“Well, it’s true that Harald’s last years were fraught with controversy,” said Emil. “For he insisted that we accept the Sainnites, which was a very unpopular idea. Are you saying that for fifteen years we have had a G’deon vested but not confirmed? And that she has been willing to live in obscurity all this time, while the land is torn to ruins around her?” Emil paused, and shook his head, and added more gently, “By Shaftal, what else could she honorably have done? To exercise such power outside the constraints of the Lilterwess–”
Zanja said, “She was constrained, not just by smoke but by Mabin, who indirectly controlled her through Norina, who exercised all her formidable powers to keep Karis tractable.”
“Norina?” Medric said.
“The Truthken, Karis’s oldest friend.”
Emil said dryly, “Ah, I see. Air logic. Inflexible and absolutist. No doubt Norina believes she is doing her duty. But what do you mean when you say Mabin did this to her? What has been done, and why do you blame yourself?”
“Someone sent a letter,” Medric said.
“Norina sent a letter. To Mabin.”
“And Mabin did what?”
“She kidnapped Karis. And holds her prisoner down there, in that garrison.”
Medric said, “So whatever was in that letter convinced Mabin she needed to act, and quickly.”
“The letter told her that Karis had sent me to find you, and bring you to her.”
Medric looked baffled, but Emil said, “Oh, I see.”
“What?”
“Well, what would you have told Karis, when you met her?”
Medric said, “That she is the hope of Shaftal.”
“And that,” said Emil, “Would be the one thing Mabin never wants Karis to hear. Not from a seer, anyway. Not if she intends to keep Karis from knowing the truth.”
“Mabin doesn’t command the border people,” Zanja said, “so she doesn’t command me.”
“Me neither, obviously,” Medric said cheerfully. “How soon do you want to leave, Zanja? Shall I load my pistols?”
Emil put his head in his hands. “She still commands me. Which of my vows and beliefs shall I betray today?”
Zanja said, “Well, the truth is–” She had to take a breath to steady herself. “Truth is, I have no hope of rescuing Karis. All I can do is to rescue her living remains. She has been under smoke day and night for over ten days now. To save what little can be saved is hardly worth becoming forsworn for.”
Emil raised his head. “But fire logic can encompass the grandest of contradictions, and I have done my share of encompassing these last few days. Why should I not continue?”
On Zanja’s other side, Medric uttered a snort of laughter.
Emil continued gravely. “So of course I will go with you to rescue what survives of our G’deon. And perhaps once we have done that we will find something else to save from this disaster. Surely three fire bloods together can redeem even the most hopeless situation.”
Medric went away to load his pistols, which was a task complex enough by daylight, but which seemed to give him no difficulty even in the darkness. He had been raised to be a soldier, after all. Zanja said to Emil, “I thought you were a celibate.”
“Hmm. Of course my position required a great deal of restraint, but surely you didn’t think it was by choice. Fire blood and celibacy? You know better than that.”
“Yes,” she admitted.
“So. I always suspected that with Annis you were settling for a poor substitute.”
“You know more than I did,” Zanja said. “You’re usually very good at minding your own business, Emil.”
He chuckled. “And you’re usually better at protecting yourself from a prying old man.” He took her hand. “A smoke addict. You might as well be celibate. Why do you say this disaster is your fault?”
“When I first met Karis, Norina said I would endanger her, by making her restless. If Karis had simply stayed as she was, passive and invisible as she has been, Mabin would have had no reason to do anything to her.”
“That certainly sounds like air logic,” said Emil dryly. “But you and I, we know better.”
Though the village walls were well guarded, it was not particularly difficult to breach them. Two presciants and a seer could hardly help but recognize the moment it was safe to climb the wall. They scrambled over and huddled in the shadows on the other side as a watchman passed, and then Zanja whispered, “This place has never been attacked, I gather, or they would not be so relaxed.”
“It’s never even been discovered,” Emil said. “The closest Sainnite garrison is a long way from here, you know, and the Mearish folk are notoriously secretive. But the few survivors of the fall are housed here, and so I doubt anyone ever becomes complacent.”
They set forth, walking in a group, like soldiers done with the day’s work, and what with the dark night and the unlit streets they were able to cross from one end of the small village to the other without attracting notice. They saw no taverns or shops, just a series of residential buildings that looked a good deal like military barracks, and a great exercise yard at the village center, with a huge horse stable. The settlement was even about the same size as the Wilton garrison, and Zanja noticed Medric shaking his head as though bemused.
“I have no idea where your Karis is,” Medric said, when they had crossed the village. “She’s here, though.”
“We’ve got the whole night to wander the streets,” Emil said. “And tomorrow night, and the night after that.”
Zanja pulled the four glyph cards from inside her shirt, and shuffled at them while looking at the stars to establish a sense of direction. The card she chose told her to go south, back the way they had come.
They paced back down the wide boulevard, pausing at every cross‑street to shuffle the cards. “Now this is very conspicuous behavior,” Emil commented.
Prescience had a way of fraying away into ambiguity and uncertainty if it was relied upon too deliberately. When, while standing upon one street corner without moving, the glyphs told Zanja to go south, then west, then south again, she was not much surprised. “I guess we’re finished,” she muttered, and stuck the cards into her shirt.
Emil nudged her and pointed at Medric. He had wandered up against the wall of the tall corner building, which had no windows at all on the first floor, and he was gazing upward at a lit window. He gestured at them sharply, and they dove into the shadows against the wall as a big, slump‑shouldered, shambling figure moved restlessly to the window, only to be eased impatiently away by another, smaller person.
Emil put his hand on Zanja’s shoulder. She was, she realized, scratching at the mortared stone with her fingernails, as though to dig through into the building with her bare hands.
Medric came up to them. “Just for a second there, I felt the mountains turn over in their sleep.”
Emil grabbed them both by their sleeves and marched them a distance away. “There’s a good reason why nobody quite trusts us fire bloods. One minute we’re inspired visionaries, the next we’re drooling idiots. Don’t you two turn idiotic on me.”
A black shape hurtled at them from out of the darkness overhead. Zanja snatched the raven out of the air before he plummeted into Emil’s stomach. The raven uttered a squawk, then settled down and let Zanja perch him upon her shoulder. “The good raven doesn’t see well in the dark,” she explained. Then, a thought came to her. “Karis, do you hear me?”
“Yes,” the raven said, and Medric and Emil both jumped with surprise.
“Lie down and pretend to sleep, and be patient. Can you do that?”
“Yes,” the raven said.
“Then do it now. We are coming for you, but you must wait for us.”
They walked through the village and came back at the building from another direction. The building’s only door opened into a walled courtyard rather than directly to the street. The courtyard’s arched gate stood closed and locked. The wall was smooth, impossible to climb. Nor was there enough space to slip over the top of the gate even if it could be surmounted. In any case, the courtyard had an alert watchman, who paced determinedly from one end to the other, and paused every couple of rounds to peer through the gate and examine the roadway. The other three walls of the house presented blank faces, and offered no access to the roof, either, even if it were possible to get from the roof into Karis’ room.