"Looks clear -- " Kethry and Warrl slipped out ahead of her, and Tarma glanced back over her shoulder soberly. The Archivist was watching them from his chair, and there was a peculiar, painful mixture of hope and fear on his face. "Jadrek, that was why we came here in the first place. And be warned -- if anything has happened to Idra, there might not be a town here once the Hawks find out about it."
And with that she followed her partner back into the corridor.
Seven
Jadrek tried to return to his book, but it was fairly obvious that he was going to be unable to concentrate on the page in front of him. He finally gave up and sat staring at the flickering shadows on the farther wall. His left shoulder ached abominably; it had been wrenched when the door had been jerked out of his hands. This would be a night for a double-dose of medicine, or he'd never get to sleep.
Sleep would not have come easily, anyway -- not after this evening's conversation. Tindel had been after him for the past several days to talk to the women, but Jadrek had been reluctant and suspicious; now Tindel would probably refrain from saying "I told you so" only by a strong exercise of will.
What did decide me, anyway? he wondered, trying to find a comfortable position as he rubbed his aching shoulder, the dull throb interfering with his train of thought. Was it the presence of the kyree? No, I don't think so; I think I had made up my mind before they brought him in. I think it was the pretty one that made up my mind -- Kethry. She's honest in a way I don't think could be counterfeited. I can't read the Shin'a'in, but if you know what to look for, Kethry's an open book.
He sighed. And let's not be fooling ourselves; it's the first time in years that a pretty woman looked at you with anything but contempt, Jadrek. You're as sus-ceptible to that as the next man. More....
He resolutely killed half-wisps of wistful might-he's and daydreams, and got up to find his medicines.
* * *
Tarma left Warrl watching the Archivist's door from the corridor, just in case. His positioning was not nearly as good as she'd have wished; in order to keep out of sight he'd had to lair-up in a table nook some distance away from Jadrek's rooms, and not in direct line of sight. Still, it would have to do. She had some serious misgivings about the Archivist's safety, especially if it should prove that he was being watched.
Creeping along the corridors with every sense alert was unnervingly like being back with the Hawks on a scouting mission. Kethry had hesitantly and reluctantly tendered the notion of using her powers to spy out the situation ahead of them;
Tarma had vetoed the idea to her partner's obvious relief. If there was any kind of mage-talented spy keeping an eye on Jadrek, use of magic would not only put alerts on the Archivist but on them as well. Their own senses must be enough. But it was tense work; Tarma was sweating before they made it to the relative safety of the guesting section.
They slipped their more ornate outfits back on in the shelter of the same alcove where they'd doffed them, and continued on their way. Now was the likeliest time for them to be caught, but they got back to their rooms without a sign that they had been noticed -- or so Tarma thought.
She was rather rudely disabused of that notion as soon as they opened the door to their suite.
Moonlight poured down through one of the windows in the right-hand wall of the outer room, making a silver puddle on a square of the pale marble floor. As Tarma closed the door and locked it, she caught movement in that moonlight out of the corner of her eye. She jerked her head around and pulled a dagger with the hand not still on the latch in the automatically defensive reaction to seeing motion where none should be. The moon-light shivered and wavered, sending erratic reflections across the room, and acting altogether unlike natural light. '
Tarma snatched her other hand away from the latch, and whirled away from the door she had just locked. Her entire body tingled, from the crown of her head to the soles of her feet -- with an energy she was intimately familiar with.
The only time she ever felt like this was when her teachers were about to manifest physically, for over the years she had grown as sensitive to the energies of the Star-Eyed as Kethry was to mage-energies. But the spirit -- Kal'enedral, her teachers, never came to her when she was within four walls -- and doubly never when she was in walls that were as alien to them as this palace was.
She sheathed her blade -- little good it would do against magic and spirits -- set sweating palms against the cool wood of the door. She stared dumbfounded at the evidence of all she'd been told being violated -- the shadow and moonlight was hardening into a man-shaped figure; flowing before her eyes into the form of a Shin'a'in garbed and armed in black, and veiled. Only the Kal'enedral wore black and only the spirit'Kal'enedral went veiled -- and here, where no one knew that, it was wildly unlikely that this could be an illusion, even if there were such a thing as a mage skilled enough to counterfeit the Warrior's powers well enough to fool a living Kal'enedral.
And there was another check -- her partner, who had, over the years, seen Tarma's teachers manifesting at least a score or times. Beside her, Kethry stared and smothered a gasp with the back of her hand. Tarma didn't think it likely that any illusion could deceive the mage for long.
To top it all, this was not just any Shin'a'in, not just any spirit-Kal'enedral; for as the features became recognizable (what could be seen above his veil) Tarma knew him to be no less than the chief of all her teachers!
He seemed to be fighting against something; his form wavered in and out of visibility as he held out frantic, empty hands to her, and he seemed to be laboring to speak.
Kethry stared at the spirit-Kal'enedral in absolute shock. This -- this could not be happening!
But it was, and there was no mistaking the flavor of the energy the spirit brought with him. This was a true leshya'e Kal'enedral, and he was violating every precept to manifest here and now, within sight of non-Shin'a'in. Which could only mean that he was sent directly by Tarma's own aspect of the four-faced Goddess, the Warrior.
Then she saw with mage-sight the veil of sickly white power that was encasing him like a filthy web, keeping him from full manifestation.
"There's-Goddess, there's a counterspell -- "
Kethry started out of her entrancement. "It's preventing any magic from entering this room! He can't manifest! I-I have to break it, or -- "
"Don't!" Tarma hissed, catching her hands as she brought them up. "You break a counterspell and they'll know one of us is a mage!"
Kethry turned her head away, unable to bear the sight of the Kal'enedral struggling vainly against the evil power containing him. Tarma turned back to her teacher to see that he had given up the effort to speak -- and she saw that his hands were moving, in the same Shin'a'in hand-signs she had taught Kethry and her scouts.
"Keth -- his hands -- "
As Kethry's eyes were again drawn to the leshya'e's figure, Tarma read his message.