Prophecy (26 page)

“I’m … not supposed to respond to this sort of thing,” the man replied silently, and oddly enough his mind fought a bit to free itself. “I’m … supposed to be protected, but it doesn’t seem to be working. And if it doesn’t work they’ll kill me, then go on to do the job we were sent here to do.”

*
I take it the Five told you you would be protected,
* the Vallant entity said as it examined the man’s mind. *
Yes, I can see indications of where they had you under control, but their strength still can’t match mine. What plan were your men supposed to follow?
*

“There are two link groups for each aspect,” the man replied with less hesitation, no longer struggling very hard. “Both sets of groups are under orders to attack the fugitives at the same time, aspect to aspect without giving them a chance to Blend. We were told by freak informers that they would be here, and that this would be the best time to attack. We’rethe first group of—”

The man’s words ended abruptly as he screamed, a reaction to the knife which had been thrust into his body. One of his own followers had murdered him, and now the ten link groups stood together and braced, their minds flaring out in an attempt to reach and destroy the entity. The Vallant entity actually staggered under the load, which certainly shouldn’t have happened. The entity should have been stronger than
all
those minds combined.

But that, the Vallant entity suddenly realized, was incorrect. A memory now resurfaced, one which belonged to none of its flesh forms. It was part of the data which the entity had somehow lost, and was now only partially regaining. It had something to do with two link groups acting in tandem, which more than doubled its strength. Yes, that was it, but how did the required response go…?

The Vallant entity staggered again, feeling itself losing ground against the onslaught. At the moment it was able to shield its flesh forms from the attack, but soon its strength would be drained and the attack would reach them. That could certainly not be allowed, but the proper response continued to elude it. The answer was on the tip of its mental tongue, perfectly obvious if one only looked at matters in the correct way. The enemy had obviously regained more of the lost knowledge than the Vallant entity, which was extremely annoying. What
was
that response…?

*
“Ahhh,”
* the Vallant entity breathed as it staggered for the third time. The response
was
completely obvious, and now it was also remembered. But it would require the use of its own link groups, which hadn’t been assembled before the moment of crisis. To contact them would be more than awkward, as part of the shielding effort would need to go into the contact. What to do…?

And then surprise touched the Vallant entity, as it realized that its own link groups were assembled after all. How that had come about was something to be left for another time; right now there were enemies who needed to be vanquished. And vanquished they would be…

The Vallant entity now looked carefully at each link group, searching for the weakest member in each link. And there always
was
a weakest member, no matter how close their strength was one to the other. Drawing on the strength of its link groups let the Vallant entity divert part of its efforts into the search, and then the ten weakest were located and marked. The next step was to draw even more power, which, for some reason, made the Vallant entity briefly uneasy, but it was necessary so it was done. And once done…

And once done, that additional power was poured into the weakest members of the ten links. Those members died without making a sound, falling to the sodden ground in lifeless heaps, and then the ten link groups were link groups no longer. Five was the required number for the utmost in efficient output, and they no longer had that. Which made it possible for the Vallant entity to touch each group of four with its own aspect, burning to ash the Fire magic users, completely desiccating the Water magic users, stilling the hearts of the Earth magic users, and taking the breath of life from the Air magic users. Those with Spirit magic had all sense of balance withdrawn, which left them nearly mindless in their forced insanity. Some of them screamed, some cried, some sat down and raised their faces to the rain, and some wandered away. All, however, were beyond ever using their talent again, and the proposed attack was over.

“And now it’s completely me again,” Vallant muttered after the Blending had dissolved, once more looking at the scene through his eyes alone. The rain mixed the ash of burning with the dust of desiccation, all of it joining the mud of the ground. Motionless bodies alternated with those which were mindlessly humming or sitting silently, and around the fringes there were dark forms wandering aimlessly about. “And this is the worst it’s ever been.”

With which words Vallant turned and hurried back toward the inn, needing to get away from the sight of what he’d just helped to do. But queasiness couldn’t be allowed to rule him, not when the entity thought that the Five had regained some of those “memories” that
it
still lacked. And that leader of the group had been about to tell them how many other groups like this had been sent after them just as he was killed. Now they’d probably only be able to get the number after the other groups attacked them.

And worst of all, being part of the Blending again had given him a much more intense understanding of Tamrissa’s pain. The memory of that wasn’t likely to leave him very soon, and he didn’t know what to do. Coward that he was, he simply had no idea what he could possibly do…

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Delin slept late before coming out to breakfast, a sumptuous meal he had served in his private dining room. As this was only his second day of returning to normal eating, his mouth watered as all his favorite breakfast dishes were uncovered by the servants. He would not be able to finish any of the dishes, that he’d discovered the previous morning, but as the time passed and his normal eating habits were allowed to return, he would make better and better progress.

But the first step necessary before eating was examining the food with his talent. He’d been lucky enough to miss being poisoned with the others, and wasn’t about to overlook the possibility that someone would try again. In the last day and some he’d grown really proficient at separating out and identifying the various components of his favorite dishes, all the way down to any water which might have been added as well as the butter in which the rest had been fried. He also knew how much salt, pepper, tarragon, thyme, paprika—any seasoning—had been added, which was something of a pity. At one time it had been one of his small pleasures to try to guess the various ingredients.

And yet now he had other things to give him pleasure, both small and large. Real food was one of them, of course, but once the meal was over he rose to go to a far greater one. He’d called a meeting of the Blending for this morning,
ordering
the others to be there. They’d spent most of yesterday recovering from their ordeal, but they weren’t unaware of the fact that Delin was the one who had ended their agony. Now it was time for them to find out about the rest.

When Delin walked into the large, formal sitting room, Bron and Selendi and Homin were already there. The sitting room was one of the largest in his wing, and they were already there because he’d had them come a good twenty minutes before
he
intended to show up. They still looked somewhat pale and drawn, but more than that they looked impatient.

“It’s about time you got here!” Bron snapped at once, glaring at Delin from the chair he’d chosen. “You had no call to keep us waiting like a bunch of begging peasants, and—”

“That’s enough,” Delin interrupted, not raising his voice but letting the coldness inside him come through clearly. “What I
expected
to hear was how all of you were feeling. Any unexpected side effects from the … balm I provided?”

His three groupmates exchanged furtive glances, hating to be reminded that they had
him
to thank for no longer being in pain. It had come as a shock to them, of course, an unexpected and unpleasant surprise that apparently they still hadn’t adjusted to.

“If this is supposed to be a meeting of our Five, you can’t start it yet,” Selendi put in sullenly, her stare extremely unfriendly. “Kambil isn’t here yet, which is rather wise of him. He didn’t have to sit and wait the way we did…”

Her words trailed off in an attempt at admonishment, but by tone rather than by browbeating as Bron had tried. Delin found that rather amusing, showing as it did that if she didn’t yet respect him, at least she did fear him.

“Kambil won’t be joining us this morning,” Delin told her and the other two, his tone still easy. “For some reason he isn’t responding to the counteractive the way the rest of you have, and is therefore in no condition to be away from his bed.”

The three of them looked seriously worried, not knowing the half of it. Delin had been
that
close to letting Kambil die, when he realized that the man could be allowed to die anytime. There was no need to make a hasty decision in the matter, when feeding Kambil half the dosage of the counteragent kept the poison from killing him. It did very little to relieve the agony, of course, but that was only Kambil’s misfortune, not Delin’s. Once Delin decided on how to control the man completely—and if he really wanted to—then that would be the time to settle the thing.

“In the meanwhile, we have important matters to discuss,” Delin went on, regaining the attention of his small audience. “The first and foremost thing on everyone’s mind is this poisoning business, which you need to know the details about. Those who fed you and Kambil the poison intend to control our group, but you’ll be pleased to hear that there’s no longer a danger of that.”

“Why not?” Bron demanded, but with less bluster than usual. “We still need to take their damned counteragent, don’t we? And while we’rediscussing it, how did
you
manage to end up in control of this whole thing? My servants tell me that you weren’t affected at all, and that made me the least bit suspicious.”

“Suspicious that I’m the one who caused all this?” Delin said lightly, making no effort to avoid the accusation. “To be perfectly honest I wouldn’t have minded being the one, but it so happens that I’m not. Here’s the note which came with the first delivery of the counteragent.”

He produced the note and handed it over, and Homin held it while the other two read over his shoulder and along with him. When they’d all finished and looked up again, Delin gestured to the note.

“You’ll notice that they expected all five vials of counteragent to be used up, but that turned out not to be necessary,” he told them. “The poison must have been administered in the food of our ‘celebration,’ the food I wasn’t permitted to share. Pure luck made me too depressed to eat my own meal, so I was saved what the rest of you went through. But more importantly I had no need to
use
my vial, so its contents were available for analysis. I now know what the counteragent consists of, and I’ve personally made up a batch of it. You all had some of it this morning, and if it hadn’t been properly done you would be back in pain right now.”

“So we won’t have to take their orders, whatever those orders turn out to be,” Homin said, relief clear in his manner. “We won’t even have to have the vials picked up, which ought to tell them exactly where we and they stand.”

“But we don’t
want
them to know where we and they stand,” Delin pointed out sharply as the others agreed with Homin. “We want to know what they’reafter, and also who they are. And as long as they believe their plan is working, we won’t have to worry that they’ll think of something else to try that we
won’t
know about. The second package of vials was left for us, so I had it picked up as though we really needed it. Here’s what the accompanying note says.”

Delin drew out the second note and opened it, then read aloud, “Greetings to our illustrious leaders. We trust that you’refeeling much better now, but there’s no need to thank us in words. We have only your best interests at heart, as all loyal citizens should. For that reason we ask you to show your thanks by naming certain people to the Advisory Board. These men are all strong and capable, and will guide you properly in the running of our empire. The Advisors you have now are nothing but incompetent fools, who take orders rather than give sound advice. You five are in no position to give those orders, as you have no experience at all in running an empire.”

“At the moment, only a very few people know that your Seating was made possible more by the efforts of others than by your own. It happens to be in our own best interests as well as yours to keep this fact private, but arrangements have already been made to spread the word far and wide if any attempt is made to discover who we are. We expect you to learn the composition of the counteragent fairly soon, which is why we now tell you about our other preparations. One thing, however, won’t be learned from the counteragent: the fact that the
antidote
to the original poison is of another composition entirely. If anything happens to us, your five will need to take the counteragent for the rest of your lives in order to remain free of the pain—and eventual death. We suggest that you ponder these matters well before you take any action against us.”

“Our next missive may well contain the names of those we wish put on the Advisory Board. Right now we are in the midst of compiling that list, which is far from easy. Most of our really capable brethren have … disappeared, in one way or another, which was rather foolish of you. An empire like ours cannot be ruled through the efforts of any five people, no matter the strength of their talents. The various shortages now suffered by those in this city ought to have taught you that we speak the truth. Our hopes in that are sincere, and we remain, your loyal supporters.”

“The nerve of those bastards!” Bron growled, mirroring Delin’s own feelings. “Trying to tell
us
what we can and can’t do! And now we do have something else to worry about besides the counteragent, a couple of somethings. I don’t like the way these people always seem to be a step ahead of us.”