Pavek looked up in time to see Ruari fumbling with the medallion. "No," he whispered, still mystified, himself. "Not Hamanu. I don't know.... It felt like-" The emptiness loomed around him, and words failed utterly. "I don't know," he said, and repeated the phrase several times.
"A guardian."
He denied it, and Yohan swore; but Ruari was certain. "Guardians arise from the spirit of Athas," he said, as if he were reciting one of Telhami's lessons. "But a guardian isn't Athas. It's what makes one aspect of Athas different from all the others: one mountain, one grove, one stream-one unique something."
"There's nothing here," Yohan objected. "Buildings and people. They've sprawled over everything. There's nothing left for a guardian."
"Urik. Urik's here. Urik's unique."
Pavek stood up. He pressed his palms against the wall of House Escrissar and closed his eyes. The presence was there: Urik, far older than the sorcerer-kings-massive, and powerful. It rose to meet him, and he stepped back, letting the power subside once he had sensed what he needed, and nothing more.
"She is here."
The smoothed and painted plaster of the templar quarter facades did not extend to the midden shafts, where unfinished brick provided a multitude of handholds for three men climbing to the roof. Like most wealthy Urik residences, House Escrissar was built around a courtyard filled with fruit trees, fragrant flowers, fountains, and pools, and lined from ground to roof with an arbor of berry-vines. The courtyard was quiet except for the fountains. It was dark, too, with only a faint dappling of light seeping through the tracery of a few of the many rooms that faced the courtyard. It was also deserted-or so Pavek devoutly hoped. Neither experience nor logic suggested where they should lower themselves from the roof to the upper story of living rooms, but, having come further and survived longer than any of them had expected, they grew more cautious with each passing moment.
"Are you certain?" Yohan asked when Pavek hoisted his leg over the balustrade.
"I think she's here. I think she's alive. I think this is the way. But I'm not certain of anything. Pick some other place, if you want. This is the way I'm going."
And the way Ruart and Yohan followed: swinging down from the roof into the vine arbor whose support slats sank ominously beneath both him and the dwarf. For several moments, they paid more attention to their footing, then Pavek heard an all-too-familiar voice:
"... Now or later, my dear lady, dead or alive. It makes no difference to me, but I will have your secrets. Your guardian can protect your past; I possess your present and your future. Remember that each time you resist."
Silence followed and a sense that the night had become darker. Pavek caught Yohan's arm as he surged toward the voice they'd heard.
"She's there. I have to go to her-" Yohan's tone was urgent, mindless.
Pavek could scarcely restrain him. "Do you want to get us all killed? Or die in front of her? Or do you want to get her out?"
The dwarf relaxed. "Get her out."
"Then we've got to wait."
Yohan seemed resigned until Akashia screamed. "I can't wait. He's hurting her. I can't resist-"
"She is. She's resisted since you left her, and she'll go on resisting until we get her out!"
"It's that window, there," Ruari softly interrupted them. "I can climb and look through the tracery and see what we're up against. I'm light enough."
"Go ahead," he said, giving Ruari's arm a light, well-meaning nudge for confidence's sake.
"Go with Rkard," Yohan said more soberly. The next moments were the longest of Pavek's life. Akahia moaned, Escrissar taunted, and Ruari had completely disappeared. Someone wearing a yellow robe and carrying a lamp came and stood not an arm's length away in a corridor in the other side of the tracery that supported the berry arbor. Pavek held his breath until his lungs were burning.
The templar went away. Ruari returned.
"It's a small room with one door," he whispered. "Kashi's bound on a bench with cushions. He doesn't touch her, just stands there behind his long black mask, clicking his long black claws against each other-"
"He's an interrogator," Pavek interjected. "He doesn't need to use his hands."
And Yohan quietly swore a bloody vengeance.
"There's someone else in the room. Shorter and standing in the shadows. I couldn't see him clearly. But I think he's wearing a mask, too."
"The halfling. His face is covered with scars; it looks like a mask. Anyone else? Any guards? Templars?"
"Kashi and two men wearing masks. That's all I saw. What do we do now?"
"We wait. He's an interrogator, one of the best. They make the prisoners do the hard work. He'll leave her alone so she can think about what he's done, and what he's going to do. We'll move while he's resting, and she's helpless