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

The alley where the Gold Street catacomb began had taken a beating in the most recent Tyr-storm. Most of the debris had been scavenged clean, but larger chunks of masonry covered the cistern that, in turn, had covered the catacomb entrance.

Pavek swallowed panic-he hadn't considered what the storm might have done to Zvain's bolt-hole; hadn't, he realized gazing on this small disaster, truly considered what might have happened to Zvain, either. But the catacomb would have survived-the bakery attached to the alley made more money renting space dug out from its cellar than it made from its ovens, and Zvain... Zvain had managed before he'd arrived-he'd have survived his leaving as well.

Pavek glanced around quickly and spotted another cistern. It proved empty and fastened to a slate slab. He had them underground before anyone else realized things weren't quite the way he'd expected them to be.

By night the catacomb was as dark as the Dragon's heart They stumbled into each other, the walls, and the occasional door. There were dozens of people living here, all aware that strangers walked among them. Whispers and warnings disturbed the still air, but no one interfered. Still, Pavek stifled a relieved sigh when he finally felt the familiar wickerwork patterns beneath his fingers.

"Zvain?"

Nothing. He waited and whispered the name again.

Still nothing.

The bolt-hole might belong to someone else entirely; Zvain might have found a better place to live-he certainly hoped that was the case, but it was equally likely the boy's luck had gone bad rather than better.

It didn't matter. The curfew gong would clang any moment now. There was no place else for them to go. Pavek drew his sword-Dovanne's sword; and a loud, unmistakable sound in the darkness-then, squeezing the latch-handle from habit more than hope, put his weight against the flimsy door.

The latch-bolt hadn't been thrown; the door swung wide into a quiet, apparently empty room.

The bolt-hole was musty with the smells food made if it dried out before it completely rotted. Food... or bodies.

Swallowing hard and wishing for a torch or lamp, he went inside.

His hand found the shelf beside the door, the lamp, and a flint sparker: all as it should be, and light revealed the bolt-hole as he remembered it last-exactly the way he remembered it last, even to the slops bucket on its side a few steps from the rumpled bed.

Before he had considered the implications, Yohan brushed past with Akashia, and the moment was gone.

They put her on the bed, where she sat, knotting the frayed linens through her fingers, but she wouldn't lie down. When Ruari asked if she was hungry and offered her a heel of bread from his belt pouch, she gave no sign she'd heard the question until he waved the bread directly in front of her eyes. Then she took it into her hands, tearing off crumbs, which she savored slowly. But she offered no conversation, no sign that she recognized them.

"She'll be better in the morning, when she's had time to rest," Ruari said, as much a question as a statement.

Pavek and Yohan exchanged worried glances and otherwise ignored the half-elf's comment. There was an outside chance Ruari was right. Physically, Akashia seemed unharmed. Her face was drawn, with dark smudges beneath her eyes and hollows beneath her cheekbones, but there were no cuts or bruises that he could see. She wasn't starving, and her clothes were clean, as was her hair. In outward respects, Escrissar had cared well for his prisoner.

But Pavek knew how interrogators got their answers. He'd heard her moaning and, looking into her beautiful but vacant eyes, he feared that in her determination to keep Telhami's secret, she'd sacrificed everything that had made her human.

Most templars, in a final act of brutal mercy, would-slash the throat of a prisoner when they were done questioning him, but though interrogators would question the dead without hesitation, they boasted that they themselves never killed.

'There were those who would prefer her in this empty state: an especially vile breed of slavers traded in mind-blasted men and women, a breed scorned by their flesh-peddling peers-a sobering condemnation when he considered it. Other than keeping her from that fate, Pavek didn't know what manner of mercy he could give Akashia if her wits didn't come back. Right now, that wasn't his problem, and that was mercy enough for him.

"Grab some floor and get some sleep," he advised Ruari and Yohan. "I'll take the first watch."

He threw the latch-bolt and put a slip knot in the string dangling from it, to slow down anyone-the missing Zvain, included-who might try the door while they slept. Then he pinched the lamp wick, and except for a faint cast of moonlight through the isinglass stone set in the ceiling, the bolt-hole became dark. Akashia made small, panicked noises that left him sick with anger toward the interrogator who'd imprisoned and tormented her, until Yohan-Pavek assumed it was the dwarf by the way the bed creaked-whispered soft assurances that quieted her.

The sound of one person comforting another was strange to Pavek's ears. The act simply hadn't occurred to him. He wouldn't have known what to say or do. Kindness had played little part in an orphan-templar's life. It had never seemed a serious loss.

Until now.

Urik was quiet above them. An occasional foot fell across the isinglass: a mercenary patrol, exempt from curfew and paid to guard the property of Gold Street. Templars weren't welcome here. Merchants didn't trust them. Pavek felt safe with his back against the door and the gentle rumblings of sleep all around him.

And through that quiet darkness, Dovanne came to haunt him. He'd expected mat, with the bitter grief burning deep in his throat and behind his eyes. He wondered what if anything would have changed if he'd known how to console her as Yohan consoled Akashia, those years at the orphanage. Probably they'd both be dead-too soft and sentimental to survive in the templarate.

The bed creaked. Pavek rose into a crouch on the balls of his

feet, the sword he had never sheathed angled in front of him.

"Stand down," Yohan muttered, pushing the blade aside. He was a dwarf; he could see in the dark. "I'll take over." "How is she?"

"Better, I think. She said my name, but I don't know if she knew I was beside her. I'm coming back, Pavek."