It's a damned pity I'm not thirty years younger, she thought wryly. I'd see what else he can do besides fight. . . .
"There other Clans are," he said abruptly. "There is—there is no rain in Clan country many summers. We look here, for grass. Maybe others grow hungered, maybe they come, look here."
"We have the lightning," she reminded him.
He took a deep breath, and braced himself. "Then why not you call lightning when Vredai on east pass? Why not call lightning when Vredai take from land-folk?" He scowled, and Felaras stifled a smile.
Very good, young man, she thought. My bluff is called—maybe. "Dead men," she repeated, "cannot speak." Time to drop the hot rock in his lap. "We seek new knowledge above all else. You come from the East, a place new to us. We do not kill what we do not understand."
"You—" There was something like wild hope in his eyes for an instant before he shuttered them. "—You seek new learning? You heal too?"
"Sometimes. When we can. So?" she said, raising one eyebrow and attempting to look as if his answer was of complete indifference to her.
"Maybe we keep other Clans out of valley?" he offered, tentatively. "Strong Vredai warriors be good to guard."
"Maybe," she answered, trying not to show her elation. "The lightning is not to be wasted on foolishness. Maybe we could have a bargain? Trade grazing for learning and use of your warriors. Such a trade would save us tedious work."
He pulled himself up higher. "You call not lightning, we raid not valley? We meet three days? Have trade-talk? Trade learning, maybe? Speak treaty?"
She nodded slowly, after pretending to think about it. "You move your Clan here—to the bottom of the road. Where we can watch you." Which should make you think twice if you aren't serious.
His eyes widened again and he swallowed once before he replied. It took him a moment to recover his arrogance. "We move," he agreed reluctantly, and not at all happily.
"Three days," she reminded him. "Here."
He nodded again. "Three days."
Her back itched all the way back to the gates, just waiting for an arrow to come winging out of the rocks, and it didn't stop until she was safely back inside.
She leaned against the closed gate and breathed her first easy breath in days—and, she suspected, her last.
Then her knees went to water as she realized just how easily she could have been assassinated down there; how simple it would have been for those horse-nomads to have taken her prisoner. All she'd had to go on was the assurances of Teo that this "truce-staff" of theirs was sacrosanct, and the hope that they were too frightened of her wizard's power to try anything so close to the walls of the Fortress.
Hindsight nerves. Damn, thought I was over that. Guess not. Now I'll wake up in a cold sweat for the next three nights.
So she just braced herself against the rough stone wall, feeling every bump and raspy spot on the skin of her back through the cloth of her tunic; closed her eyes, and shook from hair to toenails.
All three of the "Unholy Trinity" came clattering down the stairs leading to the top of the wall within moments of the closing of the gate. She opened her eyes as they surrounded her. She expected an avalanche of questions, but they kept silent, and kept everyone else at a distance. Kasha's idea, she suspected. When she was over her shakes, she got hold of herself and looked over that blessed barrier of protective shoulders at the double handful of curious and apprehensive Watchers and Seekers that had gathered, not even really noting the varying expressions they wore.
"Pass the word," she said briefly. "Convocation tonight at sunset. The nomads gave us a three-day truce, and they want to talk about a permanent truce and maybe an alliance. I'll tell you all everything then. Meanwhile you've all got things to do. Go do them."
The small crowd did not immediately disperse—and it was Zorsha who drew himself up to look much larger than he really was, took on an air of authority, and growled, "You heard the Master's orders. Let's see some backs!"
Felaras blinked in surprise at his sudden show of strength, but didn't have much time to think about what he'd done; Kasha gave her a gentle shove and she headed for the sanctuary of her study, where she could think.
* * *
"Here." Kasha shoved a mug of chava into her hand and pushed her down into her chair. "What happened out there?"
"Truce, at least temporary, like I said." She looked from one to another of her favorites. Kasha had perched herself on the side of the desk. Zorsha had the chair, and Teo was draped over the back of the chair above Zorsha's head. "That man I spoke with—Teo, what's a Khene?"
"Clan Chief," he said, and grinned shyly. "So I was right?" His blocky face brightened when she nodded yes.
"There's something going on with them, but damned if I know what," she continued, after a mouthful of cold, sweetened chava. "He admitted to part of what drove them here—a multi-year drought—but from what I was reading, that's just the bare beginning of the truth."
"Why?" Zorsha asked sharply. "I mean, I hope you're relying on something more than instinct. I'd like to know what. Forgive me for stating the obvious, but you can't afford to be wrong on this."
From the dumbfounded looks on Teo and Kasha's faces, they hadn't expected that speech from Zorsha any more than Felaras had.
She was startled, but pleased—because this sounded exactly like the kind of questions she used to confront her Master with. It was beginning to look like her choice of Zorsha as her successor was the right one. Since this mess began, Teo was faltering every time she asked him to assert himself. Zorsha was rising to the challenge of the situation, or so it was beginning to look.
"Well, I'm a good deal older than this Jegrai—he's about your age, Zorsha—and while he may be very good at hiding the fact that he's not telling the whole truth from people his own age, he hasn't had my experience in prying information out of what isn't said. I've been dealing with the Order and with envoys for a good few years now. And think about it—it's me who deals with the Traders, and a more closemouthed lot you're never going to find. I end up reading more off them than they ever tell me."
Teo chuckled, and even Kasha smiled, but Zorsha still looked worried.
Felaras decided to elaborate, to tell him how she was reading those she faced. "I asked him why they came. He mentioned the drought, then looked briefly away. Then he said, a little too casually, that other Clans may look westward for grazing lands. Now that's probably all true; but if they needed grazing land so badly, where's their other herds? All they've got with them are the horses. Teo? What should they have?"
He frowned in thought, and his heavy eyebrows came together to form a solid bar across his forehead. Now that it was just the four of them, he seemed to have regained his confidence. "They should have goats, sheep," he said, finally. "Or maybe—the chronicles talk about some other land of animal, called a yaeka. There was a sketch, but it's hard to describe. I suppose a hairy sort of cow is the closest I could come. Something like an aurochs. Those should have been able to keep up with horse-herds, unless they were really forcing the pace."
"And all any of my scouts saw was horses," Felaras persisted. "All of the tents were very small, none of the big ones Teo's chronicles described. What does that tell you, Seeker?"
It was Zorsha's turn to wrinkle his brow in thought. "Well, my first guess would be that maybe they didn't come this direction voluntarily. They ended up leaving behind everything that slowed them down. They were driven? Maybe by a bigger Clan?"
"That would be my guess," she said, settling back into her chair, and very pleased that a non-Watcher had deduced the same conclusion she'd come to. It was even more gratifying that her choice of successor had done so as quickly as he had. It meant that he was able to see things as a Watcher would. "Now, unless I misread him, he also made a genuine offer of alliance against the poaching of other Clans. Which would do what?"
"Confirm your guess," Zorsha replied positively, looking much less worried. "So what did you tell hi
m?"
"That we'd have formal talks in three days—and that I wanted his whole Clan to move to the bottom of the mountain, where we could keep an eye on them."
"And he agreed? At her nod, he raised an eyebrow. "Great good gods, he has to be thinking he's moving them within our striking distance. Sounds to me like he's serious."
"I think so. I also think we could do worse than have an alliance with these nomads. If nothing else, I suspect they have a fair amount they could teach us. And there's a lot more -advantages—and I'd like you to see if you can come up with some on your own, because I'm going to count on your bright young minds during this Convocation tonight. Because now that you've seen what I've seen, and concluded we ought to talk with these nomads, the really hard part is going to begin." She grinned crookedly. "And that is to convince your fellows of the Order that we're right."
* * *
This was the first time she'd ever held a Convocation after sunset. If anything, it was less pleasant. By night the hall felt even more like a bowl than by day. The only strong lights were lanterns placed in a little circle around the podium. Felaras could see nothing of the others with her eyes so dazzled by the light—although they could see every move she made. And she was uncomfortably aware that, despite the babble of voices all around her, she was the focus of all eyes. When she held up her hand for silence and got it, immediately, it only confirmed her feeling.
"All right," she said into the darkness, wishing she could see the faces of those that surrounded her, instead of nothing but vague shapes that didn't even tell her what sex they were, much less their identity. "The nomads have found us. We showed them what we can do. I arranged a three-day truce with them, and got them to move down to the bottom of the mountain where we can keep a tight eye on them. You all know that—now I want to hear what you think of it."
The babble began again, and began rising toward an uncontrolled roar until she silenced them with a grimace and a wave of her hand. "Ladies and gentlemen, you aren't children in the schoolyard! Let's have some order here! Thaydore—what's your say?"
From out of the dark to her right came Thaydore's soft reply—which she could have recited with him, word for word. She knew what he would say, and so did just about everyone else in the Order. She'd called on him just so as to have a place to start, and to let the others begin choosing their own words.
"Our knowledge must be used to serve all mankind," he said, with as much force as Thaydore ever said anything. "That means East as well as West, horse-nomads as well as those who dwell in Ancas or Yazkirn. We must open our gates and our books to these folk, and teach them—"
"The Order has no place in the material world!" shrilled a female Felaras couldn't identify (though she suspected Archivist Brendis, a signs-and-portents type). "The material world must not pass—"
Someone else interrupted her, a male voice, but trembling and high; it sounded like Regas, but in the dark she couldn't be sure. "Exactly! There are some things 'all mankind' isn't ready to know! And it's our job to keep those things secret! We have no responsibility to teach anyone anything! Our purpose is to preserve and protect, not hand knowledge over to people who would only misuse it!"
Kitri flared up at that, her aged but strong, sharp voice carrying over the objections that followed that rather insular statement. "And just who's to decide when mankind is ready, hm? You? Great good gods, man, that makes you worse than those meaching priests back in Targheiden! Who the hell do you think you are? Hladyr's avatar?"
"A damned sight more sensible than you are, Kitri," growled one of the Seekers—and that deep bass could only belong to Jezeran. "Hladyr bless, what do you want us to do, hand out the formula for Sabirn-fire so these barbarians can burn down whole towns instead of just farmsteads? Shall we give them the knowledge of explosive powder too? Just imagine what they could do with that! What we know should be given to people worthy to have it, civilized people, people we know and can predict, the people of Ancas, of Yazkirn—not to a pack of unwashed, unlettered barbarians!"
Kitri's voice cut across the other objections—raised by those who did not happen to have been blessed with birth in either of those two lands. "People just like us, is that it?" Her voice dripped venom. "What noble, self-sacrificing sentiments! I suppose that's exactly what Duran should have thought. After all, everyone knew those Sabirn were worthless thieves and charlatans!" She laughed angrily. "And of course we all know that the gods check a person's pedigree before they assign him his eternal reward. We all know that only the worthy get the privilege of Ancas blood!"
Oh, that's set the cat in the dovecote, Felaras thought, doing her best to conceal her amusement. It didn't help that Jezeran was almost pure Ancas and tended to flaunt the fact. Anybody who'd ever been snubbed by him had a chance to give him a piece of their mind at this moment, and there didn't seem to be anybody who wanted to pass that chance up. If this situation wasn't so serious, I'd be willing to let this go on all night!
She debated whether to exert her authority and break the argument up—but Zetren beat her to it.
"Fools!" he roared, like a spring-hungry bear. Silence fell, heavy and sudden. "You're damned fools, all of you! What do we owe any of those decadent bastards back there? Have any of them come to our aid? No!"
There was a certain grumbling of agreement from those who remembered the last Convocation, and Felaras's statement that she had asked for aid and gotten none.
"We should give these barbarians what they want," Zetren continued. "Open the Pass to them, let them through! We've been quiet long enough—its time we took our own back, by the gods! These nomads can be our tool. We can let them through to overrun everything west of the Pass, let them wear themselves to nothing against Ancas, let Ancas bleed itself white against them. Then let us follow in and pick up the pieces of both sides, and become the power we were always meant to be!"
The absolute silence that followed that made Felaras's heart stop. My great gods—they can't really believe that, can they? Oh gods—please, they can't agree with that—
Then the storm of objections rose, even more cacophonous than the one following Jezeran's outrageous statements, and Felaras's faith in the good sense of her fellows was restored. And her heart started again.
Finally everyone seemed to shout themselves out. Felaras waited, hoping for someone, perhaps one of her three, to say what she dared not—that they should treat with the nomads as allies. It couldn't come from her; but it was a logical notion—and, strangely enough, something similar to Zetren's far more radical idea.
"You know, friends," Zorsha said quietly into the muttering, "despite the fact that Ancas and Yazkirn both claim this area, neither one rules here."
"Aye," replied Amberd, sounding thoughtful. "If anybody rules here, it's us. Quiet-like. The Vale folk come to us for judgments and the like, they look to us for protection."
"So why don't we make the reality official?" Zorsha asked. "Why don't we simply declare this area to be independent of both lands?"
"Because we haven't got a bloody army to back that claim up, young fool!" Watcher Kirnal snarled.
"Don't we?" Zorsha asked mildly. "Just what is it that's going to be camping below the Pass for the next three days? As motley as it seems to be, it's still an army, and a big enough one to have us shaking in our boots."
The silence was profound enough that Felaras could hear every member of the Order breathing. Or rather, could hear the ones breathing who weren't already holding their breath in startlement.
And Zorsha followed up on his advantage just as neatly as Felaras would have. "Ladies, gentlemen, we can ally with this -Jegrai—we can use him. Yes, we can teach him and his people, but we can also use him. Set him up as the ruler of the Vale—gods know he's already in the position of ruler, he's Chief over as many people as live in the Vale and Fortress combined! So, let him protect the Vale—but under guidance! Give him the throne, but let us be the power behind it! And in that way, the Order remains out of the p
ublic eye, as it should be—but we also exercise a beneficial influence, as we must if we are going to remain true to Duran's plan!"
Good lad! Felaras thought with elation, as discussion—not -argument—broke out all over the halls. He's hit them exactly in the right place! Enough altruism to make Kitri and Thaydore happy, enough self-interest to wake up our baser selves—As the babble increased, she thought, a little wryly, I greatly fear he's better at it than I am!
The discussion raged while the time-candle burned down, but it was fairly well evident that the majority of the members favored Zorsha's proposal, for whatever reason.
Finally Felaras called them all to order again, when voices were growing hoarse and tempers growing thin, and bodies were crying for sleep.
"I'll call for a voice vote, since I can't bloody see to count your arms. All in favor of a treaty of alliance and a delegation to this nomad—"
The roar of "aye" shook the podium.
"Opposed?"
A thin but determined chorus of "nay"—the isolationist party was clearly outnumbered, but also obviously not shaken in their convictions.
"All right, let's get the formalities over. I'll conduct the initial treaty-making and leave a presence with this Jegrai to act as primary information-sources and go-betweens. Anyone have any objections to a delegation of—lets say, four? One Watcher, one Archivist; and two Seekers, one Hand and one Flame. Any nays?"
A little discussion, from the muttering out in the darkness; no objections.
Felaras sighed with relief. "All right; the Convocation is ended. Towerleader, Bookleader, Swordleader, meet with me after you get some sleep and some breakfast. Swordleader, you might send a scout out to the caves; tell the land-folk it looks like it's going to be safe for the next three days, and that we may have a permanent treaty with this lot after that."
"Master?" The voice was young; probably one of the novices. It shook a little. "Master, how are you going to pick who goes?"
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