Sasharia En Garde (4 page)

She carried the glowglobe through one of the archways, which
opened into a smaller chamber. On the rock floor someone had spread an old
carpet, worked in green-dyed wool, and on the carpet had scattered cushions. I
dropped gratefully onto the nearest one, next to a short-legged table set with
ink, quills, and more paper in little message squares of various sizes. Elva
put the glowglobe next to the inkstand.

“
Flipping Squid
?”
I looked up at her, trying not to laugh.

Elva gave me a twisted grin. “Well, I didn’t pick that
name.”

The pirate lounged down onto the pillows with an easy swing
that suggested courtyard fights were nothing new. “Ships tend to change hands
rather often, off our shores. It’s traditional.”

Elva muttered, not quite under her breath, “So says a
pirate.”

“Privateer,” he corrected.

“But you have no letter of marque,” Elva retorted.

“Of course not,” he answered, amicably enough. “How can I
get one from the real king when he’s missing? And I don’t think I’d like to
apply to the current king since it’s his ships, along with various other
enemies, who are my prey.”

Elva sniffed. “Talk about stupid names.” She turned to me,
with a dismissive back-of-hand toward the privateer. “Ask his name.”

“
Zathdar
is the
name of my flagship.” He smiled. “It works well enough for us both.”

Elva glared. “So why don’t you tell us your real name?”

“Zathdar,” I repeated, wanting out of that argument before
it started. My head hurt too much. I gave him a mock frown. “There wouldn’t be
any apostrophes in it, would there?”

“Apostrophes?” He pronounced the word in English. It hadn’t
translated out in Khani.

Seeing that Elva had stopped glaring and was curious, I
reached for the smallest square of paper, dipped a quill into the ink and wrote
Z’ath’d’ar
in English.

“Flyspecks.” The pirate turned the paper this way and that.
“The letters seem clear, but the purpose of the flyspecks?”

“Well, in magic stories at home, heroes or villains have
names that begin with Z,” I said. “And a lot of apostrophes. Just checking. You
know, if you’re a hero—or a villain.”

Zathdar compressed his lips into a firm line, as if he was
trying hard not to laugh. “Perhaps the absence of flyspecks will serve as my
proof that I am neither. Just an ordinary fellow—”

“—wearing a red vest with a lime green sash—” I interjected,
and he laughed.

“—going about my ordinary business.”

Elva snorted so loudly her sinuses probably buzzed.

Before she could shoot an insult pirate-ward, I gabbled on.
“‘Dar’ I recall means ‘spring’ in Sartoran, at least as a suffix.” I paused,
remembering my father’s patient voice as he tutored me in tents while rain
poured down, on the deck of a smuggling ship, in an old castle tower. His
graceful hands, as he sketched out the Sartoran letters, which Khani had
adopted. “‘Zath’ is storm—”

Elva crossed her arms, sitting bolt upright on her cushion.
“It means hurricane. Who but a villain calls himself Hurricane?”

“The spring storms that come down on the other side of the
continent are the fall storms up north,” the privateer Zathdar said. “They come
fast and are hard to fight out at sea. It’s a great name for a privateer. So it
works for me, too.”

I turned to him. “Do you have another name?”

Blue eyes gazed back at me, their expression friendly but
observant. “Jervaes is my family name.” His features were even. I couldn’t see
his hair, or even if he had any, because of the bandana.

“Jervaes. Sounds familiar. I think.” I turned to Elva.
“Anything wrong with it?”

She shrugged. “A common enough Sartoran name.”

Devli reappeared, smiling with triumph as he held out a
heavy ceramic mug to me. He dropped down next to his sister.

The smell was so refreshing it alone almost banished my
headache. It also awoke emotions from my childhood, making my eyes sting. I
slurped tea to hide my reaction, breathing in the aroma of a field of
rain-washed and sun-drenched herbs waving in a gentle wind. The taste was fresh
and herbal. I drank the tea down and immediately felt better.

Zathdar the hurricane privateer said, “Why don’t you tell us
your end of things, so we can put it together with what we know?”

“Sounds reasonable—” I began, but Elva cut in.

“No,” she stated, chin up. “At least, not until
you
find your way back to
your ship
.”

Zathdar gave her a quick, challenging grin. “Why don’t you
find your way back to yours?”

Elva flushed. “Because I know my brother’s friends. They are
all trustworthy. I know they mean to restore Prince Math to the throne, if
Queen Ananda doesn’t want to rule on her own. If we can find out where he’s
hidden. You showed up knowing our plans, followed us to the World Gate castle
without any invitation—”

“Saved our butts,” I put in, trying to keep things fair.

“Oh, I think the three of us could have gotten out without
his sword waving around,” Elva retorted with commendable bravado, but even she
didn’t seem convinced.

Especially when Devli shook his head slowly but
emphatically. “Bad as those fellows were, we were no help, and Sasharia
couldn’t have fought them alone. Without him, we’d be in Prince Jehan’s grip
right now. Or far worse, War Commander Randart’s.”

Elva shuddered, then squared her shoulders. “I don’t trust
this fellow. Too many unexplained coincidences.”

“There aren’t any coincidences from my end.” Zathdar sat
back on his cushion and clasped his hands around one knee. “One of my crew
heard one of your friends asking questions all around Land’s End Harbor,
hinting at plots that include mages, World Gates, and the name Zhavalieshin.
They reported it to me. Some investigation led me to the mage students. They
were quite easy to follow.” He nodded at Devli, who blushed.

“It was our fault we kept our headquarters at Cousin Nad’s
house,” Devli admitted.

Zathdar continued. “King Canardan was not too stupid to
investigate the houses of the former stewards belonging to the old king, he was
probably too arrogant. But obviously that changed. I believe the attack on the
old castle—which everyone who knows anything about magic knows holds a
Destination accessible to the World Gate—is proof enough that the king’s men
were right on your heels.”

Elva sighed. “All right, so we made some mistakes. But I
still have questions.”

“Well, why not discuss them on the ride down to the river
where I’ve hidden my flagship? Prince Jehan’s men will be busy searching all
over, and we cannot hole up in this cave forever.”

Elva looked at her brother, who spread his hands, then at
me.

I copied Devli’s gesture.

“Let’s go,” she muttered.

She said those words at the very same moment that, away in
time and space through the World Gate, sunshine dancingstar Zhavalieshin (later
known as Sun, which was the best damage control she could do with that stupid
name she’d made legal back when she was twenty-two, complete with lowercase
initial letters) picked up her cell phone.

At the hotel-room door, Roger stood patiently. “Coming? We
might not get a cab in time to make the curtain.”

Sun said, “Sasha has never ignored my calls before. One more
try.”

Roger murmured, “Maybe she didn’t pay her bill?”

Sun gave him an ironic look. “I may be an old hippie. And my
daughter is a child of a hippie. But Sasha’s too practical to skip paying
bills. You ought to know that by now.”

“I know you two are half-crazy, with all your talk of World
Gates and what all.” He grinned, adding under his breath, “But that’s part of
the fun of being around you.”

“Hello?” Sun stood straight, her brows arching in surprise.
“I take it this is not my daughter Sasha.”

At the other end of the phone, Dougie quickly recovered his
surprise at hearing a female voice. “Nah. I was hoping you’d know where she
was.” How was he to know it wasn’t his dope connection calling back? Stupid old
bag—having a blocked number. Everyone knows only drug dealers have blocked
numbers.

“I am Moira Muller,” Sun snapped. “Who
is
this! And why are you using my daughter’s phone?”

At first Dougie had thought asking where Sasha was a pretty
cool answer—like, lob the ball back at whoever was calling, if it wasn’t his
connection. He wouldn’t have to explain why he had Sasha’s phone. But.

Dougie said, fast, “I’m tryin’ to find Sasha. She, like,
took off earlier. With some suit. I thought they were in here all afternoon.”
He snickered at the idea of lawyers doing the horizontal Olympics—and charging
people for their time. “But when I tapped at the door, like, it, you know,
opened. She ain’t here. Or the suit,” he added.

The lawyer again,
Sun thought.
Stick to the point
.
“What I am to understand is that my daughter was visited by, or is visiting, a
lawyer, but that does not explain who you are, and why you are using her
phone.”

“Well it was just layin’ around—”

“Lying.”

“I am not!”

Sun said with the quick, sharp consonants that made it clear
to Roger, at least, she was very angry. “The phone was
lying
there. Unless it was
laying
baby phones? Use the language properly, and tell me why you have my daughter’s
phone, and
who you are
.”

Dougie cursed the old bag, Sasha, and the phone, but only
inside his head. He was about to sling her some bull but he remembered a show
on which the cops traced cell phones. Crap! Maybe it hadn’t been such a hot
idea to make his connection with someone else’s phone, like he’d first thought.

“I’m Doug. Roommate,” he muttered. And, in a whine, “Like I
told ya, she like took off with the bozo in the suit, and hasn’t come back. Her
car’s out front and everything. I was hopin’ the phone would find her—”

“What is the address?”

Dougie stared at the phone, appalled. What if this old broad
really was a cop? He closed the phone and tossed it into Sasha’s closet.
“Hell.” He slammed the door behind him.

On the other side of the continent, Sun looked across the
hotel room at Roger. “I have to go back,” she said.

“Back to what?” Though he knew the answer.

“To L.A., right now.” Sun’s eyes were tense with worry.
“Sasha would never—” She shook her head. “I have to find her. That strange
message she left, and she won’t take my calls? Some idiot using her phone,
obviously without her permission? I’m afraid I know where she’s gone.”

Roger flung the hotel keycard on the nightstand. “You’re not
going to say something easy to hear or to believe, are you.”

Sun spread her hands. “If she went out of the world, it means
she was taken against her will.” And when Roger shook his head, she studied
him, saying slowly, “You don’t believe me, do you? In fact, you never did.”

Roger approached, stopping halfway across the room. “What
was I supposed to think? Oh, I never thought you outright lied. And I do know
the difference between lie and lay.”

The feeble attempt at a joke did not bring an answering
smile, only a troubled stare. He half held out a hand, but Sun stood there by
the window of their suite in the Omni Hotel, below which the traffic of 52
^nd
Street hissed and honked, voices in at least three languages echoing up the
buildings.

He said, “I always thought your story was one of your hippie
metaphors. Like your names—the fact that the name you gave me is not the same
one as on your passport, which isn’t the one you pay your taxes under. All your
identities seemed your way of keeping your friends at a distance.”

Her brows snapped together. “I was always upfront with
you
.”

“I know. I expressed it badly. I’ve the time, the money, and
I’ve always enjoyed being your
cavalier
servente
. No one else likes the same music, the same art, the same kinds of
conversations. And it was those things that convinced me, well, you might
change your mind one day. You might want more than a
cavalier servente
with time and money. And the same taste in
opera.”

“You’ve been a good friend,” she said gently.

“So what’s the bottom line here?” Roger asked. “What happens
if you go to L.A. and get swept off to some mystery place? Though I can’t
really believe it. Even the king is easier to swallow.”

Sun rubbed her hands up her arms, which she’d kept in
fighting shape, though she’d ceased to let herself believe she’d see Math
again. Nor had she—quite—believed he was dead. Her one steady conviction over
all these years was that she couldn’t bear to go back, to search, to discover
there was no hope. She’d hoped he would find them. Like he’d sworn, on his
honor, on his heart, before he pushed them through the Gate back to Earth.

And left them there.

She wiped her eyes. “I can’t answer that. Maybe I’ve been
weak. Chickenhearted. Trying to outrun the past.” She drew in a long, steadying
breath. “But one thing I can promise you. I’m going to find whoever it was who
grabbed Sasha, and I’m going to kick them from here to Pluto. Because even if I
don’t rate many points as an ex-princess, nobody,
nobody
messes with Mom.”

“Tell me more about these flyspecks?” Zathdar asked
presently. “In your world, the flyspecks on a written record signify someone
chosen for a great quest? Or signify someone who chooses to thwart a seeker?”

“‘Chosen’ by the writer.” I laughed.

He just looked puzzled.

The two of us were alone. The siblings had dashed off, Devli
pausing only to grab the mug from my fingers. Until he asked his question, we’d
just sat quietly, me with my eyes shut as I did my yoga breathing in an effort
to get rid of the last of the headache.