She raised the weapon, her gaze fixed intently on the Northern device. She waved it back and forth; the talisman did not react. “Whatever it doesn’t like must be in the bag,” she said.
No one answered. Kel glanced at Ezak; he was crouching behind the ridge, watching Dorna.
The sorcerer’s widow took a cautious step forward, then another.
No reaction.
She began walking slowly forward.
She had gone perhaps fifty feet, Kel watching every step, when he was distracted by a hissing. He turned to see Ezak beckoning to him.
He gave Dorna one more quick glance, then hurried up over the rise to where Ezak sat. “What is it?” he asked.
“Here’s our chance,” Ezak said. “We can take the bag and run!”
Kel blinked at him.
“She won’t even notice!” Ezak said. “She’s too busy with that thing over there.” He waved in the direction of the Northern talisman.
Kel shook his head.
“Why not? She’s probably going to get herself killed! Even if she doesn’t, we can get a good head start-we don’t need to go back for the wagon, there’s probably enough here to make us rich. We can just pick a direction, and she’ll never be able to find us without her magic.”
“No,” Kel said.
“Why not? What’s wrong with you? Here’s our chance!”
“No,” Kel repeated, shaking his head again for emphasis.
“What is it? You think she’ll find us somehow?”
In fact, now that Ezak mentioned it, Kel did think it was likely that she would come after them, and she had far more sorcery back in the wagon than was here in her shoulder-bag, so she would probably be able to find them. Even if she couldn’t do it with her inherited talismans, she could always hire a wizard or a theurgist to locate the stolen goods. And she had said that if he stole from her, she would track Ezak down and kill him.
That was not why Kel had said no, though. That had not even occurred to him until Ezak brought it up. His objection was far more simple, and far more basic.
Taking that bag of magic now would be wrong.
Kel did not think all theft was wrong; he could not have survived on the streets of Smallgate if he had taken so absolute a position. He was perfectly willing to steal from those who could afford it, or those who deserved it. He had never objected to robbing other thieves, or cutting the purse off a rich man’s belt. He was perfectly willing to steal a few coins from the bar at the Bent Sword because everyone knew that Dulbek, the proprietor, watered the beer and shortchanged anyone drunk enough that Dulbek thought they might not notice a missing bit or two. Grabbing money from a dice game was just fine, since the players had put it at risk in the first place.
But Dorna was out there trying to protect people by removing that Northern sorcery. She was risking her life. She had done nothing to Kel or Ezak to deserve betrayal. Yes, she had tricked them into helping her move her belongings, but they had been trying to rob her; that sort of turnabout was only fair.
She could have sent one of them out to blast that thing. She knew Kel could get close to it. But she hadn’t; she was going out there herself. If that talisman belatedly noticed the weapon in her hand when she got close, she wouldn’t have time to dodge the next magical blade.
“If it kills her,” he said, “then we can take it.”
“What? Why can’t we take it now?”
“It isn’t fair.”
“Life isn’t fair, Kel! You know that better than anyone!”
“Well, we should try to be better than that.”
“Fine!” Ezak threw up his hands. “Fine! We’ll wait until it kills her. She probably would track us down, anyway.” He folded his hands across his chest and sat glowering at the canvas bag.
Kel watched him for a moment, then turned and walked back up the rise to see how Dorna was doing.
She was moving cautiously across the meadow, the weapon in her hand, eyes fixed on the Northern talisman. She was about halfway. She looked very small out there in the broad open space, and it occurred to Kel that she would probably need help carrying the fil drepessis back after she got it away from the device it had fixed. She had said she didn’t really know how to use it properly, so she probably couldn’t just tell it to walk back to the inn. If she had some magical transport in mind, that would presumably be in with her other sorcery; she would still need to get the talisman back to where she had left the bag.
“I’m going to help her,” Kel said. Then he started trotting across the meadow.
“Have fun,” Ezak called after him.
Kel did not bother to answer.
Dorna was about sixty feet from the Northern device, and Kel was perhaps two-thirds of the way across the meadow, when that loud voice spoke again, saying exactly the same thing it had said when he was about twenty yards away. Dorna stopped dead.
“Do you know what it said?” Kel called.
Dorna turned, startled, and Kel realized she hadn’t noticed him following her until now. “No,” she answered. “I don’t. It sounds vaguely familiar, though. I think it might be asking for a password.”
“Do you know a password?”
“No,” Dorna said, as she raised the weapon and pointed it at the talisman.
The vaguely tube-shaped structure on the top of the device pivoted toward her, and Kel shouted, “Look out!”
Dorna dropped her weapon and raised her empty hands. Kel guessed that she did not think she could drop out of its target area quickly enough at this distance.
“Apparently it defends itself,” Dorna said, standing very still.
Kel agreed. The device must have seen the weapon before, and recognized that it was a weapon, but it was only when Dorna pointed it at the talisman that it reacted. He did not say anything, but hurried through the tall grass toward her. A moment later he stood beside her, then stooped down to retrieve the fallen weapon. Holding it loosely, not pointing it anywhere, he looked from Dorna to the talisman.
It stood perhaps three or four feet tall, a dark gray cylinder with that shiny hornlike thing on top. It had no other visible features, and Kel could not detect any sound or odor from it. He could see beside it, half-hidden by the tall grass, the fil drepessis.
The Northern device spoke again, the same phrase as before. The horn stayed pointed at Dorna.
Kel sidled away from her, to see whether the thing would follow him, now that he had the weapon. It did not; apparently it had decided that Dorna was more likely to be an enemy, despite her immediate surrender.
“Do you think it understands Ethsharitic?” Kel asked.
“Probably not,” Dorna said. “It may not understand anything except the password.”
Kel nodded, then turned to the talisman. “Hai!” he called. “Can you tell us where we are? We’re lost.”
It did not respond.
He took a step toward it, and the tube immediately swung toward him as it said something incomprehensible. He stepped back.
“If it can’t understand us,” he said, “then we can make a plan and it won’t know what we’re saying.”
“Maybe,” Dorna said. She did not sound entirely convinced, but she lowered her hands.
“Are we close enough for your weapon to kill it?” Kel watched the Northern device closely; it did not react, so far as he could see.
“It’s not alive.”
“You know what I mean.”
“If we could get a clear shot at it, yes, I think so. But it’s faster than a human being; if you point the weapon at it, it’ll kill you before you can shoot.”
“I was thinking maybe I could distract it while you shoot it.”
“Well, right now you have the weapon, I don’t!”
“I’m going to pass it to you behind my back. Then I’m going to move around, and get it to point that top piece at me. Then you can shoot it before it can swing back.”