Mind of the Magic (Arhel Book 3) (26 page)

“Oh, Joetz! Give me everything!”

“I
am.”
A tinge of masculine annoyance then.

Thump. Thump. Squeal. Squeak.

“Ow, ow, ow! Your elbow is on my
hair!”

Grumpily, “Well there’s no place I can put them they
won’t
be—it’s all over the floor.”

“I thought you liked my hair.”

Sigh. “I do. I just don’t have anyplace for my elbows.”

“Then roll over, and I will too.”

Thump, thump.

“Watch, your knees!”
This from Joetz, and in a panicky voice.

The thumping resumed, and Faia closed her eyes and sighed quietly. She missed that—but she had come to realize she did not just want any man. She wanted one man, who would stay with her and… and
love
her. She had not wanted love when she was younger—she had wanted friendship and variety. Entertainment. Fun. She smiled slowly, listening to the young people on the other side of the barrels.

Let’s be honest. Then I wanted sex, but not a bondmate. Life has changed me. Now I want a companion and a friend, someone I can count on. I want to wake up with the same man every morning, though I never did before. I will only be happy with that now.

When she closed her eyes, she saw a face—the plain, honest, caring face of an ordinary young man. Edrouss Delmuirie. She surprised herself—Delmuirie was not the sort of man who made women stop and stare. He was friendly and kind and willing to work to please—rather like a dog. She liked him enough to think that someone like him might be the person she was looking for. Perhaps handsomer, though.

The noises behind the kegs grew louder. Faia sat and rested her chin in her cupped hands and tried to pretend she heard nothing. She closed her eyes—she was weary, and her head was beginning to hurt again from where Thirk had hit her. She wanted to sleep, but she didn’t dare.

Without warning, the door flew open, and two big men tromped into the room. Faia dug her fingers into the palms of her hands—her muscles went rigid. She prayed they would not look her way, and she could imagine the two youngsters behind the kegs were praying the same thing. The activity had stopped completely at the sound of the door slamming into the wall; Faia imagined Marray and Joetz crouched behind the kegs, round-eyed and sure the world was about to end. If her own situation had not been so desperate, she would have found some humor in theirs.

“He wants another of the dark brown, too,” one of the men said.

“I wish he had to carry ‘em. Thought he was goin’ to close up.”

“Said with that party what came in, he won’t close ‘til sunrise if they keep payin’.”

“Just our luck.” They picked up a cask between them and began to lug it out of the room.

The faintest of giggles drifted out from behind the kegs.

Both men stopped.

“Did you hear anything?” the first asked.

“Yah. Back of the kegs.”

The bartenders settled their keg on the floor.

Faia’s heart rose to her throat, and she cursed both the young lovers in her thoughts. They were going to have to move if they wanted to stay hidden—and the only place they could move would be the place she already occupied. She looked around the room for someplace else to hide—the only remaining possible cover was directly behind the open door. She rocked to her feet silently, and began to edge toward it, as both men walked across the open floor to the false wall of kegs.

As she slipped behind the door, she saw the first shadow move around the far edge of the keg wall, followed by a second. The youngsters kept the barrier between them and their pursuers. Their naked skin seemed almost to glow in the tiny bit of light that seeped into the beer vault from the outer room. They edged between the two racks of wine, and crouched down, occupying the spot where she’d hidden an instant before.

They are not laughing now, Faia thought. None of us are laughing now.

“Anything?” the first man asked.

“I don’t see anything, but I swear on Haddar’s head I heard something.”

“So did I. It was probably the cat.”

“Didn’t sound like no cat to me.”

A thoughtful pause followed. “No. It didn’t.” Both men walked along the back of the keg wall; Faia could see the tops of their heads as tiny patches of moving darkness along the uneven row of kegs. The kids eyed each other, then moved out of their hiding place, crept within touching distance of Faia, and scooted across the little puddle of light to the far wall.

She saw their plan. They hoped to circle around and duck behind the kegs again as the two barkeeps came back out.

Faia was going to be right in line of sight of those selfsame barkeeps—and unlike the kids, those two would be looking for someone, and so would probably catch her as she hid. She tried frantically to think of some diversion—

And then one of the kids stepped hard on one of the boards she’d loosened in her escape from the basement. One end of it flew up, then the board fell back into place with a slam as the kid lifted his foot. The sound seemed as loud as an explosion in the tense, forced quiet of the room. One barkeep came flying around the end of the kegs in front of her, but looking toward the noise, while the other doubled back and charged straight into them. The girl shrieked, “He tricked me!” The boy yelled, “I never!”

And the innkeep thundered into the keg room and roared, “Where in the sixteen blue hells of Fargorn is my bedamned beer?!” before he saw what his barkeeps had caught—his naked daughter and her equally naked swain.

The innkeep bellowed. Both kids howled.

Faia muttered, “Seize the moment” and slipped through the door, through the line of drunks that began trickling back to find out what all the excitement was about, and out into the cool, smoke-filled night air.

She found herself on a narrow, dark, nearly empty street—barefoot without her pack or her weapons, lost, broke, weary, hurting, and hungry… though she did still have the other potato and the rest of the bottle of wine. She sighed, looked up the road, looked down the road, and saw nothing she recognized in either direction.

“Well, then.” She lifted the wine to the sky. “Here’s to adventures—may they happen only to other people from this day forward.” She swigged the drink, tucked the bottle through her belt, and started off in a direction she picked at random, chewing on the second raw potato.

As she passed an alley, an arm reached out and dragged her in.

SHE was too startled even to scream. She threw herself against the alley wall, pinning her captor’s arm between her body and a stone building, and in one smooth movement pulled the wine bottle from her belt and shattered its base against the wall.

“Ow-ow-ow-ow-ow!” a familiar voice yelped as she spun to face her attacker, wielding the broken bottle as if it were a dagger.

Delmuirie cradled his arm against his side and backed away from her.

“Edrouss?” She lowered the bottle. She was amazed at how handsome he looked in the dark alley.

He winced. “I came to rescue you. Doesn’t look like you needed me.”

But Faia smiled at him. “I did, though. I have no idea where I am. How did you find me?”

“Thirk delivered his ransom note to your brother’s house, and we followed him back here. We were amazed how simple it was to track him—Bytoris said he thinks Thirk was expecting a magical attack, and because of that, he wasn’t watching for anything else. Once we found out where you were, I hid here to wait for the tavern to close so I could break in and get you out—your brother took off after Thirk. I haven’t seen him since.”

“What should we do, then?”

“We agreed that I would take you back to his house as soon as I rescued you. Not that you needed rescue.” He rubbed his arm ruefully. “You’re the least helpless person I think I’ve ever met.” He pointed out a direction, and they started back toward her brother’s house.

Faia smiled at him, but then her smile died. “We do need to get back as fast as we can. Thirk isn’t really our problem.” She told him what she’d discovered about Gyels.

Edrouss was horrified. “He’s a god?”

“He’s worse than just a god,” Faia told him grimly. “He’s the god of things that go wrong, the patron deity of disaster. He brings trouble with him because it’s what he likes.” She shoved her free hand in her pocket and picked up her pace. “He probably brought the Klogs back to Arhel because, to him, watching them eat people and destroy things would be funny.”

Edrouss led her past a guardhouse at the corner of a street. The nightwatch called out and he stopped and showed his identification and hers. “My wife and I were at the tavern back there—but we’re heading home now.”

“Jarel’s,” Faia said helpfully.

One of the guards gave her an odd look—she studied him, but didn’t recognize him. She wondered, though, if he might have been one of the guards who’d been at the gate, or if he somehow recognized her. She resolved to say nothing else.

“He’s open late tonight,” the other guard muttered. “That’s going to get him in trouble with the lairdlaw if he’s not careful.” But both guards shrugged, and the one who’d been staring at Faia finally shook his head and said, “Straight home, then, both of you. It’s not a good idea to be out this late, things bein’ like they are.”

“Yes, sir,” Edrouss said. He put an arm around Faia’s waist and the two of them hurried away from the guardhouse. “Some things don’t change,” he told her.

“Much of what I see in the world now, I don’t understand—but I understand guards, always telling you ‘straight home, now,’—as if it were their idea and not what you were already doing.”

“Is it hard for you?” Faia noticed that even once they were out of sight of the guards, he left his arm around her. “I mean, seeing the way life is here, and knowing you can’t go back?” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she felt tactless.

But the man next to her only sighed. “It’s terrible. More than anything else, I miss having a purpose. Thinking I was going to rescue you… that was the first time in a while that I felt someone needed me.” His half-smile held little humor. “Then you didn’t need my help after all—but for a bit I felt I mattered again.” He sighed. “You probably can’t imagine what it’s like to feel that way.”

Faia, though, remembered the three long months when everyone could do magic and no one in Omwimmee Trade needed her. “I do know how that feels,” she told him. And she draped her own arm around his waist.

He smiled at her then, a sweet, hopeful smile that did wonderful things for his plain face. And for a while, as the two of them hurried through the streets, arms around each other, Faia felt truly happy.

FAIA snuggled beneath thick, downy covers, drifting. She became slowly aware of people talking nearby, but at first she didn’t worry herself about what they were saying. After a while, though, their tone began to disturb her, and she began a gradual ascent to wakefulness.

The voices floated up through the floorboards in fits and starts—snatches of speech pushed into her woolly consciousness, leaving her with the oddest impression of what the men downstairs discussed.

“…get away?… behind… has to be first priority!” That was Edrouss Delmuirie. She let her mind wander; she imagined his face, smiling. He had a good smile—and his arm around her had felt so nice. She rolled to her side and burrowed her head deeper into the feather pillow and tried to imagine what it would be like to kiss him.

“…not important, and the Klogs…” Her brother’s voice—so desperate. “…no sense… what about this god?… trouble…”

Faia stretched. Her head still throbbed, and she had the most horrible taste in her mouth. She opened one eye. She was back in the upstairs room. Pink-grey light crept through dusty slit windows and scattered little dapplings of color across the wall next to her. She watched dust motes drift upward through the bright lances of light, and entertained herself for a while by blowing gently and making them scatter.

So this was early morning. She was safe and warm in bed—the sheets felt clean and smelled good. She didn’t have to concern herself with anything. She let her eyelids close again, and began to sink back into delicious lethargy.

“…what if he tries to kill Faia?” Edrouss asked.

That carried well enough. Faia woke up completely, and sat up in the bed. The covers fell to the floor as she swung her legs over the side of the bed and eased herself up. Her head hurt worse when she moved—damn Thirk. She wasn’t in any shape to be getting out of bed—but she didn’t want to miss the discussion downstairs.

She threw her clothes on—wondered briefly how they’d gotten off in the first place; she didn’t remember undressing, or even getting as far as the bedroom, for that matter—and headed down the narrow stairs as fast as she could. She found Bytoris and Edrouss sitting at the morning table, eating dreary antis-fare and looking worried. Both nodded to her as she came in. She attempted a smile, but gave it up as a bad idea. Her head felt like it was going to come off, and she began to wish it would. She could hear the youngest of her nieces and nephews playing quietly in another room. One of the older girls was singing while she worked out in the walled yard, cleaning the birds they would eat for nondes.

Faia pulled up a chair and settled across from the two men and ladled some of the grey paste and spiced gravy into her dish. It looked disgusting, but didn’t smell too bad. She took a tentative nibble, and decided, glumly, that its smell was deceiving but its appearance wasn’t. She poured herself a little glass of the ale that sat opened on the table, then made a face at the taste of that, too—it was too strong for breakfast. She would have preferred water, if only Bonton still had a safe supply.

Edrouss studied her and his expression became concerned. He touched her hand. “Are you not well?”

“My head hurts,” she muttered. “Where Thirk hit me when he knocked me out.”

Delmuirie’s lips thinned to a tight line. “Hit you?”

Faia shoved her sleeves up her arms. Her wrists were purpled with bruises and swollen. She held her hands in front of her and turned them so both men could see the marks. “He did this, too.”