Rikus furrowed his hairless brow and shook his head.
“If-”
Boaz laughed at the mul’s confusion. “It’s the gaj, you buffoon. It was talking to you.”
“Talking to me?” Rikus gasped, half-disgusted and half-frightened. The gaj’s stinging tentacles and the way it had scorched his mind glowed fresh in his memory.
Yes. I am learning to speak well, the gaj reported.
Boaz looked toward the pen opposite Rikus’s. The beast inside had moved in front of its gate, and the tips of its pincers protruded between the iron bars. Rikus could barely see the gaj’s bulbous white head inside the murky pen.
“We’ve learned a lot about the gaj over the last couple of days, haven’t we?” Boaz said. “It doesn’t eat bodies, it eats minds.” He took a step toward its pen.
The beast scuttled back into the shadows. Boaz knows an elf called Radurak, the gaj said in Rikus’s mind. Radurak has your woman.
Rikus turned to Yarig. “Did you hear that?”
The dwarf shook his head. “It only talks to one person at a time,” he said.
Boaz will tell Tithian where to find her.
“How do you know?” Rikus asked.
It’s in his thoughts, the gaj replied.
In the corridor, Boaz picked up a loose stone and threw it into the gaj’s cage. “How come you don’t talk to me anymore?”
Rikus was stunned. Should he believe the gaj, or was this some sort of trick on Boaz’s part to get him to reveal what he knew of Sadira? Rikus had heard of the Way, of course, and knew that it could be used to speak telepathically. What he had trouble accepting was that an overgrown bug like the gaj might be intelligent enough to use it. Still, he had no choice except to believe what he heard inside his head.
Boaz drained the last of his milkwine, then threw the carafe at the gaj. “Stupid beast!” He started to stumble out of the animal shed.
“Tell me, Boaz, do you think telling Tithian about Radurak will make the high templar forgive you?” Rikus called.
Boaz stopped dead. “Where did you hear Radurak’s name?”
Any doubts about what the gaj had told him vanished from Rikus’s mind. “I don’t think it’ll help you,” the mul continued, ignoring the trainer’s question. “Lord Tithian will still blame you for not noticing Sadira’s powers, and then for letting her escape.”
Rikus heard Neeva shuffle in the dark corner to which she had retreated. He glanced at her and saw that, although she still glowered at him, she had dropped the cape from her shoulders and watched him closely. The mul breathed a sigh of relief. He didn’t know what would happen next, but he was happy to see that she would back him up.
Boaz returned and stood in front of Rikus’s pen, safely out of reach. “You had better hope my confinement is lifted,” the trainer said. Though he stank of fermented milk, the half-elf suddenly appeared almost sober. Rikus feared it would be difficult to lure him close enough to the gate to strike.
“Life is growing tedious on this estate,” Boaz continued. “When I get bored, I get irritable. Things could go very hard on you and your friends if Tithian is not in a forgiving mood.”
“Perhaps I should put in a good word for you with the high templar,” Rikus offered.
Behind Boaz, the gaj, too, moved forward, pushing its pincers through the bars of its cage in an effort to snag the trainer. The mandibles were too short to reach the half-elf, but an idea occurred to Rikus that might make it possible to kill Boaz and save Sadira, without sacrificing his dream of freedom.
The trainer sneered at Rikus’s offer of aid. “I doubt that I’ll let you live long enough to speak with Lord Tithian.”
Gaj, if you want Boaz, here’s what to do, Rikus thought, hoping the beast could hear his thoughts as it had heard Boaz’s. He laid out a simple plan.
He must be alive, came the reply. If he dies before my antennae touch his head, his mind will be spoiled for me.
Yes, Rikus agreed. He grabbed the bars of his gate, then said to Boaz, “After I’m free, the first thing I’m going to do is track you into a dark street-”
The mul did not have a chance to finish his threat. Behind the trainer, the gaj threw itself at its gate. A tremendous crash echoed through the animal shed as the beast’s carapace struck the iron bars, triggering an immediate chorus of alarmed squeals and roars from the other pens.
As Rikus had hoped, the startled trainer leaped away from the gaj, straight into the mul’s waiting arms. Rikus grabbed Boaz by the collar, pulling the half-elf toward the gate. The astonished trainer started to cry for help, but Rikus slapped a massive hand over the man’s mouth.
“Rikus!” gasped Neeva. “What are you doing?”
“Repaying Sadira for saving my life,” the mul responded. “Get his keys and unlock our gate.”
Don’t kill him! the gaj urged, settling back into its pen.
“You’ll have him alive-more or less,” Rikus answered, squeezing Boaz’s mouth with all his strength. He felt a series of satisfying pops as the half-elf’s front teeth broke away at the roots.
Boaz groaned in pain, then reached for the dirk at his belt. Rikus grabbed the trainer’s wrist with his free hand. “Wrong move,” he said, pulling the offending arm through the gate. He pressed the forearm against an iron bar until he heard a sharp crack. A muffled wail escaped Boaz’s covered lips.
“You’ll get us killed,” Neeva said, stepping to Rikus’s side. She removed the key ring from Boaz’s belt.
“Not if my plan works,” Rikus replied, giving his fighting partner a confident wink. “They’ll think the gaj did it.”
“They’d better,” Neeva said, moving to the gate lock and fitting keys into it.
Rikus looked at the dwarf, who still held onto Anezka, though it no longer appeared that she needed to be restrained. “Yarig, you’ll have to lift the gate for Neeva to crawl under.”
“I don’t like it,” the dwarf said. “You shouldn’t have done something like this without asking us first.”
Boaz tried to pull free. Without looking away from Yarig, Rikus slammed him back into the gate. “Don’t you think asking would have ruined the surprise?”
“That doesn’t matter,” Yarig answered stubbornly. “This affects all of us. I don’t care if you are the champion. You can’t make decisions like this on your own.”
Rikus rolled his eyes, then let go of Boaz’s broken wrist. “You’re right,” the mul said. “I’ll let him go.”
Anezka shook her bead urgently.
Neeva turned a key in the gate lock and a loud click echoed in the cell. “Make up your mind, Yarig,” she said.
“We’ll push Boaz over to the gaj, lock ourselves back in, and toss the keys in front of its pen,” Rikus said, once more slamming the half-elf into the gate-this time only because he enjoyed doing so. “Everyone will think he was drunk, wandering around in here, and got too close to the cage.”
Yarig released the halfling and slowly lifted the gate. Once he had raised it high enough for Neeva to crawl beneath, she went into the corridor and restrained Boaz from the outside while Rikus left the pen.
In both directions, the long corridor was lined with steel gates similar to the one from beneath which the mul had just crawled. In a few places, he could see claws or tentacles or vaguely humanlike hands protruding from between the bars, but otherwise every pen appeared identical.
As Rikus stepped into the corrider, Neeva shoved Boaz toward a cage a short distance away. A powerful, acrid odor rose from the pen.
“Rikus, maybe we should feed Boaz to a raakle instead of the gaj,” Neeva said.
No, Rikus! the gaj whined. You promised!
The trainer cringed, and his eyes glazed with horror. Rikus did not blame him for being frightened. Raakles were brilliantly colored birds the size of half-giants, but their mouths were short tubular beaks no larger around than a man’s fingers. They digested their prey by gripping it with their powerful, three-clawed feet, then spitting sticky acid over it. This fluid reduced bone and flesh alike to a pulpy ooze that the bird sucked up through its small mouth.