Cinnabar Shadows (Dark Sun: Chronicles of Athas 4)

Mahtra didn't know any better. She evidently thought when someone older asked her a question, she had to answer. But Zvain—? Ruari couldn't excuse his human friend for blurting out their secrets. Zvain knew the wisdom of discretion and outright deceit. He'd advised it often enough while they were still in Urik's purview. Once they were on the barrens, though, following that scrap of bark Ruari still devoutly believed was a trap, Zvain's common sense and wariness had evaporated.

The woman who'd asked them their business gave Mahtra and Zvain another eyeballing before returning her attention to Ruari. She was human and standing; he was half-elf and mounted on a kank's high saddle, yet she successfully looked down her nose at him, conveying a wealth of disdain in the arch of her brow.

"You look a tad underprepared for the mountains and the forests," she said dryly. "Do you even know where you are?"

Without hesitation, Ruari shook his head. Maybe there was more of Mahtra in him than he'd thought.

"Ject," she said.

He wasn't sure if that was her name, the name of the settlement, or a local insult—until he remembered someone had greeted them with the name as they rode up.

She grabbed his bug's antenna and got it moving forward. He could have seized the bug's mind with druidry, thwarting her intentions without twitching a muscle of his own. That would have been almost as stupid as mentioning the map or the halfling they were looking for. There was an aura around magicians of any stripe, an indefinable something that set druids, priests, defilers, and even templars slightly apart. Ruari didn't get that feeling from any of the strangers around him. He'd need a better reason than stubborn pride before he gave his own limited mastery away.

Ject was about Quraite's size, counting the buildings or people, but similarities ended there. Costly stone and wood were common here on the edge of the Tablelands. Ject's buildings looked as solid as Urik's walls, yet seemed as hastily thrown up as any wicker hut in Quraite. Striped and spotted hides from animals Ruari couldn't name cured on every wall. Skulls with horns and skulls with fangs hung above every door or window. Weapons, mostly spears and clubs, stood ready in racks outside the largest building. Taken with the hides and the skulls, they gave Ject the air of a community engaged in perpetual conflict.

And perhaps it was. The people of Ject had to eat, and there were no fields or gardens anywhere, just barrens and scrub plants up to the back walls of the outer ring of buildings. Ruari had heard tales of four-fingered giths who ate nothing but meat and the gladiators of Tyr who feasted on the flesh of those they defeated, but most folk required a more varied diet to remain healthy. If the Jectites were like most folk, they had to be getting their green foods and grain from somewhere else, possibly from a forest, if not from a field.

The human woman had mentioned mountains, which Ruari could see, and forests, which he could not. Beyond the mountains, there might be forests where the Jectites got their food, where the creatures whose

hides and skulls were fastened to Jectite houses lived free, and where trees with bark smooth enough and pale enough to serve as parchment might grow.

For the first time since they'd left Codesh, Ruari thought they might have come to the right place. He wished Pavek were with them to savor the triumph—and to negotiate with the Jectites for the guide they'd need for the next step in the journey. But Pavek wasn't here. Ruari stared at the mountains oblivious to everything else and waiting for the ache to subside.

"Kirre," the human woman said when Ruari became enraptured by an eight-legged leonine captive.

The kirre had windswept horns to protect the back of its head as well as the more usual leonine teeth, a double allotment of claws, and wicked barbs protruding from its tail. Its fur was striped with black and a coppery hue that matched Ruari's skin and hair. Similar hides were curing on the front walls. Ruari imagined the strength it took to slay such a beast, the skill it took to capture one, but mostly he imagined the feel of its fur beneath his fingers and the throaty cumble of its purr.

"They're the kings of the forest ridge," the woman elaborated. "Are you so sure you want to climb up there looking for halflings and black trees?"

Ruari forgot to answer. As a half-elf, he had one unique trait he owed to neither of his parents: an affinity for wild animals, which his druidry complemented and enhanced. At that moment, deep in the throes of his own grief, he was especially vulnerable to the mournful glare in the kirre's eyes. Had he been alone, he would have been off his bug and reaching fearlessly inside the pen to scratch the cat's forehead.

But Ruari wasn't alone, and he wrenched his attention away. When he did the kirre threw itself against the walls of its pen and made an eerie sound, neither a growl nor a roar, that raised bumps all over Ruari's skin.

The woman gave him a contemptuous glance. "Half-elves," she muttered with a shake of her head. "You and your pets. Don't even think about cozying up to this one. She's bound for the games at Tyr. Turn her loose or tame her, and we'll send you instead."

Ruari's mortification turned to anger, though there was nothing he could do for himself or the kirre who was doomed to bloody death at a Tyrian gladiator's hand—and to be eaten thereafter. The thought sickened him and hardened him. Grabbing the nearly empty packs from behind the saddle, Ruari swung down from the bug's back and led the way toward the front of the large building.

In Quraite, he kept a passel of kivits, furry and playful predators about the size of the kirre's head. He kept them hidden in his grove where few ever witnessed the half-elven affection he lavished on them. When he returned to his grove, he'd still cherish them and care for them, but as he left the keening kirre behind, Ruari vowed that he'd return to Ject some day to bond with a kirre—and set one free, if he could.

The largest building in Ject turned out to be a tavern open to the sunset sky and vast enough to seat every resident, with benches to spare.

"We're traders and brokers," the woman explained. "And you've come at a slow time. Our stocks are down. Most of our rangers are out hunting. All our runners are out making deliveries and taking orders. If you're from the cities and you want something from the forest, we can get it. If you're from the forest and you want something from the cities, we can get that, too. There's nothing we can't provide, for the right price. But for ourselves—we stay here year round, and this is all we need."

She swept an arm around. Huge casks were piled in a pyramid against one wall. Long tables and benches filled the tavern's one room.

"What about you, my copper-skinned friend? What do you need? Supplies? You're looking a mite empty."

She prodded the packs he had hanging down from his shoulder and, not accidentally, ran callused fingertips along his forearm. He'd have gotten smacked hard, on the hand and probably on the cheek, if he'd been so brazen with a Quraite woman, but when the tables were turned, Ruari was too astonished to do or say anything.

"A guide? I know my way around."

She headed for one of the tables and clearly intended that Ruari follow her. He paused before committing himself and turned back toward the open door.

Mahtra had her arm around a mul whose shoulders were so heavily muscled that his head seemed to rest on them, not his neck. The mul was twirling the long fringes of Mahtra's black gown through his thick fingers. She'd done the same thing in Farl the one night they stayed in that village, but no matter how many times Ruari told himself that Mahtra was eleganta, and that she could take care of herself better than he or Zvain, the sight made him uncomfortable.

What was it that Pavek had said to him the night Mahtra arrived, in Quraite? You're too pretty. You wouldn't survive a day on the streets of Urik. Ruari was hoping he'd survive an evening in Ject. The woman beckoning him to the empty bench opposite her had already said she'd trade anything, anywhere for the right price. She was sending the kirre to Tyr, but she'd threatened to send him in its place. Ruari wondered where else she might send him for the right price and resolved that he'd drink nothing in this place, not even the water.

"Pleasure first; trade later. What'll it be?" she asked.