He explained that he had been hired to sniff out a poacher who was stealing valuable Pharaohan slaves. Despite his sudden distaste for deception, he was careful not to mention the League, and he described his commission and employers in deliberately ambiguous terms. The League was unpopular on Sook — since it was one of the strongest multistellar entities, and had an effective police arm. He couldn’t risk one of the Pharaohans dropping the League’s name in the presence of a local.
But even so, a truthful picture of Pharaoh’s status began to emerge. This information seemed less palatable to his listeners.
“Please,” said Dolmaero. “Explain further. Pharaoh is owned? Like a catapple plantation?”
“Something like that,” Ruiz said.
“But what do the pangalacs want from us? Gold? Snake oil?”
“Some oil is exported,” Ruiz said. “But mainly, the wealth of Pharaoh is in its conjurors. That’s why Corean stole your troupe from Bidderum. She would have one day sold your people to some collector of theatrical oddities, for a great deal of pangalac credit.”
Dolmaero looked wryly amused. “So we’re cattle? Or dancing banebears?”
“Oh, no. On the pangalac worlds the institution of slavery is restricted by many humane rules. It’s very unlikely you’d have been mistreated, had you been taken by a legitimate pangalac organization. Now Corean… she might have sold you to some wildworld monster — who can say?”
Molnekh looked bewildered and said nothing.
Nisa turned away and spoke in a low voice. “I always thought that Pharaoh belonged to my father.”
Of all the reactions, Flomel’s was the strangest. A look of malevolent defiant pride came into his eyes, though his face maintained its expression of ostentatious disinterest. He seemed to glare at Ruiz with a different, more submissive degree of hatred. The look on the conjuror’s face made Ruiz’s skin crawl.
“How long have we been owned?” asked Dolmaero.
“Many generations. Soon after your people developed conjuring into a high art.”
Nisa made a muffled sound of woe. Ruiz touched her shoulder. “What is it?”
“Nothing. It’s just… I remember, not so long ago, though now it seems a lifetime past, when I stood on my father’s terrace above the city, and drank a toast to my ancestors. The ones who first traveled about Pharaoh, performing their rough tricks. The ones whose cleverness had given me such a good life. And now I see that they made me a slave….”
“No,” he said. “It isn’t all bad. You haven’t had a major war since you became a client world. Three hundred years ago there was a plague that might have killed three quarters of your population; the owners stopped it before it started.”
She put her face in her hands. “My father’s hunting dirgos are content; they no longer remember what it was like to freely roam the wastes. They get meat twice a day, and the huntsman sees that they get enough exercise. It’s good, I suppose.”
Ruiz could find no comforting words to speak. He put his arm around her, pulled her close. She resisted for a moment, then turned her face to his chest.
Dolmaero spoke again, though this time he seemed to speak more to himself than to Ruiz. “I must find a way to get back to the troupe, someday. I must try to take them home; I’m responsible for them, you understand. Most of them didn’t seek glory or transfiguration; they worked to feed their families. Tell me, Ruiz. Now that the conjurors are gone, what will Corean do with the ones who are left?”
Ruiz shook his head. “I don’t know, Guildmaster.” He couldn’t see what use the depressing truth would be to Dolmaero. In all likelihood, Corean would simply euthanize the others, if she became convinced that she would never recapture the conjurors. What good was a conjuring troupe without conjurors?
A little time passed, and the fire burned low, until only a few red coals sputtered in the ashes. The night air was chill and damp, and Ruiz became very conscious of Nisa’s warmth against him. He found himself wishing that he could be frozen in time, that he could rest like this forever, that somehow the arc of his life could be arrested here and now, before it plunged down to the painful ending that probably waited for him a day or two down the line. He had managed all day to put from his mind the impossibility that they could escape Corean on foot, the improbability that the highway would be traveled by anyone willing to give transport to a ragged group like his.
All his life, he had possessed a talent for putting away thoughts he did not wish to think, a talent that had served him well in his violent pursuits; now he could not seem to do it. He looked down at Nisa’s dark head. Perhaps she had become too precious to him, but if so, there was nothing he wished to do about it.
Dolmaero stirred. “Another question, if you’ll permit, and then I must retire — or I won’t be able to walk very far tomorrow.”
Ruiz nodded.
“Then tell me… what are we to you that you should help us as you have? I know you are fond of the Noble Person… this is written in your face. But the rest of us? Forgive me for saying so, but you don’t seem the sort of person who often performs capricious acts of charity.”
Ruiz was also fond of Dolmaero, and was growing to like Molnekh’s cheerful energetic personality. Still, Dolmaero was essentially correct. Why had he undertaken to rescue the others?
He made a successful rationalization. “I expect your help in return.”
Dolmaero spread his hands. “But what can we do? We’re not trained in violence, we know nothing of this world.”
Ruiz considered. “Here’s the first thing: We must set a watch, so that one of us is always awake. I don’t know what predators live in these woods, or what sort of people. In any case, we mustn’t be taken by surprise. So… Molnekh, perhaps you’ll stand the first watch?”
“Of course,” said the skinny mage, beaming.
Ruiz looked up. He saw that the threatening clouds had blown away, and that patches of starry sky showed through the branches overhead. “See that bright star?” He pointed to an opening in the canopy. “When it hangs above the white-barked tree, call me for my watch. I’ll call Dolmaero, who will call Nisa.”
“And what shall I do?” sneered Flomel.
Ruiz pushed Nisa gently away and got to his feet. He picked up the self-securing leash he’d brought from the wrecked airboat. “Come with me, Master Flomel. I’ll tuck you in.”
Flomel followed him slowly to the tent farthest from the fire. “Must you hobble me like an untrained striderbeast?”
Ruiz set the leash, activated its mechanism, watched it corkscrew its taproot into the stone. “I must, until you’re better trained.”
“I know I’ve spoken roughly to you, but I’ve done you no real harm. Why do you so distrust me?” Flomel smiled a crooked smile, an expression of alarming duplicity, even in the dim light.
Ruiz snugged the leash around Flomel’s neck, sealed it. “Instinct, let us say.”
“I’ve learned much this night, Ruiz Aw. How may I earn your trust?” The smile trembled on Flomel’s thin mouth.
Ruiz laughed. “At the moment, I have difficulty with the concept. Perhaps you’ll think of something.” He tugged at the leash, found it secure. “Good night.”
Molnekh had taken his post at the side of the shelter and stood motionless against the gray stone. He was hard to spot in the darkness, and Ruiz felt a degree of approval. Molnekh was intelligent and adaptable; he might actually be of some help.