“When she comes,” Morgan repeated. “Assuming she does.”
She reached down to touch him lightly on the shoulder. “Whatever happens, I will come back for you as quickly as I can.”
He nodded. “Good luck, Damson. Be careful.”
She smiled and disappeared across the darkening courtyard into the shadows. The sound of her footsteps echoed on the stone and faded away into silence.
Morgan sat alone in the gloom and listened to the sounds of the city slowly quiet and die. Overhead, clouds moved across the stars and began to screen them away. The night darkened, and a strange hush settled over the bluff. Padishar, he thought, hang on, we’re coming. Somehow, we’re coming.
He tried sleeping and could not. He tried thinking of something he could do, but everything involved going out from his hiding place, and if he did that he might not get back again. He would have to wait. Rescue plans crowded his mind, but they were as ephemeral as smoke, based on speculation, not on fact, and useless. He wished he had brought the Sword of Leah so that he would not feel so defenseless. He wished he had made better choices in his efforts to aid his friends. He wished himself into a dark corner and was forced to stop wishing for fear that he would find himself paralyzed by regrets.
It was nearing midnight when he heard the scrape of boots on the stone of the courtyard and looked up from his light doze to see Matty Roh materialize in the fading starlight. He jerked upright, and she hushed him to silence. She crossed to where he waited and sat next to him, breathing heavily.
“I ran the last mile,” she said. “I was afraid you would be gone.”
“No.” He waited. “Are you all right?”
She looked at him, and her eyes were haunted. “Damson?”
“Gone in search of the Mole, then off to bring Chandos and the rest through the tunnels. She’ll meet us back here by dawn.”
The smile she gave was anxious and searching. “I’m glad you’re here.”
He smiled back, but the smile seemed wrong, and he let it drop. “What happened, Matty?”
“I found him.”
Morgan took a deep breath. “Tell me,” he urged softly, sensing she should not be rushed. There was a sheen of sweat on her skin, and that strange look in her eyes.
She bent so that their shoulders touched. Her boyish, delicate features were taut, and there was an urgency that radiated as surely as light. “I began at the ale houses, looking and listening. I made some easy friends, soldiers, a junior officer. I got what I could from them and kept moving. Padishar’s name was mentioned, but just in passing, in connection with the execution. Night came, and I still hadn’t learned where they were keeping him.”
She swallowed, reached for the water tin, scooped out a cup, and drank deeply. He could feel the strength in her slim body as it moved against his own.
She turned back. “I was certain they were keeping him somewhere people would avoid. The watchtower was a ruse, so where else would he be? There are prisons, but word would leak from there. It had to be someplace else, a place no one would want to go.”
Morgan paled. “The Pit.”
She nodded. “Yes.” She kept her eyes fixed on him. “I went into the People’s Park and found the Gatehouse heavily guarded. Why would that be? I wondered. I waited until an officer emerged, one highly placed, one who shares. I followed him, then sat with him to drink. I let him persuade me to go with him to a private place. When I had him alone, I put a knife to his throat and asked him questions. He was evasive, but I was able to persuade him to admit what I already knew—that Padishar was being held in his cells.”
“But he is alive?”
“Alive so that he can be executed publicly. They don’t want rumors floating about afterwards that he might have escaped. They want everyone to see him die.”
They stared at each other in the dark. The Pit, Morgan was thinking, a sinking feeling in his stomach. He had hoped never to go back there again, never even to come close. He thought of the things that lived there, the Shadowen misfits, the monsters trapped by the barrier of magic that had shattered the Sword of Leah...
He brushed the thought aside. The Pit. At least he knew what he was up against. He could devise a plan with that.
“Did you learn anything else?” he asked quietly.
She shook her head. He could see the pulse beat at her throat, the black helmet of her hair a frame about her delicate face.
“And the officer?”
There was a long silence as she looked into his eyes, seeing something beyond and far away. Then she gave him an empty smile.
“When I was finished with him, I cut his throat.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
They sat without speaking after that, side by side on the workbench, still touching, looking out at the darkness. Several times Morgan thought to rise and move away, but he was afraid that she would mistake the reason for it and so stayed where he was. The sound of laughter penetrated the silence of the open court from somewhere without, harsh and unwelcome, and it seemed to rub raw even further nerves that were already frayed. Morgan did not know how much time passed. He should say something, he knew. He should confront the dark image of her words. But he did not know how to do so.
A dog barked in the distance, a long staccato peal that died away with jarring sharpness.
“You don’t like it that I killed him,” she said finally. It was not a question; it was a statement of fact.
“No, I don’t.”
“You think I should have done something else?”
“Yes.” He didn’t like making the admission. He didn’t like the way he sounded. But he couldn’t help himself.
“What would you have done?”
“I don’t know.”
She put her hands on his shoulders and turned him until they were facing. Her eyes were pinpricks of blue light. “Look at me.” He did. “You would have done the same thing.”
He nodded, but was not convinced.
“You would have, because if you stop to think about it, there wasn’t any other choice. This man knew who I was. He knew what I was up to. He couldn’t have mistaken that. If I had let him live, even if I had tied him up and hidden him away somewhere, he might have escaped. Or been found. Or anything. If that had happened, we would have been finished. Your plans, whatever they might be, wouldn’t stand a chance. And I have to return to Varfleet. If he ever saw me there, he would know. Do you see?”
He nodded again. “Yes.”
“But you still don’t like it.” Her rough, low voice was a whisper. She shook her head, her black hair shimmering. There was an unmistakable sadness in her voice. “I don’t either, Morgan Leah. But I learned a long time ago that there are a lot of things I have to do to survive that I don’t like. And I can’t help that. It has been a long time since I have had a home or a family or a country or anything or anyone but myself to rely on.”
He stopped her, suddenly ashamed. “I know.”
She shook her head. “No, you don’t.”
“I do. What you did was necessary, and I shouldn’t find fault. What bothers me is the idea of it, I suppose. I think of you in another way, a different way.”
She smiled sadly. “That is only because you really don’t know me, Morgan. You see me one way, for a short time, and that is how I am for you. But I am a good many more things than what you have seen. I’ve killed men before. I’ve killed them face to face and out of hiding. I’ve done it to stay alive.” There were tears in her eyes. “If you can’t understand that...”
She stopped, bit down on her lip, rose abruptly, and moved away. He did not try to stop her. He watched her walk to the far side of the courtyard and seat herself on the stones with her back against the wall in the deep shadows. She stayed there, motionless in the dark. Time slipped away, and Morgan’s eyes grew heavy. He had not slept since the previous night and then poorly. Dawn would be there before he knew it, and he would be exhausted. He had not yet devised a plan for rescuing Padishar Creel—had not even considered the matter. He felt bereft of ideas and hope.