The Shadowhand Covenant Page 7

  The Sarosan leader laid a hand on my shoulder. “You will not be harmed in our care. I’ll see to that. But our people have been wrongfully imprisoned, and our only choice is to take drastic measures. The Dowager will have Warras’s message tomorrow morning. Then she’ll have two weeks to persuade the High Laird to release all imprisoned Sarosans.”

  “And what happens if she can’t do that?” I asked.

  “I have faith that the Dowager will do the right thing. Until she does, we’ll do our best to keep you comfortable.” He nodded to Maloch. “And when our people are free, we will do all in our power to help search for your father. Now, please excuse me a moment.”

  The second Kolo stepped from the tent, I leaped straight up. “Kolohendriseenax! Can you believe it? The Kolohendriseenax. It’s just—I mean, I’m—I can’t even—I don’t know what to ask him first.”

  Maloch grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me until my vision blurred. “Would you get a grip on yourself? He’s a kidnapper. We’re his victims. And they don’t even want me! This is all your fault. We’ll never find my father.”

  I pulled myself free. “Are you kidding? We’re closer than ever to figuring it out.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Weren’t you paying attention? The High Laird has accused the Sarosans—who aren’t thieves—of stealing from his impossible-to-enter vaults. Meanwhile, the Shadowhands, the only thieves in the land who could possibly enter those vaults unnoticed, have mysteriously vanished.”

  Maloch threw up his hands in disgust. “You’re not making any sense.”

  “It’s like par-Goblins say: Serris torrna m’yurra, sholla ser ontoron. ‘Those who choose to see coincidence fail to see conspiracy.’ It’s a mite too convenient that the Sarosans were accused of theft around the time the Shadowhands started disappearing.”

  The blank expression on Maloch’s face slowly gave way to understanding. “You think the Sarosans have something to do with my da’s disappearance?”

  “No,” I said, peeking out through a gap in the tent. Nomadic by nature, they were used to pulling up stakes and moving on short notice. They very nearly had the entire camp ready to move. “But there’s clearly a link between the Sarosans and the Shadowhands. As long as we’re their hostages, we might as well make the most of it. Pay attention. Learn what we can. I don’t know what’s going to happen when the Dowager gets that ransom note, but one thing I know for sure: we find that link, we find your father.”

  9

  A Sinister Message

  “The purse of a fool buys the sweetest happiness.”

  —Hulrick Grimjinx, coauthor of the Grimjinx/Aviard Peace Accords

  Emerging from the tunnels to the surface, we were met by a dissonant tune, like the sound of a hundred flutes each playing a different melody. As the fresh air—cold and biting—filled our lungs, Maloch and I trudged along in ankle-deep snow through a dense forest with the rest of the Sarosan convoy. Instead of tall and straight, the mist-colored tree trunks coiled up from the ground like thick wooden springs. A light breeze passed through the natural, fist-sized holes that perforated the trunks, causing the trees to “sing.”

  “Whistlebirch,” I whispered to Maloch.

  “Yeah?” he said. “So?”

  “So, there are only two whistlebirch forests in the Provinces. Only one within a day or two of Vengekeep. At least now we’ve got a good idea where we are.”

  What we didn’t know was where we were headed. Before leaving the caves, Kolo had said we were going somewhere he deemed safe that was no more than a day’s journey. “We’ve created several safe havens across the Provinces,” he’d told me. “These are secure places we can hide from the Provincial Guard and the Palatinate.” I wondered what made these places “secure.”

  I looked up at the sun, dipping past its noon zenith. “We’re heading northwest, so that means—”

  I felt a sharp jab in my back. Glancing behind me, I found Reena wielding a long, thin reed—a blowgun—like a lance. Holm made a show of loading his blowgun with a small wooden dart.

  “No talking,” she said, threatening to poke me again.

  Maloch and I walked at the heart of the long line of Sarosans, surrounded by the tallest, most muscled men and women in camp. You’d think that would be enough to ensure we weren’t going anywhere. But Reena and Holm had taken it upon themselves to be our unofficial escorts. I like to think they knew just how wily a Grimjinx could be and couldn’t trust me not to pull something crafty in an attempt to escape.

  They clearly weren’t taking my extreme desire not to be shot with a blowgun into account.

  “You know,” I said to Reena, “if you hadn’t noticed, I did save the Sarosans from having their faces eaten by vessapedes. I’m not asking for thanks—although I wouldn’t balk at any either—but maybe the least you could do is, I don’t know, smile?”

  Reena kept her chin up, her chilly gaze straightforward.

  I tried again. “I’m really sorry about your parents. If it makes you feel better, the Dowager disagrees with what her brother is doing. I’m sure that, even if you hadn’t kidnapped me, she would have eventually challenged him on his policies and gotten him to change his mind.”

  “‘Eventually,’” she said. She didn’t sound angry like usual. Now she was just sad. “Next week? Next month? Next year? I don’t think my parents should suffer in Umbramore Tower even a minute for something they didn’t do. Eventually isn’t good enough.”

  I couldn’t argue with that.

  We traveled at a brisk pace the rest of the day, slowing only as dusk approached. As we crested a hill, I looked down to see a rocky cliff face not far ahead, just past a snow-covered clearing. The convoy banked hard to the left, taking us deeper into the forest.

  “Now that’s odd,” I said softly to Maloch.

  “What?”

  “Well, I’m guessing we’re headed for the cliff face. It’s a natural camouflage and would give the Sarosans a tactical advantage in case of attack. We could head straight there through that clearing, but we’re taking the long way around. What do you suppose that means?”

  Maloch rolled his eyes. “You think too much, Jaxter. It doesn’t mean anything.”

  Maybe. Maybe not.

  As I predicted, after winding our way through more whistlebirch, we arrived at the cliff face just as the final rays of sunlight dwindled on the horizon. Maloch and I were tied to a tree while the Sarosans erected their portable homes by torchlight. Within an hour, it looked very much like the underground camp. As dinner was served, Maloch and I were brought to a campfire, where we joined the others.

  As the Sarosans prayed, they passed around baskets of bread and cheese, the traditional evening meal. However, the food was sent around Maloch and me. Before Maloch could protest, the woman who’d cut my hair—who I’d learned was named Surral—arrived with plates of bread and cheese, which she handed to us.

  “This is yours,” she said.

  Maloch was so hungry he dug right in. I was a little more cautious. Why did we merit special plates? Because we were guests? Outsiders? But I reminded myself that if they wanted to kill us, they could do it at any time, so I popped a hastily made cheese sandwich into my mouth. Both the bread and the cheese tasted bitter. I guessed when you lived like the Sarosans, you couldn’t be picky about your food.

  I felt a hand on my shoulder and looked up to find Kolo. “Jaxter, come with me.”

  Without another word, he moved away from the circle. I shrugged at Maloch, picked up my plate, and followed. Kolo led me back to his tent, butted up against the cliffs at the back of the camp. He’d wasted no time making himself at home. A long table on the far side was covered with familiar equipment: mortar and pestle, scales, small glass jars filled with exotic plants and unidentifiable fluids. It was like being back in the Dowager’s laboratory. A black quill and a messy stack of parchment dangled half off the edge of the table. A small cauldron hung over a fire in the center of the room,
its sweetly odorous contents bubbling gently.

  Kolo dipped his finger into the cauldron, gave the liquid inside a taste, and nodded approvingly. “Just a moment,” he said, stirring the kettle. “Need to finish this batch of tincture.”

  I looked at the top parchment page on the table. It was messy with notations: sentences underlined, words struck through, notes in the margins. My breath caught when I realized: I was witnessing the creation of a new formula!

  Kolo took a jar labeled ICECLOVERS and dropped a few of the transparent, three-leafed weeds into the kettle. I knew little about iceclovers. They were rare, popping out of the ground only after a fresh snowfall. I couldn’t wait to see what uses he’d found for them.

  He submerged a cloth into the cauldron, then wrung out an excess of milky white liquid. Reaching up under his long sleeve, Kolo rubbed the damp cloth on his arm. At first, he winced, but after a moment, he clearly felt better. He put more tincture on his other arm, then sat across from me.

  “Wonderful stuff, iceclovers,” he said, holding up one of the clear-leafed plants. “Many medicinal purposes. Soothing for these weary bones.”

  He turned to the stack of parchment and made a notation with his quill. “How are you and young Mr. Oxter doing?”

  “Bangers,” I said. “Accommodations are cozy but clean, cuisine is imaginative, the staff”—I scowled in my best imitation of Reena—“surly but helpful. I’ll be sure to recommend you for future kidnappings.”

  Kolo stifled a laugh as he ladled the remaining tincture from the kettle and sealed it into a small wooden jar. “For someone who’s been kidnapped, you’re being very reasonable.”

  “My ancestor Kardra Grimjinx always said, ‘Reason is the mask of panic.’”

  He nodded. “A mask or not, I appreciate you staying calm. My hope is that the Dowager will work to end our persecution, and then we can have you back studying with her before long.”

  Warras had returned just before dinner, which meant the Dowager had received the ransom note. I had no idea what she would do. Offer to negotiate with the High Laird? Bring down the wrath of the entire Provincial Guard upon the Sarosans?

  We hadn’t exactly been getting along lately. Maybe she’d do nothing.

  Kolo made another note on the parchment. “Until then, and I know I’m being presumptuous to even suggest this, I’m wondering if you would be interested in helping me with a small project.”

  He turned the top piece of parchment to face me. On the page, he’d described the texture, color, taste, and aroma of the iceclovers and had created a table listing the different ways he proposed combining them with other natural ingredients.

  “I’ve been making some notes, you see. . . . Ideas I had for a new book. Sort of a follow-up to my Formulary.”

  My heart skipped a beat. A new book?

  “Since I wrote the first book,” Kolo said, thumbing through the pages of his work-in-progress, “I’ve come to discover so much more about the natural world. But at my age, conducting experiments has become difficult. I know it’s a strange request for a kidnapper to ask his captive, but . . . would you be willing to assist me in my research for the duration of your stay? Which, again, I hope is not long.”

  On the outside, I stayed calm. On the inside, I was celebrating like it was the High Laird’s Jubilee.

  I reached out and touched the parchment. I skimmed the pages, trying to soak up all the new knowledge within. All from the man who had accidentally set the course of my life. I was being offered a chance to do the research I wanted to do.

  True, it was only while we were captive. But nobody understood the natural world like Kolo. Even spending just a day learning from him would be amazing. And maybe, just maybe, it didn’t have to end once the Sarosans set us free. I wondered: did Kolo need an apprentice . . . ?

  This was absolutely crazy. On Kolo’s orders, Maloch and I had been kidnapped. The High Laird was issuing insane decrees every day, and the Shadowhands were being methodically hunted. The world made no sense at all, and he wanted me to help him research a new book.

  How could I say no?

  “I’d be honored,” I said, barely able to squeak the words out. “As the par-Goblins say, Terressa ovar nomloc harjina fal emlik.”

  Kolo winked. “‘Only a fool learns from less than a master.’”

  My head spun. He even spoke par-Goblin. Clearly, this man was meant to be my mentor. As far as kidnappings went, I was guessing this ranked as one of the best.

  “Excellent!” Kolo clapped his hands once and rubbed them excitedly. “We start in the morning.”

  The next three days were some of the best of my kidnapped life.

  It wasn’t all wonderful. Living as refugees didn’t agree with Maloch or me. We woke every day feeling sore and sick to our stomachs. I noticed the sickness would vanish when we drank at First Rise, clearly a sign we were dehydrated. But I had no idea why we woke up dehydrated each day. I kept meaning to ask Kolo about it, but once we started work, it always slipped my mind.

  Every day, Maloch was given small tasks—usually laundry or cleaning—which he did eagerly. He hadn’t forgotten what I’d said about finding the link between the Sarosans and the Shadowhands. He firmly believed the Dowager would free us any day, and he wanted to gather as much information as he could to discover that link. Once we were free, I wouldn’t see him for dust. He’d be off in search of his father.

  After the First Rise ritual each day, I would report to Kolo’s tent, where I helped him catalog a variety of plants, noting their many uses and testing the best ways to help them grow. He lectured at length on the medicinal uses of kasterban root and became childlike with glee when he discovered a new salve. I kept careful notes on the parchment pages, spelling out every unexpected side effect that came from combining new materials.

  I loved it. This was what I wanted from life at Redvalor Castle. Research on the things that I enjoyed learning about. Too often, at Redvalor, we’d researched boring topics that only interested the Dowager. With Kolo, I never spent a single minute being bored. Or running down a tunnel to keep my face from being eaten by a hostile vessapede.

  Well, not since that last time, anyway.

  Sure, a part of me felt guilty. The Dowager could have had me arrested. She could have had my family and me thrown into Umbramore Tower for fraud. Instead, she took me in as her apprentice and taught me as best she could. And I was grateful. But not every apprenticeship was a good match. I knew several kids my age who’d changed masters when things didn’t work out with their original mentors. It’s not like leaving the Dowager to study with Kolo would be unusual.

  I had to stop thinking like that. Kolo hadn’t even indicated he wanted an apprentice.

  But if he did . . .

  On the fifth day of our captivity, Kolo took me into the forest to collect iceclovers. We already had pages and pages of data on iceclovers, but Kolo was determined to make his soothing tincture even more potent.

  We crawled around in the snow, plucking the clear weeds from the bases of the whistlebirch.

  “I’m sorry we’re spending so much time with iceclovers,” Kolo said, depositing a handful into Tree Bag. “I find myself suddenly unable to continue my original field of research.”

  My face flushed with embarrassment. “Right,” I said. “I’m sorry I destroyed your crop of tinderjack.”

  Kolo raised an eyebrow. “What makes you think it was mine?”

  “You mean besides the fact that tinderjack doesn’t grow so close together naturally? Or the fact that you’re the most brilliant botanist in the Five Provinces and that field of tinderjack just happened to be close to your camp?” I asked. “Well, I noticed you also keep a supply of sablevine, which can be used to stabilize tinderjack pods for transportation.”

  “I envy your eye for detail,” Kolo said with a smirk. “You are, of course, correct. But don’t worry. There’s more where that came from.”

  I grimaced. “Tinderjack’s incredibly volati
le. Even the Palatinate doesn’t mess with it. Why would you want so much?”

  “Let’s just say it’s an integral part of the research for my new book,” he said.

  Which I took to mean that, if I continued helping him with his research, we’d be experimenting with tinderjack someday. Suddenly, being chased by vessapedes with the Dowager seemed much more appealing.

  Kolo continued, sighing wistfully. “However, if we receive good news from the Dowager, we may never have to worry about that avenue of research.”

  I shook my head. “The Dowager’s sympathetic to your cause, but even if she speaks on your behalf, it might not work. From what she’s told me, her brother can be very stubborn. There must be a reason the High Laird thinks the Sarosans are behind the thefts.”

  “I’m not convinced that the High Laird needs reasons for anything these days,” he replied.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I think the High Laird relies on his advisers more than evidence to dictate his policies.”

  “So you think his advisers told him the Sarosans were responsible? Why would they do that?”

  “Why indeed,” Kolo muttered. Then he closed the flap on Tree Bag and said, “Jaxter, what do you know of the Great Uprisings?”

  Suddenly, it was like being with the Dowager again. She was always changing topics in mid-conversation without any clear purpose.

  “Not much,” I said. “It’s not exactly dinner-table conversation.”

  I knew what everybody knew about the Uprisings. They happened five hundred years ago, and it was illegal to discuss them. Just after the Uprisings, Mannis Soranna, the first High Laird, declared that the Great Uprisings were to be lost to history forever. Any book containing information about the Uprisings was burned. The theory was that if knowledge of those terrible times remained unknown, there was no risk of them ever happening again. And every High Laird since made enforcing that edict their top priority.

  “What if I told you,” Kolo said softly, “that what happened before could happen again? That maybe it was already happening.”