The Brazen Gambit (10 page)

For which Pavek had an inspired solution.

"Initiate me into your order. Let me become one of you. I know-"

Oelus silenced him with a look of genuine astonishment. "Templars have no talent. Mekillots will fly before the
elemental spirits hear a templar's prayer, or heed it. It's beyond question."

He hadn't expected the path to true mastery to be an easy climb, but neither had he expected it to be summarily
blocked from the start. Pavek responded to the disappointment as he'd responded to it throughout his life: with a
jut-jawed scowl and a brazen disregard for consequences.

"Be damned! Templars aren't questioned for talent. For all you know, friend, I might have more than you, but
you're too dead-heart cowardly to find out."

The cleric had the decency to look embarrassed. "You might well have had, Pavek. Have had-that's the important
part. I think you were cut from a decent length of cloth, but you were sewn up as a templar all the same. The king's
magic corrupts all who use it, Pavek. That's the simple truth. Find that orphan boy, instead, Pavek; stand him in your
shade. Your former friends might still be looking for you, but they'll never recognize you sheltering a youngster.
You've got a strong back and a clever mind-you'll make way enough for two in Urik."

"And if I refuse?" he flexed muscles that, though less impressive than a dwarf-human half-breed mul's, were more
than sufficient to smash a cleric's round skull against the nearest wall. "Do you have another solution to your
problem? What if I refuse to leave your sanctuary?"

Oelus matched his tone without physical display. "You don't remember arriving here; you won't remember
leaving. I'm not often wrong about a man; I don't want to be wrong about you. Listen to your heart. The poor, parched
earth of Athas knows how you've managed to keep it alive where you've been. Listen to it..."

An amber flame danced hypnotically on the wick of the oil lamp. Pavek stared and cursed inwardly.

Suppose Oelus was right; suppose his templar's life had placed all spellcraft beyond his reach? Could he still
barter his knowledge of the zarneeka misappropriation to the druids in exchange for... what?

But compare that with life scrounging in the city. What good was a clever mind or a strong back when he'd
always be looking over his shoulder for a flash of yellow?

And why not take a wiry, orphan boy with him? Was he a dead-heart, too--no different from Elabon Escrissar or
the fanatics behind the Veil?

"Damn your eyes, priest," Pavek said aloud, his own way of conceding the wisdom of Oelus's suggestions.

The radiant smile reappeared on the cleric's face. He pumped Pavek's hand and clapped him on the back. "You
are a good man. I predict good fortune for you, and for the boy. A woman will come later with your supper. Eat
heartily, without fear. Tomorrow you'll greet the sun as a new man with a new life."

Pavek shook off the camaraderie. "Naked as the day I was born and just as poor. Spare me, priest. I grew up in a
templar orphanage; I've heard it all before. Bring me your potions in a plain cup-"

"All that you came with will be returned," Oelus insisted, his smile undimmed. "Saving the shirt, which was not
fit for rags. We'll give you another-and a few bits for your purse, enough to see you and the boy started."

"I had a knife, a gray steel knife-"

"With human hair wound beneath the hilt leather? Yes, it's kept and safe."

A fist Pavek did not remember making relaxed. Air filled his lungs in a sigh. The hair was Sian's, cut from her
corpse in the boneyard, more cherished than any single memory of their few years together, before the orphanage. He
held a hand against his naked neck.

"My medallion?" like her hair, it belonged to a lost time. Twenty years of time now lost as completely as Sian.

Oelus frowned. "You have no need of it-"

"Nor have you," he interjected sharply and saw deceit on the cleric's face. "Was that the Veil's price? Will they
use my medallion to attack the king?" Strangely, the notion offended him. Mages who left children to fend for
themselves on the streets of Urik were, to borrow Oelus's expression, cut from the same cloth as King Hamanu, but
without the king's experience and, yes, wisdom in ruling the city.

"No, it is with your other possessions. But, surely, you do not wish to be tempted to wield its power in your new
life?"

"You know Hamanu's magic corrupts, but you don't know how it works, do you? Believe me, priest, there's less
temptation to me than there is to you."

"But if you're discovered with it-?"

"Then my 'new life' is over. It's mine, cleric, will you return it to me?"

"That medallion will bring you grief, Pavek."

"Do you read the stars or scry the future? Don't harry me with vague threats, priest. Tell me what you know, or
tell me that you'll return my possessions, as you promised."

The cleric exhibited a moment of doubt, then, visibly reluctant, nodded. "I would have you remember me as a man
of my word, whatever the danger that medallion brings you."

Light appeared in the passageway beyond the chamber and, moments later, a shadow and a woman bearing a
steaming loaf of bread on a tray.

'Tour supper," Oelus explained. "May the earth lie gentle beneath your feet all the days of your life, Pavek, and
give you rest at the end of it." He touched Pavek's forehead with the fingers of his right hand. "It is not every man who
gets to start over. Take care of yourself and that boy."

Despite his protests that he wanted his draught in a plain, bitter cup, the aromas seeping through the bread set
his mouth watering and blunted his appreciation of the cleric's blessing. Matching Oelus's bow with a curt nod of his
head, he'd retrieved the tray before the sounds of Oelus's sandals faded.

The door remained open-a challenge he ignored.

Securing the linen at his waist, he lifted the upper portion of the crusted bread from the hollowed loaf beneath it.
The stew was thick with roots and tubers and other things that grew in the earth, but tasty nonetheless. He consumed
it, the upper crust, and was tearing the bowl itself into bite-sized pieces when lassitude struck, and he fell asleep where
he sat.

, Pavek awoke with die warmth of sunlight on his face and the inimitable sounds of the Urik streets in his ears. He
remembered Oelus, the stew, and the moment when his eyelids became too heavy to hold open. Before he opened his
eyes, his hand moved to his neck. The inix leather thong was in its familiar place.

"A man of his word," he whispered.

"Are you awake, Pavek? They said you'd wake up when the sun came'round."

He recognized the young, reedy voice. Oelus was definitely a man of his word-not the first Pavek had met, but
with the others, the epithet was not entirely a compliment. He stretched himself upright, knocking his bands against a
low ceiling in the process. Zvain's bolt-hole was another underground chamber. Sunlight filtered in through a yellowed
slab of isinglass set between the lashed-together bones shoring up the roof and walls. Pavek blinked as oblong
darkness landed in the center of the isinglass, and felt foolish as his hearing made sense of the background noises:
The translucent isinglass replaced one of Urik's countless paving stones. Zvain's chamber had been carved beneath a
street or market plaza.

The ex-templar shook his head and succumbed to a rueful grin. Not once during all the years he'd descended into
the customhouse galleries or to his own bunk in the barracks had he suspected that ordinary citizens-and noncitizens-
had also solved Urik's joint problems of oppressive heat and limited building materials by digging into the rock-hard
ground.

"Where are we?"

"Near the head of Gold Street, near the Yaramuke fountain."

Pavek calculated the location: Zvain lived under one of the merchant quarters of the city. It seemed incongruous
for a moment, then less so. Templars left the safety of the merchant quarters to the merchants.

"How'd you find this place, Zvain?" Pavek ducked under a bone rafter, heading for the door. How many-?"

The boy stood firm on the threshold. Neither Zvain nor the flimsy door of cloth and sticks behind him
represented a meaningful barrier, but he halted all the same.

"You are a templar. You've got no manners."

Away from the isinglass the chamber was in permanent twilight. Zvain had the stature and slenderness of a boy
midway through childhood, but his eyes-large, dark, and without passion-were older.

"Do I owe you anything? Last I remember, you said we'd be even if you saved my life. Did you save my life, boy,
or did someone else?" Pavek countered, taking Zvain's measure with typically harsh templar tones and accusations.
He could justly claim that he needed to know the boy's mettle and knew no other way to assess it, but he regretted his
words when Zvain's expression melted into silent grief. "I guess you're right, boy: I've got no manners."

His hands separated in a palms-up gesture of frustration that the boy saw as an invitation. Zvain threw himself
against his chest, locking arms around his waist, trembling with tears. Feeling frustrated and helpless, he wrapped an
arm around Zvain's thin shoulders and rested the other hand atop his head. While pent-up tears dampened his shirt,
he swayed on his hips, surveying the chamber that had become his new home.

The bed where he'd awakened was wide enough for a husband and wife. A corner filled with rags and blankets
marked the nest where Zvain slept. A single straight-backed chair and a tiny table completed the furnishings, except
for shelves hammered into the dirt walls on which a meager assortment of domestic utensils and-yes-a tattered
alphabet scroll were neatly arranged. The merchants upstairs would burn the lot for cooking fuel, but he knew better.
He knew how the rabble lived. Life with Sian had been a succession of crowded rooms and reeking alleys, each one a
little worse than the last. Zvain had lost much more when he became an orphan than he'd ever had.

He patted the tangled hair and squeezed the boy tight. There was a single, strangled wail as seeping tears
became a torrent, but the virtue of silence was a lesson Zvain had apparently learned in his heart. The boy shuddered
from head to toes without making a sound.

"We'll manage/' Pavek whispered, wishing he believed his own words.;

Pavek closed his eyes and found the benign, round face of the cleric, Oelus, smiling in the darkness of his mind's
eye. Well and good for Oelus: Oelus was tucked away in his sanctuary. Oelus's robe was dry and his meals were
served by women who knew how to cook. Oelus had nothing to worry about.

Pavek banished the cleric with a hard-edged thought, but there was something else hovering dimly in his
memory. He called it closer and it became a woman's face-not the battered, broken face of Sian or Zvain's mother, but
beautiful, proud, and, at first, unrecognized. He could understand why he'd see Oelus within his mind's eye; the cleric's
smile could easily have been real spellcraft, and not the product of his beleaguered imagination. But the zarneeka
druid? Why had he called her out of his memory?

"You'll stay?" Zvain asked, not daring to lift his head.

The druid's face remained in Pavek's vision after he opened his eyes, daring him and judging him as she'd dared
and judged him in the gateyard.

"I'll stay," he agreed. "We'll manage."

He expected the image to smile. Oelus's image would be bursting with an ear-to-ear grin, but the druid of his
imagination did not change expression. Pavek's anger surged at her, at himself. He barely knew how he was going to
manage, much less manage for himself and a boy. Raising children was women's work-not that Sian had mastered the
art. Then inspiration came to him on a cool breeze.

Women's work indeed, and a woman who faced down templars without breaking a sweat should be willing to do
it. Perhaps he had been corrupted, had no hope of learning a purer sort of spellcraft-but here was Zvain, orphaned by
Laq, which had been corrupted from the druids' precious zarneeka powder. She couldn't turn her back on an orphan,
wouldn't turn her back on a man that orphan trusted, even if he were a dung-skulled baazrag.

"We'll manage," Pavek repeated more confidently. "I have apian-"

Zvain shifted within Pavek's hands. His face tilted upward, the dark eyes glinted with unshed tears. "I'll help,
Pavek," he promised. "I'll learn whatever you teach me, I swear it. I'm ready now. Look-" The boy squirmed free,
rummaged through his blankets, coming up with a vicious object slightly longer than his forearm. Bent obliquely in the
middle, it had a lump of dark stone lashed to one end and an obsidian crescent at the other. "I stole it from a gladiator.
I'm ready, Pavek. We'll hunt Laq-sellers together."

The boy mimed a move that in the arena might have split an opponent from gullet to gut.

"Damn King Hamanu and all the templars." Zvain slashed again. "Damn the Veil who let him kill her to save their
own precious hides! You and me, Pavek, we'll do what needs to be done!"

Zvain's eyes were still bright with tears, but otherwise the fragile, grief-stricken orphan had vanished.

"We will, won't we?" Zvain paused with the weapon cocked above his shoulder.

Words failed.

"Won't we?"

"We'll try, Zvain," Pavek answered softly. His attention was fixed on the jagged, sharp curve of the obsidian
crescent. The druid's face had returned to the depths of his memory, and where was Oelus when he was needed? What
would the pious cleric say to a reckless, vengeful child?

"We will, Zvain. We'll do something, I promise you that." It wasn't a lie. Pavek believed the druids would refuse
to trade at the customhouse once they knew about Rokka, Escrissar, and the halfling. Without zarneeka, Laq would
have to disappear. "Give that here. You can't kill all of them, Zvain-why even start?" Pavek held out his hand and held
in his breath.

Zvain's eyes narrowed beneath thoughtful brows. His fingers rippled along the bone shaft, making the weapon
wobble in rhythm with his own doubts. Then the decision was reached. He lowered his arm; the weapon slipped from
his grasp. Pavek snatched it with one hand and the boy with the other. He lifted Zvain into a snug embrace while he
stowed the weapon on the highest shelf.