Idol of Blood by Jane Kindred Page B

closed his eyes and focused on the building, focusing on the elements that formed it: the minerals in the stone, the pitting from the salt air, the way the breeze coming from the shore embraced it. The scent of hay and manure came to him, the snorting breath of horses.
    Pearl wrote excitedly. There’s a stable beyond the pier. You must be very close.
    Yes , wrote the Meerchild. Yes, a stable. That’s where the mirrors are.
    Pearl felt a flood of anger rush through him. The cage was in a stable. At least his master had kept him in the temple. He’d only felt such emotion once before, when he knew the Master intended to hurt Ra. The anger frightened him, because in it, he saw what he might do if his emotion went unchecked. He felt the power that had come from Ra’s one angry word in Rhyman.
    He wrote hastily in the sand. I’m coming. Hold on. Scuffing his boot across the drawing and returning it to the sea, he ended their connection and ran for the promontory.
    At full dark, he felt the likelihood of running into any stable hands was slim, though the Meerchild’s captor might have posted guards outside. At the end of the point, he climbed over the rocks to the flat outcropping where the stable had been built and crouched in the bulrushes, watching for signs of activity. There were no lanterns showing through the high windows, and except for a sleepy guard nodding at his post, no one seemed to be about.
    Pearl rose from his hiding place after he was certain the guard was slumbering and hurried to the back of the stable, where a low structure beside it offered enough holds for climbing, letting him clamber up to the windows in the hayloft. Lowering himself through one of them, he landed in the hay and dropped into a roll to cushion his fall.
    Before he’d righted himself, something struck him in the back of the head and knocked him flat. Disoriented and stunned, Pearl gasped beneath the weight of the person who’d fallen on him with ferocity, and before he could even let out a cry, a rag had been stuffed into his mouth and a leather bit jammed between his teeth, the straps yanked tight at his nape with a buckle and secured with an iron padlock to hold the gag in place.
    Only after his wrists and ankles had been bound tightly with chain and fitted with another set of locks did his assailant climb off and allow Pearl to roll onto his side to see who’d attacked him. He blinked up at the ruffian, trying to understand what had happened. Where was the Meerchild? He lifted his head and gazed about the stable, finding nothing that could have held a mirrored cage.
    â€œLooking for your friend?” His captor smiled and poked his own chest with a grimy finger. “Right here, boy.” The man lifted a leather pouch from inside the shirt, hanging from a thong around his neck, and bounced it on his palm. “Meertongue powder. Lets me send you messages, and lets me read yours. Got it from your old master.”
    Pearl’s spirits sank. Such a vile and simple trick. The man had used the severed tongue of a Meer killed in the Expurgation, ground to a powder that still retained the essence of the conjuring properties of its long-dead owner. There had never been any other child. Pearl had only wanted to believe he wasn’t alone. Not that Ahr and Merit made him feel alone, but they weren’t like him. He missed Ra more than he’d let them see. Ra understood him. And he was a fool.
    â€œName’s Pike,” said the ruffian. “I know who you are, of course. Nesre’s little pearl. He thought he was so clever, thought no one knew he’d created you, but I have my eyes and ears in many former holy places.” Pike took a tin from his vest pocket and popped it open, pinching out a dark lump of something and tucking it into his mouth between his lower lip and his gums. “In case you haven’t guessed, I’m a Meerhunter. But don’t worry. I have no intention of