Lynn Abbey Dark Sun Chronicles of Athas 01 The Brazen Gambit

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young inspector and his father with a small, metal knife.
He surely couldn't do anything with a hysterical woman clinging to his feet.
He kicked free and went for his knife beneath the front panel of his robe.
Then Pavek saw them-it was like a gong striking behind his eyes-beyond Bukke's
shoulder. Two men: a dwarf as old as Joat holding the traces of the cart and
an adolescent half-elf, a scowl full of bile and vinegar, typical of his kind.
And a woman...
A certain man could forget that his life was in danger looking at that woman.
A certain man nearly did, but Pavek caught himself when Bukke's arm
moved. The metal-blade knife had found its way into Pavek's hand
without his conscious effort and, thanks-be to his nameless father, he looked
like he meant to use it. Bukke lowered his machete.
"Them," Pavek said, pointing to the threesome. "Inspect them."
The half-elf, an exotic specimen with coppery hair a few shades darker than
his skin, fairly glowed with rage. He had his walking staff raised for an
attack-a coherent well-directed attack, Pavek noted in the back of his mind:
someone had taught this boy stick-work. Still, he would have been cut in two
if the woman hadn't gotten her arms around him in a hurry. She wasn't old
enough to be his mother and didn't look to be his sister-though kinship
between humans and half-elves was sometimes hard to catch in a single glance,
and that was all Pavek got as the dwarf dragged the cart into the clearing.
Pavek caught the dwarfs eye for less than a heartbeat-long enough to see a
wariness that had nothing to do with surprise or fear.
He knew who had taught the kid, and he knew he had the right threesome even
though the cart was topped with straw and rags.
"Search it!" he commanded, and Bukke did, with vengeance.
Four amphorae, their baked clay walls made waterproof with a layer of
glistening lacquer, soon lay exposed in the dust. Their necks were plugged
with deep-red wax into which a carved seal bearing a familiar leonine profile
had been impressed.
"Bust 'em open?" Bukke asked.
Pavek took a deep breath. His plan-the plan Metica implied in her
chamber-required breaking tie seals, not the vessels themselves. Some
seals were simply wax; anyone could break them, but some were spiked with
sorcery. They could leave a man with stumps where his hands had been and leave
an image of his agonized face where the sorcerer could find it. Pavek knew the
risks, so did Bukke. Breaking the amphorae would scatter the powder in the
sand. If it was Rokka rather than the itinerants who were responsible for
overcutting Ral's Breath, there'd be no way to prove it.
"Have the woman break the seals," Pavek said, the inspiration bursting into
his thoughts.
The woman strode past Bukke, calmly adjusting the shoulder of her
gown where Bukke had torn it in his determination to do a thorough
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inspection. Her eyes, and her anger, never left Pavek's face, but she said
nothing as
she knelt down beside the amphorae.
The half-elf hurled a curse at Pavek that should have cost one of them his
life. He surged forward. Bukke reached for his machete. The dwarf grabbed the
half-elf before harm could be done. ;
Pavek saw it all as a blur; his clear vision never left the woman. He watched
her hands, even when the torn cloth at her shoulder came loose again. He
couldn't have said what he expected to see: a flash of light, perhaps, some
other sorcerous signature-something he could pass along to Metica when he saw
her. With the half-elf still cursing up a storm, the woman placed
her palms on the ground. She closed her eyes and nothing happened.
Just as nothing happened when she took the ribbons locked inside the
deep-red wax and pulled the plugs out, one after another, as if they were no
more dangerous than the sap-wax Metica kept in the box on her work-table.
As if, but not hardly.
All those off-duty days spent in the bureau archives weren't a complete loss.
Pavek couldn't put a name to what he'd seen, not a specific spell name, but
that woman kneeling there, looking at him with just a trace of real anxiety in
her eyes now, was no common itinerant. She'd called upon the land of Athas to
take back the spellcraft she or someone else had placed in those seals.
She was a druid.
"Do you want a closer look?" she asked, sitting back on her heels, leaving the
torn doth of her gown as it had fallen.
He did and he didn't, in more ways than one. He thought of ordering Bukke to
shove his hand into one of the amphorae, but one look at that young man's
face and Pavek put the notion out of his mind. Returning his knife to its
sheath, he knelt opposite the druid. Her breathing was deep and even; she
didn't blink when he reached as deep as he could into the powder. He brought [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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