by Sharon Green
“Well, I don’t care about that group!” the peasant interrupted from where he still stood, speaking as though his likes and dislikes were of interest to the rest of them. “Lorand tried to lord it over me as if he was better than me, but—”
“I really do think we need to find out what they intend to do with us,” the second, smoother man interrupted in turn, acting as though he hadn’t heard a word the peasant had said. That put a flush and a scowl on the peasant’s face, but no one cared about that any more than Allestine did. “If we have value to these people we might manage to turn a profit of some kind, but if we mistake their intentions we could end up as damaged goods. Does anyone have any idea how we might find out?”
“I’d say we already know,” the woman who seemed to be Dom Agran’s wife said mildly when no one else answered. “If that Lord Whoever had brought servants instead of guardsmen to help us move, then we would have had some value to them. But the way he was treatin’ us… Was anyone given more than twenty minutes to pack?”
Everyone looked around then, but not even the woman who sat off to one side by herself spoke up to say they were an exception to that. Allestine certainly wasn’t, as she hadn’t even been given that much notice. A guard had come and dragged her away from her work gang, and that had been that…
“So now we know,” Dom Agran said as he patted his wife’s hand in approval. “We weren’t escorted, we were arrested. I didn’t know things like this were bein’ done here in our wonderful capitol of Gan Garee, but that’s beside the point. What needs figurin’ out now is just how they plan to use us. And if we’relikely to survive that usin’.”
“Why would anyone care if you peasants survived?” the woman sitting alone said suddenly, cold and distant amusement on her haughty face. “It’s fairly clear that I’m the only person of value here, which means I’ll certainly survive. What they do with the rest of you…”
“Well, it seems as though I was right,” Dom Torgar said, looking at her with distaste. “You are a member of the nobility, and you’rejust as stupidly mindless as the rest of them. If you weren’t as unimportant to them as we are, they would have put you somewhere other than here. Since they didn’t, you can be certain that if we don’t survive, neither will you.”
“How dare you speak to me like that, you disgusting peasant!” the woman snarled, her chin rising even higher than it had been. “No one of my class can possibly be anything like yours, not even on the darkest, dreariest day! We are superior, fool, and you forget that at your peril!”
“If you’reall that superior, why don’t any of you have servants any longer?” Dama Agran asked with a snort of ridicule. “Our own servants told us that yours had left you all high and dry, hopin’ you all starve to death or break somethin’ tryin’ to look after yourselves. And I started thinkin’ when they said my daughter was just like you. That’s the last thing I want her to be, so from now on there will be some changes in what’s required of her. I just hope this isn’t comin’ too late.”
“Momma, how can you say that?” the girl all but wailed, looking wounded to the center of her being. “There’s nothin’ at all wrong with me, and once we’reout of this place you’ll see that. If one of the Five doesn’t come to claim me first.”
The last of the girl’s words were sleek with conviction, telling Allestine that the little fool still believed she was there because she’d been noticed. A bit of wrangling followed, but Allestine no longer paid it any attention. Now that she knew she’d been brought there because of Jovvi, her world had brightened again. Those people had something in mind for her, but that didn’t matter in the least. All those times in the mine she’d awakened screaming, horrified to find that she hadn’t been having a nightmare after all…
That living nightmare was all Jovvi’s fault, and Allestine would make her pay even if it was the last thing she ever did…
* * *
Kambil Arstin awoke slowly, having the impression that he’d slept rather than been unconscious. Lack of consciousness had been his only refuge during the past eternity, however long it had actually been. The agony had been constantly with him, and contrary to popular opinion, one did not grow used to being in agony. But now the pain was entirely gone, or at least it seemed to be. If he was in the midst of a dream, it was one he wanted to continue for as long as possible…
“If you need help to sit up, just say so,” a voice came, one Kambil would have had nightmares about if he’d been able to sleep normally. “The servant has a tray of food for you, and you’ll have to eat as much as you can. You’ve been missing too many meals lately, and you’rethin as a rail.”
Kambil turned his head on the pillow to look at Delin, who stood at the side of his bed with the servant holding the tray. It occurred to Kambil that the poison was wearing off and Delin was trying to poison him again, but that didn’t make much sense. He’d been absolutely helpless, and the poison could have been readministered in whatever that had been which Delin had been pouring down his throat every day.
“I do need help,” Kambil found himself croaking, speaking the truth even though he hadn’t meant to. His voice was hoarse and uneven, and his throat still ached from all the screaming he’d done.
“Put the tray down and help Lord Kambil to sit up against his pillows,” Delin told the servant without looking at the man. “Then you can give him the tray and leave.”
The servant was quick to obey, and in a pair of moments Kambil was sitting propped up. The tray was then put in his lap and the plate covers removed, and then the servant was bowing his way out of the room.
“You may be wondering why there was just the one servant,” Delin said once the man was gone, his stare intent on Kambil. “We’reexperiencing something of a shortage of help, but at least we have some servants left. The rest of our peers are having to do without.”
Kambil frowned as he chose a spoon to eat with, lifting the utensil with a shaking hand. He would certainly have stabbed himself if he’d chosen a fork, and the cramps in his middle were making him hurry about getting some of that food down his throat. How long had it been…?
“To put it mildly, there’s a great deal of unrest in the city,” Delin went on, now sitting down in the chair which had been brought close to the bed. “The guard commandant doesn’t have enough men to control it, and there have been ugly incidents. I’ll tell you about it while you’reeating.”
The report Kambil heard would have ruined his appetite if he hadn’t been on the verge of starvation. Even so he felt disturbed, and happily put his spoon aside as soon as he’d eaten all he could reasonably hold.
“So there you have it,” Delin finished up, only a moment or two after Kambil’s meal was done. “Not only isn’t the guard getting new applicants, too many of their number have taken to deserting and losing themselves among the peasants. For their part the peasants are busily active, having taken over ownership of the businesses belonging to our people. Those same people are screaming bloody murder, insisting that we do something to get their property back. I’ve been thinking about this whole thing, and I’ve decided that our only option is to go out and destroy a large number of peasants. That will show the rest how helpless the ‘usurpers’ are, and we won’t need to give the remaining guardsmen the knowledge about the tandem linking. What do you think?”
“I think we’d be smarter to hurt rather than kill them,” Kambil replied, although he hadn’t meant to say anything of the sort. “If people expect to be killed, they can work themselves into believing that they have nothing left to lose. That lets them continue on and on, enlarging the problem you have with them. If they understand that they won’t be killed but will have to live with being crippled for the rest of their lives, they’ll surrender a good deal more quickly.”
“You may be right about that,” Delin said with raised brows as he stroked his chin with one hand. “I hadn’t thought of it, so I’m glad I asked for your expert opinion. And you must be wondering why you’rebeing so
cooperative, not to mention why you’refree of the pain. Would you care to guess?”
“You’ve given me Puredan along with the counteragent,” Kambil said, speaking the words he’d been fervently hoping weren’t true. “I haven’t made any attempt to put you under control because you have me under control.”
“Bravo, Kambil!” Delin exclaimed with a grin, one filled with all the malice the man was capable of. “It upsets me to think of how close I came to letting you die, because then I would have missed the exquisite pleasure of having you obey my slightest whim. How does it feel to be the puppet rather than the puppetmaster?”
“It turns my stomach,” Kambil replied, unable to speak anything but the truth. “You’reso twisted that you’reunable to see your own incompetence, and that chills me to the center of my being. If you don’t release me, we’ll all be destroyed.”
“Considering that everything happening now is the result of your being in charge, I don’t believe I’ll take that piece of advice,” Delin said dryly, the hatred flashing only briefly in his eyes. “I’ve decided that the peasants have to be taught a good lesson, but there have to be five of us doing the teaching or the lesson won’t be nearly as effective. You’ll spend today regaining your strength, and tomorrow we’ll go out and do what we must. You won’t spend any time thinking about a way to escape my control, because you’ve been ordered not to. But I do want you to think about getting the others back under control, Selendi and Homin especially. Every once in a while they flash back to being useful members of this group, but the rest of the time they revert to their old, useless selves. Start on that today, if you can, but plan on doing it tomorrow at the latest.”
Kambil found himself nodding to acknowledge the orders, but Delin missed seeing the nod. He had already gotten to his feet and was heading toward the door, secure in the knowledge that he couldn’t be disobeyed. Kambil’s inward self raged over that, at least as far as he was being allowed to rage, which wasn’t very far. He’d clearly been ordered not to work on a way to escape, but maybe there was something else he could do. Just maybe…
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
“That’s the place,” Lorand heard Rion whisper, possibly even pointing to the very large house a short distance ahead of where they’d stopped. “It’s one of the largest mansions in the city, and should suit our purposes admirably. Can anyone tell if there are people inside?”
“Not even a cat or dog,” Jovvi whispered in return, voicing what Lorand had already decided was true. “With the nearest neighbors at least half a mile away in any direction, we should be perfectly safe for a while. But we’ll still cover the windows completely before we light any lamps.”
Murmurs of agreement came from those who were closest to them, some of the fifty people of the two link groups they now had with them. Most of them had left Colling Green in that arrangement, one Blending with two link groups who could join with each other in the new tandem linking. That hadn’t quite exhausted their number of High talents, so the rest had followed with the former guard members. They would all make their way into the city by different routes, and would go to ground in their own chosen locations. By tomorrow morning their full number would be in the city, hopefully without losing anyone to a confrontation.
Lorand sighed as he urged his mount to follow those of the others, pleased that they were still alive but not terribly pleased by the way they’d had to accomplish that end. They’d reached the city in the late afternoon, knowing that any guard groups would be tired and less than alert by then, hoping to slip past them with a minimum amount of fuss. But the guard unit they’d run into had been fully alert and jumpier than anyone had expected, and they hadn’t even had time to Blend. The guardsmen had attacked immediately and they and their link groups had responded individually… Low and Middle talents attacking more than fifty Highs…
Lorand’s mind veered away from the memory of what had been left of those guardsmen, which hadn’t been very much. They’d been fools to attack without first finding out who they were attacking, a reckless act so unusual that it hadn’t been expected. But maybe reckless acts weren’t all that unusual any longer. They’d know for certain once Alsin Meerk came back from speaking to some of his people.
There was a very large stables to the left of the very large house, so half their group dismounted and took the mounts of the other half in preparation for stabling them. The rest would enter the house and start to cover the windows, getting the job done before full nightfall made it that much harder. And some of those would see about preparing a meal, using the provisions they’d brought with them if the house proved to be empty of food.
“If anyone had told me a few months ago that I’d be spendin’ my time unsaddlin’ horses, I would have called them a liar,” Vallant said as he walked beside Lorand, leading his own mount as well as another. “If this isn’t close to the end of it, I just may take off and go lookin’ for the nearest large body of water.”
“I feel the same way about being one of those who are leading what amounts to an army,” Lorand agreed with a glum nod. “But unfortunately I don’t have the sort of temperament that would let me take off, for water or dry land. And I wonder why the people who own this house aren’t here.”
“Rion said there was a good chance that the occupants are at another of their houses right now,” Vallant replied with a shrug. “That part of it doesn’t bother me, but there’s somethin’ that does. From other things Rion said at other times, I was expectin’ to find at least a small staff mindin’ the house. What I’d like to know is where they are.”
“Maybe they’reamong all those groups of people meeting on the street corners,” Lorand suggested as they entered the stables. “There are a lot more of them than that man Mohr’s comments led us to believe, almost as if the people are deliberately flaunting their positions. And did you notice that there wasn’t a guardsman near any of them?”
“Maybe all the guardsmen are busy watchin’ for us,” Vallant suggested, obviously looking around for empty stalls. “Mohr and his friends said they would be, but they weren’t as disappointed as I expected them to be when we refused to tell them our plans. I have the feelin’ we did nothin’ to really shake their belief that we’rethe Chosen Blendin’.”
“But we did manage to keep any of them from going along with us, which is a victory in itself,” Lorand pointed out. “They were picturing us riding into the city with our full force behind us, banners flying over our heads proclaiming who we were. Or who they thought we were. Then we could have spent our time pushing away the groups of people who believed us and wanted to fawn, fighting those who didn’t believe and therefore wanted to put us down, and arguing with any others who decided that they were the Chosen. The only benefit in that would have been the trouble the Seated Five would have had getting through the mobs to reach us. By the time they did they would have been exhausted.”
“That could be why the Chosen are supposed to have a good chance at defeatin’ those five,” Vallant said with something of a grin. “I think I’ll take these two stalls over here.”
Lorand indicated his agreement with that decision by taking the stalls next to those two, and for the next few minutes he was busy stripping the saddles and bridles from the horses. They really could have used a good rubdown as well, but an extra measure of oats made up for the lack, at least temporarily. And the oat bin bulged with its contents, so there was no need to stint.
By the time Lorand had finished, Vallant hadn’t yet come out to get the oats for the mounts in his care. So Lorand scooped out what he would need, and went to see how far he’d gotten. The delay turned out to be a snarl up between the bridle of the second horse and the halter Vallant was trying to put on it, something only a novice at horse handling could have managed. Lorand took care of the problem and measured out the oats for both of the horses, and then the two of them were temporarily finished.
“I owe you for bailin’ me out there, brother,” Vallant said ruefully as t
hey began to leave the stables. Everyone else seemed to have already left, so aside from the horses they were alone. “It would be nice if I had a real idea of what I was doin’, but that sort of thing takes practice. I wonder if the watches I set up are already posted.”
“That looks like men on watch to me,” Lorand said, pointing out the door into the gathering darkness. “Can’t you discern the three of them over there, separated by about thirty feet of wooded land?”
“Yes, of course, now I can,” Vallant replied, still sounding rueful. “If I’d just bothered lookin’ around… I guess what I need is a good night’s sleep. As soon as we all finish eatin’ I’ll assign link groups to stand watch in rotation from the house, and then I’ll go and get that sleep.”
“Vallant, before we go in there’s something I’d like to talk to you about,” Lorand forced himself to say. “I know I’m intruding and I hate to do it, but we are brothers so I have to. Jovvi told me she spoke to you, and I know that what she said was by way of a quote of what Tamrissa said to her. I also saw the way Tamrissa looked at you, which was completely different from any other time.”
“Yes, I noticed that myself,” Vallant replied as he stopped where he was to run a hand through his hair. “That look was … an arrogant, derogatory challenge, worse than anythin’ I’ve ever seen. It told me how little she thought of me and dared me to do somethin’ to change the opinion, even though she was certain I couldn’t. It was all I could do not to ball up my fists and walk over to tell her to raise her own hands.”
“The way we answered challenges like that when we were boys,” Lorand said with a nod and a sigh. “But we never did it with girls, and certainly not with girls who were Highs in Fire magic. Have you decided what you’ll do instead?”
“Walkin’ off to find that large body of water is an idea that looks better every day,” he replied, leaning back against the edge of the door and closing his eyes. “It’s what any man with an ounce of sense would do, to save his sanity if for no other reason. But there’s more than just the Blendin’ and the comin’ fight holdin’ me here, which proves how little sense I happen to have. Every time I close my eyes—”
