Perilous Seas by Dave Duncan Read Free Book Online Page B

but
certainly not telling a lie. She was too old for camels. She could hardly
recall what a not-sore back felt like.
    “Hogswill!”
Sounding as if she were forcing the words, Inos said, “Well, I’ll
tell you what I’m thinking. Which is that we have been duped. Elkarath is
in league with Rasha, and always has been. Gods, talking about it still makes
my head hurt! It was just too easy, Aunt! She can spirit people from Krasnegar
to Arakkaran, across the whole width of Pandemia, and we merely hop on camels
and ride off into the desert? She meant us to escape. She set it up!”
    Kadolan
sighed. “It’s possible, I suppose. “
    “It’s
obvious!”
    “What
about the wraith you saw, the ghost?”
    “Ah.
Rap is dead. We know that. But I still think that was a sending. From Rasha-or
someone.”
    She
meant that Elkarath might have been responsible himself, of course. He had
never met the young faun, but perhaps a sorcerer could conjure up pictures of
the dead from other people’s memories. Who knew what a sorcerer could do?
    “It
told you to run away!”
    “And
we did the exact opposite-we stayed! We all agreed a wraith of evil could give
only evil counsel. Of course that was what we thought! It was what we were
meant to think, a double bluff. Obvious, really. So why have we never said so?”
    Kadolan
sighed again, and shivered. She had wondered such things many, many times, and
never been able to bring herself to put them into words. She had been unable
even to worry about them. She had prayed quite often to the God of Humility,
though.
    “Magic!”
Inos snapped out the forbidden word triumphantly. “By day. He makes us
afraid or ashamed to talk about it by day. And at night he puts a sleep spell
on us; you and me. Talking gets easier at night, though-have you noticed? Maybe
he gets tired, or he puts on the spell in the morning and it fades. Now it
seems to be wearing off!”
    “Well,
now you’ve given us a chance to talk about it,” Kadolan said. “I
suggest you don’t mention it to Azak.”
    “Why
not?” said Azak.
    “Oook!”
Kade jumped like a rabbit, clasping her hands to her mouth. Despite his size,
the sultan could move like floating gossamer, and she wondered how long he had
been standing there behind her-dark and big and menacing, with eyes that
glinted in the starlight.
    “Why
not tell Azak?” he growled.
    She
sought to calm her fluttering heart. Even by daylight, Azak flustered her. “Maybe
... maybe we have been sleeping very soundly, but that hasn’t happened to
you.”
    “True.
No other reasons?”
    “Er
. . . no.” Just that Azak hated Rasha so much that he might not react
rationally to the news that she had outsmarted him.
    “Mmph?”
Azak transferred his attention to Inosolan, who was still leaning against the
tree. “I congratulate you! You outwitted him. I did not think it was
possible. “
    “He’s
only a man.”
    “You
knew?” Kadolan exclaimed.
    “Certainly.
As Inos says, it is obvious-in the night. It is obvious by day also, but so
absurd that I cannot bring myself to discuss it. I have known for months.”
    Inos
and Kade said, “Oh! “together.
    He
was right-it had been months. Kadolan had lost count of weeks, but two or even
three months ... In the distance, camel bells clanked faintly. The night was
rapidly becoming colder. She wished she had her camel-hair shawl with her, but
she wasn’t going to go and get it and miss whatever madcap talk was
coming next.
    The
big man was looking at her. “It was an accident, I assure you.”
    “What
was?”
    “When
I burned your hand. I had tried to awaken both of you without success, several
times, and given up trying. I had even considered loading you both on camels
like baggage and fleeing away across the desert, but I dared not risk it. I
worried that you might never awaken. The burn was an accident.”
    Maybe!
But even if he had not been testing to see if he could waken her, he might have
been testing to see if Rasha’s