Skymaster, p.14
Skymaster, page 14
part #3 of The Guildmaster Saga Series
The glasswing followed, its vast form casting clear shadows on the golden sand. Rainbows glimmered around him and he threw darts of air backward, in the direction the shadow came from, not daring to stop, look, and aim. He knew to duck when the thin shadow, cast by sunlight through the glass wings, gathered as it prepared to pounce. The huge beast landed hard in the sand and bounced up again, shaking itself as if confused. A few steps later, Rasim skidded to the earth beside one of the blade-user's bodies, seizing her sword and rolling to his feet again. This time, he waited until the glasswing gathered itself, waited for it to drop from the sky like a weight, and drew on stone witchery to throw a tremendous splash of sand into the air as the glasswing fell.
It flung itself backward, seeing danger too late, but sand turned to stone, catching its many feet just above the first joints. The glasswing opened its mouth, hissing poison air at Rasim, who batted it away with a weak gust of wind. Then he slipped behind the glasswing's head so it couldn't try to poison him again, and sent more sand upward to catch its bashing tail. Its wings beat harder, trying to buffet him, but he was inside their range now, and knelt at the glasswing's shoulder, putting a weary hand on its head.
The touch almost hurt. The beast was completely mad, all war and fury within. It felt like magic fighting itself, just as Rasim and Karluk had fought with magic. Rasim could imagine a different kind of glasswing, a creature called by magic that merged instead of fought itself. That kind of glasswing might not have been driven mad by the witchery that had drawn its attention. He thought that perhaps a real Skymaster, or maybe even a master healer, could have helped this raging beast out of its insanity back toward wholeness. Maybe even he could have himself, if he had the time.
But he didn't have time, and as it was, the creature was a danger to everything around it. Gods forbid the Moranese should capture it, somehow. At best, it would be forced to fight in the arena. At worst, it would be used as a weapon against their enemies. Regret lanced through him, but, as with the sea serpent, he didn't see that he had a choice. With the serpent, he'd been fighting for his own life, which made its death a little easier, but if he left the poor glasswing alive, its future would be even worse than its brief existence had been. He didn't want to kill anything, but at least this creature wasn't human.
"I'm sorry," Rasim said helplessly. "You should have been beautiful, and we broke you. I can't fix you, and I can't let them use you. I'm so sorry."
He rose, and, teeth bared with effort, smashed his sword through the glasswing's fragile neck.
The blade slammed to the earth in a rush of air, and the glasswing was gone as if it had never been.
17
Rasim, numb to the bone, stood for what felt like a long time, staring sightlessly at where the glasswing had been. Sounds beyond his own battle finally began to filter through, and he raised his gaze, aware of what was happening around him for the first time in minutes. People fled the arena, no longer caring that the danger was past. There would probably be ringmasters coming for him soon, a thought which jostled him into motion. He had meant to free everyone in the arena, and had succeeded in bringing a monster into their midst instead. Only a few people had been freed, and others had died, because of that. But if he didn't go now, he wouldn't be able to do anyone any good at all. He was already exhausted, and if he didn't lose himself in the crowd, he would be easy to recapture.
His feet made the decision for him. Rasim found himself running, joining the last throngs of people fleeing the arena. He had no magic left to hide his presence with, no way to re-awaken the sandstorm, and he wore a slave's collar and no shirt. No one was going to help him and everyone would try to turn him in.
There were merchants just outside the gates, selling beer and wine and food. Some sold linen parasols to help keep the day's heat off, and others offered loose-woven tunics that would fend off both sun and rain. There were dozens of other things for sale, but most of them were being hastily dragged back into carts and shut away as thousands of people poured from the arena. Rasim, with an apologetic mutter, snatched one of the tunics as he ran by, and stole a floppy straw hat from another cart as he was jostled past it. He fell twice, deliberately, making a mess of both tunic and hat so they didn't look new, and caked his hands with as much pale dust as he could to change his skin color a little. His bare feet were already lighter than usual from the coating of arena sand. It was as much disguise as he could manage quickly.
The crowd swept along swiftly for a considerable distance beyond the arena gates. Rasim kept his head down, judging their direction by his sense of where the river was. It grew stronger at times and faded at others. Both filled him with hope, because at least he could tell where it was. But he didn't want to go straight there, because the Moranese might expect him to try to return to the Waifia. Too late, he realized he shouldn't have instructed anyone else to go there, either. Agnet and Bayar's height and coloring made them both incredibly distinctive, if in completely different ways.
A ripple of discontent moved through the crowd as shouts arose. The general forward motion slowed a moment and Rasim peered under someone's arm to see a scuffle being subdued. He was moving again before he fully understood what he'd seen, and when he did, hope jolted through him.
A free man was bearing a slave to the ground, squashing the fight out of him, but the slave's expression had been anything but defeated. He'd looked willing to try again, like he was going to fight for his own freedom. And there were more scuffles like that breaking out. It had only been minutes since people had started running from the arena, and already slaves were in rebellion. They'd been given hope.
They needed more.
There had to be a way for Rasim to offer it. There had to be, but running across the city was no time to think of a plan. He caught scent of a marketplace and ducked to the side, following another part of the crowd through the narrow streets. Apologizing under his breath with each theft, he stole lemons from one stall, waxed bags of honey and oil from two others, and then, actually succumbing to hunger, a stick jammed full of roasted lamb and onions from a fourth. It was almost full dark now, making it easier to slip into the shadow under a set of rickety wooden steps so he could shove the lamb into his mouth undisturbed. It was tender and rich, and he licked his fingers gratefully before scooping a generous glob of honey into his mouth as a sweet treat before tending to the other things he'd stolen.
With a scoop gone from the honey, there was a bit of room to spare in its waxed bag. Rasim mixed as much oil into it as he could. His hair, already unwashed and dirty from living in the slave pens, had stayed in its loose curls, but lay flatter than usual, more like Desimi's or Kisia's. Their hair remained resolutely black no matter what, but his, before it had been cut journeyman-short, the ends had been dark gold from exposure to the sun and salt. People had commented on it as a mark of his Northern blood and right now, it offered a chance to disguise himself better.
Making a face at the mess, he dabbed oiled honey through his hair, rubbing it into every curl and strand. When his whole head was slick and sticky with the mess, he made as much of a bun of it as he could, and put his hat on top of it. He would have to get to the river or a trough before morning to rinse it out, but a night's worth of honey bleaching would lighten it a little more. Then he'd use the lemon juice and hope for a brilliantly sunny day to brighten it. He'd need days to get it truly yellow-gold, or even to achieve the reddish coppery tones that llyaran hair often turned when bleached, but it was at least a step toward making himself look like someone else.
None of which would matter if he couldn't get the slave collar off before dawn. Stomach full and hair attended to, Rasim slipped back into the crowd, now looking and listening for the sounds of a forge.
Instead he found soldiers, city guard in imposing black uniforms that let them come out of the increasing dark like wraiths. They shoved their way through the crowd, cuffing anybody who looked twice at them and grabbing slaves by their collars to examine them. Rasim's palms ached with sudden fear. He tried to remember to breathe as he fell into step with a man whose belly was large enough to provide cover for someone twice Rasim's size. As the guards swung around to have another pass at the market square, he stepped nimbly in front of a woman with ample skirts and several children. Heart in his mouth, he glanced back and couldn't see the guards from where he was. That meant they couldn't see him, either, which somehow did nothing to settle his stomach. Hungry as he'd been, he wished he hadn't eaten the lamb, which now felt heavy and greasy in his belly. Trembling with the fear of a mis-step, Rasim left the square by slipping from one group to another, trying not to stay with anyone long enough to draw attention.
He didn't even dare slump against a wall while he decided what to do next. He'd be investigated for loitering, and his slave collar would be discovered. Cursing under his breath, he chose the darkest alley he could find, and followed it away from the market.
In Ilyara, a forge would be near a stream or water mill of some sort, in case of fire. Here in Moran, where the buildings were made of wood and there weren't witches everywhere to keep things from burning, that seemed like an even more important idea. Rasim clung to the shadows, following his sense of the river and its tributaries more than any particular path. That probably kept him safer anyway. It meant he wasn't taking a predictable route. It was difficult enough to keep moving at a reasonable clip, neither too slow nor too fast. Exhaustion was settling into his limbs, turning them to stone, although he thought he'd worked harder on the Waifia many times without feeling so weary.
Of course, on the Waifia he hadn't made heavy use of a new kind of magic. The realization made him stumble, fatigue suddenly overwhelming him. Using massive witchery was tiring in the best of circumstances. Using huge amounts when he'd never tried that kind of magic before was probably a good way to accidentally kill himself. He'd been lucky.
More than lucky. He had accomplished what King Taishm had hoped for with the King's Guild: he could probably use every kind of Ilyaran magic. It was possible, even for those who weren't of royal blood. They had put so many rules in place that no one had ever tried, perhaps to Ilyara's detriment.
Rasim rejected that thought immediately. If it had been widely known that anyone could learn multiple magics, the Ilyaran royal family would have been challenged time and again, and Ilyara's peace destabilized. It was better for the country to leave multiple magics in the hands of the royal family.
Too bad half of Moran had just watched him use sky witchery, then. Rasim wasn't exactly going to be able to keep that a secret. Not that most people here knew he was supposed to be a sea witch, but Nasira and Lorens certainly did, and they were out there, maybe telling people right now what a prize he'd turned out to be.
Or maybe not such a prize after all. He'd instigated at least some level of rebellion in Moran. Maybe they would hold that against Nasira. Maybe they wouldn't want her slaves at all, and the rest of his crew would be safer than he'd ended up being.
Or maybe they would just kill them all in retaliation for what Rasim had done. He stumbled again, then lurched into an ivy-lined alley to huddle, shivering, amongst the concealing leaves.
He hadn't thought any of it through at all well. He'd imagined he could somehow single-handedly bring down the arena, and when he couldn't, he'd fled. He'd started something like a rebellion, but he hadn't considered what might happen to his crewmates as a result. Most of his previous adventures had only endangered himself, and he'd mostly been endangered anyway. This time, other people were affected.
Agnet had tried to warn him, in her way. She hadn't done a very good job, but Rasim was supposed to be clever. He was supposed to think of things before other people did. He'd seen how he could perhaps change the whole world, but he hadn't thought of how trying to make those changes could potentially hurt his friends. Desimi was right. Rasim thought too big sometimes.
He had to get the slave collar off. Fear for the Waifia's crew burned Rasim's tiredness away. He got to his feet again, no longer willing to skulk in the dark. He needed to really look for a forge, or even more alarmingly, ask someone for directions. Another slave would be his best bet, assuming he could find one who spoke Ilyaran or Northern.
Despite his worries, a crooked smile crept across his features. He was more likely to find a forge on his own than find an Ilyaran-speaking slave who would be willing to help him. At least he was a fair distance from the arena. Hopefully no one would be looking for him in a wealthy quarter. Moving purposefully, he left the alley and strode down the road, once more searching for streams. Even if he only found a stables, he might find something there to cut through the collar, and that would be enough.
Voices behind him made his chest tighten, but he didn't look back. A scent of horses caught his attention and he turned up a twisting road that started with paving stones, turned to cobble, and then finally to dirt marked with hoof prints. The voices were still behind him: following, maybe, or maybe just on the same path. Rasim quickened his pace every time a curve gave him a moment or two unseen, and in the darkness nearly ran into the opening door of a stables.
He crushed himself against its wall as the door banged back and smacked him in the nose. Tears flooding his eyes, he snatched the door's leather handle, trying to keep it from bouncing shut again and revealing him. Horses were led out and a rough voice called out. The men who'd been behind Rasim shouted in response. The one at the door grunted and shouted again. Rasim wondered if they were talking about him, and wished desperately that he spoke the Moranese language. If he got out of Moran alive he would ask the Sunmasters to teach it to him. Seamasters should speak a lot of languages, he thought furiously. They traveled everywhere. They should know the tongues of the places they visited, instead of relying on Sunmasters for translation, or using the cobbled-together common language that had bits of everything, and not enough of anything. If he got out of here alive, he'd tell Guildmaster Asindo that, too, and make sure language classes were included at the guild from then on.
The man at the door swung onto his horse and rode down the street, leaving the door gaping open. Rasim, wedged behind the door, stared after him, amazed at his terrible manners. Even Rasim, who had grown up with ships, not horses, knew better than to leave a stable door open. As he wondered if he dared leave, someone else came out of the stables. Rasim didn't need to speak Moranese to know the other person was cursing the rider. Without ever looking beyond it, the other person pulled the door shut and latched it, leaving Rasim pressed against the wall and fighting back a giggle of relief.
Just beyond the stables was another alley. Rasim scurried into it and was rewarded with a mist in the air and the sound of running water. He choked down another nervous giggle and crept forward, embarrassed that his fear had overwhelmed his sense of where the water was.
A small open yard lay behind the stables. A stream welled up in one corner next to a small forge. Horseshoes and short bars of metal were tidily stacked beside the forge, and innumerable tools hung against the back wall. Rasim vaulted the short fence and ran to the tools, searching for anything like clippers. Different-sized tongs were everywhere, along with hammers and small nails, but none of them could be used to get his collar off. He fell back against the forge wall in despair, searching one final time, and saw a huge pair of clippers on the ground in the anvil's shadow.
Someone, he bet, would get in trouble for leaving those there instead of putting them away. Shaking with gratitude, he scooped them up and found out just how difficult it was to clip a collar off your own throat without taking half your skin along with it. After several tries he sat down, bracing one handle of the clipper between two stones, and carefully maneuvered the pinchers onto his collar. The clippers were sharp: the skin he'd already scraped off could easily be joined by a tremendous amount of blood if he wasn't very careful indeed. He wrapped both hands around the wedged clipper handle to make sure it stayed in place, and, feeling awkward, used his feet to pull the other handle closed.
The snip of metal sounded loud enough to bring every guard in Moran running. Rasim froze, wide-eyed, hardly breathing as he waited to be caught. When, after long moments, no one came to investigate, he cautiously unwound his hands from the clippers and put them back under the forge where he'd found them. If he knew which hook they belonged on, he'd put them away and save someone a scolding—or worse—in the morning. As it was, he muttered an apology as he put them back, then hesitated as he started to leave.
The forge would be a safe enough place for several hours, and sneaking around at night in an unfamiliar city—especially one being searched for misbehaving slaves—would likely get him in trouble. His friends and crew were out there somewhere, probably in trouble themselves, but Rasim didn't know what he could do for them in the dark with no resources or plans. Sleep might do him—and them—more good than anything else he could do right now.
There were burlap sacks under the forge's half-roof. Rasim tucked them around himself and went to sleep instantly.
He woke before dawn, partly out of self-preservation and partly because his scalp itched so badly he gasped with the effort of not scratching it. He crawled to the little spring and scrubbed sticky, oily honey from his hair until it felt less disgusting. The cold water helped wake him up, and he was almost cheerful as he found a small knife to cut one of his lemons in half. He rubbed the juice into his hair and threw the lemon peels into a moldering heap of straw near the stables. If the sun was strong today, it would help brighten his hair, and he'd keep reapplying lemon as often as he could. It would take a while to really be effective, but between the honey and the lemon, it was a start.
As an afterthought, he went back to the straw pile and buried his collar at its base. Then, before the sun had broken the horizon, he leaped the low fence again and hurried toward the river. If he was lucky—very lucky, he admitted aloud, but under his breath—the crew would still mostly be on the Waifia. Failing that, at least he could find Agnet and the others.
