Kethry went into Myria's chamber, and returned empty-handed.
"I've been careless -- got some blood on my tunic, I've never killed a man before and I didn't know that the wound would spurt. No matter, I will hide it where I plan to hide the bottle. By the way, the priest has that bloody tunic, and he knows that his hands alone removed it from its hiding place, just like the bottle. Now comes the important part -- "
She took an enormous fishhook on a double length of twine out of her beltpouch.
"The priest knows where I found this -- rest assured that it was not in Myria's possession. Now, on the top of this door, caught on a rough place in the wood, is another scrap of hemp. I am going to get it now. Then I shall cast another spell -- and if that bit of hemp came from this twine, it shall return to the place it came from."
She went to the door and jerked loose a bit of fiber, taking it back to the desk. Once again she dusted something over the twine on the hook and the scrap, this time she also chanted as well. A golden glow drifted down from her hands to touch first the twine, then the scrap.
And the bit of fiber shot across to the twine like an arrow loosed from a bow.
"Now you will see the key to entering a locked room, now that I have proved that this was the mechanism by which the trick was accomplished."
She went over to the door to the seneschal's chamber. She wedged the hook under the bar on the door, and lowered the bar so that it was only held in place by the hook; the hook was kept where it was by the length of twine going over the door itself. The other length of twine Kethry threaded under the door. Then she closed the door.
The second piece of twine jerked; the hook came free, and the bar thudded into place. And the whole contrivance was pulled up over the door and through the upper crack by the first piece.
All eyes turned toward the seneschal--whose white face was confession enough.
* * *
"Lady Myria was certainly grateful enough."
"If we'd let her, she'd have stripped the treasury bare," Kethry replied, waving at the distant figures on the keep wall. "I'm glad you talked her out of it."
"Greeneyes, they don't have it to spare, and we both know it. As it is, she'll have to spend most of the seneschal's hoard in making up for the shortfalls among the hirelings that his skimmings caused in the first place."
"Will she be all right, do you think?"
"Now that her brother's here I don't think she has a thing to worry about. She's gotten back all the loyalty of her lord's people and more besides. All she needed was a strong right arm to beat off unwelcome suitors, and she's got that now! Warrior's Oath, I'm glad that young monster wasn't one of the challengers. I'd never have lasted past the first round!"
"Tarma -- "
The swordswoman raised an eyebrow at Kethry's unwontedly serious tone.
"If you -- did all that because you think you owe me -- "
"I 'did all that' because we're she'enedran," she replied, a slight smile wanning her otherwise forbidding expression. "No other reason is needed."
"But -- "
"No 'buts,' Greeneyes." Tarma looked back at the waving motes on the wall. "Hell, we've just accomplished something we really needed to do. This little job is going to give us a real boost on our reputation. Besides, you know I'd do whatever I needed to do to keep you safe."
Kethry did not reply to that last; not that she wasn't dead certain that it was true. That was the problem.
Tarma had been stepping between Kethry and possible danger on a regular basis, often when such intercession wasn't needed. At all other times, she treated Kethry as a strict equal, but when danger threatened --
She tried to keep the sorceress wrapped in a protective cocoon spun of herself and her blades.
She probably doesn't even realize she's doing it -- but she's keeping me so safe, she's putting herself in more risk than she needs to. She knows I can take care of myself -- Then the answer occurred to her.
Without me, there will never be a Tale'sedrin. She's protecting, not just me, but her hopes for a new Clan! But she's stifling me -- and she's going to get herself killed!
She glanced over at Tarma, at the distant, brooding expression she wore.
I can't tell her. She might not believe me. Or worse, she might believe, and choke when she needs to act. I wonder if Warrl has figured out what she's doing? I hope so --
She glanced again at her partner.
--or she's going to end up killing all three of us. Or driving me mad.
Seven
The sorcerer was young, thin, and sweating nervously, despite the cold of the musty cellar chamber that served as his living area and workroom. His secondhand robe was clammy with chill and soaked through with his own perspiration.
He had every reason to be nervous. This was the first time he and his apprentice (who was now huddled out of the way in the corner) had ever attempted to bind an imp to his service. The summoning of a spirit from the Abyssal Planes is no small task, even if the spirit one hopes to summon is of the very least and lowliest of the demonic varietals. Demons and their ilk are always watching for a chance misstep -- and some are more eager to take advantage of a mistake than others.
The torches on the walls wavered and smoked, their odor of hot pitch nearly overwhelming the acrid tang of the incense he was burning. Mice squeaked and scuttled along the rafters overhead. Perhaps they were the cause of his distraction, for he was distracted for a crucial moment. And one of those that watched and waited seized the unhopedfor opportunity when the sorcerer thrice chanted, not the name "Talhkarsh" -- the true-name of the imp he meant to bind -- but "Thalhkarsh."
Incandescent ruby smoke rose and filled the interior of the diagram the mage had so carefully chalked upon the floor of his cluttered, dank, high-ceilinged stone chamber. It completely hid whatever was forming within the bespelled hexacle.
But there was something there; he could see shadows moving within the veiling smoke. He waited, drymouthed in anticipation, for the smoke to clear, so that he could intone his second incantation, one that would coerce the imp he'd summoned into the bottle that waited within the exact center of the hexacle.
Then the smoke vanished as quickly as it had been conjured -- and the young mage nearly fainted, as he looked up at what stood there. And looked higher. And his sallow, bearded visage assumed the same lack of color as his chalk when the occupant, head just brushing the rafters, calmly stepped across the spell-bound lines, bent slightly at the waist, and seized him none-too-gently by the throat.
Thinking quickly, he summoned everything he knew in the way of arcane protections, spending magical energy with what in other circumstances might have been reckless wastefulness. There was a brief flare of light around him, and the demon dropped him as a human would something that had unexpectedly scorched his hand. The mage cringed where he had fallen, squeezing his eyes shut.