you, for a price.” He cast a wandering glance at the trees, and her staff. “I’m certain you have the rank to use them.”
She let the offer hang between them. There was little doubt that more than a few of those long-hidden scrolls had been written by her hand. She’d been a proud scholar once, and she’d paid the price of pride. Pavek’s precious knowledge was no temptation. He’d overplayed himself, which suited her purposes perfectly. They could barter old spell-craft until she decided what to do about the reemergence of halfling alchemy.
“What is your price, Just-Plain Pavek?”
“A place to stay, food to eat, water to drink.”
“For how long?” she asked, taking the same tone she’d used with Ruari. “What do you truly want? Spells in the palms of your own hands, not some lump of clay hanging from your neck?”
It was merely logical: why else would a man—a scarred, battered man with burnt-out eyes—commit useless lore into his memory? She smiled beneath her veil. She’d teach him, as she’d tried to teach Yohan, if he answered truthfully. She’d bind him to her own purposes no matter how he answered.
* * *
Pavek would have risked gold to see beneath that raggy veil. He had no gold. He had nothing at all except the truth, which he risked with toothy defiance.
“Yes,” he answered loudly enough for everyone, even Ruari on the fringes, to hear. “Yes. Give me spells in the palms of my hands. Make me a druid.”
A ripple of nervous laughter passed among the Quraiters, reminding him of the smile on Oelus’s face when he’d made a similar request. He was conscious of his hands closing into fists and the need to quash the mockery, starting with the faceless crone in front of him who’d tilted her head like an eyeless bird and clicked her hidden tongue against her teeth.
“Is it so simply done, Just-Plain Pavek? Did you memorize a little cantrip that would transform you from parasite to druid? Bend down and whisper it to me.”
He stayed as he was. There were no such invocations. He’d risked everything and missed the mark. Again. Why did he dream of magic when life’s least lessons continued to elude him? “The scrolls say only that there must be a mentor and a willing student. I am willing.”
“Good!” she cackled and struck the ground with her staff. “Come to my grove. We’ll start at once.”
For an instant the staff glowed green; then it and Telhami were gone. Vanished. With only the words—“Do not fail me, Just-Plain Pavek. Follow the wind from the center—” whispered in a fast-dying breeze.
“Earth, wind, fire, and rain!” Ruari exclaimed, turning the invocation into a curse. “A templar invited to Grandmother’s grove.”
The other Quraiters gathered around the empty place where Telhami had stood. They averted their eyes, neither agreeing with the half-wit, nor chastising him for putting their own thoughts into words.
“Start walking, templar. Grandmother’s waiting for you,” Ruari continued. “You better say good-bye, templar, and start walking. But you’ll never find it, not if you walk forever. Your bones will walk ’til they crumble into dust.
The jest’s on you—”
“That’s enough, Ruari,” Akashia said sternly, but her eyes were troubled, and she looked away when he stared directly into them. “Grandmother awaits you. You must find her; you can’t stay here.”
They were already standing at the center of Quraite, where there wasn’t any wind now that the breeze from Telhami’s departure had waned. He raked sweat-stiff hair away from his face. His tongue was swollen, and his lips were salt-cracked. He wanted to sit in the shade with a bowl of water, but these druids, who held themselves far above Hamanu’s templars, wanted him to kill himself walking through the desert.
“A cool wind blows from the center, from the grove,” Akashia assured him, as if she’d sensed his thoughts. “Feel it on your face and follow it to the grove.”
He spun in place, not expecting to feel a cool breath of air, and not finding one, either. Like Ruari, Yohan stood slightly apart from the rest, with his arms folded across his chest and the index ringer of his right hand tapping above his left elbow.
Once, twice, three times, and a pause; then, once, twice, three times before another pause.
A signal. Pavek was grateful for the gesture, though he had no idea how to interpret it.
Ruari taunted him again: “Can’t feel a thing, can you, templar?” The smile twisting the half-elfs lips was worthy of Elabon Escrissar, another half-elf.