Kitabı oku: «The Redemption of Althalus», sayfa 13

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The moon was full, and her pale light streamed in through the open window of the Arya’s bedroom to fall upon the sleeping girl’s face. Her mass of dark hair spilled out over her pillow, and sleep had softened her imperious expression, making her seem very vulnerable, and very, very young.

As silent as a shadow, Emmy flowed up onto the bed and sat beside the sleeping girl’s pillow. Her green eyes were a mystery as she regarded the face of her sometime mistress. Then she started to purr.

‘How do we get her out of here?’ Althalus asked silently. ‘I suppose I could carry her, but –’

‘She’ll walk,’ Emmy replied. ‘Look around and find her some clothes and a dark cape.’

‘Doesn’t she have to be awake to walk? And won’t she start screaming even before her eyes are open?’

‘I know what I’m doing, Althalus. Trust me. Get her some clothes.’

Althalus poked around until he found clothing suitable for travel, boots, and a well-made cloak. When he turned, he saw Andine sitting on the edge of the bed. Her huge eyes were open, but they obviously saw nothing.

‘Just bundle up her clothes,’ Emmy said. ‘I’ll have her dress herself once we’re outside the city. The cloak should be enough for now.’

Andine stood up, her eyes still blank, and she was holding Emmy in her arms. Althalus draped the cloak about her shoulders. ‘How long can you keep her asleep like this?’ he asked Emmy.

‘As long as I need to.’

‘Six or eight weeks might not be a bad idea. If the first face she sees when she wakes just happens to be Eliar’s, things might start to get noisy.’

Emmy’s eyes grew thoughtful. ‘You might have a point there,’ she murmured. ‘Let me think about it for a bit. Shall we go?’

They led their sleeping captive out into the corridor, and Althalus stopped briefly to examine the face of the sleeping Argan. Ghend’s henchman had yellow hair and regular features.

‘What are you doing?’ Emmy asked.

‘I want to be sure I’ll recognize him when I see him again,’ Althalus replied grimly.

They went on down the corridor, and after they’d rounded a corner, Althalus reached back and woke Argan and his companion. Then he silently led the Arya of Osthos out of her palace.

They moved quietly through the darkened streets of Osthos, Althalus used ‘leb’ to put the gate guards to sleep, and they left the city.

‘I think you were right, Althalus,’ Emmy said as Andine woodenly dressed herself. ‘It might be better to keep her mind asleep until we cross over into Perquaine. By noon tomorrow, her soldiers are going to be looking under every bush in Treborea for her.’

They soon rejoined Eliar and Bheid, and Eliar looked rather closely at the young woman who probably still wanted desperately to kill him. ‘Is she all right?’ he asked with a note of concern in his voice. ‘I mean, you didn’t have to hurt her, did you?’

‘Emmy put her to sleep,’ Althalus replied. ‘It’ll probably be better to keep her that way until we get her out of Treborea.’

‘She won’t be able to sit a horse in her present condition,’ Bheid suggested.

‘I’ll take care of her,’ Eliar said. ‘I’ll sit her on my horse in front of me. I can keep her from falling off.’

‘All right,’ Althalus agreed. ‘She’s your responsibility. Take care of her. Let’s move on out. I want to put some distance between us and Osthos by morning.’

They crossed the River Maghu just to the north of the Perquaine city of Gagan two days later and moved into the drought-stricken countryside to the west. Arya Andine had remained semi-conscious, and Eliar had been strangely solicitous throughout the journey. He held her in place in front of him as they rode and lifted her on and off his horse with a peculiar gentleness. He fed her at mealtimes, and his own appetite seemed to have fallen off considerably.

‘Is it my imagination, or is he behaving just a bit oddly?’ Bheid asked Althalus after they’d crossed the river.

‘Eliar takes his responsibilities very seriously,’ Althalus replied, ‘and he’s always volunteering because he wants to be helpful. He’ll probably out-grow that in time.’

Bheid chuckled. ‘From what you’ve told me, I don’t think he should be quite so close to Andine when she wakes up. If she hates him as much as you say she does, she’ll probably try to reach down his throat and jerk out his heart as soon as she lays her eyes on him.’

‘We’ll find out before long, I expect. Emmy’s going to wake our little girl this evening, and you and I should probably be on our toes when Eliar holds the Knife out for her to read. She might take that as an invitation.’

They took shelter in the ruins of a long-abandoned house late that afternoon, and Althalus called up beef for supper before Emmy could suggest fish. Eliar, as he had since they’d left Osthos, cut up Andine’s supper and fed her carefully. She sat placidly with her hands folded in her lap, opening her mouth as he held each bite to her lips, much as a sparrow chick might.

After they’d eaten, Emmy commandeered Althalus’ voice again to give them their instructions. ‘I want you to be standing directly in front of her with the Knife right in front of her eyes when I wake her, Eliar. That way she’ll see the Knife before she sees you. Once she reads the Knife, she’ll be more or less compelled to do as she’s told. She might rant and rave a bit, but she won’t try to kill you.’

Eliar seated their captive on a square stone block by their fire, took out his Knife, and stood in front of her with the blade before her eyes. Emmy leaped up into the girl’s lap, nestled against her, and purred.

The life flowed back into the Arya’s huge dark eyes.

‘Can you tell me what that peculiar writing says, Your Highness?’ Althalus asked her, pointing at the Knife.

‘Obey,’ Andine said almost automatically.

The Knife sang joyously, and Emmy purred all the louder.

Andine’s expression was at once baffled and stunned. Then she seemed to suddenly realize that Emmy was in her lap. She seized the cat up in her arms and held her tightly. ‘Naughty cat!’ she scolded. ‘Don’t you ever run away like that again. Where have you been?’

Then she looked at the ruins around them in utter astonishment as the Knife continued its song. ‘Where am I?’ she demanded.

‘You’d better stay seated. Your Highness,’ Althalus suggested. ‘You’ll probably be a bit dizzy right at first.’

The Arya, however, didn’t appear to be listening. She was staring at Eliar instead. ‘You!’ she said sharply. She dropped Emmy and sprang directly at the young Arum both of her hands extended claw-like at his face. ‘Assassin!’ she shrieked.

Then she reeled and would have fallen had Eliar not caught her. ‘Be careful, Your Highness!’ the boy exclaimed. ‘You’ll hurt yourself!’

‘Let me take care of her, Eliar,’ Bheid suggested. ‘Let’s get her calmed down a bit.’

‘I can do it, Bheid,’ Eliar protested. ‘She can’t really hurt me, you know.’

‘Maybe not, but the sight of you might be hurting her. I’m sure she’ll come around, but it might be best if you stayed clear of her for a while.’

‘He’s probably right, Eliar,’ Althalus agreed. ‘The girl’s a little emotional.’

‘A little?’ Eliar said, then sighed a bit regretfully. ‘Maybe you’re right, though. I’ll stay away from her for a few days.’

Althalus and Bheid reseated Andine by the fire, and Emmy leaped up into the girl’s lap again.

‘Where are we?’ Andine asked in her vibrant voice.

‘Perquaine, Your Highness,’ Althalus replied.

‘Perquaine? That’s impossible!’

‘I wouldn’t be too quick to start throwing that word around, Your Highness,’ Bheid advised her. ‘Althalus here can do almost anything, and Emmy can do even more.’

‘I don’t believe I know you,’ she said.

‘My name is Bheid,’ he introduced himself. ‘I’m a priest – well, I was until Althalus called me.’

‘Just what’s going on here, Master Althalus?’ the girl demanded. ‘I thought you were taking the slaves you bought from me to the salt mines of Ansu.’

‘I sort of lied about that. Your Highness,’ he admitted blandly. ‘Eliar was the only one I really needed. I told the rest of them to go home.’

‘You thief!’ Her voice rose, soaring dramatically.

‘That’s a fairly accurate description, yes,’ he agreed. ‘Let’s clear the air here just a bit. You’ve just entered the service of Deiwos, the Sky-God.’

‘That’s absurd!’

‘Andine,’ he said firmly. ‘What was the word you read on the Knife?’

‘It said “obey”,’ she replied.

‘Exactly. Now hush. Don’t interrupt me when I’m explaining things to you. I’m the teacher; you’re the student. I’m supposed to teach. You’re supposed to sit there and look stupid.’

‘How dare you!’

‘Shush, Andine!’

Her eyes went very wide and she struggled, fighting the compulsion he’d just laid upon her, but no sound came from her mouth.

‘I have a feeling that might prove to be useful from time to time,’ Bheid murmured as if to himself.

‘That’ll do, Bheid,’ Althalus told him.

‘Sorry.’

Althalus patiently explained the situation to his reluctant pupil. ‘It gets easier to accept after a while,’ he assured her after he’d finished. ‘I thought I’d gone insane when Emmy first got her paws on me, but that passed – eventually. She has her little ways, as you probably already know.’

‘What do you mean?’ the girl asked.

‘Wake up, Andine. Would you have really sold Eliar to me unless something very powerful had gotten its little paws on your heart? Killing him was the only thing on your mind that day when I walked into your palace. Then Emmy jumped up into your lap and started purring at you. After about a half hour of that, you’d have given me the entire city of Osthos for her, now wouldn’t you?’

‘Well . . .’ Andine looked helplessly at the cat in her lap. ‘She’s so adorable,’ the girl said, catching Emmy up in her arms and snuggling her face up to the furry captor of her heart.

‘You noticed,’ Althalus said drily. ‘Don’t try to fight her, because she always wins. Just give her all your love and do as she tells you to do. You might as well, because she’ll cheat to get what she wants if she has to.’

‘I think that’s about enough, Althalus,’ Emmy’s voice crackled crisply in his mind.

‘Yes, dear,’ he replied. ‘Did you happen to read the Knife when Eliar showed it to Andine?’

‘Of course.’

‘Where do we go next?’

‘Hule.’

‘Hule’s a big place, Em. You didn’t by any chance happen to pick up the name of the one we want, did you?’

‘We don’t need the name of this one, pet. He’ll find you.’

‘You two are talking to each other again, aren’t you?’ Eliar asked a bit wistfully.

‘She was just giving me our instructions. We have to go to Hule.’

Eliar’s eyes brightened. ‘We’ll be passing through Arum then, won’t we? Do you think I might have time to stop and say hello to my mother? She worries about me a lot.’

‘I think we can arrange that,’ Althalus agreed, ‘I don’t think you should tell her what we’re doing, though.’

Eliar grinned, ‘I’m pretty good at that. There were a lot of things I did when I was just a boy that I didn’t tell her about. I didn’t come right out and lie to her, of course. A boy should never lie to his mother, but now and then things sort of slipped my mind. You know how that can happen.’

‘Oh, yes.’ Althalus laughed. ‘Things have been slipping my mind for as long as I can remember.’

‘I’m sort of hungry, Althalus,’ Eliar said. ‘I’ve been so busy taking care of her Highness here that I seem to have missed a few meals. I’m absolutely starving.’

‘You’d better feed him, Althalus,’ Bheid suggested. ‘We don’t want him wasting away on us.’

‘You might ask her Highness if she’d like something, too,’ Eliar added, ‘I couldn’t get her to eat very much at all at lunch time.’

Andine was staring at them.

‘You missed all that, didn’t you, Andine?’ Bheid said a bit slyly. ‘After Emmy put you to sleep, Eliar looked after you like a mother hen with only one chick. He spent more time feeding you than he spent feeding himself, and food’s very important to young Eliar just now. If you watch him closely, you can almost see him grow.’

‘What are you talking about? He’s a grown man.’

‘No, he’s only a boy,’ Bheid corrected her. ‘He’s probably not much older than you are.’

‘He’s bigger than any man in Osthos.’

‘Arums are bigger than Treboreans,’ Althalus told her. ‘The farther north you go, the taller people get – maybe so that they’re tall enough to see over all the snow that piles up in the north.’

‘If he’s only a boy, what was he doing in a war?’

‘He comes from a warrior culture. They start earlier than civilized people do. It was his first war, and it was supposed to be a quiet one. The half-wit who sits on the throne in Kanthon got carried away, though, so he ordered the soldiers he’d hired from Eliar’s Clan-Chief to invade your father’s territory. It was a stupid thing to do, and it wasn’t supposed to happen. It was his fault that your father got killed, not Eliar’s. Eliar was only following orders. The whole business was the result of a series of stupid mistakes, but that’s what most wars are all about, I guess. Nobody ever really wins a war, when you get right down to it. Do you think you could eat something? You don’t really have to, but Eliar’s worried about how little he was able to get you to eat on our way here from Osthos.’

‘Why should he care?’

‘He feels responsible for you, and Eliar takes his responsibilities very seriously.’

‘You put me in the care of that monster?’ Her voice soared, ‘I’m lucky he didn’t kill me!’

‘He wouldn’t do that, Andine – quite the opposite, actually. If somebody had threatened you along the way, Eliar would have killed him, not you, or he’d have died trying.’

‘You’re lying!’

‘Go ask him.’

‘I wouldn’t talk to him if my life depended on it.’

‘Someday it might, Andine, so don’t lock yourself in stone on this issue.’

‘Let it lie, Althalus,’ Emmy’s voice told him. ‘She isn’t ready for this yet. Keep those two apart for now. Turn her over to Bheid for a while. I’ll stay with her and try to get her past this.’

‘Should I buy her a horse?’

‘Let’s get her settled down a little first.’

‘You think she might try to run away?’

‘The Knife won’t let her do that, pet, but she doesn’t want to face the truth about what Eliar really is, so she might try to override the compulsion, and that could cause her a great deal of pain. Let Bheid know what’s going on and have him help her along. You stay with Eliar and keep him away from Andine. Let’s sort of tiptoe around the children until they settle down.’

They rode north through the drought-ravaged fields of Perquaine, and Althalus and Bheid rather carefully kept some distance between Eliar and Andine. Althalus soon realized that the auburn-haired young priest was very intelligent, and once he’d been cured of the notion that astrology really had any significance, he was able to apply his intellect more usefully. ‘Is it my imagination, Althalus?’ he asked one evening when they were alone, ‘or is there something brewing between the children? They never look each other in the face, but their eyes are always sort of straying back to each other, for some reason.’

‘They’re at that age, Bheid,’ Althalus replied.

‘I don’t quite follow.’

‘That age. They’re both adolescents – with all that’s implied in the word “adolescent”. This is a very trying time for them – and even more trying for you and me, I’m afraid.’

‘Yes,’ Bheid agreed. ‘I sort of noticed that myself.’

‘They’re both having urges right now. The simplest way to deal with that would be for you to perform a wedding ceremony. We could give them a week or so to explore the differences between boys and girls, and then we could get back to business.’

Bheid laughed. ‘We might have a little difficulty persuading Andine to go along with that notion. She’s like a little teapot, isn’t she? Always right on the verge of blowing off her lid.’

‘Nicely put, Bheid,’ Althalus noted. ‘Eliar’s an uncomplicated little boy and Andine’s just the opposite. I rather imagine that Emmy has plans for them, though.’

‘Has she said anything to you about that?’

‘She doesn’t really have to. Emmy and I have been together for long enough for me to get occasional hints about her intentions. It’s part of her nature to bring boys and girls together. You might want to keep that in mind, Bheid. She’s probably already shopping around to see if she can find a wife for you.’

‘I’m a priest, Althalus. The men in my order don’t marry. It’s one of the vows we take.’

‘You might want to give some thought to joining another order, then. If Emmy decides to marry you off, she will marry you off, whether you like the idea or not.’

It was when they were approaching Maghu that Emmy spoke quite sharply to Althalus, her silent voice echoing in his mind. ‘Up ahead!’ she said urgently.

‘What is it?’

‘That man standing off to the left side of the road. It’s Koman, Althalus. Put your guard up. He’ll try to get inside your mind.’

Another of Ghend’s underlings?’

‘Yes – and probably the most dangerous one of all. Get between him and Eliar. The boy’s not equipped to deal with him.’

‘And I am? What do I do?’

‘Put yourself between him and the others. Look him in the face and count trees.’

‘Again with the counting trees, Em?’ he murmured in a weary tone.

‘Not quite. Skip numbers.’

‘You missed me there, Em.’

‘Jump from six to eight. Then go back to three. Scramble the numbers the way you’d scramble eggs.’

‘What’s that supposed to do?’

‘It’ll distract his mind from what he’s attempting. He’ll try to creep inside your mind. If you’re throwing out-of-sequence numbers at him, he won’t be able to concentrate – on you or on any of the others. He’ll be looking for information, and we don’t want him to get any. Block him out, Althalus.’

‘I hope you know what you’re doing, Em. And please don’t tell me to trust you again.’

The man at the side of the road had a harsh-looking face and a short white beard. His eyes, Althalus noticed, burned in almost the same way Ghend’s eyes had that night in Nabjor’s camp. Althalus reined his horse in slightly and looked directly at the harsh-faced man.

Althalus began to count silently. ‘One, two, three, four, nine hundred and forty-two, eight, nine, twelve.’

The man at the side of the road blinked. Then he shook his head as if trying to clear it.

‘Nineteen, eighty-four, two, four, six, fifty-two.’

The man Emmy had identified as Koman glared at Althalus with smouldering hatred.

‘Are we having fun yet?’ Althalus asked drily, then continued, ‘Eleven million and a quarter, thirteen, ninety-seven and six-eighths, forty-three –’

The man called Koman stalked away muttering to himself.

‘Always nice talking with you, friend,’ Althalus called after him. ‘We’ll have to do this again sometime – real soon.’

‘The fractions were a stroke of absolute genius, pet.’ Emmy’s thought actually purred.

‘I thought you might like them,’ Althalus said.

‘Where in the world did you come up with the notion?’

He shrugged. ‘I just made it up,’ he said. ‘I thought that if whole numbers bother him, bits and pieces of numbers should drive him wild.’

They stopped by a farm on the outskirts of Maghu, and Althalus bought a rather sedate mare for Andine. The Arya wasn’t particularly impressed by her mount, but despite Emmy’s assurances that the volcanic girl with her dramatic voice was resigned to her situation, Althalus had prudently decided to mount her on a horse that wasn’t likely to run very fast.

Then they left the lands of the Perquaines and rode on up into the foothills of Arum. Bheid and Andine rode side-by-side along the way, and the auburn-haired priest spent days trying to explain just exactly why the snow on the mountain-tops of Arum didn’t melt in the summer sun. Andine’s teachers had evidently been great believers in logic, so despite the evidence of those white-tipped mountains, she continued to argue that since the peaks were closer to the sun, it had to be warmer up there.

After three days of that, Bheid gave up.

They reached the valley where Chief Albron’s fort stood shortly after noon on a glorious summer day, and Althalus had a brief word with Eliar. ‘Keep your visit with your mother sort of brief, Eliar,’ he advised. ‘You know that place a few miles on ahead where there’s a waterfall in the river?’

‘Quite well. We used to go swimming in the pool at the foot of the falls,’ Eliar replied.

‘We’ll make camp there. Try to catch up with us before dark.’

‘I’ll be there,’ Eliar promised. Then he turned aside and rode on down into the valley.

‘Well,’ Andine said sardonically, ‘I’m sure that’s the last we’ll see of him.’

‘Why do you say that?’ Althalus asked her.

‘Because he’ll run off and hide.’

‘I rather doubt that.’

‘The only reason he’s stayed with us is because you have some kind of hold on him. He’s a murderer, and murderers can’t be trusted – and you let him keep that precious Knife you need so much. You can kiss that goodbye, too. Master Althalus.’

‘You’re wrong on all counts, Andine. Eliar’s a soldier and he always follows orders. He’ll rejoin us before night-fall, and he’s the one who’s supposed to carry the Knife. He just wants to visit his mother, that’s all.’

‘I’m getting very tired of hearing about his mother,’ she flared.

‘They’re very close, Andine,’ Bheid told her. ‘I’ve talked often with Eliar since we met. His father was killed in a war several years ago, and Eliar became his mother’s only support. He was a little young to go off to war, even for an Arum, but his mother needed his soldier’s pay to keep eating. In a peculiar sort of way, Eliar went off to war as a way to show his love for his father – and his mother. Your father was unlucky enough to get in his way while he was showing his veneration for his parents. Isn’t that sort of what you were doing when you were planning to kill him before Althalus came along?’

‘It’s not the same thing at all, Bheid,’ she flared. ‘My father was the Aryo of Osthos. Eliar’s father was just a common soldier.’

‘And do you believe that Eliar loved his father less than you loved yours? We all love and revere our parents, Andine, and the peasant or common soldier loves – and grieves – as deeply as the aristocrat. You might want to think about that just a bit before you launch yourself into your next tirade.’

They set up camp in a grove of fir trees near the waterfall, and Andine spent the afternoon off by herself sitting on a log and watching the tumbling water.

‘I think you might have touched a nerve there, Bheid,’ Althalus said. ‘Our little Arya seems to be reconsidering some of her preconceptions.’

‘Class distinctions are an impediment to understanding, Althalus,’ Bheid told him, ‘and anything that interferes with understanding should be discarded.’

‘You might want to give some thought to keeping that particular opinion tucked up under your arm, Bheid,’ Althalus advised, ‘It won’t make you very popular in certain quarters.’

As Althalus had predicted, Eliar rejoined them just as the sun was going down. The boy was in high spirits. Arya Andine seemed on the verge of several spiteful remarks, but evidently Bheid’s little sermon had taken some of the wind out of her sails, and she finally announced that she had a splitting headache and that she was going to bed.

Summer was winding down to its dusty conclusion when they came down out of the northern foothills of Arum and rode into the vast forest of Hule. In spite of all that had happened, Althalus felt good to be back. He’d once told Emmy that the House at the End of the World had been the closest thing he’d ever had to a permanent home, but he now realized that his declaration hadn’t been entirely true. No matter how far he traveled, he always felt very good when he returned to Hule, and he finally came to realize that more than anyplace else, Hule was his home.

They rode some distance back into the forest of gigantic trees, and Althalus was pleased and almost surprised that he still knew his way around in the woods. For some reason, he wasn’t surprised when he discovered that a place he remembered very well was still there and that the more recent settlers in Hule had yet to contaminate it with rude huts, muddy streets, and the stumps of trees. ‘We’ll stop here,’ he announced to his companions.

‘We still have a fair amount of daylight, Althalus,’ Bheid pointed out.

‘We’ll have time to get settled in, then. This is the place.’

‘I didn’t quite follow that,’ Bheid confessed.

‘The Knife told us to go to Hule, Bheid. This is Hule.’

‘Wasn’t it Hule ten miles back? And won’t it still be Hule ten miles on up ahead?’

‘No, I don’t think so. I’ll see what Emmy has to say about it, but I’m sure this is the place. This is where it all started, my friend. This is the place where Ghend hired me to go to the House at the End of the World to steal the Book of Deiwos for him. This is where Nabjor’s camp used to be. Emmy and I used to have long talks about coincidence back in the House. We never did settle the matter, but I’ve got a very strong feeling that some things that seem to be pure chance or coincidence aren’t that at all. They’re things that were intended to happen. When Emmy read the Knife and told me that it said “Hule”, this was the first place I thought of, and I rather imagine that I was supposed to. It’s one of those significant places, Bheid, so let’s stay here for a bit and find out if significant events need significant places to happen in.’

‘I think you’re starting to get the hang of this, pet,’ Emmy silently congratulated him.

After they’d set up their camp, Althalus poked around a bit to see if the centuries had left any traces of Nabjor’s establishment. He eventually came to the narrow crevice between two large standing boulders where Nabjor had brewed his mead. There was a mound of stones near the back of the crevice, and lying on top of the mound were the much-pitted remnants of a large bronze battle-axe. Even in its present condition, Althalus recognized it. He sighed. ‘At least somebody cared enough about you to give you a decent burial, old friend,’ he said to the grave. Then he smiled. ‘I’d tell you quite a story if you were still here, Nabjor. You always liked a good story, didn’t you? I do wish you were still here. A few cups of your mead would go rather well right now. Maybe when this is all over, we’ll be able to sit on a cloud somewhere drinking your mead, and I’ll tell you all about the House at the End of the World.’

He sighed again. ‘Sleep well, old friend,’ he said.

It was just past midnight, and their fire had burned low. Althalus wasn’t even particularly surprised when his seemingly dormant instincts warned him that someone was creeping up on their camp. He silently rolled out from under his blankets and slipped into the darker shadows away from the fire.

‘You heard it, too?’ Eliar’s whisper came out of the shadow of a gigantic tree.

Even that didn’t surprise Althalus. ‘I think it’s the one we’ve been waiting for,’ he whispered back. ‘He might try to run. Stop him, but don’t hurt him.’

‘All right.’

They waited, scarcely breathing. Then Althalus heard a very faint scuffing sound back a ways in the forest. ‘He’s not very good,’ he whispered to Eliar.

‘What’s he doing?’

‘He’s trying to sneak up on our camp – probably to steal whatever he can lay his hands on. He’s fairly inept about it if he can’t move any more quietly than that. He’ll go to where the horses are.’

‘Is he going to try to steal our horses?’

‘Probably. Work your way around to the far side and come up on him from behind. I’ll slip over to the horses. He won’t see me, so I’ll surprise him. If he gets away from me, you grab him.’

‘Right.’ Eliar faded off into the shadows.

It wasn’t particularly difficult to apprehend the would-be thief. When he reached the place where the horses were tied, Althalus was waiting for him in the shadows, and Eliar was no more than a few feet behind him. They grabbed him from the front and back almost simultaneously. ‘He’s just a little boy, Althalus!’ Eliar said, easily holding their struggling captive.

‘Yes, I noticed.’ Althalus took the child by the scruff of the neck and hauled him to the fire.

‘I didn’t do anything!’ the child protested in a shrill voice, struggling to get free.

‘That’s probably because you’re too clumsy for this line of work,’ Althalus told him. ‘What’s your name?’

‘I’m called Althalus,’ the boy answered a bit too quickly.

Eliar doubled over with sudden laughter. ‘Pick another name, boy,’ he chortled. ‘The man who’s holding you by the back of the neck is the real Althalus.’

‘Really?’ the boy answered in astonishment, ‘I thought he was just an old legend.’

‘What’s your real name, boy?’ Althalus demanded. ‘No more lies. Tell me your name.’

‘I’m called Gher, Master Althalus.’ The boy stopped struggling.

‘Show him the Knife, Eliar,’ Althalus said, ‘I think Gher here is the one we’ve been waiting for.’

Eliar drew out the Knife. ‘What does the writing on this Knife-blade say, Gher?’ he demanded.

‘I can’t read, sir.’

‘Try.’

Gher squinted at the Knife, ‘It looks to me as if it says “deceive”,’ he said dubiously, ‘Is that anywhere close at all?’

The Knife, however, had burst into joyous song.

‘It sounds close enough to me,’ Eliar congratulated their newest member. ‘Welcome, Gher.’