Heroes Adrift (22 page)

She scowled.

I was either going to watch out for her, or I wasn't. None of this do and don't stuff. Because all I would do while she was away from us was worry, and I'd always be wondering whether she was going to pop up again somewhere. I had far too much occupying my brain as it was, without having to add something new and totally useless.

“All right,” she muttered. “Bag?”

I gave it back to her. “Bed,” I ordered in response.

She huffed and snarled and made a big production out of yanking free her blanket and returning to her tiny section of the tent.

Taro and I exchanged a long look but said nothing. There was no point. Everything would be overheard by the girl, who had apparently overheard too much already.

I didn't sleep at all that night. I was listening for noise of her leaving. And there was none. I almost resented her the next morning, finding her there. All that worry for nothing.

Still, I wanted to make sure I had nothing to worry about. I went to Kahlia's tent. “Are there slaves on this island?”

She blinked in surprise. “Slaves?”

“Aye.”

“Of course not.” Then she scowled. “So little you think of us. Primitive Southerners, is that it?”

“That's not it,” I said quickly, before she could work her way into a rant. “Someone mentioned it as though it were fact, and it surprised me, so I thought I would come ask. So sorry for disturbing you.”

She grabbed my arm as I prepared to leave. “Are you ready to practice?”

I had to love her. Insult with one hand and the expectation of compliance with the other.

But it was time to practice. And with all that we had been asking from Atara lately, it was in our own interest to be as amenable to everyone as possible.

“Aye, aye, just give me a moment to tie up my hair.”

So, no slaves in Golden Fields. As I suspected. But I would have sworn that Aryne had been telling the truth. Not that I was any expert at sniffing out lies, but something of her story had struck me as being sincere.

So, she was telling me a story.

Or, someone had told her one.

Another village, a tiny one, with a scanty collection of houses and little in the way of money. Not really worth stopping for, Beril was heard to mutter.

Apparently, Atara agreed with him. We performed our first night and throughout the next day, but the order came through to pack up the morning after that. Which was too bad. I'd been hoping to make it to the market to buy some new sandals.

Taro and I were in the process of rolling up our tent when we noticed the disturbance. Some shouting.

Aryne, tying up her bundle, cocked her head, then ran, disappearing into the undergrowth and trees.

“Aryne!” Taro hissed at her, to no effect.

“I know she's here!” I heard, and the voice sounded familiar. I couldn't place it, though, until I saw the man himself, Panol and Leverett on his heels.

“You!” he shouted at Taro, as soon as he saw him. “Where is she?”

Taro wrinkled his brow in that perfect, “I'm too dim to understand what you're talking about” expression. “Who?”

“Who!” Border echoed with disgust, shaking Panol's hand off his arm. “Aryne. I know she's with you!”

Taro held on to his expression of confusion. “You know Aryne?”

That made him angrier. Of course, it was supposed to. “She's mine!”

“Your what?” I asked him in my mildest tone.

My interjection seemed to make him more aware of himself, what he was saying, and that he had an audience. He took a breath. “My responsibility,” he said in a milder tone. “She went missing in Black Tooth. I've been frantic.”

“My apologies,” Taro lied sweetly. “We were unaware she had any family. We had noticed her in various settlements, and we have hired her occasionally for odd errands. But that was the extent of our connection. We haven't seen her for the past few stops.”

Border wasn't believing a word of it. “I saw her last night. She would never come this way on her own.”

Because he had convinced her she was a slave, and that Golden Fields was where slaves were bought and sold. Or so she claimed. I couldn't ask him that, though. That would ruin the lie about not knowing there was a connection between the two of them.

Taro shrugged. “There's nothing I can say about that.”

“I know she's traveling with you.” He looked about at the audience we'd collected, searching for the truth in the faces of the spectators.

All he found were blank expressions. No one was saying anything.

Of course, that was probably confirmation enough, in his eyes.

We had to get rid of him. We didn't need yet another complication, in the shape of this creature following us all over the island and giving us a hard time. “What would we want with her?” I asked him. “She is no kin of ours.” I still wasn't sure why being without family was so much worse for these people than ours, and was surprised to learn that it was one of the few things the islanders didn't like to talk about. Still, I could use information when I had no clue what it meant, if I had to.

“Aye, but—” He looked around at our audience once more.

“She is not here,” Taro said. “We are packing up to leave. If the child were traveling with us, she would be here to pack up, too. She is not. And you will find none of her possessions with us. You can look, if you like.” He waved an elegant hand over the mess that represented our belongings.

Border scowled, and he spent several moments looking at the jumble. I wondered if he was going to dare going through it with his hands, and then I wondered whether I would let him. On the one hand, it would help convince him Aryne wasn't with us. On the other, well, it was just too obnoxious for him to think to go pawing through our stuff.

But, apparently, he was prepared to leave it with a visual inspection. “Next time I see her, I'm taking her back,” he threatened.

I shrugged as though I couldn't care less. “It has nothing to do with us.”

He grumbled under his breath, then called out to everyone. “I'll be giving a reward—coins—to anyone who can tell me anything about the girl. Aryne is her name. More to anyone who finds her and brings her to me.”

That sent me a little jolt of panic. I was sure that would be enough to get one of the members of the troupe to talk. None of them had any reason to be loyal to us, or to Aryne.

None of them said a word. In fact, sensing that the best part of the show was over, they all turned away and returned to their own preparations for leaving.

Scowling, Border stomped away.

Taro and I exchanged a look and resumed rolling up the tent.

Aryne didn't return to us before the troupe was ready to leave. I didn't know what to do. I wasn't prepared to wait behind for her, or leave the troupe to go looking for her. We needed the troupe, while the girl was only a duty and a burden. And I was annoyed with her for not returning promptly.

I was also afraid that Border had managed to find her after all.

But there were only so many duties I could juggle. First on the list, unfortunately, was going to Golden Fields and finding out what happened with the descendants of the Empress. Next, though far inferior in importance, was the duty to the troupe. The girl was even further down the list of priorities, and if she wasn't prepared to act in her own best interests, there wasn't really much we could do with her.

So Taro and I moved on with the troupe. And through the hours we spent trudging in the humid sunlight, I was worrying about Aryne. Wondering if Border had caught her. If she had been bitten by one of those nasty snakes and was now rolling around in agony. If she had fallen into some kind of hole or something, hoping someone was going back to look for her.

I almost turned around. Several times. Not physically, of course. Physically, I just kept putting one foot in front of the other, following the others, keeping my head down to protect my eyes from the sun's glare. But in my mind, I was telling myself to turn around, and then telling myself not to be ridiculous.

And I was ranting at her, silently. Stupid girl. Why did she have to pick us? Why did she have to notice us? She could have run away with anyone. And if she had to pick us, why couldn't she be sensible about it, and stay with us?

My brain spent the whole day whirling with all these questions and conflicting influences. I was not fit company for anyone. And by the time we had finished walking for the night, and Taro and I had settled down with our little meal by our little fire, I was in a state to take Aryne's head off when she appeared out of the darkness and joined us.

“Where the hell have you been?” Taro demanded, bless him. I feared I might have been far less temperate if I had asked the question.

“Around.” She shrugged, tossing her sack aside and sitting on the ground. “Any food for me?”

“Where, around?” Taro asked.

“Following off the trail.” She reached for the bowl of rice.

Taro snatched it out of her grasp. “And what was the purpose of that?”

“Border was here.”

“And we convinced him you weren't.”

“Doubt he believed you. He'll come looking again.”

“You said he wouldn't come looking at all,” I reminded her, having regained control of my tongue.

“Guess I was wrong, eh?” she answered with no apparent concern. “He's come once, he'll come again. You gonna feed me or what?”

Taro rolled his eyes and thrust the bowl into her hands. She used her fingers to grab out a small ball of rice and shoved it into her mouth.

I, for one, would not be looking for any seconds that night.

“You can't go running off like that,” said Taro.

“If I stayed, Border would have seen me,” she retorted through her mouthful of food.

Which was true, but not quite what Taro meant. “Hiding was fine,” I said. “It's the staying away all day that was the problem. I had no idea what happened to you.”

“What did you care?” she demanded.

“I was afraid he'd taken you back. Or that you were hurt.”

“Couldn't have been too afraid,” she said matter-of-factly. “You kept on going.”

Oh, she was brilliant at inspiring guilt, she was. “We had to keep going. The troupe was moving on. We couldn't afford to be left behind.”

She shrugged. She didn't look hurt or upset by the notion that we hadn't gone looking for her. Merely stating a fact.

Which kind of made it worse.

“We do not have the ability to delay to look for you should you go missing,” I said. “That is simply the way of things. Which is why you shouldn't go off on your own. There's nothing we can do about it if something happens to you and you don't show up.”

She snorted through her current mouthful of food, and a couple of grains of rice went flying. “I can take care of myself,” she mumbled. “Have my whole life.”

“Which is no doubt why I can count your ribs.” But it was a weak response, and I knew it. So did she. “Hiding is fine. But as soon as the danger has passed, come back.”

“He'll be hanging around waiting for that.”

“That's a risk we'll have to take. It's better than you traveling off the road for hours where anything could happen to you without us knowing about it. Can you see the logic of that?”

She stared at me as though she thought I'd lost my mind.

What? What had I said that was so strange?

She swallowed, and snickered. “Sure,” she said.

Sure? What did that mean? “We're in agreement?”

“Kai.”

“Good.”

It was anticlimactic, as triumphs went. I had the feeling I was missing something important.

People were so confusing sometimes. I hated that.

Sunset Shores was a beautiful village near the water. It was full of the wealthy of Flatwell, who lived in beautiful homes of bamboo, built on elaborate networks of platforms right on the shore. The platforms prevented the homes from being flooded when the tide came in. When the tide was out, hundreds of little crabs skittered about the damp sand, and the troupe's children ran out to catch them.

Only the servants came by to watch the performances, and the takings were slim. Where the real money came from was when those same servants returned with notes from their employers, invitations for the players to perform in their homes. I was told one could make more money from a single private performance than from half a dozen villages.

Kahlia, Beril and Rinis all received such invitations. So did I. Taro did his lord of the manor act and forbade me to go. Because I couldn't encourage such behavior in him, I raised an eyebrow at him and told him where to go. We had a glorious argument over it, which I let him win. Because I didn't want to go. The idea of performing in the private home of a stranger made me uncomfortable.

Kahlia called me an idiot, and Taro a heavy-browed perkrit. I was happy that I at least understood my insult.

We stayed for three days. The morning of the fourth day, we started packing up to go. And that was when they came. Two young men, slim and bronzed, bearing short swords and square shields, jogging in unnatural unison. Panol was trotting along beside them, apparently trying to ask them questions, which they were ignoring.

Young men wearing identical gear, moving in unison. Stank of some form of law enforcement. Lovely.

Each man wore thin bands of silver metal on their left bicep, in differing numbers. The one with the most arm-bands looked me over, and then Kahlia. “You were at the home of Taroon of Karvart last night?” he asked.

“Yes,” she answered without hesitation.

“What is your name?”

“Kahlia of Atara.”

The man next to him pulled from a small pouch at his waist a metal triangle. He struck it once, and after the light “ting” stopped, the first man announced, “Kahlia of Atara, you have been by Merchant Taroon of Karvart accused of the theft of a wind idol, made from onyx and gold, perpetrated on Third Middle Night of the Slope Month. You are given four days to craft your plea for the Accounting. Do not leave the boundaries of Sunset Shore. Should you leave the boundaries of Sunset Shore, all residents shall be given leave to hunt and execute you.” The triangle was struck again and then stashed back in its pouch.

Hell. Justice in its brutal, simplest form. Cheaper than prisons, too, I imagined.

I looked at Kahlia. She looked stunned. “I did no such thing.”

“You will have your opportunity to prove so in four days.”

“We can't wait four days,” Panol protested. “The Accounting must be earlier. We could be ready by tomorrow.”

“Custom demands four days.”

“I can't stay here for four days,” said Kahlia. “The four days is for the protection of the accused. I waive it.”

“You don't have the right,” the Sunset Shores version of a Runner informed her, his abrupt change in tone and language suggesting a certain boredom with the whole affair. “Too easy to claim you were pressured into waiving after, if the Accounting doesn't go your way. Four days. Be here at sunrise.” He pressed a small piece of parchment into her hand. “Sun bright to you,” he said, a mockery of the usual morning greeting. Then the two men turned on their heels and walked away.

“Did you do this?” Panol demanded of Kahlia.

For a moment, Kahlia stared at him, her eyes narrowed. Then she swung at him, slapping him so heavily across the cheek that his head was whipped to one side. Before he'd even straightened his stance, wiping blood from his lip, she was striding back to her tent.

But a thought had come to me, one that had me jogging back to my own tent. I whipped aside the front flap, and Aryne looked up at me. “Empty your bag,” I ordered.

“Why?”

“Because I told you to.”

She glared at me. “No.”

Impudent little brat. I reached for her bag myself, but she was quicker in snatching it up. She clutched it to her stomach. “It's mine! Don't touch it!”

That sounded suspicious to me. “What's yours?”

“The bag!”

“Taroon of Karvart was robbed last night.”

“So?”

“So empty your bag.”

“You think I lifted something?” she demanded, outraged.

“Obviously.”

She went rigid for a moment. Then she shoved the bag at me. I caught it by instinct, unable to react as she dashed out of the tent.

There was no gold and onyx idol in her bag. Or anywhere else in the tent.

All right. So maybe I shouldn't have so quickly assumed she had stolen it. She had, to my knowledge, not lifted anything since joining us.

But she had tried to steal my purse. How could she expect me to forget that?

On the other hand, if she was trying to straighten out, which was theoretically possible, I shouldn't be constantly throwing her past indiscretions in her face. She might come to believe that if everyone thought she was going to be nothing but a thief, then she might as well be nothing but a thief. I didn't want to be responsible for that kind of outcome.

I thought it was safe to assume the troupe wouldn't be going anywhere for a while, so I hunted Aryne down. I found her a good half hour walk down the stream, sitting on the bank with her knees curled up to her chest, hurling stones into the swiftly moving water.

“Go away,” she said as soon as I was in earshot.

“I'm sorry,” I said.

“Good. Go away.”

I sat beside her. “It was very wrong for me to jump to conclusions like that, and you have every right to be angry with me.”

“Thanks very much,” she sneered.

“But you did try to steal from me once—”

“I did not!”

“—and the fact that you won't even admit it and explain it and apologize for it makes me think you don't think you did anything wrong. That's why I have difficulty believing you won't do it again.”

She rested her chin on her knees and stared into the water.

I watched the water, too. And waited.

“I was trying to get away from Border,” she said finally. “I needed coin. I couldn't get it any other way. Not without him knowing and taking it from me.”

“You've been with that man all your life, aye?”

“Aye.”

“What made you decide to leave him now?”

“Started saying how I was getting all grown-up. I knew what that meant.”

I frowned. “What did it mean?”

She just looked at me, as though it were obvious.

And then I thought it might be, but I was hoping not, and for my own peace of mind I had to have it cleared up. “What did it mean?”

She rolled her eyes. “He'd start whoring me out. Or using me himself.”

“Surely not.” It was just too vile. I mean, yes, I knew such things happened. But to hear this child speak of them so nonchalantly, it couldn't be true.

“He said I had to be grateful to him, for protecting me from the slavers.”

“Why me? Why did you try to steal from me?”

“You're the Flame Dancer, eh? I'd heard of you. Thought you'd have piles of money, and it wouldn't hurt you to lose a bit.”

I raised an eyebrow. “I trust you now understand that isn't the case?”

She shrugged. She still didn't appear terribly repentant. “You get more coin than I'll see my whole life.”

Hm. I supposed all things were relative.

“I'm not stupid. I know you'll toss me if I steal from anyone here. And I'm pretty sure you'd catch me if I tried anything.” She slanted a look at me. “It's 'cause you're a Shield, eh?”

“What's because I'm a Shield?”

“You notice things.”

I cocked my head to one side, thinking about it. “I suppose I notice some things more than others. But then there are other things I don't notice very well at all. That's part of being a Shield, too.”

“I'm going to be a Shield,” Aryne announced. “Not a Source.”

Not this again. “You are a Source,” I said. “You just have Shield tendencies.”

“Could be a Shield with Source tendencies.”

“Have you ever Shielded anyone?”

“No.”

“There you go.”

“Never met a Source, have I? Maybe I could do your man next time he, what do you call it? Channels.”

No way in hell. All other issues aside, it appeared she was a person without much talent, and certainly little skill. I was not trusting my Source to an inferior Shield, all for the sake of experimentation. “No,” I said, and deciding that sounded just a little too blunt, I added, “It is my task to Shield him. I will not pass it to another unless I am unable.”

Zaire. Stupid way to put it. Here was to hoping she wouldn't decide to try disabling me in order to get her chance to experiment.

“You are a Source, Aryne. There is no way around it. Why would that displease you?”

She hugged her knees again. “You give all the orders, don't you? I'd rather give them than take them.”

“I don't give them.”

“Kai, you do. I see you. It was up to you whether I came with you or not. You make all the decisions.”

What a remarkable interpretation of events. “Neither one of us is in charge of the other.” Though, if I were totally honest, I'd admit that perhaps Taro thought I did order him around. “And there is no one way that Pairs function. It depends on the people involved. Don't model yourself after us. It's too limiting, and it's not appropriate. Especially for someone like you.”

“What does that mean?” she objected, her lower lip pushing out in a pout.

That she wasn't as talented as Taro, and she probably wouldn't get a Shield as talented as me. But there was no need to tell her that. “That you are unique. Because you are a Source with Shield tendencies. And because you have grown so much outside of the academies, and can channel unprotected. I have no doubt your future will be equally unique. I feel you'll have to forge your own way.”

“Oh,” she said, apparently appeased.

“Do you accept my apology?”

“Do you accept mine?” she shot back.

Little demon. “Aye.” She is not a thief, she is not a thief, she is not a thief. Get that through your head and make sure it sticks.

“Then so do I.”

“Then let's head back. Kahlia's been accused of stealing from Taroon, and I imagine the whole troupe will be involved in dealing with it.”

“Do you think she did it?” Aryne asked as we rose to her feet, a bitter tone in her voice.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“She's not an idiot.”

The whole troupe was collected around Atara's tent, all talking at once. The flaps of the tent had been rolled up and strapped to the supports, so the interior was revealed to everyone. Only Kahlia and Panol were within the tent itself, however. Kahlia was speaking, her gestures agitated and quick, but I couldn't hear anything she said with all the babbling.

I went to stand next to Taro. “Where were you?” he asked.

“We were talking.” I nodded at Aryne. “Have any decisions been made?”

“No. They're all in a panic because they have to stay here for another four days.”

It was amazing, the way the curse seemed to rule everyone's lives. And in the current situation, the solution was very simple. Send everyone on ahead, so that only Kahlia and Atara risked the alleged curse. Though that would probably appear very cold to everyone else, so I wasn't prepared to suggest it. And as there really was no curse, it didn't much matter one way or the other.

Panol started clapping his hands to get everyone's attention, and the troupe members fell silent. “We need to talk to Setter and Leverett. Everyone else go away.”

“Whistle for it, Panol!” Rinis shouted. “This is about us, too!”

“It is, and the earliest we straighten this, the sooner we can fly. All right? So go away!” And to make his point, Panol started yanking on the ties that had the walls of the tent settling back down.

Many muttered and walked away. Others lingered, probably hoping to eavesdrop through the tent walls. Aryne, who didn't appear interested, wandered off.

“This isn't good,” said Beril. “Something's going to happen.”

I said nothing. No point in trying to talk him out of it. Four days of nothing happening would be better proof.

“Some things are worse than being stringless,” he said, and then he strode away.