So for most of the time, even to Maja using her extra sense, Striclan seemed to be exactly what he said he was. Of course he asked a lot of questions and was always taking notes—a rich eccentric scholar was paying him to find things out, wasn’t he? And of course many of them were about magic stuff because that was one of the things his employer was interested in. But almost anything they told him might bring the notebook out. Only at certain times, perhaps with no visible outward sign at all, Maja would sense that stir of inward interest in something that had been said.
He insisted on taking over almost all of the cooking, saying it was a way of repaying Saranja for protecting him against demons. In fact he obviously loved to cook and did it very well. He decided—or perhaps Ribek had persuaded him—that Maja was too thin, and fretted because she didn’t seem to be putting on weight, and was obviously tiring herself too much, and falling asleep in the saddle, and so on.
Usually he managed to produce luscious meals from the very ordinary ingredients available at the way station stalls and spices and herbs from his saddlebags, but one morning he took a detour to a village they passed and came back with a fresh chicken and a couple of flasks of local wine, catching them up as they rested out the midday heat. That evening—maybe it was the wine that helped—he got Saranja talking about her time among the warlords, and then kept her going with just the right question or comment at just the right moment. Maja didn’t notice him doing it at first, because Saranja’s stories were so fascinating. She told them well, as if she’d been there herself, fought in that siege or made that desperate journey. Maja had never seen her like this, so animated, so clearly enjoying herself, with all her inward furies for the moment sleeping. And then…
“Some Sheep-face merchants came to Bilabi Gey and gave him a lot of fancy gifts and said if he let them run his copper mine at Sansan for him they would get a lot more copper out of it and he’d end up with a great deal of money. Tarab Arkan and Arda Gey hadn’t realized that copper was actually worth that much—if it had been silver one of them would have grabbed the mine long before—so of course they wanted Sansan and the Sheep-faces’ money for themselves. Either of them could easily have done it, except that the Sheep-faces decided to back Bilabi Gey, and that’s how they finished up fighting the warlords. And then they ran up against magicians. Tarab Arkan had a pretty good one…”
Ribek touched Maja’s wrist and pointed surreptitiously toward Striclan. He looked completely as usual, as if all his mind were engaged in paring paper-thin slices from a strong, hard cheese that he liked to sprinkle onto his food. But really his inner self was fully awake, not just interested, as though what Saranja was telling him was seriously important.
As if he was anxious not to force himself on them too much, Striclan usually left them soon after they’d finished their evening meal, and slept in another part of the way station. That night, as soon as he was out of earshot Ribek said, “Either of you two pick up what our friend made of all that? Maja, Benayu?”
“I wasn’t noticing,” said Benayu. “It’s too much effort with him, anything beyond the surface. He’s got a way of closing that part of his mind off.”
“He sort of puts it to sleep,” said Maja. “But it really woke up when Saranja started talking about the copper mine. Do you remember, when you told him about the copper in the water at that other way station…? And he was very cunning about keeping Saranja talking, asking just the right questions.”
“There’ve not been a lot of people in my life who I’ve really liked,” said Saranja quietly. “But he’s one of them. I thought. What does it matter if he’s a Sheep-face spy? It’s nothing to do with us, really. In a way we’re on the same side. We both want to get rid of the Watchers. But if he’s just pretending all the time…
“I wish you hadn’t told me,” she added, so sadly that they all fell silent, sharing her disappointment like a shared vibration, mournful bells. It reminded Maja of what it had been like only a short time ago, just before Ribek had touched her wrist, the same kind of sharing, but that time chiming cheerfully together, all five of them. Striclan too, as Saranja told her stories and they listened. Hadn’t there been something extra about Striclan’s enjoyment?
“I think he likes you too,” she said.
“Oh!”
Maja managed to pinch Ribek just in time to stop him laughing.
CHAPTER
13
The next five days, outwardly, at least, might have been any other uneventful five days in their long journey. Ribek, Striclan and Benayu kept the conversation going—though perhaps there was a difference, in that they stayed completely off the subject of magic. Saranja was very silent, but then she often was. Maja, with Ribek’s help, managed to keep her end up—awkwardly, she felt, but her feelings were confused by her knowledge of the inward awkwardness between the rest of them. Striclan seemed to feel it too. He was as helpful and affable as ever, clearly enjoyed his kick-fighting sessions with Ribek, saw that Benayu and Saranja practiced each evening with their quarterstaffs, made a wrist-sheath for Maja’s knife so that she could hide it up her sleeve, and taught her how to slip it out unnoticed and how and where to strike a stronger attacker. But he must have been aware that something had changed that evening, because he didn’t ask Saranja to tell him any more about the warlords—she was both relieved and hurt, and seemed to have lost all her usual confidence in dealing with him—and in general he asked far fewer questions and hardly produced his notebook at all.
On the fifth evening he said, “Well, it is only a couple of days now to Farfar, and we have encountered no demons. Perhaps the danger is less than I feared, and I no longer have my excuse for enjoying your pleasant company, and we should part there. I will have my report to prepare and send, which will take me a day or two, and you will be anxious to proceed on your journey.”
Ribek was about to say something when Saranja interrupted.
“Let’s get to Farfar and see.”
The sixth day was different. There was practically no one on the Highway, as most other travelers preferred to take the longer way round through Agadal, a small hill town which happened to be holding its famous seven-yearly firework festival. Magical fireworks were strictly against the rules, so Striclan decided he wasn’t interested. Thus it was that there were no other travelers in sight, either before or behind them, when they walked into the trap.
It was midmorning. The Highway wound between ragged hills, and they were walking five abreast along it, with Sponge at Benayu’s heels and the mule and horses quietly following, when four men rushed out from behind the broken wall of an old roadside shed and barred the way. There was nothing magical in their sudden appearance. Maja and Ribek had been telling each other a story, taking turns to carry it forward and picking up wherever the other one left off, so she hadn’t been paying attention to the little inherent magics in her surroundings.
The men were carrying short, improvised spears, or heavy, broad-bladed slashers and hatchets. They swaggered toward the travelers. Instinctively Maja turned to run, but three more men had appeared in the road behind them. She remembered just in time to slip her knife into her hand in the way Striclan had taught her, and hold it there, hidden in her clenched fist.
“Hands above your heads, then,” snapped the man at the center of the group in front. “No trouble, and you won’t get hurt.”
Ribek already had his arms raised and palms held slightly forward in a gesture of appeasement. He took a careless pace toward the men, as if he truly didn’t believe they meant him any harm. A pike lowered to point at his chest.
“Hold it there!”
He seemed to halt, but instantly sprang, too quick for the thrust, stooped, swiveled, his right leg swinging viciously to crack into the knee of the man next in line. Striclan was drawing his sword. Saranja had disappeared.
There were yells, shouts, hoarse coughing from someone with pepper dust in his face.
Maja was grabbed from behind, her arms pinioned,
was dragged kicking and struggling, lifted like a sack, and slung across Levanter’s shoulders. Almost she managed to wriggle free as the man mounted, but his grip on her wrists was too strong, and then he was up and wrestling one-handed with the reins as Levanter skittered and shied, and with the other hand still round her wrists, forcing her hard down into the gap between Levanter’s neck and the pommel of the saddle.
Twisting her head sideways, she caught a glimpse of the struggle. One of the bandits was on the ground, one on his knees, retching and choking. Ribek and Striclan were engaged in individual duels, Saranja up on Rocky, her quarterstaff raised to strike at the man who had grabbed her bridle, and Sponge was leaping to attack the remaining man as Benayu stumbled back before him. Then Levanter wheeled and her captor’s knee blocked her view.
He was yelling at Levanter, urging him into a gallop. She could tell he knew about horses. Now she could hear two sets of hooves. He let go of her wrists. She shifted her knife in her fist, found the catch, heard the click as the blade slid out, raised her head to gauge how and where to strike.
In the instant he gave her she saw, close in front of her, his hand unhooking his slasher from his belt and beyond it Saranja bearing down on them, half standing in her stirrups, her hair streaming behind her, her quarterstaff raised two-handed, ready to strike. Then the butt of the slasher slammed into the back of Maja’s head.
Blindly in the roaring, agonizing dark her hand and arm finished the movement she’d begun, swinging up and round behind the man’s back. She felt the wicked little blade bite deep into the softness below the rib-cage. The man’s yell was cut short by the heavy thwack of Saranja’s quarterstaff. She grabbed the pommel of the saddle to save herself as he toppled, lost her grip and fell too, landing with a thump on top of him. His body juddered as a hoof crashed into it somewhere.
The jar of the fall half cleared her head. She staggered up, gasping, saw the man’s slasher at her feet and grabbed it. The man himself lay sprawling. The left side of his shirt was already soaked in blood. His other leg was bent sideways at the knee. Saranja was pulling Rocky out of his charge, turning him.
“I’m all right,” Maja yelled, though her head seemed ready to split with pain from the blow the man had given her. Somehow she hefted his slasher onto her shoulder, and held it there, poised to strike.
Saranja waved in acknowledgment and sent Rocky charging back, with Levanter now not far behind. The pure pain eased to a heavy throb. Maja shifted round the fallen man to where she could watch and still be ready if he tried to get up. Benayu was down, with Sponge standing over him, snarling and watchful, as the enemy’s spear-point neared. Ribek’s left arm was red with blood, but he was still dancing round his opponent, light on his feet as a fawn, feinting, dodging, looking for an opening while the man stood stolidly waiting, with his slasher held two-handed across his body, ready to swing to left or right. Striclan’s man had a pike, with which he could outreach Striclan’s sword. It looked like stalemate, but the man who’d been blinded by the pepper dust was on his feet and staggering toward them with his hatchet in his hand.
Only Striclan’s opponent saw Saranja coming. The distraction was fatal. Striclan’s blade was into his throat and his own blood stifled his cry of warning. As he toppled, Saranja drove Rocky straight into Benayu’s attacker, struck viciously down with her quarterstaff as he reeled away, and charged on. Ribek’s man turned to face her, but Ribek was in and floored him before she reached him. She reined to a halt and gazed around. Sponge and Benayu between them had their man down and helpless. The last man had turned to run, but Saranja sent Rocky hurtling after him, barred his way and drove him back, then circled menacingly, herding the men into a group round the man Striclan had killed. Maja lowered the slasher, knelt and plunged the blade of her knife several times into the dusty earth to clean the blood from it. She slid it into its sheath and then used the slasher to prod the man who had kidnapped her until he rose groaning to his knees and crawled to join the others. That done she gathered the dropped weapons, handed Ribek a long knife and piled the rest together.
Benayu was standing a little to one side, so she offered him another knife. He gestured it away. He was white and shaking—not, she realized, with shock, but with anger and shame.
“I could have stopped them,” he muttered. “I could have stopped them with a word. Look!”
He raised his right fist. For a moment something seemed to be struggling to escape between his fingers.
Just in time she snatched Jex out of her pocket, but still reeled as Benayu flung what he was holding toward the men. Wind shrieked from his opened palm, became a single, concentrated gust roaring out into the hot stillness of the day, picking the bandits up and whirling them away like chaff before the winnow.
He flipped his left hand dismissively toward the pile of weapons. The steel splintered, the wooden hafts crumbled to dust.
He bowed his head and stood shaking it slowly from side to side. She tried to put her arm round him but he pushed her away….
The Watchers! He’d been so angry with himself he’d forgotten about the Watchers! Jex had been growing stronger day by day, but she knew from the way that she had staggered that he’d nothing like absorbed the whole of the shock of power. Even now the force of the magic suddenly woken in Benayu came strongly through.
And Striclan too! He’d forgotten about Striclan! Striclan wasn’t supposed to know about…
She looked. Striclan was getting something out of a saddlebag. His mule was standing there stolidly, looking as if it hadn’t noticed anything unusual happening. So did Striclan when he turned and offered the bandage he was holding to Ribek. Ribek stared at him, for once at a loss for words. Saranja dismounted and joined them.
“Let’s get this over with,” she said quietly. “I think we’ve all just saved each other’s lives, and I can’t go on pretending. You’re a Sheep-face spy, aren’t you, Striclan?”
He blinked, that was all.
“Agent,” he corrected her, sounding as sad about it as she had. “But perhaps before we discuss it we should deal with Ribek’s arm. He’s losing a dangerous amount of blood in my opinion. Sit down, old man. I’ll need to cut the sleeve off.”
He eased Ribek onto the ground and knelt beside him. Only now did Maja notice how pale Ribek was. And he oughtn’t to need to be helped to sit down, for heaven’s sake! Anxiously she peered over Striclan’s shoulder as he peeled the sleeve away. The wound was right at the top of the arm, a deep, ghastly-looking slash, right to the bone, like a half-open scowling mouth turned down at the corners. Blood was still streaming from it. Striclan pressed the lips together. The flow weakened but didn’t stop.
“Trouble is, it’s too close to the shoulder for a tourniquet,” he said. “I don’t know how you kept going, fighting that chap—remarkable what adrenaline can do…”
He chatted on, not doing anything, just holding the wound closed, watching the blood-flow. Maja concentrated, and sensed that beneath the surface he was as anxious as she was. And there seemed to be only one inward Striclan now, all of him intent on Ribek’s wound. She nudged Saranja’s arm.
“Can’t we use Zald?” she whispered. “If you give me the healing stone, he won’t know it’s got anything to do with the demon-binder.”
Saranja nodded, slid her hand inside her blouse and felt her way over the surface of Zald. Her lips moved as she mouthed the simple release formula. She withdrew the jewel and slipped it into Maja’s hand.
Maja knelt to whisper into Striclan’s ear.
“It’s worse than you’re telling him, isn’t it?”
He nodded.
“There’s something I can do,” she said. “No, don’t let go. I’ll start at the edge. Please try not to watch.”
“Of course,” he said, and shifted to make room for her. A corner of the wound showed each side of his grasp. She put the ache in her head away, still there, but somewhere outside herself, and whispered to Jex to relax his shield. Naked to all th
e magic in the world she pressed the jewel to and fro around the right corner of the wound, feeling through the slithery blood for the torn edges and easing them together, above and below and back, above and below and back, again and again. Her hand and arm grew warm as the healing power flowed into them and on through the jewel. Ribek sighed and closed his eyes. She could feel his openness to what she was pouring into him, her whole life-force, all her love. The wound began to close.
“Where’s Pogo?” said Benayu suddenly. Vaguely, concentrating on what she was doing, Maja registered the change in his voice. On the surface, at least, this was the Benayu they had known before Larg.
“Stupid horse bolted almost at once, of course,” said Saranja. “Nobody’d even made a grab for him. Back the way we came, I’m afraid.”
“I’ll fetch her while Maja’s doing that. Come on, Sponge.”
Maja flinched to the shock of his changing, but her arm and hand kept their rhythm. By the time she recovered two identical dogs were loping away down the road. With her free hand she nudged Striclan’s fingers to the left to give her more wound to start on. Saranja appeared and knelt beside her with a water flask and a cloth and started to sponge away the blood from what she had already done, revealing a morsel of pink, new-healed flesh. Maja worked on.
“Perhaps it would help, while we are doing this, if I explained a little about myself,” said Striclan.
“I don’t know if it would help, but it would be interesting,” said Saranja.
“I hope both,” said Striclan, chuckling, though he must have noticed the dryness in her tone. “I am not by birth a Charargalid, though I was partly raised in Charargh.”
“Where’s Charargh?” said Saranja.
“Charar means ‘south,’ and Charargh is the South. It occupies the whole southern half of a continent on the other side of the world, and in fact dominates the northern half as well. Technically it is not a single nation, in the way that the Empire is a single nation, but a community of seven separate nations. Its full, formal name is Storgon Charargha, the Community of the South, but it acts and thinks like a single large nation. We speak of Southern Civilization, Southern Values.
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