as the dwarf dragged the cart into the clearing. Pavek caught the dwarfs eye for less than a heartbeat—long enough to see a wariness that had nothing to do with surprise or fear.
He knew who had taught the kid, and he knew he had the right threesome even though the cart was topped with straw and rags.
“Search it!” he commanded, and Bukke did, with vengeance.
Four amphorae, their baked clay walls made waterproof with a layer of glistening lacquer, soon lay exposed in the dust. Their necks were plugged with deep-red wax into which a carved seal bearing a familiar leonine profile had been impressed.
“Bust ’em open?” Bukke asked.
Pavek took a deep breath. His plan—the plan Metica implied in her chamber—required breaking tie seals, not the vessels themselves. Some seals were simply wax; anyone could break them, but some were spiked with sorcery. They could leave a man with stumps where his hands had been and leave an image of his agonized face where the sorcerer could find it. Pavek knew the risks, so did Bukke. Breaking the amphorae would scatter the powder in the sand. If it was Rokka rather than the itinerants who were responsible for overcutting Ral’s Breath, there’d be no way to prove it.
“Have the woman break the seals,” Pavek said, the inspiration bursting into his thoughts.
The woman strode past Bukke, calmly adjusting the shoulder of her gown where Bukke had torn it in his determination to do a thorough inspection. Her eyes, and her anger, never left Pavek’s face, but she said nothing as she knelt down beside the amphorae.
The half-elf hurled a curse at Pavek that should have cost one of them his life. He surged forward. Bukke reached for his machete. The dwarf grabbed the half-elf before harm could be done.
Pavek saw it all as a blur; his clear vision never left the woman. He watched her hands, even when the torn cloth at her shoulder came loose again. He couldn’t have said what he expected to see: a flash of light, perhaps, some other sorcerous signature—something he could pass along to Metica when he saw her. With the half-elf still cursing up a storm, the woman placed her palms on the ground. She closed her eyes and nothing happened. Just as nothing happened when she took the ribbons locked inside the deep-red wax and pulled the plugs out, one after another, as if they were no more dangerous than the sap-wax Metica kept in the box on her work-table.
As if, but not hardly.
All those off-duty days spent in the bureau archives weren’t a complete loss. Pavek couldn’t put a name to what he’d seen, not a specific spell name, but that woman kneeling there, looking at him with just a trace of real anxiety in her eyes now, was no common itinerant. She’d called upon the land of Athas to take back the spellcraft she or someone else had placed in those seals.
She was a druid.
“Do you want a closer look?” she asked, sitting back on her heels, leaving the torn doth of her gown as it had fallen.
He did and he didn’t, in more ways than one. He thought of ordering Bukke to shove his hand into one of the amphorae, but one look at that young man’s face and Pavek put the notion out of his mind. Returning his knife to its sheath, he knelt opposite the druid. Her breathing was deep and even; she didn’t blink when he reached as deep as he could into the powder. He brought up a handful. It was as yellow as the powder showing in the other three. Pavek touched his tongue to the little mound in his palm, then sprang to his feet retching for all he was worth, and to no avail.
Everyone—templars and travelers alike—got a good laugh at Pavek’s expense. The only ones who didn’t laugh were the forsaken, almost forgotten, slaves kneeling near the farmer’s corpse, and their despair was worse than laughter. Pavek had his hands against his throat. He’d coughed so hard he was sure he was bleeding from the mouth, but he couldn’t feel anything from his lips down to his gut.
“Find what you were looking for, regulator?” Bukke asked sarcastically.
Pavek’s eyes were watering. He couldn’t talk; he could hardly breathe.
“Do we have your permission to go on about our business?” the druid asked. She’d already replaced the wax plugs, probably re-spelled them, too.
The best Pavek could manage was a nod and a wave in the general