The Brazen Gambit (28 page)

She was here.

"Pavek-?"

That was Ruari's voice calling him out of the fog, and Yohan's heavy hand steadying his shoulder. He shrugged
the hand away.

"She's here. She's still here, still alive. I heard her."

"Pavek-whatever you're doing. Stop!"

Stop what? he wondered, then he felt it, the same swirling power he felt in the groves of Quraite. Quraite-the
name, the place he shouldn't remember, mustn't remember. Confused and moaning, he wound his fingers in his hair,
twisting it tightly until there was enough pain to take away the fog, the faces, and-finally-the name itself.

The mote of emptiness in his memory had returned. The name and everything associated with it was gone. He
sank into a deep squat, trying to understand what had just happened.

"What was that all about?" Yohan demanded.

"An evocation," Ruari said, his voice as shaky as Pavek felt. "You evoked something... something. Hamanu. Did
you evoke Hamanu?"

Pavek looked up in time to see Ruari fumbling with the medallion. "No," he whispered, still mystified, himself.
"Not Hamanu. I don't know.... It felt like-" The emptiness loomed around him, and words failed utterly. "I don't know,"
he said, and repeated the phrase several times.

"A guardian."

He denied it, and Yohan swore; but Ruari was certain. "Guardians arise from the spirit of Athas," he said, as if he
were reciting one of Telhami's lessons. "But a guardian isn't Athas. It's what makes one aspect of Athas different from
all the others: one mountain, one grove, one stream-one unique something."

"There's nothing here," Yohan objected. "Buildings and people. They've sprawled over everything. There's
nothing left for a guardian."

"Urik. Urik's here. Urik's unique."

Pavek stood up. He pressed his palms against the wall of House Escrissar and closed his eyes. The presence was
there: Urik, far older than the sorcerer-kings-massive, and powerful. It rose to meet him, and he stepped back, letting
the power subside once he had sensed what he needed, and nothing more.

"She is here."

The smoothed and painted plaster of the templar quarter facades did not extend to the midden shafts, where
unfinished brick provided a multitude of handholds for three men climbing to the roof. Like most wealthy Urik
residences, House Escrissar was built around a courtyard filled with fruit trees, fragrant flowers, fountains, and pools,
and lined from ground to roof with an arbor of berry-vines. The courtyard was quiet except for the fountains. It was
dark, too, with only a faint dappling of light seeping through the tracery of a few of the many rooms that faced the
courtyard. It was also deserted-or so Pavek devoutly hoped. Neither experience nor logic suggested where they
should lower themselves from the roof to the upper story of living rooms, but, having come further and survived
longer than any of them had expected, they grew more cautious with each passing moment.

"Are you certain?" Yohan asked when Pavek hoisted his leg over the balustrade.

"I think she's here. I think she's alive. I think this is the way. But I'm not certain of anything. Pick some other
place, if you want. This is the way I'm going."

And the way Ruart and Yohan followed: swinging down from the roof into the vine arbor whose support slats
sank ominously beneath both him and the dwarf. For several moments, they paid more attention to their footing, then
Pavek heard an all-too-familiar voice:

"... Now or later, my dear lady, dead or alive. It makes no difference to me, but I will have your secrets. Your
guardian can protect your past; I possess your present and your future. Remember that each time you resist."

Silence followed and a sense that the night had become darker. Pavek caught Yohan's arm as he surged toward
the voice they'd heard.

"She's there. I have to go to her-" Yohan's tone was urgent, mindless.

Pavek could scarcely restrain him. "Do you want to get us all killed? Or die in front of her? Or do you want to get
her out?"

The dwarf relaxed. "Get her out."

"Then we've got to wait."

Yohan seemed resigned until Akashia screamed. "I can't wait. He's hurting her. I can't resist-"

"She is. She's resisted since you left her, and she'll go on resisting until we get her out!"

"It's that window, there," Ruari softly interrupted them. "I can climb and look through the tracery and see what
we're up against. I'm light enough."

"Go ahead," he said, giving Ruari's arm a light, well-meaning nudge for confidence's sake.

"Go with Rkard," Yohan said more soberly. The next moments were the longest of Pavek's life. Akahia moaned,
Escrissar taunted, and Ruari had completely disappeared. Someone wearing a yellow robe and carrying a lamp came
and stood not an arm's length away in a corridor in the other side of the tracery that supported the berry arbor. Pavek
held his breath until his lungs were burning.

The templar went away. Ruari returned.

"It's a small room with one door," he whispered. "Kashi's bound on a bench with cushions. He doesn't touch her,
just stands there behind his long black mask, clicking his long black claws against each other-"

"He's an interrogator," Pavek interjected. "He doesn't need to use his hands."

And Yohan quietly swore a bloody vengeance.

"There's someone else in the room. Shorter and standing in the shadows. I couldn't see him clearly. But I think
he's wearing a mask, too."

"The halfling. His face is covered with scars; it looks like a mask. Anyone else? Any guards? Templars?"

"Kashi and two men wearing masks. That's all I saw. What do we do now?"

"We wait. He's an interrogator, one of the best. They make the prisoners do the hard work. He'll leave her alone
so she can think about what he's done, and what he's going to do. We'll move while he's resting, and she's helpless."

"You're beasts, all templars, every last one of you," Yohan murmured. "Worse than beasts. You've got no
conscience."

Pavek didn't argue.

They waited, listening, hoping Escrissar would end the torment for the night, and expecting that the midnight
gong would strike at any time. Getting through the streets to the wall-passage would be much more difficult and
dangerous after curfew. Then, without warning, the moment came: the light in Akashia's prison dimmed through the
tracery and two black-robed men, one quite tall, the other noticeably shorter, came along the corridor. They held their
breaths and looked away, lest a flash of light reflecting off an open eye would give them away.

"Let's go."

The lightweight tracery panels of precious wood came out easily. They moved into the corridor. Pavek and
Yohan unsheathed the long obsidian knives Telhami had provided for them. Ruari, who admitted no skill with edged
weapons but claimed to have learned something about picking locks from his elven relations, went a half-step ahead.
The mechanical lock was simple and the door flimsy enough that they could have battered it down with little trouble,
but Ruari was quieter and almost as quick. Using a fragile contraption of straw and sinew, he eased the bolt free. It
struck the floor behind the door with a thunk that common sense insisted was no where near as loud as it seemed to
three jittery men in the corridor.

Ruari reached for the handle. Both Pavek and Yohan grabbed him before he clasped it and pulled him aside. The
door swung toward them of its own weight. Standing out of harm's way, Pavek caught the handle with the tip of his
knife. He let it swing open.

"Kashi?" he whispered.

"Pavek!"

The voice was feminine, but the woman who came out of the room with a short-sword in her hand wasn't
Akashia.

"Dovanne." The only light came from a oil flame inside the room, but Dovanne with her cropped hair and
serpent-circled arm was unmistakable.

She'd been the lamp-bearing templar who'd gone down the corridor. He hadn't seen her face or her arm. Still, if
they had to face a templar guard, she was the best they could have hoped for. Dovanne took one look at him and came
on guard behind her sword. She didn't care about Ruari and Yohan dashing past to rescue Akashia. She didn't care
about anything except spilling his guts on the floor and wouldn't sound an alarm or call for help until she was finished
with him.

Dovanne, being smaller, had a slight advantage in the confined space of the corridor, but otherwise they were
evenly matched. Her iron sword had a guard that offered some protection for her wrist. It also had a curved blade and
had been sharpened along the outer edge only. His obsidian knife was a composite weapon, cheaper than metal, but
every bit as deadly, with curved wedges of sharp black glass carefully fitted into a straight, laminated wood-and-sinew
blade. It was long as her short-sword, had a naked hilt, and was razor-sharp along both edges and at the point.

She feinted first, a probing cut toward his weapon-side wrist. He parried and she withdrew. The blades sang-gray
metal against glassy stone-but softly: neither of them wanted to attract attention. He dropped his guard two
hand-spans, inviting an attack. She remembered that move from the countless times they'd bouted against each other
while they were friends.

"Take a chance," he taunted in a hoarse whisper. "You always said I was slow."

Yohan and Ruari had gotten Akashia unbound and were trying-without much success by the sound of it-to get
her on her feet. Dovanne heard the same sounds and belatedly realized what was happening in the room, what would
happen to her if she failed her duty to Escrissar.

Beginning her attack with a low slash to his off-weapon thigh, which he had to parry, Dovanne tucked and rolled
into Akashia's room- "Yohan!" he shouted as loudly as he dared. She came up to her feet with the sword poised for a
downward slice-

He knew her well enough to see the thoughts forming behind her eyes: two against one. She was going to call for
help.

"This one's mine," he announced, beating Yohan's knife aside with his own and praying that the dwarf would
guess the strange rules of this particular game.

It didn't really matter whether Yohan understood or not, he was interested in Akashia, not Dovanne.

Dovanne tried another attack when the dwarf turned his back, but Pavek was waiting. They traded feints and
insults.

The room was bigger in all dimensions than the corridor, despite being crowded. The advantage swung to him,
and he made his first serious attack: a quick beat against her blade then a thrust at the soft flesh below her ribs. She
countered fast enough to make him miss, and they sprang apart.

There was movement at Pavek's back: a loud-oooff-as Yohan scooped Akashia over his shoulder, effectively
removing himself from any possible defense or attack as he scurried toward the door. Dovanne could see them better
than he could, but he could see the desperation take command of her face. Ruari had Yohan's knife, but anyone with
half the experience he or Dovanne had could see that the half-elf didn't know which end to point into the wind.

Desperation called Dovanne's shots: One all-out attack against him. If she nailed him, she'd have the other two,
hands down. She'd come out of this a hero.

He saw the feint coming and parried with the middle of his blade, leaving the point in line. She came low with a
counterparry, trying to get under his guard for an upward slash at his groin. But he was ready with a thrust. He gave
the hilt a twist as the point pierced her skin and pushed the blade through to her spine.

"Pavek...."

Her knees buckled, the sword-as fine a weapon as was likely to come his way-slipped from her hand. He released
the obsidian knife's hilt; she fell to the floor, and he picked up the metal sword.

"Pavek...." She held out her serpent-wrapped hand.

The wound was mortal; he knew the signs. He had her weapon, and she wasn't going to do anything treacherous
with his. For the sake of the past, he bent down and took her hand. She squeezed with uncanny strength, trembled and
grimaced as she pulled her head and shoulders up. He dropped to one knee and laid the sword down, thinking to put
his arm behind her neck as she said her dying words.

A gob of bloody spittle struck his cheek, and she went limp.

He retrieved the sword and wiped his face on his sleeve, then he hurried down the corridor to give his
companions a hand lifting Akashia to the roof.

"There's no way," Pavek muttered, shaking his head. Still in the templar quarter, on a street not far from House
Escrissar, he huddled with Ruari and Yohan, Akashia slumped against his side, barely able to stand, oblivious to him
and everything else. Yohan had carried her down the side of House Escrissar; the dwarf would carry her forever if he
had to, but he couldn't carry her out of the city, at least not the way they'd entered it: the passage was too narrow, too
low, with too many tight corners.

"She's got to walk on her own."

Neither Ruari nor Yohan answered, there being no reply to the obvious. He steadied Akashia with his hands on
her shoulders, then stepped back. She tottered once from side to side, then her knees gave out completely, and she
would have fallen if he hadn't gotten his arm around her quickly.

"What's wrong with her?" Ruari demanded.

"You're the druid. You tell me," he replied, sharper than necessary, sharper than he'd intended.

His nerves were raw. They'd had no trouble-yet-other than the obvious problems Akashia herself had given
them, and Yohan had wrestled successfully with those-so far. He didn't trust luck, not at times like this.

The quarter echoed with the clang of brazen gongs, but: those were only domestic gongs summoning household
members home from their evening activities before the great city curfew gong struck at midnight. House Escrissar itself
remained dark and quiet, unaware, it seemed, that a woman lay dead on an upper-room floor and the prisoner she'd
guarded was missing.

For all Pavek had a dozen worries about Akashia, it was Dovanne's face that loomed behind his eyes: her face
twisted with mortal pain and hate the instant before she died, and her face as it had been years ago. He told himself he
had no regrets, that Dovanne certainly wouldn't let his dying eyes haunt her, if events had gone the other way. They'd
had no choice tonight or ever, either of them.

But he still couldn't get that look out of his mind.

"I said: I'm no healer!" Ruari's hand struck his arm, demanding attention. "Wind and fire, Pavek, you're not
listening. What's wrong with you?"

He truly hadn't heard the words the first time Ruari must have said them, but something in the words-or tone-of
the repetition penetrated Akashia's mindless daze. She whimpered and buried her face against his neck, but when he
put his other arm around her, she stiffened, then began to tremble.

His own helplessness in the face of Akashia's need drove Dovanne at last from his consciousness, replaced her
death-mask with a black mask and talons. He'd come back. Escrissar would answer for what he'd done.

But first they had to get Akashia out of Urik.
"Pavek!"

"Think fast," Yohan suggested. "Curfew's going to ring soon. Inside or out, we can't be here when it does. Don't
suppose you had any friends who might do you a favor? A woman, maybe?"

Dovanne returned, hard and angry, and remained with him until he shook his head so vigorously that Akashia's
trembling intensified, and she clutched his shirt in fists so cold he could feel the chill through the coarse cloth. Telhami
could heal her, he was certain of that, but getting her to Telhami wasn't going to be easy.

He saw no other choice except to go to ground for the night and hope that sleep and food-which they could buy
in the morning market-would restore her enough to make the rest of the journey possible.

But go to ground where? The places of his life: the orphanage, the barracks, the archives, and even the
customhouse paraded themselves before his mind's eye. Of those, the customhouse, with its myriad maze of
storerooms, might be a last-chance refuge-a very last chance.

There was Joat's Den, near the customhouse, where he'd done his after-hours eating and drinking, but Joat
wasn't a friend to his customers, and the Den stayed open well past curfew. Besides, there was a reason he'd spent his
off-time at Joat's: they couldn't go there without being seen by the very templars whose attention they were
determined to avoid.

There was one other place, filled with such mixed memories that he'd forgotten it entirely, even though it was
where he'd spent his last night in Urik: Zvain's bolt-hole beneath Gold Street, near Yaramuke fountain. Considering his
leave-taking, Zvain was likely to be less a friend now than Joat, but he would take them in-if only because with Yohan
and Ruari beside him, they would be three against one.

And maybe tomorrow he could complete the circle by taking Zvain out of Urik with them. There were four kanks;
they could do it

"Now, Pavek. Now!"

"All right. I've... thought of a place. We'll be safe there."

Yohan took Akashia in his arms and lifted her to his shoulder. "Where? How far?"

"A bolt-hole under Gold Street." He started walking. "Belongs to an orphan I knew-" He was going to say more,
then reconsidered. "He'll take us in, that's all."

Three disparate men marching through the streets with a human woman draped over a dwarf's shoulder wasn't
uncommon in a city where marriage was frequently a matter of slavery or abduction. They drew a few stares, but the
people who stared were hurrying home, even here in the templar quarter, and not inclined to ask any questions.

They had an anxious moment at the gate between the templar quarter and the rest of the city, but apparently no
respectable household had reported a missing young woman. Pavek's explanation that his sister had run off with the
wrong man-along with a hasty shower of silver from Yohan's coin poucti-saw them into the next quarter of artisans and
shopkeepers with nothing more than a warning to be off the streets by curfew.

The alley where the Gold Street catacomb began had taken a beating in the most recent Tyr-storm. Most of the
debris had been scavenged clean, but larger chunks of masonry covered the cistern that, in turn, had covered the
catacomb entrance.

Pavek swallowed panic-he hadn't considered what the storm might have done to Zvain's bolt-hole; hadn't, he
realized gazing on this small disaster, truly considered what might have happened to Zvain, either. But the catacomb
would have survived-the bakery attached to the alley made more money renting space dug out from its cellar than it
made from its ovens, and Zvain... Zvain had managed before he'd arrived-he'd have survived his leaving as well.

Pavek glanced around quickly and spotted another cistern. It proved empty and fastened to a slate slab. He had
them underground before anyone else realized things weren't quite the way he'd expected them to be.

By night the catacomb was as dark as the Dragon's heart They stumbled into each other, the walls, and the
occasional door. There were dozens of people living here, all aware that strangers walked among them. Whispers and
warnings disturbed the still air, but no one interfered. Still, Pavek stifled a relieved sigh when he finally felt the familiar
wickerwork patterns beneath his fingers.

"Zvain?"

Nothing. He waited and whispered the name again.

Still nothing.

The bolt-hole might belong to someone else entirely; Zvain might have found a better place to live-he certainly
hoped that was the case, but it was equally likely the boy's luck had gone bad rather than better.

It didn't matter. The curfew gong would clang any moment now. There was no place else for them to go. Pavek
drew his sword-Dovanne's sword; and a loud, unmistakable sound in the darkness-then, squeezing the latch-handle
from habit more than hope, put his weight against the flimsy door.

The latch-bolt hadn't been thrown; the door swung wide into a quiet, apparently empty room.

The bolt-hole was musty with the smells food made if it dried out before it completely rotted. Food... or bodies.

Swallowing hard and wishing for a torch or lamp, he went inside.

His hand found the shelf beside the door, the lamp, and a flint sparker: all as it should be, and light revealed the
bolt-hole as he remembered it last-exactly the way he remembered it last, even to the slops bucket on its side a few
steps from the rumpled bed.

Before he had considered the implications, Yohan brushed past with Akashia, and the moment was gone.

They put her on the bed, where she sat, knotting the frayed linens through her fingers, but she wouldn't lie
down. When Ruari asked if she was hungry and offered her a heel of bread from his belt pouch, she gave no sign she'd
heard the question until he waved the bread directly in front of her eyes. Then she took it into her hands, tearing off
crumbs, which she savored slowly. But she offered no conversation, no sign that she recognized them.

"She'll be better in the morning, when she's had time to rest," Ruari said, as much a question as a statement.

Pavek and Yohan exchanged worried glances and otherwise ignored the half-elf's comment. There was an outside
chance Ruari was right. Physically, Akashia seemed unharmed. Her face was drawn, with dark smudges beneath her
eyes and hollows beneath her cheekbones, but there were no cuts or bruises that he could see. She wasn't starving,
and her clothes were clean, as was her hair. In outward respects, Escrissar had cared well for his prisoner.

But Pavek knew how interrogators got their answers. He'd heard her moaning and, looking into her beautiful but
vacant eyes, he feared that in her determination to keep Telhami's secret, she'd sacrificed everything that had made her
human.

Most templars, in a final act of brutal mercy, would-slash the throat of a prisoner when they were done
questioning him, but though interrogators would question the dead without hesitation, they boasted that they
themselves never killed.

'There were those who would prefer her in this empty state: an especially vile breed of slavers traded in
mind-blasted men and women, a breed scorned by their flesh-peddling peers-a sobering condemnation when he
considered it. Other than keeping her from that fate, Pavek didn't know what manner of mercy he could give Akashia if
her wits didn't come back. Right now, that wasn't his problem, and that was mercy enough for him.

"Grab some floor and get some sleep," he advised Ruari and Yohan. "I'll take the first watch."

He threw the latch-bolt and put a slip knot in the string dangling from it, to slow down anyone-the missing Zvain,
included-who might try the door while they slept. Then he pinched the lamp wick, and except for a faint cast of
moonlight through the isinglass stone set in the ceiling, the bolt-hole became dark. Akashia made small, panicked
noises that left him sick with anger toward the interrogator who'd imprisoned and tormented her, until Yohan-Pavek
assumed it was the dwarf by the way the bed creaked-whispered soft assurances that quieted her.

The sound of one person comforting another was strange to Pavek's ears. The act simply hadn't occurred to him.
He wouldn't have known what to say or do. Kindness had played little part in an orphan-templar's life. It had never
seemed a serious loss.

Until now.

Urik was quiet above them. An occasional foot fell across the isinglass: a mercenary patrol, exempt from curfew
and paid to guard the property of Gold Street. Templars weren't welcome here. Merchants didn't trust them. Pavek felt
safe with his back against the door and the gentle rumblings of sleep all around him.

And through that quiet darkness, Dovanne came to haunt him. He'd expected mat, with the bitter grief burning
deep in his throat and behind his eyes. He wondered what if anything would have changed if he'd known how to
console her as Yohan consoled Akashia, those years at the orphanage. Probably they'd both be dead-too soft and
sentimental to survive in the templarate.

The bed creaked. Pavek rose into a crouch on the balls of his feet, the sword he had never sheathed angled in
front of him.

"Stand down," Yohan muttered, pushing the blade aside. He was a dwarf; he could see in the dark. "I'll take
over." "How is she?"

"Better, I think. She said my name, but I don't know if she knew I was beside her. I'm coming back, Pavek."

"So am I."

"Thought you might be. First, there's tomorrow. We're going to need a cart. She's not going to be able to walk. I
could carry her to the Temple of the Sun. We're not poor-" "Not if you got four gold pieces every time you delivered a
load of zarneeka." Once again, Pavek heard himself speaking more harshly than he'd intended. Even a night-blind
human could see-feel-the scowl suddenly creasing Yohan's face.

"For emergencies," the dwarf said, defensive and angry and shuffling away through the dark before adding: "Go
to sleep."

And Pavek stretched out where he was, thinking that it was easier to master druid magic than life outside the
templarate, where people cared about each other and mere words held an edge sharper than steel.

Curfew ended and the day began in Urik not with sunrise but with the orator's daily harangue from a palace
balcony. Pavek was awake and listening as the first syllable of the morning laudatory prayer to Great and Mighty King
Hamanu struck his ear. There were the usual admonitions and announcements, nothing at all about a death or an
abduction in the templar quarter. But then, he hadn't truly expected to hear any. The templarate cleaned its house in
private; his own denunciation had been unusual-

Which reminded Pavek of the earth cleric, Oelus, who had called him 'friend' and who was a healer. He'd never
known which aspect of earth the cleric venerated, which of the many earth temples in Urik he called his home: a large
one where his talents and choices might be overlooked, or a small one where his word was law? Either way, Oelus
would be worth the risks associated with finding him-if Akashia still needed a healer.

The harangue was over. Pavek stood up and stretched the night-cramps out of a body that was getting too old
for sleeping on the bare ground. His companions were awake and blocking his view of Akashia.