Lynn Abbey - The Brazen Gambit

This second proprietor was an elf, lean and shifty as any lifelong desert nomad, and clear-headed, as the red-dressed woman had not been. His establishment was better stocked, with neat shelves full of bowls and boxes, each labeled with a picture of its contents and the symptoms those contents were purported to relieve. One smallish box bore one picture of a yawning moon and another of a crying baby with an oversized tooth. She nudged Yohan gently and made arrowlike movements with her eyes to direct his attention to the proper place. He acknowledged with a deliberate blink.

Yohan and the elven proprietor observed all the rude forms of Urikite conversation. They traded smooth insults and sly insinuations, but the result was the same: the apothecary had no Ral's Breath in stock-the box she'd noticed was, in his words 'as empty as our Lord Hamanu's tomb.' And the elf was adamantly uninterested in purchasing anything they might have to offer.

"Too much trouble," he insisted. "If you're in pain, go to a sawbones healer, or buy yourself something that works-" He gestured toward a shelf of amber bottles, each labeled with a sleeping or smiling face.

"And that doesn't attract too much attention?" Yohan inquired.

"That's always wise, isn't it? Who but a fool wants to attract attention?"

Yohan pointed at the empty Ral's Breath box. "A fool with a baby that's cutting a tooth? There'll always be mothers with babies, and always the fathers who provide them. How does a licensed apothecary meet the demand when yellow-robe scum take away his goods?"

It seemed for a heartbeat that the elf was going to give them a useful answer, then shouts erupted outside. Akashia instantly recognized the distressed voices of the Quraite fanners and feared the worst. The elf didn't know about the farmers or the loaded cart they guarded, but he came to the same conclusion.

She felt the mind-bending assault too: a burning agony that lanced her eyes and roared in her ears. It threatened to engulf every mote of knowledge and identity in her mind, but it was not the worst she'd encountered: when Grandmother taught the Unseen Way she hadn't pulled her punches. After an eyeblink of monsters from the mind-bender's nightmares, Akashia successfully wrapped herself in a fortress of peace. The attack beat harmlessly against her defenses, which, in the nature of the Unseen Way, formed an invisible sphere around her body that extended to Yohan and the apothecary, both of whom had fallen to the floor in screaming terror.

The power of an Unseen attack was such that the invading images summoned up the victim's direst memories that continued to wreak their havoc after the mind-bender had withdrawn. Akashia had thrown up her fortress before the invasion took root; she cast out the mind-bender's repulsive images one by one.

Yohan's lesser defenses had been overwhelmed. His mind radiated gore-a gathering of dwarves cut down and mutilated by mounted soldiers-until she pinched the bridge of his nose. His thoughts righted themselves quickly and he caught her hand before she could administer a similar mercy to the writhing elf.

"No time! Which way? Where's it coming from?"

She swung her mind's attention from the visible world to the Unseen one where an evil drone echoed everywhere. No matter what she did, she couldn't localize the attack, which was continuing. "I-I don't know. It's everywhere-" Then another, more horrible thought rose from her own imagination. "We're surrounded."

"We've got to try-" Yohan towed her toward the door. "Maybe they're not looking for us."

But she knew, as soon as he said the words, that the attack had been directed at them-even though it caught the apothecary and a dozen street-side passersby in its net. And the Quraite farmers, as well. They'd both collapsed beside the cart. Blood seeped from the nose, mouth, and ears of the man who'd lost his knife. Akashia touched him lightly and withdrew. His life essence had been driven out; there was nothing she could do for him.

The other farmer was still alive, but his mind remained empty after she banished the ravening beasts of his nightmares. His sense of self might come back of its own, given enough time--but there wasn't any time at all. Luckless city-dwellers lay on the ground, a few of them bleeding like the first fanner, the others wailing in their misery as the attack continued.

A ragged, half-grown boy crouched warily a short step away from one of the fallen passersby. He reached for the coin purse looped over the man's belt and suffered no ill-effects until, in trying to tug it free, his head and shoulders leaned forward. Then he collapsed with a shriek. She thought he might roll free, but in an instant the mind-bending attack had paralyzed him and he was as helpless as the others. Still she knew how to defeat the assault.

"We can get away." She grappled with the living, but mindless farmer, trying to lift him into the zarneeka cart. "The attack's a sphere that's held right here. If we can get outside it-"

Yohan pulled her away from the farmer and the cart. "No time," he snarled. "Is he still attacking?''

"He?" She listened with her mind's ears and heard the strident drone still battering futilely against her defenses.

"He. She. What difference does it make? Is it continuing?"

"Yes. The same as before. I can't tell where it's coming from. It still seems to be coming from everywhere at once." "Then it doesn't matter where we go." Yohan kept a firm left-side grip on-her wrist, to keep them together and remain within the protective sphere of the mind-bending defenses she maintained. He scanned the streets and shadows beyond the apothecary. They were empty now, except for those Urikites unfortunate enough to get caught in the attack. She guessed that even the scroungers had fled once they saw the boy collapse. She thought their chances for escape were good and tried to pull back to the cart.

"Forget them. Stay close. You're what's important," he snarled. "He's out there," the dwarf said more softly, making a slow study of the nearest rooftops. "I can feel him."

She believed him; sometimes an individual with a wild mind-bending talent could do things, discern enemies, that a trained mind could not. They moved carefully among the stricken Urikites until they crossed an unseen boundary and the drone, but not Yohan's wariness, diminished.

"Hide us," he commanded as they sneaked around one corner, then another.

But hiding in Urik was not like hiding in Quraite. There was no guardian to invoke or familiar lands in which to lose themselves. She could use the Unseen Way to trick another mind into not seeing what was right before his or her eyes. But mind-bending was all illusion and completely dependent on her ability to find the one or many who were attacking them. She tried again to trace the attack to its source, now that they were beyond its range-and encountered a defensive barrier as strong as Telhami's and darker than she'd imagined that anything could be.

Nothing she knew would pierce the mind-bender's defense or insert an illusion behind it. She wasn't even certain how far away the mind-bender was. Though if he-now that Yohan had planted the notion in her head, it seemed to Akashia that the attack had had a distinctly masculine aura-was not physically nearby, then he was that much more skilled, that much stronger.

And the mind-bender's presence didn't lessen as they walked through the market, trying not to attract attention.

"We're being followed." She said, with real fear in her heart and voice. "Watched."

They were deep in the elven market now, alongside the towering yellow walls in an area where nomadic elves hoisted their tents for the days or weeks they spent inside Urik. When the Moonracers-the only nomad tribe Akashia knew by name or sight-visited Quraite, they were courteous guests, welcomed with feasting, singing, and dancing. Here in the market, though the clothes and colors were familiar, the faces were unfriendly, even cruel.