Prophecy (37 page)

“… tell you it can’t be anythin’ else,” one of the men was saying as she approached the grouping of couches and chairs. The peasant hovered uncertainly on the fringes, looking as though he didn’t dare choose a chair of his own, but
she
would not be that backward.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Daddy,” a fairly pretty young girl retorted, tossing her head in a way that told Allestine the girl had practiced the gesture. “We’ve been invited here to the palace for just a single reason, and that’s because one of the Five has noticed me. He’ll be comin’ by any time now to introduce himself to me, and when he does you’ll be feelin’ really foolish if you claim we’rehere for any other reason.”

“This is reality we’rediscussin’, Mirra, not your little fantasies,” her father returned with a faint sound of scorn. “If you were the only one here, it might be true that you’d been noticed. But your Momma and I are also here, as is Dom and Dama Torgar, not to mention those other folk. Who do you imagine noticed the rest of us?”

“I agree with you, Dom Agran,” the other older man said with a nod, looking oddly thoughtful. “We’reall here because of our ties with that one group of troublemakers. My daughter is part of it, as is the young man
your
daughter is involved with. If these other people have similar ties, the only question remaining is, what have those ties gotten us into?”

“Nothing good, you can be certain of that,” the cold-looking woman beside the man who had spoken said, her sniff full of disdain. “If Tamrissa walked in here right now, I’d slap her face hard enough to leave a hand print.”

“Tamrissa,” Allestine echoed from the chair she’d taken, suddenly understanding what they were talking about. “She was that friend of Jovvi’s, the pretty one with Fire magic. Yes, I think both of you gentlemen are correct. We
are
here because of our associations with different members of that group, but—”

“Well,
I
don’t care about that group!” the peasant interrupted from where he still stood, speaking as though his likes and dislikes were of interest to the rest of them. “Lorand tried to lord it over me as if he was better than me, but—”

“I really do think we need to find out what they intend to do with us,” the second, smoother man interrupted in turn, acting as though he hadn’t heard a word the peasant had said. That put a flush and a scowl on the peasant’s face, but no one cared about that any more than Allestine did. “If we have value to these people we might manage to turn a profit of some kind, but if we mistake their intentions we could end up as damaged goods. Does anyone have any idea how we might find out?”

“I’d say we already know,” the woman who seemed to be Dom Agran’s wife said mildly when no one else answered. “If that Lord Whoever had brought servants instead of guardsmen to help us move, then we would have had some value to them. But the way he was treatin’ us… Was anyone given more than twenty minutes to pack?”

Everyone looked around then, but not even the woman who sat off to one side by herself spoke up to say
they
were an exception to that. Allestine certainly wasn’t, as she hadn’t even been given that much notice. A guard had come and dragged her away from her work gang, and that had been that…

“So now we know,” Dom Agran said as he patted his wife’s hand in approval. “We weren’t escorted, we were arrested. I didn’t know things like this were bein’ done here in our wonderful capitol of Gan Garee, but that’s beside the point. What needs figurin’ out now is just
how
they plan to use us. And if we’relikely to survive that usin’.”

“Why would anyone care if
you
peasants survived?” the woman sitting alone said suddenly, cold and distant amusement on her haughty face. “It’s fairly clear that I’m the only person of value here, which means I’ll certainly survive. What they do with the rest of you…”

“Well, it seems as though I was right,” Dom Torgar said, looking at her with distaste. “You
are
a member of the nobility, and you’rejust as stupidly mindless as the rest of them. If you weren’t as unimportant to them as we are, they would have put you somewhere other than here. Since they didn’t, you can be certain that if we don’t survive, neither will you.”

“How dare you speak to me like that, you disgusting peasant!” the woman snarled, her chin rising even higher than it had been. “No one of my class can possibly be anything like yours, not even on the darkest, dreariest day! We are
superior
, fool, and you forget that at your peril!”

“If you’reall that superior, why don’t any of you have servants any longer?” Dama Agran asked with a snort of ridicule. “Our own servants told us that yours had left you all high and dry, hopin’ you all starve to death or break somethin’ tryin’ to look after yourselves. And I started thinkin’ when they said my daughter was just like you. That’s the last thing I want her to be, so from now on there will be some changes in what’s required of her. I just hope this isn’t comin’ too late.”

“Momma, how can you say that?” the girl all but wailed, looking wounded to the center of her being. “There’s nothin’ at all wrong with me, and once we’reout of this place you’ll see that. If one of the Five doesn’t come to claim me first.”

The last of the girl’s words were sleek with conviction, telling Allestine that the little fool still believed she was there because she’d been
noticed
. A bit of wrangling followed, but Allestine no longer paid it any attention. Now that she knew she’d been brought there because of Jovvi, her world had brightened again. Those people had something in mind for her, but that didn’t matter in the least. All those times in the mine she’d awakened screaming, horrified to find that she hadn’t been having a nightmare after all…

That living nightmare was all Jovvi’s fault, and Allestine would make her pay even if it was the last thing she ever did…

* * *

Kambil Arstin awoke slowly, having the impression that he’d slept rather than been unconscious. Lack of consciousness had been his only refuge during the past eternity, however long it had actually been. The agony had been constantly with him, and contrary to popular opinion, one did not grow used to being in agony. But now the pain was entirely gone, or at least it seemed to be. If he was in the midst of a dream, it was one he wanted to continue for as long as possible…

“If you need help to sit up, just say so,” a voice came, one Kambil would have had nightmares about if he’d been able to sleep normally. “The servant has a tray of food for you, and you’ll have to eat as much as you can. You’ve been missing too many meals lately, and you’rethin as a rail.”

Kambil turned his head on the pillow to look at Delin, who stood at the side of his bed with the servant holding the tray. It occurred to Kambil that the poison was wearing off and Delin was trying to poison him again, but that didn’t make much sense. He’d been absolutely helpless, and the poison could have been readministered in whatever that had been which Delin had been pouring down his throat every day.

“I do need help,” Kambil found himself croaking, speaking the truth even though he hadn’t meant to. His voice was hoarse and uneven, and his throat still ached from all the screaming he’d done.

“Put the tray down and help Lord Kambil to sit up against his pillows,” Delin told the servant without looking at the man. “Then you can give him the tray and leave.”

The servant was quick to obey, and in a pair of moments Kambil was sitting propped up. The tray was then put in his lap and the plate covers removed, and then the servant was bowing his way out of the room.

“You may be wondering why there was just the one servant,” Delin said once the man was gone, his stare intent on Kambil. “We’reexperiencing something of a shortage of help, but at least we have
some
servants left. The rest of our peers are having to do without.”

Kambil frowned as he chose a spoon to eat with, lifting the utensil with a shaking hand. He would certainly have stabbed himself if he’d chosen a fork, and the cramps in his middle were making him hurry about getting some of that food down his throat. How long
had
it been…?

“To put it mildly, there’s a great deal of unrest in the city,” Delin went on, now sitting down in the chair which had been brought close to the bed. “The guard commandant doesn’t have enough men to control it, and there have been ugly incidents. I’ll tell you about it while you’reeating.”

The report Kambil heard would have ruined his appetite if he hadn’t been on the verge of starvation. Even so he felt disturbed, and happily put his spoon aside as soon as he’d eaten all he could reasonably hold.

“So there you have it,” Delin finished up, only a moment or two after Kambil’s meal was done. “Not only isn’t the guard getting new applicants, too many of their number have taken to deserting and losing themselves among the peasants. For their part the peasants are busily active, having taken over ownership of the businesses belonging to
our
people. Those same people are screaming bloody murder, insisting that we do something to get their property back. I’ve been thinking about this whole thing, and I’ve decided that our only option is to go out and destroy a large number of peasants. That will show the rest how helpless the ‘usurpers’ are, and we won’t need to give the remaining guardsmen the knowledge about the tandem linking. What do you think?”

“I think we’d be smarter to hurt rather than kill them,” Kambil replied, although he hadn’t meant to say anything of the sort. “If people expect to be killed, they can work themselves into believing that they have nothing left to lose. That lets them continue on and on, enlarging the problem you have with them. If they understand that they
won’t
be killed but will have to live with being crippled for the rest of their lives, they’ll surrender a good deal more quickly.”

“You may be right about that,” Delin said with raised brows as he stroked his chin with one hand. “I hadn’t thought of it, so I’m glad I asked for your expert opinion. And you must be wondering why you’rebeing so cooperative, not to mention why you’refree of the pain. Would you care to guess?”

“You’ve given me Puredan along with the counteragent,” Kambil said, speaking the words he’d been fervently hoping weren’t true. “I haven’t made any attempt to put you under control because you have
me
under control.”

“Bravo, Kambil!” Delin exclaimed with a grin, one filled with all the malice the man was capable of. “It upsets me to think of how close I came to letting you die, because then I would have missed the exquisite pleasure of having you obey my slightest whim. How does it feel to be the puppet rather than the puppetmaster?”

“It turns my stomach,” Kambil replied, unable to speak anything but the truth. “You’reso twisted that you’reunable to see your own incompetence, and that chills me to the center of my being. If you don’t release me, we’ll all be destroyed.”

“Considering that everything happening now is the result of
your
being in charge, I don’t believe I’ll take that piece of advice,” Delin said dryly, the hatred flashing only briefly in his eyes. “I’ve decided that the peasants have to be taught a good lesson, but there have to be five of us doing the teaching or the lesson won’t be nearly as effective. You’ll spend today regaining your strength, and tomorrow we’ll go out and do what we must. You won’t spend any time thinking about a way to escape my control, because you’ve been ordered not to. But I do want you to think about getting the others back under control, Selendi and Homin especially. Every once in a while they flash back to being useful members of this group, but the rest of the time they revert to their old, useless selves. Start on that today, if you can, but plan on doing it tomorrow at the latest.”

Kambil found himself nodding to acknowledge the orders, but Delin missed seeing the nod. He had already gotten to his feet and was heading toward the door, secure in the knowledge that he couldn’t be disobeyed. Kambil’s inward self raged over that, at least as far as he was being
allowed
to rage, which wasn’t very far. He’d clearly been ordered not to work on a way to escape, but maybe there was something else he could do. Just maybe…

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

“That’s the place,” Lorand heard Rion whisper, possibly even pointing to the very large house a short distance ahead of where they’d stopped. “It’s one of the largest mansions in the city, and should suit our purposes admirably. Can anyone tell if there are people inside?”

“Not even a cat or dog,” Jovvi whispered in return, voicing what Lorand had already decided was true. “With the nearest neighbors at least half a mile away in any direction, we should be perfectly safe for a while. But we’ll still cover the windows completely before we light any lamps.”

Murmurs of agreement came from those who were closest to them, some of the fifty people of the two link groups they now had with them. Most of them had left Colling Green in that arrangement, one Blending with two link groups who could join with each other in the new tandem linking. That hadn’t quite exhausted their number of High talents, so the rest had followed with the former guard members. They would all make their way into the city by different routes, and would go to ground in their own chosen locations. By tomorrow morning their full number would be in the city, hopefully without losing anyone to a confrontation.

Lorand sighed as he urged his mount to follow those of the others, pleased that they were still alive but not terribly pleased by the way they’d had to accomplish that end. They’d reached the city in the late afternoon, knowing that any guard groups would be tired and less than alert by then, hoping to slip past them with a minimum amount of fuss. But the guard unit they’d run into had been fully alert and jumpier than anyone had expected, and they hadn’t even had time to Blend. The guardsmen had attacked immediately and they and their link groups had responded individually… Low and Middle talents attacking more than fifty Highs…

Lorand’s mind veered away from the memory of what had been left of those guardsmen, which hadn’t been very much. They’d been fools to attack without first finding out who they were attacking, a reckless act so unusual that it hadn’t been expected. But maybe reckless acts weren’t all that unusual any longer. They’d know for certain once Alsin Meerk came back from speaking to some of his people.