Szass Tam returned the smile. "I'm glad to hear it."
The council of war broke up a short time later, and left Aoth feeling both relieved and a little dazed. As he and Nymia retraced their steps through the temple, he murmured, "They spoke so freely."
"Because the High Flamelord insisted on candor," the tharchion replied.
"Yes, but they did it in front of us. They could have sent us out of the room when they started talking about their rivalries and politics and all the rest of it, and I wish they had." He chuckled without mirth. "A man who 'doesn't even wear red' doesn't need to know about such things."
"They didn't bother," Nymia said, her sweaty face set and hard, "because we're insignificant to them. You'd do well to remember it."
The slaves, guards, and masters were just ahead. The setting sun stretched their shadows in Bareris's direction like dark fingers reaching to gather him in.
Though why that ominous simile flickered through his mind, he couldn't imagine, because this was a joyous if not miraculous moment. He'd lost precious days to the virulent fever the child-thing's bite had induced. It had been only by the grace of Lady Luck that he'd spotted the tracks that told him the thralls and their captors had left the road. Yet he hadn't fallen so far behind he could never catch up, nor lost the trail either, and his search had come to an end. He kicked his weary horse into a gallop.
A small woman, her dark hair just beginning to grow out, scrambled forth from the ranks of the slaves. It was Tammith. Even at a distance, even after six years, he knew her instantly, as it was plain she'd recognized him despite his outlander's clothing and the sweaty unshaven locks flopping around his head. Crisscrossing her arms, she waved her hands over her head until an orc grabbed her and shoved her back in among the other thralls.
Seeing her subjected to rough treatment made Bareris all the more frantic to close the distance. Still, he forced himself to rein in his mare, because it had looked as if she was waving him off, and some of the guards were maneuvering to intercept him if he came any closer.
It was the final inexplicable oddity in a whole string of them. First he'd learned that necromancers had purchased Tammith and the other slaves in the middle of the night and marched them out of Tyraturos under cover of darkness. Then, bribing and questioning folk along the way, he'd gradually realized that over the course of the last several tendays, people-some recognizably Red Wizards, others possibly their agents-had marched a considerable number of slaves into the sparsely populated north, where the demand for such chattels was ordinarily limited. After that came the discovery that Tammith's owners didn't appear to be taking her to a town, fief, or farm but rather into open country.
Bareris didn't need to know what it all meant. He only wanted to extricate Tammith from the middle of it, but it came to him that, eager as he was to be reunited with the woman he loved, it might be prudent to approach the caravan with caution.
He reviewed the list of all the spells he knew, imagining how he might use them if things went awry, then sang a charm to augment his force of personality. While the enchantment endured, people would see him a shade taller and handsomer than he actually was. They'd find themselves more inclined to like, trust, and oblige him.
That accomplished, he walked his horse forward, sang, and accompanied himself on the yarting, like any wandering minstrel seeking a cordial welcome. On the surface, the song was simply the familiar ditty "The Eagle and the Mouse," but he wove magic through the lines. Enough, he hoped, to beguile the guards and keep them from loosing arrows at him before he drew close enough for conversation.
He paced the tune to conclude just as he reached the mass of people clustered in front of him. By then, charmed, perhaps, by his music, two Red Wizards had stepped forth to meet him. Both were young, which he supposed made sense: Their seniors were surely above the mundane chore of transporting slaves across country. It likewise gave him reason for hope. Older Red Wizards were wealthy almost without exception, but neophytes might still be striving to make their fortunes, hence that much more susceptible to bribery.
Bareris crooned words that would keep his steed from wandering or getting into mischief, swung himself down from the saddle, and dropped to one knee in front of the Red Wizards. The show of respect was arguably excessive. By custom, a bow would have sufficed, but he wanted to flatter them.
"You can stand up," said the one on the right. He had jam stains on his robe and a bulge of paunch beneath it, though his spindly Mulan frame was still lean elsewhere. In time, that was likely to change if he didn't master his love of sweets. "That was a fine song."
" 'That was a fine song,' " mimicked the other mage, his face tattooed in black and white to make it resemble a naked skull, and the fellow with the soiled robe winced at the sneer in his voice. "Who are you, sirrah?"
As a Mulan, Bareris was entitled to a more respectful mode of address, even from a Red Wizard, but he chose not to make an issue of it. "Bareris Anskuld, sir."
"Apparently," said the skull-faced wizard, "you've been following us."
"Yes, sir, all the way from Tyraturos."
The leaner mage sneered at his partner. "So much for your promise to cover our tracks. Have you ever done anything right?"
The jam lover flinched. "I reanimated the child just the way our master taught us, and Calmevik was supposed to be one of the best assassins in the city. Everybody said so."
Bareris's mouth turned dry as dust, and a chill oozed up his back. The trap in the alley hadn't been an essentially random misfortune after all. The Red Wizards were so determined on secrecy that they'd left minions behind to kill anyone inquiring into their business, and now he, idiot that he was, had delivered himself into their murderous clutches.
Yet he still had his enchantment heightening his powers of persuasion and other tricks held in reserve. Perhaps, unlikely as it seemed, he could still steer this confrontation where he wanted it to go. It was either that or try to run, and with Tammith's desperate, yearning eyes on him, the latter was a choice he simply couldn't make.
Feigning perplexity, he said, "Are you joking with me, Masters? I didn't meet this Calmevik or anyone who tried to hurt me. I'm just… do you see that pretty lass over there?" He pointed.
The skull-faced necromancer nodded. "The one who's been staring at you. Of course."
"Well, just as I followed you all the way north from Tyraturos, I tracked her all the way from Bezantur, where she sold herself into slavery just tendays ago as the result of a tragic misunderstanding. She thought her family needed the gold, but they didn't. She had no way of knowing I was already bound for home after years abroad, coming back to marry her with enough gold in my purse to support her and her kin forever after."
The black- and bone-colored face sneered. "How terribly sad, but it's no concern of ours."
"I understand that," Bareris said, "but I'm begging for your help." He couldn't break into actual song, or the Red Wizards would likely realize he was casting a spell, but he pitched and cadenced his voice in such a way as to imply melody in an effort to render himself still more charismatic and persuasive. "I've loved Tammith ever since we were children growing up in the gutters of Bezantur. It wasn't an easy life for a Mulan child whose family had fallen in poverty. Older boys bullied and beat me, and one day, even though she was of Rashemi descent herself, Tammith came to my aid. We both wound up with bruises and black eyes, on that day and others subsequent, but she never once regretted befriending me. That's the kind of loyal, courageous spirit she possesses. The spirit of someone who deserves a better life that slavery."