Halfway along a dim lane, her mother’s spell began to fade a little. This allowed Clariel to think, instead of simply running. She paused to look up at the stars to get her bearings. But there were no stars. The clouds hung dark and low, and a light rain was falling, less wet than the tears already on her face.
There was a great hue and cry behind her, so she went the opposite way from the noise, running not quite so fast, saving her strength. There were people on the streets, as there always were, but few now, for it was full night. They parted before her, as soon as she was close enough to be seen in whatever light fell from house windows or street lanterns. No one wanted to get in the way of a bloodied, crazed-looking woman cradling an unsheathed dagger to herself as if it were a precious jewel.
Eventually, the compulsion faded completely. Clariel came to her senses, or what passed for senses, given the hammerblow of her parents’ murder. She was shivering with shock, her hands ached, her feet were cut and bruised, her soft shoes in ribbons. She looked around wildly, seeing only the dark outlines of tall houses, relieved here and there by the glow of lamps and Charter lights. She was in a residential street, a good one, judging from the size of the houses near her, but she had no idea which one.
Or where she should go. At least it was quiet. Wherever her pursuers were, they were not close. Perhaps she was no longer even pursued …
Clariel looked around again, studying the skyline, the patterns of lights. Then she saw it, sticking up above the other houses: the darker, taller shadow of a tower. One of the towers of the old wall.
Perhaps even Magister Kargrin’s tower. This could be … it looked like it was … the Street of the Cormorant … Somewhere she had run to unwittingly, her deeper self knowing where some hope of safety lay.
The gold and a disguise, thought Clariel dully. Now I have to go, for there is nothing … no one left for me here.
Nothing but death and trouble.
Limping, she walked up the street, keeping to the shadows, crossing the road when a particularly well-lit house cast too bright a light out its many windows.
Near Kargrin’s tower, she slowed, pushing the shock and grief away, forcing it deeper, till some other time. Kilp might well have Kargrin watched, she thought, as a known opponent. She might have to fight her way to the gate, and if it was at all possible, it would be best that Kilp not know where she was until she could be disguised and on her way again. Clariel had no idea how long a Charter Magic disguise would take to cast. Hours? She hoped it was quick, or there would be little chance for her to escape.
Three houses up and across the street, she hid by the front door of a darkened house, and watched the gate of the tower. It was only when she tasted salt in her mouth that she realised it wasn’t just rain on her face. She was crying, the tears flowing for the father who, though he had disappointed her, she had always loved; and for her mother, whom she must presume to be dead.
But she could not afford tears, not yet at any rate. Clariel wiped her eyes with her sleeve, and watched again. There was no movement on the street. All was quiet, and most of the nearer houses were dark. She could not wait longer, because any search would undoubtedly come here. Valannie knew everywhere she went, and doubtless she would have already told Kilp’s minions where to look.
Clariel crossed the road at a run, went straight to the small portal in the gate and knocked on it as quietly as she dared. Even so, the knocks sounded very loud in the quiet, dark street. She gripped her dagger harder, ignoring the pain in her hand, tensing for a sudden attack from somewhere. An arrow, or a quarrel from one of the windows opposite, someone leaping out from that doorway –
A head appeared suddenly through the door, thrust through the iron-studded timber. Clariel shrieked and jumped back, before she realised it was the Charter sending that had opened the door before. It looked at her, its eyes a bright concentration of Charter marks.
‘Kargrin,’ croaked Clariel. ‘I need to see Kargrin. Let me in. My name is Clariel. Please let me in!’
The sending’s head withdrew. At the same time Clariel heard running footsteps on the street, hobnails sharp on the paving stones. She turned and saw half a dozen guards in Goldsmith livery approaching, long wooden staves in their hands rather than more deadly weapons.
‘Drop your dagger!’ commanded the leader.
The sound of bolts being withdrawn came from within the tower. Clariel backed up against the door and hefted her dagger. The guards approached warily, staves at the ready.
Clariel stamped backwards with her foot, hoping the door would budge. But it didn’t move.
‘Kargrin!’ she screamed, as loud as she could. But he didn’t answer, and no help came. She couldn’t fight six guards, not without help, and the berserk fury that might have made the difference felt far distant, banished by the shock of her parents’ death, or suppressed by the after-effects of Jaciel’s spell.
The door groaned open. Clariel turned to duck through it, and in that instant, the guards struck. Several blows rained down on her back and shoulders, sending her sprawling across the threshold of the gate. She tried to crawl through, with the sending just standing there, doing nothing but holding the door open. She felt her legs grabbed as the guards dragged her back out. She twisted around and recognised Linel, who mouthed the word ‘sorry’ even as he was treading down hard on Clariel’s hand to make her drop the dagger, pain stabbing through her half-healed wound.
Too much pain, and too much endured in too short a space of time. Clariel made one last, violent attempt to rise up and spring through the door, but she was held fast. Her arms were brought behind her back and roped together before she was picked up and carried away from her potential refuge, limp and no longer struggling. For a moment she gazed up at the night sky, crowded in by the buildings on the street. The sky seemed darker than it should, till she realised she was swimming in and out of consciousness, and then the darkness was complete.
Magister Kargrin, flying above in the shape of a beggar owl, granted by wearing a Charter skin, saw the commotion on his street from afar, but despite the powerful beating of his grey wings, he could not arrive in time to tip the balance in Clariel’s favour. For a moment he did consider a rescue, but there were not only the six guards who had taken Clariel, but another dozen coming up the street. Some were Charter Mages, and there would not be time to argue rights and wrongs, so any aggressive magic he used would be countered or negated by these others, as was the nature of Charter Magic. And he could not physically fight more than four or five guards, on a good day, with luck.
Luck had not been noticeably with him so far that night. He had been spying on the Governor’s House, watching the Trained Bands muster, for he knew the soldiers were not being gathered by Kilp to counter a riot in the Flat, since it and all other parts of the city were quiet. He’d seen Clariel come bursting out of the gate, but had lost her in the alleys, and then had lost precious time going to her home, not guessing she would go to his own tower.
He was wondering whether he should follow the guards taking Clariel back to the Governor’s House, and attempt a rescue there, or do something else, when he caught the sound of a distant horn blast.
The great baritone boom of the Charter-Magicked horn that hung on chains atop the gatehouse of the Palace.
The Palace was under attack.
Kargrin let out a screech that was the owl equivalent of violent swearing, and swooped up to catch the wind that would speed him to the northwest, to defend the King. He took one last, yellow-eyed look at Clariel down below, a forlorn figure carried on the shoulders of the guards like a casualty of battle.
They would not harm her, he thought. Kilp needed Clariel, or her mother. Surely, they would not harm her …
chapter eighteen
unwanted climbing practice
Clariel came back to consciousness in slow starts, like a fish rising to a baited hook with slow circling and tiny nibbles, till at last it struck and she, just like that hooked fish,
was hauled out of comforting dimness and into harsh light.
She was on a low truckle-bed. Her hands were freshly bandaged, as were her feet, and she had on only the innermost of her long silk tunics, three layers of gold and white removed.
The bed was in a small, circular room. Clariel sat up and looked about and corrected that observation. It was not a room, as such. It was either the base of a small, round tower, or a circular pit. The walls stretched up thirty feet, and ended in a slanted glass ceiling, which was currently admitting a lot of light, so the sun must be nearly directly overhead. Which meant it was late morning, or early afternoon, presumably the day after –
‘The day after my parents were murdered,’ whispered Clariel. But she could not continue with that thought, or dwell on it, because if she did she thought she might never pull herself together again. Instead, Clariel slid out of the bed and stood up to take stock of her limited surroundings. There was the bed, a simple chest at its foot, and a small table that from the characteristic scorch marks on its top had come from a goldsmith’s forge. There was an earthenware pitcher on the table, with a tin goblet next to it, and a lidded chamber pot under the table.
She couldn’t see any entrance. There was no door or hatch, in wall or floor.
All in all, it was clear she was in a prison. A moderately comfortable prison, with sunshine above, a bed and everything to meet modest needs. But nevertheless a prison.
It was even shaped a little like a bottle, Clariel thought, remembering Aziminil and her plea not to be caught. The lower part of a bottle. Narrow and tall, with the walls pressing in and the air still and stagnant …