Ruari swung his staff at the stranger's head, but even with the strength and speed of youth, he was neither strong enough, nor fast enough, to land the blow. This time Telhami did invoke the guardian, and with its aid, traversed the three paces between herself and the half-elf in a heartbeat. Her staff, carved from a living branch of the oldest tree in her grove, absorbed the sweep of Ruari's wrath. His body trembled as a backlash reverberated through his limbs and his tawny copper skin turned livid.
"Enough." She chastised with mind-bending more than words. "Enough. Allowances have been made ever since the Moonracers left you behind. Children worship their parents with love, and suffer when that love is not returned; but you are no longer a child."
"He is a templar," Ruari insisted, his voice little more than a whisper. "I know what his kind is like."
"As elves and humans know yours?" she replied with compassion that drained the angry flush from his face.
Shoulders slumped and chin hanging against his chest, Ruari retreated a single, unsteady step. "I'm sorry. Grandmother." The top of his head moved, but not enough to bring his eyes in line with hers. It dropped again, and he retreated to the farthest edge of the gathering.
She knew what she would have to do if Ruari failed to transform his anger into integrity; she hoped it would never be necessary. Then she thrust her hopes aside and scrutinized Just-Plain Pavek through the mesh of her veil. "Tell me more. Tell me about the slave."
Pavek blinked once, and his lips tightened before he said, "A halfling slave-"
"A halfling slave?" she interrupted scornfully. "Only a fool would enslave a halfling. Their spirits wither in captivity. Only a fool would say that he saw a halfling slave making poison."
"I saw what I saw: A halfling slave distilling Laq. His cheeks were carved and blackened. Any Urikite would recognize the pattern as House-"
With a shake of her staff and a surge of mind-bending energy, she nailed the templar where he stood. Anger brought the appropriate memories swimming to the surface of his mind, where she could discern them and their truthfulness. Quickly, she knew as much as she needed to know. Zar-neeka was a halfling word, left from the rime when they and humans dominated a moist, green Athas. As Athas withered, it had seemed that the halflings withered and forgot. But Laq was a halfling word, too. Whatever the halfling was doing, he was no slave, and it was a prudent certainty that he'd recovered more than one mote of ancient knowledge. The rest-the name of his nominal master and the extent of the lion-King's involvement in the treachery-could remain in the murky depths of a templar's mind, for now.
The knowledge would be safe there. Templars did the very thing halflings could not: they hid the truths of their lives from themselves. It was the only way they survived.
But Just-Plain Pavek was an imperfect templar. He had a hefty price on his head and a worried look on his face now that his muscles and his thoughts were his own again. The edge was gone from his stolid confidence.
She let the offer hang between them. There was little doubt that more than a few of those long-hidden scrolls had been written by her hand. She'd been a proud scholar once, and she'd paid the price of pride. Pavek's precious knowledge was no temptation. He'd overplayed himself, which suited her purposes perfectly. They could barter old spell-craft until she decided what to do about the reemergence of halfling alchemy.
"What is your price, Just-Plain Pavek?"
"A place to stay, food to eat, water to drink."
"For how long?" she asked, taking the same tone she'd used with Ruari. "What do you truly want? Spells in the palms of your own hands, not some lump of clay hanging from your neck?"
It was merely logicaclass="underline" why else would a man-a scarred, battered man with burnt-out eyes-commit useless lore into his memory? She smiled beneath her veil. She'd teach him, as she'd tried to teach Yohan, if he answered truthfully. She'd bind him to her own purposes no matter how he answered.
Pavek would have risked gold to see beneath that raggy veil. He had no gold. He had nothing at all except the truth, which he risked with toothy defiance.
"Yes," he answered loudly enough for everyone, even Ruari on the fringes, to hear. "Yes. Give me spells in the palms of my hands. Make me a druid."
A ripple of nervous laughter passed among the Quraiters, reminding him of the smile on Oelus's face when he'd made a similar request. He was conscious of his hands closing into fists and the need to quash the mockery, starting with the faceless crone in front of him who'd tilted her head like an eyeless bird and clicked her hidden tongue against her teeth.
"Is it so simply done, Just-Plain Pavek? Did you memorize a little cantrip that would transform you from parasite to druid? Bend down and whisper it to me."
He stayed as he was. There were no such invocations. He'd risked everything and missed the mark. Again. Why did he dream of magic when life's least lessons continued to elude him? "The scrolls say only that there must be a mentor and a willing student. I am willing."
"Good!" she cackled and struck the ground with her staff. "Come to my grove. We'll start at once."
For an instant the staff glowed green; then it and Telhami were gone. Vanished. With only the words-"Do not fail me, Just-Plain Pavek. Follow the wind from the center-" whispered in a fast-dying breeze.
"Earth, wind, fire, and rain!" Ruari exclaimed, turning the invocation into a curse. "A templar invited to Grandmother's grove."
The other Quraiters gathered around the empty place where Telhami had stood. They averted their eyes, neither agreeing with the half-wit, nor chastising him for putting their own thoughts into words.
"Start walking, templar. Grandmother's waiting for you," Ruari continued. "You better say good-bye, templar, and start walking. But you'll never find it, not if you walk forever. Your bones will walk 'til they crumble into dust.
The jest's on you-"
"That's enough, Ruari," Akashia said sternly, but her eyes were troubled, and she looked away when he stared directly into them. "Grandmother awaits you. You must find her; you can't stay here."
They were already standing at the center of Quraite, where there wasn't any wind now that the breeze from Telhami's departure had waned. He raked sweat-stiff hair away from his face. His tongue was swollen, and his lips were salt-cracked. He wanted to sit in the shade with a bowl of water, but these druids, who held themselves far above Hamanu's templars, wanted him to kill himself walking through the desert.
"A cool wind blows from the center, from the grove," Akashia assured him, as if she'd sensed his thoughts. "Feel it on your face and follow it to the grove."
He spun in place, not expecting to feel a cool breath of air, and not finding one, either. Like Ruari, Yohan stood slightly apart from the rest, with his arms folded across his chest and the index ringer of his right hand tapping above his left elbow.
Once, twice, three times, and a pause; then, once, twice, three times before another pause.
A signal. Pavek was grateful for the gesture, though he had no idea how to interpret it.
Ruari taunted him again: "Can't feel a thing, can you, templar?" The smile twisting the half-elfs lips was worthy of Elabon Escrissar, another half-elf. "Maybe you'll die standing instead of walking."