Returning to the world with three possible paths, she investigated the next. It led to an arrival place from which nobody had continued onwards, so either the stranger had backtracked, or he’d continued on foot or by other means. A quick scan of minds told her no sorcerers were within a day’s walk. She returned to the last world and tried the third path.
This took her to the estate of a powerful, wealthy ruler. The arrival place was within a symmetrical garden. It was morning, and a fine, warm rain misted the air. Despite this, a servant stood waiting. He smiled and walked forward to greet her.
“Welcome,” he said in his native language. “The Lord invites you to visit him, if you have the time. He is a man who enjoys tales from the worlds.” A woman this time, the servant thought. Few sorcerers passed through this world. Two in two days, and yesterday’s visitor is still here. His Lordship will be delighted.
Rielle looked towards the house. Sorting through the minds of numerous servants, she learned where the visitor was, and jumped from mind to mind until she finally found the Lord. Through his eyes she saw a well-muscled man not much older than Tyen. All his features were well-balanced and perfectly aligned, giving an impression of exaggerated masculinity.
Too perfect, she mused. So probably ageless.
She sought the visitor’s mind.
A pity this place is so far from everything, the sorcerer was thinking. It’s been a while since I enjoyed such luxuries—and the woman he sent to my bed was surprisingly open to my requests. But Dahli will want to know I’ve found the lookalike …
Dahli! Rielle sucked in a breath. It was worse than she had feared. As she watched the man’s thoughts, nausea rose. Not long after she, Qall and Timane had left Lejihk’s family, Dahli had learned that they had been protecting Qall and that Rielle had left with Qall to find a place to live far from the worlds the Raen had ruled. He even had an idea which direction Rielle had gone, thanks to Lejihk mapping a path for her, which meant he could send out trackers in a wedge-shaped wave rather than out in all directions.
I should wait a few days before heading back to make sure the messenger delivered his note, the man thought. The note contained a threat to kill Lejihk’s family if Qall did not return and cooperate with Dahli’s demands. By the time I go back, the lookalike will have left, either to hurry back to stop Dahli, or to seek a new hiding place.
And Qall would want to go back, Rielle realised. She had to get back to the cottage and take him and Timane away as soon as possible, so he didn’t receive the threat. You can’t blackmail someone if you can’t communicate with them.
She would have to take them far away, this time by a more convoluted route. Once Dahli learned where they’d been hiding he would gather his hunters and set them following all paths away from it.
Unless she killed this man, to stop him returning to Dahli.
The thought paralysed her. A memory of Sa-Gest flying out over the abyss flashed through her mind, then the face of the sorcerer she’d suffocated between worlds, after he’d threatened the artisans of Valhan’s palace.
Not again, she thought. I can’t do it again. But she had to, or give Dahli a better chance of finding Qall. She took a step towards the mansion, then stopped.
But if I get Qall and Timane away before the note arrives, the messenger will tell the hunter he failed. The hunter might suspect Rielle had somehow learned of the note’s contents before the messenger arrived, but he couldn’t be sure. You can’t blackmail someone if you can’t communicate with them. Or can’t be sure you’ve communicated your threat to them.
The tracker would try to follow them. She wouldn’t be able to travel as fast as he, since she couldn’t risk stumbling into a dead or inhospitable world, but she could hide her path. She’d practised the trick Tyen had taught her, and was much better at it now.
Tyen wouldn’t kill this man. He’d never killed anyone, which was remarkable considering that he’d led the rebels and fought with them. I told Qall only this morning, that when you are strong there is no excuse for killing. If he finds out I ignored that principle, he’ll be less inclined to follow it himself.
Drawing in a deep breath, she let it out again. Turning to the servant, she made a shallow bow and thanked him for the invitation, but she had to decline. He smiled at her good manners and nodded.
Pushing out of the world, she hurried away. Qall was going to be upset that they were leaving, but then he was partly to blame for them having to. The hunter might never have found them, if he hadn’t been showing off to the girl.
Timane would accept it with her usual pragmatic cheer. And me? I never really liked this world. Not that it matters. What matters is that we settle far enough away from here that it would take Dahli’s most powerful hunters more than a cycle to reach it.
CHAPTER 8
“We’ll stop here for the night,” Rielle said. “I’ll have a look around. See if we could settle here.”
“Here?” Timane repeated, her eyebrows rising as she looked around the crowded city street.
Rielle nodded. After another eighth of a cycle travelling, she had traded most of her jewels and precious metal, and all of her jewellery. They’d exchanged small magical favours and even menial work for food and accommodation as much as possible, hoarding their savings to help establish themselves wherever they settled. “There are people here from many parts of this world and neighbouring worlds, both living in and visiting this part of the city. Among them, we will be another group of outsiders looking for work.”
The girl frowned. “But so will those who are looking for us. They’ll be harder to detect, won’t they?”
“Yes, that is true. The advantages are disadvantages, whether we stay among people or isolated from them. At least I have more options for making an income in a city.”
“And me.” Timane’s expression became grim. The girl looked at Qall, and Rielle could see she was wondering if he understood how dire their financial situation was now. He did not look her way, face hidden within the hood of his coat. Sullen silence had been his demeanour for most of the journey.
“Let’s find a place to stay,” Rielle said, and led them out of the alley and into the busy street.
The main road was lined with the elaborate façades of buildings dedicated to entertainment. Theatres, drinking establishments, smoking rooms, gambling houses and brothels stood side by side. Most were decorated to a theme, though sometimes what that entailed could only be discovered by reading the minds of the staff, or customers familiar with the establishment. Most tended towards the ribald and lewd. Rielle began to reconsider the suitability of this world for Qall. He had no experience of places like these. Would he be tempted and easily exploited by them? Would he seek distraction from his worries to the point he didn’t apply himself to lessons?
By flitting from mind to mind, Rielle was relieved to find other areas with more restrained entertainment—and one particular area where children were catered for, in which strict laws forbade establishments that offered “adult” pleasures. She headed for an area that appealed to customers with refined tastes, and was pleased to find the façades there were more beautiful and the atmosphere quieter and safer, even if a search of minds revealed that some offered the same range of services to customers as the bawdy quarter, just not as openly or cheaply.
Behind the theatres, accessed through cleverly hidden archways, were alleyways leading to accommodation for the workers of these establishments. Unfortunately, the rented rooms in the more refined area would empty Rielle’s purse too quickly, so she and her companions backtracked towards the area they’d arrived in.
Before they had gone far, however, their progress was hampered by a crowd far denser than any they’d encountered before. Qall hunched further into his coat, whereas Timane was bobbing up onto her toes to look over heads. Following the girl’s gaze, Rielle saw that the audience was centred before an elaborately carved stone façade with tiny balconies festooned with ribbons.
At fir
st, Rielle thought this might be a brothel, as young women began to emerge onto the balconies to pose and wave to the crowd, but a quick look into a few minds told her that these were singers and dancers, and the building was one of the more popular theatres of the area. The attire of the women, while designed to show a little more chest than Rielle thought decent, was far more demure than that of the local prostitutes.
They had nearly made their way past the audience when it began to quieten, enabling a voice to break through the general clamour of the street. It was sweet and high, but as people fell silent in order to listen, it deepened, gaining a thrill of richness and emotion. Timane stopped, her expression rapt as the woman on the central balcony lifted her arms with each swell of melody, her mouth opening wide as she sang the next rising note. Then the other women’s voices joined her, high and low tones blending with the first. The effect was beautiful, and sent a shiver down Rielle’s spine. She glanced at Qall to see if he was affected at all, and found him looking at Timane, enough light penetrating the hood to reveal that he was smiling.
Turning to Timane, Rielle saw the girl’s mouth moving along with the song and realised she must be reading the mind of the singer in order to anticipate each note and understand the words.
Abruptly the song ended, just as it seemed to be nearing a peak. The singer beckoned to the crowd and withdrew into the room behind the balcony. The others resumed waving and posing, as cries of good-natured protest broke from the crowd. Looking into the minds around them, Rielle read that the sudden end of the performance was designed to convince passers-by to pay for the full night’s entertainment.
I’d like to hear that, Rielle thought. “We should come back and see the show.”
Timane frowned. “It’s expensive. And I know how the story ends. That’s the bad side of reading minds in order to understand the lyrics.”
“You should try to get a job there,” Qall said.
Rielle hid her surprise. It had been hours since he’d spoken, and many days since he’d uttered more than a short reply to a question.
The girl glanced at him then blushed. “I’m not that good.”
“You sounded good to me. How will you know if you’re good enough until you try?”
Timane shook her head, but as Rielle led the way onwards she kept glancing back at the building. All of the women were gone now. Rielle sought the girl’s mind.
She was thinking back to her childhood, to days when she had slipped away to the local woods to sing because her mother assumed that having breath meant Timane’s chores weren’t hard enough. Timane had fancied herself better than most of the young women in her neighbourhood. Perhaps I will try for a job there, the girl thought. Rielle hid a smile as the young woman imagined herself in place of the lead singer, luring crowds into the theatre.
Returning to the more pressing task of finding an available room for the night, she searched minds until she found one, then led them to it.
The landlord heard their unfamiliar accents and raised the price, and would not be beaten down again, so they left and sought another. This one proved to be in much worse condition than the deluded owner believed. It was starting to grow dark when they finally settled on a place. It was a dingy single room, but it had piped water and a basin and drain. Hooks had been attached to the ceiling for curtains to divide the room into private areas. A pair of mattressless bed frames leaned up against the walls.
Qall regarded it all in silence, then moved over to the single window and sat on the sill.
Rielle and Timane exchanged a look, then set to work, heating the metal bed frames with magic to kill the bugs, scouring the basin, unblocking the pipe when it refused to drain freely and washing and drying the bedding strapped to their packs. Qall’s they placed on one bed; theirs they laid out on the other. When they had done all they could do, Rielle sat on a bed and searched minds in the hope of learning where the best cheap food could be bought, what kind of employment was on offer and any other information that might make settling in here easier.
The world was known as Amelya, and the city was called Deeme. The theatre district was what the city was famous for, but the world also had larger, more important cities.
As evening approached, Rielle grew aware of Timane’s growing hunger. She told the girl where she could find decent fare and gave her the last of the coin she’d exchanged for a gemstone when they’d first arrived.
“He’ll try to charge you more if you seem new to the area. It doesn’t look like you’ll be in any danger otherwise.”
“Did you see anything else?” Timane asked.
“One of the local theatres needs a better props and backdrop painter. I’ll look into that tomorrow.”
“Anyone need a cleaner?”
Rielle shook her head. “Nobody nearby. Menial jobs are easy to fill here. Plenty of young people are drawn to this city hoping to make their fortune, but find it much harder than they expect.”
“What about sorcerers?” Qall asked.
Rielle turned to the window. “A few come to see the shows,” she told him. “None of great strength are living here, as far as I’ve seen.”
Qall shook his head, tugging his hood back up when the movement threatened to dislodge it. “I meant jobs for sorcerers.”
She considered how to respond. “You don’t have to work,” she told him. “But if you want to … you might need to be more flexible. I doubt there are many jobs that require magic, but there is no harm in looking.”
He was silent for a long moment, then suddenly spoke again. “There are,” he told her. “In the theatres. They create light and noise and … effects that go with the production.”
She examined the shape of him, darkened by the light of the grimy window behind him. So he had been carrying out his own search of the local minds. Did he fancy living here? Had the prospect of not travelling any further lightened his spirits? Perhaps now was the time to raise some sensitive subjects.
“I’m sorry we had to leave,” she told him again.
He shrugged.
“Had you and Omity—?”
“No, I didn’t lie with her,” he snapped, then turned back to the window.
Rielle smothered a laugh. “That’s not what I was going to ask. Did you and Omity have feelings for each other?”
His shoulders rose and fell. “No,” he said, so softly he was barely audible.
It was a lie, she knew, at least as far as Omity was concerned.
“So you were never in love?”
He stiffened. Intrigued, she considered whether he had lied about himself, or whether something else had upset him. What did I ask exactly? Whether he had ever been in love. Perhaps he has been, just not with Omity. She thought back to the Travellers, and a memory of a girl handing Qall an object surfaced.
“Was there someone among the Travellers you had feelings for?” she asked.
His head bowed, but he did not answer. She waited in the hope that if she left him enough space and time, he would offer up an explanation, but he did not speak or stir. Giving up, she sent her mind sweeping through those of the locals again, but soon wound up regarding Qall.
He had been withdrawn throughout the whole journey. She’d set a gruelling pace though. Perhaps he would brighten up when his training resumed.
Muffled footsteps drew near; then the door opened and Timane, and a delicious smell, entered the room. Pushing away from the window, Qall moved to the other bed. Timane handed out the parcels, then perched next to Rielle.
“That theatre tests new singers every ten days,” Qall said. “The next is in three days. You should try.”
Timane blushed. “I … ah … don’t even know the language.”
“It won’t take long to learn it.”
She glanced at Rielle. “But …”
“I see no harm in you trying,” Rielle said.
A small smile pulled at the corner of Timane’s lips. “Then I will.”
Qall looked at Rielle. “There’s a
nother theatre near here in need of a better artist. It’s not as popular as the one Timane’s going to work for, but you can always look for a better place later.”
Rielle realised her mouth was hanging open, and closed it. She nodded. “Thanks, Qall. I’ll look into it tomorrow.”
He nodded and turned his attention to the contents of the parcels—thick, sweet pastry surrounding a chunky mix of meat and vegetables. It was as good as the locals regarded it, and Rielle gave a little sigh of appreciation. Sometimes the simplest meals were the best.
She considered the difficulties they would encounter here. The lack of valuable possessions to trade was a worry. She couldn’t train Qall here, so she would have to find another place. Otherwise this city looked very promising. She still needed to investigate the surrounding worlds though.
As she finished the last of the parcel, she stood up. Qall shifted to face her.
“You’re going to scout the area,” he guessed. “Can I come with you?”
She shook her head. “I will travel faster alone. Take the opportunity to rest and learn more about this world. If you have to flee, burn a message into the floor, and when you have found a safer location, send someone with a message written in Muraian to mix with the audience outside the theatre we stopped by before.”
Timane nodded. Qall said nothing.
“I’ll be back in a few hours.” Leaving the room, Rielle made her way down to the city streets and walked for several blocks before finding a quiet corner from which to push into the place between. She travelled around Amelya first, visiting several cities and noting arrival places and the amount of traffic they received. Stopping to read the minds of sorcerers entering and leaving to find out about the neighbouring worlds, she learned that Amelyn was at peace with the closest, unified by trade.
She did not want to be gone too long, so after absorbing information for a few of the local hours she pushed out of the world and started visiting the ones closest to it. What she observed confirmed the information she’d gleaned from the sorcerers: no major conflicts or disputes plagued the local worlds. Five were part of a loose alliance. All traced their people’s origins to a world that had been destroyed a few thousands of years before, so they were unified by this mutual tie despite being of greatly varied physique and appearance. Being the descendants of immigrants, most embraced visitors and migrants from other worlds.