‘T .ast time you gave me half a pinch of that cursed powder in a bottle of wine and that stifled my wizardry for a day or so,’ spat Dev furiously. ‘It feels as if you’ve poisoned every mageborn instinct in me this time. You might as well have cut off my stones and made a real zamorin of me.’
‘It’s keeping you alive,’ countered Kheda resolutely.
‘I’m starting to think I’d rather be dead,’ Dev muttered with passion. ‘You’ve no idea what this is like.’ I had no idea it would make you this vulnerable and wretched.
No,’ Kheda agreed with reluctant pity. ‘I’m still sorry for it, though I’d do it again ‘
‘So the dragon couldn’t eat your handy decoy.’ Dev’s face twisted with bitterness.
‘I wanted to save your life. I didn’t know it would still be able to follow you. At least it has no more than a vague idea where you are now.’ Kheda went to unfold Risala’s letter. ‘You just have to keep taking the drug until Velindre gets here. It shouldn’t be too much longer—’
‘What happens then?’ Dev sat upright, horror on his drawn, dirty face. ‘What happens when the dragon gets a sniff of Velindre’s power?’
‘I don’t know.’ Kheda looked to make sure there were no curious faces at the cave mouth. But she’ll surely be a far more tempting morsel than Dev in this sorry state.
‘I won’t be able to do a thing to save her.’ Dev stared at him, distraught.
‘Risala says she has the secrets we need.’ Kheda raised the crumpled paper slowly. ‘Won’t she be able to save herself?’
Won’t she be able to save both of them, and the boat they’re on and all its crew? What will the domain make of the dragon destroying the vessel I’ve been telling everyone all our hopes are riding in?
‘My lord.’ Ridu appeared at the mouth of the cave, cold baked fish wrapped in lilla leaves in his hands. ‘You must eat, both of you.’
Kheda nodded and got to his feet. ‘You have to try, Dev,’ he insisted in an undertone.
‘I don’t see much point,’ muttered the mage miserably. ‘I probably won’t keep it down.’
‘There must be crush-root growing somewhere.’ Kheda looked at Dev with growing concern. ‘That could help.’ He caught Dev’s arm as the wizard stumbled over a rock. The sharp sound startled the loals. The whole group fled in moments, leaving nothing behind but damp overturned rocks and the echo of their shrill cries.
What kind of a sign might that be? I don’t know and I’m starting to think I don’t really care.
He took more of the wizard’s weight on his arm and they made their way to the darkness of the cave.
Chapter Seventeen
The harsh Aldabreshin tongue was the first thing Velindre heard as her senses returned. Slowly she realised that the darkness was no longer complete. There was light beyond her eyelids. She was lying somewhere, on her side. There was something soft beneath her but no coverlet.
Velindre tried to open her eyes but found her lashes sticky and crusted. She tried to raise a hand to rub at then but her movements were clumsy and awkward. She rolled on to her back but any further movement was beyond her. The air was stale and stifling, unexpected heat oppressive.
Someone caught her hand and placed it carefully on her midriff ‘All right, don’t fret.’ She felt a hand on her neck, checking her heartbeat.
She recognised that voice. It was the girl who had drugged her. Velindre tried to twist away but her body wouldn’t obey her.
‘Lie still,’ soothed the girl.
Risala, that was her name, Velindre remembered. Further recollection fled at the shock of a cool, damp cloth on her forehead. The magewoman could do nothing but submit as her eyes were gently cleansed. She lay rigid with growing anger as memory returned. She had been here for some unfathomable length of time. She recalled struggling to wake, time and again, tormented by thirst. The water she had been given to drink had thrust her back into the abyss of unconsciousness.
‘There you are,’ concluded Risala with satisfaction.
Velindre blinked and squinted, her blurred vision clearing to reveal that she was lying in a cramped, window-less room. Bright sunlight edging through a narrow door fell on the wooden walls and floor. She did her best to scowl at Risala, who was kneeling beside her.
‘What did you do to me?’ Her accusation was a harsh whisper. Her mouth was dry and foul.
‘I’m sorry.’ Risala’s apology was perfunctory. ‘We couldn’t afford any more delay—still less risk you refusing to come at all. Not when we knew you had the lore we need.’ She slipped an arm behind Velindre’s shoulders to raise her up, bringing a wooden cup to her lips.
Velindre found some strength returning to her nerveless arms but not enough to resist. Not enough to slap this bitch’s face. She resolved to bide her time and sipped at the liquid in the cup. Citrus juice cut through the stale-ness in her mouth and she licked at her rough, dry lips. ‘So you enslaved me?’ She would have said more but a fit of coughing seized her, leaving a burning ache in her chest. Not exactly.’ That seemed to amuse the girl, to Velindre’s impotent fury. Risala tugged at a cushion to prop the magewoman’s head up and sat back on her heels. ‘Don’t worry. The soporific will soon wear off
Velindre looked down towards her feet, wondering when she would be able to move. Then she would be gone from here as soon as she could find some breath of air to work with. She looked at her legs, distracted by the realisation that she was now dressed like her captor. Both of them wore loose trousers of undyed cotton reaching to mid-shin and sleeveless tunics in faded red. Velindre’s skin was startlingly pale compared to the Aldabreshin girl’s rich brown complexion.
Her thoughts wandered. She’d never worn anything red, not since she’d been a child. Her parents had dressed her in neutral colours until their acute observation might determine the nature of any inborn affinity she might possess.
She dismissed the irrelevance angrily. She must still be half-stupefied. No matter. She’d be gone from this inadequate prison just as soon as she could gather her wits and her strength. Her stomach gurgled noisily. ‘I’m hungry,’ she said with as much dignity as she could muster. ‘Am Ito be starved as well as enslaved?’ Risala smiled with that infuriating amusement again. ‘I’ll get you some food.’ She disappeared through the open door.
Velindre looked after her, trying to make sense of the noises beyond. With a jolt that was half-surprise and half-fear, she identified the slap of water against a ship’s hull and the creak of oars and ropes. A pipe was sounding out a regular rhythm somewhere in the pattern of light and shade beyond the door and she could half-hear, half-feel the rush of the sea running beneath the wooden floor of her prison. Idle conversation floated over the boards above her head.
With a further shiver she realised that she had no way of knowing what was being said. She might be fluent in every tongue spoken from the polite debates of Toremal’s enlightenment to the haphazard archives of Solura’s robust feudalism, but that would do her little good here. She’d never had cause to learn anything of Aldabreshin languages or dialects. These uncouth barbarians had never produced any scholarship worth noting. Nor would they, as long as they persisted in their superstitious fear of magic. That superstitious fear would be the death of her, if she didn’t get away.
Velindre realised that more than disquiet was coursing through her. With an unpleasant crawling sensation, warmth was replacing the numbness in her legs. Bracing her hands against the flower-embroidered quilt beneath her, she managed to sit upright against the planking. She froze at the abrupt realisation of another violation, far worse than the loss of her clothes: her hair had been cropped so short it barely covered the nape of her neck. She ran a shaking hand over her head, unbidden tears starting to her eyes. Risala reappeared in the doorway, a covered bowl in her hands. ‘Weep if you want to,’ she invited with sympathy. ‘It’s the soporific. It distresses some people.’