The Sea Peoples(85)

At their hesitation—and Pip’s unspoken thought that they had enough to do with John—the young man’s face firmed.

“House Artos doesn’t leave their own behind.”

“Fair enough,” Toa said, and walked over to the man. “Who’re you, mate?”

The man’s face turned up. “I’m . . . I’m not sure. I think . . . I think I’m from Boise, as he says. I think I was taken here when . . . when . . . when I read a book. But I don’t know.”

Deor moved over, knelt, and looked the man in the eye. Now that she had a chance, Pip’s brows went up—that was a handsome man, more so than almost any she’d ever met. Something very lost and sad about him, though; and that was not the type who’d ever attracted her, even if John hadn’t been right here.

She felt a hand grip hers, and looked down into John’s eyes. His smile quirked up one corner of his mouth, and they shared something wordless. Toa snorted and moved back a little, rolling his eyes but smiling fondly himself. Deor’s hiss brought her back to the moment, and to the one who’d shared John’s imprisonment.

“This is a great evil,” he said quietly, moving his free left hand in a gesture she knew drew a rune in the air, though she hadn’t the slightest idea what it meant.

“Part of this man’s being has been rent away and imprisoned here, while the rest is . . . split, in the waking world. So that he is neither here nor there, and so is enslaved in both, without even fully knowing it—and so cannot fight it.”

John moved, and she helped him sit upright, working his hands doggedly and wincing as he did so.

“He seemed a good enough sort,” he said. “We . . . it’s hard to explain . . . there was this man named Hildred—”

The four rescuers exchanged a glance.

“And this man here and I, we were somehow seeing things through his eyes sometimes. As if we were riding in his mind.”

John smiled again. “And I got to know him fairly well, even though he doesn’t know his own name.”

He shuddered, and a haunted look came into his eyes. “And there was this cat . . . I hope it doesn’t spoil cats for me forever . . . anyway, let’s get him out of those bonds. I’m not leaving anyone here.”

Pip looked, peering through the gloom. “Can’t pick those, I’m afraid. They’re not locked, they’re riveted—see there? A soft-iron rod put through and then peened over with a hammer. You’ll not get that open without a cold chisel or a good hard metal-file; it’s how slavers fasten coffles in the hold of a ship fitted out for it so that they can’t get loose.”

Thora looked at her. “That’s true,” she said neutrally. “How exactly did you find out?”

“Mummy told me, and she had a broken set of them, it’s still over the mantle back in Tanumgera Station. She and Uncle Pete and Aunt Fifi took a Suluk corsair that had been raiding in Sulawesi once, and they had the devil of a time getting the fetters off the cargo.”

“What did they do with them?” Thora asked.

“The fetters? Threw them overboard, mainly, with the pirates wrapped inside yelling their heads off. Oh, the cargo; took them home. And got a nice little reward from the sultan there: cloves, mostly, and some really good coffee, miles better than the Papuan variety. The Darwin and East Indies Trading Company has a factory there now.”

Deor thought for a moment and nodded. “Can you break these chains?” he said to Toa.

The big man walked over to the Boisean, whose handsome features were suddenly alive with hope.

“Well, I can rip ’em out, if I have to,” Toa rumbled. “Looks like mild steel, and not too thick.”

John seemed to be recovering quickly; he estimated the strength of the thumb-thick links and shaped a silent whistle of respect.

Toa examined the edge of his shovel-spear. “Better yet . . . you got good nerves, mate?” he asked the man sitting on the floor.

“Right now, yes. Even hell yes,” he replied.

“Good-o. Put your hands up above your head on either side of that staple the chain’s run through. That’s right. Keep the chain tight, backs of yer hands flat on the plaster. Now, let’s hope me eye’s in, eh?”

He grinned like a friendly ogre, eyes and teeth white in the gloom, and drew the massive tool-weapon back. Then he whipped it forward, and back again for another strike in the space of one ordinary breath, precise as a machine-tool in a foundry. There was a hard ting sound, twice repeated, and the man slumped forward as the chain was split—a single link now dangled from each of the cuffs. He held up his hands before his face in wondering joy.

“Thank you, friend,” he said softly.

Toa grinned. “Welcome,” he said cheerfully, then wiped his forehead. “Took more graft than I thought it would—must be getting old.”

Deor shook his head. “Those were more than chains. They were symbols. Remember where we are! You did more than break metal.”

“I want to get back to where things make sense,” John muttered.

Pip opened her mouth to reassure him, then remembered what lay between them and where they’d started . . . and remembered what awaited them when they woke up on that bed.

Then she gasped. There was a sense of pressure, as if things creaked around her without noise.