Well Of The Damned Part 2

The notion of willingly lying with a man shocked her. As the Nilmarion man Sithral Tyr, she'd never thought of men in an intimate way, yet as Cirang, the thought had come naturally. She didn't know whether she could bring herself to lie with one now.

"I did, my lord," the guard said. "She refused to wear the dress, and so the stink in her clothes follows her."

Then again, seducing him could give her the advantage of extortion to win back her freedom. It was an idea worth considering further, though now she wished she'd worn the dress. He was apparently one of those men who believed a woman had no business in men's clothing or carrying a sword, and so, regardless of her smell, he'd surely find her entirely unappealing dressed as she was.

The lordover scrunched his face in disgust. "Next time, put it on her yourself or bring her naked." He leaned back in his chair and folded his hands over his belly. "So the mighty Viragon Sister falls from grace. I remember you. You're the sharp-tongued shrew who wanted my guard towers for free. You should have let your companion do the talking."

Cirang remembered it differently. She and fellow Sister JiNese had tried to negotiate a lease on behalf of the Sisterhood for the guard towers at the city gate, which he wasn't even using at the time. He'd been rude and arrogant, refusing to hear their proposal. She'd lost her temper, it was true, but by then, he wasn't going to listen to reason anyway. An apology now would sound disingenuous.

"Now, Cirang," he said, "it's to your advantage to tell the truth. I've brought in someone who can discern your lies." Celond gestured to a man standing behind her.

He was a wisp of a fellow without a single hair on his head or face, not even eyebrows or lashes. Drab beige clothes hung on his frame like rags over a line. Even from where she stood a full two paces away, she could smell the man's foul breath. She didn't know any diseases that caused loss of hair and flesh or sour breath, but she inched closer to the lordover's desk, not wanting to chance catching it.

"If you lie, I'll tell the king," Celond said, "and that will only serve to harshen your sentence."

Cirang was unconcerned. She had two sets of memories, and both were real and accurate. She considered using only Cirang's memory because she was in Cirang's body, but those recollections were just as false for Sithral Tyr as his were for Cirang, and, in truth, she wasn't Cirang Deathsblade, despite appearances. The best approach, she reasoned, was to choose the truth that made her look less culpable for whatever crime he accused her of committing. No matter which she chose, the shadow reader shouldn't take her words for a lie because they would be true. Cirang spread her hands. "Ask your questions. I'll tell the truth. With the help of your shadow reader, you'll see I'm innocent of the charges against me. Before we begin, however, I have a complaint."

The lordover sighed. "What is your complaint?"

"Your warden tried to ravish me," she said. "I want charges brought against him and his puppet there. The two of them attacked me while I was asleep and overpowered me. If they were real men, they would take me on one at a time and see how well they managed against a woman in a fair fight."

Celond looked at black-beard. "Is this true?"

The warden feigned shock. "No, my lord. I would never. She's either mad or a liar."

"It's the truth." She raised her shackled hands and pointed at the man behind her. "Ask your shadow reader."

The scowl on the lordover's face deepened, and a red flush entered his cheeks. "Do not presume to instruct me on how to investigate my own men. I'll look into the matter. Now mind your tongue or I'll send you back to the gaol."

"It's the truth," Cirang said again under her breath, shooting the warden a dark glare. "If you dare touch me again, don't doubt you'll be the one to pay." He couldn't very well do his job if he were blinded. If she were to be taken, it would be on her own terms and by the man of her choosing.

"Don't threaten me, wench," the black-beard said with a growl in his voice.

"Now," the lordover said, "we'll start with a simple question." Celond deftly rolled a gold coin over the tops of his fingers back and forth across his hand as he studied Cirang with his icy blue eyes. "Who are you?"

Cirang scrunched her brow for a moment while she thought. The answer to his question was more complicated than he expected, and she didn't care to explain. "I'm Cirang Deathsblade, of the- formerly of the Viragon Sisterhood."

She expected to feel a p.r.i.c.kling sensation on the back of her neck, but she felt nothing. As Tyr, she'd had the ability to sense when a mage was reading her shadow. Apparently, as Cirang she didn't - yet another inconvenience of living in this female body.

"State your real name, not your epithet."

Cirang sighed. "Cirana Delusiol." She'd changed her given name when she joined the Sisterhood because it sounded too girlish to her ear.

The lordover's eyes darted to the man behind her. He knitted his brow momentarily and flicked his eyes back to her. "What part did you play in the murder of Rogan Kinshield?"

"Pardon, who?"

"King Gavin's brother."

Although the original Cirang had been present for the beheading, she hadn't helped kill him. In fact, she'd tried to reason with Ravenkind to spare the man's life. Still, she chanced telling Tyr's tale so as not to be implicated at all. "I wasn't present, and therefore I didn't witness the murder."

When Celond's eyes went to the shadow reader, Cirang started to turn in order to see him, curious whether he sensed a lie.

"Ah-ah!" Celond said. "Face forward and don't look back. When did you first meet Brodas Ravenkind?"

Because both Tyr and Cirang had known Ravenkind, she thought it best to relate the story of Tyr's first meeting because it occurred first. "It was seven years ago when I sought a cure for the illness to save my son and the other children of my village."

"Which village is that?"

Inwardly, she cringed, wishing she could take back her previous answer. If Celond was going to dig that far into her past, he might find out Cirang had no children, but to name a Nilmarion village would be confusing and suspicious. Instead, she named Cirang's birthplace of Ivarr Ness and hoped he left it at that.

"I'm not familiar with Ivarr Ness. Where's it located?"

"It's a paltry, fetid fishing village on the coast south of Delam. Is that what you wanted to talk about? Where I was born? If that's so, I'd rather rot in my cell. Gnawing my own arm off would be more interesting."

"What was that you just did?" Celond asked.

"Hmm?"

"The accent with which you'd been speaking just vanished. How do you explain that?"

Cirang's mouth dropped open. It hadn't occurred to her she'd been using Tyr's accent and speech habits when answering questions from his perspective, and Cirang's when answering from hers. She supposed it would be wiser to speak like a swordswoman of Thendylath rather than a carver from Nilmaria. "I've been trying to sound more highbrow like your daughter, Daia- oh, sorry. Dashielle, is it?" In the Nilmarion accent, she added, "Am I not doing it properly?"

His face turned redder than his hair. "You're a contemptible, common-born wench with no understanding of n.o.ble society. Keep to what you know."

"The king's a commoner," Cirang said. "Maybe he'd understand me better. Because I'm his prisoner, shouldn't I be answering his questions and not yours?"

"The king has better things to do than to listen to you prattle. Mind your tongue, or I'll conclude this hearing now and recommend you be kept in gaol indefinitely. Let's talk about the kidnappings. You brought Liera Kinshield and her three sons as well as Feanna Kinshield and her three daughters, and two Viragon Sisters against their will to..." He referred back to the paper on his desk. "...be fed to a demon. How do you justify that?"

Cirang was, indeed, guilty of those kidnappings, and all of them would speak against her if she denied it. Well, all but the two Sisters who were slain by Ravenkind's henchman and fed to the demon. "Brodas Ravenkind had given magical necklaces to the Viragon Sisters under his control. They compelled us to obey him. To remove them was to commit suicide. If he commanded me to do something, I was powerless against him."

"I understand King Gavin severed the magical tie that held your will captive, yet you still followed Ravenkind. Why?"

Cirang knew she was on unsteady ground here, but when she'd first awoken in this body, she was wearing the necklace that had bound her to him. "I don't understand it, but I believed the tie to my necklace was somehow still intact. All I can tell you is the compulsion to obey Ravenkind was too strong to resist. Every day, I tried to sever my ties with him and get away." While that wasn't true for Cirang, it was true for Tyr. During the years Ravenkind had kept Tyr's soulcele token, the porcelain cat figurine housing his soul, Tyr had worked tirelessly as the wizard's indentured servant, trying to earn his freedom back through thefts, murders, kidnappings, and anything else Ravenkind asked of him. If his soul hadn't already been irreparably fouled by the first murder he'd committed at Ravenkind's behest, the one that rewarded him with the cure for his son's illness, it surely would have been by all the other crimes.

Celond looked past her at the shadow reader. His face reddened again, and his eyes narrowed. "How did Ravenkind die?" He went around to the front of his desk, leaned against it with his backside and crossed his arms.

She had to draw upon Cirang's memories of the day, as Tyr had none. "I knew he had a secret and a plan, but I didn't know what it was until that day. Ravenkind used some kind of rune to summon a demon. When the demon killed Red, it became clear he didn't have it under control as he pretended to. He yelled at it, tried to command it, but it turned on him. I tried to escape, but it caught me..." Her throat swelled with the memory of Cirang's horrible death, choking off her words. The muscles in her back cramped in response, and the pain in her hip and shoulder flared. She coughed. "I must have got knocked out. The next thing I knew, King Gavin was squatting beside me, healing my injuries."

What she didn't mention was the smashed soulcele token on the floor, the only explanation for why Sithral Tyr's spirit now occupied Cirang Deathsblade's body.

Celond looked back at the shadow reader. Every muscle in his face and neck tensed. "How in the h.e.l.l can you not know if she's lying?" he hollered. "What kind of worthless mage are you, anyway?"

Unable to resist, Cirang turned to look at the little man. On his face was an apologetic wariness. "I'm sorry, Your Grace. Her shadow is... different from any other I've seen. I cannot read it for good or bad. It's just dark. I'm sorry."

Cirang smirked. How interesting. All this time, she could have said anything, and he wouldn't have been able to discern a lie. If only the lordover had tipped his hand earlier.

"You," Celond said, pointing to the shadow reader. "Out."

"My fee-"

"You'll receive no payment for no work. Out." Celond returned to his desk chair, picked up a quill and opened a jar of ink.

"What about my complaint?" Cirang asked. "You have to ask him about the warden attacking me."

"I don't take orders from prisoners," Celond spat. He made a brushing-off gesture in Cirang's direction. "Get her out of here. Take her back to the cell."

"Let me go before the king now," she said. "I have the right to face my accuser."

The warden latched his iron grip onto her upper arm and started to pull her towards the door.

Celond didn't even look up from his writing. "I have every confidence he'll impose a fair sentence based on my findings. I'll communicate it to you after he makes a decision."

She started to argue and struggle, to stay and convince him to set her free, but the guard held fast. "Wait," she cried at the door. It swung shut, and the only sounds remaining were her boots dragging across the polished floor as the guard hauled her back outside. Back to the wet, lonely cell and those terrible nightmares of claws and pain.

Chapter 7.

Mornings, before the doors were opened, were Gavin's favorite part of the day. The room was quiet enough he could hear himself think, and the clouds that darkened the morning sky left the room too bright to use lamps but dim enough to ease his tired eyes.

Above him, the sculpted ceiling had escaped virtually unscathed from the two hundred years the Chatworyth Palace had been Ritol's prison. The beyonder Ritol - what many called a demon - had smashed every piece of gla.s.s and furniture, ripped long furrows into valuable paintings, torn doors from hinges, and broken them into splinters. Though there were still some deep scratches and gouges in the once-beautiful marble floors beneath Gavin's stiff, new boots, they bothered him less than the starkness of the room. Without rugs or furniture, every footstep, voice, and rustle of clothing echoed.

Once the room filled with people, the constant noise would wear on him, making every problem the people brought before him that much heavier upon his shoulders. He knew he couldn't fix everyone's problems, but his goal was to make life a little easier for the ones suffering the most. Some came not to ask for aid, but to hear the hope in his voice as he took his first unsteady steps towards rebuilding his kingdom.

His personal attendant brought a cup of the hot, brown drink his wife had introduced him to and set it on the heavy writing table before him. Its aroma tickled his brain and beckoned his tongue. The chair creaked under his weight, unusually loud in the large, empty room, as he leaned forward to bring the steaming cup to his lips.

"May I bring you a fruit pastry, my liege? Perhaps a bit of duck or pork?"

"No, thanks, Quint. Just the coffee is fine for now." His kitchen servants were going to make him plump with all the food they cooked for him, and he hadn't had a real battle since he fought the last beyonder almost three months earlier. Without the daily travel, fighting or labor he was used to, he would grow weak and soft at twenty-six years old, a notion that saddened him. Though he felt good from yesterday's work along the riverbank, he needed more to keep his body firm and his reactions sharp. Maybe he'd start doing drills with the guards at dawn.

He sipped his coffee and leaned back to let his mind drift back to the things that needed doing.

The door in the back of the room creaked open. Edan came in and sat down, setting his writing supplies on the table before him. His blond hair was combed, his face freshly shaven but for the mustache that framed his ever-smiling mouth. "Good morning, Gav. I hope you don't catch your death from working in the rain yesterday. How did you sleep last night?"

The relentless rain had turned the city into a dreary, muddy mess, and its constant patter on the roof and against the newly glazed windows reminded him of the destruction it brought, the lives that were lost, and his inability to do a d.a.m.ned thing about it. The work building up the riverbank had brought sleep more quickly than usual. "Well," he said. "You?"

"Not badly." Edan nodded to Daia Saberheart as she strode in and took her seat to Gavin's left. "Though I stayed up too late reading."

"Again," Daia added with a grin. Her hair, tied in a long braid that perpetually trailed down her back, was still damp from her morning practice in the training yard. She wore the loose-fitting trousers and half-sleeved tunic that had become the customary uniform of his guards since he'd adopted blue and gold as the royal colors. They hid her bulging muscles well, though one could plainly see by the thickness of her neck and her corded forearms she was lean and strong, despite her natural beauty. She flashed her remarkably pale-blue eyes at Gavin. "Good morning, my king. Edan."

"And to you," Edan said. "I've been making good progress getting through the pile of messages." Starting almost the very day the palace was unlocked, messages had begun to pour in - requests for aid, congratulations from people he'd saved or helped over the years, offers from parents for infant daughters to wed any princes Gavin might soon father.

At first, Edan had tried to read them all as they arrived, but the king's demands on his time required him to hire an a.s.sistant, who'd separated the messages into two stacks, one marked urgent and the other trivial. Though the rate of their arrival had slowed somewhat, new messages arrived every day, along with invitations and gifts as gestures of goodwill from the leaders of foreign lands, some of which Gavin had never heard of. One day, he would need to begin inviting them to visit or accepting their invitations to travel, but he had many problems to solve and people to care for before he could entertain or enjoy a vacation. For now, all he could manage was a polite reply, penned with Edan's help, of course.

"Anything I should know about?" Gavin asked.

"The Master Scholar from the Tern Inst.i.tute of Science reports he has men who specialize in studying weather, and they've determined that the cloud patterns and continuous rain are unlikely to be naturally caused."

Gavin turned to him with a scowl. "Are you saying this rain is caused by magic?"

"That's what they're suggesting. I've never heard of such a thing. Have you?"

Gavin shook his head, troubled by the notion. If it were caused by someone, then whom? And why? Did Thendylath have a foreign enemy that planned an attack? Flooding rains would be one way to wear down its target. "We got to find out who's doing it."

"Do you have ears in the city?" Daia asked.

"What do you mean?" Gavin asked.

"My father has people all over Thendylath - merchants, craftsmen, even wh.o.r.es - agents who report rumors they hear. He pays them depending on how valuable the information is."

"Might the Lordover Tern be willing to share his information?" Edan asked.

Daia snorted. "That depends on what he can get in return, aside from the king's goodwill."

"Let's send a message," Gavin said. "Ask him."

Edan pulled out a clean sheet of paper from his stack. "Consider it done."

In the distance, the bell in the temple tower clanged nine times, marking the beginning of another long day. Two guards, women who had trained and served in the now-disbanded Viragon Sisterhood, went to the double doors and waited for Gavin's nod. The metal locks clanged, the bars were lifted, and the doors sc.r.a.ped open on squeaky hinges. A sense of dread settled on his already weary shoulders.

People who had been waiting in the rain for hours, perhaps overnight, bustled into the room, eager for a chance to plead their need to the king. Most were poor, judging from their lack of a rain cloak and the stained and threadbare clothing that clung wetly to their thin frames.

The wealthy tended to send a message asking for a private appointment, as if they were above standing in line with the common people. They failed to remember the king was himself common born and had no tolerance for the haughty att.i.tudes of the wealthy. Although Edan or his a.s.sistant brought him these messages, they went mostly ignored, though from time to time when Gavin was in a foul mood, he sent back a reply stating simply, "The king receives pet.i.tioners every morning between nine o'clock and noon."

The first pet.i.tioner of the day was a frail boy no older than ten. He shuffled forward, leaving a wet trail on the floor behind him. Water dripped from his dark hair onto his already soaked clothes. Without sufficient flesh on his frame, he shivered uncontrollably and clutched his arms to himself. He wore a shirt meant for a smaller child, and his mismatched shoes were not only different colors but different sizes as well. A rope around his waist held up his sagging trousers.

He bowed to the king and smiled. Already three of his teeth had rotted out, and the black spots visible on the remaining front teeth indicated they would be next. What got Gavin's attention most of all was the indentation on the side of the boy's skull. It looked like he'd been hit in the head with something very heavy, or maybe kicked by a horse or ox. That might explain why his right eye was turned so far to the right, only a portion of his iris showed.

Inwardly, Gavin cringed and wondered if his magic could fix this old injury. He suspected not. All the healing had already taken place. "How can I help you, young man?"

The boy's teeth chattered as he said, "Me an' my brother... I was wonderin' if mayhap... M'Lord King, some chil'ren on the street says our Lady Queen oft helps us who ha'n't any parents."

Feanna had always had a special pa.s.sion for helping orphaned children, as evidenced by her adoption of four of them before Gavin had met her. That pa.s.sion had grown since she became queen. With the power and means to help orphaned children, she had a narrow focus every day that sometimes left her own adopted children wondering when they would see her. Every child deserved a loving home, enough food to eat, and clothes to wear.

Gavin himself had been orphaned at the age of twelve, but he'd been lucky enough to have an older brother who was willing and able to take him in and feed him.

For all the others, there was the orphanage, but rumor had it the children were barely better off there than they were living on the street. In some cases, they were worse off. Stories of abuse and neglect were too numerous to discount. In fact, she was visiting the orphanage in Tern this morning to see firsthand the conditions there.

"I know it's a kindness an' I don't ask fer my own sake," the boy said. "I can take care o'myself, but my brother... He's only five years old. Our papa died afore last harvest, an' my brother wasn't even old enough to lace his boots." He hung his head and lowered his eyes. "I promised Papa I'd look after him, but I can't get us enough to eat with just my sling. He ha'n't grown any in the last year, an' his belly hurts all the time. Papa always said stealin' is wrong, but not many people throws out food."

Gavin cringed. This boy was hunting rats in the street for his food. "You're right," he said. "My wife has a pa.s.sion for looking after children like you and your brother. She's away this morning though, visiting the orphanage. Did you take your brother there?"