up the stowaway, and the women got around him. He’s got a right to choose which mistakes he tries to correct: Telhami’s or Escrissar’s.”
If he finally had Yohan’s measure, Pavek figured the weary dwarf would accept his offer. Besides, if Ruari became too much of a nuisance, they could always clout him unconscious and leave him behind in some market village.
“We’ll ask Grandmother.” Yohan capitulated and turned toward them. Relief showed on his face, for all that he was trying to hide it. No one wanted to die alone.
“We’ll tell Telhami that we’re going to fix the mistakes she’s made, and that we’ll all turn into banshees to haunt her if she tries to stop us.”
* * *
A little later, by the light of a lamp in her hut, Telhami told them their plan was typical male foolishness. “Kashi’s dead. She’d kill herself—she knows how—before she’d submit to that creature or betray Quraite’s secret You’ve made your point: I was wrong. What the poor suffer without Ral’s Bream is a small price to pay. Until Laq is a fading memory, our zameeka stays here in Quraite, hidden away. But Kashi’s dead, and no amount of breast-beating or vengeance will change that. There’s nothing left to be done. We’ve all paid the price. Forget Urik. Forget it all. Let it lie.” She looked specifically at Yohan and added: “I’ll forgive your focus, with the guardian’s help. There’s no reason to sacrifice yourself.”
Yohan was speechless, but Pavek swore loudly enough to awaken the entire village.
And Quraite’s guardian. Awareness flowed into him—threatened to destroy him with its intensity—then Ruari’s hand was flat against his arm, helping him shape the power he’d instinctively invoked.
“Don’t coddle me with your forgiveness,” he roared, “or your tally of what’s been paid and what’s still owed. I know better; I know Escrissar! Look at me, Telhami. Look inside me! Look at what I know about Elabon Escrissar and tell me that there’s nothing left to do!”
The old woman did not use her mind-bender’s power to take the images he so desperately wanted to hurl into her mind’s eye. She didn’t even raise her eyes to meet his, but she did, somehow, cut him off from the guardian’s power.
Ruari’s hand slipped away, and the energized air within the hut dissipated on the midnight breeze.
“Hamanu’s infinitesimal mercy is far greater than yours,” Pavek whispered. She’d diminished his voice when she reaped the guardian’s strength away from him. “He’d never let a favorite slip away unavenged.”
His legs were dead-weight beneath him. Each step was precarious as he turned and plodded toward the door. Telhami said nothing, did nothing to stop him.
* * *
There were three fresh kanks, provisions, and well-crafted obsidian weapons waiting beside the central well when Pavek picked himself up from the tree-shaded place where he’d fallen—literally—to sleep after leaving Telhami’s hut. Telhami wasn’t around. Ruari said she’d left the village for her grove at dawn, walking with just her staff to support her. He said that she was sorry, that she’d grieved and sobbed, torn her clothes and wailed that she was ready to die before she left her hut. Challenged by both himself and Yohan, Ruari admitted he’d spent the night spying and promptly ran off.
The boundless energy of youth, Pavek thought enviously while he washed sleep-grit from his eyes. He was stiff and sore, as if he’d been the loser in an uneven brawl—as, in a sense, he had been: Telhami had bested him before he’d known he was in a fight.
And then, before dawn, she’d conceded defeat.
He threw a leather harness over the kank’s carapace, narrowly dodging its saliva-drenched mandibles. It trilled in the high-pitched, nerve-jangling way of bugs, making the hair all over his body stand on end, but the bug minded its manners. He tightened straps around the food sacks and water jugs, and attached a long, obsidian knife to his belt.
Yohan was already mounted. The dwarf’s eyes were still a study in red and black, but his strength had been restored by a half night’s sleep. Ruari was returning with a fourth kank.
“In case we find her,” he explained before any questions could be asked. “In case we get very lucky.”
An extra kank couldn’t hurt—especially if, as Ru said, they got very lucky. Pavek waited in silence while Ruari harnessed both his kank and the extra one. Villagers came to see them leave. The farmers saluted them with fingers twisted into various luck-signs or pressed sprigs of tiny white flowers into their