Oathblood v(vah-3

by Mercedes Lackey

  "What, now?" Master Lenne exclaimed. "This close to the slaughtering season? Whose?"

  The young man ducked his head, uncomfortable with something about the request. "Well ... my father's. Ye know all those handsome young horses he bought without looking at their teeth? Twas like you warned him, within a week, they went from fat and glossy to lank and bony. Within two, they was dead."

  Master Lenne shook his head. "I told him not to trust that sharper. He obviously sold your father a lot of sick horses." He heaved himself to his feet. "I'd best get myself down to the tannery, and see what we can do. At least we can see that it isn't a total loss for him. By your leave, ladies?"

  Glossy and fat ... glossy and fat ... Tarma nodded absently and the Master hurried out, puffing a little. There was something about those words....

  Then she had it; the answer. A common horse-sharper's trick-but this time it had taken a potentially deadly turn. Horses weren't the only things dying here.

  "Keth," she whispered, looking around to make sure there was no one lurking within earshot. "I think Master Lenne's being poisoned."

  :Poisoned?: Warrl's ears perked up. :Yes. That would explain what I scented on him. Something sick, but not an illness.:

  But to her surprise, Kethry looked skeptical. "He doesn't look at all well, but what makes you think that he's being poisoned?"

  "Those horses reminded me -- there's a common sharper's trick, to make old horses look really young, if you don't look too closely at their mouths. You feed them arsenic; not enough to kill them, just a little at a time, a little more each time you feed them. They become quiet and eat their heads off, their coats get oily, and they put on weight, which makes them look really fat and glossy. When you get to the point where you're giving them enough to cover the blade of a knife, you sell them. They lose their appetites without the poison, drop weight immediately, and they die as the poison stored in their fat gets back into their blood. If you didn't know better, you'd think they simply caught something, sickened, and died of it."

  Kethry shrugged. "That explains what happened to the horses, but what does that have to do-"

  "Don't you see?" Tarma exclaimed. "That's exactly the same symptoms the Master has! He's put on weight, I'll bet he's hungry all the time, he obviously feels lethargic and vaguely ill -- his skin and hair are oily--"

  Kethry remained silent for a moment. "What are we supposed to do about it?" she asked slowly. "It's not our Guild. It's not our fight-"

  Perversely, Tarma now found herself on the side of the argument Kethry-impelled by her bond with Need-usually took. Taking the part of the stranger. "How can you say it's not our fight?" she asked, trying to keep her voice down, and surprising herself with the ferocity of her reaction. "It's our world, isn't it? Do you want more people like Lenne in charge? Or more like that so-called 'Master' Karden out there?"

  It was the poisoning of the land that had decided her; no Shin'a'in could see land ruined without reacting strongly. When Master Lenne died -- as he would, probably within the year -- this Karden fellow would be free to poison the entire area.

  And if he succeeded in bringing high profits to the Guild, the practices he espoused would spread elsewhere.

  It wasn't going to happen; not if Tarma could help it.

  As she saw Kethry's indifference starting to waver, she continued. "You know who has to be behind it, too! All we have to do is find out how Lenne is being poisoned, and link it to him!"

  Kethry laughed, mockingly. "All? You have a high opinion of our abilities!"

  "Yes," Tarma said firmly. "I do. So you agree?"

  Kethry thought for a moment, then sighed, and shook her head. "Gods help me, but yes. I do." Then she smiled. "After all, you've indulged me often enough."

  Tarma returned the smile. "Thanks, she'enedra. It'll be worth it. You'll see."

  By the time dinner was over, however, Tarma's certainty that the task would be an easy one was gone. For one thing, both questioning and close observation had shown no way in which poison could have been slipped to Master Lenne without also poisoning the rest of the Guild. They ate and drank in common, using common utensils, serving themselves from common dishes, like one big family. Tarma and Kethry ate with them, seated at the table in the middle of the hall, and they saw that the Master ate exactly what everyone else ate; his wine was poured from the same pitchers of rough red wine as the rest of them shared.

  Each member took it in turn to cook for the rest, eliminating the possibility that the poisoning could be taking place in the kitchen. Not unless every Guild member here hated the Master -- and there was no sign of that.

  It could be done by magic, of course. But Kethry was adamant that there was no sign of any magic whatsoever being performed in or around the Guild House.

  "In fact," she whispered, as the Guild members gathered beside the fire with their cups and the rest of the wine, to socialize before seeking their beds, "there's a spell of some kind on the Guild House that blocks magic; low-level magic, at least." The fire crackled, and the Guild members laughed at some joke, covering her words. "I've seen this before, in other Guild Houses. It's a basic precaution against stealing Guild secrets by magic. I could break it, but it would be very obvious to another mage, if that's what we're dealing with. That spell is why I've had a headache ever since we came in the door."

  But Tarma hadn't been Kethry's partner all this time without learning a few things. "Maybe it blocks real magic, but what about mind-magic? Isn't there a mind-magic you can use to move things around?"

  :There is, mind-mate,: Warrl confirmed before Kethry could answer, his tail sweeping the flagstones with approval.

  Kethry added her nod to Warrl's words.

  "Ladies, gentlemen," Master Lenne said at just that moment, calling their attention to him. He stood up, winecup in hand, a lovely silver piece he had with him all through dinner. The glow of the firelight gave him a false flush of health, and he smiled as he stood, reinforcing the illusion. "I am an old man, and can't keep the late hours I used to, so I'll take my leave -- and my usual nightcap."

  One of the 'prentices filled his cup from the common pitcher of wine, and he moved off into the shadows, in the direction of the living quarters.

  "Keep talking, and keep them from noticing we're gone," Tarma hissed to her partner, signaling Warrl to stay where he was. "I'm going to see if anything happens when he gets to his room."

  Without waiting for an answer, she melted into the shadows, with Warrl taking her place right beside Kethry. There was no other light in the enormous room besides the fire in the fireplace, and Master Lenne was not paying a great deal of attention to anything that was not immediately in front of him. Still, she made herself as invisible as only a Shin'a'in could, following the Master into his quarters. Can I assume that if someone used mind-magic around here, you would know it? she thought in Warrl's direction, as she slipped through the doorway on Lenne's heels.

  :Possibly,: he answered. :Possibly not. I think it will be up to your own powers of observation.:

  She waited at the end of the hallway, concealed in shadows, for the Master to take his doorway so that she could see which quarters were his. When he had, she waited a little while longer, then crept soundlessly on the flagstoned floor after him, opening the same door and slipping inside. She had thought about making some pretense at wanting to talk further with the Master, but had decided against the idea. If this poisoner was using mind-magic to plant the poison, he might also be using it to tell whether or not the Master was alone.

  Kethry knew more of mind-magic than she did -- but Tarma had a good idea what to watch. That business about a "usual nightcap" -- if the poisoner knew about this habit of Master Lenne's, it made an excellent time and place to administer the daily doses.

  Then, once he's got the Master up to a certain level, he stops. The Master loses his appetite, like the horses, stops eating, and drops all the weight he put on. And the poison that was in the fat he accumulated drops into hi
s body all at once. He dies, but by the time he dies, there's no external evidence of poisoning.

  And of course, everyone would have known that the Master was ill, so this final, fatal "sickness" would come as no surprise.

  Once inside the door, she found herself in a darkened room, with furniture making vague lumps in the thick shadow, silhouetted against dim light coming from yet another doorway at the other side of the room. She eased up to the new door, feeling a little ashamed and voyeuristic, and watched the Master puttering about, taking out a dressing gown, preparing for bed. The winecup sat on a little table beside a single candle near the doorway, untasted and unwatched.

  Master Lenne entered yet another room just off his bedroom, and closed the door; sounds of water splashing made it obvious what that room's function was.

  Tarma did not take her eyes off the cup; and in a moment, her patience was rewarded.

  The surface of the wine jumped -- as if something invisible had been dropped into the cup. A moment later, it appeared as if it was being stirred by a ghostly finger.

  Then Master Lenne opened the door to the bedroom, and the spectral finger withdrew, leaving the wine outwardly unchanged. His eyes lighted on his winecup, but before he could take the half-dozen steps to reach it, Tarma interposed herself, catching it up.

  Master Lenne started back, his eyes as wide as if she had been a spirit herself. Before he could stammer anything, she smiled.

  "Your pardon, Master," she said quietly. "But I think we need to talk."

  The arsenic had not completely dissolved; there was a gritty residue in the bottom of the cup that proved very effective at killing a trapped mouse, eliminating Master Lenne's doubts.

  The three of them were ensconced in his parlor; he was wrapped in a robe and dressing gown, looking surprisingly vulnerable for such a big man. There was a fire in his tiny fireplace, and candles on the table between them, and the light mercilessly revealed the shadows under his eyes. "But who could be doing this?" he asked, looking from Tarma to Kethry and back again. "And why? They say that poison is a woman's weapon, but I've angered no women that I know of--"

  "Not a woman's weapon, Master," Kethry said, tapping her lips thoughtfully with a fingernail. "Poison is a coward's weapon. It is the weapon of choice for someone who is too craven to face an enemy openly, too craven even to come into striking range of his enemy himself. It's the weapon of choice for someone who is unwilling to take personal risks, but is totally without scruples when it comes to risking others."

  Tarma saw by the widening then narrowing of Master Lenne's eyes that he had come to the same conclusion they had made.

  "Karden," he said flatly.

  Tarma nodded, compressing her lips into a thin, hard line.

  Kethry sighed and held up her hands. "That's the best bet. The problem is proving it. It's hard enough to prove an attempt at murder by real magic -- but I don't think there's anyone in this entire kingdom with enough expertise at mind-magic to prove he's been using it to try to poison you. By the way, where did you get that goblet?"

  Lenne seemed confused by the change in subjects. "Every Master has one; they're given to us when we achieve Mastery."

  Kethry nodded, and Tarma read satisfaction in her expression. "That at least solves the question of how he knew where the poison was going. If he has the match to that goblet, that gives him a 'target' to match with yours."

  "But that also compounds the problem, Greeneyes," Tarma pointed out. "If every Master has one of these, any Master could be a suspect. No, we aren't going to be able to bring Karden to conventional justice, I'm afraid."

  Master Lenne, sick or no, was sharper than she had expected. "Conventional justice?" he said. "I assume you have something else in mind?"

  Tarma picked up the now-empty goblet, and turned it in her hands, smiling at the play of light on the curving silver surface. "Just let me borrow this for a day or so," she replied noncommittally. "And we'll see if the gods -- or something -- can't be moved to retribution."

  Kethry raised an eyebrow.

  "This might not work," Kethry warned, for the hundredth time.

  "Your spell might not work. It might work, and Karden might notice. He might not notice, but he might not drink the wine in his own goblet when he's through playing with it." Tarma shrugged. "Then again, it might. You tell me that mind-magic is hard work, and I am willing to bet that a sneaky bastard like this Karden gets positive glee out of drinking a toast to his enemy's death and refreshing himself at the same time when he's done every night. If this doesn't work, I try something more direct. But if it does -- our problem eliminates itself."

  They were outside the protected influence of the Guild House, ensconced in the common room of the closed inn. Just she and Kethry; Lenne was going through his usual after-dinner routine, but this time, he was not using his Master's goblet for his wine. That particular piece of silver resided on the table in the middle of the common room, full of wine. With a spell on the wine....

  Not the goblet. Kethry was taking no chances that bespelling the goblet would change it enough that Karden's mind-magic would no longer recognize it. The two of them were on the far side of the room from the goblet; far enough, Kethry hoped, that Karden would judge the goblet safely out of sight of anyone. The inn's common room was considerably bigger than Lenne's quarters.

  That was assuming he could check for the presence or absence of people. He might be getting his information from a single source within the Guild House. But Kethry was of the opinion that he wasn't; that he was waiting for a moment when there were no signs of mental activity within a certain range of the goblet, but that there was wine in it. That, she thought, would have been the easiest and simplest way for Karden to handle the problem.

  All of it was guess and hope--

  Kethry hissed a warning. Something was stirring the surface of the wine in the goblet.

  Something tried to drop into the wine. Tried. The wine resisted it, forming a skin under it, so that the substance, white and granular, floated in a dimpled pocket on the surface.

  "Ka'chen," Tarma said in satisfaction. "Got you, you bastard."

  The pocket of white powder rotated in the wine, as the invisible finger stirred. Quickly, Kethry's hands moved in a complex pattern; sweat beaded her brow as she muttered words under her breath. Tarma tried not to move or otherwise distract her. This was a complicated spell, for Kethry was not only trying to do the reverse of what Karden was doing, she was trying to insinuate the poison back into his wine, grain by grain, so that he would not notice what she was doing.

  Until, presumably, it was too late.

  It was like watching a bit of snow melt; as the tiny white pile rotated, it slowly vanished, until the last speck winked out, leaving only the dark surface of the wine.

  Tarma approached the cup cautiously. The spectral "finger" withdrew hastily, and she picked the goblet up.

  "Well?" she said, "can I bet my life on this?"

  Kethry nodded wearily, her heart-shaped face drawn with exhaustion. "It's as safe to drink as it was when I poured it," she replied, pulling her hair out of her eyes. "I can guarantee it went straight into the model-cup. What happened after that?" She shrugged eloquently. "We'll find out tomorrow."

  Tarma lifted the cup in an ironic salute. "In that case -- here's to tomorrow."

  "Now don't forget what I told you," Kethry said firmly, from her superior position above the Master's head, where she perched in Hellsbane's saddle. "I may have pulled most of the poison from you with that spell, but you're still sick. You're suffering the damage it caused, and that isn't going to go away overnight."

  Master Lenne nodded earnestly, shading his eyes against the morning sun, and handed Kethry a saddleroll of the finest butter-soft leather to fasten at her cantle. Leather like that -- calfskin tanned to the suppleness and texture of fine velvet -- was worth a small fortune. Tarma already had an identical roll behind her saddle.

  "I plan to rest and keep my schedule to a
minimum," Lenne said, as obedient as a child. "To tell you the truth, now that I no longer have to worry about Karden taking my trade and exerting his influence on the Guild as a whole--"

  "So tragic, poisoning himself with his own processes," Tarma said dryly. "I guess that will prove to the Guild that the safe old ways are the best."

  Master Lenne flushed and looked down for a moment. When he looked back up, his eyes were troubled. "I suppose it would do no good to reveal the truth, would it?"

  "No good, and a lot of harm," Kethry said firmly. "If you must, tell only those you trust. No one else." She looked off into the distance. "I don't like taking the law into my own hands--"