Limits (17 page)

They circled cautiously toward a promising stand of small trees. Sure enough, Sparthera could hear something moving within the
grove,
and even caught a glimpse of brownish hide. A branch cracked under Bruk’s boot, something brown exploded from the cover of the brush, and Bruk yelled, swinging the loop of his rope.

“Get the halter! Watch out for its hooves.
Yeow, oooof!”

The animal whirled, bounced like a goat on its small sturdy legs, and managed to butt Bruk in the middle. Bruk sat down heavily while Sparthera made a frantic grab for the trailing end of the rope.

The little animal, frantically trying to dodge her groping hands, was braying, whinnying, and making occasional high-pitched whistling noises. It was the size of a small pony and had a long silky mane that almost dragged the ground. Its tail was thick, muscular, and held up at an angle. It had two ridiculous little feathery wings, about as long as Sparthera’s forearm, growing out of the tops of its shoulders.

Bruk staggered to his feet as Sparthera managed to catch and cling to the rope. He launched himself bodily at the beast, grabbed it around the neck, and threw it off balance. It fell heavily to one side, where it kicked its small feet and fluttered its tiny wings to the accompaniment of an incredible c
a
cophony of hoots, whistles, and brays.

Sparthera clapped her hands over her ears and yelled. “That’s no wild ass! What on earth is it?
Some sort of magic beast?”

Bruk was busily fitting his halter on their uncooperative captive. “I don’t know,” he panted. “I think
it’s
half ass and half nightmare. If a sorcerer dreamed it up, he must have been drunk.”

He stood back and let it scramble to its feet. It lowered its head, pawed the ground savagely, lifted its tail, and jumped with all four feet. The m
a
neuver carried it forward perhaps two paces, its little wings flapping frant
i
cally.

Sparthera burst out laughing, doubled over with mirth. When she r
e
covered enough she stared at their captive and shook her head. “Do you think it can be broken to carry a pack?”

“Let’s get it down to the barn and we’ll try it with a pack saddle.”

Getting the wingbeast down the hill was a production in its own right. It bolted, tried to roll,
then
dug its feet in like the most obstinate of jackasses. Finally, tired, irritated, and covered with grime, the three of them made it to the barnyard.

They managed to get the saddle on its back—after Sparthera had been butted and trampled and her brother had been dumped in the watering trough—and stood back to watch.

The small animal bucked. It turned, twisted, flapped its ridiculous little wings, and rolled in the dust. It tried to bite the saddle girth and scrape the saddle off against the fence. It kicked its heels and brayed. Just when they thought it would never quit, it stopped, sides heaving, and glared at them.

The next day it accepted a ripe apple from Sparthera, bit Bruk in the buttocks, and managed to bolt into the house, where Sparthera’s mother hit it on the nose with a crock of pickled cabbage.

Sparthera was losing patience. It was all taking too long. Had Sung
Ko
Ja discovered her trick? Was he searching Tarseny’s Rest for the woman who had stolen his pointer? She had told Bayram Ali that she was visiting her parents. Someone would come to warn her, surely.

But nobody came, that day or the next; and a horrid thought came to her. Sung Ko Ja must have followed the pointer far indeed. Even without the pointer, he must have a good idea where the treasure lay. He might have continued on. At this moment he could be unearthing Sparthera’s treasure!

It was three days before the winged beast gave up the fight, trotted do
c
ilely at the end of a rope, and accepted the weight of a loaded pack saddle. It even gave up trying to bite, as long as they kept out of its reach. Sparthera named it “Eagle.”

“It would be better called ‘Vulture!’” Bruk said, rubbing at a healing wound. “It’s smart, though, I’ll grant you that. Only took the beast three days to realize it couldn’t get rid of that saddle.”

“Three days,” Sparthera said wearily. “Bruk, for once you were right. I
should have stolen a horse.”

She rode back to town leading the wingbeast along behind. It took her half a day to buy provisions and pack her clothing. In late afternoon she set out on the King’s Way, holding the bronze pointer like the relic of some ancient and holy demigod.

She was expecting to ride into the wilderness, into some wild, unpop
u
lated area where a treasure could lie hidden for eighty years. But the pointer was tugging her along the King’s Way, straight toward Rynildissen, the ruling city of the biggest state around. That didn’t bother her at first. Rynildissen was four days’ hard riding for a King’s messenger, a week for a traveler on horseback, two for a caravan. And Gar’s band had done their raiding around Rynildissen.

The King’s Way was a military road. It ran wide as a siege engine and straight as an arrow’s flight. It made for easy traveling, but Sparthera worried about sharing her quest with too much traffic. She found extensive litter beside the road: burnt-out campfires, horse droppings, garbage that attracted lynxes. It grew ever fresher. On her third afternoon she was not surprised to spy an extensive dust plume ahead of her. By noon of the next day she had caught up with a large merchant caravan.

She was about to ride up alongside the trailing wagon when she caught a glimpse of an odd shaggy horse with a tail like an ass. There was a figure in bulky Eastern robes on its back. Sung!

Sparthera pulled her horse hard to the side and rode far out over the rolling hill and away from the road. She had no desire to trade words with the smooth-faced magician. But what was he doing here? The caravan was protection from beasts and minor thieves; but the caravan was
slow
. He could have been well ahead of Sparthera by now.

He didn’t know the pointers had been switched! That
must
be it. The seeking-spell had been nearly dead already. Sung had followed it from far to the east; now he was following his memory, with no idea that anyone was behind him.

Then the important thing was to delay him. She must find the treasure, take it, and be miles away before Sung
Ko
Ja reached the site.

All day she paced the caravan. At dusk they camped round a spring. Leaving her horse, Sparthera moved down among the wagons, tents, oxen
and camels. She avoided the campfires. Sung Ko Ja had pitched a small red and white striped tent. His unicorn was feeding placidly out of a nosebag.

Stealing a roll of rich brocade was easy. The merchant should have kept a dog. It was heavy stuff, and she might well be spotted moving it out of camp, but she didn’t have to do that. After studying Sung’s tent for some time, watching how soundly Sung slept, she crept around to the back of the tent and rolled the brocade under the edge. Then away, hugging the shadows, and into the hills before the moon rose. Dawn found her back on the highway, well ahead of the caravan, chuckling as she wondered how Sung would e
x
plain his acquisition.

When she dug the pointer out of her sleeve, her sense of humor quite vanished. The pointer was tugging her back. She must have ridden too far.

After a hasty breakfast of dried figs and jerked meat Sparthera started to retrace her path, paralleling the King’s Way. Days of following the pointer had left painful cramping in both hands, but she dared not set it down now. At any moment she expected the bronze teardrop to pull her aside.

She was paying virtually no attention to her path. At the crest of a smooth hill, she looked up to see another horse coming toward her. Its rider was a smooth-faced man with skin the color of old ivory, and his almond eyes were amused. It was too late even to think of hiding.

“Oh ho!
My sweet little friend from two nights ago.
What brings you onto the King’s Way?”

“My hair,” Sparthera improvised.
“Cosmetics.
There’s a witch-woman who lives that way—” She gestured vaguely south, and gave him her best effort at a flirtatious smile. “—and I find I can afford her fees, thanks to the generosity of a slant-eyed magician.”

“Oh, dear, and I had hoped your lips were aching for another kiss.” He looked at her critically. “You don’t need to visit any witch. Even shorn, you are quite enchanting. You must share my midday meal. I insist. Come, we can rest in the shade of those trees yonder.”

Sparthera was afraid to spur her horse and flee. He might suspect nothing at all; else why had he joined the caravan? She turned her horse obediently and rode to the shade of the small grove with him, trailing the wingbeast behind at the end of its halter.

Sung slid easily from his unicorn.
He still didn’t seem dangerous. She could insist on preparing the food. Wine she could spill while pretending to
drink. She swung down from her horse—

Her head hurt. Her eyes wouldn’t focus. She tried to roll over and her head pulsed in red pain. Her arms and legs seemed caught in something.
Rope?
She waited until her head stopped throbbing before she tried to learn more.

Then it was obvious. Her hands were tied behind her; a leather strap secured her ankles to one of the shade trees. Sung Ko Ja was sitting cros
s
legged on a rug in front of her, flipping a bronze teardrop in the air.

Bastard.
He must have hit her on the head while she was dismounting.

“Eight nights ago I noticed that someone had cut the paper out of my bedroom window,” he said. “I woke the next morning with a foul taste in my mouth, but that could have been cheap wine, or too much wine. Last night some rogue put a roll of stolen dry goods in my baggage—which caused me no end of embarrassment. I would not ordinarily have thought of you in connection with this. I confess that my memories of our time together are most pleasant. However,” he paused to sip at a bowl of tea. “However, my unicorn, who can whisper strange things when I want him to, and sometimes when I don’t—”

“He
speaks
?”

The unicorn was glaring at her. Sparthera glared back. Magician or no, she felt that this was cheating, somehow.

“Such a disappointment,” said Sung
Ko
Ja. “If only you had come to my arms last night, all of this might be different. You sadden me. Here you are, and here is this.” He held up the pointer. “Why?”

She looked at the ground, biting her lip.

“Why?”

“Money, of course!” she blurted out. “You said that thing was the key to a treasure! Wouldn’t you have taken it too, in my place?”

Sung laughed and rubbed his fingers over his chin. “No, I don’t think so. But I am not you. It may be this was my fault. I tempted you.”

He got to his feet. He tilted her head back with one hand so he could look into her eyes. “Now, what’s to be done? Swear to be my slave and I’ll take you along to look for Gar’s treasure.”

“A slave?
Never! My people have always been free. I’d rather die than
be
a slave!”

Sung looked distressed. “Let’s not call it slavery then, if you dislike it so much.
Bondage?
Binding? Let’s say you will bind yourself to me.
For seven years and a day, or until we find treasure to equal your weight in gold.”

“And if we find the treasure, what then?”

“Then you’re free.”

“That’s not enough. I want part of the treasure.”

Sung laughed again, this time in pure amusement.
“You bargain hard for one who has been pinioned and tied to a tree.
All right.
Part of the treasure then.”

“How much of it?” she asked warily.

“Hmmm.
I take the first and second most valuable items. We split the rest equally.”

“Who decides—
”

Sung was growing
irritated.
“I’ll split the remaining treasure into two heaps. You choose which heap you want.”

That actually sounded fair.
“Agreed.”

“Ah, but now it is my turn. What are you going to swear by, my little sweetheart? I want your oath that you’ll offer me no harm, that you’ll stay by my side and obey my commands, until the terms of the agreement are met.”

Sparthera hesitated. It didn’t take a magician to know how to make an oath binding. Even nations kept their oaths…to the letter, and that could make diplomacy interesting…

She could be making herself rich. Or she could be throwing away seven years of her life. Would Sung hold still for a better bargain?

Not a chance.
“All right.
I’ll swear by Khulm, the thieves’ god who stands in the shrine at Rynildissen. May he break my fingers if I
fail.
”

“You swear then?”