The Vredai muttered, the groaning of branches in the wind. Halun stifled a cough as a gust of wind carried spent smoke into his face. It burned on his tongue for a moment.
"And your sickness has its counterpart on the Wizards' Mountain," she continued, face as masklike as marble. "Vredai, will you hear the names of your traitors and deal with them?"
Far sooner than Halun would have expected, he heard a woman behind him shout "Aye!" Then there was a chorus of shouts of affirmation until Felaras raised her hand, and a heavy, anticipatory silence fell.
"Clan singer Gortan," she began, each word having a sound of doom about it. "Iridai kan Luchen . . ."
She told off the entire roll of the conspirators, from the greatest to least, all names Halun had given them. Beside him, Iridai trembled and moaned. At the end of the list the hidden horns brayed again.
Felaras waited a moment while the list of names sunk in. "These would have betrayed your Khene, who brought you to this place under the guidance of the Wind Lords," she said, "even as he and you were betrayed by the Talchai. Now I ask you, in the name of the compassionate Wind Lords: what will you do with them, these traitors to Jegrai and to your safety?"
From the angry shouts behind them, executing the traitors seemed to be one of the more popular notions. Once again, Felaras raised her hand to gain utter silence.
"Has there not been enough Vredai blood shed?" she asked, in a much quieter voice. "Treason is a sickness; it can be cured. Treason is a rot; rot can be mended. Take these men to you, people of Vredai. Watch them, but forgive them. To deal them death earns you nothing but more pain. Shed no blood of the Clans that you cannot avoid, people of Vredai. Rather, turn the fires of your anger upon the authors of the root treason. The spreaders of the sickness. The Suno. Consider how you should deal with them—and know that they merit none of your compassion."
Iridai was huddled in a knot on the ground, sobbing.
Felaras's voice strengthened again. "And there is another among you who is not of your blood, who merits none of your compassion, who fostered treason as a way to his own power and not because he felt that the Khene was faulty in judgment. Halun, Hand of the Seekers, of the chapter of the Tower, stand forth!"
Halun stepped forward until he was just within twenty paces of Felaras. He heard a slight rustle of the grass to his left as he took up his appointed position—and that was the only sign he noticed of Kasha getting into place and Mai passing him to plant her next surprise.
"See, people of Vredai—learn the reward given to those who betray for their own gain!"
Behind him, a flash of heat and light reflected off the metal surfaces of Felaras's armor and shining weirdly red off her eyes and the eyes of her horse told him that another flash-pot had been set off—and Kasha, so hellishly made up and garbed he would not have recognized her, leapt up out of the grass that concealed her and seized him with a howl of wild laughter. There were strange, moaning sounds coming from above, now; sounds he knew were being made by the toys they called "bull-roarers" being whirled around and around the heads of the concealed horn-blowers.
He put up a convincing show of struggle, as a third flash-pot went up at the entrance to the valley, and another glowing horse and rider—this time shining an evil green—galloped through it. They swooped down on Kasha and her "victim" and scooped both of them up.
Actually, Kasha leapt up behind Jegrai—who was about the only rider capable of pulling off this trick—while he hauled Halun up before him.
Jegrai's horse wheeled and headed back the way they had come, and Halun closed his eyes. Facedown across a saddle-bow was uncomfortable. Watching the grass whirl by while breathing powder smoke was making him ill.
"Remember, Vredai!" Felaras called. "Remember!"
She made her horse rear and pivot on its hind legs, before following Jegrai and his poor overburdened mount back through the valley mouth as a fourth flash-pot went up behind them.
Once on the other side, all four of them dismounted as invisible hands took the reins of the horses. Invisible, because the owners were garbed head to foot in black, and their faces were smeared with soot. The glowing horses were swathed in blankets and the glowing riders in cloaks. And the entire contingent—except for Mai, who would be quietly collecting the spent flash-pots she'd set off—mounted up again and headed for the nearest farm with a well to wash off the phosphor.
Mai joined them in the lantern-lit barn before they were quite finished. "They're very impressed, Jegrai," she said quietly, dumping her four pots, still stinking of sulfur and brimstone, with the rest of the gear. "I don't think you'll be having any trouble with them for a while."
"Maybe," he said, pausing for a moment to look closely at the Master, with his hands full of towel and his hair dripping down his back. "But—Felaras, what of the time when we pull this same trick on the Talchai? They are bound to realize that they were deceived."
"Thought about that already, lad," she said, while Halun silently helped her out of her greaves. He unbuckled the straps and lifted them away, and she groaned and flexed her ankle. "Gods, I'd forgotten how damned heavy this crap was. Kasha, love, get the cloth off my horse's feet, will you? You won't be a part of that trickery, Jegrai—or at least your people won't. I'll have the Watchers do it, tricked out in Vredai gear. Some of your people will know, or guess, what we did, and some will learn how and why—but I'd rather it was the next generation down the line."
Jegrai nodded, and began toweling off his hair.
"I think you're likely to have more respect than you know what to do with when you ride in, Khene," Mai said with a hint of amusement. "They're convinced that Felaras is a Holy Messenger from the Wind Lords, and equally convinced that a pair of kizhiin carried Halun off to unending torture. Last I saw, Iridai and Gortan were in the process of giving away all their worldly goods, beating their breasts and praising the compassion of the Wind Lords for sparing them."
Jegrai snorted: "Give them a few days, and they'll be back to telling me I'm a fool to my face," he said, with just a hint of amusement in his voice. "But at least I don't think I need to be watching behind my back for plots for a while."
"I doubt you'll ever need to again, Jegrai," Felaras replied.
Halun nodded, and handed her a wet towel. "What they heard back there was the Messenger of the Wind Lords all but telling them that you are their special darling. There were no few of your people who'd have been willing to follow you through hell before this. Now all of them will be."
The surprised expression on Jegrai's face was rather funny. "Me?" he squawked. "God-touched?"
Halun nodded again. "Yes, Khene."
"Think about that, son," Felaras said urgently. "Think about that hard."
"Indeed," Halun said, with a sorrow too profound for release. "Think about that. I was told I was all but god-touched; you people have given scholars that cachet. I was listened to as if I knew all wisdom. I was offered power—and it turned my head—and because of my own ambition and pride and self-deception an innocent boy died, died horribly. Think very hard about that, and decide what you want to do about it."