[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
teeth, afraid it would spill from his enervated lips. He reached the bunk as the tinnitus and vertigo began,
and rolled into it, cursing himself for the wasted movement, for being too damned effete to stretch his
length on the filthy floor. Civilization would be the death of him. Belly-down on the bunk to avoid choking
on the lozenge, he pulled vitality from it and poured it into his numb mouth and ringing ears, while at the
same time he concentrated on neutralizing the poison, thanking his Drunken God it was scavvern, and
something he d met before. He was aware of distant shouts, of jolts and jarring, but numbness and
ringing ears were fine protection against distraction until someone lifted him up from the bunk, dangled
him briefly like a shot weasel, and then let him slam down. The lozenge hopped from his mouth and
skittered across the floor.
The coward s poisoned himself ! Someone clouted him, hard, on the side of the head. He d laugh
later, he promised himself.
Page 120
Give him water, someone else ordered crisply.
Sweet Imogene, no.The same hand as before dragged him up, but this time an arm went around him.
His head lolled so he could not sonn the flask, but he got a hand up, somehow, in what felt like the right
direction. He nudged something hard to his gloved touch, braced, and thrust it away with all his remaining
strength. Someone yelled a warning; there was a violent jostling and a clatter near him. Ish s wavering
sonn picked out the outlines of the men around him. Two of them pressed up against the others in an
almost comic impression of panicked retreat. The man holding him said in sudden alarm, My arm s
tingling.
Get away from him, said one of them, and pulled the other away, leaving Ish to flop sideways, half on
and half off the bed. He had lost all sensation in his face and all control of his sonn, which pulsed in
erratic, unfocused bursts. He sonned his own hand, bent upon its wrist beside a puddle on the floor,
protected only by its thick leather glove; he sonned milling footsteps; heard, through the clamor in his
ears, the shouting. If they chose, through anger or spite, to pitch him onto the floor, he would be dead as
soon as the spill soaked through his shirt. And there surely would be retribution on his fellow mages, if
any of their own sickened or died of this suicide attempt.
Nothing he could do about any of that. He turned his attention inward once more. Vaguely he heard the
door to his cell slam, the nearby voices recede into the general bedlam of a prison roused, as the
prisoners added their barracking and heckling to the guards panic. He regained enough control to
retrieve the last lozenge from his shirt and fumble it into his mouth, nearly losing it when his cheek brushed
a sodden spot on the pillow drool, he realized a moment later, not poison. He hoped, for the sake of
the man who d been about to give him the water in all innocence that the prison apothecary had his
wits about him and knew how to support breathing. Scavvern poison was short-lasting; there was that to
be said about it. And then a surge of utter fury drove the worst of the numbness away. He hauled himself
upright, using wall, bed, and rage as crutches, and reeled against the bars. Gripping the bars with one
gloved hand, he spit the spicule into the other and yelled or tried to yell, with his voice a wheezing
growl and his tongue flapping like a lone sock on a laundry line Was n the water , curse you. M no
sorcerer and no suicide. He slung an arm through the bars, dangling by his armpit, and pointed at one of
the men who had so conspicuously scrambled away from the water. Ask m why he knew h couldn t let
th water touch m.
Madness, he knew: The guards would never accept the logic of his accusation. Even if they tore him
apart, and in the process landed two or three more in that deadly spill, he would still be blamed. The man
he d accused was overset enough to be babbling denials that would surely have been suspicious to
anyone whose reason was engaged, but were going unheard. Half a dozen guards started toward Ish,
enraged. He pushed himself back from the bars, lest they start by using the bars as leverage to
dismember him, and lurched back against the wall.
Bracing himself, he heard a man s voice say, What is going on here?
The voice was that of the superintendent who had arrested him, the middle-aged man with the distinctive
nose and a reputation for principle above all. With him, he recognized di Brennan, his lawyer. His knees
caved in beneath him he told himself that it was not relief, merely the wearing off of that wildman s
rage and he slid down the wall to sit curled up against it and simply wait out the shouting.
Ishmael
Page 121
Guards took him from his cell, fearfully and none too gently, and dragged him to an interview room at the
far end of the hall, beside the guard station. He had by then more or less regained the use of his limbs,
and was striving not to shake too openly with reaction. Di Brennan and his student were allowed to join
him, but only in the presence of a guard. He supposed each was meant to neutralize the biases of the
other. Save for an inquiry into his recovery, he and his lawyer did not speak. The student he recognized
immediately: He had heard one of the ducal sons of the Scallon Isles had turned to law, as an alternative
strategy for defending their sovereignty. Try though the young man might, he could not entirely contain his
curiosity when he sonned Ish, or his distaste when he sonned their surroundings.
Malachi Plantageter returned somewhat later. He dismissed the guard, turned the chair and sat on it,
sonned Ish with a deft, civil touch. He wasted no time on pleasantries.
When we went back to your cell, there were three rats lying dead in that puddle on the floor. Come out
to drink, I suppose, after the commotion was gone. Your lozenge was gone, carried away by a rat, I
would presume. That, at least, was not death to the touch. He offered no interpretation of the facts so
suggestively juxtaposed. I ve ordered it cleaned up. Carefully.
And the guard the one it spilled on? Ish said.
Malachi turned on him an expression of surprise that he should ask, and then irritation, at himself, Ish
thought, that he was surprised. Doing well enough. Our prison apothecary s a cut above the usual
incompetent sot.
Tell him that the poison was scavvern, and wears off rapidly with no aftereffects.
Di Brennan stirred. Baron Strumheller, he said, have I not previously advised you against
spontaneous contributions when you are in legal jeopardy?
Ish was still gripped by that mood that counted self-protection secondary. What else d you know? Did
you question th man I marked?
Di Brennan turned a severe expression on him, one reminiscent of long-ago tutors of the baron s unruly
son.
Plantageter sonned them both. I questioned him, yes, he said judiciously. He claimed he feared that a
sorcerer s affliction would be catching. I do note, however, that he was in the party that arrested you,
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]