"Your pardon, Master," she said quietly. "But I think we need to talk."
The arsenic had not completely dissolved; there was a gritty residue in the bottom of the cup that proved very effective at killing a trapped mouse, eliminating Master Lenne's doubts.
The three of them were ensconced in his parlor; he was wrapped in a robe and dressing gown, looking surprisingly vulnerable for such a big man. There was a fire in his tiny fireplace, and candles on the table between them, and the light mercilessly revealed the shadows under his eyes. "But who could be doing this?" he asked, looking from Tarma to Kethry and back again. "And why? They say that poison is a woman's weapon, but I've angered no women that I know of—"
"Not a woman's weapon, Master," Kethry said, tapping her lips thoughtfully with a fingernail. "Poison is a coward's weapon. It is the weapon of choice for someone who is too craven to face an enemy openly, too craven even to come into striking range of his enemy himself. It's the weapon of choice for someone who is unwilling to take personal risks, but is totally without scruples when it comes to risking others."
Tarma saw by the widening then narrowing of Master Lenne's eyes that he had come to the same conclusion they had made.
"Karden," he said flatly.
Tarma nodded, compressing her lips into a thin, hard line.
Kethry sighed and held up her hands. "That's the best bet. The problem is proving it. It's hard enough to prove an attempt at murder by real magic—but I don't think there's anyone in this entire kingdom with enough expertise at mind-magic to prove he's been using it to try to poison you. By the way, where did you get that goblet?"
Lenne seemed confused by the change in subjects. "Every Master has one; they're given to us when we achieve Mastery."
Kethry nodded, and Tarma read satisfaction in her expression. "That at least solves the question of how he knew where the poison was going. If he has the match to that goblet, that gives him a 'target' to match with yours."
"But that also compounds the problem, Greeneyes," Tarma pointed out. "If every Master has one of these, any Master could be a suspect. No, we aren't going to be able to bring Karden to conventional justice, I'm afraid."
Master Lenne, sick or no, was sharper than she had expected. "Conventional justice?" he said. "I assume you have something else in mind?"
Tarma picked up the now-empty goblet, and turned it in her hands, smiling at the play of light on the curving silver surface. "Just let me borrow this for a day or so," she replied noncommittally. "And we'll see if the gods—or something—can't be moved to retribution."
Kethry raised an eyebrow.
"This might not work," Kethry warned, for the hundredth time.
"Your spell might not work. It might work, and Karden might notice. He might not notice, but he might not drink the wine in his own goblet when he's through playing with it." Tarma shrugged. "Then again, it might. You tell me that mind-magic is hard work, and I am willing to bet that a sneaky bastard like this Karden gets positive glee out of drinking a toast to his enemy's death and refreshing himself at the same time when he's done every night. If this doesn't work, I try something more direct. But if it does—our problem eliminates itself."
They were outside the protected influence of the Guild House, ensconced in the common room of the closed inn. Just she and Kethry; Lenne was going through his usual after-dinner routine, but this time, he was not using his Master's goblet for his wine. That particular piece of silver resided on the table in the middle of the common room, full of wine. With a spell on the wine…
Not the goblet. Kethry was taking no chances that bespelling the goblet would change it enough that Karden's mind-magic would no longer recognize it. The two of them were on the far side of the room from the goblet; far enough, Kethry hoped, that Karden would judge the goblet safely out of sight of anyone. The inn's common room was considerably bigger than Lenne's quarters.
That was assuming he could check for the presence or absence of people. He might be getting his information from a single source within the Guild House. But Kethry was of the opinion that he wasn't; that he was waiting for a moment when there were no signs of mental activity within a certain range of the goblet, but that there was wine in it. That, she thought, would have been the easiest and simplest way for Karden to handle the problem.
All of it was guess and hope—
Kethry hissed a warning. Something was stirring the surface of the wine in the goblet.
Something tried to drop into the wine. Tried. The wine resisted it, forming a skin under it, so that the substance, white and granular, floated in a dimpled pocket on the surface.
"Ka'chen," Tarma said in satisfaction. "Got you, you bastard."
The pocket of white powder rotated in the wine, as the invisible finger stirred. Quickly, Kethry's hands moved in a complex pattern; sweat beaded her brow as she muttered words under her breath. Tarma tried not to move or otherwise distract her. This was a complicated spell, for Kethry was not only trying to do the reverse of what Karden was doing, she was trying to insinuate the poison back into his wine, grain by grain, so that he would not notice what she was doing.
Until, presumably, it was too late.
It was like watching a bit of snow melt; as the tiny white pile rotated, it slowly vanished, until the last speck winked out, leaving only the dark surface of the wine.
Tarma approached the cup cautiously. The spectral "finger" withdrew hastily, and she picked the goblet up.
"Well?" she said, "can I bet my life on this?"
Kethry nodded wearily, her heart-shaped face drawn with exhaustion. "It's as safe to drink as it was when I poured it," she replied, pulling her hair out of her eyes. "I can guarantee it went straight into the model-cup. What happened after that?" She shrugged eloquently. "We'll find out tomorrow."
Tarma lifted the cup in an ironic salute. "In that case—here's to tomorrow."
"Now don't forget what I told you," Kethry said firmly, from her superior position above the Master's head, where she perched in Hellsbane's saddle. "I may have pulled most of the poison from you with that spell, but you're still sick. You're suffering the damage it caused, and that isn't going to go away overnight."
Master Lenne nodded earnestly, shading his eyes against the morning sun, and handed Kethry a saddle roll of the finest butter-soft leather to fasten at her cantle. Leather like that—calfskin tanned to the suppleness and texture of fine velvet—was worth a small fortune. Tarma already had an identical roll behind her saddle.
"I plan to rest and keep my schedule to a minimum," Lenne said, as obedient as a child. "To tell you the truth, now that I no longer have to worry about Karden taking my trade and exerting his influence on the Guild as a whole—"
"So tragic, poisoning himself with his own processes," Tarma said dryly. "I guess that will prove to the Guild that the safe old ways are the best."
Master Lenne flushed and looked down for a moment. When he looked back up, his eyes were troubled. "I suppose it would do no good to reveal the truth, would it?"
"No good, and a lot of harm," Kethry said firmly. "If you must, tell only those you trust. No one else." She looked off into the distance. "I don't like taking the law into my own hands—"
"When the law fails, people of conscience have to take over, Greeneyes," Tarma said firmly,. "It's either that, or lie down and let yourself be walked on. Shin'a'in weave rugs; we don't imitate them."
"I don't like it either, ladies," Master Lenne said quietly. "Even knowing that my own life hung on this. But—"
"But there are no easy answers, Master," Tarma interrupted him. "There are cowards and the brave. Dishonest and honest. I prefer to foster the latter and remove the former. As my partner would tell you, Shin'a'in are great believers in expediency." She leveled a penetrating glance at her partner. "And if we're going to make Hawk's Nest before sundown, we need to leave now."
Master Lenne took the hint, and backed away from the horses. "Shin'a'in—" he said suddenly, as T
arma turned her horse's head. "I said that poison was a woman's weapon. You have shown me differently. A woman's weapon is that she thinks—and then she acts, without hesitation."
:Usually, she thinks,: Warrl said dryly. :When I remind her to.:
Put a gag on it, Furface, Tarma thought back at him. And she saluted Master Lenne gravely, and sent her warsteed up the last road to Hawksnest, with Kethry and Warrl keeping pace beside her.
THE TALISMAN
This story sprang out of a complaint that bad fantasy always seems to rely on the magic thingamajig to get the hero out of trouble. Seemed to me that a magic thingamajig could get someone into more trouble than it would get him out of. As always, Tarma and Kethry rely as much on intelligence and quick thinking as magic and swordplay to get them out of trouble.
It was hard for Kethry to remember that winter would be over in two months at the most. The entire world seemed made up of crusted snow; it even lay along the bare branches of trees. From this vantage point, atop a rocky, scrub-covered hill, it looked as if winter had taken hold of the land and would never let go. The entire world had turned into an endless series of winter-dormant, forested hills, hills they plodded over with no sign that there was an end to them. Although the road that threaded these hills bore unmistakable signs of frequent use, they hadn't seen a single soul in the past two days. Kethry stamped her numb feet on snow packed rock-hard and frozen into an obstacle course of ruts, trying to get a little feeling back into them. She shaded her eyes against snow glare and stared down the hillside while her mule pawed despondently at the ice crust beside the trail, hoping for a scrap of grass and unable to break through.
She heard the creaking of Tarma's saddle as her partner dismounted. "Goddess!" the Shin'a'in croaked. "I'm bloody freezing!"
"You're always freezing," Kethry replied absently, trying to make out if the smudge on the horizon was smoke or just another cloud. "Except when I'm roasting. Where are we? Is that smoke I'm seeing out there, or a figment of my imagination?"
There was a rattling of paper at her right elbow as Tarma took out their map. "I could make a very bad pun, but I won't," she said. "Yes, it's smoke, and I'd guess we're here—"
Kethry took her watering eyes off that faraway promise of habitation, and turned to see where on the map Tarma thought they were. It wasn't exciting. If the Shin'a'in was right, they were about a candlemark's ride away from a flyspeck too small even to be called a village, marked on the map only with the name "Potter," and the symbol for "public well."
"No inn?" the sorceress asked wistfully.
"No inn," her partner sighed, folding the map and tucking it back inside the inner pocket of her coat. "Sorry about that, Greeneyes."
"Figures," Kethry said sourly. "When we've finally got the money to pay for inns, we can't find any."
Tarma shrugged. "That's fate, I suppose. We'll have to see if we can induce some householder to part with hearth- or barn-space for a little coin. Could be worse. If it hadn't been for everything that happened in Mournedealth, we wouldn't have the coin."
"True—though I can think of easier ways to have gotten it."
"Hmm." Tarma made a noncommittal sound, and swung back up into her saddle. Kethry cast a glance at her out of the corner of her eye and wondered what she was thinking.
We're still not—quite—a team. And she worries about me a lot more than I think is necessary.
"I don't regret any of it," she said then, trying to sound as if she had intended to continue the sentence. "It's just that I'm lazy. That little set-to with my former spouse was a whole lot more work than I would have preferred!"
Tarma's grating laugh floated out over the hillside, and Kethry relaxed a bit.
"I'll try and spare you, next time," the Sword-sworn said, nudging her mare with her heels and sending Kessira picking her way through the ruts down the hill. Kethry could have sworn as they passed that the elegant little mare had her lip curled in distaste. "If you promise to give me a little more warning. This could all have been taken care of quite handily by waylaying Wethes and your brother and—ah—'persuading' them that everyone would be happier if we were left alone."
"I thought you Kal'enedral were bound by honor," Kethry mocked, as Rodi lurched and slipped his way down the hill in Kessira's wake.
"Her honor, not man's honor," Tarma corrected, not taking her attention from the path in front of her. "And in matters where Her honor has no bearing, we're bound by expediency. I'm rather fond of expediency. It saves a world of problems."
"Except when you have to explain your notion of 'expedient' to the City Guard." Rodi took the last of the slope in a rush that made Kethry grit her teeth and cling to the saddle-bow, hoping the mule knew what he was doing.
"You have a point," the Shin'a'in admitted.
It took most of the remaining daylight—not the single candlemark the map promised—to get to the cluster of houses alongside the road. That was because of the condition of the road itself; as hummocked and rutted as the hill had been. Tarma didn't want to push the beasts at all, for fear they'd break legs misstepping. So they picked their way to "Potter" with maddening slowness.
So maddening that at first Kethry did not note the increasing pressure of her geas-blade "Need" on her mind.
She was tightly bound to the sword; as bound to it as she was to her partner, and that binding had the blessing of Tarma's own Goddess on it. The sword repaid that binding by healing her of anything short of a death-wound in an incredibly short period of time, and by granting her a master's ability at wielding it—a fact that had saved Tarma's skin now and again, since no one expected blade-expertise from a mage. But Kethry paid for those gifts—for any time there was a woman in need of help within the blade's sensing-range—and Kethry had not yet determined the limits of that range—she had to help. Regardless of whether or not helping was a prudent move—or going to be repaid.
Hardly the most ideal circumstances for a would-be mercenary.
Need's "call" was like the insistent pressure of a headache about to happen—except when the situation was truly life-or-death critical, in which case it had been known to cause pressure so close to pain as made no difference. Tarma must have learned to read or sense that in the few months they'd been together—she suddenly looked back over her shoulder almost as soon as Kethry herself became aware of the blade's prodding, and frowned.
"Tell me that expression on your face isn't what I think it is," the hawk-faced Shin'a'in said plaintively.
"I would," Kethry sighed, "but I'd be lying."
Tarma shook her head, and turned her ice-blue eyes to the settlement ahead of them. "Joyous. Well, at least there shouldn't be much trouble figuring out who and what. If there're more than a dozen females down there, I'll eat a horseshoe."
Kethry urged her mule forward until she rode knee-to-knee with her brown-clad partner. "I'll say what you're undoubtedly thinking. If there's a problem in so small a settlement, everybody is likely to know about it. Which means everybody may well have a vested interest in keeping it quiet. Or may like things the way they are." The vague splotch beside the road ahead of them resolved itself into a cluster of buildings as their beasts brought them nearer. A few moments more, and they could make out the red-roofed wellhouse, set apart from the rest of the buildings.
"Or may simply resent outsiders interfering," Tarma finished glumly. "There are times—heads up, she'enedra. We're being met."
They were indeed. Even as Tarma spoke, something separated itself from the side of the wellhouse. Shrouded in layers of clothing, for a moment it looked more bearlike than human. But as they neared, they could see that waiting beside the public well was a stoop-shouldered old man, gnarled and weathered as a mountain tree, with a thick thatch of snow-white hair tucked under a knitted cap the same bright red as the wellhouse roof.
"Evening," Tarma returned the greeting, crossing her wrists on her saddlebow and leaning forward—though not dismounting. "What kind of hospitality could a few coins
purchase a tired traveler around here, goodman?"
He looked them up and down with bright black eyes peeping from beneath brows like overhanging snowbanks—eyes that missed nothing. "Well-armed travelers," he observed mildly.
Tarma laughed, and a startled crow flapped out of the thatch of one of the houses. "Travelers who aren't fools, goodman. And two women traveling alone who couldn't take care of themselves would be fools."
The old man chuckled. "Point taken, point taken." He edged a little closer. "Be any good with that bow?"
Tarma considered this for a moment. "A fair shot." she acknowledged.
"Well, then," the oldster replied tugging his knit cap a bit farther down over his ears. "Coin we got no use for till spring an' the traders come—but a bit of game, now—that'd be welcome. Say, hearth and meal for hunting?"
Tarma nodded, and seemed satisfied with the tentative bargain, for she dismounted. Kethry was only too glad to follow her example.
"I can't conjure game out of an empty forest, old man," Tarma said warningly as he led them to a roomy shed that already sheltered a donkey and three goats.
"There's game, there's game. I wouldn't set ye to a fool's task. Just we be no hunters here." He helped them fork hay into the shed; for bedding the mare and the mule would have to make do with the bracken already layering the floor.
"Not hunters?" Kethry said, puzzled, as they took their packs and followed their guide into the nearest house. "Out here in the middle of nowhere? What on earth do you—"
The answer to her question was self-evident as soon as the old man opened the door. The house was a single enormous room, combining sleeping, living and working space. It was the working space that occupied the lion's share of the dwelling. In one corner stood a huge sink and pump, several wooden boxes of clay, and a potter's wheel. Various ceramic items were ranged on two long wooden tables in the center of the room according to what stage they were in, from first drying to final glazing. The back wall was entirely brick, with several iron doors in it. It radiated heat even at this distance; it had to be a kiln of some sort, Kethry reckoned. Most of the windows were covered with oiled parchment, but there was a single glass window in the wall opposite; directly beneath that was a smaller workbench with pots and brushes, and a half-painted vase. The rest of the living arrangements were scattered haphazardly about, wherever there was room for them.
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