Spy, Spy Again

by Mercedes Lackey

  Kee kept peering up at the tops of the canyon walls around them, trying to spot the watchers. Tory saw no reason to doubt his cousin and didn’t try.

  They watered the horses first, then moved them to a patch of ground with knee-high, rather than ankle-high, grass, and Ahkhan showed them both how to tie the beasts up so that they could graze freely without getting loose and running if they were spooked. “And my Natya will be lead mare and will keep them calm regardless,” he added matter-of-factly.

  They made their beds up nearby. Ahkhan cautioned them again not to tear up armfuls of grass merely to make their sleeping spot softer, nor break off branches from the bushes to do the same. “And we will not have a fire,” he added. “There is no need, and fuel is scarce in the desert. Unless,” he added, “You have no objection to hunting for dried dung to make a fire with.”

  “What?” Kee exclaimed. “You do that?”

  “All desert peoples do.”

  “We don’t really have anything to cook, and we should be warm enough without a fire,” Kee finally said after a moment of thought.

  “Good.” Ahkhan sat down on his bed and nodded approvingly. “This is how you prosper in the desert. Waste nothing.” He opened his pack and took out his waterskin. “Oh, it is permitted to swim, but take some water, go far enough away from the pond that you will not contaminate it, and make yourself clean first.”

  “That sounds like a good idea, without the swimming part. It’s already getting chilly.” Tory suited his words to actions, got a leather bucket and a tiny sliver of soap, went off to the back of the canyon, and cleaned himself up. It was . . . a bit uncomfortable, knowing that someone was certainly watching him, but if that was the price of sleeping undisturbed, he’d pay it. He made sure to take his bucket bath where some trees would get the benefit of the water.

  When he got back to their little encampment, Kee and Ahkhan’s damp hair suggested that they’d followed his example.

  They ate, and watched the light dim—quickly, a lot faster than he was used to—and the stars come out. And the stars were amazing. They seemed so bright and so near that Tory fancied if he climbed up one of those cliffs, he could touch them.

  And that was when they heard it. A long, low whistle, off to the right. It was followed by another to the left. Then a third, behind them.

  By this time it was too dark to see each other except as shadows, but Tory looked over at Ahkhan anyway. “That’s not a bird,” he stated.

  “No, it’s our watchers,” his cousin agreed. “They are making themselves known to us, which means they now trust us to behave ourselves and keep the water-peace.”

  “That’s . . . reassuring. I guess,” said Kee, and yawned. “Are we getting up before dawn is even a thought again?”

  “No need. We’ll wait one day for a caravan. If one doesn’t find us here, we’ll look ahead on the road. And if we still don’t find one, we will chance crossing the Border on our own.” Ahkhan paused. “Can you look to see anything of my sister now?”

  “We’ll look.” Kee sounded as if the prospect had shaken all thoughts of sleep out of his head.

  It took almost no time to locate her tonight—although “locate” was about all he could do. It was as dark in her cell as it was out here in the desert; she was tucked in a corner and apparently sleeping sitting up. The one big change was that--as far as he could tell in the dark—she was wearing actual clothing instead of that sack she’d been in before. And she seemed to have things piled around her.

  He said as much when he emerged from the trance. “Do you suppose this means the Karsites are treating her better?” he asked, as Ahkhan’s silence on being told this stretched into uncomfortable territory.

  “I do not know what to think,” he said, finally. “It could mean that they are treating her better. It could also mean that she took the clothing from one of her guards, in which case they now know she is fully capable of killing an armed man while she is fundamentally naked.”

  Tory didn’t say She can do that? because he knew very well his father probably could, and there was no reason why Sira couldn’t do the same.

  And he wasn’t naive. He knew very well what would make an imprisoned woman decide it was worth revealing what she was and kill one of her guards.

  “Do you think they realize she’s a Sleepgiver?” he asked.

  “Well. Since I believe she was ambushed precisely because she was coming from our stronghold and they were already thinking she at least knew something about us, I am fairly confident that yes, they know.” Ahkhan went silent again. “She has the high ground. She is in a stone cell, and they can only come at her, one at a time, through the door. So the only way she will leave that cell is if she wills it.”

  Kee’s voice rose with alarm. “Can’t they starve her out? And she can’t have access to water—”

  “Ah, but she does,” Ahkhan assured him. “She is a Mage as well as a Sleepgiver. All she needs is to have a bit of food or water and she can use that to apport more from the source. No, she is secure enough. ”

  “Then why are we bothering to go rescue her?” Tory demanded, a bit angrily. In fact, he was of more than half a mind to saddle up the horses and ride right straight back to Valdemar the hard way if he had to!

  “Tory—” interjected Kee.

  “If she can do everything, why does she even need us?”

  “Tory—” Kee repeated more urgently.

  He was just getting started. “I mean—”

  “Peace,” said Ahkhan, holding up his hand. “I understand you. And no, she cannot do everything. She can hold her own, but if she could have escaped, she would have by now. Yes, she is a Mage, but . . . she is a sort of bag of tricks Mage, if you take my meaning. She knows how to do a few things that serve her well, and she has deeply studied our Talismans, but even an apprentice of Amber Moon could best her in a magical confrontation. I am certain that should they unleash enough of their demons on her, she could not survive. And yes, she is a Sleepgiver, but you know yourself that our abilities are suited to ambush and murder, not actual combat. We—I—am going to help her, because even if she somehow escapes the prison, she will not escape pursuit, and because she is no match for a single heavily armed man in the open, much less a group of them, and still less so an armed force backed by demons.”

  Tory subsided, all his anger running out of him. “Oh . . . ”

  “And if you wish to turn back at this moment, I will not prevent you,” Ahkhan continued. “We are going into an enemy land, your enemy as well as mine. This is not your cause. A few drops of shared blood does not make it so.”

  “We’re staying,” Kee said firmly before Tory could reply.

  “I am . . . relieved,” said Ahkhan. “I am but one man, and a Sleepgiver. Like Sira, my training is not for direct confrontation.”

  Tory rolled his eyes, but . . . to be honest, now that Ahkhan had explained things a little more, he was beginning to feel like Kee. Not because he felt the pressing need to rescue Sira, but because he was beginning to like Ahkhan very much, and he didn’t want to think of him going out there to rescue Sira alone. And now he understood his father’s ambivalence about Ahkhan’s own father, Beshat. Ahkhan was honest, reliable, trustworthy, and charming.

  And a cold-blooded murderer for money.

  Which was used to support the needs of his people.

  But nevertheless—

  Argh.

  “I thank you both, for Sira’s sake,” Ahkhan said simply. “And I thank you for relieving my mind about her this evening. Good night.”

  And with that, he lay down and rolled up in his blankets, for all the world as if this were a peaceful camping excursion.

  Tory, however, stared up at the stars for a very long time, trying, and failing, to sort out his own confused mind.

  * * *

  • • •

&
nbsp; In the light of predawn, he half-woke, saw someone squatting in the grass at his feet, and came completely awake with a yell of alarm that awoke both his companions.

  “Peace!” Ahkhan said immediately, putting out a restraining hand as Tory fumbled for his dagger. “This is one of our hosts.” The Sleepgiver managed a half-bow from the tangle of his bedroll, which the figure returned.

  Tory shivered in the cold air of predawn, which did not seem to affect their host in the least, even though the man was naked to the waist, wearing only a pair of leather trews and a breechcloth of leather. His head was shaved, and his body had been painted in irregular stripes of red and ocher. He held a sort of spear in one hand, and he had a bow across his back and a quiver of arrows at his side.

  “Greetings, guests,” the man replied, in the tongue of Menmellith, but with an odd, lyrical accent. “I come to invite you to break your fast with us. There is hare and fruit.”

  Fruit? At this time of the year? Tory was eager to find out more, and equally eager to eat something besides traveler’s biscuits, so he was glad when Ahkhan accepted for all three of them.

  They simply got up and left their blankets and possessions where they lay and followed the man to the front of the canyon, where a small fire burned and the bodies of several hares roasted on spits above and around it, making efficient use of every bit of heat and flame. Along with the four men who awaited them there, there were four unhooded hawks of a kind Tory had never seen before, jessed and on perches stuck into the ground. They were handsome birds, lean, mostly a very dark brown, with lighter brown on their shoulders and black-tipped white tailfeathers. Tory was intrigued that they were not trying to attack one another, even though they were completely unhooded.

  All four men were dressed like the first, except for one who had a small deer pelt as a kind of cape fastened over one shoulder and under the opposite arm.

  “Peace to you,” said Ahkhan. “And thanks for your hospitality.”

  “You and your friends are mannered, Sleepgiver, and we had more hare than we needed,” said the first man. “Better to share than to waste.”

  Tory was shocked at first that they knew what Ahkhan was—then he realized that if they were the night guards, they had probably been able to hear every word spoken from their hiding places on the cliffs.

  “Sit, eat. There will likely be a caravan; this afternoon, tonight at the latest,” said the man wearing the deer pelt. “May you prosper against the demon-priests,” he added, and spat off to one side, ceremoniously.

  They took a seat and accepted portions of hare and some odd, reddish fruits that looked nothing like anything Tory had ever seen before, red-skinned, green-fleshed, a kind of oval lump with spines here and there which the others were snapping off with the flats of their blades. He watched the others cut off the ends, slit the side, and peel off a thick rind before eating the core. He did the same. It tasted like slightly sweet cucumber. Or maybe melon. It went very well with the gamey hare.

  They all ate in silence, but it wasn’t an uncomfortable silence—more like the silence of men who are accustomed to saying few words and keeping their own counsel. Tory would have liked, very much, to ask them about their lives, but their manner made it clear that such questions would be impolite. It was enough that they had been given this brief time with their hosts.

  When the last of the hare had been eaten, and the guts and heads fed to the hawks, who ate until their crops bulged, the first man stood up while the others quickly cleaned up the area until it was pristine again and took up their hawks on their leather-guarded wrists. “It is time for us to go. At about noon, go you there—” he pointed to something that was broader than a hoodoo but looked to have been shaped in the same way, that stood opposite them at the mouth of the canyon. “Climb it, and let yourself be seen. If the caravan master needs you, he will hail you down. If he does not, do not importune him; either remain in your camp or go on your way.”

  Ahkhan bowed to him, and he returned the salutation. “For the food, for the hearth, for the words, our thanks.”

  “By your words and your manners, be welcome,” said the man, and the five of them turned and walked away.

  “They didn’t even ask us our names!” Tory said, astonished.

  “It’s not their way,” replied Ahkhan. “And not one traveler in a hundred who stops here will ever see them. We’re lucky. This is my second time to share hearth and food with them. I think they respect Sleepgivers as being not unlike them, a fellow desert people.”

  He motioned to the two of them with his head, and they all moved back to their campsite. “I hope one of you two can climb,” he said. “We’ll need to be up on that rock up there at noon.”

  Tory just smiled. He had the feeling that he and Kee were finally going to impress Ahkhan with something.

  11

  Sira stood nose-to-nose with what she could only assume was an afrinn of air.

  It barely fit in the cell with her; it was a winged and feathered creature with a long tail of two elaborate, curved plumes, an equally long neck that was bowed in an absurd curve to put the creature’s reptilian head on the same level as hers, and it looked as if it were made of blue glass.

  She had waited quite a while before breaking the binding spell on the second Talisman; she wanted to make the most of every bit of advantage she got from each creature she released. It was only when she’d awakened to hear cautious whispering down at the bottom of the staircase that she decided to release the second afrinn rather than take the chance that she might not be able to handle a third invasion of her cell.

  This time she’d dropped her shields as soon as the initial energy of the release was gone and stood up to meet the creature on its own terms. Now it regarded her with the same blank stare as its predecessor had.

  Which was, of course, much better than being attacked outright.

  “I am very, very sorry you were imprisoned for so long,” she said softly. “I am sure it was due to mere human forgetfulness rather than malice, but nevertheless, I apologize deeply for the neglect. Now I give you your freedom—” she paused, and steeled her nerves, because this next could go very wrong “—but I myself am imprisoned here at the will of an enemy of your kind and mine. And if you should choose to work out some of your entirely understandable anger on them, even past the point where they drop the shields holding you in here, I would be very grateful.”

  The glassy eyes stared into hers for a very long time indeed. But it didn’t seem to take offense at anything she had said, which was promising.

  Then, when the silence had gone on for so long that she wondered if the creature had understood her at all, it dipped its head a little to her. She bowed to it—and then, in a rush of wind that nearly knocked her off her feet, it was gone.

  And screams erupted from the stairwell, screams that, this time, did not fade as if the screamers were running, but rather, were cut off abruptly, as if something quite bad had happened to them.

  One can only hope, she thought with grim satisfaction. After all, there were children’s tales that suggested that the afrinns of air could suck the breath right out of your body and keep it from returning.

  Well, whether it did that or not, she suspected the garrison of this prison, and the priests in it, were in for a lively time.

  As for her, she occupied herself with apporting a couple of loaves of fresh bread before the afrinn blew out the fires in the kitchen. Or blew on them, making them much hotter, and burning the bread that was in the ovens to cinders, and rendering anything else that was cooking inedible.

  At this moment, oddly enough, with the afrinn fully occupying the Karsites, the worst thing she faced as long as it was raging around the prison was . . . worry. She had adequate food and water, and she was clothed properly now. Her limited number of spells useful in this situation was pretty much spent. She couldn’t see much out of her windo
ws. And she still hadn’t come up with a way to get past the bars on the windows and let herself down with her leather “rope.” Nor did she have a good idea of how to get away from here without being run down by guards on horseback. It was impossible to say how large the garrison here was, and coming at her mounted would be a good way for them to wear her down and take minimal damage themselves. She was secure for the moment, but she could think of one way they could eliminate her, if they gave up on getting information from her. All they had to do was clear the garrison out and turn their demons loose in here after darkness fell. Problem solved.

  I hope they don’t think of that.

  To add to her concerns, for the last week or so, at least, she would have been willing to stake money on the fact that someone was trying to make mental contact with her. Mental, as in mind-to-mind, and Mind-magic rather than the sort of magic she was familiar with. And that was . . . strange. The Sleepgivers were not given to such powers and honestly had no way to train anyone in them, so it wasn’t someone from home. The only nonworrying aspect of this was that the Karsites absolutely did not have anyone with those powers; her father had told her that they would identify children with mental and magical abilities in early childhood, murder the former, and train the latter in the priesthood.

  And truth to be told, every time she did feel that brush of another mind, the contact wasn’t threatening. In fact, it was reassuring. It felt as though someone was desperately worried for her and trying to reassure her.

  And curiously enough, the contact left the image of a handsome young man lingering in her thoughts. And not one whom she had ever seen before.

  So it wasn’t from home and it wasn’t the Karsites, which begged the question—what, or who, was it? And why? If it was a hallucination of some sort, why did it only come just after dark and linger for only a little while? And why did she feel no other effects? Was it a combination of wishful thinking and exhaustion? Was it just a dream? That was certainly possible; given her erratic sleeping of late, she could easily slip into a dream-state without realizing it.