Talis grimaced. “I stuck a sword in him, and Jezzil kicked him in his ugly mouth. He’ll remember us. If you’re doomed, we’re just as doomed. But let’s not make it easy on him, Thia. Promise us.”
Eregard reached over and took Thia’s hand, holding it tightly. Jezzil felt a stir of resentment as he watched color rise in her pale cheeks. “Thia, they’re right,” the slave said.
“Promise.”
She looked from one to the other, then sighed. “I can’t fight all of you. Very well, I promise.”
What little strength Jezzil had abruptly vanished. Stifling a groan, he let himself slide back down against the pillows.
His eyes were so heavy he could not even summon the strength to wish his friends good night.
Eregard was heartily sick of smoky back rooms and whispered conversations. Talis always took him with her when she went on her missions, but he was not, of course, included in the actual conversations or planning sessions. Instead, Talis would hobble him as she would have a horse, using a locked leg anklet and a chain.
When she did her “tavern wench” act, he wasn’t chained, but instead set to work in the kitchens, under the close supervision of the cook or tavernmaster. Talis wasn’t forgetting his half-scored collar, and she took no chances.
His hands, already callused and weathered from work in the fields, grew scratched and chapped from washing cutlery in steaming water, using the harsh soap that was necessary to scour away the cooking grease.
It was in the kitchens that he was able to actually carry out the mission his father had set him. The cook gossiped, and so did the other scullions. Eregard had only to scrub pots and keep his ears open to hear all sorts of interesting tidbits.
“Two soldiers in here last night, and they were talkin’
about their pay had been cut, and how any man that protested was likely to be flogged for insubordination. Said there were more floggings every day. Their captain had new orders, from overseas. Untidy uniform, five lashes. Sleeping on guard duty, twenty lashes.”
Eregard winced.
“A new troopship docked yesterday. Fresh troops. Even the Governor’s personal guard has suffered desertions.”
“They say Castio’s gaining recruits every day. Every time Prince Salesin dumps another shipload of convicts here on Katan soil and they go to rapin’ and killin’ and stealin’, Castio gains troops. Folk don’t like workin’, only to have some brigands come along and walk away with it all.”
And the next day: “Didja hear the Regent has raised the property tax?”
“
Again
? That’s twice since last harvest!”
“The wife and me are thinkin’ of moving out to the frontier. Those royal tax collectors don’t get out there so often, and a lot of ’em, they say, don’t make it back.”
“Got room in your wagon?”
“Sure, I can always use another outrider. Can you shoot straight?”
“I can learn!”
“They say the savages are thick as flies on the frontier.”
The shorter of the two scullions leaned toward his friend and lowered his voice. “Did you hear?”
Eregard strained to hear him, resisting the urge to turn his head. But he scoured softly and gently, careful not to clang the pots.
“Hear what?”
“They say that now Castio’s got militia drillin’ in every good-sized town on the coast, he’s movin’ west. There’s talk he has this new kind of musket ball, same as the royalists have. It gets you twice the range, and ’tis far more accurate.
Those frontiersmen are deadly shots, they say. And they’re not the only ones who’ll fight out there.”
“He wouldn’t recruit
savages
?”
“He’s a bold’un. Who’s to know what he’d do? But they say he—”
Just then a pot slipped from Eregard’s greasy grasp and fell with a loud clanging onto the stone floor. The Prince cursed himself as he muttered apologies and picked it up.
Seeing him mopping up the greasy water, the cook curtly ordered him to scrub the entire kitchen floor.
As Eregard scrubbed, the brush moving in ever-widening circles on the rough stone floor, his mind was busy.
I must get
home. Father has to take control back from Salesin. He needs
to know how close to revolution Kata is. I must escape!
But Talis was careful. Not once in the week before his up-coming sale did Eregard get an opportunity. She even hobbled him at night. “I’m sorry,” she always said. “Wake me if you need to use the privy.”
Night after night Eregard lay there, curled on his side, listening to the breathing of the two women who shared the bed. He found himself praying to the Goddess for the first time in a long time, praying that Talis would sell him to somebody here in Q’Kal. If he remained here in Q’Kal, he had a chance of someday getting free and being rescued by the Royal Governor. If she sold him as a laborer, or farm-hand, his chances of ever seeing home again—much less of warning his father about the revolution brewing here in Kata—were so slim as to be negligible.
The days crept by, as Talis frequented taverns, gathering information from drunken royal troops by day, then, late at night, passing on all she had learned to Rufen Castio or his lieutenants.
Each morning, Eregard awoke realizing he was one day closer to the next Market Day. Another day closer to standing there on the auction block and being sold like a beast.
If I ever get home,
he vowed each night,
I’ll do something
about this. It’s just not right. People aren’t
things
to be sold.
Jezzil was learning to walk again, hobbling across the infirmary room floor on crutches, under Thia’s watchful eye. He was intent on moving smoothly, testing his splinted leg to see how much weight it would bear.
“That’s good,” she encouraged, moving beside him, but not actually touching him. “Use your hands and forearms when you walk. Try not to hunch over.”
As he moved, using the concentration techniques he’d learned as a Chonao warrior, adjusting his balance to the crutches, the door to the infirmary opened and Khith entered. Jezzil glanced up at the little Hthras physician, and the sudden movement caused his foot to slip on the waxed wooden floor. He managed to catch himself with a grunt of effort, but the stab of pain from his leg made the whole world go gray and dim.
When he returned to himself, he was seated on the bench beside the fireplace, steadied by Thia on one side and Khith on the other. The Hthras reached for his hand, took his pulse, and made a reproving sound. “You must be easy on yourself, young Jezzil. You cannot regain yourself in just one day.”
Jezzil nodded, taking a deep breath. “At least I made it across the room,” he pointed out. “I have to be able to get around while this heals. I’ve got to be able to walk and climb stairs.”
Khith looked at him, the Hthras’s huge, round eyes filled with intelligence and understanding. “Yes, I understand, but if you fall and break that leg again, you will limp for the rest of your life, despite anything I might do to treat you.”
The Hthras glanced over at Thia and nodded at the door.
“Why don’t you get something to eat, my dear? I need to speak with Jezzil in private.”
Thia looked curious, but she went without demur.
Jezzil regarded the Hthras with his own measure of curiosity. “Speak to me? About what?”
He had little experience reading Hthras features, but even Jezzil could tell that the physician was concerned … nay, worried. “My young patient,” the healer began, “please listen to me. And reply with the truth. How long have you been able to vanish?”
Jezzil stiffened.
How can the doctor know about that?
he wondered.
“Or, perhaps I should say, how long have you been able to fling the illusion that you have vanished into the minds of observers? Please, be truthful. Your answer is important.”
The Chonao was silent, wondering what to say. Obviously, he must have done a Casting while he was unconscious. He remembered the fevered dreams he’d experienced, dreams of fighting Boq’urak over and over.
Unlike a human, Khith knew how to be silent, and wait.
Jezzil looked over at the little physician, and finally decided to be truthful but cautious. “My people call it Casting,” he said. “Usually Casters show the ability when they are young, still schoolboys. With me it came late, I don’t know why.”
“Only males have the ability?”
Jezzil shook his head. “I don’t know. I never heard of any women having power. But things with women are different for my people.” He smiled thinly. “Women such as Talis and Thia do not exist in Ktavao. The women I have known were quiet, hiding their faces from strangers, living secluded lives, existing only to care for their families. We have no women warriors, or female scholars, for that matter.”
“When did you do your first Casting, as you call it?”
“Last winter. Nearly six months ago, now.” Jezzil went on to give a bit of his story to the healer—omitting mention of how he had abandoned his comrades to the fire. That, he’d never spoken of to anyone. He dreamed of it, sometimes …
and in his dreams, Barus was always there, trapped in the smoke, watching with horror as Jezzil abandoned him to the flames.
“I see.” The physician’s huge eyes were fixed, unblinking, on his face. “Young Jezzil, there are things I sense about you that I must tell you. First of all, you have power within you, and this power will try to claim you. You must be taught to control it, to use it. The lessoning will be hard. It requires great powers of concentration and great courage. You are a warrior, but what I speak of is beyond the courage one learns to have in battle.”
Courage!
Jezzil had a strong flash of memory, seeing a harmless young woman impaled on his sword, and then he remembered leaping from the window to escape the inferno behind him. He felt himself flush with anger and shame.
I
have no courage. I am a warrior in name only.
He shook his head, refusing to meet Khith’s gaze. “I am no adept, Doctor! I am no scholar! I can read and write, true enough, but the idea of spending time with dusty scrolls and rotting tomes makes me shudder. I am only a soldier, skilled a little in the ways of fighting. The road you speak of is not my road to walk.” His fingers tightened on the wood of the crutch he still held. “Not my road, Doctor. I can’t.” His voice sounded thick in his own ears, but he had to make the doctor understand. “I
can’t.
”
Khith made a low sound, almost like a moan of distress.
Jezzil looked up. For the first time, he could recognize emotion as it flickered across Khith’s face. The Hthras shook its head grimly. “You do not understand,” it said. “You must—”
“No,” Jezzil broke in, “
You
do not understand, Doctor.
You say I must have courage?” He shook his head and fought back a bitter laugh. “Courage is not something I am blessed with.”
“You fought Boq’urak,” Khith countered. “I know a little something of the Ancient One. It is mentioned in some of the scrolls in the ruined city. Even if it was not fully Incarnate, it—He—is a fearful creature. It took courage to engage Him.”
Jezzil shook his head. “It’s not courage when you don’t have time to think. You say that doing magic requires thought, discipline … and courage. I’m not good at any of those things. Thank you, Doctor, but I’m not someone who could learn magic.” He forced a smile that was meant to reassure. “Just because I can Cast once in a while doesn’t mean I’m some kind of sorcerer.”
Khith’s huge, unblinking eyes held only concern and sadness. “Young Jezzil, it is not so simple as you try to make it.
If you do not learn to harness it, control it, as you would control your steed in battle, the power within you will conquer you and kill you, as surely as a blade that cleaves your head from your body.”
“
Kill
me?” Jezzil was startled. “This magic, this power, could do that?
Khith reached over to lay its long, lightly furred fingers over Jezzil’s arm. “I swear to you, I am speaking the truth.
Listen to me, and I shall explain. This ability is indeed a power. Your potential is great. My people call what you have, what
I
have, avundi. It means the ability of the mind, with proper focusing and conditions, to influence internal and external events. I can sense it within others, as surely as I can smell the ocean when the wind is right. I suspect that you can do the same.”
Jezzil stared at the physician. “You say I have this avundi.
Does everyone have it?”
“There is no way to know unless it manifests. Many people have a trace of it. They can work minor cures, charm warts, or cast love spells. Simple magics that require only a little lessoning. Unlike you, these people are in little danger from the avundi they possess.”
Khith stood up and began to pace the infirmary, moving with a restless, inhuman grace. Jezzil saw the back of its robe move, side to side, and realized, for the first time, that the Hthras had a tail.
Like a cat that lashes its tail when it is upset.
“Jezzil, listen to me!” Khith’s tone was sharp. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but you are in grave danger. You have great potential to learn to be a powerful sorcerer. But if you do
not
learn to leash and control your avundi, the avundi within you is quite likely to drive you mad.”
The Hthras turned to face the human, and this time the doctor’s agitation was plain. “Did you understand what I said?”
Jezzil nodded, then shrugged. “Doctor, I will have to take that risk. I am no sorcerer. I scarcely have the right to call myself a warrior.”
“You are willing to risk madness?”
The Chonao shrugged. “You say there is a chance. Once warned, perhaps the madness can be fought, or prevented.”
“Jezzil, as a physician, I have been permitted into asylums for the deranged. I could sense the avundi there, in great quantities. It had driven those poor creatures mad. We are not speaking of those who are gently forgetful, or perhaps a bit, what is the word …” Khith made a circling gesture with its fingers beside its temple. “I am speaking of people so tormented by their inner demons that they must be bound lest they tear out their own eyes with their own fingers.”