The White Road

CHAPTER 27 Nightrunning

SEREGIL and Alec were doubly careful as they rode back toward the villa, keeping well away from the road. It was a clear night, and the stars cast enough light for them to be seen. If they were caught now, with no master and no papers—not to mention the bag containing the grappling hook and the rope slung from Seregil’s saddlebow—then they would find themselves back in the slave market pretty damn quick.

But Illior’s luck was with them; they reached the villa lane without encountering anyone. Avoiding that, too, they flanked the hill. It took some searching, but they found the mouth of the gully that ran behind the villa. It lay at the end of a farm road, and the mouth of it was choked with rubbish. From here they could see a bit of the villa and torches burning there.

Picking their way over discarded crockery, broken tool handles, furniture, and a few rotting bed ticks, they led their horses as far in as they could, then left them tethered when it grew too narrow. As hoped, the gully brought them in back of the house directly behind the workshop. They stayed there, watching the stars wheel an hour’s time and talking in signs. Sounds came to them on the still night air—the banging of pots being washed in the kitchen, guards talking in the courtyard above their heads, the flittering of bats and yipping of foxes on the hunt.

Seregil wondered who was tending the children now. Their nursemaid, Rhania, had killed herself while helping him escape, and he still felt the loss. He’d known her for such a short time, but she was a brave woman who’d deserved better than dying with a collar around her neck.

A little after midnight, Seregil climbed the side of the gully and pitched the muffled grapple up with practiced ease. It caught on the first try with only a small scratching sound. He and Alec grasped the rope together and put their weight on it to be sure. It held.

“Here we go, then,” Seregil whispered, then caught Alec by the back of the neck and gave him a kiss.

“Just in case?”

A chill ran up Seregil’s spine. “No, talí. For luck. Wait for my signal.”

“Luck in the shadows,” Alec whispered after him as he started up the wall.

“And in the Light,” Seregil whispered back, though he hoped light wasn’t going to be a factor.

He made it easily to the top of the wall; from there it was a short jump to the low-pitched roof of the workshop. Fortunately, one of the shuttered skylights was on this side of the ridgeline. If he could get it open without alerting the entire household, it was a safer way in than climbing down to the front door.

Lowering himself onto the roof tiles, he climbed up to the ridge to scan the courtyard. There was no one there that he could see but a sleeping watchman.

He crawled back to the skylight. The shutter was six feet high and about half that across. Fortunately it was lifted by means of a pair of pulleys mounted on a post on the hinge side. The thick rope that operated it passed through an opening in the roof, and there was enough space around the rope for Seregil to see that no light was coming up from below.

He went back to the wall and hissed softly for Alec, who climbed nimbly up. Seregil signaled silently and together they hauled on the shutter rope. It opened smoothly on well-oiled hinges. The workshop below was pitch-dark, so he took a lightstone from his tool roll and dropped it in. It bounced off something and rolled under something else, but they could still see the glow of it. As far as they could tell, the place was deserted.

Alec pulled up their rope and reset the grapple so they could climb down into the shop. Seregil slid down first and retrieved the stone. Going to the cellar door, he opened it enough to see that there was no light there, either.

Alec came down and took out a light of his own. “Look,” Seregil whispered.

There were footprints in the dust around the bookcases and a chair beside a lamp stand. A few others showed that people had walked around the room and gone to the small tent at the far end. It was painted with rings of what were most likely alchemical symbols of some sort. The dust was disturbed in front of it, showing where someone had knelt down, presumably to investigate its contents.

Curious, Seregil went to the tent and pulled back the flap while Alec began searching the bookcases. In addition to a few leather bags and a gold chalice, there was a locked casket that looked large enough to hold a book like the one Alec had described.

The lock was a large one. These were often the most dangerous, being large enough to hide a nasty surprise, like a poison needle on a spring. After a close inspection, however, Seregil slid a pair of slender picks from his roll and went to work. A moment later he heard the click of several tumblers. He grinned as he raised the heavy lid, but the casket was empty.

“I don’t see it in the bookcase,” Alec whispered, joining him. “It’s not on any of the tables, either.”

Seregil showed him the empty box. “Would it have fit in here?”

“Yes.”

“Damn!”

They spent some time searching the room, but it was no use. Nothing like the book Alec recalled was to be found.

“Bilairy’s Balls,” Seregil hissed.

“Maybe some other alchemist took it.” Alec looked around. “Then again, everything else is just as I remember it. Nothing appears to have been moved.”

“Except books.” Seregil went back to the cluster of footprints in front of the bookcases. There were no empty spaces between the volumes. “Whoever it was knew what they were looking for, to the exclusion of all else. They paid no attention to anything else here, except books and that tent. You’re certain the book you saw would fit in that casket?”

“Yes.” Alec stared around into the shadows. “Wait. What about the cellar? And that locked room they kept me in down there?”

But once again, there was nothing like a book anywhere; everything was just as Alec remembered.

“Ulan?” whispered Alec.

“We’ll see. Come on.”

Seregil went up the rope first. As his head cleared the roof, however, he heard an outcry in the distance. It was coming from the direction of the gully. From what he could make out, someone had found their horses and raised an alarm.

“There, in the workshop!”

Seregil looked around to find a man balanced on a ladder placed against the garden wall to his left. He must have gone up to see what the fuss was about.

“Guards! The workshop,” the man shouted, disappearing down the ladder. “Fetch the key, someone!”

Seregil quickly climbed down the rope and found Alec already struggling with the heavy anvil. He hurried to help and they heaved the trapdoor up. People were at the door now, and someone was not waiting for the key. The door shook on its hinges as someone tried to break it down.

“Go get the lower door open,” Seregil whispered.

Alec disappeared down the rickety wooden ladder bolted to the side of the narrow shaft.

Seregil took a deep breath and grasped the ring on the underside of the trapdoor. It was tricky, pulling the heavy door in such a way as to not get brained by it. The only way was to throw all his strength into it, then hang on tight to the ring as the whole thing crashed back into place. If the ring came loose, it was a long way down.

But it didn’t, and he found the ladder with one foot and clambered down after Alec.

Alec was at work on the large iron lock with two of his heaviest picks and had it open as Seregil’s feet touched ground. Dashing into the tunnel beyond, they closed the door. Alec jammed one of the picks into the workings of the lock, then bent the long end flush with the door. “That should slow them down a bit!”

They set off down the dank passageway at a run. By the time they reached the ladder at the far end of the tunnel, they were both winded. Seregil climbed, gasping, up the ladder and pushed the trapdoor up just enough to peek out into the stable. He barely noticed the horseshit that fell down around him, though he heard a muffled curse from Alec below.

All was dark and quiet, except for the sound of snoring coming from a stall near the door. They couldn’t count on the stable boy being drunk, but at least he was asleep. Seregil levered himself out of the shaft, heedless of the fresh horseshit covering the floor. At least it deadened sounds well.

There was no time to find saddles. As soon as Alec was up, they closed the trap, kicked some shit over it, then each took a horse and led it out by the bridle. The useless stable boy never stirred as they passed. Once outside, they hurried away on foot, away from the farm and away from the road. They’d just reached the apple orchard behind the barn when they caught the sound of horses in the distance, coming on at a gallop.

There was no time for subtlety. Springing onto their horses’ backs, they gathered the reins and kicked their mounts into a gallop, heading north and hoping the riders wouldn’t hear them over the sound of their own horses.

After several miles, they reined in and listened. There was no sound of pursuit.

“I think we got away,” Alec said, still scanning the starlit landscape behind them.

“Only just.”

They circled back and reached the copse just before dawn. Micum and Rieser were both awake and waiting for them in the cold campsite.

“There you are!” Micum exclaimed, clearly relieved. “I was just about ready to go looking for you.”

“Did you find it?” asked Rieser.

“No,” Seregil told him, sliding off his lathered horse. “Someone’s taken it. We saw plenty of footprints in the dust, so someone’s been in there since Yhakobin’s death.”

“Or maybe the wife knew about it and moved it—or sold it,” said Alec as he dismounted. “Or it was Ulan. I say we start there.”

“Rather than go back and search the house?” Rieser asked.

“It’s going to be a bit tougher to get back in there now,” Alec told him.

“You raised the house, did you?” asked Micum. “Did anyone get a good look at you?”

“No,” said Seregil. “At least I don’t think so. I saw one man, but it was dark enough that I couldn’t make him out, so hopefully he couldn’t see me any better. And it was only for an instant.”

“What does this khirnari have to do with the book?” asked Rieser.

“The alchemist told me himself that he did business of some sort with Ulan,” Alec explained.

“And our wizard friend Thero and I tracked down a slaver in a Virésse port who claimed Ulan ransoms slaves back from Plenimar, presumably with Yhakobin’s help,” Micum explained.

“Not to mention the fact that Ulan knows of Alec’s mixed blood,” Seregil added. “Since he’s involved with the slavers that Micum and Thero spoke with, it’s not a great stretch to think that he knows something of the rhekaro—perhaps was even having Yhakobin make one for him. Add that to the fact that he’s here himself, and as far as I’m concerned that’s a pretty strong set of coincidences pointing to the possibility that he knows about the book, too.”

“Then we must go back to the city?” asked Rieser.

“Looks that way. But at least we have a few new horses to trade.”

“The two you stole aren’t on the bill of sale, though,” Micum pointed out.

“We’ll have to lead them away a bit and let them go,” Alec said, stroking his stolen mare’s sweaty neck. “That should throw off any trackers, if we can get into the city before anyone catches up with us.”

Micum tapped the heel of his boot against the ground. “Still frozen hard. You couldn’t have left much of a trail, and not one easy to follow in the dark. We’d better go now, though, just in case.”

“We’ll use the north gate this time, I think,” Seregil said.

“You don’t want anyone who saw us today wondering why we’re back so soon,” Rieser observed.

Seregil gave him a crooked grin. “You’re catching on.”

“So what are we going to do now?”

“Find Ulan and see if he has the book,” Seregil told him. “That’s most likely going to involve the sort of work we did tonight.”

“How do you break into a ship?”

“The same way you do a house, only wetter.”