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Hard as the ground was, generations of druid feet marching from village to grove and back again had left their mark on it. With nothing better to do as he walked, he'd learned to see the difference in color and texture that defined a path through the wilderness. He could even distinguish the more subtle distinctions that marked the lesser paths between the groves themselves. His lessons hadn't progressed beyond tiny, fast-evaporating spheres of conjured water or fire spells that were more smoke than flame, but he'd begun to build himself a map of Quraite in his mind: the village at the absolute center, surrounded by its cultivated fields and the wilderness between the village and the Sun's Fist, which was studded with groves-at least twenty of them, if he'd correctly identified the high-rank, grove-tending druids at supper.
And he'd done it all without asking questions. Some habits were harder to break than others. Pavek was getting used to the looser routines of Quraite life. He no longer flinched when someone greeted him with a smile. But he was still a templar in his heart, and templars didn't ask unnecessary questions because answers, especially honest answers, created debts.
Which was why, though he progressed toward his goal of druid mastery in a day with Akashia-there had been another pair of them since that first day when she'd challenged him to a race through her blind-grass meadow-he preferred a day in Telhami's grove. The old woman seldom asked questions, never personal ones, but Akashia, try as she might, couldn't contain her curiosity about the city, about templar life, about his own life, and-worst of all-about the differences between the lessons she gave him and those he received from Telhami.
As if a low-rank templar would ever venture an opinion about one superior to another!
Of course, both women insisted there was no hierarchy in Quraite. Share and share alike, they said. Speak your mind, they said: We value your thoughts, Pavek. Don't hesitate to tell us what you think.
Did they think he was a gith's-thumb fool? He could see that everyone bowed and scraped at Telhami's feet. They smiled and called her Grandmother, and she smiled back and said thank-you....
All very polite and civil.
Hamanu's infinitesimal mercy! He'd seen a hundred Urik festivals where children laid bouquets of flowers at the sorcerer-king's feet, and he smiled, and he said thank-you, and no one had a moment's delusion where the power lay or who had the will to use it, politely, civilly, and utterly without remorse or conscience.
Day after day they told him to send his mind into Quraite's heart, seeking the guardian. Did they think he hadn't found the bones beneath the trees? Did they think he hadn't guessed the fate of those who'd tried and failed?
Don't hesitate to tell us what you think, they said.
It would have to rain for a hundred days and a hundred nights before he'd stick his head into that trap. A thousand days! Or so he vowed to himself as he marched across the hard ground.
All Quraite loved her, but no one loved her more than Ruari-to which she, for all her bright curiosity, seemed oblivious. He wasn't. He'd eavesdropped on his neighbors' conversations at supper, learning bits and pieces of the half-elf's story. If their paths had crossed-if he hadn't been a boy himself when it happened-he'd've killed the templar who ravished the boy's mother; he'd done as much for the beast who ravished Dovanne and for the same simple reason he'd kill vermin or Elabon Escrissar: They were diseased and had to be eliminated before their disease spread.
It had already spread to Ruari. The half-wit scum saw the world through his scars, real and imagined; there was no use talking to him or trying to make peace. No matter what Akashia hoped or said-and she'd said more than Pavek wanted to hear, blind as she was to Ruari's adoration-they couldn't be brothers to each other. She saw herself as the boy's sister.
Everybody was blind to something. Akashia was blind to Ruari.
But leave him and the scum alone and they might be able to steer clear of each other. He knew he'd be content to ignore Ruari-but for the poison. He'd known exactly what he was doing when he confronted them; would have figured it out without Telhami's help, though not so quickly.
His gut still ached. Whether from the poison itself or the healing afterward he couldn't be sure-he didn't ask questions. The sight of food still made him nauseous, and he had to stop now and again as he walked to catch his breath.
Once the sun came up, as it had a short while ago, the only useful shade between the village and the groves came from the brim of a borrowed straw hat. There was no point to leaving the path to rest; when he got tired, he just sat down where he was, back to the east, where the sun was climbing, and making the most of what the hat and his shoulders gave him. With his eyes closed and his mind as empty as only a veteran templar could make it, he waited for his pulse and gut to settle.
They did, and before the hat got hot enough to burst into flames. He rubbed his eyes, got to his feet and, because he was a templar and was accustomed to having enemies, spun slowly on his heels, scanning his surroundings for anything that didn't belong. Nothing man-shaped-Ruari-shaped-had appeared, but there was something new, something to make him squint into the shimmering heat-bands along the southern horizon, the Urik horizon.
A fist-sized dust plume billowed there, raised-if he could believe his eyes-by a horde of black dots beneath it.
His first self-centered thought put Elabon Escrissar's name on one of those fast-moving dots, and he'd started back toward the village before common sense regained a foothold in his mind. He knew the whole story of Quraite, zameeka, Ral's Breath, and Laq, and how he, himself, had gotten bound up in it. But, there was no reason-no reason at all-for anyone in Urik to think a third-rank templar with a forty-gold-piece price on his head had found refuge at a distant druid oasis. There was no reason to think anyone in Urik knew Quraite's name and every reason to believe that Telhami and the guardian kept its precise location a well-secured secret.
So h
e turned about-face, retraced a hundred paces, and stopped again.
Something was on the salt plain. Maybe it would skirt the guarded land; he wasn't at all certain how Quraite's protective magic worked. But, maybe it wouldn't. Maybe the druids would know the instant a stranger set foot in their, private wilderness. But, maybe they wouldn't. There were trees everywhere, trees as high as the walls of Urik, without battlements and watchtowers.
Regulators patrolled the Urik walls sometimes, when King Hamanu dragged the war bureau off on campaign. It was light duty with clear-cut orders: Report what you see, within the walls or outside them. Do your duty and let superiors make the decisions.
Pavek spun around again and headed for the village.
The broad green crown of village trees loomed in front of him, distinct from the dust plume, which had not grown noticeably. Another black dot had appeared between him and the village. It was moving, growing, coming toward him, resolving itself into a dwarf's stocky silhouette.
Yohan, and immensely relieved that he wasn't going to have to trek all the way to Telhami's grove to deliver his message. The dwarf spoke first: "The elves are coming, they'll be here by midday. Grandmother and the others are waiting for them in the village. No lessons today."
"Elves?" Pavek stared at the dust cloud, asking himself if that was what he saw.
"Moonracers. The whole tribe of them, and their herd. And a barrel or two of honey-ale."
The dwarf came close and clapped him across the back, as casual a gesture as they'd exchanged, but his thoughts were still on the elves.
