Part 21 (1/2)
They met Yohan in the wastes between the village and the Sun's Fist. The dwarf had aged profoundly since they'd last seen him. His eyes were red-rimmed and set in deep, dark hollows. His muscles had withered. His bedraggled kank was as shaky as him, and not not one of the sleek Moonracer-bred bugs the Quraiters favored. He needed a steady hand when he slid from the saddle and would not meet either man's eyes as he told his story in broken, near incoherent s.n.a.t.c.hes. one of the sleek Moonracer-bred bugs the Quraiters favored. He needed a steady hand when he slid from the saddle and would not meet either man's eyes as he told his story in broken, near incoherent s.n.a.t.c.hes.
He said he'd ridden day and night, sleeping in the saddle when he could no longer keep his eyes open. Eating hadn't been a problem; he'd had no food with him when he escaped from Urik, and hadn't wasted time stealing any. He'd had water, for the first few days. Since then he'd kept going on will alone.
Pavek, having suspected something similar from the moment Telhami gave them the news, offered Yohan a waterskin fresh from the village well. The dwarf brushed it aside.
”It's no use. I'm finished.”
”What happened first? How did it go bad?”
”Escrissar.”
Pavek swore. He'd dared to hope that, whatever the catastrophe, Yohan had simply left Akas.h.i.+a in some temporary shelter, before racing back to Quraite for help. Hearing Escrissar's name, he could only hope that she was already dead.
Very dead.
He took a swallow from the flask to calm himself.
”Stan at the beginning-”
Yohan obliged. Between Ruari's game ankles and the dwarf's exhaustion, their pace was slow enough that the tale was nearing its elven market climax as the three men approached the green fields.
”How'd you escape?” Pavek demanded, stopping short while they were still on barren ground. He knew his city and a dozen ways through the walls that didn't involve the gates. But none of those secret pa.s.sages used the elven market.
”That dwarf, that hairy b.a.s.t.a.r.d in a procurer's robe, and a common woman with serpents tattooed on her arm were coming for us. I don't know-maybe I could have taken them both, but that still left Escrissar, the mind-bender, and Kas.h.i.+ hadn't kenned where he was all afternoon. I wanted to stand together right there, or stand alone to give her the escape.” Yohan ground his knuckles against his eyes and stared at the violet sky. ”One of us had to get back to Quraite, she said. I couldn't keep the secret, not against what we were facing: a mind-bender Kas.h.i.+ couldn't ken. But she swore she could. And I knew the way out; she didn't-”
”How did did you get out, Yohan?” Pavek seized Yohan by the shoulder and spun him around-a testament to the dwarf's weakness and exhaustion. ”There's no way through the walls from the market. Who helped you? What did he give you in return?” you get out, Yohan?” Pavek seized Yohan by the shoulder and spun him around-a testament to the dwarf's weakness and exhaustion. ”There's no way through the walls from the market. Who helped you? What did he give you in return?”
”Pavek! No!” Ruari shouted, trying ineffectively to loosen Pavek's hold on Yohan.
Pavek let go of his own accord, shoving the dwarf backward and turning his helpless fury on the half-elf. ”There's no pa.s.sage in the market; the walls there are solid. He had to have help to get out of the market and out of Urik. Escrissar's help, sc.u.m. Escrissar! Escrissar! Escrissar set him free, sent him back to us!” Escrissar set him free, sent him back to us!”
”Not Escrissar,” Yohan said wearily. ”Elves. An old debt. A tribe that didn't die at the same time a free village went down to templars. They named me 'friend' and said they-all of them, whatever tribe-would owe me life whenever I needed it. They got me out. Debt's paid now. Understand?”
Reluctantly Pavek nodded. He wanted to lash someone with his rage, but what Yohan said made sense. It even answered some of his questions about Yohan himself. But the dwarf's history couldn't hold his thoughts, which skewed back to his original question: ”How did you escape? You were up against Rokka and Dovanne.” He knew them by their descriptions. ”You could've taken them in a fair fight But if Escrissar was lurking, you shouldn't have gotten away, Yohan. He should've nailed you to the ground, just like he did those poor-sod farmers you left guarding the cart.”
The dwarf turned away, took a half-step toward the salt, and stopped. ”Last thing she said: 'Don't believe what I send.' She blasted us, Pavek. Turned her mind inside-out. Let the nightmares fly free: the hates and fears we all have locked up inside. But she'd warned me, and I didn't believe. I dropped to my knees and howled but didn't believe. Then it all just stopped. That woman and the dwarf, they were rolling on the ground; they'd believed. I got to my feet, and I saw him walking toward her... the masked one you talked about: Escrissar, with the talons. He looked at me, reached through my ribs and pulled out my heart. It was mind-bending, all mind-bending. But I believed him, and by the living doom of Kemelok, I ran away.”
It didn't take a mind-bender to read a proud man's shame in the next few moments of silence. With his back still toward them, Yohan rubbed his eyes again and finished the tale: ”That's all. The elves found me and got me out late the next day. I don't know where, but-for what it's worth-not through the elven market. I stole a kank, made sure no one was following me, and headed back here. It's over. I'll tell Grandmother and be gone again.”
”To Urik?”
”Aye, to Urik, to Elabon Escrissar. She's gone, Pavek. I failed her, and I lost her, and my banshee will haunt that mind-bending sc.u.m until he's rotted in his grave.”
”I'm going with you,” Pavek said, surprising himself for a heartbeat. ”I can get you into the templar quarter, into his house-”
”You're no dwarf. It doesn't matter whether I get through the city gates, as long as I'm close before they kill me. She was my focus, the faith of my life. My banshee will find him soon enough. Don't go wasting your life on my account.”
I've my own scores to settle with that half-elf b.a.s.t.a.r.d,” Pavek countered. ”I'll get you there.”
”Me, too,” Ruari announced.
Pavek had forgotten the youth was with them, looking exceptionally grim and elven in the late twilight. He regreted his description of Escrissar, but doubted it was any great part of Ruari's determination to join them.
”What do you say, Yohan?” he asked. ”The three of us take down House Escrissar: the interrogator, the halfling, Laq and everything in-between?” Yohan shook his head. ”It doesn't work that way. I can't change my focus once I've broken it. I swore in my heart to take care of her, and I failed. I thought she'd see the truth about the city more clearly in the elven market, so I took her there instead of the customhouse. Your friends-” Yohan spat the word out so sarcastically that there was no danger of mistaking its contrary meaning ”-were waiting for us. Failure's forever.”
”You're sure your banshee would stay in Urik?” Ruari asked, sounding young and anxious. ”You're sure it wouldn't come back here? I mean, if you broke faith with your focus, it was because of Quraite, wasn't it, as much as it was that half-elf b.a.s.t.a.r.d in Urik? If you broke faith at all. You knew it was a bad idea to take the zarneeka to Urik. Everyone knew how you felt, but Kas.h.i.+ and Grandmother, they wouldn't listen. They broke faith first-”
Though Pavek thought Ruari had raised sound and serious questions, he squeezed the youth's shoulder hard enough to make him shut up. Yohan was still staring at the salt, toward distant Urik. When Ruari looked up, snarling and ready for an argument, Pavek was able to mouth. Not now Not now and and Later. Later. He gave Ruari's shoulder a friendly shake, then released him. He gave Ruari's shoulder a friendly shake, then released him.
”We'll go with you to Urik,” he said, not a question this time.
”You, you can come, but not Ruari-”
Once again the youth scowled and opened his mouth. Once again Pavek snared a fistful of half-elf and squeezed it for silence.
”Sc.u.m's got a right,” he said, negotiating in flat, unemotional tones. ”He tried his best, busted up the stowaway, and the women got around him. He's got a right to choose which mistakes he tries to correct: Telhami's or Escrissar's.”
If he finally had Yohan's measure, Pavek figured the weary dwarf would accept his offer. Besides, if Ruari became too much of a nuisance, they could always clout him unconscious and leave him behind in some market village.
”We'll ask Grandmother.” Yohan capitulated and turned toward them. Relief showed on his face, for all that he was trying to hide it. No one wanted to die alone.
”We'll tell tell Telhami that we're going to fix the mistakes she's made, and that we'll Telhami that we're going to fix the mistakes she's made, and that we'll all all turn into banshees to haunt her if she tries to stop us.” turn into banshees to haunt her if she tries to stop us.”
A little later, by the light of a lamp in her hut, Telhami told them their plan was typical male foolishness. ”Kas.h.i.+'s dead. She'd kill herself-she knows how-before she'd submit to that creature or betray Quraite's secret You've made your point: I was wrong. What the poor suffer without Ral's Bream is a small price to pay. Until Laq is a fading memory, our zameeka stays here in Quraite, hidden away. But Kas.h.i.+'s dead, and no amount of breast-beating or vengeance will change that. There's nothing left to be done. We've all paid the price. Forget Urik. Forget it all. Let it lie.” She looked specifically at Yohan and added: ”I'll forgive your focus, with the guardian's help. There's no reason to sacrifice yourself.”
Yohan was speechless, but Pavek swore loudly enough to awaken the entire village.
And Quraite's guardian. Awareness flowed into him-threatened to destroy him with its intensity-then Ruari's hand was flat against his arm, helping him shape the power he'd instinctively invoked.
”Don't coddle me with your forgiveness,” he roared, ”or your tally of what's been paid and what's still owed. I know better; I know know Escrissar! Look at me, Telhami. Look inside me! Look at what I know about Elabon Escrissar and tell me that there's nothing left to do!” Escrissar! Look at me, Telhami. Look inside me! Look at what I know about Elabon Escrissar and tell me that there's nothing left to do!”
The old woman did not use her mind-bender's power to take the images he so desperately wanted to hurl into her mind's eye. She didn't even raise her eyes to meet his, but she did, somehow, cut him off from the guardian's power.
Ruari's hand slipped away, and the energized air within the hut dissipated on the midnight breeze.
”Hamanu's infinitesimal mercy is far greater than yours,” Pavek whispered. She'd diminished his voice when she reaped the guardian's strength away from him. ”He'd never let a favorite slip away unavenged.”
His legs were dead-weight beneath him. Each step was precarious as he turned and plodded toward the door. Telhami said nothing, did nothing to stop him.
There were three fresh kanks, provisions, and well-crafted obsidian weapons waiting beside the central well when Pavek picked himself up from the tree-shaded place where he'd fallen-literally-to sleep after leaving Telhami's hut. Telhami wasn't around. Ruari said she'd left the village for her grove at dawn, walking with just her staff to support her. He said that she was sorry, that she'd grieved and sobbed, torn her clothes and wailed that she was ready to die before she left her hut. Challenged by both himself and Yohan, Ruari admitted he'd spent the night spying and promptly ran off.
The boundless energy of youth, Pavek thought enviously while he washed sleep-grit from his eyes. He was stiff and sore, as if he'd been the loser in an uneven brawl-as, in a sense, he had been: Telhami had bested him before he'd known he was in a fight.
And then, before dawn, she'd conceded defeat.