“I’ll send the kitchen boy out with food and blankets. You can sleep in the store. Be ready to leave early.”
And with that he turned and stalked away. As Lorkin watched the man leave, he caught a movement in the corner of his eye. He resisted the temptation to look for the source. The courtyard was no longer lit by the glow of the late afternoon sky, and the shadows under the verandas were almost impenetrable. Pretending to examine his hands in the fading light, Lorkin looked beyond them and made out a female figure standing within a doorway. She was watching him and Tyvara with narrowed eyes.
“Ork,” Tyvara called. He turned to look at her. She was standing beside the cart. “Come help me straighten this up.”
He moved to her side. She was tugging at one of the bundles, which appeared to be perfectly positioned.
“My usual contact hasn’t appeared,” she murmured. “I didn’t see another door to the store. Let’s stay out here for now.”
“There was a woman watching us,” he told her. “Did you see her?”
She frowned and shook her head. The crunch of footsteps made her peer around the cart, and she smiled.
“Food!”
Lorkin followed her as she stepped out to meet the boy approaching them. His eyes widened, then he looked down quickly and held out two fist-sized bread buns, still steaming from the oven, and two mugs. The liquid inside the latter quivered as the boy’s hand shook.
Tyvara took the food, handing Lorkin his share. As soon as he was divested of his burden, the boy turned, ran back to a door and threw himself inside.
“He was terrified,” Lorkin murmured.
“Yes,” Tyvara agreed. “And he shouldn’t be.” She moved back toward the cart. “And he brought no blankets. Follow me.” Passing the cart, she headed for the store. Lorkin followed, taking care not to spill the contents of his mug. A single lamp now lit the room, throwing complicated shadows against the walls. Once inside, she took the mug and bun from him and set it aside, with hers, next to a bucket that smelled strongly of urine.
“We can’t eat them,” she told him as she began to examine the room. “They could be drugged.”
“Drugged?” he looked at the food. “They know who we are?”
“Possibly. Ah! Good. Come here.”
“But how could the news have travelled here that fast?” he asked, following her toward the far wall.
The look she gave him clearly showed she thought him an idiot for asking.
“Don’t Kyralians use blood rings?”
“Yes, but—”
“Even so, surely you know that travelling on horseback is faster than in a cart.”
“Well, yes...”
She rolled her eyes, then turned away and slipped behind some boxes filled with wax-stoppered pottery jars. As he followed, he saw a small doorway that had been fixed permanently closed with boards. She glanced at the lamp, then at the boxes of jars. Stepping back, she stared at the boxes. They began to move, swaying precariously as they slid forward to block the view of the doorway.
Then she turned to stare at the boards fixing the door closed, and they began to flex themselves away from the frame.
“Put out the lamp,” she ordered without taking her eyes off her work.
Lorkin looked over at the lamp, then drew magic and sent it out, shaping it into a small barrier that starved the flame of air. As the lamp went out and the room filled with darkness, he felt a fresh breeze and turned to see a rectangle of dark blue streaked with orange clouds where the door had been. He took a step toward it, but the sky vanished as Tyvara swung the door to again and he felt her hand press on his chest to stop him.
“Wait,” she murmured. “Get out of sight.”
Sounds were coming from the main store doorway. Light streaked into the room, moving and spreading as the source drew closer. Then the slave master and the boy entered, followed by a woman. They both stared at the mugs and buns left untouched, then looked around the store.
“They’re gone,” the boy said.
“They can’t have gone far,” the woman said. “Should we start searching?”
“No,” the slave master said. “Too dangerous. If they are what you say they are, only the master can deal with them, and he’s in the city.”
The woman looked as if she wanted to argue, but instead nodded stiffly and left the store. The slave master looked around the room again. For a moment he looked as if he might search it, but then he shook his head and headed for the door.
As soon as he was gone, Lorkin felt the breeze again. Tyvara grabbed his arm and pulled him through the doorway. She took hold of both of his arms in a strong grip. He felt his stomach sink as they suddenly began to rise into the air.
Levitation, he thought, looking down at where the invisible force beneath their feet must be. I haven’t had reason to do that in years.
They stepped off onto the roof of the store. Tyvara crouched and began to creep across it slowly and quietly, keeping below the peak of the roof so that people in the courtyard wouldn’t see them. Lorkin followed, wincing at every creak of the wooden tiles. The slave shoes were much quieter than magician’s boots, and had surprisingly good grip on the roof tiles.
At the end of the store roof they levitated down to the next building, then the next, and finally to one which provided a good hiding place in the shadow of a large chimney. A loud grinding sound came from below, which would mask any sounds they made.
Perhaps now I can ask her some questions.
“When it’s fully dark we’ll go back to the road,” Tyvara told him.
“And if we encounter anyone?”
“Nobody will look at us closely. Slaves on the road aren’t unusual, even at night, whereas if we cut across the fields we become trespassers. Field slaves won’t approach us, but they’ll report us to their master. Even if we get away before he investigates, anyone paying attention to such reports will know the direction we’re travelling in.” She sighed. “I was hoping to get further away from the city before this happened.”
“You were expecting this?”
“Yes.”
“Are your contacts here safe?”
“Yes.”
“So... they’re here, but so are the people who tried to kill me?”
“Yes.” She shook her head. “But... it’s more complicated than that.”
He stared at her expectantly, but she said nothing more, only staring out over the fields. She obviously doesn’t want to talk about it. But she can’t go hinting that there’s more to this than what she’s told me without expecting me to pursue it.
“Why is it more complicated?” he asked, then frowned in surprise at the hard tone in his voice.
She looked at him, her eyes barely visible in the growing darkness.
“I shouldn’t... but I guess there’s no point keeping it secret any longer.” She drew in a deep breath, then let it out. “We can’t trust any slaves now, not even those that are Traitors. We Traitors... we don’t always agree with each other. Some of us are divided into groups based on our opinions and philosophy.”
“Factions?” he suggested.
“Yes, I suppose they could be called that. The faction that I belong to believes that you are a potential ally and should not be killed. The other... doesn’t.”
Lorkin caught his breath. Her people want me dead! He felt a sinking feeling inside, but pushed it aside. No, only some of them do.
“My faction has more influence on our people,” she told him. “We say that killing you could lead to war between Sachaka and Kyralia. That we should only kill when it is unavoidable. That blaming the child for the actions of the parent is how Sachakans think, not us. But...”