Betrayals (46 page)

Once again the man obeyed without hesitation, and soon everyone had taken a place either on the ground or on the edge of a blanket. No one spoke, of course, as everyone wanted to hear what their visitor had to say.

“You can start by tellin’ us who you are,” Valiant said to him, using that commanding tone that seemed so natural to him. “After that we’ll want to know why you were followin’ Meerk.”

“I’m Fladir Sord,” the man answered smoothly. “My actual rank is colonel, but most people think I’m no more than a corporal or a private. It’s my job to know exactly what’s going on around Quellin, and to make sure nothing interrupts the smooth flow of segments to where they’re needed. I followed your friend there because I was certain he was one of those all those messages from Gan Garee spoke about.”

“You know about the messages?” Valiant put next, his eyes narrowing. “We had the impression that no one from Quellin was supposed to know anythin’ about them.”

“Oh, I knew about them even before that fool came racing back in hysterics,” Sord replied with a laugh. “For a supposedly tough guardsman, the man was closer to tears than I like to think about. All his people were gone, he kept saying, gone without a trace. My nominal superior tried to calm him by pointing out that they’d probably gone off in an unexpected direction after the fugitives, but he refused to accept that. They finally had to put him to sleep and sedate him to keep him under.”

“And is that all they did?” Valiant pursued. “Didn’t they also send word about his claims to Gan Garee?”

“Well, of course they did, but only to cover themselves in case something actually came of his raving,” Sord answered. “They didn’t believe him for a moment, and I certainly didn’t. Those fools from the city most likely lost track of their fugitives, so they arranged to ‘disappear’ for a while. It’s hardly likely that anything else happened to them, not against what reason says has to be a rather tiny force. If even half the segments they ‘rescued’ stayed with them, I’ll eat my horse.”

“You seem very familiar with what you call segments,” Jovvi put in, speaking more softly than the look in her eyes would suggest. “Just what do you mean by that? What are segments?”

“Segments of our army, of course,” Sord responded with a faint sound of exasperation. “How could you not know that? Do you think the backward fools in Astinda have been just giving us parts of their country for the last three years? A year ago we began to move seriously against Gracely to the east as well, so even more segments were needed. When they find out how many segments you people are responsible for stealing, they’ll probably kill you very slowly indeed.”

“Whoever they are, they’re welcome to try,” Jovvi responded, not the least bit of warmth in her voice. “So they are using our people to extend the empire by force. Tell me how they control the Highs they drug and enslave.”

“They use Puredan, of course, but the segments aren’t just Highs,” Sord said with a small shrug of unconcern. “Every once in a while the shipments include a few strong Middles, ones who for one reason or another weren’t sent back home. After that the segments have to obey orders, and there’s never any trouble.”

“That should have changed with some of the last people brought in here,” Valiant said, exchanging a glance with Jovvi. “If I’m not mistaken, our friends in the other challengin’ Blendin’s were sent here when they lost in the competitions. Do you happen to know if the last shipments have been sent anywhere yet? And why don’t your bosses use Puredan right from the beginnin’, instead of sendin’ the people here unconscious?”

“We’ve learned that there’s a difference in attitude when people suddenly wake up in a place they can’t remember coming to,” Sord told them. “It disconnects them from their past lives in some way, and it makes it easier for us to adapt them to the new one. Obedience all by itself doesn’t do the job, you know, not when you’re dealing with humans. You can order them to be calm and to keep up their strength with the food they’re given, but then they have hysterics on the inside, and the food ends up doing nothing to keep them healthy. You’d be surprised at how many link segments we used to lose, just because they were homesick or some such nonsense.”

“Nonsense,” Jovvi echoed with a growl which would have sounded more fitting coming from any of the others of them. “You call it nonsense because you don’t have any place to be homesick for. But that’s beside the point. You avoided answering the first part of the question put to you, which you shouldn’t have been able to do. Answer it now, and then tell me why you avoided it.”

“How can you be so obscenely strong?” Sord complained even as he colored a bit. “You’re a nothing, and a woman besides … All right, the answer to your question about the last shipment we got is that I don’t know. I’m entitled to know, but those fools running the place consider me less than they are because I’m just an illegitimate son of nobility. But that still makes me nobility, so they have no right to keep things from me! I usually find out on my own, but this time there were … distractions.”

“He probably means us,” Valiant said to Jovvi, then turned his attention back to Sord. “How many people man that stockade? And for that matter, how many men will they be bringin’ against us when we attack? And is there any way they expect us to attack?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Sord replied with a snort. “Attacking the stockade is out of the question, so how could they be expecting it? They have more than three hundred and fifty men to oppose anyone trying, and that doesn’t count the segments—which they’ll use to add to their defenses. You fools don’t stand a chance, and they know it even if you don’t.”

“They say you can teach people who don’t know, but not people who know ,” Tamrissa commented with what struck Lorand as a very … feral expression. “ I think we’re about to change that, in the only way it can be changed—by force. Especially since we’ll have help on the inside.”

“You mean me,” Sord said with a nod. “Yes, with me helping you, your chances are much improved. Those fools don’t know the half of what I’m capable of… What will you want me to do?”

“We’ll tell you that after you give us every detail about the stockade,” Valiant responded, this time exchanging a quick glance with Tamrissa. “But before we go into that, I’ll ask if anyone else here has any questions. Don’t be shy and hang back because you have no experience with this sort of thing. None of us has experience, and you could well think of somethin’ we’re missin’.”

“My question won’t help in that particular way, but I’d like to ask it anyway,” Meerk said, speaking up for the first time. “I’m the one you were following, you sludge, and I’d like to know how you spotted me—and what you meant to do when you finally caught up to me.”

“Spotting you wasn’t hard,” Sord said with a ridiculing smirk. “You came into town claiming you were heading to Gan Garee, and were looking for some work to add to your stake. You sounded too stupid for anyone to want to hire you, but the way you looked at everything said you weren’t as stupid as you pretended to be. And that accent you used—it’s typically poor-section Gan Garee, but you claimed you’d never been to the city. Careless of you, I ’d say.”

“Yes, very,” Meerk agreed dryly. “And what about your intentions?”

“Obviously I meant to follow you back to this camp,” Sord continued with the smirk increased. “At that point I meant to decide whether to return to Quellin to get help to take all of you, or to do the thing myself. I’m really very strong in Spirit magic, and I’ve learned how to make most people do everything I want them to. But quietly, of course, so no one gets suspicious.”

“And that’s how you got to be so important,” Jovvi said with a sound of disdain. “By manipulating people, instead of earning what you were given. Yes, I can believe you come from nobility stock. That’s exactly the way they do it.”

“Well, why shouldn’t I?” Sord countered calmly. “And for that matter, why shouldn’t they? We have exactly what we want, while you people have nothing—and you won’t have even that much once we get through with you. It’s fairly obvious that our way is better than yours.”

“You should have used the word ‘simple’ somewhere in there, because that’s what your outlook is,” Jovvi returned at once. “When you get what you want using unfair means, you do two things at once: first, you admit to the world that you’re too incompetent to get those things fairly, and second, you encourage those who are better than you to use the same means to defend themselves. The result of that second point is that you lose what you should never have had in the first place, so you find yourself regretting the loss for the rest of your life. And you will lose it, you have my word on that.”

All traces of the smirk had vanished from Sord’s face by then, replaced by a look of uncertainty that Lorand was able to understand. It hadn’t been possible to doubt Jovvi, who seemed furious because the man had Spirit magic. Lorand understood that as well, not to mention a third thing: with both Tamrissa and Jovvi as angry as they were, he would not have wanted to be on the receiving end of their next Blending efforts himself!

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

By the time they had all the information the man Sord could give, Valiant felt almost as tired as physical labor would have made him. Somehow Sord was actually resisting the commands he’d been given by their Blending entity, not completely but enough so that they’d had to be very careful with the questions they put and the answers they’d been given. If no one pressed the point, Sord ignored certain questions and gave less than full answers to others. They’d had to constantly repeat the demand that he tell all he knew about something, otherwise the man would have held back on half of what they needed to know.

“Now that was a workout,” Jovvi said as she pushed back her hair with both hands. “I had no idea it would work like that, but obviously it does.”

“You had no idea what would work like what?” Tamrissa asked, looking just as draggled. “And I still think we would have avoided a lot of that if you’d have let me … persuade him a bit.”

“You could have fried him for breakfast for all of me, but it wouldn’t have done any good, Tamma,” Jovvi said with a sigh. “The man is a conscienceless liar, meaning that he says anything he pleases or has to in order to get what he wants. It doesn’t bother him the least bit when he lies, because it’s so much a part of his nature. His true self and feelings are always in reserve, so to speak, and that’s why he’s partially able to resist the order we gave. It isn’t in him to be completely truthful.”

“Unless he’s forced to it, the way we did it,” Valiant said with a weary nod. “Do you think he’s still holdin’ somethin’ back?”

She turned to look at Sord, where he now sat leaning against a tree, and slowly shook her head.

“No, he’s too unhappy and downright distressed to have held anything back,” she decided. “If he’d been able to slide over or ignore even one item we need, he would be feeling fulfilled and satisfied. It seems to be part of his very essence to keep the truth to himself and from the world.”

“That sounds like someone who’s had nothing but pain and betrayal all his life,” Lorand commented, also studying Sord. “Or someone who’s always been desperately lonely. But that has nothing to do with what we’re here for. Do we really have a chance against them, Alsin?”

“More than a chance, I’d say,” Meerk replied, sounding and looking thoughtful. “They have about three hundred and fifty men to defend the stockade, men who have trained in link-groups. They also have their captive Highs, who will have long since been given the Puredan. If we can somehow eliminate the threat of the Highs, we might be able to take out the rest of them piecemeal.”

“But not without their noticing,” Rion pointed out. “What good will it do to drop groups of them in their tracks, if the rest are left awake and alert and able to harm the very people we’ve come to rescue?”

“They won’t do anything to their captives except as a last resort,” Meerk assured him soberly. “They’ll want to use the ability of the Highs, remember, which they can’t do if they kill them. And since we have the advantage of surprise on our side, it would be foolish not to use it. No one will notice if their friend or coworker is put down if they themselves are asleep for the night.”

“And that way we can take care of them a few at a time!” Lorand exclaimed, obviously pleased with the idea. “Once that’s done Sord opens the gate and lets us in, and the stockade is ours without the least amount of fuss.”

“Don’t you believe it,” Meerk disagreed, but with a sigh. “Only rarely do things work out the way they’re supposed to in war, all the books agree on that. And if you think this isn’t war, you’re in for a nasty surprise.”

“I’m hopin’ that they’re the ones who will get the surprise,” Valiant said when Lorand simply nodded wry capitulation. “If Pagin Holter and his Blendin’ are still in the stockade, they won’t be under the influence of the Puredan. That means they’ll be free to help us , which ought to make things go more smoothly.”

“Only if they are still there,” Meerk felt it necessary to point out, then he stretched widely. “I’m going to see if Lidris will fix me something to eat, and then I’ll sit down and begin to sketch out the moves we’ll be making. And you’ll all have to decide if we’re going tonight, or if there’s a reason you want to wait. If you’re thinking about waiting, please bear in mind that we’re rapidly running out of time.”

None of them really had to be reminded of that, least of all Valiant. He knew there were scores or hundreds of guardsmen who were on their way from Gan Garee to search for them, and only the constant checking the Blending did let him fall asleep at night. But he didn’t sleep well or soundly, not the way he used to. It would take that horror being completely over to return him to his old habits, and that would be … how long?

“Don’t worry, everything will work just the way it’s supposed to,” a voice said, drawing him out of distraction. All the others had gone with Meerk to the cooking fire, all except—

“Tamrissa, you—startled me,” Valiant said, to cover the way he’d jumped when he’d realized it was she. The woman was slowly turning him into a nervous wreck, or maybe not so slowly. She never actually did or said anything out of the way, but her new habit of smiling and complimenting him made him feel like a calf being fattened for slaughter. And the way she looked at him … She seemed to be trying to decide which garnish would go best with his coloring.