Aric and his younger brother, the handsome-and accused-Bittan. Even as Isana crossed the hall, she saw Fade, his hair and tunic soaked with cold rain, his head ducked down, try to slip close to the far fire. He reached for the ladle standing in a pot of stew hung by the fire to stay warm.

Bittan scowled up at the slave from his seat immediately beside the fire. Fade moved a bit closer, his branded face twisted into a grotesque parody of a smile. He bobbed his head at Bittan nervously, picked up a bowl, and then reached for the ladle.

Bittan spat something to Aric and then said something harsh and sibilant to Fade. The slave's eyes widened, and he mumbled something in reply.

"Cowardly dog," Bittan spat, letting his voice rise. "Obey your betters. You stink, and I'm sitting here. Now get away from me."

Fade nodded and picked up the ladle, his motions hurried.

Aric spun the slave around by his shoulder and threw a short, sharp blow at his mouth. Fade let out a yelp and stumbled back from the fire, ducking his head repeatedly and shuffling off away from the young men.

Aric rolled his eyes and looked at Bittan, scowling. Then he folded his arms and leaned against the wall on the other side of the stone fireplace.

Bittan smirked and called after Fade, "Idiot coward. Don't come back." He bowed his head again, mouth tilted up at the corners in a cruel smile, contemplating his folded hands.

Thunder shook the air outside, and Isana braced herself against the accompanying flood of startled fear that flowed through the room. It washed over her a second later than she would have expected it, and she remained standing still, her eyes closed, until it had pa.s.sed.

"That's crow fodder," snarled one of the men in the group around the table, the curse ringing out into the silence after the thunder had pa.s.sed. Isana drew herself up short, a.s.sessing the Steadholders before she confronted them.

The speaker, Steadholder Aldo, continued, his hazel eyes fastened on Kord, his shaven jaw thrust out pugnaciously. "The holders of this valley have never stood idly by while one of the others needed help, and we're not going to do it now."

Kord tilted his grizzled head to one side, chewing on a bite of meat he had spit on his knife. "Aldo," he rumbled. "You're new to your chain, aren't you?"

Aldo stood over Kord, but the diminutive young man hardly topped the seated Steadholder by a head. "What's that got to do with it?"

"And you're not married," Kord said. "You don't have any children. Any family that you know what it's like to worry about."

"I don't have to have a family to know that you two," he spun and jabbed a finger at the other two men in the group, Steadholder's chains around both their necks, "should be on your feet and helping Bernard. Roth, what about when that thanadent was after your pigs, eh? Who hunted the thing down? And you, Otto-who tracked down your youngest when he went missing and brought him home safe? Bernard, that's who. How can you just sit there?"

Otto, a rounded man with a gentle face and thinning hair looked down.

He took a breath and said, "It isn't that I don't want to help him, Aldo. Furies know. But Kord has a point."

Roth, a spare elderly man with a shock of white hair to go with his darker beard, took a pull from his mug and nodded. "Otto's right. There's more rain coming down than the valley usually sees in an entire autumn. If the valley floods, we will need every bit of strength we can save-to protect all of our lives." He frowned at Aldo, his expression drawing wrinkles to his brow that time had not. "And Steadholder Kord is also correct. You are the youngest here, Aldo. You should show more respect to your elders."

"When they whine like whimpering dogs? Should we do nothing because you might need your strength?" He turned and spat toward Kord. "Convenient for you. His death would end the Meet and you'd be off the hook with Count Gram."

"I'm only thinking of everyone's good, Aldo," Kord rumbled. The s.h.a.ggy Steadholder split his lips into a yellow-toothed smile. "Say what you want of me, but the life of one man, no matter how fine, isn't worth endangering everyone in the valley."

"We've ridden out furystorms before!"

"But not like this," blurted Otto. Still, the man didn't look up. "This is... different. We haven't seen one this violent before. It makes me nervous."

Roth frowned and said, "I concur."

Aldo stared at them both, his hands clenching in frustration. "Fine," he said then, his tone low, hard. "Which one of you wants to be the one to tell Isana that we're going to sit on our hands and do nothing while her brother bleeds to death on the floor of his own hall?"

No one said anything.

Isana stared at the men, frowning, thinking hard. As she did, Kord pa.s.sed his mug back to Aric, who refilled it and pa.s.sed it back to him. Bittan, evidently recovered from his near-drowning, sat with his back against the wall, his head down, one hand half-shielding his eyes as though his head hurt. Isana thought of his cruel treatment of Fade, and hoped that it did.

But something struck her odd about the Kordholders, about the way they had arranged themselves, or carried themselves, in the midst of the storm. It took her a moment to pick it out. They seemed more relaxed than the rest, less concerned about the battling furies outside the hall.

Carefully, she lowered her defenses, just by a bit, in the direction of Kord and his sons.

None of them were afraid.

She could feel nothing, with a casual reaching out of her senses, but a mild tension from Aric.

Thunder flashed again, and she knew she would never be able to raise her defenses again in time. She struggled to anyway-and again, the tide of terrified emotion came a beat later than she expected, enabling her to hold steady against it once more.

She found herself swaying on her feet, and then a hand gripped her arm, another her elbow. She looked up to find Fade standing beside her, holding her steady.

"Mistress," Fade said, ducking his scarred head in a clumsy little bow. The blood on his cut lip had begun to dry, blackening. "Mistress, Stead-holder hurt."

"I know," Isana said. "I heard that you found him. Thank you, Fade."

"Mistress hurt?" The slave tilted his head to one side.

"Fine," Isana breathed. She looked around at the families, huddling together and listening to the fury of the storm outside. "Fade. Does this storm frighten you?"

Fade nodded his head, his expression absent, eyes focusing elsewhere.

"But you're not very afraid?"

"Tavi," Fade said. "Tavi."

Isana sighed. "If anyone can find him in this, it's Bernard. Brutus can protect him from the windmanes, and Cyprus will help him find Tavi. Tavi needs Bernard."

"Hurt," Fade said. "Hurt bad."

"Yes," Isana said, absently. "Stay near for a moment. I may need your help."

The slave grunted, without moving, though his distant expression left Isana uncertain that he had heard the command. She sighed and closed her eyes, reaching out to touch her fury.

"Rill," Isana whispered. She focused intently on an image of Bittan in her mind, picturing the young man as he sat against the wall. The water fury was a ripple along her spine, across her skin, as she focused her concentration- weary, but willing. "Rill. Show me."

Fade abruptly stepped away from her, mumbling, "Hungry." Isana watched him go, frustrated but unable to divert much attention from directing Rill. Fade edged toward the fire, looking at the Kordholders apprehensively,

creeping toward the stewpot again, as though he expected to be driven away from it with another swift blow. Then he stepped out of her immediate view.

Isana sensed the fury's movement through the moisture-heavy air, brushing against her and then flowing outward. Isana felt the fury's motion almost as though it was her own arm reaching out toward the young Kord-holter against the wall.

Rill touched on Bittan, and a jolt of vibrant fear lanced back to Isana through the fury's contact. She let out a gasp, her eyes widening, finally understanding what was happening in the room.

Bittan was working a firecrafting on the room, sending out a subtle apprehension to almost every person in it, heightening their fears and drawing their anxieties to the forefront of their thoughts. It was a subtle working- more subtle than she would have thought possible from the young man. He must have called his fury into the fire near him, which explained why he had claimed the s.p.a.ce in front of it as his own.

With the realization, a wave of dizzying weariness pa.s.sed over Isana. She lost her balance and stumbled forward, to her knees, lowering one hand to the floor to balance and lifting the other to her face.

"Isana?" Aldo's voice came to her clearly, and talk in the room dropped away to a near silence as the folk of Bernardholt turned their attention to her. "Isana, are you all right?"

Isana looked up to find Kord's sons looking straight at her, their expressions startled, guilty. Bittan hissed something to Aric. Aric's face hardened.

She looked up to tell Aldo about Bittan's firecrafting-and suddenly found that she couldn't push the air out of her lungs.

Isana lifted her head, eyes sweeping around in a sudden panic. She struggled to speak, but couldn't, her throat unable to expel a breath-or, she realized a moment later, to draw it in.

People crowded around her, then, Aldo leading the other Steadholders over to her with quick, fearful steps. The diminutive man picked her up and said, "Help me. Someone help!"

"What's wrong with her?" asked Roth. "Good furies, she's terrified."

Voices mingled and blended around her in a worried buzz. She struggled, reaching out for Rill, but the water fury only clouded around her, pressing close, in nervous reaction to Isana's own wild fear. As her helplessness increased, her mental defenses eroded, and the fear of those in the

room flooded over more and more thickly as they pressed closer. She lost track of who was speaking and reeled in confusion.

"I don't know. She just fell. Did anyone else see?"

"Mistress?"

"Isana, oh great furies, she and her brother both-this is an evil day!"

Isana struggled to look around, pushing away Otto as he tried to open her mouth, to look down her throat and see if she was choking.

"Hold her!"

"Isana, calm down!"

"She's not breathing!"

Kord came over through the crowd, but Isana looked past the big Steadholder-to where his sons still sat by the fire, unnoticed. Bittan had looked up at her, and a cruel smile had twisted his handsome mouth. He clenched his fingers abruptly into a fist, and Isana felt an accompanying spike of blinding panic flash through her, driving away thought for a moment.

Beside Bittan sat Aric. Aric, Isana thought. A windcrafter. The quiet son of Kord wasn't looking at her, but he had his fingers bridged together and his expression was set in concentration.

Darkness swam in front of her eyes, and she struggled to mouth words to Aldo, who held her, his eyes wide with panic.

"Isana," he breathed. "Isana, I can't understand you."

Everything wavered, and Isana found herself laying on a table, the world spinning above her. Kord arrived, a sudden odor of stale sweat and roasted meat. He looked down at her and said, "I think she's panicked. Woman, calm down. Don't try to talk." He leaned over her, his eyes narrowing. "Don't," he muttered softly, eyes malicious and threatening. "Don't try to talk. Calm down and don't talk. Maybe it will go away."

Isana tried to push Kord away, but he was too big, too heavy, her arms too weak.

"All you have to do is nod," he whispered. "Just be a good girl and agree to let things go. It doesn't have to be this way."

She stared up at him, feeling her own helplessness and fear wash through her, felt herself losing control in the face of that terror. She knew that Bittan was making the fear worse, making her more afraid, but that bit of knowledge seemed to have no particular relevance before the wild, animal panic. If she did not give in to Kord, she was certain, he would stand by and let her die.

Fury flashed through her, then, a sudden fire that evaporated the fear.

Isana raked her nails at Kord's eyes. He drew back from her before she could do more than leave a set of small, pink weals on his cheek, his eyes sparkling with anger.

Isana forced herself to sit up as her vision grew darker and darker. She pointed a finger, weakly, toward the fire.

Everyone turned to look-and Aldo's eyes widened in sudden comprehension.

"b.l.o.o.d.y crows!" he snarled. "That b.a.s.t.a.r.d of Kord's is killing her!"

There was a general gasp. Confusion spread rapidly through the room, the heightened emotions already present making it flare up like a wildfire through dry gra.s.s. Everyone started crying out at once.

"What?" Otto looked back and forth. "Someone's what?"

Aldo turned and started shoving his way toward the fire. Then he yelped and fell forward, clutching at his foot where the stone floor had suddenly folded up and over it like a heavy cloth. The young Steadholder whirled and barked a word at the heavy wooden bench beside the table. The wood shuddered and then twisted, snapping with the brittle sound of old bones, sending splinters as long as daggers flying toward Kord.

The big Steadholder ducked toward Isana, away from the splinters, though one of them had opened his cheek in a sudden spilled sheet of scarlet blood. He lifted his fist and drove it toward her.

Isana rolled off the table and felt the big Steadholder's blow shatter the heavy oak like kindling. She crawled away from him on her hands and knees toward the fire and the man whose fury was smothering her.

She saw Fade at the fire, staring at all the confusion with a baffled expression, still half-bent over the pot, a ladle in one hand. He gabbled something and turned to flee, whimpering high in his throat. His feet stumbled over Bittan, as the young Kordholder stood to his feet, knocking the young man down. Fade let out a screech and fell to one side, steaming stew flying from both bowl and ladle.

It splashed all over Aric's frowning face, drawing a sudden scream of surprised agony from the slender windcrafter.

Isana drew in a shocked breath, even as she felt the wild confusion of emotion in the room vanish as suddenly as the shadow of a bird flying by overhead. People looked around for a moment, unbalanced by the sudden release from the firecrafting, backing toward the walls.

"Stop them!" Isana gasped. "Stop Kord!"

Kord let out a furious roar. "You barren b.i.t.c.h! I'll kill you!" The big man turned, and Isana could all but feel the stirring in the earth as he drew upon his fury for strength, lifted the broken trestle board of the table as though it did not weigh as much as a grown man, and swung it toward her. Aldo, his foot twisted and dragging, hauled himself to his feet and threw himself at Kord's legs. The smaller Steadholder hit the larger man low, dragging him off balance and sending the trestle plank sailing wide of Isana, cracking into the wall. Kord kicked Aldo away, as though he weighed no more than a puppy, and turned toward Isana once more.

Isana struggled to crawl away, calling Rill to her with desperate intensity. She heard a confusion of sounds around her, men cursing, a door banging open. The air suddenly shrieked, and a gale flung itself down the chimney and hurled a cloud of red-hot embers at Isana. She cried out, falling flat onto the earth, waiting for the pain to begin.

Instead, she felt them swirl up and past her, and Kord let out a sudden howl of dismay.

"There, Kord, you lying slive!" cackled Steadholder Warner, from atop the stairs. He stood naked and dripping with water, a towel wrapped around his waist, soap in his wispy hair and running down his skinny legs. His sons stood behind him, swords in hand. "It's about time someone taught you to respect a lady! Take them, boys!"

"Father," Aric called, through the confusion. Warner's sons leapt down the stairs. "Father, the door!"

"Wait!" Isana cried. She started to stand. "Wait, no! No bloodshed in my house!" A weight hit her from behind and pressed her ungently to the ground. She struggled and squirmed, to find Fade on top of her, firmly pressing her down.

"Fade!" she gasped. "Get off me!"

"Hurt Fade!" the slave gabbled, and hid his face against her back, sobbing, clinging to her like an overlarge child. "No hurt, no more hurt!"

Kord let out a bellow and caught the first of Warner's sons, as he threw himself at the big Steadholder. Kord grasped the young man by the wrist and belt and threw him across the room to crash hard into the wall. Kord rushed toward the doors to the hall, Aric and Bittan hard on his heels, and the folk of Bernardholt scattered from the Steadholder's path. He slammed into one of the doors and tore it from its hinges, letting in a howl of cold wind and half-frozen rain. He vanished into the night, his sons following.

"Let them go!" shouted Isana. So sharply did her voice ring out that Warner's other two sons drew up short, staring at her.

"Let them go," Isana repeated. She wriggled out from beneath Fade and looked around at the hall. Aldo lay gasping and hurt, and Warner's son slumped unmoving against the wall. At the other end of the hall, Old Bitte crouched over Bernard's pale and motionless form, an iron poker from the fire gripped determinedly in her withered fingers.

"Isana," protested Warner, coming down the stairs, still clasping his towel with one hand. "We can't just let them leave! We can't let animals like that go unstopped!"

Weariness and the pounding in her head met with the backwash of Isana's terror, of the panic at the sudden and vicious violence, and she began to shake. She bowed her head for a moment and willed Rill to keep the tears from her eyes.

"Let them go," she repeated. "We have our own wounded to attend to. The storm will kill them."

"But-"

"No," Isana said, firmly. She looked around at the other Steadholders. Roth was standing to his feet, slowly, and looked dazed. Otto was supporting the older man, and sweat shone on his mostly bald pate. "We have wounded to see to," Isana told the two men.

"What happened?" Otto stammered. "Why did they do that?"

Roth put a hand on Otto's shoulder. "They were firecrafting us. Isn't that it, Isana? Making us all more afraid, more worried than we needed to be."

Isana nodded, silently grateful to Roth, and aware that as a watercrafter, he would sense it. He smiled at her, briefly.

"But how," Otto said, his tone baffled. "How did they do it without one of us sensing it?"

"My guess is that Bittan built it up slowly," Isana said. "A little at a time. The way you can heat bathwater a little at a time, so that anyone inside doesn't notice."

Otto blinked. "I knew you could project emotions, but I didn't know you could do it that way."

"Most of the Citizenry who know firecrafting will do it to one degree or another, during their speeches," Isana said. "Nearly any Senator can do it without really thinking about it. Gram does it without knowing all the time."

"And while his son did it to us," Roth mused, "Kord fed us that nonsense

about a possible flood-and we were worried enough to think that it sounded reasonable."

"Oh," Otto said. He coughed and flushed pink. "I see. You came down late, Isana, so you were able to notice it. But why didn't you just say something?"

"Because the other one was smothering her, dolt," growled Aldo, from where he lay. His voice carried the stress of the pain from his injured foot. "And you saw what Kord tried to do to her."

"I told you all," Warner said with a certain vicious satisfaction in his voice from his position on the stairs. "They're a bad lot all around."

"Warner," Isana said wearily. "Go get dressed."

The spare Steadholder looked down at himself and seemed to become aware of his nakedness for the first time. He flushed, then muttered something to excuse himself and hurried from the room.

Otto shook his head again. "I just can't believe someone would do that."

"Otto," muttered Aldo. "Use your head for something besides a dressing mirror. Bernard is hurt, and so is Warner's son. Get them into a tub and craft them better.'

Roth nodded decisively, visibly gathering himself together. "Of course. Steadholder Aldo," he inclined his head a bit, to the younger man, "was right all along. Isana, I offer you my full support in your crafting, as does Otto, here."

"I do?" Otto said. "Oh, I mean. Yes, of course. Isana, how could we have been so stupid. Of course we'll help."

"Child," Bitte called from beside Bernard's still form, her voice high, sharp. "Isana, there's no more time."

Isana turned to look at Bitte. The old woman's face had gone pale.

"Your brother. He's gone."