Part 13 (1/2)

”Listen to this with interest,” I countered, trying my best to match his smile. ”That big building on the next street, the one with metal closing off all the windows... That's where Brangol is supposed to be. Tell Garam to send some of his men to the next street over, to cover the doors on that side. The only other doors are on this side, so he shouldn't have any trouble.”

”Later you'll have to tell me what bothers you about that place,” he said, the smile no longer with him. ”Your little friend looks perfectly comfortable, and later I'll tell you what Prince Garam said when he found out who your searchers really were. I don't know if I can get across the way he closed his eyes in pain, but I have to try.”

This time it was a little easier to match his smile, and then he was gone to pa.s.s on my message.

Since he'd been right about all the eyes watching us, I strolled back to the proper alley then slid into it. The leader rat and his followers were there, and they all became excited when they saw me.

”We have found the one you seek, for he nested in a place familiar to most of us,” the leader said. ”The trade has now been completed, and we will have the food you guard.”

”Although we have not yet found the one I seek, the food is yours,” I said, taking the scout from my shoulder and placing him gently on the ground. ”It may be that the one I seek has left to find yet another nesting place, and if so I shall return with more food to trade. Is this acceptable to you?”

”It is acceptable,” the leader said, quivering even harder as I set down and opened the bundle of food I'd been carrying. The scout immediately began to eat, and rather than wait the leader jumped to join him. While the leader ate he scattered tidbits around to the rest of his pack, and they all swallowed it with moans of delight.

”When you have finished with this food, you must leave this area and not return unless I accompany you,” I said after a pair of moments. ”Others of my kind have noted your presence, and they will know that somehow your kind guided me and mine to this place. If they catch you, you will never eat again.”

”We will leave this place and not return,” the leader agreed, appearing a bit bloated, but still looking around for more to eat. ”The food you guarded was marvelous, and it would delight me if the one you seek has found another nesting place after all.”

”If he is here, I may well be able to bring more food in thanks,” I said with a smile. ”If so, I willbring it to the place where first we met.”

”We will hear your call and come,” the rat said, looking up at me. ”Now we return to the low place and our own nests.”

He and his pack moved slowly off into the shadows, and soon there was no more than a single rat left. It was my little friend the scout, and I smiled while I waited for him to say that he was going back with me.

”My kind has never known one such as you,” he began, those black eyes looking directly up at me. ”I had not believed it possible to feel such delight while doing something other than eating.

There was no fear for me when I rode your shoulder.”

”It seems as though you have made your decision,” I said, crouching down so I'd be able to offer my hand when the time came.

”I have indeed made my decision,” he said, and his voice had turned sad again. ”He who eats first has begun to be feeble, and soon I must challenge him for his place. It is my duty toward the others, the price I must pay for having been allowed the privileged place of scout.”

”But - as scout you could have died,” I protested, then realized he wasn't understanding me.

”As scout you might have been put beyond eating. Is it not enough that you risked all eating for the others? With me, you would eat whenever you wished, with the risk no longer there.”

”The taste of the food you guarded told me the same,” he said, and now the words seemed gentle. ”Were the choice mine I would accompany you to be cherished, yet the choice belongs to duty. Eat well in peace and safety, and rest a.s.sured that I will never forget you.”

His bright black eyes rested on me a moment longer, and then he turned and disappeared into the shadows. I was alone again, as usual, but this time I didn't know if I could stand it. I hadn't realized how much I'd been looking forward to having someone who trusted me, someone who - I straightened to my feet, pus.h.i.+ng the entire incident out of my mind. There would never be someone who trusted me and liked me, not when you stopped to think about who I was.

Expecting anything else was imbecilic, and the scout had made the right choice after all. Now I would never be able to turn on him and betray his trust, not accidentally or on purpose. Alone was the way I was meant to be, and I couldn't afford to let myself forget that.

When I made my way out of the alley, Garam's men were just breaking into the old slave building. Not all of them were in sight, though, which had to mean the rest were at the other doors. When Garam saw me, he gestured me over.

”If we don't all get knocked over by the smell, we should know in a little while if the quarry's here,” he said, actually looking slightly green. ”It's the perfect hiding place, but I don't know how anyone could stand it. Any guardsmen who came by must have just kept going.”

”After a while you get used to the smell,” I said, studying the building with present eyes rather than in memory. ”No one can avoid the search by getting out the other way?”

”I put Prince Ijarin in charge of the men I sent there,” he answered with what seemed to be a faint sigh. ”It was the only way to get him to stop asking me all these crazy questions. I have two men with me who know what Brangol looks like - it was their job to find out before we attacked - and one is with each group. If Brangol is here we'll get him, but - Rats! No wonder you refused to tell me what you were doing. How in the most violent h.e.l.l did you get rats to cooperate?”

”I bribed them with that food,” I said, hearing sounds from inside the building. ”A lot of the cages were removed when they s.h.i.+fted the slaves, so your men shouldn't have too much trouble searching. There's not much in the way of hiding places in there.”

”That's one of the places you were held,” Garam said, a statement rather than a question.

”That's why you know so much about the place. d.a.m.n them... ”

His words choked off into a crackling silence, one that seemed to be filled with high energy anger. Garam was starting to take my previous captivity personally, which was understandable enough. I had to be accepted as part of the inner group, Diin-tha the G.o.d had said so; if I was acceptable now, I had to have been acceptable before now. If I was acceptable before now, thecity people had insulted all of us with what they'd done to me as a slave. Garam was feeling insulted, all right, but completely on his own behalf.

”Someone's coming out,” Garam noted, confirming what I'd already seen. ”If it's Brangol, you can kiss those rats for me.”

Two of his guardsmen were forcing a third man out of the building, a smallish man with a pinched and waspish face. He seemed furious that he'd been captured, as though no one should have been smart enough to figure out where he was.

”This is the one we want,” the guardsman on the left told Garam as they neared us. ”There are some more in there, and a few of them are the small fish we missed. Karak's stringing them together, and we can look them over someplace where we can breathe.”

Garam nodded with satisfaction at that, but the words made me even happier. My ch.o.r.e there was finished, and I could go back to my apartment in the palace. I wanted a little time to myself, and I intended to get it. Garam got busy directing everyone and shouting orders, and never even noticed when I simply walked away.

The walk back to the Chief Administrator's palace disappeared behind distraction, and I reached my apartment to find that I couldn't stay in it very long. There was nothing to do there but think, and I wasn't in the mood for thinking. I needed something to do, something physical and hard. I considered the matter for a short while, and then I left the palace and the city. It took some effort to leave the city in full daylight and still have no one see me, but it got me where I wanted to be.

Which was, eventually, in the woods near the city. The surrounding countryside outside the wall was clogged with slaver caravans, mostly of those who had plied their trade in the city. A few others had turned up as well, traveling groups that had gotten lucky, or some who had heard the prophecy and had come to await the fall. Most of the people in chains were miserable, but they were also too numb with shock to really understand what had happened. Once all the flutter and confusion died away, they would be made to understand.

I spent the rest of the day and the following night running and hunting in the woods, sleeping for a short while and then returning to the city before dawn. Darkness made my return very easy, and my apartment was silent and empty when I walked into it. I intended to find anything at all in the way of clean clothing to change into, and discovered that another outfit had been left for me, this one in pale yellow and light tan. My boots turned the same tan as the trousers when I neared the outfit, and that almost made me smile. Fearin was still making sure I didn't disgrace the group by wearing unacceptable clothing.

I washed briefly before putting on the new clothing, and then went to the dining porch where breakfast would be put. The sky was beginning to lighten enough to notice, but the air still held that pleasant nighttime cool. I leaned on a window ledge and looked out at the newly arriving day, idly wondering how many more of them I'd have to endure before - ”So, you finally decided to rejoin us,” a voice said from behind me, a voice with more than a little annoyance in it. ”Are you sure we aren't interfering too much with your busy schedule? I wouldn't want our petty involvements to take you away from what's really important.”

”If you felt you couldn't finish off this city without me, Fearin, you should have said so,” I remarked without turning. ”I don't mind giving a hand to the helpless when I've got nothing better to do.”

”I ought to give you more than one hand,” he growled, coming up behind me. ”You disappeared again without a word to anybody, and if I hadn't been able to tell you weren't in the city everyone would have gone out looking for you! We all took turns coming up with pictures of you lying dead or wounded somewhere!”

”Oh, come on,” I scoffed, finally turning to look up at him. ”You can't tell me you don't know what it would take to leave me dead or wounded. Where did you expect a force like that to come from?”

”From the same place those attacking intruders came, do you think?” he suggested, heavyanger darkening his entire expression. ”Ah, I see you'd forgotten about them. That means, of course, that if you'd remembered you would have told someone you were going off on your own.”

”I didn't realize I was too young and inexperienced to be trusted out alone,” I said, annoyed over having forgotten about those attackers. ”If I had realized, I would certainly have told my nursemaid all about it. I'll be sure to keep the point in mind for next time.”

”Here's another point to remember along with it,” he said, heavy cold coming from the hard blue eyes looking down at me. ”When a woman is involved with a man, especially if he first had to Earn her, it isn't right for her not to show up even for bed. That leaves the man sitting there half the night in her apartment, telling himself she's just being insensitive, not stuck in the middle of trouble. He doesn't believe it, of course, but that's what he tells himself.”

”Ah, so that's what's really bothering you,” I said as understanding finally reached me. ”You expected to spend the night in my bed, but not alone and not simply to sleep. Just when you were starting to get used to a pleasant new routine, I shamefully made you do without.”

His hands came to my upper arms so fast I didn't even see them move, his grip tightening instantly to a point just short of pain. In the s.p.a.ce of a heartbeat I was pulled toward him and shaken just a little, and then I was released with a small push. It was the strangest episode I'd ever been a part of, and I had the craziest feeling that he'd let me go because he'd been about to hurt me.

”You - !” He choked on the rest of the words trying to fight their way out of him, his eyes blazing at me with absolute fury. He looked away briefly in an attempt to regain control of himself, the back of one fist to his lips as he fought the anger tearing at him, and then he partially succeeded. He forced the rage down to a point where he could keep it contained, and then he was looking at me again.

”All right,” he growled, the faintest blue glow surrounding him in the growing light of day. ”I don't have the time now to explain life and its many mysteries to an emotional child, so for the moment we'll do this the easy way. Prince Garam and half our force will be leaving the city mid morning, and we and the rest of the army will be leaving mid afternoon. From now until then you're confined to this palace, specifically to this porch or your apartment. When we camp tonight you're to come to my tent, where you'll have the meal and spend the night. Those are my orders, and you'd d.a.m.ned well better obey them. If you don't, I'll make you regret the disobedience in a way you can't even imagine.”

The snarly words ended as he turned to stomp half way across the porch, where he stopped to raise his arms in the direction of the empty food table. Heavy blue swirled around him as his lips moved with the shaping of words, and then a similar blue flared around the table. When he and the blue were done there was food on the table, and as soon as that happened Fearin turned again and went the rest of the way out.

I stood watching the doorway he'd disappeared through, rubbing my left arm where his fingers had closed so hard, trying to understand what he'd been talking about. He couldn't have meant he didn't want to be in my bed, not when he'd ordered me to spend tonight in his tent, so what had he been trying to say? That he had somehow gotten the idea I expected the arrangement to last? That I thought he could be interested in me rather than just in using me? Since nothing could be farther from the truth, I'd tell him so tonight. After that, his strangeness would certainly stop.