A lean, graying man stood in the center of the room, a wine cup in his hand. He was dressed in a soiled tunic girded with a leather belt from which hung a short sword in a scabbard.
The tery heard Rab mutter, "Kitru."
The lord of the keep swayed as he poured red liquid from a silver flagon. Adriel was bound to a chair before him, her back to Rab and the tery.
Kitru was shouting at the girl. "Fool doctors! Told me the drugs would make you totally subservient to my will — idiots! I wasted the entire night waiting for them to work!"
The tery froze for an instant at the sight of Adriel, then coiled to lunge forward. Rab grabbed his shoulder and signaled him to wait. The tery eased back. He would wait — but not much longer. He watched Kitru sip noisily from his cup and go on speaking to Adriel.
"But when it's light and I've had some rest, we'll try a new approach — the howls of your beloved pet should make you more compliant. And if that fails, we'll make sure to capture your father alive when he arrives to save you. But I will have a compliant — no, enthusiastic — Finder by the time Mekk arrives. Do you understand me?"
The tery dropped all caution then and burst into the room. Startled by the intrusion, Kitru instinctively reached for his sword. The blade had cleared its scabbard by the time the tery reached him, but before Kitru could put it to use, the tery knocked it from his hand and closed long fingers around the keep lord's throat.
"Don't!" Rab cried. "I know what you're thinking, but don't. Just hold him there until I check the girl."
He leaned over Adriel. The tery watched her face. Her expression was blank, her pupils wide. Rab shook her shoulder and her head lolled back, but she did not respond.
The tery growled and tightened his grip on Kitru's throat. Rab turned quickly.
"She's all right. I've seen the effects of this drug before. She'll be like this until about midday, then she'll be sick, and after that she'll be herself again."
Above the tery's constricting fingers, Kitru's face was turning a mottled blue.
"Let him go for now but watch him — we'll use him for safe passage through the gate."
"Who are you?" Kitru rasped as he slumped to the floor and clutched his bruised throat.
"Remember the man you called ‘Crazy Rab' and threw into the dungeon?" Rab said with an edge on his voice as he untied Adriel. "I was a much more presentable member of humanity then, but beneath this beard and filth I am that same naive scholar."
"How did you get up here?"
"The same way we'll get down," Rab said, untying the last knot. "The stairs." He rose to his feet. " Now, where are my books?"
Kitru jerked his head toward a dark corner of the room. "But only four remain."
"I know," Rab said, striding to the indicated spot. "Dennel tells me you've sent one off to Mekk with news that you have a Finder. Your messenger will be wrong on both counts — when Mekk arrives there will be no books and no Finder. And he won't like that at all."
"Ah! Dennel, is it?" Kitru said, his eyes coming to rest on the young man cowering in the doorway. "You have a knack for betraying everyone, it seems."
"No sire! I swear — they forced me into this…"
His voice trailed off. If he was seeking understanding, he found no hint of it in Kitru's face.
The tery glanced at Adriel slumped in her chair. She looked…dead. He took a step toward her, just to check — and that was when Kitru made his move. With a quick roll he grabbed his fallen sword and gained his feet. The tery pivoted to find a gleaming length of sharpened steel hovering a finger's breadth from his throat.
"Rab," Kitru said with a tight smile on is face, "you're not only crazy, you're a fool as well. You should have fled when you had the chance. I'll see you nailed up outside the gate at first light, while your traitorous Talent friend and this beast are roasted alive in the tery pit."
"No!" Dennel cried.
The lord of the keep seemed to have lost all trace of fear now. The tery wondered why. Was it because he considered himself a good swordsman, and all that threatened him here were an unarmed scholar, a coward, and an animal? Perhaps his confidence had been further bolstered by the wine he had consumed.
The tery prepared to attack at the first opportunity.
"We are leaving with the girl," Rab stated coolly.
"Oh?"
"Yes. This fellow" — he indicated the tery — "is a friend of hers. He's going to take her back to her people."
Kitru laughed aloud. "Friend? Oh, I'm afraid you're crazier than anyone ever imagined, Rab. This is her pet!"
"I am a man," the tery said.
The tery was not quite sure why he had said it; he could not truly say he thought of himself as a man. The declaration had escaped of its own volition.
Kitru stepped back, shock blanching his face. Then he sneered.
"You're not a man! You're nothing but a filthy animal who can mimic a few words."
"How strange," Rab said in a goading tone. "I was just thinking the same thing about you."
In a sudden rage, Kitru roared and aimed a cut at the tery's throat, no doubt hoping to catch the beast off guard and then dispose of the others at his leisure. He lunged wildly, however, and the tery leaped aside and aimed a balled fist at the back of the keep lord's neck. Kitru went down without a sound and lay still, his head at an unnatural angle.
Rab came over and nudged the body with his toe.
"I wish you hadn't done that. I was going to trade his life for safe passage out of here."
"There'll be no safe passage for us anywhere now!" Dennel wailed.
"We can still get back to the forest," Rab told him.
"The forest. What good is that to me? It's a living hell out there. I can't go back."
"If the other Talents can manage, so can you."
"I–I'm not like others. I can't live like an animal, scrabbling about for food and shelter. The forest has always scared me. I'm frightened every day out there, every minute. I can't eat, I can't sleep."
"But out there you live as a man," Rab said. "Here, you live as a tool, and you're allowed to do that only so long as you prove yourself useful."
"No — you don't understand." A thin line of perspiration was beading along Dennel's upper lip. "I can reason with them…make them accept me."
Rab turned away. "Suit yourself." He indicated Kitru's inert form. "Think you can make them accept that?"
The tery had already forgotten Kitru and was kneeling beside Adriel. The girl stared vacantly ahead but did not appear to be physically injured. The tery lifted her, one arm across her back, one under her knees, and held her tightly against him. She was breathing slowly, regularly, as if sleeping. How strange and wonderful to hold her like this.
After a long moment, he turned to Rab.
"She will be all right?"
"She'll be fine."
Rab was busy wrapping the four remaining books in a wall drapery. Even from across the room the tery could sense something strange, alien about those volumes. Rab tied a knot, then carried them to the center of the room.
"If we get out alive," he said. "And I've got an idea of how we might do that. If we can get downstairs unseen — "
"There is one debt yet due in this keep," the tery said.
He had tasted vengeance tonight and craved more. One more life needed to be brought to an end before the balance would be restored: The parent-slayer dwelt below in the barracks.
"What are you talking about?"
"A captain named Ghentren must die before I leave tonight."
"Ghentren left a little while ago," Dennel said from the doorway. "He was sent to Mekk's fortress with a sample of the books and news of the captured Finder. He's gone."