The Brazen Gambit Part 11

The only creatures that thrived in the parched badlands were the carrion-eating kes'trekels, always circling high overhead, vigilant for opportunity. Maybe the druids were lost. Maybe they'd realized there wasn't enough water to get them where they were going. Maybe Akashia and Ruari would hold their hands over him as he slept, and he'd never wake up again.

He resisted sleep until the moons, Ral and Guthay, were both above the eastern horizon and his companions were snoring softly. Then, remembering that the kank had not suffered, he let his eyes close. He wandered alone through a dreamless sleep and was still alive when morning came. The druids were alive, too, though their expressions were as bleak as the land around them.

As he'd done on the other mornings, he helped Yohan secure the dwindling number of full jugs onto the cargo harness. Out of sight and earshot, on the far side of the huge soldier-kank, he asked the dwarf where they were going and when they'd get there. The dwarf answered: Quraite, and added nothing more. In frustration and rising fear, he asked Akashia the same question and got no answer at all, though Ruari, typically, had snarled an ominous: "You'll see when you get there, templar. If If you get there. If the Fist of the Sun doesn't squeeze the life out of you first." you get there. If the Fist of the Sun doesn't squeeze the life out of you first."

They started riding, Yohan on one of the rider-kanks, Ruari behind Akashia on the other, and Pavek alone on the cargo platform. Hot was hot, dry was dry, and the clatter of kank-claws over rock-hard dirt was not worth the hearing. Around midday he slipped into the senseless drowse that was a sane man's refuge on the badlands. A testament to the thought-addling power of heat and light, water-wasting tears streamed down his cheeks before he noticed that anything had changed.

They'd left the badlands for something worse: a natural pavement of dazzling white that extended from the claws of their kanks to every horizon. The plain was featureless, except for glittering powder swirls, fueled by the sun and darting through the utterly still air. The spirals collapsed without a sound or warning, as suddenly they'd appeared.

One pa.s.sed close, spattering Pavek's face with sharp-edged grains. His tongue touched his cracked lips and tasted salt.

Yohan and the druids covered their faces with thong-tied chitin shields. Each shield had a narrow slit over the eyes to reduce the glare and a chin-length veil that blocked some of the stinging dust. Pavek a.s.sumed the otherwise careful druids would have packed an extra shield somewhere, but Ruari insisted that there were none to spare. Neither Yohan nor Akashia corrected him. So he raked his hair forward and pulled his shirt up over his head.

Heat wrapped itself around him. Even the kes'trekels shunned this place: the Fist of the Sun. Precious moisture leached through every pore of his itching skin. He thought he might die and feared the druids would abandon him here with the soldier-kank, whose flesh was inedible, and a few jugs of water. All water would buy him was a few days of ever-increasing agony before he died.

When the air cooled, he thought that he had died, but it was only the sun setting.

They watered the kanks, ate the last of the journey-break, and filled the waterskins that Akashia, Ruari, and Yohan carried with them on their smaller kanks, leaving the last water-jug half-empty. Then, as the first bright stars appeared in the lavender twilight, they remounted and continued their trek. Pavek didn't need to ask why they hadn't made camp on the salt plain: either they escaped the Fist of the Sun before it rose again, or they died. He cradled the last water-jug in his lap, listening to the precious liquid slap against the clay, a counter-point to the six-beat rhythm of the kanks' claws and the pounding of his heart.

Pale silver Ral and golden Guthay made their nightly journey through the stars. The faintest stars faded, the eastern horizon took on an ominous glow, and the crusty salt plain still stretched endlessly in all directions. He allowed himself two sips from the jug before pulling his shirt over his head.

He wished he'd stayed in Urik: King Hamanu's wrath could be no worse than the next few hours would be. He prayed that his mind died before his body. Then his mind emptied, and he waited to die.

"As ever and always-a sight to make your heart sing in your breast!"

Yohan's voice drifted through the emptiness. The heat was gone, and with it, the scrunch of salt beneath the kanks' claws. Had his final wish been granted? Had his parched spirit slipped through the cracks in the Sun's Fist? But, surely, the veteran dwarf would not have chosen to accompany him into the trackless afterlife.

Shrugging his shirt back to his shoulders, he shook the hair from his eyes, looked up, blinked and blinked again. Scrublands with their dusty gra.s.ses and waxy, thick-leaved shrubs had never looked so vibrant, and full of life, but the scrub paled before a swathe of rich, deep green directly ahead of them, as large, he guessed, as mighty Urik and crowned with clouds. clouds. Not the ugly, mottled harbingers of a Tyr-storm, but rounded hills as white as the salt plain behind them. Or was it behind them? Not the ugly, mottled harbingers of a Tyr-storm, but rounded hills as white as the salt plain behind them. Or was it behind them?

The forbidding waste was nowhere to be seen on either side or straight behind, and the sun, shining bright but mild, though in the right place overhead, seemed scarcely familiar. Reflexively, he clutched the empty s.p.a.ce beneath his shirt where King Hamanu's medallion had hung.

"Quraite?" he whispered, rubbing his eyes and expecting to see something altogether different when he reopened them.

Akashia, riding behind Ruari now, heard his disbelief and turned around with a smile. "Home."

Carefully tended fields of grain marked Quraite's perimeter. Brick wells with wooden windla.s.ses stood in the center of each field. The druids' oasis sat atop a reservoir large enough, reliable enough to send water to individual fields.

Within the fields a ring of trees grew to such density that whatever lay at the center remained hidden.

Trees.

In Urik, during the Festival of Flowers at the start of Rising Sun, ordinary citizens were permitted onto the streets of the royal quarter. Winding in long, slow lines, they'd wait all day for a chance to peek through the iron gates of King Hamanu's palatial garden where the fabled Trees of Life unfurled fragrant, short-lived blossoms. At other odd times during the years the fruit-trees nurtured in the atrium recesses of their wealthy houses would send clouds of perfume onto the nearby streets. Sometimes the aromas incited riots among those who would never savor sweet nectar on their tongues.

Templars ate fruit regularly-it was one of their many privileges. But in all his life, Pavek had never seen a tree that was not surrounded by guards and walls.

The druids might call Quraite their home, but to Pavek, dizzy from heat, thirst, and days of traveling, it had the look of paradise.

Breezes shivered the surface of a clear-flowing stream. Each ripple reflected the sky, creating a vast herd of cloud-creatures that raced westward, toward the setting sun. Telhami swirled her hand through the water, destroying the image. Every sunset, no matter how beautiful, was a moment of dying, and she did not like to dream of death. She moved her dream to the ever-growing gra.s.s on the stream bank.

A delicate flower the color of sunrise-bright yellow blushed with pink and amber-poked through the gra.s.s. Drops of nectar shimmered in its heart.

Long ago, the flower had had a name. Now it bloomed only in her dreams where memory ruled and names were unnecessary.

A crimson bee whirred out of nowhere. It drank the shimmering nectar, then rode the breeze to Telhami's ear.

"Akashia returns," it whispered. "She's got a stranger stranger with her!" with her!"

The dreamscape vanished, replaced by a dry wind: the best Athas had to offer anymore, even here in guarded Quraite where druid spellcraft held the land and memory together.

"Grandmother, did you hear me? Are you awake?"

The voice belonged to a child, not a bee.

"Yes, I heard you, little one," Telhami replied, her eyes still closed. "Go fetch me a bowl of water. I'll be awake when you return."

She heard the light patter of bare feet running to the well. Children ran, grown folk walked, and she, herself, made the simple journey from dreams to wakefulness no faster than a tree grew. Then again, she'd made the journey so many times that it was no longer simple.

Everyone who dwelt in Quraite called her Grandmother, Grandmother, as had their parents before them. She'd been as had their parents before them. She'd been Grandmother Grandmother to their grandmothers and though she was not as old as Quraite, she remembered the scents of vanished, nameless yellow flowers better than she remembered the loves and laughter of her youth. to their grandmothers and though she was not as old as Quraite, she remembered the scents of vanished, nameless yellow flowers better than she remembered the loves and laughter of her youth.

She wasn't condemned to frailty. Druid lore offered many detours around the vicissitudes of aging, and many druids availed themselves of restorative spellcraft both directly and through the strength of their followers. In the misty years between then and now, Telhami had purged years, even decades, in a single moonlit night of spellcasting-until she'd acquired wisdom to understand that the way of life was age and, eventually, death. Pursuing immortality would eventually leave her no different than a Dragon or a sorcerer-king, and so, finally, she'd let the years acc.u.mulate.

Still, Quraite sustained her as she sustained, guarded, and protected Quraite. She was frail and tired easily. But she was also the master of her small, green world and grateful to be alive.

"I've brought your water, Grandmother. Are you awake yet? Are you ready to sit up?"

The folk of Quraite, including a dusky girl-child with solemn, watchful eyes and a translucent alabaster bowl carefully balanced on her outstretched palm, tended her, their beloved Grandmother, as carefully as she tended Quraite. "Yes, little one, I'm ready. How far away are they?"

Nothing within Quraite's perimeter was beyond her ken. She could have determined Akashia's location with little effort. But a little effort was more than she wished to expend, especially when the child was near-bursting with the answer.

"They're among the fields. One of the kanks is gone, and-Grandmother-the stranger stranger is a great ugly and dirty man with snarly hair. He's dressed in rags." is a great ugly and dirty man with snarly hair. He's dressed in rags."

"Is he?" she said, smiling. "Well, then we'll have to give him clean clothes and teach him to bathe, won't we?"

She swung her legs over the edge of the woven-reed sleeping platform.

Kashi's mind had been full of the stranger some nights' past when she'd sent her thoughts ahead of the storm, seeking guidance. The impression Telhami'd gotten then had been considerably different from child's description now. Her curiosity was piqued, and she took the translucent bowl firmly in both hands.

Strangers came infrequently to Quraite. Some found it on their own, others needed a.s.sistance. Either way, strangers were welcome to stay as long as they wished, or forever. For though strangers came to Quraite, strangers did not leave. The precise location of the verdant land Telhami guarded was too great a temptation to entrust to anyone who would not dedicate her or his life to its preservation. More than one hesitant stranger rested among the twisted roots of the ancient trees in her private grove.

But, mostly, those strangers who came to Quraite had been searching for it, and surrendered willingly to its spirit. During her guardianship, the green lands of Quraite had spread measurably across barren waste far to the northeast of Urik. When she arrived, there were only a dozen great trees left in an isolated grove, now there were more than a dozen interconnected groves, each nurtured by a man or woman who'd started out a stranger, or a stranger's child.

Of course, nurturing a druid grove required innate talents. At any time) the greater number of the oasis's inhabitants were ordinary folk who worked the fields, tended the animals, or provided a brawny escort when Quraite needed to trade with the Lion-King in Urik.

Without prying, which she had not done during the storm and would not do now, there was no guessing why Kashi had wanted to bring a Urikite stranger home to Quraite. Perhaps she'd succ.u.mbed to some rough-hewn city-bred allure. Druids certainly weren't immune to reckless pa.s.sion: They venerated the wilder aspects of nature. They took risks, sometimes foolishly.

And Kashi was a young, vigorous woman who looked upon the men of Quraite as brothers, not suitors. It was only natural that she might stumble upon her first love in Urik. That was, after all, no small part of the reason why Telhami sent her there in the first place-With Yohan, of course, to watch over her. Two or three human generations ago, the veteran dwarf had been a stranger in Quraite himself. He strode out of the salt barrens in the heat of the day, alone and afoot, guided, he'd said, by an emptiness in his heart, From that first moment she'd trusted his dedication as she'd trusted few others. She bared the mysteries of her grove to him by moonlight but, try as he might, poor Yohan couldn't grow weeds behind an erdlu-pen. The druids' path was closed to him.

Still, Yohan had his own gifts. Between sharp observation and a vestigial mind-bending talent, he could measure a stranger's temper in a single, squinted glance.

If that ragged, ugly and dirty stranger Kashi had hauled out of Urik had harbored a harmful thought toward druids in general or Kashi in particular, he'd have died long before the Fist of the Sun closed around him. Kashi had become Yohan's focus years ago, when her mother died. Yohan would protect her with his life, or spend hereafter as a wailing banshee.

Thoughts of Akashia and Yohan brought a smile to her lips and energy to her limbs. She sipped the water if of Quraite, giving appropriate thanks to spirits both living and inanimate who made it crisp, dear, and refreshing, then she swallowed the test in two gulps.

"Bring me my hat and veil, little one. They've reached the trees. We don't want to keep them waiting, do we?"

"No, Grandmother," the child agreed, taking the bowl from her hands before fetching the hat from a peg in the center post of the straw hut.

Telhami bowed her head, but only a little. Once she'd been as tall as Akashia; now she was no taller than a gap-toothed girl-child. When the gauzy veil had been looped around her neck and shoulders, she took up a gnarled wooden staff and left her shady hut. Even with the veil, the burning sunlight hurt her eyes. The girl lead her to the center of the circular village where the travelers and the stranger awaited.

Any journey to Quraite was a strenuous experience. When the journey was compounded by the Smoking Crown storm, which fury Telhami had sensed in her momentary mind-bending contact with Akashia, it was no surprise that the travelers seemed weary to the point of exhaustion. Kashi accepted the steadying hands of her friends and neighbors as she dismounted; Ruari, riding doubled-up behind her and favoring a swollen, discolored knee, clearly needed them. Even Yohan was a shade slow leaping down from his kank's saddle.

But no amount of hard-traveling, wind, rain, or mud could account for that tattered stranger atop the soldier-kank. He was, as the girl-child promised, a big man-although his cramped position, wedged beneath the cargo racks, had made him seem larger than he was. His face was marred by a much-broken nose. There was an old scar twisting his upper lip and new ones streaked across his cheek. She had to look at him with her mind's eye to see that he was still a young man, no more than a few years older than Kashi herself- Where had had Kashi found him? Sleeping drunk in some Urik alley? Kashi found him? Sleeping drunk in some Urik alley?

The stains and tears in the stranger's clothing were older by far than the storm. His hair and beard hadn't been properly groomed in weeks. There was a story here, and she could feel her old-bones weariness melt with antic.i.p.ation of hearing it.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a breeze of children bearing three bowls of water among them, one for each of the returning Quraiters: Akashia, Ruari, and Yohan. There no water for the stranger, who was not yet a part of the community or its traditions.

Brawny humans suffered almost as much as half-giants in the Fist of the Sun. The stranger's thirst hung like an aura around him, an aura she observed closely through her veil. He stood still, like the kanks, while the others drank, giving away nothing of his inner character.

A strange stranger, indeed, if he could watch mouthfuls of water splash and vanish in the dirt without blinking his eyes or running a pasty tongue over salt-cracked lips.

Where had Kashi found him?

And though she'd kept the question strictly within her own thoughts, Kashi looked her way before returning her half-full bowl to the children. Kashi pointed them in the stranger's direction and gave them a gentle shove before coming over.

"I have brought a stranger to Quraite, Grandmother," she said in the formal tones the occasion required. "He calls himself Just-Plain Pavek. He acted without thinking to save Ruari's life during-"

"He's no stranger! He's a templar!" templar!" Ruari interrupted, surging between the just-named Pavek and the children, knocking the bowl out of their hands before the stranger got anything to drink. "A street-sc.u.m, filthy, yellow-robe Ruari interrupted, surging between the just-named Pavek and the children, knocking the bowl out of their hands before the stranger got anything to drink. "A street-sc.u.m, filthy, yellow-robe templar. templar. Don't trust him, Grandmother. Send him away before he brings more disasters on us. Put him beneath the trees!" Don't trust him, Grandmother. Send him away before he brings more disasters on us. Put him beneath the trees!"

She felt a gasp of horror and revulsion ripple through her community. Ruari's snarling, desperate face blocked her view of Pavek, but sidelong glances at Akashia and Yohan confirmed the basic truth of the youth's angry words. The pieces fell into place: the scars, the resignation, the apathy on the smooth, hard surface of his mind.

It was easy to think of templars as beasts; they thought of each other, and themselves, that way.

But Akashia had brought him here, and Yohan had permitted it. "Why?" she whispered, unable to purge the shock and outrage from her voice. "What place can there be for a templar templar in Quraite?" in Quraite?"

"A former templar, Grandmother. A fugitive." Akashia replied in an uncertain voice. "The templarate put a forty-gold-piece price on his head because he's seen our zarneeka powder transformed into something he calls 'Laq'-"

Her ancient heart stuttered, and she heard the rest of Akashia's words with half an ear. Laq... Laq... older than the oldest trees, older than King Hamanu or his square, high-walled city, the syllable-sound awakened sadness and fear in Quraite's guardian spirit. Zarneeka bushes had survived since the days of abundant water in the shade of the trees Telhami and her predecessors nurtured. As the trees had spread, zameeka had spread, too, until there was enough to share with the downtrodden and aching folk of Urik, who called it Ral's Breath. But Laq, like the delicate yellow flower of her dreams, had been forgotten. older than the oldest trees, older than King Hamanu or his square, high-walled city, the syllable-sound awakened sadness and fear in Quraite's guardian spirit. Zarneeka bushes had survived since the days of abundant water in the shade of the trees Telhami and her predecessors nurtured. As the trees had spread, zameeka had spread, too, until there was enough to share with the downtrodden and aching folk of Urik, who called it Ral's Breath. But Laq, like the delicate yellow flower of her dreams, had been forgotten.

Until now.

Who had dredged Laq from its well-deserved grave?

Hamanu?

The Lion-King had the skills and the inclination to wrest the dark secrets from the dilute powder called Ral's Breath, but if he or his defiler-minions had done so, they would have given their seductive poison a self-celebrating Urikite name.

"Grandmother-? Grandmother-?" Akashia knelt quickly, her wind-blown hair trailing on the ground before her. "I'm sorry, Grandmother. It seemed as if he told the truth; at least he believes he tells the truth. I thought-I thought you should hear him yourself, see see him yourself. It's my fault. Mine alone. Ruari never trusted him, not for a moment" him yourself. It's my fault. Mine alone. Ruari never trusted him, not for a moment"

She rested gnarled hands gently atop the younger woman's head. Of course Ruari had not trusted the stranger. Ruari couldn't look at a human man without thinking of his father, and when that human man was also a templar the hatred redoubled. No matter that this Pavek was much too young to have been the yellow-robed sc.u.m who'd ravished Ruari's elfin mother and left her for dead in the midden-heaps outside Urik's walls.

That man was long dead. Ghazala's kin might have shunned her while she carried her ill-gotten son, but they'd avenged her promptly. For Ghazala and the rest of the Moonrace tribe, it was over, forgotten. For Ruari, the hatred had begun at the moment of his lonely birth and was entwined in his own flesh, neither wholly elf nor human. It wouldn't end for Ruari until he accepted himself-which Telhami did not expect to see, even if she lived to be twice her current age. man was long dead. Ghazala's kin might have shunned her while she carried her ill-gotten son, but they'd avenged her promptly. For Ghazala and the rest of the Moonrace tribe, it was over, forgotten. For Ruari, the hatred had begun at the moment of his lonely birth and was entwined in his own flesh, neither wholly elf nor human. It wouldn't end for Ruari until he accepted himself-which Telhami did not expect to see, even if she lived to be twice her current age.

Where human men or templars were concerned, young Ruari's opinion could not be heard first. She circled Kashi's face with her fingertips, lifting the younger woman's head.

"There's no fault. Not yet. Let this stranger speak for himself."

Akashia moved aside.

"Templar of Urik, stand before me!" She thumped her staff on the ground authoritatively, but she didn't invoke Quraite's guardian to cast a spell, nor did she release mind-bending energy.

"My name is Pavek," he said, taking the first step of his own will. "I was a templar, a regulator, but no longer. No longer of Urik, either. I'm just plain Pavek, unless there's another Pavek here already; then call me whatever you wish. I've been a dead man since I saw a slave distilling black poison from gold wine and your yellow powder. There's nothing you can do to frighten me, Telhami, druid of Quraite-"

"On your filthy knees, templar!" templar!"

Ruari swung his staff at the stranger's head, but even with the strength and speed of youth, he was neither strong enough, nor fast enough, to land the blow. This time Telhami did invoke the guardian, and with its aid, traversed the three paces between herself and the half-elf in a heartbeat. Her staff, carved from a living branch of the oldest tree in her grove, absorbed the sweep of Ruari's wrath. His body trembled as a backlash reverberated through his limbs and his tawny copper skin turned livid.

"Enough." She chastised with mind-bending more than words. "Enough. "Enough. Allowances have been made ever since the Moonracers left you behind. Children worship their parents with love, and suffer when that love is not returned; but you are no longer a child." Allowances have been made ever since the Moonracers left you behind. Children worship their parents with love, and suffer when that love is not returned; but you are no longer a child."

"He is a templar," templar," Ruari insisted, his voice little more than a whisper. "I know what his kind is like." Ruari insisted, his voice little more than a whisper. "I know what his kind is like."

"As elves and humans know yours?" she replied with compa.s.sion that drained the angry flush from his face.

Shoulders slumped and chin hanging against his chest, Ruari retreated a single, unsteady step. "I'm sorry. Grandmother." The top of his head moved, but not enough to bring his eyes in line with hers. It dropped again, and he retreated to the farthest edge of the gathering.

She knew what she would have to do if Ruari failed to transform his anger into integrity; she hoped it would never be necessary. Then she thrust her hopes aside and scrutinized Just-Plain Pavek through the mesh of her veil. "Tell me more. Tell me about the slave."

Pavek blinked once, and his lips tightened before he said, "A halfling slave-"

"A halfling slave?" slave?" she interrupted scornfully. "Only a fool would enslave a halfling. Their spirits wither in captivity. Only a fool would say that he saw a halfling slave making poison." she interrupted scornfully. "Only a fool would enslave a halfling. Their spirits wither in captivity. Only a fool would say that he saw a halfling slave making poison."

"I saw what I saw: A halfling halfling slave distilling Laq. His cheeks were carved and blackened. Any Urikite would recognize the pattern as House-" slave distilling Laq. His cheeks were carved and blackened. Any Urikite would recognize the pattern as House-"

With a shake of her staff and a surge of mind-bending energy, she nailed the templar where he stood. Anger brought the appropriate memories swimming to the surface of his mind, where she could discern them and their truthfulness. Quickly, she knew as much as she needed to know. Zar-neeka was a halfling word, left from the rime when they and humans dominated a moist, green Athas. As Athas withered, it had seemed that the halflings withered and forgot. But Laq was a halfling word, too. Whatever the halfling was doing, he was no slave, and it was a prudent certainty that he'd recovered more than one mote of ancient knowledge. The rest-the name of his nominal master and the extent of the lion-King's involvement in the treachery-could remain in the murky depths of a templar's mind, for now.

The knowledge would be safe there. Templars did the very thing halflings could not: they hid the truths of their lives from themselves. It was the only way they survived.

But Just-Plain Pavek was an imperfect templar. He had a hefty price on his head and a worried look on his face now that his muscles and his thoughts were his own again. The edge was gone from his stolid confidence.

"I've come to trade with you, druid. Knowledge for protection. While I wore the yellow, I had free run of the king's archives. I read scrolls of magic theory and practice that no eyes had seen for generations. I committed them to memory. The scholars mocked me because, with my rank, I could never hope to recite the invocations I'd learned. But I did learn them, and I'll share them with you, for a price." He cast a wandering glance at the trees, and her staff. "I'm certain you have the rank to use them."

She let the offer hang between them. There was little doubt that more than a few of those long-hidden scrolls had been written by her hand. She'd been a proud scholar once, and she'd paid the price of pride. Pavek's precious knowledge was no temptation. He'd overplayed himself, which suited her purposes perfectly. They could barter old spell-craft until she decided what to do about the reemergence of halfling alchemy.