He wiped his blade against the dead creature’s arm to clean it. And then, working quickly and with some difficulty, Daniel propped the body up to make it look, in the low light and at a casual glance at least, that it was still on guard. He was so successful in this that as he rose and cast a last look back, he almost thought Certain Doubt was still alive and he would have to kill him again.
He laughed at himself. That was silly. No one had to kill anything twice-only Gad was the thing you had to kill again, apparently, and he would. He was working toward it. But first things first. And what kind of name was “Certain Doubt,” anyway? “A spy’s name, that’s what.” Daniel thought that Kelm would give them a better story than some weird names. That wasn’t sticky. Not sticky by any stretch.
Moving forward in a crouch, he made his way to each of the other leafleas on watch, killed them, and returned to the site where the rest of the yfelgopes were resting.
This next part was even trickier, but moving systematically, he made a complete circuit. In his left hand he held a bunchedup piece of cloth that he pressed against the yfelgopes’ mouths to smother any noise they made while he was piercing their throats with the sword in his right. Some of them uttered muffled death rattles that made him hold his own breath, fearing they’d wake the others, but most of them died without even opening their eyes.
The last one dispatched, Daniel tried to dry his sword with the cloth but found it too sodden with blood to be of much use for that. He tossed it to the side and sat down to recover. He had hardly dared to draw breath during the operation, and hadn’t used even one of his lucky words, and now he filled his lungs with a deep, regular rhythm.
“Not shaky. Not shaky. Jagged. Not jagged either. Folded down. In a pocket. Calm. Relaxed. Sticky. Length. Length.” The words were balms to his troubled soul. They were direct lines to meaning in his mind; he could almost feel the strings. Yes, strings. Strings in his mind, connecting thought to action to event to consequence. He just had to keep thinking and it would all stick.
Daniel rose. It was time to follow the next mind-string to its end-knot. But what to decide? Take all the heads, or only some of them?
VI
The smell of fresh death followed him in a cloud, making his eyes tingle. He swallowed back bile and rubbed his eyes with the back of a hand. He was exhausted. He had decided on bringing all the heads, in the end. That would be the most impressive, make the greatest impact. And yet it was quite a trick to manage it. There were twenty-eight of them in all; twenty-eight traitorous heads of enemy agents. And it was no easy task getting the heads off of the shoulders. It had become easier after the first few when he knew more what he was doing, but then he’d had to work out some way to carry them all back. He’d struck upon taking a few spears and skewering them onto it, threading them on top of one another like beads on a needle. That took unique skill as well. Then he’d taken all the belts and bands he could find and tied the spears together so that he could drag the heads behind him.
It wasn’t easy work. They kept getting caught on rocks and outcroppings, and he had to stop and free them. It was possible he had lost one or two heads on the way. And if they were smelling worse, at least they’d become less messy, the blood and entrails already long gone.
At least it was easy enough to find his way back to Ni?ergeard; he just had to follow the light and keep himself low, out of sight.
“Sticky. Sticky. Lengthy. Length. Stick. In a pocket. In a pocket. In a pocket.”
When he got to the pile of dust that once used to be the outer wall, he thought he’d announce himself. It would be better not to let any yfelgopes see him without some sort of announcement, especially since he was dragging over two dozen of their heads behind him.
“Kelm! Kelm! I want Kelm!” he called at the top of his voice. He was surprised at how ragged and quiet it sounded.
At first there was no response, and then the terrible idea occurred to him that he might be alone down here in a deserted city. What would he do then? Just as he began to fret in earnest, tears springing to his eyes, a yfelgop poked his head over the top of a roof. Looking around, he saw others as well, standing in archways, leering around the corners of buildings. One or two of them ducked away; a few of them started moving cautiously toward him.
He pulled the heads up onto the pile of rubble and then stopped. His arms ached so badly he thought that they’d just pop off. Yfelgopes were now surrounding him, looking at the heads, looking at him, weapons drawn. Keep it sticky, keep it sticky and folded down, he told himself. He gave them what he hoped was a winning smile and then casually rubbed his eyes. They were so puffy it was a constant effort of will to keep them open.
And then Kelm was there. Right in front of him, lumbering toward him with a puzzled look on his face. And well he should be puzzled, Daniel thought. He obviously wouldn’t have guessed that I could have tumbled to his little pantomime so quickly. Try to pump information out of me by sending some yfelgopes to “break me out” of prison and trick me into thinking I’m their friend and telling them everything I know. You’ll have to get up earlier in the morning than that to catch me out.
Daniel realised he wasn’t talking, just thinking loudly. “Hello, Kelm. I’m back. Did you miss me?”
“Scarcely. I didn’t even know you’d gone. Where have you been?”
“Recognise who I’ve got here with me?” Daniel bent down and hoisted one of the spears up. It had eight heads on it, each one pierced above the jaw and resting cheek-to-cheek next to the others. Daniel thought that one of them might be Argument. Something started to drip on his hand.
Kelm looked at the heads and Daniel, blankly.
Daniel almost laughed-or maybe he actually did. Kelm was putting on a good act. He really did act like he didn’t have a clue as to who his own double agents were.
“I’ll help you out with a hint: these are the ones that released me from prison.”
If Kelm had said anything at that point-questioned, commented, or even just opened his mouth in surprise-then Daniel might not have doubted himself in that moment. As it was, Kelm just stood, looking at him, his face still blank, his eyes searching for context in Daniel’s expression.
Does he really not know? Daniel asked himself. Or is he that good at pretending? Perhaps Gad sent them, unknown to Kelm. Maybe I’m doing this the wrong way; maybe I should play along. It was like a game of chess, each player making their move, doing the best with what they had. A player with fewer pieces on the board could still easily win, so long as they were smarter than their opponent.
Then Daniel was hit with a brain wave. There was already a lie in play that he could run with. His eyes lit up. “These are traitors, Kelm. They released me, thinking that I would help them to overthrow you, but as you can see, I’m loyal. I present these tokens as offerings to you of my intent. I–I want to help. Do you believe me now?” Daniel gave his best smile again.
Kelm took another moment to study Daniel head to foot. Daniel did his best to stand up to the scrutiny-Keep smiling, head and shoulders back, mind that posture, keep your arm steady, try not to let your knees jiggle, and keep everything, above all else, completely folded down. Stay sticky.
“No. No, I don’t think I do trust you,” Kelm said. “Not in the least. Take him back to the cell and put six guards in the corridor. We’ll hope that he actually has killed everyone who might try to rescue him again, but I would rather not take the risk.” He gave the orders with a flick of his hand and then stayed to watch them carried out, an eyebrow raised in amused disbelief.