"Get out!" Jared shouted, trembling with a drunken combination of rage and fear. "Don't come back until you've something to show for it. Bring me the body of Bava K'aa, or the head of my brother, or that Isencroft trollop in chains. I will not be mocked!" he bellowed, hurling a pitcher at the mage, who moved aside faster than the mortal eye could follow, and watched with a trace of disapproval as the pitcher's contents dripped down the stone wall.
"As you wish, Your Majesty," Arontala replied, completely unflustered. In the blink of an eye, he stood by the chamber door. "And I'll have someone sent to clean that up," he said as the door shut behind him against another shouted oath, and a piece of crockery slammed against the heavy wood.
Jared, out of breath and hoarse with shouting, leaned on his thighs and stared after the mage. Somewhere, somehow, he thought, this entire thing had gone drastically out of hand. And come the Hawthorn Moon, it was likely to get worse.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
MARTRIS DRAYKE AWOKE-and regretted it. His head pounded and every muscle in his body protested. Resolutely, he opened his eyes to find himself staring at a strange ceiling. With even more effort, he managed to sit up, then grimaced and shut his eyes again as the scene swam and his head throbbed.
"Welcome back," Alyzza rasped from nearby, pressing a cup of steaming tea into his hands and helping to hold it to his lips. For a moment, he focused on nothing except the smell of the hot liquid, feeling it burn its way down his throat. Then he opened his eyes once more to find himself the center of attention of the small group gathered in an unremarkable tavern room. Vahanian sat in a chair near the fire, his sword nearby, looking not much better than Tris felt. Berry was sitting on the table, her legs crossed under her, playing an animated game of tarle with Carina while Carroway looked on in amusement.
"Where are we?" Tris asked, his voice sounding strange as it croaked from his dry throat. He drew another draught from the cup Alyzza offered, then refused to lay back down, although Alyzza had to prop him up with pillows to keep him from swaying.
"You're just across the river from Principality," Vahanian replied. "A little north of the forest and a little east of where we left the slavers. A few days from the Dhasson Pass." He paused. "Gabriel brought us here. And he warned us again that there's a spell on the Dhasson border, so if you try to cross it will call every one of those magicked beasts. Now you're supposed to go to the Library at Westmarch and then on to Principality City-and the rest of us are along for the ride."
Bits and pieces of the flight from the slavers returned to Tris's memory, the thrill of his power as it filled him, and the terror as the angry spirits worked their long-awaited revenge on the slavers. Beyond that, Tris remembered nothing. "You'll have to fill me in," he said, chagrined. "I don't remember anything after the ghosts in the forest left us."
"Not much to tell," Vahanian replied. "Gabriel found us in the forest and brought us here-he seems to have an arrangement with the innkeeper to cover anything we need. You've been sleeping for the last two days.
Can't say I objected to the chance to rest, myself. Carina's earned a little travel money healing some poor unfortunate, Carroway's been playing for coins in the common room, and we've all been getting the crap beat out of us at tarle by Berry," he summarized, and the girl grinned her satisfaction.
"What about the other captives?" Tris managed, sipping at his tea.
"We've seen nothing ourselves," Carroway said soberly. "Gabriel told us that they all escaped. They weren't among the dead in the glade, although how they fared if they fled into the woods, I don't know."
Tris nodded. "I made a bargain… with the spirits," he said, quietly. "Their vengeance in exchange for our lives-all of the captives. I hope they… kept their part," he rasped, finishing the brew and returning the cup to Alyzza, who skittered off to fetch another cup from the kettle that boiled next to the fire.
"Take it," she pressed. "You worked yourself past reason back there. More than one mage has drained himself to death by pushing too far," she chastised. "Now you feel why even strong mages must rest after such a working," she cackled. Tris glimpsed a new respect in her eyes, and the realization frightened him. Sweet Chenne, he thought what did I do back there? And if I couldn't control it, how will I ever face Arontala? The implications of that last question were entirely too large just now, and so he focused resolutely on the steaming cup in his hands.
"How is everyone?" Tris asked, glancing around at the group.
Vahanian shrugged. "I've been worse," the fighter replied. "Didn't take any new damage, so I'm ready whenever you want to move on."
Tris looked from one face to the other, receiving a nod or a shrug that indicated readiness. He remembered nothing clearly after he had summoned the spirits back at the glade. He recalled the flash of a slaver's knife, Vahanian's shout and then the howl of the spirits, turned loose to work their vengeance. The rush of the revenants' emotions-overwhelming sadness, longing and rage. There was terror, too, Tris remembered, his own terror as the winds of vengeance swept around him, utterly out of control. He could still hear the screams of the slavers and smell the tang of blood, and the shame of having called down that horror warred in his soul with the relief that they were free.
They know I called the spirits, Tris realized as he looked at his companions' faces. And that I lost control. Something was different in their eyes, just like old Alyzza. Perhaps not fear, but not quite comfort either, even in Carroway's face. As if, Tris thought, your familiar riding horse awoke one day to be a battle steed, or, perhaps, a demon mount, able to fly on moonlight and kill with its eyes. They aren't sure what I've become, Tris thought, uncomfortably. They don't know if it's what they bargained for. Perhaps for all of them, he thought, the stakes of the game were frighteningly real.
"Well," Tris began, knowing that they were waiting for his decision, "if you all think you're up to the ride, let's start out in the morning. The sooner we get to Westmarch, the sooner we can rest a little easier."
"Come on, Berry," Carina said. "Why don't you help us get the horses ready for the ride and pack the bags." Berry willingly went with Carina, Tris suspected, more from boredom than for any other reason. Alyzza followed them, pulling the heavy door behind her.
"The innkeeper's been quite good about running us a tab," Carroway said, perched on the corner of the table. "For someone who doesn't eat… at least not regular food… your friend Gabriel found us a place with a good kitchen." He grinned. "Best of all, the whole place didn't vanish into smoke when we woke up, so I'm happy."
"You've got a strange way of selecting an inn," Vahanian replied, turning back to the fire.
"I'm not sure I'll ever think anything's strange again," Carroway said fervently. "But when we're safe'-whenever that is-I'll have my pick of courts and noble houses with these tales." His grin broadened. "Thanks, Tris."
Tris rolled his eyes. "Don't mention it." He finished the last of the tea and eased himself back down. To his surprise, he was hungry. "So if this place has great food, where is it?"
Carroway jumped to his feet with an exaggerated bow. "You have only to ask," the bard said, straightening. "I'll let the two of you plot the route north. I'll go see what my friend Shaia in the kitchen has in the pot for tonight," he said, with a knowing raise of his eyebrows.
"Whatever she's got, see if they can water the ale less than last night," Vahanian called over his shoulder as the bard headed for the door.
"As you wish," Carroway said, slipping out and closing the door behind him.
There was an awkward silence after Carroway left. Tris lay staring at the cracked inn ceiling, while Vahanian did not move from his place by the fire. Finally, the mercenary spoke.
"What happened back there?" Vahanian asked, his voice roughened by the damp weather. "You called them?"
Tris paused before answering. "Yes."
Another silence, broken only by the pops and hisses from the fireplace logs. "And what came- you controlled them?"
&
nbsp; This time, Tris paused longer. "At first," he answered truthfully. "Later, I don't think so."
Vahanian turned in his chair to look at Tris. "Think so?" he questioned incredulously. "Those demons wanted to kill every living thing, and you aren't sure whether they were listening to you?"
Tris swallowed. "They weren't demons."
"They looked like demons."
"They weren't," Tris replied. "For one thing, no Light mage will call a demon."
"At least, not on purpose."
"And for another, I don't know how even if I wanted to," Tris continued, ignoring Vahanian's comment.
"So what you're really saying is that as far as you know, those things back there weren't demons, and you're pretty sure you had them under control, at least some of the time."
Tris sighed. "I guess that's right," he said. "But it sounds worse when you put it that way."
"You didn't see what you called."
"No," Tris admitted. "I guess I didn't. But we're free."
Vahanian drained the last of his mug. "That we are," he replied. "And I don't think Principality City can come soon enough for me."
IT WAS SEVERAL hours later when Vahanian finished with the horses and the preparations for their departure in the morning. Carroway, true to his word, supplied them with an ample supper. Everyone seemed to be feeling the strain. Berry hung on doggedly, but at last she fell asleep on Carina's cloak by the fire. As they banked the fires, Carina needed to fetch a powder from her saddlebags to ease Tris's headache, and Vahanian ill-humouredly consented to escort her to the stables.
"You could walk a little slower," Carina complained, hurrying to catch up with him. Her borrowed cloak nearly enveloped her, and she lifted its hem to keep it from dragging on the ground.
"Look, you're the one who needed some damned potion," Vahanian groused, slowing only a bit. "Why don't you just ask your Goddess to fill up the bottle for you?"
Carina gave him a dour look. "I thought I told you. I'm not a cleric."
"Oh, that's right," Vahanian replied with a sidelong glance. "You just bash the poor bastards over the head instead of really hurting them with a sword."
"You're impossible," she retorted, hustling past him and into the relative warmth of the stable. Their horses, curried and fed, nickered in recognition.
"I've been called worse," he remarked. "Too damn many coincidences going on for my taste. Tris was headed to Dhasson-now it's the Library. And since the witch biddies are there, that just happens to be helpful for you, too."
Carina shrugged. "What the Lady wills, She directs," she replied.
Vahanian looked at her sourly. "Tell me, priestess, who are you… really?"
Carina stopped abruptly and looked at him, then ducked her head and went back to examining the contents of her bag. "I don't know what you mean."
"Don't you?" Vahanian walked a few steps closer and leaned against the wall. In the moist night air, the stable was redolent with the smell of barley and half-eaten apples, and the warm, sweet scent of the horses. "I think you do. Never try to bluff a man who's made his living gambling. That last name you gave, 'Jesthrata,' it's a highlands word. 'Wanderer,' isn't it?" he pressed. "Not a family name. More like a trail name, the
kind you give yourself when you're in a hurry to leave something else behind."
"You seem well versed in that sort of thing," Carina murmured, apparently engrossed in her task. "It's a fascinating theory."
"I've just got to ask myself, what's a court healer doing giving a trail name?" Vahanian continued, well aware of her discomfort. "Not that I know much about how things are at court, but I always imagined that most of the folks there were those useless younger brothers and sisters that the other royal houses didn't need any more."
"How interesting," Carina observed acidly, without looking up. "Do go on."
"I know all about wandering," Vahanian continued, ignoring her sarcasm. "And you're a little too fine-blooded."
"You've got a great imagination for a guide," Carina retorted, finally looking up to fix him with an angry stare. "Why don't you pretend that I'm just along for the ride, and keep your mind on guiding?"
"Well, there's one little problem with that," Vahanian said with an off-hand gesture. "See, I get shot at by people who do know who you are, and I don't like that. So as I told your friend Tris, I either know the whole story, or I don't guide."
"Fine," Carina replied, gathering up her cloak and her potion. "Don't guide. Go wait for us in Principality City. We'll find what we're looking for just fine without you."
"Maybe," Vahanian said equitably. "Maybe not. 'Course, that's not a very civil way of looking at things, after I saved your life-"
"What?" Carina exclaimed, her eyes bright with anger. "You ungrateful wretch! You would have been dead a week ago if I hadn't healed you!"
"And you'd have been dead, too, if I hadn't tackled that friendly slaver," Vahanian replied. "So we're even. Now," he said, moving another step closer so that the angry healer was barely a hand's breadth away from him, "I'll ask again. Who are you, really?"
She was standing so close to him that she had to tilt her head to glare at him, and for a moment, he fully expected her to hit him. Then suddenly, the flash in her eyes clouded over with something else, and she turned away. "All right," she said in a flat voice after a long silence. "Have it your way." She paused, then drew a deep breath.
"My father is a minor noble in the highlands on the eastern border of Isencroft, a cousin of the king," Carina said quietly. "It's a long way from the city, and they keep their own ways, have their own ideas. There's only one thing they like less out there than twins," she said, her voice just above a whisper. "And that's magic, of any kind."
Vahanian frowned. "Every place wants healers."
Carina shook her head. "Not there. It's harsh country, and they have no patience for anything
weak. 'Better to die than hold back the herd,'" she quoted softly. "Healers just slow down the process." Another pause, longer this time. "They might have suffered the lord's twins, on account of his being the lord. But even he couldn't tolerate magic, once he knew it for what it was." She looked up at him, and angry tears glistened in her eyes. "I found out I could heal when I was twelve. And when they caught me at it, the next year, they decided to 'foster' Cam and me out. Only they never wanted us back." She looked at him defiantly. "So I took a name I chose myself, since I had no family, and no home. We made a good living, Cam and I, with one merc group after another until Kiara caught up with us and gave us a place to live in Isencroft. There. That's the story. Got what you came for?"
Vahanian held her gaze. "Yeah," he said finally, as she turned away. "I did." He paused. "So they don't like healers, huh?" He shook his head. "That's about the dumbest thing I've heard of, next to bashing people over the head with a stick."
"You really are impossible," she repeated, but this time, her voice lacked its edge. Vahanian was suddenly aware of just how warm the stable had become. She stood only a few inches away, and wrapped in the oversized cloak she looked small and vulnerable. He could smell the scent of herbs that clung to her robes, aware all at once that his heart was hammering in his chest. The attraction he felt was not new; it had been building now for weeks despite his barbs. The peril in the slavers' camp only served to heighten it, although until now, Vahanian had been able to force it out of mind. But here, in this moment, alone with her and close enough to touch, he felt it fully, enough to know its danger.
"That's what they tell me," Vahanian said, turning away with effort and feigning interest in the straps of a saddle that hung along the wall. "Come on," he said a little more abruptly than he intended. "We've got an early morning ahead. Let's get some sleep." She followed him back inside the inn without another word, and all the way, Vahanian cursed himself silently for being a fool.
Those slavers must have addled your brains when they ran you through, an inner voice castigated. First, you're fool enough to take on a job with no m
oney up front. Then you stick around when they're even hotter than you thought. Now, you start noticing a paying customer. Exiled or not, one that's the wrong side of the blanket for being noble. Don't fool yourself, Jonmarc, the voice in his mind warned. Chummy as your passengers have gotten, they'll remember their place as soon as you're back to the City, and they'll remember yours. Hired help, and don't forget it.
By the time they reached the rooms and found the others asleep or dozing by the fire, he found that his mood, sour to begin with, was considerably worse. Half a bottle of brandy did nicely to remedy that, and he settled down a candlemark later to enjoy the last safe night's sleep he was likely to find for at least a fortnight.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
MORNING FOUND THE group in surprisingly good spirits. Gabriel had already settled up with the innkeeper. Alyzza informed them that she would be heading in a different direction, and took her leave just after sunrise. Gabriel's purse outfitted them all amply with horses and tack, and the innkeeper, grateful for paying customers, found clothing to replace the group's tattered outfits. Homespun, plain and scratchy, they were suited to the cold and would pass unremarkably among the other travelers. Their disguises from the night of Haunts had worn off long ago, and they did not continue to dye their hair or alter their appearances the further they got from Shekerishet. Tris's white-blond hair was most likely to attract attention, and he usually wore it in a queue, covered with a hat.
So they headed north once more, choosing a different route from that which either the caravan or the slavers followed, mindful of ambush and anxious to reach Westmarch before the early snows made the roads impassable. The snowfall grew heavier with each hour, and as the road wound north, drifts filled the ditches and edged the fields. In the month since Haunts, the days had grown shorter and the winds colder. This far north, snows came much earlier and stayed longer than in the plains of southern Margolan. While the Library was in the same general direction as Principality City, it was further northeast, in the foothills of the mountains. An early winter was even more likely there, and Tris wondered if they would be able to leave the Library easily.
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