The Brazen Gambit Part 15

"Poisoned himself?"

She would have sworn to anyone, including the guardian of Quraite, that Pavek had been in the best of spirits when they returned from her grove. He'd shaped the elements with only a little help from her; his belief that he would master druidry had been restored. He'd smiled, and even laughed-as if he were made of the same emotional stuff as other men. "He had no cause to poison himself," she concluded, trying to a.s.sure herself as much as Telhami and the other shadows beneath the trees.

"Poison," Telhami repeated, and this time, as a black froth bubbled through Pavek's lips, there could be no further doubt.

She cradled his head in her lap and forced his mouth open enough for Telhami to dust his tongue with herbs. His eyes rolled white, his back cracked like a whip, and he writhed loose. A moan erupted deep in his gut, and he began to retch up a foul-smelling, viscous fluid that shimmered briefly before turning dark and dead.

The herbs confirmed the diagnosis, nothing more. Telhami turned toward the shadows- "Yohan?"

"Nothing, Grandmother," he said wearily. "Whatever he ate, he ate it to the last crumb and drop, or he didn't eat it here in the village."

"He ate supper with the rest of us," another shadow interjected, going soft and slow at the end. "We all ate what he ate."

No one said anything for a moment, while Pavek, no longer vomiting, pressed his fists into his gut and curled around them. He was conscious, after a fashion, muttering names between his moans: Dovanne, Rokka, Escrissar. But he was unaware of his immediate surroundings. Of Telhami or Yohan... of her as she once again tried to shield his head.

"That won't help," Telhami chided. "Give me your hands."

Obediently, because Telhami was right, she raised her hands, palms-out, above Pavek's chest. As Ruari had channeled the lifeforce of Athas for her when she wrought healer's spellcraft on the injured kank, she took the second's role for Telhami. Here in Quraite, where the guardian's presence was concentrated, she surrendered herself completely to its power.

Other druids worked their magic in different ways. Other clerics certainly did. But in Quraite where Telhami had learned druidry and where her way was now the only way, one druid channeled the lifeforce and a second invoked the spell whenever it was possible. She heard the first droning syllable of the invocation; her flesh grew warm. She heard the second; her hands burned as if her fingers had become flames. Then nothing, heard or felt, as Telhami took what she offered and fought for Pavek's life.

Time pa.s.sed without measure or mark. The healing fire was quenched. She yawned and stretched, no worse for her experience, and looked down on Pavek, stretched out between her knees and Telhami's. His limbs were relaxed, but not limp. His chest rose in a deep, regular rhythm and, in the hollow of his throat, four dark beads the size of a jozhal's eye glistened in the moonlight.

Cautiously Telhami touched one bead with a moistened finger, then pressed the tip against her tongue.

"Kivit."

Kivits excreted an effective poison through musk glands beneath their cheeks. They spread the ooze across their fur as they groomed themselves. The defensive coating made the little creatures an unappetizing mouthful to any but the most desperate predator. Quraite's farmers smeared kivit musk around the trunks of their trees while the fruits budded and ripened. It killed any field vermin that ventured across it, but a man was in no danger, unless he gorged himself on kivit, fur and all-at best an unlikely possibility-or he mistook a sun-dried clot of concentrated musk for a date or raisin-a mistake he should have corrected the moment his mouth puckered.

Her thoughts raced toward a dreaded conclusion: Ruari collected kivits in his grove. Ruari collected and dried kivit musk for the farmers. Ruari had run away when she'd caught him scrubbing a bowl.

Not cleaning it. Not so innocent, but lining the bowl with poison.

It could be done. Pavek had made himself predictable, vulnerable. He came late, took the last bowl, and served himself. He'd never complain if the stew tasted strange, never suspect that his was different. And he'd use a sponge-like chunk of bread to mop up every last morsel and drop from the bowl's sides. Every last morsel and drop of poison, too.

"Kashi?"

Telhami interrupted her down-spiraling thoughts. She met the sharp, ancient eyes with a shiver. It didn't matter what Pavek was, who he'd been, or what he might become. What Ruari had done would be Ruari's death once Grandmother knew about it.

"Kashi?"

"It's nothing," she lied and, knowing that lie would not be sufficient, added: "I'm a fine one to chide you about wearing yourself out with Pavek. One day guiding him through his lessons, and I'm so exhausted I can't see straight."

Lying was frowned upon in Quraite, but it was not a capital offense, and she congratulated herself that she'd been able to come up with a good lie so easily. With a heartbeat's effort, she could even convince herself that the guardian understood and approved.

"You young folk need more sleep than I," Telhami agreed. "Danger's pa.s.sed here. Go on, take yourself to bed. Pavek will tell us what happened when he wakes up tomorrow morning-"

That had the ring of certainty to it-and all the more reason for her to find Ruari first. She rose unsteadily. No lying there: her muscles were cramped from kneeling on the chilled ground. The healing had lasted longer than she'd imagined. had the ring of certainty to it-and all the more reason for her to find Ruari first. She rose unsteadily. No lying there: her muscles were cramped from kneeling on the chilled ground. The healing had lasted longer than she'd imagined.

"Until morning," she whispered, careful to retreat toward her own hut, and getting well beyond the torchlight around Pavek before beginning her search.

Ruari might have retreated to his grove. He might have left Quraite entirely-which was what she was going to tell him to do in no uncertain terms. But Ruari hadn't inherited a grove. His tiny plot of nurtured ground was as far from the center of Quraite as it could be while remaining under the guardian's purview. She'd search there last, just before she'd decide that he'd left Quraite forever. First there was the bachelor hut, where he usually slept and where a finger hooked through the reed walls revealed Ruari's undisturbed blankets folded along the wall among a half-dozen snoring men.

Next the pantry hut where the bowl-filled basket was in its usual place and filled with its usual jumble-impossible to discern if one half-elf had removed one telltale bowl. Then, to the porch of the hut where she'd seen him scrubbing the bowl before supper, but which was deserted now. And, finally, to the place where he'd hidden himself earlier.

He sat there, cross-legged in the shadows, waiting to be caught with the incriminating bowl squarely in his lap.

"Why, Ru? Why?"

He hadn't heard her coming, hadn't expected her her at all. The bowl bounced in the dusty dirt as he scrambled to his feet, looking right and left-as if he might run-before standing still, looking at his feet. at all. The bowl bounced in the dusty dirt as he scrambled to his feet, looking right and left-as if he might run-before standing still, looking at his feet.

"Someone had to. He didn't belong here. Never could, never would. I kept waiting. Every day I waited for Grandmother to say he wouldn't be coming back, that the guardian and her grove had taken him-"

"So you decided you'd be the guardian instead?"

He didn't answers, only twisted the hem of his tunic around his forefinger until the entire garment was tight across his chest and he looked a larger version of the boy Ghazala had abandoned years ago. But this time there could be no taking him in her arms or drying his tears.

"No one has the guardian's rights. It's murder, Ru. Pure, simple, and planned. Murder, not justice-"

"He was the real poison!" Ruari sputtered, barely in control of his rage and fear. "It was bad enough when Grandmother took him to her grove, was the real poison!" Ruari sputtered, barely in control of his rage and fear. "It was bad enough when Grandmother took him to her grove, every day. every day. I thought... I thought maybe, maybe she was peeling his mind back, extracting his templar secrets before she put him in the ground. But today... Kashi, you took him to your grove. All day. Wind and fire, Kashi-a I thought... I thought maybe, maybe she was peeling his mind back, extracting his templar secrets before she put him in the ground. But today... Kashi, you took him to your grove. All day. Wind and fire, Kashi-a templar! templar! I asked myself: what were you thinking-and I knew the answer: He'd poisoned Grandmother's mind and yours. He was making you do foolish things-" I asked myself: what were you thinking-and I knew the answer: He'd poisoned Grandmother's mind and yours. He was making you do foolish things-"

"You're the fool, Ru."

"Pyreen protect us if I'm the fool, Kashi." Ruari's voice was low and even. Rage had gotten the upper hand in his emotions, and despite herself, she took a step backward. "I saw you coming back today: all talking, all smiles, your hair all damp, your dress. I saw it, Kashi. The only thing I regret is that I waited a day too long to kill him!"

It came to her then, with the suddenness of lightning, that Ruari was jealous. He cared for her, not as she cared for him-a tag-along orphan, a temperamental younger brother who needed an older sister's unquestioning affection until he learned the manners to return it-but in the way Telhami had feared she'd cared for Pavek.

If the air hadn't been so charged with betrayal, she would have laughed. Even so, she couldn't keep a smile from ghosting across her face as she reached for his arm. "Pavek hasn't poisoned my mind, Ru. And there's nothing-nothing at all-between us. He's afraid of the water, afraid of the gra.s.s, can hardly smile or laugh. He's just a man completely out of his element. Just-" She caught herself before she completed her thought, completed the comparison her mind had accidentally made between a hapless, sullen Pavek standing at the edge of her pool and Ruari himself not many years ago.

"Just what?" he demanded, an ugly sneer curling his lips. "Just another raping, murdering, yellow-robe templar! I'm glad he's dead, hear me. I'll swear an oath in Grandmother's grove. I'm not afraid: I killed him and I'm glad. I'll show the guardian what's in my mind: the way he looks at me-'cause I'm wise to his templar games, the way he looked at you when we were in Urik, the way he looked at you today-"

"The way-" Akashia began to say The way he saved your life in the storm, but that would only feeding a futile argument. "Pavek's not not dead," she said instead. "We saved him, Grandmother and I-" dead," she said instead. "We saved him, Grandmother and I-"

Ruari lashed out with his fist, freeing himself from her hand and striking her across the chin in the same movement. She'd never been hit before, never in anger. The pain lasted an instant; the shock echoed in the depths of her being. Her hands flew to her face-all Yohan's self-defense instructions forgotten.

"Why? Why, if he's nothing to you?"

Ruari's fist rose to shoulder level, but whether for another blow or mindlessly, as her own hands had risen, no one would ever know. A muscular shape surged between them: Yohan coming to her rescue. Yohan, who'd followed her as he followed Pavek, on Telhami's orders. Yohan who had, undoubtedly, heard everything. He easily lifted the half-elf and hurled him against the nearest hut, where he slid to the ground and held still: eyes open, conscious, thinking, scared. The dwarf folded his ma.s.sive arms over his barrel-ribbed chest, fairly daring Ruari to move.

"You've got to leave, now," she pleaded. "You've crossed the line. Go-before it's too late. Leave. Pavek's alive; no one will stop you. The guardian won't stop you. But you intended intended murder. You can't stay here any longer. Renounce your grove, Ru-it's the only way." murder. You can't stay here any longer. Renounce your grove, Ru-it's the only way."

"Renounce it... so a d.a.m.ned templar can trample through it?" Ruari challenged, defiant even in defeat.

The sound of stumbling and staggering intruded before she shaped an answer. Yohan raised a finger to his lips and dropped into a crouch. Another few heavy, flat-footed steps and a seedy-looking Pavek was among them.

"Trample through what?" he demanded, steadying himself against the wall above Ruari's head, looking down and making it clear that only Ruari could give him a satisfactory answer.

Which Ruari would not do.

"This is no concern of yours, Pavek," she said into the lengthening silence, trying to sound confident and in command. "Ruari's done wrong. He-he's the one who tried to murder you with poison. He's got to leave Quraite. He's got to leave now, before-"

"Before Telhami starts asking questions?" Pavek asked-seedy or not, he was the one in command of the situation. Grandmother must have suspected Ruari and shared her suspicions with her patient. Yohan, apparently, approved, because he straightened his legs and folded his arms over his chest again.

"Druids don't murder," she said, feeling that she was the one under attack. "Quraite doesn't shelter murderers. The guardian won't tolerate it."

Pavek shrugged. "That's for your guardian to decide, isn't it? If there was a murder, I wouldn't be standing here, would I? If there'd been murder done tonight..."

"He meant to murder you. It's the same thing."

The ex-templar smiled, a cold and frightening smile. "Not where I come from. Seems to me a druid druid wouldn't make foolish mistakes measuring out his poisons. If some druid wanted me dead, some druid would have used enough poison so some other druid couldn't haul me back from death's door long before it swung shut. Some half-wit druid, with a grove where everyone knew he kept kivits and collected their musk, couldn't have been so foolish. So, some half-wit druid must have known what he was doing, must have been sending me a warning. That's what I think. That's what I'd swear-" wouldn't make foolish mistakes measuring out his poisons. If some druid wanted me dead, some druid would have used enough poison so some other druid couldn't haul me back from death's door long before it swung shut. Some half-wit druid, with a grove where everyone knew he kept kivits and collected their musk, couldn't have been so foolish. So, some half-wit druid must have known what he was doing, must have been sending me a warning. That's what I think. That's what I'd swear-"

"Mind your words," Yohan interjected, deep-throated and meaningful.

"That's what I'd swear before a Urik court. My word against his. My warning against his murder. And my word would prevail, because there's been warning, but no murder. In Urik, by King Hamanu's infinitesimal mercy, what a man does does is all that matters. What he thinks is spit in the wind-or every man, woman, and child would die each sundown for what he'd is all that matters. What he thinks is spit in the wind-or every man, woman, and child would die each sundown for what he'd intended intended to do each sunrise. It's a sorry state, I think, when the Beast of Urik has more mercy than a Quraite druid." to do each sunrise. It's a sorry state, I think, when the Beast of Urik has more mercy than a Quraite druid."

Akashia laced her fingers together. She could see now, for the first time, what Ruari saw when he looked at that scarred face, and she couldn't imagine why Grandmother had shared her suspicions with him, as she must have done.

Pavek was shaking. Vomit stained his tunic; the stench reached her nostrils five paces away. He was crude and disgusting, and he wore both traits like armor. Pavek was broken, all right. He was a templar to the very bone.

And, once again, this templar was giving Ruari's life back to him.

"Ru-?"

The coppery face swiveled up toward Pavek, not her. "I intended intended murder. My only mistake was that I failed." murder. My only mistake was that I failed."

"Your word against mine, sc.u.m," Pavek replied, as cold as a human voice could be. "I heard a warning. You won't get a second chance."

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

The ground between the guarded Quraite groves was as hard as any of Urik's cobblestone streets. Pavek's sandals made a rea.s.suringly familiar sound as he walked) quick-pace, toward the distant stand of tall trees that was Telhami's grove. He was grateful for the cool wind that continued to blow from that grove-or Akashia's grove when he was determined to go there, there, the two druids having decided that they would conduct his lessons on alternating days-but he no longer relied upon the wind to guide him. the two druids having decided that they would conduct his lessons on alternating days-but he no longer relied upon the wind to guide him.

Hard as the ground was, generations of druid feet marching from village to grove and back again had left their mark on it. With nothing better to do as he walked, he'd learned to see the difference in color and texture that defined a path through the wilderness. He could even distinguish the more subtle distinctions that marked the lesser paths between the groves themselves. His lessons hadn't progressed beyond tiny, fast-evaporating spheres of conjured water or fire spells that were more smoke than flame, but he'd begun to build himself a map of Quraite in his mind: the village at the absolute center, surrounded by its cultivated fields and the wilderness between the village and the Sun's Fist, which was studded with groves-at least twenty of them, if he'd correctly identified the high-rank, grove-tending druids at supper.

And he'd done it all without asking questions. Some habits were harder to break than others. Pavek was getting used to the looser routines of Quraite life. He no longer flinched when someone greeted him with a smile. But he was still a templar in his heart, and templars didn't ask unnecessary questions because answers, especially honest answers, created debts.

Which was why, though he progressed toward his goal of druid mastery in a day with Akashia-there had been another pair of them since that first day when she'd challenged him to a race through her blind-gra.s.s meadow-he preferred a day in Telhami's grove. The old woman seldom asked questions, never personal ones, but Akashia, try as she might, couldn't contain her curiosity about the city, about templar life, about his own life, and-worst of all-about the differences between the lessons she gave him and those he received from Telhami.

As if a low-rank templar would ever venture an opinion about one superior to another!

Of course, both women insisted there was no hierarchy in Quraite. Share and share alike, they said. Speak your mind, they said: We value your thoughts, Pavek. Don't hesitate to tell us what you think.

Did they think he was a gith's-thumb fool? He could see that everyone bowed and sc.r.a.ped at Telhami's feet. They smiled and called her Grandmother, and she smiled back and said thank-you...

All very polite and civil.

Hamanu's infinitesimal mercy! He'd seen a hundred Urik festivals where children laid bouquets of flowers at the sorcerer-king's feet, and he he smiled, and smiled, and he he said thank-you, and no one had a moment's delusion where the power lay or who had the will to use it, politely, civilly, and utterly without remorse or conscience. said thank-you, and no one had a moment's delusion where the power lay or who had the will to use it, politely, civilly, and utterly without remorse or conscience.

Day after day they told him to send his mind into Quraite's heart, seeking the guardian. Did they think he hadn't found the bones beneath the trees? Did they think he hadn't guessed the fate of those who'd tried and failed?

Don't hesitate to tell us what you think, they said.

It would have to rain for a hundred days and a hundred nights before he'd stick his head into that that trap. A thousand days! trap. A thousand days!

Or so he vowed to himself as he marched across the hard ground.

They were getting to him, these druids with their open, smiling, unscarred faces. He had to ask himself if there weren't other reasons he preferred the days when Telhami was his instructor, and the answers chilled him to the marrow. Akashia was Telhami's special pet, her designated successor, and already-as a veteran of the civil bureau measured these things-the next-most-powerful druid in the community. She wasn't like anyone he'd met before: honest, fair, curious, curious, and as well-tempered as his knife's steel blade. and as well-tempered as his knife's steel blade.

All Quraite loved her, but no one loved her more than Ruari-to which she, for all her bright curiosity, seemed oblivious. He wasn't. He'd eavesdropped on his neighbors' conversations at supper, learning bits and pieces of the half-elf's story. If their paths had crossed-if he hadn't been a boy himself when it happened-he'd've killed the templar who ravished the boy's mother; he'd done as much for the beast who ravished Dovanne and for the same simple reason he'd kill vermin or Elabon Escrissar: They were diseased and had to be eliminated before their disease spread.

It had already spread to Ruari. The half-wit sc.u.m saw the world through his scars, real and imagined; there was no use talking to him or trying to make peace. No matter what Akashia hoped or said-and she'd said more than Pavek wanted to hear, blind as she was to Ruari's adoration-they couldn't be brothers to each other. She saw herself as the boy's sister.

Everybody was blind to something. Akashia was blind to Ruari.

But leave him and the sc.u.m alone and they might be able to steer clear of each other. He knew he'd be content to ignore Ruari-but for the poison. He'd known exactly what he was doing when he confronted them; would have figured it out without Telhami's help, though not so quickly.

His gut still ached. Whether from the poison itself or the healing afterward he couldn't be sure-he didn't ask questions. The sight of food still made him nauseous, and he had to stop now and again as he walked to catch his breath.

Once the sun came up, as it had a short while ago, the only useful shade between the village and the groves came from the brim of a borrowed straw hat. There was no point to leaving the path to rest; when he got tired, he just sat down where he was, back to the east, where the sun was climbing, and making the most of what the hat and his shoulders gave him. With his eyes closed and his mind as empty as only a veteran templar could make it, he waited for his pulse and gut to settle.

They did, and before the hat got hot enough to burst into flames. He rubbed his eyes, got to his feet and, because he was a templar and was accustomed to having enemies, spun slowly on his heels, scanning his surroundings for anything that didn't belong. Nothing man-shaped-Ruari-shaped-had appeared, but there was something new, something to make him squint into the shimmering heat-bands along the southern horizon, the Urik horizon.

A fist-sized dust plume billowed there, raised-if he could believe his eyes-by a horde of black dots beneath it.

His first self-centered thought put Elabon Escrissar's name on one of those fast-moving dots, and he'd started back toward the village before common sense regained a foothold in his mind. He knew knew the whole story of Quraite, zameeka, Ral's Breath, and Laq, and how he, himself, had gotten bound up in it. But, there was no reason-no reason at all-for anyone in Urik to think a third-rank templar with a forty-gold-piece price on his head had found refuge at a distant druid oasis. There was no reason to think anyone in Urik knew Quraite's name and every reason to believe that Telhami and the guardian kept its precise location a well-secured secret. the whole story of Quraite, zameeka, Ral's Breath, and Laq, and how he, himself, had gotten bound up in it. But, there was no reason-no reason at all-for anyone in Urik to think a third-rank templar with a forty-gold-piece price on his head had found refuge at a distant druid oasis. There was no reason to think anyone in Urik knew Quraite's name and every reason to believe that Telhami and the guardian kept its precise location a well-secured secret.

So he turned about-face, retraced a hundred paces, and stopped again.

Something was on the salt plain. Maybe it would skirt the guarded land; he wasn't at all certain how Quraite's protective magic worked. But, maybe it wouldn't. Maybe the druids would know the instant a stranger set foot in their, private wilderness. But, maybe they wouldn't. There were trees everywhere, trees as high as the walls of Urik, without battlements and watchtowers. was on the salt plain. Maybe it would skirt the guarded land; he wasn't at all certain how Quraite's protective magic worked. But, maybe it wouldn't. Maybe the druids would know the instant a stranger set foot in their, private wilderness. But, maybe they wouldn't. There were trees everywhere, trees as high as the walls of Urik, without battlements and watchtowers.

Regulators patrolled the Urik walls sometimes, when King Hamanu dragged the war bureau off on campaign. It was light duty with clear-cut orders: Report what you see, within the walls or outside them. Do your duty and let superiors make the decisions.

Pavek spun around again and headed for the village.

The broad green crown of village trees loomed in front of him, distinct from the dust plume, which had not grown noticeably. Another black dot had appeared between him and the village. It was moving, growing, coming toward him, resolving itself into a dwarf's stocky silhouette.

Yohan, and immensely relieved that he wasn't going to have to trek all the way to Telhami's grove to deliver his message. The dwarf spoke first: "The elves are coming, they'll be here by midday. Grandmother and the others are waiting for them in the village. No lessons today."

"Elves?" Pavek stared at the dust cloud, asking himself if that was what he saw.

"Moonracers. The whole tribe of them, and their herd. And a barrel or two of honey-ale."

The dwarf came close and clapped him across the back, as casual a gesture as they'd exchanged, but his thoughts were still on the elves.