They ignored him. He shrugged elaborately and walked out. The Zr'gsz guards waited until he had left the compound before backing out. The gates boomed shut and the lock fell with a sound like a headsman's axe.
Fost and Moriana exchanged looks. The tale Erimenes had fed the Nevrymin was a combination of truth and utter fabrication. Had the genie thought to insinuate himself into the good graces of the Dark Ones by inventing an imaginary menace, banking on the near certainty that the more fervently Moriana and Fost denied the existence of such a danger the more fervently the questioners would disbelieve them? Or had the ages-old spirit simply gone insane?
Fost slept through the heat of the afternoon. With a sentence of death looming over him as tangibly as the bulk of Omizantrim, it might have seemed strange he could sleep at all. But sleep shielded him from having to think of his fate.
He woke to find Moriana bending over a younger Watcher woman seated on a flat rock. Moriana worked on the woman's arm, which was twisted unnaturally. The woman's face was drained of color and feeling; it showed no pain.
Moriana finally stood up, wiped sweat from her forehead and regarded the job of splinting and bandaging.
'It'd be best if you wore that sling for several weeks, Beiil. Right now the thing to do is sleep.' The woman nodded dully and rose, walking to the nearest group of Watchers who were busily not watching what the princess had done. One spoke to the woman in hushed tones and looked disbelievingly at her quiet answer.
'Damn the Hissers,' Moriana swore fervently. 'And thrice damn the Nevrymin for aiding them now that they've shown their true shade! That girl's arm was broken in the capture of the village. They locked her in a storeroom with others wounded and dying. The others were too weak to help her; she bound her own arm, but set the bone wrong. By the time the Hissers let her out to join the others, it was too late to reset. I had to break it over again.' 'She was certainly quiet.'
Moriana mopped at her forehead with the hem of her tunic. Fost looked at the bare skin of her trim midriff with a pang of longing. It had been so long for them, and now they'd never have the chance to complete their reunion.
'Ziore helped. She suppressed sensation in the girl's mind while I worked. She even left a residual block that will keep the pain from becoming too severe.'
'I keep being surprised at the way your powers have grown,' Fost said. 'Tell me. You'd rather heal with magic, wouldn't you?' Her eyes answered for her.
When the sun dipped low enough in the sky to become entangled with the black tentacles of the Omizantrim flows, Fost broke out his bowl and flask. He and Moriana ate a little, then offered the vessels once more to the Watchers. Wan and shaky, Beiil rose from her pallet and came over. Fost helped her and Fost fed her with her own spoon. When she finished, most of the other Watchers lined up wordlessly to partake of the food and drink.
As the other prisoners ate, Fost lay back with his head in his hands watching the sky set in layers of color, slate-gray and blue and orange. His mind wandered. First, he thought about Moriana's account of her trip to Thendrun. There was something missing from her story. He didn't perceive the lack as he would, say, the hollow left by a missing tooth. Rather, it was like detecting wine watered by a dishonest innkeeper. Moriana had diluted the truth.
Why?'
He'd never find out. In a short time it would no longer matter. But it hurt him to think she'd keep anything from him.
His thoughts drifted to Erimenes. He had travelled so long in the company of the garrulous and horny spirit that he'd come to like him. Certainly there were scores – hundreds! – of times when he had felt like abandoning the sage. Yet he had come to regard Erimenes as something of a comrade in arms despite the genie's superciliousness and insatiable appetite for vicarious stimulation.
And Erimenes had repaid that loyalty with treachery. Fost had no one to blame but himself for his credulity. Erimenes had shown his true essence before, when as a messenger, Fost had been charged with delivering the genie in the jug to its original owner. It had seemed to Fost that the genie was gradually changing over the many months, though, was actively trying to aid Fost rather than goad him into impossible and potentially entertaining situations.
Aye, seemed.
The Watchers finished eating and drinking and, still wordless, returned the utensils to Fost. He sat unspeaking with his arms around Moriana while the light went out of the world. Then they lay down side by side and slept.
They awoke to light.
Instinctively, Fost groped for his sword. He found a handful of soft flesh. Moriana automatically brushed his hand from her breast and sat up beside him.
They blinked into the yellow eye of a hooded lantern. Fost's blood chilled. Had the Zr'gsz inquisitor arrived ahead of schedule? The light winked out. Fost's eyes adjusted to the darkness again, and he made out a stocky form in a narrow gap between the gates. 'Sir Longstrider? Princess Moriana?' 'What do you want?' Moriana asked cautiously.
'Save the hackneyed dialog for later,' a familiar, testy voice snapped. 'Right now, time is of the essence.'
'Go play your vicious tricks elsewhere, you treacherous bottled fart,' said Fost hotly. 'Yes! You're a disgrace to noble Athalau!' exclaimed Ziore.
'Gentles…' the husky young man said, raising his hands in a placating gesture.
'The just must suffer,' Erimenes said. 'May the Three and Twenty Wise Ones of Agift witness what dullards I am saddled with as friends!' 'You've small right to call upon the Wise,' hissed Moriana. 'Gentles, now…'
'Must I bear such abuse heaped upon my noble head? After all I've done? Oh, it is a bitter lot dealing with such as you.'
'Silence!' The command snapped like a whip. Fost peered most closely at the youth. Whoever he was, he had the habit of command. 'Gentles, you may not know me, for you only saw me briefly. I am Snowbuck, Sternbow's son. I've come to rescue you.'
'Then why are you signing your death warrant by carrying that jar around with you?' Fost got to his feet. Erimenes called upon the gods to witness his sorry fate.
'But gentles,' Snowbuck said, 'It was the good Erimenes who talked these men into helping free you. I couldn't convince them by myself.' A tall shadow appeared at his side.
'It may do us little credit but it's no light thing to cross that devil Fairspeaker.' Fost recognized the voice of the bowman who had told his naming story to Moriana the night before. 'But when Erimenes told us what had happened in the Sky City, we could no longer doubt that the People are enemies of all our kind.'
'As if it wasn't before all our faces long ago!' Snovvbuck said passionately.
'Ah, Snowbuck, you've won now. Don't chop a tree that's fallen.' The rebuff was offered in a friendly tone and Snowbuck took it gracefully.
'You have the right, Firesbane.' He gestured and men spilled into the compound. 'Help these others out.' He didn't have to tell them to be quick and quiet; they were Nevrym foresters.
As the Nevrymin began to usher out the Watchers into the night for the second time in two days, Snowbuck pulled Erimenes's fat clay jar from its pouch and handed it almost reverently to Fost. Fost accepted it with both hands. For a second, he considered drop-kicking it over the wall, then thought better of it. That would have been too noisy. He stuffed it back into the satchel.
'At least, you're not totally lost to feelings of gratitude,' Erimenes said waspishly.
'Erimenes, what are you up to?' Fost demanded. He stood in front of the gate so that the escaping Watchers had to part and pass to both sides of him like a stream around a jutting rock.
'A scheme worthy of my high intelligence' the spirit replied smugly. 'It was almost a pity to waste such ingenuity on so paltry a project as saving you from certain death. But it offends my sense of esthetics to contemplate a beauty such as Moriana's passing from this world.'