The Outworlder (19 page)

A servant set a goblet of spiced wine in
front of him and he drank deeply. The rest of the men sat down
again and waited for him to speak.

“First,” Jared said, replacing the goblet on
the table, “I want to know what’s happened since my absence. And
then I’ll tell you whatever you want to know about my own
adventures.”

“Rafe can tell you better than I what
happened on the battlefield,” Arnauld said, nodding to the younger
man across the table.

“There’s not much to tell,” Rafe answered.
“After Sahara left with her picked squad, we waited under that
escarpment as she had commanded. But when the harbingers began
their warning, we retreated to the city. She didn’t come back that
night, and neither did any of the men she had taken with her. We’ve
been waiting two weeks for some word of you. And that’s all we’ve
done. Wait. Things have been quiet. Too quiet. It’s strange.”

“Strange indeed,” Jared agreed. After a
moment, he spoke again. “After the last rebellion, they came. They
laid waste to every village and outpost between Albadir and their
fortress. But there’s been no retaliation this time? Nothing at
all?”

“There’s been no sign of them! We brought all
our people inside the city walls for protection—all the outposts
are abandoned and the villages are empty. We send scouts out every
day, but there’s been no movement from the fortress since the
attack.”

“In some ways, that’s worse than if they had
come for retribution,” said Jared. “I’m afraid their silence means
there’s something else more terrible to come.”

“That’s our fear as well,” Arnauld said. “But
now tell us what happened to you! We can discuss the Dragon-Lords
after we feast your safe return.”

Jared took another draught of his wine, then
began his tale. “When Sahara called the retreat, I figured that
she’d try to seek out the mountain pass into the fortress. It was
something we had discussed as a last resort, a fool’s hope if all
went badly. When she called the retreat, I slipped ahead of her to
scout the path, intending to wait for her at the pass. But I never
got that far. The pass is being patrolled again, as I found out too
late, and by two of the Dragon-Lords themselves. They had me pinned
down and bound before I could escape.”

Arnauld gave a low whistle. “You’re fortunate
that they didn’t gut you on the spot,” he said.

“I know it. But they didn’t want my blood.
Not yet, anyway. Gagged and bound as I was, I couldn’t warn Sahara
not to attempt the pass. They dragged me onto a hovership, and I
waited there for what felt like hours. And then….” His voice fell
away, and a puzzled frown appeared between his brows.

“And then?” prompted a young man sitting
opposite Jared.

“Ah….” Jared rubbed his forehead. “It’s
difficult to….” He stopped again, and then shrugged. He might as
well tell them everything. “Well, suddenly I could see what was
happening below me somehow. Not with my eyes, you understand. But
somehow I knew. And I saw Sahara’s men, one by one, fall into
shadow behind her. The Dragon-Lords disposed of them quickly, I
think. But she didn’t know. She didn’t see. And then….” Again his
voice faltered, but he continued without a prompt, “And then I
called to her without my voice, and she heard me.”

There was a stunned silence around the
table.

“Jared, we’ve all heard that legend about
some mythic power that allows people to communicate without
words…mind-to-mind, as it were. But that’s just a fable…a story for
children!”

“So I thought too…until it started happening
to me,” Jared said wryly.

“And you’re sure she heard you?” the young
man across from Jared asked.

Jared glanced at him once, and then
again.

“I don’t know you,” he said, his voice edged
with suspicion.

“This is Brytnoth, Jared,” Arnauld explained.
“He came into the city out of the desert three days ago and has
been recovering here since.”

Jared stared into Brytnoth’s eyes until the
young man’s gaze wavered and fell. His eyes were not Silesian, and
Jared wondered where he had come from. He opened his mouth to ask a
question, then hesitated. Instead of asking a question of his own,
he decided to answer Brytnoth’s and get on with his tale. There
would be time later to figure out who this stranger was.

“Yes, I’m sure she heard me,” he said. “I saw
her fall to her knees. She must have heard me. But that was all I
could do. She saw she was alone, and then my vision faded. When I
could see again, I saw only the innards of the ship, and she was
lying next to me, unconscious, gagged, and bound.”

The servant refilled Jared’s goblet and then
returned to his place against the wall.

“They took us to the prison moon of
K’ilenfir,” Jared continued, nodding his thanks to the servant. “We
were put in the same cell bay. But when the guards discovered I
could sing, they started to let me out to entertain them at their
board. Sahara lay in some kind of sleep for days. She only woke the
day I was released.”

Arnauld laughed. “I don’t think any one of us
ever thought your blasted singing would get you out of
trouble!”

“It did, and more. It allowed me to
overlisten their conversations.”

“What did you learn?” Brytnoth asked, a
little breathless.

Jared studied him again, noting the eager
flush in the young man’s face, the starry brightness in his eyes.
Too many questions surrounded this stranger from the desert. Too
many to ask and answer that night.

“A great deal, in fact,” Jared sighed. “It
hardly seems possible that I was there for two weeks. The guards
were loose with their counsel, I sang many a drasty tune, and then
they set me free.”

“But tell us what you heard!” Arnauld
insisted.

“Sahara was a popular topic.” His jaw closed
against some of the things he had heard them say—things that made
him clench his hand into a fist so hard that the knuckles
cracked.

“What did they say about her?”

“Well, for instance…” His voice faded and he
ran his finger along a grain of wood in the table. “For instance,
do you know why she was on that prison ship bound for the
Dragon-Lords’ labor camps?”

“She never told anyone why. She just said
she’d made a miscalculation…or something like that.” Arnauld
glanced around, and the men all nodded their agreement. “Did you
find out something about it?”

“Yes, I did.” He hesitated again. “She was on
that ship because she had assassinated the Dragon-Lord Chieftain on
her own homeworld.”

There was utter silence in the room. Jared
raised his goblet and drank, watching the men over the rim of the
cup.

“I’ll…I’ll…” Arnauld didn’t even have voice
enough to curse.

“She killed him? You’re sure they said she
killed him?” Brytnoth asked.

“She killed him.” Jared slowly rotated the
cup between his hands, watching the wine swirl like a languid
whirlpool. “But she was captured immediately afterwards. She
attempted too much. Caught him in his own chambers, they said, and
put a dagger through his heart. But she didn’t have an escape, and
they found her in the hall before she could make it out.”

Again there was a deep silence.

“My God!” Arnauld breathed at last. “That
explains a great deal. A very great deal. About her plans, I mean,
and her certainty that we could win.”

“It does, indeed.”

“But where is she now?” Brytnoth asked.

Jared’s eyes flashed at Arnauld. “She hasn’t
come back yet?”

“No.”

Jared stared at him, and then slowly looked
around the table. “Then she’s still on K’ilenfir. Alone.” His
thoughts tumbled madly, and then suddenly crystallized. He turned
to Rafe. “That’s why there have been no attacks on the city,” he
said. “They’re waiting.”

“Waiting? Waiting for what?”

“For the Council to decide what to do with
her.” He stood abruptly, and everyone else rose with him. “I’ve got
to go.”

“Go where?” Arnauld asked.

“I need to think.”

“But, Jared, won’t you take a little food at
least?”

Jared jerked his head no and strode out of
the hall.

Outside, the sun was glaring in the western
sky. Jared’s eyes glimmered, their silvery luminescence drowning in
pools of darkness. Dusk was near, and he could feel the gentle
brushings of the night winds beginning. He stood in the courtyard
for a moment, breathing the last fresh air of the night. Then,
suddenly and decisively, he turned and went back inside the Great
House. He went past the dining hall, taking the winding corridor
that wound around behind the hall to the kitchen.

The cooks were still busy at their work, and
there was a noise of pots and an aroma of stewed meat and fruits.
His stomach protested his fast, but he ignored it. He turned away
from the kitchen, following a narrow passage that ended in an oak
door. Once through this, a set of steep stairs greeted him, and he
ascended them three at a time.

Without warning, the stairs ended in yet
another doorway. Jared paused, listening. There was no sound of
pursuing footsteps, and he heard no noise from within the chamber.
A pungent smell seeped under the door, the smell of the spicy red
globe fruit
edulia
that grew in the oasis
gardens. Jared inhaled the fragrance, and a memory sliced into his
consciousness.

Laughing. Sahara was laughing, staring up
at him as he sat in the
edulia
tree,
drinking in the smell of the ripening fruit.

“
Why are you laughing, Sahara?” he asked,
irritated by the interruption. “There’s nothing funny
here.”

“
It’s just…” Something seemed to make her
suddenly awkward, and the color blossomed on her cheeks. “I’ve
never seen a man so enthralled by fruit before.”

“
That’s because you’ve never tried one of
these before.” He plucked a fruit, heavy with juice and radiating a
sweet, spicy scent, and then jumped down next to her. “Taste it,
and you’ll understand.”

She took the fruit he offered and bit into
it. As the juice exploded in her mouth, she looked at him. There
was something in her face that he did not understand—fear,
confusion, delight, surprise, tears. He bit into the other half of
the fruit and studied her, feeling a gentleness that he had never
known.

“
Why are you crying?” he asked
softly.

“
You wouldn’t understand.” Her voice was
fierce, but he felt its hollowness.

“
Try me.” He took another bite, and then
offered the fruit to her again. Her eyes met his for an instant, a
silent no-but-yes-but-no in their depths. He opened his mouth to
say something, but she was gone before he had the chance.

Jared drew in a jagged breath that restored
him to the present moment. The stone stairwell, the heavy door, the
spicy scent of
edulia
.

“God,” he muttered, shaking his head. “What’s
wrong with me?”

Still unnerved by the force of the memory,
Jared turned the handle and pushed the door open noiselessly.

Childir sat at the table, surrounded by piles
of old manuscripts and dried bunches of herbs. A plate, heaped with
slices of
edulia
fruit and a thick wedge of cheese, sat on
the table next to his elbow. Though he did not look up and though
Jared had made no noise, he seemed strangely aware of Jared’s
presence.

“What business?”

“I need advice, my lord Childir,” Jared said,
bowing low.

“You are welcome, my son. Come and sit.”

Jared closed the door behind him and went to
the seat that Childir was indicating with the end of his quill pen.
The old man returned to scratching some notes on a parchment as
Jared took his seat. Jared clasped his hands, letting his head hang
down almost to his knees, and waited.

“Now, my son,” said Childir after a moment,
“speak the heaviness in your mind.”

Jared raised his head and took a breath. “My
lord,” he began, but stopped.

Too many questions tumbled through his mind,
and he still felt that he wasn’t in complete possession of his
senses.

“The
edulia
disturbs you?” Childir
asked, seeing Jared’s eyes fixed on the plate. “Or do you want
some?”

“No, by God, or I won’t be able to speak!”
Jared said quickly, shaking his head violently to suppress the
memory that was threatening to intrude once more upon his
consciousness. Childir studied him intently and Jared cleared his
throat. He knew that if he didn’t say something quickly,
uncomfortable questions were bound to be asked, so he blurted all
at once, “My lord, tell me about the speech that travels between
minds with no voice to utter it.”

Childir’s eyes flickered for a moment, and he
set down his quill and folded his hands. “Why do you ask? It is not
something one can seek, this power.”

Jared sighed. “I don’t seek it, my lord. It
has sought me, and found me, it seems. And I want to know why, if
possible.”

“How do you know it has found you?”

“Because I’ve used it.”

There was a long silence. Childir never
moved, but his eyes fixed intensely on Jared. “With whom?”

Jared clenched his jaw for a moment. “With
Sahara.”

“Ah. The outworlder.”

“Yes. My lord.”

Another silence fell, dragging on
uncomfortably. Childir studied him with such insistence that Jared
felt he was being read like one of the old man’s manuscripts.
Though not easily intimidated, he shifted in his seat and cleared
his throat again. The situation reminded him of a moment of similar
discomfort in his youth, the summer he had served as Childir’s
apprentice. He had been caught one morning eating a fruit that the
sage was saving for a scholarly experiment, and he had been
subjected to exactly this sort of silent interrogation.

“Do you love her, my son?” Childir asked at
last.