The Brazen Gambit

by Lynn Abbey

  Laq.

  Pavek's foot stayed where it was. Ral's Breath took the ache out of a strained muscle or throbbing head. Laq made people crazy, then it killed them. It didn't add cleanly, but then, he wasn't an alchemist. That halfling undoubtedly was; and that halfling was making Laq in his crucible. With those hate-filled eyes, the slave was closer to pure evil than Elabon Escrissar could hope to be; closer, even, than the sorcerer-king, Hamanu.

  Maybe death now, before Escrissar's alchemist spread his poison across the Tablelands, would be a blessing.

  "King Hamanu will take you apart." He spat out the words before he thought to censor them.

  "Who will tell him? You? Our mighty king will never know-until it's too late. The rains have come; Athas will belong to us." Escrissar's voice was tired; he'd grown bored with the game. "Get rid of him!"

  Pavek glanced at the alchemist before Dovanne and Rokka seized his arms. The halfling's expression had not changed. A tiny thrill of victory beat against Pavek's ribs: slaves were still slaves. This one, he decided, would slit his master's throat when the moment was right and take Escrissar completely by surprise when he did.

  Then Dovanne shoved him through the door. The half-giant gathered him into a death-hug.

  "Sassel!" Dovanne shouted, treating the half-giant as if he were deaf as well as impressionable. "Let go of him." So, she wasn't going to give anyone else the honor of getting rid of him.

  The half-giant clamped his great hands on either side of Pavek's skull and began to squeeze.

  "Not here!" the interrogator said quickly. "Take him outside. Take him where no one will notice another corpse."

  * * *

  Pavek wasn't as resigned to death as he thought. His mind was racing as Sassel carried him through the catacombs to the street. The problem with half-giants wasn't their lack of intelligence, but their single-mindedness. In Sassel's mind "outside" might be outside the customhouse, or it might be outside the city walls. If it was the latter, there might still be hope for a battered and bleeding regulator.

  "There's no need to get rid of me, Sassel. Take me outside the city walls, and I'll get rid of myself. You'll never see me again, and neither will anyone else in Urik."

  "Not going outside the walls. 'Take him where no one will notice another corpse.' Corpses get noticed outside the walls. Going to the boneyard. No one will notice another corpse in the boneyard."

  One failure: Sassel combined loyalty with his single-mindedness. Pavek tried another tack. "You're not a templar, Sassel. Only templars can leave corpses at the boneyard without paying the knacker at the gate."

  Sassel scratched his beard, leaving only one arm wrapped around his captive's waist. Pavek held still, not wanting to disturb the half-giant while he thought his way through the complication.

  "Sassel has money. Sassel pay. Lord Escrissar pay Sassel again, for obeying orders so well."

  "Does Elabon Escrissar always reward Sassel when Sassel obeys his orders?"

  "Always. Sassel always obeys his orders, always gets a reward."

  "In gold, Sassel?" Pavek said, fighting to keep the desperation from his voice as Sassel started walking again, carrying him toward the boneyard, which was, in fact, a very good place to lose a corpse, and where the knacker accepted all donations, no questions asked or coins required. "You've got to pay the knacker with gold, Sassel, if you want him to keep his mouth shut."

  The half-giant stopped short. "Gold? No gold. Sassel has silver, no gold."

  "Then Sassel can't obey Elabon Escrissar. Escrissar will be very angry. He'll punish Sassel instead of giving him a reward, Sassel should listen to Pavek. Sassel should put Pavek down and listen to him."

  Half-giants could change their most unswerving loyalty with alarming speed, but Pavek had overplayed his position.

  "Pavek the templar should listen to Sassel. Templar talk nice to the knacker. Templar get Sassel into the boneyard for nothing."

  "Pavek the templar will do nothing of the kind."

  "Then Pavek the templar dies right here. Sassel tells a lie to nice Lord Escrissar; Sassel says Pavek's corpse is in the boneyard. Maybe Lord Escrissar learns the truth tomorrow. Maybe Elabon Escrissar never learns the truth. Sassel gets reward tonight anyway."

  Pavek conceded defeat. He'd never expected deceit worthy of any templar from the mouth of a half-giant. Athas truly was changing. "But you can't carry me to the boneyard. I can't 'talk nice' to the knacker if I'm tucked under your arm. He won't listen to me."

  The half-giant changed his grip, setting Pavek gently on his feet. "Sassel didn't think of that. Pavek walk now."

  Pavek didn't walk; he ran for the shelter of the nearest dark street. He had a twenty-step lead before Sassel collected his wits.

  It wasn't enough time to hide: Sassel had the same low-light advantage over him that Rokka had, but there was enough time to look for a weapon. The little metal knife wouldn't damage a half-giant. He hoped for something he could use as a spear or a club, but Urik's scavengers were thorough. The best he saw was a chunk of glazed masonry large and heavy enough to crack a half-giant's skull if-a big if-he could get close enough to use it effectively. Pavek hid the masonry behind his back.

  Half-giants were too big for Urik's intersections. Sassel had to stop completely before he could enter Pavek's street.

  "What's Elabon Escrissar going to say when he finds out that you've lost me, Sassel?" Pavek retreated while he taunted the half-giant. The street was wide enough that he should be able to side-step and get clean shot at the back of Sassel's head, when the half-giant lost his temper and charged. "What kind of reward will Escrissar have for a clumsy oaf? Maybe he'll take Sassel to the boneyard himself. Maybe he'll find something worse. Poor, stupid Sassel."

  Sassel bellowed and charged. Pavek held his ground until there was no way the half-giant could stop or turn, then he launched himself to one side. Sassel had the templar's arm for a scant moment. Pavek made a spinning escape, but he lost his balance for a heartbeat. His elbow led the rest of his body into a collision with coarse stucco wall. White agony exploded behind his eyes, but fortunately for him, he'd only wrecked his left arm; and, conquering the pain, he managed to hurl the masonry with his right hand at the base of Sassel's skull with sufficient force and accuracy to drop the half-giant to his knees, then to his face on the cobblestones.

  Pavek let his head hang a moment, until his heart beat less furiously. He couldn't move his left arm from the shoulder down. Something was crushed, and he'd need a healer, but other things came first. Wobbling on jelly-filled legs, he staggered to Sassel's side.

  Blood flowed through the half-giant's matted hair. He was still alive, but unconscious and wheezing. There'd be more mercy in running his metal-blade knife across Sassel's throat than leaving him to die like an animal, but Pavek couldn't afford mercy. While Sassel lived, he would lie to stay alive. Let the dead-heart slay his servant, if he wanted to read the truth from the last images in his memory.

  "A templar and a half-giant. Down here! Down Customs Row!"

  Half-giants were unmistakable, but so was a templar in his sulphur-yellow robe; and, given the templars' reputation, anyone answering that alarm would take Sassel's side. Pavek tore off bis robe. He mopped Sassel's wounds with the cloth, adding the half-giant's blood to his own. Then he looped it over Sassel's fingers.

  Eventually, whether Sassel lived or died, the robe would wind up in Escrissar's hands. Maybe it would be enough to convince the interrogator that an inconvenient regulator had bled to lonely, unobserved death.

  Footsteps echoed near the customhouse. Cradling his left arm with his right, Pavek escaped into the night.

  Chapter Four

  Pavek's first hours of fugitive exile within Urik were the hardest. Panic clung to his shoulder, whispering dire warnings after every sound, glimpsing the sulphurous yellow of the robe he no longer wore in every half-seen movement, His entire body protested the beating it had taken; his elbow protested loudest. Escrissar's cuts on h
is cheek seeped fresh blood each time he swallowed the panic; they burned as sweat, hot and cold, mingled with the blood.

  He didn't know where to go, wasn't even sure where he was. Streets and quarters that he'd known all his life had gone suddenly strange. Crouched in an airless alley, he beat his head gently against the wall, hoping to loosen something useful from his panic-bound thoughts. He'd been among templars for twenty years, always above Urik's laws, never outside them.

  Finally his mind produced a coherent thought-a long-forgotten memory from his early childhood: a horrible day when he'd gotten separated from his mother near the elven market. Tears leaked from his eyes, stinging sharper than all the sweat.

  Shame seized Pavek's gut, forcing him to choose between nauseous surrender and a fight against his burgeoning fears. He chose to fight and broke panic's siege. He recognized the alley where be cowered and heard the night sounds for what they were: ordinary and nonthreatening.

  He remembered that there was a place in Urik where a fugitive could hide: the squatters' quarter.

  * * *

  Guthay had slipped below the rooftops by the time Pavek entered a courtyard deep in a ruined quarter. A double-handful of people of indeterminate race huddled together along the walls. They took note of a stranger's entrance: the whites of their eyes glistened like opals. But Pavek made a brawny silhouette in the starlight, even with one arm folded tight against his flank. No one challenged his right to drink from the pitch-patched cistern in the courtyard's center.

  Pavek gulped the cool liquid, ignoring its resinous taste and gritty texture. He dipped the ladle a second time and held the water on his tongue before swallowing it. In all Athas, nothing was truly more precious than water.

  He spat the last mouthful into his good hand, then swiped the hand over his face and neck.

  Without water a man might die in a single day; with it, he could plan for tomorrow. Spying an empty patch of wall, Pavek claimed it for his own with a heartfelt sigh.

  His silent neighbors watched a while longer, until they were satisfied that he was, for this night at least, one of them. Pair by pair, the opalescent eyes closed and the varied sounds of sleep filled the courtyard, while Pavek relived each moment of the previous day, berating himself with if-onlys and might-have-beens. He mourned his lost yellow robe and the heavy wool cloak hanging from a peg above his barracks cot, the stash of coins buried beneath it, and a dozen other things until sleep snared him by surprise.

  He awoke with a start in the bright of dawn with the daily harangue ringing in his ears. The orators's voice, augmented by magic, penetrated every quarter of the city, as regular as the huge blood-red sun creeping above the eastern rooftops.

  King Hamanu did not claim to be the city's divinity, or any divinity at all, but he did not object when the orator led bis subjects through a litany of praise and prayer whose words lad not changed in centuries.

  Templars, by custom and command, raised their fist in respectful salute for the duration of the harangue. Pavek suppressed the almost instinctive gesture. He clutched his medallion in his fist instead.

  "Great and Mighty King Hamanu exhorts his subjects, slave and free alike, to be on watch for a renegade templar, a former regulator of the civil bureau and known as Pavek. Pavek has committed grave crimes against our beloved city. A reward often gold coins is offered for his capture."

  The just-named renegade templar forced his face to remain calm. Dreading his sudden conspicuousness, he tugged sharply on the medallion thong, but the strand of inix hide was new and personally guaranteed by the dwarven tanner who made it not to break or rot for three full years. And, while the Orator continued the day's harangue, Pavek let his head drop forward. He studied his neighbors through the fringe of his hair. They all seemed to be going about their morning business, lining up at the cistern, gathering their belongings for a day spent elsewhere begging, stealing, and generally avoiding all templars, renegade or not. No one, to his relief, was staring at the midnight arrival, nor seeming to listen to the orator's continuing exhortations.

  But ten gold coins, however thinned or clipped, represented a year's wages to the average citizen. Somebody, somewhere in Urik, had surely listened to the harangue and would keep a sharp eye peeled for fortune.

  For the first time, Pavek allowed himself to believe that his ruse had worked, that his blood-soaked robe combined with testimony, delivered alive or through necromancy, had convinced Elabon Escrissar of his death. His body was still young and resilient; his injuries, except for his elbow, were already healing, and the elbow, though painful, wasn't as badly damaged as he'd feared. His fingers worked, and he could flex the joint, if he didn't mind wincing through the pain.

  He'd have new scars on his face, but he'd never been handsome, and scars were nothing to be ashamed of. A man's life was written in his scars. Last night, his life had changed forever; it was fitting that he'd acquired a new set of scars. He left the courtyard filled with a dead man's confidence.

  * * *

  It was Todek's Day, his day off-the first of many. He wandered to the open-air market where the most enterprising farmers and day-traders were already setting up their stalls. Todek was justly praised for its vegetables and a particular type of spicy, sun-dried sausage. Pavek boldly squandered two of Sassel's ceramic bits on a steaming breakfast. He gave another four bits to the first man he saw whose clothes looked big enough for him to wear and whose luck looked worse than his own.

  The dun-colored garments were stiff with dirt and stank of stale wine. Folk kept their distance, as if he were still a yellow-robed templar.

  He found a corner of the market where grandparents watched their youngest grandchildren while able-bodied parents and older grandchildren labored for their daily wage. The codgers eyed him warily; he looked disreputable enough to be a slave-merchant's scrounger. Slavers could sell their merchandise in the squalid plaza assigned to their use, but they and their minions were excluded by law from other parts of the city.

  But, like most of King Hamanu's laws, the law against child-snatching could be disregarded for a price, and a mother's warning about the fate of careless children was no idle threat. Pavek ignored the old and young alike-after he used their fears to clear the sturdiest public bench for himself alone.

  An idea had come to him while he ate breakfast. As the sun climbed toward sweltering noon, he built that idea into a plan.

  Zarneeka had been his downfall; it would be his deliverance as well. Or, rather, the druids would become his deliverance. Druids weren't subversives or revolutionaries like the Veiled Alliance fanatics, but by everything Pavek knew, they wouldn't approve of Laq. That proud young woman with the smoldering eyes could not be a willing partner with the hate-filled halfling or dead-heart Escrissar. She would listen to the start of his tale and pay willingly to hear the end.

  Briefly Pavek entertained an intricate vengeance underwritten with druid gold and culminating with Escrissar's literal unmasking, but the small stubborn voice of his deepest self asked a single question: Then what? and the whole idea unraveled. No amount of vengeance or gold could buy his way back into his lowly but familiar regulator's life, and he was fit for no other trade. The orphanage had prepared him well for the templarate, but everything he'd ever learned there was useless now that he was cut off from the sorcerer-king.

  He could imagine the reaction of any clerical order if he showed up at their altar-school saying that he only needed to be taught how to pray because he already knew the spell-craft. They'd laugh him clear around the city walls, if they didn't pound him to holy mush for insolence first. Yet his days in the archive were his only other asset. Through patient, methodical curiosity, he'd managed to read and memorize several dozen lengthy arcane scrolls. The archive scholars tried to avoid him and cowered like rabble when he cornered them with his questions, but eventually they had conceded that he understood the theories of elemental providence and the complex geometry of the celestial spheres of influence.

 
; Pavek knew better than most practicing clerics how clerical magic worked, but except for wrapping his hand around King Hamanu's medallion and calling out the king's name, no templar understood the nature of faith or prayer.

  The midday sun hammered the plaza. Farmers protected their produce beneath drab, bleached awnings. Merchants did the same for their wares with more colorful cloth. Any-one who had an excuse to leave the light-drenched market took it. Grandparents and their charges napped in whatever shade they found, leaving Pavek alone on his bench, his right hand trailing in the lukewarm water of a public fountain.

  Through thoughts made thick and slow by the heat, Pavek considered each of the four elements of life: earth, air, fire, and water. Fire was straight-forward. All a man had to do was look up and he could see the epitome of fire, but worship the sun? Pray to it? Dedicate his life to Athas' burning sun? He shook his head. Water was vital and precious, but hold a man's head beneath its surface for any length of time and he was as dead as he'd be with his heart impaled by a steel sword. Air and earth were no different: each was a two-sided coin, life-giving and deadly. In that sense the elements were not unlike the templars' sorcerer-king, but Hamanu was real: a tangible force to be dealt with, not worshipped in the abstract.

  Swirled through drowsy, sun-dazzled philosophy and the dull ache of his elbow, a reminder came to Pavek: druids drew their magic not from the pure elements, but from the manifest spirits of Athas itself, its hills and mountains, fields and badlands, oases and deserts. Real places, tangible forces, and-he dared to assume-no more irritable and unpredictable than Urik's mighty king.

  Then, once he was among them, he'd offer to exchange the arcane lore in his memory for initiation into their spell-crafting secrets.

  It was a daring plan spun on gossamer assumptions. For all his memorization, Pavek knew very little about the mechanics of druidry. Specifically, he did not know whether it was a path that could be chosen with simple dogged discipline, or if the nameless spirits of Athas had esoteric criteria a renegade regulator could, not hope to match.