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Mahtra came closer. Her bird's-egg eyes sparkled—actually sparkled—with excitement. "I can protect myself now!"
"Haven't you always been able to do that?" he asked, hoping for a comprehensible answer. She'd talked about the protection her makers had given her before, but she'd never been able to explain it.
"Before, it just happened. I got stiff and blurry, and it happened. But today, by the water, when I got angry at Ruari, I didn't want him to stop me, so I made myself afraid that he'd hurt me, and made it happen."
Pavek recalled the moment easily. "You made it stop, too. Didn't you?"
"Almost."
That was not the answer he'd hoped for. "Almost?"
"Angry-afraid makes the protection happen. When Ruari pushed me down, I wasn't angry-afraid anymore, I was sad-afraid, and sad-afraid makes the protection go away. I'm glad it went away without happening; I didn't want to hurt Ruari, not truly. But I didn't make it not-happen."
Pavek looked up into her strange, trusting eyes. He scratched his itchy scalp, hoping to kindle inspiration and failing in that endeavor, too. "I don't know, Mahtra, maybe you did learn how to control what your makers gave you: angry-fear makes it start; sad-fear makes it stop. If you could make yourself angry, you can make yourself sad."
"Is that good—? Making myself feel differently, to control what the makers gave me?" "It's better than hurting Ruari—however you would've hurt him. It's better than making a mistake."
"If I made a mistake, then I'd be responsible for it, like you? I want to be like you, Pavek. I want to learn from you, even if you're not Father."
He turned away, not knowing what to say or do next. It was bad enough when Zvain or Ruari put their trust in him, but there always came a point in those conversations where he could poke them in the ribs and break the somber mood with a little roughhousing. A poke in the ribs wouldn't be the same with Mahtra. With Mahtra, he could only say:
"Thank you. I'll try to teach you well."
And pray desperately for Initri to ring the supper bell.
Ruari came back during supper. Pavek didn't ask where he'd been, but he had a turquoise and aqua house-lizard the size of his forearm clinging contentedly to his shoulder, its whiplike tail looped around his neck. In itself that was a good sign. The brightly beautiful lizards had innate mind-bending defenses: they could sense a distressed or aggressive mind at a considerable distance and make themselves scarce before trouble arrived. Even Ruari, who turned to animals for solace when he was upset, couldn't have gotten close to the creature while he was angry.
Ruari unwound the lizard from his neck and offered it to Pavek. "My Moonracer cousins say that in the cities a house where one of these lizards lives is a house where friends can be found."
Friendship—the greatest gift an elf could give, and a gift Ruari had never gotten from those Moonracer cousins of his. Or offered, and that's what Ruari was offering. Pavek held out his hands with a heart-felt wish that the damn thing found him acceptable and didn't take a chunk out of his finger. It probed him with a bright red tongue, then slowly climbed his arm.
"I'll keep it in the garden," he said once it had settled on his shoulder.
They ate quietly, quickly, grateful for the food rather than the cooking. The question of baths and laundry came up. House Escrissar had a hypocaust where both clothes and bodies could be soaked clean in hot water, but it required a cadre of slaves to stoke the furnace and run the pumps. Mahtra said she'd take care of herself. Pavek and Ruari sluiced themselves as best they could at the kitchen cistern. They cornered Zvain and subjected him to the same treatment. Fresh clothing came out of the packs they'd brought from Quraite: homespun shirts and breeches, not really suitable for a high templar, but what remained of Elabon Escrissar's clothes wouldn't go around Pavek's brawny, human shoulders and Ruari would have nothing to do with them.
Ruari refused to sleep in a bed where Elabon Escrissar might have slept. Late evening found the half-elf spreading his blankets in the garden under the watchful, independent eyes of their new house lizard. Pavek considered telling the youth that he was a fool, that Urik was noisier than Quraite and the sounds would keep him awake, but those were the precise sounds Pavek was spreading his own blankets to hear throughout the night.
Midnight brought an echoing chorus of gongs and bells as watchtowers throughout the city signalled to one another: all's well, all's quiet. Pavek listened to every note, and all the other sounds Urik made while it slept—even Ruari's soft, regular breathing an arm's length away on the other side of the fountain. As the stars spun slowly through the roof-edged sky, Pavek tried to appreciate the irony: much as he enjoyed the cacophony of city life, he was the one who couldn't sleep.
Pavek's thoughts drifted, as a man's thoughts tended to do when he was alone in the dark. They took a sudden jog back to the cavern with its glamourous bowls and deceptive scaffolds, the noxious sludge clinging to Ruari's staff; oozing down his own leg. He imagined he could feel the slime again, and without thinking further, swiped his thigh beneath the blankets. His fingers brushed the soft, clean cloth of his breeches. For a heartbeat, Pavek was reassured, then panic struck.
Wide-awake and chilled from the marrow out to his skin, Pavek threw his blankets aside. Stumbling and cursing in unfamiliar su
rroundings he made his way from the garden and through the residence. He found his filthy clothes where he'd left them: in a heap beside the cistern. Viewed by starlight, one stain looked like another and there was no safe guessing which, if any, came from the cavern sludge.
There were bright embers in the hearth and an oil lamp on the masonry above it. Pavek lit the lamp and went searching for Ruari's staff, which he found against a wall, just inside the main door. Stains mottled the wooden tip. Lamp in hand, Pavek got down on his knees to examine its stains more closely.
"What are you doing?"
Ruari's unexpected question scared a year from Pavek's natural life—assuming he'd be lucky enough to have one.
"Looking for proof that we saw what we saw in the cavern." Pavek probed the largest of the stains with a jagged thumbnail. The wood crumbled as if it were rotten. Ruari swore and yanked his most prized possession out of Pavek's hands. He probed the stain and another bit of soggy, ruined wood came away on his fingertip.
The half-elf was sulky, stubborn, and quick to anger, but he wasn't stupid. He glowered a moment, thinking things through, then handed the staff back to Pavek.
"The Lion—he'd believe us, wouldn't he? I mean, you're the one he sent for, why wouldn't he believe you? He wouldn't have to ravel your memories. He wouldn't leave you an empty-headed idiot. That's just talk, isn't it?"
Pavek shook his head. "I've seen it done."
