Steal the Dragon

6

The sun was almost finished with its journey to the west when Rialla woke up. She still felt tired and her leg ached. With the instinct of the hunted, she knew that some noise had roused her from her healing slumber. She closed her eyes again and listened.

Someone was in the outer room; she could hear them talking. As they came closer to her room, she distinguished Winterseine’s voice. She sat up and waited for the door to open.

Terran led the way, followed by Winterseine and Tris.

“May I see the wound?” asked Winterseine. “Not that I doubt your skill, healer, but I want to see it for myself. If she is going to be badly scarred, she will be of no use to me.”

Without a word Tris threw back her covers and cut the unbleached cloth off her leg. The inflammation was gone and neat stitches ran the length of her thigh. It wasn’t healed, but it was obviously no longer serious.

Winterseine looked impressed. “You do good work, healer. What did you use to draw the poison?”

Tris stared at him long enough to be insolent, then said, “A poultice.”

Winterseine smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “We all have our trade secrets, don’t we?”

“When will she be able to travel?” asked Terran, breaking the tension in the room. Rialla had forgotten that Terran was there; he had a way of fading into the background.

“It depends on how you are traveling,” answered Tris civilly enough. “She can ride in about a se’ennight. If you have a wagon, you could try it in two or three days, though five would be better. In a se’ennight the risk of infection will be significantly lower.”

Lord Winterseine nodded and ran a finger down the stitches, pushing to test for hidden infection. Rialla knew that her face retained its slave-impassive expression, but she could feel Tris’s sudden rage. Startled by the first specific emotion she’d caught from the healer, she shifted her gaze momentarily to look at him. There was nothing more in his face than there had been a minute before; it appeared that she wasn’t the only one capable of hiding emotions. She lowered her protective barriers, but the brief flash of anger had faded and he was as veiled as ever.

“Very well,” said Lord Winterseine, “we’ll be back in a week for her. It will probably take at least that much time before everything else is cleared up anyway.”

“Remember, Father,” said Terran’s meek voice. “We have to leave soon,” he continued. “There is a shipment expected at Winterseine hold a fortnight from now. We can wait a week easily enough, but no longer than that.”

Rialla started and stared at Terran, forgetting her role for a moment—luckily no one noticed. She focused her gift tightly and probed, but the results were the same. Lord Winterseine was opaque, but she could sense his presence. Tris she was aware of on another level, but she couldn’t sense Terran’s presence at all.

“Of course.” Lord Winterseine turned to the healer and said, “I hope it is not an inconvenience for you to keep her here until we leave.”

“No,” replied Tris. “I’ll total your bill and have it sent to you. When you have paid it, you may have your slave back.”

“Certainly,” said Winterseine. “Send it in care of my son.” He walked out, followed by both Terran and the healer.

Rialla stretched thoughtfully. She’d never met someone whom she couldn’t sense at all. She was running into several things that were odd: first the healer and now Terran. It could be that her abilities were not as functional as she’d thought. They certainly seemed to have a few quirks.

Tris had started through the doorway from the other room when another knock sounded. He smiled and shrugged, closing the door behind him.

Rialla listened as he put salve on a little girl’s injured puppy, set a farmer’s broken arm and arranged for someone to help the farmer out until the arm healed. A woman came in mumbling something about her kid (Rialla wasn’t sure if it was a goat or a child) and Tris left with her.

Rialla slept as long as she could, then set up imaginary games of Steal the Dragon until she grew bored. Tris stopped in briefly as the sun was setting, but was called out again by the smith, whose wife was having difficulty delivering her third child.

Rialla threw the covers back restlessly and limped to the window. The sill was as wide as a narrow bench; she perched on it and stared into the night sky. It was nominally better than counting the fifty-seven boards that served as the ceiling, held down by four hundred and twelve nails.

Rialla fidgeted and finally got up to gimp across the floor again. She lacked any method of lighting the lanterns on the wall; she knew that Tris had flint and steel around, but it was hidden well enough that she couldn’t find it.

She searched both rooms twice, more for something to do than because she needed light. The moon was shining through the window, giving her almost as much illumination as a lantern would have.

Finally, she went to the wall in the bedroom. It took her a while to find the catch for the hidden closet, but not as long as it took to overcome her scruples and look. She salved her conscience by reasoning that if Tris were worried about her rummaging around, he wouldn’t have shown her the secret door in the first place. At last the door slid open, divulging what it hid.

Most of the weapons she had used or at least seen used, but she was mystified by a short, forked stick with a strip of catgut connecting each prong of the fork.

“It’s a spear thrower.” Tris sounded weary as he observed her from the open door and waved on the lights. “The man who made it for me called it an atladl. If you look in the closet, you should find five small spears that match the design on the haft. The end of the spear fits on the thong, and you throw it almost the way that you’d throw a javelin. It’s not quite as accurate as a bow and arrow, but it’s faster to use and easier to hide from the gamekeepers.”

Rialla nodded, trying not to look as guilty as she felt, and slipped the weapon back into the closet. She got to her feet easily, though she grimaced when her weight was on her bad leg.

“Have you had anything to eat?” she asked, when she got a closer look at his face. “I took the liberty of raiding your larder. There’s a plate of cheese and sausage on the foot of the bed.”

“Thanks,” he said, sinking down beside the plate and looking at it with faint interest. He must have washed off in the creek, because his linen shirt was wet on the sleeves and collar.

“How did the birthing go?” she asked, sitting on the floor when it became apparent that he wasn’t going to move for a while.

“Not good,” he said and shook his head, staring at the piece of cheese he held in his hand, as if it had turned green. “There were twins and the first one was a breech. It died before I got there. The second one is small, but the smith’s cottage is clean and warm; he should be fine.”

Rialla could see that the death bothered him more than weariness. She took a piece of goat’s cheese and nibbled at it while she tried to think of something to say to distract him.

“Tell me,” she asked, “how did you become the healer here? All the stories say that shapeshifters keep to their own kind.”

He looked at her, and faint amusement crept into his weary eyes. “I am not a shapeshifter. Shapeshifters get their amusement by eating innocent young virgins who stupidly wander alone in the forest. Mind you,” he said, taking a bite of the cheese with more enthusiasm than before, “that’s not to say that they don’t deserve it. Stupid young girls who get caught alone in the forest fall prey to anything that crosses their paths, be the beast animal, human or shapeshifter. The moral of the story is,” he took a piece of sausage, “don’t be a stupid young virgin.”

She grinned at him and said, “Thanks for the advice. I’ll remember that. So what are you, and why are you here? I’d think that if you were going to fraternize with humans, you would at least pick a group of people who weren’t liable to burn you at the stake if they caught you working magic.”

He snatched another round of sausage and shrugged. “I’m healing people.”

She rolled her eyes and grabbed the plate, setting it behind her. “No more food until you tell.” Playing was a long-forgotten art, but the twinkle in his eyes encouraged her.

He looked forlornly at the remains of his piece of sausage and whined, “I’ll starve.”

She showed no signs of softening, especially since he was looking less tired now, the grim lines around his mouth fading. “Not if you tell me what you’re doing here.”

He leaned back against the wall and crossed his arms behind his head. “Torture will never make me divulge the secrets I keep.”

She took a piece of cheese and waved it invitingly. “How about bribery?”

“That might work,” he conceded. “Why don’t you try it?”

It took her three times before the food that she tossed at him made it to his mouth.

“AH right,” he surrendered. “I am a sylvan.”

Rialla waited but he didn’t elaborate. “What’s a sylvan?”

“Where’s my bribe?” he replied.

She hit him in the nose with a piece of cheese. He caught it before it hit the bed and examined it with satisfaction before eating it.

“Sylvans are users of natural magic like the shapeshifters, though our talents lie in different directions. They are closer to the animals of the forests, while we are guardians of the greenery. We are a simple folk, and it is easy enough for us to blend in with the humans, so our enclaves are not hidden the way those of the shapeshifters are.” He paused and closed his eyes, leaning against the wall, but he caught the small piece of hard sausage she threw at him anyway.

“There are not many enclaves, though,” he said finally, rubbing his beard. “Over the centuries they have died out, one by one. The enclave that I belonged to is the only one left in Darran. We claimed to be a religious order, worshipping Naslen, lord of the forests—I suppose that the story is more true than not. There are many such groups of humans, caught in the past, holding to the old ways and the old languages. They are tolerated, even in Darran, because they have always been there. The sylvans blend in with the others.

“My enclave is in a minor estate of a great noble—so minor that in three generations the lord had not visited it. The old lord died, and his son decided to visit each of his new holdings; I believe that he had some debts, and was evaluating his lands for later sale.

“I was walking alone, and I came upon a child; a human girl-child that some of the lord’s friends had found earlier. Her body was badly broken.” Tris looked grim.

“I knew her, had watched her grow from a toddler to an explorer. Her mother was an excellent weaver, and I had often gone to the human village to trade food for cloth. They had four grown boys, and this girl-child. You have to understand, Rialla. The reason that our enclave had survived as long as it had was that it was forbidden to work magic around humans. Absolutely forbidden. I knew this, and understood the reason for it.”

His voice dropped almost to a whisper as he continued. “But this was a child, a child that I knew and liked. She was dying as I watched. So I healed her body, until there was no evidence that any violence had occurred. Rape is as much a wound of the soul as a wound of the body, and I gifted her with forgetfulness. With luck no one would have ever known, not even the child.

“When I was through healing her, I woke her, teased her about sleeping in the woods and escorted her home. Her father I took aside and warned that I had seen one of the lord’s guests eyeing her. He assured me that he would keep her in the cottage until the lord and his entourage were gone.

“When I returned to the enclave, I found that someone had seen me violate our law. I was tried and sentenced to banishment. They took me far from the enclave and bound me with magic and rope. If I managed to free myself, I could live—but never be welcomed in any enclave.”

“You broke free?” asked Rialla.

He shook his head, smiling at the memory. “No. I struggled for a while, but the man who’d tied the rope didn’t want me to live. I was contemplating my probable fate when an old woman came upon me. She poked her finger in my face and said, ‘Look you, I have a bargain for you. You are a healer, and I have need of such. I have a knife, which you need as desperately.’ ” Tris grinned at Rialla. “She was so scared her finger trembled with it, but she didn’t let her fear stop her. When I agreed to help, she cut the rope; so here I am.”

“How did she know you were a healer?” asked Rialla.

“She has a gift that occasionally allows her to see such things.”

Rialla nodded, accepting his answer. “Do you like it here among humans?”

He nodded slowly. “Better than the enclave. They were wrong. It is an evil thing to have the power to help others, and not to do so.”

“Is that why you helped rescue Laeth?” asked Rialla.

Tris gave her an enigmatic look then shrugged. “Part of it.”

He rose restlessly from the bed and gave Rialla a hand up off the floor. Her leg had stiffened, so he helped her hobble to the bed. Then he slid the closet door closed, picked up the plate and waved the lights down.

“Good dreams, healer,” said Rialla.

He nodded and pulled the door closed behind him.

“So what will Lord Winterseine do with a newly recovered runaway?” They were deep into a game of Dragon that Rialla was winning when Tris spoke. Over the past few days, they had played a game whenever Tris had a moment to spare; not that Rialla minded. She enjoyed the game as much as he did—even if he won most of the time.

“You’re just trying to distract me,” she complained at his interruption. “This is the first time I’ve had a ghost of a chance of winning since the first game we played, and now you want to take even that away from me.”

“You are getting paranoid, aren’t you?” He commiserated with deepest sympathy. Rialla flashed him a rude hand gesture before she turned back to the game board.

Tris laughed, then said, “Seriously, Rialla, he’s not going to hamstring you or beat you, is he?”

Rialla moved her frog to an empty square on the board, and shook her head. “No. That happens sometimes in Ynstrah and some of the provinces in the Alliance where they depend on slave labor in their agriculture. Occasionally they’ll hamstring a runaway here, but only one of the less valuable slaves—more to serve as an example than to keep the slave they’ve crippled from running again. A dancer is too valuable to damage that way.”

She smiled dryly at Tris. “That’s not to say that he’ll let me go unpunished. The Master has an aptitude for creative retribution.”

Tris was staring at the game, but Rialla had the feeling that he wasn’t really seeing it. He finally moved a piece and looked up. “Are you sure that you want to go back? You’re paying an awfully high price for a chance at vengeance.”

Rialla nodded, moving the frog again. “It’ll be worth it if it works. If it doesn’t…” she shrugged. “There are other reasons as well. You told me that you’ve traveled. Have you ever been on the other side of the Great Swamp?”

Tris shook his head.

Rialla shifted on the bed, trying to find a comfortable position for her leg. “Did you ever wonder why Sianim is so anxious to stop the fighting between Reth and Darran?”

He raised an eyebrow and shook his head. “I should have. It is hardly in Sianim’s best interest to prevent wars.”

“Exactly. When the Spy master called me in to persuade me to accompany Laeth here, he explained his reasoning. Apparently there is a good possibility that there will be an invasion coming from the eastern side of the Great Swamp.”

“There are always wars among humans,” commented Tris. “I would have thought that Sianim, with its mercenary hoards, would be delighted at the thought of another one.”

Sometimes Tris had a way of making the word “human” sound like a name that gutter-bred children called each other to start a fight. Since he seemed not to hold her humanness against her, Rialla let it pass unremarked.

“I would have thought so too,” she agreed readily. “But this isn’t just any invading force. It’s an army that has conquered all the nations in the East in something less than a decade. The leader of the armies is a man who calls himself the Voice of Altis. He claims to be a prophet of the god Altis, and the religious revival is spreading faster than his armies. The Spymaster thinks that the only way to resist the invasion will be to unite all the Western countries against him; and he has a nasty habit of being right.”

“So he supports the alliance of Reth and Darran,” said Tris.

Rialla nodded and continued, “None of this would have much bearing on what I’m going to be doing at Winterseine’s hold, except for one thing. The people of the East apparently do not believe in magic; it’s been so long since they’ve had wizards that they’ve long since dismissed the existence of magic as a child’s fable.

“The ‘miracles’ the Voice of Altis performs as a prophet of the old god bear a striking resemblance to the accomplishments of a trained magician. The Spymaster believes that the Voice is a trained mage from this side of the Swamp.” Rialla met Tris’s gaze. “And I think I might have found him.”

“Winterseine,” said Tris.

She nodded her head. “If it’s true, then maybe something can be done to prevent the invasion altogether. Laeth and I discovered enough of a link between Winterseine and this self-proclaimed prophet that even if he’s not the Voice of Altis, he almost certainly knows who is.”

“I’m going with you,” Tris announced calmly, as he moved his snake a space beyond her frog.

Gods, she thought, wishing she could accept: to have someone she trusted with her, to have the healer’s steady presence, to not be alone.

“No,” she replied, her voice steady, maneuvering her bird to take his snake if it tried to eat her frog.

“I’m afraid you don’t have any voice in this,” his tone was matter-of-fact as he moved the snake out of danger, taking her stag as he did so.

“What about your bargain with the old woman?”

“I’ve been at Tallonwood a little over two years,” he replied. “The bargain was for one.”

She opened her mouth to protest, but saw the resolution in his eyes. “Plague it, Tris. What are you doing this for?”

He gave her an odd smile, and she was abruptly reminded that he was not human. “I told you the woman who rescued me had a gift for seeing things others cannot. She told me I should help you accomplish your task.”

“She just told you to help me, so you are?” asked Rialla incredulously.

“Nothing so neat. The future is not unchangeable, Rialla. Trenna gave me a goal, a hint of the possible results of a course of action. Enough to persuade me the goal is worth pursuit.”

“You’re not going to tell me why you are doing this, are you?” Rialla accused, but there was no heat in her voice.

“Of course,” Tris said blandly, “as I explained to Laeth, I am loath to give up the first person I’ve found in a long time who is capable of defeating me at Dragon. Your move.”

She gave the board a surprised look. “I thought I just moved; you must not have been watching.”

He didn’t take his gaze from her face. “I was watching; it’s your move.”

She shrugged and said, “I choose not to move.”

He shook his head. “You chose that five moves ago; you can only do that every six moves. Your move.”

She smiled, moved her sparrow two spaces to the right and said, “Fine. Theft.”

He looked at the board. Her sparrow sat on the space with his dragon.

She raised an eyebrow at his exaggeratedly forlorn expression. “I told you that it wasn’t my move, but when you insisted, you made it my move anyway.”

“What did you move after I took your stag?”

She smiled sweetly. “Your dragon.”

He laughed and raised his hands in mock surrender. “Thief. Your game.”

“It was about time,” she said darkly, helping him replace the pieces in the drawer.

“Now you only owe me two kingdoms, five horses and twelve pigs.”

“Four horses,” she contested hotly.

“Five,” he corrected. “You wagered five horses against the twelve pigs you lost before. It was supposed to be six horses, but you whined and I let it stand at five.”

“Well,” she said, “at least I got my fifty chickens back.”

He started to answer, but the sound of the outer door opening and the frantic crying of an infant called him back to duty.

Alone, Rialla picked absently at the stitching on the bed covering. The week had passed far too quickly. Her leg was almost healed; Tris had taken the stitches out that morning. It still pained her when she used it too much, but every day it improved. Tomorrow morning she would leave with Lord Winterseine.

Perhaps, she thought, it was a good thing that she would soon be going. If she spent much longer with the healer, it would be too hard to go back to being a slave—and to survive, she had to be a slave again—not a Sianim horse trainer pretending to be a slave.

She raised her hand to her cheek, feeling the scar beneath the illusion. She couldn’t feel the tattoo, but she knew it was there: nose to ear, jaw to cheekbone. Sometimes she had felt as if it were tattooed on her soul, that she could never be anything but a slave.

She allowed herself to be drawn out of her bout of self-pity by the sound of a loud, angry voice and the healer’s quiet reply. The front door shut with a slam, and Tris stalked into the bedroom with a black scowl on his face.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

His glower deepened. “I just finished setting a broken bone for one of the hedgefarmer’s sons.”

“Hedgefarmer?”

“The hedgefarmers work the land in the hills and lower mountain slopes. It’s poor land, and gives a marginal living at best—but that’s no reason to break a child’s arm. At least once a month I treat one of his children or his wife for miscellaneous bruises and broken bones. I’ve talked to him twice about it, and told him this was it. Next time he hits someone weaker than he is, I’ll see to it that he won’t be in any condition to do it again.”

“Will he listen?” she asked as he paced back and forth.

“No, he’ll probably just not allow them to come to a healer for treatment, plague it! It was stupid to lose my temper. I’m sorry that I did it in front of the child too. That boy has to live with enough violence in his life; he doesn’t need mine as well.”

“You are needed here.” Rialla spoke softly. “Who will set their bones and heal their animals if you aren’t here?”

He stretched and shed his anger as if it were a coat. When he looked at her, there was nothing of it left in his eyes. “These people survived without me for most of their lives. The headman’s mother is a decent healer, as is her new daughter-in-law. I’ve already informed them that I will be leaving shortly.”

Rialla opened her mouth, and he held up his hand to forestall what she would have said. “Rialla, if I stay here too long, someone will eventually notice I work magic, and that could be worse for the village than the lack of a healer. I was preparing to leave soon anyway.”

Tris sat down on the end of the bed. “Tomorrow, when Lord Winterseine takes you, I’ll follow. It shouldn’t be difficult to track a large group of humans through the woods.”

Rialla snickered and Tris stopped talking.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “I’ve just never heard anybody say ‘human’ when they meant ‘mindless stinking mass of waste left undigested by a pig.’ You do it well.”

He made a half-bow and gave her the sweet smile that he used when he’d made a particularly devious maneuver in Dragon.

“There is one more thing I need to take care of before you go.” He reached over and pulled off her earring. “This comes off too easily. If Winterseine takes it off and your tattoo comes off as well, he’s going to start wondering about you.”

He pulled a small, very thin piece of kidskin out of his belt pouch. “I got this from the tanner this morning.”

He closed his eyes, humming softly, folding the kidskin around the earring and tucking the resultant bundle neatly into his hands. After a moment he opened his eyes again and shook the fine leather open, displaying it for Rialla. The earring was gone, and the tattoo that had covered her cheek now covered the kidskin.

Leaning near her, he pressed the skin against her face and resumed his humming. Rialla’s cheek grew cold. When he took his hands away, she touched her cheek. Her fingers detected smooth skin where her scars should be, and her cheek felt numb.

“The tattoo?” she asked.

“Is on your face. I’ll contact you at night, when the others are sleeping. You are an empath, but you’ve spoken about being able to read people’s thoughts as well as their emotions. Can you contact me that way if you need me?”

She shook her head. “Most people I could, but I can’t even read your emotions—let alone project a message to you.”

He raised an eyebrow, then nodded with an odd smile. “No, of course you couldn’t.” He hesitated momentarily and then said, “But I know a way to help.”

He slipped his boot knife out and examined it before he ran his thumb almost casually over the finely honed edge. Rialla didn’t realize that he was working magic until he said something in a foreign tongue and touched her mouth with the fresh wound. Involuntarily she licked the blood off her lips. She felt as if she’d sipped distilled alcohol; it burned its way deep into her body, leaving her toes and fingertips buzzing and her vision blurred.

Before she had time to react, he touched the knife to the side of her neck and bent his head. She felt the soft, quick touch of his lips and the brush of his beard before he backed away. He touched her neck again briefly, this time with his fingers, and the sting of the cut disappeared. Staring at him, she touched her skin where he and his knife had touched. The wound was gone.

“Try it now,” he said and his voice sounded different to her—shadowed with magic and moonlight, though the sun still lit the trees outside the window.

She reached out to him with her gift, carefully, not knowing what difference his magic had wrought. At first it seemed as though nothing had changed. As before, she could touch him, but it was like touching a solid object with her thoughts: she could see him, but not what he was. She pushed gently, but he remained opaque. Just as she started to back away, Rialla was sucked in.

It was too far, too fast. She was dizzy, cut adrift among memories and feelings that she couldn’t distinguish from her own. She was accustomed to receiving emotions from most people, but from Tris she was getting memories, thoughts and dreams as well.

Rialla. His mindspeech seemed too strong, but it gave her something to balance herself.

Rialla pulled herself back until the contact was not so strong, his warmth soothing rather than burning. His thought-voice was tightly formed, arguing that he had communicated mind to mind before.

She had been able to reach her father in this manner, but she wasn’t used to the communication being two-way. Tris, she said, what did you do that allowed me to touch you this way?

She caught faint nuances of emotion that were quickly tucked away, but not before she caught a hint of guilt and excitement.

I’ll tell you sometime. You can contact me now?

She tested her gifts on him warily. Anytime. I don’t know how close I have to be, but this is easier than any other mindspeech I’ve ever attempted.

Sylvans speak with each other in such a manner, he said.

Like this? asked Rialla in surprise. She sent him a picture of the intimacy that this form of communication offered her—the complex emotions and thoughts that she picked up when he talked.

No, he said, startled. Can you see so much?

Sensing his unease, she withdrew even further, the memory of Laeth’s outrage at her empathic gift fresh in her mind. Usually she had no trouble leaving the subjects of her touch their privacy, but Tris’s stray thoughts tended to brush against her without warning. Finally she removed herself altogether, reconstructing her barriers until he was once again opaque.

Tris gave her a particularly enigmatic look and said, “Now if you need help, you can contact me.”

She wasn’t capable of doing more than moving her head to indicate her agreement. When the sound of a woman calling from the front room pierced the intimate atmosphere that somehow had developed, Rialla felt extremely grateful. She desperately needed time to figure out what Tris had done.

The morning dawned clear and warm. Rialla was waiting quietly when Lord Winterseine entered her sanctuary. Her face was impassive, and it didn’t change when her master set the heavy training collar around her neck.

She didn’t flinch when chain-linked metal cuffs were closed on her wrists, pulling her arms behind her. A second chain was run from the wrist chain to the collar, further restricting her movement. Winterseine attached a leather leash to the front of her collar and led her out.

It was easy not to react to the restraints; she’d had them on before and had expected Lord Winterseine to use them. What she had not expected was the hot rage emanating from the healer, though he appeared calm and remote, as he always was with the Darranian nobles. She tried to close his reaction off, before it affected her as well, but it wasn’t as easy as it should have been.

Apparently, whatever channel Tris had forged between them was not easily closed. She sent a surge of reassurance to Tris, and then tried to reestablish her privacy.

Terran gave her a hand in mounting. It was difficult under the best of circumstances to get on a horse without the use of hands. Since Rialla was distracted with the task of suppressing the persistent connection with Tris, she appreciated Terran’s help.

As they rode away, she could feel the healer’s eyes following them into the trees.

There were many Darranians who had lost everything in the wars with Reth. They roamed the forests extracting tolls from those foolish enough to venture through without sufficient force. Winterseine’s entourage was large enough to discourage most raiding parties. Besides Winterseine and his son, there were a score of fighters, more or less, and two servants—one of which was the man who Rialla suspected had poisoned Karsten. His name, she recalled, was Tamas. Apparently the dark-skinned girl was the only slave they’d brought to Lord Karsten’s hold, because Rialla was the only slave in the party. Four men rode in front, followed closely by Lord Winterseine and his son Terran. Rialla and the servants rode next, then the rest of the party.

Rialla knew that Winterseine was a formidable warrior: it was one of the reasons for his success as a slaver. Looking at his son, she decided that Terran might be as good. Certainly he bestrode his battle-trained stallion with the ease of long practice, and the easy way that he’d tossed her on her horse argued that he had strength.

Winterseine’s man Tamas held the lead rein for Rialla’s horse. Like her, he was mounted on a lighter-bred saddle horse. He wasn’t armed with anything more formidable than the heavy whip that was coiled on his saddle, but Rialla had seen such a whip wielded at Sianim and didn’t underestimate the damage he could inflict with it.

They traveled south through the rolling hills of southern Darran. Everywhere, Rialla could see the toll of the last war. Many of the farmhouses had been recently constructed over old foundations. Several times she saw the burned-out remains of dwellings that had not been rebuilt, perhaps because there was no one left to do so.

They stopped near one of the charred cottages shortly before sunset. Camp was set up with a minimum of fuss. Winterseine used the leash on the training collar to stake Rialla to the ground near the fire, where she would be easily visible throughout the night. He didn’t remove the bindings from her arms.

None of the restraints were overly tight, but her arms had been in the same position for the better part of the day and her shoulder was beginning to ache. Between that and her throbbing leg, Rialla decided that a decent night’s rest was doubtful. Adding insult to injury, she had the choice of lying with her face in the dirt, or with her weight on her awkwardly bound arms.

Rialla.

She thought she must have jumped, but if she had no one had noticed. She wasn’t used to someone speaking in her mind. Tris?

Yes. How is your leg?

She tested it cautiously. It hurts, but no more than it did.

Good.

She waited, but he didn’t say anything more. With a resigned sigh she rolled on her face. To her surprise she fell into a restful doze that lasted through the night.

The next morning, Terran was busy elsewhere, so it was the servant Tamas who boosted Rialla onto her mount. She hadn’t paid much attention to him the first day of the trip, but his touch forced his emotions and some of his thoughts onto her, leaving her feeling unclean. It wasn’t simple lust he was feeling, but something more bestial—he fed his desire on degradation and pain. Even after she was on the horse, he found a thousand reasons for touching her.

By late that afternoon the sky had darkened, and Winterseine increased the pace to a trot to avoid the threatening storm. The horse Rialla was riding had a trot that threatened to rattle her teeth loose, and what it did to her aching head wasn’t pleasant—but the faster speed limited Tamas’s fondling, so she felt it was a vast improvement.

They sheltered for the night in a monastery dedicated, ironically enough, to the god of storms. Most of the worshippers of the old gods were confined to a few old temples like this one. It was a primitive fortress made of the dark native stone and rendered even more dismal by the gloominess of the darkened sky.

Several monks came to take their horses, and Rialla dismounted easily enough by throwing one leg in front of her and sliding down her horse’s side. She hoped to avoid Tamas’s help at all costs.

The storm god disliked women in his sanctuary, but the good monks had built a small outbuilding as a concession to secular parties who needed shelter and would pay the monks generously for the privilege. The hut locked from the outside, so that there was no chance of females wandering into the main buildings and desecrating the temple.

The building was barren and windowless. Rialla supposed that if she’d been a noblewoman, a cot would have been found for her and burned when she left. As it was, she would have to make do with the stone floor. There wasn’t much chance to look around before the door was shut, leaving her in the darkness. She heard the unmistakable sound of the wooden board being slipped into place on the door.

Rialla sat on the uneven stone floor and closed her eyes with a sigh of relief that she was alone. She’d feared that Tamas was going to be left to guard her, and she didn’t want to spend all night fighting him off.

She wasn’t sure the actual moment she realized she wasn’t alone in the room, or what first alerted her. Before she had time to panic, she realized that she knew who was here.

“Tris?”

“Mmm?” he answered absently, and the collar jerked around her neck as he began unbuckling it.

“How long have you been here?”

“Not too long. You smell like wet horse.” He removed the bands on her arms and Rialla stretched gratefully, almost moaning in the relief of moving her arms freely.

“My favorite scent,” she replied.

One of Tris’s magelights illuminated the barren little chamber.

“Not exactly cozy,” he commented.

“It is clean, which is better than the men’s accommodations in the sanctuary are likely to be,” she said, patting the stone beside her in invitation.

Instead, Tris sat facing her and took off the pack he carried on his back. He rummaged inside it and then pulled out a checkered board and placed it between them.

It was not as elaborate as the one he had at his cottage, but it was functional and they whiled away the afternoon with several games of Dragon. He won them all, but she managed to make him work for it. After the third game he set it aside with visible reluctance.

“I have to turn out the light now,” said Tris. “Though this building is sturdy, I don’t doubt that there are enough holes in the mortar that someone might notice the light coming out. You don’t want to try to explain how you managed to produce light in here.” He waved his hand and the magelight disappeared.

“I noticed that Winterseine’s rat-faced servant was having some difficulty keeping his hands to himself today,” Tris commented. “Now, have you thought about giving the little lecher leading your horse a thorough disgust of you? I would think that empathy would prove useful that way.”

She laughed, grateful that somehow his remarks had turned Tamas from threatening to absurd. “I’m afraid anything vile I can think up will just excite him more.”

“There is that possibility,” he agreed in thoughtful tones.

Rialla laughed again and found a more restful position. The silence continued comfortably between them until she began to drift asleep.

“How do you intend to prove Winterseine killed Karsten?” asked Tris abruptly.

She roused herself slightly. “You mentioned that the dagger that killed Karsten disappeared. If I can find it, any decent wizard can tell who used it.”

“Who are you trying to convince?” asked Tris.

“What do you mean?” Rialla said. Then she added, “Gods, I never thought of that. What Darranian is going to believe anything a wizard says?”

She thought for a moment then said, “What if I approach it differently? What do you think the regency council’s reaction would be if I proved that Winterseine was a mage? It wouldn’t prove Laeth’s innocence, but I don’t think that Winterseine would be allowed to inherit Karsten’s lands either. That would leave Lord Jarroh as the most powerful man on the council.”

“How are you going to prove that Winterseine is a mage?”

She shook her head, though in the dark he couldn’t see her. “I don’t know, but I’ll find a way.”

Tris woke her early in the morning to replace the restraints before someone came in. Just as he finished the last buckle, they heard the bar being removed.

“Tris,” hissed Rialla urgently.

He smiled at her and took a step back until he was against the wall, then made an odd gesture and his features blurred and darkened. Rialla watched fascinated as Tris blended into the wall, the stone coloring overshadowing his own. It altered in subtle tones until the shadows hid any sign that he stood there. Tamas opened the door, pulled Rialla up by one arm and escorted her out, oblivious to the observer left in the stone hut.

It was a cold and miserable day, and the horses were spooky because of a stiff wind that brought strange smells uncomfortably close. Rialla huddled under her cloak and wished vainly that Tamas weren’t holding the lead line on her mare.

The sun rose, a dim disk in a gray sky. By the time it had reached the middle of its journey, it was totally obscured by black clouds. When rain began to fall in sheets, the party halted while Terran and Winterseine conferred briefly.

Tamas took advantage of the rest stop to force his horse next to Rialla’s.

“I like the pretty ones, the soft ones like you,” he said. “Lord Winterseine says if you are not good enough to dance, I can have you before he sends you to his brothel. You wouldn’t like it there, but if you pleased me I might keep you.”

As he spoke, he rested his hand on her sore leg. Her horse shifted restlessly, dislodging his grip as Rialla’s unease communicated itself. Tamas smiled and kneed his horse sideways, following hers.

“Now, what’s getting you all upset?” He pressed his hand against the wound again, this time harder.

It hurt, but Rialla knew her face didn’t show it. She knew that her lack of expression disappointed him. She also knew that somewhere nearby, Tris was getting very angry.

Lightning flashed, followed a few seconds later by a low rumble. Her horse and Tamas’s reacted with similar violence to the sound—aided by a touch of empathically projected fear. The other horses danced and jumped, their herd instinct overwhelming training.

Rialla’s horse jerked its lead free of Tamas’s loose hold and, free of any constraint, put her head between her front legs and kicked. Rialla leaned back, pushing her feet forward. As the mare’s hindquarters fell to the ground and propelled the horse sideways, Rialla shifted her weight appropriately. Her empathy let her know what the horse was going to do a moment before the animal moved.

One of the guards caught the flying lead. His firm grip discouraged Rialla’s mount; it gave a few halfhearted hops before settling down.

The courser that Tamas rode was more successful at ridding itself of its rider than Rialla’s had been, tossing him into a thicket of thorn apple. When he was extracted from the inch-long thorns at last, his wounds were not limited to punctures and scrapes—his arm hung visibly broken at his side. One of the guardsmen had caught Tamas’s horse, and it danced nervously, scattering mud on anything nearby.

Nicely done, commented Tris. I hadn’t thought of using the horses.

Thank you, she replied lightly as her horse danced away from Tamas’s, dragging the man holding the lead several feet.

As her horse turned another circle, Rialla got a clear view of Tamas flexing the arm that had been clearly broken only a moment before. Ignoring her distaste, she probed him briefly, but the only pain that Tamas was feeling was from the thorns.

Tris, she asked, did you do that?

Do what? he asked.

When Tamas was thrown, he broke his arm. She sent Tris a picture of what Tamas’s arm had looked like. Someone healed it. Was that you?

No. There was a pause and then Tris said, I don’t think that anyone here can use green magic; we can usually recognize it in each other. I can usually also tell if someone has used green magic recently, but I don’t see it here. Human magicians can set a bone, using magic as a splint, but it requires much power. Inefficient magicians, humans. Then he added thoughtfully, Just how strong is this magician of yours?

He trained with the former ae’Magi, answered Rialla slowly. Can you tell if a human mage has healed Tamas’s arm?

A human mage can’t heal the arm, explained Tris, he can only set it, like a splint made of magic. He would have to constantly reinforce the spell, and if the magician fell asleep, the magic would cease functioning—unless he used runes, and I could feel those. I can’t feel any magic at all now, but the only human magician I’ve been around was Trenna, the woman who bargained for my service. She was only half-trained; I don’t know if I could tell if a human mage was working magic.

Rialla thought about what Tris told her. She wondered why Winterseine would be so concerned with Tamas’s broken arm that he would drain his magic and pretend to heal it when there was no one to impress but his servants—it seemed out of character from what she remembered of her master.

Rialla shivered, and speculated uneasily about magic, human and green. What kind of power, she wondered, would the prophet of a god wield?