"I'm not sure they'll believe me."
"Then convince them. We'll expect you to be back here by nightfall."
"And have a care what you say to them," Q'Daer said. "The Forelander and I keep watch every night. If you tell them where we're camped, and they come looking for a fight, they'll die. All of them. And their deaths will be on your head."
Jasha eyed him, and finally nodded. After a moment he looked at Grinsa again. "This isn't going to work. You know that."
He did know it. But he knew as well that Q'Daer's warning and his own restrictions on what Jasha could and couldn't do were necessary. They couldn't just allow the young merchant to run away; they needed him, perhaps more than they needed Torgan, if for no other reason than because he was trustworthy. The irony wasn't lost on Grinsa. They were sending the one merchant they could trust not to betray them, and they were dooming him to failure by refusing to have faith in him.
"What would you have us do?" he asked.
Jasha looked surprised, as if he'd expected only more threats. "I'm not sure. I suppose it might help if you let me stay with them and win their trust. That's the only way I'm going to learn anything of value."
"Do you think we're fools?" Q'Daer demanded. "Do you think we'll just let you go free?"
"We should let him do it," Grinsa said, his eyes still on Jasha.
"You are mad!" the Fal'Borna said. "You can't really think he'll keep his word."
"Yes, I do. Because he knows that if he doesn't, I won't be able to keep you from killing Torgan."
Q'Daer shook his head. "You've seen the way they are. He'd trade his life for Torgan's in a heartbeat."
Grinsa faced the Fal'Borna. "No. You or I might, but Jasha won't."
"So I can go?" Jasha said.
It was getting dark. Before long it would be too late for Jasha's arrival at the merchants' camp to be believable.
"No," Q'Daer said. "No, you can't."
"Go ahead," Grinsa said. "We'll look for you come first light."
"No!" the Fal'Borna said.
Jasha flicked his horse's reins, but the animal didn't move. Language of beasts.
"Let him go," Grinsa said.
The young Weaver shook his head again. "I won't. I've let you have your way again and again on this journey. You want to feel like you're leading us, and I've been fine with that. But I won't let you do this."
Grinsa reached for his magic and using language of beasts, touched the mind of Jasha's mount. He didn't scare the animal; he merely told it to walk. Immediately he felt Q'Daer try to stop the creature, but he blocked the young Weaver's magic. Q'Daer was powerful, but his magic lacked precision, and Grinsa had little trouble mastering it.
"Damn you!" Q'Daer said.
Grinsa felt the Fal'Borna gathering his magic for a more substantial challenge. He could only guess what the man had in mind, and the last thing he wanted was a battle of magic. Yes, he could prevail in such a contest, but it would accomplish nothing, and quite likely it would alert the merchants to their presence.
"Don't do it, Q'Daer," he said. "I'll best you again, just as I did with language of beasts."
"You don't know that!"
"Yes, I do. The fact is, you haven't let me have my way, and I haven't been leading us because of some abdication on your part. I'm leading and getting my way because, quite simply, you're not as powerful as I am. It's time you made peace with that."
Even in the gloaming Grinsa could see Q'Daer's face darkening.
"Fine then," the Fal'Borna said. "Let him go. And when he doesn't return, we can kill Torgan and be done with this folly. You can explain it all to the a'laq once we're back in the sept."
With that he stalked off, his shoulder brushing past Torgan's so hard that he almost knocked the merchant to the ground.
Jasha had halted a short distance off, and had watched their exchange. "I will come back," he said now. "You have my word on it."
"With first light," Grinsa said.
Jasha nodded to him and rode off toward the merchants.
And Grinsa whispered to the gathering night, "Just learn something from them. Anything."
Perhaps he should have been looking for some way to exploit the tensions he had just witnessed. The white-hairs were his enemy, his and Torgan's, assuming of course, that Torgan was his ally. They were prisoners of the Fal'Borna, and he should have been looking for any means of escape he could find. Torgan himself would have told him to run, even if it meant leaving Torgan to be executed by the Fal'Borna.
Jasha smiled to himself and shook his head. Well, at the very least, he thought, that's what Torgan would have done if their positions had been reversed.
But Jasha had seen too much to take that path. He'd been in S'Plaed's sept near the Companion Lakes when the Mettai witch's pestilence struck there. He knew what this plague did. He'd seen shaping power shatter homes and peddlers' carts and bodies. He'd stared, helpless to do more, as fire magic laid waste to houses, killing entire families. He'd looked on in horror as a healer's magic tore his own body apart from the inside. And in case he had forgotten-as if he ever could-he had also seen the ruins of the sept they'd come across just a few days ago.
He had no love for the white-hairs. He might not have hated them as some did, but they held no special place in his heart. Still, no people, no matter what they might have done, no matter what color their eyes, deserved to suffer as the Qirsi had under this curse.
So he would speak with these merchants, and he'd learn what he could from them, and then he would return to Torgan and the two Qirsi. Torgan would call him a fool and worse. He'd rail at Jasha for being weak. Let him. Where was the weakness in trying to save lives?
Alone, on this unfamiliar horse given to him by the Fal'Borna, with no cart rattling behind him, Jasha could have ridden right into the camp before the merchants noticed him. Having no wish to startle them, he called out long before reaching their circle.
A man stood and peered into the darkness. Others turned toward the sound of Jasha's voice.
"Who's that?" the man called.
"A friend," Jasha said. "A fellow merchant." He dismounted a short distance from their fire and led his mount on foot the rest of the way.
The man stood and turned to face him, as did the other merchants. They watched him warily, no doubt wondering what one of their kind would be doing way out here on the plain without any cart or wares.
"Hello, friend," the man said, and though Jasha sensed no irony in the stranger's use of the word, he sensed no warmth either. "What can we do for you?"
"I'm hoping you can help me," the young merchant said. "My name is Jasha Ziffel. I've been trading on the plain and in the lands around the Companion Lakes for several years now." He looked at each merchant as he spoke. There were nine of them in all, all of them Eandi, all but two of them men. A few he recognized, and he sensed that they knew him as well, though he couldn't recall any of their names. "A few of you have seen me before, and you'll know that I'm no thief and I'm no cheat. I'm just a man in need of information."
"Where's your cart, Jasha?" the man asked. He was a bit older than the others, a tall man with a thick shock of white hair. His broad shoulders were stooped, but he was still trim, and Jasha thought that he must have cut an imposing figure in his youth.
"The Fal'Borna took it from me."
"The Fal'Borna?" the man said, clearly surprised.
"Why?" one of the women asked him.
Jasha wanted to ask if he could sit with them around their fire. The air had grown colder with nightfall, and he could smell roasted fowl, which reminded him of how hungry he was. He could tell, however, that the merchants weren't yet ready to welcome him into their circle. He had some work to do before they would trust him that much.
"Because they think that I can lead them to a Mettai woman who's been selling cursed baskets in their lands."