Chapter 8 Forays into Self-Discipline and Associated Discomforts #2
Now that they had touched upon the subject that so preoccupied her, Fairhrim became more attentive. “I really can’t. Why are you naked?”
“You’ve just said whatever happened was thanks to me. Surely I’m entitled to know.”
Fairhrim looked Osric in the eye. Impressive self-control, given that his cock was, you know, right there.
Gravely she asked, “If I tell you, do you promise to keep it to yourself?”
“I promise,” said Osric. (It was untrue. But then again, so was most of what he said.)
“The Wardens caught Tristane,” said Fairhrim.
It took a moment for Osric to process this absurd sentence. “What?”
Fairhrim looked pleased. “I know. It’s brilliant.”
“Caught Tristane?” repeated Osric. “Caught her? That’s impossible.”
“It is possible.”
“How?”
“I implemented the advice you gave me about where to have wards set at Swanstone and expanded on it a bit. We had wards set at the waystone at the Publish or Perish and snag anyone with unknown seith. We had a Warden stationed there round the clock. Tristane was caught as soon as she exited the ley line.”
Osric stared at Fairhrim, open-mouthed. “The advice I gave you was meant to deter Tristane, not result in a capture. You were never meant to actually catch her.”
“Well, we did.”
“How many died?”
“One Warden almost did, but was healed—we are Haelan, after all.”
Osric shook off his astonishment. “She’ll make short work of an escape. No one can hold Tristane.”
“She won’t,” said Fairhrim. With disturbing serenity she added, “She’s got no seith.”
“No seith? What do you mean? What did they do to her?”
“Nothing horrid. Just a little procedure I conducted, for the safety of everyone at Tintagel Castle.”
Osric had never felt a conversation skid so quickly out of control in his life. “A little procedure? Tintagel Castle?”
Fairhrim packed away the hlutoform. “Yes. The Wardens are transferring Tristane to their headquarters, to await judgement at the Stánrocc.”
“Transferring her? When?”
“As we speak,” said Fairhrim. “What are you doing?”
Osric dressed. “I’m going to intercept them while she’s in transit. When she’s at Tintagel Castle there’ll be no chance of getting her out. That place is impenetrable.”
Fairhrim was finally beginning to realise that Osric did not share her elation. “You—you want to rescue Tristane?”
“Obviously, I want to rescue Tristane.”
“But I thought you were helping me. We caught her on the basis of your instructions.”
Osric pulled on his coat. “No. I told you how to deter her; she would never have attempted to bypass those hellish wards if she’d seen them. But she wouldn’t have expected a ward at the foot of a waystone. You didn’t even give her the chance to make a decision.”
“She made a decision when she used the waystone to come to Swanstone,” said Fairhrim.
Which was annoyingly correct, which was why Osric ignored her.
“Why do you care?” asked Fairhrim. “It’s Tristane.”
“Exactly. It’s Tristane. My warchief. She plucked me off the streets and made me who I am. I don’t want her to kill you, but I don’t want her to die, either. Did you say the Stánrocc? They’re going to have her executed for attacking another Order.”
Osric went to the door. He would gather together a dozen Fyren. They ought to be able to take on the Wardens transferring Tristane to their castle. They would need to move fast to intercept them, however. What was the nearest waystone to Tintagel Castle?
Osric clasped at his pockets for his waystone map. When he looked up, Fairhrim was blocking the door. Her arms were crossed. She was steely-eyed.
“You promised to keep this to yourself,” said Fairhrim.
“Promises were made to be broken,” said Osric. “You already know this.”
“Do you really think I’m going to let you hare off and free Tristane? So—so what, she can try again later, and actually kill someone at Swanstone next time?”
“She’ll be sentenced to death at the Stánrocc,” said Osric.
“She should’ve thought of that before attacking Swanstone,” said Fairhrim. “She knows the Peace Accords. Don’t go. Otherwise—”
“Otherwise?”
“Otherwise,” repeated Fairhrim, and the word held a threat.
“I’m going.”
Fairhrim reached for Osric with her right hand. Her tācn gleamed white.
Osric danced away from her. “I don’t think so.”
“Let Tristane face the consequences of her actions,” said Fairhrim.
“No.” Osric shadow-walked past her into the corridor. He wiggled his fingers behind him as he strode away. “Until next time, Fairhrim. Thanks for the tip-off.”
“Mordaunt,” said Fairhrim. Her voice was heavy with disappointment. “Please don’t do this.”
Osric blew her a kiss over his shoulder.
There was a flash of light. Fairhrim flooded the corridor with illumination from her tācn. The next shadow was a step too far for Osric to reach it in the shadow-walk.
“Adorable,” said Osric. “But just because I can’t shadow-walk doesn’t mean I can’t, you know—walk.”
“You know so little of my abilities,” said Fairhrim.
Osric had told her the same once—though less arrogantly, surely. Anyway, what was a pacifist Haelan without a single offensive ability going to do from all the way over there?
She raised her tācn. Eight pinpricks of ice flared burning cold in Osric’s body. Her seith, so familiar to him through all of their healings, was inside him, and now took on a frigid, paralytic quality. His joints seized. His jaw locked. He fell to his knees.
She hadn’t even touched him. Impossible. Impossible.
He heard Fairhrim’s footsteps behind him. He couldn’t turn his neck.
“You shouldn’t have forced my hand,” she said.
Osric, lock-jawed, could make no answer.
Minutes ago, he had inspected the image of himself on the wall and seen the bright pinpricks of her seith markers dotting his system.
Those were what she had just used against him.
How long had she had a kill switch inside him?
How long had she kept it in her back pocket? Who did she think she was?
Fairhrim stood before him, her eyes aglitter with cold fury. “You’ll be in this state for two hours, which will be long enough for the Wardens to get Tristane situated at Tintagel Castle. I was stupid enough to trust you. I will never make that mistake again.”
Then—to add the sting of insult to injury—she pressed a fingertip into Osric’s shoulder and tilted him into a wardrobe whose door was ajar.
She had waited until he had walked exactly there to freeze him, for her own convenience.
She shut the door on him. Her footsteps receded down the corridor and out of the clinic.
Fairhrim had, as always, been precise. It took Osric two hours to thaw out of the paralysis she had imposed upon him.
The wardrobe was full of skeletons and mops.
Two hours in the darkness, in the company of skeletons, with a “Well done!” star sticker on his forehead, was ample time to stew with wrath, and work himself into a filthy temper, and decide that he hated Fairhrim. How dare she?
She was not a Flight of Fancy. She was a self-righteous terror. She was a Means to an End, and only a Means to an End, and would never be anything more.
When he had recovered the use of his limbs, Osric left the clinic.
He had, at least, stuck to his Resolution.
He stole the diffractor on the way out.