Storms of Destiny (35 page)

Accustomed as she was to barnyard muck, Talis had to cover her mouth and nose with a fold of her cloak as she hurried along, trying not to think about what she was treading in. She slipped and skidded more than once, and it was only luck and a fighter’s balance that kept her from a fall.

Finally her guide slowed, then stopped before yet another

back entrance, in a section that was visibly cleaner than some they’d traversed. Glancing back to make sure she was still with him, he knocked softly. Two taps, a scratching with his nails, followed by three more deliberately spaced taps.

Then, silently and speedily, the man—was her guide even male? She couldn’t be sure—was gone.

Talis stood there before the door, waiting, and was rewarded a moment later when it opened a narrow crack.

“Talis Aloro?” The voice was unfamiliar.

“I’m here,” she said, moving forward until her features could be seen in the narrow band of candlelight.

“Come in and welcome, then,” the man said, opening the door just wide enough for her to squeeze in.

Talis walked in, blinking against the light, even dim as it was. She had been so long in the darkness. The room was dominated by a huge machine, and she smelled ink. Her host was a youngish man of medium height, with bushy brown hair and a stocky build. His sleeves were rolled to the elbow, and his hands, arms, and shirt were spattered with ink stains.

Talis smiled at him. “Talis Aloro, at your service.” She gave him the secret hand sign that the revolutionary movement had chosen.

The man returned it. “Denno, printer, at your service.” He raised his voice. “Rufen, she’s here. Just as you described her.”

Rufen Castio stepped out from behind the enormous machine. His lanky frame was unchanged, his queue still unfashionable, and Talis was so glad to see him again after all these months that her throat tightened. “Master Castio!”

“Rufen, Talis … remember?”

“Yes, I do. It’s good to see you.”

“And you, Talis.” He came over and gave her a quick, comradely embrace.

Denno pulled up a couple of chairs to a battered old desk and waved to Talis to sit down. Castio regarded her. “So, tell me everything that’s been happening.”

Talis gave him a quick summary of everything she’d observed in the past few months that related to the Cause. In his turn, Castio caught his two listeners up on his own do-ings. “Things are moving along,” he said in conclusion.

“Though not as quickly as I could have hoped. We have molds to allow us to produce the new bullets for the rifled muskets, and we captured the rifling bench intended for the royal fort at Three Notch Bluff, so we’ve been able to convert many of our smoothbores into rifles able to use the new bullets. But we can’t bring every musket in Kata to the rifling bench, and it’s slow work rifling the barrels of muskets without it.”

Talis was fascinated.
Better, more accurate muskets!

“Where are you keeping the rifling bench?” she asked.

Castio gave her a look. “I’ll tell you if you need to know, Talis.”

She flushed. “Oh. I understand.”

Castio asked her if she could do her tavern-slut act at a popular soldiers’ pub in Q’Kal. “The proprietor is not one of us,” he cautioned. “He’s a royalist. You’ll need to be careful.

But since there are so many soldiers there, the place is always swarming with whores anyway. Nobody is likely to notice one more. Just keep your ears open, see if you can pick up anything.”

Talis nodded. “I’ll go there tomorrow, after I register Eregard for the slave auction.”

Castio nodded. “Very well.” But Talis noticed he didn’t look at her when he said it.

She wet her lips. “Rufen, do you own any slaves?”

He shook his head. “Not anymore. I used to.”

“You sold them all?”

He finally looked at her. “No. I freed them. One day I realized that it was hypocritical to struggle and yearn for freedom, while owning another human being. That day, I freed my slaves. Two of them are now two of our best couriers, matter of fact.”

Talis was troubled by his words. “I’ve been thinking much the same thing,” she admitted. “But if I don’t sell Eregard, I

won’t have enough money to leave home so I can work for the Cause!”

“I understand that’s a hard decision,” Castio said. “And you’re the only one who can make it.”

Denno nodded at her. “As someone who freed his slaves two years ago, I can tell you that paying workers puts a hole in your pocket pretty quickly. But,” he gave her a rueful grin, “I sleep better at night, and I guess that’s worth something, ain’t it?”

As the three continued to talk, slipping from actual plans into discussing their dreams for the future, for a free Kata, Denno produced a bottle of wine and blew off three dusty glasses. Talis normally did not drink, but to be companion-able, she took a glass of wine, then another.

As they talked and sipped she lost all track of time and things began to blur. At some point she found herself singing Castio’s off-color song in harmony with Rufen, while Denno laughed and beat time on the desk.

“What’s the title of that one?” he demanded when they were finished, wheezing with laughter.

“ ‘Agivir’s Farts’?” suggested Talis, without thinking.

The two men roared with approving laughter— —just as the door to the shop opened and a small, slight figure stood silhouetted in the light of day.

Denno was so startled he tried to sit up too quickly. His feet slipped off the desk, and then he overbalanced, trying to save himself. His chair crashed over backward, leaving him upside down, arms and legs waving in the air like an overturned beetle, sputtering with a mixture of laughter and indignation.

Castio rose to his feet somewhat unsteadily, but with great dignity. “Who are you?”

Talis stared owlishly at the woman who stood there. The light was behind her, but there was something familiar …

“Thia!” she gasped. “What are
you
doing here?”

“I work here,” the other woman said calmly, surveying them all with dark eyes that held both amusement and apprehension. “I beg pardon, Denno, I heard … noises, and I thought I should see what was going on. Here, let me help you up.”

Advancing into the room, Thia began trying to extricate Denno from his chair. Recovering themselves, Castio and Talis hastened to help her. With all three of them working together, they soon had the stocky printer restored to an upright position.

Castio regarded Thia. The intrusion had obviously sobered him up considerably. “This woman works for you, Denno?”

“Aye, she does,” Denno said. “She’s a good sort, her name is Thia. Comes from up north. You’re in early, girl.”

Thia smiled at him and shook her head, amused. “Actually, I’m not. You must have lost track of time. ’Tis morning, Denno. Time to open the shop.” She turned to look at Castio.

“You must be Rufen Castio. I’ve read your writings.”

Castio was obviously taken aback, but nodded and took her hand, bowed politely. “You have? They aren’t generally … available.”

“Yes. Denno has some of them upstairs in the flat, and when I mind little Damris, I read while she’s sleeping.”

Castio raised an eyebrow. “Indeed? He has my writings right out in the open?”

Thia shook her head. “Not at all. He hides them under the baby’s clean nappies.”

Denno’s eyes widened. “That’s right,” he said. “I did. I should have realized …”

Talis had been studying Thia’s expression, and, slowly, she relaxed, then smiled. “We have naught to fear from Thia,” she said. “She’d never betray us.”

The young woman with the ash-colored hair nodded. “I like what you wrote about freedom for all,” she said, carefully not looking at Talis. “One of my friends is a slave. If you truly believe freedom is for all people, I would like to join your Cause.”

Castio nodded slowly. “That might be a good thing. Poor Denno has been working too hard, printing all of our broadsides.”

“I know,” Thia agreed. “I can always tell when he’s been up all night, working for you. Little Damris is
not
a colicky babe,” she added, with a smile at her employer.

Denno chuckled shamefacedly. “Rufen, seems to me we can trust her. She’s been working here for nigh on two months now, and she’s held her tongue about what we do.”

Talis barely heard this last exchange.
It’s not fair!
she thought.
Sacrificing my chance to work with the Cause, all
because of Eregard!
Her mind filled with the memory of the song he’d sung to her, and its haunting refrain.

And you’ll never touch the free part of me …

“Damn it,” she muttered, not realizing she was speaking aloud until the others turned to look at her. “Sorry, nothing,”

she said hastily. “Just … thinking. I had a decision to make, and it seems that I’ve made it.”

Thia looked at her but said nothing.

This is going too slowly,
Eregard thought, rubbing the file steadily against one side of his slave collar.
It’s going to take
hours more than I figured.

He was crouched in the shadows behind the henhouse that flanked the inn’s stableyard, hidden from sight behind a stack of half-rotted old boards. The file had scored his hands so badly that he’d had to wrap rags around his fingers as he filed, and his neck burned where he’d managed to score it during the attempt.

The slave auction was tomorrow, and he
had
to have the accursed collar filed off by then, otherwise his whole plan was wrecked. He forced himself to file in short, even strokes.

Don’t panic,
he told himself.
You’ll think of something.

“Talis! Clo!” It was a man’s voice, shouting, and there was an edge of panic in it that made Eregard’s file stroke halt.
Jezzil? Can it be?

“Talis! Clo!” The breathless shout was more distant now, coming from the direction of the stables. Eregard heard running feet.
What’s going on?

“Master Jezzil!” It was Clo’s voice. Eregard inched forward, peering around the edge of the outbuilding. “What is it?”

“Talis, where is Talis?” Jezzil’s Chonao accent was much thicker than usual.

Eregard could see them now. Jezzil stood in the courtyard, his face pale and sweating, his hair rumpled and a smudge on his cheek. He had obviously been running.

“She’s—”

The front door of the inn banged, and then Eregard heard Talis before he saw her, walking with quick, firm strides.

“I’m here, Jezzil. What’s wrong?”

Jezzil took a deep breath, obviously struggling for control.

“It’s Thia. She didn’t come home from the print shop.

Denno said she left after closing …”

Eregard stiffened.
Thia?

“Well, perhaps she went to do some shopping—” Clo began.

“No!” he shouted, then forced himself to lower his voice.

“Please, you must help me. When she didn’t come home, I went out and asked along her route—and a boy remembered her. He said she was there, passing an alley, and then she wasn’t. Someone must have grabbed her. The lad saw a wagon leave the alley, and there was something in the wagon bed that moved. He’d covered her with a blanket, but the lad was sure.”

Eregard’s heart was pounding. Thia had told him a little about her life in Amaran. He sensed that she’d left many things—dark things—unsaid.

“Kidnapped?” Talis sounded skeptical. “Who could possibly want—”

“You don’t understand. The priests, they will never let her live, if they find her. It must have been one of the priests!

She knew they’d search for her!” Jezzil’s face twisted.

“They’ll kill her. We have to find her.”

“But—”

“You’re the only people I know here that I trust to help,”

Jezzil said. “Please, help me find her! They’ll be heading north!”

Eregard didn’t think about his bleeding hand, his scored

neck, and the half-filed collar. He found himself on his feet, running toward Jezzil. “I’ll help,” he called out. “I’m not much good as a fighter, but I can shoot a pistol.”

Talis stared at him, then, suddenly, she was nodding.

“We’ll help, too. Clo, go saddle the horses.”

He drove the wagon carefully, scrutinizing the ground ahead of him, hands clenched around the reins. He was not used to driving a two-horse team, especially over rough ground.

When he was younger he’d learned to ride, because the temples sent missionaries out into other lands to educate the heathens about Boq’urak’s might and power. But riding, he’d discovered quickly, was quite different from driving. The only means of communication with the team was through his voice or the reins, and a team was far less maneuverable than a ridden horse. Now, as a driver, he had to handle the brake on downslopes and plan his path, lest the wagon overturn or overrun the team.

When first he’d left the city, he headed due west, away from the main caravan trail, traveling across the isthmus that linked Kata to Severez. He hadn’t gone far enough to glimpse the western arm of the sea, though. Instead he’d turned northwest, heading into Severez, but staying well off the main caravan trail.

Far to the north he thought he could make out a bruise-colored shadow that hinted at the high ranges dividing Severez and Amavav. But his eyes weren’t as good as they had been when he was younger, so he couldn’t be sure.