"That's the shelters burning," he told himself, reassured by the clarity of his thinking, the solid sound of his voice. "The z'kals," he added, remembering the Fal'Borna word for them, as if he were conversing with someone.
Why was the pestilence here? As the Fal'Borna said, if he'd been infected, he would have been dead days ago. He couldn't have brought it with him. It had to be one of the others. But they hadn't seemed sick either. Someone else then.
Worst he'd ever heard of. "I'm not sick."
He sat down slowly, his eyes fixed on the northern sky. What were the chances of the pestilence striking two towns that were so far apart, on the very days he had visited them? Not just the pestilence, but a strain of the disease that was so severe, it drove people mad and caused
Qirsi to lose control over their magic. That was what was happening. That was what had happened in C'Bijor's Neck.
Coincidence.
He wanted to believe it, but he couldn't. It's me.
This he didn't say aloud.
How could it be him if he wasn't sick? It had to be something else. What else did this sept and C'Bijor's Neck have in common?
He dismissed the thought as soon as it came to him. How could an object-or even ten-sicken people? More to the point, how could they infect entire towns and yet leave him unaffected? No, it couldn't be the baskets any more than it could be Torgan himself.
But the thought continued to echo in his mind. What did the two settlements have in common? Torgan, and the old woman's baskets. Yes, he had other items in his cart, but he'd had them for far longer, and as far as he knew, none of the villages or cities he'd visited prior to the Neck had been struck by the pestilence. If it was anything he carried- and really, how could it be?-but if it was, it had to be the baskets.
Still the streaks of fire darted up into the night. Still the smoke drifted over him, thicker now and acrid. The cries sounded closer, but he saw no riders approaching, no sick Qirsi converging on his small camp.
Why had that woman been so eager to be rid of her baskets?
He'd thought of Y'Farl several times in the past few days, wondering if the old peddler would still be angry with him the next time they met. He could only assume now that they wouldn't meet again in this world, and while he hadn't considered the Y'Qatt a close friend, he was saddened nevertheless.
Since leaving the Neck, however, he'd not given a thought to the old Mettai woman. It all came back to him now, though. The way she'd looked as she left the city. The satisfaction she seemed to feel at having gotten so little for baskets that appeared to be worth so much.
Had she known that there was something wrong with them? Not merely that they weren't as fine as they looked, but something truly wrong. Something… evil.
"This is nonsense," he whispered to the night.
It had to be a coincidence. Dark, even tragic, to be certain. But a coincidence, and nothing more.
Yet, now that the old woman had entered his mind, he couldn't drive her out. Nor could he help thinking that he was glad to be rid of those baskets. He knew that he wouldn't sleep-not this night. So once again, he started to pack up his belongings, intending to drive his cart farther south. The skies were clear, and this late in the waxing the moons were close to full and would be out for most of the night. He could put another two or three leagues between himself and the sept if he pushed himself.
Before he could finish loading his cart, however, he heard a horse approaching. An instant later he recognized the rattle of cart wheels. A peddler then.
He knew before the cart reached him that it was Jasha, and he stepped out into the open so that the lad would see him in the moonlight. Jasha steered his cart directly toward him, stopping when his horse was only a few fourspans from where Torgan was standing.
"Why did you do it?" the peddler demanded. His face looked white in Panya's glow.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
The man leaped down from his cart and strode toward Torgan, his fists clenched. "I don't believe you! You brought this here! You did to the Fal'Borna exactly what you did to C'Bijor's Neck!" He halted just in front of Torgan. "Tell me why!"
"I didn't do anything."
"You're lying!" Jasha said, shoving him as he spoke. He stood a full head shorter than Torgan, and even pushing with what seemed to be all his might, he barely moved the merchant at all.
"Don't touch me again, Jasha."
"Or what? You'll make me sick, too?"
He shoved Torgan again, and this time the merchant hit him back, his fist catching the young man square in the jaw. Jasha staggered back a step, then fell onto his rear. For a moment he sat there in the firelight, looking dazed. Then he began to sob.
"It was awful," he said, tears glistening on his cheeks. "Everyone around me was getting sick-all the Qirsi at least. The pestilence. It had to be. The fever, and the… the…" He clamped his teeth shut and shook his head. "But then the magic started to come out of them," he went on a moment later. "They couldn't help themselves. They couldn't stop. Fire and winds and shaping." He shook his head again, swiping at his tears, though more slid down his face. "There was a healer, and his skin just opened, like he'd taken a knife to himself."
"You say it was only the Qirsi who got sick?"
Jasha lifted his gaze, looking as if he'd forgotten Torgan was even there. After a moment he nodded. "Only the Qirsi. But you knew this would happen, didn't you?" he said, his voice hardening again. "That's why you left so early."
"It's not true. I swear it."
"You saw it happen in the Neck, and you brought it here." "No."
"That's what the Fal'Borna think."
He'd been frightened already. How could he not be, watching a second village succumb to this strange, terrible illness? But at Jasha's mention of the Fal'Borna, Torgan felt himself go cold.
"They think I did this to them?" he asked, his voice falling to a whisper. Jasha's tears had ceased, at least for the moment. "You came to them from the Neck, and then you refused to remain in the village for more than a few hours. What are they supposed to think?"
"But I did nothing!"
"Didn't you?"
"No! It was…" He shook his head, uncertain of what he was going to say.
"It was what?"
"I think perhaps it was the baskets."
Jasha let out a harsh laugh. "The baskets? Do you think I'm a fool?"
Saying it out loud, Torgan could hear how crazed he sounded. He briefly considered trying to explain it all-the woman, and Y'Farl, and the odd bargain they struck. But he knew that Jasha wouldn't believe him, and if he truly had made himself an enemy of the Fal'Borna, he needed to get away from here as quickly as possible.
"No, Jasha, you're not a fool."
He extended his hand to the young man. Jasha eyed it a moment as if it were a dagger. But then he grasped it and allowed Torgan to pull him to his feet.
Torgan turned away and began to climb onto his cart. After a moment, though, he stopped and faced the peddler again.
"I didn't do this. I swear it to you." He wasn't certain why he cared, but when Jasha finally nodded, he knew a brief moment of relief.
He climbed into his seat and took up the reins. Jasha stood watching him. Beyond the young man, the sky was alive with fire and smoke.
"Where will you go?"
Torgan smiled grimly. "Are you asking for yourself, or for the Fal'Borna?"
"What did you mean when you said it was the baskets?"
The merchant shook his head. "It doesn't matter. Even if I could make you understand, you wouldn't believe me."
"You don't know that."
He hadn't the time for this, and yet someone should know, in case the Fal'Borna managed to hunt him down.
"I bought the baskets from a friend. Y'Farl. He lives…" He paused, staring at the sky above S'Plaed's sept. "He lived in C'Bijor's Neck. He had gotten them just moments before from a Mettai woman who sold them to him for far less than she should have. Y'Farl thought he'd made a fine deal for himself, but I watched the whole thing, and it seemed to me that she was anxious to be rid of them, and that she let him have them, knowing full well that he would have paid more."