The God-Touched Man Read online

  “They’re not Dalanese,” the captain said, pointing at Ayane and Dolobeka. “How did they induce you to join in their vicious plot to strike at our government? Was it money?”

  “I think you are under some misapprehension,” Piercy said. “The man who kidnapped the Lady High Chamberlain—”

  “That wasn’t an invitation for you to talk, traitor,” the captain said. “You. Where did your co-conspirator go?” She pointed at Ayane again.

  “He is not our friend,” Ayane said. “We have pursued him to stop his evil plan. We did not help him.”

  “Of course,” the captain said sarcastically. “And what evil plan is this?”

  Piercy held his breath. If they told the captain the truth, she would definitely not believe them, would lock them up pending trial, and that could take weeks. And subtlety was not something Ayane was familiar with. Now would be an excellent time for one of the Twins to take pity on them all…or possibly this was Cath’s retribution for them stealing the necklace and the sword. They were all doomed.

  “His name is Atheron Hodestis, and he is mad,” Ayane said. “He believes the Lady High Chamberlain is his dead wife reborn and intends to use magic to make her love him. Mr. Faranter is a member of the Foreign Office and is pursuing him to stop him. Lord Dolobeka and I are representatives of Queen Cyrah Hathakuni of Santerre and are chasing him because he killed members of the Santerran diplomatic party. You will release us or both our governments will punish you.”

  Piercy realized he was still holding his breath and exhaled slowly. It was mostly true and it even sounded plausible. He hadn’t guessed Ayane had it in her to spin such a tale.

  “That’s a clever story,” the captain said. “How long did it take you to invent it?”

  “If we are his comrades, why did he leave us behind?” Ayane said.

  “To keep the ransom to himself,” the captain said. “A disagreement over how to carry out the plan. Fighting between thieves. Should I go on? Because we already know the truth. Your friend talked his way past the guards and used his foul magic to paralyze almost everyone in city hall, including the Lady High Chamberlain. You three followed behind to help him move the Lady out of the building. He cast frigo to break through the wall, but it was too powerful and you were all caught in the blast and rendered unconscious. The magician, who as expected felt no loyalty toward you, escaped with his hostage and left you behind to be captured and executed. Now.” The captain leaned forward and put her elbows on the table, clasped her hands in front of her, and said, “If you confess to these crimes, I’ll make sure the law-speakers take that into account when they sentence you. Otherwise…” She cocked an eyebrow at them invitingly, waiting.

  Piercy and Ayane exchanged glances. “What does the woman say?” asked Dolobeka. His voice was strained.

  “She’s invented a story about our guilt and wants us to confess to it,” Ayane said sourly. “What do we do?”

  “Shut up,” the captain said, “stop talking immediately or I’ll lock you up somewhere a lot less pleasant than the holding cells.”

  “We apologize, captain,” Piercy said. “Our companion Lord Dolobeka speaks no Dalanese and he was justifiably curious as to your words.”

  “Then he can stay curious. I won’t have you plotting in that foreign tongue.”

  “Again, I apologize.” Piercy was thinking furiously. He needed to convince the captain either of their innocence or to contact Tedoratis, who would do the same thing. He mentally cursed Hodestis for putting them in this position. The little man was going to suffer when Piercy caught up to him. “Surely you don’t accuse us of killing anyone?” he said. “We left our weapons with the gate guards.”

  “You’re still guilty by association.”

  “That would be true if your story is correct. But our assertion is that Hodestis was acting alone, and we were pursuing him. You took weapons from us when we were captured. Had we been acting in concert, some of those guards would have been killed by our knives; instead, all five were killed by magic.” It was a guess, but a reasonable one.

  “They were all killed by the magician in his escape. You were already in custody at that time.”

  “Yet more evidence our story is true. Both the desini cucurri and the murder of the guards were performed by Hodestis. We were nowhere near during any of those events. If we were working together, what would be the point of separating our party? It did not make it easier for us to enter city hall or bypass the guards, and in fact Hodestis would have been defenseless against attack while casting his spells without armed associates to protect him. It makes more sense we were not acting as one.”

  Doubt flickered briefly in the captain’s eyes, then vanished. “You weren’t trying to attack him in the judgment chamber,” she said. “You sounded very friendly with him. As if you’d traveled for some time together.”

  “We were trying to convince him to give up his mad plan, or at the very least to keep him from acting until he could be apprehended by your fine constabulary,” Piercy said. “You must not have seen he had each of us pinioned with his magic and we were incapable of attacking him directly. Lord Dolobeka broke his leg as a result of the fall we experienced when he released us.”

  “Why did you say my name? I insist you tell me what is happening!” Dolobeka growled. Piercy ignored him.

  “Please,” he said to the captain, “if you contact Wilfreya Tedoratis of the Foreign Office, she will confirm what we have said. If we are to rescue the Lady High Chamberlain, we must move quickly.”

  “As if I knew Miss Tedoratis well enough to speak to her,” the captain scoffed, but the doubt was stronger now. “I’m not about to take the word of a traitor like you. Lock them up pending trial.”

  “No!” Piercy shouted, jerking away from the hands that gripped his arms. “Captain, this is a terrible mistake!”

  “The mistake was in letting you speak,” the captain said.

  “Then you will listen to me,” Ayane said fiercely, taking a few steps forward before she was restrained. “I am Ayane Sethemba. My father is Kinfe Sethemba. You have forced me to reveal my identity and I assure you my government will not be happy to hear of it.”

  The captain had scooted her chair back a few inches when Piercy moved, but now her mouth fell open in astonishment. “Sethemba?” she said. “You’re lying.”

  “Am I?” Ayane said. “You think anyone would dare claim that name without a true right to it? Release us, and I will not tell Queen Cyrah of your foolishness.”

  The captain looked at all three of them in turn, at Dolobeka’s fierce scowl, at Ayane’s furious stance as if she weren’t bound and surrounded by enemies, at Piercy…he hoped his expression was one of confident calmness and not the anxiety that clutched at his chest. “Lock them up,” she finally said. “We’ll see if they continue to claim innocence after a night in the cells.”

  “No!” Piercy shouted again, and struggled to get away from the guards who took hold of him, though he had no idea what he could do, trapped in an underground prison with his hands chained behind his back. Someone slammed a truncheon into his stomach, then across his shoulders. He curled in on himself, as best he could with his hands secured behind his back, to be as small a target as possible as they beat him.

  He tucked his head in, hoping to protect it, and tried not to cry out, because he could hear Ayane shouting his name and in his pain-addled state thought if he could stay silent, she wouldn’t be so upset. Someone was screaming, though, someone nearby, and just as he realized it was him, a heavy rod struck the back of his head and sent white-hot sparks across his vision, and then he couldn’t hear anything.

  He drifted for a while, enjoying the respite from pain, and eventually he realized he was back in the cell, lying on the stinking blue blanket again, and Ayane was crouched beside him, gripping his hand and whispering his name. “That may not be the most intelligent thing I’ve ever done,” he said.

  “Are you all right? They wouldn’t stop�
�I swear, Piercy, when we get out of here I’m going to make those guards suffer.”

  “I admit to harboring such a desire myself.” He tried to sit up, then had to lean heavily on Ayane to get upright. “My head hurts, and I think one or two of my ribs are fractured, but that happened when I fell. Though I imagine the beating did them no good.”

  “Well, we tried reason. I think it’s time we escaped.”

  “I agree,” said Dolobeka. “I am prepared to fight my way out of this place.”

  Ayane and Piercy exchanged glances. “I think we’re in trouble,” Ayane said.

  “Do you suggest I am not strong enough? Sadiki Dolobeka is afraid of no one and nothing!”

  “Yes, but Sadiki Dolobeka is also incapable of walking at the moment,” Piercy said, “so unless you intend to remove your broken leg and batter our enemies about the head and shoulders with it, we are stuck here.”

  Ayane swore loudly and got up to pace the tiny confines of the cell. “You can unlock the door, right?”

  “Undoubtedly. But, as you say, we are stuck here unless we can find a way to help Lord Dolobeka move.”

  “I could go ahead,” Ayane said. “Sneak out, find the best way to leave.”

  “Or I could,” Piercy said. “In fact, I might be the better choice.”

  “You’d better not follow that up with some comment about chivalry, Faranter.”

  “It had not occurred to me in the slightest, Lady Sethemba. What did occur to me,” Piercy said with a grin, “is that I need only find a mirror and five minutes’ uninterrupted communion with it to procure our release.”

  “Ah,” Ayane said, and he thought she looked embarrassed. “I should have thought of that.”

  “We may be forced to wait until nightfall, when there are fewer guards moving about, but as we have already lost Hodestis’s immediate trail, I don’t see that another delay will hurt.” He bent, painfully, to slide the lock picks from his boots. “Certainly not as much as that beating did.”

  The lock was old and would be easy to pick, and Piercy considered doing it immediately, but decided even guards as fundamentally stupid as these were would be suspicious if they came to free them and found the door already unlocked. He put away the picks and lay on the bench trying to ignore his worst aches, particularly the sharp pain from his ribs that stabbed him whenever he moved incautiously. Dolobeka sat with his leg stretched out stiffly in front of him and his eyes closed, moving his lips soundlessly in prayer or possibly invective against their captors; the latter was more likely.

  A guard stopped and looked through the little window at them. Piercy said, “If you are interested in playful banter, I fear my stores are low.”

  The guard said nothing, but his expression was thoughtful rather than cruel or mocking. “No talking,” he said, and tapped his truncheon against the iron bars lightly, making a dull tink. “You’ll just make it worse for yourselves.”

  “We appreciate your warm consideration for our needs,” Piercy said. The guard tapped the bars again, then moved off down the hall.

  “At least he was less antagonistic than the others,” Ayane said. She leaned against the wall near Piercy, kicking her heels. “When we are free of this place, how will we find Hodestis again?” she said, this time speaking in Dalanese.

  Piercy glanced at Dolobeka, who was too preoccupied with his pain to be indignant over their speaking a language he couldn’t understand. “I confess I am at a loss,” he said. “He will have needed transportation, which means a wagon or a carriage, and we can inquire at the gate as to the exit of someone matching his description driving a conveyance of that sort. After that…”

  “He will have to stay on the road. I imagine we can ask at the towns along the route as we track him.” She sighed. “I will not give up even though part of me wants to.”

  “I understand completely.” He pushed himself up. “We should—”

  The tortured grinding of metal cut over his words, and the door swung open, admitting five guards. Two moved to restrain Dolobeka; two forced Ayane against the wall. “Release her!” Piercy shouted, terrifyingly conscious of the possibility that Ayane might be subjected to a different sort of attack, but they just held her immobile against her struggles.

  The fifth guard pointed his truncheon at Piercy. “You. Out.”

  “They come too,” Piercy said, and gasped as the truncheon slammed into his stomach again. As he doubled over, he heard another thud, and Ayane cried out in pain. Red fury swept across his vision, and he threw himself at his attacker, forgetting his own pain. Another blow sent him sprawling. I am a better fighter than this, he thought, staggering to his feet. I hope no one ever learns how easily I allowed cracked ribs, a probable concussion, and a severe beating to annul twelve years of martial training.

  “You come, or they suffer,” the guard said. To Piercy’s relief, Ayane looked furious rather than afraid or seriously hurt. She had an intent look on her face that told him she wished desperately she could send her thoughts directly into his mind, but he could guess what she was thinking: cooperate, and we might all escape this place.

  Piercy made a shallow bow to the guard and said, “You asked so nicely, how could I refuse such a request?” The guard looked as if he wanted to hit Piercy again, but after a few seconds in which the two of them stared one another down, the man lowered his truncheon and indicated Piercy should follow him. Piercy looked over his shoulder once at Ayane, who nodded, then he followed the guard out the door, wishing more than anything he had a truncheon of his own.

  Chapter Twenty

  The guard led the way down the corridor again. Piercy looked behind him just once, to make sure all four guards were following them; the idea of Ayane unarmed and alone with several of them still made him feel colder than the icy corridor could account for. The guard opened the door to the interrogation room and gestured him inside. Piercy thought about smiling at him, was outvoted by his ribs, and entered the room, which was empty of everything except the chair and table.

  The guard shut the door behind him and locked it. Piercy immediately went to examine it. The lock was even flimsier than the one on the cell door, a mere token effort at confining a prisoner. He ignored it for the moment and went to the other door, the one the captain had entered by. It was unlocked—no, had no lock at all.

  He set his hand to the doorknob, then decided to wait a minute or two before discovering what lay beyond it. It was possible the captain wanted him to explore, which inclined him to stay put just to avoid giving her the satisfaction.

  He examined the rest of his surroundings thoroughly and found a couple of spyholes placed just where someone on the other side of the wall could watch anyone who stood in front of the battered table. He pretended he hadn’t noticed and moved on, but aside from those peepholes, the room was boring.

  Piercy sat on the table with his back to the peepholes and thought. It was probably best to wait here—that would be the sensible thing to do—but the Ayane thing to do, the thing he was increasingly inclined toward, was to burst through the door and find someone reasonable. Assuming there was any such person in the place.

  He slid off the table and went around to where he could stand directly in front of one of the spyholes. “Your hospitality leaves much to be desired,” he said, and strode to the door and flung it open.

  The room beyond was about ten degrees warmer than the parts of the prison Piercy had inhabited, low-ceilinged and brightly lit by magic instead of oil. Landscape paintings covered the walls like windows on peaceful vistas far from the moorlands of Kemelen. Most of the room was taken up by a desk that would have looked more natural in the king’s own offices, gleaming maple with shining brass fittings. The captain sat behind it, holding a delicately carved ivory hand mirror. Piercy thought she was admiring her stern hairdo until she turned it to face him, and Wilfreya Tedoratis said, “Faranter. Report.”

  “Miss Tedoratis, I am reluctant to speak candidly in the presence of someone who has been
so hostile to myself, my companions, and my mission,” he said. He deliberately didn’t look at the captain, much as he wanted to see if she was cringing yet.

  “Understood. The misunderstanding has been straightened out, hasn’t it, Captain Leuwenter?”

  “Yes, Miss Tedoratis. We were just doing our jobs.”

  “Unless your job involves beating helpless prisoners, I question that assertion,” Piercy said, and now he did look at Leuwenter and took great pleasure in the way her hand on the mirror trembled.

  “Indeed? Captain, do you have an explanation?”

  Leuwenter looked as if she wanted to defend herself but could see there was no point. “It was a mistake.”

  “Indeed,” Tedoratis repeated. “And a mistake I expect you to report to the Chief Constabulary in Matra. I look forward to reading my copy.” Leuwenter winced. “Now—get out. I wish to speak to my agent in private.”

  “Miss Tedoratis, if you would instruct the captain to release my companions to join me?” Piercy said quickly.

  “Of course. See to it, captain.” Tedoratis’s emphasis on the word suggested that “captain” was not a title Leuwenter was going to hold much longer. Leuwenter handed the mirror to Piercy and left, shutting the door quietly behind her.

  “Well, Mr. Faranter, you are certainly the worse for wear. Fortunate for you one of the Kemelen guards had the good sense to contact the Foreign Office, since I doubt the good captain would have bothered. Were you injured?”

  “Yes, but nothing to speak of.” Piercy tried not to think about his cracked ribs. “What is most urgent at the moment is locating Hodestis again. What time is it? They took my watch along with my other things.”

  “It’s four in the afternoon.”

  “Then he has a six-hour advantage on us.” Saying the words filled Piercy’s stomach with gut-clenching anxiety. “We have a plan for locating him again.”

  “What I’m concerned about is the Lady High Chamberlain. Why did he kidnap her?”

  The door opened, and Ayane ran in. “They were far too polite just now,” she said. “I plan to kick at least one of them in the balls before I leave here.”