The Outworlder (21 page)

“Don’t you understand?” Brytnoth breathed, as
if vistas had just opened before his eyes. “I see it all now! It’s
the perfect plan to exterminate our entire race—the entire human
race. On every planet.”

Jared stopped gnawing and slowly withdrew the
stubborn seed from between his teeth. “What do you mean? What plan?
What are you talking about?”

“It’s so simple! Why do you think my people
were on that ship? They drove us off our homeworld after they had
dwindled our numbers to almost nothing. The Dragon-Lords rule
through fear and with such utter tyranny that we’re sure to
rebel—and then they kill us off quickly. When we suffer their rule,
they kill us slowly. And finally, when we are almost extinct, they
force us onto ships and send us to wander the void of space
until….” He broke off abruptly.

Jared felt himself begin to breathe again.
“Until what?”

“Until one by one, we die…and the ship, with
no one to pilot it, crashes into the desert….”

Jared stared at him in silence, feeling the
horror mass itself like ice in the pit of his stomach. “My God,”
Jared murmured. “I’d never thought about it that way.”

He remembered what he’d said to Sahara the
morning before the battle:
You’re just giving them the chance to
die quickly.
And that would mean that Sahara, for all her ideas
about freedom, was just a cog in the wheel of the machine, turning
the gears of their extinction all the more quickly. It would
infuriate her to know that, he was sure.

There must be another way, then
, he
thought.
Another path to freedom.

Jared suddenly jumped to his feet. “I have to
go, and you’re coming with me. There’s someone you need to meet,
and I want you to tell him exactly what you just told me.”

Brytnoth nodded and rose without a word.
Together, they made their way back up the slope to the
fortress.

“And what is your hurry, my son?” Childir
demanded when Jared flung open the door of the sage’s quarters
without so much as a knock. “And who is this new face?” He fixed
Brytnoth with an intense stare. “Another outworlder?”

“Yes, my lord. This is Brytnoth. Arnauld told
me that he wandered into Albadir out of the desert some four days
ago. The rest of his story is better if told in his own voice.”

“So? Speak, outworlder.” Childir folded his
hands and waited.

Brytnoth, his voice halting at first, told
Childir what he had already told Jared. When he finished, Childir
sat back in his chair.

“What do you make of this tale, Jared?” he
asked, never taking his eyes from Brytnoth’s face.

“It begins to make many things clear, my
lord,” said Jared. “Look at our world—look at what’s happened to
us! We’re a single city in the midst of the desert, and after this
last assault on the Dragon-Lords, our numbers are so few! What’s to
stop the Dragon-Lords from swooping in, rounding us up, and
deporting us…sending us to wander the void?”

“Yes, yes, I see that.” He drummed the tips
of his fingers together and pursed his lips. “And you have told him
about Sahara?”

“What about Sahara?” Brytnoth asked, glancing
at Jared. Then he turned back to the sage. “He hasn’t told me
anything about her…or at least, nothing I didn’t already know.”

Childir’s eyes flickered at Jared for a
moment, and Jared thought there was the faintest hint of amusement
in their depths.

“Is that so?” Childir said. “Well, what do
you know about her?”

“I know that she’s an outworlder like me, and
Jared said she was supposed to be a slave in the labor camps of the
Dragon-Lords, but that she escaped.”

“Is that all he told you?”

“Yes.”

“Hmmm.” Childir studied Jared’s face for a
moment, and then said briskly, “Well, if you stay in the city,
you’ll hear a good deal about her.” He seemed not to see Brytnoth’s
startled and disappointed face.

“Now, Jared, tell me,” Childir continued,
turning to his former pupil. “Do you think this is a serious
possibility? That what has happened to Brytnoth’s homeworld might
very well happen here? That this is all part of some grand
design?”

Jared hesitated before answering. “I think it
could be, my lord,” he said finally. “But they won’t do it yet. Not
until…not until their ancient rites have been satisfied. But once
that’s accomplished, I see nothing to stop them from destroying
us.”

“And will you take this to Arnauld?” Childir
asked. “Do you think it wise to disturb his mind with speculations
like these right now, when we have sustained such losses from this
latest assault?”

Jared regarded the old man curiously. Arnauld
had a right to know what was in his mind. But Childir’s question
made it sound like he wanted Jared to conceal it.

Why? Why would he not want Arnauld to know
what Brytnoth has to say?

“I recommend you keep silent for the moment,”
Childir continued. “What use would such counsel be? What
preparations could Arnauld make if that is the Dragon-Lords’
plan?”

Jared caught Brytnoth’s eye. He was
frowning.

“He is the ruler of the city,” Brytnoth said.
“He has the right to know what happened to my people.”

Childir ignored him and fixed his gaze on
Jared. “I warn you against this, Jared. You do not know what such a
revelation could set in motion. Don’t speak a word of this to
Arnauld.”

Jared glanced from one to the other, a
horrible suspicion beginning to take root in his mind. Brytnoth was
right…Arnauld had the right to know. What harm could possibly come
from telling him? But there was a strange light in Childir’s eyes
now, a fierceness that Jared had never seen before. And then,
suddenly, everything crystallized.

This was no idle warning.

It was a threat.

Heart pounding, Jared forced himself to
shrug. “I’m sure you’re right, my lord,” he said. “Arnauld has
enough to worry about at the moment. And this is probably just my
imagination running wild. I’m sure the ancient rites will be enough
to appease the Dragon-Lords, and they’ll spare us, just like they
always have. And Brytnoth’s memory of what happened to his
homeworld is probably confused by his time out in the desert. He
told me as much himself.”

“That’s right.” Childir nodded slowly, and
although he smiled, the fierce light in his eyes didn’t fade.
“That’s the most reasonable explanation for everything.”

Jared stood abruptly and laid a hand on
Brytnoth’s shoulder. “Thank you, my lord, for hearing us out. A
foolish boy’s questions and a mere daydream, I’m afraid. I’m sorry
we bothered you.”

“You’ve given me much to consider,” said the
sage, pressing his fingertips together. “Come again soon, my
son.”

Jared bowed his head and propelled Brytnoth
out the door.

He set off at a furious pace for his own
chambers, and Brytnoth had to jog to keep up with him.

“What’s the matter?” he asked. “What happened
back there?”

Jared only shook his head. It was almost more
than he could process, and he didn’t need Brytnoth’s questions. He
had to think, and thankfully, Brytnoth seemed to take the hint.

It wasn’t until they had arrived back in
Jared’s own chambers with the door securely bolted that Jared
finally turned to him.

“That may have been a fatal mistake,” he
groaned, swearing softly and pushing his hands through his dark
hair. He dropped into a chair and crossed his boots on the
table.

Brytnoth sank down in the seat across from
him. “Why? What are you talking about? Please explain what happened
back there, because I don’t understand.”

Jared rubbed his jaw fiercely. “A mistake.
Fatal. Or nearly fatal.” He swore again and slammed his fist down
on the table. “Of all the stupid…I must be utterly blind.”

Brytnoth stared at him, his face a web of
helpless confusion.

“Look,” Jared continued with a frustrated
sigh. “Childir is the sage of the city. He’s its chief healer, its
holy man. He leads us in prayer, he offers the sacrifices.”

Brytnoth nodded. “I gathered that he was a
seer from his study,” he said. “Dried herbs, powders, manuscripts,
caged birds—”

“I congratulate you on your powers of
observation,” Jared interrupted. “The point is that he’s consulted
on everything, and especially on matters of high and secret
importance. Plans, for instance.”

“You mean like the plans for the attack on
the Dragon-Lords two weeks ago?”

“Yes.” Jared leaned forward, his voice low.
“Sahara and I couldn’t figure out how they knew we were coming.
They were ready for us. They knew we would come, and they knew how.
Though neither of us said it at the time, I think the word
betrayal
was in both our minds.”

Brytnoth’s face drained of color. “Oh…”

“I see that you begin to understand me,”
Jared said. “And I told him things about Sahara….” The memory made
his face flame with rage. “And now we just revealed our suspicions
about the Dragon-Lords’ plan for universal domination. He knows we
suspect. And that means he can pass along a warning…up the
timetable, maybe. I don’t know.”

There was a long silence.

“So what are we going to do?” Brytnoth
asked.

“I don’t have a clue.” Jared gnawed on his
thumbnail. “But I’m afraid for Sahara. I’m afraid we’ve compromised
her somehow.”

“I don’t understand that part at all,” said
Brytnoth. “She’s still in prison, right?”

“Well, yes, for the moment. But they’re
bringing her back here. She’ll be offered in ritual sacrifice in
atonement for our rebellion and for her assassination of the
Dragon-Lord chieftain on her own homeworld.”

Brytnoth’s eyebrows shot up in surprise at
this, but he said nothing. Jared leaned his elbows on the table and
buried his fingers in his hair.

It was a staggering blow, the suspicion that
Childir had betrayed them. Childir had been his mentor, his
friend—a father to him when his own father had been taken from him.
And now, though he suppressed the feeling with everything he could
muster, it was as though his father had died all over again and
left him to face a world that he felt he neither understood nor had
the strength to navigate alone.

At least I never told him that I love
her
, he realized suddenly.

The thought arrested the frantic thrashing
within him and a sudden smile flooded his face. For some reason, he
felt that this small thing was the thing that mattered the
most.

“This fight isn’t over yet,” he said. “We may
still have a chance. He’s missing a key piece of information, and
we have to be sure it stays that way.”

“What information?”

Jared looked at him steadily. “To protect
you, that must stay with me and me alone.”

“You don’t think I’m a traitor too!” Brytnoth
exclaimed, his dark eyes flashing.

Jared cocked an eyebrow at him. “Should
I?”

“Of course not!”

“Time will tell, I suppose.”

“So you won’t tell me anything more, will
you?”

“No.”

Brytnoth sighed and shrugged. “I guess
that’ll have to be fine with me.”

“Listen,” Jared said. “I need some time to
think. I’m going down to the library, if anyone asks after me.” He
stood, and Brytnoth rose as well. “I’ll meet you for dinner.”

Brytnoth hesitated at the door. “We’re going
to go after her, aren’t we? I mean, we’re not just going to let
them kill her, right?”

Jared drew a breath. “That’s what I’m going
to try to figure out.”

“Brytnoth said I’d find you in here.”

It was Rafe’s voice. Jared lifted his head
and squinted toward the doorway of the library. Rafe stood there,
half blocking the late afternoon light.

“What are you doing?” Rafe asked, stepping
into the gloom of the musty chamber.

Jared leaned back in his chair and pressed
the palms of his hands into his eyes.

“I don’t know,” he groaned. “I’m looking for
something, I guess.”

Jared sat up and pushed three different
tomes, each of ponderous size, across the table at his friend. Rafe
glanced at them, then the corner of his mouth twisted up in a
half-smile.

“What do you expect me to do with these?”

Jared jerked his head toward an empty chair
and Rafe sat down. “Well, there’s this thing called ‘reading’,”
Jared remarked, a smile spreading across his own face. “You might
try it sometime.”

“That’s what I have you for!” Rafe said. “I
wouldn’t deprive you of the pleasure.” Then his grin disappeared.
“I know you love studying and all, but you’ve never spent this much
time in this place in your life. What are you looking for,
really?”

Jared sighed. “You know what’s happened to
Sahara? What they’re planning?”

“Vaguely. Brytnoth told me. Something to do
with an ancient ritual of sacrifice, am I right?”

“That’s right.” Jared sank back into
reflection.

“Jared?” Rafe leaned forward and peered into
his friend’s face. “What are you looking for?”

“For a way to save her,” Jared said.

“And you think the answer is in these books?”
Rafe pulled one towards himself and stared at the open pages. Dense
script filled the page and elaborate scroll-work dominated the
white spaces of the margins. “How can you even read this? It makes
me cross-eyed just to look at it!”

Jared’s mouth twisted into a grin. “I’m not
reading the text,” he said. “That one’s about methods of
fertilizing the edulia orchards. And some of them would make you
think twice about eating any of the fruit, believe me!” He leaned
over and tapped his finger on the page. “No, look at the marginal
drawings. Here, at the bottom of the page.”

Rafe looked at it, then bent down and
squinted. After a moment, his eyes widened and he sat up slowly.
“Is this what I think it is?”

“I think so.”