Gabriel looked thoughtful. "The Dark Lady indeed has her hand in this," he murmured. "M'lady," he said respectfully, "I am sorry, but I cannot assure your safe passage to Valiquet." He paused. "There is, however, a smaller holding of the Sisterhood in Principality City. If you traveled with the group, perhaps the Sisters could advise you."
Carina looked crestfallen.
"There is something more to consider," Gabriel went on. "The Library at Westmarch is renowned for its books. You may find some healing knowledge in the wizard's library."
Carina nodded slowly. "If the Library is controlled by the Sisters, perhaps I can find someone there who can help me, or get me to the Sisters in Dhasson."
"There is one more thing," Gabriel continued. "The beasts hunt the forest between here and Westmarch." Gabriel looked at Vahanian, and his gaze implied more than the mercenary cared to acknowledge. "They fear only fire. Take pitch and make torches and arrows that can be lit at a moment's notice. Only then can you turn the beasts."
"Easy for you to say," Vahanian murmured acidly.
"Thank you," Carina replied. But without seeming to pass among them, Gabriel vanished.
"Does it matter if I don't like this at all?" Carroway groused.
Berry bounded up beside Vahanian, and he marveled that after everything they had survived, the girl was actually skipping. "Do you believe that?" she exclaimed. "A real vayash moru, and he knew Jonmarc, and he didn't eat us or anything!"
The girl's open excitement brought a tired smile even to Vahanian. "Stick with us, Berry, you'll be amazed," he quipped. But the smile faded and as the fighter looked at Tris's still form.
"What are you going to do?" Vahanian had taunted not long ago. "Darken the moon? Tame the vayash moru? Raise the dead?" Tonight, Tris had done just that. Come their arrival in Principality City, that knowledge would force a choice. If, as Vahanian had sworn so many times, he truly wished for his vengeance on Arontala, committing his loyalty to the young exiled mage might give Tris a fighting chance. Vahanian looked away, not yet ready to make his decision. It might, he thought darkly, be made for him, and for all of them, if the will of the Lady was not to be denied.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Jared Drayke reined in his skittish stallion, jerking back on its bit so hard that the animal reared. Around them, the smoke from the burning village hung in a haze over the winter afternoon, and the fires that still flamed high above the remaining structures made the courtyard unnaturally warm.
"That's the last of them, Your Majesty," the captain reported with a crisp bow.
"Are you certain?" Jared asked, surveying the destruction.
"Yes, Your Majesty," the captain repeated. "There'll be no vayash moru from this village to plague the rest of us, you can be sure of that," he said with a satisfied smile.
Jared watched the thatched roof of one of the buildings give way in a shower of sparks. "Good work, captain."
"Thank you, Your Majesty," the soldier replied, bowing once more. "Orders, Your Majesty?"
"You know what to look for," Jared replied, bored with the charade he was committed to maintain. "Burn the monsters out, and any who give them aid."
The captain nodded. "Yes, Your Majesty," he answered, then turned to round up his scattered soldiers as Jared wheeled his horse and re-joined his bodyguards.
"A good day's work, don't you think, Your Majesty?" asked his companion, a baron recently come into his title.
"Just a drop in the bucket," Jared replied ill-temperedly as they rode toward Shekerishet. "You should hear the petitions that come pleading for my help," he said, watching the credulous baron out of the corner of his eye. "Filthy monsters stealing children, slaughtering livestock, laying waste to entire villages. And all with the help of that shadowy Sisterhood," he added.
"Never trusted them," the baron added fervently. "Probably spirit the children away themselves for blood rites or some such thing."
"Would you like to see one put to the test?"
"A Sister?" the baron gasped. "You've captured one?"
"I'll be interrogating her when I return to the palace. Care to join me?" Jared enjoyed the look of utter anguish on the baron's pudgy face, torn between the request of his king and his own fear.
"If it would please my king," the baron choked out finally, his jowls atremble.
Jared turned to hide the amusement that curled his lip. "You may find it... enlightening," he said, spurring his horse on faster so that his guards rushed to follow.
The baron followed Jared hesitantly into the stables, and remained as far behind as protocol would allow as they made their way down the sharply twisting stairs into the lower regions of the palace. Carved into stone with solid rock jutting high overhead, Shekerishet was built into the cliffs, and its dungeons descended into caves deep beneath the mountain. For almost five hundred years, Shekerishet watched over Margolan, a brooding, silent fortress, unbreached by any enemy.
It was to its deepest regions that Jared led the baron. This was the realm that Arontala claimed as his own. It was here that the most useful captives were brought for interrogation—those suspected of magecraft, or the unfortunates truly likely to be genuine vayash mora.
The pudgy noble was white with fear, his hands trembling so badly that he was forced to hook his thumbs in his belt. Jared admitted to himself that he had more than an inkling of the same uneasiness. A good deal more, he thought, given that he alone knew just how powerful Arontala had become, growing stronger with every wretch he tortured and killed. Arontala was adept at dampening the powers of his captives, preferring most often to drug them with wormroot—a potion that disassociated their powers.
So it was that their captive awaited them. She knelt, bound hand and foot, bent over at the waist so that her forehead nearly touched the ground, resting or asleep, or perhaps just drugged beyond the point where she could hold herself upright. Matted brown hair spilled from beneath her cowl, and the brown robe that marked her as one among the Sisterhood was torn and muddy, testimony that her capture had not come easily. Nor cheaply, Jared thought with a frown, as he recalled how many guards had died in the attempt to breech the mages' stronghold.
Arontala waited for them, greeting them with the barest nod of his head, almost one the shadows that danced along the cold stone walls in the torchlit chamber. Around them, the instruments of inquisition littered the benches and tables, stained dark with the blood of past victims. Another figure, the inquisitor, stood silent and formidable in his dark tunic. Jared saw the fat little baron swallow in fear and step backward, until the solid wall blocked his way. This one doesn't even require a hostage to know his place, Jared thought with a smile. A glance from Arontala would have him groveling for an easy death.
"Ready, Your Majesty?" Arontala asked, in the self-confident tone that Jared knew paid only lip-service to the rank and power of a mortal king.
"I am," Jared said, managing just the right note of ennui to impress the hapless baron, who hugged the wall so closely as to resemble a tapestry.
"Then begin," Arontala instructed the inquisitor, who stepped toward his subject and jerked her upright.
The baron fainted.
In all, the interrogation went on for more than two candlemarks, and even Jared was surprised at the victim's single-mindedness. Battered beyond reasonable hope, bearing the wounds of the inquisitor's craft, the Sister remained mute, fixing Arontala with a steady gaze that infuriated the dark mage.