The Brazen Gambit Part 18

"In my dreams, great one." The invocation for fire was written clearly in his mind's eye. The power to transform the very air around them into a wall of flames throbbed beneath his feet. Telhami knew it; he could look into those ancient, unblinking eyes and see the knowledge there. And power far greater than any he could hope to command.

Your choice, Pavek. Her voice was clear, but her lips hadn't moved. Her voice was clear, but her lips hadn't moved.

The tips of his fingers touched; the guardian's power surged within him, then ebbed. He wasn't a druid. He couldn't choose to hide in a grove. He could choose between understanding and incineration: a familiar sort of choice for a man who'd worn King Hamanu's yellow. A comfortable choice.

Ruari meant nothing to him. Less than nothing. The sc.u.m simply hated him to the point of poison and beyond, because of his father, not zarneeka. Let Ruari hide in his d.a.m.ned grove. Let him stay there until he rotted, if he couldn't starve. He was more trouble than he was worth; the world wasn't losing anything- Except justice: a balance of rights and wrongs between him and Ruari that could never be redressed with one of them hiding forever and a day. The invocation erased itself; the power evaporated.

"I don't understand, and I refuse to make your choice. I will will find him." find him."

The cool, guiding breeze from a druid's grove blew only when the druid willed it to. The air around the ruined stowaway grew still as Quraite's druids, one by one and following Telhami's example, inhaled the essence of their groves.

"There is nothing to follow," Telhami said triumphantly. "It cannot be done."

But druidry wasn't the only magic in Quraite. A small, ceramic lump had entered the guardian's land with Pavek. He had taken it directly from King Hamanu's hands when he was still a boy living in the templar orphanage. The memory of the king's stale breath, his sulphurous eyes, and the burning heat of his flesh would never fade. Nor, King Hamanu had a.s.sured him and the dozen other youngsters inducted into the templarate that day, would his memory of each of them. A Urik templar was linked to his medallion.

Though the crude ceramic might be exchanged for fine carved stone or precious metal-if a templar rose high enough through the ranks-the unique impression made on Induction Day endured.

The medallions could only be used by the templar into whose hands it had been placed by the king. Woe betide the forgetful templar who lost his medallion, and greater woe betide the fool who, finding a stray medallion, tried to use it.

Pavek could have selected his medallion from a hundred perfect forgeries. Even here in Quraite, where the guardian averted Hamanu's prying eyes, he felt its absence as a nagging hole in his consciousness, stronger or weaker depending on the medallion's actual location.

Depending on Ruari's location, since Ruari had the medallion.

Without the competing influences of twenty-odd breezy groves to confound him, Pavek needed only to close his eyes and turn his head to determine the direction in which his medallion could be found. There was a chance the half-wit sc.u.m had left it in the bachelors' hut with his bedding, but Pavek found himself looking away from the village when he opened his eyes. He started walking without saying a word.

Akashia called him; Telhami also-and voices he didn't recognize. If Yohan's had been among them, he might have reconsidered. But the dwarf held his peace and soon the only sounds were those of his own sandals on the dry ground.

He expected something odd, something sudden or frightening, but Ruari's grove, when it came into sight, was a low-lying tangle of briars and saplings, far smaller than Telhami's or Akashia's, but otherwise essentially the same. A shimmer of druidry hung about the place, which from the outside seemed no more than few hundred paces across. There certainly was no sign of Ruari himself, though the ache of the missing medallion was a palpable force in Pavek's mind. He hesitated before wading into the rampant shrubbery, and held his breath until his lungs burned once he entered the grove. Thorns carved b.l.o.o.d.y tracks into his legs, but that was the true nature of thorns and nothing magical.

"Ruari!" he shouted loudly enough to penetrate every shadow. "Stop hiding."

There was no answer; he hadn't truly expected one. He thrashed and cursed his way to what seemed to be the visible center of the grove. The medallion felt close enough to touch, but Ruari was nowhere to be seen.

"She says this hiding-thing is your choice. You may as well come out where I can see you. I'm not going anywhere until you know you did the right thing, wrecking the stowaway."

Something cracked the base of Pavek's skull. It might have been a nut or a small stone; he didn't turn around.

"Talk to me, street-sc.u.m."

"Go away!" a familiar, anger-filled voice shouted, followed by another pellet striking his flank.

He stayed right where he was, looking straight ahead, out of the grove. "We can't let Telhami settle this for us, street-sc.u.m."

"I'm not street-sc.u.m!" Another shout, closer by the sound, and another pellet flung hard enough to make him wince.

"You act like it: another dumb-fool, too-smart-to-think clod of street-sc.u.m. I know the type."

"You know nothing!" nothing!"

But even in the absence of footfalls through the brush, the medallion told him when to turn around, where to grab himself an armful of street-sc.u.m. Ruari kicked and punched and clamped his teeth into Pavek's forearm-for which he clouted him hard behind the ear. Then dropped the stunned fool into the thorns.

"You want to hate yellow-robe templars, sc.u.m, that's all right with me. I hate a few myself. You want to hate your father or your mother, that's all right, too. I didn't have much luck with my parents, either. We're even. But you want to take your hate out on me, and that's just plain foolish, street-sc.u.m."

"That's what you say!"

Fists forward and teeth bared, Ruari surged out of the briars.

They grappled for no more than a moment before Pavek got the upper hand and hurled him into the thorns again. "That's what I say because it's the truth. You-"

Ruari took a deep breath and launched himself again. Pavek had enough time to step aside, which would have allowed the youth to dive head-first into the underbrush. His mind's eye showed the gouged and bleeding copper-skinned face that would result. He was tempted, but stayed where he was, taking the sc.u.m's charge full-force in his gut.

They both went down, with Ruari pummeling Pavek's flanks. Yohan had taught his pupil well; Ruari knew how to land an effective punch with his compact fists and where to aim them. Pavek roared and thrashed free. A wicked thorn caught below the corner of his right eye as he did, and he got to his feet with a finger-long gash across his cheek. The sight of his blood made Ruari bolder and more reckless than the sc.u.m already was. The thought that he might have been seriously injured brought out Pavek's coldest rage.

"You want to prove something, sc.u.m? Now's your time. Give me your best, and I'll give a better reason to hate templars-"

He settled into the brawler's stance he'd shown to Yohan, then he lowered a fist, daring Ruari to strike at his jaw. Ruari took the dare, leaving his right side undefended. Pavek was heavier, faster, and far more experienced; he beat aside Ruari's punch and struck twice, left-handed, on the sc.u.m's jaw and right shoulder before withdrawing.

Ruari's lips trembled and, hard as he tried, he couldn't hold his right arm steady.

"Had enough?"

The half-wit shook his head and charged. Pavek leaned away from the attack, stuck out an arm, and caught Ruari across the ribs, knocking the wind out of him. This time Ruari couldn't clamber upright. He lay awkwardly in the briars, gasping for breath.

"What's it going to take to get through to you that I'm not your enemy? I'm not your father and you're not going to prove anything by hating me as if I were. You've d.a.m.n near twice lost the only home you've got, and what have you got to show for it? I'm still here, and you're one gasp away from being meat."

Ruari worked his mouth, trying to muster enough strength and saliva to spit.

"Fool," Pavek muttered.

He thumped Ruari's still-heaving ribs with his foot. The youth began to choke. Pavek grabbed an arm and jerked him to his feet. Ruari's eyes were full of spite, but he couldn't talk, couldn't stand on his own feet, and didn't want to land in the briars again. He clung to Pavek's arm; the ceramic medallion dangled around his neck in easy reach. Pavek left it hanging there, knowing that so long as the half-elf wore it, he'd know where the sc.u.m was. And fearing that, short of killing Ruari, he wasn't ever going to convince the stubborn sc.u.m that there was no good reason for them to feud with each other.

They stood there a while, with Pavek keeping an ungentle hold on Ruari's arm. Ruari couldn't fill his lungs. He wheezed and trembled, leaning hard against him, because he could do nothing else.

Pavek knew, from long years on the practice ground, that elves could gasp themselves to death if their lungs collapsed. He didn't think he'd hit Ruari nearly hard enough, but it was always hard to gauge the vulnerabilities of half-elves. Sometimes they were weaker than either of their parents.

"Come on, Ru," Pavek urged, forgetting himself and using the youth's familiar name. "Calm down. Take it slow." He felt something soft brush against the back of his legs: kivits, three of them, their ears twitching each time Ruari gasped, their large, dark eyes seemingly glazed with anxious tears. They rose up on their hind-legs and touched the youth's limp legs with dexterous forepaws.

Familiars, Pavek thought. Every half-elf was supposed to have them. His old nemesis the administrator Metica was rumored to sleep with a nest of poisonous snakes. He didn't want to think what sort of familiars Elabon Escrissar might keep. But the kivits were clearly Ruari's familiars, and just as clearly distressed by the sight of him.

"I'm getting tired of this," he complained as he swept an arm under Ruari's legs, lifting him up. "I'm no nursemaid."

Now that Ruari had shown himself, the features of the grove were apparent. Pavek carried Ruari to the side of a small, bubbling pool and propped him up against a sapling willow tree. The kivits bounded onto Ruari's shoulders, nuzzling into his hair and against his face. Pavek raised a hand to chase them away, but Ruari's eyes had closed, and he was breathing easier.

He tended his own cuts and scratches in the pool, then sat on his heels, waiting for Ruari to complete his recovery. It didn't take long.

"Nothing's changed. I still hate you. You're still a lying, treacherous lump-of-sc.u.m templar, and I'm still going to kill you."

"Give it up, sc.u.m. You're not a dwarf. You don't have a to-the-death focus to worry about. Stop being so stubborn and think straight for a change. If I'd wanted to kill you or hurt you or anyone else, I could have done it ten times over by now. I'm not your enemy. I'm not Quraite's enemy. I'm not anybody's enemy-except some templars back in Urik: the ones making Laq. We're on the same side, Ruari. While you were wrecking that stowaway, I was trying to convince Telhami and Akashia not to take any more zarneeka to Urik. They weren't listening to me, but you stopped them. You did the better job."

Ruari scratched the itchy spots on each of his kivits before he met Pavek's stare. "How do I know I can believe you? You lie real good, templar-man, like you lied about my poison."

"You believe a man after you ask what he's got to gain by lying. I've got nothing to gain by lying to you, and and I haven't killed you yet. That should be enough." I haven't killed you yet. That should be enough."

"Kashi." Ruari looked down at the kivits as soon as he'd uttered the word.

"Mekillots will fly first. You may enjoy being a fool, but I don't. That woman's never going to be interested in an ugly, third-rank templar."

"She is."

"I'm not," Pavek insisted with a force that surprised himself. "I know better than to overreach."

Ruari pushed the kivits down and rose unsteadily to his feet. "I'd kill you."

"She'd kill me first."

"She wouldn't. Kashi's not like that. She doesn't see the evil in a person."

He could think of a dozen things to say, all of which would have set them brawling again. Instead, he extended a finger toward a kivit and tickled the tip of the inquisitive creature's nose.

"All the more reason to keep her and zarneeka out of Urik. You did a good job with that stowaway."

Ruari sat down again. "Telhami's angry at me. I never saw her so angry. I thought she was going to invoke the guardian and suck my bones into the ground."

"Maybe she wanted to, but none of the other druids at that meeting this morning, except Akashia and Telhami, wanted to send zarneeka to Urik, and I don't think the guardian did either."

Ruari shredded a blade of gra.s.s. "Can you really feel the guardian, or is that just more lies?"

"No lies. I'm a lousy liar."

Ruari swore softly and shredded another blade of gra.s.s. "I wish you'd never come to Quraite."

"I wish I'd never seen a man poisoned by Laq, then I wouldn't have needed to come. You ready to go home?"

Ruari said he was, but he was weak and wheezing before they left the grove. So they sat talking by the pool, getting past being enemies without becoming friends. The sun was setting when they returned to the village. Pavek went looking for Yohan, but the dwarf was gone, and so were Akashia, two farmers and five kanks: Telhami'd evoked a whirlwind to separate the ripened zarneeka from the sand, then she'd sealed it up and sent it on its way to Urik.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

The air remained cool from the recent dawn when Akashia, Yohan, and two awestruck Quraite farmers set out afoot from the market village of Modekan, headed for the brilliant yellow walls of Urik. After four day's travel kank-back across the wastelands, the farmers were eager to see the Lion-King's city; Akashia wanted to finish their business quickly, uneventfully.

No one knew what Yohan was thinking-except that he didn't approve, and he hadn't said more than two words at a time since they left Quraite.

It wasn't Modekan's Day for the Urik markets; they had the road to themselves. Akashia had ample time to relax, think, and get anxious again. They took some chances bringing zarneeka to Urik on a day when it and they weren't expected. She could hope that the Modekan registrar had reported to his superiors in the templarate, and that the repulsive dwarf they traded with would be at his procurer's table in the customhouse.

And she could hope that the dwarf would shepherd the zarneeka powder to its proper destination: a thousand folded papers of Ral's Breath powder. But for that hope to become real, she had to hope, above all else, that Just-Plain Pavek was wrong about his former colleagues in the civil bureau.

Akashia believed with all her heart that the chronic aches and illnesses of Urik's common folk were important enough to justify the risks she was taking. She believed, too, that her mind-bending skills coupled with druidry would be sufficient to protect her, her companions, and the three amphorae nestled in the straw-filled cart Yohan pulled.

When she called her spells and her skills across her mind's eye, her confidence grew; then something would catch her attention at the side of the road or she'd see the shadow of Just-Plain Pavek lurking in the corner of her memory, and her calm would shatter.

In her heart she believed Pavek was wrong about Urik's need for zarneeka and Ral's Breath but, try as she might as she walked, she couldn't convince herself that he was lying about the city's danger or the procurer's duplicity. Grandmother had agreed that Pavek spoke what he fervently believed was the truth. He was transparent in so many ways to both mind-bending and druidry; he'd never make a master of either craft-yet he could evoke the guardian and, somehow, he'd managed to enter Ruari's grove after Ruari had hidden himself inside it.

She thought she she could have found her young friend's grove and forced herself inside, but by every reckoning she and Grandmother had made, the challenge should have been far beyond Just-Plain Pavek's abilities... Unless Ruari had welcomed him, in which case one of them might have slain the other, or-worse to consider-the two of them might have discovered that, where zarneeka and Urik were concerned, they were of like minds. could have found her young friend's grove and forced herself inside, but by every reckoning she and Grandmother had made, the challenge should have been far beyond Just-Plain Pavek's abilities... Unless Ruari had welcomed him, in which case one of them might have slain the other, or-worse to consider-the two of them might have discovered that, where zarneeka and Urik were concerned, they were of like minds.

And that would have been the end of the zarneeka trade: Yohan would have stood with them. And the remaining Quraiters, druid and farmer alike, were already more afraid of Urik and Urik's inhuman king than was necessary; they would have supported the recalcitrant trio. Quraite wasn't some idyllic community where everyone's opinion counted with equal weight and the heaviest position prevailed; such communities rarely survived a year, much less the generations that Quraite itself had endured. Grandmother's word naturally and rightfully outweighed everyone else's, but Grandmother would never be foolish enough to drag the community in a direction it absolutely did not want to go.

As she was dragging Yohan to Urik.

The old dwarf trod silently between the traces of the handcart. He'd resisted her attempts at conversation since they left Quraite. Yohan had spoken vehemently against Grandmother's decision to dispatch zarneeka to Urik while Pavek and Ruari were still hidden in Ruari's grove. But in the end, Yohan had swallowed his objections. He'd helped to separate the zarneeka powder from the sand in the ruins of the stowaway. When Grandmother invoked a diminutive whirlwind to whip up the gritty mixture, he'd held a winnowing against it until his feet were buried in grit. She'd stood behind the sieve with a tightly woven basket, collecting enough yellow powder to fill three amphorae. And then he'd harnessed the kanks-all the while looking over his shoulder at the path Ruari and Pavek would have taken if they had returned together.

But the path remained empty, and they'd left the village before sunset without knowing what had happened between the templar and the half-elf-exactly as Grandmother had wanted it.

Because Grandmother was was wiser than all the rest of them together. And Grandmother wiser than all the rest of them together. And Grandmother knew knew the right thing for Quraite to do where zarneeka or anything else was concerned. the right thing for Quraite to do where zarneeka or anything else was concerned.

"You'll see," Akashia a.s.sured her plodding, sullen companion. "Everything will fall into place. You'll be headed home before sundown, I promise. There's nothing to worry about. There won't be any trouble at the customhouse-"

"Not there, not the customhouse," he interrupted, the longest single string of words he'd put together since they left Quraite. "It's too risky. If your heart's still set on delivering zarneeka to Urik, I'd sooner take it to the elven market I'd sooner trust a cross-eyed elf than that hairy dwarf at the customhouse."

"The elven market?" Her mind filled with the wonders she imagined among its tawdry tents and shanties. She'd heard about the market from the Moonracers since she was a little girl, but in all her fifteen trips to Urik-she'd kept careful count-she'd never done more than trek from the gate to the customhouse and back again. Except, of course, this past time when they'd encountered Pavek, and Yohan had led them to the dyers' plaza where lengths of brightly colored cloth had threatened more than once to distract her from the interrogation.

Any excuse to visit the elven market was an almost irresistible temptation-especially if cautious Yohan was suggesting it.

Then the imagined wonders faded: "We gave our names to the Modekan registrar..."

"Three itinerant peddlers with trade for the customhouse," Yohan recited in rhythm with his walking.

Yohan had been trekking the zarneeka to Urik since before she was born. He'd taught her what to do and say, and she never told the truth about their names or merchandise to the village registrar. "They won't suspect? Won't come looking for us?" He shrugged; the amphorae shifted in the cart. "Not in the elven market. Templars don't go into the market, not alone. We'll be on our way home, like you said, before they start looking for us. If If they start looking for us." they start looking for us."

She pondered temptation for a little while. The dazzling yellow walls-cleaned and replastered after the Tyr-storm-lifted up in front of them, the freshly repainted portraits of the Lion-King were blurred, but colorful at this distance. The great, dark opening of the gate was visible as well, and the road was still empty ahead of them. There wouldn't be a line. Elven market or customhouse, they'd be into the city and out again in record time.

But the inspectors would ask questions. She had to be ready to use a mind-bender's subtle art, and that meant she had to have her words and images memorized before they reached the gate.

"Are you certain?" she asked.

"Nothing's certain-except that Pavek knows the procurer we've traded with. Whatever truth Pavek's telling us, I don't want to come face-to-face with that procurer until we're sure what's already happened and what's likely to happen next. That hairy dwarf's got muck all over his hands; he's not to be misted. That much is is certain." certain."

Of all the races, dwarves were the most consciously proud, of their appearance. Yohan's distrust of the procurer had its roots in the disgust he undoubtedly felt each time they stood before that stained yellow robe. Under different circ.u.mstances, she would have discounted her companion's advice for that very reason. Today's circ.u.mstances were as different as they could be, but she made one more attempt to resist temptation.

"Grandmother wants us to learn about the purity and strength of Ral's Breath. We'll have to visit the customhouse anyway-"

Yohan spat into the dust at the side of the road. "Wouldn't trust a customhouse templar's answer to that question, no matter who or what he was. We've got to visit an apothecary or two ourselves, Kashi, if we want to take those answers back with us."