Prophecy

by Sharon Green

  “As many times as necessary,” Lorand replied with a frown, but his expression wasn’t for what had happened to their former enemies. His attention was on Naran, and Rion turned with sudden concern to see that she sat bonelessly in her chair with her eyes closed. “No, it’s all right, Rion, she’s just fainted from exhaustion. Once she gets a lot of sleep she’ll be fine, but this leads to a very important question: why didn’t the entity even try to find a way to strengthen her as well as us? We all wanted it to be the first concern, but the entity didn’t even consider it.”

  “Since she’s definitely one of us, it doesn’t make any sense,” Tamrissa said, having left her chair to bend to Naran. “But whatever the answer turns out to be, we’ll have to continue on to Gan Garee as soon as possible. Staying here makes us nothing but targets, and the sooner we dispose of those five pieces of garbage, the fewer people will die.”

  Rion heard the murmurs of assent as he lifted Naran into his arms, at the moment concerned only with her well-being. Lorand’s question might be answered at some time in the future, which meant that the situation would probably not change for the next time they Blended. Perhaps he’d be able to persuade Naran to refrain from joining them, but the likelihood of that wasn’t strong. She would give her life, if necessary to assist them, but that Rion would never allow. He would not lose her because of this, he would not…!

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Delin strode toward the meeting room he was to get together with the others in, his mood rather foul. Things weren’t going at all the way they should have, and his efforts so far hadn’t done anything to change matters. He didn’t understand why his methods weren’t working, not when everything inside him said they should have been completely successful. Could someone be working against him in secret, someone he didn’t know about and therefore couldn’t be expected to suspect…?

  “Oh … Delin,” Homin said as he walked out of the corridor leading to his wing, the words no more than an acknowledgment of Delin’s presence rather than a greeting or the preliminary to a question. “I’m on my way to the meeting.”

  “You should already be at the meeting,” Delin pointed out as he slowed his pace, forcibly keeping himself from snarling. “Why are you only just on your way?”

  “I became … involved with something,” Homin replied, looking around rather than meeting Delin’s gaze. “It made me lose track of the time, but there’s no harm done. After all, you haven’t gotten there yet either.”

  Delin nearly choked on the words that would have told Homin he was supposed to have waited for Delin, just the way all of them had at the last meeting. He was their leader now, but it was far too soon to rub their noses in it. A better idea might be to hand out the medication they needed to be free of pain at the meetings, then no one would even consider being tardy…

  “Oh, by the way, Bron won’t be with us,” Homin said, his manner reminding Delin of the way Homin used to be, which was a bit slow, more quiet than not, almost completely unreliable, and with very little personality. “He sent one of his servants to tell me that so I might pass it on to you, and that he would reschedule the meeting for a more … convenient time. I wonder how he’ll know what’s convenient for the rest of us.”

  This time Delin stopped short, so outraged he could barely contain it. Bron had sent word to Homin that he would reschedule a meeting Delin had called? Just as though he were their leader rather than Delin? Not in this lifetime!

  “You, come here!” Delin snarled to a servant who stood ready to get the Five anything they desired. “Go to Lord Bron’s wing and find him no matter what he’s doing, and tell him I said that if he isn’t at the meeting in two minutes, he won’t be getting anything to drink tomorrow morning. No, don’t worry about what that means, just tell him!”

  The servant bowed hastily and then took off at a run, which made Delin feel a small bit better. At least there was someone around there who took his position seriously…

  “Would you really do that?” Homin asked from the place where he, too, had stopped. “Withhold Bron’s medication, I mean. Would you really do that to him?”

  “If you can think of a reason why I shouldn’t, I’d be curious to hear it,” Delin said, seeing the faint worry in Homin’s eyes. “I’m the only one who knows the composition of that counteragent, so if Bron decides he can do away with me and not have to worry about consequences, he’s as wrong as usual. Or don’t you agree?”

  “Oh, of course I agree with you, Delin, just as I always have,” Homin hastened to assure him while glancing around in an uneasy way. “It’s just that … Bron probably doesn’t realize that he’s inconveniencing you, since he seems to have reverted quite a long way toward what he used to be. And Selendi has barely said a word to me lately, not to mention indulging in … other things. I don’t understand what’s happening…”

  Delin frowned at Homin, seeing the lack of ease and self confidence that used to be so evident at all times. Homin was also clearly reverting, and the reason for that added to Delin’s disturbance. Kambil had had the three of them under control, and they’d behaved just the way they were supposed to while actually obeying Kambil’s orders. Delin had expected to walk into the position Kambil had previously held, had expected his three groupmates to take his orders without argument, but once again things weren’t going as planned. The constant pain Kambil was in the grip of must have loosened his hold on the three, letting them revert to what they’d been before Kambil and his grandmother had put them under control…

  Delin cursed under his breath as he resumed walking toward the meeting room, Homin trailing silently after. Obviously someone was working against him, and he meant to find out exactly who that someone was.

  When they reached the meeting room, Delin saw that Selendi had obviously only just arrived. A servant was in the process of pouring her a cup of tea, while she sat staring at herself in a hand mirror. That vapid, mindless expression she’d always worn was back, and although she knew Delin and Homin had come in, she made no effort to acknowledge their presence. Delin’s first urge was to snap at her, but then he held the words back. He’d wait until Bron arrived, and then he’d have to say it only once.

  It took more than twice the two minutes he’d specified to the servant in his message to Bron, but the Fire magic user did finally stalk into the meeting room. His expression said he was furious, but before he could speak Delin reached out with his talent and touched the man’s heart.

  “Yes, it hurts, and if you try to use Fire magic on me it will hurt a good deal more,” Delin said as Bron gasped and staggered, needing to keep erect himself as there was no servant in the room to help him. “And even if you decide the pain is worth it to turn me to ash, you’ll change your mind tomorrow, when the counteragent isn’t available to hold off the agony of the poison. Do you understand that thoroughly and completely?”

  Bron nodded convulsively as he tottered to a chair and fell into it, so Delin also nodded and released his hold. Homin stared silently from where he sat—as close to Selendi as he could manage—and even Selendi had looked up from her primping in the mirror.

  “As for you,” Delin said to the stupid girl, “you won’t ever bring a mirror to a meeting again. You’ll all show up on time, and you won’t send excuses or bring other things to do. Is that clear?”

  “How could it be anything but?” Selendi demanded with a very unladylike snort, sending hatred to him with the daggers of her gaze. “You have a hold on us, so you’regoing to use it. What a surprise.”

  “Well, I’m glad you liked that so much,” Delin said, keeping the edge out of his voice. “Since you did, I’ll add something to it just for you. From now on we’ll have a meeting every day, at a time and place I’ll decide on shortly before the meeting. Once I decide I’ll send servants to tell the rest of you, and that meeting will be where you’ll be given the counteragent. The last one to arrive, though, will have to wait until the meeting is over before he—or she—gets to drink
the counteragent. I’m sure everyone will be really grateful to you, Selendi, for making me think of that.”

  The hatred in her gaze increased, but at least she had the good sense not to say anything else. She and the others could spend the rest of the day wondering just when the meeting would be, as they would have to wait until then for the counteragent. Delin decided to make it somewhat later in the morning than the three had been taking the counteragent until then. That way the pain would be starting again by the time they reached the meeting place…

  “Are you through pushing us around, Delin?” Bron asked, his skin still pale from the near heart attack Delin had caused him to experience. “Because if you are, you might like to hear why I was late getting here.”

  “Are you seriously going to tell me her name?” Delin asked with a snort of his own. “Do I look as if I care what her name is?”

  “The name is of a man, and he’s the commandant of the city guard,” Bron replied with disgust dripping from the words. He still wasn’t able to sit straight in his chair, but his air of contempt came through clearly. “He came to report to the Five about the disturbances in the city, but you were ‘unavailable’ and the others were too. That’s why I saw him alone, and he was just finishing his report when that servant showed up with your ridiculous message. Next time it would help our image if you found out what I was doing before you threatened me in public.”

  Delin stood silently for a moment, trying to decide whether or not to believe Bron. It would be just like the man to make up a story like that to embarrass him, to emasculate him before the others. Well, it wasn’t going to be done quite as easily as that…

  “So you had a visit from the commandant of the city guard,” Delin said after the pause, having decided to call Bron’s bluff. “Why don’t you tell the rest of us what he had to say.”

  “I’ll be glad to, but first I have a question,” Bron had the nerve to answer. “We were supposed to get another letter with a list of names in today’s delivery of the counteragent. Was the list picked up? None of the palace guards could tell me.”

  “We … haven’t received word as yet about where the package and letter have been left,” Delin admitted, hating to voice one of the things that hadn’t gone as he’d expected it to. “The delay probably doesn’t mean anything beyond the fact that our enemies have grown cautious, so I wouldn’t worry about it.”

  “Of course you wouldn’t,” Bron replied, finally forcing himself straighter in the chair. “You aren’t one of those who need the counteragent in order to stay free of pain and continue living. But that’s really beside the point, isn’t it? We don’t need their help either, but they’renot supposed to know that. My guess would be that they do know that, so they’ve abandoned their schemes for good.”

  “Are you saying they have a spy here in the palace?” Delin demanded, the assertion too close to his own thinking to be nothing more than coincidence. “The same idea occurred to me, but no one is supposed to be able to get through our guard security. If there is a spy here, how did he get in?”

  “If it’s someone who’s been here all along, there would be no question about how he got in,” Bron said, his attitude now somewhat brooding. “I’ve been thinking about it and about how they managed to poison us in the first place, and that looks like the only answer. They’ve been here all along, and we simply didn’t know. And, at this point, we have no way to question that army of servants and expect to find the guilty ones.”

  Delin felt the barb of that accusation, even though it was only suggested. With Kambil completely out of it, they’d have to question each and every servant one at a time in order for Delin to be able to tell if the one being questioned was lying. That would probably take years, when they couldn’t even count on having weeks.

  “Our lacks at this point can’t be helped,” Delin said after a moment, making his counter about Kambil as oblique as Bron’s accusation. “Happily we don’t need the enemy in order to have the counteragent, so we can put that problem aside for the moment. Did the guard commandant come with a problem that can’t be put aside?”

  “I’d say that was an accurate description,” Bron agreed with a judicious nod. “If Homin will be so kind as to get me a cup of tea, I’ll find it easier to tell all of you about it.—Yes, thank you for agreeing, Homin. Now to the problem: there’s been trouble all over the city, and the guard commandant is complaining that he doesn’t have enough men to handle it. It seems that too much of his force has been sent out of the city, and none of it has returned yet.”

  “The peasants are making trouble?” Delin asked with a frown, ignoring Homin’s scurrying to the tea service on Bron’s behalf. “Why haven’t we been told about this before now?”

  “That was my question, and it took a bit of doing before I had an answer,” Bron returned, back to looking sour. “It seems that our peasant population has been told about the … ‘help’ we were given to win the final competition, and very few, if any, are doubting the truth of the accusation. Our noble peers decided on a course of action and gave the orders for it, just to keep us from being disturbed, you understand. The fact that no one had the insides to mention the matter to us had nothing at all to do with it.”

  “Of course not,” Delin agreed dryly, fighting to keep from screaming at the stupidity of their so-called peers. “If someone had mentioned the matter to us, we could have shown those lowborn fools just how much help we need now, but our people were protecting us. So why have they come to us at this time?”

  “Because matters have gotten out of hand,” Bron said very simply. “Curfews were instituted to keep the peasants off the streets and away from the ranting of agitators, and those who defied the curfew were arrested. Gold was offered for the names and locations of agitators, and two were betrayed to the guard.”

  “That doesn’t sound like matters getting out of hand,” Delin pointed out, shifting in the chair he’d taken a pair of moments earlier. “It sounds as though matters are well in hand.”

  “They only began that way,” Bron disagreed, thanking Homin with a nod for the teacup the smaller man had brought over. “The arrests of the peasants and agitators should have quieted the rest of the noisy fools, the way it’s done in the past. This time, however, the places of detention were attacked and the peasants were freed, and the traitor who was paid gold for betraying the agitators was found hanging outside one of the guard posts. During the attacks the defending guardsmen were beaten savagely, and one or two, who had been teaching the peasants under arrest better manners, were killed. Now large numbers of peasants are defying the curfews, and the commandant’s men are reluctant to make any more arrests.”

  “We’ll have to find more men for him to use,” Delin said as he stood and began to pace. “If we let the peasants get away with doing as they please, they’ll start to do even more. Once he has the men, we’ll tell him to kill the peasants rather than arrest them. That way there won’t be anyone for the others to rescue, and they’ll get the message that the same could happen to any one of them. That will make them toe the line again, just wait and see if it doesn’t.”

  “Where are we supposed to get more men for him?” Bron had the nerve to ask after sipping at his tea. “The guard has always recruited from the peasants, and in the last week or two the number of applications from possible recruits has fallen off to almost nothing. We’ve had no word at all from any of the guard groups sent to take care of those five peasant upstarts who escaped from the city, and I doubt if we will hear from them. With that in view, killing any of the peasants out of hand will just make the others insanely angry and push them into retaliating in kind.”

  “We may have to show more of the guardsmen the way to link in that new tandem way,” Homin ventured before Delin was able to reply to Bron. “If we do that, we won’t need more guardsmen. Kambil didn’t want to, I know, but it looks like we may have to do it anyway now.”

  “Kambil had a reason for not wanting to show any of the loc
al link groups,” Bron said to Homin with a headshake. “That special tandem link makes them a lot stronger than normal, and he didn’t want a bunch of them getting ideas about taking over from us. Now that we’re… less than full strength, there’s even more of a reason to keep the knowledge from them.”

  “But that’s only a possibility, while the lack of enough guardsmen is a reality,” Selendi said, startling Delin. “With going up against the rabble ourselves the only alternative to doing nothing or showing them the new linking, what choice do we have?”

  “We can go up against them ourselves,” Homin mused, no longer hesitating the way he had. “After all, we’refar from strengthless as far as our abilities are concerned. They won’t know the difference between High talents, they’ll only know that we are Highs. That might even do the job of squashing most of those rumors about us. What do you think, Delin?”

  “Are you suggesting that I let Kambil rejoin us?” Delin asked, aware of those three pairs of eyes staring at him. “That may seem like a good idea to you, Homin, but not to me. Kambil won’t be Blending with us ever again, but we really don’t need him. The four of us can do the same without him.”

  “And let everyone know that there’s serious trouble among the Five?” Bron asked, derisive again. “That would bring more problems, not solve the ones we already have. If we can’t go out complete, we can’t go out at all. What other suggestion do you have?”

  “Why do I need another suggestion?” Delin demanded, pausing in his pacing to glare at Bron. “Because you say so? Well, the point may be difficult for you to grasp, but you’renot the leader of this group!”

  “I never claimed to be the leader, Delin,” Bron returned, much too calmly to suit Delin. “What I am, though, is someone who remembers that there’s a prophecy out there claiming that the evil Four will return. If we go out in public without Kambil, people will start to say that we’re the evil Four, come back in different bodies to enslave everyone. Right after that they’ll start to attack the palace here, and we won’t have to worry about finding the spy among the servants because most of them will either be gone or will be attacking us along with everyone else. Is that really what you want?”