Tris led the way to a dense thicket several lengths from a good-sized oak tree. The tops of the bushes were covered with thick yellow blossoms that reeked like the moat of an abandoned castle in the summer. Finger-sized, wickedly sharp thorns covered the bushes from soil to flower.
“If you slide in under the branches you can avoid the thorns,” advised Tris, disregarding the incredulous look that Rialla aimed at him as she held her nose. “They all point up, so it’s safe to go under them.”
He dropped onto his back and slid cautiously under the brush until he disappeared from view. Rialla eyed the thorns dubiously, but followed him in.
To her surprise, the narrow tunnel that Tris had made widened into a sizable hollow big enough for two or three people to occupy. The brush formed a solid ceiling overhead, but there was room enough for them to sit up in it. The ground was soft with old leaves.
Tris grinned at her expression. “It makes a nice enough home, once you get used to the smell. The cover overhead is so tight it lets in very little rain.”
Tris opened his pack and began again to sort out the collection of plants. With a mournful expression he set aside several of the more mangled specimens.
Rialla watched, then took out the books that they’d stolen from Winterseine, shaking them to dislodge the leaves. As she set Winterseine’s book aside, she noticed that several pages had slid halfway out of the book—in spite of the clasp that held the white leather cover tightly pressed against the inner pages.
“Tris,” she said.
He looked up from the last of his plants. “Hmm?”
She held the book up for his inspection and the crumpled pages slid out further. Rialla quickly turned the book upside down to keep them from slipping all of the way out.
“Don’t touch those,” he advised, setting the plants aside. “There are any number of unhealthy effects a human mage could place in his spellbook.”
He took the book from her and tapped it on his leg, but the pages stubbornly refused to slide back where they had been. He tilted it gingerly, until a spot of daylight touched the creamy surface of the obstreperous sheets.
“Hmm.” he said as he flattened his hand and made a brief pass over the book. “These pages were never part of this book—they’re too old.”
Rialla looked again at the neatly folded sheets. “They don’t appear old.”
“Magic,” commented Tris. “There is more magic in those sheets of paper than any single mage could have collected, human or not. It would take a score or more of the strongest of my people to call that much magic—I imagine that it would take at least that many human mages.”
“They’re just blank sheets of parchment,” said Rialla, surprised.
Tris raised his eyebrows at her and looked again at the parchment. “You can’t see the symbols?” he asked.
She shook her head and leaned closer for a better look, closing her hand on Tris’s shoulder for balance. As soon as she touched him, the exposed surfaces of the formerly vacant pages were littered with markings that were somehow out of focus.
Rialla blinked and swore softly, pulling her hand off Tris. As soon as the contact was broken, the pages were blank again. “Can you tell what the spell is for?” she asked, her voice a little ragged.
Tris shook his head. “I’m not a human magic-user—I don’t use spells that could be written down this way.”
Rialla smiled at his obvious contempt. “What should we do with them?”
“Take them to Sianim and let the human wizards worry about them,” offered Tris, setting the book on the far side of his satchel, where the straying pages would be out of the way.
As Tris shifted to find a comfortable position, his hand fell on Terran’s journal. He picked it up and glanced at the pages.
Do you mind if I look through this? he asked.
Rialla shrugged. I have difficulty with Darranian script when there is sufficient light. If you want to decipher it, be welcome. I think I will attempt to rest.
She felt him focus his attention on her, and notice… Your leg is bothering you. Do you want me to see what I can do for it?
She hesitated, but shook her head. She wasn’t ready to relax under any man’s hands just yet.
Fine, Tris said. The offer is open, if you decide otherwise.
Rialla was curled up in the old dry leaves with her eyes closed when it occurred to her that she hadn’t noticed the difference between talking out loud and using mindspeech. She wondered when it had become so easy to speak mind to mind with Tris. The soft sounds of Tris turning the pages of the thin book blended into the rustling leaves, and she drifted into a restful slumber without further thought.
She didn’t know what time it was when he woke her up, but the makeshift cave was shadowed.
“Rialla?”
“Hmm?” she answered sleepily.
“I think that you might be interested in this.”
“Yes?” Rialla struggled to full awareness and sat up, brushing off bits of leaf and dirt.
It was dark enough that she couldn’t see Tris’s face clearly, but she didn’t need to. His intensity was strong enough to alert her that he’d found something in Terran’s journal.
“What is it?” she asked.
Tris tapped his finger lightly on the book and then set it down and pulled his knees up comfortably. “Let me tell you a story.
“There was once a boy, just on the point of manhood. His father was both a mage and an athlete. When it became obvious that the boy was neither, he felt himself a failure—an evaluation that his father shared.
“Like most children of his age, it was hard for the boy to see past the trials of adolescence to the man he might become. He was clumsy and self-conscious, with a tendency to stammer when he was nervous.
“In addition to being a magician, his father was also a trader in slaves. He traveled upon occasion to the mysterious lands east of the Great Swamp, because slaves from that region were valuable, if difficult to acquire. The boy’s only talent was a certain facility for languages, but it was valuable enough that he traveled with his father.
“It happened that one day they were traveling through a small, war-torn country in the East. They stayed overnight in a house that had once, long ago, been a shrine to the god Altis. Though most of it was rebuilt or an outright addition to the original structure, its origin was a matter of some pride to the owner—a rich merchant in his own right.
“That night at dinner, the boy made a fool of himself once again. One of the daughters of their host spoke to him, and he became so nervous that he knocked over his drinking glass and spilled the wine over his lap. With the laughter of his father and their host ringing in his ears, he stormed out of the dining hall and ran to the room he and his father had been assigned.
“The room itself was unusual. Unlike the rest of the rooms that the boy had seen in the house, this one had a floor and walls made of stone rather than wood. The cot that he’d been assigned was crowded against one wall; his father occupied the luxurious, silk-sheeted bed. The long, low marble table that was built into the floor restricted the remaining furniture to smaller pieces.
“The table was very old… its surface pitted by generations of rough usage. An altar, the merchant had explained with a shrug. There were several of them in various rooms of the house.
“The boy, seeking the refuge of solitude, entered the room carrying an oil lamp that he’d taken from its place outside the dining chamber. Made clumsy by youth and embarrassment, he stumbled over a small rug and fell. His forehead grazed a corner of the table. Though the wound was minor, it bled copiously, as scalp wounds frequently do.
“Less frantic away from the sounds of the laughter, the boy collected himself. Somehow the lamp had escaped being completely overturned, though the oil splashed. He set the lamp carefully on the white marble, ignoring the mess that the oil and the blood from his head had made on the pristine surface.