David Coe: The Horsemen's Gambit

"No, don't!" Besh called to him, realizing just in time what it was the man was holding.

Jasha hesitated, looking first at the Mettai and then at the scrap of basket he still held. "Shouldn't I destroy it?"

"It might help us to have it," Besh said. "It's the only piece of Lici's spell that remains."

The young merchant turned to Grinsa. "What do you think?"

"I'd like to see it destroyed," the Forelander said, "but Besh is right. If he thinks it can help, we should keep it."

Jasha stared down at the thing he held and after a moment closed his fist around it. When he walked over to where Besh and the others were waiting, he kept a good distance between himself and Grinsa.

"We have a chance now to get away," Torgan said quietly as they walked. "The Forelander will be busy with Q'Daer. Neither of them will be watching us."

Besh opened his mouth, intending to tell the man to be silent, but to his surprise, Sirj beat him to it.

"One more word out of you, Torgan," Sirj said, sounding more menacing than Besh had ever heard him, "and I swear I'll cut your throat."

"I wouldn't expect you to understand," the merchant said. "Somehow the white-hairs trust you both, despite the fact that this is a Mettai curse that's killing their kind. Magic may he the only thing that matters to any of you, but Jasha and I-"

The blow came so swiftly that at first Besh didn't even understand what had happened. One moment Torgan was walking beside them, and the next he was on his back, his hands raised to his face, blood running over his fingers. Sirj stood over him, both of his fists clenched.

"Say something else," the young Mettai said. "Give me another reason to hit you."

Torgan made no move to get up. Instead he pulled his hands away from his face and stared at the blood covering them. "Look what you did to me!" he said, his voice sounding so thick that Besh wondered if Sirj had broken his nose. "You Mettai bastard!"

Sirj pulled his knife from his belt.

"Sirj, no!" Besh said.

"After all he's done, he deserves to die!"

Besh nodded. "Yes, he probably does. But that's for the Qirsi to decide. If you kill him, you'll have to live with that for the rest of your life."

"I could live with killing this man."

Besh had no doubt that he meant it. But after a moment Sirj resheathed his blade. Then he leaned over and hauled the merchant to his feet.

"Next time I will kill you," he said looking Torgan in his good eye. "Even Besh won't be able to stop me."

"Next time I won't try to stop him," Besh said.

Torgan glared at him. Sirj grinned darkly.

They started walking again, but had only taken a few steps when they heard someone cry out behind them.

Besh and Sirj shared a look.

"Was that the Forelander?" Sirj asked.

Before Besh could answer he heard someone coughing. No. Retching. Besh closed his eyes, the memory coming to him at a last. It was the n'qlae. That's whose voice he had been hearing in his mind, the words unclear, the warning wasted.

My husband believed that the disease struck at our magic.

Of course. That was how the plague had spread. That was why the children had been spared. That was Lici's genius.

"Yes," Besh said, turning and breaking into a run. "That was Grinsa."

He'd been prepared for Q'Daer to fight him. They had been rivals since the day they met, and though at times it seemed that they had reached some sort of understanding, their interactions remained difficult, to say the least. Healing a fever required that he enter the man's mind, and that demanded a level of trust that he and Q'Daer had never reached. He'd also thought it possible that the illness might rob the young Weaver of his senses, so that even had he wanted to be healed he would be unable to recognize Grinsa's touch or understand that the gleaner was trying to help him. He'd even prepared himself for the possibility that it was already too late, that even if Q'Daer allowed him into his thoughts, the disease had already progressed too far to be defeated.

But it never occurred to Grinsa that this would happen. It should have, of course. He knew that the plague attacked Qirsi magic; one needed only see the wreckage that once had been S'Vralna to understand that much. Who would have imagined, though, that Lici's curse could be so insidious?

He had called out to Q'Daer before beginning.

"I'm going to try to heal you," he said, sitting on the ground several fourspans from the Fal'Borna and the fire that burned beside him. "I'm going to try to cool your fever. Perhaps I can even stop the illness from getting any worse."

The young Weaver hadn't responded.

"Q'Daer? Can you hear me?"

Nothing.

He knew the Fal'Borna couldn't be dead. Not yet. Not until his magic poured from his body, and with it his life. There seemed nothing left for him to do but make the attempt.

Closing his eyes, Grinsa reached forth with his healing magic and touched Q'Daer's mind.

He knew instantly that he had made a terrible mistake. Entering the young Weaver's mind was like stepping into fire. Abruptly it seemed that his flesh was burning. Grinsa opened his mouth to scream and he felt his lungs being seared by the flames. Q'Daer stood before him amid the blaze, his skin red and shining with sweat, but not blackened as it should have been, as Grinsa felt certain his own must be.

"You shouldn't be here," the Fal'Borna said.

"I was trying to heal you."

"I can't be healed. And now you've killed yourself."

"Not yet I haven't. We can heal each other. We can pit our magic against the curse."

But Q'Daer shook his head, looking like a ghoul standing amid Bian's fires. "Don't you think I've tried," he said. "I'm a Weaver, too, remember? Our magic does nothing against this plague."

Grinsa refused to give in. He turned his healing magic onto himself, trying to grapple with the fever that already gripped his mind. He had healed others who were ill, fevered, near death. He knew how to quell the flames that might ravage a febrile mind.

But nothing he tried worked against this pestilence. It wasn't that Lici's magic was stronger than his own. It didn't resist him, it didn't overpower him. It simply eluded him. Every time he reached out with his power to take hold of the illness, it seemed to slither from his grasp, like some demon serpent from the Underrealm. He tried to pour healing magic over his entire mind, his entire body, as if dousing a fire with a torrent of water. But the serpent wrapped itself around him, withstanding the deluge. When he had exhausted himself, the beast was still there. The flames still raged around him.

"You see?" Q'Daer said. "We're helpless against this plague. The Mettai witch knew what she was doing. She did what all the Eandi armies of the last thousand years couldn't do. She defeated the Fal'Borna. And now more of her kind march with a new dark-eye force. Our people are doomed."

"Not yet," Grinsa said again. But despair lay heavy on his heart. He thought of Cresenne and Bryntelle and felt that he might weep. How could he have failed them this way? He couldn't even reach for his beloved to apologize, to say good-bye, for surely that touch of his magic upon her mind would sicken her, too.

"There's nothing more you can do here, Forelander," Q'Daer said. "Leave me. Let me die in peace."

He wanted to refuse, but he hadn't the will. Not anymore. He merely nodded.

"Die well, Grinsa. We'll see each other in the Deceiver's realm. May he be kind to both of us."

Grinsa briefly met the man's gaze. He said nothing, feeling that to wish Q'Daer a noble death was to surrender, which he still refused to do. He withdrew from the man's mind.

As soon as he was free of the Fal'Borna's thoughts, Grinsa felt his stomach heave. He opened his eyes, twisted himself onto his hands and knees, and emptied the contents of his stomach onto the grass. By the time he had finished being sick, he could hear Besh calling his name. He looked up and saw the two Mettai running toward him.