The Brazen Gambit

Chapter Twelve

"It's morning," a voice announced, accompanied by a sandal-shod nudge in Pavek's floating ribs.

He groaned, a deeper and more painful sound than he expected. His eyes opened grittily to light streaming through the bachelor hut's reed wall and to a flood of memories: Last evening he'd made a fool of himself with Akashia, first with his oafish templar humor, then by arguing with her about druid affairs: zarneeka and Urik. After that, he'd plopped himself down within reach of the Moonracer's barrel and drunk too much honey-ale. Not as much as he would have when he'd done his drinking in Joat's Den, but too much for a man no longer accustomed to it. He remembered everyone else leaving for their beds, even the elves, and rising oh-so-carefully to his feet for the treacherous walk to his bed.

But, if he could remember all that and bear the light without cringing, then he could probably roll over without his blood sloshing painfully from one side of his skull to the other, the way it did after a night at Joat's.

So he rotated, and the face of the man who'd awakened him resolved into Yohan's leathery features.

"How long past dawn?" he asked working his mouth to get rid of its sour taste.

"High time for you to get your lazy bones off the floor. The Moonracers have folded up their tents and raised a cloud of dust over the salt flats. Sun's two hands above the trees.".

Now he remembered exactly why he'd taken refuge beside the ale barrel. With a single syllable oath of despair, he sat up. "The meeting in Telhami's hut. Is it over? What did Akashia say? Did she convince the others to keep on taking zarneeka seeds to Urik?" His tongue still tasted like the inside of a slop bucket, but there was nothing he could do about it until he got to the well, which seemed, suddenly, a long walk away.

"They're waiting for you," Yohan informed him, dropping a hide-wrapped travel flask into his lap. "You're the one who knows Urik and its templars."

He unstoppered the flask and passed the opening quickly beneath his nose: old habits, again. Mention had been made of Urik and templars, and when Urik was in a templar's mind, no amount of caution was excessive. But the piercing scent of bitterroot filled his nostrils, and he took a full-mouth swig. The days-old taste vanished. After another pull, he returned a half-emptied flask with a grunt of thanks.

Yohan tossed him a freshly washed and still damp shirt. Six days' of unshaved beard snagged the cloth as he tugged it over his head. He stroked his chin with a thumb. If he didn't want to face the druids looking like squatter-scum, he needed a lengthy session with a razor and lump of pumice.

The veteran dwarf extended his arm and made a fist, having apparently read his thoughts. "No rime for that. They're waiting."

"I don't understand why they're waiting," he complained. I've got nothing to say. Akashia knows what I think."

"And what do you think, Just-Plain Pavek?" The question held a hint of challenge.

He grasped the dwarf's wrist and gained his feet with a clean jerk. "Burn it all, every last bush and seed, then pray no one comes looking. Same as I thought last night. Akashia thinks otherwise. I told her I won't argue with her. I'm not getting myself caught between her and Telhami."

All the bachelor bedding was neatly rolled against the outer walls as they walked down the center of the long hut. All except his own, which needed airing, and-he counted twice to be certain-Ruari's, which hadn't been touched since someone spread it out the previous evening. "Where's he this morning?"

"You won't get caught between Akashia and Grandmother," Yohan ignored his question completely. "They agree with each other."

Quraite was quiet outside the bachelors' hut, with no visible signs of the recent festivities. A few farmers were using the morning's last few cool moments to do the heavy work of arranging the evening's fire in the pit-hearth. They hailed Yohan and him with unusual friendliness-or so he thought; he still had trouble measuring these things.

The men said nothing until they reached the well where they were beyond anyone's earshot. Pavek stretched the night-kinks out of his shoulders raising a bucket of cool water to the surface.

"Why wait for me, if the women agree with each other? Why not just load up the bugs and start riding toward Urik?"

He waited a moment for the dwarf's answer, and when none seemed forthcoming-as none had been to his question about Ruari-he bent over the bucket to wash his face. "I'm the one who says when the bugs are loaded-" Pavek continued splashing water on his cheeks "-and when we leave for Urik. And I'm the one who wants to hear you speak your mind beneath Grandmother's roof."

He sprayed an unwitting mouthful of water over the edge of the bucket. "You what?"

"I agree with you, that's all. Quraite's been sending zarneeka to Urik since before Grandmother was born, or so she says. And she says, too, that Quraite's not going to fail its obligations just because some Lion's-pet templar has dealt himself into the exchange. I say it's all dangerous nonsense. Athas isn't the place it was before Grandmother was born. Things could change now and stay changed for another thousand years, and maybe wind up worse than they were. Whatever good Ral's Breath does for the rabble, it isn't enough to risk hauling zarneeka seeds to Urik now, or ever again. You know it; I know it. And the guardian knows it, too. But Quraite's used to my saying 'burn the whole crop.' I've never been in favor of it. Damn city doesn't have anything we need; we're surrounded by salt, no point in trading for it!"

Yohan gestured helplessly. "I only know what they tell me-" he corrected himself "-what Ruari told me after he talked to Kashi. It wouldn't be the first time the women and the guardian have disagreed."

The rope winch whined as Pavek let the bucket plummet down the well shaft to the water. "They disobey the guardian?" he asked, trying-and failing utterly-to convince himself that this made any sort of sense. "There are rotting bones in Telhami's grove. Near as I can tell, this guardian just reaches out of the ground with roots for fingers, and grabs the ones it doesn't like-"

"Thought so," Yohan grunted, as if this settled some age-old doubt in his mind. "I couldn't make anything happen, you know. Tried 'til my eyes bugged out of my head. Wasn't worth the effort, so I gave it up. life's good enough here without druidry. But you're different. They say you turned yourself into a sorcerer-king's fountain that first day. You've stuck with it, and you've met the guardian. When you speak up, they'll hear the guardian's voice. Maybe they'll listen."

He shook his head. In his limited experience, Quraite's guardian was a presence, not a personality, not something a man met or spoke with. "I can't help," he insisted, backing away. Yohan matched him step for step. "Maybe the guardian speaks to the others, but it doesn't speak to me. And, anyway, I'm no persuader."

"Disaster will come to Quraite if they send zarneeka seeds to the city again! The Lion of Urik will stalk across the salt flats. Do you want that to happen?" Yohan's tone hardened and his jaw jutted forward.

"What happens happens. If Telhami's gotten away with disobeying the guardian before, maybe she'll get away with it again. Maybe she's wiser than the guardian."

Dwarves stood shorter than humans. The top of Yohan's bald head barely cleared the middle of his chest. It wasn't easy for Yohan to launch a backhanded clout against the side of a taller man's skull and land it before that taller man sidestepped the danger, but Yohan got the job done with a resounding crack.

"That's your old yellow robe talking!" Pavek swung wide, and Yohan ducked out of harm's way. "Forget the bureaus. Haven't you learned anything since we hauled you out of Urik?"

"I've learned Telhami runs Quraite the same way Hamanu runs the Urik templarate."

Yohan struck his lower jaw again, and his teeth rammed together. He just missed taking a bite out of his own tongue and lost all desire for persuasive conversation. He squatted down in a brawler's ready stance: one fist guarding his face, the other ready to jab any available target. But there weren't many more futile things than a human man trading punches with a solid, healthy dwarf. Yohan's squat was deeper, his fists were huge, and his guard was impenetrable.

They wove on swaying, trading feints, taking each other's measure until Yohan announced: "You're a waste of my good time, Just-Plain Pavek."

The dwarf retreated, brushing one foot along the ground in a reverse arc as he spoke. The level of his fists and shoulders remained constant; no targets flashed before Pavek's eyes to draw a foolish attack.

"I've tried to befriend you here. You've got a few good qualities, but they're worthless because you're the lying sort. I don't keep honor with liars."

Pavek accepted himself as many unsavory things, but he wasn't a liar, at least not when it counted. "I've never lied to you. I've kept my mouth shut when I had to, and I've said what had to be said to keep the peace-" he thought of Ruari and the kivit poison' "-but you know bloody well that's not lying."

"You lie to yourself, Pavek. You just plain lie to yourself all the rime. Yes, you're honest with everyone else, and honorable, after a templar's fashion. That makes it worse! You've got a better life here already than you ever hoped to have in Urik: Regulator of the Third Rank! Scraping from the bottom of the civil bureau barrel. Quraite would listen to you, but do you talk? Do you even listen? No! What happens, happens! Death happens, Pavek. Death is what happens to us all, but I'd like to put mine off a little while longer. What about you, Regulator Pavek? Do you want to die? Do you want Akashia to get caught on Urik's streets? Do you want her to die in Elabon Escrissar's interrogation chamber? Do you want to see Quraite's fields and groves laid waste by the Lion's pet? I'm sure Escrissar will arrange it, Just-Plain Pavek-unless you die first. But you're not a lucky man, are you, Just-Plain Pavek? And templars don't fight for principles, do you, Regulator Pavek? Have you seen a free village when the templars are through with it' It's not a pretty sight, I can promise you that, no lie there."

"Back off," Pavek snarled, taking his own advice. "I told you: I'm no liar and I'm no persuader, either; they're one and the same. Last night I told Akashia what I thought. It did no good; it did worse than no good. She wouldn't listen."

"You gave up. You didn't try. You walked away."

"I told her what I thought. What more could I do?"

"Try again. Go into Grandmother's hut right now and repeat what you said last night. Remind them both what Elabon Escrissar is and what he'll do-"

They were four paces apart now, too far for a punch or jab, far enough to think clearly about what was happening.

He narrowed his eyes. "You know Elabon Escrissar, don't you? From where? Where are you from, anyway? You're no fanner. You wore a medallion and a yellow robe once yourself, didn't you?"

"Mind-bender?"

Another shake of the head.

"You know the templarate. You know the way templars talk, the way templars think. You know Escrissar-know his type, at least. Maybe not Urik, but Raam? Tyr? Which bureau, which city?"

"No city. Not from around here at all, not that it matters. Quraite's been my home since your grandfather was a pup. It's what I care about, I've forgotten most of the rest."

"Quraite's your focus?"

"Maybe. Are you going into that hut now, or are you going to keep lying and running until I plow the ground with that hard skull of yours?"

Yohan pointed toward Telhami's hut, where he'd been, unconsciously and accidentally, retreating. Through the open door, he could see the light cloth of the druids' robes fluttering in a gentle, unnatural breeze. He couldn't see Telhami but she was undoubtedly there, doing things the way she'd always done them. She'd gambled before with Quraite's guardian-or so Yohan said-but the stakes were higher now that the Dragon was gone and Athas had changed.

And because the stakes had been raised to their highest, Yohan said he should speak his mind. Him: ten years in a templar orphanage, ten years a templar. He didn't trust his own judgment. Why should anyone else?

His gut churned over: he'd drunk last night, but never eaten.

"If I did persuade them-" he said, for his own ears, not Yohan's "-if they listen to me, and I'm wrong... They'd be fools to listen to city-scum like me."

"What are you if fate proves you right and you die knowing you could have kept Quraite alive-kept Urik alive, if that's what you care about? What happens, happens, Pavek, right? You play the game once, and you play it widi your life. Are you brave enough to let Grandmother and the others make up their own minds?"

When the matter was stated that way, in that tone, by a leering dwarf, it really wasn't a question. A man either took an unhesitating step across the threshold, or a man wasn't a man at all. And as he wasn't ready to concede that much he. tightened his jaw and entered the hut.

Telhami sat on her sleeping platform, a bowl of tea on her left and Akashia on her right. Other druids-about eight of. them, not including Ruari-stood along the walls or sat on the floor with a handful of the farmers among them.

Every face turned toward him, smiled, and greeted him with a name or nod, as if he hadn't kept them waiting for who knew how long... as if they hadn't heard the tag-end of his discussion with Yohan. Akashia herself offered him tea. If it had been anyone else, he might have accepted, but he couldn't meet her eyes or trust himself to take the bowl from her hands without dropping it.

A shadow fell from the doorway to his shoulder: Yohan stood beside him, one hand pressed against his ribs, pushing him forward. He thought-hoped-it was a signal for him to move aside, take a more inconspicuous place in an outside corner. But those hopes died. He took one step, and his shirt tightened as if an inix had clamped its jaw over the cloth.

"Pavek's ready to talk," Yohan announced. "Aren't you, Pavek?"

So he talked, softly at first. Telhami's face was calm. Her eyes, seemingly focused on some other time and place, were unreadable. Akashia, he discovered after a moment, was no more able to look at him than he'd been able to look at her. But everyone else was staring at him, none more pointedly than Yohan, himself.

He told them about Laq: what he'd seen of its making, how it killed, and then, for no good reason at all, he told them about Zvain.

"He lost his father to that poison-" Never mind that the boy had said the raver wasn't his father "-and his mother. He's an orphan now on the streets of Urik. A common person of Urik, one of those you say you're helping. What good does your zarneeka do him? He can't afford to buy Ral's Breath; it can't cure the emptiness in his life. It won't protect him from the slavers and worse that haunt Urik's streets, looking for orphans like him. Picture him in your mind, then ask him how important your precious zarneeka is to him when he's not going to get Ral's Breath, he's just going to have to live with the havoc and destruction Laq wreaks on his world-"

The words stopped flowing as suddenly as they had begun. His voice, which had risen to an impassioned bellow, went quiet His tongue lay lifeless on the floor of his mouth. There wasn't another mortal sound in the hut. All eyes were on him, even Akashia's. All mouths gaped silently open, even Telhami's.

And he realized, as his knees went liquid, that he was not alone. The guardian's essence had flowed through him, as it flowed through Akashia when she healed or Telhami when she flew invisibly from one part of Quraite to another. The guardian had shaped the words he, himself, had chosen to speak. The guardian had lent him an eloquence and power that could not be ignored.

He tried again to speak, to offer an explanation, an excuse for what had happened, but the guardian was finished with him. Its essence drained away, swirling down his legs like wind and water. Yohan's fist, still clamped over his shirt, was a necessary support.

"I'm-I'm not-I'm finished," he stammered before Yohan reeled him in.

"He speaks well for me," someone whose face Pavek couldn't see, whose voice he didn't recognize, announced to the others.

Murmured harmony rippled through the hut, around and behind him, but not in front of him, where neither Telhami nor Akashia appeared pleased.

"Zvain-" Pavek began haltingly, seeking words that would explain how ordinary the boy was in the brutal world of Urik, so different from Quraite.

"Is doomed," Telhami concluded, and it seemed, from the set of her spine and the bright intensity of her eyes, that the guardian flowed with her, now. "There's nothing anyone can do for him. We must think about those who will survive. They're the future. We will not burn our zarneeka bushes for their sakes. We will not cower here, hiding from enemies we have not measured for ourselves. We will return to Urik. We will study this poison, Laq, and this High Templar and his minions. And we will thwart his ambitions without-"

Suddenly, Telhami fell, clutching her gut and nearly tumbling from her platform. Akashia was right there, panic in her face and voice, but not in the commands she shouted, "Clear a path! Let the air in! Fetch water!" nor was it in her arms as she cradled the woman she revered as Grandmother.

Pavek retreated with the others, making room for the breezes and for the druid dashed for the well with a bowl in his hands. He crowded against Yohan, whose brawny arm shivered against his back. It seemed clear, if ominous, to a templar: Quraite's guardian did not approve of Telhami's plan and Quraite's guardian was more powerful than any living druid. Perhaps, as Yohan claimed, the guardian had ignored the community's prior disobedience, as Hamanu tolerated an occasional curse against his name and as slaveowners endured their living property's sullen insolence; but it wasn't ignoring disobedience this time.

Before the water arrived, a flickering light began to radiate across Telhami's body. Swiftly, the soft yellow light thickened until Akashia's arms could not be seen through the dazzle.

She's dying, Pavek thought. Quraite's claiming her, as it claimed the bones in her grove. For a heartbeat he wondered if the guardian's appetite would be sated with the old woman, or if it would feed on additional disobedience, Akashia's disobedience. Then the radiance collapsed, and coherent thought fled his mind.

Dazed and blinking, but otherwise unharmed, Akashia sat empty-handed in the dusty sunlight of an Athasian day.

"She's gone," someone whispered, a fanner by the look of her.

"Gone," echoed from the other side of the room, more frantic as the instant of disbelief yielded to grief and unbearable emptiness.

"Grandmother's gone!" erupted from several mouths, several hearts-bereavement no longer limited to the farmers.

The unimaginable had happened. The unthinkable demanded immediate attention. Akashia stood up, pale and shaken, but apparently aware of her responsibilities. Pavek felt himself grow calmer, felt his feet root themselves in the dirt again as she raised her hands to summon the guardian and read its essence. In the company of so many druids, in such extraordinary circumstances, he felt it, too, though he lacked the wisdom and experience to interpret the message, whipping through his body and his mind.

"Not gone," Akashia announced after a moment, emphasizing finality and rejecting it at the same time. "She's gone to the stowaway. The stowaway's attacked. The stowaway's breached! She seeks. She finds...."

With her voice trailing off into a sob, Akashia fled the hut. The rest followed, farmer and druid alike, her words having evidently had more meaning to them than they'd had to him. He guessed, but did not know.

He caught Yohan's arm. "What stowaway?" he asked as dwarf asked: "Who breached it?"

They glowered, each waiting for the other to answer first, and listening as alarm raced through the village. Quraiters who had not been included in the meeting ran past the open door, all headed for the southeast path: the path by which Pavek had entered Quraite and that he had not explored since, because the salt plain encroached closest there.

"Who?" Yohan demanded, breaking loose from Pavek's grip.

"No idea," Pavek insisted with a shrug.

He'd felt something, and that was more than Yohan had possibly done, but that was all, and that was completely gone now. He stood in the doorway. Only a few weanling children remained in the common, tended by a few adults whose southeasterly pointing faces proclaimed that they'd rather be somewhere else.

"What's the stowaway? If I knew that-maybe-"

Yohan pressed behind him in the doorway. "Where they store the zarneeka seeds to ripen and age under the ground." He shouldered past and started walking.

There was no one left to give him an order, so he fell in step a few paces behind. The shimmering white expanse of the salt wastes was visible from the far side of the tree ring around the village. A few clumps of rock and scraggly bushes dotted the wilderness. No druid could nurture a grove this close to the Sun's Fist. But Yohan kept going, following Quraiters strung out in a sparse line until they were indistinguishable from the wilderness itself.

They gathered in a place without trees or water, where the salt flats seemed a bit closer and the village behind them was reduced to a line of half-sized trees. Pavek, at the rear of the gathering, was as ignorant as he'd been at the hut. But the crowd parted for him-or it parted for Yohan-and he was able to flow to the center in the dwarfs wake.

Telhami sat on an unremarkable stone beside a shallow, round, and apparently empty hole. She sifted gritty dirt through the fingers of one hand into the palm of the other. Her neck was bent deeply: Pavek remembered that sunlight hurt her eyes, and remembered her broad-brimmed, veiled hat hanging in its place by the door. He wished he'd thought to bring it with him; a foolish, sentimental wish since, when he left the hut, he hadn't known where he was going.

A downcast Akashia approached them. "Ruari," she whispered to Yohan, loudly enough for Pavek to hear. The dwarf spat into the yellow-flecked ground.

"Can't be," he countered. "That doesn't square with Telhami collapsing right when she did. The moment was too perfect. You were going to take zarneeka to Urik; now you can't. Ruari couldn't be eavesdropping and undermining at the same time. Don't blame the half-wit scum just because your guardian got the upper hand."

Akashia gave him a sharp-edged glower. "He was sitting here, in the ruins, waiting for Grandmother when she arrived. He confessed everything. He'd talked to the elves; he knew everything we knew. He was afraid you'd persuade us to take the zarneeka to Urik, or steal it yourself, if you couldn't. He decided to take matters into his own hands. He hates you, Pavek. Hates you with a passion that blinds him to everything else. He thought he was the only one who could stop you."

"But he stopped you instead," Pavek snorted with irony and earned himself another bitter look.

"We're right, Pavek, and you're wrong. You're all wrong: both of you and Ruari, as well."

"The guardian disagrees."

"This was Ruari's doing: his hate, his blindness."

"Where is he? This time I do want to talk to him."

"I don't know." Akashia flinched toward Telhami as she turned away.

Pavek had learned the language of guilt and anxiety before he left the orphanage. It was an early, essential part of a templar's education. Instructors made certain their students learned to read the truth on the faces around them, and-if they were wise or clever-to hide their own emotions behind an enigmatic, intimidating sneer. Pavek wore a templar sneer when he cast a shadow over Telhami and called her name.

The instructors had never claimed he was wise or clever. They'd repeatedly said he was a fool who didn't know when to keep his big mouth shut.

"Where'd you send Ruari?" he demanded.

She opened her hands. The yellow-stained dirt streamed to the ground. "I didn't send him anywhere. He's hiding in his grove."

"Where's his grove?"

"I can't tell you," her voice was faint and listless. "He wished for privacy, Just-Plain Pavek. I grant it to him. He wants to be alone for a while. I told him what you said. He needs to be alone."

"The guardian wouldn't suck his bones into the ground, for you?" He could hear the foolishness in his voice. He wished he could swallow his tongue, but recklessness was another old habit, impossible to resist when righteousness fanned its flames. "He wished for privacy, instead, and you granted his wish. For how long, Telhami? How long does Ruari need to be alone in his grove. Until he starves?"

"A druid can't starve in his grove," Yohan said from behind. "Mind yourself. Ruari's safe enough in his grove, if mat's where he is."

Recklessness, it seemed, was catching.

He spread his feet to shoulder width and propped his fists atop his hips. "Where is the scum? I want to tell him he's done the right thing. I need to tell him. How can I find him?"

"You can't!" Akashia sprang, shouting, to her feet. She smashed her fist sincerely, but ineffectively, against his chest. "Ruari's gone to his grove and pulled it in around him. He's cut himself off. He doesn't want to be found. He doesn't want anything to do with anyone, ever again."

"I'm not interested in what the scum wants. Point me toward his grove. I'll walk until I find the little beggar."

"Knowing where Ruari's grove is-was-won't help you. He's hiding, Pavek," Telhami said in a soft voice that, nonetheless, captured his attention. "There's nothing any of us can do, you least of all. Ruari's hiding. His choice-a druid's choice-not mine. Ruari hasn't stopped anything. Zarneeka will go to Urik as it always has; that's my choice. He couldn't accept that. I couldn't let him leave Quraite, not as full of spite and vengeance as he was. He chose to hide forever and a day. Forever's a long time, Just-Plain Pavek, but a day or a week will do him good. But the choice to hide was his, and the choice to return will be his. And mine. This is not a quarrel between him and you, Pavek. Ruari is a druid, and this is the way it must be, Pavek. Do you understand?"

"In my dreams, great one." The invocation for fire was written clearly in his mind's eye. The power to transform the very air around them into a wall of flames throbbed beneath his feet. Telhami knew it; he could look into those ancient, unblinking eyes and see the knowledge there. And power far greater than any he could hope to command.

Your choice, Pavek. Her voice was clear, but her lips hadn't moved.

The tips of his fingers touched; the guardian's power surged within him, then ebbed. He wasn't a druid. He couldn't choose to hide in a grove. He could choose between understanding and incineration: a familiar sort of choice for a man who'd worn King Hamanu's yellow. A comfortable choice.

Ruari meant nothing to him. Less than nothing. The scum simply hated him to the point of poison and beyond, because of his father, not zarneeka. Let Ruari hide in his damned grove. Let him stay there until he rotted, if he couldn't starve. He was more trouble than he was worth; the world wasn't losing anything-

Except justice: a balance of rights and wrongs between him and Ruari that could never be redressed with one of them hiding forever and a day. The invocation erased itself; the power evaporated.

"I don't understand, and I refuse to make your choice. I will find him." The cool, guiding breeze from a druid's grove blew only when the druid willed it to. The air around the ruined stowaway grew still as Quraite's druids, one by one and following Telhami's example, inhaled the essence of their groves.

But druidry wasn't the only magic in Quraite. A small, ceramic lump had entered the guardian's land with Pavek. He had taken it directly from King Hamanu's hands when he was still a boy living in the templar orphanage. The memory of the king's stale breath, his sulphurous eyes, and the burning heat of his flesh would never fade. Nor, King Hamanu had assured him and the dozen other youngsters inducted into the templarate that day, would his memory of each of them. A Urik templar was linked to his medallion.

Though the crude ceramic might be exchanged for fine carved stone or precious metal-if a templar rose high enough through the ranks-the unique impression made on Induction Day endured.

The medallions could only be used by the templar into whose hands it had been placed by the king. Woe betide the forgetful templar who lost his medallion, and greater woe betide the fool who, finding a stray medallion, tried to use it.

Pavek could have selected his medallion from a hundred perfect forgeries. Even here in Quraite, where the guardian averted Hamanu's prying eyes, he felt its absence as a nagging hole in his consciousness, stronger or weaker depending on the medallion's actual location.

Depending on Ruari's location, since Ruari had the medallion.

Without the competing influences of twenty-odd breezy groves to confound him, Pavek needed only to close his eyes and turn his head to determine the direction in which bis medallion could be found. There was a chance the half-wit scum had left it in the bachelors' hut with his bedding, but Pavek found himself looking away from the village when he opened his eyes. He started walking without saying a word.

Akashia called him; Telhami also-and voices he didn't recognize. If Yohan's had been among them, he might have reconsidered. But the dwarf held his peace and soon the only sounds were those of his own sandals on the dry ground.

He expected something odd, something sudden or frightening, but Ruari's grove, when it came into sight, was a low-lying tangle of briars and saplings, far smaller than Telhami's or Akashia's, but otherwise essentially the same. A shimmer of druidry hung about the place, which from the outside seemed no more than few hundred paces across. There certainly was no sign of Ruari himself, though the ache of the missing medallion was a palpable force in Pavek's mind. He hesitated before wading into the rampant shrubbery, and held his breath until his lungs burned once he entered the grove. Thorns carved bloody tracks into his legs, but that was the true nature of thorns and nothing magical.

"Ruari!" he shouted loudly enough to penetrate every shadow. "Stop hiding."

There was no answer; he hadn't truly expected one. He thrashed and cursed his way to what seemed to be the visible center of the grove. The medallion felt close enough to touch, but Ruari was nowhere to be seen.

"She says this hiding-thing is your choice. You may as well come out where I can see you. I'm not going anywhere until you know you did the right thing, wrecking the stowaway."

Something cracked the base of Pavek's skull. It might have been a nut or a small stone; he didn't turn around.

"Talk to me, street-scum."

"Go away!" a familiar, anger-filled voice shouted, followed by another pellet striking his flank.

He stayed right where he was, looking straight ahead, out of the grove. "We can't let Telhami settle this for us, street-scum."

"I'm not street-scum!" Another shout, closer by the sound, and another pellet flung hard enough to make him wince.

"You act like it: another dumb-fool, too-smart-to-think clod of street-scum. I know the type."

"You know nothing!"

But even in the absence of footfalls through the brush, the medallion told him when to turn around, where to grab himself an armful of street-scum. Ruari kicked and punched and clamped his teeth into Pavek's forearm-for which he clouted him hard behind the ear. Then dropped the stunned fool into the thorns.

"You want to hate yellow-robe templars, scum, that's all right with me. I hate a few myself. You want to hate your father or your mother, that's all right, too. I didn't have much luck with my parents, either. We're even. But you want to take your hate out on me, and that's just plain foolish, street-scum."

"That's what you say!"

Fists forward and teeth bared, Ruari surged out of the briars.

They grappled for no more than a moment before Pavek got the upper hand and hurled him into the thorns again. "That's what I say because it's the truth. You-"

Ruari took a deep breath and launched himself again. Pavek had enough time to step aside, which would have allowed the youth to dive head-first into the underbrush. His mind's eye showed the gouged and bleeding copper-skinned face that would result. He was tempted, but stayed where he was, taking the scum's charge full-force in his gut.

They both went down, with Ruari pummeling Pavek's flanks. Yohan had taught his pupil well; Ruari knew how to land an effective punch with his compact fists and where to aim them. Pavek roared and thrashed free. A wicked thorn caught below the corner of his right eye as he did, and he got to his feet with a finger-long gash across his cheek. The sight of his blood made Ruari bolder and more reckless than the scum already was. The thought that he might have been seriously injured brought out Pavek's coldest rage.

He settled into the brawler's stance he'd shown to Yohan, then he lowered a fist, daring Ruari to strike at his jaw. Ruari took the dare, leaving his right side undefended. Pavek was heavier, faster, and far more experienced; he beat aside Ruari's punch and struck twice, left-handed, on the scum's jaw and right shoulder before withdrawing.

Ruari's lips trembled and, hard as he tried, he couldn't hold his right arm steady.

"Had enough?"

The half-wit shook his head and charged. Pavek leaned away from the attack, stuck out an arm, and caught Ruari across the ribs, knocking the wind out of him. This time Ruari couldn't clamber upright. He lay awkwardly in the briars, gasping for breath.

"What's it going to take to get through to you that I'm not your enemy? I'm not your father and you're not going to prove anything by hating me as if I were. You've damn near twice lost the only home you've got, and what have you got to show for it? I'm still here, and you're one gasp away from being meat."

Ruari worked his mouth, trying to muster enough strength and saliva to spit.

"Fool," Pavek muttered.

He thumped Ruari's still-heaving ribs with his foot. The youth began to choke. Pavek grabbed an arm and jerked him to his feet. Ruari's eyes were full of spite, but he couldn't talk, couldn't stand on his own feet, and didn't want to land in the briars again. He clung to Pavek's arm; the ceramic medallion dangled around his neck in easy reach. Pavek left it hanging there, knowing that so long as the half-elf wore it, he'd know where the scum was. And fearing that, short of killing Ruari, he wasn't ever going to convince the stubborn scum that there was no good reason for them to feud with each other.

They stood there a while, with Pavek keeping an ungentle hold on Ruari's arm. Ruari couldn't fill his lungs. He wheezed and trembled, leaning hard against him, because he could do nothing else.

Pavek knew, from long years on the practice ground, that elves could gasp themselves to death if their lungs collapsed. He didn't think he'd hit Ruari nearly hard enough, but it was always hard to gauge the vulnerabilities of half-elves. Sometimes they were weaker than either of their parents.

"Come on, Ru," Pavek urged, forgetting himself and using the youth's familiar name. "Calm down. Take it slow." He felt something soft brush against the back of his legs: kivits, three of them, their ears twitching each time Ruari gasped, their large, dark eyes seemingly glazed with anxious tears. They rose up on their hind-legs and touched the youth's limp legs with dexterous forepaws.

Familiars, Pavek thought. Every half-elf was supposed to have them. His old nemesis the administrator Metica was rumored to sleep with a nest of poisonous snakes. He didn't want to think what sort of familiars Elabon Escrissar might keep. But the kivits were clearly Ruari's familiars, and just as clearly distressed by the sight of him.

"I'm getting tired of this," he complained as he swept an arm under Ruari's legs, lifting him up. "I'm no nursemaid."

Now that Ruari had shown himself, the features of the grove were apparent. Pavek carried Ruari to the side of a small, bubbling pool and propped him up against a sapling willow tree. The kivits bounded onto Ruari's shoulders, nuzzling into his hair and against his face. Pavek raised a hand to chase them away, but Ruari's eyes had closed, and he was breathing easier.

He tended his own cuts and scratches in the pool, then sat on his heels, waiting for Ruari to complete his recovery. It didn't take long.

"Nothing's changed. I still hate you. You're still a lying, treacherous lump-of-scum templar, and I'm still going to kill you."

"Give it up, scum. You're not a dwarf. You don't have a to-the-death focus to worry about. Stop being so stubborn and think straight for a change. If I'd wanted to kill you or hurt you or anyone else, I could have done it ten times over by now. I'm not your enemy. I'm not Quraite's enemy. I'm not anybody's enemy-except some templars back in Urik: the ones making Laq. We're on the same side, Ruari. While you were wrecking that stowaway, I was trying to convince Telhami and Akashia not to take any more zarneeka to Urik. They weren't listening to me, but you stopped them. You did the better job."

Ruari scratched the itchy spots on each of his kivits before he met Pavek's stare. "How do I know I can believe you? You lie real good, templar-man, like you lied about my poison."

"You believe a man after you ask what he's got to gain by lying. I've got nothing to gain by lying to you, and I haven't killed you yet. That should be enough."

"Kashi." Ruari looked down at the kivits as soon as he'd uttered the word.

"Mekillots will fly first. You may enjoy being a fool, but I don't. That woman's never going to be interested in an ugly, third-rank templar."

"She is."

"I'm not," Pavek insisted with a force that surprised himself. "I know better than to overreach."

Ruari pushed the kivits down and rose unsteadily to his feet. "I'd kill you."

"She'd kill me first."

"She wouldn't. Kashi's not like that. She doesn't see the evil in a person."

He could think of a dozen things to say, all of which would have set them brawling again. Instead, he extended a finger toward a kivit and tickled the tip of the inquisitive creature's nose.

Ruari sat down again. "Telhami's angry at me. I never saw her so angry. I thought she was going to invoke the guardian and suck my bones into the ground."

"Maybe she wanted to, but none of the other druids at that meeting this morning, except Akashia and Telhami, wanted to send zarneeka to Urik, and I don't think the guardian did either."

Ruari shredded a blade of grass. "Can you really feel the guardian, or is that just more lies?"

"No lies. I'm a lousy liar."

Ruari swore softly and shredded another blade of grass. "I wish you'd never come to Quraite."

"I wish I'd never seen a man poisoned by Laq, then I wouldn't have needed to come. You ready to go home?"

Ruari said he was, but he was weak and wheezing before they left the grove. So they sat talking by the pool, getting past being enemies without becoming friends. The sun was setting when they returned to the village. Pavek went looking for Yohan, but the dwarf was gone, and so were Akashia, two farmers and five kanks: Telhami'd evoked a whirlwind to separate the ripened zarneeka from the sand, then she'd sealed it up and sent it on its way to Urik.