Part 22 (1/2)
Nothing. By then, the other druids had joined him. They searched the house frantically, as aware of the brightening horizon as they were of the missing half-elf. A search of the alley produced a pair of shattered night-shutters, nothing more. A search of all the inside rooms brought word that there was a young woman missing, too.
”She got up in the middle of the night, my lord, put on her s.h.i.+ft, and went to the door,” a somewhat younger girl explained to Pavek. ”I asked her what was the matter, and she didn't answer. She didn't seem to hear me at all. It were pa.s.sing odd, my lord, but I didn't think no harm would come of it. Whim of the Lion, my lord.”
To no one's surprise, the girl identified the linen garment Pavek held in his hand as belonging to the missing woman.
Whim of the d.a.m.ned Lion, indeed. Pavek swore a string of templar oaths that widened the eyes of Quraiters. But the whim of the Lion-King was the best, the only, explanation he could offer his stunned guests, and even then, Pavek didn't tell them how or why the half-elf might have caught the mighty king's eye.
”He's young. Impulsive and reckless,” one of the other druids said. ”He'll be here waiting for us when we get back.”
”And we'll never hear the end of it,” another added.
Pavek raked his hair and stared at the sky. In his heart, he reminded himself that he was not the one to judge Hamanu of Urik and that one life measured against Hamanu's crimes and accomplishments was not terribly significant. It was merely that the life had belonged to a friend, and he'd thought another friend might respect it.
A druid needed nothing to work his magic, no sorcerous reagents, no divine paraphernalia, just his devotion to the unifying life-force of Athas and a belief in the righteousness of his evocation. Pavek had the former as he hurried his companions through the gray-lit streets, but he'd left the latter behind: a linen s.h.i.+ft draped across a scuffed leather scroll-case.
Urik's situation had changed overnight, and not for the better. From the south gate tower, Pavek saw the roofs and kitchen-smoke of four market villages, the velvet expanse of Urik's farmland, and well beyond all that, three dusty, torch-lit smears where the armies of Nibenay, Gulg, and Giustenal had reestablished themselves during the night. Urik's army had fallen back into a thick black line between the farmland and the enemy.
”Orders,” Javed said when Pavek stepped back from the tower bal.u.s.trade. ”Everybody's been moving all night. Everybody's tired, and we're jammed up like fish in a barrel. Not enough room to fight. Not for us or them. There's not going to be a battle.”
The ebony-skinned elf stared straight at Pavek, expecting confirmation or denial.
”He told me to be here at dawn,” was Pavek's answer, until he added-foolishly-”Ruari's missing. Gone from his bed. A girl, too.”
It was a foolish remark because there wasn't a full-elf anywhere who'd ever truly sympathized with a half-elf. If the missing girl had been an elf, that might have gotten a rise out of the Hero of Urik, but for Ruari the best Javed could manage was a sigh and an offhand gesture.
”He destroyed the trolls, every last one of them,” the commandant said, as if that accounted for Ruari's fate. ”He knows that whether there's battle today or not, he's not walking away from this battlefield. Not the way he walked onto it.”
The Hero of Urik had performed some unpleasant duties during his forty-year tenure. Every few years, he'd marched the slave levies into the barrens and kept watch over them until the Dragon of Tyr showed up.
”We're meat, Pavek,” said the Hero of Urik. ”Less than meat. Just grease and ash. That's all that was left when Borys was done with them. But I saw those shards, too.” He shook his head. ”We die so the Lion can fight Rajaat. It's fair, I suppose, but I'd rather fight Rajaat myself.”
Beyond the steel medallion he wore, Javed didn't have much faith in magic, whether it was sorcery or druidry. But it was magic that drew them all to the bal.u.s.trade when a sergeant shouted: ”There he is!”
The gates hadn't opened, and there were no outbuildings beyond the tower where Hamanu could have hidden while he strapped on the glowing armor that had been his hallmark at the front of Urik armies for thirteen ages. Yet, he was there, a solitary figure, s.h.i.+ning in the light as the b.l.o.o.d.y sun poked above the horizon, walking south to face his enemies' might.
Pavek wanted to believe. He wanted to feel his heart soar with admiration and awe for a true champion. He even wanted the despair of knowing not even a champion could surmount the odds the Lion-King faced. Instead, he felt nothing, a dull, sour nothing because, in taking Ruari, Hamanu had proved he was no different than his enemies, and there was no hope for Athas.
Still, he couldn't turn away. He watched, transfixed, as the striding figure grew smaller and smaller, until he couldn't see it at all.
”What next?” one of the Quraite druids asked. ”Is it time to evoke the guardian?”
Pavek shook his head. He sat down with his back against the southern bal.u.s.trade and buried his face in his hands. The sun began its daily climb from the eastern horizon. The sky changed color, and the first hints of the day's heat could be felt in the air. Pavek raised his head and studied the light. At the rate Hamanu had been walking, he should have been nearing one of the villages. He lowered his head again.
”Pavek!”
He looked up. The voice was so familiar. He thought it had come from his heart, not his ears-but the others with him had heard it, too, and were looking at the stairs.
”Pavek!”
Pavek was on his feet when Ruari cleared the last stain.
”Pavek-you'll never believe what happened-”
The young man stumbled. Javed caught him-which was a miracle of another sort-and kept him on his feet while a war-bureau sergeant shoved a bowl of water into his hands. Ruari gulped and gagged and threw himself another step closer to Pavek. He'd run himself to the limit of his endurance. His hair was dark with sweat and plastered against his neck and shoulders. His clothes were dark, too; his sweat-stained s.h.i.+rt hung loosely from his heaving shoulders.
Pavek needed another moment to realize the s.h.i.+rt was silk, trimmed with gold, nothing Ruari could have found in the red-and-yellow house in the templar quarter.
Then he seized Ruari's wrists and gave them a violent shake. ”Where were you, Ru? I looked all over. You weren't in your room.”
”You'll never believe-” Ruari repeated before his lungs demanded air.
”Try me.”
They gave him more water and a stool to sit on.
”I was drunk, Pavek-”
”I know.”
”I was so drunk I thought she was Death when she came into my room. But she wasn't, Pavek,” Ruari gulped more water.
Pavek waited. He didn't really need to hear anything more. It was enough that Ruari had survived whatever encounter he'd had with the Lion-King, because, surely, that was Hamanu's s.h.i.+rt he was wearing. He wanted nothing more than to grab his friend and hold him tight, but Ruari had gotten his breath and was talking again.
”She was so beautiful, standing there in the moonlight. I thought-I thought it couldn't get better, then we were flying, flying, Pavek-” Pavek-”
Pavek started to shake his head in disbelief, then curbed himself. Ruari hadn't been in his room; Ruari had been with Hamanu-whatever else the half-elf had seen or thought or chose to believe-and he could very well have been flying. There had to be some explanation for the s.h.i.+rt.
”Then, I woke up in this huge bed-on the palace roof. The palace roof! Do you believe it?”
Pavek nodded.
”Wind and fire-I knew you'd be looking for me. I found some clothes and got out of there as quick as I could-I knew you'd be angry, Pavek. I knew you would. But what does it mean?” mean?”
”Whim of the Lion,” a druid and sergeant said together.
”What about the girl?” Pavek asked.
Ruari blushed; his already heat-flushed skin turned a shade darker than the b.l.o.o.d.y sun. ”I sent her back to your house-in a s.h.i.+rt, Pavek. I found another s.h.i.+rt for her and sent her back to the templar quarter.”
There was laughter, from the women as well as the men. Ruari's face became dangerously bright.
”What else was I supposed to do?” he demanded.
”Nothing, Ru,” Pavek a.s.sured him. ”You did the right thing.” Then he welcomed his friend back from the presumed-dead with a bone-snapping embrace. ”What's her name?”
”I don't know, Pavek. But she's beautiful, and I think she loves me,” Ruari whispered his answers before they separated. ”I think it's forever.”
”I'm sure it is.” Pavek held Ruari at arm's length; the young man was clearly besotted. But that was hardly surprising. ”I'm sure you'll be very happy together.”
He saw them together in his mind's eye-Ruari and a beautiful woman and children, also beautiful; one of whom had yellow eyes. Pavek hadn't ever had a vision before; prophecy wasn't at all common among druids... or templars. But he believed what he saw, and it lifted his heart. He hugged Ruari again, then let him go, and walked by himself to the tower's southern bal.u.s.trade where, with his vision still strong in his mind, he stared at the empty road until he could see both of them together.