The Chained Adept (1-4)

Chapter 22

CHAPTER 22

*I don’t like this. The boy’s overdue.*

Penrys and Zandaril communicated silently. They were mounted and held all five animals quiet in the patch of woods on the edge of the little farm village that Tak Tuzap had named Lupmikya while they waited for the boy to return from his reconnaissance.

*He hasn’t moved much for half an hour.*

She’d had her mind on him as he worked his way into the center of town, but it was like following one fish in a multitude, with all the people going about their business in the early evening. She couldn’t detect any wizards, so she thought she could safely bespeak Zandaril, but she couldn’t shake her uneasiness, recalling how Zandaril had accidentally spooked the Rasesni spy that way. We don’t really know what they can do.

*You’d know if he was hurt, yes?*

She nodded in response to Zandaril’s question, confident he could make her out well enough in the dusk.

*There are Rasesni here—can you feel them?*

Penrys had wanted to stop and look at the books she’d brought with her from the spy, now that it would be possible to read them. Her fingers itched to dig into her pack and pull one out, if she could only strike a light.

*I don’t get that much detail.*

She could feel Zandaril’s hesitation, before he continued. *How do wizards fight each other?*

*Wish I knew.*

Biting her lip, she looked away from him in the dim light. *There were books in the index, in the Collegium, but they didn’t let me in everywhere.*

*In sarq-Zannib, they have contests, one on one. The winner is the more powerful.*

She saw him tap his forehead.

*And if he is a man of… bad character?*

He swept his hand sideways in front of him. *Several can overpower one.*

*Ah. So, no wizard-tyrants, then.*

His head dipped in the dark. *We call them qahulajab. But mostly it’s just feuds and boasts. Unorganized, like everything else. What the Rasesni are doing, that’s different.*

*Organized, as you would say.* She smiled to herself. *It’s a function of the devices for physical magic. You can accumulate tools, and that provides leverage. I imagine it’s like producing weapons on a large scale—now you can have an army. But, just like an army, it needs social and political organization, too. And people willing to be subordinate to the whole. They don’t have that in Ellech—too much independence.*

*Kigali has the organization, but not the wizards. Tun Jeju was ready to think that way. But what about Rasesni? What’s happening with them?*

She let Zandaril’s question hang unanswered, and concentrated on following Tak’s progress.

*He’s moving now. Two more coming with him.*

It didn’t feel right to her to let a kid take on this danger, but they were relying on his contacts and had to trust he could look after himself.

Seemed like Zandaril could pick the boy’s mind out, now that he was closer. *He’s left the other two back at the fence.*

Penrys waited for him to get there. *He’s upset about something. Bad news, maybe. His uncle?*

A low whistle penetrated the dark, and Zandaril whistled back.

Tak slipped back into the little hollow where they waited. “Found them,” he said.

“What about the two who came with you?” Penrys asked.

She felt his surprise. “Wizards, remember?” She smiled when she said it, and after a brief hesitation she saw his own answering grin gleaming in the night.

“I wanted to come back first, by myself. I know one of them, Zau Tselu, he was a friend of Uncle Tak. He vouches for the other one.”

She heard the echo of grief in his voice. “You heard something about your uncle, didn’t you?”

He choked. “I… I knew he was dead. Had to be.”

Zandaril murmured, “Not the same as hearing about it for sure.”

The boy nodded.

“They want to take you somewhere for a meeting, One of the farms. They’ve got a stable where we can put the horses and stuff for a while.”

*What do you think?*

Penrys snorted. *Well, I can monitor them well enough to tell when one’s about to betray us. Just before he pulls his knife out.*

To the boy, she said, “Well done, Tak. Go ahead. Take us to them.”

Tak Tuzap mounted his own horse and led them out along the margin of the field to join the two men waiting on foot at the fence nearest the lane.

Penrys detected suspicion but no malice in them. The first one, stout and middle-aged, held up a hand to stop Tak from introducing them and brought them in silence down the lane. She made no demurral. Introductions can wait. The second man, tall and elderly, followed in the rear, the gray in his braid visible in the faint light.

She kept her mind lightly on the half-dozen Rasesni-speakers in the area, but she was sure none of them were wizards. That didn’t mean that no one else in the village would betray them—there was no way to tell what hostages had been taken and how each person’s situation would shape their actions.

They walked quietly for twenty minutes along the grassy roads on the outer edge of the main settlement, and then at last turned away from the distant lights and back towards the woods. When they reached it, the samke, the farm compound, was a dark mass cut out of the sky, and Penrys sensed no one inside, or anywhere nearby, besides themselves. There was enough starlight to make out the side path that led around back to a stable, barn, and other outbuildings, all as deserted as the main compound—no livestock in the fields or the paddocks, and no recent smell of them, either.

She shivered. Had they been victims of the invasion here, or did they leave for somewhere else?

Their guide drew back the bar that closed the stable door. They dismounted and he led them over the threshold with all their animals. He raised his hand when Zandaril was about to speak, and the question died unuttered. Both of the villagers walked the length of the stable, seven empty stalls and one still filled with straw for bedding, and closed every wooden shutter. The stout one even laboriously climbed the ladder into the loft, and Penrys heard shutters drawn together there, too. She listened to him grope with his foot for the top rung, and then make his way back down in the pitch blackness.

Finally, the old man struck a light and touched the wick of the lantern he’d carried all the way. The sudden light dazzled Penrys’s eyes for a moment before they adjusted.

Zandaril sneezed from the dust that had been stirred up, and Tak let loose a startled laugh.

The boy caught the eye of the stout man. Something he saw there reassured him, and he bowed to him. “Zau-chi, these are the wizards, Zandaril and Penrys, sent by Commander Chang.”

To his own travel companions, he said, “My uncle’s friend, Zau Tselu, and Nek Kazu. They said they’ll listen to you.”

Zau said, at once, “We make no promises, mind. Rasesni are bad enough.” He scowled at the boy. “You said nothing about a Zan and…” He waved his hand dubiously at Penrys.

Zandaril bowed. “We want only to find out the truth of what has happened in Neshilik, binochiwen, not to cause you any further trouble.”

Penrys nodded. It was clear the villagers distrusted foreigners, and wizards, but that was no surprise.

The two men looked at each other. The old one said, “If you’re found, we shall deny we ever saw you, you understand? It’s too risky. They’ve taken some of our youngsters in to serve them.”

Penrys looked him in the eyes. “We won’t betray your help, and the boy’s already proved his own courage.”

Zau said, grudgingly, “Aye, his uncle would’ve been proud of him, that’s a fact. Down the gorge and back over the Red Wall, is it?”

He considered them. “Well, no light outside at all, none of you. This family won’t be coming back, but there’s neighbors might wonder if they saw a light or any of your beasts. We’ll be back come morning with some food and maybe the yankatmi, the headwoman. You all stay put, hear? No wandering around.”

Zandaril bowed again. “We’ll do whatever you ask, and thank you for your hospitality.”

Zau thinned his lips, but made no reply. They left the lantern behind on the floor of an empty stall so that its light would be masked when they opened the stable door to leave.

It creaked on its hinges, and Penrys listened for the sound of the bar being thrown to shut them in, but it didn’t come.

Zandaril chuckled. “Thought they’d lock us in, after all that.”

“I thought they’d be pleased to see you.” Tak Tuzap’s disappointment was clear in his voice.

“Never mind,” Zandaril told him. “There’s Rasesni blood in the old families here, from before, and they’re remembering their great-grandparents and wondering if they can just all get along again. Might not want the army showing up and forcing them to choose. ’Sides, having their kids or grandkids held hostage is a powerful incentive to leave things be.”

Penrys picked up the lantern and inspected the stalls and the leftover tools. “There’s not much here, but we’ve got our own canvas buckets if we can find some water. Must be a well somewhere in the yard. The hay still looks fresh enough, and we’ve got grain in the packs.”

She hung the lantern on a high hook over the main aisle. “Let’s get the animals settled and catch what sleep we can. We’ll see things more clearly in the morning.”