The Brazen Gambit

Chapter Fourteen

Pavek's days had assumed a different routine while Akashia was gone. He still went to Telhami's grove every other day-they scrupulously avoided certain subjects of conversation: zarneeka, Urik, Laq, and Akashia, herself. But on the day between, he carried a hoe into the fields and worked with the farmers. The back-breaking work gave him time to think about the lessons Telhami gave him, and the subjects they did not discuss. Thinking was good for his incipient druidry: he could wring water out of the air now, on demand and without a headache, but as the empty days of Akashia's absence began outnumber his fingers, his mood darkened.

Aside from Telhami, only one person intruded on his enforced solitude: Ruari.

They had not become fast-friends after they returned from the youth's grove, although Pavek had stood firm, in his brawly templar way, for the half-elf s right to rejoin the community then and there. Remembering himself at Ruari's I age, Pavek reckoned that he'd saddled the boy with too great a debt and was content to let him keep his distance. Besides, the half-witted scum was a whiner, and a complainer; and Pavek, veteran of the orphanage and the civil bureau, had no patience for either trait.

He looked up from his hoeing and saw Ruari waiting for him at the end of the row-the row he'd intended as his last row of the day, unless he showed Ruari his back now and kept working until the scum gave up and left. But he'd let Ruari catch his eye, which was all the invitation Ruari required.

"Go away, scum," he said when a long, lean shadow touched his feet. It was a polite, even friendly, greeting among templars.

"You beat me up bad. I couldn't fight you off. I want to learn how."

"Keep your mouth shut." He offered the advice he'd heard and ignored many times before. "That way you won't start so many fights you can't finish."

"I don't start fights," Ruari snapped, giving the lie to his words with the tone of his voice. "They just happen. Maybe if I won once in a while, I wouldn't have so many."

A vagrant laugh slipped into Pavek's mouth. He clamped a hand over his chin to contain it.

"Wind and fire! Why're you laughing? What's so funny?"

Ruari took a swing at him, which Pavek blocked with his forearm. The hoe slid off his shoulder and landed in the dirt. The scum was quick; Pavek would grant him that Too quick. Once he was riled, Ruari whipped up the air with his fists, landing blows that were little more than love-taps, and leaving himself vulnerable to the powerful punch of an admittedly slower, far-more-massive opponent. But instead of a punch, Pavek reached through Ruari's guard, grabbed shirt and skin, and lifted him off the ground.

"You've got two arms, scum. Two fists. Keep one of 'em at home for yourself."

"That's what Yohan always says."

"Listen to him." Pavek let go, and Ruari landed lightly and easily on the balls of his feet. "He's a good teacher." "He's not here-" "Just go away, scum."

"I want to learn from you. Aren't you impressed? Flattered?" The whine was back in Ruari's voice; it grated in Pavek's ears, "/think you're better than the old dwarf. Me- the half-wit scum who hates all rotted, yellow-robe templars, and tried to poison you-I want you to teach me how to fight."

There was a fading bruise on Ruari's chin, another on his arm, and a third, larger, one across his chest, visible through the open neck of his shirt, all souvenirs of their last encounter. Pavek picked up the hoe with a display of hostility that made Ruari dance back a pace or two and hoist his fists again. But he was only teasing, not taking bait. He dug into the dirt where Ruari had been standing.

The boy reafeed he'd been gulled. "Pavek-?"

He broke up a clod of dirt with the blade of the hoe and threw a handful of weeds over his shoulder onto the barren ground beyond the irrigated fields. Ruari's shadow didn't move, and neither did his mouth, for a pleasant change. Another long, silent moment passed. Pavek kicked the blade into the ground, then he headed out of the field. With a wave of his fingers, he invited Ruari to join him.

"Show me what you've got," he said, and the half-elf bobbed on his toes, with his slender arms and fists in front of him.

Swearing under his breath, Pavek shook his head and turned away. "You'll never be a brawler, Ru." He retrieved his hoe. "Now try it," he said, tossing the bone-shafted tool at the youth, who caught it deftly.

Everyone in the Tablelands had to know enough about fighting to defend him- or herself. Gender didn't matter much, either in the cities or the wastelands: if you didn't look like you could fight back, the full run of predators and scavengers took note. Quraite was protected land, but common sense said the guardian would better protect those who showed the inclination to protect themselves. Pavek had watched the Quraiters, farmers and druids alike, training one day in ten with bows and ordinary tools like the hoe Ruari held in front of him, one hand circling the shaft in a sun-wise direction, the other going the counter-way.

Pavek assessed the youth quickly and coldly, the way he himself had been taught. Then, instead of exploiting the weaknesses he saw-of which there were remarkably few (Yohan was a good trainer, Ruari's failings were rooted in his personality, not his technique)-he tried to correct them.

They went at it through the dying light of another arid afternoon, swapping the hoe and the attack. One of two things usually happened when a man tried to teach another the finer aspects of fighting: one man got angry, the lesson ended, and a serious brawl erupted, or they found a common rhythm and the seeds of equal friendship were planted.

With the bloated sun in his eyes and the hoe in his hands, Pavek feinted to his right side, drawing Ruari's attack. Then he swung the hoe low above the ground, letting the sweat-polished shaft slide through his fingers until the angled blade was smack against his wrists. The tactic was designed to strike an enemy's shins and sweep him off his feet; the minimal countermeasure was a leap into the air to avoid the swinging shaft. Gladiators executed the technique with a variety of weapons. Pavek had learned it in the orphanage.

"You're supposed to jump, not trip over your own big, baazrag feet," he said, trying to make light of what he knew-from personal experience-was a very painful moment, and hoping, as the moments lengthened, that the silent, huddled-up youth wasn't nursing broken bones.

"Now you tell me," Ruari finally replied in a choked, quavery voice. His face was pale when he looked up, but he did a hero's work trying to laugh. "You're supposed to be my teacher."

Pavek lowered the hoe and extended a hand. "Sorry, scum-didn't think you were that stupid. Can you stand?"

Ruari nodded, but took the help that was offered. He held onto Pavek's wrist an extra moment while he took a few hobbling steps.

"Men," a woman grumbled from not too far away. "Never too old for child's play."

They both turned toward the sound. Ruari gasped: "Grandmother," and dropped Pavek's wrist as though it were ringed with fire. There was no guessing how long she'd been watching them, no reading her purpose through her hat's gauzy veil.

"Yohan's coming back. He's on the Sun's Fist."

"Alone?" Pavek snaked an arm around Ruari's shoulder before Telhami answered, ready to restrain the boy, if the answer was what he suddenly feared it would be.

"Alone," she admitted, and for a heartbeat that broad-brimmed hat seemed to shake and shrink.

Ruari surged on wobbly ankles. Pavek caught him before he shamed himself with a fall.

"Easy. If he's on the salt, we've got time, don't we?" He imagined meeting the eyes behind the veil and making them blink. "You don't already know what went wrong?"

"No," her voice was barely audible. "I know that he's alone, nothing more. I've come to you, before the others. You've a right."

She turned away and, gripping her staff in a white-knuckled fist, began the long walk to the village and her hut. Pavek almost felt sorry for her, except: "You sent them! You wouldn't listen, not to me, not to your guardian. You thought your zarneeka was more important, and that you were so much smarter, wiser. Damn you, Telhami, this falls on you!"

Telhami's form shimmered and vanished.

"You shouldn't've said that, Pavek."

"It's the truth. Somebody's got to say it."

"Not you. You should've kept your mouth shut."

"Good advice, scum-but I don't listen to good advice." He picked up the hoe, tried to break the shaft over his thigh, and when that failed hurled the tool at the half-round disk of the setting sun. "Damn!-"

They met Yohan in the wastes between the village and the Sun's Fist. The dwarf had aged profoundly since they'd last seen him. His eyes were red-rimmed and set in deep, dark hollows. His muscles had withered. His bedraggled kank was as shaky as him, and not one of the sleek Moonracer-bred bugs the Quraiters favored. He needed a steady hand when he slid from the saddle and would not meet either man's eyes as he told his story in broken, near incoherent snatches.

He said he'd ridden day and night, sleeping in the saddle when he could no longer keep his eyes open. Eating hadn't been a problem; he'd had no food with him when he escaped from Urik, and hadn't wasted time stealing any. He'd had water, for the first few days. Since then he'd kept going on will alone.

Pavek, having suspected something similar from the moment Telhami gave them the news, offered Yohan a waterskin fresh from the village well. The dwarf brushed it aside.

"It's no use. I'm finished."

"What happened first? How did it go bad?"

"Escrissar."

Pavek swore. He'd dared to hope that, whatever the catastrophe, Yohan had simply left Akashia in some temporary shelter, before racing back to Quraite for help. Hearing Escrissar's name, he could only hope that she was already dead.

Very dead.

He took a swallow from the flask to calm himself.

"Stan at the beginning-"

Yohan obliged. Between Ruari's game ankles and the dwarf's exhaustion, their pace was slow enough that the tale was nearing its elven market climax as the three men approached the green fields.

"How'd you escape?" Pavek demanded, stopping short while they were still on barren ground. He knew his city and a dozen ways through the walls that didn't involve the gates. But none of those secret passages used the elven market.

"That dwarf, that hairy bastard in a procurer's robe, and a common woman with serpents tattooed on her arm were coming for us. I don't know-maybe I could have taken them both, but that still left Escrissar, the mind-bender, and Kashi hadn't kenned where he was all afternoon. I wanted to stand together right there, or stand alone to give her the escape." Yohan ground his knuckles against his eyes and stared at the violet sky. "One of us had to get back to Quraite, she said. I couldn't keep the secret, not against what we were facing: a mind-bender Kashi couldn't ken. But she swore she could. And I knew the way out; she didn't-"

"Pavek! No!" Ruari shouted, trying ineffectively to loosen Pavek's hold on Yohan.

Pavek let go of his own accord, shoving the dwarf back-ward and turning his helpless fury on the half-elf. "There's no passage in the market; the walls there are solid. He had to have help to get out of the market and out of Urik. Escrissar's help, scum. Escrissar! Escrissar set him free, sent him back to us!"

"Not Escrissar," Yohan said wearily. "Elves. An old debt. A tribe that didn't die at the same time a free village went down to templars. They named me 'friend' and said they- all of them, whatever tribe-would owe me life whenever I needed it. They got me out. Debt's paid now. Understand?"

Reluctantly Pavek nodded. He wanted to lash someone with his rage, but what Yohan said made sense. It even answered some of his questions about Yohan himself. But the dwarf's history couldn't hold his thoughts, which skewed back to his original question:

"How did you escape? You were up against Rokka and Dovanne." He knew them by their descriptions. "You could've taken them in a fair fight But if Escrissar was lurking, you shouldn't have gotten away, Yohan. He should've nailed you to the ground, just like he did those poor-sod fanners you left guarding the cart."

The dwarf turned away, took a half-step toward the salt, and stopped. "Last thing she said: 'Don't believe what I send.' She blasted us, Pavek. Turned her mind inside-out. Let the nightmares fly free: the hates and fears we all have locked up inside. But she'd warned me, and I didn't believe. I dropped to my knees and howled but didn't believe. Then it all just stopped. That woman and the dwarf, they were rolling on the ground; they'd believed. I got to my feet, and I saw him walking toward her... the masked one you talked about: Escrissar, with the talons. He looked at me, reached through my ribs and pulled out my heart. It was mind-bending, all mind-bending. But I believed him, and by the living doom of Kemelok, I ran away."

It didn't take a mind-bender to read a proud man's shame in the next few moments of silence. With his back still toward them, Yohan rubbed his eyes again and finished the tale: "That's all. The elves found me and got me out late the next day. I don't know where, but-for what it's worth-not through the elven market. I stole a kank, made sure no one was following me, and headed back here. It's over. I'll tell Grandmother and be gone again."

"To Urik?"

"Aye, to Urik, to Elabon Escrissar. She's gone, Pavek. I failed her, and I lost her, and my banshee will haunt that mind-bending scum until he's rotted in his grave."

"I'm going with you," Pavek said, surprising himself for a heartbeat. "I can get you into the templar quarter, into his house-"

"You're no dwarf. It doesn't matter whether I get through the city gates, as long as I'm close before they kill me. She was my focus, the faith of my life. My banshee will find him soon enough. Don't go wasting your life on my account."

I've my own scores to settle with that half-elf bastard," Pavek countered. "I'll get you there."

"Me, too," Ruari announced.

Pavek had forgotten the youth was with them, looking exceptionally grim and elven in the late twilight. He regreted his description of Escrissar, but doubted it was any great part of Ruari's determination to join them.

"What do you say, Yohan?" he asked. "The three of us take down House Escrissar: the interrogator, the halfling, Laq and everything in-between?" Yohan shook his head. "It doesn't work that way. I can't change my focus once I've broken it. I swore in my heart to take care of her, and I failed. I thought she'd see the truth about the city more clearly in the elven market, so I took her there instead of the customhouse. Your friends-" Yohan spat the word out so sarcastically that there was no danger of mistaking its contrary meaning "-were waiting for us. Failure's forever."

"You're sure your banshee would stay in Urik?" Ruari asked, sounding young and anxious. "You're sure it wouldn't come back here? I mean, if you broke faith with your focus, it was because of Quraite, wasn't it, as much as it was that half-elf bastard in Urik? If you broke faith at all. You knew it was a bad idea to take the zarneeka to Urik. Everyone knew how you felt, but Kashi and Grandmother, they wouldn't listen. They broke faith first-"

Though Pavek thought Ruari had raised sound and serious questions, he squeezed the youth's shoulder hard enough to make him shut up. Yohan was still staring at the salt, toward distant Urik. When Ruari looked up, snarling and ready for an argument, Pavek was able to mouth. Not now and Later. He gave Ruari's shoulder a friendly shake, then released him.

"We'll go with you to Urik," he said, not a question this time.

"You, you can come, but not Ruari-"

Once again the youth scowled and opened his mouth. Once again Pavek snared a fistful of half-elf and squeezed it for silence.

"Scum's got a right," he said, negotiating in flat, unemotional tones. "He tried his best, busted up tbe stowaway, and the women got around him. He's got a right to choose which mistakes he tries to correct: Telhami's or Escrissar's."

If he finally had Yohan's measure, Pavek figured the weary dwarf would accept his offer. Besides, if Ruari became too much of a nuisance, they could always clout him unconscious and leave him behind in some market village.

"We'll ask Grandmother." Yohan capitulated and turned toward them. Relief showed on his face, for all that he was trying to hide it. No one wanted to die alone.

A little later, by the light of a lamp in her hut, Telhami told them their plan was typical male foolishness. "Kashi's dead. She'd kill herself-she knows how-before she'd submit to that creature or betray Quraite's secret You've made your point: I was wrong. What the poor suffer without Ral's Bream is a small price to pay. Until Laq is a fading memory, our zameeka stays here in Quraite, hidden away. But Kashi's dead, and no amount of breast-beating or vengeance will change that. There's nothing left to be done. We've all paid the price. Forget Urik. Forget it all. Let it lie." She looked specifically at Yohan and added: "I'll forgive your focus, with the guardian's help. There's no reason to sacrifice yourself."

Yohan was speechless, but Pavek swore loudly enough to awaken the entire village.

And Quraite's guardian. Awareness flowed into him- threatened to destroy him with its intensity-then Ruari's hand was flat against his arm, helping him shape the power he'd instinctively invoked.

"Don't coddle me with your forgiveness," he roared, "or your tally of what's been paid and what's still owed. I know better; I know Escrissar! Look at me, Telhami. Look inside me! Look at what I know about Elabon Escrissar and tell me that there's nothing left to do!"

The old woman did not use her mind-bender's power to take the images he so desperately wanted to hurl into her mind's eye. She didn't even raise her eyes to meet his, but she did, somehow, cut him off from the guardian's power.

Ruari's hand slipped away, and the energized air within the hut dissipated on the midnight breeze.

"Hamanu's infinitesimal mercy is far greater than yours," Pavek whispered. She'd diminished his voice when she reaped the guardian's strength away from him. "He'd never let a favorite slip away unavenged."

His legs were dead-weight beneath him. Each step was precarious as he turned and plodded toward the door. Telhami said nothing, did nothing to stop him.

There were three fresh kanks, provisions, and well-crafted obsidian weapons waiting beside the central well when Pavek picked himself up from the tree-shaded place where he'd fallen-literally-to sleep after leaving Telhami's hut. Telhami wasn't around. Ruari said she'd left the village for her grove at dawn, walking with just her staff to support her. He said that she was sorry, that she'd grieved and sobbed, torn her clothes and wailed that she was ready to die before she left her hut. Challenged by both himself and Yohan, Ruari admitted he'd spent the night spying and promptly ran off.

The boundless energy of youth, Pavek thought enviously while he washed sleep-grit from his eyes. He was stiff and sore, as if he'd been the loser in an uneven brawl-as, in a sense, he had been: Telhami had bested him before he'd known he was in a fight.

And then, before dawn, she'd conceded defeat.

He threw a leather harness over the kank's carapace, narrowly dodging its saliva-drenched mandibles. It trilled in the high-pitched, nerve-jangling way of bugs, making the hair all over his body stand on end, but the bug minded its manners. He tightened straps around the food sacks and water jugs, and attached a long, obsidian knife to his belt.

Yohan was already mounted. The dwarf's eyes were still a study in red and black, but his strength had been restored by a haif night's sleep. Ruari was returning with a fourth kank..

"In case we find her," he explained before any questions could be asked. "In case we get very lucky."

An extra kank couldn't hurt-especially if, as Ru said, they got very lucky. Pavek waited in silence while Ruari harnessed both his kank and the extra one. Villagers came to see them leave. The farmers saluted them with fingers twisted into various luck-signs or pressed sprigs of tiny white flowers into their hands. The druids hung back, their expressions more complex and much harder to read.

Few words were exchanged. Everyone, presumably, had heard Pavek's midnight explosion-by rumor, at least, if he hadn't actually awakened them. There wasn't much more to say. The sky was bright and cloudless, as it usually was. A storm-dust, wind, or Tyr-might sweep down on them before they got to Urik, with no one in Quraite ever the wiser. But, if there were no storms, they'd reach Urik in about four days. And after that-?

What could anyone say to three men riding to certain and unpleasant death?

What could they say to each other?'

Nothing.

Yohan tapped his kank's antenna to get it moving. Ruari went next with an optimist's bug at the end of a rope. Pavek took up the rear.

Telhami was waiting for them on the verge of the Sun's Fist. Her silhouette was hunched and shrunken. Despite the familiar veiled hat, Pavek didn't recognize her at first. She asked-an honest request, not a disguised command-to use her arts together in their minds to sequester their knowledge of Quraite against all inquiry. It wouldn't, she insisted, prevent them from returning, but it would thwart Elabon Escrissar or anyone else who sought to unravel their memories.

"For Quraite-?" she asked.

Ruari and Yohan dismounted; Pavek stayed where he was. They knelt on the hard ground and were entranced by mind-bending and spellcraft. He and Telhami were effectively alone.

"For Quraite," she repeated, and he wasn't swayed. "The guardian will keep your secrets safe from Elabon Escrissar."

Settling himself in the kank's saddle he realized he knew exactly what the emptiness had contained: the background against which he'd lived his recent life. There were names: Telhami, Akashia, the farmers and the other druids, each associated with a familiar face and floating in an unnatural gray fog, as if he had dwelt in a cloud of smoke since leaving Urik.

He had Telhami's word that he could find his way back, if me was lucky enough to escape Elabon Escrissar; and that he would betray nothing if his luck ran out. It was thin, cold comfort, and he shivered the length of his spine, prodding the kank onto the dazzling Sun's Fist behind Ruari and Yohan.

They left the kanks at a homestead barely within the broad belt of irrigated farms from which Urik drew its foodstuffs. A small shower of silver from Yohan's coin pouch bought promises that the bugs would cared for and left in an open pen. There was risk. There was always risk when one man bought another man's promise; neither knew who else might raise the asking price.

But few things held as much risk as breaking into a High Templar's house with thoughts of assassination in their minds.

Getting into Urik wasn't so difficult. Generations of templarate orphans had dared each other into reckless explorations of the city's remotest corners. They lacked prestige and promotions, but their knowledge of Urik was legendary. And just as Pavek was certain that there was no passage through walls near the elven markets, he knew there was one beneath the northwest watchtower. The only thing he feared as he cleared away the rubble from a loose foundation stone was meeting a band of his younger counterparts somewhere in the narrow, twisting passageway.

He knew they were halfway to the templar quarter when the passage widened into the shimmering blue-green curtain of the sorcerer-king's personal warding.

"You first," he said to Ruari, who turned gray in the eerie light and refused to move. "You've got my medallion. Give it back if you don't want to go first." He held out his hand.

"What makes you think I've got it with me?" Ruari countered, all spit and vinegar, and clutching his shirt where Pavek had known the ceramic lump was hidden.

He cocked his head toward Yohan who, with a weary sigh, thumped the half-wit between the shoulders, propelling him through the curtain, which hissed and sparkled but did not harm him. He and the dwarf scurried through before the sparking died.

"What if I didn't?" Ruari demanded.

"You'd be dead," he said bluntly and kept walking.

The passage ended not far from the orphanage along the interior wall of the templar quarter, the most familiar part of the city for him, but not for the other two, who were clearly daunted by the monotonous tangle of precise intersections and nearly identical facades.

"How do you know where we're going?" Ruari asked in an urgent whisper, revealing that he failed to recognize the subtle decorations that distinguished a High Templar's private house from a civil bureau barracks- and that he couldn't read the inscriptions painted above every door.

"Magic."

And knowing that Ruari would realized that he'd been pulled and would need to even the score, Pavek drifted closer, allowing the nervous scum to jab a fist into his arm. He hoped physical contact would settle the youth down. Curfew hadn't rung, and though the foot-traffic was light, fellow wasn't the only color on the streets. There were artisians and tradesmen making their way to homes in other quarters. A little laughter and sport helped them blend in. Hugging the shadows would've drawn precisely the attention he didn't want, especially as they neared their destination.

Outwardly, House Escrissar looked no different from any other flat red and yellow facade. There were three doors- High Templars lived in luxury, but nothing was allowed to disturb the symmetry of the quarter-each marked with the same angular symbol the halfling alchemist wore on his cheek. There were interrogator's glyphs, too, and warnings that no one was welcome across the threshold unless specifically invited.

The orphans had respected those warnings. Their scavenging expeditions stayed well away from House Escrissar, at least during Pavek's lifetime. But the buildings of the templar quarter were identical, and he had no trouble locating the boiled leather panel that, when lifted, revealed a midden shaft: High Templars did not bury their rubbish in their atrium gardens, nor did they dump it out the upper story windows as folk did in those mixed quarters where scroungers kept the streets clean. They-or their slaves-gathered it up discreetly in buckets and barrels for other slaves to collect.

Pavek warned his companions to watch their footing while me studied the shaft that stretched to the rooftop above them. There was no shimmering curtain to block his view of the stars. But not all wards declared themselves so boldly. Escrissar might have sealed himself within invisible wards, but even he would have had. to beg the spell from King Hamanu, and the king might have wondered why. Pavek was willing to wager his life that there were no invisible wards in the shaft or anywhere else. Not that it mattered much. He wasn't expecting to be alive when curfew struck. He'd never had many ambitions, had never expected to grow old-even when his life was secured by a yellow robe with a regulator's colors woven through the sleeves. Death gathered up men like him sooner rather than later; but he'd never considered that death was waiting around midnight's corner. Suddenly his pulse was racing, and he shook so badly he leaned against the wall for support.

Pavek's thoughts turned gray and filled with open, honest faces, brown-haired teal-eyed Akashia foremost among them. If home-that place beyond the empty fog-had held Akashia, he would have gone. He wouldn't die for Laq or Ral's Breath or Urik; but she was here, needing vengeance, needing rescue. Her cries echoed through fog and dark.

She was here.

"Pavek-?"

That was Ruari's voice calling him out of the fog, and Yohan's heavy hand steadying his shoulder. He shrugged the hand away.

"She's here. She's still here, still alive. I heard her."

"Pavek-whatever you're doing. Stop!"

Stop what? he wondered, then he felt it, the same swirling power he felt in the groves of Quraite. Quraite-the name, the place he shouldn't remember, mustn't remember. Confused and moaning, he wound his fingers in his hair, twisting it tightly until there was enough pain to take away the fog, the faces, and-finally-the name itself.

The mote of emptiness in his memory had returned. The name and everything associated with it was gone. He sank into a deep squat, trying to understand what had just happened.

"What was that all about?" Yohan demanded.

"An evocation," Ruari said, his voice as shaky as Pavek felt. "You evoked something... something. Hamanu. Did you evoke Hamanu?"

Pavek looked up in time to see Ruari fumbling with the medallion. "No," he whispered, still mystified, himself. "Not Hamanu. I don't know.... It felt like-" The emptiness loomed around him, and words failed utterly. "I don't know," he said, and repeated the phrase several times.

"A guardian."

He denied it, and Yohan swore; but Ruari was certain. "Guardians arise from the spirit of Athas," he said, as if he were reciting one of Telhami's lessons. "But a guardian isn't Athas. It's what makes one aspect of Athas different from all the others: one mountain, one grove, one stream-one unique something."

"There's nothing here," Yohan objected. "Buildings and people. They've sprawled over everything. There's nothing left for a guardian."

"Urik. Urik's here. Urik's unique."

Pavek stood up. He pressed his palms against the wall of House Escrissar and closed his eyes. The presence was there: Urik, far older than the sorcerer-kings-massive, and powerful. It rose to meet him, and he stepped back, letting the power subside once he had sensed what he needed, and nothing more.

"She is here."

The smoothed and painted plaster of the templar quarter facades did not extend to the midden shafts, where unfinished brick provided a multitude of handholds for three men climbing to the roof. Like most wealthy Urik residences, House Escrissar was built around a courtyard filled with fruit trees, fragrant flowers, fountains, and pools, and lined from ground to roof with an arbor of berry-vines. The courtyard was quiet except for the fountains. It was dark, too, with only a faint dappling of light seeping through the tracery of a few of the many rooms that faced the courtyard. It was also deserted-or so Pavek devoutly hoped. Neither experience nor logic suggested where they should lower themselves from the roof to the upper story of living rooms, but, having come further and survived longer than any of them had expected, they grew more cautious with each passing moment.

"Are you certain?" Yohan asked when Pavek hoisted his leg over the balustrade.

"I think she's here. I think she's alive. I think this is the way. But I'm not certain of anything. Pick some other place, if you want. This is the way I'm going."

And the way Ruart and Yohan followed: swinging down from the roof into the vine arbor whose support slats sank ominously beneath both him and the dwarf. For several moments, they paid more attention to their footing, then Pavek heard an all-too-familiar voice:

"... Now or later, my dear lady, dead or alive. It makes no difference to me, but I will have your secrets. Your guardian can protect your past; I possess your present and your future. Remember that each time you resist."

Silence followed and a sense that the night had become darker. Pavek caught Yohan's arm as he surged toward the voice they'd heard.

"She's there. I have to go to her-" Yohan's tone was urgent, mindless.

Pavek could scarcely restrain him. "Do you want to get us all killed? Or die in front of her? Or do you want to get her out?"

The dwarf relaxed. "Get her out."

"Then we've got to wait."

Yohan seemed resigned until Akashia screamed. "I can't wait. He's hurting her. I can't resist-"

"She is. She's resisted since you left her, and she'll go on resisting until we get her out!"

"It's that window, there," Ruari softly interrupted them. "I can climb and look through the tracery and see what we're up against. I'm light enough."

"Go ahead," he said, giving Ruari's arm a light, well-meaning nudge for confidence's sake.

"Go with Rkard," Yohan said more soberly. The next moments were the longest of Pavek's life. Akahia moaned, Escrissar taunted, and Ruari had completely disappeared. Someone wearing a yellow robe and carrying a lamp came and stood not an arm's length away in a corridor in the other side of the tracery that supported the berry arbor. Pavek held his breath until his lungs were burning.

The templar went away. Ruari returned.

"It's a small room with one door," he whispered. "Kashi's bound on a bench with cushions. He doesn't touch her, just stands there behind his long black mask, clicking his long black claws against each other-"

"He's an interrogator," Pavek interjected. "He doesn't need to use his hands."

And Yohan quietly swore a bloody vengeance.

"There's someone else in the room. Shorter and standing in the shadows. I couldn't see him clearly. But I think he's wearing a mask, too."

"The halfling. His face is covered with scars; it looks like a mask. Anyone else? Any guards? Templars?"

"Kashi and two men wearing masks. That's all I saw. What do we do now?"

"We wait. He's an interrogator, one of the best. They make the prisoners do the hard work. He'll leave her alone so she can think about what he's done, and what he's going to do. We'll move while he's resting, and she's helpless."

"You're beasts, all templars, every last one of you," Yohan murmured. "Worse than beasts. You've got no conscience."

Pavek didn't argue.

They waited, listening, hoping Escrissar would end the torment for the night, and expecting that the midnight gong would strike at any time. Getting through the streets to the wall-passage would be much more difficult and dangerous after curfew. Then, without warning, the moment came: the light in Akashia's prison dimmed through the tracery and two black-robed men, one quite tall, the other noticeably shorter, came along the corridor. They held their breaths and looked away, lest a flash of light reflecting off an open eye would give them away.

"Let's go."

The lightweight tracery panels of precious wood came out easily. They moved into the corridor. Pavek and Yohan unsheathed the long obsidian knives Telhami had provided for them. Ruari, who admitted no skill with edged weapons but claimed to have learned something about picking locks from his elven relations, went a half-step ahead. The mechanical lock was simple and the door flimsy enough that they could have battered it down with little trouble, but Ruari was quieter and almost as quick. Using a fragile contraption of straw and sinew, he eased the bolt free. It struck the floor behind the door with a thunk that common sense insisted was no where near as loud as it seemed to three jittery men in the corridor.

Ruari reached for the handle. Both Pavek and Yohan grabbed him before he clasped it and pulled him aside. The door swung toward them of its own weight. Standing out of harm's way, Pavek caught the handle with the tip of his knife. He let it swing open.

"Kashi?" he whispered.

"Pavek!"

The voice was feminine, but the woman who came out of the room with a short-sword in her hand wasn't Akashia.

"Dovanne." The only light came from a oil flame inside the room, but Dovanne with her cropped hair and serpent-circled arm was unmistakable.

She'd been the lamp-bearing templar who'd gone down the corridor. He hadn't seen her face or her arm. Still, if they had to face a templar guard, she was the best they could have hoped for. Dovanne took one look at him and came on guard behind her sword. She didn't care about Ruari and Yohan dashing past to rescue Akashia. She didn't care about anything except spilling his guts on the floor and wouldn't sound an alarm or call for help until she was finished with him.

Dovanne, being smaller, had a slight advantage in the confined space of the corridor, but otherwise they were evenly matched. Her iron sword had a guard that offered some protection for her wrist. It also had a curved blade and had been sharpened along the outer edge only. His obsidian knife was a composite weapon, cheaper than metal, but every bit as deadly, with curved wedges of sharp black glass carefully fitted into a straight, laminated wood-and-sinew blade. It was long as her short-sword, had a naked hilt, and was razor-sharp along both edges and at the point.

She feinted first, a probing cut toward his weapon-side wrist. He parried and she withdrew. The blades sang-gray metal against glassy stone-but softly: neither of them wanted to attract attention. He dropped his guard two hand-spans, inviting an attack. She remembered that move from the countless times they'd bouted against each other while they were friends.

"Take a chance," he taunted in a hoarse whisper. "You always said I was slow."

Yohan and Ruari had gotten Akashia unbound and were trying-without much success by the sound of it-to get her on her feet. Dovanne heard the same sounds and belatedly realized what was happening in the room, what would happen to her if she failed her duty to Escrissar.

Beginning her attack with a low slash to his off-weapon thigh, which he had to parry, Dovanne tucked and rolled into Akashia's room- "Yohan!" he shouted as loudly as he dared. She came up to her feet with the sword poised for a downward slice-

He knew her well enough to see the thoughts forming behind her eyes: two against one. She was going to call for help.

"This one's mine," he announced, beating Yohan's knife aside with his own and praying that the dwarf would guess the strange rules of this particular game.

It didn't really matter whether Yohan understood or not, he was interested in Akashia, not Dovanne.

Dovanne tried another attack when the dwarf turned his back, but Pavek was waiting. They traded feints and insults.

The room was bigger in all dimensions than the corridor, despite being crowded. The advantage swung to him, and he made his first serious attack: a quick beat against her blade then a thrust at the soft flesh below her ribs. She countered fast enough to make him miss, and they sprang apart.

There was movement at Pavek's back: a loud-oooff-as Yohan scooped Akashia over his shoulder, effectively removing himself from any possible defense or attack as he scurried toward the door. Dovanne could see them better than he could, but he could see the desperation take command of her face. Ruari had Yohan's knife, but anyone with half the experience he or Dovanne had could see that the half-elf didn't know which end to point into the wind.

Desperation called Dovanne's shots: One all-out attack against him. If she nailed him, she'd have the other two, hands down. She'd come out of this a hero.

He saw the feint coming and parried with the middle of his blade, leaving the point in line. She came low with a counterparry, trying to get under his guard for an upward slash at his groin. But he was ready with a thrust. He gave the hilt a twist as the point pierced her skin and pushed the blade through to her spine.

"Pavek...."

Her knees buckled, the sword-as fine a weapon as was likely to come his way-slipped from her hand. He released the obsidian knife's hilt; she fell to the floor, and he picked up the metal sword.

"Pavek...." She held out her serpent-wrapped hand.

The wound was mortal; he knew the signs. He had her weapon, and she wasn't going to do anything treacherous with his. For the sake of the past, he bent down and took her hand. She squeezed with uncanny strength, trembled and grimaced as she pulled her head and shoulders up. He dropped to one knee and laid the sword down, thinking to put his arm behind her neck as she said her dying words.

A gob of bloody spittle struck his cheek, and she went limp.

He retrieved the sword and wiped his face on his sleeve, then he hurried down the corridor to give his companions a hand lifting Akashia to the roof.