Talaysen touched Jonny's forehead, and his closed eyelids didn't even flutter. He held the young man's wrist for a moment, and found a pulse; slow, but steady. He had seen Ardis work this spell before, but never for this effect; for her, the sleep-trance was an end, not a means. He wondered if Ardis knew of this application: to search the patient's memory, even finding things he had forced himself to forget. "I think he's ready," he said to Peregrine. "As ready as he's ever likely to be."
"Oh, he is ready," the Gypsy replied. "What he may not be prepared for is his own fear. I hope in the days you have been with him that you have taught him trust to go with that fear, else all is lost." Peregrine leaned forward and tapped the young man's forehead three times, right between the eyes. "Kestrel," he rumbled, "do you hear me?"
"I hear you," Jonny whispered-without so much as a hint of a stammer. Out of the corner of his eye, Talaysen saw both Gwyna and Rune start with surprise.
"You will answer my questions. The one you know as Master Wren will also ask you questions, and you must answer him, as well. Do you trust him?" Peregrine's brow furrowed as he waited for an answer.
"I do," Jonny said, his voice a bit stronger.
"Good. You have placed your trust well. He and I will not do anything to harm you; and we will keep you safe from harm. We will be with you, even though you cannot see us. You will believe this."
"I believe this," Jonny affirmed.
Peregrine gestured curtly. "Ask," he said. "You know more of this than I, and you know more of the world that spawns those who hire assassins than any gypsy. I would not know what questions are meaningful and what without meaning."
Talaysen leaned into the tiny circle of light cast on Jonny's face by the lantern Peregrine had used to place him in a trance. "Jonny-Kestrel-do you hear me?"
"Yes," the young man sighed.
"I want you to remember the first day you came to Kingsford, to the Guild Hall. Can you remember that?"
"Yes." Jonny's forehead wrinkled, and his voice took on the petulant quality of a sick child. "I'm cold. My head hurts. My eyes hurt. Master Darian says I'm going to get better but I don't, and I feel awful-"
"He relives this," Peregrine said with a bit of surprise. "This is useful, but it can be dangerous, if he believes himself trapped in his past. Have a care, Master Wren."
Talaysen swallowed, and wet his dry lips. "Jonny, can you remember farther back? Go back in time, go back to before you entered Kingsford. Can you remember before you were sick?"
Abruptly the young man began to scream.
Peregrine moved as quickly as a ferret, clamping his right hand over the young man's forehead, and his left on Jonny's wrist. The screaming stopped, as if cut off.
"Who are you?" Peregrine said, with no inflection in his voice whatsoever.
Who are you? Talaysen thought, bewildered. What kind of a question is that?
"I-I can't-" Jonny bucked and twisted in Peregrine's grip; the mage held fast, and repeated the question, with more force. The young musician wept in terror-Talaysen had heard that sort of weeping before, from the boys that had been ruined by their Guild Masters. . . .
Peregrine had no more pity than they had, but his harshness was for a far better cause. "Who are you?"
''Ah-" Jonny panted, like a frightened bird. "I-I-ah-Sional! I'm Sional! I have to run, please, let me go! Master Darian! Master Darian! They're killing my father! Help me! Ahhhhhhhhh-"
"Sleep-" Peregrine snapped, and abruptly the young man went limp. The mage sat back on the bunk, and wiped sweat from his brow. He looked to Talaysen as if he had been running for a league. He was silent for a moment, staring at the young musician as if he had never seen him before.
"So." Peregrine took a sip of water from the mug safely stored in a holder mounted on the wall just above him. "So, we know this 'Jonny Brede' is nothing of the kind, and that his true name is Sional, and that someone wished his father dead. Do you know of any Sionals? Especially ones who would have run to a Guild Bard for help?"
Talaysen shook his head. Rune and Gwyna both shrugged. Peregrine scratched his head and his eyes unfocused for a moment. "Well, whoever he is, he is important-and long ago, someone killed his father. I think we must find out who and what this father was."
"Are you going to hurt him?" Gwyna asked in a small voice.
Peregrine shook his head. "I can promise nothing. I can only say I will try not to hurt him. The alternative is to find out nothing-and one day there will be nothing to warn him of the assassin in the dark. I think this the lesser of two bad choices."
Gwyna nodded, unhappily. Peregrine touched Jonny's-Sional's-forehead again. "Sional, do you hear me?"
"I-hear you," said a small, young, and very frightened voice. It sounded nothing like Jonny; it sounded like a young child of about twelve.
"How old was he, when he came to you at the Guild?" Peregrine asked Talaysen. The Bard furrowed his brow and tried to remember what the nondescript child had looked like on the few occasions he had seen the boy. The memory was fuzzy, at best, and the child had been quite ordinary.
"Twelve? Thirteen?" He shook his head. "He can't have been much younger than that, or I'd have noticed. Thirteen is just about as young as apprentices are allowed to be in Bardic Guild. Children younger than that are just that-children. They aren't ready for the kind of intensive study we give them. Their bodies and minds aren't suited for sitting in one place for hours at a time."
"Good. That gives me a safer place to start." He raised his voice again. "Sional-you are ten years old. It is your birthday. You are waking up in the morning."
Abruptly all the tenseness poured out of Sional's body, and a happy smile transformed his face.
"Good, a safe time, and a happy one," Peregrine muttered. "Sional, what is to happen today?"
"Today I get my first horse!" Sional's voice really did sound like a ten-year-old's, and Talaysen started in surprise. "It's my birthday present from father, a real horse, not a pony! Victor and I get to go to the Palace stables and pick it out, too! Victor's going to teach me trick riding! Then Master Darian will give me the present from mother that he's been saving for me; it's a harp, a big harp, with lots more strings than my little harp!"
"Why isn't your mother giving it to you?" Peregrine asked, curiosity creeping into his voice.
"She's dead," Sional said, matter-of-factly. "She died when we moved to this place. That was a long time ago, though. I hardly remember her at all. Just the way she sang-" His voice faltered a moment. "She was a wonderful musician and Master Darian says that if she hadn't been a woman and a princess she'd have been a Bard and-"
"Stop." Peregrine glanced over at Talaysen, with one eyebrow raised. Talaysen didn't have to ask what he was thinking.
A princess? Is that real-or just a child's fantasy and an old teacher's flattery?
"Sional, who is your father?" Peregrine asked, slowly and carefully.
"The King." Once again, the voice was completely matter-of-fact. "I have to call him My Lord Father; Master Darian calls him Your Majesty. Everybody else has to call him Your Royal Highness. But I don't see him very often."
"Stop." Peregrine was sweating again. "Sional, where do you live?"
"In the Dowager's Palace."
"No, I mean what land do you live in?"
"Oh, that. Birnam. It's the red place on the map. The green one next to it is Leband, the blue one is Falwane, the yellow one is-"
"Stop." Now Talaysen was sweating.
"Do realize what we have here?" he whispered. "This is the Crown Prince of Birnam-no-the King of Birnam!" He groped for Rune's hand and held it.
"Tell me!" the Gypsy demanded. "Tell me what you know of this!"
"I have to think," Talaysen replied, shivering despite the heat of the wagon. Dear God, what a cockatrice they had hatched! Their foundling was the rightful King of Birnam-and small wonder there were assassins seeking him. The current King was not likely to tolerate any rivals to his power.
"About six years ago, I think it was, the King of Birnam was overthrown by his brother. Mind you, the only reason I know about this is was because I was on the Guild Council at the time, and we were dealing with that entire business of Master Darian. The old man came to us with a boy he called his apprentice, claiming sanctuary with our branch of the Guild because he was supposedly in danger as a supporter of the former King."
"So your understanding is likely to be accurate, if sketchy?" Peregrine asked.
He nodded. "We did do some checking with the Guild in Birnam. The way I heard it, the brother slipped his men into the palace by night, murdered the King and all his supporters, and by dawn there was a new King on the throne and all the bloodstains had been politely cleaned away."
Peregrine snorted. "How-tidy of them."
Talaysen shrugged. "At that point, I imagine that there was nothing anyone could do. Darian swore to the Guild that he'd escaped death at the hands of the assassins as one of the old King's retainers-and he swore that both the King and his only child were dead. Obviously that wasn't true."
"Obviously," Peregrine said, with heavy irony. "Well, our Kestrel has turned into a most peculiar cuckoo. What are we to do with him? It is plain that his uncle knows that he is alive, and where he is, or we would not have killers at our wagons."
"Can't we hide him?" Gwyna asked, but her voice betrayed her own doubt.
Peregrine confirmed that doubt with a shake of his head. "Not possible," he said. "The amulet I found upon the man my trap took was one of seeking. No matter how or where we hid him in this land, they could find him with another such. He himself has confirmed that there have been attempts to slay him before this."
Talaysen remained silent, as Gwyna and Peregrine discussed other possibilities; concealing the young man with magic, or even asking the elves to take him under one of their Hills. That was chancy; what the elves took, they might not want to give back, once they'd heard young Sional play. He had the glimmering of an idea then-
It had occurred to him that there was too much they didn't know, and the only place to learn that information was in Birnam. So why not go there?
After all, why would the current King ever look for Sional in his own kingdom? The assassins could comb all of Rayden, from border to border-but if the object of their search was in the last place they expected him-
"We don't know nearly enough," he said, into an opportune silence. "We don't know if this is an idea of the King's, or if it's something one of his advisors thought was best. We don't even know if this is something set in motion long ago and forgotten. This King may be a tyrant-there may already be a movement in place to topple him that only lacks a focus. It seems to me that Jonny-I mean, Sional-ought at least to find these things out. Until he does, no matter where he goes or how he runs, he'll be running away from something, not to something."
Peregrine raised his eyebrows thoughtfully. "A good point, my brother," he acknowledged. "And there are things about the young man now that the assassins cannot know. Unless I miss my guess, they have associated him with you, but only at a distance, and as a chance-met set of friends. They would be looking for a group of three men and a woman-not two couples. Rune has been in breeches most of the time, yes?"
Rune shrugged. "It's habit mostly," she said, "But yes. And most men don't look twice at me in breeches, they assume I'm a boy."
"So now you wear skirts, and become most extravagantly feminine. Master Wren, we shall dye your hair as black as mine, but with magery, so that the dye neither grows out, nor washes out." Peregrine grinned. "And if I ever wished to be a rich man, I would sell the working of that spell, eh? It is a pity it only is effective on one who is already a mage."
"So we'll have two young gypsy couples traveling together. Good." Talaysen played that over in his head, and found no flaw with it. "Most wagons look alike to outsiders. Once we're on the road, there'll be no telling us from dozens of others without one of those amulets. Those have to be expensive; I'm sure not every hired killer has one."
"And if you leave by darkness tomorrow, we can make certain you are not followed," Peregrine told him. "Now, what of the Kestrel? Do I wake him with his memories, or no?"
"With them," Gwyna put in quickly. Peregrine turned to stare at her. "If I was in his place, that's what I would want," she said defensively. "While he still thinks he's Jonny Brede, he doesn't know why these people want to kill him. As Sional, he will. It seems to me that makes them less frightening."
Talaysen nodded. "I agree with her. Fear is worse when you don't know what it is you're afraid of. Right now these people are simply faceless, irrational attackers from a nightmare. Once he has his memories and identity as Sional back, they aren't faceless anymore, and they have a reason for what they're doing."
Peregrine nodded slowly. "Very well. Let me see if I can do this. He has built him a very stout wall between himself and those memories. It may take some doing to breech it."
When they showed no sign of moving, he coughed delicately. "I have no need of you now, and this were better done in private."
They took the hint, and left, crawling over the driver's seat and the lurcher-hounds draped over and on top of it, and down to the ground again.
"Now what?" Gwyna asked.
"We go back to our wagon and sleep," Talaysen told her and Rune both. Rune nodded; Gwyna looked rebellious. "Look, we can't help Peregrine and we're all tired. We need sleep. We already know the worst, and nothing we do or don't do in the next few hours is going to change it. So?"
"So we sleep," Gwyna sighed. "Though personally, I don't think I'm going to be able to do anything but stare into the dark."
Gwyna had been wrong, of course; despite their tension, all three of them fell deeply asleep once they reached the safety of their beds. And thanks to their Gypsy friends, their beds were as safe as possible in an open camp. The wagon had been moved from the outer to the inner circle, and a half-dozen fierce lurchers had been tied about it to keep away intruders. The wagon itself was stoutly built enough to withstand a siege once the doors and shutters were closed. Talaysen thought it a pity to shut out the cool night air, but better stuffy air than unexpected knives and arrows.
When he woke, it was near noon by the sun coming through the little smoke-hole over the charcoal stove, and the fourth bunk had a clothed and wakeful occupant.
It was Kestrel-and yet it wasn't Jonny Brede. Talaysen couldn't put his finger on the differences, but they were there; in the way the young man held himself, in the direct way he met Talaysen's gaze.
"Sional?" he said, tentatively.
The young man nodded, solemnly. "B-better stick to K-Kestrel, though," he replied, his stammer improved, but still very much a part of his speech. "Th-that's not a n-name we ought to b-be using much."
"Point taken." He sat up and scrutinized the young man carefully. He looked much older in an indefinable way-now he looked his real age; when he had been "Jonny," he had looked several years younger. Interesting.
"P-Peregrine t-told me what you want to d-do," the young man continued. "I th-think you're r-right; I th-think w-we ought to at l-least f-find out wh-what my uncle th-thinks he's d-doing. Th-there's j-just one thing-he s-said y-you w-were maybe th-thinking of f-finding a r-r-rebellion. W-well m-maybe I'm a p-prince, b-but I don't kn-know anything ab-bout b-being a K-King."
Talaysen's estimation of the young man rose several notches. Whatever Master Darian had taught him-whatever he had learned himself in his years of rootless wandering-this was the wisest conclusion he could possibly have come to. "That's very astute of you, Kestrel," he said. "I'm not being patronizing; you're very right. If there is a movement afoot to depose your uncle, we are going to have to investigate it very carefully. They may only be interested in putting a puppet on the throne."
"And r-right now th-that's all I'd b-be," Kestrel replied without bitterness. "Th-there's some other th-things you should kn-know. My f-father. He w-wasn't a n-nice man. He p-put m-me and m-mother away in the D-Dowager P-Palace, and j-just tr-trotted us out on s-special oc-casions. Th-that's why she d-d-died. Sh-she c-caught s-something, and he d-didn't bother sending a d-doctor until it was t-too l-late."
"So-what are you getting at?" Talaysen asked.
"I d-don't kn-know, really," Kestrel said frankly. "J-just that I d-don't f-feel like g-going after my uncle f-for r-revenge, I g-guess. I hardly ever s-saw my f-father. I m-mean, I kn-knew who h-he w-was, and he g-gave m-me p-presents wh-when it s-suited him, b-but th-that was all. I s-saw him d-die by accident. B-but it w-was j-just s-someone I kn-knew d-dying, n-not m-my father. R-revenge w-would b-be p-pretty s-stupid."
He shrugged, and Talaysen read in that gesture that the young man was confused on any number of subjects, but that on this one he was certain: he was not interested in heroic vendettas.
"Most young men your age with your background would be champing at the bit, hardly able to wait to get their uncle at the point of a sword and give the big speech about 'You, scum, killed my noble, sainted Father! Now you die by the son's blade!' I was all ready to try and calm you down-"
"M-most p-princes h-haven't s-spent th-the last f-four y-years s-sweeping f-floors and t-tending g-goats," Kestrel interrupted, with that disarming matter-of-factness. "I d-don't know, I'm p-pretty c-confused. I j-just w-want t-to s-see what's g-g-going on. And I really w-want p-people t-to stop t-trying t-to k-kill me!"
"Fine," Talaysen replied. "We'll take it from there, and see where it leads."
"Good," Kestrel replied, nodding vigorously.
The young man's reaction gave Talaysen a great deal of food for thought, as they waited for darkness to fall so that they could sneak away. That reaction was, as he had told Sional, not what he had expected. It was a great deal more practical than he had anticipated.
It might be wise to see if there was a rebellion brewing; the rebels might be able to protect Sional better than they could. But then again-they might already have their figurehead for revolt, and they might not welcome the intrusion of the "rightful King" into their plans.
There was a possibility that they could stage Sional's "death" convincingly, enough to get the hounds called off. That was another plan to be discussed and plotted out.
Gwyna slowly coaxed a few more of his memories out of him over the course of the day. Talaysen slowly built a picture up in his mind of the boy Sional had been, some eight years ago.
A lonely boy; packed away in what was apparently a drafty, damp "palace" in constant need of repair, with a single, half-deaf servant and his tutor, Master Darian. That surprised him; Guild Bards-and Darian had been a Guild Bard, his credentials were impeccable-were not normally employed as tutors for boys, not even when they were princes. Although he could not be certain, Talaysen framed the notion that Master Darian had been a great friend and admirer of the unhappy Queen, and had volunteered his services in the capacity of tutor when the lady died.
The obvious romantic notion-that Darian was really Sional's father, and that Queen and prince had been mewed up out of sight because of the scandal-Talaysen discarded after only a few moments of consideration. If it had been true, the King would have gotten rid of the erring spouse and unfortunate offspring-either directly, or discreetly. There were a dozen routes he could have taken, and a dozen princesses who would have brought a great deal of advantage to Birnam as new brides. No, it seemed that Master Darian's relationship with the Queen was the same as Tonno's with Rune: friend and mentor.
So why had the Queen been put away?
Most likely was that the King disliked her intensely, but that she was too circumspect to give him a reason to be rid of her.
But then, why had the prince been discarded with her? In the hopes that he, too, would die, and leave his father free to seek a spouse more to his taste, with the urgency of the succession giving him a reason to urge the wife he wanted on his Councilors?
It wouldn't have been the first time that particular ploy had been used, particularly not when the first wife was one chosen for the King by his own father.
Sional, as he had said, had seen very little of his father. He had been in the Crown Palace completely by accident the night that his father had been murdered.
It would have been comic if the circumstances had not been so dire. He had discovered on a previous visit that there was a greenhouse full of fruit-trees that were forced to bloom and bear out of season. He got very little in the way of luxurious food; it seemed that he, Darian, and the servant were brought whatever was left from meals at the Crown Palace after the servants had taken their shares. He never saw out-of-season fruit, and boy-like, had decided to filch himself a treat. The greenhouse was just under the King's private chambers, and the way into it-if you were an adventurous child-was through the air vents in the glassed-over roof.
Not only had it been a marvelous adventure, it had been an unrivaled opportunity to spy on his mysterious and aloof father. Double the guilty pleasure for a single act.
Even better had been to discover that his father was not alone. Master Darian had described the goings-on between men and women in a singularly detached fashion that had left him wondering why anyone bothered. Now he saw why they bothered-and he stayed and stayed-
So he had been looking in the windows when the assassins surprised his father-and the lady-in bed, just about ready to finish their evening's exertions. The men sent to kill the King had not been expert, and in a panic at the lady's screams, they had also butchered her.
Terror-stricken, sick, and in shock, he had run straight to Master Darian, his only friend and protector.
Poor old man, Talaysen thought pityingly. No wonder we thought him half-mad. How did he do it? How did he smuggle a child out of a place crawling with killers, get the boy away, and smuggle him out of the country? He was no hero-he wasn't even young. He was an old, tired man with his best days behind him. One day I am going to have to write a song about him. Bravery and intelligence like that are all too rare . . . and we never even recognized them while he was alive.
Sional must have been in shock for some time, shock that made him terribly vulnerable to illness. Small wonder he took marsh fever crossing the fens at the Birnam-Rayden border. But that must have been a blessing to Master Darian, for during the boy's illness, he managed to convince him that he was someone else entirely-the boy named "Jonny Brede." And that made it easier to hide him.
The rest, Talaysen knew-except for one small detail. The reason why Jonny Brede had been unable to hold a job, anywhere.
The killers, the mysterious murderers, who would appear out of nowhere and try to take his life.
They'd made their first attempt right after Master Darian had died. He'd had three close calls, not counting the attempt last night, and on numerous occasions he had learned they were looking for him just in time to flee. Small wonder he'd been starving. The place Talaysen had offered must have seemed God-given-for surely if he moved about every few days, no mysterious killer was going to be able to find him!
Talaysen could hardly imagine the hellish life the boy must have endured. Having no friends for more than a few months, constantly hungry, cold, lonely-with people out of a nightmare one step behind him, and never knowing the reason why.
Now he knew one difference in Kestrel's demeanor: relief. Now Sional knew why the killers were after him. There was a logical reason. He no longer lived in an irrational nightmare.
Now he lives in a rational one.
Somehow, that made him angrier than anything else. Talaysen made himself a small promise. If and when they found Sional's uncle in a position of vulnerability, he was going to give the man a little taste of what he'd been dealing out to Sional all these years. Just a little.
But it would be a very sharp taste. . . .
They moved out by night, with Gypsies spread all over the downs on either side of the road to make sure they weren't spied upon, in company with three other wagons of the same general shape and size. The other three turned back at moonrise; Gwyna kept the ponies moving on, to the north. Across the downs and past the fens on the other side was the border with Birnam. It could be crossed two ways-by the causeway, or, if you were desperate, through the fens on paths only the march-dwellers knew. Talaysen guessed that the latter was the way Master Darian and Sional must have arrived. They would take the causeway. There was no reason not to-and every reason to be as open as possible.
Birnam itself could cause them any number of problems. None of them, other than Sional, had ever been there. The few Gypsies who had could give no real details about the place, and in any event, they hadn't been much past the border area. The fens were too tedious to cross, and in bad seasons, the causeway flooded. Once you crossed the fens, Birnam had no large faires; most commerce took place at weekly Markets instead. Goods moved through the auspices of the Trader's Guild. The Free Bards were not yet numerous enough to expand outside this kingdom, so Talaysen had no idea of what the lot of the traveling musician was like within Birnam.
Not terribly helpful, he thought sleepily, taking his turn at the reins while Gwyna dozed inside. Somehow young Kestrel was sound asleep-but perhaps, like a soldier, the young man had learned to take sleep when and where he could get it.
He and Rune were to drive while the moon was up, giving the mules light enough to see the road. Since it was a straight track across the downs, bounded on either side by hedgerows, there was small chance they'd get lost. The worst that could happen would be that the mules would stop, pull the wagon over to the side of the road, and proceed to gorge themselves or sleep in their harness until someone woke up and got them back on the job.
Even if something frightened them, they likely wouldn't bolt-or so Gwyna claimed, saying that was the reason the Gypsies preferred mules over horses as draft animals. She claimed that when startled, they would probably stand stock still and wait for whatever it was that frightened them to show itself to be either aggressive and dangerous, or not a threat after all.
"And if they do bolt," she'd told him, "Let them have their heads. If they run, they've either been hurt badly by something you can't see, or they've seen something they already know is dangerous. They probably have a better idea of what's safe to do when there's real danger than you do. Let them follow their instincts."
As if he could do anything else! If they took it into their stolid heads to run off, he wasn't even sure he'd be able to hang onto the reins.
Rune climbed out of the back to sit beside him on the driver's bench. After a moment, she began massaging his shoulders, and he sighed with pleasure.
"I've been thinking," she said. "About magic."
"So have I," he replied. "I know we don't know everything. I know Peregrine doesn't know everything, however much he likes to pretend that he does."
"Exactly." She nodded her head vigorously. He glanced out of the corner of his eye at her, and smiled.
"Can I say something gauche and male?" he asked. "I think you look wonderful. The dress, your hair down, no leather hat hiding your face-"
"Oh, that's gauche and male, all right," she grinned. "But I like the compliment. I have to admit, sometimes I get a little tired of breeches and loose tunics. A pretty dress-well-Gwyna will probably tell you I was preening like a popinjay when we were going through the outfits the other women offered me and picking out the new clothing."
He cautiously took his attention from the road for a moment to steal a kiss. She stole one back.
"Now, about magic-" she said. He sighed.
There was no getting her mind off business when she was determined. "All right. About magic."
"For every offense in everything else, there's always a defense. I can't believe that there's no defenses against this seeking-talisman those killers are using." She braced herself against the swaying of the wagon over an uneven stretch of road, and waited for his response.
"I've been thinking the same thing," he said. "That was why I managed to talk Peregrine out of the one he took from the dead man. I was hoping we could find a way to fool it if we studied it long enough."
He transferred the reins cautiously to his left hand, and fished the talisman out of his breeches pocket. "Here," he said, handing it to her, and taking proper control of the reins again.
She examined it as best she could by the illumination of the three-quarter moon. It wasn't very impressive by either sun or moonlight; there wasn't much there but a small copper disk with a thin lens of glass cemented over it, suspended from a copper chain. She peered at it.
"Is there something under that glass?" she asked.
She had better eyes than he did. "Peregrine says it's a single strand of hair. He says that places where magic is used more openly tend to be very careful about things like nail-clippings and hair. We'd probably better assume that Birnam is one of those places. They'd probably been keeping every strand of hair he lost since he was a baby, and when they knew he was alive, they started making talismans to find him."
Talaysen had no idea how the thing had been made, but the fact that it had survived the fire intact was remarkable enough. It didn't look at all damaged, in spite of the fact that it had been the actual focus of Peregrine's defenses, the point from which the fire sprang. A distinct disadvantage of having a magical object; unless you also had a magical defense-which Peregrine called a Shield-your object could actually call an offensive spell to it, simply by existing.
Once they'd figured out how to outwit this thing, Talaysen planned to sink it in a deep well.
"Does it still work?" she asked.
"Try it for yourself," he told her. "Hold it in your hand and tell yourself that you want to find Sional."
She obeyed-and frowned. "It still works, all right. Nasty thing." She rubbed the hand that had been holding it against her skirt, although there was nothing physically there to rub off. Talaysen had done exactly the same thing after Peregrine had shown him the trick of working it.
"I haven't been able to figure out how it works," he confessed. "Though I have to admit, I haven't done as much with it as I might have if it didn't feel so-slimy."
She agreed, grimacing distastefully. "Still-I grew up working in an inn. I emptied chamber pots, cleaned up after sick drunks, mucked out the stables. It won't be the first time I've had to do something nasty, and so far, this doesn't make me feel any worse than one of those jobs. I'll see what I can do with it."
She was quiet for a very long time, her brow furrowed, her eyes half-closed. After a while he began to "hear," with that strange inner ear, little snatches of melody and dissonance.
When she finally spoke, he wasn't ready for it, and he jumped, startled.
"Sorry," she apologized. "I guess I should have moved or something first."
"It's all right," he assured her. "I was sort of dozing anyway, and I shouldn't have been. Have you gotten anything figured out?"
"Well, I think I know why Peregrine said nothing could be done about it," she replied thoughtfully. "This doesn't work like our magic-in fact, I'd be willing to believe that it wasn't made by a human at all."
"Huh." That made sense. Especially if you were doing something that you didn't want countered. There were pockets of strange races scattered all over the Twenty Kingdoms; it wouldn't be unheard of to find other races that worked magic. And unless you found another mage of the same race, your odds against countering what had been done might be high.
"That could be why it feels-and sounds-so unpleasant," he offered. "It's not operating by laws of melody that we understand, or even feel comfortable with. I've been told that there are some things living off by themselves in the swamps in the south that can make you sick by humming at you."
She nodded vigorously. "You know, that's really what's going on here; it isn't that it really feels bad, it's that it makes you feel bad. I had a chance to talk to a Mintak about music once; he said he couldn't stand human sopranos and a lot of human instruments because they were too shrill for him. And I couldn't hear half of the notes of a Mintak folk-song he sang for me."
He bent his head down so he could scratch the bridge of his nose. One of the mules looked back at him, annoyed at getting a rein-signal it didn't understand.
"Maybe what we need to do is figure out the logic, the pattern in it-then and try and disrupt or block that pattern with something we can stand?" he offered.
"I don't know," she replied, dubiously. "That could be like trying to catch a Mintak with a minnow-net. Or a minnow in a snare. But I suppose that's the best we can do right now. You want to try?"
He took the charm with distaste. "I don't want to, but I will. Besides, maybe some of this stuff Peregrine stuck in my head will help."
"Maybe," she replied. "It couldn't hurt, anyway, as long as you remember we aren't playing by human rules anymore."
"I don't think I could forget," he said, and bent with grim determination to his task.