"Green?" Rozloom spread his hands before him and studied his fingers as if he'd just acquired them. Understanding lit his broad face, and gold teeth flashed in relief. "Ahh. Is nothing. Merely the healing herbs I grind to feed the captain's friend." The gypsy gestured to the small mortar and pestle on the writing table.
"Let me have them," Teldin said, holding out his free hand. Panic flared in the aperusa's black eyes, but his smile never dimmed. "I think not, Captain," he said. "Herbs, they can be dangerous if one knows little of them."
"You might as well know that K'tide is dead," Teldin said bluntly. Rozloom's jovial expression vanished, and he sank heavily into the chair. "So is Om," Teldin added quietly, but the second piece of information did not seem to register with the aperusa.
"I see." The gypsy's usually booming bass voice sounded strangely subdued, and his face sagged in the resignation of defeat. "And of course there are many questions. What would you have me to tell, Captain?"
The thunder of approaching dracons drowned out Teldin's response. Two green heads poked in through the door, their puzzled faces framing Vallus. "Get Deelia," Teldin told the elf.
"I'm here." The healer pushed her way into the room.
Teldin pointed to the dish of crushed herbs and asked her what they were. Puzzled, Deelia went over to the writing table and touched the tip of one finger to the mixture. She sniffed it, tasted it, and spat.
"Nightsorrel," she breathed, glancing at the gypsy with dawning understanding. "No wonder the half-elf never woke up."
Rozloom sighed and removed a small green flagon from the folds of his sash. "This will help," he said, handing it to the healer. Again she tested it. Satisfied, she quickly poured the liquid into Hectate's slack mouth. She produced a vial of her own, a healing potion of some sort, and administered that to Hectate as well. Almost immediately the half-elf's color looked a bit better, and he sighed in his sleep.
"He should start coming around soon now," Deelia murmured. Teldin nodded his thanks and sheathed his sword. Feeling a little light-headed, he pulled the room's only chair over to Hectate's bedside and dropped into it. Leaving Rozloom to the furious elven wizard, Teldin renewed his vigil over his half-elven friend.
"How long have you been working for the insectare?" Vallus demanded, coming forward to stand over the aperusa.
"Work?" The gypsy shrugged off that concept like an ill-fitting garment. "My people salvage old ships. K'tide's money was good. The insectare, he wished also to buy information. The money for that was even better."
"What information?"
"Harmless things: Where the captain goes. What he does. What he wears. Very much K'tide liked stories of the cloak that changes color, so I tell what I see. Is business," he concluded with another shrug. Teldin, who had looked up when Rozloom mentioned the insectare's interest in the cloak, got the distinct impression that Rozloom had little notion what the fuss was about.
"Who else was with the insectare?"
A bushy brow arched. "The insect-elves, but this you know already, yes?"
Vallus winced visibly. "So it was K'tide and the bionoids who supplied spelljamming vessels to the Armistice goblinborn. Why?"
"That, I did not ask."
"All right, then, are the scro involved?"
"Scro!" Rozloom snorted. "Who is to say? What scro do is hidden even from those who read the cards. The aperusa trade but little with such creatures."
"Is anyone else working with you?"
"From time to time," the aperusa allowed. "For a good price, a beholder helped me to make the captain's acquaintance."
"In the tavern on Garden," Teldin said slowly, remembering the beholder who had fired over his head and sent him, the dracons, and Rozloom into flight. Rozloom's revelations also explained the insectare's appearance in the tavern that night, just before the aperusa troop's arrival. Still, Teldin was puzzled. The insectare wanted the cloak, yet its bionoid allies easily could have acquired the cloak and had failed to do so. There was something else going on, probably something that went far beyond Rozloom's involvement. Teldin didn't need his medallion's power to discern that: no reasoning being would trust an aperusa with all the details of a plot. There was, however, one mystery the gypsy could clear up.
Teldin turned to the aperusa. "Why did you keep Hectate from waking up? What possible purpose could there be in that?"
For the first time, the aperusa seemed at a loss for an answer. He cleared his throat and opened his mouth as if to speak, then his face went blank and he shut his mouth with a click. The aperusa's befuddlement surprised Teldin: Rozloom had never before stumbled over the creation of an entertaining explanation.
"Sir?"
The faint whisper brought Teldin's attention back to the half-elf. Hectate stirred, his eyelids struggling to open.
"I'm here, Hectate," he replied in a soothing tone. "You're back aboard the Trumpeter. You've been asleep for a long time, but you'll be fine."
Hectate went very still, and despair flooded his thin face. "Then I've failed," he whispered. Teldin's brow creased in surprise.
Vallus came to stand at Teldin's shoulder. "I'm afraid I'll have to ask him some questions."
"Later," Teldin declared, not bothering to look up.
"They cannot wait," Vallus insisted gently.
With a long sigh, Hectate opened his eyes and gave Teldin a sad, reassuring smile. "It's all right, sir. There is much you both should know."
With Teldin's help, the half-elven bionoid struggled to sit up, then began his story.
"After the insectare raid that destroyed my own family, Clan Kir took me in as one of their own. I still carry their name, but I left the clan years ago. You may know that bionoids are usually solitary folk, living alone or in small family units. On a few occasions, larger groups known as battle clans have been formed. Clan Kir is a battle clan, its formation fueled by hatred of elves. It was they who attacked the Trumpeter. One of them overpowered me and brought me aboard the insectare ship."
"I saw it happen," Teldin broke in softly. "The woman bionoid went right for your crystal eye, your vulnerable spot. I thought for sure you were dead."
Hectate shrugged, obviously uncomfortable with the direction the discussion was taking. "She pulled her punch," he muttered.
"Nice girl," Teldin said in a sardonic tone. He regretted the quip immediately, for Hectate looked as though he'd been struck through the heart. It took the half-elf a moment to collect himself. When he was able to speak, he went on to explain the bionoids' plan and their alliance with the insectare and scro, including the insectare's treacherous plan to release the primary Witchlight Marauder against the goblin races of Armistice.
Vallus questioned Hectate closely about the intended attack on Lionheart, but Teldin was almost equally disturbed by the proposed destruction of the ice world. He'd seen for himself the tertiary Witchlight Marauders' feeding frenzy, and Hectate asserted that the primary marauder was many times more fearsome, a giant land slug that could reduce the planet to a lifeless hull within a year or two. Teldin could well imagine the destruction a rampaging monster of that size might accomplish. He resolutely put the disturbing images out of mind, but he suspected that Witchlight Marauders would edge the spiderlike neogi out of his nightmares for many nights to come.