Ruari's eyes widened. "That's all? That's all? Why does anybody going in either direction ever bother to
register? Just say you're a citizen and be done with id"
"Well, well have to bribe them, too," Pavek admitted and fell back a pace to walk beside Yohan. "How much
silver have you got left?"
"How much do we need?"
Pavek rubbed his chin. "One silver piece for each of us should be enough. One silver piece for each of them-" he
indicated the knot of templars, "and an inspector's likely to offer to pull the cart for us."
Yohan grumbled but dug out seven silver pieces. "I can pull the cart"
* * *
The coin purse was nearly flat when four loaded kanks left the open pen of the borderland homestead. Zvain
proudly, but somewhat anxiously, rode by himself with the provisions on the fourth kank. Akashia rode behind Ruari.
She had not awakened at all during the long, hot walk from the city to the homestead, nor when they lifted her onto the
kank's back and contrived to tie her to the saddle like so much precious cargo. With her cloth-bound head resting
against Ruari's back and her hands resting limply against his thighs, she was no trouble at all.
And no help either.
"Which way?" Pavek asked.
The sun was sinking in front of them; Urik and the homestead were behind them. They'd gotten this far simply by
retracing their steps along the Urik roads. Now Pavek looked out at the wilderness. Nothing looked wrong-how could
it when everything looked the same? Nothing felt quite right either, and there was a dark hole in his memory where his
home-Akashia's home-should have been.
"You don't know the way?" Zvain sputtered. "You're taking me out into the middle of nowhere to die?"
Ruari answered first: "We know the way. We just can't remember all of it. Grandmother hid the knowledge away
when we left for Urik. When we get to the Sun's Fist, then we'll remember."
They guided the kanks in a wide arc to the north and east. The sun set and they made camp. A crackling fire kept
the night chill away and turned the food Zvain had provided into a simple feast. Yohan untied the cloth covering
Akashia's eyes-over Zvain's objections that firelight would be enough to start the Laq burning behind her eyes again.
But the savory aromas that set their mouths watering and made them impatient with each other and the cookpots had
no effect on Akashia. Her eyes were open again, but she didn't seem to see the fire or anything else.
"She ate bread last night when I gave it to her," Ruari grumbled when another piece of journey-bread slipped
unnoticed to the ground between her feet. "She's getting worse, not better."
Zvain nodded. "Laq," he said. "It doesn't take much sometimes. How far do we have to go? How much longer
until we get there?"
"A few days." Yohan picked up the journey-bread, then threw it in the fire. He put another piece in her hand and,
holding her fingers together, maneuvered the food to her lips. Her eyelids fluttered, she took a small bite and, very
slowly, began to chew. "We'll make it, Kashi. Grandmother will be waiting for us. She'll take care of you."
Zvain nudged Pavek with his elbow. "Who's this 'Grandmother?'"
"The high druid." He couldn't think of a better description. "She's the one who says when it's time to take
zarneeka seeds to Urik. She's the one who can cut the poison off at its root."
"She can heal Akashia?"
"In-" Once again he looked for the word and found darkness instead. "At home, Telhami can do just about anything
she wants, Zvain."
"I don't think I want to meet her. I don't think she's going to like me."
"She doesn't like me very much either, but she's teaching me druid magic."
Zvain's mouth dropped open-from awe, Pavek thought, or possibly envy. They'd never talked about such things
in the Gold Street bolt-hole. He didn't know if Zvain was one of those who dreamt of magic or one of those who feared
it. When Zvain edged away from him and lapsed into morose silence, he decided it must be the latter and wondered if
bringing the youth to... home was a good idea. Faced with a choice between druidry and farming, Zvain might have
preferred to remain in Urik. He'd been doing all right for himself mere, apparently.
"What did you do after I left?" he asked, curiosity getting the better of him. "Not stealing every day, I hope."
"No, not stealing." The boy stared at his feet a long time, then looked up and said: "I'm tired. I want to go to
sleep now."
He curled up in a blanket with his face toward the fire, eyes wide and staring at the flames. He was still staring
when they wrapped Akashia in the thickest blanket and settled her between Ruari and Yohan, to keep her warm and to
keep her from wandering off in the night.
Pavek laid Dovanne's sword across his lap and took the first watch. Guthay set early. The skies became darker
and a handful of shooting stars streaked across the sky.
He leaned over to tell Zvain, to share this small magic with the city-raised boy, but Zvain's eyes were closed now,
asleep with his fists tucked childlike beneath his chin and cheek.
The blanket had slipped. Pavek picked up a corner to pull it taut, but Zvain cringed and whimpered when he tried
to tuck the cloth beneath those clenched fists.
Not stealing, he'd said. How many ways were there for an orphan youth to survive in Urik? Between what he'd
known as a templar and what he'd lived as an orphan himself, Pavek figured he knew them all, and promised himself
that he wouldn't ask any more questions.
Recalling Yohan with Akashia, he stroked Zvain's hair, murmuring a soft reassurance. But it seemed that his
touch wasn't comforting. The boy started shivering, and Pavek simply left him alone.
* * *
They made their way home as steadily as they could when none of them knew exactly where home was. Akashia
was a growing concern, for all, but thanks to Yohan's patience and determination, she neither starved nor grew
parched from thirst. Otherwise her condition remained the same: unaware of everything, except sunlight if it chanced to
touch her eyes. Then she would flail and scream.
At last, however, the dazzling white expanse of the Sun's Fist flooded their vision with shimmering heat waves,
whirlwinds, and a beautiful mirage: a tree-crowned village in the middle of a swaying, green-grass sea. As the mirage
drifted through Pavek's thoughts, into the dark hole, which it filled precisely, he breathed out the single word:
"Quraite," He realized he had not spoken alone.
"Quraite?" Zvain asked. "What? Where?"
And they all realized that Telhami had left the mirage strictly for them, to restore their strength and faith, and
guide them across the featureless salt flats.
The heat and brilliance of the Sun's Fist was brutal, though not, by his memory, as brutal as it had been the first
time Pavek had crossed it, when he hadn't known what lay on the other side. To spare Zvain that anxiety, he'd asked
both Ruari and Yohan to describe the guarded lands to a city-bred boy before they set foot on the salt.
But no±ing they said erased the shadows of panic that rimmed Zvain's eyes. When they made a quick camp at
sundown to water the kanks and themselves, he asked an exhausted-looking Zvain if he would prefer to ride the last
leg of the journey with him or Yohan.
"I'll be all right. I'll be fine once I see Quraite with my own eyes."
"This is home," Ruari cried eagerly. "This is Quraite. It can't hurt Kashi's eyes!" And he tugged the cloth down
until it hung below her chin and circled her neck.
The half-elf was wrong. Akashia shrieked with pain and terror, but they were within the larger expanse of Quraite
now, where the land itself was a-living thing, and where the guardian would carry Telhami wherever she wished in an
instant.
The kank skittered when Telhami materialized at its side. But a bug's panic was no match for Telhami's
determination to see Akashia for herself. The creature trilled once, then stood stock-still. The claws of all six feet dug
into the ground as Telhami approached.
Kashi's screams had ceased. She sat motionless in front of Ruari, face buried in her hands, and moaned. Pavek
and Yohan jumped down from their kanks and with Ruari's help lowered Akashia to the ground.
"Let me see her," Telhami commanded, and dropped down beside Akashia.
There was no druidry in the old woman's movements as she gathered Akashia in her arms and held her against
her ancient breasts. No magic or mind-bending at all until, in her gentle efforts to move Kashi's fists, she brushed
against the knotted cloth around Kashi's neck.
"What is this?"
Telhami's voice was barely audible, though Pavek stood opposite her with Ruari and Yohan flanking him. Taking
the linen strip in both hands, she yanked once and the knot undid itself. The ends of the cloth fluttered in a breeze
Pavek couldn't feel, then Telhami tossed it aside. With absent-minded curiosity, Pavek bent down to retrieve it.
"Later."
Her voice was still a whisper, but the most powerful and frightening whisper he'd ever heard. The hat turned
toward his hand, and he was grateful for the veil that hid Telhami's face. "Help me," she said in the same awesome
voice, this time to Ruari, who fell to his knees opposite her and held out his hands.
She called upon the guardian in a series of short, powerful invocations, and it came like a whirlwind rising out of
the ground. Pavek's legs vibrated from the force surging through Ruari. Ruari himself cried out as the power whipped
through his body, but his hands held steady and, just before it seemed the copper-haired youth would burst, Telhami
began a different invocation, and the guardian's shaped energy leapt from their clasped hands to Akashia.
For a heartbeat it seemed that the land itself would open to engulf them all, then, as suddenly as the spellcraft
had begun, it was over. Ruari slumped against Pavek's leg- hard-he needed all his strength and determination to keep
his balance against the weight.
Telhami sat back on her heels, her hands resting palms-up in her lap, each fingertip shiny with blood. But for all
their efforts-hers, Ruari's, and the guardian's-Akashia lay still, peaceful as a corpse.
Squatting on one knee, Yohan extended his hand slowly toward her face and traced the curve of her cheek and
jaw. Blue-green eyes blinked open once, twice, and focused.
"Yohan," Kashi said, raising her hand to clasp his before he could withdraw it. "Yohan."
The celebration ended before it had begun. Telhami seized the linen cloth.
"Who did this? Who soaked this cloth in halfling poisons?" That terrible hollow sound was back in her voice.
"Who tied this around her eyes?"
"I-I did, Grandmother," Ruari stammered, still sitting on the ground and clearly too terrified to lie.
The half-elf had tied the cloth each morning, but he wasn't the one who made it. Pavek stood, taller even than the
kanks, while the others sat or knelt. He could see farthest, and he began to look for the dark-haired boy-who wasn't
beside them.
"Zvain made it." He spotted the boy, then, doubled over; on the ground a hundred or so paces away. Zvain's
arms were outstretched on the ground beyond his head, pointing toward the trees of Quraite. He seemed to be
praying, as well he should.
He shouted the boy's name.
Kashi echoed him and added another name "Escrissar!" as she struggled to rise. She couldn't stand, but she
could crawl-and growl like some enraged beast in the arena.
Time itself slowed as Pavek's thoughts charged toward a single inescapable, yet incomprehensible conclusion.
Zvain wasn't praying. Zvain was doing his desperate best to establish a mind-bending linkage between himself and
Elabon Escrissar.
It had to be Escrissar; it accounted, justified, explained why Akashia recognized him, why the sight of him filled
her with such fear at first and such vengeful determination now.
And it explained the boy's behavior since he'd appeared in the bolt-hole-so eager to please, to be helpful, to make
certain that they'd bring him to Quraite, the secret Akashia had suffered so grievously to protect.
And as the toes of his sandals dug into the hard ground, driving him toward that corruption in the form of
innocent youth, he had time to dunk, time to remember his now-and-again suspicions, and to remember how expertly
Zvain had transformed those suspicions into guilt.
They'd learn soon enough how Zvain had fallen in with Escrissar: for the sluggish moment, all that mattered was
that Zvain had mastered the interrogator's insidious craft, and that he be stopped before the connection between his
mind and Escrissar's was complete.
Air burned in Pavek's lungs as time's slow movement corrected himself.
He was running recklessly, over-reaching with every stride. Zvain had risen to his knees, his hands clenched
high above him.
He stretched himself to his limit and beyond. The sole of his left sandal skidded on a loose stone; he lurched and
twisted to keep his balance-felt muscles tear deep in his side-but his right foot landed solidly, and he kept going until a
blast of hot, dry air exploded in his face.
The last thing he saw before his chin struck the ground was Zvain collapsing in a boneless heap under the
whirling force that was Telhami's staff.
"I told him!" Zvain shouted, his voice filled with the intense hatred of youth-betrayed. "I told him where you are.
He's seen it in my mind. He's coming with an army of ten thousand men and giants. It doesn't matter what you do to
me. You're all going to die. Quraite's going to die. Everything's going to die."
His nose and lips bloodied by Telhami's staff, the boy backed away from his druid accusers, directly into one of
farmers who had formed a tight and solemn ring around the scene. The woman seized him and flung him back into the
circle. He stumbled, but pulled himself together to stand, defiant and terrified, some four paces in front of Telhami and
Akashia.
Pavek himself stood a bit to one side, not in the farmer's constraining circle, nor among the outraged druids.
Zvain had looked his way more than once with wide, unreadable eyes. He'd met the boy's stare, figuring he owed him
that much.
He still didn't know how Zvain's path had crossed Escrissar's or how he'd been seduced into an alliance with the
ultimate Laq-seller. Telhami hadn't asked. Telhami wasn't interested in such small details. Quraite had been betrayed,
and Akashia had been tormented; that was all that mattered. The laws of Athas, whether in Urik or Quraite, made no
exceptions for children. Mercy was a rare gift, and, looking it Akashia's hard, unforgiving frown, not one Zvain was
likely to receive.
Nor one he deserved
"Take him to my grove," Telhami pronounced coldly. "The guardian will make him useful again."
"Stay away!" Zvain held one hand palm-out, then dug beneath his shirt with both hands. When his hands
reappeared, a dull gray powder leaked from one small, shaking fist and a dull brown powder from the other. "I'm a-a
defiler! I know a spell that will destroy you all if you touch me."
Telhami was unmoved. "Take him to my grove," she repeated, nodding toward Yohan.
The dwarf strode forward, his faith in Telhami apparently stronger than his fear of the magic Zvain claimed to
com-Snand.
Zvain's eyes widened, his lips trembled, then tightened into a pout as he defiantly mixed the powders together.
Telhami did nothing to stop him.
The boy's eyes squeezed shut, and he began to recite dark spellcraft syllables from that other, unfamiliar magical
tradition that, by everything Pavek understood, drew its energy and power from the life essences of green plants.
Those who were called preservers somehow managed to draw small amounts of energy from many plants without
damaging any of them seriously. Defilers left only ash.
Quraite was plants. The most conscientious preserver could wreak havoc without depleting its green-life
essence. A defiler's power, even with a small spell, might be unlimited.
And still, Telhami's calm remained.
But Pavek's breath stuck in his throat as Zvain lifted his hands, and the hot wind off the salt flats carried the
powder away, and-
Nothing happened.
There was no magic.
Zvain's defiance crumbled; all that remained was the terror. His knees buckled. Yohan caught him as he went
down. "He said it would work.... He gave me magic and said I was a defiler forever." Tears began to flow, and
brokenhearted sobs. "He said I'd made my choice. That I couldn't go back."
Zvain clung to Yohan's arm, pleading for mercy. He might as well have pleaded with a tree or a stone. Then he
twisted himself around until he could see Pavek.
"Pavek? I thought I had no choice... Pavek? I'm sorry Pavek. I'm sorry..."
Pavek turned away.
"Pavek? Help me, Pavek... please?"
But Zvain's fate wasn't in his hands, and for that he was grateful; ashamed because he didn't know right from
wrong where the boy was concerned; and that much more grateful that the decision belonged to Telhami, who had no
similar hesitations.
"Quraite is guarded land, boy," Telhami said, not kindly. "Your magic cannot work here. Or anywhere. Escrissar
lied to you. He gave you no magic, only delusions."
"The plants died. They turned to ash and died. I saw them!"
"You saw lies, whatever you saw." Her voice hardened. "And you believed the lies because they spoke to the
darkest corner of your heart." For the third and final time, she ordered, "Take him to my grove."
The circle of farmers opened, letting Yohan and the stumbling, weeping boy through. Then it sealed again.
Ignoring Zvain's cries, they listened as Telhami described the defense Quraite would mount against Escrissar's
inevitable assault.
Until Zvain's wails could no longer be heard.
Quraite had two defenses: the power of its guardian, which only Telhami and Akashia could effectively wield,
and the formidable natural barrier of the Sun's Fist. Plant magic of the sort Zvain had tried to wield could have no effect
in the Fist where nothing grew to energize it. Templar spell-craft would work, Pavek suspected, if Escrissar were foolish
enough to invoke King Hamanu's name.
On the other hand, the sorcerer-king might well destroy Quraite once he knew where it was; his power was such
that no one, not even Telhami, could stand against him; and without Telhami or another druid to shape and focus it,
the guardian's great power would lie dormant no matter how great the danger.
Pavek doubted that Escrissar would invoke templar spell-craft, and told Telhami so.
"But while the king might destroy Quraite," he concluded, "he will destroy Escrissar. The interrogator's playing
both ends against the middle. If what the Moonracers said is true, and Escrissar has sent Laq to Nibenay with Urik's
seal on it, then he's gone much too far. Hamanu coddles his pets, but he'll destroy them if they cross him. There's
always someone else waiting to take a favorite's place. Unless Escrissar's ingratiated himself with Nibenay's
Shadow-King, the only spellcraft you've got to worry about is your own."
He waited for Telhami's response. The discussion-reduced to the druid and farmer elders, Yohan and himself-had
moved inside her hut. Akashia would've been included if she'd had the strength. As it was, she was resting reluctantly
in her hut, with a pair of women posted outside her door to see that she stayed there.
Pavek hadn't been included, either, at least not by invitation; but he hadn't been told to leave-yet.
"And do you judge it likely that the Lion's pet would find favor in Nibenay?" Telhami's hat hung on its peg. She
framed her question with a single upward-arching eyebrow. "The kings don't trust the templars they themselves have
raised; they certainly wouldn't trust a templar another king raised. The Shadow-King could lie as easily to Escrissar as
Escrissar lied to Zvain-and abandon him just as easily."
"You think I was too harsh with him, don't you?" It was not the response he'd been expecting, not a subject he
wanted to consider, especially with witnesses. "I don't think at all," he stammered. "I shouldn't be here "
"Nonsense. We need to know what you think, and you need to know what I decide. The boy is nothing-part of
Escrissar's villainy. A small but important part through which Escrissar could attack your greatest weakness, and so
win Quraite."
'Weakness?"
"Your humanity, but a weakness nonetheless. Done is done, Pavek, but he won't reach us through that one
again. Despite what the boy would have us believe, Escrissar won't come with magic, and he won't come with ten
thousand men, but he won't likely come alone, either. For a while, weeds will grow rampant in our fields; you and
Yohan will drill our fanners with hoes and flails. We must be ready for an ordinary battle, mustn't we?"
"It won't be ordinary, Grandmother," Yohan interjected. "Escrissar's a mind-bender. He doesn't need any help to
spew his nightmares."
"But he does need help to clean up after himself and his nightmares. You deal with those minions. I'll deal with
Escrissar." Telhami stared past them all. Her lips tightened into a thin smile. "I'll deal with the interrogator-personally."
* * *
A kank-back journey from Urik to the guarded lands took four days. Quraite had that long, at a minimum, to
prepare for Escrissar's assault, if they believed Zvain told the truth when he said that his master would come as quickly
as he could. And in that matter, at least, no one doubted Zvain's veracity.
Quraite might have even more time. The more men, weapons, and supplies Escrissar brought with him, the longer
it would take to organize the expedition. That was an inescapable fact of military life every templar, regardless of his
rank or bureau, well knew. And Escrissar could hardly assemble his supplies in public or march out of the city gates in
splendid formation without Hamanu asking questions Escrissar wouldn't want to answer. Stealth would be required,
and stealth took time.
They could have a fifteen-day week before disaster struck. Or much longer. Or less, if Escrissar proved
inordinately efficient.
And if Telhami had sent Zvain tumbling before he'd had enough time to reveal the secrets of the Sun's Fist to
Escrissar, as Zvain swore she had, there was a chance the interrogator would blunder onto the salt flats unaware of
their breadth and unprepared for their dangers.
If Zvain was telling the truth. In Pavek's opinion, the boy still had ample reason to lie:
Contrary to Telhami's expectations, the guardian had not swallowed Zvain. The boy had already spent five long
days and longer nights in Telhami's grove. Cut off from everything familiar, twice-betrayed by Elabon Escrissar-once
when the interrogator deceived him into believing he'd doomed himself to a defiler's life, and the second time, a
consequence of the first, when his carefully memorized spell had failed to kindle a destructive blast of sorcery-Zvain
had spilled tales of his life in House Escrissar as freely as a poorly woven basket leaked water whenever anyone
checked to see if he was still alive.
"Everything watches me," Zvain said to Pavek on the morning of his sixth day in the grove. A day when Pavek's
increasingly sharp sense of guilt and responsibility had driven him across the barrens to visit the boy at last. "The
bugs and the birds, the trees and the stones. Everything. Even the water." The boy's red-rimmed eyes flickered
nervously, seeming unable to rest on any one object within the grove. "It all watches me and listens."
Zvain's gaze settled then on him, steady and accusing. "Just like at Escrissar's. No better. Worse, maybe."
And Pavek couldn't forget being faced with that look, clenched fists in the night.
The hand trembled with what, he suspected, was very real, fear. Zvain had made himself a lair in the middle of the
grove's largest grassland, a small hollow some seven mansized strides across. He was noticeably thinner; the druids'
assertion that no one could starve in one of their groves apparently did not apply to a prisoner too frightened to pick a
handful of berries from a bush with eyes. And when those fingers slipped his and Zvain wrapped his arms around
Pavek as he had done so often in the Urik bolt-hole, Pavek found he couldn't refuse to offer the comfort so obviously
needed.
"It's not my fault, Pavek, is it? I was looking for you when he found me. He locked me up, just like this, and then
he gave me things-I tried to be careful Pavek, I thought he was a slaver, but he was worse, and then it was too late."
Zvain's arms squeezed harder. "You've got to believe me. You've got to get me out of here."
Pavek knelt to return Zvain's embrace, and as the boyish arms wrapped around his neck and the boyish head
burrowed into his neck, he found himself wondering why it was easier to hug and hold someone he didn't trust than to
comfort Akashia, whom he did. Even now, when tears were soaking his shirt and trickling down his ribs, why should
he want to reassure the boy when he knew, both in his head and his heart, that Telhami was right? It was a tragedy
when an innocent youth was corrupted, but that didn't mean that the corruption should be spared its rightful end.
He, himself, had lived in corruption all his life without succumbing to it-or so both Oelus and Telhami said. Of
course, no one had ever tempted him the way Escrissar had tempted Zvain, or abandoned him quite the way he had
abandoned the boy. And Zvain was his weak point, the only opening a man like Escrissar needed.
He extracted himself from Zvain's embrace.
"Please, Pavek? Please?" The whine was back; Zvain reattached himself around Pavek's ribs. "Don't leave me
here. Take me with you. Make them forgive me-like you made them forgive Ruari after he busted the zarneeka
stowaway."
And how had Zvain learned that?
He pushed the boy away, scowling. Zvain made no attempt to reattach, seemingly resigned to losing this battle,
but threw himself instead back onto his lair and scowled up at him.
Was Ruari paying visits to the grove? It was possible. Ruari held himself apart from the farmers and druids who
drilled twice every day, trying to transform themselves and their tools into fighters and weapons. Ruari wanted
personal instruction from both him and Yohan and the assurance that he wouldn't be standing in a line of hoe-toting
farmers, but doing hand-to-hand hero's work; an assurance neither he nor Yohan would give. And knowing a bit of the
way Ruari's mind worked, it was more than possible that he was sulking in Telhami's grove rather than his own.
Ruari and Zvain together in the same thought sent a shiver down Pavek's back.
The youths were talking, perhaps plotting. Telling himself that he'd have to warn Yohan, if not Telhami, he
turned his back on the scowling face.
"You risked your life to save a farmer's brat." The voice from behind him had taken on a new maturity in the past
six days, one he could hear, now with his back turned. "You defied that old woman to save a half-elf that tried to kill
you; but you won't say a word in my behalf-me, who saved your life, templar, after you took my mother's.... And left me
behind."
He almost turned, then, to defend actions he couldn't explain to himself, but: