"Don't be a fool, boy," the man called Euan stammered at him, his voice muffled where his face was pressed up against the stone.
Briar put a little extra pressure on his knife. "I'm feeling especially foolish just now, as a matter of fact," he muttered. "And I don't need magic for the sort of foolishness I've got in mind."
"You don't understand, he will find you…"
The man was putting up a good show, but Briar could feel his pulse vibrating against the knife's edge. "Help me out of here," he demanded. "I'll worry about your brother finding me later."
"I… I can't…"
Briar let the knife pierce his skin, and the man hissed as a trickle of red blood moved down his throat and under his fancy Bag shirt. "I could kill you right now," he warned. "And make my own way out. But I'm sure you'd rather we both got out alive. Where are we?"
"The… the north watchtower… Bit Island."
Briar almost let the man go for his own surprise. "Bit was destroyed. Years ago."
"We rebuilt it. The Duke hired us."
Briar didn't know anything about it, but then, he did not sit on the Duke's council like Sandry did. She might have known. And now he felt a fool - Bit Island! Nothing but sand and rock and wind with only water all around. Small wonder he hadn't been able to feel any plants. "Who's 'us'?" he snapped.
"Raymus… Raymus and I… I am an architect. A great builder."
"I don't need to hear your boasting. And your brother?"
"Raymus handles the money. I have no head for coin, but -"
"You aren't just builders and baggy merchants," Briar growled dangerously. "Your brother's a mage. Where are you from?"
"All over, all over… we travelled, for a long time, to find someone to teach him, but no one would, they did not see his magic, it wasn't clear to them…"
"Dream magic," Briar snarled. "Dreams and fear, and… whatever magery it is, it's dark and leeching. I'm not surprised no one would teach him."
"No," Euan said, hoarsely. "My brother is a good man."
"Are you blind?" Briar hissed. He spun the man around to face him, keeping the knife a fraction away from the bloody cut he had made. It had been a long time since he had wounded anyone with a blade. There had been no need to, and he liked to think he was more civilised than that now, even if he could kill a man with a little bag of seeds. But the rage he felt now was no match for any civility he might have picked up lately. "He sowed some evil dream in my head, so when I saw him I wouldn't be able to fight him. He dragged me here, he cut me off from my sisters, and he ripped my magic out of me. My magic. You can never understand what that feels like. A good man?" he turned his head and spat on the stone floor.
Euan's grey-green eyes were very wide. "He needs you," he said, parrot-like, as though the words came from instinct rather than any deep-seated belief. "My brother must… live…"
Briar was about to answer when he heard a shout from below. He put a hand over Euan's mouth before he could shout back, and stood very still, listening. People were moving around below him, perhaps realising the man's absence. He had to go now. There might not be another chance. He glared at the Westerner. Leaving him behind was folly, but he knew he couldn't just stab the man and leave him for dead. Rosethorn would be extremely displeased with him if he did that. "Stay," he ordered, taking away first the knife, then his hand. "Make a single sound and I'll come back and gut you, understand?"
The man nodded dumbly. Briar grabbed the key from his belt and went to the great door made of stone and iron. Some wood, he thought as the key rattled in the lock. I'd give my eyes for some wood. Not that it would do him any good anymore, he remembered, and his heart hardened as he pushed the door open.
He had no idea what he was doing or where he was going as he found a staircase and made for it. Pulling his knife had probably been a damned stupid thing to do. He should have got to know the man, earned his trust, then asked for help. Now he was alone in a guarded island tower with no way out and, even if he did get out, no way to shore. His only hope was that he would get lucky and find a boat moored somewhere. A little one he could man himself, preferably a rower since he had little doubt he would be useless at managing sails. Daja would have been fine. Tris could have used wind to push her back. Sandry would have had the Duke and all his guard out looking for her by now.
Who's looking for me? he wondered. If they even know where to look.
Voices, and footsteps, coming closer. Cursing to himself, he found the nearest door he came to and, finding it blissfully unlocked, slipped inside. He closed it behind him as quickly as he dared, the sound of the latch catching practically a roaring in his ears. He looked around, desperately. There was a window, he saw straight away, and he ran to it. The view was of the sea, all the sea. Emelan must be in the other direction, but all he had to do was walk around the tower to see it. The space was just big enough for him to fit through. The only problem was the height. He felt slightly dizzy as he looked down, though he had never had problems with vertigo before. He had run and jumped across rooftops since childhood, but here there were no footholds, just a sheer drop of smooth stone onto the rocks below. Jumping from here would be suicide.
Something to climb down on, he thought desperately. He turned to look around the room. He had hardly seen it at first in his rush to see out of the window. A study, maybe, with an adjoining door. Odd to have a study in a watch tower. There were piles of maps and diagrams on the desk, and other small items scattered about, cluttering the space. He supposed it was too much to ask that there would be some rope or something lying around.
The voices were lingering somewhere above him. No doubt they had found Euan. They would check the whole tower until they found him. How much time did he have?
Giving the study room up for useless, he opened the adjoining door. It was a bedchamber, very small for a Bag, but more than adequate for a street rat from Sotat. A bed and a small table were all that was there, but there were clean white sheets on the bed. Almost stumbling in his haste, Briar ran for them, dragging them off the bed with all his might and gathering them into his arms. He fought with them, trying to get his arms around to get them in an order to tie together, but in his haste he knocked something off the table. The noise it made as it hit the floor seemed unimaginably loud.
A shout from above and the sound of running footsteps. They were coming for him. He almost turned to go back to the study with his armful of sheets, but something made him stop. The thing that had fallen onto the stone was a gold - no, brass, only gilded brass - picture frame. The picture was a charcoal sketch, very small but intricately detailed. It was of a woman. He might not have looked twice at it, only…
Behind him the door to the study burst open and three men appeared at the bedroom door. One was Euan, looking red-faced and holding a longsword that suited his hand badly. The other two were older, seafaring-looking men, their clothes sturdy and their beards speckled with salt. "What are you doing with that, boy?" Euan snapped, the dark red cut on his throat standing out starkly against his pale skin. Briar was holding the framed picture in his hand, staring at it, the sheets all but forgotten. "You put that down."
"I know her," he said, in a flat, emotionless voice.
"She has been dead many years." Euan was coming towards him with the sword held defensively in front of him. "You could not know her."
"She's my mother," said Briar.
Euan looked surprised for a moment, then he frowned. "Impossible."
"No, I know her. I dreamed about her only the other night. Before that I couldn't even remember what she looked like, but now…"
"Give that to me," Euan said, his voice shaking as much as the hand that held the sword. "Give it to me! You men, get him."
Briar held on to the picture, all sense of self-preservation stuck at the back of his mind as he stared at it, even while the two sailors fell on him and wrenched his arms back. They forced him to his knees and his hair fell forward into his eyes. The man called Euan knelt beside him and lifted his chin with a cold, pale finger. There was little malice in the look he gave Briar. It was a searching look, a curious, yet frightened look. Briar returned it with a full force glare worthy of his foster sister Tris. Then the Westerner plucked the drawing from Briar's hands.
On Euan's orders, the men dragged him back upstairs to the tower cell. They searched him, took his boot knives and the boots with them, and then stripped him of his tunic, leaving him in shivering in shirt and breeches alone. The stone floor froze him through the heels of his feet and the room was full of cold sea air. But they left the mattress.
He curled up on it, nursing the bruises left by the rough search and uselessly reciting herbs. Useless perhaps, but he felt it might be the only thing keeping him sane.
What am I doing here? a treacherous voice demanded to know while he tried to drown it out.
Dang Gui, Dan Shen, Deerberry, Devils' Bit, Dead Nettle…
Who are these people? Why did they take my magic? Could it really be keeping Raymus alive?
Flagroot, Foxtail, Fireweed….
Why does he have a picture of my mother?
Grindelia, Ground Lily, Guelda Rose, Gypsyweed….
My mother… my mother…
~*-B-*~
~*-B-*~
Author's Note
Thanks everyone for reading. I really appreciate everyone who has reviewed! Just letting you know that updates for this story may be delayed for a while as my folio is due in four weeks. You never know when inspiration will strike though so keep reviewing to remind me that people are still reading this story