Tyrant Trouble (Mudflat Magic) (20 page)

I
touched it again, to the side, then above, then below. Had he tricked me? Had
he raised his hand to mislead me, then touched some other stone, the stage
magician thing of watch my right hand so you won't see what my left hand is doing?
I had barely been able to see what he did. But why would he try to mislead me?
Had he guessed I would return this night? Was I an idiot to believe anything he
told me? Was he waiting now in his room to hand me over to Ober's guards?

Frantic,
I felt around the rock's edge, searching for the latch stone. I could stay here
until daytime when Ober and Alakar left their room and then, if I hadn't frozen
to death, I could climb through their wall opening. But where would that get
me? Guards must constantly patrol the corridor beyond their door.

Or
I could return to Tarvik and tell him what I had overheard. And how would I
explain why I'd decided to spy on his aunt and cousin? He said he trusted me,
which could be useful, and, wow, would my turning up now put paid to that idea.

My
fingers touched a smaller stone, set slightly deeper in the wall, and almost at
the point I had thought Tarvik touched. I pressed it. The door opened.

So
he had not tricked me and my suspicions were unfair. Not much consolation
there. It meant Tarvik really did trust me more than I trusted him, which put
me in the unpleasant position of knowing I did have an obligation to help him.
Hate being obligated, because in my experience, being in some guy's debt is
never a good thing.

CHAPTER
12

Have
I mentioned that a thousand years ago, when I was sixteen, I dated Rock Decko?

Rock
in black leather and chains was, uh, hot. And I was sixteen. Which I hope
explains why I thought he was hot.

He
wasn't much older than me, two or three years, I think. Rock was into
motorcycles, worked in a cycle repair shop, and really, really, really wanted
to be a bad boy but had no special skills. I am talking fighting skills. He
couldn't possibly have held his own in a Hell's Angels type of dust up. So he
hung around the edges when bikers came into the shop, soaking up their wild
stories and believing them, then putting himself into the lead role.

I
can still hear him telling me, “Babe, this dude came at me, had a knife this
long, thought I'd back off, blah, blah, blah.” He had me fooled for about a
month. I was really impressed in that teenage nuts way.

“Weren't
you scared?”

“Nah,
babe, nothing scares me.”

Did
I mention he was a really good kisser? Sixteen is easy to impress.

Fortunately,
he didn't own a car and neither of us had a room to go to or money to rent one
and hadn't figured a path around that little obstacle. Also, fortunately, Rock
hadn't yet been tapped to be a wizard. Most smash wizards don't know they are
wizards. It isn't genetic, at least not where I come from. It's more
accidental, like discovering you're a natural on the oboe. And that happens
when a music teacher hands you one and says, “I think you might be good on
this.”

With
wizard mentality, the line is, “Do you sometimes wish for something and are
surprised when it happens?”

Rock
and I were a twosome before his big moment. While necking in the back booth of
the pizza parlor, because necking on a bike is really hazardous and I have a
few scars to prove it, I'd come up for air and tell him about my astrology
training, some of it with the local astrologer, some with my gran.

“You
can tell fortunes? Hey, can you pick winners, you know, like for a Seahawks
game?”

Verboten,
every astrologer knows that, not because it is illegal but because one teeny
error can earn you a lifelong enemy, so I told him of course not.

That
isn't why we broke up. Another guy tried to hit on me, nothing obnoxious, the
sort of thing I could have turned off with a polite, “That's my boyfriend over
there.”

Rock
didn't give me a chance. The guy touched my arm, just touched, didn't grab, and
asked my name and could he buy me a beer. I was on my way back to the booth
from a rest room run. I didn't even get a chance to tell him I stuck to diet
coke because even in Mudflat they card.

The
bad boy wannabe saw us and flew out of the booth swinging a chain and then
there was this damn messy bloody mix-up, with the owner tossing us all out into
the parking lot. I left and headed home. Buses stay clear of Mudflat at night.
I had to walk. Lots of time to think. Sure I wasn't a brain but at least I knew
a violent boyfriend could be a girl's worst nightmare.

I
told him so the next time he phoned.

Funny
thing, that. He didn't argue, didn't say he was sorry. I heard later that some
other girl helped scrape him up off the parking lot pavement where Mr. Pick-Up
turned out to be the tougher of the two. And so I put Rock Decko out of my
mind.

Sure,
when my cousin Jimmy introduced me to Darryl Decko, six years later, I
mentioned Rock. Darryl said, “My half-ass brother? Sorry you've met him, honey.
I don't have anything to do with him and he's not crazy about me, either.”

And
I was dumb enough to believe him.

After
the Decko boys, and a list of guys in between, is it such a surprise that I
avoid letting myself be indebted to good looking young men?

The
troll is a different story. And speaking of the troll, old Lor was about as
attractive and therefore, yes, I trusted Lor.

Peeking
out around the edge of the doorway, I saw it was still night-black. No one
guarded the long wall on this side of the castle. I closed the stone door and
moved in the building shadow toward the trees.

A
shadow separated from the others. My breath stopped.

Old
Lor whispered, “This way.”

I
hurried to him and whispered back, “We heard Ober send you away.”

“Aye,
but I waited.”

We
circled around the back of the temple, past the stables and up the other side,
watching from the far wall until we saw that no one stood near the gate except
two temple guards. Yeah, tonight there were two of them. Had the guards decided
that themselves? I didn't know what their rotation was so maybe this was
routine, something they did when there were others around. Maybe they didn't
like Ober and company any more than I did.

When
they opened the gate for me, their torches lighting my way, I glanced back and
saw the silhouette of Ober's manservant across the hill, a tall form of hood
and narrow cloak. I hadn't had time to do his horoscope and I didn't much want
to because I had seen the evil washing through Ober's heart and that was
enough.

Lor
was right to lead me to the gate. Now no one would suspect secret entrances.
They might wonder how I had left Tarvik's room and slipped past them, but this
was not their castle. I doubted they knew every exit. They would figure there
must be a door from his room to an adjoining room, with that room opening to a
different corridor. Or they would believe I was magic.

That's
the most useful thing about superstitious people. They are easy to fool. Oh
right, a policeman once said something like that to me about fortunetelling.

Nance
waited for me, wringing the hem of her tunic in her hands and blinking back
tears. She sputtered complaints about the lateness of my return, then touched
me and sobbed that I was chilled through and would probably come down with
fever. After wrapping a blanket over my cloak and pushing me down among a pile
of sheepskins, she pressed a cup of hot tea into my hands and insisted it would
warm me. I sipped at it, wishing it was coffee, brandy, even their bitter mead,
almost anything other than tea. When she settled down, I told her what had
happened.

“It
sounds to me as though Tarvik suspects we also have a secret door, probably
because he does,” Nance exclaimed. “Be careful, Stargazer. If he ever discovers
our way through the stables, we will become prisoners in this temple.”

“He
trusted me with his secret. Isn't that worth something?”

“Who
can be sure of Tarvik? He is safe enough now but someday he will rule and marry
Alakar. That will change everything. Those who rule do not remember their
friends. Think of Kovat. He prayed with the priests of Thunder until the
Daughter of the Sun cured him. Then he was quick enough to turn against them.
Those who did not escape fell beneath his sword or died in prison cells.”

“Tell
me more about this Daughter and her consort. “Do you remember them?”

“I
remember them, but it was long ago. I was a child when they died. They were both
kind to me.”

“Nance,
do you know how she cured illness? How did she cure Kovat?”

“I
only know what I have been told. Fifteen years ago the Daughter and her consort
arrived here from the afterworld, from the home of the gods. I was an infant.
Tarvik was four. His mother had already died, as had my mother and father.
Kovat lay on his deathbed.

“When
the Daughter saw him, she…oh, it is so long since I have heard this tale, let
me think. Yes, she lay her hands upon him and prepared a drink for him and the
fever left him. He knew then that she possessed great magic.”

About
what I'd guessed. She gave him a swallow of tea or mead or whatever, probably
used to wash down a dose of antibiotic.

Nance
added, “No one can do that but a god. Now tell me what Ober said. And what she
did.”

I
told her what Ober said. Neither of us was sure what she meant. As for what
Ober did, I knew of only one person who could explain that.

“Nance,
is there some way we can speak with the magician of Thunder?”

“Speak
with him? First you request a secret meeting with Tarvik, now you want the same
with the magician. Are you mad?”

“I
need to talk to him. He might know what sorts of tricks Ober uses. Knockout
drops? Poison? I don't know much about drugs, but some are made from wild
plants. We need to tell him what I saw Ober mixing and find out what it is. Can
he be brought here?”

Nance
did her drama queen thing, flung herself back against her pile of sheepskins
and tossed her head from side to side, exclaiming, “Life was so easy for me
before you came, Stargazer. Tarvik did not suspect me. Ober's guards did not
watch me. I went where I chose when I chose. And no one ever asked me to invite
a magician to the temple. Stargazer! His eyes hold terrible magic!”

“Okay.
Don't give it another thought.” I gave her my widest smile. “If it is you and
me that Ober wants to be rid of, and those were her words, I will patiently
await my fate.”

Nance
jumped to her feet. Her small fists beat the air. “You are terrible! Wicked! I
cannot think why I listen to you! Oh, have your way. But if the magician's eyes
turn my heart and mind forever against you, it will be what you deserve.”

“Don't
look at his eyes, girlfriend. Let me talk to him alone.”

“And
who will keep him from killing you?”

“Why
should he kill me? What would it gain him? No, we'll give him something he
wants. Besides freedom, what would he want, Nance? Something I can hand him?”

“Food
and, oh, I cannot believe I am planning this with you! It is madness! I cannot
allow it!”

While
Nance moaned and sobbed and shouted her opinions of me, I went outside and
heated water over the courtyard fire, carried it inside, washed away the day's
dust, and then dried myself with a linen altar cloth. By the time I pulled on a
clean tunic and rubbed most of the water from my hair, Nance was almost calm.
Not screaming anyway.

She
no longer shouted. She merely glared at me.

“You
win,” she said. “I can think of only one way to do this and when Kovat returns
he'll punish us all. I will send word to Tarvik to order the magician brought
to us.”

“Will
Tarvik do that?”

“I
will not ask him as his cousin. I shall command him as temple priest. I shall
say the magician holds knowledge you must have to complete the task Kovat set
for you.”

“Clever
you. But let me make one change.”

Nance
clapped her hands over her ears and cried, “I do not want to hear it!”

I
said it, anyway. In the back of my addled brain an idea grew. I needed to know
more than what the magician might say in the presence of Nance and Tarvik.
“Nance, I don't want the magician brought here. Instead, tell Tarvik to have
his guards escort me alone to the magician's cell.”

Her
howls of protest should have kept me awake, but it had been a tiresome night
and I tuned her out.

Her
howls were nothing compared to Tarvik's anger. The next day we spent an
unpleasant afternoon stuck in the stale-smelling temple with Tarvik. Nance had
made me don temple robes, again, so I felt about as grouchy as he acted. He
could hardly believe my request much less consider granting it.

“You
want to see who? Have you gone mad?” he said.

There
were a whole lot of hard truths I was tempted to shout at him. But Nance was
right. If I was going to get my way, I had to let her win through intimidation.
For someone who didn't know that phrase, she had the behavior down pat.

Trouble
was, for all I knew the guy loved Alakar, or lusted for her. Hey, he was
nineteen and the girl was gorgeous. That bit about not wanting her was Ober's
thought, not mine. He tended to treat me like a pet, picking me up to toss me
on his horse, tucking in my hair so it would not be noticed, fastening my cloak
when I looked cold.

Oh
yes, he liked to hug me, and probably any other available female, and might
have progressed to grabby if I let him, but it was nothing more than flirting.
I knew that. I was entertainment, amusing him with my reactions to his teasing.

“I
speak for the Daughter of the Sun,” Nance chanted for the third time.

Tarvik
glared. He had left his guards in the courtyard, as requested, and entered
dressed in his temple garb of fur-trimmed cape and gold armbands. In his out
thrust hands lay his offering, a gold trinket cradled in a soft new temple
cloth. Today the cloth was another one of the linen ones I loved. I didn't have
much use for jewelry in the middle of the Olympic Mountains, but clean towels?
Definitely included on my want list. The silk ones served Nance's hobby nicely
but were useless when it came to drying my hair.