They were outside the protected influence of the Guild House, ensconced in the common room of the closed inn. Just she and Kethry; Lenne was going through his usual after-dinner routine, but this time, he was not using his Master's goblet for his wine. That particular piece of silver resided on the table in the middle of the common room, full of wine. With a spell on the wine....
Not the goblet. Kethry was taking no chances that bespelling the goblet would change it enough that Karden's mind-magic would no longer recognize it. The two of them were on the far side of the room from the goblet; far enough, Kethry hoped, that Karden would judge the goblet safely out of sight of anyone. The inn's common room was considerably bigger than Lenne's quarters.
That was assuming he could check for the presence or absence of people. He might be getting his information from a single source within the Guild House. But Kethry was of the opinion that he wasn't; that he was waiting for a moment when there were no signs of mental activity within a certain range of the goblet, but that there was wine in it. That, she thought, would have been the easiest and simplest way for Karden to handle the problem.
All of it was guess and hope--
Kethry hissed a warning. Something was stirring the surface of the wine in the goblet.
Something tried to drop into the wine. Tried. The wine resisted it, forming a skin under it, so that the substance, white and granular, floated in a dimpled pocket on the surface.
"Ka'chen," Tarma said in satisfaction. "Got you, you bastard."
The pocket of white powder rotated in the wine, as the invisible finger stirred. Quickly, Kethry's hands moved in a complex pattern; sweat beaded her brow as she muttered words under her breath. Tarma tried not to move or otherwise distract her. This was a complicated spell, for Kethry was not only trying to do the reverse of what Karden was doing, she was trying to insinuate the poison back into his wine, grain by grain, so that he would not notice what she was doing.
Until, presumably, it was too late.
It was like watching a bit of snow melt; as the tiny white pile rotated, it slowly vanished, until the last speck winked out, leaving only the dark surface of the wine.
Tarma approached the cup cautiously. The spectral "finger" withdrew hastily, and she picked the goblet up.
"Well?" she said, "can I bet my life on this?"
Kethry nodded wearily, her heart-shaped face drawn with exhaustion. "It's as safe to drink as it was when I poured it," she replied, pulling her hair out of her eyes. "I can guarantee it went straight into the model-cup. What happened after that?" She shrugged eloquently. "We'll find out tomorrow."
Tarma lifted the cup in an ironic salute. "In that case -- here's to tomorrow."
"Now don't forget what I told you," Kethry said firmly, from her superior position above the Master's head, where she perched in Hellsbane's saddle. "I may have pulled most of the poison from you with that spell, but you're still sick. You're suffering the damage it caused, and that isn't going to go away overnight."
Master Lenne nodded earnestly, shading his eyes against the morning sun, and handed Kethry a saddleroll of the finest butter-soft leather to fasten at her cantle. Leather like that -- calfskin tanned to the suppleness and texture of fine velvet -- was worth a small fortune. Tarma already had an identical roll behind her saddle.
"I plan to rest and keep my schedule to a minimum," Lenne said, as obedient as a child. "To tell you the truth, now that I no longer have to worry about Karden taking my trade and exerting his influence on the Guild as a whole--"
"So tragic, poisoning himself with his own processes," Tarma said dryly. "I guess that will prove to the Guild that the safe old ways are the best."
Master Lenne flushed and looked down for a moment. When he looked back up, his eyes were troubled. "I suppose it would do no good to reveal the truth, would it?"
"No good, and a lot of harm," Kethry said firmly. "If you must, tell only those you trust. No one else." She looked off into the distance. "I don't like taking the law into my own hands--"
"When the law fails, people of conscience have to take over, Greeneyes," Tarma said firmly,. "It's either that, or lie down and let yourself be walked on. Shin'a'in weave rugs; we don't imitate them."
"I don't like it either, ladies," Master Lenne said quietly. "Even knowing that my own life hung on this. But--"
"But there are no easy answers, Master," Tarma interrupted him. "There are cowards and the brave. Dishonest and honest. I prefer to foster the latter and remove the former. As my partner would tell you, Shin'a'in are great believers in expediency." She leveled a penetrating glance at her partner. "And if we're going to make Hawk's Nest before sundown, we need to leave now."
Master Lenne took the hint, and backed away from the horses. "Shin'a'in--" he said suddenly, as Tarma turned her horse's head. "I said that poison was a woman's weapon. You have shown me differently. A woman's weapon is that she thinks -- and then she acts, without hesitation."
:Usually, she thinks,: Warrl said dryly. :When I remind her to.:
Put a gag on it, Furface, Tarma thought back at him. And she saluted Master Lenne gravely, and sent her warsteed up the last road to Hawksrest, with Kethry and Warrl keeping pace beside her.
THE TALISMAN
This story sprang out of a complaint that bad fantasy always seems to rely on the magic thingamajig to get the hero out of trouble. Seemed to me that a magic thingamajig could get someone into more trouble than it would get him out of. As always, Tarma and Kethry rely as much on intelligence and quick thinking as magic and swordplay to get them out of trouble.
It was hard for Kethry to remember that winter would be over in two months at the most. The entire world seemed made up of crusted snow; it even lay along the bare branches of trees. From this vantage point, atop a rocky, scrub-covered hill, it looked as if winter had taken hold of the land and would never let go. The entire world had turned into an endless series of winter-dormant, forested hills, hills they plodded over with no sign that there was an end to them. Although the road that threaded these hills bore unmistakable signs of frequent use, they hadn't seen a single soul in the past two days. Kethry stamped her numb feet on snow packed rock-hard and frozen into an obstacle course of ruts, trying to get a little feeling back into them. She shaded her eyes against snow glare and stared down the hillside while her mule pawed despondently at the ice crust beside the trail, hoping for a scrap of grass and unable to break through.
She heard the creaking of Tarma's saddle as her partner dismounted. "Goddess!" the Shin'a'in croaked. "I'm bloody freezing!"
"You're always freezing," Kethry replied absently, trying to make out if the smudge on the horizon was smoke or just another cloud. "Except when I'm roasting. Where are we? Is that smoke I'm seeing out there, or a figment of my imagination?"
There was a rattling of paper at her right elbow as Tarma took out their map. "I could make a very bad pun, but I won't," she said. "Yes, it's smoke, and I'd guess we're here-"