by Sharon Green
“It also won’t be possible to move very fast,” Tamma pointed out. “I think we ought to leave them all to come at whatever rate of speed they have to use, and go on ahead alone. We can use the time to … look around while they’recatching up.”
“Whether or not that’s a good idea depends on what we’ll be … looking at,” Rion pointed out dryly. “It isn’t likely that our enemies won’t have large groups of guardsmen waiting to pounce on us, not to mention other things we won’t have thought of. We won’t have the strength to handle all that alone, so why, dear lady, should we put ourselves in jeopardy for no reason?”
“Rion’s right,” Vallant said, once again looking directly at Tamma—who was deliberately not returning the look. “Headin’ out alone would be foolish, and we’ll be doin’ enough foolish things without needin’ to search for more. If we take things one step at a time, we may even live to take care of other matters once this business with our enemies is over.”
Tamma made no response to that, partly because, as Jovvi could tell, she knew that the suggestion had been less than practical. Jovvi wanted to speak to Tamma, had been wanting to since they returned to the stables, but Lorand’s sudden and intense inner stiffening took her attention. When she turned to look at him she saw that he was staring toward the front of the stables, where a husky man stood partly in shadow. The man, who wasn’t one of theirs, was alone, and Lorand stirred where he stood.
“It … looks like I have a visitor,” he said softly to Jovvi without taking his gaze from the newcomer. “Will you walk over there with me?”
“Of course,” she replied at once, slipping her hand into his. Lorand was both reluctant and eager at the same time, which meant the stranger had to be his father. He’d felt the same exact things in the meeting hall, where the man had first shown up.
Lorand’s fingers closed gently but firmly over hers, and then they walked together toward his father. The man actually came forward a few steps into a patch of lamplight, and when they reached him his gaze was locked to Lorand’s.
“Wasn’t gonna come here, but felt I hadda,” the man said, sounding as unsure as his emotions showed him to be. “When you left—when I throwed you out—I knowed I wus right ’cause you wus jest gonna throw away th’ life you shoulda bin usin’ fer yer fam’ly. Now… Now I c’n see you had somethin’ more waitin’ on you, an’ I shouldn’t never have—done whut I did. Jest needed t’say I’m proud a you, boy, comin’ back after gettin’ whut you said you wus gonna. Me an’ yer Ma an’ th’ boys is headin’ out now, ’cause I went back home soon’s I heard whut you had t’say. It took half th’ town burnin’ t’make them fools see reason, but I knowed th’ truth soon’s I heard my boy say it. We’s gonna be awright—thanks t’you.”
Jovvi knew Lorand wanted to speak, but the lump in his throat kept him from doing it. He released Jovvi’s hand to step forward as his father did the same, and the two men hugged in that half-embarrassed way men sometimes have a habit of doing. But they didn’t hurry, and when they finally parted they were smiling at each other.
“Now then, boy,” the elder Coll said with a hoarseness that suggested a smaller but similar lump to the one Lorand had had. “I gotta be leavin’ soon, but first you gotta let me meet this here beautiful lady. You two holdin’ hands fer a reason?”
“Pa, this is Dama Jovvi Hafford, the Spirit magic member of our group,” Lorand said, and Jovvi had no trouble telling how carefully he chose his words. “She and I love each other, and if we happen to survive what we have ahead of us, we’ll probably be married. I—wasn’t going to mention that part about surviving, but I think you have a right to know. It won’t be easy, but for everyone else’s sake as well as our own, we have to try. A man shouldn’t have to slave all his life to make profits for people who never lift a finger to help.”
“Ain’t thet th’ truth,” Coll muttered, his expression now troubled. “It also makes a man say stupid stuff, ’cause he’s afeared he won’t have help enough to do what he’s gotta. But it ain’t worth yer life, boy, not t’ my way a thinkin’. You watch yer back—an’ this here lady’s back—an’ when it’s all over you come home an’ bring yer lady. Yer Ma’ll wanna meet ’er”
The two men hugged again, and then the elder Coll turned to Jovvi for a hug. She gave him one, relieved that the big man did nothing but squeeze her carefully for a moment, and then he turned and left. He looked back once when he reached the exit, and then he was gone into the night.
“I have to admit I never expected him to do that,” Lorand said softly once his father was gone from sight. “Not come here to speak to me, and not believe me so completely that he’s already ready to leave. It’s fairly clear that I misjudged him.”
“You just didn’t know what pressures he was under,” Jovvi pointed out, moving closer as Lorand put his arm around her shoulders. “And he didn’t understand the need driving you. Now the two of you see things a bit more clearly, so everything will be fine—assuming we do survive.”
The only reply to that was the sigh Lorand gave, so they turned and went back toward the stalls that they would use to sleep in. They all needed sleep rather badly, because the morning would find them starting back to Gan Garee for real. And come to think of it, Jovvi decided that leaving before dawn might be the best idea. With all those other people who would be fleeing the town, the road would be more crowded than they would be easily able to ride through.
Jovvi voiced her own sigh, knowing she would have to pass on that idea before she could sleep. And those who stayed up arranging things while everyone else slept… They would have to be given places in the food wagons so that they, too, might get some sleep once they were all on the road. There were so many things that would have to be taken care of… Maybe Tamma had been right to suggest that leaving everyone else behind would be the best idea. But no, that just wasn’t practical. There might be a practical compromise, but Jovvi was too tired to think about it. Tomorrow… Tomorrow would have to be soon enough…
CHAPTER TWELVE
“That was really very delightful,” Kambil heard Selendi say as they all took chairs in Kambil’s private meeting room. “I feel less tired now than I did before we began.”
“It was more than just delightful,” Bron said in partial agreement after sipping at the tea he’d taken. “It added to my strength in a way I never thought was possible. It’s really a lucky thing you found that journal, Kambil.”
“And I, for one, would like to know what else it contained,” Homin said, also looking fully satisfied. “If the rest is anything like drawing from link groups, we all need to know about it.”
“And you all will know,” Kambil said with strong approval for their enthusiasm. “Drawing strength from link groups is only the first, most all-around useful trick I discovered, and easily explains how our adversaries overcame all those guardsmen we sent against them. Once they freed those first segments from the caravan, they had their strength to call on.”
“But the caravan contained strong Middles and Highs,” Homin pointed out, now faintly disturbed. “We used members of our palace guard, who are mostly Lows with a few ordinary Middles. If we gained so much by drawing on low grade link groups, how much more are our adversaries gaining?”
“Actually … not as much as we did,” Kambil said, breaking the news to them with a grin. “The journal spoke about using single link-groups, and said that that wasn’t as effective as using link groups arranged in tandem, the way ours were. When you hook in a second group after the first, you get more than double the strength from the arrangement. But you have to know the proper way to hook them in, or you get a jumble instead of additional strength. Unless our adversaries have read the journal—which I strongly doubt—they don’t know about that particular trick.”
“What a shame!” Bron crowed out with a laugh, Selendi and Homin joining him in his amusement. “They don’t know about the trick, so they can’t use it. What else aren’t they likely to know about?”
“Well, there’s the matter of how vulnerable our bodies are when we’reBlended,” Kambil said after sipping at his own tea. “I discovered more than one way around that problem, and the first is relatively simple. Instead of stopping at a distance from where we want to be and sending our entity out ahead, we move ourselves in close and let our entity stand guard over our bodies. That way nothing can get past it to harm us.”
“That’s so obvious, we should have seen it ourselves,” Homin said after blinking in surprise. “It goes against our instincts to stay out of harm’s way, though, so that’s probably why we missed it. But can’t our link groups protect us, as well as feeding us additional strength?”
“That’s another simple way, but not the best,” Kambil agreed with a nod. “If we use our link groups as buffers between us and any danger and something happens to them, we also lose our extra strength. After thinking about it I believe I prefer a different way, the way suggested by the writer of the journal. He said that once we practice a bit with the tandem link groups, we’ll discover that we can … project an image of ourselves in a place other than where we are. Our enemies can fight like madmen to reach our poor, vulnerable bodies with the intention of destroying them, but it won’t do them any good. They’ll have reached an illusion, and we’ll be somewhere else entirely.”
The others laughed aloud again, the idea as enjoyable to them as it was to him. But there were other things they needed to discuss, so the laughter would have to wait until later.
“I’ve ordered a celebratory meal for tonight, so let’s save any further discussion of this topic until then,” Kambil said, causing the mirth to wind down and dissipate. “Right now I’d like to hear about the chores I’ve assigned to you, a report on the progress—or lack thereof—that you’ve made. Bron, will you begin?”
“Certainly,” Bron agreed, sober again. “The army in Gracely has been recalled, which at first annoyed its commanders no end. They were making more than adequate progress, with little or no opposition. I made sure that they weren’t told about how strong the Astindan army is supposed to be, just that they would be a punitive expedition sent to assist our forces—who aren’t being capably led. I think they began to preen when they heard they were to punish the leaders of our force as well as the upstart members of the Astindan force. That secretary was right when he said the commanders of the Gracely force felt slighted and insulted that they hadn’t been given commands in Astinda. They’ve already crossed the border back into the empire, and they’remarching directly west.”
“Good,” Kambil said with a smile of approval. “I knew we’d find some secretaries and assistants who knew what they were doing. Just make sure that that army is adequately supplied, otherwise they might begin to live off the countryside. That sort of thing is fine in someone else’s country, but if we allow it to happen here we’ll have delegations of our former peers screaming for blood. And don’t forget that some of the countryside they’ll be passing through now belongs to us. What about the last guard expedition sent West?”
“That’s something I was looking into,” Homin said, his expression and the disturbance in his emotions telling Kambil most of the story. “They stopped communicating with us as abruptly as all the others, but this time there were independent watchers sent secretly after them. The watchers reported that instead of being destroyed, they’ve been … taken over in some way by our adversaries and are now working only for them. And that town they’reall in was attacked, but not by Astindan forces. The attackers were former members of our own army, without commanders and therefore uncontrolled. Our adversaries gained control over them as well, and ended the attack almost before it began. Now all the townspeople and farmers are getting ready to run away, obviously wanting to be gone before any other attackers appear.”
“Chaos take them!” Kambil growled, more than simply annoyed. “We needed the shipments of food they would have sent right up to the time the Astindan forces appeared, and now we’ll have to do without them. If those interfering fools hadn’t stopped to warn them… Make sure that the new Advisor in charge of the farms in that area is made aware of the situation, so he can coordinate provisioning Gan Garee from other areas. And tell someone to keep an eye open in case an opportunity to punish those farmers comes along. If we let them get away with leaving their farms—for any reason—then others of the peasants will try to do the same. Who’s next?”
“I am,” Selendi replied, her thoughts even more annoyed than they had been. “I’ve been receiving reports from Rimen Howser on that matter of hostages against the adversaries, and he’s really done an incredible job. In addition to that gardener he showed us who’s supposed to be a good friend of the Earth magic user, the parents of the Fire magic user, and the fiancé of the Water magic user and her parents, he now also has the former sponsor of the Spirit magic user. The sponsor had been sent to one of the deep mines because of an attempt to kidnap the Spirit magic user, but Rimen brought her back here anyway. The Spirit magic user was supposed to have been really broken up at the sentence given her former sponsor, and now can be expected to feel all sorts of guilt—especially when she sees what the mines have done to the woman.”
“And we have the mother of the Air magic user, in the person of Lady Hallina Mardimil,” Kambil said with a certain amount of brightening. “Yes, Lord Rimen has done a good job, which we’ll certainly have to reward him for. Or has he already begun to receive part of his reward?”
“I’ve given him the first part,” Selendi said with a shrug that was nevertheless filled with satisfaction. “The rest of it, naming him a High Lord, is for you to do. I’m sure you know that that’s what he’s after, and it isn’t his fault that Lady Hallina is not in the best condition possible. She is still alive, although she’s making the most awful fuss. You’d think that what happened to her was something to get upset about.”
“Something happened to her?” Kambil asked, his interest piqued. “What a terrible, awful shame. Was it something painful, I hope?”
“She claims so,” Selendi replied with a sniff of disdain, and then she grinned. “She went to the Glowflower Inn, that place that caters to those with … different tastes in entertainment, and ended up getting raped by three men. She refuses to say why she was there or how she came to be in the rooms the three men took, but has demanded of the guard that the three be found and arrested and executed. She took to her bed immediately and has had a physician in attendance, but no one is taking her wailing seriously. She’s always wailing about something, and after all, how serious can it be? It was only three men, for pity’s sake.”
“Have they found any trace of the men?” Kambil asked, more amused by Selendi’s reactions than by the story. Despite all the adjustments he’d made in her personality, Selendi would have enjoyed being the one who had had that … experience with the three men. She’d probably never admit it aloud unless ordered to, but her emotions made the matter perfectly clear to Kambil.
“No, the men have apparently disappeared off the face of the world,” Selendi replied. “And they wore masks, so even Lady Hallina can’t give a full description of them. Of course, she should be able to tell everyone what their bodies were like, and then the guard could go around making the peasants strip down for inspection.”
Everyone laughed at that, everyone, that is, except for Delin. He sat in his place as silent and fumingly angry as ever, a good sign as far as Kambil was concerned. He’d been afraid Delin’s mind would begin to crumble to uselessness, but so far it hadn’t. If only he, Kambil, could have some luck in finding another High talent in Earth magic, he’d never have to waste time thinking about Delin again…
“But there is some bad news,” Selendi added, quieting the laughter. “Lord Grall Razas, that man you had such high hopes for us to make use of, is dead. He died at night, I was told, and when a physician was summoned the next morning by Lord Grall’s staff, it was far too late to do anything for him. They think it must have been a seizure o
f some kind, as there wasn’t the least indication of foul play.”
“Are they absolutely sure?” Kambil asked, once again back to being extremely displeased. “With the former Lady Eltrina in the same house, how can they be so certain?”
“They’recertain partially because she wasn’t in the house,” Selendi replied at once with a headshake. “She must have charmed or paid someone on the staff to free her from the chains Lord Grall had her locked up in, and as soon as she was free she disappeared from the house. Investigation showed that she went to an inn she’d frequented many times before, easily producing the gold to pay for her accommodations. She also seemed to be … under the weather, the investigators were told, as she asked for and got two of the inn’s ladies’ maids to sit with her all night. The maids reported that her sleep was interrupted with moans of pain and various nightmares causing her to cry out, but she never left the rooms.”
“So she couldn’t have gone back and somehow murdered him,” Kambil grumbled, knowing any investigator would have Spirit magic enough to be aware of when he was being lied to. If the maids’ story was accepted, then they hadn’t been lying. “But I think I know where she got the gold to pay for her night’s stay. It’s probable that Lord Grall neglected to speak to his bank about cutting her off, so they gave her whatever amount she asked for. Well, have her arrested and returned to that house in chains again, this time under the care of someone I’ll appoint. I don’t want her to be running around loose—”