The Horsemen's Gambit

Chapter 9

The rain had stopped and for the first time in days, a few pale blue gaps had appeared in the blanket of grey that covered the sky. The wind still blew hard out of the north, and if anything the air had turned colder, but still Grinsa was thankful for any break in the somber weather they'd endured since leaving E'Menua's sept.

Yet even warm breezes and clear skies would have done little to lift his spirits or those of his companions. It had been several days now, and Grinsa still was haunted by what he had seen in the devastated sept they found. Several times, he had awakened from nightmares in which he was dying of the pestilence, destroying the z'kal he shared with Cresenne and Bryntelle. Even awake, he had only to close his eyes and he could summon images from the sept: ruined structures, charred bodies, shattered bones stripped bare by scavengers and the elements.

Q'Daer had said nothing to him about what they saw that day, but the young Weaver had been unusually subdued since. He made no effort to engage Grinsa in conversation. He had also stopped taunting the Eandi merchants, though, judging from the cold stares he cast their way, he seemed to hate them more than ever.

For their part, Jasha and Torgan had behaved differently, too. Jasha had become far more talkative, taking every opportunity to tell Grinsa and Q'Daer, if the Fal'Borna would listen, all that he could remember about the one Mettai basket he had briefly owned and then sold. Whatever reservations he had harbored about helping the Qirsi with their search for the cursed baskets and the Mettai witch who had created them seemed to have vanished. Torgan, on the other hand, had grown more reserved. Before they came across the sept he had said little to the Qirsi, but had spoken freely with Jasha. Now he kept to himself, saying little to any of them, and almost appearing to flinch when one of them spoke his name. Torgan's protestations of innocence that day, as they stood amid the devastation, had been self-serving and offensive. But Grinsa couldn't help but wonder if he and the others had driven the man into this sullen silence by responding too vehemently.

If anything vaguely positive had come from that awful day, it was that none of them spoke anymore of returning to E'Menua's sept; not even Q'Daer. They rode each day for hours, stopping only to eat and drink, or to rest. But though they covered much ground, they didn't see any other septs, ruined or whole. The Night of Two Moons came and went, marking the beginning of the waning, and still they were no closer to finding the witch or her baskets. Grinsa's frustration grew with each day that passed and he could tell that Q'Daer's did, too.

Today, again, they had been riding since early morning, and with twilight approaching they had nothing to show for their efforts. Or so it seemed, until Grinsa and the young Weaver topped a small rise and saw in the distance a curving stream, and, by its banks, a cluster of eight or ten peddlers' carts.

Immediately, Q'Daer raised his hand, signaling to Jasha and Torgan, who were behind them, that they should halt. Grinsa and Q'Daer retreated back down the incline, hoping that the merchants hadn't seen them.

"What is it?" Jasha asked.

Grinsa waited until he and Q'Daer had ridden back to them before answering. "Merchants," he said in a low voice. "Several of them."

Torgan, suddenly alert, looked past Grinsa toward the top of the hill. "Eandi?" Jasha asked.

"I think so." Grinsa glanced at the Fal'Borna, who nodded.

"We should speak to them," the younger merchant said.

"It's not quite that easy," Grinsa said. "Q'Daer and I can't just ride into their camp. If any of them are carrying the woman's baskets, we could be infected with her pestilence. And even if they don't have any, I can't imagine they'll tell us anything." He hesitated, knowing how Q'Daer would respond to what he was about to say. "We need for you to speak with them."

"We'll do it!"

"Are you mad?"

Torgan and Q'Daer said the words simultaneously, then eyed each other.

Grinsa turned to Q'Daer. "What choice do we have? We can't go ourselves, and we can't simply pass those merchants by without finding out if they've encountered the woman or her wares."

"They'll try to escape," Q'Daer said, shaking his head. "They'll get help from their friends, and they'll try to escape."

Grinsa knew that the man had a point. "Then we'll send only one of them." He looked first at Torgan and then at the younger man. "We'll send Jasha."

"No!" Torgan said.

A harsh grin spread across the Fal'Borna's features. "You see how eager he is? He knows that this may be his best chance to get away from us."

Torgan's face shaded to crimson and he looked away, shoving his hands into his pockets.

Grinsa couldn't help thinking that Q'Daer was entirely right about this. Torgan's reaction had been too immediate, too fervent. He looked at Jasha.

"You'll go," he said. "Find out what you can and then return here. If you try to run…" Grinsa trailed off. He'd never been good with threats of this sort.

"If I run," Jasha said, "I'll be leaving Torgan at your mercy. I'm not about to do that."

"And what's he going to tell them?" Torgan demanded. "How's he going to explain when they ask what he's doing out here alone, without so much as a cart?"

Silence. Grinsa and Q'Daer exchanged a look, but neither of them answered.

"I tell them the truth," Jasha said. "At least, as much of the truth as I can. The Fal'Borna are looking for the woman and for anyone who's selling her baskets. They took my cart and told me to find her. If I don't, I lose everything."

Torgan shook his head. "They won't believe that."

"You have a better idea?" Jasha asked.

They glared at each other for several moments, until Torgan turned away again, dismissing the younger man with a wave of his hand.

"Fine. Do what you will. I don't give a damn."

"They'll ask me to make camp with them for the night," Jasha said, looking at the Qirsi again. "It's the way of merchants out here on the plain. They'll offer me food and a place by their fire."

Grinsa shrugged. "Tell them that you can't stay, that you have to keep moving."

"I'm not sure they'll believe me."

"Then convince them. We'll expect you to be back here by nightfall."

"And have a care what you say to them," Q'Daer said. "The Forelander and I keep watch every night. If you tell them where we're camped, and they come looking for a fight, they'll die. All of them. And their deaths will be on your head."

Jasha eyed him, and finally nodded. After a moment he looked at Grinsa again. "This isn't going to work. You know that."

He did know it. But he knew as well that Q'Daer's warning and his own restrictions on what Jasha could and couldn't do were necessary. They couldn't just allow the young merchant to run away; they needed him, perhaps more than they needed Torgan, if for no other reason than because he was trustworthy. The irony wasn't lost on Grinsa. They were sending the one merchant they could trust not to betray them, and they were dooming him to failure by refusing to have faith in him.

"What would you have us do?" he asked.

Jasha looked surprised, as if he'd expected only more threats. "I'm not sure. I suppose it might help if you let me stay with them and win their trust. That's the only way I'm going to learn anything of value."

"Do you think we're fools?" Q'Daer demanded. "Do you think we'll just let you go free?"

"We should let him do it," Grinsa said, his eyes still on Jasha.

"You are mad!" the Fal'Borna said. "You can't really think he'll keep his word."

"Yes, I do. Because he knows that if he doesn't, I won't be able to keep you from killing Torgan."

Q'Daer shook his head. "You've seen the way they are. He'd trade his life for Torgan's in a heartbeat."

Grinsa faced the Fal'Borna. "No. You or I might, but Jasha won't."

"So I can go?" Jasha said.

It was getting dark. Before long it would be too late for Jasha's arrival at the merchants' camp to be believable.

"No," Q'Daer said. "No, you can't."

"Go ahead," Grinsa said. "We'll look for you come first light."

"No!" the Fal'Borna said.

Jasha flicked his horse's reins, but the animal didn't move. Language of beasts.

"Let him go," Grinsa said.

The young Weaver shook his head again. "I won't. I've let you have your way again and again on this journey. You want to feel like you're leading us, and I've been fine with that. But I won't let you do this."

Grinsa reached for his magic and using language of beasts, touched the mind of Jasha's mount. He didn't scare the animal; he merely told it to walk. Immediately he felt Q'Daer try to stop the creature, but he blocked the young Weaver's magic. Q'Daer was powerful, but his magic lacked precision, and Grinsa had little trouble mastering it.

"Damn you!" Q'Daer said.

Grinsa felt the Fal'Borna gathering his magic for a more substantial challenge. He could only guess what the man had in mind, and the last thing he wanted was a battle of magic. Yes, he could prevail in such a contest, but it would accomplish nothing, and quite likely it would alert the merchants to their presence.

"Don't do it, Q'Daer," he said. "I'll best you again, just as I did with language of beasts."

"You don't know that!"

"Yes, I do. The fact is, you haven't let me have my way, and I haven't been leading us because of some abdication on your part. I'm leading and getting my way because, quite simply, you're not as powerful as I am. It's time you made peace with that."

Even in the gloaming Grinsa could see Q'Daer's face darkening.

"Fine then," the Fal'Borna said. "Let him go. And when he doesn't return, we can kill Torgan and be done with this folly. You can explain it all to the a'laq once we're back in the sept."

With that he stalked off, his shoulder brushing past Torgan's so hard that he almost knocked the merchant to the ground.

Jasha had halted a short distance off, and had watched their exchange. "I will come back," he said now. "You have my word on it."

"With first light," Grinsa said.

Jasha nodded to him and rode off toward the merchants.

And Grinsa whispered to the gathering night, "Just learn something from them. Anything."

Perhaps he should have been looking for some way to exploit the tensions he had just witnessed. The white-hairs were his enemy, his and Torgan's, assuming of course, that Torgan was his ally. They were prisoners of the Fal'Borna, and he should have been looking for any means of escape he could find. Torgan himself would have told him to run, even if it meant leaving Torgan to be executed by the Fal'Borna.

Jasha smiled to himself and shook his head. Well, at the very least, he thought, that's what Torgan would have done if their positions had been reversed.

But Jasha had seen too much to take that path. He'd been in S'Plaed's sept near the Companion Lakes when the Mettai witch's pestilence struck there. He knew what this plague did. He'd seen shaping power shatter homes and peddlers' carts and bodies. He'd stared, helpless to do more, as fire magic laid waste to houses, killing entire families. He'd looked on in horror as a healer's magic tore his own body apart from the inside. And in case he had forgotten-as if he ever could-he had also seen the ruins of the sept they'd come across just a few days ago.

He had no love for the white-hairs. He might not have hated them as some did, but they held no special place in his heart. Still, no people, no matter what they might have done, no matter what color their eyes, deserved to suffer as the Qirsi had under this curse.

So he would speak with these merchants, and he'd learn what he could from them, and then he would return to Torgan and the two Qirsi. Torgan would call him a fool and worse. He'd rail at Jasha for being weak. Let him. Where was the weakness in trying to save lives?

Alone, on this unfamiliar horse given to him by the Fal'Borna, with no cart rattling behind him, Jasha could have ridden right into the camp before the merchants noticed him. Having no wish to startle them, he called out long before reaching their circle.

A man stood and peered into the darkness. Others turned toward the sound of Jasha's voice.

"Who's that?" the man called.

"A friend," Jasha said. "A fellow merchant." He dismounted a short distance from their fire and led his mount on foot the rest of the way.

The man stood and turned to face him, as did the other merchants. They watched him warily, no doubt wondering what one of their kind would be doing way out here on the plain without any cart or wares.

"Hello, friend," the man said, and though Jasha sensed no irony in the stranger's use of the word, he sensed no warmth either. "What can we do for you?"

"I'm hoping you can help me," the young merchant said. "My name is Jasha Ziffel. I've been trading on the plain and in the lands around the Companion Lakes for several years now." He looked at each merchant as he spoke. There were nine of them in all, all of them Eandi, all but two of them men. A few he recognized, and he sensed that they knew him as well, though he couldn't recall any of their names. "A few of you have seen me before, and you'll know that I'm no thief and I'm no cheat. I'm just a man in need of information."

"Where's your cart, Jasha?" the man asked. He was a bit older than the others, a tall man with a thick shock of white hair. His broad shoulders were stooped, but he was still trim, and Jasha thought that he must have cut an imposing figure in his youth.

"The Fal'Borna took it from me."

"The Fal'Borna?" the man said, clearly surprised.

"Why?" one of the women asked him.

Jasha wanted to ask if he could sit with them around their fire. The air had grown colder with nightfall, and he could smell roasted fowl, which reminded him of how hungry he was. He could tell, however, that the merchants weren't yet ready to welcome him into their circle. He had some work to do before they would trust him that much.

"Because they think that I can lead them to a Mettai woman who's been selling cursed baskets in their lands."

"Cursed baskets?"

The tone of the question carried more than mere surprise at such an idea. Jasha knew it immediately, and it seemed that others noticed as well, for several of the merchants turned to glance back at the man who had spoken. He was a big man, not quite as tall as the white-haired merchant, but far heavier, with a large gut and an open, youthful face. He couldn't have been much older than Jasha. He wore a wide-brimmed leather hat, which hid most of his hair. But what little Jasha could see appeared in the firelight to be red. Jasha was certain that he had seen this man before in marketplaces along the Silverwater, or perhaps in one of the Eandi sovereignties, but he couldn't recall his name.

"Yes," Jasha said. "Do you know something about them?"

"No," the man said. "Not a thing."

"What's your name, friend?"

"Don't answer that," the white-haired merchant said, glancing back at the other man. "Not yet at least." He faced Jasha again. "I want more answers from you first. I've had enough dealings with the Fal'Borna to know that if they consider you an enemy, they won't just take your cart and goods and leave it at that. There's more to this tale, and I want to hear it."

Jasha nodded. "Yes, there's more. The Fal'Borna captured me as well as another merchant named Torgan Plye."

"Torgan?" the red-haired man said.

Several of the others exchanged looks; clearly all of them knew who Torgan was.

"Torgan had traded for some baskets and was near a Fal'Borna sept that suffered an outbreak of the pestilence. The Fal'Borna found us together, took our wares, and threatened to kill us if we didn't find the Mettai woman they believe is responsible for cursing the baskets. We've been searching the plain for her ever since, but thus far we've found neither the woman nor her goods. The only thing we have found is the ruins of another sept, and we did find scraps of Mettai baskets there."

The white-haired man eyed him for several moments before finally shaking his head again.

"I believe you're telling us the truth as far as it goes. But much of this still doesn't make sense to me. I think there are things you're keeping from us."

Jasha briefly considered denying it. In the next moment he rejected the idea, knowing that there was nothing to be gained by doing so. The man didn't believe him, and for good reason. Best to be as honest as he could be and see if that at least convinced the merchants to speak with him further.

"There are," he admitted. "I'll answer your questions as best I can, but there are certain things I can't tell you without endangering my life, as well as Torgan's."

"The Fal'Borna still have him?" the white-haired man asked.

"Yes."

The man considered this briefly. Then he stepped forward and offered Jasha his hand. "Very well. My name is Tegg Lonsher. I'd wager that I've been trading in the clan lands since before you were horn."

Jasha shook his hand and smiled. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Tegg."

Tegg began to introduce the other merchants, but Jasha had trouble remembering all the different names. Except for one: The red-haired man was called Brint HedFarren. Jasha recognized the name immediately. He was said to be one of the most successful merchants in all the Southlands. Though far younger than Torgan, he was already considered nearly Torgan's equal in terms of both the quality of his wares and his skill as a bargainer. Jasha found it easy to believe that, like Torgan, Brint might have seen the Mettai woman's baskets and been drawn to them by their vivid colors and fine workmanship.

When the introductions were done, the merchants returned to the fire, making room for Jasha in their circle and offering him food and wine. Tegg remained by his side though, and the old man peppered him with questions. Where had he been when the Fal'Borna caught up with him? To whose sept had he been taken? Why would the a'laq have been willing to let him leave on his own, without Fal'Borna guards? Had he considered returning to one of the sovereignties and getting help from the armies there? Who was this Mettai woman he was after, and how certain was he that she had actually cursed her baskets? Was this pestilence of hers the same one that had ravaged Y'Qatt villages near the Companion Lakes?

Jasha told him what he could, gauging Tegg's reactions and those of the people around him as he spoke. Several of the merchants were listening intently to their conversation; others were speaking among themselves, ignoring them.

Brint gave the appearance of doing neither. He stared at the fire, chewing on a piece of dried meat and occasionally taking a pull of wine from the skin that was making its way around the circle. But Jasha knew that he was listening to every word they said. The man's indifference to their conversation seemed too studied to be convincing.

Eventually, Tegg relented, satisfied that Jasha posed no threat to him or his friends. Free finally to pose his own questions, Jasha began by asking the most obvious.

"Are any of you selling any Mettai baskets right now?"

None of them were.

But when he next asked if any of them had seen Mettai baskets of high quality in the last turn or two, several of the merchants said that they had. One woman in particular-her given name was Ghella; he couldn't recall her family name, though he knew that he had seen her before in his travels-recalled seeing more than a dozen of them in the cart of another peddler.

"It was Lark, Tegg. You remember. That woman who sings so well." Tegg nodded, though he was frowning. "Of course I do. She had baskets? You're certain?"

Ghella nodded. She was heavy, with long, auburn hair and a friendly, round face. "Yes, I'm sure of it. We were north and east of here when I saw her, and she had several of them. She said that she hadn't put them out yet, that she was still trying to decide what to ask for them. I tried to buy a few, but she wanted two sovereigns for each, and I couldn't buy enough of them to make it worth my while." She shook her head. "Shame, really. They were lovely."

"Do you know where she was headed?" Jasha asked.

"The Horn, I think. But I can't be certain."

The Horn. Jasha shuddered. That was the center of the Fal'Borna clan lands. There was no telling how many people would die if those baskets reached D'Raqor, or one of the other cities there.

Another man claimed to have seen the baskets as well, but he proved far less helpful than Ghella. He couldn't recall the name of the peddler who had been carrying them, and his description of the baskets he'd seen was vague enough to leave Jasha wondering if they had been made by the same woman. Not long after, the man returned to his cart to sleep.

Tegg watched him go before turning to Jasha again.

"Don't put too much faith in what Kalib tells you. He doesn't like it when he's not the center of a conversation. I'd he surprised if he even knew what a basket was."

Jasha grinned. "Thank you." He nodded toward Brint. "What about him?" he asked, dropping his voice to a soft whisper.

"Young Red?" Tegg answered. "He's a good man. If he tells you something, you can bet it's the truth."

"All right. Again, my thanks." Jasha stood, and walked over to where Brint was sitting, his eyes still fixed on the low flames of their campfire. "Mind if I join you?" he asked.

Brint looked up at him for just an instant and shrugged. Jasha sat beside him and rubbed his hands together before holding them out to the fire.

"If I didn't know better, I'd say it feels like snow."

"We've another turn before the Snows come," Brint said. "But they'll he hard this year, that's for certain."

Jasha nodded. "Before, when I first got here, I had the sense that maybe you know something about these baskets, or maybe about the woman who made them."

Brint shook his head, but he didn't meet Jasha's gaze. "I don't know anything more than the rest of these folk. I'm just a merchant trying to make some gold on the plain before the Snows send me back south."

"You're being modest, Brint. I know Torgan, remember? I know that the two of you are more than just merchants. You have an eye for quality, and a knack for finding the treasures in a crowded marketplace that the rest of us would miss. That's how he came by the baskets-he spotted them, and immediately he knew their worth." Jasha looked at the man. "I think that's what happened with you, too. You saw them, and you knew instantly how valuable they were. I had one of them, briefly, before I sold it again. It was finer than any basket I'd ever seen."

"I wouldn't know," Brint said. "I haven't seen any of her baskets."

"Really?" Jasha asked. "I could have sworn that you had."

At that Brint finally turned to look at him. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Just that you reacted pretty strongly when I first mentioned them.

The man turned back to the fire. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"I wasn't the only one who noticed." Jasha indicated the other merchants with a small bob of his head. "They were looking at you. They heard it in your voice."

"I'm telling you, there was nothing to hear."

Jasha shrugged. "All right. If you tell me it's so, I believe you. It's a shame, though."

A silence hung between them for some time, until Jasha began to wonder if he had handled this poorly, or if perhaps he had been wrong about Brint in the first place. Maybe he didn't know anything about the woman. Still they sat, and neither of them spoke. At last, unsure of what else to do, Jasha stood, intending to speak with some of the others. Perhaps there was more that Ghella could tell him.

"Well, good night, Brint."

"What's a shame?" the merchant asked him before Jasha could walk away.

"^-What?"

"You said before, 'It's a shame.' What did you mean by that?"

Jasha sat again. "I just meant that a lot of people have died already. A lot more are going to. I was hoping you might be able to tell me something that would keep that from happening. It seems I was wrong." He paused, eyeing the man. "You did say that I was wrong, didn't you?"

"It's just white-hairs, isn't it? The ones who are dying?"

"So far, yes. But it's a bad death. I've seen it, and I wouldn't wish it on anyone. Not even the Fal'Borna."

"And what happens to you if you don't find… what you're looking for?"

"Probably they'll execute me, and Torgan, too."

Jasha didn't even have to look at him. He could feel the man fighting himself. Brint did know about the woman; it was just a matter of getting him to admit it. And Jasha knew with equal clarity that there was precious little he could do in that regard. This was up to Brint.

"I'm sorry to have disturbed you," he said, standing once more. "I'm going to speak with some of the others. They might be able to help me. Thank you, Brint."

"For what? I didn't do anything."

"Well, thank you anyway."

Jasha left him there, stepping around the circle, and went to sit beside two other merchants. He didn't remember the name of either and he didn't expect that they would be able to tell him anything of value. But he chatted with them for a long while, until most of the others had gone to sleep. At one point Tegg approached Jasha, and told him that he was welcome to bed down for the night beside their fire. Jasha thanked him and said that he would.

Through all of this, Brint remained awake, doing much the same thing he had done all night. He stared at the fire and he drank wine, and said nothing to anyone.

Finally, the last of the merchants went off to sleep, leaving just Jasha and Brint. Still the red-haired man didn't speak, and though Jasha knew better than to press the matter, his frustration mounted. He was tired, and he feared that whatever Brint knew might be of little consequence, in which case he would have wasted the entire night.

The fire popped loudly, and a swarm of glowing sparks rose into the night. Jasha picked up a long stick and stirred the embers, trying to coax a bit more light and warmth from them. When he looked up again, Brint was staring at him.

"Tell me about this pestilence," he said.

"What is it you want to know?"

The big man hesitated, appearing unsure of himself. "Why does it strike at their kind but not at us?"

"I don't know," Jasha said.

"Before, you said that the sept you found had been ruined."

Jasha nodded. "Yes. By magic. It seems that when the Qirsi are stricken they lose control of their power. Their fire magic, their healing, their shaping-all of it runs wild, destroying everything and everyone around them."

Brint nodded and began once more to stare into the dying flames.

After what seemed an eternity he said, in a voice that barely carried over the settling of the coals, "She told me this would happen."

It took Jasha a moment. "Who did?"

The red-haired merchant just looked at him.

"You mean the Mettai woman?" he whispered, his eyes widening.

Brint chewed his lip, looking, for all his bulk, like a boy caught in a lie. Finally, he nodded.

"Where did you see her, Brint? You have to tell me."

"I thought she was mad. You have to believe that. One moment she was selling me baskets, and the next she was shouting this nonsense at me about how they would destroy everything. It made no sense."

"You have to tell me everything, Brint. All of it. Every detail matters."

" 'Death and ruin.' That's what she said to me. That's what she said the baskets would bring."

It was as if they were carrying on different conversations.

"Brint!" Jasha said sharply, forcing the man to look at him again. "Tell me everything. Where were you?"

"I found her among the ruins of some old village. The place looked to have been deserted for decades. It was right near N'Kiel's Span on the Silverwater."

"What did she say to you?"

Brint shrugged. "We talked for a long while. She seemed fine at first. Sane, that is. She asked me about where I was from and we bargained over the price of the baskets. It was only when I told her that…" He stopped, chewed his lip again.

"When you told her what?"

"I… I think I said at first that I had been looking for Mettai and Y'Qatt goods. Later, after she'd sold me the baskets, I told her that I was headed to the plain to trade with the Fal'Borna. That's when she started talking like a madwoman."

"What did she say exactly?"

"I told you already," Brint said, sounding sullen. 'Death and ruin.' Nonsense like that."

"That was all?" Jasha asked, certain that it wasn't, that she'd told the man a great deal more than that. "She sounded mad, you said. I'm sure that all of it sounded like the ramblings of a crazy woman."

Brint pressed his lips then, but he nodded. "She said thousands would die, that entire villages would be destroyed. She said that I couldn't take them to the Qirsi, because she hated them. I think… I think she wanted me to take them to the Y'Qatt."

Jasha frowned. "The Y'Qatt?"

"Yes. That's when she got so angry; when she realized that I wouldn't be taking the baskets to the Y'Qatt."

It made no sense. Jasha could understand why an Eandi, even a Mettai, might hate the Fal'Borna enough to loose this plague upon them. But the Y'Qatt were ascetics, Qirsi who refused to use their magic for any reason at all. They were peaceful, and they kept to themselves.

"You're sure of this?" Jasha asked.

"Yes. I know it makes no sense. None of what she said did. That's why I didn't think much of it."

Jasha considered this for a few moments longer, but he could think of no reason why the Mettai would hate the Y'Qatt so much. Eventually he decided that this was something the Fal'Borna would have to figure out for themselves. He'd found out what he could.

"Do you still have the baskets?" he asked.

Brint shook his head. "She tried to buy them back from me when she found out where I was taking them." Suddenly the big man couldn't stop talking. "She offered me all the gold she had, plus what I'd just paid her."

"And you refused."

Brint looked at him. "You saw those baskets. You know how fine they were. And at that point I just wanted to get away from her as quickly as I could."

"Where are the baskets now, Brint?"

"I sold them to other merchants."

Jasha had been afraid of this. He passed a hand through his hair. "Where did you sell them?"

"Around a fire, much like this one. I met up with some other merchants and decided I didn't want anything to do with that crazy woman or her wares. So I sold them all."

"To who?"

Brint named several merchants. A few of them-Stam Corfej, Lariqenne Glyse, Grijed Semlor-Jasha knew. He tried to commit to memory those names he didn't recognize.

"And how many baskets were there in all?" Jasha asked.

"Forty-seven."

Jasha felt his mouth drop open. Perhaps it shouldn't have surprised him. The Mettai woman was selling her wares throughout the land; no doubt she had dozens of them. But somehow hearing this number-forty-seven!-and knowing that they were being spread across the plain, like seeds blown from a harvest flower, struck him dumb. He and his riding companions had seen the remains of two or three in the ruined sept they'd found days before. How many more villages could be ravaged that way? Would one basket do it, or did it take two or three or even four? Even if it took more-six or eight-that meant half a dozen villages might suffer the same fate as the one they had seen. And that assumed the baskets Brint had bought from the woman were the only ones still out there.

"It didn't seem like that many at the time," Brint whispered after some time.

"No. I'm sure it didn't."

Jasha had to resist an urge to climb back on his horse and return immediately to Torgan, Grinsa, and Q'Daer. Forty-seven baskets! He wanted to find them now, this night.

We can't do anything tonight, he told himself. I need to rest so that we can be moving again with first light.

"You probably don't know where the merchants who bought them were headed, do you?"

"No," Brint said. "There were several of them. They were all headed in different directions. Some were going west, others south, toward the Ofirean."

Jasha winced and closed his eyes. The Ofirean. If those baskets reached Thamia or Siraam or one of the other major settlements on the inland sea… He shuddered.

"I didn't mean for this to happen," Brint told him.

"I'm sure you didn't." Jasha stood, too weary to say more. "I'll see you in the morning."

Brint nodded.

Jasha lay down beside the fire, stretching out on the hard ground and wrapping the blanket he'd brought with him around his shoulders. But for a long time sleep wouldn't come. Whenever he closed his eyes, he began to see once more the devastation of S'Plaed's sept and the ruined settlement they'd seen south of here. So he kept them open, staring at the baleful orange glow of the embers. After a while, he heard Brint walk off to his cart. One of the other merchants mumbled something in her sleep, and an owl called from far off.

Death and ruin, the woman had warned. Yet clearly that was what she had been hoping for when she first conjured this plague of hers.

"She was mad," Jasha whispered to himself, thinking that this should make him feel better somehow.

But it didn't. And he lay awake.