'Not even Brin,' he said aloud, sadly. 'For all his Jore blood, Brin has no more awareness of his child than the mother does. I can find no thread between them. To them, Gotheris is as absent as the dead.' He met her eyes again. The smile that touched his face now was pitying.
'He's alive,' he told her. When Ki only stared, he repeated himself. 'He's alive. Vandien. Tired and ill and anxious, but alive. I tested the bond that links you. He's alive.'
Ki sat down. For a long time she said and thought nothing. Her mouth was slightly ajar, and as she breathed she tasted the day upon her tongue. So. Another breath. And so. Vandien was alive. Did she dare to believe it? Something surged within her, and she knew she didn't dare to disbelieve it. He was alive. 'And so am I,' she said, and felt the wonder of it. A desire to continue being alive reawakened and jolted through her.
'We have to get out of here,' she told Dellin suddenly. 'Goat... felt... that the people holding us were going to kill us. How did he put it? That they thought of us as soon-to-be-dead people.'
There was a slight smile on Dellin's face. 'Isn't that how you were thinking of yourself?' Ki shrugged. 'Perhaps. But not anymore. And I don't want to stay around here to find how they feel about it. We have to get Goat out of here, especially. He seemed to be the main object of their hate.' She narrowed her eyes at Dellin, considering him. 'Can you use this bond I have with Vandien to help me find him?'
Dellin laughed softly. 'It is not like a piece of string stretched between you, with him at the other end. It is more like a dream you share, and I can feel that he is still dreaming his part of it. More than that I cannot explain to a Human. You feel it without knowing you feel it. That was one reason you were so taxing for Goat to be near these last days. You were feeling one thing and believing another, while saying to him that you believed that what he felt and knew was true ... Do you understand?'
Ki shook her head slowly. 'Days?' she asked, seizing the only part she could grasp.
'By my estimate, about two.'
'How far is Tekum from here?'
He shrugged. 'For my mule and I, perhaps a day.'
Ki nodded. 'They'll have taken Vandien there. And maybe my team and wagon. You'll come with me?'
'Of course.' Dellin looked surprised that she would ask. 'You still owe the boy the rest of the trip to Villena.' His eyes grew troubled. And he must be shown what the wrong use of his Jore blood can lead to.'
FIFTEEN
Voices. Talking right by him, pushing their sounds up against him. Shouting in his ears. He tried to turn away from them, but found he couldn't move. He was bound. No. Not bound. But every part of his body was too heavy to move. Just keeping his eyelids up was difficult enough. He tried to find himself in space and time, could not. He caught at the tattered edges of memories that unraveled beneath his scrutiny. Kellich falling, the ring of Brurjans closing on him, Goat's yellow teeth bared in terror ... he could not put them into any sort of order, and the attempt to do so was making him dizzy and sick.
'You didn't give him enough,' someone whispered.
'Shut up. I know what I'm doing.' An angry woman.
'Do you? Or are you so hungry for revenge that you have lost sight of our true purpose?' This voice was older than the other two, mature and in command. Vandien instinctively turned his eyes toward it.
'He's awake.' The man had a beard that fringed his jaw, a nose like a hawk's beak and dark eyes. He moved, coming closer, and Vandien found it hard to keep his eyes focused on him. He crouched by Vandien, and he felt the man's dry hands touch his face. The world seemed to suddenly flop over as Vandien got his true bearings. He was lying on his belly, cheek to a coarse pillow. The man's fingers probed the back of Vandien's head, pressing as if to check for a weakness in his skull. Vandien winced,spun away from the world for a long moment, and then came back to it, feeling like a swimmer surfacing to air and light. They were talking again.
'... not enough time. It was a clear signal to the Duke that Tekum is not as quiet as he has been led to believe. Killing the Brurjans cost us three men and laid up five others. For what? For a half-dead stranger we can't put any trust in. It was a mistake.'
'Perhaps.' It was the older man's voice conceding that, placatingly. 'But in any case, it's too late to worry about it. It's done. We have to go on with whatever tools we have. It's too late to change the whole plan.'
'It's never too late for caution. I think we should try a whole different approach. An ambush of the Duke's party ...'
'No.' The older man again. 'It's too late for a sudden change like that. We'll never get an opportunity like this again. Everything is in place. In two days the Duke will be here for the festival. The plans of Masterhold have fallen to us. When he goes down, our friends move on Masterhold. It falls to the Duchess.' The man paused. His voice became graver. 'But only if the Duke falls. We have two days to re-establish contact with our inside friend. Two days to get this man on his feet and convince him of the justice of our cause. Two days to show him there is only one way to redeem his honor.'
'Redeem his honor?' A youth's voice, angry and incredulous. 'He has none. You won't reach him that way, Lacey, with talk of honor and right. Say rather that we have two days to convince him that he can do what we say and depart with coins, or die.'
The older voice again. 'He doesn't look like a man who greatly fears death. I do not think he will be swayed by threats. I think we must appeal to his sense of justice ...'
'It would be a further waste of time to do so, and we have little enough as it is,' a woman broke in. 'No, Lacey. I've another way, one I've already set in motion, one that ...'
'Willow,' Vandien gasped, finally placing the voice.
He watched the heads turn to him. Willow's eyes were flat, and she was dressed in a severe robe that was the color of parched grasslands. Hatred burned in her, but did not illuminate her. She cloaked it from all but him, and he felt it strike and burn into him like a pitch arrow. His eyes met Willow's and he knew he was looking at his death. The coldness of that death washed over him suddenly, and he gave himself up to it.
'Get up.'
Vandien opened his eyes. 'Me?' His voice was thick; his tongue wanted to stick to the roof of his mouth.
'Who else?' The speaker was a young man with a tangle of blond hair and grey, almost colorless eyes. His sullen frown looked vaguely familiar. Vandien thought perhaps he had been one of the onlookers when he fought Kellich. Kellich. He winced from the memory and started to close his eyes. The youth kicked the edge of his bed, sending a painful jolt from the back of his skull throughout his whole body. 'Don't close your eyes when I'm talking to you, damn you! Get up!'
He got up, moving faster than either he or the startled youth had believed he could. He paid for it in acid pain that exploded from his skull and drenched his body, but it fueled his sudden anger, and he found his hands about the boy's throat, heard the back of the boy's head bounce off the rough wall. 'Please!' theboy gasped, scrabbling at Vandien's wrists.
'Please what?' he asked savagely. He found himself fully awake, totally confused but angry. He channelled the anger into meanness, thudding the boy again against the wall.
'Please ... let me ... go! Please!'