Chapter Eleven
Her head throbbed abominably, and at the same time felt as large as a table. A table that hurt a lot. While one of her ears itched.
Tantaerra winced, watched half-seen tree branches in the darkness above her swim and mingle like schooling fish, and closed her eyes again. She was securely bound. Ankles, elbows behind her, and throat to a log her head was propped up against. At least some of her daggers weren't where they should be. Possibly-no, probably-all of them were gone.
Where …oh. Right. Dung.
"With us again, Tantaerra Loroeva Klazra?"
The face and voice were above but behind her. Ahrkholm, of course. "The man you hired made quite a bit of noise while I cut the arrow out of his shoulder, but you didn't seem to hear us."
"Where-?"
"Right beside you. Tied to the same log. Awaiting your …presence. He didn't want to hear what I had to say until you could hear it too. Such touching loyalty."
"What do you want with us?" Tantaerra managed to ask. She felt utterly drained, unable to move even if she hadn't been tied.
"I want you to listen to me. First, though, I want you to drink these."
"And what are 'these'? Drinks laced with hemlock, or something faster and more deadly?"
"No," the man who was calling himself Ahrkholm replied flatly. He unhooded a lantern sheathed in crimson smoked glass, that gave off a faint, ruddy light. Enough to show them his arms, reaching down. In one of his hands was a white ceramic vial about the size of his thumb. It bore a small sigil of a tankard-the sign of Cayden Cailean, the perpetually drunk, freedom-loving god so popular among the Nirmathi. Its cork stopper was securely sealed with a lot of red wax.
"This," Ahrkholm said quietly, waving it gently, "is the beginning of trust."
"As in, I have to trust that if I drink it, it won't harm me?"
"Yes, but more than that. I'm hoping that after you drink it, you will begin to trust me."
Tantaerra fought to control her face-it felt numb, and her vision kept sliding back into echoes and doublings. She managed to raise one eyebrow and give him a disbelieving glare. "After I drink it, I could be dead."
"If I wanted you dead, I could easily have killed you when you were lying senseless," he pointed out. "Instead, I only tied you up and removed your weapons. For my own protection."
"I take it you enjoyed searching me," Tantaerra spat.
Their captor sighed. "Not particularly. I know you mistrust me, but I want very much to be your friend-both of you. I …admire you. Nirmathas has need of you."
"So you serve Nirmathas, mystery man?"
"I do. I spy for them in Molthune-as I hope you will, in times to come. Which is why I want you to drink this." He held the vial closer.
"I'm aware that I haven't a lot of choice," Tantaerra told him, "lying here trussed like a fowl ready for the spit, but I do want to proclaim my dislike of being asked to do something by a man about whom I know nothing, who won't even tell me his name. Let our trust begin there, hey?"
"Very well. My name is Orivin Voyvik, not Ahrkholm. I spy for Nirmathas, and I want to recruit you to my country's cause. You've both been mistreated in Molthune-you, Tantaerra Klazra, were enslaved for years."
"I had not, in fact, forgotten that," Tantaerra told him. "Yet I am what minstrels might term 'bitter with mistrust.' For all I know, you may be asking me to trade one enslavement for another. After all, how do I really know what's in that vial?"
"You don't," Voyvik replied simply. "That's where the trust comes in. In this small measure, you have to trust me."
"My life may be a small measure to you," Tantaerra told him sharply, "but it's rather more than that to me, I assure you!"
"If I drink it, will you gentle your tongue for a bit?" The Masked rasped, from beside her. He sounded terrible, a hoarse, hissing whisper. "Or better yet, shut up?"
Tantaerra gaped. "Uh …ah …yes. I suppose." She looked at Voyvik, who shrugged, got up, and moved over to The Masked.
"Swallow it all. It will help, not hurt."
"If I do that, how will there be any left for her?"
Voyvik smiled, dug into a pouch, and displayed a fistful of identical vials.
The Masked chuckled, or tried to, but it turned into a racking cough. "Feed me the damned vial," he husked, when he could speak again.
Voyvik sliced away the wax with infinite care, using one of Tantaerra's smallest, sharpest knives, and poured the vial down The Masked's throat. When the prisoner erupted in coughs again, the Nirmathi spy clapped his jaw up and held his mouth closed with swift, deft strength.
Then he let The Masked sag back against the log-which the trussed man did with a long, shuddering sigh of relief.
"Another one?" Voyvik asked, holding up a second vial.
"See to the lady first," The Masked replied.
The clear, minty liquid was accompanied by a cleansing warmth, a tingling relief so immediate it was almost a rapture. Her aches faded, her pain was sluiced away, her headache vanished, and she felt strong and contented and …comfortable. Her vision was sharp and clear, the doubling and blurring gone.
She was fine. Just like that.
"Better?" Voyvik asked, as gently as any mother bending over a sickbed.
When Tantaerra nodded, he smiled as if he meant it and went back to The Masked. "Another, now?"
"Another," The Masked agreed, in a voice that held more satisfaction than pain, and received the contents of another vial.
Well, damn the man! He'd healed them both-using magical potions that likely cost more than a cottage and the farm that went with it. And he'd just expended three on the two of them!
It felt good to have the pain gone, and no longer be stiff and sick and hurting. She was whole, hale, hearty-and dumbfounded.
Tantaerra knew she should feel grateful that this Voyvik wanted to be a friend. Yet somehow, she couldn't warm to the man.
And they were still tied up, with their weapons taken from them. Lost in the dark heart of a night-shrouded forest, somewhere in Nirmathas.
"So," Voyvik asked her gently, "am I still a villain?"
"I …I thank you, Orivin Voyvik. I am …very grateful, and must confess I begin to feel I could trust you," Tantaerra said slowly, "but as my …companion here will tell you, I'm not easily convinced of matters new and strange to me. I like proof, and need convincing. So convince me."
Voyvik nodded, leaned close, and fixed her with intent eyes. They glinted like copper, as if there were a fire behind them, brighter than their usual brown. "If this healing counts for anything, let it persuade you that I am not a foe. I have never been your foe-or your foe, sir." His burning gaze turned to The Masked for a long moment, then returned to Tantaerra.
She tried not to shudder. That stare made her feel as if she were being transfixed on the point of a knife.
"What I have been, and am, is a man with a dream. A dream of Nirmathas strong and triumphant, free of war and mighty enough to dissuade Molthune from daring to make war across the Inkwater. Molthune can turn from endless warfare and soldiering to making a stronger, greater land of forges and building and innovation-while Nirmathas becomes the verdant garden it was meant to be, breadbasket to many lands, peaceful and beautiful and a haven from want and hunger."
He spread his arms wide, impassioned, and looked at The Masked again, then back at Tantaerra.
"This is a dream. There are years of work ahead to make it real, and it needs more than just me and the few hidden ones who work with me. It needs bold, trustworthy sorts who can make their own fortune, who can survive in the midst of strife, and win through danger without fleeing in fear or abandoning the cause. It needs heroes. And I believe you are two of those heroes."