The Disciple was not asleep at all. They found him sitting up, drowsy, on a western-style camp stool, at a little table. He was trying to write by feeble mutton-tallow candle light. His space retained every bit of smell the candle produced. He evidenced no surprise when he saw Haroun. “You’re back.”
“I am. Come. It’s time to go.”
“I will not cooperate.”
“All right.”
Varthlokkur joined them. “I can’t push them into a deeper sleep. Don’t argue with him. Just get him moving.”
The Disciple gaped. He did not recognize the wizard. There was no reason he should. But he had not seen this demon with a companion before, nor could he imagine the Evil One having an accomplice who would tell him what to do.
Haroun moved closer, ready to gag and bind the Disciple.
Yasmid, yawning, sleepily confused, pushed in. “I keep hearing voices, Father… Oh! What…? You?” She froze.
Haroun stopped moving. How weak a sleep spell had the wizard cast? Varthlokkur grumbled, “Maybe it’s the geography. It happens where the ley lines are warped. Or they might be partially immune.”
Haroun was not listening. Even a blind shaghun could smell this truth. “We have to take her, too.”
“What?” The wizard was at work on the Disciple because Haroun had lost focus.
“She’s pregnant. My responsibility. I can’t leave her…”
That stopped the wizard cold. He shivered, shook his head. “Fate takes some damned strange channels. All right, do what you have to, but do it now! Do it fast! We’re still slipping back on time.” He nudged El Murid, who was now grinding to the conclusion that his situation was worse than he had thought.
Haroun told Yasmid, “You have two minutes to get anything you can’t leave behind. Don’t argue. You know what will happen if you stay. Nothing will save you. Nothing will save our child. So move. Now. The wizard is in a hurry.”
“The wizard is in a hurry, indeed. But the wizard has family, too, and understands the compulsions. Will she run screaming if I relax the sleep spell?”
“No.” He hoped. He looked his wife, his love, the daughter of his lifelong enemy, in the eye. “Get what you can’t live without.”
Yasmid’s eyes closed as Varthlokkur did something. She bobbed her head. Now she had the emotional freedom to be embarrassed. She did not turn away immediately, though. Haroun grew as frustrated with her as the wizard was with him.
As he started to bark, she said, “Neither Father nor I can manage without the Matayangans.”
“What?”
“I don’t know why you came for him. Not to kill, obviously. He would be dead and you would be gone. So you have some use for him. But he won’t be useful if he doesn’t have the Matayangans to manage him and care for him.”
Varthlokkur looked like a man who needed a good shriek and a chance to fling furniture. “Get moving!” Haroun’s voice was soft but adamant and intense. “Now!” He turned to the wizard. “What can you do?”
…
The Matayangans followed Haroun, Yasmid, and El Murid through the portal, single file, as fast as the device could transfer them. Varthlokkur watched and scowled, shuffled nervously, hearing noises develop as people elsewhere stirred. It was no longer possible to do this unnoticed. Radeachar could not remove the portal unseen. There was no longer any point to repairing the slashed tent roof so the mystery of the Disciple’s disappearance would deepen.
Worse, Old Meddler would have what he needed to assemble a portrait of the plot shaping up against him. He had all the tools available to his enemies, and more. He would be able to research this event, decipher its meaning, then would move because of the forces he saw ranged against him. He would strike soon because he was weak, now, and dared not delay seeing to his own protection.
Impatience moved the wizard again. He had to get back to Fangdred. There was much to be done yet to engineer even a chance of brushing away an assault by the Star Rider.
How much was the slight, secret advantage of having the Old Man and Ethrian worth? How much headway had Mist made getting into their minds and memories?
Varthlokkur did not feel optimistic as he placed a foot on Phogedatvitsu’s behind and shoved the bulky man into the portal, hoping all of him made it through.
He looked up at Radeachar. “Now you. We’ll leave the portal. They may not understand what it is.”
The Unborn soared up and away, refusing.
That needed consideration, Varthlokkur reflected. He had a prejudice against portals himself. An outright dread, really, but he would do what he had to do.
He could not recall the last time Radeachar had refused an instruction-if ever it had.
Did it know something? Or did it just share his fears, magnified?
Questions had to wait.
He stepped in, heart in throat, frightened child inside sure that he would not arrive at the other end.
As he did that, tent staff discovered that the Disciple was not in his quarters. The foreigners were missing, too. The Disciple must have gotten away and they were hunting him through the tent again.
There would be no distress till the portal was found. The mood, then, was baffled consternation. No one knew what it was, or what it meant…
Mist watched bin Yousif arrive, unhappy but apparently not emotionally crippled. A woman followed, badly frightened. She latched onto bin Yousif. Her movements were strained. She was in considerable discomfort. Damn! She was pregnant? Definitely not smart at her age.
The object of the operation followed, wearing a dimwit look like the one so often seen on Ethrian. He was thoroughly confused. He had no idea about transfer portals.
Brown men followed the Disciple at precise intervals.
Mist approached bin Yousif. “Is this an evacuation?”
“Something like. I could not go without Yasmid. She says she and her father will fall apart without the fakirs to keep them together. We had wasted too much time to argue. We can get rid of them here if they are actually useless.”
Mist turned to her garrison commander. “Kei Lin. Feed these people, get them into civilized clothing, and have them physically examined.” She turned back to bin Yousif. “How many more?”
“Just the wizard and the monster.”
“And the wizard has arrived,” Varthlokkur announced, having appeared in time to hear the question. “I’m the last. Radeachar won’t risk the transfer stream. Instead, it will go scouting in the northern desert.”
She asked, “Can you explain all this?” Making a sweeping gesture.
“Hasn’t the King done so already?”
“Why should I believe him?”
Haroun whispered a translation to his woman.
Mist smiled broadly. Fortune had dealt her a royal flush. She had the Disciple and his daughter. There would be no one to hold that movement together, now. And she had the only serious Royalist claimant to the Peacock Throne. His successor was now a scatter of cracked bones.
She said, “We need to move on quickly. We got a fix on our target at the scene of the murders…”
Varthlokkur had a finger in front of his lips. He whispered, “His mother hasn’t been told.”
“All right. Once we get to Fangdred?”
He nodded.
“I have Scalza, Eka, and Nepanthe trying to track the villain. He doesn’t seem concerned. Maybe he doesn’t care if we watch. More likely, though, he doesn’t know that we can watch.”
“That would be a benefit of the Winterstorm. The magic is different. He doesn’t understand it.”
Mist saw him shiver with a sudden suspicion that he might be deluding himself. That old villain had seen the Winterstorm up close. He had every reason for an abiding interest.
She said, “Kei Lin, one more thing. I want these people free of lice, nits, mites, and fleas before we move. Understand?”
He did not, but, “As you wish, Illustrious, so shall it be.”