Spy, Spy Again

by Mercedes Lackey

  That was when Tory decided it was time for him to gracefully withdraw and let the King be a father.

  And deal with his own father.

  Who likely would have half a night’s worth of admonitions about keeping the Prince safe.

  At least, Tory thought, as he headed toward the family’s suite, he’s already been through two sets of hair-raising situations with Perry and Abi. I hope he’s used to it by now. Because otherwise it’s going to be a damned long night.

  * * *

  • • •

  They met Ahkhan outside the walls of the city by arrangement. Rolan had, via Mags, introduced them to the two Companions who had agreed to be their transportation as far as the Border. Tory and Kee knew both Companions well, from frequent visits to Companion’s Field and the grooming sessions that unpartnered Companions enjoyed from anyone who would grant them. A strapping young mare named Tariday was Kee’s mount, and a slightly smaller mare named Elissa was Tory’s. Ahkhan had assured them again that “transportation” would be waiting at the Border, and from the difficulty he had in getting the words out, Tory surmised that the “transportation” was going to be magical in nature.

  Now that, in all of this mess, was something he was actually looking forward to. Perry and Abi had both gotten to see real magic in action, and a lot of it. His only brush with real magic was the firebird feather Perry had brought back to him as a souvenir from his adventures . . . and while it had seemed very magical to him as a child, the truth was that a firebird was a very natural creature without—to his knowledge—any magic about it. At least no more magic than Companions.

  It was a pity they couldn’t Mindspeak with their mounts, but . . . he reckoned that mime could probably go a long way. And there was always “nod for yes.”

  Ahkhan was already waiting for them outside the city walls, where he had left his own mount stabled. Interestingly, that implied he had money with him that would be accepted in Valdemar . . . but then again, the Sleepgivers that had been in the pay of Karse had, too, so perhaps, Tory thought, that meant they had agents here that were actual Valdemarans. Or maybe they had contact with Rethwellan or Menmellith agents. Or . . . well, simplest of all, maybe he’d just exchanged money with a merchant.

  Not everything has to be complicated and devious, Tory, he reminded himself. Not even with Sleepgivers.

  They had left in the predawn, moving swiftly, but Tory looked at Ahkhan’s horse askance in the pearly gray light. It was a rough-looking thing, just larger than a pony, and he was afraid there was no chance the three of them would make any real speed.

  But the Sleepgiver mounted and looked back over his shoulder at them. “Try to keep up,” he said, and away he and that “pony” went—

  At a canter that looked extremely painful for the rider, who had to stand in the stirrups to keep from losing his spine, a pace so astonishing that Ahkhan and his mount were almost out of sight before the Companions got over their shock and raced after him.

  They caught up, of course, but Tory simply could not believe this rough-coated creature could keep up such a blistering pace for long. Surely this was just Ahkhan showing off.

  Surely they’d slow within a few furlongs. . . .

  A candlemark later, he was thinking, Surely they’ll slow within a few leagues . . .

  At noon, he was thinking, Surely they’ll stop for a rest! But no; Ahkhan ate in the saddle—although his horse slowed to a lope that allowed him to sit in the saddle for as long as it took him to eat and drink—and they perforce did the same.

  Only as the sun was going down did Ahkhan finally speak. And they had neither slowed nor stopped in all that time except to relieve themselves and gulp some water. “Do we camp or take to an inn? Natya will do well either way, but grain tonight will keep her running well tomorrow.”

  Tory caught Kee’s eye. “We have permission to use the Waystations,” Kee called. “And there’s one not far.”

  “Is this private? Is there grain?” Ahkhan wanted to know.

  “Yes to both.”

  “So be it. Pray take the lead,” the Sleepgiver replied, and Tariday moved past him and took over the lead. Ahkhan’s mount didn’t seem to like this, as she demonstrated with some head tosses, but she settled and kept within an arm’s length of Tariday’s tail.

  The next village was the size of a toy in the distance, gilded by the rays of the setting sun, when Tariday moved off the road and onto the path that led to the Waystation. Tory was of two minds about using the place; it was going to be small, meant for two Heralds at a time at the most, and they’d be crowded, but there was also no telling what kind of inn was in the village, and they could very well have ended up sleeping on the floor there. Or worse, packed into a bed with a couple of strangers and Ahkhan, and what the Sleepgiver would make of that he had no idea.

  Like all Waystations, this one was a sturdily built hut—constructed of stone with a thatched roof—just big enough for two or three people if one of them slept on the floor. There was a shelter attached for the Companions and Ahkhan’s horse, and plenty of provisions. There was also a well; all Waystations were either on a pond, stream, or river or had a well. When they reached it, Kee dismounted first and headed to the Waystation to open it; Tory took the hint and followed both the Companions to the shelter, where he took off their saddles and tack, gave them a good rubdown, and left them with hay in one manger while he grabbed the bucket hanging inside off its hook and went to get water. When he returned with the first bucketful, Kee was bringing measures of grain out of the Waystation, and Ahkhan had settled his mare next to the Companions. She seemed extremely mannerly. She was not fighting the others for the hay, and when Kee poured the grain into the second manger, she just put her nose in and ate like a civilized creature, not gulping down the grain as fast as she could manage to keep the others from having any.

  Tory was astonished all over again.

  Nor did Ahkhan tie her up. “Stay, Natya,” he told her; her ears flicked back to acknowledge that she had heard him.

  Kee stood there with his mouth open, then closed it with a snap. “That’s not a horse,” he said, flatly.

  “It is a horse bred for thousands of years for endurance, intelligence, and strength, not looks or size,” Ahkhan corrected him. “She and her kind are not unlike the Shin’a’in war steeds. The ones they keep, not the ones they cull.” He patted her rump. She munched, more slowly now, and then turned her attention back to the hay. “There, she has had enough. If yours leave any grain, she may come back to it later tonight. And now that I have ordered her to stay, she will stay. Where do I sleep?”

  “In here,” Kee said, gesturing toward the door of the Waystation. “There’s two beds and the floor, which do you want?”

  Tory took one last look to be certain that Natya was as mannerly as Ahkhan claimed, but she was standing hipshot and completely relaxed, slowly chewing a few blades of hay, and looked as if she found herself quite at home. He followed the other two into the Station.

  There were, as Kee said, two bedboxes built onto the wall and plenty of floorspace in front of the fireplace for a third bedroll. Kee had started a fire and lit the Waystation’s sole lamp. Ahkhan surveyed the area with a glance. “The floor will suffice,” he said. “Do you have provisions, or shall we eat cooked oats?”

  “We’ve got plenty, we don’t need to go that far,” Kee told him. And he raised an eyebrow.

  “But I enjoy cooked oats. Shall I make a pot to break our fast in the morning?”

  Kee looked at Tory, who shrugged. “Might as well. We’re in a hurry, after all.”

  Ahkhan nodded. “Indeed, we are. Might you try to find my sister before we seek sleep?”

  “We’ll try, but no guarantees,” Tory warned him. “I’ve got the feeling that first time was a fluke because your sister was surprised and enraged. If her emotions aren’t ramped up to a fever pitch
, we probably aren’t going to be able to touch her until we’re physically closer.”

  Ahkhan grimaced. “She will not be. She controls her feelings well, that one. A Sleepgiver does, but she is extraordinarily good at it. Will you try before or after food?”

  “Right after we put some padding between us and the bottom of the bedboxes,” Tory told him, and the two Valdemarans went out and fetched big armloads of hay. The sun was already down and the stars starting to appear in the east—and the night air gave no warning hints that things were about to turn either cold or stormy. If this weather lasted, they’d make astonishing time to the Border.

  * * *

  • • •

  Roughly a candlemark later, he and Kee emerged from their trance to find Ahkhan sitting on the floor with them, watching them intently. Tory hadn’t exactly gotten an image or even a hint of emotion, but he had gotten . . . something. A sense of something very distant that was not any of his relatives he was familiar with. And yet, it was familiar, as if he had sensed it before, so it probably wasn’t Bey or any of Bey’s other children.

  “Well, she’s alive,” said Kee before Tory could say anything, as they unclasped wrists. “That’s all I can tell you. I know it’s her, though; I couldn’t mistake that . . . whatever it was I got from her . . . for anyone else.”

  Ahkhan looked to Tory for confirmation, and Tory nodded. The Sleepgiver didn’t say anything, and he certainly didn’t make any great demonstrations of relief, but Tory somehow knew without any doubt that he was relieved.

  “This is excellent to hear,” he said. “Now we eat and rest.”

  “So we do,” Kee agreed.

  Tory and Kee were both carrying hard bread, dried meat, and hard cheese. Ahkhan contributed . . . something. A bar of something that tasted of both meat and something sweet—dried berries?—that he cut slivers from with a knife that appeared from somewhere on his person. It tasted a lot better than Tory would have thought, a very little like a roast with cherry sauce.

  Tory tried not to think where that knife might have been and what it had done in the past as Ahkhan casually whittled bits of supper with it.

  Ahkhan also contributed the leaves of some spicy-smelling shrub that he brewed into a tea that somehow also tasted sweet. “This is excellent!” Kee exclaimed after the first sip. “What is it?”

  “Something we call spicebush, and the leaves of a plant we call tava, that lends sweetness,” Ahkhan replied. “It will aid in sleep. In the morning, a second brew, from ground beans, that will make you dance like a kid in springtime.”

  Beans? Seemed unlikely, but . . . so did Ahkhan’s horse.

  “I’m sorry we couldn’t sense more,” Kee said apologetically, alternating bits of Ahkhan’s contribution with bits of their own.

  For the first time, Tory’s cousin actually smiled a little.

  “You gave to me more than you know,” he said. “Sira is alive. You do not know our Sira. If she is alive, she is alert and thinking. If she is thinking, she is planning, and if she has not already made the lives of her captors a misery. . . .”

  He paused.

  “. . . she very soon will.”

  7

  Sira woke, as a Sleepgiver must after being drugged, all at once. She took a careful assessment of her surroundings and of herself while giving no hint that she was conscious. She judged that she had been unconscious for roughly three days, perhaps more, but not much more. She’d been stripped to the skin, and reclothed in some shapeless baglike garment made of what felt like the coarse material grain sacks were made of. Well, that meant all her overt weapons were gone . . .

  She cursed herself for not realizing she’d been followed, that she’d been identified. After all, she’d stared in that dying priest’s face and told his masters what Bey wanted them to hear. To be sure, she’d been completely masked, but it was always possible they’d had some magical way of knowing who she was, and that had been a mistake.

  Or perhaps they had merely been scrying the perimeter of the Nation’s borders and tracking anyone coming in or out? In that case, she should have been more careful and left at night. And she should never have allowed that storm to change her camping plans. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Arrogant, and too sure of herself; well, now she had to fix what she’d broken.

  Interestingly, they’d left her Talisman and the necklace of smaller Talismans. Had they been afraid to touch the things? Or did they not recognize them for what they were? She smiled internally, for at least this proved they were anything but infallible. Well, things could be much, much worse. Her father had wanted to send the Karsites a message; perhaps she might be able to finally deliver it in a way that would make some impact.

  No sounds of anyone else in the room; she lay on a stone floor, which implied stone walls, and if anyone had even been breathing in here, however quietly, she’d have heard it.

  She slitted her eyes open. Yes indeed, four stone walls, ceiling with wooden beams, stone laid over them. And it was cold, though that had not been the first thing on her mind when she had been taking stock of herself. Part of her training had involved inuring herself to cold; like all Sleepgivers of her proficiency, she had sat outside in the dead of winter clothed only in a wet swath of fabric and dried it with the heat of her body. This chill was nothing. There were small windows with iron bars inset in them on two of the walls, and a brisk wind was blowing through them.

  So, so, so. It seemed that instead of dungeons, the Karsites built their prisons above ground. Or this one, at least.

  Having learned all she could from where she lay, she got up, went over to the window, and looked out.

  An impressive vista. It appeared that the Karsites built their prisons up. There was nothing but scrubby not-quite-desert all around, with mountains in the distance. Not her mountains, of course. She had been too far from home for that. She reckoned she knew where she was by map: east of Menmellith, east and north of where she had been going.

  Well, now she knew where she was. The next thing to learn was what they knew of her.

  A quick guess put her about five stories above the ground, so she was at the top of the tower. Probably the exact top of the tower; they would likely put the prisoners they were the most nervous about at the top, with four floors-worth of guards and barriers between her and the bottom. Assuming, of course, she went out through the tower, which was not necessarily what she would ultimately do when she escaped.

  Because she would escape. There was no question of if. The only questions were how and when.

  Right now she did not have enough information to figure a way out.

  The cell was bare except for a bucket with water in it. There was a hole in the floor that, given the stains around it, served as a jakes. She wrinkled her nose at that. Unsanitary and a waste. Well, that told her one thing she didn’t know before; these Karsites had no idea of the kind of people they were dealing with in the form of the Nation.

  Yes, they had good homes, sufficient food, and comforts now. But they had gone through centuries of privation, and they had never forgotten this. The Karsites only thought they were hard. The Nation trained its children in deprivation and how to survive it. All of them, not just the Sleepgivers.

  And this was why she already knew she would escape. Unless they had a dozen of their demon-summoning priests here. If her adversaries were only human, they stood no chance against what she could bring to bear.

  And even if they did . . . her necklace of small bronze Talismans might just hold the answer to that.

  She went to the corner of the room farthest from the door, sat down and arranged the bag-like garment for maximum coverage, closed her eyes, and extended her magic senses. She immediately noticed the shields on all the walls; shields that walled things in and out. They had not thought this through. Yes, such shields prevented anyone from scrying her and might hold off some magical attacks—and yes
, they prevented her from getting a message out. But they also confined anything she turned loose within the four walls, at least until the shields were broken from within, or brought down.

  They had truly not thought this through. She was not trapped in here with them. They were trapped in here with her.

  Her main reason for visiting Amber Moon had been that she had not wanted to inadvertently wake something in the heart of the Nation that she could not put back to sleep again, and she had the impression that the Amber Moon Mages had more experience with the sort of Talisman represented by the ones around her neck.

  But now that she thought about it . . . they did not have experience in the peculiar magics of her people. These couldn’t have come from outside the Nation, even if they dated all the way back to when her people had first come to the Mountain. And the reason she knew this was these odd Talismans were things that her people had used and thought important.

  She had suspected there was something sleeping, but powerful, bound in these little things. Now would be a good time to find out what was in there, even if she inadvertently woke it up. And she wasn’t in the least worried about unleashing something she could not control here.

  A tiny smile flashed across her face for just one brief moment.

  Had there been any Karsite guards looking through the window in the door at that moment, their blood would likely have frozen in their veins.

  * * *

  • • •

  The sounds of footsteps laboring up the stair, then of a key in the door alerted her, and she abandoned her investigations in time to greet the guard who opened the door to place a bowl just inside with a face as unreadable as a slab of obsidian.

  He did not venture into the cell, and the door was only open for a few moments, but she had noted that he wasn’t watching her as he put the bowl down, he was watching the bowl. She could have been across the room in half that time, and in the other half, she could have slammed the door into his chest, shattering the ribs, pulled him through the door, breaking his skull on the floor, or gotten her hands on his head, snapping his neck.