"That's kismet." The witch tugged the veil away, then draped it again over Jedit's palms. As she flicked it away, the false barbarian tried to catch it but missed. The veil seemed diaphanous as incense smoke. The more Jedit stared, the more it shifted.
The witch crooned, "In large, our fates are cast in stone when we first draw breath, and nothing can alter the plan. But in small, we can seize control by our actions. A strapping man like you, so handsome and generous, could surely rule himself. Kismet lets us do that."
Johan watched a long while as the woman talked, cooing, flattering, running rings around logic. With every "Kismet" she flicked the veil away. Jedit tried to catch it in vain. He couldn't take his eyes off the cloth but watched it glassy eyed. The witch talked on and on.
"One way to take control is to remove despots who tax us, who rule our lives, who command us willy-nilly. Strong and clever, you could smite the rulers of Palmyra and become a hero. Do you know our rulers? No? Your friend can finger them. One's a strumpet with unruly hair and the manners of a gutter rat, Adira Strongheart. The other is an old goat, a cruel man, Hazezon Tamar. Could you command fate, good sir? Could you embrace kismet and kill those two for the good of all?"
"Yes." Jedit Ojanen stared at nothing. "Easily."
"Good." Raising the veil before Jedit's eyes, the witch shimmied it like a lure before a trout. Gently she steered Jedit toward the door. Ready, Johan guided the tiger into the frosty darkness before dawn. As Johan slunk after the mesmerized Jedit, the witch whispered, "Fret not, milord. I'll tell no one of your return."
"I'm sure you won't." Johan actually smiled, a chilling sight. From a pocket he gave the witch a small lump of coal. "This will buy your silence."
The witch looked indignant but accepted the fragment, so polished it might have been a black jewel. Gently she closed the door and turned to check on her baby.
Jedit and Johan turned a corner of the crooked street when the witch's house exploded with fire. Flames shot from the windows and smoke hole. Yellow hell outlined the door until it charred and crumbled. Neighbors came stumbling and shouting in their nightshirts and blankets but couldn't approach the tiny house for the fearsome heat.
Jedit noticed nothing.
"You're wasting wind, Haz!" snapped Adira Strongheart. "And my time! Your honeyed words might make fat-bottomed merchants roll over and drool, but my people think for themselves, and we've had enough of Brycer bellyaching! So haul anchor and shove off!"
"Sweetheart." Hazezon Tamar tried patience and reason, knowing both were useless. He'd resolved not to shout. "This is your famous shortsightedness. Just because Johan's vanished into the desert doesn't mean he's dead, any more than a smooth sea portends no storms. All I'm asking is for you to lend me a score of your cutthroats to scour the eastern reaches for sign of the plagued tyrant."
"Don't call me sweetheart, Haz." Adira juggled a stoneware mug ominously. "Or I'll kick your plums so far past your liver your palace eunuchs will call you sister."
"Here we go," said Badger to the air.
"Here we go what?" asked Murdoch, the young soldier bested earlier.
"Knives and curses," said the old sailor.
"Or kisses and cuddles," smirked Simone the Siren.
Without looking, Adira Strongheart hurled the mug. Badger and Simone jerked back their heads as crockery smashed on the wall.
The damage hardly showed in the abandoned inn that served as Palmyra's town hall. The big room had walls of scabby adobe, naked wooden beams, and a dirt floor. Torches at four comers and cheap candles shed a watery, sooty light. Scarred tables and rickety stools and chairs were the only furniture, and many were broken, for fights were common as cockroaches in Palmyra.
Yet the message was clear enough. Chastened, the onlookers shut up and let the unhappy couple squabble.
To see the two glare, it was hard to believe they had ever been married. Adira Strongheart was a stunning beauty with wild chestnut hair barely contained by a green silk headband. She wore tight trousers and a faded shirt that only emphasized her proud bosom. Bangles of gold, silver, and copper jangled at earlobes, wrists, and ankles even over her brown boots.
Hazezon Tamar had also been a pirate and freebooter, but decades ago. Now he looked a governor's part, a man who plied wits and diplomacy, not magic and might, and prospered in his trade. An embroidered vest of satin and a silk shirt met flaring pantaloons above yellow boots. His seamed face and white beard were framed by a nomad's keffiyeh that swished at his broad shoulders. Clearly he was thirty years or more Adira's senior. Yet the divorced pirate queen and prominent governor could still glare with murder in their eyes and hands itching to jerk a brass-hilted scimitar or twin matched daggers.
Adira's Circle of Seven and Hazezon's clerks held their breaths as if awaiting lightning.
It came from the wrong direction.
Roaring loud enough to raise the roof, still clad in his barbarian disguise, the outlander warrior Jedit Ojanen exploded into the room like a thunderbolt.
Chairs and stools upset, papers and mugs flew, and tables tumbled as if a whirlwind struck the town hall. Hazezon, Adira, scribes, soldiers, and pirates vaulted from their seats and ripped weapons from scabbards, blades glittering in torchlight.
"Who in the seas is this squid?" roared Badger.
"Who cares?" shrieked Simone. "Kill him!"
"Adira, get down!" shouted Hazezon.
"Fend for yourself, puffer fish!" Adira hoisted an overturned table for a makeshift shield. Twin daggers appeared as if by magic in her right hand. She hobbled stiffly, for in months past she'd broken a leg and arm battling Johan's troops, and now another skirmish came calling.
Masked as a barbarian, with his brain befuddled by sorcery, Jedit Ojanen charged blindly at Hazezon and Adira. He'd never seen them before, had only glimpsed them through a window, pointed out by Johan. It was unlikely he even noticed the dozen other people in the room. With the bestial fury of a berserk jungle warrior, Jedit plunged headlong, mindless as a ballista bolt. A fairykin and swordsman were hurled aside like rag dolls. Jedit kicked a table aside, knocked down two others, trampled a trio of stools. Both hands were out straight as he raced in magic-mad rage at Adira.
When the monster closed to six feet, the pirate queen pegged both daggers at his head. Jedit flicked a great hand and the daggers cartwheeled, one bouncing into a corner, the other sticking in a ceiling beam.
"I don't believe it!" gasped Adira. "No one could-"
Jedit the juggernaut smashed into the table she held aloft. The wooden legs shattered, boards broke. Only a crazy leap over another table kept Adira from being crushed.
She shouted, "Pitch me a cutlass, someone!"
Mindlessly, Jedit bashed the wall, cracking adobe in great flakes, then rebounded for another target. Hazezon Tamar stood with his mouth hanging open. Many people had tried to kill him of late, but nothing matched this fury.
"It must be magic!" the desert mage blurted, then plied his own attack. "Blast of winters past!"
Hazezon blew across his hand at the barbarian. Instantly frost rimed Jedit's thatched hair and broad, stupid face. Ice crystals clotted his eyebrows and pug nose, even made his huffing breath blow like steam. The man-killing cold didn't slow him. Roaring like a tiger, Jedit charged the mage.
Old he might be, but Hazezon had long ago learned a pirate's habits. Rather than bobble another spell, the mage flung a heavy candlestick while ripping his scimitar from his sash.
Too late. Jedit smashed into Hazezon with a bone-breaking crunch. The mage toppled across spindly furniture that crumbled underneath him. The barbarian clutched Hazezon by the throat with two hands and shook him like a terrier shakes a rat.