But he was afraid of Mahtra. That had been simmering since the Sun’s Fist and had finally reached a boil now that they were both back in Urik, where they knew each other from House Escrissar and shared memories Pavek didn’t want to imagine. He shot a glance at Ruari. Of all of them, the half-elf was the most anxious. Ruari didn’t know much about cities, and what he did know wasn’t pleasant. He’d reclaimed his staff from the baggage cart and clung to it with both hands. The rest of his body was in constant motion, affected by every sound he heard. It was time to test his belief that the half-elf was reliable.
“You’ll stay with her, won’t you, Ru?”
“Aye,” Ruari replied, but he was staring at the roofs across the street where something had just gone thump.
“There—you lead us as far as you can, and Ruari will stay with you until Zvain and I get back.” Never mind that he’d trust Mahtra’s street-sense before he’d trust Ruari’s; Mahtra was reassured.
“We have to get to the elven market. There’ll be enforcers to pay, and runners. I haven’t paid them since—” Mahtra’s voice faltered. Pavek began to worry that the return to Urik had overwhelmed her, but she cleared her throat and continued. “There’s Henthoren. I don’t know if he’ll let me bring someone new across his plaza…”
“We’ll worry about that when we get there,” Pavek said with a shrug.
He might have known the passage would be in the elven market—the one place in Urik where a high templar’s medallion wouldn’t cut air. They’d be better off if no market enforcer or runner suspected who he was, what he was. Tucking the medallion inside his shirt, he started walking toward the market. He had three companions, each of whom wanted to walk beside him, but only two sides, Ruari staked a claim to Pavek’s right side. He held it with dire glowers and few expert prods from his staff, which Pavek decided diplomatically to ignore.
“What do I do with these?” the half-elf asked plaintively.
Pavek looked down on a handful of colorful seal-stones sitting in Ruari’s outstretched hand. “Did anyone tell you a story that you believed?”
“No. They all wanted something from me.”
“Throw them away.”
“But—?”
The stones went tumbling when Pavek jostled the half-elf’s arm.
“But—?” he repeated. “The stones themselves—shouldn’t I try to return them, if I don’t want them?”
“Forget the stones. Potters sell them at twenty for a ceramic bit, forty after a rain. Forget the Modekaners. If you’d believed them, it might be different—might be. But you didn’t believe them. Trust yourself, Ru. You for damn sure can’t trust anyone else.”
Ruari wiped the lingering dust onto his breeches. The great adventure had lost its glow for him and was further dimmed when they passed through the gates into the elven market. Ruari had been conceived somewhere in the dense maze of tents, shanties, and stalls. His Moonracer mother had fallen afoul of a human templar. The templar was long dead, but Ruari still held a grudge.
The market was quiet, at least as far as enforcers and runners were concerned. Mahtra led them confidently from one shamble-way to the next. Keeping an eye out for authority, Pavek spotted several vendors who seemed to recognize her—hardly surprising given her memorably exotic features—but no one called to her. And that wasn’t surprising either. Folk in the market minded their own business, but they had a good memory for strangers, an excellent memory for the three strangers traveling in Mahtra’s wake.
They stopped short on the verge of a plaza not greatly different from a handful of others they’d crossed without hesitation.
“He’s not here. Henthoren’s not here,” Mahtra mumbled through her mask. She pointed at an odd but empty construction, an awning-chair atop a man-high tower and the tower mounted on wheels. Henthoren—a tribal elf by the sound of his name—presumably sat in the chair, but there were no elves to be seen today, not even among the women pounding laundry in the fountain. “He’s gone.”
“He can’t stop you from leading us across then, can he?” Pavek chided gently. “Let’s go.”
She led them to a squat stone building northwest of the fountain. The stone was gray, contrasting with the ubiquitous yellow of Urik’s streets and walls. There were rows of angular marks above a leather-hinged grating. Writing, Pavek guessed, but none that he was familiar with. After spending all his free time breathing dust and copying scrolls in the city archive,