The Knave of Souls - Fantasy - Sequel to The Jack of Souls

Chapter 48 - An Alarm

AN ALARM

*

It took him a moment to realize he hadn't passed out. In the Seen, it was simply very dark under the bed. . He froze, listening as Brolli spoke in low tones, performing one of his small miracles of morale and apparently captivating the circle of women.

Harric closed his eyes and allowed his breathing and heartbeat to settle.

Now what, genius?

Arching his neck, he peered through his oculus beneath the curtain of blankets. The Kwendi women sat with their backs to him and he could just see the bottoms of their cushions and a few of their feet between them. He could not see Brolli.

The matron on the bed above him murmured and moved so the ropes supporting the mattress creaked and nudged Harric's shoulder. Brolli stopped speaking for a moment. One of the Kwendi women rose and knuckle-walked to the bed until her foot stopped inches from his face. The ropes creaked and bumped Harric's shoulder again as the woman attended to the matron, murmuring comforting words.

When the matron settled, the attendant set about tucking up the edge of the blanket where it draped over the edge of the bed, and Harric's heart kicked into a run.

No! Go away! Leave the blankets!

The curtains lifted on Harric's legs. If she stepped back she'd easily see him, and in seconds she would tuck up the blankets before his face and beyond, giving Brolli and the others a full view of his foolish face.

Absurd possibilities flashed through his mind. He could pin the tail of the blanket to the ground so she couldn't lift it. He could grab her foot and hope she thought it a prank by one of the others. He could push upward against the mattress to lift resting matron and then drop her suddenly so she appeared to convulse.

That might work.

He'd just set his shoulder against the mattress for this last plan when another glowing foot dropped before his face. Only this time it wasn't a foot. The blind, blunt end of a Web Strand quested along the edge of the bed like a fat and lazy glow worm.

As the attendant pulled up the furs before his face, Harric thrust his nexus into the strand and dove through his oculus. For an instant the Unseen crushed him like a bug beneath a boot. The next instant, the pressure vanished and he felt as light as cork in water. As the spirit world lit around him, the Web Strand hummed brightly, sending a pleasant vibration—like a thousand distant singing voices—through his being.

The attendant tucked the last of the blanket, giving Harric a full view of Brolli and the others. Before she left, she leaned down to look under the bed, as if she'd heard a rat. Her eyes scanned the floor, passing right over Harric. Then she returned to her cushion in front of Brolli.

Harric let out the breath he'd been holding. Moons, I love the Unseen.

But now he had a Web Strand stuck to his nexus, and he did not know how to detach it. Fink had never taught him that.

No matter. He'd deal with that later.

Crawling out from under the bed, he knelt beside the matron on its mattress and examined the position of her hoop. As luck would have it, her hand had slipped from it, but he could not see an easy way to lift the cord from her neck and around all her braids without waking her. If he'd brought his purse-knife, it would be easy, but he'd left it with his shirt back in the map room, worried it would be too burdensome to carry into the Unseen. Then he noticed a missing segment in the cord. Peering closer, he realized it was a witch-silver clasp, which appeared as a gap in the Unseen.

Harric leaned over the bed and identified it by touch as a hook clasp. He unfastened it, and slipped the cord from the loop where it lay. Then he waited until a moment when it seemed Brolli had fully occupied the attention of the attendants gathered around him, and lifted the hoop from the blankets.

He wasn't sure how much the hoop would add to the burden of holding him in the Unseen—or if Fink would notice it when he took over—but the Web Strand gave no sign of strain when he lifted it into the Unseen and stuffed it in his pack. The empty cord ends that lay out on the matron's chest screamed of the theft, so he tucked them under the blankets in such a way that at first glance it would look like the hoop had been tucked underneath. This process he repeated with the second matron, and if anyone noticed the blankets moving, they said nothing, probably assuming the matrons simply moved in their sleep.

Apologies, good ladies. He gave each a courtly bow. But these trinkets will prove useful to my queen in the coming war. Plus, I have a love charm to remove, and these may prove useful as bargaining chips, if it should come to that.

Turning to leave, he considered the Web Strand. The thing still clung like a leech to his nexus, radiant, light as air, and humming brightly. On second thought, he was the leech, drawing off its energy. And if that were the case, maybe there was a way for him to "un-bite" the strand.

He could not imagine how, and he had not seen what Fink did to detach it. He tried to shake it free, but only managed to send whipping vibrations up its length.

Oops.

When Fink had detached it he hadn't made a motion, or flicked it, or anything.

Harric glanced back into the hall through a gap in the hangings, but saw no sign of the imp. Rushing a hand through his hair, he cursed. He had to get away from the site before one of the matrons woke screaming for her hoop, or someone noticed there were no hoop-shaped lumps under the blankets.

Brolli stood, exchanged grimaces with the women, his visit apparently over. As he rose into the trellis and swung away, disappearing behind hanging partitions, the women dispersed, and several turned to the matrons.

Wincing at the hubbub he was probably making in the Web, he withdrew beyond the partitions into the main hall, trying to hold the nexus as still and smooth as he could. As soon as he had a view of the hall, he climbed a table and scanned for Fink. The imp was easy to spot. Waving his hands wildly and gesturing for Harric to stay where he was, Fink crow-hopped down an aisle toward him.

"Sorry," Harric whispered, when the imp arrived. "I had no choice."

Eyes darting in fear, Fink snatched the nexus. "You want to bring the Aerie down on us?"

A low boom shuddered through the place and resonated through the hall. It was like the sound of a giant's tread above, and its vibration rattled the stacks of bowls and shivered the trellises.

Every Kwendi in the room stopped moving and talking and exchanged startled looks.

Fink's eyes widened to the point Harric wondered if they'd fall from his skull. Snatching Harric's hand, he tugged and dragged him toward the exit.

They found Mima at the foot of the ramp, conversing in serious tones with several other matrons. Two of these she sent hurrying up the ramp and away as Brolli descended a trellis beside her.

They spoke, brows knit with concern. Brolli pulled a sand glass from his satchel and winced. Mima said something in Kwendi and pointed to the door. Their gazes met and a grim worry passed between them before he ascended the trellis and hurried back the way he'd come, with Harric jogging beneath him.