Escape
There was a moment of silence as the doors shut. No one moved, and the only sounds were the scraping noise of bodies being dragged over marble.
Lieutenant Wanimar turned to Commander Talu. “What ritual?”
“Now you ask?” Math scoffed.
She glanced angrily at Math. “I’m not fool enough to question things when that … that…” She gestured toward where King Sanistral had vanished.
“Grim lord,” Math said. “The noun you’re looking for is grim lord.”
A different knight paused from where they’d been dragging bodies. “Fuck. Really?”
“That’s enough,” Commander Talu said. “He’s not a grim lord, he’s just powerful.”
“Don’t believe Talu,” Math said. “Sanistral is absolutely a grim lord. The original grim lord. When he finishes that ritual, it’s either going to make him a god or destroy all life or both. He doesn’t care: he’s already dead.”
Commander Talu gave him a frown that might have made him quake not that long ago.
“Please remember I have your sister locked away upstairs and be quiet.” He turned his head.
“Someone find me a secure room where we can put this puppy. I don’t want to hear him yapping. Make sure he stays out of sunlight.”
It was almost a comfort to know that Commander Talu didn’t want to take the chance that Math might convince his people. It meant that these really were Idallik Knights, and not secret Kaliri.
Whatever their motivations or complaints about their treatment, they were still citizens of Rokasmaa. They were still Idallik Knights. That meant they’d grown up believing their order had been founded for the sole purpose of defeating grim lords and their minions.
More than a few of them had to be questioning what was happening.
At least, Math hoped.
Talu’s knights found a secure room for Math: it was a linen closet.
Math said, “Ask yourself what’s going to happen when Sanistral doesn’t need you anymore. He has zero motivation to allow the Idallik Order to exist.”
The knights threw him inside the closet and closed the door, plunging him into darkness.
For about three seconds.
That’s how long it took him to circle a Sun spell and summon up a light. This time, it looked like a series of softly glowing mushrooms sprouting from the walls and ceiling.
“I like those,” Math admitted.
He examined the room and found it stubbornly remained a linen closet.
A very fancy linen closet, with a lot of beautiful fabrics embroidered with the imperial lions, but still a small room filled with shelves.
He reached for one of those fine sheets, only to be reminded that his hands were still bound.
Math thought the problem over for a minute.
He didn’t know if he could shift out of the bindings.
Shifting took his clothes along with him, after all. It seemed like the same idea.
He glanced down again at the shelves. The wooden shelves.
Dead wood, but he could work with that.
He needed to find his sister and the kids, then figure out how to rescue Kai. She was fine at that moment. He felt her through the bond, miserable but whole.
He returned to contemplating the shelves. Math could manifest a shield made from plants regardless of whether any plants were in the area, but he’d also done the opposite. Math had deliberately pulled materials from the environment to reinforce his shield of vines and brambles.
Vines …
It turned out his ropes were also made from plant fiber, so escaping his restraints proved absurdly easy.
As he rubbed his wrists, he noticed that Kai’s bracelet was missing. Had he dropped it?
No. Kai had taken it back. She hadn’t been trying to untie his hands, she’d been retrieving the bracelet. Talu had forced her to remove her jewelry, and Sanistral hadn’t been fool enough to give any of it back.
Math hoped she could make good use of it.
The door opened. Math spun around, shield in hand, expecting Idallik Knights.
But it wasn’t the right door, and it wasn’t Idallik Knights.
Members of the Idallik Order, yes, but not knights.
A secret doorway, hidden behind a panel, had slid open, revealing seven-year-old Empress Asali.
She held a glowing ball of golden light in her hand and a pleased expression on her face.
Beside her stood Jaiik and Taris. Jaiik held his lightning javelin, and Taris had her hands clenched around an inky-black spear.
They’d both manifested their weapons. He wished he’d had time to properly congratulate them.
“Come on!” Jaiik whispered while making a hurried motion for Math to follow.
Math didn’t need to be told twice.
“What—” he muttered as he stepped out of the linen closet and into a small, cramped tunnel. It seemed less like a servants’ tunnel than an escape route.
Empress Asali raised her chin. “Told you,” she murmured to her older companions, and closed the door to the linen closet again.
Math stared at the glowing ball of light in the empress’s hand. When she noticed, she blushed and looked away, but made no comment.
Tanxi hadn’t created the glowing light Math had seen when he’d first met the little empress. Asali had.
The empress had a Sun resonance.
No wonder the regent hadn’t minded leaving her with a bunch of Idallik novitiates. No wonder she hadn’t wanted Asali left playing with the children of nobles—children guaranteed to gossip to the wrong people.
Any child with magical ability was required to enter the Order, but as the sole heir to the empire, Asali would be required to marry, to have children. One could not be both an Idallik Knight and empress of the empire.
Much as he sympathized, they had more important problems.
“Nicely done,” Math told her. “Thank you. You don’t know where my sister is, do you?”
“We’ve got her,” Jaiik said. “She hasn’t woken yet. They shocked her pretty hard. Come on, this way.”
“No,” Asali corrected. “This way.” She pointed down a side tunnel.
“Right,” Jaiik said. “I knew that.”
Taris hit his arm.
“I did!” he protested. “Or, I would have figured it out! Eventually!”
Asali just rolled her eyes, and kept leading them down a hallway, then down a set of stairs, until Math had no idea if they were even still in the palace. They came out into an abandoned cistern, still wet, covered in moss and algae. It didn’t smell nearly as bad as it should have.
This was either not the first time it had served as a hiding place or the children had been very busy, because someone had found a rough, serviceable couch and placed it on top of old, moth-eaten rugs.
They partitioned off rooms with torn sheets and clotheslines.
Math thought back to memories of a young girl playing fort under a table in Cherkiss and had a feeling he knew who was responsible.
One curtain was pushed aside, giving Math a clear view of Tanxi being helped into a sitting position by Iduan and Satu. He saw the other kids sitting on pillows in the area. A few of them were sleeping. Most huddled under blankets.
“We got him!” Jaiik called out, at which point Tanxi’s head snapped up.
“Jaiik, Taris, you two were supposed to be in charge,” Tanxi immediately scolded. “You let the empress go off with you all alone?”
While the two preteens flushed and stammered excuses, Asali calmly walked forward. “It’s not their fault. I’m the only one who knew the way,” she reminded Tanxi.
Taris indignantly pointed at the empress. “See?”
“No offense, big sister, but we have bigger problems.”
Tanxi stilled, staring at Math. “What happened?”
“Hmm.” He thought that over for a minute. “In summary? Commander Talu—”
“No,” Tanxi snapped. “What happened?” She pointed to the front of his jazerant coat, which admittedly had a pretty sizable hole in it, front and back. Blood had dyed a significant portion of the surrounding fabric dark reddish brown.
“Right,” Math said. “That.”
“That, yes. Were you stabbed?”
“In a way? Commander Talu shot me with a Kaliri black-powder weapon. I’ve mostly healed it.”
“Commander Talu?” Her voice was disbelieving.
Math doubted the Idallik Knights who’d knocked her unconscious had bothered explaining exactly whose orders they’d been opening.
“Yeah. Turns out the commander is a traitor who’s staging a coup. He’s killed just about everyone who can stop him and has invited the grim lord Sanistral into the palace. The grim lord has taken Kai prisoner and plans—”
“Who’s Kai?” Iduan asked.
Math hesitated. “The girl who was asleep back in the center of the maze in Isofal.”
“The girl you were with in Cherkiss?” the empress asked.
“Did you kiss her?” Mudiya asked.
Jaiik glanced over at Taris, who was watching him with narrowed eyes. The boy didn’t say a word.
“That is … so not the point right now,” Math answered. “Sanistral is—”
“Tri-Mother. You have kissed her.” That was from Tanxi.
“Seriously. Focus, or I am going to start talking about the time I walked in on you and that girl from the Charters section. Sanistral is going to enact a ritual that will either make him a god or kill all life. Possibly both. We need to stop him, and we need to find the regent, and we need to do both things yesterday. And then we need to do something about Talu, and him being a traitor who may or may not have killed all the other commanders.”
Tanxi’s mouth had dropped open in shock, but she pulled herself together quickly. “We have you, me, and thirteen children.” She raised a hand to Jaiik’s and Taris’s protests. “I don’t want to hear it from either of you. You’re babies.” She turned back to Math. “How do you plan to do any of this?”
“That’s a good question.”
Tanxi waited.
And waited.
“And…?”
“I was hoping you might have an idea.”
“You need Imar,” said one tiny, adorable little empress.
Math stopped pacing and went down to one knee in front of her. “Yes,” he agreed. “I do need the regent. I just don’t know where she is. And yesterday you said you didn’t know either. Is that still true?”
She flushed, turned her head to the side, then pulled a necklace over her head with one hand and held it out, the chain dangling from her clenched fist. It was a cameo of the imperial lions, carved into shell and set in gold.
“If I ever really, really, really need to find her, she’s said I could use this. ”
Tanxi came over, too, gently taking the necklace. “Did she explain how?”
Asali frowned. “She just said that she had a necklace made from the same piece of shell.”
Tanxi grinned. “She’s right then. I can find her with this.”
“Great!” Math said. “Then we just need to finish escaping the palace, find the regent, let her know what’s going on, and see about maybe bringing in an army or two to fight off some rogue Idalliks and give Sanistral a hard time on the roof. First, though, we need to get you kids to safety.”
Tanxi squinted. “And then what?”
“Then I need to find the Queen of Oaks, convince her to join forces with us against a mutual enemy, and stop a ritual that’s going to destroy the world and turn the woman I love into an undead abomination.”
Math didn’t really think he was fooling anyone into thinking this would be easy. Or even possible. Even little Hamu looked skeptical.
“—the woman you love?” Tanxi repeated.
Figures she would home in on that part.
“If everything goes well, I’ll introduce you,” Math promised. “She has a terrible sense of humor: you’ll love her. But first, let’s get out of here.”
“That’s easy,” Asali said. She pointed toward an old door. “That’s an escape tunnel.”
“Neat,” Math said. “Let’s go.”
They chivvied all the children down the tunnel, carrying the ones too small to otherwise keep up.
The mood was tense, but not nearly as bad as it could have been.
Math had the sense that the children were feeling pretty good about themselves: they’d rescued adults.
Heady stuff, for a group of kids who wanted to be heroes when they grew up.
The tunnel led up a flight of stairs and took several sharp turns before arriving at another stairway. It was marked by a distinct change in character and construction, newer than the imperial palace.
Math found himself drawing a mental map of their progress and frowned.
“Stop,” he told them.
The kids did, although their eyes were full of questions.
Math crouched down in front of the empress. “Your Majesty, does this tunnel lead to the Idallik cenobium?”
Tanxi inhaled sharply.
“The top floor. But no one will be there,” Empress Asali told him. “No one will expect us to be there, either.”
Math smiled. “Very smart, Your Majesty.” He looked at the rest of the children, each in turn. “You all need to be quiet, though.”
Iduan huffed and crossed her arms. “Don’t treat us like amateurs.”
“I wouldn’t dare,” Math agreed seriously. “Come on.”
The stairway ended at a small, unassuming wooden door. Math lowered the light levels on his summoned spell and stepped out into the room. One by one, he helped the children and his sister exit.
The door slammed shut and locked without Math touching it, and someone spelled a strong, bright white light. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his sister summon her sword.
“Now, now,” Commander Talu said. “We really don’t have time for that.”
Talu and a dozen Idallik Knights waited for them.