Destiny (37 page)

"Idresia, I need to talk to you," a rather big man said from the doorway. He'd opened the door, but hadn't come in. "It's important."

"Well, don't just stand there, Jobry, come in and sit down," Idresia said with a smile. "We're getting ready to go out to eat, but we can spare a few minutes to listen."

"I'd like to think I'm not about to spoil your appetites, but I probably am," the big man said as he approached the large table and took an empty chair. Kail had thought at first that the man wasn't very bright, but that decision had been because of the man's looks. Once he began to speak, however, it quickly became clear that there was more to the man than his appearance.

"I don't like the sound of that," Idresia said, losing her previous amusement. "In case the rest of you don't know it, I haven't had my people stop looking and listening just because the Nolls are no longer a problem. I was hoping there would be nothing for them to look at and listen to, but the precaution seems to have turned out to be necessary. What have you found out, Jobry?"

"I was in the Tiger Tavern, pretending to drink," the big man replied at once. "A man came in alone and began to drink heavily, and before long he also began to talk to himself. A lot of what he said was slurred or mumbled, but he repeated himself enough that I probably didn't miss much if anything. He was drinking that heavily as a celebration of sorts, because 'the madman' had apparently found a different victim and now the drinker believed he was no longer on the spot. I say believed, but I think it was more a matter of hoping desperately."

"Do you have any idea what madman he meant?" Idresia asked, her frown much like the one Kail could feel on himself. "And, for that matter, what spot he'd been on?"

"I couldn't very well let the matter go, so I pretended to be just as drunk as the mumbler," Jobry answered with a sigh. "I also used my Earth magic to keep the man just drunk enough to talk freely without passing out. It took some time to get the details, but the man has Spirit magic and he'd been running errands for Holdis Ayl."

"Not Ayl again!" Driff exclaimed, dismay clear in his expression. "They should have found and arrested him weeks ago."

"Well, they didn't, because Ayl is still trying to make trouble," Jobry said with a headshake. "He told the drinker that
he
would be the basis for a very special Middle Blending, one that Ayl meant to hand pick. The whole thing was supposed to be a secret, but Ayl still told the man that the special Blending would take over a High Blending one member at a time. Once all the members were under control, they would have the High Blending take over the government. Then the Middle Blending would run things, with the High Blending being nothing more than figureheads and guards for the real powers behind the throne."

"And Ayl would be the power behind the Middle Blending," Idresia said with disgust. "That plan is about a thousand times better than the one the Nolls came up with, and Ayl's six people would be worth that same thousand more than the three hundred guardsmen. We're just lucky that Ayl is so disturbed that he couldn't keep from boasting about the plan to the first person he picked out."

"Make that five people rather than six," Asri said with her own grimace. "I have the definite feeling that no Sight magic user would get involved with crazy people if they had the choice, and Sight magic gives you the choice."

"Not to mention the fact that Ayl probably can't spot someone with Sight magic," Issini put in. "He may be a renegade Guild member, but the Guild is only just learning to recognize Sight magic. Unless I'm mistaken, Ayl left the Guild some time before they began to learn that recognition."

"Jobry, did you get any idea of who Ayl got to replace the man you questioned?" Driff asked. "If we know that, it will save us a lot of work."

"The man knew nothing beyond the fact that his replacement was a woman," Jobry said with another headshake. "She also has Spirit magic, of course, and she
wanted
to work with Ayl instead of just being frightened into going along with a madman."

"That doesn't sound good at all," Edmin said, showing his own concern. "A Spirit magic user who isn't terribly enthusiastic about what he's doing can't possibly be as effective as one who wants to be involved. And the Spirit magic user is most likely the key to that proposed Blending, or else a different talent would have been chosen first."

"Because the first choice
would
be the key," Driff said, clearly agreeing with Edmin. "And since the first choice was Spirit magic, is it possible that the other choices weren't likely to be very enthusiastic either?"

"It's very possible, and that means the other choices might not go along voluntarily," Idresia pounced. "Or, maybe I should say the others might not
have
gone along willingly. If the rest of the Blending members have been chosen, they might be missing from wherever they belong. A smart man or woman would have had the chosen ones come up with a good story before they left, but maybe Ayl and his girl friend are too arrogant to have done that. If we're very lucky, there will be reports of missing people to give us an idea of who the Blending members will be."

"Let's get the people who are running the classes involved in this as well," Driff said after nodding his agreement with Idresia's idea. "They should have reports on everyone who's taken a class, and we might even get an idea of who that female Spirit magic user is. She has to be unstable to be willing to work with someone like Ayl, and the Spirit magic people kept very close track of everyone they trained. The talent allows for too many abuses if the person using the talent isn't completely well balanced."

"But there's one very large bright spot," Issini said after nodding her agreement along with everyone else. "If you can't quite see the brightness, think about what the major aim of that Middle Blending will be."

The man Jobry looked puzzled, but Kail found that he knew exactly what Issini meant. The madman's Blending would try to take over the members of a High Blending, but at the moment there weren't any Highs
available
to be taken over. All the High talents were frozen in place by something mysterious, and Kail could see that his Blendingmates understood that as well. Jobry alone seemed to know nothing about the problem, and Idresia smiled at him.

"Don't worry, Jobry, Issini is talking about something you don't yet know about," Idresia said. "It's also something we want to keep quiet, so please don't go digging around to find out. I know
you
can be trusted to keep what you learn to yourself, but your digging could very well give the information to someone who can't keep from telling 'just one or two people, people who know how to keep a secret.'"

"I know exactly the ones you're talking about, so I'll keep my curiosity to myself," Jobry agreed with a grin. "As long as you know that I
could
find out, and you do, I don't have to do any digging to prove the point. Would you like me to get people started looking for the information you need?"

"Yes, do, and recruit as much help as you need," Idresia answered, showing both amusement and approval before both emotions disappeared. "We need to get to the bottom of this as fast as possible, otherwise this entire city could blow up in our faces."

"Yes, I noticed that myself," Jobry said as he got to his feet. "I'll make sure you're kept up to date, and if we learn anything I'll get it to you immediately."

After seeing Idresia's nod, Jobry smiled at the rest of the people at the table and then he left. Once the door had closed behind him there was a short silence followed by Driff's sigh.

"We still need to get that meal, and then we need to get some sleep," he said. "Now that we have something else to worry about, we can't spend all our energy on the interviews - or expect to be able to think clearly after a long day of work. And remind me to ask Jobry what he did about his informant. I certainly hope he didn't leave the man to walk around without someone watching him. If for some reason Ayl contacts him again…"

Driff didn't bother finishing the sentence as they all stood up and headed for the door. If the madman contacted the drinker again, it might be possible to solve the problem quickly and easily. Otherwise Kail had the feeling that they would be in for something of a struggle…

Holdis Ayl walked directly to the shabby little house and threw open the door, only to confirm what his rage already knew. The five traitors who had been in the house were gone, and it was extremely unlikely that they would be back. If that scheming little bitch hadn't meant to escape unnoticed, she would never have had the Earth magic bitch violate their master…

"And I
was
violated, because that whore hid behind surprise," Ayl snarled, picking up a small table and hurling it against a wall. The table broke into pieces, but the destruction only fed Ayl's rage. That miserable female had made him believe she had no idea that her Spirit magic didn't work on him, and then she'd come sneaking up behind him with Earth magic! Ayl, just like other Guild members, could slide the various talents past himself even as he assessed them. But he had to flex the part of his own talent that did the sliding, otherwise he was affected just like anyone else.

"And she had the Earth magic bitch touch me
twice
when I wasn't looking!" Ayl screamed, pulling out a knife to slash at the chair he'd been sitting in. "I would have corrected my mistake if they'd stayed here to Blend, but she didn't
let
me correct my mistake! She took
all
of them, and now I don't know where they are!"

Ayl broke everything he'd had moved into that house, and then he slashed everything that was too large to break. His fury seemed unquenchable until exhaustion finally overrode everything else, and then he sat on the floor to breathe in gasps.

"I won't let her win," Ayl muttered as he fought for the air he needed so badly. "I
can't
let her win! My plan is perfect so it will work, but she can never be allowed to enjoy her victory. If I let her live then the rest of my followers will lose respect for me, and everyone
must
respect their master. I will be the master of everyone in this empire, so respect is of paramount importance. That means the whore must die, and so she shall. One way or another, she
will
die! I swear it!"

And with that vow Ayl got to his feet and stalked out to find the means he needed to kill a whore. A means that should even work for more than one whore, if the opportunity arose…

Chapter Twenty-Two

Honrita came downstairs feeling much better than she had the day before, the day she'd brought her future Blendingmates home. She'd started to work with the original three at once, keeping them under full control while she probed them one at a time to find out what had made them the pitiful specimens they were. Ayl had
wanted
them to be pitiful so they'd be easily controlled, apparently having no idea that their weaknesses of personality translated to weaknesses in talent.

But
she
knew that Kadri, Stelk, and Seeli were liabilities in their present condition, so she'd tried to do something about their lacks. Kadri was the daughter of a merchant whose entire family consisted of snobbish, foolish people who thought that being overweight was a boast of their superior place in life. Honrita tried to loosen the hold those beliefs had on Kadri, but the woman clung to them so stubbornly that Honrita finally had to overlay the original beliefs with replacements of her own. Kadri now thought that pleasant agreeability and moderation at the dinner table were the signs of superiority, and she would continue to think so.

Stelk Faron had presented a different problem. Stelk had apparently had a father who was extremely critical of everything and everyone around him, especially his own children. Nothing Stelk had done had ever been even as good as acceptable, not to mention satisfactory. Stelk grew up to be just as critical, trying to emulate his father as closely as possible in an attempt to finally find some measure of success, but of course he never did. His mind was so filled with self-doubt and lack of assurance that he probably wouldn't have known success even if he'd found it.

Again Honrita had tried to change the man's inner beliefs, and again she found those beliefs too deeply entrenched to move. But leaving Stelk unchanged was out of the question, so Honrita made him believe that constructive criticism was his greatest strength - and that he was admired for his
diplomatic
suggestions.

Seeli Tandor had turned out to be the hardest one to work with. The women in Seeli's family had been strictly and firmly taught that women weren't ever to "push themselves forward." Apparently that injunction covered independent thought as well as action, and Seeli had learned to do as her mother and older sisters did without once questioning the validity of the stance. Seeli would never have been considered a brilliant thinker, but even the small amount of individuality she might have shown was completely buried under the constant demand to do nothing but obey.

By that time Honrita had begun to feel her weariness, so she hadn't even tried to change Seeli's convictions. Instead she made the Air magic user believe that emulating the new Kadri was the most acceptable of actions, right behind the desirability of obeying Honrita. Then Honrita had rested while the other two women made dinner, and after the meal she had sent the others to their rooms and had herself gone right to bed.