“Ah!” sighed Rannilt. “Chief magian put a glamour on, to hide you.”
She bolted across the cell and threw herself at Tali so hard that she was knocked back against the wall. Rannilt hauled Tali to her feet and danced her around the cell until her head whirled.
“Enough, child,” she said, groping back for the bed. “If I don’t sit down, I’m going to throw up.”
Rannilt sat beside Tali, holding her right arm with both hands and staring hungrily at her.
“I didn’t know there was a glamour,” Tali said hoarsely. She hadn’t seen her face since leaving Caulderon. “Can you see the real me?”
“Of course not, silly,” said Rannilt.
Tali’s shoulders slumped. “Then how do you know it’s me?”
“Checked your aura, of course.”
“Didn’t know I had one.”
“Don’t worry.” Rannilt patted Tali’s shoulder condescendingly. “You’re still Tali on the inside.”
“You can’t call me by name,” said Tali. “Lyf’s after me.”
“I know. Old Chancellor said to call you Grizel.”
An ugly name, thought Tali. He’s doing it to punish me.
“Someone’s comin’, Grizel,” said Rannilt.
They squatted in the corner while orderlies bustled in and out, sweeping the puddles down a drain hole, exchanging Tali’s mouldy mattress for a fresh one and bringing in another bunk for Rannilt, providing a table and two chairs and, finally, a steaming bowl of stew, two plates, cutlery and a third of a loaf of grainy bread. All was done under the watchful eyes of the chancellor’s guards, then the cell was relocked and they were alone.
“You’re shakin’,” said Rannilt, helping Tali across to her bunk. “Are you sick?”
Tali leaned back against the cold wall. Rannilt snuggled up against her. The child, starved of human contact most of her life, had always been clingy, but Tali needed the contact now. She put an arm around her.
“They’ve taken pints and pints of my blood,” she said dully. “I’m so weak I can barely walk. Aren’t they taking yours?”
“Healer Dibly took some on the first day out of Caulderon. But only half a cup, and she was really cross about it. She called the old chancellor some wicked names, I can tell you.”
“Really?” said Tali, revising her opinion of Madam Dibly.
“I’m sorry she’s dead,” said Rannilt. “I liked her.”
“Did they only take your blood the once?”
“Yes, Dibly said it didn’t heal. But she kept feedin’ me just as much. Said I needed feedin’ up.”
“And so you do,” said Tali, feeling ravenous herself. “Could you get me something to eat?”
Rannilt went to the table, spooned stew onto the plates and brought them back. When Tali had first met her, Rannilt had been as skinny as a stick and covered in bruises, for the other slave girls had picked on her constantly.
Tali lowered her voice. “We’re in trouble, child. Did you hear — ”
“About the gauntlin’? Yes.”
Tali ate some stew. “We’ve got to escape, like we did from Cython. Can you wake my gift again?”
Without Rannilt’s last-minute intervention that had, in some inexplicable way, roused Tali’s gift, she would have died in the sunstone shaft within sight of her destination, beheaded by Overseer Banj’s Living Blade, and Rannilt, too.
“No,” said Rannilt. “Chancellor told me to make sure you don’t escape.”
Tali pulled away. “I thought you were on my side.”
Rannilt put her plate down, snuggled up and curled Tali’s arm around her. “I am, Grizel. The only place you’re safe is here, under guard.”
If only you knew, thought Tali.
“I’m no good to you anyway,” said Rannilt. “As soon as it’s dark…” She shuddered. “Things get bad when it’s dark.”
“What kind of things?”
“It was really bad after we went to Precipitous Crag and fought Lyf’s wicked old wrythen.”
“I was sure you were going to die,” said Tali, realising that she needed to know what had happened. “What did he do to you?”
Lyf had made some kind of connection to Rannilt’s gift and had started drawing it out of her. He had fed on it to strengthen himself so he could escape his intangible wrythen form and get back a real, physical body that would make him so much more powerful — and free him from the caverns the wrythen was bound to.
Rannilt’s eyes turned inward. “I don’t know. He was suckin’ the gift out of me. The golden threads were streamin’ out and up and away, but I couldn’t do nothin’ about it. I was gettin’ weaker and weaker. I knew I was goin’ to die.”
“We were really worried about you,” said Tali. “Me and Rix and Tobry.”
“I really miss them,” said Rannilt wistfully. “Especially Tobry. He was so kind to me.”
“Me too,” said Tali, turning away. Her eyes blurred.
“When my eyes were closed I saw all kinds of things I didn’t want to see.”
“Were they coming from the wrythen?” said Tali.
Rannilt shrugged her thin shoulders. “Maybe. Stories were gushin’ into my head, a hundred at once. Wars and traitors and people bein’ killed just for nothin’. Had to hide in my own head to get away.”
Tali sat up. She’d thought that Rannilt had collapsed because Lyf had stolen too much of her gift, but if she had retreated to escape the unbearable stories flooding into her mind, it put a very different complexion on matters.
“Then there was the healin’,” Rannilt added, reflecting.
“What about it?”
“The old kings of Cython were the only ones who were allowed to use magery, and they used it only for healin’. Healin’ the land, and healin’ their people.”
Tali knew that, but did not say so. It was so good to hear Rannilt talking again.
“It’s why that rotter Axil Grandys betrayed King Lyf, then chopped his feet off and walled him up in the Cat — Catacombs, to die,” the girl added. “He wanted the king-magery for himself, but he could only steal it when Lyf died and the magery was released — ”
Tali finished the sentence. “To pass to the new king. But it didn’t pass on, did it?”
“It couldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because no one in Cython knew what had happened to Lyf.” Rannilt thought for a moment. “And without his body they couldn’t do all the fancy stuff to make sure his gift went to the new king. The king-magery left him when he died, but Axil Grandys didn’t get it. No one knows where it went.”
“That’s why Lyf became a wrythen,” said Tali. “Without the proper rituals, his spirit couldn’t pass on, either.”
“Serves him right, after all the horrid things he did.”
“He hadn’t done them, then. Until he was betrayed and left to die, Lyf was a good king.”
Rannilt shivered. “I’d love to be a proper healer. Reckon I’d be a good one.” She studied her small hands. Several of her fingers were crooked, as if they’d been broken more than once.
“I’m sure you would,” Tali said absently. “Though it’s curious your blood doesn’t heal.”
“What if that’s what old Lyf was really after?” said Rannilt. “My healin’ gift. Maybe that’s what he was tryin’ to steal from me.”
“Why would he want your healing gift when he has his own?” said Tali.
“He’s healed all sorts of things, but he’s never been able to heal his legs, has he? I’ll bet he wants that more than anythin’.”
And if he had stolen Rannilt’s healing gift, rendering her blood useless for healing, maybe he could do it, too. All the more reason for Tali to uncover his secret, as soon as possible.
“Rannilt, can you help me with something? But you can’t tell anyone.”
CHAPTER 9
“Told you, I’m not helpin’ you escape,” said Rannilt.
“I didn’t mean that,” said Tali. She lowered her voice. “After Dibly took blood the first time, I had a vision of Lyf, in his temple, and — ”