Shadows Return - Lynn Flewelling [78]
There, in the center of Alec’s chest, was a tiny metal tap, just large enough to funnel a slow, steady fall of blood, drop by slow, small drop. Every time a drop landed on the mound of earth, whatever horror lay beneath moved in response, as if it shared a pulse with Alec.
“Killing…him!” Seregil whispered between suddenly chattering teeth.
“I promise you, I am not,” the robed man assured him. “If my labors here prove fruitful, I will be keeping your friend alive for a very long time. He will be my precious and most prized alembic, brewing wonders for me. At the moment, I’m keeping him comfortable and asleep.”
As if he’d heard, Alec suddenly stirred in his bonds. His hands clenched and his eyes moved behind closed lids, making his lashes quiver.
“Alec!” Seregil croaked.
Alec’s eyes remained closed, but his cracked lips moved. No sound issued, but Seregil was sure they formed the word “talí.”
Ilar leaned over him, gloating. “And it’s all thanks to you, Haba. If not for you, I’d never have known this boy existed. I wanted you to see what’s become of him and show you that you are helpless to stop it.”
Seregil glared up at him. “Kill…you!”
“This one has spirit, too,” the alchemist observed in Plenimaran. Seregil kept very still, not letting on that he understood. “I wonder if he’d be any use to me? Which clan is he again?”
“A Bôkthersan, Master.”
Seregil gritted his teeth, imagining himself hanging in a cage like Alec’s.
“But I don’t know if he’s strong enough, Master,” Ilar murmured. Seregil couldn’t see his face but caught a distinct hint of hesitation.
“Nonsense. A little bloodletting won’t hurt him. And do I need to remind you that until I see fit to free you, both you and he are mine to do with as I choose?”
“No, Ilban!” Ilar replied, obsequious again. “Kheron, take him up at once!”
“Wait.” The man in black, who’d remained silent until now, looked more closely at Seregil. Nudging him with the toe of his boot, he asked, “This is the one who killed Duke Mardus?”
“So I’m told.”
“He should be executed, though I suppose he did us all a favor in the end. Ambitious fools like Mardus always end up as liabilities. He did have his uses, though.”
“I assure you, Your Grace, the fate of this ’faie will not be an easy one.”
“See that it isn’t.”
“Take him up!” the master ordered, and one of the guards hoisted Seregil in his arms and carried him upstairs to the workshop. Seregil cast a last desperate look back at Alec, cursing his own helplessness.
Once upstairs, he was placed facedown on a slate-topped table, with his left arm over the side. The guards held him, and the alchemist nicked a vein in Seregil’s wrist and held his hand over a bowl, collecting his blood. While this was going on, he and Ilar talked casually over Seregil, as if he weren’t there, still speaking Plenimaran.
“He stinks, Khenir.” Apparently Ilar’s master didn’t know his real name. “I thought you’d been taking better care of him.”
“It’s part of his punishment, Master, for attacking me.”
“Ah, I see. Well, I suppose it’s more humane than the prescribed flogging.”
“I hate to mark him, Master.”
“He is a particularly fine-looking specimen, even for a ’faie. You could set yourself up quite nicely, contracting him to the breeders.”
“Perhaps when I’m done with him, Master.”
The master bent to look at the back of Seregil’s hand. “Hm. Another simple tattoo. The boy has one as well. What do you know of these?”
To Seregil’s surprise, Ilar replied, “Nothing, Ilban. My clan didn’t use such marks. How fares the rhekaro?”
You lying bastard! Seregil nearly laughed. As usual, Ilar was playing his own game, even against the master he professed to worship. And he’d changed the subject nicely, too. He’d probably have made a good nightrunner.
“As you saw, it quickens nicely,” the master replied, none the wiser. “I expect it will be complete by tomorrow. The moon phases have been more of a factor than the treatises led me to believe. Or perhaps it’s the boy’s mixed blood. Whatever the case, I’m glad, for he isn’t as strong