Old friends are best.
—John Selden
Walter Slovotsky smiled genially at the old soldier. "So you think he was just passing through?"
The old man nodded. "That's what he said, yesterday. Did seem to be in a rush. What's your interest? You around when them Home snobs rejected him?"
Whatever the old man meant didn't matter, and he seemed to be expecting agreement; Slovotsky nodded, and thumb-flicked him the copper coin that had been enough to attract the soldier's interest but not so much as to excite suspicions.
"Just curious." Slovotsky shrugged. "I knew him when he was younger; thought I might offer him some work."
"If I see him, who should I say is looking for him?"
"Warrel," he said, picking the common Erendra name that was closest to his own, his usual phony name. "Warrel ip Therranj."
As the old soldier knowingly nudged his partner, Slovotsky kicked his horse into a slow walk. Maybe the others were having better luck. Or worse.
At least he had some information. That was something.
* * *
Wehnest was much the way he remembered it: a scattering of buildings and streets randomly radiating from the walled castle at the center; a crude painting by an incompetent artist, colored only in brown and gray.
It was a market day, though, and the markets were busy, although not as busy as he remembered them. Perhaps because the main trading and feed grains were not ready for harvest, he could spot only two or three traders.
Still, there was a brisk business in horseflesh; it seemed that another cattle drive for Pandathaway was in the works.
Could Jason have signed up for something like that? Surely the boy wouldn't be so stupid.
There was one thing that made Walter smile, although he carefully kept the smile inside: Over in the markets, the slave pens that once had overflowed with enslaved humanity were empty. There was still slave owning and slave trading in Wehnest, but it was a much smaller affair than it had been, and prices had gone through the ceiling.
The rest of the merchants didn't seem to be suffering, though. Ahead, in front of a half-sunken storefront, a meatseller had half a dozen fist-sized hunks of delightful-smelling mutton turning on a spit over a carefully sized fire.
Suckered me in, Slovotsky thought, dismounting and holding up a Pandathaway half-copper and pointing with three fingers to three of the servings.
The seller held up a single finger; Slovotsky started to return his coin to his purse, allowing the merchant to stop him by holding up a two-finger V. Slovotsky nodded and smiled, flipping the coin into the air, drawing a knife, and hacking off the two biggest chunks from the spit before the merchant could catch it.
When the merchant opened his mouth to protest, Slovotsky carefully set an irritated expression on his face, sticking one of the pieces of meat on the tip of his knife and offering it back to the man, allowing just the trace of flare of his nostrils.
The merchant thought about it for a moment, decided that it wasn't worth the trouble, and planted a professional grin on his own face, waving Slovotsky along.
Not bad at all, Walter Slovotsky thought, wolfing down the first piece, taking his time with the second.
"Nicely done," floated across the noisy crowd to his ears. "I think I taught you part of that."
He turned to look at the stall across the way; it was marked with the sign of the Healing Hand—
—and the voice had been in English.
Doria. He snatched at his horse's reins and headed for the stall, pausing for only a moment to tie the reins to a hitching post.
Some people age poorly, some gracefully. Doria hadn't aged at all; almost two decades had swirled around her, leaving her untouched. Beneath her white robes, her body was unbent by the years; as she laid a hand on his shoulder, her sleeve fell away, revealing a firm young arm.
He swept her up in his arms for too short a moment, and then pushed her slightly away.
"God, Doria, you look good."
Her face had long lost any look of childhood, but time had etched no lines, the weight of years had created no sag. She could, perhaps, have been as young as twenty, except for the eyes.
The eyes. They bothered him. It wasn't just that her irises were yellow; it was that they seemed to see too much.
Doria gripped his shoulder with a surprising strength. "It's good to see you, too." She led him through the stall and into the coolness of the small, dark room beyond.
There was another Hand cleric inside, a sharp-eyed little woman whom Walter instantly and instinctively disliked. She turned and left without a word.
Doria waved Walter to a seat. "You seemed surprised to see me."
Words failed him. "I didn't think they'd ever let you leave. Or . . ."
She smiled gently. "Or what? Or you'd have come to take me away from all that?" The smile widened as her hand gripped his. "Even if I'd gone with you, what would your wife have said? It's okay, Walter. I've been well. And fulfilled." The corners of her mouth turned up. "As I see you have been," she said, her smile turning it into a double entendre.
"Yeah. Just last night."
"Careful." She waved a finger. "But you are irrepressible, you know."
"It's one of my many charms."
Her face fell; she cocked her head as though listening to a distant voice. "Walter, we will have to make this short; a rancher has hired me as a healer, to accompany a cattle drive to Pandathaway."
"Pandathaway?" They were probably all still wanted there.
She dismissed his concern with a wave. "I'm of the Hand, Walter. There's no danger, although I must leave soon—" Distress clouded her face, and her fingers flew to his temple. Her fingertips rested gently in his hair, unmoving, while an almost electric charge seemed to emanate from them.
"Karl's son!"
"Yes, I—"
"Shh." She closed her eyes momentarily, then reopened them. "This way was faster."
She was silent for a long minute, her eyes focused on some far-distant point. "I see."
This new competence was going to take some getting used to, Walter decided.
Then he decided to get used to it now, and save himself the trouble of having to do it later.
"Can you do anything?"
She shook her head. "None of the Hand will, Walter. I doubt if I could, even if it was permitted; it would take skills greater than mine to pierce the spell around Jason's amulet. The Mother could, if she would. . . ."
"But she won't."
"Can't. None of the Hand can help you. Believe me. There's a geas on all of us." She bit her lip, momentarily bringing up her hand, touching a fingernail to her nose in a gesture he remembered from long ago. "It's just because I'm only mainly Doria of the Healing Hand that I can help you—"
"Doria, I—"
She held up a hand. "Please, old friend. I can only do a little. Please. Ahira is still much more James Michael Finnegan than I am Doria Perlstein."
"There's nothing you can do?"
She licked her lips once, twice, then shook her head. "If I broke the geas, perhaps—if I could. But that would leave me with the spells in my head, at best. No—" She shuddered all over.
Again, he put his arms around her and held her close. This time, he didn't let go quickly.
"I missed you," he whispered. Until now, he hadn't realized how very much he missed her.
They had been lovers, long ago. No, that was putting it too solemnly: They had enjoyed each other, in and out of bed; Walter thoroughly, Doria in the limited way that was all she allowed herself.
But that was long ago.
Now, as he held her, there was a warmth, but no passion.
Warmth would be enough.
Snaking her arms around him, she laid her head on his chest. "There is only one thing I can do. . . ."
"Yes?"
"I can wish you well." She looked up at him, her face wet. "It's not much. . . ."
Walter had always been kind to Doria; one of the things he had always liked about her was that behind the mask she showed to the world, she was so fragile that he had to treat her gently.
"It's plenty, Doria." He pressed his lips to her hair. "It's more than enough."
Nodding, she pushed him away. "But you have to go. If you can find him between here and your rendezvous with Ellegon and Tennetty, this all can still be saved. If not . . ."
It was as though a curtain descended over her face; suddenly there was no expression in Doria's face.
No, that wasn't true, on both counts: It wasn't Doria's face, not anymore; and there was an expression, but it was a distant, icy one, no trace of humanity in the chiseled cheekbones, in the thin lips, in the camera-eyes.
"Doria?" He reached for her, but her hands blocked him easily.
"Walter Slovotsky," she said in a voice that he had never wanted to hear again, "you must go now. There is nothing you can do for your friend here."
It was the airy but powerful voice of the Matriarch of the Healing Hand, only barely diminished in strength as it issued from Doria's lips.
"You must go now," she repeated.
"But—"
"Now."
For just a moment, Doria peered out through the fleshy mask. "Please, Walter, go."
And then she was gone, as the Matriarch reclaimed her. "Go. Or need I compel you?"
A snarl forced itself to his lips. But he didn't do anything. There was nothing he could do.
"I'll leave," he said, addressing his friend, ignoring the Matriarch, who had appropriated her body. "Doria, be well." He touched his fingers to his lips and then brought them to hers. "Farewell, old friend," he said. "Until we meet again. And we will meet again."
He turned and left, without a glance back.
* * *
At sunset, he met the others at the filthy inn where they had taken a small room for the night. The walls and floor were covered with roaches, and he could hear the skittering of rats in the walls. They could have afforded better accommodations—an inn that charged enough so that the owner could afford hiring a Spidersect cleric to use a death spell on the vermin but conspicuous consumption would not have been in accord with their cover as merchants.
He was the last one to make it to their room. Ahira was stretched out on his bedding, his eyes half closed, while Aeia and Bren Adahan were going over a map of the town that they had scratched into the dirt floor.
"Hi, all," Walter Slovotsky said, pleased to note that his voice came out more casual than he felt. "Any luck?"
Aeia shook her head. "No. And we've covered the whole town, as far as I can tell. How about you?"
Ahira had caught something in his voice. "What is it? Jason?"
Walter shook his head. "No sign. But I did see Doria."
The dwarf hid his surprise well. "How is she?" he asked, perhaps a little too casually.
"Okay." Walter shrugged. "She doesn't seem to be hurting. And I don't think any of us ought to go back and see her—it seems she's been reassigned, and . . . we'll talk about it later." It didn't seem right to discuss Doria in front of these kids; this was a matter for the original group, and maybe not even all of them.
Ahira nodded. "Agreed. You didn't find any sign of him?"
"I found the guard he talked to on his way into town. From what he said, my best guess is that Jason's left." Slovotsky shrugged. "I move we hit the Aeryk road in the morning. If he's gone that way, we can probably catch him before we rendezvous with Ellegon."
"I agree if we don't take the Aeryk road," Bren Adahan said, "we have to pass up the rendezvous. It doesn't make sense to me to do that without good reason."
"Aeia?"
"I don't know." She shrugged her shoulders. Despite everything, Walter noticed and enjoyed how the motion was echoed under her shirt. Not that he was going to do anything but look tonight. Forgetting for the moment about the Adahan problem, a vermin-infested room didn't leave a lot of opportunity for romance.
"Walter and Bren make sense, but . . ." She shook her head. "I just don't know."
Slovotsky turned to Ahira. "It's up to you."
"I want your best guess."
The main trading road was the Aeryk road, but there were dozens of other, smaller byways Jason could have taken. Hell, he could have gone north, or even be holed up, hiding in Wehnest, or heading off across the Waste toward the Hand tabernacle.
"Spending another day in Wehnest and trying to dig up some more info might work, too." He shrugged. "Could be he talked to somebody."
Bren Adahan shook his head. "That doesn't make any sense—"
"Shut up," Slovotsky said. "It's not your call."
They couldn't take all the possible paths. The dwarf's desire to go see Doria might as well have been carved into his forehead; the obvious decision was to stay around for another day, just one more day, and then try to double-time toward the rendezvous.
But Ahira just pursed his lips. "We leave for Aeryk first thing in the morning. Now get some sleep. All of you." He looked knowingly at Walter, as though to say, You don't know me as well as you think you do.
The others probably didn't understand when Walter answered back, "Yes, I do, Jimmy."