Jayne Castle [Jayne Ann Krentz] (19 page)

a fear she could not yet name. "Ridge, you must listen to me."

He held out his hand. The black glass pendant dangled fromhis fingers, glinting evilly in the lamplight.

"Kalena, I've already touched it. There is no harm in it. It's only a piece of black glasson a chain."

Her eyes went from his face to the pendant and back again asa memory slowly coalesced in her mind.

She rose to her feet, taking a step backward. Ridge's expression darkened.

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"What's the matter with you, woman? We don't have time for you to have a case of hysterics."

The roughness in his voice pulled her quickly back to reality. "You needn't concern yourself. I do not

intend to have hysterics."

"Then let's get going. We've wasted enough time." He dropped the pendant into his travel bag and

glanced around the room. "Have you got everything?"

Kalena nodded, hoisting her heavy bag. "What about these two?"

"Let the innkeeper worry about them. I have a feeling he gave them some assistance tonight. He can deal

with the results."

"The innkeeper helped them?" Kalena was shocked. She followed Ridge to the open window.

"Somebody bolted our door from the outside and managed to overlook two cloaked men burning a

bunch of those damn keefer leaves in the hallway. Either the innkeeper is a very heavy sleeper or he has

been well paid to feign the art of deep sleep." Ridge stepped out onto the balcony that wrapped the

second level of the inn. He reached back to help Kalena. "Not a word until we're clear of the stables."

She nodded her understanding and went after him as he moved silently along the balcony. They passed

several shuttered windows and a door, but no one questioned them. The timbered steps at the far end of

the building led down to the inn yard. No one was stirring in the predawn darkness.

The creet stables were warm and thick with the characteristic odor that marks such places. It wasn't a

bad smell, just an earthy, honest one that reminded Kalena a little of the Interlock valley farms. There

were half a dozen birds and they all stirred and chirped inquiringly as the two humans entered the

darkened stable. Ridge whistled faintly in the particular signal his creetshad been taught to recognize. The

other four birds went back to dozing. The two Kalena and Ridge had been riding for three days poked

their beaked heads over the stall doors.

Ridge spoke quietly to the creatures as he began saddling the nearest. Kalena set down her travel bag

and hoisted .the second saddle. Ridge started to say something. He had been doing all the saddling and

unsaddling on the journey so far, but when he saw the no-nonsense way Kalena swung the leather over

the bird's shoulders he kept his mouth shut. Time was of the essence this morning.

Within minutes Kalena and Ridge were mounted and out of the yard. The birds were urged into their

ground-eating stride and it wasn't long before the village of Adverse was out of sight. Ahead, the distant

peaks of the Heights of Variance began to show purple beneath a dawning sun.

For the remainder of the morning Ridge set the same kind of brutal pace he had maintained for the past

few days, but Kalena knew that today his objective wasn't to make life unpleasant for her. His only goal

was to put as much distance as possible between them and the two bodies at the inn. The aches in her

legs and lower back seemed marginally less this morning, and Kalena wondered if perhaps she was

finally becoming accustomed to a day's hard riding. Her mouth curved wryly. If last night was anything to

go by, she would have to become accustomed to nights of hard riding, too. Ridge had obviously decided

to start claiming his rights as a husband.

She watched him as he rode a short distance in front of her, following the landmarks that led through the

Plains of Antinomy toward the distant mountains. Occasionally, he consulted the folded maps he carried

in his saddle pack. Once in a while he spoke to her or glanced back to see that she was still where she

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was supposed to be. On the whole, conversation today wasn't any more plentiful than it had been for the

past three days. Ridge rode with a concentration and determination that left little time for idle chatter.

Kalena remembered the black glass pendant in his travel bag and frowned to herself as she recalled the

vague tales she had once heard.

When the sun was overhead, Ridge finally called a halt near a stream. Kalena slid gratefully from the

saddle and watched the creets amble happily toward the water. It didn't take much to make a creet

happy.

"Last night I had the innkeeper's wife prepare us some food." Ridge spoke as he removed a small

package from his saddle. "I think we've put enough ground behind us. These birds are fast. Faster than

anything they've got back in Adverse."

"Do you think anyone is following us?"

He shrugged, unwrapping the food. "I don't know. Those two last night might have been simple thieves

who work in conjunction with the innkeeper. Or they might have been something more."

Kalena accepted a wedge of white cheese and sat down on a rock to eat it. "I think they were

something more than mere thieves, Ridge," she finally said.

"Because of the pendants? What are they, Kalena? What is it about them that makes you afraid? Have

you ever seen one before?"

She shook her head. "No. But Olara described something like them once." Kalena hesitated,

remembering the incident. "She had just come out of a trance. She was very agitated. She kept talking

about the creatures who used black glass to focus."

"To focus what?"

"That's just it. I don't know She was upset and I gather she hadn't had a clear Far Seeing trance. There

were only impressions that left her disturbed. But she implied that the glass is a thing from the Dark end

of the Spectrum." Kalena met Ridge's gaze and emphasized her words carefully. "The farthest, darkest

end of the Spectrum. It is a thing wholly and completely masculine in the most final sense of the word. It

accepts nothing from the other end of the Spectrum. According to Olara, the glass is associated with that

which would destroy anything that is from the Light end of the Spectrum. Do you understand, Ridge?"

He studied her intent features as he sat on a rock across from her, one knee bent so that he could rest an

arm on it. "Your aunt thought the glass was connected to something that wished to destroy anything that

had its origins in the Light end of the Spectrum?"

"I think so."

"That's insane, Kalena." Ridge picked up another wedge of cheese. "Anyone with an ounce of sense

knows that one end of the Spectrum can't exist without the other. Dark must always be balanced by light

and male must always be balanced by female. For either to exist alone would be meaningless. How could

there be any concept of night if day didn't exist?" He quoted the accepted logic of the philosophy that

guided nearly everyone who lived in the Northern Continent.

"Olara did not say that those who used the black glass were sane," Kalena said calmly, finishing her

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cheese. "In fact, I got the distinct impression she thought them quite insane."

He was silent for a few seconds before saying, "It's fortunate for both of us that you came awake at the

scent of the keefer smoke. And you were very quick with that travel bag you hurled at the second man.

You kept your head in a difficult situation and you probably saved both our lives."

Kalena felt unaccountably warmed and slightly amused. "Such praise from a man of your particular

talents, Trade Master, is enough to make a mere female quite giddy."

He had the grace to look faintly chagrined. His eyes slid from her face to the creets and back again as he

searched for words. "I meant what I said. I could not have wished for a better companion beside me in

such circumstances."

"Even though I'm only a female and not really designed for such masculine labor?"

His mouth twisted slightly. "You speak as if you resent being born female."

Kalena thought about that. "No, not really. I cannot imagine being other than I am, but there are times

when every woman has cause to grow exasperated with the prejudices and misconceptions of men. You

label us weak and then become resentful when we prove ourselves strong."

"No man denies that a woman has her own kind of strength." "Such strength being acceptable so long as

she confines it to

the spheres of childbearing, running a house and providing a

warm pallet for her husband?" Kalena asked with a hidden smile. "Do you enjoy provoking me,

Kalena?" he asked with a sigh. "Sometimes," she admitted quite freely.

His eyes gleamed as he took another bite of cheese. "You don't consider it slightly risky?"

"You've said on more than one occasion that I might lack a certain measure of common sense," she

retorted airily. "Maybe I'm just too fluff-brained to have enough sense to restrain myself from provoking

you."

"Or maybe you take a certain perverse pleasure from doing so."

"Umm, a distinct possibility," she agreed, nodding.

"Some people think it's dangerous to provoke me," Ridge remarked, eyeing her narrowly.

"Yes, well, I'll admit that trick with the sintar is a little intimidating." Kalena leaned forward, trying to see

the handle of the blade where it rested just under his elbow "It's true what they say, isn't it? You really

can make the steel glow. I could hardly believe it that night in my chamber when I thought you were going

to kill me with the steel."

He frowned. "If you have any sense you won't mention that night again, Kalena."

"But the blade—"

"Yes, I can make it glow," he muttered, polishing off the last of the cheese. "It makes me feel like some

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kind of freak, but if you get me sufficiently angry, the steel will grow hot in my hands. It's not something

I'm particularly proud of. In fact, it can be a damned nuisance."

"It's a very rare talent. The stories say there are few men in any generation who have such an affinity for

fire. And it is only the steel of Countervail that will respond to the talent."

"It's not exactly a talent," Ridge exploded. "It's a useless trick, good for nothing more than show The

steel glows only when I've truly lost control of my temper, Kalena, and that's a very dangerous thing for

me. It's a talent that might someday get me killed."

"Get you killed!" She was startled.

"No man fights well when he's enraged. I've survived doing Quintel's work precisely because I've

learned to control the extremes of my temper, at least for the most part."

She looked at him wonderingly. "I see."

He lifted one brow "I doubt it. Let's change the subject, shall we?"

"What would you prefer to discuss?"

"Something infinitely more practical. Namely, why did those two men with the black glass come after

us?"

"I don't know. This is your mission. I'm merely along for the ride and thirty percent of the Sand,

remember?"

His eyes gleamed. "It would seem that you are rapidly returning to normal, at least as far as your tongue

is concerned. It must have been hard to maintain nearly three full days of silence."

"You were as silent as I."

"I spent the time thinking."

"As only a man would think," she retorted. "This morning's hard ride was out of necessity. But the pace

you set for the past three days was deliberately designed to make me aware of your displeasure."

"Displeasure is a mild word for what I felt."

"Yes, I know"

"Tell me," Ridge said somewhat gruffly, "what did you think you would 'do if you'd been successful in

murdering Quintel? What did you think your future would be like?"

Kalena looked toward the distant mountains. "I thought," she said eventually, "that afterward I would

finally be free. The image of my future has always been vague in my mind, but I believed that something

important and wonderful lay ahead of me once I had fulfilled my task. I was wrong."

"What did you think you would be free to do?" he scoffed. "Even if no one knew you were the

murderess, you would already be known as a trade wife. The marriage took place before you attempted

murder. Nothing would have changed your status after you signed that contract and went through that

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ceremony. A fine ending for the daughter of a Great House. You would have found yourself on the same

level as Arrisa and the others."

Kalena smiled. "Yes, I know. I couldn't wait to find myself on that level."

Ridge was startled. "With your heritage? Your pride and family background? You wantedto be a trade

wife?"

"I wanted to be free. Arrisa and her friends are the only truly freewomen I have ever met. They come

and go as they please, with no House lord to order them about. They are not required to remember the

honor of their families in everything they do. They call no man permanent husband. They spend their