Keeper (First Ordinance #2)(36)

Berel was in raptures, I think. After getting permission to record images, his tab-vid was held aloft more often than not while the library, the people and everything else was captured for his father's perusal.

Eventually, however, it was time to visit the prisoner. Rather than clumping down many steps to the Queen's dungeons, we were transported there by someone with the talent for such.

Instead of a dark, rat-infested place, I found a clean, well-lit row of cells with adequate bedding and climate control. "This way," the Queen led us to a cell near the end. The man they all called a Sirenali was inside, his head in his hands as he sat, hunched over, on a cot.

Without prompting, I read everything I could about him. He had no information on the spheres—Marid the wizard had given him no information as to their location.

I knew what Marid had known and cursed about in this one's presence, however. "The wizard's containment spheres weren't completely effective," I announced. "The poison leached out of them somehow and now the world of Shaaliveer is also contaminated. Marid had the wasting disease," I added. "This one believes it made the wizard's spells too fragile to hold back the poison."

The last thing I read in him troubled me greatly, but I had no real knowledge of what it meant. "What does tapping the core mean?" I turned to Queen Lissa.

*

"Did you see where he came from—the Sirenali?" Lissa thought to ask. She'd asked me, Kaldill, Daragar and a handful of others to come to her private study, where we could discuss what the Sirenali knew. I could tell my question concerning the tapping of the core disturbed her, but she ignored that subject for the moment.

"He only knows his mother moved about after he was born. He has no idea who his father was or what happened to his mother—she sold him to a wealthy criminal when he was very young. He hates her for that, and the fact that she had no objections when his tongue was removed prior to the sale."

"Does he remember her name?"

"Erithia. He curses her daily."

"Is he evil?" I could see that the mother's name meant something to the Queen, but as I couldn't read her, I had no idea what it could be.

"He bears no malice against you or most others—I only saw anger against those who've harmed him in the past. That included Marid and the criminals who owned him before he fell into Marid's hands."

"I don't know what to do," Lissa flung out a hand in a gesture of confusion. "We let him go, he could end up with another Marid. We keep him here and it's similar to imprisoning the innocent."

"What about Avendor?" Reah suggested. Yes, she was one of the few inside the Queen's study.

"Interesting idea. Do you think they'd mind?"

"Probably not. Can he use fingerspeech?" Reah turned to me.

"He knows it," I nodded. "He learned when he was young."

"Had to, I suppose," Lissa grumbled. "What's his name? Did you see that?" she asked me.

"His name is Terrett," I replied, "Although the ones who bought him called him Geng. Nobody has called him by his proper name in a very long time. It is my hope," I began, working to keep my trembling at bay, "that you treat him kindly. He has never known such his whole life."

*

"Of course she'd ask that," Kaldill sighed later, after Quin and Berel were transported to a local shop to buy treats to take back to Siriaa. "She hasn't been treated well, either. I've seen it from Amlis and his man-at-arms Rodrik—those of the higher class believe the only way to show their displeasure to those they consider beneath them is by beating them. Quin suffered at their hands, and then at the hands of a few Avii before she became useful to them. Word is she can heal almost anything; the Avii King and his now-deceased Red-Wing Princess demanded millions from the Kondari High President to heal Berel from a rare and deadly form of cancer. Of course, Quin received nothing for her efforts."

"This is preposterous, and I'd pull her away from there immediately if I didn't feel she had some role to play in all this. Nobody else can read the Sirenali—apart from my sister. That alone makes Quin more than valuable and I only want to see her protected in all this." Lissa grumbled.

"What progress has been made on the poison?" she continued. "If Siriaa's core has been tapped as Terrett believes, it'll only die faster."

"The Kondari have already done some research and have determined it is a living organism that produces the radioactive poison by excreting it."

"Can we kill the organism? We have to do that first or repairing the core will be useless. Reah won't attempt it unless the world can be saved, somehow."

"The Kondari scientists say early samples taken from sea waters rendered dead organisms, but the poison, like any other nuclear waste, has a life of centuries at best."

"Do they still have these dead organisms?"

"I believe they do. Should I ask to borrow them?"

"If you could. I'd like Karzac and a few others to take a look at them. I also want more information on Liron—the god the Fyrians and Avii worship. Did he have a hand in the creation of these creatures, or did someone else do it?"

"A question for one of the Three, perhaps?"

"It would be, if we could find any of them," Lissa frowned.