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Magiere slowly came up behind Leesil and laid her hand upon his back. It took
a moment to speak, but she needed his help& needed him to put his questions
aside for the moment.
"Start looking," she said, and felt his back swell with a slow breath.
Leesil pulled away from Magiere's touch without looking at her. There was no
time for her to soften his pain. She pointed to the ornate door beyond the
arches.
"Where does that door lead?"
Emêl hesitated."Darmouth's family crypt. He holds private counsels there
sometimes& with certain individuals. It is locked, but no one would ever be
held there."
Magiere nodded. She took one of the three doors in the long back wall. Leesil
took another, and Emêl the last. She found only empty cells and an abandoned
room at her passage's end. She returned to the storage area as Leesil came out
of his passage and shut its door.
"Some stores tucked in the cells," he said coldly."Nothing more. The keep is
being stocked up more than is normally needed."
She hurt for him every time he spoke.
Emêl returned with a concerned frown."Weapons, bundles of quarrels, and a
rack of arbalests."
"Maybe Darmouth prepares for a siege," Leesil said.
Emêl's silence was confirmation enough; he'd not known before now. It seemed
Darmouth kept even his closest nobles in the dark, not that they couldn't see
the turmoil of the province for themselves. And so much the worse if its
leader suddenly died.
Magiere went to the door in the storage area's far end. The room hadn't seen
use in some time. There was a wooden chair and a table with old quills
scattered upon it. A tapestry hung from an iron rod across most of the back
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wall, so faded and worn. She couldn't make out anything of its image other
than the oak leaf pattern along its tattered border. She stepped back out.
"Some kind of office," she said. "No one has used it in a long while.So now
what?"
Emêl shook his head. "It is time I bluffed my way onto the main level. We
will try the south staircase. I believe Martin and Kerev are on night duty
there, sometimes Devid, but they all know me. I can claim to be inspecting
stores in lower levels. "
"Except they never saw you come down here in the first place," Leesil said
pointedly.
"If asked, I will say I went down the north staircase," Emêl explained. "None
will be the wiser, as they will not run into the guards from that position
until off duty at sunrise."
"And what about us?"Magiere asked, as she didn't care to leave Wynn's fate in
Emêl's hands. "We just wait here?"
"For now.Stay below the landing within hearing& in case my ruse fails."
Magiere followed Emêl with Chap at herside, though she glanced back to be
sure Leesil was there. His expression was as cold and emotionless as the first
day they entered Venjetz.
They made their way up the south staircase, which was longer than Magiere had
expected. The lower levels were deep, "when they reached a landing before a
door, Magiere stayed back with Leesil and Chap some five or six steps down the
stairs. Emêl reached for the latch, and a frantic female voice rang out on the
other side.
"Devid!Are you there?"
"He's at the bridge gatehouse tonight," answered a deep male voice.
"Something you need, Julia?"
Emêl froze as the woman's voice grew louder and nearer the door's other side.
"Oh, Martin," she said. "Lady Progae and Korey are missing. So is the woman
locked up in the northside. Ventina found young Mikhail out cold in the
woman's room, and now Faris is in a fit. He sent word to our lord and
Lieutenant Omasta that the keeps been breached and then he went off on his
own. He blames Devid, and I came to warn him."
The woman's words came out in a rush. Little made sense to Magiere except for
the mention of a prisoner. It had to be Wynn. The voices continued, but
Magiere waved Emêl back down the stairs.
"We go back down," she whispered. "If Hedí and Wynn are missing at the same
time, they may be together. Hedí's note said she'd try for the lower level. We
need to be ready, in case they're followed."
"There's no time," Leesil said softly. "If Faris thinks the keep has been
breached, that means& "
Leesil paused so long Magiere became anxious. They couldn't stand about in
the stairwell, waiting to be found. He glared down the stairs.
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"Byrd," he whispered.
"What of him?" Emêl asked.
Magiere followed Leesil's gaze and saw nothing, but realization followed
quickly. She knew what occurred to Leesil. Her voice rose almost too loud.
"That two-faced fat rat used us!"
Byrd had slipped away once they'd discovered the tunnel, but it hadn't been
long enough for him to take advantage of his new information.Unless the elves
had followed them from the city.
Magiere remembered the strange flashes of light she'd glimpsed as they'd left
Venjetz signals in the dark. And now they'd letthe Anmaglâhk in. She didn't
see how the elves could pass through without notice, but it wasn't the first
time one had managed such a feat, Sgaile, the one who'd come to Bela, had
entered the barracks of sages without even Leesil realizing until it was too
late.
"Emêl, there are assassins in the keep," Leesil whispered."Elves."
The baron paled as he too looked down the stairwell.
"Byrd has planned this for a long time," Leesil added. "I thought I could
leave a warning and be gone before they made a try for the keep.But if they're
already inside& The guards are too busy searching for escaped prisoners to
stop assassins, even if they could."
"We cannot let this happen," Emêl insisted. "No one would mourn Darmouth's
death, but the raids across our borders are growing. Now he has begun stocking
the keep for a siege. If the nobles and officers go intoa frenzy , fighting to
take his place, the province will be overrun from outside."
Leesil took a stiletto from his wrist sheath. "I know."
Magiere gripped the hilt of the falchion, squeezing it tightly until her hand
ached. She hated feeling responsible for the people here. And worse was [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]