"And so naturally resisted any suggestion that they let you get them out of Karyx immediately?"
He shrugged. "You can hardly blame them, considering what it costs to get in here in the first place.
Eventually, I learned not to mention it unless they did."
"You broke the rule with me."
He smiled bitterly. "What're you going to do, get me fired? I was on my way to a leave of absence anyway when you and your moneycard father hijacked me."
"When we—what?" She frowned up at him. "What do you mean?"
"Never mind. The dealer we'll be talking to next is named—"
"Don't change the subject," she cut in. "If you think you can drop a line like that and expect me to ignore it, you've got the wrong lady. What do you mean, we hijacked you?"
Ravagin's jaw tightened momentarily, and he gave a slight shrug. "I don't suppose it really matters.
You asked for the most experienced Courier on Triplet, which happened to be me. I wanted to turn it down, but the people above me decided they wouldn't take no for an answer. End of story."
Danae felt her stomach tighten. No wonder he was so antagonistic toward her. "Oh, hell. Ravagin—
look, I'm sorry. I had no idea—I didn't think anyone would pull something that shabby."
"Of course you didn't," he grunted. "You've never shown any tendency to think out consequences in advance. And you know why?—because you've always had Hart or someone like him trailing along behind you to clean up any messes you make before you can see them."
"Oh?" she snapped back, loudly enough to attract brief attention from some of the passersby. "And you, of course, are one of those who have to clean up our messes, huh? Is that why you don't like me?"
"Keep your voice down," he growled, starting to walk again. "Unless you want to announce you're from somewhere no one here's ever heard of. And take any consequences."
Danae gritted her teeth, taking a few quick steps to catch up with him. Primitive culture, she reminded herself... and primitive cultures were not known for being open-armed toward strangers.
"All right, all right," she muttered, pacing him again and forcing herself to cool down. "Where's this other dealer you had in mind for me to see?"
"This way." Ravagin gestured off toward their right. Danae nodded and followed as he turned off on a sidestreet. The cloud was trying to obscure her vision again....
"Hey!"
She came to with a jerk to find Ravagin standing in front of her, gripping her upper arms hard enough to hurt. "What do you think you're doing?" she asked, wondering how he'd gotten in front of her without her noticing the move.
His face was tight. "You started off in the wrong direction and ignored me when I called after you," he said. "Didn't you hear me?"
She licked her lips, something cold closing around her heart. "No. I don't—we had just finished our discussion and had... made a right turn toward the weapons dealer..." She stopped as his expression tightened a bit more. "All right, let's hear the bad news. How much did I miss?"
"About two minutes, I think," he told her grimly. "How do you feel?"
She paused, trying to take internal stock through the panic starting to simmer inside her. "Fine.
Really. Except for being scared as hell."
"You sure you don't remember anything?" he asked. "You do have a tendency to get lost in your thoughts."
She thought to glance around before answering. No crowd had gathered; none of the passersby seemed to be paying them any attention. "I've had a full high-retention mnemonic treatment, remember? There ought to be something there—and there isn't. It's as if I'd been sound asleep."
Ravagin nodded. "Yeah. All right, let's get back to the horses and get the hell back to the way house." His eyes fell on the bow she still carried; without comment he reached down and plucked it from her grasp. "Probably nothing, but we'd better get it checked out, fast."
"Sure." Danae took a deep breath. "Ravagin... please hold me."
For an instant she was afraid he'd misinterpret; but he didn't. "Don't worry," he assured her, turning her gently and putting a firm arm around her shoulders as they started back to where they'd tied their horses. "I've never yet had a client wander away from me. I'm not going to start now."
Chapter 14
She lay quietly on the bed with her eyes closed, arms and legs spread slightly away from her body, a somewhat gauzy sheet from armpits to thighs her only covering. Under other circumstances, Ravagin thought vaguely, he might have had a hard time keeping his eyes and thoughts at professional levels.
But as it was, he had far more serious things than Danae's body on his mind.
"Esporla-meenay!" Melentha intoned, her hands tracing out intricate contrapuntal patterns in front of her. "Askhalon-mistoonla. Olratohin kailistahk!"
Nothing. No momentary aura, no sparks or shimmers anywhere on or near Danae's body. Ravagin pursed his lips, stole a glance away from her across the bed to where Melentha stood. "Well?" he prompted.
Melentha shrugged, an annoyed frown creasing her forehead. "I'm afraid that's my whole repertoire of spirit-detection spells. If something's in there playing games with her, I can't coax it out."
"Are there any spiritmasters in Besak these days?" he asked, looking back at Danae. Her eyes were open now, looking up at him... and while she was putting on a good front, it was obvious she was still scared. "He'd know other spells to try, maybe even a general exorcism we wouldn't need a full identification for."
"We don't have anyone of that caliber in Besak," Melentha shook her head. "The nearest would probably be in Citadel, and there's no guarantee he'd have the time or inclination to look at her."
"What about Coven?" Danae asked. "Surely they have spiritmasters there—they make all those bound-spirit gadgets, after all."
Ravagin cocked an eyebrow at Melentha, though he was pretty sure he knew what her response would be. "Feasible?"
"I'd rather take my chances with Citadel," she said shortly. "I don't know anyone who's ever been to Coven—rumor has it that visitors are intensely discouraged."
"So what do we do?" Danae asked, a slight tremor creeping into her voice.
Melentha sat down on the edge of the bed and took Danae's wrist. "How do you feel?" she asked, fingers locating the pulse and resting there a moment.
Danae's eyes unfocused briefly, and for a second Ravagin thought she was fading out again. But then she shook her head and shrugged. "I feel fine, I guess. Nothing hurts anywhere, and I'm not lightheaded or dizzy. Vision hasn't slipped lately, either."
"Any family history of epilepsy?" Melentha asked.
"They wouldn't have let her come in with something like that," Ravagin put in.
"And there isn't any in my family, anyway," Danae confirmed.
"Just eliminating the obvious." Melentha paused, frowning. "I don't know what else to try. I'll check the bow, see if one of the spirits we used to help assemble the thing somehow got left in it. But the chances of that are really too small to worry about."
"While you're at it, you might also check out that robe," Ravagin told her, jerking his thumb at the garment hanging over a nearby chair.
"Oh, come on, Ravagin," Melentha snorted. "Let's at least be reasonable about this."
"What's unreasonable? The damn thing comes from Coven—who knows what they might have done to it?"
"But—oh, all right. If it'll make you happy." Standing up, Melentha circled the bed and scooped up the robe. "I'll be doing both of them up in my lab, where I can have them in a pentagram. Just in case. You'll want to watch, I presume?"
"Yeah." Ravagin eyed Danae, noted the tightness around her mouth. "Go ahead and get set up; I'll be up in a minute."
Melentha nodded and left the room. "How're you doing?" Ravagin asked, taking a step toward the bed.
"How many times are you two going to ask me that?" Danae said irritably. "When something changes I'll let you know. Would you get me some clothes?"