Nurhar opened his medicine pouch and selected a pain ball. He forced it down the mage's throat and held his jaws shut until the mage had swallowed. That would ease the dragonsalt pangs.
"Why can't you just let me die?" he asked bitterly when Nurhar released him. "It's not that far off for me anyway."
"You die when we say," Nurhar snapped. He groped under the bed. "And you go with us," he said, pulling out the carry-frame he'd made after their escape from Rokat House. "If you can't make yourself useful, we'll dump you off the keep. You'll die then, but it'll hurt." He giggled, liking that idea.
Alzena didn't care for a husband who giggled, but she needed to get some Rokats while the dragonsalt made her want to. She helped Nurhar strap the mage to the carry-frame.
The duke had returned to the Citadel by the time Sandry emerged from the tent on Wehen Ridge. On some level of her exhausted mind, the girl was relieved. She knew her uncle might be alarmed if he saw her now, and she hadn't the strength to reassure him.
Do soldiers ever feel like this? she wondered dully as the cart rumbled down Harbor Road to Summersea. Like they marched and marched until they just want to fall down and die, only to be told they have to keep marching?
She was cold. She was wet from the rain and from the showers that had cleansed her once she finished the net and locked it away. Most of all, she was so tired her bones hurt.
If Tris had been home where she belonged, instead of jauntering to parts unknown, at least Sandry wouldn't be quite so cold and wet. Tris would have sent the storm that continued to buffet Summersea on its way, to make things easier for her friend.
Get some rest, Lark had advised when Sandry got into the cart. Now the girl curled up on the pallet some one had left there, thinking she would never be able to sleep. The thought of sliding across the bed of the cart until she fetched up against the ebony box that held the net gave her the horrors. Looking around, she saw ropes that anchored the canvas cover. They were securely tied, with plenty left over. Sandry called the ends to her wearily. Only when they had wrapped themselves firmly around her waist, holding her away from the box, did she close her eyes.
She woke briefly when the ropes let her go and some one lifted her out of the cart. She looked around one of Winding Circle's top mages, Dedicate Crane, was carrying her into a cellar. "Where are we?" she mumbled.
"It seems Durshan Rokat has a secret entrance to his home," Crane replied in his usual, energyless murmur. "Now no one will know we're in his house. It's a good thing he volunteered to be bait, is it not? Rest while you can."
She was about to tell him that he was strong for someone so bony. Instead she slept. The next time she woke, she was being gentry placed on a divan and covered with a blanket. She muttered and curled up, not wanting to open her eyes a moment before she had to.
She napped until she heard a familiar voice: "Is she going to sleep forever?"
Sandry opened her eyes and saw Pasco. "Are we ready?" she asked, yawning as she sat up. The welcome scent of rose-orange tea met her nostrils. With Pasco be side her, Sandry followed her nose to the kitchen. Lark smiled and pressed a large mug of tea into her hands.
"You left me with the little monster for hours and hours," accused Pasco. "She worked me to death!"
The tea was just cool enough to gulp. Sandry took a large swallow, then replied, "I'm sure the experience was good for you."
"Why do people always say too much work is good?" complained the boy. "I never thought so!"
"But you are lazy to the bone, my lad," replied Lark. "And that's one of my best friends you're calling a 'little monster. " She gave Sandry two thick pieces of bread with ham and a sliced-up tomato between them. Sandry ate gratefully.
"But she is a monster," Pasco argued. "She's trying to kill me." He helped himself to a slice of the iced cake that sat on a counter.
"Can you do that dance exactly?" Sandry wanted to know.
Pasco grinned, smug. "Yazmнn says if she puts a mark on the floor I can land on it on my toes ten times of ten. She says I have perfect body memory."
Sandry glanced at Lark, who winked at her. For someone who called her a monster, Pasco seemed very pleased by Yazmin's praise.
"You have to get it absolutely right," Sandry told Pasco solemnly. "You won't be able to see my net at all."
"I know? he said impatiently. "I've only been told a thousand times!"
"Actually, we found a way to cope with that," Lark told Sandry. "Come." She led the girl and Pasco through a doorway as Sandry continued to eat. They entered what had probably been a dining room before the furnishings had all been taken out. Now there were only whitewashed walls, candle sconces, and a tile floor. The entire room—floor, walls, and ceiling—had been thoroughly cleansed by Winding Circle's mages.
Sandry blinked at the floor and began to smile. She doubted that the central pattern of red and white clay tiles—a pattern that matched her net precisely—had been part of the original floor.
"Are you ready to start?" Lark asked her. "It's after one. We fixed the starting time for when the Citadel clock strikes two. That's when Durshan Rokat will leave the inner keep." When they had worked out their plan, the mage council had suggested the Dihanurs would be less suspicious of a trap if they had a reason to come to the net, like following a quarry on his way home.
"He is a volunteer?" Sandry wanted to know.
Lark nodded. "His grace talked to Durshan himself. Your uncle insisted on making sure we had a genuine volunteer."
Sandry took a deep breath. "I need something sweet," she told Lark, "another mug of tea, and time to use the privy. After that, I'll be as ready as I can ever be." She had a case of the shakes. Somehow she had the feeling they weren't going to go away—she would just have to work around them.
Lark walked them back to the kitchen. As she cut a slice from the cake, she looked at Pasco. "Go through that door and find the musicians—they're in the front parlor. Tell them we're almost ready. And once your part is done, go home with them. No one will think anything of servants leaving the house."
"Leaving?" cried Pasco. "But I want to see what happens!"
'Absolutely not”
Sandry had never heard herself use that tone before, though it sounded like a combination of the duke and Tris. "You are to get away and stay away, understand?" she demanded, holding the boy's eyes with hers, "This isn't a game. I will not tell your parents you got killed because I let you stay and watch like this was a performance!"
"For one thing," Lark pointed out, “we don't know they'll even come now. We hope the net will bring them quickly, but if they aren't in this part of the city when Durshan Rokat leaves the Citadel, it may take them a day or two to hear about him…"
"Please, Lady Sandry,” whined, the boy.
Lark took, him by the shoulders, turned him around, and thrust him through the door that led to the front hall, "Musicians. Go," she said firmly.
Pasco looked back, hesitated, then obeyed.
As Lark, poured a fresh cup of tea and. added honey, she asked gravely, "Was it' very bad, dear? Spinning the unmagic. Tying the net."
Sandry shivered. "It likes real magic more than any thing," she whispered. "It isn't happy if it can't cat what you have, and it never stops trying to get in."
Lark smoothed her hair with a gentle hand. "I would have given anything to spare you that."