Spy, Spy Again

by Mercedes Lackey

  “Did you just transform?” she gasped. It shook its head. Well, that left—“Illusion!” she cried. “You can create illusions!”

  It nodded.

  So that was why the Karsite guards were staying away from the prison. One look at that demonic version of her, which probably matched what they thought she looked like anyway, and they wouldn’t venture up the stairs for anything the priests could offer them.

  But that wouldn’t last once the demon-summoners got here. The best it bought her was time. She still needed to get out of here.

  “I’m going to release the second earth afrinn,” she told the other two. “There’s no point in staying up here any longer. I can’t get out the window, so let’s at least get farther down the tower if we can. The closer we are to the ground, the nearer we are to escape.”

  The two afrinns pulled back into the corner with her, and she put the shield up around all three of them. She tossed the first of her last two bronze Talismans on the floor and spiked the spell.

  This one took longer to break itself apart; it took so long that she was afraid that the eventual release was going to be as anticlimactic as the last two.

  But when the spell broke . . . it was spectacular.

  The release of power brought with it a release of real light and heat the equivalent of suddenly splashing oil on a fire. She threw up a hand reflexively, but she did not look away in time and found herself blinking tears out of dazzled eyes, unable to see what was in the room with her for a long while. The only thing she did do was drop the shield, to show that she was not an enemy.

  And when at last she was able to see, she found herself staring at the thing she had released, mouth going dry with fear.

  Of all the afrinns that the Mages of the Mountain spoke of, the one they warned never to approach, never to bother, and above all never to anger was . . . exactly this.

  The Stone Man.

  It stood unmoving in the center of the cell. It looked nothing like a stone statue, as might be assumed from its name. What it looked like was a roughly man-shaped rock formation. There was no discernable face in the lump of rock that was its “head,” certainly nothing like eyes or a mouth. In fact, she couldn’t even tell if she was looking at the front or the back of it. She couldn’t tell what sort of stone it was made from; it was a uniform gray-brown, with fissures where ankles, knees, elbows, and hip and shoulder joints would have been.

  And it most certainly did not need power from her.

  She stood frozen in place, afraid to move lest she attract its attention and wrath. She wished she hadn’t dropped the shield. Not that it was very likely the shield would have done her much good, but—at least it would have been something.

  There was no fighting a Stone Man. Not if you were a mere human. Only the most powerful Mages had a chance. Someone like her would be turned into a red smear on the floor in mere moments.

  But the two afrinns with her swarmed the thing.

  She held out a hand to try to stop them, afraid of what it could do to the delicate little things, even though they were themselves creatures of magic—but a moment later, she realized that they were not swarming it to attack it.

  They were swarming it to greet it.

  * * *

  • • •

  She sat on the floor, unable to stand anymore, her knees gone weak with relief. Whatever was going on, this much was clear at least. The Stone Man had no intention of attacking her. Instead, it and the other two afrinns were in some sort of silent conference, three points of a little triangle of intense concentration.

  The Stone Man did turn its head to—presumably—look at her from time to time. And she assumed that, like the other earth afrinn, it had the ability to “read” the entire prison complex and that it understood what it was and what was in it. But she longed with all her being to be able to talk to it directly, to warn it about the Karsite priests that were coming, and to beg it for protection. She was long past the arrogance and hubris that had made her think she was a match for anything here and that it was only a matter of time before she broke out and got away. This prison had been made to hold tougher creatures than she was, and she had no doubt at all that the Karsite priest had meant every word that he had said about torturing and abasing her and sending her to be burned alive at their capital.

  But the Stone Man—if legends were true, and she had no reason to think that they were not—was the one magical creature she could think of that was more than a match for the Karsite demons. And they should not be able to do much more than scratch its stony surface.

  If it would help her. . . .

  The utterly silent conference went on for so long that she finally gave in to her growling stomach and ate and drank, never taking her eyes off the creature.

  The longer this goes on, the better for me, right? she thought with growing hope. After all, those two afrinns know I’m not the one responsible for binding them all to the Talismans, and I’m not the one responsible for losing the Talismans in storage for so long. And I helped them! They know I didn’t need to do that, and I did it without being asked. Surely that has to count for something. . . .

  The Sleepgivers did not pray to any gods. It was their creed that the gods had set the world in motion, then gone off to do god things, utterly forgetting their creation as they moved on to something else. But as someone who had gone outside the Mountain and had seen and heard of gods that had done more than that (even if the Karsite miracles were nothing more than sham and magic), Sira dared to breathe a hint of a prayer.

  Gods of law and . . . and kindness . . . if you can hear me . . . please believe that if you help me survive this, I will dedicate my life to Father’s plan of turning the Sleepgivers from the path of murder to the path of protection. Please persuade the Stone Man to help me. Please get me out of here.

  She knew that it would only take her urging for her brothers to give their whole hearts to this project, in defiance of whatever the Elders thought. Her father had already set his plan in motion, and with her brothers behind it, once it had reached the third generation of their children, it would no longer be a plan, it would be accomplished.

  As the light outside the prison turned to a mellow orange-gold, in token of the sun going down, the Stone Man turned away from the other two afrinns and, with ponderous footfalls that vibrated the floor, came to within an arm’s-length of her.

  She stood up.

  The other two afrinns moved to stand at her side, a gesture that gave her some hope.

  “I-I-I am Sira,” she stammered. “I released you, and I beg your forgiveness for you being imprisoned for far too long in that Talisman. I know I have no right to ask it of you, but please, I beg you, I need your help.”

  A strange, grating sound emerged from the top of the Stone Man; the sound was like a stone mill wheel grinding dryly against the bedstone, without any grain between them.

  The sound made her shudder with terror, and she braced herself, hope lost, expecting to be struck down at any moment.

  But the sound went on . . . and nothing happened.

  And finally, she realized, with relief that nearly made her faint, what the sound was.

  It was laughter.

  14

  The patrol turned out to be a lot of nothing; as Tiron had predicted, the Karsites took one look at the eight well-armed guards—and second glances at Ahkhan’s smile—and merely checked to make sure Tiron had all the proper paperwork and permissions from the Karsite rulers. Then they hastily went on their way. The mercs waited until they were out of earshot, then the ribald remarks began.

  The mercifully brief interruption over with, the caravan set off northward, at a hard pace that took them out of desert lands and into something that was more like dry grasslands and rugged hills, with thin patches of forest and brushland, where the land was not cultivated. This area was more populous, although
nothing like Valdemar’s lush farmlands. There were many small villages and what looked like farms large enough to hold several generations of extended families. The grazing herds were mostly goats, with some herds of donkeys, horses, and mules, rather than cattle or sheep. Tiron told him that the primary grain crops here were barley with a little wheat, rather than wheat and oats. It was impossible to tell from the stubble exactly what had been standing there before the harvest.

  But there were orchards, although it was too late for fruit, and too late to tell what fruit trees were out there. And vineyards!

  When they stopped briefly at a small town—which they did only because part of their cargo had been ordered by an herbalist there—they augmented their provisions with some fresh food, and aside from apples, what was on offer was a monotonous selection of cabbages and several kinds of beans. They also got flour and raisins, which would certainly be welcome.

  And that was their sole stop in four days of travel. Tiron was extremely anxious to get to their destination, and he pushed them all as hard as he dared.

  “Here’s the problem,” he said over a welcome change of pace of goat-and-vegetable stew, the night after they’d stopped to offload the spices and medicines that had been bespoken. They were camped just off the road, in a spot that was obviously used heavily for just that purpose, in a little cul-de-sac cut out of the side of a hill. That way they had earth on three sides of them and needed to keep watch only from the top of the hill. “There’s no good way to get to where we’re going from where we left. Road building isn’t the Karsites’ strength. Or interest, either, to tell the truth. They prefer that their people stay put where they were born for their entire lives.”

  “Easier to control what they see and hear,” Ismal said sourly.

  Tiron nodded. “So we’re going to have to go north, parallel to the Menmellith border, then go due east again, because that’s where the roads are. Then we’ll hit the Sunserpent River, and there’s a road that runs alongside it that will take us to Son’s Springs, where we leave the main part of the goods. That’s a lot more leagues than if we’d been able to drive as the crow flies—but you just can’t get there from here.”

  “The one good thing is that we’re going to be within running distance of either the Menmellith or Valdemar Border for most of the way,” his son added, brows creased and looking worried in the flickering firelight. “If something bad happens, we can cut our losses and head west; if things go really badly, we’ll cut the horses loose from the wagons and make a run for it. The Karsites will be so busy looting the wagons that we’ll get enough of a head start we’ll make it to safety.”

  Tory cast Ismal a doubtful look. “Do you know something you haven’t told me?” he asked.

  Ismal shrugged. “I just don’t like the fact that those demon-summoning priests had the balls to tear up a village in Ruvan,” he said. “I’ve had a bad feeling ever since it happened.”

  “They were probably chasing one of their own renegades who took shelter there,” his father suggested, patting his son on the shoulder. “If it was someone with Mind-magic who somehow escaped their Fires as a child, you know they’d have gone to the ends of the earth to destroy him. And the Karsites have never cared if innocents get killed as long as they get their quarry. You ask them! They’ll tell you that if someone who gets cut down is truly innocent, he’ll go straight to the arms of the Sunlord. And then they’ll give you the side-eye and point out that is much more desirable than living a long and miserable life on earth.”

  Ismal snorted. “Yeah, that’s what they say about the kids they send to the Fires. They go straight to Vkandis, because they never get the chance to use those sinful powers and soil their souls.”

  “But the people in that village weren’t Karsites!” Kee pointed out. “So they won’t go to Vkandis!”

  “Then the Karsites will tell you they deserved to be killed as heretics. Trust me, they have every possible excuse for being murdering bastards,” Ismal growled. “I hate it every time we take a caravan in here. I’d rather find another market.”

  Tory bit his tongue to keep from blurting out that he could probably arrange that, since from what he’d seen, nearly everything in those wagons would find plenty of buyers at good prices in Valdemar. But he made a mental note of it. Something to bring up later, if, after all this was over, he could catch up with Ismal and his father again.

  But his father laughed. “You worry too much,” he said fondly. “You’re like your mother. The Karsites have too much to lose by interfering with us. Too many important people want what we bring to them.”

  Personally, Tory would not have been willing to bet his safety on that presumption, and from Ismal’s face, neither was he. But it was not Ismal’s caravan, nor his business, and he would have to continue to follow his father’s orders—however misguided he thought them to be.

  They all went to bed—there was wood enough here that a nighttime fire was both possible and welcome. And Tory had pulled the first watch. So he set himself up above the camp on the top of the hill with a cup of that spicebush tea he’d come to enjoy, put his back to the fire so his eyes would adjust to the dark, and allowed his thoughts to drift while his eyes did the work. It was cold up here, but all the layers of his clothing kept everything but his nose warm, once he pulled his headwrap down around his ears. Silence reigned; so much silence that the crackling of the dying fire was the loudest thing he heard—that and the occasional grunt as someone below tried to find a more comfortable sleeping position.

  For the past two nights, even though he and Kee had been at least an arm’s-length away from each other, they’d still been able to see Sira when they searched for her as they pretended to sleep. That had to mean that they weren’t that far from her now.

  Kee had probably been able to see her much more clearly than Tory could, given the level of anxiety Tory was getting in waves from the Prince. So far, Sira was holding the Karsites off and doing reasonably well, at least so far as Tory could tell.

  But of course, that was a temporary state of affairs. The longer she could keep her captors’ at arm’s-length, the more certain it was that the Karsites holding her had called for help. He suspected that the Karsites were walking a knife-edge at the moment. They were expected to get results by themselves, and calling in help would mean they were failures. Failure tended to get treated harshly in Karse. But the longer they went with Sira holding them off, the more their superiors would grow impatient, wondering what was taking them so long to break her. And eventually, the amount of trouble they’d get into for not breaking her would be outweighed by the amount of trouble they’d get into for not calling in help, and they’d send for reinforcements.

  And that help would almost certainly involve the demon-summoners. Tory knew that, Ahkhan knew that, and Kee had probably figured that out for himself.

  Which partly explained Kee’s level of anxiety.

  But not all of it.

  Surely, surely Kee and Sira could not be Lifebonded. . . . They hadn’t even met! Tory didn’t much care for the idea of Lifebonding in the first place—it seemed to him to be more horrible than romantic to find yourself tied for life to someone else so intimately that if one of you died, the other one didn’t want to live anymore. And having their Prince life-bonded to a foreign assassin was going to be a pretty tough thing to persuade even the most broad-minded person in Valdemar to accept. What the King would think about it, well, Tory didn’t even want to contemplate what kind of reaction the King would have.

  And yet . . . if it was a Lifebond, and not just infatuation with some imaginary creature Kee thought Sira was, the King was pragmatic. And if no one ever made reference to exactly where Sira was from . . . if she was just introduced as “a foreign highborn from a desert clan”. . . .

  There have been stranger spouses in the history of Valdemar’s royals.

  It helped that Kee was pretty
far down in the line for the throne, which should make his choice of mate of interest to no one but himself—and perhaps any foreign princesses whose diplomats had been thinking of alliance marriages. I don’t know of any of those, but there’s no telling what’s going on in foreign courts.

  And what better person could you have standing secret bodyguard on the King and his family than a trained assassin?

  But Sira is also a Mage. Would she be willing to give that up? There was no way a practicing Mage could live in Valdemar for long without going insane. And for that matter, Tory had no notion if a non-practicing Mage could live in Valdemar without going insane. And what about her Talisman? Would wearing it make her vulnerable? Would she give it up?

  And maybe my imagination is running away with me. All of this could merely be the result of Kee fancying himself in the role of a gallant rescuer. This . . . infatuation could all be based on some picture the Prince had in his head which had little, if any, resemblance to reality. After all, what did they know about Sira in the first place? Next to nothing about the kind of person she was like to live with.

  True, they knew she was brave. They knew she was smart. They knew—because Tory had seen her face, and he was dead certain Kee had too—that she was not unattractive. But did she have a temper? How did she really feel about people who were not of her Nation? Was she kind to animals? Was she cruel to children? There were all manner of traits she could have that would be too much for Kee to deal with. And right now, Kee could be painting himself a mental portrait that was at odds with the reality.

  And he was all too ready to forget that she was an assassin. That she probably had no intention of leaving the Sleepgivers, and if Ahkhan was anything to judge by, had absolutely no guilt over being a multiple murderer.

  Mind, if I were murdering Karsite priests . . . I wouldn’t have any guilt either.

  So when Kee met the reality and found it at odds with his vision, the problem of the Prince’s feelings just might solve itself.