“I worked out that much! What I mean is what do you hope to gain? “
“Surely it is obvious? Every night for months you and I have dropped off to sleep like chimney pots falling off a roof.”
“Camel riding is very tiring.”
“Some days we had not been riding.” Inosolan paused, and for a few moments there was only the rustle of the palm fronds in the wind, tents flopping sleepily, and distant dog yowls from the houses. “Remember when Azak burned you?”
“Of course. It still isn’t quite healed.” Azak’s hand had touched Kadolan’s in the night and charred her skin, but she had not wakened. She had not known of it until morning. She made sure now that his blanket was never placed so close.
“Well?” Inosolan demanded. “That was not normal sleep!” For a moment she glanced up at the dancing palms, her face a pale blur in the starlight. She drew several deep breaths, as if enjoying an unexpected liberty. Crickets chirped, and camels bellowed in the paddock. Their bells jangled in a sound as familiar to Kadolan now as the boom of surf below the castle windows in Krasnegar.
“Yes, it’s getting easier to talk,” Inosolan said. “Remember the door at the top of Inisso’s tower—how hard it was to approach? Aversion, Doctor Sagorn called it. What are you thinking now?”
Kadolan glanced around at the darkness. “That I should like to sit down in a comfortable armchair. “ She was evading the question, of course, but certainly not telling a lie. She was too old for camels. She could hardly recall what a not—sore back felt like.
“Hogswill!” Sounding as if she were forcing the words, Inos said, ”Well, I’ll tell you what I’m thinking. Which is that we have been duped. Elkarath is in league with Rasha, and always has been. Gods, talking about it still makes my head hurt! It was just too easy, Aunt! She can spirit people from Krasnegar to Arakkaran, across the whole width of Pandemia, and we merely hop on camels and ride off into the desert? She meant us to escape. She set it up!”
Kadolan sighed. “It’s possible, I suppose. “
“It’s obvious!”
“What about the wraith you saw, the ghost?”
“Ah. Rap is dead. We know that. But I still think that was a sending. From Rasha—or someone.”
She meant that Elkarath might have been responsible himself, of course. He had never met the young faun, but perhaps a sorcerer could conjure up pictures of the dead from other people’s memories. Who knew what a sorcerer could do?
“It told you to run away!”
“And we did the exact opposite—we stayed! We all agreed a wraith of evil could give only evil counsel. Of course that was what we thought! It was what we were meant to think, a double bluff. Obvious, really. So why have we never said so?”
Kadolan sighed again, and shivered. She had wondered such things many, many times, and never been able to bring herself to put them into words. She had been unable even to worry about them. She had prayed quite often to the God of Humility, though.
“Magic!” Inos snapped out the forbidden word triumphantly. “By day. He makes us afraid or ashamed to talk about it by day. And at night he puts a sleep spell on us; you and me. Talking gets easier at night, though—have you noticed? Maybe he gets tired, or he puts on the spell in the morning and it fades. Now it seems to be wearing off!”
“Well, now you’ve given us a chance to talk about it,” Kadolan said. “I suggest you don’t mention it to Azak.”
“Why not?” said Azak.
“Oook!” Kade jumped like a rabbit, clasping her hands to her mouth. Despite his size, the sultan could move like floating gossamer, and she wondered how long he had been standing there behind her—dark and big and menacing, with eyes that glinted in the starlight.
“Why not tell Azak?” he growled.
She sought to calm her fluttering heart. Even by daylight, Azak flustered her. “Maybe . . . maybe we have been sleeping very soundly, but that hasn’t happened to you.”
“True. No other reasons?”
“Er . . . no.” Just that Azak hated Rasha so much that he might not react rationally to the news that she had outsmarted him.
“Mmph?” Azak transferred his attention to Inosolan, who was still leaning against the tree. “I congratulate you! You outwitted him. I did not think it was possible.”
“He’s only a man.”
“You knew?” Kadolan exclaimed.
“Certainly. As Inos says, it is obvious—in the night. It is obvious by day also, but so absurd that I cannot bring myself to discuss it. I have known for months.”
Inos and Kade said, “Oh! “together.
He was right—it had been months. Kadolan had lost count of weeks, but two or even three months . . . In the distance, camel bells clanked faintly. The night was rapidly becoming colder. She wished she had her camel-hair shawl with her, but she wasn’t going to go and get it and miss whatever madcap talk was coming next.
The big man was looking at her. “It was an accident, I assure you.”
“What was?”
“When I burned your hand. I had tried to awaken both of you without success, several times, and given up trying. I had even considered loading you both on camels like baggage and fleeing away across the desert, but I dared not risk it. I worried that you might never awaken. The burn was an accident.”
Maybe! But even if he had not been testing to see if he could waken her, he might have been testing to see if Rasha’s curse still prevented him from touching a woman.
Azak stepped closer to Inosolan, who did not move.
“You have outwitted him. What do you propose, my dove?” Kade’s heart had quieted down somewhat; now it lurched nervously. Behind her, the tent flapped in the wind and the ropes hummed.
“We tried to leave once,” Inos said bitterly. “And failed. Let’s leave now! “
Kadolan’s knees bent with very little direction from her, and she sat down on the rug rather heavily, not thinking of scorpions until she had done so. Oh, for a comfortable armchair!
“Here?” Azak exclaimed, from somewhere high above, near the stars.
“Yes, here! Don’t you see?” Inosolan spoke quickly, as if trying to convince herself as much as him, or perhaps not giving herself time to change her mind. “That’s why he . . . why we aren’t so sleepy tonight! He didn’t bother! He decided we wouldn’t dare try to run away from him here in the Gauntlet!” It would certainly be an insane act, her aunt decided.
Azak’s voice came deeper and slower. “There is another possibility. Sorcerers can detect power being used. The sheik showed us his ring—he might have invented that story, I suppose—but he did tell us that it had revealed sorcerers at work in Ullacarn. Mages, I think he said. It is more logical that there would be full sorcerers there, an Imperial outpost. May it not be that . . . that a sorcerer . . . would prefer not to use his abilities so close to Ullacarn? You are right, you know. This is easier to talk about. “
Kadolan resisted a temptation to quote an impish proverb about fine words salting no cutlets. As long as they only talked! But Azak was infatuated. Inos’s slightest wish was a royal edict to him.
“Then that’s another reason!” Inos agreed excitedly. “That means we have a much better chance of getting away! And what can he do when he wakes up and finds us gone? If he comes after us himself, he leaves everyone else at the mercy of the brigands! “
Most of the traders and drivers were the sheik’s relatives. “He might send the lionslayers,” Azak growled. “A trail that fresh would be no trouble to a lionslayer.”
Inosolan said, “Oh!” in a disappointed voice. “Then it is hopeless?” A challenge from her would spur him to any madness, and she was woman enough to know that. Vixen!
He chuckled. “No.”
“Ah! You can deal with them?”
“Gold and promises. If they head off along the Ullacarn road, and we go north—”
“North?” Even Inosolan sounded shocked. He could not be serious!
But he was. “Northwest. Did you not notice the ruins we passed this afternoon? A large city, very old. Cities near mountains usually mean passes. Once there must have been a pass. The roadway may be gone, but the pass itself must still exist. “
“And the bandits?”
“If they are anywhere, they will be waiting on the Ullacarn road.”
“I suppose. North? Dare we?”
“I dare. Do you?”
Challenge worked both ways, evidently. Even before her niece’s agreement, Kadolan knew it was coming. She heaved herself to her feet, ignoring her complaining old joints as she mustered her arguments. All her instincts were against this folly.