Deniably Dead (Arucadi Series Book 4)

by E. Rose Sabin

  Lore considered. Two men. Not bad odds, but with his and Camsen’s power at low ebb, and given Shiny’s size and musculature, what could they do to intimidate them? Not much. At least Blue wasn’t built like Shiny. Still, he didn’t like the possibility of having to take them on with just their physical strength. But he had other questions for Jeppy. “What about our supplies? And the coffin?”

  “Thornbridge—he’s our leader—had us divvy up the supplies. He gets the biggest share, but for now he just took some of the food and water in his saddlebags, and the rest of the stuff is stored in a cave. Thornbridge and two of the guys went to get a pack mule to load up with the rest of the stuff. They’re supposed to be back by dark.”

  “And the coffin?” Lore prompted.

  Jeppy shifted from foot to foot. “When we saw what was in it, we was all ready to wring Ril’s scrawny neck.” He paused and glared at the stable boy, who ducked behind Camsen. “None of us wanted to touch the dead lady at first. Thorny just pushed the coffin over on its side and dumped her out onto the ground so’s he could see was anything under her. He even ripped out the cloth lining, and when he still didn’t find anything, he checked to see was there a false bottom or anything. He got real mad when nothing turned up. That’s when Ril there took off running. Thornbridge told us to chop up the coffin for firewood. Then he sent me and Cruze and Munch chasing after Ril.” He paused and shuddered before lowering his head and adding, “And now Cruze and Munch are dead, and who knows who’s next?”

  Who indeed? Without any way left to defend themselves, Lore feared it could well be he and Camsen. Their best chance was to recover their horses so they could escape, so he asked, “How many horses do you have left here, and where are they?”

  “Just three. Thorny said the ones of us that came in the wagon would have to double up on the horses ’cause we couldn’t take the wagon any farther. It’d be too easy to find us in it.” Jeppy raised his head and looked at Lore. “Say, how’d you get here so quick anyway? We figgered we had a good head start. You got more horses down by the wagon?”

  By the eagerness in his voice, Lore guessed Jeppy envisioned a means of escape. He didn’t bother to answer. He was trying to think of how to get to the remaining horses, when he heard a loud whinny followed by a shout and the clattering of a horse’s hooves, moving away from them.

  “They must be leaving me,” Jeppy yelled. “No! They can’t!” He ran toward the camp before Lore could act to stop him.

  Camsen pushed Ril at Lore and said, “I still have something I can do with the smoke from their fire.” He dashed after Jeppy.

  Guessing Camsen’s intention, Lore followed at a slower pace, dragging an unwilling Ril with him.

  “What’s he gonna do?” Ril whined. “Burn ’em all up?”

  “No. Lead me to the horses. Quick!”

  Ril pointed and he and Lore headed in the indicated direction, while Camsen stopped on the edge of the clearing. Jeppy ran on, and Shiny came barreling toward him.

  Apparently not noticing Lore and Ril circling the area, Shiny homed in on Jeppy. “That fool Blue,” he bellowed. “I was gonna throw the corpse onto the fire. He snatched it, yelled, ‘She’s too pretty to burn up. I want her,’ and grabbed a horse, threw her across it, got on behind her, and took off. Now we only got two horses left for all the rest of us.”

  “Two’s enough,” Jeppy yelled. “Come on, before they kill us.”

  “Who? What’re you talking about?” He looked around.

  A dragon, black as smoke, flew toward him, blocking his view of Lore and Ril. Jeppy screamed and he and Shiny ran in a direction away from the horses, thanks to the way Camsen was manipulating the smoke dragon so it seemed to be chasing them.

  The horses were tied to stakes driven into the ground. Ril helped Lore untie them, and on Lore’s order helped him onto the back of one. He grabbed the reins of the other. He trusted Camsen to delay Shiny and Jeppy as long as he could, but he didn’t know how long it would take them to figure out that the dragon was only formed of smoke and couldn’t harm them. He headed back to Camsen.

  “Don’t leave me behind,” Ril screamed.

  Ignoring the boy’s cries, Lore reached Camsen and tossed him the reins of the second horse. But the former priest was no horseman. He couldn’t mount until Ril reached him, panting from racing after Lore, and laced his fingers together so Camsen could step on them and manage awkwardly to climb onto the horse. He almost fell off again when he leaned down to help Ril up in front of him.

  “Better give me the reins,” the boy said.

  Seeing Camsen’s awkwardness, Lore didn’t wait but urged his horse into a gallop in pursuit of Blue. He called back over his shoulder, “Get back to the wagon.”

  Could Camsen even hear him over the pounding hooves? It didn’t matter. He was driven to rescue Kyla. Dead or alive, she must be recovered—and quickly, before that ugly brute defiled her.

  §

  All the way to the wagon Camsen listened for sounds of pursuit and feared he was missing them because of the noise of the horse’s hooves clattering over stones. He might as well have walked and led the horse, the progress was so slow. How could Lore make better progress over the rough terrain throughout the area? He could only hope Lore would take care and not proceed with his usual recklessness. He understood the urgency driving the younger man, but this was no safe area in which to race a horse. And while Lore might have a bit more experience with riding a horse than he had, it probably wasn’t much.

  “They aren’t coming after us, I don’t think,” Ril volunteered. “That Shiny’s a bully, but that dragon thing you made scared him real bad.”

  “I hope he’s scared badly enough not to come after us, but I can’t count on it.” Camsen slowed the horse even more for a steep descent. “I think we’d better slip off and walk beside the horse. I don’t want the horse to stumble and throw us. Riding won’t get us back to the road any faster, given all these loose rocks.”

  They both dismounted, and Camsen led the horse carefully along. Ril trailed after him and kept looking back over his shoulder. The decision to dismount proved a wise one when they came to the charred bodies of the two men killed by Camsen’s fire. He regretted having had to kill them, but he felt sure they would have had no hesitation about killing him and Lore.

  The horse shied as they passed the bodies, and it was all Camsen could do to hold on to him and prevent his bolting. Once past that death scene, they continued to the road with little difficulty, though they remained on foot.

  By this time the afternoon was drawing to a close, night would soon fall, and Camsen badly needed rest. He did not trust Ril not to abscond with the horse while he slept. He needed to tie Ril securely to prevent the boy’s escape, but he had no rope. They had included rope in the stores they had packed in the wagon, but that was now in the possession of the thieves.

  Not for that reason alone did he think longingly of the stores now hidden somewhere near the robbers’ encampment. He’d eaten nothing since breakfast, and had expended so much energy casting fire and creating the smoke dragon illusion that now hunger gnawed at him. But he had nothing with which to satisfy it or his growing thirst.

  In the morning he intended to return to the encampment and get Ril’s help carrying the goods back to the wagon, but that plan depended on his getting a good sleep tonight so that his power would be built up and he could use it to overcome Shiny and Jeppy. He hoped to recover the coffin as well as the supplies, so that if Lore caught up with Blue and recovered Kyla, she could be returned to her coffin-bed and their mission could continue. If Lore failed—well, Camsen didn’t want to think about that. Failure would, of course, change everything. But Lore was young and strong, and Blue was burdened with Kyla’s body, so Camsen judged the odds to be in his favor.

  CHAPTER SIX

  HORSE AND RIDER

  Zauna glanced up from her crystal ball just long enough to shake her head at Renni. “There’s no use asking me what’s ha
ppening every few minutes. I’ll tell you when anything changes.”

  Renni sighed. “I know. I’m sorry. It’s just so hard being stuck here not able to do anything.”

  “Well, we discovered that I can mindsend, at least to Lore and by you sharing power with me. I don’t know whether I could reach Lore without your help. And could I reach Camsen or does it only work with Lore? And you might not always be close enough to feed me power in an emergency. We need to try doing it separately, so I can warn Lore of danger. Camsen, too, except that I can’t keep both of them in view at the same time, and I have problems trying to go from one to the other. Crystal seeing just doesn’t work that way. It shows me what I need to see more than what I want to see. Right now it’s staying focused on Lore, and all I can tell you is that he’s still riding too fast over rough ground. and the horse will go lame if he doesn’t kill it first. He needs to slow down.”

  “Let’s see if you can send him a warning.” Renni moved into position behind her.

  After a short silence, Zauna said, “I warned him of that. I don’t know if he got the message. He hasn’t paid any attention to it.” Shaking her head, Zauna went back to staring into the crystal orb. She’d been at it so long, her eyes were sore, and her muscles were cramped from sitting in one position for hours. She needed to rise and stretch for a moment and rest her eyes just a bit, but Renni would complain if she deserted her post even briefly.

  A thought popped into her head. “Renni, there’s something that might distract you a bit and also prove useful. It’s a little book the old woman who sold me the crystal ball tucked into the box along with it. Let me get it for you.” Zauna stood and, giving Renni no chance to object, went to the corner of the room where she had carefully stowed the box and packing material that had held the crystal. She pawed through the packing material and came up with a small, thin book. “Here it is!” she announced triumphantly. “Of course I haven’t had time to read it, but Allie said we’d find it useful.”

  She brought it to Renni, who’d risen from her seat on the bed. Renni accepted the book and sat back down, regarding it dubiously. She read the title aloud: “A Compendium of Mage Gifts, Compiled by Mage Samnor After Long and Careful Research and Lengthy Interviews with All Known Mages Throughout the Land.”

  She opened the book and flipped through it. “It’s just a long list,” she said, her forehead wrinkling in disgust. “Looks like it just gives the names of a lot of old mages and what powers they had and, in some cases, comments by the author. I don’t see what use it is.”

  “Remember, Kyla told you she thought you had abilities you hadn’t yet discovered.” Zauna placed her hands on her hips and gave Renni a stern look. “That list may give you ideas of things you can try. We’re going to need all the abilities we can muster to get Kyla back and reach our destination safely.”

  “We also need to keep track of what Lore and Camsen are doing,” Renni said, nodding pointedly toward the crystal ball.

  “I’ll get back to work in just a moment,” Zauna said. “But instead of just sitting there asking over and over what the crystal’s showing me, you can read that book and test the powers listed there. You might find a special gift, maybe more than one, that will help us recover Kyla or maybe save Camsen and Lore.”

  “All right, I’ll try,” Renni said grudgingly. “Just please keep crystal gazing, and tell me when anything happens.”

  “Something is always happening,” Zauna said, returning to her chair. After one final good stretch, she lowered herself onto the seat, pulled it into the table. “The hard thing is to understand and interpret what I see. I need to concentrate, and I can do that more accurately if you aren’t always asking me what I see. So you study that book, and I promise I’ll tell you when the crystal shows me anything important, any change in what Lore or Camsen is doing. Who knows? I judge Allie to be a powerful seer, and she may have given me this book foreseeing that it would be the key to saving us all.” She added the last as an appeal to Renni’s at times all-too-obvious longing to accomplish some marvelous feat.

  Her ploy worked. Renni settled back on the bed, the small book open in her hand. And she must have become engrossed in reading its list of magical abilities, because Zauna’s intent study of the changing scenes within her crystal proceeded for some time without interruption.

  §

  First Kyla and later her friend Marta had shared accounts with the Port-of-Lords Community of the Gifted of amazing feats of magical power they had observed or in some cases had personally experienced on occasions when Claid or Alair had infused them with power beyond their normal capacities. Renni had thought those accounts must surely be exaggerated until she witnessed some astounding feats in their recent struggle with evil powers. But as she perused the little book’s dry lists, she found in those lists abilities she had never imagined enumerated along with far more common, even mundane, gifts.

  The author’s comments sometimes mentioned situations in which these arcane abilities had been used, but rarely gave any explanation of how they might have been developed. One entry listed the ability to duplicate oneself. The author’s comment shed little light on how this incredible feat was accomplished. It stated merely, “This ability requires the use of a mirror.” Renni glanced at the mirror over the dresser, but rejected any attempt to reproduce such a talent. She’d only succeed in looking foolish.

  Another listed talent intrigued her almost as much—the ability to animate a figure carved of wood or stone in the likeness of a man or woman or an animal. What power these early mages must have possessed to do such things! She found it hard to believe that even the most gifted mage could accomplish anything like those, but the author claimed to have witnessed many, even most of the abilities included on his list.

  A sudden sense of urgency made her scan the list rapidly, searching for some talent that struck a chord, something reasonable. There! The ability to call animals and to control them. That might be a talent she could learn. She’d lived on a farm. She knew and liked animals. She’d always been good with them.

  But what good would the talent be in their present situation? It might help them recover their horses, but she’d have to be in the area where the horses were, and to get there she’d need a horse.

  Hmm. The inn had quite a few guests. At least one or two of them might have arrived in horse-drawn conveyances, and in that case would have boarded the horses in the inn’s stable. Visitors to Marquez generally arrived by train, but she and her companions had encountered some who, like them, had come by road in horse-drawn wagons.

  “Zauna,” she began, and at the older woman’s frown of annoyance quickly added, “I’m sorry to break your concentration, but I have to ask you this.” When Zauna nodded, Renni proceeded. “I want you to try to mindsend to me. I need to learn whether I can at least receive a message sent to me.”

  Zauna leaned back and rubbed her eyes. “Remember, when I sent to Lore, you were sharing power with me.”

  “But we don’t know whether you needed it. You might have been able to do it without that. Let’s find out,” Renni said. “You need a break from looking into your crystal ball. Your eyes are all red from staring into it so long.”

  “Yes, I’m sure they are. They’re tired and sore. But it doesn’t matter. We have to know where Lore and Camsen are and what they’re doing.”

  “Rest your eyes just a few minutes and listen to me,” Renni urged. “This book lists the gifts of all the ancient mages. I think it uses the term ‘mages,’ as a broad name to cover everyone we would call gifted. And the ability to send and receive mental messages looks to have been fairly common. And Kyla told me several times that she thought I probably had or might develop more abilities than just that of erasing memories. Maybe since I shared power when you mindsent, that will help me receive your messages, and maybe if I can receive, I’ll also be able to send.”

  “I’m willing to try,” Zauna said.

  “Good. I’m going to go outside shor
tly, and I may go some distance from here. But I’ll want to keep in touch with you to know what you’re seeing in the crystal. So right now, try sending me a message. Just think it very clearly, as though you were speaking.” Renni turned around, her back to Zauna.

  After several moments of silence, Renni urged, “Concentrate, Zauna, like you concentrate on seeing in your crystal ball. Ask the Power-Giver for help.”

  A few more silent moments, and then into Renni’s mind came the soft question, So you’re planning to leave me alone here?

  Repressing a shout of triumph, Renni sent back mentally, I may have to, Zauna. Aloud, she asked, “I got your message. Did you get my response?”

  “I did, but how do we know that what works when we’re in the same room will work at a distance?”

  “We’ll have to test it, and maybe practice a little. Send me another message now.”

  What are you planning?

  Renni decided to attempt a longer message. Taking a deep breath and concentrating, she sent, I’m going to try to steal a horse from the stable, if I find one there. I figure we were betrayed either by the innkeeper himself or someone working for him, so I don’t feel guilty about taking a horse that isn’t mine.

  To find Lore and Camsen? Zauna’s questioning response was clear. She’d received the message!

  Continuing to concentrate, Renni sent back, To find one or the other, or both if they are together. But your crystal gazing indicates they’ve separated.

  You must remember that what the crystal shows me isn’t necessarily what is happening at the present time. It may show something in the past or in the future. Renni interpreted Zauna’s sending to be prelude to an objection. Instead, the message continued, Regardless, we have to assume that it’s showing us what is happening in the present. In that case, you need to hurry. Lore is racing the horse through woods, over rough ground. He’s too intent on catching the thug who stole Kyla to be careful. I fear he’s in danger.

  “All right. I’m on my way.” Renni spoke aloud without at first realizing it, she was so pleased by Zauna’s ability to send such a long thought and hers to receive it. “Keep practicing so you can send over distance,” she added. “And let’s hope I find a horse.” She left the room without taking time to explain further.