The Book of Koli (Rampart Trilogy #1) - M. R. Carey Page 0,134

they believe him?” I asked. I felt like I already knowed part of the answer. “I guess it’s because he can see what’s inside their minds.”

“No. He can’t,” Ursala said like she was scolding me. “That’s impossible.” She had untied the rope from around my hands and was rubbing the wrists to get some life back into them. “Did you never look at someone’s face and know for sure, just from their expression, that they were telling you a lie? Or know that they were unhappy, say, even though they were trying to hide it?”

“Yeah, I did,” I said. “Of course I did. Lots of times.”

“That’s all he’s doing, Koli. He’s very good at reading people. He tricks you into telling him things, then makes it look as though he’s told you. There’s no magic there. But there is a very active and a very cunning mind. He’s dangerous. He’s also completely mad, but unfortunately that doesn’t help us very much. Lie down now. I want to look at that leg.”

I lay down on my back, and Ursala untied the splint. It wasn’t easy, for we was in a very narrow place like I told you before. It was a kind of a hollow set in the wall of the cave, with an arched roof over it of the same stone that was everywhere else. The space went back about ten strides, but almost half of it was taken up with old timber and rocks and sheets of rusty metal, and one iron pole about as long as I was tall. That didn’t leave much room for the two of us, if we was minded to stand up straight or lie down full.

I stiffened a few times while Ursala was untying Sky’s knots. My leg was all on fire as the feeling come back into it, but she was careful and got the splints off of me without giving me no pain. After that though, she run her hands up and down my leg, pressing in all kinds of places and asking me if it hurt, which now it did. I was hard put to it not to yell out loud when her fingers went into some of them places.

“Well, the good news is there’s nothing broken,” she said when she was done. “I winced when I saw all that swelling, but I think most of it is because you were made to walk on the leg after it was injured. If you just keep it from bearing any weight for a few days, it should start to heal.”

She retied the splint, doing a better job than Sky had done. The ropes had been cutting into my stones before, and now they was not. She sighed. “If I had my diagnostic unit here, I could give you something that would bring the swelling down a lot more quickly.”

“Where is the drudge?” I asked her. “How come he isn’t with you?”

She made a sour face. “I have to put him on recharge every few weeks. It’s because some of the medicines he manufactures have to be kept cold. He has a separate battery for the refrigeration unit, and since that can’t be compromised it sometimes borrows charge from his other systems. When he slows down, I take him offline for a few hours to let him top off his tank.”

I didn’t see what tanks had got to do with anything, but I knowed from what happened with Monono what offline was. Knowing that, it was easy to guess what must of happened. “They catched you when he was asleep,” I said.

“Yes, they did. And I was stupid enough to fight back.” She touched her hand to her cheek where the blood was and where the hollow of her eye was filled up with scab and crust. “There were three of them, so I never had much of a chance.”

“Was there one of them that had a sun and a moon on her face?” I asked.

“Why, yes there was. You met her too?”

I nodded. “Her name’s Sky. Them others that was with her are Cup and Mole. How did she…?” I touched a finger to my eye, instead of saying the words.

“Oh, it wasn’t her who did this,” Ursala said. “I dealt with her first, since she was obviously the biggest threat. I had a hand-stunner – a little one-shot weapon that fitted into my palm. I let her get close to me, then gave her a full charge on the side