“So,” Yira said. “It worked.”
“It did,” he agreed.
She narrowed her eyes at him. “You read his mind at one point, didn’t you?”
He raised his eyebrows. “Did I?”
“Yes. You knew he was going to attack from below.”
He shrugged, deciding it was better not to deny or confirm it. She rolled her eyes, then looked around.
“It’s a bit quiet, don’t you think? Used to be impossible to get a seat at a table.”
He glanced around the room, avoiding the gaze of a few drunks who felt they were about ready for a good fight, if anyone should start to bug them.
“I’ve definitely seen it busier.”
“This placed used to be full of Liftre students.” Yira sighed. “I suppose the laws against travelling are going to hurt a lot of places like this.” She stood up. “Doesn’t look like they have many staff serving, either. I’ll go get us some drinks.”
The unconscious man began to sag, his head and arms sliding backwards. Getting up, Tyen grabbed the man before he fell, then eased him off the bench and onto the floor. Arranging him on his side so he didn’t drown if he threw up, Tyen straightened and turned to find his seat occupied by a very large woman, whose challenging stare shifted rapidly to frank appraisal.
Tyen sighed and looked for Yira. He found her dodging two tipsy customers staggering across her path, a pair of goblets in each hand. Tyen shook his head. He wasn’t that fond of the local brew, and Yira knew it. But as she saw his expression, hers changed to surprise. She stopped.
And then she fell forward and slammed into the floor.
Stunned, Tyen could only stare for a heartbeat. Then he rushed over to her. The customers around him sidled away, some glaring and wiping at clothing wet from the spilled drinks.
Yira wasn’t moving. He fell to his knees in the mess covering the floor and rolled her over.
She stared up at him, but she did not see him. Her gaze was as vacant as Preketai’s had been, at the end.
He stared back in disbelief, searching for her mind and not finding it.
The room hadn’t quietened when she fell, but now it did. As the silence spread, fear spilled from the surrounding minds. He created a shield of stilled air around himself, then tore his eyes from Yira’s frozen face and sought the source of their terror.
A man stood twenty paces away. Between the stranger and Tyen were empty tables. Patrons continued to edge away.
The stranger’s eyes fixed on Tyen, and they burned with hatred.
Rage exploded within Tyen in reply. He killed her. He killed Yira. Struck her down from behind. Tyen wanted to kill in return. He wanted to break this man as Preketai had been broken. He wanted to burn him to ash as Preketai had burned his servant.
Soot streaked down to darken the room, the stranger at the centre.
The exodus of the other patrons became a panicked scramble for the doors.
Tyen smiled. He reached out, found the edge of the void and stretched further. As he took in more magic than the stranger’s reach had allowed, the stiff muscles in the man’s face loosened in shock. Tyen pushed through the man’s mind block and found a name.
“Keich,” Tyen said. He saw that the man had sent his own underling sorcerer ahead to Preketai’s mansion only to have that man return and report the rebels’ attack. He saw how Keich had traced the rebels’ fresh trail back to their departure point, then chased several from that place, determined to catch and kill as many as he could before their trails faded or someone else’s passing obliterated them. And he’d killed many, before he found the rebel leader and her general.
Who was too powerful to be a mere general. Tyen watched as Keich realised he must be the Raen’s spy. The one the Raen had said was the most powerful rebel. The one he’d forbidden anyone to kill.
Keich relaxed. The spy wasn’t going to kill him, though he looked like he wanted to. “I guess he needs to look angry that I killed the leader,” he thought.
“I am angry,” Tyen said.
Keich scowled. “You expect me to not retaliate? Preketai was my friend!”
Tyen looked down at Yira. “She was mine.” He hesitated, caught by her vacant, staring eyes again. So lifeless. When he looked up again, he was alone.
He glanced around the room. It stank of people, even with no patrons inside. He briefly contemplated chasing after Keich and making him pay for Yira’s death, but when he looked down at Yira again he knew he could not leave her here. What am I going to do with her? The answer came swiftly. She must go back to her people.
Lifting her, he pushed out of the world. With each world he passed through, an ache grew. Not just in his heart, but in all of his body. His bones, muscles, gut and lungs. All he could think was: If I’d seen him, she wouldn’t be dead. If I’d gone to get the drinks, she wouldn’t be dead. If I hadn’t encouraged her to become leader, she wouldn’t be dead. If I had talked her into leaving the rebels… shamed her into returning to her children if that’s what it took… told her I was a spy of the Raen if that would make her listen… she wouldn’t be dead.
He thought back to Tarren’s question, asked less than a quarter of a cycle ago, though it seemed far, far longer: “What are you prepared to do in order to fulfil your promise to her?” Would he have chosen to spy for the Raen in exchange for freeing Vella, if he’d known it would lead to Yira’s death?
The next world was Roihe. He slowed to a stop just outside of the arrival place, seized by fear and guilt. Would the Matriarchy blame him?
No, he thought, they won’t conceive of a man having that much effect on the events of the worlds. Yira had known better, but she had ventured beyond her world and the ideas that were accepted as truth by her people.
As soon as he arrived, they took her body from him. He followed them to her house where the matriarch took charge of the funeral preparations. “You may stay,” the woman told him. “But I think maybe you should not, if those who did this might follow you here.”
He moved to the next world, to an isolated beach. Fishermen cast nets into water turned gold by the rising sun. Large sea creatures rolled about in the shadows, uttering bubbling, playful calls. The scene’s tranquillity did not touch him. He was frozen and empty.
A shadow appeared beside him. He glanced at it, then turned away as it resolved into a man. The last man in the worlds he wanted to speak to now.
“She was a brave warrior,” the Raen said. “Her attack was bold and well managed, if reckless.”
Tyen knew he ought to turn to face the Raen, but an echo of his earlier fury rose. He couldn’t help that his mind was open, but showing his disgust in his face would be more consciously defiant.
“She was my friend,” Tyen replied, and anger surged to the fore again. “Why do you make alliances with people like Preketai?” he demanded, then immediately wished he hadn’t.
“Because the alternative is worse,” the Raen replied, with no trace of indignation or anger at the question.
“What is the alternative?”
“That I kill all-powerful sorcerers. As some believe I do.”
A shiver ran down Tyen’s spine. He looked at the Raen. “Can’t… can’t you let the good ones live?”
Dark, impossible-to-read eyes met his. “They all were, once. Power and agelessness change people, and not always for the better.”
Tyen pressed a hand to the rectangle under his shirt, remembering what Vella had told him of the cost of being ageless. And you? he wanted to ask the Raen. How has it changed you?
“You are not to blame for Yira’s death.”
Exhaustion washed over him. If not me, then who? A thought struggled past his grief and anger, faint like a whisper. Yira. She chose to fight. You couldn’t unchoose that for her.
“If you do not wish to continue watching the rebels I will accept your decision.”
The prospect of leaving the rebels brought a flood of relief.
And what, then, of Vella? c
ame the inevitable, unwelcome thought.
“I have devised a few methods that may restore Vella,” the Raen replied, as if the question had been directed at him. “Some show promise. It is proving an interesting challenge. My experiments have revealed some potential applications I had not expected.”
A liveliness had entered the man’s eyes. He looked like a different person and Tyen found himself wishing he could join the man in his tests and trials, or at least have the chance to watch them.
The spark faded, and the Raen’s expression became unreadable again. “You are most useful to me among the rebels.” He said nothing more, but an unspoken question hung in the air.
They’re leaderless, Tyen realised. And they don’t know it yet. “They might give up and go home now,” he said.
“They won’t,” the Raen replied, with quiet certainty. “When Keich found Yira she was contemplating the rebels’ return to Aei. He did not keep that fact to himself.”
So unless I want to abandon them all to be slaughtered, I must return to them. Tyen drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. He nodded.
“Then I had better make sure nobody goes back there.”
The Raen nodded once. “I will give orders to the allies that they are not to kill the rebel leader. However, they may interpret that as a wish to have you captured instead,” he warned.
Then he disappeared.
PART THREE
RIELLE
CHAPTER 11
A great deal could be communicated with non-verbal sounds, Rielle had discovered since Baluka’s mind was no longer open to her. Appreciative ahs, questioning hums, weary sighs, and even grumbling stomachs could substitute for words. It was more complex information that forced her to fumble with and puzzle out the Traveller language.
It didn’t help that the vocabulary mixed a multitude of languages from many, many worlds, often with several meanings for a word. But the grammar was, perhaps by necessity, straightforward. The Travellers adopted words, but used them in sentences of uncomplicated structure.
The more Rielle learned, the more she was able to recognise the language when non-Travellers spoke it, and marvel at how widespread its use was. It had been adopted as a common tongue not just by those who traded with Travellers, but by people who traded with other nations and worlds. Sorcerers who travelled between worlds also learned it, and therefore those who most often dealt with them. The elites of many societies considered fluency in the Traveller tongue to be a sign of a superior class, refinement and education.
They’d be dismayed if they had heard the conversation Rielle was observing now, she mused. In all other aspects, the hide dyers Lejikh was bargaining with were rough and uncouth, some openly leering at Rielle and the Traveller women with her. That they were in a trade similar to what her family had dealt in only made her doubly uncomfortable. We dyers might have been associated with revolting smells and source materials, but that didn’t mean our behaviour had to be as unpleasant.
Yet the skins were the best she’d ever seen: soft, pliable and richly coloured, with few flaws. Her parents had dealt mainly in fabrics, but they knew how to recognise good leather, as it was often used for awning straps and ties, or they were commissioned to match fabric colours to shoes and other items. She could see why the Travellers thought it worth putting up with the tanners’ rudeness to purchase their goods.
“They’re done,” Jikari, eldest daughter of one of the Traveller families, murmured as one of the dyers made a chopping motion and Lejikh responded in kind.
“Price agreed.” Hari, the youngest of the married women, smiled at Rielle and spoke slowly. “Have you seen enough? Would you like to see the market now?”
Rielle nodded. “Yes.” She followed them out from under the canopy of hides. “When Lejikh said ‘dyers’ I thought he meant…” She plucked at the sleeve of her tunic. “… they dyed this. Like my family.”
The two women smiled and patted Rielle’s arms to show they’d understood, and didn’t mind enduring the tanners’ behaviour so their guest could satisfy her curiosity. The pair included Rielle in both daily chores and exploration of the places the family visited. She was now glad Lord Felomar had decided she could not stay in his world for fear of attracting the Raen’s anger, because it meant she’d made two new friends. Though it also meant she would be extra sad to leave the Travellers.
The Travellers’ wagons were visible further down the wide street, arranged in a tight double circle fencing in the lom at the centre. The women led her in another direction, guiding her down a narrower gap between two stalls. In front of one, a pair of acrobats performed before a circular tent to attract customers inside to see the main acts; from another came smoke and the sound of hammer strikes on metal. The latter looked like it had been there for some time.
“Do people live here?” she asked.
Jikari nodded. “If they can pay the rent. But they are not permitted to build houses.”
They stopped before a double-sized stall in which several kinds of animals had been penned. An auction was taking place beside three long-necked beasts with curved spikes under their chins. The animals were hobbled, and had poles strapped to their neck to keep them straight and no doubt prevent any thrust of the spikes. Are they predatory? she wondered. Or is that for defence? One moved up to a pole on which bushels of some kind of dried plant had been tied, and began to graze.
“What are they?” Rielle asked.
“Ruke,” Jikari replied. “They are good guard animals to put with more vulnerable ones.” She began to point at each pen, naming and explaining the uses for each type of domestic beast within. “I don’t know what they are,” she admitted, pointing to several stumpy-legged, long-snouted animals with scaly, bright red hides. “Father might. At a guess I’d say they were bred for their skins. Would you like me to ask the sellers?”
Rielle shook her head. “They are all busy with the auction.”
“Hmm,” Hari agreed. “And I’m thirsty. Let’s get something to drink.”
It took them a while to find a stall selling liquids meant for refreshment. A long queue had formed which kept shifting as the stallholders on either side objected to it blocking customers. Standing in line, Rielle reflected that this was the first time in a long while that she had stood still. Twenty-two days had passed since she’d been rescued by the Travellers–or rather, twenty-two sleeps. Measuring time was near impossible when she was moving through worlds with shorter and longer days and sometimes no discernible night at all to divide them, and they had often arrived and left at different times of day. This world was the tenth she had visited and the first one in which the Travellers didn’t have a buyer or seller expecting them.
She looked down the street. It extended further than her eye could see, the details disappearing into dusty air. The view was the same in the other direction, the only difference being the wares on offer in the stalls. Over the top of some low tents to her right she could see the pale stone palace rising above the centre of the market. Tiny distant figures moved up and down the steep stairs leading to the building.
The view must be amazing from there, she mused. Perhaps we could investigate later.
Shouting cut through the noise of the market, drawing Rielle and her companions’ attention to a platform being carried on the shoulders of several muscular men. A woman walking in front of it was bellowing that all should step aside. Looking at the bearers, Rielle’s stomach sank. Were they slaves? She searched their minds and learned they were paid well and competed for the position. The first pair regarded the queue blocking the street imperiously, thinking that the rabble were slow and stupid, mere traders far lower in status than honoured bearers. They should be scrambling to get out of the way. Another was only thinking about his family, to whom he was sending most of his income, hoping they were investing it as he’d instructed.
Two women sat upon cushions piled upon the platform. They were so deep in conversation they hadn’t noticed the queue that slow
ed their progress. As the waiting drink-stall customers began to move to the side, shuffling back with the wary reluctance of those who have waited a long time and did not want to lose their place, Rielle looked into one of the women’s minds.
Her name was Calo, and she was a minor queen from a nearby world come to visit her friend, Astia, the wife of the market’s owner, who was the closest thing to a queen that this world had.
“… yes, there was a magical battle,” Astia was saying, “and dear Elmed hurried out to demand they stop. But when he got there the battle was over and the victor–you will not believe this–the victor was the Raen.”
Rielle stiffened, cold rushing through her at the title. Calo was simultaneously impressed and apprehensive.
“What happened?” she asked. Shifting to the mind of Astia, Rielle saw the woman’s memory play out in her thoughts.
“The poor fellow–the loser–clutched at his chest and died. Heart crushed from within, they say. I saw it with my own eyes.”
“But, Astia, how did you come to be there?”
“When I heard where my husband had gone, and why, I could not just sit and wait to hear if he was dead or not, could I? I went after him.”
“You’re a braver woman than I.” Calo frowned and her back straightened. “So the Raen is back. How did he regard the market?”
“He showed no disapproval. All he did was order that we record the coming and going of all—”
“Rielle?”
She started and turned to see that Jikari and Hari were a few steps away and the queue had progressed while she had been distracted. Closing the gap, Rielle looked at the queen and her host again, now well past the drink-seller and moving steadily away. She leaned closer to Hari.
“Did you…?
She nodded, her expression sober. “She did not say how long ago he was here.”
“Not yesterday,” Rielle said. “It did not feel so.”
“No,” Hari agreed. “This place”–she looked around the market–“is here only because people can travel between worlds. It is strange that he did not order it closed down.” She said something else that Rielle could not interpret. “We will tell Lejikh. Once we have drinks. We should buy enough for everyone.”
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