Fires of the Desert (Children of the Desert Book 4) (20 page)

It doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t make any sense at all:
not his own thoughts, but a memory of his mentor, Allonin, talking to himself about the weather at Aerthraim Fortress one day.
The rain came early this year.
Then he’d dismissed the subject and distracted Tank into another series of training exercises.

Tank remembered an unexpected icestorm, not long ago, and felt a sudden shiver that had nothing to do with the chill air run down his spine.

Things are changing. Big changes.
He’d felt that premonition on his way north, but he’d made the mistake of thinking that the changes would be
—could
be—under his control. Now he realized that most of the changes would probably have nothing to do with him in the first place, and that he’d only ever see a tiny corner of the storm sweeping through.

He quickened his pace, suddenly wanting to be as far from the palace as possible: as though that distance might help save him from the disruption he could sense all around him.

The broad main street within the Seventeen Gates looped in a vast near-circle, with the noble houses arrayed along the outer rim and the palace grounds filling the inner loop. Tank passed four gates in short order.

He couldn’t use any of them. The Crown Gate was locked at this time of night. The Gold Gate was unusable at any time, being entirely ceremonial; one of the after-dinner stories he’d heard during his brief time in Venepe’s crew said that a past king had decided to plate the gate with precious metals, and the only way to preserve the resulting monstrosity from wear had been to keep it shut.

The Red Gate led directly into one of the worst neighborhoods in Bright Bay and rarely opened, certainly not at night; and the Bird Gate was held as a special gate for members of some elite group or other to pass through on ceremonial occasions.

According to the gossip Tank had picked up to date, a surprising number of the gates had been rendered unusable or unsafe over the years. Only four out of seventeen stood in common use and good working order. The one closest to Tank’s goal, the Copper Kettle, lay at the far northeastern side of the Seventeen Gates and was simply called the East Gate. Given that the palace exit he’d taken lay on the western side of the loop, it was a long walk just to get to that gate, and twice as far just to get to the Kettle.

He began to wish he’d taken Eredion up on his offer of a room closer to the gates. His lower legs and feet ached from all the recent walking over hard stone and paved roads. Pausing to rest, he lifted a foot and stretched it gingerly, hoping to ease the pain flaring through his shins.

The thudding steps of an approaching guard patrol carried clearly in the thin, cold air. He repressed a reflexive urge to bolt for cover. Those days were over, and he wasn’t doing anything wrong. Grimacing at the pain spiking through his legs, he started forward again, trying to move with a deliberate pace instead of a limp.

The patrol slowed as they neared, the leader studying Tank with a sharply dubious expression. Tank held out his arm and shook it, displaying the bracelet. It glittered and clicked in the thin moonlight and wavering torchlight. The guard leader nodded, motioned his men to pick up the pace again, and swept on by without another glance.

Didn’t even ask if I’d stolen it,
Tank mused, watching the white-robed guards march past, their torches quickly diminishing to twinkling flares of bobbing light.
Trusting, aren’t they?

Brooding, he went on towards the East Gate, thinking about the reflexive courtesy given to desert lords and their servants. He knew enough about the southern bead languages to know that the bracelet Eredion had given him marked him as a Sessin servant. He doubted the guards knew that, or could even properly see what the bracelet looked like in the uncertain torchlight.

They’d reacted to his assurance, to the gesture, not to the actual bracelet. A good con artist could have slipped by without question. Tank had expected more awareness from the guards inside the Seventeen Gates, but apparently they were just as stupid as the ones walking the lower streets of Bright Bay.

Thinking of con artists put him in mind of Idisio, and he wondered if anyone had ever gone to help the former thief with his insane mother. Eredion had assured him that it was being handled, but after his recent encounters with the Sessin lord, Tank wasn’t at all sure the man ever told the truth for two sentences in a row.

Maybe I should have stayed and helped Idisio myself,
he thought, then yawned. The walk to the Copper Kettle suddenly seemed like an infinite distance, and his legs
really
hurt. Reluctantly, he decided to take a room at the next inn he passed, although the doubtless high price would eat sharply into his precious savings.

Even when I do catch up with Dasin, there’s no guarantee of a job,
he thought, increasingly depressed. Dasin was as temperamental as the recent weather; it seemed entirely possible that Tank would arrive only to be told to go away. And if that happened, Tank would be stuck without ten bits to put together, damn near in the middle of the Coast Road, hoping for another contract to magically appear.

Lost in brooding, he barely noticed when he limped through the East Gate; another sharp spike of pain from his right leg shook him back to the moment. He stopped walking and looked around. To his left stood Emris Chandler’s, where he and Dasin picked up most of their candle and lantern supplies. To his right was Styn’s Bookbinding, where Dasin bought his accounting ledgers. Three buildings ahead, a lantern on a hook lit a sign beneath:
Basil’s Inn House.
On the ground under sign and lantern sat a large pot, green and purple basil battling it out for space within.

Tank stared, bemused. He remembered that building as Fern’s Inn, and the pot had held a huge jungle fern last time he’d passed by. After a moment, he headed for the renamed inn, hoping that the prices hadn’t gone up even further with the change of name.

Before he made four steps, the door opened and a tall man stepped out, cloaked and hooded against the night chill. Something in the man’s stance and movement stopped Tank on the spot. He dodged back into shadow reflexively, his throat tight with sudden panic even as he told himself he was being an idiot.

The tall man stood still, head tilted as though listening intently. Tank held his breath and flattened himself against the side of the bookbinder’s shop, knowing only that he did not want this man to discover his presence.

After a long moment, the stranger shook his head and let out a heavy sigh, as though disappointed about something. The sound was tantalizingly familiar, but how different could a sigh sound from person to person? There was still no rational reason for Tank to think he knew this man.

The man took a step away from the door, two more, then paused again, looking up at the stars as though for guidance. The hood shifted back a bit, enough for the hanging lantern to highlight an aquiline profile and desert-bronze skin. Tank froze, his heart tripping into a hearty staccato beat.

Allonin.
No mistake, no more denying recognition; a moment later the man whipped round and stared directly into the shadows where Tank stood.

“Tanavin?” he said, barely audible.

Tank remained locked in place for another heartbeat, terror filling his mind: he’d been thinking about Allonin not long before. Had that drawn his former mentor here? Had his encounter with Alyea given him
that
much power?

No. I won’t be that. I won’t!

Fear swamped through him, blocking out everything except needing to
get away.
With a hard, sobbing gasp, he spun and fled west.

“Tanavin!”
Allonin bellowed, his voice echoing off the buildings.
“Wait!”

The rest of the man’s words muddied into echoes, distorted by fear and an overlay of memories of the
last
time he’d run from Allonin.

The sky was clear and filled with bright stars. He ran through the streets of Bright Bay, nothing in his mind but fear and despair, not caring where he wound up. Somehow he bypassed the guards at the southern gate and made it into the city proper, alone—and unprotected.

Whispers slowly permeated his mind as he ran, a susurrus of tugging, leading him, calling him; in a fit of renewed rage he made himself turn left instead of right and right instead of left, refusing to follow any direction the whispers advised.

At some point, his legs simply gave out from under him; he felt himself falling, sprawling, crawling—and then darkness dragged him away from awareness.

Footsteps behind him; Tank yipped under his breath and dodged abruptly around a corner, hoping to shake Allonin—not sure
why,
but certain that bad things were about to happen—bad things had happened last time—

Something
whispered.
Tanavin woke, screaming, and thrashed against the hand that landed across his mouth to muffle the sound.

“Will you shut up,” someone hissed in his ear. “You’ll get us all killed!”

“Ought to just kill him ourselves,” another voice muttered.

He jerked out of memory back to the now: legs hot with pain, tears running down his face, his breath gasping and staggering in his chest.

“Tanavin!
Stop!”
The voice bounced from the buildings; Allonin didn’t care who heard their passing. Tank ducked down a short alley and scrambled over a low wall into the next street over. Memory hazed vision into a confusion of colors—

“What’s your name? Or do we just call you Red?”

“No,” he said, unsticking dry mouth and tongue to force out the word. Little Red: that’s what he’d been called back at
that place.
“Not Red. No.”

“Gods,” someone said, “you look like you’re coming off a four day tank. What the hells happened to you?”

“Tank?” he said, confused.

“Hey, I like that name. Tank. Yeah, that’s what we’ll call you.”

Tank’s legs gave out from under him, spilling him ass over elbows across the cobblestones. The fall shook him firmly out of memory-haze into the moment; he rolled to fetch up against the nearest wall and lay still, gasping like a landed fish. His legs ached as though a thousand knives were busily slicing every muscle and tendon apart. He wasn’t at all sure he could stand, let alone crawl.

“Tanavin,” Allonin said, tone despairing, from close at hand. His steps were slow, as though he’d lost heart for the chase. Dropping his voice further, he muttered, “Damnit, he’s
still
faster than—” A sharp pause, then a quickened step. “Tanavin?”

The tall man loomed over Tank, then knelt.

“You’re hurt. Where?”

“Legs.” It felt like a crushing defeat to speak, let alone admit pain.

“Fool,” Allonin said after a moment’s swift examination. “And you’ve gotten too big for me to lift any more. Get up. I’ll help you back to my room. Why did you run in the first place?”

Gritting his teeth against crying out, Tank let his former mentor help him to his feet. “I don’t—”

Something moved in the shadowy dark nearby; no farther away, and from other directions, came a slight scuff, a polite cough.

“Good evening,” a quiet voice said.

Tank blinked, balancing his weight on the leg that hurt the least, and shut his eyes. Beside him, Allonin’s breathing was steady.

“I have no purse worth the taking,” Allonin said. His low voice carried in the silent darkness. “I have no jewelry or valuables worth the taking. Neither does my companion.”

“We’ll judge that,” the voice said. “Strip.”

Tank heard the faintest sigh from Allonin; then a series of strange scruffling sounds erupted in the darkness around them. Moments later came a volley of panicked yelps, then the sound of running feet, rapidly fading away.

“I find myself possessed of less and less patience,” Allonin muttered, “as I grow older.”

Tank’s chest felt frozen with horrified dread. Allonin hadn’t moved so much as a pace; his hands, steadying Tank, hadn’t so much as twitched. “What the hells did you just do?”

“I redirected his own command to himself and his followers,” Allonin said, unruffled. “Their clothes are scattered all over the pavement, if you’d care to search through them. I’m guessing all they have to offer is lice, though.”

“No,” Tank said. “I didn’t know you could...do that. Are you a—?” He couldn’t say it aloud.

“No,” Allonin said. “I’m not a desert lord. It’s complicated.” He snorted, a self-deprecating sound. “Never mind. We’ll talk about it another day.”

They limped back to Basil’s Inn. Tank was dimly surprised at how far he’d run in his mad panic. Allonin had to stop several times to give Tank a rest.

“You’ve probably torn your shin muscles all to the hells,” he said once, squatting to feel Tank’s lower legs with a deft, light touch. “You’ll be off your feet for two tendays, if you’re lucky.”

“Can’t,” Tank said. Allonin slanted a hard, questioning stare up at him; Tank shook his head and looked away, stubbornly resisting conversation.

“You’ll cripple yourself,” Allonin said, then stood and tucked his shoulder under Tank’s arm again. “Come on, then. I’ll do what I can.”

By the time they reached Basil’s Inn, Tank had begun trembling all over; he felt light-headed and lead-footed. The entryway and hallways went by in an increasing haze. At last he heard a door close behind him and felt a padded horizontal surface come up under him. It would have been nice to simply fade away into semi-consciousness, but even this pain wasn’t high enough to drive him beyond that grey line into the world of waking dream.

He blinked at the wavering ceiling, discovering that his eyes were watering, and couldn’t summon the energy to wipe his vision clear. Somewhere nearby, Allonin shuffled through a backpack. Metal and glass clinked, fabric
shissed,
and paper crinkled.

“Tanavin,” Allonin said after a while. “You’re going to have to take your pants off so that I can put this salve on your legs. Otherwise we’ll just have a mess in short order.” He paused. “Tanavin?”

Tank fought to lift his head, to raise a hand, and managed only a feeble twitch of both.