"You broke free?" asked Rialla.
He shook his head, smiling at the memory. "No. I struggled for a while, but the man who'd tied the rope didn't want me to live. I was contemplating my probable fate when an old woman came upon me. She poked her finger in my face and said, 'Look you, I have a bargain for you. You are a healer, and I have need of such. I have a knife, which you need as desperately.' " Tris grinned at Rialla. "She was so scared her finger trembled with it, but she didn't let her fear stop her. When I agreed to help, she cut the rope; so here I am."
"How did she know you were a healer?" asked Rialla.
"She has a gift that occasionally allows her to see such things."
Rialla nodded, accepting his answer. "Do you like it here among humans?"
He nodded slowly. "Better than the enclave. They were wrong. It is an evil thing to have the power to help others, and not to do so."
"Is that why you helped rescue Laeth?" asked Rialla.
Tris gave her an enigmatic look then shrugged. "Part of it."
He rose restlessly from the bed and gave Rialla a hand up off the floor. Her leg had stiffened, so he helped her hobble to the bed. Then he slid the closet door closed, picked up the plate and waved the lights down.
"Good dreams, healer," said Riaila.
He nodded and pulled the door closed behind him.
"So what will Lord Winterseine do with a newly recovered runaway?" They were deep into a game of Dragon that Rialla was winning when Tris spoke. Over the past few days, they had played a game whenever Tris had a moment to spare; not that Rialla minded. She enjoyed the game as much as he did—even if he won most of the time.
"You're just trying to distract me," she complained at his interruption. "This is the first time I've had a ghost of a chance of winning since the first game we played, and now you want to take even that away from me."
"You are getting paranoid, aren't you?" He commiserated with deepest sympathy. Rialla flashed him a rude hand gesture before she turned back to the game board.
Tris laughed, then said, "Seriously, Rialla, he's not going to hamstring you or beat you, is he?"
Rialla moved her frog to an empty square on the board, and shook her head. "No. That happens sometimes in Ynstrah and some of the provinces in the Alliance where they depend on slave labor in their agriculture. Occasionally they'll hamstring a runaway here, but only one of the less valuable slaves—more to serve as an example than to keep the slave they've crippled from running again. A dancer is too valuable to damage that way."
She smiled dryly at Tris. "That's not to say that he'll let me go unpunished. The Master has an aptitude for creative retribution."
Tris was staring at the game, but Rialla had the feeling that he wasn't really seeing it. He finally moved a piece and looked up. "Are you sure that you want to go back? You're paying an awfully high price for a chance at vengeance."
Rialla nodded, moving the frog again. "It'll be worth it if it works. If it doesn't…" she shrugged. "There are other reasons as well. You told me that you've traveled. Have you ever been on the other side of the Great Swamp?''
Tris shook his head.
Rialla shifted on the bed, trying to find a comfortable position for her leg. "Did you ever wonder why Sianim is so anxious to stop the fighting between Reth and Darran?"
He raised an eyebrow and shook his head. "I should have. It is hardly in Sianim's best interest to prevent wars."
"Exactly. When the Spy master called me in to persuade me to accompany Laeth here, he explained his reasoning. Apparently there is a good possibility that there will be an invasion coming from the eastern side of the Great Swamp."
"There are always wars among humans," commented Tris. "I would have thought that Sianim, with its mercenary hoards, would be delighted at the thought of another one."
Sometimes Tris had a way of making the word "human" sound like a name that gutter-bred children called each other to start a fight. Since he seemed not to hold her humanness against her, Rialla let it pass unremarked.
"I would have thought so too," she agreed readily. "But this isn't just any invading force. It's an army that has conquered all the nations in the East in something less than a decade. The leader of the armies is a man who calls himself the Voice of Altis. He claims to be a prophet of the god Altis, and the religious revival is spreading faster than his armies. The Spymaster thinks that the only way to resist the invasion will be to unite all the Western countries against him; and he has a nasty habit of being right."
"So he supports the alliance of Reth and Darran," said Tris.
Rialla nodded and continued, "None of this would have much bearing on what I'm going to be doing at Winterseine's hold, except for one thing. The people of the East apparently do not believe in magic; it's been so long since they've had wizards that they've long since dismissed the existence of magic as a child's fable.
"The 'miracles' the Voice of Altis performs as a prophet of the old god bear a striking resemblance to the accomplishments of a trained magician. The Spymaster believes that the Voice is a trained mage from this side of the Swamp." Rialla met Tris's gaze. "And I think I might have found him."
"Winterseine," said Tris.
She nodded her head. "If it's true, then maybe something can be done to prevent the invasion altogether. Laeth and I discovered enough of a link between Winterseine and this self-proclaimed prophet that even if he's not the Voice of Altis, he almost certainly knows who is."
"I'm going with you," Tris announced calmly, as he moved his snake a space beyond her frog.
Gods, she thought, wishing she could accept: to have someone she trusted with her, to have the healer's steady presence, to not be alone.
"No," she replied, her voice steady, maneuvering her bird to take his snake if it tried to eat her frog.
"I'm afraid you don't have any voice in this," his tone was matter-of-fact as he moved the snake out of danger, taking her stag as he did so.
"What about your bargain with the old woman?"
"I've been at Tallonwood a little over two years," he replied. "The bargain was for one."
She opened her mouth to protest, but saw the resolution in his eyes. "Plague it, Tris. What are you doing this for?"
He gave her an odd smile, and she was abruptly reminded that he was not human. "I told you the woman who rescued me had a gift for seeing things others cannot. She told me I should help you accomplish your task."
"She just told you to help me, so you are?" asked Rialla incredulously.
"Nothing so neat. The future is not unchangeable, Rialla. Trenna gave me a goal, a hint of the possible results of a course of action. Enough to persuade me the goal is worth pursuit."
"You're not going to tell me why you are doing this, are you?" Rialla accused, but there was no heat in her voice.
"Of course," Tris said blandly, "as I explained to Laeth, I am loath to give up the first person I've found in a long time who is capable of defeating me at Dragon. Your move."
She gave the board a surprised look. "I thought I just moved; you must not have been watching."
He didn't take his gaze from her face. "I was watching; it's your move."
She shrugged and said, "I choose not to move."
He shook his head. "You chose that five moves ago; you can only do that every six moves. Your move."
She smiled, moved her sparrow two spaces to the right and said, "Fine. Theft."
He looked at the board. Her sparrow sat on the space with his dragon.
She raised an eyebrow at his exaggeratedly forlorn expression. "I told you that it wasn't my move, but when you insisted, you made it my move anyway."
"What did you move after I took your stag?"
She smiled sweetly. "Your dragon."
He laughed and raised his hands in mock surrender. "Thief. Your game."
"It was about time," she said darkly, helping him replace the pieces in the drawer.
"Now you only owe me two kingdoms, five horses
and twelve pigs."
"Four horses," she contested hotly.
"Five," he corrected. "You wagered five horses against the twelve pigs you lost before. It was supposed to be six horses, but you whined and I let it stand at five."
"Well," she said, "at least I got my fifty chickens back."
He started to answer, but the sound of the outer door opening and the frantic crying of an infant called him back to duty.
Alone, Rialla picked absently at the stitching on the bed covering. The week had passed far too quickly. Her leg was almost healed; Tris had taken the stitches out that morning. It still pained her when she used it too much, but every day it improved. Tomorrow morning she would leave with Lord Winterseine.
Perhaps, she thought, it was a good thing that she would soon be going. If she spent much longer with the healer, it would be too hard to go back to being a slave— and to survive, she had to be a slave again—not a Sianim horse trainer pretending to be a slave.
She raised her hand to her cheek, feeling the scar beneath the illusion. She couldn't feel the tattoo, but she knew it was there: nose to ear, jaw to cheekbone. Sometimes she had felt as if it were tattooed on her soul, that she could never be anything but a slave.
She allowed herself to be drawn out of her bout of self-pity by the sound of a loud, angry voice and the healer's quiet reply. The front door shut with a slam, and Tris stalked into the bedroom with a black scowl on his face.
"What's wrong?" she asked.
His glower deepened. "I just finished setting a broken bone for one of the hedgefarmer's sons."
"Hedgefarmer?"
"The hedgefarmers work the land in the hills and lower mountain slopes. It's poor land, and gives a marginal living at best—but that's no reason to break a child's arm. At least once a month I treat one of his children or his wife for miscellaneous bruises and broken bones. I've talked to him twice about it, and told him this was it. Next time he hits someone weaker than he is, I'll see to it that he won't be in any condition to do it again."
"Will he listen?" she asked as he paced back and forth.
"No, he'll probably just not allow them to come to a healer for treatment, plague it! It was stupid to lose my temper. I'm sorry that I did it in front of the child too. That boy has to live with enough violence in his life; he doesn't need mine as well."
"You are needed here." Rialla spoke softly. "Who will set their bones and heal their animals if you aren't here?"
He stretched and shed his anger as if it were a coat. When he looked at her, there was nothing of it left in his eyes. "These people survived without me for most of their lives. The headman's mother is a decent healer, as is her new daughter-in-law. I've already informed them that I will be leaving shortly."
Rialla opened her mouth, and he held up his hand to forestall what she would have said. "Rialla, if I stay here too long, someone will eventually notice I work magic, and that could be worse for the village than the lack of a healer. I was preparing to leave soon anyway."
Tris sat down on the end of the bed. "Tomorrow, when Lord Winterseine takes you, I'll follow. It shouldn't be difficult to track a large group of humans through the woods."
Rialla snickered and Tris stopped talking.
"I'm sorry," she said, "I've just never heard anybody say 'human' when they meant 'mindless stinking mass of waste left undigested by a pig.' You do it well."
He made a half-bow and gave her the sweet smile that he used when he'd made a particularly devious maneuver in Dragon.
"There is one more thing I need to take care of before you go." He reached over and pulled off her earring. "This comes off too easily. If Winterseine takes it off and your tattoo comes off as well, he's going to start wondering about you."
He pulled a small, very thin piece of kidskin out of his belt pouch. "I got this from the tanner this morning."
He closed his eyes, humming softly, folding the kidskin around the earring and tucking the resultant bundle neatly into his hands. After a moment he opened his eyes again and shook the fine leather open, displaying it for Rialla. The earring was gone, and the tattoo that had covered her cheek now covered the kidskin.
Leaning near her, he pressed the skin against her face and resumed his humming. Rialla's cheek grew cold. When he took his hands away, she touched her cheek. Her fingers detected smooth skin where her scars should be, and her cheek felt numb.
"The tattoo?" she asked.
"Is on your face. I'll contact you at night, when the others are sleeping. You are an empath, but you've spoken about being able to read people's thoughts as well as their emotions. Can you contact me that way if you need me?"
She shook her head. "Most people I could, but I can't even read your emotions—let alone project a message to you."
He raised an eyebrow, then nodded with an odd smile. "No, of course you couldn't." He hesitated momentarily and then said, "But I know a way to help."
He slipped his boot knife out and examined it before he ran his thumb almost casually over the finely honed edge. Rialla didn't realize that he was working magic until he said something in a foreign tongue and touched her mouth with the fresh wound. Involuntarily she licked the blood off her lips. She felt as if she'd sipped distilled alcohol; it burned its way deep into her body, leaving her toes and fingertips buzzing and her vision blurred.
Before she had time to react, he touched the knife to the side of her neck and bent his head. She felt the soft, quick touch of his lips and the brush of his beard before he backed away. He touched her neck again briefly, this time with his fingers, and the sting of the cut disappeared. Staring at him, she touched her skin where he and his knife had touched. The wound was gone.
"Try it now," he said and his voice sounded different to her—shadowed with magic and moonlight, though the sun still lit the trees outside the window.
She reached out to him with her gift, carefully, not knowing what difference his magic had wrought. At first it seemed as though nothing had changed. As before, she could touch him, but it was like touching a solid object with her thoughts: she could see him, but not what he was. She pushed gently, but he remained opaque. Just as she started to back away, Rialla was sucked in.
It was too far, too fast. She was dizzy, cut adrift among memories and feelings that she couldn't distinguish from her own. She was accustomed to receiving emotions from most people, but from Tris she was getting memories, thoughts and dreams as well.
Rialla. His mindspeech seemed too strong, but it gave her something to balance herself.
Rialla pulled herself back until the contact was not so strong, his warmth soothing rather than burning. His thought-voice was tightly formed, arguing that he had communicated mind to mind before.
She had been able to reach her father in this manner, but she wasn't used to the communication being two-way. Tris, she said, what did you do that allowed me to touch you this way?
She caught faint nuances of emotion that were quickly tucked away, but not before she caught a hint of guilt and excitement.
I'll tell you sometime. You can contact me now?
She tested her gifts on him warily. Anytime. I don't know how close I have to be, but this is easier than any other mindspeech I've ever attempted.
Sylvans speak with each other in such a manner, he said.
Like this? asked Rialla in surprise. She sent him a picture of the intimacy that this form of communication offered her—the complex emotions and thoughts that she picked up when he talked.
No, he said, startled. Can you see so much?
Sensing his unease, she withdrew even further, the memory of Laeth's outrage at her empathic gift fresh in her mind. Usually she had no trouble leaving the subjects of her touch their privacy, but Tris's stray thoughts tended to brush against her without warning. Finally she removed herself altogether, reconstructing her barriers until he was once again opaque.
Tris gave her a particularly enigmatic look and said, "Now if you need help, you can contact me
."
She wasn't capable of doing more than moving her head to indicate her agreement. When the sound of a woman calling from the front room pierced the intimate atmosphere that somehow had developed, Rialla felt extremely grateful. She desperately needed time to figure out what Tris had done.
The morning dawned clear and warm. Rialla was waiting quietly when Lord Winterseine entered her sanctuary. Her face was impassive, and it didn't change when her master set the heavy training collar around her neck.
She didn't flinch when chain-linked metal cuffs were closed on her wrists, pulling her arms behind her. A second chain was run from the wrist chain to the collar, further restricting her movement. Winterseine attached a leather leash to the front of her collar and led her out.
It was easy not to react to the restraints; she'd had them on before and had expected Lord Winterseine to use them. What she had not expected was the hot rage emanating from the healer, though he appeared calm and remote, as he always was with the Darranian nobles. She tried to close his reaction off, before it affected her as well, but it wasn't as easy as it should have been.
Apparently, whatever channel Tris had forged between them was not easily closed. She sent a surge of reassurance to Tris, and then tried to reestablish her privacy.
Terran gave her a hand in mounting. It was difficult under the best of circumstances to get on a horse without the use of hands. Since Rialla was distracted with the task of suppressing the persistent connection with Tris, she appreciated Terran's help.
As they rode away, she could feel the healer's eyes following them into the trees.
There were many Darranians who had lost everything in the wars with Reth. They roamed the forests extracting tolls from those foolish enough to venture through without sufficient force. Winterseine's entourage was large enough to discourage most raiding parties. Besides Winterseine and his son, there were a score of fighters, more or less, and two servants—one of which was the man who Rialla suspected had poisoned Karsten. His name, she recalled, was Tamas. Apparently the dark-skinned girl was the only slave they'd brought to Lord Karsten's hold, because Rialla was the only slave in the party. Four men rode in front, followed closely by Lord Winterseine and his son Terran. Rialla and the servants rode next, then the rest of the party.
Steal the Dragon Page 14