The Brazen Gambit (Dark Sun: Chronicles of Athas 1)

"He ate supper with the rest of us," another shadow interjected, going soft and slow at the end. "We all ate what he ate."

No one said anything for a moment, while Pavek, no longer vomiting, pressed his fists into his gut and curled around them. He was conscious, after a fashion, muttering names between his moans: Dovanne, Rokka, Escrissar. But he was unaware of his immediate surroundings. Of Telhami or Yohan... of her as she once again tried to shield his head.

"That won't help," Telhami chided. "Give me your hands."

Obediently, because Telhami was right, she raised her hands, palms-out, above Pavek's chest. As Ruari had channeled the lifeforce of Athas for her when she wrought healer's spellcraft on the injured kank, she took the second's role for Telhami. Here in Quraite, where the guardian's presence was concentrated, she surrendered herself completely to its power.

Other druids worked their magic in different ways

. Other clerics certainly did. But in Quraite where Telhami had learned druidry and where her way was now the only way, one druid channeled the lifeforce and a second invoked the spell whenever it was possible. She heard the first droning syllable of the invocation; her flesh grew warm. She heard the second; her hands burned as if her fingers had become flames. Then nothing, heard or felt, as Telhami took what she offered and fought for Pavek's life.

Time passed without measure or mark. The healing fire was quenched. She yawned and stretched, no worse for her experience, and looked down on Pavek, stretched out between her knees and Telhami's. His limbs were relaxed, but not limp. His chest rose in a deep, regular rhythm and, in the hollow of his throat, four dark beads the size of a jozhal's eye glistened in the moonlight.

Cautiously Telhami touched one bead with a moistened finger, then pressed the tip against her tongue.

"Kivit."

Kivits excreted an effective poison through musk glands beneath their cheeks. They spread the ooze across their fur as they groomed themselves. The defensive coating made the little creatures an unappetizing mouthful to any but the most desperate predator. Quraite's farmers smeared kivit musk around the trunks of their trees while the fruits budded and ripened. It killed any field vermin that ventured across it, but a man was in no danger, unless he gorged himself on kivit, fur and all-at best an unlikely possibility-or he mistook a sun-dried clot of concentrated musk for a date or raisin-a mistake he should have corrected the moment his mouth puckered.

Her thoughts raced toward a dreaded conclusion: Ruari collected kivits in his grove. Ruari collected and dried kivit musk for the farmers. Ruari had run away when she'd caught him scrubbing a bowl.

Not cleaning it. Not so innocent, but lining the bowl with poison.

It could be done. Pavek had made himself predictable, vulnerable. He came late, took the last bowl, and served himself. He'd never complain if the stew tasted strange, never suspect that his was different. And he'd use a sponge-like chunk of bread to mop up every last morsel and drop from the bowl's sides. Every last morsel and drop of poison, too.

"Kashi?"

Telhami interrupted her down-spiraling thoughts. She met the sharp, ancient eyes with a shiver. It didn't matter what Pavek was, who he'd been, or what he might become. What Ruari had done would be Ruari's death once Grandmother knew about it.

"Kashi?"

"It's nothing," she lied and, knowing that lie would not be sufficient, added: "I'm a fine one to chide you about wearing yourself out with Pavek. One day guiding him through his lessons, and I'm so exhausted I can't see straight."

Lying was frowned upon in Quraite, but it was not a capital offense, and she congratulated herself that she'd been able to come up with a good lie so easily. With a heartbeat's effort, she could even convince herself that the guardian understood and approved.

"You young folk need more sleep than I," Telhami agreed. "Danger's passed here. Go on, take yourself to bed. Pavek will tell us what happened when he wakes up tomorrow morning-"

That had the ring of certainty to it-and all the more reason for her to find Ruari first. She rose unsteadily. No lying there: her muscles were cramped from kneeling on the chilled ground. The healing had lasted longer than she'd imagined.

"Until morning," she whispered, careful to retreat toward her own hut, and getting well beyond the torchlight around Pavek before beginning her search.

Ruari might have retreated to his grove. He might have left Quraite entirely-which was what she was going to tell him to do in no uncertain terms. But Ruari hadn't inherited a grove. His tiny plot of nurtured ground was as far from the center of Quraite as it could be while remaining under the guardian's purview. She'd search there last, just before she'd decide that he'd left Quraite forever. First there was the bachelor hut, where he usually slept and where a finger hooked through the reed walls revealed Ruari's undisturbed blankets folded along the wall among a half-dozen snoring men.

He sat there, cross-legged in the shadows, waiting to be caught with the incriminating bowl squarely in his lap.

"Why, Ru? Why?"

He hadn't heard her coming, hadn't expected her at all. The bowl bounced in the dusty dirt as he scrambled to his feet, looking right and left-as if he might run-before standing still, looking at his feet.

"Someone had to. He didn't belong here. Never could, never would. I kept waiting. Every day I waited for Grandmother to say he wouldn't be coming back, that the guardian and her grove had taken him-"

"So you decided you'd be the guardian instead?"

He didn't answers, only twisted the hem of his tunic around his forefinger until the entire garment was tight across his chest and he looked a larger version of the boy Ghazala had abandoned years ago. But this time there could be no taking him in her arms or drying his tears.

"No one has the guardian's rights. It's murder, Ru. Pure, simple, and planned. Murder, not justice-"

"He was the real poison!" Ruari sputtered, barely in control of his rage and fear. "It was bad enough when Grandmother took him to her grove, every day. I thought... I thought maybe, maybe she was peeling his mind back, extracting his templar secrets before she put him in the ground. But today... Kashi, you took him to your grove. All day. Wind and fire, Kashi-a templar! I asked myself: what were you thinking-and I knew the answer: He'd poisoned Grandmother's mind and yours. He was making you do foolish things-"