He squared his shoulders and started walking toward the smirking youth. One step. Two steps. A third, and Ruari was within arms' reach. If he was going to die anyway, there was a great temptation to take the half-wit with him. But he contented himself with a smile of his own, the particular lopsided smile that made his scar throb and revealed his teeth at the corner of his mouth.
Ruari's smirk melted into an anxious pout; he took a sideways step and braced himself behind his staff. Pavek narrowed his eves until the scar burned. He shouldered past Ruari and kept walking.
He was well beyond the oasis before he reached up to soothe the sore flesh and agitated nerves.
By then, a cool breeze was blowing against his face.
Chapter Nine
Zvain took a tentative step into the dusky, carpeted chamber. He dared a glance at bis host, who wore an unadorned, bleached robe and sat amid similarly colorless cushions.
The master of this domain was an ageless-seeming man with pale skin and impassive features, topped by long, faintly yellow hair. His hands were folded in his lap. His face was lean and angular: elven, or partly so. His eyes sloped more than human eyes, but they were shadowed by brows of human heaviness.
Zvain could not determine their color, or more importantly, their focus.
He wanted to see those eyes very much, for although the master's voice was cordial and the chamber more than inviting, he'd just been released from considerably less congenial surroundings where his wishes, when he'd dared express them, had brought him blows, mocking laughter, and curses.
"On your knees with an answer, boy!"
A cheek-scarred mul struck him between the shoulders. He staggered forward but caught his balance before his bare feet touched the carpet. Generally, he had a free man's pity for branded slaves, but he felt no such soft emotion for the armed and armored brute who, with a succession of punches and kicks, had herded him through the long, empty corridors.
If his wishes had suddenly become commands, he knew what he wanted: "Send him away," he said hoarsely, flicking his thumb toward the mul. His throat was raw from too much crying and fear. "That's my wish."
The shadows beneath the blond man's brows deepened. He blinked, then said: "Therdukon, you are dismissed."
"Your will, my lord."
The countless sharpened scales of Therdukon's body-armor clattered against each other as the mul saluted and spun smartly on the hard leather heels of his similarly defended boots. A dozen jangling footfalls echoed before the sounds faded entirely. Zvain was impressed, but not entirely reassured. He'd seen enough on the streets to know that a master who filled his bodyguard with noisy bullies was apt to be a bully himself, with all the wrath that went with tenderness of pride.
So he stayed where he was, one step into the chambers with his toes worrying the knotted fringe of the carpet.
"What else, boy? Or will you sit now that we're alone?"
The man extended an elegant left hand toward a hassock that, after weighing the risks of obedience against those of suspicion, Zvain approached cautiously. He circled the unfamiliar mound of plush upholstery, noting rays of sunlight filtering through the plaster fretwork between the ceiling and the top of the wall. He could guess the time-early afternoon-from the angle and color of the light. But not the day. The morning harangues had not penetrated the walls of his cell.
He stopped circling and faced his mysterious host.
"How long was I imprisoned?"
They were closer to each other now. The lean face lifted slightly; light struck the hidden eyes. They were dead black: hard, sharp, and compelling. Zvain's knees gave out, and he collapsed on the hassock, which breathed a mighty sigh through its seams and tassels. He stiffened as he sank into its depths, then felt foolish: the sound had been nothing more than air escaping the cushions.
The master chuckled, a hearty, deep-pitched sound. He righted himself in the cushions and found his courage.
"How long?"
"No time at all. Imprisoned." Pale lips curved into a smile. "You were delirious when you arrived here. We feared for your life, and-surely you can understand-for our own. You could not answer the simplest of questions: who you were or where you had been before the illness struck. For safety's sake we isolated you. Think of the last four days as quarantine... and consign them to a forgotten past now that you've recovered your wits."
Lies. He hadn't been struck ill. He'd been struck hard from behind and knocked unconscious. The lump still throbbed. And he'd been imprisoned: a dank, windowless chamber behind a bolted door was a cell, not a sickroom. He tried to shame his silk-voiced host with a dramatic frown, but he was no match for those dead, black eyes. Thoroughly defeated, he stared at the carpet.
"You have recovered your wits, haven't you?" The pale man chuckled again. This time there was palpable malice weaving through the mirth. He rang a small crystal bell.
A boy came immediately through a drape-concealed door, a heavy ceramic serving tray balanced on his shoulder. A bright and fashionably elaborate tattoo covered his cheek. Zvain wouldn't have noticed the tiny brand scars if he hadn't been looking for them.
The slave gasped and stopped short, the tray tottering in his hands. Zvain followed the slave's glance to a short-legged table upended against the wall, where it was obviously not expected to be. He met the other boy's eyes and shared his panic. It would have been no effort to help his age-mate, but the slave-master watched, and he stayed where he was.
He couldn't breathe as the slave hooked a feet around a table leg, righted it, and dragged it slowly across the carpet. The tray tilted precariously more than once. Crockery slid and clattered, but nothing spilled, nothing fell, nothing broke before the tray sat in its proper place. The slave sank to his knees, trembling with relief. Zvain stuffed his own trembling hands beneath his thighs.
The tray displayed delicacies guaranteed to attract the attention of any boy, slave or free: morsels of crispy meat, dried fruits glistening with honey and powdered spices. What little he'd eaten in the last four days did not deserve to
"Eat whatever you want, as much as you want."
The slave-master's silky voice squelched his appetite. There were countless ways to tumble from freedom into slavery. One way was to perform a slave's work; he'd avoided that. Another way was to fill one's gut before one knew the price of the meal. While me tattooed slave mixed water and herbs for tea, Zvain rubbed the lump on his skull.
He assumed that he'd fallen prey to one of Urik's innumerable slavers. It seemed a reasonable guess and, in a way, inevitable. Orphaned children didn't starve in King Hamanu's city. If they couldn't attach themselves to someone bigger and stronger, they got snatched by slavers. He'd tried to attach himself to someone bigger and stronger: Pavek, the templar. But that hadn't worked.
His own fault.
Pavek had come to him with promises of vengeance, but had seemed more interested in groveling for his old friends at the city-gate. Zvain remembered that last day. They'd quarreled in the morning and barely patched things up before Pavek started working up his day's sweat. He'd promised to pray for the man, then been told to stay put. Pavek was always giving him contradictory orders. To show his mettle, he'd wandered off, but Pavek was gone when he got back. An old man said itinerants had hired Pavek to guide them through the city streets. And he, gith's-thumb fool that he was, had gone searching after his supposed protector.
Pavek's fault.
If that blundering templar hadn't blundered into his life he'd never have been wherever he had been when the slavers caught up with him.