Chained Adept

by Myers, Karen

  Penrys ran her hand over the smooth green tunic and brown leather over-jerkin provided by Hing Ganau. The choice in civilian clothing was limited. The clothes fit her well enough, but she wasn’t used to them, particularly the boots, and she hoped they’d be more comfortable after a bit of wearing. Everything ached at the moment.

  She leaned forward on her camp chair, careful not to knock her arm in its sling.

  “Listen—you’ve already faded out a couple of times since I’ve been here. Nothing wrong with you that time won’t cure, but no use pretending you’re fine.”

  He glared at her.

  “Or would you rather hop on a horse right now and go scouting for that Rasesni, eh?”

  She was amused to see him turn pale at the thought of a swaying horse.

  “Thought not,” she said.

  He subsided for a moment, then changed the subject.

  “Have you seen the place in daylight?”

  “I took a walk around it earlier this morning. After Hing let me get up.”

  He grinned at her. “Don’t let him bully you. He will, if you let him.”

  “He was with you most of the night, you know. I told him to go get some sleep himself.” She chuckled. “He might even be doing that.”

  “What does the damage look like?”

  She sobered. “That wagon is just… gone. Everything inside came flying out and embedded itself in the nearest target. Luckily almost all the people were already settled for the evening, but some tents were too close…” She nodded her head at some of the other occupied beds.

  “We were lucky, we were just far enough away to miss the worst of it. Two more of the armory wagons were badly damaged, and they’re repairing what they can.”

  “It was the mirror, wasn’t it? When you… touched it.”

  She swallowed. “It was prepared to dump its power if someone mind-probed. Think if we’d been inside the wagon with it.”

  He closed his eyes. “Two more dead, then.”

  She nodded.

  “That Rasesni, he didn’t have time to set the trap when we surprised him,” Zandaril said.

  “No, it must’ve already been arranged.”

  “Maybe it would have gone all the way back to Yenit Ping before a wizard touched it. Or ended up in Chang’s samke, his family’s compound, and killed even more there.”

  “A nasty bit of work,” she agreed. “Indiscriminate. Aimed for you, I would think.”

  “And it almost got me.”

  “Oh, that reminds me. I have good news.” She reached behind her. “I found your boot.”

  He smiled incautiously. “Still don’t understand how that could’ve come off.”

  She presented him with a tattered bundle of leather. “Better for you that it did, considering what happened to it.”

  He held it up and looked at the holes pierced through it. His face fell, and he leaned back again.

  “I’ll just see if Hing wants this for a souvenir,” she said, plucking it out of his hands. She stood up to go, but a commotion at the tent’s entrance flap stopped her.

  “Look who’s here,” she murmured to Zandaril.

  Commander Chang and several other men were making their way through the tent, stopping at each cot to speak briefly with its occupant before moving on.

  “Headed our way,” Zandaril said.

  Penrys agreed. She put the boot down. Some of the faces seemed familiar from the night before.

  She waited beside Zandaril until all had come to a stop. Staff followed them in to deposit camp seats for each of them, then left again. All remained standing until Chang spoke, directing himself to Zandaril.

  “Since the doctor wouldn’t let you come to us,” he cocked his head at the woman trailing behind him, the one who’d treated Penrys the night before, “we decided we would come to you. We want a wizard’s opinion in our counsel.”

  “It’s good we have you both.” This time his glance included Penrys.

  He sat down, and his staff followed his lead. Penrys took her own seat, next to Zandaril’s cot.

  “Tell us again what you saw last night,” Chang told her.

  She recounted the events one more time, and added her interpretation. A hard-faced man with a square jaw scoffed at her account.

  “I’m sorry, Commander-chi, but she shows up one day ago, the next night a so-called spy is found, and then the evidence disappears and we lose sixteen people. What sort of idiots do the Rasesni take us for?”

  Zandaril raised himself on his elbows to protest. “I was there for all of it, Sau-chi. I’m the one who scared off the spy. I suggested she look for the mirror from a distance, and watched her do it.”

  The staff officer did not look convinced, but a lifted hand from Chang quelled the discussion.

  “I want to address any other immediate threat,” he said. “Is the Rasesni still gone, or has he returned in the confusion.”

  Penrys stared at him. “I hadn’t considered that. I’ll look.”

  She knew the spy’s individual mind now, and that helped her sort through the camp quickly. She then swung out to the edge of her reach, but couldn’t locate him.

  “Nowhere I can find him.”

  Sau muttered loudly, ‘So she says.”

  “And how far is that?” Chang said, ignoring him.

  “I’d need a known person at a known location to serve as a measure of distance, but I think it’s at least a couple of miles.” This relatively level terrain would make a good place for some tests, once Zandaril is recovered. If I’m still at liberty by then.

  The officer’s blunt antagonism was the first overt enmity she’d encountered, but a quick glance at the emotions of the men around her confirmed that he was not alone. Chang’s mind was controlled over a roiling simmer of rage at the moment, but not actively hostile.

  “No other Rasesni in the camp?” Chang asked.

  “I don’t know.” Before Sau’s outrage could provoke him to speak, she continued. “I found this one by looking for someone whose native tongue was not Kigali-yat. I was showing Zandaril some things, as a colleague.”

  Zandaril nodded to confirm.

  “I didn’t find any other native Rasesni-speaker, but that’s not to say there aren’t others who mean you harm, whether or not they learned the language later.”

  Zandaril spoke up. “She thinks that mirror was set to release its power catastrophically at the touch of a wizard, any wizard. It might have done so at any time.”

  He cleared his throat. “I’ve been thinking—nothing else to do here. What if it’s not the only device planted in the camp? Why would there be only one? Seems like a waste of a good spy.”

  Penrys could feel her ears move back on her scalp, and the council was thrown into consternation.

  “Can’t you look for them, the way you did the spy?” Chang asked her.

  “And what if that makes them explode the same way? In someone’s pack, or in a tent somewhere? I can’t know it’s there until I touch it with m’mind, and then the damage is done.”

  She thought about the uses of traps. “I’ll bet he didn’t modify the mirror itself. He probably just attached something to it. Might’ve been small. Something that small could fit anywhere. People wouldn’t know it was around. What if there’re lots of them?”

  Zandaril added, “The Horsemaster said he’d been with us since Jonggep. That’s weeks he had, to tuck his treats away, before she even joined us.”

  “If there are any at all,” Sau said.

  “Yes,” Penrys said. “If.”

  “Maybe he expected to trigger them all himself, when he could do the most damage,” Zandaril suggested. “If he gets close enough, maybe he can still do that.”

  “Good that we’re beyond his reach, then,” Chang said, but Penrys shook her head as he spoke.

  “He’s out of my range, but we may not be out of his. Every wizard’s different.”

  She could feel panic beginning to tinge the thoughts of two of the c
ouncil.

  Chang addressed them. “We’ll handle this now. Assemble the men on the south side of the camp, and everyone else—all the yekungno, the civilians—on the north side. Everyone to strip down to their clothing and empty their pockets, then walk away from their packs and other possessions…”

  He paused and looked at Penrys.

  “About a hundred yards,” she suggested, with a shrug.

  “Yes. We’ll send you down behind them to look at the gear. Once that passes the test, everyone to pick up their gear and bring it that extra hundred yards out of camp. Then the supplies and other group equipment, with no one closer than a hundred yards.”

  One of the officers spoke up. “Do the saddles and horse gear the same way, first. That way we can leave the troopers armed and mounted while we continue.”

  Chang nodded. “Then the wagons should be separated first, before examination. Set them in two columns, drive the first two a hundred yards down and separate them, then unhitch the horses. Test those wagons, then hitch up the horses again, move them a safe distance, and go get the next pair.”

  “It’ll take all afternoon,” someone objected.

  “And much of the night, too, I don’t doubt, but we’re not moving until I’m sure nothing else has been left behind by the enemy, and I plan to move on in the morning, so the sooner we begin, the more sleep we’ll get. Have the cook wagons and gear go first so they can start preparing supper for the camp. There’ll be enough grumbling about re-erecting up their tents, no reason to make them wait for their food.”

  The Commander eyed Zandaril, stretched out on his cot, then turned to Penrys. “Looks like you’ll have to look at everything the same way you did the mirror. Everything. Can you do it?”

  She swallowed. “Don’t know if I can stay on m’feet that long, but I’ll try.”

  Chang turned to one of his men. “Get her a horse or, better yet, a cart and driver. After she goes up the lines of people and loose gear, she can remain in place for the columns of wagons.”

  She looked at Zandaril. “You could join me in the wagon, and watch over my shoulder.”

  Chang chopped his hand through the air. “I don’t want the two of you in the same place until this is done.”

  CHAPTER 10

  With much hollering and confusion the unusual instructions were carried out. In the end, they decided to leave the tents in place but to move as much gear out onto the grass as possible before walking what Penrys hoped was a safe distance away.

  She’d examined her driver and the small two-wheeled cart before they hitched up its horse. As with the rest of the loose horse tack, she’d found nothing.

  They walked the horse from the back of the encampment to the left and just on the inside of the long lines of sullen troopers, stretched to the west on the south side of the camp. She looked again for native Rasesni-speakers and sampled their mood as she passed. They were suspicious and uncooperative. Yard by yard she surveyed the packs and tents, looking for the power signature of any magical device. Her muscles were tense, making her sore left shoulder ache, as she expected at any moment to trigger an event like yesterday’s, and she had to keep reminding herself to relax or she’d never last the day.

  About halfway down the column she glanced casually with her mind at one small pile, too far away for her to make out individual contents, and bolted upright. Was that it?

  Before she could confirm it, there was a white flash and small objects shot out harmlessly in all directions. A cry went out from the men, and one trooper shouted, “Stop! Stop! Don’t do any more.”

  He reached a shaking hand into his pocket and withdrew a small object. He laid it gingerly on the ground and backed away, pulling at the arm of his companion who was still staring in shock at the explosion far out in the grass.

  “That was his,” he said, cocking his head at his buddy. “We both have these. Is that what did that?” He pointed out into the field. “I didn’t take mine off—he said we shouldn’t ever take them off if we wanted them to work.”

  A burly man thundered down upon him. “‘Everything out of your pockets and off your backs,’ I said. You heard me.” He eyed the guilty men. “Anyone else not inclined to obey orders?”

  The unit looked properly cowed.

  “All right, back off,” he roared. “Over there, by the trees. Move!”

  Penrys climbed down awkwardly from the cart and bent over to look at the object. It was a wooden charm of some kind, painted in bright colors. She straightened up to look at the driver. “Better go join them,” she said.

  Movement caught her eye—Chang was approaching to see what had happened. She turned to the man in charge of the troopers. “Better yet, Kwajigomju-chi, can you mark this with something? Then let’s all get out of here and meet him, in case something goes wrong.”

  He bellowed to his retreating men to bring him a staff, and one of them returned on the run with an eight-foot whippy pole. The kwajigomju untied his neckerchief and fastened it around the top like a flag before sticking it in the ground, none too close to the cheerful charm. He climbed into the back of the cart, and all of them drove at a good trot over to intercept Chang and stop him from coming any closer.

  “You found one,” the Commander said. He pursed his lips and nodded. “There will be more.”

  “We may have found two of them.” She cocked her head at the kwajigomju to finish the story.

  “Two of my men—friends they are—one of them emptied his pockets like he should, and that’s what went off. Turns out the other one didn’t.”

  Penrys explained. “He put this thing… I don’t know what it is, a charm, maybe? Anyway, it’s out there where the pennant is. I’m not sure how to look at it without setting it off, but I could try ordinary tools.”

  “Are you sure it’s another device?” Chang asked.

  “Well, no. To do that I’d have to trigger it. If it is, I want to see how it’s made.”

  “Dangerous work,” he commented.

  She cleared her throat. “I’d rather save it until last, if I could. I want to find the rest of them first.”

  Chang nodded. “Kwajigomju, set up a guard around that item, a hundred yard circle. Don’t let anyone approach.”

  “I’ll use the unit that caused the problem, sir. We’ll keep everyone away from it.” He hopped down from the cart and humped off toward his men.

  “And find out where they got those things,” Chang called after him. “I want to talk to them.”

  He waved his hand in acknowledgment without turning around.

  Word spread down the line, and soon there was a small amount of traffic crossing hurriedly back and forth ahead of them as the contents of incompletely emptied pockets were suddenly added to the piles of items waiting to be examined.

  Behind Penrys and her driver, the soldiers whose possessions had already been tested walked back to retrieve them and return them to pockets, packs, and tents.

  One tent went up with a hollow noise when she probed it.

  “Whose was that?” she asked the shocked men, and four of them reluctantly raised their hands.

  “I’ll need a list of absolutely everything that was in there, no matter how small or trivial.”

  She glanced outward and saw Chang’s party riding on a parallel track outside of the column of soldiers. He dispatched someone to collect the four men for interrogation, and she drove on.

  The rest of the troopers’ column was clean, but it wasn’t the same for the civilians. Her driver turned the cart at the head of the column where there were dozens of men working on lining up the column of wagons for the third pass, and she began making her way back down the north side.

  Almost at once, she felt something briefly from a laundry crew’s supplies. There was just enough to confirm the same signature before the distant air was full of dried soap flakes. The men and women of that crew were collected by Chang’s men.

  Penrys glanced over at her driver. “Chang has a system going here, d
oesn’t he?”

  “Always was one for organized effort,” he said. “This ain’t no different.”

  A food dump went off next, within seconds, and she slowed down to make sure she probed absolutely everything. Altogether, she triggered four devices on that side of the camp.

  By now the afternoon was beginning to approach dusk, and they broke for a few minutes before starting on the wagons. The healers’ tent had been cleared at the start by the simple expedient of carrying off the injured men on their cots far enough to let it be probed safely. Penrys dismissed the driver when they got there to go and care for the horse and return in an hour or so.

  The wagons are going to be a problem. That’s where the mirror was. They’re the easiest to sabotage.

  She wasn’t looking forward to it, and could already feel herself dragging. She yawned, and walked into the tent to see how Zandaril was doing.

  He was sitting up, eating his dinner, and Hing Ganau was supervising the procedure.

  Zandaril swallowed his current mouthful when he saw her. “You’ve been busy, busy, busy. Stories everywhere.”

  “It’s not even half done,” she said. “The wagons’ll be worse.”

  “Maybe not,” he said. “I hear they changed their minds. These troopers had nothing to do today, and Chang doesn’t want to lose more wagons. So, they took each wagon, unloaded it, and ran it out to the side. Maybe if something goes whoosh, less will be damaged.”

  “That’s a lot of work,” she said.

  “Chang’s in a hurry, he is. Doesn’t want to stay in one place. He thinks, better men be tired and safe, then rested and in danger.” He grinned at her. “The men agree. Glad you’re getting rid of threats.”

  She glanced around the healers’ tent. After I killed sixteen of them and hurt all of these. She looked at Zandaril. And you.

  “Are they going to reload the wagons in the dark?” she asked.

  Hing shook his head. “Everyone’s praying it won’t rain, aren’t they?”