Garander blinked. He had no way to know whether the shatra’s claim had any truth to it or not. It could be true, for all Garander knew, or it could be a complete fabrication-but why would Tesk lie about that? It didn’t seem like a sensible lie, and Tesk, however strange he was, did seem sensible.
“Why would you bother?” he asked.
“Because I do not wish anyone to be harmed,” Tesk said. “I understand that the war is over, and my side lost; there is no point in inflicting any further damage. Mizagars do not understand this; they are little more than beasts. They will take orders from Northern officers, though, to the extent they understand those orders, and shatra are officers.”
“How can they tell?” Ishta asked. “How would a mizagar know I’m not an officer?”
Tesk smiled. “You do not speak Shaslan. You do not carry a talisman of rank. You do not know the magic words that force a mizagar to obey you.”
“A talisman of rank?” Garander asked.
“Yes,” Tesk said. He held out a hand, and something gleamed red and gold on his wrist. “This is one. It glows when I wish it to, and is bound to me-it will not glow for anyone else. I have others.”
“Do you have a lot of talismans?” Ishta asked, staring at the one he displayed.
Tesk smiled and withdrew his wrist. “Yes,” he said.
“Do you know about the one I found? I mean, I told you about it, but do you know what it was for, or how it got there?”
“That was mine,” Tesk said. “I discarded it. It relayed orders from my superiors-but my superiors are all long dead, so I had no further use for it. I thought it might be an entertaining toy for you, and left it where you might find it. I am sorry your baron took it for his own.”
“He’s not my baron!” Ishta said.
“Yes, he is,” Garander told her. “Whether you like it or not.”
“Hmph.”
“Now what?” Tesk asked.
“What?” Garander said, startled.
“Now that you know what I am, and you have heard my account of myself, what will you do about it?”
Garander hesitated. He had not yet decided, and was unsure whether he would want to tell Tesk if he had. “What would you do if I told our father?” he asked. “Would you kill everybody?”
Tesk sighed. “No. The war is over, I do not want to harm anyone, and I am fast enough to escape any non-magical pursuit. If your father sought to destroy me, alone or with others, I would retreat into the hills where I would never be found. I would advise against this, however, because if I leave this area the mizagars may return. They obey my orders, but only for a limited time-two or three months, usually-and they move around, so that ones I have not instructed may wander into the area.”
That was a reason to lie about the mizagars-to keep from being sent into lonely exile in the mountains. But that assumed he had not lied about wanting human company.
“There, you see?” Ishta said. “He won’t hurt us!”
“So he says,” Garander retorted. “We don’t know he’s telling us the truth.”
“I think he is!”
“I think he probably is, too,” Garander admitted, “but we can’t be sure.”
“You must do as you think best,” Tesk said. “You should consider this, though-if I am not telling the truth, why am I here now, and not years ago? Perhaps when you were Ishta’s age?”
“You could have been trapped somewhere, and only recently escaped,” Garander said. “Maybe a wizard captured you during the war, and the spell he used on you has only just broken.”
Tesk nodded. “That could be. But if I meant you harm, why are you still alive?”
“I don’t…”
Then Tesk moved, so abruptly and so fast that Garander could hardly see him; he was little more than a dark blur, like a shadow among the trees, and then he was standing behind Garander’s right shoulder, a knife at the youth’s throat.
Then he was gone again, only to reappear a few feet away, where he ostentatiously sheathed his knife, sliding it slowly into a scabbard on his belt, deliberately making an audible scraping sound.
“You see why your father’s orders were to call in magicians or dragons?” he said.
Garander swallowed, then nodded.
“And I have not yet shown you what the sorcery I carry can do.”
Garander was about to say that that wouldn’t be necessary when Ishta said excitedly, “Oh, can you show us?”
That seemed to catch Tesk off-guard, but he recovered quickly and smiled. “A small demonstration, perhaps,” he said. He reached around and brought forward one of the black rods he carried on his back, then asked, “Would that stump make a satisfactory target?” He pointed.
The “stump,” perhaps fifteen feet away, was the remains of a dead tree, seven or eight feet tall and about a foot and a half in diameter for most of its length. It was quite obviously hollow. Garander looked at Ishta.
She met his gaze and nodded.
“It’ll do,” Garander said.
Tesk said, “Observe.” He ran his fingers along the rod in a quick pattern of short strokes, then pointed it at the dead tree.
To say that the hollow stump burst into flame did not, Garander thought, convey what he saw; the stump exploded into flame with a loud “thump,” red and gold sparks showering in all directions. In an instant the entire thing was a column of fire.
“We do not want to draw attention,” Tesk said. He waved the rod, and a sudden mist appeared; the flames quickly died away until only flickering red embers lingered on the greatly-reduced remains of the tree.
“Hai, hai, hai!” Ishta shrieked, clapping her hand. “That was wonderful!”
Garander nodded. “Impressive,” he said.
“You do not want your father and his friends to seek me out,” Tesk said. “Either I would flee, which would make it all a waste of time and might allow mizagars to harass your people, or they might catch me, and I would defend myself.” He lifted the black rod. “Even if they win in the end, and kill me or capture me, some of them will be hurt or killed in the process. You see?”
“I see,” Garander agreed. He looked at his sister. “I think I’m convinced,” he said. “What about you, Ishta?”
“I was never going to tell anyone in the first place, Garander!”
“Then we are decided,” Tesk said, “and I am pleased. I did not want to leave.”
“May I try that black stick?” Ishta asked, pointing at the rod.
Tesk smiled. “No,” he said. “It would not work for you. But I have other things I can show you.”
Garander hesitated, then admitted, “I’d like to see them, too.”
“Of course,” Tesk said. He reached around and tucked the black rod back into place. “Let us find somewhere more private, away from the smoke of the stump, and I will show you.”
Together, the three of them retreated deeper into the woods.
Chapter Seven
Just a sixnight after Ishta and Garander visited Tesk, the first real snowfall arrived. It began in the night, and Garander woke up to a dimly-lit world covered in white, with big fat flakes swirling outside the window.
At breakfast Grondar said, “The clouds are thinning. It should stop by noon, I’d say.”
Garander nodded, and stuffed another chunk of bread in his mouth.
“You’ll need to feed the livestock, of course, but anything else can wait until the snow stops.”
“Yes, Father.”
“May I play outside?” Ishta asked.
Their parents exchanged glances; Grondar turned up an empty palm. “Why not?” he said. “But stay close, in case the storm gets worse.”
“You just said it was stopping!”
“Am I a wizard, then, to foresee the future? It looks to me as if it’s stopping, but I could be wrong, so don’t go far.”