He left the door unlatched and made his way down to the main hall, where Kheeta was making excuses to their Akhendi visitor.
“Good morning,” Thero said, coming forward to greet their guest. “What brings you here at this hour?”
The man bowed. “Greetings, Thero í Procepios. Amali ä Yassara wishes to examine the Akhendi charm Seregil brought her. She is feeling quite strong this morning.”
The charm! Thero reached for the pouch at his belt, then frowned. Seregil had had it last; in all the confusion caused by Magyana’s letter, Thero hadn’t thought to get it back from him.
“You should have said so!” exclaimed Kheeta, already halfway to the stairway again. “I’m sure they won’t mind being disturbed for that.”
“Let me,” Thero said quickly, regretting his own ruse. “I’ll send him to you as soon as he’s”—here he gave Kheeta a hard look—“awake.”
“There; this is the one,” Seregil called out happily, squinting down yet another unremarkable side road.
Beka stifled a groan. Except for the flock of kutka pecking morning grit in the tall grass, it looked just like all the other sidetracks he’d halted for this morning.
“The last one you were this sure of cost us half an hour’s ride in the wrong direction,” Alec pointed out, far more patiently than Beka could have managed.
“No, this is the one,” he insisted. “See that boulder there?” He pointed to a large grey rock a few yards down the road on the right. “What does that look like to you?”
Beka gripped the reins more tightly. “Look, I’m hungry and I don’t remember when I last slept—”
“I’m serious. What does it look like to you?” He was grinning madly now, and she wondered how long it had been since he’d had any rest himself.
Alec met her questioning look with his usual shrug, then turned his attention to the rock in question.
It was about six feet long, four high, and roughly oval in shape. The end facing them narrowed sharply into a pair of even concave depressions that made it look almost like—
“A bear?” she ventured, wondering if she was losing her mind, too. The narrowed end did have the look of a low-set head, with the smooth curve of a bear’s back rising up behind it.
“I see it,” chuckled Alec. “We seem to be haunted by bears. This is your landmark?”
“Yes,” Seregil replied, clearly relieved. “Damn, I’d forgotten about it until I saw it just now. If you look closely, you can still make out where someone painted eyes on it. But this used to be a well-traveled route. There were several villages up in the hills, and a Dravnian trading camp beyond.”
“It can’t be seeing much traffic these days,” Beka said, still doubtful. Foot-high saplings choked the narrow, weed-grown track.
“That’s good,” said Seregil. “The fewer people we run into, the better I’ll like it. Thero isn’t the only one who can send messages by magic, you know.” He glanced up at the sun. “It’s getting late. We should be further along by now.”
Without dismounting, he and Alec shifted their saddles and gear to two of the stolen horses and climbed across. It took some managing, and Beka’s help with the girths, but this way they left no telltale footprints for a tracker to read.
Beka fixed the reins of their cast-off mounts to her saddle with long lead ropes, letting the horses move with some independence. If anyone was tracking them, the signs would show that the “traveling companions” they’d joined up with the previous night had gone their own way while the three dispatch riders went on down the main road.
“Keep out of sight as long as you can,” Seregil warned, clasping hands with her. “You can’t get through the mountains without a guide, so you’re trapped on this side.”
“You worry about yourselves,” she replied. “I’ll just keep on this way as far as I can go, then strike off wherever seems best. I’ll stay out another two days. After that, no matter what, I head back to Klia. The worst anyone will do if they do catch me is haul me back to Sarikali anyway. What will you do, after you’ve talked to Korathan?”
Seregil shrugged. “Stay with him, I expect, though it may be in chains. If I have my way, he’ll set sail back to Skala directly.”
“Then I’ll see you both there,” she said brightly, fighting back a surge of foreboding.
Alec gave her a wry smile. “Luck in the shadows, Watcher.”
“And to you both.” She sat her horse as they started up the road. Seregil disappeared around the first bend without a backward glance. Alec paused to wave, then followed.
“Luck in the shadows,” she whispered again. Leading her string of horses on up the main road, she set her face for the mountains.
The road got no better as Alec and Seregil went on, but it was open enough for them to canter single file. Several miles on, they came to the remains of the first village, and Seregil paused to make a quick circuit.
Some of the cottages had burned down; the rest were slowly falling apart. Small trees and weeds were encroaching rapidly on the broad clearing, sprouting up in disused garden plots and doorways.
Looking inside one of the houses, Alec found only a few bits of broken crockery. “Looks like the villagers picked up and left.”
Seregil rode over and passed him a dripping water skin. “No trade, no livelihood. At least the well’s still clear.”
Alec drank, then rummaged in his pack for a strip of dried meat. “I wonder if we’ll be able to find fresh horses along the way?”
“We’ll manage,” Seregil said, studying the clouds. “If we hurry, we can make the second village before nightfall. I’d rather spend the night under a roof, if we can manage it. It’s still early enough in the year for it to be damn cold at night up here.”
Just beyond the village they struck a broad outcropping, steep and treacherous with loose rock and threaded with little rivulets from a spring above it. A few cairns still marked the way to several trails that continued on from here.
They gave their horses their heads, letting them pick their way carefully up the slope. Looking back over his shoulder, Alec saw that the animal’s unshod hooves left almost no marks in passing. It was going to take one fine tracker to catch them, he thought with satisfaction.
“I don’t have it! I destroyed it, burned it up in the fire,” Amali sobbed, cowering back against the bed. She’d started out defiant but quickly dissolved into tears. It made her seem even younger than she was, and Rhaish hesitated, wondering if he had the resolve to strike her if it came to that.
“Don’t lie to me! I must have it,” he said sternly, looming over her. “If my fears are correct, you may already be found out. Why else would Seregil not have come by now?”
“Why won’t you tell me what this is about?” she sobbed, instinctively shielding her belly with both hands.
The gesture broke his heart, and he slumped down on the bed beside her. “For the sake of Akhendi, and for our child, you must give me the rest of it if you still have it. I know you too well, my love. You would never destroy another’s handiwork.” He fought to keep the rising desperation from his voice. “You must let me protect you, as I always have.”
Amali stifled another sob as she crawled off the bed and went to a workbox on her dressing table. Opening it, she lifted out a tray of charm-making goods and reached beneath it. “Here, and may you make better use of it than I did!” She threw the woven bracelet at his feet.
Rhaish bent to pick it up, recalling a similar moment four nights earlier. He pushed the thought away with a shudder, knowing himself damned.
The knot work on this bracelet was simple but well done; some magic still lingered despite the loss of the charm, strong enough to hold both the memory of its maker, a peasant woman from one of the mountain villages, and that of the young man it had been made for. Alec í Amasa’s khi had permeated the fibers as surely as his sweat.
Amali was still weeping. Ignoring her for the moment, Rhaish sat down in a chair by the bed and pressed the b
racelet between his hands, speaking a spell. The bracelet throbbed against his palms. Closing his eyes, he caught a glimpse of Alec and his surroundings, saw dripping boughs close overhead, distant peaks just visible through a break in the trees. Saw Seregil riding beside him, gesturing at something—a large, oddly shaped boulder that Rhaish recognized immediately.
Realization knocked the breath from his lungs, and he fell back in his chair. They did know! Klia must know, or why else would she have sent them, of all people, for the northern coast?
Cold hands clasped his, and he looked down into Amali’s tear-streaked face as she knelt before him. “You must return home, talía. Say nothing of any of this, and go home.”
“I only meant to help,” she whispered, picking up the fallen bracelet and looking at it in horrified wonder. “What have I done, my love?”
“Nothing the Lightbearer has not ordained.” Rhaish stroked her cheek gently, glad of her warmth against his thighs. He was cold, chilled to the bone despite the sunlight that had broken through the clouds. “Go on now, and prepare our house for my return. Your wait will not be long.”
His legs shook as he stepped out into the deserted garden, heedless of how the wet grass soaked his slippers and the hem of his robe. Sitting down in Amali’s arbor, he pressed the bracelet between his hands again, stealing glance after glance at the runaways as long as his strength allowed, until he’d seen enough to guess where they were headed.
Folding his hands, he rested a moment, feeling the comforting power of Sarikali seeping into him from the ground and air, replenishing him. He cupped his hands, picturing a distant village and the men he trusted there, while an orb of silvery light formed in the cage of his fingers. When he’d thought his message into it, he touched it and it whisked way, carrying what he hoped were the right words to the right ears.
Watching him from behind the window hangings, Amali dried her tears and prepared to send out a similar spell. “Aura protect us,” she whispered when she finished, praying that this time she acted rightly.
40
GAMBIT
Despite all Thero’s precautions, the storm broke far sooner than he’d hoped. He was helping Mydri change Klia’s dressings at midmorning when Corporal Kallas hurried in, looking worried.
“There’s trouble next door, my lord. I think you’d better come.”
A small crowd had gathered outside Adzriel’s house. She stood in the doorway with Säaban as she faced the Haman khirnari. Beside him stood the formidable Lhaär ä Iriel, her face a mask of righteous indignation behind her tattoos.
“He would never have left without speaking to you!” Nazien í Hari said, leveling an accusing finger at her.
“You know as well as I that the ban of exile cut him off from clan and family,” Adzriel retorted coldly. “There is no claim of atui on Bôkthersa in this. Even if there were, I can tell you nothing of where he’s gone or why, for I do not know. I swear it by Aura’s own light.”
“There’s the wizard!” someone else shouted, and the unfriendly crowd turned its collective glare on Thero.
“Where is Seregil of Rhíminee?” Lhaär demanded, and he could see a faint corona of power glinting around her. His heart sank; she might not read thoughts, but no simulacrum of his was going to fool those sharp eyes.
“He’s left the city,” he replied tersely. “I don’t know where he’s gone.” That was true enough after a fashion. Seregil had purposely not revealed his route.
“Why did they leave?” demanded the Akhendi khirnari, stepping into view for the first time accompanied by the Silmai and Ra’basi khirnari. Thero quailed inwardly, all his precautions useless. How could they all have found out so quickly?
He scanned the crowd, seeking one more familiar face beneath a Ra’basi sen’gai. Nyal was nowhere to be found.
“I cannot tell you why he left, Khirnari. Perhaps the strain of his situation here took more of a toll than any of us realized.”
“Nonsense!” snorted Brythir. “Your queen and your princess both vouched for him as a man of character. I have judged him to be the same. He would not simply run off! You must answer to the Iia’sidra regarding this. I’ll expect to see you and your household there at once!”
“Forgive me, Khirnari, but that is not possible.” An ugly murmur spread through the crowd, and Thero was glad suddenly for the soldiers at his back. “Princess Klia lies close to death, poisoned by an Aurënfaie hand. We now have reason to believe that Torsin’s death was not a natural one, either. I will attend the Iia’sidra as soon as they can be assembled, but I cannot in good conscience allow any other member of this household to leave here as long as she remains in danger.”
“Torsin murdered?” The old khirnari blinked up at him. “You said nothing of this before.”
“We believed the murderer might reveal himself by his own guilty knowledge.”
“Do you know who this murderer is?” the Khatme khirnari demanded, looking skeptical.
“I can say nothing of that, as yet,” Thero replied, letting the others take that as they would, and hoping it would deflect attention from Seregil’s disappearance.
“Come then, Wizard,” Brythir told him, motioning for Thero to follow.
“You don’t mean to go alone?” Sergeant Braknil whispered, moving in beside him.
“Stay here, all of you,” Thero told him calmly. “Klia’s safety is all that matters now. Send the Bôkthersans back to Adzriel with my thanks, and then set siege guard.” He paused, halfway down the stairs. “Release Sergeant Mercalle back to duty, too. We need everyone we can get.”
“Thank you, my lord. She’s loyal to Skala, whatever else you may think of her actions.” Raising his voice, Braknil added, “Take care, my lord. Send word if you need us—for anything.”
“I’m sure that won’t be necessary, Sergeant.” Going down the stairs, Thero joined the khirnari. Adzriel lingered with the others in front of her own door, but gave him a small smile as he passed. Encouragement, perhaps, or complicity?
Most of the Iia’sidra were waiting in the great chamber when they arrived. For the first time, Thero took the seat of honor in the circle, marooned in silence. Those around him spoke in low tones or behind their hands, casting occasional glances in his direction.
Ulan í Sathil was there but appeared uninterested in the whole affair. A great crowd of Haman had accompanied Nazien, and Thero recognized a good many of Emiel’s companions among them. They looked to be out for blood.
Adzriel entered last with a contingent of twenty, taking her place in the circle with her husband at her side.
There was no ceremony or ringing of chimes today; this was a private matter between Skala and Haman. The others had gathered only to witness.
Nazien í Hari stepped forward as soon as the last of the khirnari had taken their seats, and to his credit displayed little satisfaction as he announced, “Before this body, I claim teth’sag against Seregil the Exile, formerly Seregil of Bôkthersa, and against all those who aid and abet him. He has violated vows given for his return and I claim the vengeance that is Haman’s right.”
“How convenient for you,” sneered Iriel ä Kasrai of Bry’kha. “Seregil might have found proof of your nephew’s guilt if he’d stayed around a bit longer.”
“Silence!” snapped Brythir. “It is as Nazien í Hari says. The Iia’sidra itself could not deny them this right. Seregil knew this. He has made his choice and his former clan must make good their vow of atui.”
“The guilt or innocence of Emiel í Moranthi has no bearing on this,” Nazien proclaimed. “As khirnari of Haman, and as the grandfather of the man the Exile murdered, I have no choice. I demand that the Bôkthersans administer justice under the law.”
Adzriel stood, pale but unbowed. “Justice shall be yours, Khirnari.” Mydri and Säaban remained stoic, but behind them, Kheeta and several others covered their faces.
The Silmai turned next to him. “Now, Thero í Procepios, I demand that you explain Seregil’s
disappearance. Why did he leave, and who helped him?”
“I regret that I can tell you nothing,” Thero said again, and took his seat amid the expected outcry.
A lone figure detached itself from the shadows near the door and entered the circle. Here was Nyal at last.
“I think you will find it was Alec í Amasa and the Skalan captain who accompanied Seregil,” he announced, not looking in Thero’s direction.
You skulking cur! the wizard thought, sick with rage. So that was how the Haman had gotten word so quickly.
Ulan í Sathil rose, and a hush fell over the chamber. Tarnished as his honor might be, he still commanded respect. “Perhaps the more immediate question we should be asking is why he left,” he said. “This sudden and inexplicable flight makes no sense. Though I have no great love for the man, even I must admit that the Exile has acquitted himself well since his arrival here. He has won the respect, perhaps even the support, of many and enjoyed the company of his former kin. Why then, in the midst of his own investigations against my clan and the Haman, should he suddenly commit so gross an act of disloyalty?” He paused, then added, “Why, indeed, unless he or the Skalans have something to hide?”
“What are you implying?” demanded Adzriel.
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