Spy, Spy Again

by Mercedes Lackey

  Tory looked at Kee, who in turn was examining him, and was astonished how much difference a little rearrangement of clothing made. To his eyes, Kee looked quite exotic, despite the fact that the difference amounted to one robe and three sashes. Surely he looked the same to Kee.

  “Now, pay attention,” May continued. “I’m going to show you how to do the headwrap yourself. Don’t think to have it stitched together so you can take it on and off like a hat. No true Karsite would do that, and you’ll give yourself away in an instant. Now, let’s replace those boots with sandals. Keep the boots, you’ll need them to ride, but if you end up going afoot for any length of time, you’ll want sandals. Sand will collect in your boots and rub your feet raw; it will pour right through sandals and just leave your feet a bit dusty.”

  It took a couple of candlemarks of instruction and practice before May was confident they knew exactly what they were doing. She sent them off a bit poorer in the pocket but infinitely richer in knowing how to wear and move in their new outfits.

  By the time they got back to Amber Moon, Ahkhan had returned with two horses. Where he had gotten them, Tory had no idea, although given that this tiny village had a person who specialized in clothing to make you blend in with the people down here, there was probably a farmer nearby who bred horses good for desert travel.

  They encountered him, with the two new horses, just inside the gate, where they all paused so the Valdemarans could admire their new mounts.

  These beasts were rather finer looking than Ahkhan’s scrubby little mare, although they were small and slender compared to Valdemaran horses, with big foreheads, huge eyes, delicate muzzles, wide nostrils, arched necks and deep chests. They were gentle too; they both took to Kee immediately and lipped him delicately as a sign of their favor.

  “Good stock,” Ahkhan said approvingly. “If we live through this adventure, I may take them home to run with our herds. They don’t have the endurance of Natya, but they have more speed in a race, and a bit of new blood will do our herds good. I am told the bay is called Aly and the chestnut is called Vesa.”

  At the sound of her name, Vesa transferred her attention to Tory. He scratched her forehead, and she snorted in approval, then rubbed her head against him vigorously.

  “The lady has made her choice,” Ahkhan observed. “Best not to try to change her mind.”

  “I have no intention of doing that,” Tory assured him. In truth, he was very taken with the mare. She wasn’t the golden palfrey he had dreamed of having as a child, but she was a charming creature.

  “I have obtained provisions,” Ahkhan continued. “We can leave in the morning. Crossing the Border will be . . . interesting. But if you two think you can pass yourselves off as mercenaries, there may be a way that will expose us to little more than tedium and perhaps a few bandits.”

  “We’re decent fighters, if that’s what you mean,” Kee replied. “We’ve both trained most of our lives.”

  “Don’t forget, my father had one of those Talismans of yours forced on him, and he absorbed a lot of your Sleepgiver tricks,” Tory reminded his cousin. “And he’s been training both of us in those, as well as the conventional weapon training we got from our Weaponsmaster.”

  “Good, good, then we will see if fortune favors us as we near the Border. For tonight, let us join the Mages for dinner, then start before daybreak.” Only then did he smile slightly. “I see May has given you lessons. Come, this will be our last civilized meal. Let us enjoy it.”

  Tory raised an eyebrow at Kee, who nodded, and rather than going to the main building, they took the reins of their new horses from Ahkhan and followed him to the stables, where they put Aly and Vesa into stalls on either side of Natya so the horses could get used to each other. Then they removed the tack, gave the beasts a rubdown, and measured out grain and water for them under Ahkhan’s approving eye. “Now we go eat,” said Tory.

  Actually, they washed up first; Amber Moon had a washing station with a long elevated trough of a sink, and pitchers of water and bars of hard soap at intervals, just outside the place where everyone ate. You had to wash up before you were allowed to enter the dining hall, which was not unlike the ones at the Collegia.

  Like in the Collegia dining halls, the meal was communal, with bowls and platters of food set along the table that people passed around. The food was quite unfamiliar; instead of sliced loaves of bread, there were round, flat, grilled bread-things that served the same purpose. Not like pancakes, but like bread that had been fried like a pancake. There was a very tasty pastelike substance you were supposed to eat on the bread, barley cooked in broth with shreds of meat (mutton, Tory thought) and chopped vegetables, and some other things in smaller bowls he couldn’t recognize at all but ate anyway. For drink there was a faintly astringent cold tea of some sort and honeyed fruits at the end.

  Through all of this he picked up an underlying tension and impatience from Kee. He had a good idea why—Kee seemed to be taking this job of running off into Karse to rescue Ahkhan’s sister very personally. And that was puzzling him, because usually he and Kee were of one mind on most things. He just didn’t understand why Kee would feel this way. They’d done the job they’d agreed to. Ahkhan himself had said as much. The bargain was made, and the Sleepgivers would never trouble Valdemar or the Royal Family again.

  So why this desire to throw both of them headlong into danger and uncertainty? Kee had never shown this sort of impetuous behavior before.

  I could just ask him. . . .

  I should just ask him.

  He pondered that all through the meal, then waited to see if Ahkhan was going to ask them to check on his sister before they all went to bed, but he did not. Instead, he said, “They have given us those rooms we used before. Our things are all there. I will lead the way. I advise early sleep, for it will still be dark when I awaken you.”

  And sure enough, Ahkhan led them up to the same corridor they had been in before, except now curious lanterns that produced no heat, only light, hung on the wall all along it. Tory paused at the one just outside “his” room and peered at it. It appeared to be a glowing golden orb, merrily floating in midair inside the glass ball that held it. The ball itself hung on a bracket coming out of the wall that he hadn’t noticed earlier, but when he examined the whole rig more closely, he understood why. The bracket was hinged, and had probably been folded against the wall when they had first come through here. And someone must have come along here during dinner, hanging up the glass balls with their little glowing orbs inside.

  More magic! he thought, with a flush of wonder. Well, this is a school for it. I wonder if this is something they have the beginning Mages create for practice?

  Ahkhan was already in his room and had shut the door; Tory followed Kee into his, and Kee turned to look at him in surprise.

  “I just want to ask you a question,” he said, before Kee could say anything. “Why did you decide without even asking me about it that we were going to help Ahkhan rescue his sister?”

  “I didn’t—” Kee began, indignantly. Tory interrupted him with a look.

  “You did. You spoke before I had a chance to say anything, and at that point, I didn’t have any choice but to back you up,” he said, sternly. “And be honest, now, Kee. You spoke completely without considering what you were promising. You might think the fact that you’re a Prince isn’t all that important, but it is important. We’re about to go barging right into the homeland of Valdemar’s worst enemy, and if we’re captured and the Karsites find out who you are, it’s going to cause all kinds of problems. And you put me in a bad position, because you gave your word, the word of a Prince, before asking me what I thought. That left me with no choice but to agree at that point. So the least you can do is tell me why you are so insistent about this, when Ahkhan himself said we’d discharged our obligations.”

  “I—” Kee began, then deflated, and sat down h
eavily on his cot. He looked up at Tory woefully. “I just have to, is all. I don’t know why. I just know I do. The idea of running back to Valdemar makes me physically ill. The idea of not doing everything we can to get Sira free makes me want to throw myself off a bridge.” He sucked on his lower lip. “And before you ask, I am pretty sure nobody put any magic spells on me to make me feel this way. I don’t know why anyone would—Ahkhan might welcome us along, but he is a Sleepgiver and we aren’t, and he could probably manage just fine without us. And if he wanted us bewitched, he’d have done both of us, so neither of us would be asking any awkward questions.”

  Huh. “Well, all right then. That’s a reason,” Tory said reassuringly. “We neither of us understand it, but it’s a reason, and that’s good enough for me. Maybe we need to get closer so we can give Ahkhan an exact location for him to succeed. Or maybe we’ll be needed to get him and his sister out of Karse. For all I know, you’ve got a touch of Foresight, just enough to know that things will go badly if we’re not there. So we’ll go.”

  Kee looked up at him with gratitude. “I should have known you’d back me up,” he said gratefully. “I should have talked to you first.”

  Tory knuckled the side of Kee’s head. “Yes, you should have, and don’t do that again. Now get to sleep. I’ll be doing the same. Don’t snore!”

  “I never—” Kee began indignantly, but Tory closed his door, cutting off his protest.

  * * *

  • • •

  Ahkhan was as good as his word; he woke them at an unholy time of the morning, even before false dawn. There wasn’t anyone else awake in the entire school except the kitchen staff, who stuffed them full of fresh, hot bread, fried eggs, and fresh milk before sending them on their way to the stables.

  It was cold. Granted, it was late fall, but the day before had been warm. Now he was very grateful for the long robe, and the woolen cloak to wear over it all. Layers. May was right. All these layers were warmer than one single thick cloak of fur.

  They saddled their horses, and Ahkhan distributed the supplies he had bought into packs he tied on behind all three of their saddles. “Wear your weapons openly,” he said. “We are mercenaries now. We escorted a party here to Amber Moon, and now we are looking for another party or caravan to hire us.”

  Tory nodded; it was a simple story, one that they could count on Amber Moon to verify, one that their well-worn weapons would back up at a glance. The gate guards let them out and closed the gates of the Mage-School behind them. Tory looked back with regret. If Ahkhan’s quest were not so urgent—or if Kee hadn’t volunteered them both to help—he’d have stayed a few more days before returning to Valdemar, hoping to see more magic. Not that the Portal wasn’t impressive all by itself! It was! But . . . it would have been nice to see some more wonders.

  Ahkhan took them due east, rather than east and north, which was the direction he and Kee had indicated. Tory had no idea why, but Ahkhan had mentioned finding a caravan, so perhaps this was a trade road, where you’d expect to find such things.

  The horses didn’t much like traveling in the dark, but perked up considerably when false dawn gave them enough light to see by. They picked up their pace, then, and Tory was relieved to discover that his mare, at least, had a smooth, pleasant gait. He had not been looking forward to mastering the punishing style of Ahkhan’s Natya.

  But, as when they had traveled through Valdemar, Ahkhan was determined to drive an unrelenting pace. They only stopped at noon—when the air had warmed enough that he’d removed his cloak, rolled it up, and tied it on the packs behind him—and that was just to water the horses at a well with an attendant dressed almost exactly as they were, whom they paid for the privilege. The traveler’s rations Ahkhan had gotten were semi-familiar; hard traveler’s biscuit, dried meat, hard cheese that would keep well without spoiling, not like his bars of whatever-it-was, and they ate while the horses slowly drank, Slowly, because Ahkhan directed them to pull the horses’ heads up frequently to keep them from drinking too quickly. When the horses had drunk, Ahkhan directed them to drink their fill and refill their water bottles at the well. The attendant just watched them like a hawk, as if he thought they were going to drink more water than they had paid for.

  Then they were off again. And sunset brought them into strange country indeed.

  They had been winding their way through very dry hills, covered in scrub bushes of unfamiliar varieties and strange plants that Tory did not recognize at all. The road now took them through a narrow, deep, dry canyon of red-streaked rocks worn smooth in a way that suggested they had been cut by running water, although there was not a drop of water to be seen. Could it be wind instead? Could the wind have done this? Or is it just that these rocks are so old that the water that did this was . . . millennia ago?

  The canyon wound and turned like a snake, making it impossible to see very far ahead of them or much more than a slit of sky overhead. It was weird and beautiful and like nothing Tory had ever seen before. The wind sang in the curves and whistled overhead. It felt like an adventure, at last.

  Eventually the canyon let them out onto a flat plain covered with the most amazing rock formations that Tory had ever seen in his life.

  Like the canyon, they were streaked and layered in red, orange, and yellow. And they looked for all the world like towers of pebbles carefully cemented together by some mad artist. There were other formations, too, but those were the ones Tory couldn’t take his eyes off.

  All he could think was . . . oooh.

  Ahkhan noticed his wonder. “We call these rocks hoodoos,” he said. “There are all manner of legends about them. Some say they were made by the gods when the gods were children, playing a game to see how high they could stack pebbles. Some say they are all that is left of an army of demons, turned to stone by a great hero Mage. Some say they are the remains of a clan of evil people who were turned to stone by the gods for their misdeeds. And some say they are the chimneys of creatures that dwell in a labyrinth beneath our feet.”

  “What do you think?” Tory asked, finally managing to get some actual words out.

  Ahkhan laughed. “I think that one need look no further than water, wind, and sand. All of this around us is sandstone, easily cut by water, easily scoured by windblown sand. Some layers are harder than others. And I think the gods have other things to do than play with pebbles, even gods that are children.”

  “What about turning evil people to stone?” Kee asked.

  “Possible but unlikely,” Ahkhan said dismissively. “If such things were likely, there would be more pillars of stone in the world than people.”

  I can’t argue with that, Tory thought. “Well, where do we go from here?” he asked aloud.

  “There is a watered place with grazing and a spring not far from here, still on the right side of the Border. It is the final stopping place for most caravans going into Karse. We will camp there tonight, you will try to see my sister, and we will see if we are in luck and there is already a caravan there. Most caravans are always willing to take on another few guards, as so few mercenaries are willing to go into Karse.”

  Looking around him, Tory was exceptionally skeptical that there could be any water at all, much less the sort of haven Ahkhan had described, anywhere in this arid land. And yet, a half a candlemark later, the road brought them to a box canyon so lush and inviting he would have thought it was in Valdemar, not out in the middle of the desert. There was ankle-high grass, verdant bushes, even real trees, with a tiny stream cutting through it all and meandering out among the hoodoos. And at the back of the canyon, a clear, deep pond, deep enough that the water was a lovely blue, and wide enough for fifty horses to drink without jostling each other. Birds sang in the trees and flitted among the bushes. Tory thought he had never seen anything so peaceful.

  And, to Ahkhan’s disappointment, it was completely empty of humans. “Ah, well, we will see what
the morrow brings,” he said. “Meanwhile, we have our choice of resting places. Do you know how to picket horses?”

  “Not at all,” Kee confessed.

  “Then I will show you, and we will make camp, and you will see what you may see.”

  It turned out that there were a lot of rules about this place, which Ahkhan explained as they set up camp. The horses were allowed to eat their fill of the grass but could not touch the bushes. Humans were not allowed to pull up armloads of grass to make a soft bed; if you wanted a soft bed, you could flatten the grass, or you could find a sandy patch and make a sort of dish for yourself. They were not allowed to hunt anything within the canyon. “Out there, yes,” Ahkhan told them, waving at the desert beyond the canyon walls. “Not here. This is a refuge for all things, and that includes wild ones. This is water-peace, and it is near sacred. No fighting, no stealing, and certainly no killing.”

  “Just who enforces this?” Kee wanted to know.

  “A desert tribe that lays claim to this place. They are even more secretive than the Sleepgivers. There are three of them watching us now.”

  “What?” said Kee, looking wildly all around.

  Ahkhan shook his head. “Give over. You will never see them. But they certainly see you. They are also masters of magic. They might not be able to turn someone into a stone for violating water-peace, but anyone who dares to be so foolish as to break the peace will find they have many ways of making their displeasure known. Not even a Sleepgiver would take a target here. But that means we need not set a guard tonight and may sleep as soundly as in one of your Waystations. And when we leave, we will leave a tribute of money for them to take.”