Betrayals (26 page)

“What?” Rion yelped, finding he had company in voicing the exclamation. Tamrissa had said almost the same thing at almost the same time, and Naran joined them in staring at Valiant in disbelief.

“Why are all of you looking at him like that?” Alsin demanded softly with a frown. “He is a High talent, isn’t he? I didn’t know if he could handle a liquid other than water, but if he says he can, then he should be able to. Shouldn’t he?”

“That’s not quite the question,” Tamrissa ground out, her stare at Valiant beginning to smolder again. “You should be asking how he’s suddenly able to do anything at all, when he told us that his talent was gone. I’d like to know if he was lying then or if he’s lying now.”

“You can tell her that I don’t believe in lyin’,” Valiant said at once, giving Alsin no chance to reply or comment. “Not unless it’s absolutely necessary, that is, and the lyin’ won’t cause actual harm. When I said my talent was gone I believed it, but our first mornin’ on the road I woke up to find it had returned. It took a while before I understood what had happened, and your answer to the question I asked confirmed my guess.”

“You asked me about the man who had brought your breakfast back in the warehouse,” Alsin remembered aloud, his frown still in place. “He told you that his brother had the same problem you do about closed in places, and you asked if the man had ever done anything to help his brother when the brother had to stay in the dormitory. I answered—”

“You answered yes, the man usually put a mild sedative in his brother’s food,” Valiant said, finishing the story when Alsin’s words ended abruptly. “None of us realized it at the time, but the man must have done the same with my food. Normally it wouldn’t have mattered, but with the hilsom powder still lingerin’ a bit in my blood, it was like druggin’ me all over again.”

“But why didn’t you tell us you were all right again?” Tamrissa took her turn to demand, the words almost blurted. “You didn’t say a single word, letting us spend our time—”

She, too, stopped speaking abruptly, just short of the word “worrying,” Rion thought. She clearly wasn’t about to admit that, though, and Valiant acted as if he had no idea what she’d been about to say.

“Why would I waste my time tellin’ things to people who only care about their own feelin’s?” he countered bluntly.

“They don’t care anythin’ about me, not when I’m never allowed to be human around them. Human bein’s make mistakes and sometimes act emotionally, but my mistakes are always considered unforgivable outrages, and so are any shows of emotion. It’s been that way more than once before, but now I find myself sick of it. From now on I mean to talk only to people who understand how human I am, and who are prepared to accept that terrible failin’. Everyone else can find perfect people to associate with, which I’ll never be. You get somethin’ to eat, Meerk, and I’ll wait for you outside.”

Rion joined everyone else in silently watching Valiant leave, and once again he had no idea of what to say. Tamrissa sat unmoving as she stared sightlessly down at the table, and Rion’s heart went out to her. Valiant had been incredibly harsh with her, and his tirade had strongly suggested that he no longer had any interest in courting her acceptance. Things were now worse than they had ever been between the two, and Rion was certain about one thing only:

If Jovvi wasn’t returned to their midst soon, there might not be a midst for her to be returned to!

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Valiant strode out of the inn and closed the door behind him, then he moved more slowly toward the stable. It had grown rather cool out, but even if it had been downright cold he would have preferred being outside to remaining with the others. And for once being closed in had nothing to do with the preference.

The ground under his feet was hard-packed earth, dry from all the days it hadn’t rained. Valiant paced it in a deliberate way, trying to use his awareness of rain to come to blot out memory of what he’d said to Tamrissa. He hadn’t known he was going to say that, it had just come boiling out all on its own. Obviously things had been building toward the outburst ever since that first morning….

Valiant sighed as he remembered how delighted he’d been, waking up alert and strong and realizing that he was whole again. His first thought had been to tell Tamrissa, so that any worry she might be feeling would be laid to rest. He’d dressed quickly and had gone down to the inn’s dining room where she and the others were breakfasting—only to have her raise that brick wall again. She’d made it perfectly clear that she wanted nothing more to do with him, and all because of her interpretation of what had happened between them.

Scuffing at the dirt with the toe of one shoe, Valiant remembered again how he’d felt. As he’d sat down to breakfast he’d recalled his intention to win her over again—and at that point had wondered why he ought to bother. Because he loved her? Yes, he certainly did still love her, but he wasn’t also a lover of pain. And that was all he seemed to get from her on a regular basis, the pain of accusation.

Leaning a shoulder against the wall of the inn, Valiant felt that pain all over again. Ever since he’d met Tamrissa he’d been guilty of something in her eyes, and he no longer felt willing to accept the accusation. It was true that he had his problems, but she had problems of her own that she made no effort to solve. Her lack of trust had her constantly challenging his intentions and actions, with everything being interpreted from her point of view.

The unfairness of that had obviously been eating away at him, until it built to the explosion of a few minutes earlier. It had been something that had had to be said, but that didn’t make the memory of it easier to live with. He’d deliberately given Tamrissa pain after he’d sworn he’d never do that, but sometimes the truth was more painful than abuse. And we all owed ourselves and others the truth—didn’t we?

Valiant hadn’t quite answered that final question to his own satisfaction when the door to the inn opened. Meerk appeared, and after closing the door behind himself he walked over to Valiant.

“I’ve hired two of the inn’s horses, and they’re being saddled now,” Meerk told him in a soft voice, clearly staring at Valiant through the darkness. “We’ve got better than an hour’s ride ahead of us, and then however long it takes you to do what you’re going to do. We ought to get back here in time to get a few hours sleep.”

“If I don’t end up fallin’ off the horse and killin’ myself,” Valiant returned with a weary nod. “Growin’ up, I spent most of my time in or on the water. The few times I was forced onto horseback, I didn’t exactly cover myself with glory.”

“It just takes practice,” Meerk assured him, clearly trying to be supportive. “There are also some tricks to make the time a bit easier, and since I need you alive I’ll just have to share them. I’d let you practice some around here—if we had the time. Unfortunately, I don’t think we do.”

“You’ve changed your mind?” Valiant asked, suddenly very intent on the conversation. “Did something happen to cause that?”

“You might say so,” Meerk agreed with a judicious nod. “After I discovered that it was lethe which they were giving to the captives, I had the time to look around a bit, so to speak. I’d had to wait until they’d made camp before I was able to get close enough, and a single piece of information seemed too little for the amount of time I’d spent trailing after them.”

Valiant nodded his understanding, at the same time encouraging the man to continue, which he did.

“It suddenly came to me to wonder just how much they carried in the way of supplies,” Meerk said, glancing around every now and again in an obvious effort to make certain they weren’t being overheard. “It’s been clear that they’re under orders not to come in contact with any towns or villages or even inns or roadhouses. This road trends westward without going through any towns, and that’s probably why they’re using it. When I checked, they only had another three or so days of supplies left.”

“Which means they expect to get where they’re goin’ in less time than that,” Valiant said, understanding at once. “You never take exactly enough supplies, not unless you have no choice. Unexpected delays are always croppin’ up, so you’re best off plannin’ for them from the beginnin’. I’d just like to know how much overage they allowed for: a single day, a day and a half, two days? ”

“That’s the question that changed my mind,” Meerk said with another nod. “They probably don’t have more than a single day’s extra rations, not when they can always find a place to buy supplies in a real emergency, but I can’t quite make myself count on that. If the guess turns out to be wrong, we could lose every captive in the convoy.”

“Where are those horses?” Valiant asked, abruptly turning toward the stable. More urgency filled him now than ever before, and the need to be on his way rose up and held him with a heavy hand.

It wasn’t really long before a stableboy led out two mounts, but to Valiant it almost felt like hours. Meerk tossed the boy a couple of coppers, joining Valiant in ignoring the stablehand’s very obvious curiosity. People rarely hired horses from an inn in the dead of night, and not to be returned in just a few hours. It wasn’t as if the inn didn’t have females available if that was what they were after….

Valiant could almost hear the boy’s thoughts, but he pushed away everything but the need to remember the little he knew about riding horses. Mounting was no problem, and it was pleasant to find that the stirrups were the proper length, but that was the last of Valiant’s pleasure for a while. When Meerk urged his horse into motion Valiant’s mount followed, almost unseating Valiant with the unexpected motion.

Hanging on with knees and fists kept Valiant seated until they moved a short way down the road, and then Meerk took some time to offer the help he’d promised. It didn’t magically make Valiant a master rider, but also being told that Meerk’s talent had a light hold on both horses to keep them under control at least let Valiant relax a bit. The horse couldn’t possibly run away with him, a comforting thought he really needed.

It was closer to an hour and a half before they reached the vicinity of the convoy. Valiant happily joined Meerk in dismounting and tying his horse, then followed the man through the sparse woods to the camp. They had to silently skirt a bored sentry, but that turned out to be no trouble at all. A pair of moments later they stopped near some bushes, just beyond the clearing the convoy had camped in.

“There’s another clearing a short distance away from this one with a corral built in it,” Meerk said in an almost soundless whisper. “All the horses are in it, with guards around its perimeter.”

Valiant nodded as he studied the ten large wagons which had been drawn up in a half circle around the clearing. The canvas enclosing each of them made it impossible to see what they contained, but Valiant’s ability told him there were human beings inside. That particular arrangement and amount of water could mean nothing else, but that was all he got. Nothing in the way of an awareness of Jovvi and Lorand came, and that set Valiant to worrying. What if Meerk’s information was wrong, and their groupmates were somewhere else entirely … ?

Taking a deep breath, Valiant forced himself back to calm. There might not be evidence that Jovvi and Lorand really were there, but there also wasn’t proof that they were elsewhere. The only thing to do was to go ahead as planned and hope they weren’t wasting their time. If he hadn’t been so agitated, he would have thought to ask Rion to accompany them. If the two of them linked up, they might have had more success in searching for their groupmates.

But that was no longer possible, and Valiant realized he’d better hurry. The coming rain was no longer as far off as it had been, and it would be best to get through and away before it arrived. Some of the guardsmen had rolled up in the their blankets near the dying fire rather than finding places under the wagons. Once the rain started, they would surely be awake and trying to find a place to keep dry.

So Valiant opened wide to the power, then reached out to look around with something other than his eyes. A large water barrel was tied to each of the wagons, and inside each wagon was a smaller keg containing something other than water. The liquid in the smaller keg was oily to Valiant’s senses, slick and denser than water. A part of the liquid was water, but certainly not all of it.

Never before had Valiant tried to use his magic on a liquid other than water, and he frankly didn’t even know if it was supposed to be possible. What he did know, however, was that he had to try, and not only try but succeed. Jovvi and Lorand’s safety was at stake, and in that particular circumstance there was nothing he would refuse to try.

Spreading out fingers of talent, he began to examine the oily liquid more closely. Removing the water from it would have been simplicity itself, but that wasn’t what he had to do. His aim was to move the entire volume of liquid to the large water barrel, and then replace it with undiluted water. But he first had to get a grip on the liquid, and the oiliness was making that difficult. His mental fingers kept sliding off…

Valiant usually pushed hard when he had a problem, but suddenly something told him to ease off instead. Pushing works to free a wagon stuck in the mud, but not all by itself. The best idea is to combine pushing and pulling, the two actions producing what both individually cannot. Pushing combined with pulling … and the memory of plaited patterns done with ropes of water …

And that was the key he needed. Those patterns he’d been taught… the fools using them thought of them as nothing but exercises, completely missing the fact that they were the means of reaching higher and more distant levels of ability. It was something Valiant wanted to look into more thoroughly, but right now there was something more pressing which had to be done.

Using a variation of one of the patterns, Valiant was able to get a grip on the oily liquid. Transferring it to the companion water barrel on the outside, then returning pure water, took very little time, but the process had to be repeated ten times. Then Valiant checked the entire camp for other containers which might hold water, and found more than a dozen waterskins. Most of them were either attached to saddles or stowed under wagon seats, and Valiant quickly exchanged their contents as well.