Alice Borchardt by The Raven Warrior

Author:The Raven Warrior [Warrior, The Raven]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2012-01-30T00:33:09+00:00

The wind tore at me again, and dust blinded me when my eyes cleared. I saw Meth was moving, albeit slowly and carefully, one step at a time around the tower. My body was pressed against Cateyrin’s and I felt her long sigh of relief.

“Oh—” she began.

“Be quiet!” I told her. “He’s moving. Be content! Follow him!”

“Y-y-yes,” she whispered, and suited her actions to her words.

When we made it around the building’s curve and could see the dark archway that was our goal, things became much easier. It seemed no time until we were clear of our precarious position and standing out of the wind in a courtyard, looking back at the stair we had just used to escape Aunt Louise’s attentions.

Meth was leaning against one semitransparent wall. “My heart was trying to leap out of my chest,” he said.

“Here.” He seized Cateyrin’s hand and pressed it against his left ribs. “I don’t think I’ve ever been so afraid before in my life.”

“My poor dear.” Cateyrin wound her arms around him. “My poor darling.”

“My poor stomach,” Albe whispered. “This is nauseating. What a whiner. Did he think the rest of us enjoyed that? I’ll be forced to cut his throat soon if he doesn’t shut up.”

“Shush. She wants him. We’re taking refuge with her mother. Let’s try not to poison the wine before we drink it.”

Tuau hunkered down beside me and began to cough, a disturbing sound from a cat.

“What’s wrong now?” Albe asked, sounding bored.

Tuau got his breath. “Goddam dust … bitch!” Then immediately began coughing again.

“Damn! Cateyrin!” I called as Tuau went on coughing. “Where can we find some water?”

“In the middle of the garden,” was her reply.

Yes, sure enough, there was a garden under a light well in this courtyard also. But I hadn’t noticed it because the light was failing. It was very small, only a shallow bed surrounding a basin into which water trickled rather than flowed.

“Yes, and what happens when we try to take the water?” Albe asked. “Does something jump out of the ground and try to kill us? They’re everywhere, these gardens.”

“Yes, we have to—food is one of our biggest problems,” Cateyrin said. “And no, nothing will try to eat you for taking a drink of water here. Just don’t pick the plants.”

“Perish the thought,” I said.

Tuau let fly with another string of honking coughs. He sounded as though he might strangle to death. I hurried toward the basin. Sure enough, there was a dipper. I filled it and brought it to Tuau.

He slurped, not lapped.

“Christ!” Albe exclaimed.

“She” stepped out of the darkness inside the black tower.

“The towers are glass, tinted glass, but if you are close enough to the walls, inside you can be seen,” Cateyrin explained.

She was very beautiful: bejeweled, wearing a headdress, necklace set with glittering violet stones, gold filigree cuffs, and anklets that formed a mass of golden chain dripping with tiny bells. She studied us “women.” I could see her thinking as her eyes rested on Albe and myself.

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