Deals and Dangers

by Kay L. Ling

  “I suppose they’re both gem masters,” Tabik said.

  “Who?”

  “The zek and the bird,” he said, confirming her suspicions. “Don’t play dumb with me.”

  It was a convenient misunderstanding, Tyla told herself. If he thought Loud Mouth and Bounder were gem masters, and she could restore them at a moment’s notice, he’d think twice about attacking her.

  Bounder looked up at Tyla and showed his teeth in what looked like a grin.

  “You’re a hypocrite,” Tabik said. “Is it just you? Or have other gem masters decided to use dark powers against us?”

  His question surprised her. Until now, Emanicus gnomes had probably assumed that fortress troops would never resort to using Dark gems. If Emanicus gnomes thought they might face dark powers themselves, they might be less likely to start a war. The Focal Gem was a great advantage, but even so, they might not be so confident.

  “Shut up and keep moving,” Bounder ordered. “Why should we tell you anything?”

  It wasn’t Bounder’s place to reprimand him, but Tyla didn’t mind since it reinforced Tabik’s notion that the zek was a gem master.

  When they reached her immobilized teammates, Tyla said, “Restore them, and be careful. If they come to any harm, you’ll wish you were never born.”

  “All right, all right,” Tabik said, glancing at Tyla’s knife.

  She could hear wheels thumping over rough ground in the distance, probably Felith’s team on their way to join the others. Before long, they’d leave and take S with them.

  “Hurry up,” she snapped.

  “If you want this done safely, I can’t hurry,” Tabik said stubbornly. He circled Olissa, studying her as if assessing her condition.

  Loud Mouth gave a disgusted squawk. “He’s stalling.”

  Tyla thought so, too. If the gem masters had a large head start, it would be all but impossible to catch up to them.

  “Go watch the gem masters,” Tyla told Loud Mouth. “If they leave, follow them.” His night vision wasn’t good, but good enough to see something as large as a cart, and he could follow them by sound.

  Tabik watched Loud Mouth fly away and then folded his arms, frowning. “What assurance do I have that once I restore your team you won’t kill me?”

  “You have my word.”

  “Your word!” He gave a bitter laugh.

  “What kind of pledge did you expect?”

  “I don’t know, but I don’t trust you. You could make that thing kill me, and you’d have kept your word, but I’d be conveniently dead. Or you could make them kill me,” he said, gesturing at her teammates.

  It took a deceptive person like Tabik to think of such angles. “You have my word, and that will have to be good enough. You Emanicus gnomes have committed more crimes than I can count. I ought to kill you, and if you don’t cooperate, I might. Now, stop stalling and restore them.”

  “I—”

  Bounder’s menacing growl silenced him. “I’m getting awfully hungry,” the zek said, sniffing Tabik’s leg.

  “Back off. I’ll restore her right now.”

  Tyla hadn’t stopped to consider what Olissa would think when she regained her senses and found herself face-to-face with an Emanicus gnome. Olissa gasped, and before Tyla could say the situation wasn’t what it appeared, the ground liquefied beneath Tabik’s feet. Tabik shrieked and disappeared from view.

  A choking cloud of dirt rose from the void. Tyla turned away, shielding her eyes.

  When the air cleared enough to see, Olissa leaned over the hole. “Emanicus scum! I’m just getting started with you!”

  “Don’t hurt him,” Tyla said. “He’s my captive, and he’s cooperating.”

  “Your captive? How did you manage that?”

  “It’s a long story. I had quite an adventure while the rest of you were statues.”

  “You can say that again,” Bounder muttered.

  “Explain later.” Olissa looked around at the others. “I infused an immobility gem. I may be able to free them.” She looked down at Tabik. “You, there! Did you use a spell along with the gem?”

  Tabik didn’t answer.

  “Have it your way.” The bottom of the hole gave way, and he found himself up to his waist in dirt and stones.

  “Don’t!” Tyla cried. “We’ll have a hard time getting him out, and I want to take him back to Elantoth.”

  Olissa gave Tyla a dark look but didn’t argue. “I didn’t hear your answer,” she called down to Tabik. “Did you use a spell or not?”

  “Just the gem.”

  “We’re running out of time,” Bounder said. “The gem masters are leaving, and we need to follow them.”

  “Leaving!” Olissa said.

  Tyla sheathed her knife. “They think fortress troops are on the way, so they’re evacuating.”

  “They’re not staying to fight?”

  “No. They’re taking S and running away. We have no time to lose.”

  Olissa released the others.

  “What happened?” Arenia asked, looking confused.

  “You were all immobilized,” Tyla told her.

  “Emanicus gnomes are evacuating,” Olissa told the group. “If we lose them, we’ll have to find them all over again. Bentiz and Serrom, go get the cart and our gem pouches.”

  They lit lightgems and set out.

  “Now we’ll discuss what to do with your captive,” Olissa told Tyla, looking toward the pit. “We ought to bury him alive.”

  “I want to keep him for questioning.”

  “What exactly happened, anyway,” Riven asked. Everyone crowded around Tyla. “The last thing I knew, you were walking ahead of us.”

  Tyla told them only the basics, then asked Bounder to tell his part of the story. She was as curious as the rest about the events leading up to her rescue.

  “All of you stopped, and you couldn’t see me or hear me. I didn’t know what to do. I thought about going to get Loud Mouth, but I figured I’d better check on Tyla, first. I followed her scent to the building and listened at the window. They had taken away her knife and put her in a warded room. She couldn’t get out. I tried reaching Loud Mouth telepathically, and he heard me and met me here. He said none of us could free Tyla, so we must get her captors to free her. That sounded impossible, but he came up with a plan. Once the gem masters were gone, and there was only one inside, Loud Mouth, sounding just like Tabik, shouted for the gem master to let her out.”

  “A very ingenious plan,” Tyla said. “I owe my life to both of you.”

  “Speaking of Loud Mouth, where is he?” Olissa asked.

  “I told him to watch the gem masters and follow them if they leave.”

  “They’d leave him behind?” Olissa asked, gesturing at the pit.

  “He’s expendable. When they find me gone and Pren dead, I think they’ll leave right away.”

  “They’re bullies and cowards,” Arenia said. “I’m not surprised they’d abandon one of their own.”

  “When will we pull him out of the pit?” Riven asked.

  “When the cart gets here. We need rope,” Olissa said.

  Riven lowered his voice. “How will we make sure he doesn’t get away or try to kill us?”

  Olissa lowered her voice, too. “In case you haven’t noticed, we greatly outnumber him.”

  “But he has dark powers,” Riven said.

  “Dark powers aren’t everything,” Tyla said, motioning for the others to follow her. She led them from the pit. “I didn’t tell you what happened before Tabik shut me in the warded room.” She looked Riven in the eye. “He made me calm, unafraid, and happy. Nothing alarmed me. He could have said he was going to chop off my arm, and I wouldn’t have been the least concerned. So, you don’t need dark powers to defeat someone.”

  Riven looked incredulous. “He didn’t use any Dark gems at all?”

  “No, and it was a brilliant strategy. My knife didn’t alert me to danger because Tabik was being kind to me, and t
here wasn’t an obvious threat.”

  With luck, this explanation would keep them from asking why the Guardian had allowed her to be shut in a warded closet. She wasn’t ready to admit the Guardian had nothing to do with her knife and was a complex ward created by one of The Eight.

  “I’m surprised Tabik didn’t use dark powers,” Olissa said. “Maybe he’s worried about the Dark gems’ cumulative effects. Prolonged use causes insanity as well as witnesses.”

  “I hear a cart coming,” Adin said, looking behind her.

  “Do you think the perimeter ward is down?” Tyla asked.

  “Probably,” Olissa said. “If they’re leaving, they don’t need wards.”

  When the group finally pulled Tabik out of the pit, his robe was caked with dirt, and his hair and beard were gray with dust. Olissa immobilized him, and Bentiz and Serrom loaded him onto the cart. Bounder settled down beside him, then looked up at the sky. “Loud Mouth’s on his way back, and he’s upset.”

  “What’s wrong?” Olissa asked.

  “He didn’t say, but we’ll know in a few minutes. I hate to admit it, but he really can fly faster than I can run.”

  Chapter 38

  Tyla had expected Loud Mouth to pursue the gem masters until they reached their new hideout—or until he was too tired to fly. Why was he back so soon?

  “The carts split up,” he announced when he landed. “Two went one way and two the other. I couldn’t see what they were carrying, so there was no way to know which group had the beetle. They—”

  “You should have followed one of them,” Olissa snapped. “Now we’ve lost both.”

  “Hey, he led you to their hideout. He doesn’t owe you anything else,” Bounder said indignantly.

  “Yes, and we’re grateful, but it’s frustrating to lose them after all we’ve been through.”

  “They can’t have gone too far. If Loud Mouth shows us where the groups split up, we can go after one group, and he can follow the other,” Riven said.

  “That might work, but—” Serrom began.

  “They have a sizeable head start, and we can’t go very fast over rough land in the dark,” Bentiz said.

  “We have to try. We can’t sit back and let them escape,” Serrom said.

  “I agree,” Arenia said. “If we—”

  Loud Mouth squawked to get their attention. “Let me finish! They created a storm so you couldn’t follow, and it’s coming this way! That’s what I came back to tell you. You have to take shelter right away!”

  Now that he mentioned it, the wind had picked up, and the temperature was dropping. “It is getting cold,” Tyla said. “We can use the gem masters’ hideout, but there’s no shelter for the maraku.”

  “They’ll have to weather the storm,” Bentiz said.

  “Bring Tabik,” Tyla ordered.

  “Do we have to?” Serrom grumbled. “We ought to leave him here.”

  “Bring him,” Tyla insisted. She got out of the cart, and Bounder took the lead.

  Dark clouds were moving in, obscuring the night sky’s customary silvery sheen. It was as dark as the Fair Lands Amulet on a moonless night, Tyla thought as she hurried after the zek. Gusts of wind tore at her hair and clothing.

  “I’ve never seen a storm develop so fast,” Arenia shouted over the wind.

  “It isn’t a natural storm,” Tyla said, taking Arenia’s arm.

  Suddenly, the skies opened and cold rain fell in blinding sheets. Tyla clung to Arenia. Rain stung her face. “It’s not much farther.”

  Olissa ran past them with Loud Mouth cradled against her chest. Her clothes looked dry, so she must have created a protective field to shield them from the storm.

  Olissa had just reached the building when Tyla and Arenia caught up to her.

  “Give me a minute to check for wards,” Olissa said as they shivered in the cold. “All right. I think we’re safe.” She opened the door and Bounder darted through, almost knocking Olissa over in his haste to escape the storm. “Thanks for the ride,” Loud Mouth called as he flew inside.

  Tyla found it ironic that a couple of hours ago she had been trying to escape this very building, and now she was grateful to be back. Her clothing was soaked, strands of wet hair clung to her face, and if she wasn’t already wet enough, Bounder shook himself, sending water in all directions.

  Broken crockery lay on the floor along with damaged crates and a few kegs. The gem masters had left their makeshift table behind, and Loud Mouth cried, “Dinner!” when he spotted crumbs on the table. “I may as well enjoy what’s left of their last meal.”

  Serrom and Bentiz came in, hauling Tabik between them, and dumped him on the floor. Everyone else arrived a moment later, and Olissa latched the door once they were in so it wouldn’t blow open.

  “Somebody, close that window,” Olissa called.

  Rain was blowing in, soaking the floor. Adin ran and closed it.

  Wind whistled around the building. Rain pounded on the roof. Tyla looked up. So far, the roof wasn’t leaking.

  Riven crossed the room to look at Pren’s body. “When you said the fellow was burned to cinders, Tyla, you weren’t exaggerating.”

  It still bothered her that he had died in such a horrible way.

  “He had to be stopped—permanently,” said Arenia, seeing Tyla’s troubled expression.

  “Yes, but Emanicus gnomes usually neutralize their enemies. They don’t kill them.” The Guardian had no misgivings about killing. If anyone was to blame for Pren’s gruesome death it was Marrid, but Tyla still felt responsible.

  “You look a little pale, Tyla. You’d better sit down.” Olissa dragged a keg over, and Tyla sat. “We need to get used to the idea of killing our enemies. We can’t capture them all and lock them up.”

  Tyla supposed that was true, but when she’d pictured war, she’d imagined gem power battles that injured or incapacitated the enemy. She hadn’t pictured dead bodies littering the ground. Deep down, she knew nothing but death would stop The Emanicus and their Outcast allies, but she didn’t like to think about it. And she definitely didn’t want to think about friends and family members dying, but that was the nature of war.

  “Wonder if he had any valuables on him,” Serrom said. Unwilling to handle the body, he and Bentiz used slats from a broken crate to roll it over. Serrom crouched down. “Olissa, we found something. You’d better take a look at these.”

  Everyone gathered around. There were several gems on the floor. Olissa inspected them without touching them.

  “Two have the characteristic mottled coloring of negative energy gems. The other three should be safe to touch, but they might be Dark gems, too.” She picked them up. “No, they aren’t malevolent gems. If they were, I’d get a cold, queasy feeling.”

  “Are you going to keep them?” Riven asked.

  “Sure. They’re rare, whatever they are. The gem masters were in a hurry and didn’t look under the body or they would have found them.”

  “Let’s search the rest of the place,” Adin said. “Who knows what else they overlooked.”

  The group checked every nook and cranny, but there was nothing of interest.

  “The roof is starting to leak,” Bentiz announced, wiping his face.

  “If this building weren’t stone, the whole place would be leaking. I’ve never seen it rain so hard,” Serrom said.

  “Neither have I.” Adin went to the window and squinted into the darkness. “Is that snow?”

  “Can’t be,” Riven said. “We never get snow here.”

  “We do now.”

  Tyla went to see. She’d seen snow in the Fair Lands Amulet, but never here. The climate was far too mild. Tyla sighed. “She’s right. It’s snowing.”

  Everyone wanted to see it, including Bounder and Loud Mouth, so Olissa opened the door, and an icy blast swept through the room. The ground was white. It was snowing so hard it was impossible to see father than a few feet. Tyla felt sorry for the maraku.

  “Close the door!
” Loud Mouth screeched.

  Olissa shut and latched it. “We may be here awhile. When the snow melts, it will be a muddy mess out there.”

  The building was growing colder, and the roof was leaking in several places now. Tyla was cold, wet, and miserable, and before long she added hungry to the list.

  “We’ll all be sick if we have to stay in wet clothing for hours,” Adin said.

  Serrom rubbed his arms for warmth. “There’s no corrustone here, and if they left any outside, we’d never find it in the snow.”

  Suddenly, inspiration struck. “My knife!” Tyla cried. “Elias told me I’d need that rare gem someday.” She had everyone’s attention now.

  “What gem?” Olissa asked.

  “The one that produces heat and cold.”

  Before, when she’d tried to use it, nothing had happened, but Elias claimed that if she was truly in need, she’d make it work. He had better be right. Now that she’d told everyone her knife could produce heat, the pressure was on.

  Willing her knife to understand she needed heat, she thought of that gem and drew its power. Immediately, she felt the air grow warmer, and yet the knife remained cool to the touch. More excited than she cared to let on, she said calmly, “It worked.”

  After ten minutes or so, the building reached a comfortable temperature. She couldn’t continually draw power to keep the building warm, but she could use the gem periodically.

  “Now that we’re all warm and comfortable, I hate to bring this up, but we need food from the cart, and we should check the maraku,” Olissa said. “Any volunteers?”

  Hungry or not, no one wanted to go out into the storm.

  “Serrom?” Olissa said, trying to make it sound like a request rather than an order.

  Serrom looked out the window. “Assuming I find the cart, I might not be able to find my way back.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Bounder said. “I can follow our scent and guide us back.”

  “I’d better go too,” Bentiz said reluctantly. “One person can’t carry much.”

  “I’ll let you borrow my arapoll gem,” Olissa said. “The field only surrounds the user, and it won’t keep out the cold, but one of you will be dry.”

  “You use it,” Serrom told Bentiz. “We can’t have our driver getting sick.”