Part 7 (1/2)
me, we don't want to get separated in the crowds. The wizard gave me enough gold to feed us on a regular basis, so let's start using some of it.”
”So let's start using some of it,” 1 mimicked softly at their retreating backs, watching them all heading toward the road and the fair excitement beyond. ”Lectures can wait until later. Stay as close to me as possible.” He wasn't the expedition leader he was the Daddy, and even Kadrim was old enough to get along without that. When I took over, we'd all be even better off than I'd thought.
I trailed along after them into the eager, jostling crowds, but after a minute or two made no effort to keep up. When I wanted to find them I'd have no trouble doing it, and they certainly couldn't ride off and leave me. The sun was high and hot enough to be uncomfortable, the crowds were thick enough and close enough to compound that, and despite the strength I'd gathered to me with a revitalizing spell, I could still feel a shadow of tiredness; none of that made any difference, however, in the face of the holiday feeling I was catching from everyone around me. It had to be more than two years since I'd last been to a fair, and I'd loved them even when I was little and couldn't afford to buy anything. Everyone was always so happy there, and it felt as if all the people in the world were gathered in that one place to have fun.
The rush of the crowd carried me with it for a little way, and then people began moving off in different directions, men pointing things out to the women with them, kids tugging at their parents in an effort to make them hurry, women entranced by the sight of things they'd love to have and towing chuckling men behind by the hand. Food smells competed with one another in the heavy air, and hawkers shouted at the crowds to get mem over to the booths and buying. Clowns ran in and out of the thinner crowds, fighting with one another and making people laugh, urging them to come to their show later and then skipping off. I was doing no more than strolling around, drinking it all in, and then I saw one exhibition that drew me to it.
Outside a big black tent with silver stars and moons on it stood a tall man with a black beard, wearing a long, wide-sleeved dark blue robe and a tall, pointed hat, both
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decorated like the tent. The man was holding a wand and talking to the people who had paused in front of his tent, watching them as they watched the three-legged brazier standing to his right. A thick bed of coats glowed red in the brazier, and just above me coals lazed a wide flame with two very black eyes. The eyes looked up at the people staring down at them, and when they s.h.i.+fted from one face to the next, people gasped.
”Don't understand what that's supposed to be,” a quiet voice said from beside me, surprising me into looking around. Targa Emmen Su Daylath stood at my right elbow a short distance back from the people in front of the tent, her eyes on the brazier and the flame, her arms folded across her chest. None of the others seemed to be with her, and then it came to me that she'd asked a question.
”That's a salamander,” 1 supplied, studying her as she studied the two black eyes. ”The magician is telling the crowd that his arts captured it and keep it in forced service to him, but that's just a come-on to get them into the tent and pay to see the rest of the show. The salamander isn't bound, it's just here visiting and seeing the sights. When it gets bored it will simply move on, and he'll have to find another one to make a deal w^h. They're not master and slave, they're business partners.” .
”Thought the thing might need freeing,” she said, bring- ing her attention away from the attraction and back to me.
”Don't know more about magic than that it is, and don't really want to know. Shouldn't have wandered away from us in a place like this, too easy to get lost. Rik said we should stay together.' *
”I'm sure Rik says a lot of things,” I commented, bringing a flash of amus.e.m.e.nt to her calm, dark brown eyes. ”If you're so worried about what Daddy will think, what are you doing away from the nest? I can always use magic to find them, but you can't.”
”Wizard said my tracking ability is some kind of magic,”
she informed me, the words as easy and unimpressive as the rest of what she'd said had been. ”He fixed it so I could see any trail 1 want to see, and if I can see it I can follow it. That's how I'm following our trail.”
”So if you want to go back, you'll just follow your own
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trail to where you left them. then theirs to wherever they went,” 1 acknowledged with a nod, still looking up at her.
”That says how you'll get back, but not why you came away in the first place.”
”When there's a group, don't like seeing one all alone out of it,” she said, a faint smite appearing to add to the calm. ”In the tribe, we don't let it happen. You don't like Rik, but he's got the gold and you have to be as hungry as lam.”
I studied her in silence for a moment, her big body more man half a head taller than mine and proportionately wider, her long, light brown hair supported in a high tail by its bone holder, the yellow leather and swordbelt she wore doing more to add to her air of competence than detract from it. She seemed to really enjoy going barefoot, so she simply did it. Just the way she seemed prepared to do anything else she felt needed doing. Straight out with no excuses.
”No, I don't like Rik,” I said after me moment, giving her the sort of smile she was giving me. ”But he's not the only one with coins in his hand, so there's no reason to go back right away. Let's get something to eat first.”
I hadn't needed to use a word, only a gesture, which meant that she blinked in surprise when I opened my hand to show the silver. Gold is fine for inns and cities, but at country fairs silver does better. Less change to get when you buy something, and less of a stir when you produce it.
There was a food stall not far from the magician's tent, so we headed for it.
”Your tribe must be a really good place to live,1* I remarked as we walked, privately hoping that the lines at the food stall would move quickly. ”If everyone's as friendly as you say, you must miss it quite a lot.”
”Would miss it more if my man was still alive,” she answered, also eying me lines we were nearing. ”He was me one who made me feel a part of it all, without him I don't much care. Hunted for the tribe because they were good people, because they needed all the hunters they could get, but my being gone won't make much differ- ence. A thousand hunters won't keep them alive in those
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