Intrigues (34 page)

The men had almost finished serving their table and the next one over when Lorand lost the pleased expression he'd been showing and stiffened where he sat. The next instant he had risen to his feet, startling everyone.

"Don't anyone eat or drink anything!" Lorand ordered in a very loud voice. "Some of this food has been poisoned!"

This time Rion joined everyone else in exclaiming aloud, but that lasted only a moment. The next instant they were all Blended, and it was the Rion entity that acted. The first ones to be investigated were the serving men nearest the table, and then the serving girls. When those flesh forms proved to be innocent, the Rion entity headed for the kitchens.

There were quite a few more flesh forms in the place called kitchens, but most of them were as innocent as those already examined by the entity. Those who were
not
as innocent, three who stood out clearly from the rest, were spaced about the large area apparently hard at work. In actual fact they were tense and nervous despite their air of unconcern, and the Rion entity took them all over before speaking to the nearest.

- For what reason have you and the others tampered with the produce in this place? - the Rion entity asked. -Was the doing casual, to destroy flesh forms at random? -

"Certainly not!" the flesh form replied with high indignation. "We're not murderers of the innocent. It was those liars we were after, the ones who have to be done away with if people are going to be properly led."

- Led by whom? - the entity put next, truly curious about the matter. - By the one in whose cause you move? -

"Of course not," the flesh form responded, indignant once more. "We'll all be led by the real Chosen Blending, and Dom Ayl will know them when he comes across them. As soon as that happens they'll have our complete support, but no one who opposes us and isn't part of that Chosen Blending can be allowed to live."

The Rion entity digested that and filed the response for later consideration, then went on to question the flesh form in a matter more to the point. The two men and one woman were the only ones of their kind at the inn, and none of them had any information about the plans and intentions of others in their larger group. The three of them had been sent to the inn on the off-chance that their enemies would stop for a meal, and they'd been delighted when the "liars" had actually shown up.

The Rion entity gave the three people orders to tell the inn host what they'd done, and then they were to return to Gan Garee. Once there they were to report to the palace and tell the guards what they'd attempted, and then answer any and all questions put to them. Once the three had given their agreements the entity dissolved, and it was Rion alone again.

"That was close," Jovvi said after letting out a very deep breath as she looked around. "I hate to say it, but we were very sloppy about being alert."

"Which could have cost us our lives," Lorand confirmed with a grim expression as he sat down again. "If you stop to think about it, an ambush was something we should have expected."

"We'll have to start expectin' ambushes even when we do somethin' on a whim," Vallant said with his own grim expression and a headshake before turning to Rion's beloved. "Naran, do you have any idea why your talent didn't warn us?"

"Most likely because the probability of success of this ambush was so low," Naran replied with something of a sigh. "We may not have anticipated the attack, but we're too well equipped - with Lorand's knowledge - for this to have been a really serious effort. If there's some other reason, I'm afraid I don't know what it can be."

"At least only
this
food has been tampered with," Lorand said sourly. "I made sure to check everything before the entity dissolved."

"Which means we can now eat in peace, which I fully intend doing," Tamrissa said, but not as forcefully as usual. "We've had too many close calls for this one to affect my appetite, but there's something else that comes closer to doing it. Did everyone catch that declaration of intent from Ayl's man, and is anyone else bothered by it?"

"I certainly am," Jovvi said with a nod of agreement, leaning back to let the serving man hastily remove the plate of poisoned food. Rion noticed the inn host standing near the kitchen door, frantically overseeing the removal of the tainted food.

"I couldn't have missed it," Vallant said, also in answer to Tamrissa's question. "Ayl's takin' advantage of what he started to make himself the power who gets to Seat the Blendin' of his choice. Unless Ayl gives his okay, any Blendin' tryin' to take the Throne will be killed by his fanatic followers. We really do have to make catchin' that man a top priority."

"We'll have to send back word with two of our guardsmen to have that put at the top of the list," Jovvi said as she accepted a cup of tea with a nod of thanks for the serving girl. Rion noticed that Lorand was busy checking everything being served, which made him feel a good deal better. "I know that Ayl is one of the things the Blendings left behind are supposed to take care of, but they need to be told to see to that first."

"Let's have those three assassins deliver the message," Tamrissa suggested as she, too, accepted a cup of tea. "They have to go back anyway, so why not take advantage of the fact?"

"I'm with Tamrissa," Lorand said as Rion joined the others in making various sounds of agreement. "We brought the guardsmen because we may need them, so why reduce their ranks when it isn't necessary?"

"Doing that would be less than intelligent," Rion said to throw in the weight of his own opinion. "There are quite a few houses belonging to the former nobility where we're headed, and we may well need everyone available when we get there."

"That's settled, then," Jovvi said after looking around to see that everyone did indeed agree. "Let's take care of the matter now, and then we can relax and enjoy our meal."

"But we won't relax
too
far," Vallant warned as he also looked around. "There could be more of those assassins lurkin' around out of sight, with the three we caught bein' none the wiser. I'm also goin' to send some of our guardsmen into the kitchens, to keep an eye out for anyone else who's a stranger who tries to come in."

That, too, was a good idea, and once everything was taken care of they were able to give their attention to the meal. But not to relax completely, Rion said to himself, not when relaxation could well mean death…

Chapter 19

Lorand rode into the campsite with the others, feeling the urge to stretch out somewhere and not move for a while. They'd been on the road for six days and had made fairly good progress in reaching the area where the eastern army was soon expected to be. Now they meant to stay put until the rest of their people caught up to them, and then they would see about stopping an army.

"I'm glad it's someone else's turn to set up camp this time," Tamrissa said from where she still sat her horse, looking as tired as Lorand felt. "I'm going to stay awake just long enough to eat, and then I'm going to fall into my bed roll. Rion, you said there would be large houses in the area we reach tomorrow?"

"Quite a number of them," Rion confirmed in a weary voice with a nod to match. "The area is called Sunrise Slipping, and was rather popular with the former nobles. It took quite a lot of gold to have a house there."

"Then I'm definitely going to sleep early," Tamrissa said with her own nod. "Then, after we take care of that army, I ought to have the strength for a long, lovely bath. As soon as we find a decent bath house, of course. And if the water happens to be cold, I volunteer to warm it myself after it's filtered clean."

"I may be able to do the filterin' on my own," Vallant said, looking just a bit less tired than the rest of them. "I've been thinkin' about which pattern I would use, and I believe I've found the right one. I'll just have to try it and see."

"That makes me feel a good deal better," Jovvi said as she began to dismount. "If I have a bath to look forward to, I'll find the strength somewhere to fight that army. Right now, though, even the promise of a bath would be pushing it."

"That's because
we've
been pushing it," Naran told her as she and Rion also began to dismount. "We've been moving a lot faster than we ever did before, but at least we'll have the time to rest before we have to face that army. It would have been nice, though, if we could have stopped at another inn every once in a while. It's too bad that another stop might not have turned out as well as the first."

Everyone made sounds of agreement, and Lorand discovered that he was now the only one still mounted. He hadn't expected them all to be this tired, and how fast they'd moved was only a part of the reason. As he forced himself to leave the relative comfort of his saddle, Lorand decided that they would
not
work with the members of the other Blending again before they all faced the army. The other Blending might be one of the really new ones that needed as much instruction and practice as possible, but the other Blending would
not
be helped if Lorand and his Blendingmates fell over dead.

"Here, Jovvi, let me take your horse," Lorand said when he realized that Jovvi just stood there holding her rein as if unsure of what to do next. "You go and sit down somewhere, and I'll join you in just a few minutes."

"Lorand, if I didn't already love you, that offer would have made it happen," Jovvi said with a smile that was a pale shadow of its usual radiance as she handed him her rein. "If I'm asleep when you find me, please wake me up so that I can eat. For some reason I feel extremely hollow."

Lorand nodded with his own strengthless smile as he took her horse, and then he led the two mounts to where they would be unsaddled and turned loose for the night. He had discovered that it was a simple matter to use their Blending entity to make sure the horses didn't wander off, and that had become a nightly ritual for the group setting up camp. And oddly enough, the other Blending and their link groups didn't look nearly as tired as Lorand and the rest…

"Hollow is too mild a word for what
I
feel," Rion said as he joined Lorand, leading his own horse and Naran's. "If left to my own devices, I just may devour all the rest of our supplies."

"Even if they happen to be raw," Vallant agreed as he joined the group on Lorand's other side, Tamrissa's horse beside his own. "I've been thinkin' about eatin' for the last hour or more."

"And not just because our cook is really good," Lorand said, making the matter unanimous. "I haven't been
this
hungry since we first began to increase our abilities and form our Blending."

"But all we've been doin' is work with the other Blendin'," Vallant protested, turning his head to look at Lorand. "Why would such a simple thing be such a drain on our strength?"

"Working with the other Blending may not be what's draining us," Lorand said after thinking about the matter for a moment. "I can see now that I have no real idea what
is
doing it, but the work may be only a part of a larger whole we're not seeing. Every time I think about the knowledge that's been lost because of those fool nobles, I get the urge to commit murder."

"As do I," Rion put in, glancing away from watching where he stepped. "I constantly find myself thinking that there ought to be a better, easier way to do something, if only I knew what that way was. But I
don't
know, because the knowledge was allowed to be lost."

"I've been wonderin' if that's really the case," Vallant said, looking first at Rion and then at Lorand. "I mean, it's one thing to keep 'commoners' from findin' out certain facts, but quite another to keep the information from yourself as well. If I'd been in charge, I would have kept a careful record of what can be done and how to do it, and I would have hidden that record in a safe place."

"How can we possibly find a place that people who are so many years dead considered safe?" Rion put, asking rather than challenging. "The information could be in the safe of a private residence that collapsed generations ago, or buried under the floor of a stables that has now become the middle of someone's wheat field. How are we to know?"

"We can't, for certain, but there are facts we need to be aware of," Vallant said, his expression thoughtful. "For instance, havin' information no one else does means takin' a number of precautions to preserve that information for your family or loved ones. If somethin' sudden happens to you, you don't want the precious information lost along with you."

"So you just might store it in a bank vault along with your gold," Lorand suggested, the idea coming faster than he'd expected it to. "Keeping the information at home could well mean losing it, to theft, or fire, or water damage, or a dozen other misadventures. A bank vault is a nice, safe, dry place."

"Especially if you have a
lot
of gold in the bank," Rion agreed just as quickly. "The bankers would know better than to tamper with anything owned by people with the power to have almost anyone killed. And the records could be hidden among ordinary papers, so that even if someone looks at them who shouldn't, they won't know there's more than gold beneath the dross."

"I wish we'd thought of this while we were still in the city," Vallant muttered, the complaint valid as far as Lorand could see. "Now we'll have to wait until we get back to examine what's bein' held beside silver, gold, and copper."

"Anything we learned would probably have come in handy when we faced that army, so of course we didn't find it," Lorand said, too tired to keep from feeling depressed. "I think there's some natural law that insists we do everything the hard way, otherwise it won't count. I just wish I knew what it's supposed to count
for
."

"There's an old sayin' that claims we gain understandin' through sufferin'," Vallant offered in a sour tone. "What
I
understand is that I don't want to suffer any more, which is what the lesson
should
be about. Maybe we can find a way to avoid for now that 'larger picture' you were talkin' about."