Worlds Unseen - Rachel Starr Thomson (beach books .txt) 📗

him and a webwork of streets lay before him. His pounding heart sent him off in one direction, and he ran again.

Nicolas Fisher did not know what he would find; he only knew what he had heard, and the fear it had wakened in him. A voice he did not know, crying out in deep pain:

“Run, Maggie! They’re coming!”

*

The kettle had just begun its high-pitched whine when a knock pounded at the door. Pat frowned.

“Who in the world?” she said. She rose and called out,“What do you want?”

“High Police,” came the answer. “Open the door.”

Maggie and Pat exchanged anxious glances. Maggie pulled Pat’s long knife down from its resting place on the fireplace mantle and handed it to her. She drew her own sword out of its sheath and stood back from the door, nodding slightly.

Pat flung the door open and drove her knife into the surprised officer. There were others in the hall. They lifted a shout and pushed their way into the flat.

*

Nicolas tore up the stairs, the clash of steel meeting his ears. His sword was ready. He rounded the corner and slashed into the first black and green uniform he saw. The man fell with a cry and Nicolas whirled into the fight, unable to think, or see, or hear anything but the steel and the shouts of his opponents.

When four men lay on the ground, Nicolas looked up from his last opponent to see recognition in Maggie’s eyes. “Nicolas!” she cried, and threw herself into his arms like a sister whose long-lost brother has just come home.

“You were in danger,” he said, embarrassed by Maggie’s enthusiastic greeting. “I heard someone trying to warn you,” Nicolas continued. “And I knew where you were so I-I ran.”

“You may have saved our lives,” Maggie said.

“Don’t speak too soon,” Pat said. She had moved to the window. “Black-and-Greens in the street. They’re on their way up.”

“Then let’s not wait for them!” Nicolas said. He joined Pat and threw open the window. A latticework covered with creeping vines, yellow with the turning of the seasons, formed a shaky ladder to the ground. The High Police had left the street and were coming up the stairs.

Nicolas started his careful climb to the ground. Pat and Maggie looked at each other, nodded, and followed him out.

*

The second day of the Tax Gathering dawned bright. The peasantry picked themselves up from the alleys and doorsteps where they had slept, outside inns crowded to the bursting point. Almost as one, the people of the city crossed the bridges and climbed the streets of the plateau to Pravik Castle.

There would be a trial today.

Maggie, Pat, and Nicolas joined the curious who flocked to the castle. Maggie recognized others in the crowd. Some limped as she did. Here and there an old farmer smiled at her, a smile of encouragement.

It would work.

It had to work.

They were among the first to reach Pravik Castle. Maggie reached into her coat pocket and fingered a small map the Ploughman had given her. She lagged behind as Nicolas and Pat passed through the gates into the huge courtyard where the trial would be held. Maggie shivered, for she could see through the gates where a massive gallows waited.

She pulled the map out of her pocket and studied it quickly, darting into the crowd as quickly as her leg would allow. She moved through the gates and around the castle wall away from the courtyard until she reached a low door where castle servants went in and out.

Her heart was pounding as she went through the small entrance. No one stopped her with so much as a word, though guards stood all around.

They will hire extra help for the Tax Gathering and the trial, Libuse had said. Chances are no one will notice you.

Or the others, Maggie hoped. She could not do this alone. She had entered a low-ceilinged room with stone walls dark with soot and floors stained with mud. There were many servants in the room, and merchants delivering special wares, and others on other errands. She raised her eyes and looked around her quickly-there. She knew the face of the hump-backed old man near an inside door.

She limped to his side. He acknowledged her with a slight nod. “You’re late,” he said. He started off through the door, and Maggie followed him. Three others were waiting on the other side.

Together they moved through the castle corridors, consulting the Ploughman’s maps when they had need of them.

“You there!” a guard shouted. Maggie kept going, her heart pounding. Footsteps hurried down the hall behind them-and passed them. The guard was calling someone else.

They climbed a twisting flight of stairs.

“Shouldn’t we be going down?” whispered one of the men. “To the dungeon?”

“Ploughman says they’ll keep the prisoners here,” the hump-backed old man said. “We do what he told us.”

You shouldn’t do this, Libuse had said. The men can do it alone. Stay where it’s safer.

I have to see him, Maggie had answered. If we-fail-I may never have another chance.

Libuse had smiled. I understand completely.

They rounded a corner and a guard looked up in surprise. His face was red and he held a flask in his hand.

“What the-” he started to say.

He had no opportunity to finish.

As they pushed through the halls, fighting nearly every step of the way, Maggie felt exulted at the ease with which the High Police fell. They were drunk to the last man.

Nobody makes wine like my grandmother makes wine, the farmer had said in a late-night meeting with the Ploughman. And nobody drinks it like the High Police. A present, perhaps, might be in order…

Maggie heard Jerome call her name before she saw him. For a fleeting instant she was afraid-afraid of him, afraid of herself, afraid she had dreamed everything. She lifted her eyes and saw him through the fight, behind crossed iron bars. One side of his face was bruised and swollen, and his clothes were torn and filthy.

She pushed through the fight, the cries of the High Police and of her fellow rebels like distant memories in her ears. He reached for her through the bars. She took his hands and looked into his eyes and he kissed her.

The moment was fleeting. Maggie’s sword struck at the lock on the cell until it was finally broken and Jerome was free. She pressed the sword into his hand as he moved by her. He did not pause to talk to her, or even to look at her, but hurried down the long corridor, deeper into the dungeon.

“The master is this way,” he called over his shoulder. Maggie followed him.

*

Drums beat in the courtyard. Antonin Zarras, Overlord of the Eastern Lands, stepped onto the platform next to the gallows. He was a short, dark man; handsome though his physique evidenced that he habitually ate better than any dozen of his tenants. The crowd murmured as he appeared, flanked on all sides by High Police.

“We have gathered here for the annual bringing in of taxes,” Zarras said. “Always a happy occasion. I welcome you, my people, many of my tenants. I commend you. For you are here to show your loyalty in a time when our lives are threatened.”

His dark eyes glinted. “In this city, there have been threats. Men have risen who wish to destroy us all. To take over, to plunder you, my people, and to ravish all you hold sacred.” He leaned over the top of his pulpit and swept the crowd with his eyes. “Many years ago a royal family ruled this land. Its descendants have served on the Overlord’s council for centuries. A short time ago, Professor Jarin Huss and his apprentice murdered the last scion of that family. Today we bring them to justice.”

Shouts and rumbles came from the crowd, and Zarras smiled. “Bring them out,” he commanded.

There was a shout from the castle gates, and the crowd turned almost as a man. Many gasped. Others cheered.

Libuse was walking through the crowd, straight toward the platform where Zarras stood. A column of armed men marched behind her, and the Ploughman stood at her side. Many in the crowd bowed as their princess moved past, but her eyes were only on Zarras.

Stunned High Police parted for her as she climbed the steps of the platform and came face to face with the Overlord. The Ploughman and his men pushed past the soldiers. The High Police said nothing, did nothing. They had been caught completely off guard, and now the threatening looks of the crowd and the weaponry of the Ploughman’s men kept them still.

“What is the meaning of this?” Antonin Zarras stuttered. His eyes went from Libuse to the Ploughman and back again, as though he wasn’t sure which was worse.

“I should ask you that, Zarras,” Libuse said. “Is this not a trial to avenge my death? It seems to me that all is not as it seems.”

Zarras licked his lips. “I cannot say how glad I am to see you alive,” he began.

“Perhaps we should not tell the people-” Libuse took in all the crowd with a sweep of her arm, “-how you had me arrested. How you intended to kill me. How you are now trying to murder two more of your enemies, enemies only because they work on behalf of this very crowd.”

A young man in the crowd, a university student from his dress, shouted something in agreement.

“You are in trouble, Zarras,” Libuse said quietly.

The Ploughman stepped close to the Overlord. He towered over Zarras, and the Overlord shook as the Ploughman drew his sword.

“There will be a trial today,” the Ploughman said, raising his voice so all the crowd could hear. “You, Antonin Zarras-you are on trial.”

The Overlord was white. He stood in silence for a long moment, facing the man he had known as a friend in his youth. “You always hated me,” he said.

“No,” the Ploughman said. “The only one guilty of hate here is you.”

The Overlord’s lip curled. “You are outnumbered.”

“We are well trained.”

“Who trained them?” the Overlord pressed. “Farmers trained by farmers. Boys trained by old men. You cannot fight High Police.”

“I trained them,” the Ploughman said.

“Trained by a madman,” the Overlord said, so quiet that no one heard him but the Ploughman. “Even as a child you were delusional.”

The Ploughman bowed his head and hefted his sword. “Let the professor and his apprentice go,” he said. “And we will leave you with your life.”

“I will never let them go,” Antonin Zarras said. “If you kill me they will die instantly, and so will you.”

“I think not,” a new voice said. Antonin Zarras whirled around, his face livid. It was Jerome who had called out. He stood at the end of the platform with a sword in his hand and the professor behind him.

For a moment Zarras stood in speechless rage. “Kill them!” he screamed. “Kill them all!”

He drew his own sword with one swift motion and lunged forward, straight at Libuse. The Ploughman’s staff knocked the sword away and the Overlord fell back. He looked up at the Ploughman in terror.

“You should have tried to kill me,” the Ploughman said, his face golden with rage. “That I would have accepted. But do not touch the ones I love.”

“Kill them all!” the Overlord screamed again. The High Police sprang into action.

And Antonin Zarras died.

*

Virginia’s skin crawled as the smoke drifted across her. She heard the voice of Evelyn, hoarse and