"If it's dangerous for us, what do you think it is for him?" Nordis growled. "Yeah, come on, Ravagin.
Melentha, can you scare us up a couple of spare horses?—mine's pretty worn out."
Melentha's jaw tightened, then relaxed. "Yes, of course. Haklarast!" A sprite appeared. "Have three horses prepared immediately," Melentha instructed the spirit.
"Three?" Ravagin asked as the glow-fire darted out of the room.
"Three of us will stand a better chance out there than two," she said calmly. "Nordis, you have anything better than the knife you're wearing?"
" 'Fraid not. The selection you get in the Tunnel isn't exactly the best."
"Yes, I know. There's a sword cabinet down the hall to your left—go and pick yourself out something."
"Thanks." Nordis strode to the door and out into the hall.
Ravagin eyed Melentha. "What did you do to Gartanis?" he asked quietly.
It was the deeper demon voice which answered him. "Less than I'd hoped to, it seems," it said. "His defenses were skillfully prepared, with the lar only one of them. But he won't be in Besak long."
"You think one lousy demon attack's going to scare him into running?" Ravagin snorted.
"Not at all—it'll be the leaders of Besak who ask him to leave. They won't risk losing their lar again."
"Ah-ha," Ravagin said, nodding. "Side effect, nothing—you took out Besak's lar deliberately. Is Gartanis that much of a threat to you?"
Abruptly, Melentha stood up. "I trust, Ravagin, that you won't try anything foolish while we're out looking for this wayward fool of Nordis's. Remember that Danae will still be here."
Ravagin felt his stomach muscles tighten. "Don't worry," he said softly. "I'll remember."
Five minutes later they were mounted and riding out from the house.
"Esporla-meenay," Ravagin murmured as they reached the post line, felt his jaw tighten as he noted the red flash accompanying the green. So Melentha had added djinns to the demon already trapped there. Great.
"We'll start at Besak, see if we can pick up his trail," Melentha said as they turned eastward. "This guy have a name, Nordis?"
"Rax Andresson," the other supplied. "I tried using a djinn to track him down, but the thing couldn't make contact."
"You'd have done better to use a demon," Melentha said shortly. "Djinns aren't much use for that sort of thing."
Riding a few meters off Melentha's left, Ravagin listened to the shop talk with half an ear and tried to think. Out here, far from Melentha's demon-infested house and grounds, getting away would be an almost trivial exercise. Getting back to the house afterwards and rescuing Danae, on the other hand, would be essentially impossible.
Damn it all. What am I supposed to do?
A Courier's primary responsibility is to protect his clients, the standard policy ran through his mind.
Fine; so what did that policy require here?
He could escape. Possibly even escape to the Tunnel and out of range of this spirit conspiracy they'd stumbled into. He could bring back assistance...
And would find that in the meantime Danae had disappeared.
Or he could cooperate with Melentha and walk meekly back into his prison once they'd rescued this Andresson idiot... and the odds still were that Danae would be killed. Along with him.
There wasn't any third option... and unfortunately, he knew what his choice had to be.
He would have to walk back into the lion's den with Melentha. Go back and do what he could to at least win freedom for his client.
And if that effort failed, to be prepared to die there with her.
Chapter 25
From the window, Danae watched the three figures ride away from the house. Another flicker of red and green came from the post line just before they reached it—one of them checking on the spirits there?—and then they were past and riding off across the outer grounds in the direction of Besak.
She took a deep breath. For Melentha to send anyone out at this time of night was ominous in the extreme... but on the other hand, it meant that for a while at least there were going to be three fewer obstacles between her and freedom.
Would Ravagin read it that way, too? There was no way to know—no way to know, for that matter, if he even was aware that anyone had left. But it almost didn't matter. One of them had to get out if the Twenty Worlds were to be alerted to the threat sitting here across the Tunnels. If she could get Ravagin out too, they'd have a much better chance... but if she couldn't, she would just have to go it alone.
And right now was the best chance she'd ever have to make her play. It was time to close her carefully laid trap... and hope like hell she did indeed know what she was doing.
Turning from the window, she stepped over to the bed, surreptitiously testing the feeling in the fingers of her left hand. Still a little clumsy, but enough of the numbness had worn off. She'd just have to hope that her feet would behave properly when the time came.
"Your mistress will be furious with you if anything happens to me without her orders," she said, looking in turn at the demons hovering by the door and over the window she'd just left. "You realize that, don't you?"
There was no response. Licking her lips, Danae climbed to a precarious stance on top of the bed.
This was it. The demons began drifting closer, sensing perhaps that she was up to something....
"Sa-trahist rassh!" she snapped abruptly, gesturing. A firebrat burst into existence in front of her on the bed—
And an instant later black smoke billowed up from the mattress.
A flash of green exploded before Danae's eyes, and she felt herself falling backwards as the demon forced her away from the flames. Now!— "Plazni-hy-ix!" she snapped. Bending sideways, she slid away from the demon and rolled off onto the floor. Scrambling to her feet, she ran awkwardly for the door.
Nothing moved to intercept her. She got the door open; and as she slipped through it she threw a glance behind her at the flaming bed and the two demons swirling in furious activity around it.
Furious, yet oddly impotent activity. Closing the door gently, Danae permitted herself a grim smile as she hurried down the hall toward her own room. Ravagin had been right about it requiring two or more opponents; but she suspected even he was going to be surprised to learn that the confusion of a jinx spell worked against other spirits as well as human foes.
She just hoped they both lived long enough for her to tell him about it.
The hallway was deserted, both of people and spirits. Nor was anything lying in wait in her room as she ducked in and hurriedly scooped up the bag of incense Gartanis had given her. Cautiously, pressing against the stairwell wall, she tiptoed down the stairs, her heartbeat sounding like thunder in her ears. Somewhere along here Melentha would certainly have set up a second line of defense against escape....
But she reached the first floor without incident. The conversation area door was open, the flickering light of a firebrat spilling out into the hall. Gritting her teeth, Danae eased over to the door and peeked in.
Empty.
The knot in Danae's stomach tightened a couple of turns as she flattened herself against the wall and looked quickly around her. There would be no time for her to search the whole house for Ravagin—
the demons upstairs might blow the jinx away any time now, and when they did so they'd be after her like a pair of furies. "Ravagin!" she stage-whispered, straining her ears for any kind of a reply.
Nothing. "Damn," she muttered. "Haklarast."
A sprite materialized before her. "I am here—"
"Where is the human called Ravagin?" she interrupted it.
"I do not know."
She gritted her teeth. She had to get out of here.... "Find him," she ordered. "He should be in this house somewhere. Tell him—wait five minutes and then tell him that Danae has gone. Tell him—"