The Dragon Revenant - Katharine Kerr [133]
“That’s the trouble, is it? They don’t have an easy name like Blaen or Rhodry that you can put a simple meaning to.”
Yes, most definitely, to judge by the way it nodded.
“Is this a Bardek man or woman?”
It wasn’t.
“Someone from Deverry?”
Although the gnome nodded a yes, she could barely believe it.
“How could they get here in the winter? Why, no one could—oh, of course! Do you mean Nevyn’s coming?”
The gnome jumped up and down and clapped its hands together while it smiled and nodded. Jill started to cry, a helpless sob of utter relief, while the little creature clambered into her lap and patted her cheek to comfort her.
Salamander’s reaction was just as strong, when, after the advocate had left, he returned to the guesthouse and she told him the news. As he sat there sniffling, she realized for the first time just how frightened he’d been, just how hard he’d worked to keep up his mask of a chattering fool. Finally he wiped his eyes and blew his nose on a silk handkerchief and arranged one of his typical vacuous smiles.
“Well and good, then, my most magical magpie. It seems we may all live to vex the gods a little longer, then. Did the gnome say how far away the old man is?”
“Things like distance don’t mean anything to the Wildfolk.”
“True enough. Let us hope he’s close at hand, because I doubt if it’s safe to scry him out. We can wait here in relative safety and let him find us, as I’m sure he will, hopefully sooner than later, and most utterly hopefully, sooner rather than way too late. Oh most rapturous joy! It seems I was correct to work my latest most clever and recondite ruse.”
Jill groaned aloud.
“Oh by the Lord of Hell! What have you done now?”
“Naught new. I mean hiring the advocate and insisting on laying formal charges against Baruma. We had to have a reason to stay here in the safety of temple sanctuary for as long as we possibly could. If you want to waste a great deal of other people’s time, Jill my turtledove, there’s no better way than starting a lawsuit.”
If the archon’s men had only known it, the man they wanted to present with a writ of appearance sub poena was only ten miles from Pastedion, even though Baruma wasn’t exactly in full possession of himself in the legal sense. Up in the hills to the east of town, the Hawkmaster and his two journeymen had taken shelter from the continual rains in a public caravansary provided by the archons of Pastedion. Since it often rained in the summer up in the central plateau, this particular public rest area also sported a shelter that was basically a very long roof, supported by stone pillars instead of walls, over a slate floor that was a little higher in the middle than at the sides so that any rainwater that blew in would run right out again. By sticking to this high ground they could stay reasonably dry. Although the Hawks were so used to physical hardship that this shelter was a luxury to them, Baruma was miserable, cramped in every muscle and exhausted. By then, however, his mind was beginning to fight back against being ensorceled.
Although he still had no will of his own in any true sense, he did possess a kernel of hatred cached in a secret corner of his mind. His sheer physical discomfort fed that hatred and kept it alive. His terror of the Hawkmaster kept it hidden. Often the master sent him out on the etheric to spy, or rather, to soar above Pastedion and the warded temple to look for traces of the barbarian party. Every now and then Baruma saw the silver flaming aura of the elven sorcerer hurrying through the streets in the company of one or two normal human ovoids, but he never found Rhodry, the woman, or Gwin. The Hawkmaster was particularly worried about Gwin—not out of some fine concern for his man, of course, but from a simple fear that Gwin would betray the guild by babbling all its secrets under torture. In the secret place of his hatred Baruma hoped that Gwin would do just that.
On a night when the waning moon rose only a few hours before the dawn, the Hawkmaster sent Baruma out farther than usual,