The Education of Brother Thaddius and other tales of DemonWars

A SONG FOR SADYE

Old Orrin Davii entered the smoky room with his face in his hands and his thin shoulders hunched. Across the way, sitting against the wall between a pair of large crates, the teenage girl watched his every movement, her eyes wary, her every muscle ready to propel her away if he moved threateningly toward her.

But he didn’t. He never did, and gradually, as he moved to the side of the doorway and sat down on another large box, Sadye relaxed. She scolded herself for her paranoia — Orrin had made no moves against her in the weeks of her indenture to him. When the court had ordered her so indentured, Sadye, more a young woman now than a girl, had thought his desire to take her from the court wrought of salacious intent. It usually was, after all, from everything the young street thief had heard. Many of her running mates had been caught and indentured to one or another influential Ursal landowner, and the stories of their subsequent existence after the indenture had rung out a similar, lewd note.

So far at least, Orrin Davii had thankfully not fit that mold.

Sadye regarded him now without the prism of her fear clouding her vision. He was much older than she — four times her fifteen years, she guessed — and obviously wracked by the decades of a difficult existence. His face was leathery and thin, with the stubble of a grizzled gray beard always visible, and his eyes glowed a dull gray. But while those eyes didn’t have the sparkle of excitement common to one of Sadye’s age, the woman did see some life yet within them.

“Your time here is almost finished,” Orrin remarked, drawing her from her contemplation. “Would that you had committed a more serious offense!”

“How touching that you will miss me,” Sadye said, and she didn’t completely fill her voice with sarcasm, at least.

“Indeed,” Orrin replied. “And a pity it is, too, that you were so headstrong and tight with your thoughts when first you came to me. I had big plans for you, young Sadye, but alas, by the time I came to trust in you, time had already run short.”

Sadye couldn’t help but tilt her head at that, though she knew that she was perhaps revealing too much of her intrigue. Never play your hand — that was the lesson she had learned on the streets.

“Did you move quickly enough to put it away this time?” Orrin asked, and he grinned at her and narrowed his gray eyes. “Or did you simply tuck it behind the crate again?”

“I know not of what you speak.”

A burst of laughter escaped Orrin, mocking her where she sat. Sadye instinctively glanced all around, seeking some escape route, should she need one.

“You know indeed,” said Orrin. “I have heard you play.”

“Play?”

“Sadye….”

She couldn’t resist his disapproving look. It made her feel little, like the look her father used to give her before the rosy plague had taken him. At the same time, though, and in a strange way, that look from Orrin now offered her some measure of comfort. For there was no maliciousness in it, and no promise of retribution. Orrin seemed almost amused.

Without any further hesitation, Sadye reached behind the crate on her right and produced the delicate lute, bringing it across her lap. She couldn’t help herself, and gently touched its strings, sending thin notes into the air.

“You like it?” Orrin asked.

Sadye smiled and nodded.

“It is very valuable, you know,” the old man remarked.

Sadye stopped touching the strings and looked up at him, suddenly fearful that she had overstepped her place here.

“You do not even understand its worth, do you?” asked Orrin.

“It is beautifully crafted.”

“Look deeper.”

Sadye rolled the lute in her hands, feeling its weight and balance, running her fingers about the carved and delicate neck and the meticulously crafted pick-ups and ties. She saw the small gray stones set into the instrument, edging the circular hole beneath the strings. They didn’t sparkle like rubies or diamonds, and hardly added to the beauty of the lute.

“Now you see the truth,” said Orrin, and Sadye looked up at him curiously.

“Gemstones,” Orrin explained. “Hematite, which the monks name the soul stone.”

Sadye looked back at the gray edging of the hole, her fingers gently feeling the smoothness.

“They are enchanted, of course,” said Orrin. “Abellican stones, brought from an island in the south Mirianic.”

“The lute is magical?” Sadye asked, looking up at him once again.

Orrin paused and looked at her hard, then looked all around as if he was torn. Sadye, ever perceptive, sensed that he was trying to decide whether or not to let her in on his secret, and judging from the intensity of his expression, she figured that secret to be no minor thing!

“You looked through the crates, though I told you not to?” Orrin said at length.

Sadye didn’t answer, figuring the question to be rhetorical.

“Of course you did, for the lute was near to the bottom, I believe,” Orrin went on. “Most of the goods are what they appear to be: instruments and tools, trinkets and the like. But did you not notice that several were set with gemstones?”

“Ornamental.”

“Magical,” Orrin corrected. “Every one. The Abellicans are tight with their sacred stones, so it’s said, but in truth, they’ve sold many of them over the years. Merchants pay quite well for them, you see, especially for the ones set in that lute. Soul stones can heal various maladies; it is no accident that many of the wealthy folk of Honce-the-Bear live longer than the peasants.”

“They use Abellican magic?” Sadye looked back down at the lute, at the soul stones, with even more curiosity.

“They try to,” said Orrin. “Using the stones is no easy trick, even for those so trained. And few are trained, for the Abellicans guard those secrets even more tightly than they control the stones. That is where we come in.”

“We? You and I?”

Orrin laughed again. “No, no, of course not!” he said. “Not you, at least.”

“You said ‘we’.”

“We, yes, we of the brotherhood,” Orrin explained. He laughed again and again looked all around, shaking his head. “What spell have you put over me, pretty young thing, to get me to divulge this to you? Ah, perhaps it is merely my own loneliness — keeping such secrets weighs on the heart, you know.

“And so yes, Sadye, I will tell you. But before I do, you must agree to stay with me when your indenture is ended.”

Sadye’s striking brown eyes popped open wide, and she reflexively shook her head so forcefully that her long black hair whipped about her angular features.

“Do you have a better life awaiting you among the children of Ursal’s streets?” Orrin asked.

The question steadied her, and reminded her that the last few weeks with Orrin hadn’t been so bad.

“Do you agree?”

“How long?”

“Three years.”

“No!”

“Then a single year,” Orrin replied. “Yes, one year will suffice, for I am certain that if you stay that long, you will be more than willing to remain. I could use a hand now in my business. A protégé — yes, you will be my protégé!”

“For what, old Orrin?” she bluntly asked. “What business?”

Orrin gave her a smirk.

“You’re a smuggler,” Sadye stated.

“Of course, though few understand the true value of that which I purvey.”

“And yet, the court of law, the ruling authority, grants you a servant.” Sadye looked away and blew a sigh, somehow not even surprised.

“It is a wonderful system. And you did not come cheaply, I assure you. Many of the bidders were eager to purchase your pretty face and that young body.”

Sadye found herself recoiling, moving deeper within the crevice between the two crates.

“I was more interested in your clever mind,” Orrin went on, and that calmed her a bit. “I heard of your confidence games and deceptive exploits and was quite impressed. One does not succeed at such a craft without being observant and perceptive, two traits I greatly admire and desire.”

“And you trust me enough to tell me all of this? Are you not afraid that I will betray your secret?”

Orrin’s face went suddenly grim and he sat up straighter and glared down at her. “No, because you are smart enough to understand that if you betray us, we will utterly destroy you. There are weapons more deadly than a sword, dear Sadye, and evils that make strong men beg for death.”

Sadye didn’t blink or shrink, but the point had certainly been made.

“Consider the soul stones set in that lute,” Orrin went on, mellowing his tone only a small bit. “With it, any of my brethren could enter your dreams and turn them to haunting horror. With it, any of us could drive you mad and deceive you into tearing your own flesh from your bones.”

Something in his tone told Sadye not to even question, and not to doubt.

“But enough of these unpleasantries,” Orrin said with a wave of his hand. “I tell you because I believe I understand that which is in your heart. Sadye wants more than to survive on the street. Sadye wants wealth and power. Oh yes, that is the sparkle in your pretty eyes. That hope. That burning desire.”

“Tell me, then.”

“The monks have their gemstones, and sell many to wealthy merchants, because they believe that the merchants will never be able to utilize those stones in any manner which would threaten Abellican supremacy. But there is another facet of the gemstones which the monks do not even completely understand. If I handed you a soul stone and bade you to heal even a minor wound, you would surely fail. But if I took that stone and prepared it correctly and embedded it in a magically prepared item — a lute, perhaps, or a wand — then you would more likely succeed with that healing task. The items — and they are not easily prepared, I assure you! — bring the powers of the gemstone and the wielder into focus.”

Sadye looked down at the lute with even more admiration, her eyes glowing, her fingers trembling. “How can the Abellicans not know of this?”

“Preparing the items is no small task, my young protégé.”

“You will teach me how to do it?”

This brought the greatest laugh of all from Orrin. “I will teach you how to smuggle, and if you are clever, how to keep your mouth shut,” he explained. “There are two, perhaps three, in all the world who understand how to craft such an item as the one you hold in your hands. The man who made that very lute, centuries ago, spent a decade and more on that single piece! Fortunately, the process in creating such items also helps them survive the ages, and so there are quite a few secretly floating about Honce-the-Bear and even Behren in the south.

“Secretly,” Orrin emphasized. “The Abellicans would hunt us down and slaughter us….”

“Us?” Sadye pressed.

“The Brotherhood of Wise Men,” Orrin said. “We have existed for hundreds of years, each of us finding a single protégé to carry on our work. We keep our numbers steady and we keep them small. My last student met with an unfortunate end, and so I have been searching for his replacement.”

“Sadye.”

“Sadye.”

“And if I do not want this?”

“You already agreed. There can be no change of heart.”

He spoke the words casually, matter-of-factly, and without any overt malice. But Sadye felt the weight within the simple statement, the clear and uncompromising warning.

She looked down at the lute again as Orrin exited the cellar. She felt its balance and its workmanship, and for the first time, she felt its power. Yes, she had agreed.

Why would she not?

The young woman began to softly play the strings, feeling their vibrations deep within her heart, focusing her thoughts on the magical gemstones.

“It will split the Brotherhood!”

Orrin’s shout wakened Sadye late one night a few weeks later. She sat up and heard voices in the adjacent main room of Orrin’s small house, but she couldn’t make out any words. Always curious, Sadye slid her legs over the side of the bed and let her bare feet touch down softly on the floor, then eased to her feet and moved slowly to the curtain that served as a door.

She mustered her courage and peeked out.

Orrin sat at the small table, hands crossed before him, staring into the three candles that burned in the table’s center. Across from him, another man, smallish and hunched, with curly red hair and a patchy, scraggly beard, paced back and forth.

“Bah, the Brotherhood,” he chortled and Sadye half-expected him to spit right on the floor. “Half the brothers are dead of the plague anyway! We can make more gold — and without drawing Church notice! — by selling the stones apart from the enchanted items.”

“Items centuries in making,” Orrin quietly protested.

The other man snorted again and stopped his pacing even with the table. He turned to face Orrin directly and leaned forward, planting his hands firmly on the wood and making the candles shiver. “Hiding in shadows. Fearing that some Abellican will discover us — like that damned Bishop who ruled in Palmaris some years back. You want a fight with the Church, do you now? You want some Brother Justice monk knocking at your door, Orrin, and kicking it down when you don’t answer quickly enough?”

“Men gave their lives to craft these pieces of….of art, by St. Abelle!”

“Oh, but there’s a rightly proclamation if ever I heard one,” the red-haired man remarked. “By St. Abelle. Aye, that one would approve of our work.”

“We carry on a tradition,” Orrin argued.

“What’s tradition against the likes of the rosy plague? In plague’s wake come opportunities that wise men seize, Orrin. Surely you can see that! The gold will come easily, if we’re smart.”

Sadye could see Orrin’s fists tightening into balls, and the old man slammed them on the table suddenly and rose up so forcefully that his chair went skidding out and toppling behind him. Sadye wisely ducked back behind the shade, figuring correctly that the sudden noise of the falling chair would make Orrin look toward her room.

“This is not about gold coins, you fool!” Orrin said in a voice that seemed to Sadye to be a controlled screech, words spat out with conscious muting behind teeth clenched so tightly that Sadye could almost hear them grinding.

“No? Then what’s it about? Are you looking for higher purpose, then?”

With no answer forthcoming, Sadye dared peek out again, to see Orrin and the other man leaning over the table at each other, practically nose to nose, with neither blinking.

“If you’re looking for a higher purpose with those gemstones, Orrin, then it seems to me that you’re in the wrong brotherhood. Might that the Abellicans will welcome you into one of their abbeys. Perhaps St.-Mere-Abelle herself. Aye, wouldn’t you cut a fine figure in one of those brown robes.”

The two stared at each other for a long while, and then the redhead spun about and snorted again. He didn’t look back as he went to the door and out into the night.

Sadye watched Orrin’s shoulders slump, his head drooping.

“Well, you might as well come out and ask the questions I know you’re going to ask in the morning,” the old man remarked.

Sadye caught herself and put aside her surprise, and pushed through the curtain as if she had meant to do that all along. “Not about gold coins?” she asked. “Never did I imagine hearing those words come from your mouth.”

Orrin swiveled his head to consider her, and more than that, to show her the angry look in his old eyes, to warn her in no uncertain terms that this was a road of questioning she should not travel.

“Who was that?” Sadye asked when she managed to clear the lump out of her throat.

“An idiot.”

“Of the Brotherhood?”

Orrin’s snort sounded much like the one’s the redhead had just thrown his way. “He is a facilitator, and nothing more,” Orrin explained.

“A smuggler? Like yourself.”

“Yes and no.”

Orrin paused, his gaze drifting past Sadye until he was focusing on nothing at all. “There is more to this than money, dear Sadye,” he said after a lengthy pause. “You say the word, ‘smuggler,’ with such contempt, but in this connotation, it is not such an ignoble pursuit. At least, I tell myself that. We of the Brotherhood are the keepers of ancient secrets and important knowledge and more important ideals.”

Sadye found herself drifting over to the table, taking a seat to the side of Orrin.

“There is no alternative to the Abellican Church in Honce-the-Bear, of course,” Orrin went on. “And events of recent years have shown us that the Church is not as stable as many believe. They covet their gemstones as proof of their god, and as their source of power.”

“The Brotherhood does not seek power from the stones?”

“Always there is the sarcasm of young and pretty Sadye.”

That statement put the woman back in her seat, and she felt a flush come to her cheeks.

“Power and wealth, yes,” Orrin explained. “Of course, there is always that, and to some, it is the ultimate goal.”

“Like your red-haired friend.”

“Indeed. But to others, the luxury afforded by the items is the penultimate goal. Behind the understanding, you see, and the craftsmanship, and the delving into the secrets of magic itself. That is the real purpose of our little network of wizards. The rest of it, moving items, selling items, is all to provide the environment we need. Most of us aspire to comfort only because in that wealth we can find the time we need to try to craft an item of our own: our legacy, and our gift to those who will come after us.”

Sadye didn’t quite understand everything Orrin was talking about, but the man’s demeanor struck her profoundly. She had never seen him this intense, and the weight of his words and his involvement with them pressed in on her.

“Worry not about my redheaded comrade,” Orrin assured her, and that alone clued Sadye into her own slack-jawed expression. She straightened and composed herself.

“He is a blustering fool, the likes of which you will meet often in your life, I assure you,” Orrin went on, and his face brightened and he stood straight. “The world has changed so dramatically over the last years, with the coming of the demon and its minions and the advent of the plague. But the Brotherhood has survived greater trials in the past! We must hold firm to the principles that have so long guided our way, though some would seek an easier course. Fear not the fools.”

Sadye nodded, not really knowing how to respond, not really understanding what Orrin was talking about.

Sadye let her head roll with the bouncing of the wagon as she sat up on the bench beside Orrin. Her thoughts remained on that meeting with the red-haired man and Orrin’s explanation to her that his was a calling beyond the promises of wealth offered by smuggling.

In her youth and inexperience, Sadye couldn’t quite grasp the depth of that argument, and honestly wasn’t sure that she could even understand why anyone would want to spend a decade or more in the sole pursuit of creating a single item, no matter how beautiful or powerful that item might be. Still, something about Orrin’s oration — perhaps it was the sheer intensity in his old gray eyes, an uncharacteristic flash of true life — had caught Sadye’s attention and had held it through all the days since the meeting.

For his part, Orrin had said no more about it, nor about the red-haired man. “Do not fret about it,” he had answered Sadye’s every question, and usually with a dismissive wave of his hand and a denigrating chuckle.

What he had done to mitigate Sadye’s curiosity, however, was to allow her open and continual access to the hematite-lined lute. She even had it now, on the open road, safely tucked under the bench seat, instead of in the crate settled in the back of the wagon. And most amazing of all, Orrin had told her that he would not sell it unless the purchase price included another lute of master craftsmanship, if not magical enhancement.

As she thought about the lute now, Sadye’s eyes drifted down to the hollow below the bench seat.

“Do take it out and play,” Orrin bade her, and when she looked at him, he was smiling widely. “I so enjoy your music, girl. You bring the exuberance of youth and the passion of life’s love to every string you pluck.”

“When I can decide which string I should strike next,” Sadye replied.

“Ah yes,” Orrin said with a laugh, “and the indecision of so many wondrous possibilities! You are not tied to the designs of those who came before you, nor the adult’s fears of humiliation.”

“So you believe that my playing humiliates me?”

That brought another laugh, this one straight from Orrin’s belly. “If I did, would I beg you now to play for me?”

Sadye reached under the bench and produced the lute, bringing it reverently to her lap. Despite her little jibe with Orrin, the young woman knew that she had talent. Orrin called it “an ear for the strands of natural music playing all about her,” and Sadye considered that an apt description. It was almost as if she heard music in her head and had a natural ability to filter that music through her fingers and onto the strings of the lute. She wasn’t a great player — she knew that! — for she had only begun to realize all the possibilities of sound the lute presented to her. Nor could she yet manipulate her fingers to quickly and in rhythm take advantage of the possibilities she did understand.

Sadye quieted then and sat up straighter in her seat. She closed her eyes and found those songs flitting all about her, the rhythms of the world, and then she began to play.

She found melody quickly and settled into a cadence, and was barely aware that her cadence was being strengthened by the percussion of hoofbeats.

It took Sadye a long while, and even took the pressure of Orrin’s hand clenching her arm, before she stopped her playing and opened her eyes to the world around her.

“Riders?” she asked.

Orrin nodded and motioned with his chin behind, and when Sadye turned, she noted the approach of a trio of riders, charging hard to catch up to the wagon.

“Kingsmen,” Orrin explained. “Fear not, for they’ll believe me to be an honest merchant.” He tossed Sadye a wink. “Especially since I’m traveling with my beautiful and talented daughter.”

Sadye grinned; she understood that this was one of the reasons Orrin had bade her to stay on, after all. “Your beautiful and talented daughter who is not possessed of an adult’s fears of humiliating herself.”

“Yes, there is always that,” Orrin quipped without the slightest hesitation, and Sadye’s grin widened.

She began to play again, but couldn’t help but glance back as the trio came thundering by the wagon, two going left, past Orrin, and the third galloping his mount right beside Sadye. She watched the soldier with sincere interest, even awe. He wore a full helm and a metal breastplate, with sleeves and a skirt of interlocking chain links, and shiny black boots that sported large spurs. A broadsword was strapped on one hip, bouncing as his horse galloped past. That horse, a chestnut whose coat glistened with sweat, was tall and strong, an impressive creature, though not as much so as the magnificent To-gai ponies used by the more elite of Ursal’s soldiers, the Allheart Brigade.

To young Sadye, this soldier, this dashing warrior, elicited the dreams of wide horizons, the thoughts of adventure and freedom. She watched him ride up alongside the wagon’s trotting horse and grab it by the bridle, then bring it and the wagon to a fast stop as his two companions rode up beside him.

“Whoa! Good soldiers of King Danube!” Orrin said, and he pulled back his reins, halting the progress of the wagon completely. “All you needed to do was ask, of course! I am an honest merchant, bound for Maer’kin Duvval with my beautiful and talented daughter.

The soldier centering the trio lifted the faceplate on his great helmet. “Your name, good sir merchant.”

“Orrin Davii, of the Ursal Daviis.”

“I know not your family.”

Orrin shrugged. “We are not of noble blood. Merchants, one and all, serving in loyalty to the line of Ursal.” He stood up and bowed as he finished.

“Then serve him now, Merchant Davii,” said the soldier. “Come down from your seat and show us your wares.”

“But they are all packed!”

“Then unpack them.”

The seriousness of the soldier’s response set off an alarm within Sadye, a sudden feeling that not everything here was as it seemed. She glanced at Orrin for consolation, but found that, despite his smile, his movements betrayed a similar uneasiness.

Apparently feeling her stare, Orrin subtly motioned her to stay calm, then stiffly descended from the wagon, his old joints creaking after hours on the bouncy road. He moved back, followed closely by two of the soldiers, while the third, the one who had passed by Sadye’s side, continued to hold the bridle of the draft horse.

Again Sadye felt her heart flutter at the sight of him, so tall and strong in the saddle on so fine a mount.

Sadye finally managed to tear her gaze away and look back, to see Orrin leaning over the back of the wagon, trying to pull one of the crates back. The two soldiers had dismounted, but made no move to help, standing to either side of the old man.

Something about their posture, about the way one’s hand kept moving near to the pommel of his sword, had the hairs on the back of Sadye’s neck standing up. She widened her scan instinctively, looking past the pair, and noted a fourth rider back down the road, milling about in the shadows under a few trees they had just passed. From this distance and under that cover, she couldn’t make out his features, but she could hardly miss his red and curly hair.

Eyes wide now, Sadye glanced back at Orrin, and saw the man beside him draw forth a short sword.

“Orrin!” she cried, but she knew it was too late and that she couldn’t possibly warn the old man in time. She stood up so fast that she nearly tumbled off the wagon.

Had Orrin Davii needed her warning, he surely would have been slain, but the old man was no fool, and knew the difference between an honest inspection on the road and a pretense for a murder. He spun about, one hand on his belt buckle, the other reaching inside the folds of his robe, even as the soldier moved to strike.

Sadye screamed, and then nearly fell over again as a sudden surge of bluish-white energy erupted from Orrin’s belt. That stumble actually saved her life, for the soldier up front came charging past, his sword slashing across in a swipe that would have beheaded her had she still been fully upright.

She tried to register the scene, to get past the shock and surprise. She saw the rider cut about the back of the wagon, saw Orrin produce a thin metal wand, its end open, or at least concave. Beside her master, the two soldiers squirmed on the ground weirdly, jerking in spasms the likes of which Sadye had never before witnessed.

She took it all in at once, eyes darting all about, but then they fixed on the remaining soldier alone, on his strong posture, sword high. Somewhere in her thoughts, she heard the sharp ring of metal, and then she watched, mesmerized, as the faceplate of the soldier’s helm folded in, as his head jerked back violently and as the back of that helm blew off, a crimson gore spraying into the air.

His horse kept going, brushing past Orrin and knocking the old man hard against the back of the wagon and then to the ground.

Despite her fears for Orrin, Sadye could not take her eyes off the spectacle of the rider, still sitting upright, still holding his sword, though he was obviously quite dead. His horse continued its canter far to the side of the road before stopping, and only then did the man seem to register that he was indeed dead. Slowly, he slipped off the side, tumbling hard to the ground.

Sadye looked back, and so dry was her mouth that she could not even scream out! For there lay Orrin, beside the two soldiers, one of whom was lying quite still now, while the other was trying futilely to rise to his feet, on legs that wobbled weakly and buckled. Those two hardly mattered, though, for in the moments she had been looking away, the redhead had come in. He stood over Orrin now, a long dagger drawn and tip-in at Orrin’s heart.

Hardly even registering the movement, Sadye brought her lute up and began to gently touch the strings.

“I offered you wealth beyond your understanding!” the redhead shouted at the prone wizard. “You fool! Together we could have done so much. But I need you not, you see? The soldiers are not so stupid as Orrin Davii. They see the value of gold, while you revel in the glory of the spirits of men long dead!”

The redhead spat on helpless Orrin, who closed his eyes. Behind them, the soldier fell over yet again.

“Join them, fool!” the redhead cried and he gave a growl and retracted his arm just a bit, as if to strike.

And indeed, he meant to do just that. But somewhere between his backstroke and the killing thrust, a thought intervened, a suggestion carried on the waves of gentle and beautiful music.

The redhead held there, motionless, listening, enchanted, as the moments slipped past.

Sadye watched Orrin open his eyes, to stare incredulously at his would-be killer. Finally, as if he suddenly recognized the music, Orrin turned to regard her.

She played on, filling her notes with suggestions of peace and quiet, with emotions soft and tender, denying the redhead his fury and his intent. The soul stone caught those emotions and projected them forth.

Sadye watched while Orrin slowly moved his hand out to retrieve the small wand, which had fallen to the side. He clasped it and unobtrusively turned its tip toward his attacker.

A sudden ring of stone on metal jolted Sadye from her playing. She reflexively went back to it — or started to, for she realized that there was no need.

The redhead still stood over Orrin, holding his knife, or what remained of it. For the blade had been snapped in half. Eyes wide, the murderer staggered backwards and tried to straighten, and only then did Sadye realize that the snapped blade had shot straight into the man’s belly. He reached down and clutched at his wound, blood and entrails spilling forth.

Orrin retracted one leg and kicked him hard in the gut, and he tumbled away, groaning in agony.

“Keep playing,” Orrin bade Sadye as he shakily climbed to his feet. “Put thoughts of healing in your song, dear girl, but please aim it only at me!”

Sadye hardly knew how to react. Thoughts of healing? What was this all about? She knew that she had affected the murderer, but how? And now Orrin was hinting that she could produce some healing effect upon him alone, through the music?

It made no sense, even in light of all that Orrin had told her of the Brotherhood and the enchanted items.

She looked from her lute back to Orrin. “More than one lodestone in the wand,” he said, offering her a sly wink. “A devilish gem, with a powerful” — he glanced at the redhead — “and deadly attraction to metal.”

Sadye started to ask one of the million questions that was swirling about in her thoughts, but she stopped short, noticing a movement from the red-haired man. He rolled over suddenly, his face a mask of pain and outrage, and she noted a flash of red — a red gemstone, she thought.

And then she felt all hot and flushed.

And then she was flying backwards.

She hit the ground hard and lay there stunned for a long while, and when she finally managed to look back up, she saw the wagon ablaze and saw Orrin’s horse galloping down the road, trailing fiery reins. She heard the screams, of three of the murderers’ horses, fleeing in all directions, and of the men behind the wagon. She saw one go rushing out, flapping his arms, immersed in fire, and she looked away in horror, knowing that it had to be Orrin!

What was she to do? She scrambled to her feet and patted out some of her smoking black hair, then brought a hand up gingerly to touch her pained face.

What was she to do?

Across the way, the remaining horse reared and whinnied, pawing the ground beside its dead master.

The image of that man riding past her flashed in her thoughts again, the sense of freedom that he had evoked, so tall and sure and swift on his great steed.

They were all dead now, she knew, the murderers and Orrin, and the goods all ruined. All that remained were Sadye and that one agitated and intimidating horse.

And the lute, she realized, and she bent down and picked it up.

She began to play as she approached the horse, and by the time she arrived beside the beast, it was standing quite still, and its frantic whinny had turned to a soft nicker.