I didn’t miss Carnades’s change in status, and neither did anyone else.
Nath smiled wide enough to show his fangs. “Oh, yeah.”
Raine doesn’t have any magic. Oh hell.
It had to be what everyone was thinking, but no one was saying. We didn’t have time to dawdle for questions.
Tam’s anti-magic not only destroyed the Magh’Sceadu; according to Jash, it also wiped our trail clean. Unfortunately, the sudden absence of four Magh’Sceadu wouldn’t go unnoticed.
That would tell whoever was monitoring that particular Magh’Sceadu pack that the hunters had become the prey. That would most definitely get the Khrynsani’s attention. Not to mention the flare of magic that had gone up courtesy of Mychael. None of it could have been avoided. Though at least for the moment, there was no sign of pursuit.
Nath set a fast pace and we more than kept up. With Tam still trying to literally get his legs back underneath him, and Mychael and Jash all but carrying him, Imala took it on herself to keep Carnades motivated to keep moving. By the time we took our second and all-too-brief break, Tam was walking on his own and hadn’t wanted to stop, but Mychael insisted. If he hadn’t, I would have. Tam was leaning against the tunnel wall, the stone at his back barely keeping him upright. His head was back and he was panting.
Imala started toward him, but Tam waved her away.
“I’m fine,” he managed.
“Bullshit.”
“Don’t… touch.”
His skin would still be crawling from the spell’s contact; the last thing he wanted was anyone touching him, especially anyone he cared about.
“If you fall flat on your face, may I touch you then?” Imala’s voice dripped with sarcasm.
Tam gave her a weary smile. “Please do.”
Regor’s sewers were like the sewers in every other city I’d ever been in. I’d ended up in pretty much all of them, and they all looked the same: brick or rough-hewn stone usually covering dirt. Sometimes you got lucky and a ledge had been built on one side for maintenance workers to keep them from having to go wading. The maintenance workers in this section of Regor weren’t lucky. No ledges. On the upside, there also wasn’t anything to wade through. The stone pavers beneath our feet were stone dry.
“At least it’s not wet,” I noted. “And relatively rat free.”
“This section isn’t used much anymore,” Nath replied. “The walls aren’t in the best shape.”
“Yeah, I’ve been trying to ignore that.”
“A new system has been built either parallel or above these. The rats don’t have much to eat down here, so they stick to the new system.”
“So do the Khrynsani,” Jash added.
“Vermin with vermin,” Prince Chigaru muttered. “How appropriate.”
The tunnel sloped gradually upward. I saw light up ahead, streaming down through a barred grate on the street above. Nath held up his hand. We stopped.
Tam’s brother crept forward in complete silence. There was street debris hanging down from the opening. We must have been just beneath street level.
Nath turned and gestured to Tam, who moved soundlessly to stand beside his brother. He stood there looking out; Nath was watching him. A slow smile creased Tam’s lips, though it was sad and bitter. Never taking his eyes from his brother’s face, Nath gestured the rest of us forward. I had to stand on tiptoe, but I saw what Tam was seeing.
It was a street, residential, from the look of it, palatial from the grandeur of the houses along it. But it was one house in particular that had Tam’s attention. Talon came quietly to stand beside me. He didn’t need to stand on tiptoe.
In Mermeia, the only things comparable were palazzos along the Grand Duke’s Canal. I knew that being the goblin queen’s chief mage would have its perks, but dang.
Tam’s house was four stories, constructed of pale stone and marble that still gleamed even after who knew how much neglect. An ornate black wrought-iron fence surrounded the property, with a gate opening onto a circular gravel carriage drive and front garden. Overgrown now, it still showed signs of having been elegant once.
“It’s beautiful, Tam,” I said quietly.
A ghost of a smile played across Tam’s lips. “Yes, it is.”
What wasn’t so beautiful was the boarded-up windows, broken shutters, and a sign nailed to the front doors that I couldn’t quite make out.
“What does it say?” I asked.
“Tamnais Nathrach, traitor to his king and his people,” Nath said.
“What’s the small print?”Nath waved a dismissing hand. “Property of the king, trespass under pain of torture, death, dismemberment, etcetera, etcetera.”
“And that’s where the Resistance is holed up?” I asked. “Uh, isn’t that a little obvious?”
“The Khrynsani have searched it more than once,” Jash said. “And they continue to keep it under occasional surveillance, which is why we’re never seen on the surface. Sometimes the best place to hide is the most obvious.”
Nath flashed a huge grin. “We could hardly call ourselves the Resistance if we didn’t spit in the king’s eye every chance we get.”
Words had been painted on the boards covering the windows. I could see those just fine. “Murderer” and “traitor” were some of the nicer things written about Tam on his own home. The others made my blood boil.
Tam was completely unruffled—at least on the outside.
“Khrynsani penmanship?” Mychael asked.
“Unfortunately not,” Imala said. “The king has organized our youth into a feeder organization for the Khrynsani. You join or your loyalty and that of your entire family is suspect. Sathrik sees it as a way to get new blood from the old families. Young minds, easily influenced. Young men and women who are held up by Sathrik as the models of our next generation. The king honors them, promises them power, and fans the flames of hate and bigotry—then handsomely rewards those who act on his poisonous ideology.”
All signs of playful humor were gone from Nath’s eyes. “More than a few of them have turned in their own parents as traitors to the crown.”
“And people think I’m trouble,” Talon muttered.
The tunnel to Tam’s house was guaranteed not to attract attention. Why disguise a doorway with magic when muck worked even better? The door looked like the rock around it; no seams indicated that anyone had ever thought of cutting a door through there. Then there was the icing on the disguise cake. Slimy and smelly icing. Icing no one would want to get near, never mind touch, at least not with bare hands. And to ensure that the slime and fungus growth didn’t stand out, an entire section of the tunnel, both walls and ceiling, had been seeded with the furry fungus, gradually fading as it got closer to where the sun shone faintly from a grate in the street overhead.
The door opened into a wine cellar. Though there wasn’t any wine here anymore; I guess that just made it a cellar.
Tam looked around, bemused. “Been drinking much, Nath?”
“On the king’s orders, Sarad Nukpana confiscated all of it when you left,” Nath said. “As well as anything else he liked. The house has been pretty much stripped.”
Tam didn’t say anything, but I could see the additional items added to the tally of what Tam planned to take out of Sarad Nukpana’s hide.
Racks lined the stone walls and ran in rows everywhere else. They were all empty. One rack had been made to hold casks. Likewise empty, except for a few smashed ones on the floor. The cellar was lit by small torches. Looked like we were expected. There were fine crystal lightglobes suspended from the ceiling, but they were dark. I guess even small light magic could attract Khrynsani patrols.
The torchlight was barely bright enough to reach the floor, but it was enough to see that the floor was covered with broken dark glass. Wine bottles. Someone had tried to clear a path to the stairs on the far side of the cellar, plies of glass shards mounded on either side of a path of exposed flagstones.
An elderly goblin stood motionless at the end of one of the racks. His clothes were dark and formal, and looked like a uniform of sorts. They had been carefully mended, and were as neat and proper as they could be, but they had clearly seen better days.
The old goblin stood straight and dignified.
Tears stood in Tam’s eyes. “Barrett.”
The butler indicated the wooden tray he held holding a single bottle. “The king appropriated the silver and the crystal, and either took or destroyed all of the wine. However, I managed to hide a case of your favorite port. I didn’t think you would be inconvenienced by partaking from the bottle.” He bowed slightly from the waist. “Welcome home, Your Grace.”
Tam crossed the floor to Barrett in three strides, taking the port in one hand, and wrapping his other arm around the old butler’s thin shoulders, pulling him into a hug.
Barrett’s voice was muffled against Tam’s chest. “Sir, this is unseemly.”
“Yes, it is,” Tam agreed, his voice thick with emotion, hugging him harder.
A voice came from the shadowed stairs.
“Will I get such a warm greeting?” said a low, feminine voice from the shadows. She stepped forward, the torchlight illuminating a silken sheet of hair so black that it had blue highlights. Her dark eyes shone with a sharp wit and keen intelligence. The goblin woman held herself with exaggerated dignity, as if she was uncertain of the reception she was going to receive—or undecided on what reception she was going to give.
Tam released Barrett, but other than that, he didn’t move.
“Mother,” he said quietly.
Chapter 7
“I am glad you are home.”
“Are you?”
“I am.” Her half smile came tinged with sadness. “Though if I were not, could you blame me?”
Tam didn’t hesitate. “No.”
No one said anything for one long and very awkward minute. At least. Anything I could have said wouldn’t even have put a knick in the tension in that air, so I kept my mouth shut. And yes, it is possible.