Lavim, Stanach is in trouble.
Lavim turned this way and that, frowning into the valley, scowling at the thickets back down the trail. “Where are you?” he said aloud. “For that matter, who are you? How do you know Stanach’s in trouble?”
You have to help him, Lavim.
“Yes, but—Now wait a minute! How do I know you’re not one of those, uh …”
Theiwar.
“Right! How do I know—”
Why would I tell you he’s in trouble?
“Why don’t you show yourself? How about that? Where are you?”
Right behind you.
Lavim spun around. No one stood behind him. He turned back. No one stood there. He couldn’t be hearing a voice if no one was there to speak. Was he talking to himself again?
This didn’t sound like his voice. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to remember what his voice sounded like when he was talking to himself. (Thinking, he reminded himself.) But he couldn’t recall, and on the chance that he wasn’t having some strange conversation with his own mind, the kender opened his eyes again and peered around.
“Now listen—”
The voice, behind and on all sides of him now, had changed from wind-hollow to steel.
Lavim, you called me. Now listen to me! Go get Tyorl!
Lavim sighed. If he was still talking to himself, he’d picked up Tyorl’s and Stanach’s annoying habit of interrupting himself.
“I called you? I didn’t call anyone. I didn’t—”
We’ll talk about it later! Go!
Lavim scrambled down the outcropping and headed for the trail. Fear didn’t send him running. Neither did obedience.
What caused him to run, as noisy as a dwarf through the underbrush, was the sudden and complete realization that, this time, it was not his voice and he had not been talking to himself.
Well, he amended, I might’ve been talking to myself, but someone else was answering!
Lavim laughed and brandished the old wooden flute high as he ran. He guessed who had been answering him.
16
Gneiss heard the newly lighted braziers in the council chamber hiss, then sigh and settle to slow, steady burning. He massaged his temples, realizing as he did that the gesture had become as much a habit as his headache seemed to be. The cause of that headache, the eight hundred refugees who had been the subject of council meetings for too many days now, waited in the valley outside Southgate. Their representatives, glimpsed only briefly as he had entered the council chamber, were a half-elf and a tall, lovely Plainswoman. Gneiss rubbed his temples more gently. The two waited now in an antechamber for the decision of the council. On the council’s word, they would either take their eight hundred elsewhere or—Gneiss sighed wearily—settle them into Thorbardin. The Daewar looked once around the broad, oval table. None of the other thanes gathered here seemed any happier than he.
Tufa studied the surface of the polished granite table, tracing patterns in the gray stone that only he could see. He’d been silent since the council had been called to order. Bluph, the gully dwarf, drummed his boot heels against the leg of his chair. As though he’d gained a dim understanding of the importance of today’s meeting, he made an attempt to stay awake. If you can call someone awake, Gneiss thought sourly, who yawns every other minute!
The two derro thanes, Ranee of the Daergar and the Theiwar Realgar, kept to the shadows the way a fish likes water, Ranee because these days he was never very far from the Theiwar. The two were as thick as fleas on a dog’s hind end.
Hornfel, his eyes speaking of sleepless nights, rose from his place at the head of the table.
“We have agreed that there will be no further debate on the issue of admitting the refugees to Thorbardin.” Ranee drew a breath to interrupt. Hornfel, as though he hadn’t seen, continued smoothly. “The refugees’ representatives await our word. I will keep them waiting no longer. This council has other matters to attend to.”
A silence, pensive and waiting, settled over the chamber. Bluph settled for swinging his legs in the air and not permitting his heels to thud against the chair.
“We will vote.” Hornfel turned to the Klar. “Tufa, give us your word.”
The thane of the Klar declined with a slow shake of his head. “My thinking hasn’t changed. I will abide by the council’s decision.” He shot a quick, and for him defiant, look at Realgar. “Whatever that decision is.”
Gneiss sighed. Unless any of the others now voted differently than he’d previously indicated, his would indeed be the word that would determine the council’s decision. As he’d told Hornfel on the Southgate battlements, he’d come to a decision. Though he’d spoken to no one about it, his solution was the best he could devise.
Hornfel closed his eyes, drew a breath, and then nodded to the gully dwarf. “Bluph, turn them away or admit them?”
Bluph straightened in mid-yawn and stopped scratching. He blinked, then grinned widely. “Admit them.” He narrowed his eyes and looked as though he might reconsider.
Hornfel spoke quickly. “Ranee.”
“No! No! And no!”
“I thought not,” Hornfel said wryly. “Realgar?”
The Theiwar shrugged. In that moment his eyes reminded Gneiss of a cat’s, narrow and hungry. “I’ll save you the trouble of reading my mind, Hornfel. Turn them away. We’ve no place for them, no liking for them, and no need of them.”
Gneiss looked up, met Realgar’s eyes steadily. The same, he thought, might be said of you, Theiwar. Aloud he only said, “We can put them in the east farming warrens. These have gone unused for three years. We don’t know these people to like or dislike them, so that hardly matters. Need them?” He swept the table with a swift glance. “We can always use farmers. That’s what these people are. I say admit them, and they’ll work for their keep. As half-croppers, they’ll pay for it, too.”
Again Gneiss looked to Hornfel. “Your vote?”
Hornfel’s voice held quiet triumph. “Admit them.”
On his words, Realgar rose with silent grace and stalked from the council chamber. Ranee, snarling dark curses, followed on the Theiwar’s heels. There was nothing the two derro thanes could do now to prevent the admittance of the eight hundred humans.
The council had voted, and the vote was something to hold even Realgar. For now.
Gneiss watched the two leave and Tufa and Bluph after them. He sighed, half-listening to Bluph wondering how the vote had turned out, then turned to Hornfel.
“You’ve got your vote, my friend.”
Hornfel nodded, but did not look like one who has just secured a victory.
“What now? Did you perhaps think that your ragged eight hundred should spend the winter sleeping and lounging?”
Hornfel ignored the sarcasm. “Tell me, Gneiss, how are we going to make allies and friends out of the sick and hungry people we’ve just put to work half-cropping in our fields?”
Gneiss sighed tiredly. “They don’t have to start today, Hornfel. Take what you’ve won and tell your refugees they winter here. If it comes to fighting a war from the Outlands, they’ll be well by then and likely happy to defend the place they’re living in. If it comes to … revolution in Thornbardin, you’ve my Daewar and the Klar. We’ll need none else. Yet even as he said it, Gneiss remembered the cat’s look in Realgar’s eyes. He didn’t like the chill skittering up his spine. “Will you tell them now?”
Hornfel drummed his fingers on the table. “I want a minute to breathe.”
“Breathe? Aye, go right ahead. But have a care where you do it. I don’t like the look of the Theiwar these days.”