The Brazen Gambit Part 20

Her eyes widened, and so did the elf's, revealing a glimmer of cooperation. She thought that they'd found help, hoped and prayed that they'd found it. But he c.o.c.ked his head, like a jozhal sniffing the wind; he was kenning her with the Unseen Way and sensed both her defenses and the attack that caused her to raise them.

"Sundown," he said with a semblance of regret. "Come back at sundown and it will be opened. Live that long, my friend, and return."

He held the first two fingers of his right hand against his chin, a gesture that conveyed silence and respect and something more that she could not interpret. Then he took a step backward and quickly disappeared into the maze of tents. "What was that?"

Yohan muttered under his breath before answering: "An old debt. Very old. But debts have to be paid, Kashi. Never forget that. We can collect at sundown."

"He called you friend." you friend." Friendship was not casual among elves, especially nomadic tribes. "Who was he?" Friendship was not casual among elves, especially nomadic tribes. "Who was he?"

"Never met him before."

He started back the way they'd come. Their enemy hadn't given up. The sense that they were being watched or followed lingered throughout a long, frustrating afternoon. It ebbed occasionally-Yohan could walk in her protection without holding her hand-and intensified when they tried to return to the alley where they'd abandoned the cart and their companion. She fretted with guilt about the farmer, but, the dark pressure against her defenses never let up completely, and she understood that there were rescues she didn't dare attempt.

And there were those she had to plan immediately.

"If he attacks again, you must get away," she told Yohan when they were resting behind a sausager's oven.

"No-"

"I'm serious, Yohan. Absolutely serious. Whoever is after us-" In her mind she'd begun identify the mind-bender as the templar Pavek had named Elabon Escrissar, the man who'd put a price on Pavek's head, the man who turned their zarneeka into Laq "-whoever he is, he's a mind-bender. A powerful mind-bender. He'd get Quraite out of you, Yohan; you know that. But I can keep the secret-to the death, if I have to."

"Kashi-"

"I can. I must. I will. And you must get back to Quraite. You were right all along. Pavek is right; the Moonracers are right. This is is about Laq, about a deadly poison and a madman-two madmen: Elabon Escrissar and that halfling alchemist. It's not about zarneeka or Ral's Breath. I should have listened. We should have stayed away. You must warn Grandmother. You must tell her to protect Quraite." about Laq, about a deadly poison and a madman-two madmen: Elabon Escrissar and that halfling alchemist. It's not about zarneeka or Ral's Breath. I should have listened. We should have stayed away. You must warn Grandmother. You must tell her to protect Quraite."

Yohan stared into the heat waves shimmering above the oven. "I'd sooner die than leave you, Kashi."

"No-"

The word slipped out as a sigh, but she knew, from way he'd said the words that the suspicions she'd had since childhood were, indeed, true. Yohan's dwarven focus wasn't his devotion to Quraite or his devotion to Grandmother and the other druids. It was devotion to her and her alone. She'd become the center of his life. Whatever happened to her, he took it as his personal guilt. If she died, died, Yohan was doomed to the half-life of a banshee, haunting the wastelands forever because he'd failed to protect the one thing above all others that was important to him. Yohan was doomed to the half-life of a banshee, haunting the wastelands forever because he'd failed to protect the one thing above all others that was important to him.

"Then we must return to Quraite together."

He clapped her once on the knee before rising again to his feet, a signal that their rest was done and it was time to start moving again. "That, we must."

The sun descended, growing as large as the bulging dome tower atop King Hamanu's palace and glowing like fresh-spilled blood. Yohan, whose sense of direction had never faltered, returned them to the nomad encampment alongside the walls. They were both exhausted, and Akashia's mind still rang with a mind-bender's probe, but she allowed herself to believe that they would escape through whatever door the austere elf would provide. And once they were out of Urik, she had no doubt that they could make their way safely to Quraite.

She wasn't foolish enough to think that the danger was past, but her breath came easier, and there was new strength in her legs.

The elf with straw-colored braids was nowhere to be seen when they entered the tent-covered expanse between the market and the wall. She turned to ask Yohan a question and caught a flicker of movement among the tents. Her eyes alone saw nothing untoward: the encampment was crowded. There were movements everywhere. But her mind's eye, made a vigilant pan of her defenses by the Unseen Way, had seen a smear of templar yellow. Not the color of the walls, but the more garish color worn every day by every templar and that, coupled with the continued mind-bending pressure against her defenses, was not to be ignored.

She shook Yohan's wrist and pointed to the place where her mind said the yellow had appeared and disappeared. "Danger!"

Yohan swept her behind him and stood chin-out, facing the tents, ready for whatever fate blew their way. A fast heartbeat later the ugliest, hairiest dwarf she'd ever seen-the procurer to whom they usually traded their zarneeka-marched purposefully into sight.

"It's over," the procurer announced without drawing a weapon. "Give up quietly. You've brought a forbidden commodity into the city. There's a fine to be paid, and a few questions to be answered. Nothing serious-if you come quietly."

Yohan answered by spreading his feet and standing firm. "Run, Kashi," he added softly. "I can take care of this one."

But she stayed where she was. The procurer was dressed in a rumpled robe of regulation color, he was the smear of yellow her mind's eye had seen, but he wasn't the source of the mind-bending probes.

"There's another one, the mind-bender. You'll lose your protection if too much distance comes between us."

"I'll stand. You run."

Run where? she wanted to ask. He was the one who knew Urik's secrets and he was the one to whom the elf had promised a door...

If the elf hadn't just turned around and sold them to the highest bidder.

The whole question became moot a moment later when a second figure emerged from the tent maze: a human woman, powerfully built, and dressed in templar yellow. Her right arm, naked from the shoulder down, was covered with a bizarre tangle of serpentine tattoos.

"You run," Akashia whispered into Yohan's ear. "Run all the way to Grandmother."

He didn't budge a step as the hairy dwarf and tattooed woman advanced. The elves of the encampment saw trouble brewing and made themselves scarce.

"I'll manage to protect you until you can hide," she whispered urgently. "Run!"

"Protect us both."

"I can't. Find your 'friend.' Use the 'door.' Debts must be paid." She gave Yohan a shove in the small of his back, nothing that could ordinarily move a man of his brawn and determination. "I'm sorry, Yohan. I'm sorry in my heart that I brought you here, but you have to go. One of us has has to get back to Quraite. Don't look back and to get back to Quraite. Don't look back and don't don't believe what I send." She kissed the top of his bald head, breathing out a bit of spellcraft as she did, though she was far from Quraite and her druidry was weak. She hoped to give him some protection from the attack she intended to make, but mostly she wanted him to run away. believe what I send." She kissed the top of his bald head, breathing out a bit of spellcraft as she did, though she was far from Quraite and her druidry was weak. She hoped to give him some protection from the attack she intended to make, but mostly she wanted him to run away.

Yohan shifted his balance and began to move. He took a few heavy-footed, short-legged strides before the other dwarf gave chase. The woman could have caught Yohan, but she'd never have brought him down; she came after Akashia instead.

Akashia counted three beats of her pounding heart then, holding back only the wherewithal to sequester Quraite's secrets deep within her memory, launched an all-out mind-bending a.s.sault of her own. The creatures of all the nightmares she remembered shot across the void and into the imagination of any mind close enough to receive them and not trained to resist them.

Her last conscious thoughts were for Yohan's safety and escape, then she surrendered completely to the darkest corners of her imagination. She let out hatred, fear, and vengeance: every malicious thought she'd ever had and repressed-exactly as Grandmother had told her she'd have to do if she came to a moment like this, when everything important was at stake.

And even though she risked losing herself forever in the dark.

Akashia regained consciousness in a room filled with sweet incense and soft voices. A lightweight linen sheet covered her from feet to shoulders; the air against her face was cool. Night had almost certainly fallen, and she had almost certainly fallen into the hands of the tattooed woman, the ugly dwarf, and the mind-bender, Elabon Escrissar-the very enemies Pavek had warned them about.

"Pavek's enemies, not yours. Not yet," a smooth, masculine voice replied, by which she understood that Escrissar was a powerful mind-bender, indeed.

Akashia opened her eyes. The mind-bender wasn't wearing the black mask and robe Pavek had described. In plain, pale domes, he was simply a bland-looking man, a half-elf by birth and radiantly evil by temperament. A scarred halfling stood to one side, neither smiling nor scowling: the alchemist responsible for Laq. There was no sign of the ugly dwarf or the tattooed woman, but there was a dark-haired boy by the open door of the small, luxurious room where they'd brought her.

The boy smiled when he caught her looking at him. It was a smile that made Akashia's blood freeze in her heart.

"I do not want to be your enemy, dear lady. Pavek was born a thick-skulled idiot; he'll the a sorry hero. But not you. You understand. You've held power yourself. You have ambitions."

He came up the shadowed, twisted pathways she had blasted through her defenses, through her very self. All silk and seduction, he touched the tender, aching places of her mind, of her body, offering her things she had scarcely imagined before this horrifying moment.

She drew a shuddering breath, closed her eyes, and fought with all her might to throw him out.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

Pavek's days had a.s.sumed a different routine while Akashia was gone. He still went to Telhami's grove every other day-they scrupulously avoided certain subjects of conversation: zarneeka, Urik, Laq, and Akashia, herself. But on the day between, he carried a hoe into the fields and worked with the farmers. The back-breaking work gave him time to think about the lessons Telhami gave him, and the subjects they did not discuss. Thinking was good for his incipient druidry: he could wring water out of the air now, on demand and without a headache, but as the empty days of Akashia's absence began outnumber his fingers, his mood darkened.

He hoed his rows in the fields alone and kept to himself the rest of the time, even taking his roll of blankets from the bachelor's hut to the fields, where he slept under starlight: a remarkable change of habit, he knew, for a man who, at the start of Descending Sun, had been unable to imagine himself beyond walls.

Aside from Telhami, only one person intruded on his enforced solitude: Ruari.

They had not become fast-friends after they returned from the youth's grove, although Pavek had stood firm, in his brawly templar way, for the half-elf's right to rejoin the community then and there. Remembering himself at Ruari's I age, Pavek reckoned that he'd saddled the boy with too great a debt and was content to let him keep his distance. Besides, the half-witted sc.u.m was was a whiner, and a complainer; and Pavek, veteran of the orphanage and the civil bureau, had no patience for either trait. a whiner, and a complainer; and Pavek, veteran of the orphanage and the civil bureau, had no patience for either trait.

He looked up from his hoeing and saw Ruari waiting for him at the end of the row-the row he'd intended as his last row of the day, unless he showed Ruari his back now and kept working until the sc.u.m gave up and left. But he'd let Ruari catch his eye, which was all the invitation Ruari required.

"Go away, sc.u.m," he said when a long, lean shadow touched his feet. It was a polite, even friendly, greeting among templars.

"You beat me up bad. I couldn't fight you off. I want to learn how."

"Keep your mouth shut." He offered the advice he'd heard and ignored many times before. "That way you won't start so many fights you can't finish."

"I don't start fights," Ruari snapped, giving the lie to his words with the tone of his voice. "They just happen. Maybe if I won once in a while, I wouldn't have so many."

A vagrant laugh slipped into Pavek's mouth. He clamped a hand over his chin to contain it.

"Wind and fire! Why're you laughing? What's so funny?"

Ruari took a swing at him, which Pavek blocked with his forearm. The hoe slid off his shoulder and landed in the dirt. The sc.u.m was quick; Pavek would grant him that Too quick. Once he was riled, Ruari whipped up the air with his fists, landing blows that were little more than love-taps, and leaving himself vulnerable to the powerful punch of an admittedly slower, far-more-ma.s.sive opponent. But instead of a punch, Pavek reached through Ruari's guard, grabbed shirt and skin, and lifted him off the ground.

"You've got two arms, sc.u.m. Two fists. Keep one of 'em at home for yourself."

"That's what Yohan always says."

"Listen to him." Pavek let go, and Ruari landed lightly and easily on the b.a.l.l.s of his feet. "He's a good teacher."

"He's not here-"

"Just go away, sc.u.m."

"I want to learn from you. Aren't you impressed? Flattered?" The whine was back in Ruari's voice; it grated in Pavek's ears, "I think you're better than the old dwarf. Me-the half-wit sc.u.m who hates all rotted, yellow-robe templars, and tried to poison you-I want you to teach me how to fight."

There was a fading bruise on Ruari's chin, another on his arm, and a third, larger, one across his chest, visible through the open neck of his shirt, all souvenirs of their last encounter. Pavek picked up the hoe with a display of hostility that made Ruari dance back a pace or two and hoist his fists again. But he was only teasing, not taking bait. He dug into the dirt where Ruari had been standing.

The boy realized he'd been gulled. "Pavek-?"

He broke up a clod of dirt with the blade of the hoe and threw a handful of weeds over his shoulder onto the barren ground beyond the irrigated fields. Ruari's shadow didn't move, and neither did his mouth, for a pleasant change. Another long, silent moment pa.s.sed. Pavek kicked the blade into the ground, then he headed out of the field. With a wave of his fingers, he invited Ruari to join him.

"Show me what you've got," he said, and the half-elf bobbed on his toes, with his slender arms and fists in front of him.

Swearing under his breath, Pavek shook his head and turned away. "You'll never be a brawler, Ru." He retrieved his hoe. "Now try it," he said, tossing the bone-shafted tool at the youth, who caught it deftly.

Everyone in the Tablelands had to know enough about fighting to defend him-or herself. Gender didn't matter much, either in the cities or the wastelands: if you didn't look like you could fight back, the full run of predators and scavengers took note. Quraite was protected land, but common sense said the guardian would better protect those who showed the inclination to protect themselves. Pavek had watched the Quraiters, farmers and druids alike, training one day in ten with bows and ordinary tools like the hoe Ruari held in front of him, one hand circling the shaft in a sun-wise direction, the other going the counter-way.

Pavek a.s.sessed the youth quickly and coldly, the way he himself had been taught. Then, instead of exploiting the weaknesses he saw-of which there were remarkably few (Yohan was was a good trainer, Ruari's failings were rooted in his personality, not his technique)-he tried to correct them. a good trainer, Ruari's failings were rooted in his personality, not his technique)-he tried to correct them.

They went at it through the dying light of another arid afternoon, swapping the hoe and the attack. One of two things usually happened when a man tried to teach another the finer aspects of fighting: one man got angry, the lesson ended, and a serious brawl erupted, or they found a common rhythm and the seeds of equal friendship were planted.

With the bloated sun in his eyes and the hoe in his hands, Pavek feinted to his right side, drawing Ruari's attack. Then he swung the hoe low above the ground, letting the sweat-polished shaft slide through his fingers until the angled blade was smack against his wrists. The tactic was designed to strike an enemy's shins and sweep him off his feet; the minimal countermeasure was a leap into the air to avoid the swinging shaft. Gladiators executed the technique with a variety of weapons. Pavek had learned it in the orphanage.

He wasn't wasn't trying to seriously injure anyone; he expected Ruari to know the countermeasure. The half-wit trying to seriously injure anyone; he expected Ruari to know the countermeasure. The half-wit should should have known it, either from Yohan or from those interminable skirmishes with his elven cousins, but he leapt much too late. The shaft caught him just above the ankles, and he tumbled forward with a howl of pain. Pavek centered himself over his feet, prepared for an explosion of rage. have known it, either from Yohan or from those interminable skirmishes with his elven cousins, but he leapt much too late. The shaft caught him just above the ankles, and he tumbled forward with a howl of pain. Pavek centered himself over his feet, prepared for an explosion of rage.

"You're supposed to jump, jump, not trip over your own big, baazrag feet," he said, trying to make light of what he knew-from personal experience-was a very painful moment, and hoping, as the moments lengthened, that the silent, huddled-up youth wasn't nursing broken bones. not trip over your own big, baazrag feet," he said, trying to make light of what he knew-from personal experience-was a very painful moment, and hoping, as the moments lengthened, that the silent, huddled-up youth wasn't nursing broken bones.

"Now you tell me," Ruari finally replied in a choked, quavery voice. His face was pale when he looked up, but he did a hero's work trying to laugh. "You're supposed to be my teacher." you tell me," Ruari finally replied in a choked, quavery voice. His face was pale when he looked up, but he did a hero's work trying to laugh. "You're supposed to be my teacher."

Pavek lowered the hoe and extended a hand. "Sorry, sc.u.m-didn't think you were that stupid. Can you stand?"

Ruari nodded, but took the help that was offered. He held onto Pavek's wrist an extra moment while he took a few hobbling steps.

"Men," a woman grumbled from not too far away. "Never too old for child's play."

They both turned toward the sound. Ruari gasped: "Grandmother," and dropped Pavek's wrist as though it were ringed with fire. There was no guessing how long she'd been watching them, no reading her purpose through her hat's gauzy veil.

"Yohan's coming back. He's on the Sun's Fist."

"Alone?" Pavek snaked an arm around Ruari's shoulder before Telhami answered, ready to restrain the boy, if the answer was what he suddenly feared it would be.

"Alone," she admitted, and for a heartbeat that broad-brimmed hat seemed to shake and shrink.

Ruari surged on wobbly ankles. Pavek caught him before he shamed himself with a fall.

"Easy. If he's on the salt, we've got time, don't we?" He imagined meeting the eyes behind the veil and making them blink. "You don't already know what went wrong?"

"No," her voice was barely audible. "I know that he's alone, nothing more. I've come to you, before the others. You've a right."

She turned away and, gripping her staff in a white-knuckled fist, began the long walk to the village and her hut. Pavek almost felt sorry for her, except: "You sent them! You wouldn't listen, not to me, not to your guardian. You thought your zarneeka was more important, and that you were so much smarter, wiser. d.a.m.n you, Telhami, this falls on you!"

Telhami's form shimmered and vanished.

"You shouldn't've said that, Pavek."

"It's the truth. Somebody's got to say it."

"Not you. You should've kept your mouth shut."

"Good advice, sc.u.m-but I don't listen to good advice." He picked up the hoe, tried to break the shaft over his thigh, and when that failed hurled the tool at the half-round disk of the setting sun. "d.a.m.n!-"