Part 51 (1/2)
Simon rolled over onto his stomach and crawled toward the sounds. When his swollen fingers encountered something, he stopped and explored clumsily until he found the earl's s.h.a.ggy-bearded face. The blind man was blazing with fever.
”Earl Guthwulf. It's Simon. You saved me from the wheel.”
”Their home is burning!” Guthwulf sounded terrified. ”They cannot run-there are strangers with black iron at the gates!”
”Do you have water here? Is there food?”
He felt the blind man struggle to sit up. ”Who's there? You can't take it! It sings for me. For me!” Guthwulf grabbed at something, and Simon felt a cold metal edge drag painfully along his forearm. He swore and lifted the arm to his mouth, tasting blood.
Bright-Nail. It seemed impossibly strange. It seemed impossibly strange. This fever-ridden blind man has Bright-Nail. This fever-ridden blind man has Bright-Nail.
For a moment he considered simply pulling it from Guthwulf's weakened grasp. After all, how could this madman's need outweigh that of entire nations? But even more troubling than the idea of stealing the sword from a sick man who had saved his life was the fact that Simon was lost without light somewhere in the tunnels beneath the Hayholt. Unless for some incomprehensible reason the blind earl kept a torch or lantern, without Guthwulf's knowledge of this maze he might wander forever in the shadows. What good would Bright-Nail be then?
”Guthwulf, do you have a torch? Flint and steel?”
The earl was murmuring again. Nothing Simon could understand seemed useful. He turned away and began to search the cavern by touch, wincing and groaning at the pain each movement caused.
Guthwulf's nesting place was small, scarcely a dozen paces wide-if Simon had been on his feet and pacing-in either direction. He felt what seemed to be moss growing in the cracks of the stone beneath him. He broke some off and smelled it: it did not seem to be the same plant that had sustained him in Asu'a's ruined halls. He put a little on his tongue, then spat it out again. It tasted even more foul than the other. Still, his stomach hurt so much that he knew he would be trying it again soon.
Except for the various rags strewn about the uneven stone floor, Guthwulf seemed to have few possessions. Simon found a knife with half its blade snapped off. When he reached to tuck it into his belt, he suddenly realized he did not have one, nor any other clothes.
Naked and and lost in dark. Nothing left of Simon but lost in dark. Nothing left of Simon but Simon. Simon.
He had been splashed by the dragon's blood, but afterward, he had still been Simon. He had seen Jao e-Tinukai'i, had fought in a great battle, had been kissed by a princess-but he was still the same kitchen boy, more or less. Now everything had been taken from him, but he still had what he had begun with.
Simon laughed, a dry, hoa.r.s.e sound. There was a sort of freedom in having so little. If he lived to the next hour, it would be a triumph. He had escaped the wheel. What more could anyone do to him?
He put the broken knife against the wall so he could find it again, then continued his search. He encountered several objects he could see no purpose for, oddly shaped stones that felt too intricate to be natural, bits of broken pottery and splintered wood, even the skeletons of some small animals, but it was only as he reached the far side of the cavern that he found something truly useful.
His numb, stiffened fingers touched something wet. He s.n.a.t.c.hed his hand away, then slowly reached out again. It was a stone bowl half full of water. On the ground beside it, as wonderful as any miracle from the Book of Aedon, was what felt like a lump of stale bread.
Simon had the bread to his mouth before he remembered Guthwulf. He hesitated, his stomach raging, then tore a piece loose and dipped it in the water and put it in his mouth. He ate two more small pieces the same way, then held the bowl carefully in his aching, trembling hand and crawled to where Guthwulf lay. Simon dipped his fingers in the water and let some dribble into the earl's mouth; he heard the blind man swallow thirstily. Next he took a morsel of bread and moistened it, then fed it to his ward. Guthwulf did not close his mouth, and seemed unable to chew or swallow it. After a moment, Simon retrieved it and ate it himself. He felt exhaustion creeping over him.
”Later,” he told Guthwulf. ”Later you will eat. You will be well again, and so will I. Then we will leave here.”
Then I I will take Bright-Nail to the tower. That is what I took back my life to do. will take Bright-Nail to the tower. That is what I took back my life to do.
”The witchwood is in flames, the garden is burning....” The earl squirmed and twisted. Simon moved the bowl away, terrified it might be spilled. Guthwulf groaned. ”Ruakha, ruakha Asu'a!” ”Ruakha, ruakha Asu'a!”
Even from a short distance away, Simon could feel his raging heat.
The man lay on the ground, his face pressed against the stone. His clothes and skin were so dirty it was hard to see him. ”That's everything, master. I swear it!”
”Get up.” Pryrates kicked him in the ribs, but not hard enough to break anything. ”I can scarcely understand you.”
He rose to his haunches, whiskered mouth quivering in fear. ”That's all, master. They run away. Down watercourse.”
”I know that, fool.”
The alchemist had given his soldiers no directions since they had returned from their fruitless search, and now they stood uneasily. Inch's remains had been removed from the chains that turned Pryrates' tower top; they lay in an untidy heap beside the sluice. It was obvious that most of the guardsmen wished they had been allowed to cover such of the overseer as had been recovered, but since they had received no order from Pryrates, they were studiously looking anywhere else.
”And you do not know who these people were?”
”'Twas the blind man, master. Some have seen him, but none ever catched him. He takes things sometime.”
A blind man living in the caverns. Pryrates smiled. He had a reasonably good idea who that might be. ”And the other? One of the foundrymen being punished, I take it?”
”That it was, master. But Inch called him something else.”
”Something else? What?”
The man paused, his face a mask of terror. ”Can't remember,” he whispered.
Pryrates leaned down until his hairless face was only a handbreadth from the man's nose. ”I can make you remember.”
The forge man froze like a serpent-tranced frog. A small whimper escaped his throat. ”I be trying, master,” he squeaked, then: ”'Kitchen Boy'! Doctor Inch called him 'Kitchen Boy'!”
Pryrates straightened up. The man slumped, his chest heaving.
”A kitchen boy,” the priest mused. ”Could it be?” Suddenly he laughed, a rasping sc.r.a.pe of sound. ”Perfect. Of course it would be.” He turned to the soldiers. ”There is nothing else for us to do here. And the king has need of us.”
Inch's henchman stared at the alchemist's back. His lips moved as he worked up the nerve to speak. ”Master?”
Pryrates turned slowly. ”What?”
”Now ... now that Doctor Inch be dead ... well, who do you wish to ... to take charge here? Here in king's forge?”
The priest looked sourly at the grizzled, ash-blackened man. ”Sort that out yourselves.” He gestured at the waiting soldiers, marking out half of the score of men. ”You lot will stay here. Do not bother protecting Inch's cronies-I should not have left him in charge of this place so long. I want you only to make sure that wheel stays in the water. Too many important things are driven by it to risk a second occurrence of a folly like this. Remember: if that wheel stops turning again, I will make you very, very sorry.”
The designated guards took up positions along the edge of the watercourse; the rest of the soldiers filed out of the forge. Pryrates' stopped in the doorway to look back. Under the impa.s.sive gaze of the guardsmen, Inch's chief henchman was quickly being surrounded by a tightening ring of grim forge workers. Pryrates laughed quietly and let the door crunch shut.
Josua sat up, startled. The wind was howling fiercely, and the shape in the tent's door loomed giant-size.
”Who is there?”
Isgrimnur, who had been nodding during the long silence, snorted in surprise and fumbled for Kvalnir's hilt.
”I cannot stand it any longer.” Sir Camaris swayed in the doorway like a tree in a strong wind. ”G.o.d save me, G.o.d save me ... I hear it even in my waking hours now. In the darkness it is all there is.”
”What are you talking about?” Josua rose and went to the tent flap. ”You are not well, Camaris. Come, sit down here beside the fire. This is no weather to be out wandering.”
Camaris shook off his hand. ”I must go. It is time. I can hear the song so clearly. It is time.”
”Time for what? Go where? Isgrimnur, come help me.”
The duke struggled to his feet, wheezing at the pain of stiff muscles and still-tender ribs. He took Camaris by the arm and found the muscles tight as wet knots.