Barrenlands (The Changespell Saga)

by Doranna Durgin

  "Ileen," Jada said, carefully stroking the girl's limp, dirty hair, "tell us. Tell us what Varien has done. We're here for justice, and we'll see that he pays."

  "Then you know," the girl gasped.

  "We know he's done wrong. We need to be able to prove it. Help us."

  "What did he do to you?" Laine asked, and his voice came out in a horrified whisper.

  The girl's face contorted in sudden fear. "Who is it? I don't know you, I know I've never heard that accent before... who..."

  "It's Jada," the Guard said quickly. "I've been serving King Rodar. And Laine— he's a friend, Ileen. He's here to help stop Varien. But we need details."

  "I don't have details," Ileen said, almost too faintly to hear. "He... he's been using a drug on his apprentices. He didn't tell me, he doesn't tell any of us, and now he controls so many wizards, so many of us... . Because if he takes it away, it kills. When I found out..." She had to stop, her breath coming in shallow pants.

  When she continued, they had to lean in close to hear. Laine covered his nose with his hand, trying to mask the smell.

  "I found out— I was so mad, so frightened— I snooped, I wanted a way out. I discovered there was so much more going on— Loraka, the other ministers..." She stopped and took a slow deep breath, the effort obvious. "He found out I knew. He took the drug away, and spelled me so I couldn't get out of bed... not until it was too late. And then he left."

  "Mage lure," Laine whispered.

  "It has to be," Jada said. "Ileen, what did you find out about Loraka and the other ministers? What about Benlan?"

  "Benlan?" Ileen repeated without comprehension.

  Laine shook his head. "It's too much for her. Go slow, Jada."

  "I can't go slow," Jada said, biting off the words with frustration. "She doesn't have that much time. Look at all that bruising... she must be bleeding inside, too. I don't know why she's even still alive..."

  "The drug goes through Loraka," Ileen said. "Typhean takes some of it as payment."

  "Typhean?" Jada repeated. "Who is—"

  "In Everdawn. He's working with Varien... there are others..." She cut herself off with a gasp of pain that turned into a thin wail. "Oh, Guides save me!" she cried. "Take me—"

  Laine made a strangled noise as the young woman clutched the sheets, rocking her head back and crying out between agonized gasps for air. Blood trickled from her nose, spilling down the side of her face and dripping to the soiled bed sheets.

  "Jada..." Laine said helplessly. "Jada, we can't just watch—"

  "No." Jada's shoulders squared, and she looked down at Ileen. "I'm sorry," she whispered, and then she moved too fast for Laine to follow, striking with precision— and then cradling Ileen's head as it lolled on a broken neck. Silently, she moved back and stood up, and then turned around, facing Laine's astonishment as if daring him to say something.

  He glanced down at the girl and stumbled out of the room, drawing a deep breath of untainted air.

  Behind him, Jada laid a hand on his shoulder. "Let's go," she said. "We didn't get much, but we know more than we did. Now we have to get out of here and take it to Ehren."

  Laine wasn't even sure how they made it out of the palace. He remembered blurting out their prepared excuse of needing to use the commons while Jada contrived to look inconspicuous. Other than that, he put their retreat purely in Jada's hands, and she moved them swiftly to safety— from the palace itself to the grounds, to the broad streets of the city, and then to a day stable where the horses were tied, and finally to the same small tavern where they'd spent the night— and Ehren.

  Ehren took one look at them and secured two mugs of strong ale. Laine didn't hesitate to take a gulp, no matter the early hour. He let Jada tell the tale, and dispense the little actual information they'd acquired.

  No one looked very happy when she was done.

  Ehren sat back in the creaky wooden chair he occupied, disregarding the way it sagged under his weight. "Damn," he said. "She was so young." He shook his head. "And she didn't even live long enough to pass on the information she died for knowing. Damn," he said again, with more feeling. "Now we'll have to lurk here until Rodar returns."

  "We tried to find out where he was," Laine offered miserably, dimly remembering Jada's questions of the other workers in line for the commons. "No one knew and no one cared."

  But Jada was watching them both with a gleam in her eye. "Waiting around wasn't what I had in mind."

  Ehren raised an eyebrow. "Do tell."

  Jada grinned at him; she looked pleased with herself, and her broad face was, Laine discovered, infectiously appealing when she had that gleam in her eye. "When Algere and I came after you at the border, you told me to use my position as a Guard to get closer to King Rodar."

  "You did it?" Ehren said, hope lighting his eyes so they looked less black and more grey, less piercing and more approachable.

  She nodded. "I've been in all his hunting parties since then, and after a few of those, he started asking for me to stand by him at those feasts he likes to throw." She looked at Laine's impressed expression and said, "It's so much more boring than guarding the hunt. But it's a way to keep track of who's who in the court, and who wants to be who."

  "Information I'm certain we'll end up using, before this is all straightened out," Ehren said. "There's no telling just how deep Varien's rot goes."

  "We can use some of it right now," she said. "I'll bet anything Rodar is out hunting. He's got a taste for young deer, and the foresters can't convince him of the folly of thinning the crop. He wants a last go at them before we get into fall rutting season."

  "The lodge?" Laine asked, looking at Ehren. The lodge where Benlan died?

  Ehren nodded, holding Laine's gaze. "It won't cause trouble, will it?"

  "I don't know. But I get the feeling we're going to find out."

  "What about Varien?" Jada said. "There's no telling where he is."

  Ehren pushed his tankard away. "If he's smuggling mage lure, and has something started with Loraka, he's got other fronts to mind."

  "Unless he's with the king," Laine said. Someone needed to point that out.

  Ehren looked at him, his dark grey gaze even. "Then," he said, "I guess you'll get the chance to see if he's the man you saw in your Dream."

  ~~~~~

  They spent the next day skirting the edges of Kurtane, east and north, to close in on the hunting lodge. They found a farmer who was willing to keep Laine's mule and most of their packs; they took only what they needed to keep the horses going. Jada claimed Guard privilege for food and lodging that evening, and after that, they moved through a thickly wooded area with wide, maintained trails— although Ehren quickly shunted them off to game trails. Laine, on the smallest horse and behind Ehren on the largest, didn't always duck in time when the impeding branches sprang back into place.

  He thought wistfully of his former role as caravan guide and front-runner.

  Jada rode behind Laine, and Shaffron followed them all, his head free. From Jada's occasional cursing at the chestnut, Laine got the impression that Shaffron crowded her, trying to pass on the narrow trail so he could get closer to his buddy. Jada's mare responded with intermittent squeals; no matter how hard they tried to keep their progress quiet, noise was inevitable.

  "We're half a day from the lodge," Ehren told Laine when he stopped in a wide spot in the trail so Laine could ride up alongside him. Ehren absently rubbed his leg, and his glance revealed a troubled brow.

  Laine moved ahead another couple of steps and understood why. Their little trail was about to dead-end on a wide path, and it didn't appear to pick up again on the other side. "There's probably another one a little ways down."

  "There probably is," Ehren agreed. "But with the king here, and two rogue Guards running around, there's also bound to be traffic on any of these main paths."

  "If I was in charge, there would be," Jada agreed from behind them. "Shaffron, get back before I take the ends of
my reins to your nose!"

  Ehren smiled without turning to check on his wayward horse. "Now you see why I don't worry about losing him. Laine, I hate to say it, but I think you're the best one to send out there. Even if you stumble into someone, you can play the poor confused traveler."

  "Wouldn't be far from the truth, either," Laine muttered. Then he stiffened, for both Ricasso and Nimble brought their heads up, ears perked.

  "Riders," Ehren said. "Back it up, Jada!"

  Laine moved Nimble off the trail and into the thicker brush, pulling his head around to his boot and thoroughly distracting him from any thought of calling out. The riders appeared as snatches of movement through the leaves, white and chestnut horseflesh moving through the greens and browns of the woods. They approached... passed in front... moved on...

  Jada's mare gave an unmistakably irritated squeal, and Shaffron grunted as her back hoof hit home. Laine froze and forgot to breathe.

  The riders stopped, their voices raised and somewhat contentious. Laine heard a rustle and looked back just in time to see Ehren dismounted and heading his way, knife in one hand and the long springy wand of a cut sapling in the other. "What— ?"

  Ehren answered with action. Quick and quiet, he brought the improvised whip down across Nimble's quarters. The astonished animal jerked the rein out of Laine's hand and bolted through the trees. Laine threw himself down over the gelding's neck, shielding his face and praying Nimble didn't run him up against a tree.

  Nimble didn't.

  Nimble burst onto the path and ran him up against a sweating horse butt.

  His arrival was accompanied by a chorus of cursing. The three horses bumped and jostled, ears back and tails clamped, until the riders finally got them sorted out. That left two young Guards looking down at Laine, swords out and horses angled across the road to block him ahead and behind.

  He looked up at them, one after the other, and it was no chore at all to look intimidated.

  "This is a restricted area," one of the men growled at him. "King's grounds."

  "Is it? I'd better go, then." The Guard behind him snorted, and Laine added, "I'm trying to reach my sister's husband's family. They're in Southgate, have you heard of it?" He ended his query on a hopeful note and tried to forget the fact that he'd always been a terrible liar.

  "We're west of the city," the first man said, the one in front of him. "Southgate is south." He gestured south with his sword. "This was a bad place to get lost."

  "I see that," Laine said, fingering the reins and thinking about how Nimble could probably outpace the larger horses on a game trail. Ehren, you'd better have a plan if this doesn't work.

  The man behind him grunted. "Let him go, Kail. He's not who we're looking for."

  The other man shook his head. "You want to chance it, the mood Varien is in?"

  Kail scowled. "We don't answer to Varien, and I'm damned sick of hearing his name."

  Laine stayed quiet. Very quiet.

  "So'm I," the first man said, and he frowned down at Laine. "Where're you from?"

  "Just over the border," Laine said. "I've ridden an awful long way. I knew I'd gone wrong but these paths twist every which way... I'd be glad to move on."

  "I'll bet," the first man said.

  "Look," Kail said, "if we take him in to the lodge, we leave this area unguarded. Though I still think Ehren and Jada slipped through the Reds and're long gone."

  "Don't know why Varien's so concerned about the king's safety, anyway... there's no way any Guard's gone that bad. Even if he had, he's not going to get through Varien to reach the king."

  Laine said tentatively, pretending the entire byplay had gone over his head, "May I go, then? South? Out of the woods?"

  Behind him, Kail abruptly reined his horse to the side. "Go," he said. "But if you happen to find yourself twisted around again, don't expect it to be so easy."

  Laine definitely didn't. Burbling with enough gratitude to annoy even himself, he turned Nimble south and put him into an immediate canter, prompting an outbreak of laughter behind him.

  He wondered if Ehren knew the Guards, and if he'd been able to hear what was said.

  Varien is here.

  ~~~~~

  Varien is here.

  Ehren left Ricasso tied in the woods with Jada and scouted south along the path, moving through the trees to find Laine. Damned hard to outsmart a powerful wizard. He probably had a good notion that Ehren was in these woods, even if the Guards were less confident.

  And just how far had Laine gone? Maybe not such a brilliant decision after all, sending him out onto that road...

  Finally, he caught a glimpse of Nimble through the screen of trees, and gave a low whistle. Laine stopped, clearly uncertain, warily watching the woods until he recognized Ehren. Relief washed across his features— and then outraged indignation. "If I thought I could whip you in a fair fight..."

  "How about if I consider it done?" Ehren offered.

  "Including a big fat black eye that'll remind you not to ever do that to me again?"

  Ehren grinned. He'd figured Laine's normal good humor would win out over the anger, faced with an offer like that. "A black eye, a loose tooth, and a fat lip."

  "Deal," Laine said. "Want a ride?"

  "Two of us on Nimble? He's a sturdy little fellow, but I'll walk." Ehren fell in beside the horse. For all his deliberately light conversation, he scanned the road ahead, looking for any glimpse of movement, listening for a stray hoof fall.

  "One good thing," Laine said. "I found a couple of game trails to pick up."

  Ehren nodded, but he wasn't sure they needed the trails any longer. He knew where they were going; Jada would, too.

  "Did you hear what they said?"

  "That I did. Complicates things. Rodar would have been a lot easier to reach without Varien around."

  He was silent a moment, thinking, and Laine sent him a wary look. "What?"

  Ehren didn't answer right away. When he did, his thoughts were still far away. "Sometime along the way, Varien quit working for Solvany's good and started working mainly for his own. I just wonder how I missed it."

  "Probably off doing your job," Laine said, as if it was obvious.

  Ehren gave him a raised eyebrow. "Watching out for people like Varien is my job, Laine."

  "I didn't realize you were the only King's Guard Solvany had." Laine's voice sounded sharper than its wont.

  Ehren didn't respond. There wasn't any point; it wasn't an argument Laine would win, or that he would ever win with himself.

  Jada's voice came from the trees on the other side of the woods. "Over here. I've got an idea."

  Ehren nodded for Laine to go ahead and join her, and retrieved Ricasso and Shaffron. When he returned, Laine had relayed the conversation between the Guards, and the critical information it had revealed.

  "Varien," Jada said in disgust. "He keeps cropping up in this mess even if we don't go looking to lay blame on him."

  "There's got to be someone— or someones— Upper Level on his side," Ehren said. "Someone's backing him— and protecting him."

  "Upper Level this, Upper Level that," Laine complained. "At first I thought you were just talking Upper Level Hells, like most people. But you're not, are you?"

  Jada gave him an amused glance. "Know a lot of Solvany, do you? We do have a government, you know."

  "The king," Laine said. "Rodar."

  Ehren gave him a skeptical look. "In a way, I am talking about the levels of Hell... or the Heavens, depending how you feel about politics."

  "I know how I feel," Jada muttered.

  Ehren's mouth quirked, but otherwise he ignored her. "The Solvan government is based on nine levels— from the First Level ministers to Ninth-Level pit cleaners. The Upper Levels— First, Second, and sometimes Third— are the ones that directly advise and guide the king. But in Rodar's case, the advisory aspect of their powers seems to have slipped over into actual power. Rodar wasn't handling too much on his own, from what I
understand."

  "And from what I saw," Jada said with a decisive and somewhat scornful nod.

  "I suspect that tendency was cultivated," Ehren said, thinking again just how convenient Benlan's death had been for Varien's interests.

  "Ehren?" Jada asked quietly. She held her horse's reins close to the bit, her relaxed arm bobbing with the movement of the animal's head— but her face somber, a reflection of his own.

  He shook his head. "Just trying to put the pieces together, Jada. Wishing we had more substantial evidence to take to Rodar."

  "It's enough for him to act on," Jada said, intractable. "And that's what we should do, you know— take it straight to Rodar."

  "That's what we are doing," Laine said.

  She shook her head. "We're going to the lodge. Everyone's there— the ladies who are tripping over each other to catch the royal eye but who don't want to hunt; the cooks and servants; the off-duty Guards— and Varien, burn him. How'd he figure out what we were up to, anyway?"

  "If he knew exactly what we were up to, we'd be caught by now," Ehren said shortly. "But your point is taken. There are a lot of people to trip over at the lodge."

  "Right. But I know Rodar's favorite hunting spots. If he's here, and he's hunting, he's going to start the day in one of just a few spots— and if we're quick enough, we can check them all before the whippers scare up any game. The hunting," she said with a wry expression, "seems to be getting a little thin in this area."

  Ehren pictured the participants in such a hunt. Some court nobles— the young men, especially. Moderately loyal, but not fighting men. And perhaps as many as ten Guards— real Guards, not Reds— although maybe not, since Varian seemed to have scattered them in his search for Ehren.

  And Varien himself? Would he take his ease at the lodge, or hover at Rodar's shoulder even on the hunt?

  There were some questions they just couldn't answer.

  And some answers that they were going to have to make up as they went along.

  Ehren stirred, discovered the other two looking at him, and nodded. "Pick the likeliest of those spots, Jada. We'll spend the night there."