Triplet (31 page)

It took her nearly half an hour, but at last she was finished. Then, picking up the heavy chair by its arms, she moved it a couple of meters back from the door and sat down nervously to wait.

She waited a long time, through many false alarms as the inn's other guests began to leave the common room below and tromp down the hallway in search of their beds. Once, she thought she heard the hissing of a spirit again, but if that was indeed what it was, it didn't enter her room.

The minutes dragged by, and as her adrenaline-fueled alertness began to yield to fatigue, she began to wonder if she'd been perhaps a bit premature in this … and to wonder what Ravagin would say if he walked into her trap first …

And abruptly her back stiffened. From out in the hall came the spirit-hiss again … but this time it was accompanied by a set of unnaturally quiet footsteps. Accompanied by, and coming nearer at the same pace as the footsteps …

She was out of the chair in an instant, stepping around behind it and grabbing for its arms. Lifting it up, holding it like a shield in front of her, she held her breath … and then the door was flung open to slam against the wall, and everything happened at once.

“
Sa-trahist rassh!
” the man bellowed as he leaped into the room. Danae moved at the same time, ramming forward toward the silhouetted intruder with the chair. Through her narrowed eyes she caught just a glimpse of the sword in his hand—and of the ceiling falling in on him—and then the chair caught him squarely in the chest to jerk him backwards—

Directly into the firebrat that erupted into existence behind him.

His scream of rage and pain seemed to explode inside Danae's skull as she dropped the chair and fell back into the room, arms and hands trying to protect both her ears and eyes from the agonizing assaults on them.

“Danae!”

The voice was Ravagin's, coinciding with the sprinting footsteps coming down the hallway toward the room. Dimly, through the screams, she could hear the fury and fear in the voice—

“I'm all right!” she shouted back, knowing in that instant that if her attacker was not in fact incapacitated the sound of her voice would bring him instantly down on her.

But the other's screams had turned from rage to terror … and even as Ravagin's footsteps arrived she could hear a new sound adding to the mixture. The sound of burning cloth …

“Danae!”

“Over here, Ravagin,” she called. A horrible smell was beginning to flood into her nose … “Help me!”

A strong hand closed around her free arm, and she caught a suddenly strong whiff of scorched hair. “The door's blocked—we'll have to use the window,” he panted. “Come on—”

She stumbled along behind him. The screams from the doorway had faded to silence now, but the nauseating smell of burning meat was getting stronger. As were the light and heat …

From ahead of her came the sound of a window being flung open, followed by that of stressed wood as he slammed open the shutters. “Come on—I'll give you a hand—”

“Wait a second,” she protested as he pulled her toward the sudden breeze. “Shouldn't we do something about that firebrat?”

“Like what?—the guy who invoked it is already dead or on his way there.”

“But the inn will burn do—”

“Oh, all
right. Sa-khe-khe fawkh; simar-kaia!
Now come
on!
”

She had just enough time to identify the new sound as that of water gushing across the burning floor; and then she was being pushed to a sitting position on the sill, Ravagin was squeezing through beside her and jumping to the ground below—

“Okay—jump!” he called up.

Gritting her teeth, she pushed off the sill, and a heart-stopping second later landed in his arms. “Okay,” he said, the frantic tension in his voice fading into a trembling relief. “It's okay. We're safe now.”

And for the first time in minutes Danae found she was able to breathe again. And able to cry.

“I
DIDN'T MEAN TO
kill him,” Danae sniffed from Ravagin's arms when she was able to talk again. “Not that way. I thought he would invoke a dazzler, not a firebrat. I really did.”

Ravagin nodded silently, wincing a bit as the movement rubbed his singed cheek against Danae's hair. They'd been sitting here together by this shed near the stable for nearly a quarter hour now, and if there were any words that would help her work through the horror and guilt she was feeling, he'd about given up finding them.
At least she never actually had to see him burning to death,
he thought. Unfortunately, he had, and the memory made him shudder.

“Ravagin?” Danae asked, holding him a bit closer. “You okay? You shivered.”

“I'm fine. Look, Danae … it wasn't your fault. It really wasn't. You had no way of knowing I was only half a hallway behind him and that he would put that firebrat in the doorway to try and block my approach.”

She inhaled suddenly. “You—it was right in the
doorway
? You didn't tell me that before.”

“It's okay,” he hastened to assure her. “I only got a little scorched. Probably got off a lot easier than I would have in a straight fight with him. Try remembering that, if it helps—he didn't just come in for a friendly chat. He was there to kill us.”

“I know, and I'll be all right in a minute. It's just that … I've never had a hand in killing anyone before.”

He nodded understanding. “Just keep remembering that everything you did was in self-defense. You're damned lucky he didn't skewer you when you threw that blanket over his head.”

“I didn't throw it.” She sniffed again, but her trembling had eased and it was clear she was starting to regain control of herself. “I wedged its corners into cracks in the ceiling with splinters from the window shutters, with threads from the other blanket set to pull it down when the door opened. Sort of like a homeowner's security tangler net, you know? I thought he'd invoke a dazzler behind him, and that when I pushed him back with the chair he'd wind up with it under the blanket and right in his eyes and then he'd be as blind as I was—” She broke off, took a deep breath. “We've been through all this, haven't we? Sorry. What's happening out there? It sounds like the crowd's breaking up.”

Ravagin leaned forward to look around the shed at the inn's main door. “You're right. Looks like some of the guests have already gone back inside. The—oops, there's the innkeeper … I think he's telling the rest it's safe enough to go back inside. Must have gotten a fireplate under the fìrebrat.”

“And gotten the water shut off? What was that extra phrase you added to the nixie invocation, anyway?”

“A time limit. If I'd done a normal invocation I'd either have had to go in and personally release it or it would have stayed there pumping water into the room for the next five hours. With the ten-minute limit I gave it—well, it's already long gone.”

“Um. They didn't teach us that one.”

“They never do. It's assumed you won't need it.”

For a minute the only sounds were the feint commotion still coming from the direction of the inn and the even feinter hum of the lar sweeping its protective circle at their backs.
Protection;
and the word brought a sour taste to Ravagin's mouth. He'd promised to protect Danae—had told her explicitly that he would find the spy and kill him. She'd believed him … and had wound up having to take the brunt of the attack anyway.

And the brunt of the guilt for the way things had turned out.
I should have let Hart stay with her while
I
played decoy,
he thought bitterly.
He's the one trained for this sort of thing, not me. I wish to hell I'd thought to suggest it to him
…

“I think he was spirit-possessed,” Danae broke into his thoughts.

“He—? Oh. Why do you think that?”

“There was the same sort of hissing when he was walking down the hall that I heard when the djinn was flying around. Unless the djinn was with him?”

Ravagin shook his head, the knot in his stomach tightening another half turn. So
that
was why … “No, there weren't any spirits in sight, at least not when I could see him.” He hesitated; but the knowledge might make her conscience rest a little easier. “But that might explain why he just stood there and let himself be burned to death instead of rolling away from the firebrat.”

“You mean the demon had his brain so fogged he couldn't think even
that
well?”

“No. I mean that the spirit held him there. Deliberately.”

He felt her stiffen beside him. “You can't be
serious.
Why would it do something like that?”

“To get away. If the spirit had just left him, the situation would have been as if it'd been freshly invoked, and it would have been stuck around here for anything up to several hours.”

“And could have continued the attack on us.”

“Unless it'd finally tumbled to the fact that we were invisible to it. In that case, it would do better to get back to the spirit world as quickly as possible and blow the whistle on us.”

A shudder went through Danae's body. “Oh, God,” she whispered. “If you kill an animal that has a spirit bound to it … the spirit's released. Are you saying—? Oh, God, that's
horrible.
”

He nodded and held her a little more tightly. “They want us, Danae. They want us so badly they're willing to sacrifice major parts of their own conquest machine to get us.”

“But
why
? What is it we know that's got them so frightened?”

“I don't know,” Ravagin sighed. “The only thing that makes sense is that idea you had that they've found a way to get past the Tunnel and are trying to invade Shamsheer.”

“But there isn't any way for them to
do
that. We already decided that, remember?”

“Yes, well, it's starting to look more and more like we were wrong. But we can discuss that later. For now, our more immediate problem is to stay alive.”

Danae took a deep breath. “Agreed. So what do we do next? How soon will Melentha know about our invisibility?”

“Depends on how communication works in the fourth world, I guess,” he shrugged. “If the spirit who just left here can pass the message on to any of the other spirits, then as soon as Melentha invokes one of them the word'll be out. If she has to invoke this particular spirit—which would require that she knows what its name is—we could be sipping drinks on Threshold before she catches on.”

“I don't think I'd bet on that last one.”

“Me neither.” Ravagin took a moment to study the sky. Another four or five hours until dawn; well within a hard ride from the Besak way house. “I wish we had a real choice, but I'm afraid we don't. The spirits can't get to us without someone around to invoke them, but once Melentha knows where we are she can probably get her agents here before the inn's lar is released. Ergo, we need to leave before that.”

A sound that was half laugh and half bark escaped Danae's lips. “I almost tried that on my own, earlier tonight. Deja vu strikes again. I'm game for it—Karyx at night can't be any worse than what Melentha will be throwing at us. You know any ways to get past a lar?”

“Depends on whether it has to detect us to stop us. In this case, though, there's an easier way. If we can risk using it.” Ravagin bit at his lip, thinking. “Yeah, the benefits outweigh the risks. How are your eyes doing?”

“About the same as before. I don't … I don't know if I can stand another day out in the sunlight, Ravagin.”

He pursed his lips. “Well, if we can cover enough distance before dawn, I think I can find a way to keep you under cover for most of tomorrow. Stay here; I'll be right back.”

She nodded—too weary, he thought, to even be afraid of further attacks. Disengaging his arm from around her, he got to his feet and headed over to the inn.

The innkeeper was still outside the door, talking in low tones to two of the guests. All three looked at Ravagin as he approached, the innkeeper with a wary sort of anger in his expression. He opened his mouth, presumably to demand an explanation—

“Innkeeper,” Ravagin nodded shortly. “Am I to assume it is common practice in these parts for the master of an inn to permit one of his guests to attack another?”

The innkeeper's eyes bulged, whatever he was about to say dying halfway out. But he recovered fast. “If there is any death-blame to be had, sir, it seems to me that
you
are the one who still lives—”

“The man burned to death on his own firebrat,” Ravagin interrupted harshly, “while he was attempting to murder my companion. Your door had no lock and no bar—”

“With the lar about the grounds—”

“The lar failed to keep him out, did it not? And furthermore, you had no provision for the danger of fire—without the nixie which
I
invoked your entire inn might have burned to the ground.”

The innkeeper clamped his jaw closed. “If you expect gratitude, you are sorely mistaken,” he bit out. “Whatever your quarrel with the dead man, you brought it upon yourselves. I have no doubt the magistrates of Findral will find it so when your grievance is laid before them.”

Deliberately, Ravagin looked in turn at each of the two men listening to the debate. After a moment both seemed to take the hint and drifted off back into the inn. “Now, then,” Ravagin said when he and the innkeeper were alone. “Between honest and fair-minded men there is surely no need to bring in magistrates.”

The other snorted; but it was abundantly clear from his face that he wasn't nearly as certain of his case's merits as he'd claimed to be. “If you expect to extort unfair compensation from a poor man, the results will disappoint you.”