Diplomats and Fugitives

  Someone who objected to the notion of women being trained as night stalkers, the voice sneered. Because they would have children and forget about their training and their careers. As you did.

  “Tladik,” Ashara whispered. Tladik Mindhunter, a powerful shaman who specialized in the animal sciences, though he had numerous other skills. Only a talented telekinetic could bring down a tree with his mind. Tladik had been one of the founding members of the Cyrian Circle, the secret government organization that had recruited and trained the first night stalkers. He had been a man the members of the triumvirate had feared as much as they had respected.

  So glad you remember.

  Tladik had never been her instructor, but he had overseen the instructors and been an adviser in a number of matters. He had never made it a secret that he did not think women should have been recruited, no matter how talented they were.

  Why are you helping them, Longbow?

  Ashara rested a hand on the coarse bark of the pine, struggling to compose herself, to push back memories more than fifteen years old. She had to focus on what his presence here meant. Did he still work directly for the government? It wasn’t as if she hadn’t suspected that her people were playing a role in some of this trouble—why would Shukura have sent her if he didn’t have a rabbit in the race?—but she hadn’t wanted to believe it. Why were the Kendorians harassing the Mangdorians? It wasn’t as if a nation of pacifists would have proven itself an aggressor in some dispute.

  Answer me, Tladik said. It doesn’t matter if you’re not a telepath. I’m monitoring you. I’ll hear you.

  How comforting.

  Shukura sent me to spy on them, she thought and walked up the slope in the direction she had sensed Tladik earlier. What she planned to do if she found him, she had no idea. Shoot him? He would be able to deflect her arrows unless she caught him in the middle of using his powers for some other purpose. A distracted practitioner was a vulnerable one. He might have a bodyguard with him to protect him. But not knowing anything, why would Ashara shoot him? To protect the group of Turgonians? And Basilard? Turgonians had been enemies to her people for centuries, and there wasn’t much fondness toward the Mangdorians, either, since they tended to be irritatingly sanctimonious about their religion, occasionally sending priests into Kendor in an attempt to reclaim wayward kin from generations past.

  Shukura? Who is that?

  Ashara paused, surprised he wouldn’t know. She had assumed the ambassador would be a part of this… whatever this was.

  The Kendorian ambassador to Turgonia, she thought, not seeing a reason to withhold the information.

  Turgonia. So that’s where you fled to.

  Ashara waited for him to comment on how she had supposedly killed her husband. He didn’t mention it. Maybe, if he could see into her mind, he knew the truth. Maybe he didn’t care.

  If you’re spying on them, why are you hunting for me? Tladik asked. His next words came out as a growl in her mind: You do not want to battle with me.

  No, he was powerful. She remembered that well. Many of her instructors had been afraid of him.

  Trying to imply she was unintimidated, Ashara replied, Whatever you’re doing here, you’ve almost killed me a few times.

  You are inconsequential. The Kendorian ambassador to Turgonia has nothing to do with this. Go home to him and report as much.

  Ashara sensed that she was close to him. She stopped walking. What did she think she could do? Sneak up on him? No, he knew exactly where she was. And if he saw her as a threat, he would deal with her, especially if he considered her inconsequential.

  Report what? Better to simply get information right now. Someone else could deal with him. What are you doing here?

  A breeze stirred, and Ashara caught a scent that didn’t fit in with that of the forest, of leather from buckskins and of sweat from the road. She realized just how close she had come to him.

  Something touched her mind, something more than a voice. It wasn’t anything physical, but she felt as if thousands of ants were crawling around between her skull and her brain.

  Groaning, she dropped to her knees, digging her fingers into her hair as if she could stop it. Memories flashed through her mind, thoughts of her meeting with Shukura, her humiliation in the auditorium, of being willing to do anything to make sure Jiana and Khanrin were safe. Right away, she knew what was happening, and she tried to push him out of her mind, to at least wall off the thoughts of her children. But her training in the mental sciences had not prepared her for telepathic attacks. All she knew how to do was to add love to potions, damn it.

  Then he was gone, leaving her breathing heavily, inhaling the loamy scent of dirt under her nose. Crickets resumed chirping, and snaps from the campfire drifted up the hillside. With depressing certainty, she knew Tladik had obtained far more information from her than she had from him.

  Yes. I’m trying to decide if I should kill you now or let you live. Are you truly not the one who killed Lord Elstark? Or have you only convinced yourself of that?

  “I didn’t do it,” she growled, not caring if he was close enough to hear her words or not. Her brain ached. Even thinking words made her head hurt. “If you were in my head, you should know that.”

  Even for a telepath, it is difficult to distinguish the truth from the lies a person believes.

  She remembered asking for a telepath to question her three years ago, so she could clear her name, prove that she had loved Elstark and that she never would have hurt him. She had left the woods for him, surrounded herself by the city and the masses of people because he had wooed her with his songs, because it had been worth giving up everything she had known and loved to be with him. And even if their life hadn’t always been perfect, she had never stopped caring for him, never stopped thinking of him as the handsome lord who had taught her what it was to love.

  But even though her people were more likely to embrace the mental sciences than the Turgonians, the justice arm of the law had never accepted “magic” as a reliable means of establishing right and wrong, guilt and innocence.

  You have the choice to obstruct us here, or help us, Tladik thought.

  “That mean you’ve decided to let me live?”

  Do not let the girl find a way to reverse the plant disease.

  “Why? Why does it matter? Are we responsible for it? Why are we attacking Mangdoria?”

  I am not at liberty to discuss government plans with criminals or those who turn their back on their calling for romance. If he had spoken the words to her face and sneered, they could not have sounded more snide. But know that I am not without influence, more than your ambassador has. If you help us in this matter, I will report it. If you want to ensure the safety of your children… you won’t forget your roots, your people.

  Ashara slumped, not caring that her face fell into the dirt, not caring that tears stung her eyes. All she knew was that she had made a mistake in coming out here, in making Tladik aware of her. And now she might pay for it. Her children might pay for it.

  A grunt reached her ears, followed by a thud.

  Ashara rose to her knees. Her first thought was that Tladik had bumped into something while walking in the dark. She thrust her fingers into the loamy dirt, trying to get the earth to tell her what was around her, and she immediately sensed Basilard’s presence in addition to the shaman’s. She reached for her bow—it had fallen from her fingers during the mental intrusion.

  As soon as she grasped it, a flash of white light blinded her. She tumbled back, covering her eyes with her arm. Something—or someone—thumped into a tree nearby.

  Even though the light faded almost as quickly as it appeared, it took a moment before Ashara saw anything except yellow blobs in front of her eyes. When her vision cleared, her eyes adjusting to the night again, she grew aware of someone standing a few feet away and looking at her. Basilard.

  How long had he been there before she had noticed him? Before Tladik had noticed him? And—she gulped—w
hat had he heard? She couldn’t remember what she had spoken aloud and what had been said in her mind. Tladik had never opened his mouth, but could her side of the conversation have been enough to condemn her? More than she already was? If Basilard had glimpsed Tladik in that light, light that he must have thrown up so he could escape, he might have identified the man as a Kendorian. How could Basilard think anything except how odd it was that the only two Kendorians on the mountainside had been out here chatting with each other?

  He looked her up and down—checking for injuries?—then turned, heading back down the slope to his camp.

  • • • • •

  For the first time, a pit was open with the trap already triggered when Basilard and his group arrived. Late that morning, they had reached an intersection and had turned onto a slightly wider path, one that would eventually lead to Basilard’s village, the one where his daughter lived and also the one where Chief Halemek—and Elwa—resided. He had no idea if his people would be there and dreaded the prospect of walking into an empty camp, of not knowing where everyone had gone. He and his team still had not encountered any Mangdorians, but now they had proof that someone else was out here.

  He dropped his chin onto his fist, considering the wooden spikes thrusting up from the bottom of the pit more than fifteen feet below the rim. It was nearly identical to the pit where the lorry had crashed. Thanks to the vehicle, Basilard and the others had avoided the spikes in their climb out, but judging by a few tattered strips of clothing, someone had been less lucky in this case. He thought he spotted dark stains on some of the spikes—blood—but clouds obscured the sun and dulled the lighting down there. There was a flat wooden circle stuck in one corner, a thick crack visible from his perch.

  That wheel is not from a steam vehicle, right? Basilard asked, pointing so that Maldynado would see it.

  Maldynado and Jomrik had been walking with him all morning, while Mahliki scribbled notes in a pad behind them and Ashara took up the far rear. Ashara hadn’t spoken to Basilard, perhaps not to anyone, since the incident the night before, an incident Basilard still did not understand. It had looked like he had come up on a fight, a shaman launching a mental attack at her, and he had almost rushed in to help, but the way she had spoken had made him think… He wasn’t sure what he had thought. Since then, it had crossed his mind that he might have been witnessing an employer punishing an employee—or a master punishing an apprentice.

  “Nah,” Maldynado said. “Too flimsy. Looks like it came from a cart, something a lizard might tug across the desert. Or the plains of Kendor,” he added, glancing back.

  Ashara was kneeling farther back on the trail, touching a footprint or some other sign of humans passing. Basilard had a hard time imagining her as an apprentice or even someone who took orders from someone else. Of course, when it came to shamans, one might not have a choice. Basilard had felt the man’s power for himself. He had been stealthy in his approach, or so he thought, but the shaman had detected his presence and hurled him against a tree and nearly blinded him. Basilard did not know how to fight someone that powerful and survive. He wished Sicarius was with him. The former assassin-turned-government-agent had received training to help him shake off mental attacks from practitioners; Basilard had seen him defeat wizards because of that skill.

  “What’s farther along in that direction?” Maldynado pointed up the path beyond the pit.

  More mazes of trails, more misdirection and traps. Eventually, the roads to several villages and… Basilard glanced back again, aware of Ashara approaching. A meeting place. It’s usually used for religious ceremonies, but it’s also the kind of place our people would go to if there was trouble and numerous clan heads needed to converse.

  “You think that’s where we should go? Or you think that’s where these people are going?”

  We should check there. Basilard did not know what he would do if his village was empty and he didn’t find his people at the meeting place. Even though he kept telling himself that it was premature to assume the worst had happened, he couldn’t help but think of his daughter. These other people… I hope the traps capture them all.

  “There are fresh wagon wheels going through here,” Ashara said, joining them. She didn’t meet Basilard’s eyes. Instead, she gazed past him, just a soldier making a report, her bland expression said. “Lizard droppings too.”

  “I’m amazed those lizards can survive this climate,” Maldynado said. “Granted it’s not very cold up here at this time of year, but I thought the big lizards preferred the desert and the marshes around the Gulf.”

  “Since they’re our primary beast of burden, my people have long bred them to survive in colder weather. Not entirely without the help of the mental sciences.” Ashara nodded toward the path ahead. “I’ll look for more evidence as to who was here, but I think they only went through a day or so ago.”

  Was a shaman with them? Basilard signed, watching her face.

  Maldynado translated the question.

  “Possibly.”

  Let’s continue on, Basilard signed. I want answers. He gazed at the brown leaves of the oaks lining the route and tried not to feel like a poor swimmer in water where he couldn’t touch the bottom.

  Sighing, he looked back, intending to wave for Mahliki to follow. She wasn’t there.

  Basilard’s stomach dropped into his moccasins. While he had been worrying about his daughter, he had forgotten that he had to keep an eye on President Starcrest’s daughter.

  Praying she was only up in a tree again, Basilard raced back to the last spot that he had seen her. He crouched in the dirt, peering under the skirts of low-boughed evergreens and up into the branches of deciduous species farther back from the path. That shaman who had been spying on them, who had nearly dropped a tree on Mahliki… had he returned to strike again? And why hadn’t Basilard stayed closer to her?

  A gunshot cracked from somewhere in the woods.

  Mahliki?

  Basilard sprinted toward the source of the noise, his Turgonian rifle in one arm and his serrated dagger in the other. Shaman or not, he would eviscerate anyone who tried to hurt Mahliki.

  A surge of relief flowed through him when he raced around a boulder and spotted her. She was standing, her rifle at the ready, but she did not appear injured. She was facing away from him, toward a slope rising up beyond the trees.

  Basilard slowed down as he approached, forcing himself to walk quietly, in case she had someone in her sights. But even as he drew closer, she lowered the weapon and shook her head. She looked over her shoulder and did not appear surprised at his approach.

  Trouble? he signed, pretending he wasn’t panting for air after his sprint and also that he hadn’t been worried about her.

  “Someone in buckskins was watching me,” Mahliki said. “I sensed it. I’m not a practitioner—I think I told you that—but I grew up around them. My siblings and others. I can tell when someone’s targeting me.”

  Basilard stepped up beside her, scanning the rocky mountainside. There were dozens of places where someone could hide up there, if not hundreds. If he did not have to worry about the others, he might have left and tried to sneak up on that shaman. But, as he had learned when working for a man who had turned out to be a wizard, it wasn’t easy to sneak up on a practitioner. They had senses beyond what he could fathom.

  “This time, I jumped out of the branches and fired wildly in his direction before any trees tried to tip over and land on me. It seemed to distract him.”

  Him? You’re certain?

  “Yes. He had long brown hair and was pale-skinned like a Mangdorian or a Kendorian.”

  Brown? Basilard had only glimpsed the shaman from the night before, but he had been certain it had been an older man, someone with blond or gray hair. There weren’t multiple Kendorian practitioners out here, were there?

  “Or like the Kyattese, I suppose,” Mahliki added, touching the skin on the back of her hand, “but I can’t see my kin coming thousands of mil
es to squabble over these mountains with your people.”

  Squabble over these mountains? Basilard scratched his jaw. Thus far, he had been reacting and making guesses based on what was happening to him. He hadn’t been thinking on a grander scale, about what someone might seek on a national level. Was it possible the Kendorians wanted his people’s land? To drive them out to claim the mountains for themselves? If so, why? The land wasn’t hospitable. That’s why Basilard’s ancestors had been forced onto it to start with—nobody else had wanted it.

  Who would want these mountains? he signed, his version of thinking aloud.

  “Not me. They’re cold. Craggy. And someone left a lot of unfriendly spike-filled traps all over the place.”

  Basilard smirked.

  “My father says that ninety percent of wars are fought over resources,” Mahliki said.

  I thought religion was the main reason, Basilard signed, more of a quip than a serious response. But his fingers slowed down even as he made the last sign. Resources. Ambassador Shukura and Starcrest himself had shown interest in trading for Mangdorian ore. Could this have something to do with that? He had no idea if ore had been found in the mountains, because his people did not use metals, except in small amounts for making knives and hand tools. Cutting into a mountain, or worse, blowing into it with explosives, was unheard of in his country.

  “Oh, religion and talk of differences in morality, all of that us-versus-them stuff, is what gets the common man behind the war notion, but all the governments really care about is keeping the resources they have, so the status quo can be maintained, or acquiring more, so they can gain more power and prosperity for their nation. Times of plenty keep the people happy and allow the government leaders to remain safe and secure in their jobs.” Mahliki shrugged. “I think that was the gist of the lecture. I admit I don’t pay that much attention when he babbles on about military history and global politics. I’m amazed my mother can sit there and gaze adoringly at him while he’s talking about that. Of course, he gazes adoringly at her while she babbles about philology and linguistics.” Her mouth twisted into a wry expression. “They’re very special people.”