The Brazen Gambit (24 page)

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.

The air remained cool from the recent dawn when Akashia, Yohan, and two awe-struck Quraite farmers set out
afoot from the market village of Modekan, headed for the brilliant yellow walls of Urik. After four day's travel
kank-back across the wastelands, the farmers were eager to see the Lion-King's city; Akashia wanted to finish their
business quickly, uneventfully.

No one knew what Yohan was thinking-except that he didn't approve, and he hadn't said more than two words at
a time since they left Quraite.

It wasn't Modekan's Day for the Urik markets; they had the road to themselves. Akashia had ample time to relax,
think, and get anxious again. They took some chances bringing zarneeka to Urik on a day when it and they weren't
expected. She could hope that the Modekan registrar had reported to his superiors in the templarate, and that the
repulsive dwarf they traded with would be at his procurer's table in the customhouse.

And she could hope that the dwarf would shepherd the zarneeka powder to its proper destination: a thousand
folded papers of Ral's Breath powder. But for that hope to become real, she had to hope, above all else, that Just-Plain
Pavek was wrong about his former colleagues in the civil bureau.

Akashia believed with all her heart that the chronic aches and illnesses of Urik's common folk were important
enough to justify the risks she was taking. She believed, too, that her mind-bending skills coupled with druidry would
be sufficient to protect her, her companions, and the three amphorae nestled in the straw-filled cart Yohan pulled.

When she called her spells and her skills across her mind's eye, her confidence grew; then something would
catch her attention at the side of the road or she'd see the shadow of Just-Plain Pavek lurking in the corner of her
memory, and her calm would shatter.

In her heart she believed Pavek was wrong about Urik's need for zarneeka and Ral's Breath but, try as she might
as she walked, she couldn't convince herself that he was lying about the city's danger or the procurer's duplicity.
Grandmother had agreed that Pavek spoke what he fervently believed was the truth. He was transparent in so many
ways to both mind-bending and druidry; he'd never make a master of either craft-yet he could evoke the guardian and,
somehow, he'd managed to enter Ruari's grove after Ruari had hidden himself inside it.

She thought she could have found her young friend's grove and forced herself inside, but by every reckoning
she and Grandmother had made, the challenge should have been far beyond Just-Plain Pavek's abilities.... Unless Ruari
had welcomed him, in which case one of them might have slain the other, or-worse to consider-the two of them might
have discovered that, where zarneeka and Urik were concerned, they were of like minds.

And that would have been the end of the zarneeka trade: Yohan would have stood with them. And the remaining
Quraiters, druid and farmer alike, were already more afraid of Urik and Urik's inhuman king than was necessary; they
would have supported the recalcitrant trio. Quraite wasn't some idyllic community where everyone's opinion counted
with equal weight and the heaviest position prevailed; such communities rarely survived a year, much less the
generations that Quraite itself had endured. Grandmother's word naturally and rightfully outweighed everyone else's,
but Grandmother would never be foolish enough to drag the community in a direction it absolutely did not want to go.

As she was dragging Yohan to Urik.

The old dwarf trod silently between the traces of the handcart. He'd resisted her attempts at conversation since
they left Quraite. Yohan had spoken vehemently against Grandmother's decision to dispatch zarneeka to Urik while
Pavek and Ruari were still hidden in Ruari's grove. But in the end, Yohan had swallowed his objections. He'd helped to
separate the zarneeka powder from the sand in the ruins of the stowaway. When Grandmother invoked a diminutive
whirlwind to whip up the gritty mixture, he'd held a winnowing against it until his feet were buried in grit. She'd stood
behind the sieve with a tightly woven basket, collecting enough yellow powder to fill three amphorae. And then he'd
harnessed the kanks-all the while looking over his shoulder at the path Ruari and Pavek would have taken if they had
returned together.

But the path remained empty, and they'd left the village before sunset without knowing what had happened
between the templar and the half-elf-exactly as Grandmother had wanted it.

Because Grandmother was wiser than all the rest of them together. And Grandmother knew the right thing for
Quraite to do where zarneeka or anything else was concerned.

"You'll see," Akashia assured her plodding, sullen companion. "Everything will fall into place. You'll be headed
home before sundown, I promise. There's nothing to worry about. There won't be any trouble at the customhouse-"

"The elven market?" Her mind filled with the wonders she imagined among its tawdry tents and shanties. She'd
heard about the market from the Moonracers since she was a little girl, but in all her fifteen trips to Urik-she'd kept
careful count-she'd never done more than trek from the gate to the customhouse and back again. Except, of course,
this past time when they'd encountered Pavek, and Yohan had led them to the dyers' plaza where lengths of brightly
colored cloth had threatened more than once to distract her from the interrogation.

Any excuse to visit the elven market was an almost irresistible temptation-especially if cautious Yohan was
suggesting it.

Then the imagined wonders faded: "We gave our names to the Modekan registrar...."

"Three itinerant peddlers with trade for the customhouse," Yohan recited in rhythm with his walking.

Yohan had been trekking the zarneeka to Urik since before she was born. He'd taught her what to do and say,
and she never told the truth about their names or merchandise to the village registrar. "They won't suspect? Won't
come looking for us?" He shrugged; the amphorae shifted in the cart. "Not in the elven market. Templars don't go into
the market, not alone. We'll be on our way home, like you said, before they start looking for us. If they start looking for
us."

She pondered temptation for a little while. The dazzling yellow walls-cleaned and replastered after the Tyr-stormlifted
up in front of them, the freshly repainted portraits of the Lion-King were blurred, but colorful at this distance.
The great, dark opening of the gate was visible as well, and the road was still empty ahead of them. There wouldn't be
a line. Elven market or customhouse, they'd be into the city and out again in record time.

But the inspectors would ask questions. She had to be ready to use a mind-bender's subtle art, and that meant
she had to have her words and images memorized before they reached the gate.

"Are you certain?" she asked.

"Nothing's certain-except that Pavek knows the procurer we've traded with. Whatever truth Pavek's telling us, I
don't want to come face-to-face with that procurer until we're sure what's already happened and what's likely to happen
next. That hairy dwarf's got muck all over his hands; he's not to be misted. That much is certain."

Of all the races, dwarves were the most consciously proud, of their appearance. Yohan's distrust of the procurer
had its roots in the disgust he undoubtedly felt each time they stood before that stained yellow robe. Under different
circumstances, she would have discounted her companion's advice for that very reason. Today's circumstances were
as different as they could be, but she made one more attempt to resist temptation.

"Grandmother wants us to learn about the purity and strength of Ral's Breath. We'll have to visit the
customhouse anyway-"

Yohan spat into the dust at the side of the road. "Wouldn't trust a customhouse templar's answer to that
question, no matter who or what he was. We've got to visit an apothecary or two ourselves, Kashi, if we want to take
those answers back with us."

"Will there be apothecaries in the elven market? Will there be anyone?" she asked suddenly. "The Moonracers
said they'd withdrawn-"

Another wet splatter marked the dust. "Elves! It's not their market, just the only place where they can set up to
trade. Get rid of the tribes and the market will be a little cleaner, a little safer, that's all. There's a little of everything in
the market, including apothecaries, licensed and otherwise. The rest will come looking for us as soon as we've talked to
the first. That's the way of the market. We can buy and sell at the same time. I'll do the talking."

She twisted a thick lock of brown hair around her fingers, thinking her way through a tangle of doubts. "If we sell
zarneeka in the market, we've got to tell them how to dilute it with flour to make Ral's Breath."

The portraits of Urik's master had grown larger, clearer as they walked. Hamanu's robes were a brilliant sapphire
blue. The glass orbs of his eyes flashed with reflected sunlight, looking straight at her. Or so it seemed.

"We've never done that. We're not supposed to do it. We trade zarneeka to the Lion-King's templars and the
Lion-King sells Ral's Breath to Urik; that's the way it's always been, Yohan. If something goes wrong-"

"Nothing's going to go wrong. We'll buy and sell and be gone. If the Ral's Breath we buy is as bitter as it's
supposed to be, we know where the liar is. We can deal with him when we get back to Quraite and then come back to
Urik at our regular time, same as before, with no one the wiser. If Pavek's told us the truth and what we buy is no
good-well, Grandmother can decide what we do next.

Curled hair slipped off her fingertips. "Going to the elven market will be safer than going to the customhouse?"

"Remember: I'll do the talking."

"Once we get inside the gate," Akashia corrected; she was the mind-bender. Dealing with templars was her
responsibility.

They approached the inspectors and regulators gathered outside the gatehouse. A yellow-robed pair harassed a
merchant while the rest idled in the shade. New laws, regulations, and rewards for wanted criminals were written in red
on the gatehouse wall, as usual, a list of warnings and enticements for anyone who dared to read them. She stole a
glance while they waited for someone to give them the onceover. Pavek's name was still written there, still wanted for
unspecified crimes against his city. The letters were fading, though, and the price on his head had not risen.

A weary-looking yellow-robed woman left the shade. She asked the usual questions; Akashia stared directly into
her eyes as she answered them.
"We have trade today in the elven market." She kept her voice low and even. "The seals on our goods are all in
order. We're no different than anyone else who's come through the gate today. You can think of no other questions
worth asking."

"May we enter the city?" she asked after a moment.

The woman nodded. The Quraiters each dirtied their thumbs in a bowl of waxy ink and left a unique impression
on the tattered scrap of parchment the templars were using for today's tally-strip.

"Don't forget: Come back through here before sundown, or you'll owe six bits each, and ten for the cart."

She smiled. Several shade-hugging inspectors whistled through their teeth. One offered to pay her poll-tax if
she'd wait for him beside the Yaramuke fountain at sunset. She kept walking, never flinching or missing a step, and the
whistling stopped before they reached the massive gates. The farmers gawked with their faces pointed skyward. She
had to call them by their true names to get their attention and keep them close to the cart as they entered the
always-crowded, always-busy streets.

They smelled the market before she saw it: a dizzying blend of spicy delicacies floating atop the sharper scents of
natron, pitch, and artisans' charcoal fires, and, of course, the ever-present sweet aromas of decay.

Yohan paused on the cobblestone verge of the market. He adjusted his grip on the cart traces and looked at each
of the farmers before letting his stare come to rest on her.

"Stay close," he warned them all. "If you've got to look for something, look for a signboard of a striding lion with
a pestle. That's the apothecaries' license we're looking for."

"What about unlicensed-"

Yohan cut her short with a slash of his finger. "The difference between licensed and unlicensed doesn't show on
the signboard. Remember: stay close."

And they did. She wrapped her hand lightly around one of the traces; that gave her more freedom to look for a
pestle-it seemed that every hawker's sign displayed a striding lion-as they wandered the market. Traders hailed them
from every ramshackle doorway of cloth, wood, or bone. Bold, ragged children begged for ceramic bits or offered to
sell pieces of bruised fruit obviously scavenged from the gutters of Urik's more reputable markets. One child leapt into
the cart and grabbed two handfuls of straw before she and the fanners could chase him away.

"What's wrong with them? Are they that hungry? Should we offer them something?" she whispered anxiously to
Yohan.

"Stay close," was his only reply, repeated through clenched teeth as the raids became more frequent.

Every dwelling or stall in the elven market seemed equally old, equally dilapidated and despairing. There were no
signposts for the streets that met at odd angles and irregular intervals. Had she not heeded Yohan's warning and kept
dose to the cart, she'd have been quickly and hopelessly lost. The tumult of noise and color, so attractive in her
imagination, grew less so when it devolved into hostile stares and furtive bent-mind probes of her inmost thoughts.

She was unprepared for that Unseen onslaught from anonymous minds. In her previous visits to the city, she'd
dealt only with templars-broken, mean-spirited individuals, each and every one of them, but, by their master's order,
untrained in the arts of the Unseen Way.

No stray curiosity or inquiry penetrated the defenses she'd learned from Telhami, but time and time again she
caught an unwelcome glimpse into another mind. The imaginations of those who dwelt in the elven market were as foul
as the sewer channel in the middle of the so-called street they followed.