The Howling Delve - Jaleigh Johnson [83]
Helpless in sleep.
Meisha stood up so quickly that Varan looked up from his reading. His smile struck her with a profound chill. "You're dreaming, m'dear. Back to sleep now, child. Thete's a good girl." He resumed his shuffling.
Meisha slid back to the floor quietly, but her thoughts raced. Even in his current state, even asleep, Vatan had sensed her presence in the chamber. He may have been confused about who she was or how old, but he knew someone was there with him. Of course-it should have dawned on het long before now.
Varan had known all along when the refugees were in his chamber. They shouldn't have been able to take his discarded magics from him without his consent, not while he could still cast spells-and she'd had painful proof that he could capably defend himself. But accoiding to Talal, he'd nevet attacked any of them, until Shirva Tarlarin and Meisha herself, after she'd picked up the banded sphere. Meisha looked around the room for the item, but it was gone, taken in the last delivety to the Shadow Thieves. Varan didn't seem bothered by its absence.
Why, then, had he attacked her? Perhaps there had been another reason behind his violent outburst. Perhaps he'd killed Shirva Tarlarin for that same reason.
She watched Varan for a long time, but his face registered nothing and offered her no clues.
Meisha jumped at the sharp rap on the door.
"It's just Talal," Varan muttered without looking up from his papers.
Meisha's mouth slid open and shut, but she had no time to marvel at Varan's flashes of lucidity as the door opened a crack and Talal wiggled through.
"What happened to you?" Meisha demanded, seeing the dried blood on the boy's neck and shirt.
"Lost some hair," was all Talal would say. His hands shook slightly as he ran them through his dirty locks. His eyes were bright, hard chips of stone, but he smiled as he reached for her hand. "Still alive, I see. Good. Come with me. You'll like this."
Curious, Meisha followed him out into the corridor and down the passage he'd tried to take her through before. It arched away from the warrens and back up a tunnel in a tough horseshoe, emptying into a circular chamber bounded by steep flowstone sides. Scattered about the floor were piles of small- to mid-sized stones.
Meisha stepped around Talal to see at a better angle and realized the piles were arranged in tidy rows. A group of men with shovels scooped rocks onto a high mound at the back of the chamber.
"They're graves," Meisha said, counting the fallen and coming up with the exact number-plus one-of refugees Talal said had died in the Delve. Her gaze returned to the fresh stone pile.
Talal followed her eyes. "Like it? One of em's yours. We dug it the night I brought you in," he explained, and had the good grace to look sheepish. "You know-just in case. After you mended, we kept it for when they came back. Oh"-he kicked off her boots and held them out-"you can have these back. Don't fit me anyway."
"They believed I was dead?" Meisha asked, suspicious. "On sight of a grave alone?"
Talal exchanged grinning gazes with the circle of digging men. One of the men winked at Meisha. "Not at first," the man replied. "But Talal told em we'd dig you up, 'yes sir, right away sir-it'll only take a few days with these little stick shovels you give us, sir.' " The digger laughed heartily. ¦
"So we started in," Talal said, frowning as he fingered the newly naked skin behind his ear. "We actually dug up Shirva. Aazen left with half the men and the latest shipment when we started digging, and Balram didn't linger to look beyond that she was female and recently dead. It's just like before," he said, looking at Meisha. "Balram hates the Delve, everything about it makes him twitchy. It was all he could do to be down here smelling us."
"Bloody cowards," another man said. He spat on the ground.
Meisha smiled at Talal. "You have my thanks," she said. "You've saved my life twice now."
The boy jerked his shoulders, but he was blushing fiercely. "Nothing to