The Rebellion (33 page)

Matthew and Brydda spoke again at some length. Through the farseeker’s eyes, I saw the rebel’s look of surprise. Then he shrugged and nodded.

“What is he saying?” I asked Matthew curiously.

“He is saying the drug will take about three hours to wear off.”

“I will have to—”

I broke off at the touch of Gahltha’s soft muzzle against my shoulder. At the same time, I became aware of the warning tug of my farsensing net. I had been so engrossed in what
was going on inside the warehouse that I had not felt a thing.

“Funagas come,” Gahltha sent succinctly before moving back into the inky shadows at the end of the alley.

My senses told me there were two people walking swiftly along the street toward the warehouse, talking in low, intent voices. I poked my head out a fraction. They were some distance away, but I could see in the light of the single street lantern that they were both men; one was small and slender, while the other was at least twice his companion’s size.

I shaped a probe and tried to enter the larger man. He was a Misfit but not Talented. His mind was buckled and distorted—hopelessly defective. I could pick up nothing more than a miasmic desire to cause pain, and I could not enter.

Shuddering, I withdrew and entered the smaller man’s mind. It was something of a relief that he was neither defective nor naturally shielded. It was a moment’s work to learn that he had been hired by Salamander, but there was no memory that would show me what the slavemaster looked like. He had simply been approached in an inn by a beautiful dark-haired woman bearing a note with Salamander’s mark. It offered a relatively large amount of coin for what seemed to him a minor job. He had hired the defective because of his strength and brutish appetites, and because it never hurt to have a bit of muscle on one’s side.

His thoughts showed that he admired Salamander’s ruthless efficiency as much as he feared him. Apparently, the slavemaster had a reputation of being generous to those who performed their given tasks well and utterly vicious to those who failed.

He did not expect to fail, though.

His instructions were simple. Just before midnight, he was
to go to the warehouse where he would find a man named Bollange waiting with five men. Though it had not been said, he understood that these men were to be sold as slaves. The woman had given him a bag of coin, which he was to give to Bollange once an examination of the slaves had proven them sound of limb. He was to bind and gag the slaves, then bring them outside where a wagon would collect them.

His final instruction was to kill anyone who tried to follow or stop the wagon.

I mouthed a curse at the realization that here was another dead end. He did not know who would come to collect the slaves, nor where they were to be taken. Withdrawing, I sent out a roving probe.

Several streets distant, I found what I was looking for—a man sitting in a closed wagon, waiting.

I was relieved, knowing there would be no need to track the slaves now. I could simply read their destination from the wagon driver’s mind.

Unfortunately, when I tried to enter him, a strange buzzing vibration distorted his thoughts so that I could not negotiate them. I then tried to enter at his subconscious level; though this was also slightly distorted, I gained entry and rose up to his conscious mind. His thoughts at this level were chaotic, and only by chance did I encounter the driver’s thought that he enjoyed the slightly hallucinogenic quality of the Sadorian spiceweed he was chewing. It had been gifted him by the same dark-haired emissary from Salamander. That explained the queerness of his mind.

Unable to gain a hold, my probe slithered loose before I could learn the slaves’ destination. When I tried to reenter, his mind barred me even at the subconscious level. This
suggested that the spiceweed produced a certain sensitivity to mental intrusion.

Glumly, I withdrew; if I could not gain a hold on the driver’s mind when he was stationary, I had no hope of keeping track of him once he began to move.

The only solution now was to track the wagon physically, using my coercive powers to hide myself and Gahltha from any watchers. There would be no time to inform Brydda’s waiting rebels.

To my consternation, the two men stopped right in front of the lane where I was concealed. I drew back slightly into the shadows. At first I thought they had spotted me, but I soon realized they had simply stopped to confer.

A slight coercive enhancement of my hearing enabled me to make out their words.

“I want you to stay out here and keep watch,” said the smaller of the pair. “I’ll go inside and see Bollange. If anyone comes along, kill them.”

“Kill,” the hulk echoed.

“Exactly. Now, when I come out with the slaves, you stay where you are. Understand? Stay and watch for a while. That way we’ll see if this fellow has traitoring on his mind. If he has, we’ll get a bonus for putting him out of the picture. You got that into your skull, Lill? You stay and watch until I come back for you.”

“Lill watch?”

The second man nodded. “Yeah. And if anyone so much as pokes their nose out the door, you know what to do.”

“Stay?”

“No, stupid! You kill. Get it? If anyone comes out, kill them.”

“Wait. Watch. Kill.” The brute repeated the words lugubriously.

“Right. Now go and hide. That alley looks like a good spot.”

He pointed straight toward the lane where I was hidden!

Frantically, I tried to coerce the shambling giant against the idea, forgetting that he was defective and therefore impenetrable. By the time I thought of coercing the second man to change his instructions, he had already gone striding off toward the warehouse, his mind on other matters.

There was nothing I could do but remain utterly still as Lill bore down on me. I dared not even shift back to where Gahltha was.

For a minute, we were literally face to face, and I thought my heart would batter its way right through my chest. Fortunately, he barely glanced down the dark end of the lane, turning instead to face the street and the warehouse. “Stay. Watch. Kill,” he muttered to himself.

Behind him in the shadows, a bare handspan away, I could feel sweat crawl down my back. Trying to stay calm, I shaped a probe and sent it to Matthew to warn him that I was trapped in an alley by a man whom I could not coerce and dared not confront physically—especially since any confrontation would alert Salamander that his network had been contaminated, setting off the very bloodbath we were at pains to avoid. I told him swiftly about the second man approaching the warehouse and about the carriage driver.

Dimly, I registered the sound of knocking at the warehouse door.

“Tell Brydda not to send the slaves, because I have no way of tracking them. Have him quibble about the coin,” I sent urgently, knowing Matthew would have to speak to Brydda before the hired thug was inside the warehouse.

I slid along my probe and into Matthew’s waiting mind.
The interior of the shed swam dimly into focus. I was startled to find that Matthew seemed to be standing behind the Councilfarm workers. Was he trying to keep himself out of sight?

“What is happening? Did you tell Brydda?”

“Everything is fine,” Matthew sent with admirable calmness, and my panic subsided slightly. “Are you all right out there?”

“I am as long as I don’t move a muscle or make a sound.”

“Lucky ye’ve no need to move with a farseekin’ probe.”

My heart began to thump again. Could he have possibly misunderstood me? “Matthew, I told you I can’t farseek the carriage driver any more than I can farseek the slaves.”

“You can now,” the farseeker sent. “I’ve taken th’ place of one of th’ slaves. Ye need nowt blame Brydda—I told him ye’d changed yer mind. As things transpire, it’s lucky I did.”

I could not deny that entirely, but I was filled with a terrible foreboding.

“Matthew, if something goes wrong …”

“Nothin’ will go wrong. Ye’ll trace me, an’ when ye can move, ye’ll lead Brydda to me an’ th’ others.”

I bit my lip. It sounded simple, but life seldom went according to plan. On the other hand, we had no choice now. The slaver’s hired thug was inside the warehouse, and Matthew was committed to his course of action. It was not the time to tell him that sacrificing himself was no way of atoning for his treatment of Dragon.

The slaver’s man was now examining the slaves, feeling their limbs and making them walk about to ensure they were not lame. Matthew’s eyes did not look at him directly, and this annoyed me until I realized he was deliberately letting his gaze wander as if he was drugged like the others.

I had a single clear glimpse of the squat fellow and his
mouthful of blackened teeth as he peered right into Matthew’s face. As his lips moved, I wished I could hear through Matthew’s ears as well, but we had not yet found a way to achieve that.

“What is happening?” I asked Matthew.

“He’s claimin’ we’re all defectives. Brydda is arguin’ that we are drugged,” Matthew sent. “Now th’ slaver is sayin’ he has no instruction to say we’re meant to be drugged.”

There was a pause.

“Brydda’s makin’ th’ fellow think he’s a coward. He said he was nowt takin’ any chances on us tryin’ to run away or fight him. It looks as if he’s bought it. Yes, he’s givin’ Brydda the bag of coin.”

Abruptly, I withdrew from the farseeker’s mind, conscious of a warning tug on my senses. At once, I became aware of the clatter of carriage wheels on the cobbled street.

The carriage driver had come for his passengers.

In front of me, Lill flattened himself to the wall as the wagon rattled past the lane opening. It was a closed rig without windows; once Matthew was inside, there would be no using his eyes to orientate myself.

I crossed my fingers hard that nothing would go wrong.

I returned to Matthew’s mind and found he had now been bound and gagged along with the other four. “The man has told Brydda to stay inside the warehouse until daylight. If he comes out before that, Salamander will have him killed.”

My heart sank at the thought of being forced to stay perfectly still in the lane all night.

“Now he’s bringing us outside.…”

Through the farseeker’s eyes, I saw the wagon and the surly carriage driver. He said nothing as he climbed down and unbarred the back of the carriage. The slaver’s hired man
loaded in the five, including Matthew, and slammed the door shut, plunging the interior of the wagon into darkness.

I left a probe with Matthew and withdrew to my own mind to watch the carriage trundle past again.

The hired thug strode off down the street, and Lill shifted forward stealthily to watch the warehouse. I waited with my ears peeled for any sound in the street.

“Wait,” the brute muttered in a disgruntled tone after some time, and he relaxed slightly. Only then did I relax, too, realizing Brydda must know not to come out. There was nothing more to do but wait until the other man came back for Lill.

My probe was still securely locked into Matthew’s mind, and I tested it for the thousandth time.

“Dinna hold on so tight,” he protested with a mental wriggle.

Apologizing, I loosened my grip.

“I think we’re stoppin’,” the farseeker sent suddenly. “Perhaps—”

The carriage door was flung open, and I could see nothing as he was blinded by the brightness of a lamp. Matthew blinked rapidly, trying to restore our vision.

As his eyes adjusted, I saw the face of the man holding the lamp. A feeling of terror assailed me, for it was the very same soldierguard captain who had seemed to recognize Dragon in the market!

“Who’s there?”

The surly grunt dragged me instantly back to my own body as the hulking Lill turned to peer into the shadowy lane. I realized with dawning horror that I had gasped aloud!

He dropped a great paw to his belt and withdrew a long-bladed knife, squinting to see more clearly as he took a careful step forward.

One more step and he would literally fall over me, but his eyes were on the end of the lane. He had no idea how close I was. I was paralyzed with terror.

“Move/shift,” Gahltha sent sharply. A split second later, he gave a shrill whinny and charged the thug.

The man issued a bellow of fright and stumbled backward, dropping the knife as the black horse leapt at him and over into the street. He turned his head to watch Gahltha gallop away into the night, and as he did so, I sprinted lightly to the sagging roof above the alley and hauled myself up. The sound of hooves on the cobblestones drowned out any noise I had made, and I lay completely still.

There was a long silence as the thug got to his feet and retrieved his knife. He turned and came down the lane, brandishing it purposefully. Fortunately, it did not occur to him to look up, and when he found no one, he shrugged in bafflement, muttering to himself about abandoned horses as he returned to his position at the head of the lane.

I lay for some moments shivering before I realized that I had lost contact with Matthew.

I remembered the soldierguard captain with renewed shock and sent out an attuned probe to find Matthew, wondering what on earth a soldierguard was doing with slavers.

The probe would not connect.

With burgeoning fear, I tried again and again, concentrating fiercely on Matthew’s mental signature.

It would not locate.

On the verge of panic, I swept the entire area surrounding the place where I had last had contact with the farseeker.

Nothing.

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