The Far Side Of Forever Part 7

me, we don't want to get separated in the crowds. The wizard gave me enough gold to feed us on a regular basis, so let's start using some of it."

"So let's start using some of it," 1 mimicked softly at their retreating backs, watching them all heading toward the road and the fair excitement beyond. "Lectures can wait until later. Stay as close to me as possible." He wasn't the expedition leader he was the Daddy, and even Kadrim was old enough to get along without that. When I took over, we'd all be even better off than I'd thought.

I trailed along after them into the eager, jostling crowds, but after a minute or two made no effort to keep up. When I wanted to find them I'd have no trouble doing it, and they certainly couldn't ride off and leave me. The sun was high and hot enough to be uncomfortable, the crowds were thick enough and close enough to compound that, and despite the strength I'd gathered to me with a revitalizing spell, I could still feel a shadow of tiredness; none of that made any difference, however, in the face of the holiday feeling I was catching from everyone around me. It had to be more than two years since I'd last been to a fair, and I'd loved them even when I was little and couldn't afford to buy anything. Everyone was always so happy there, and it felt as if all the people in the world were gathered in that one place to have fun.

The rush of the crowd carried me with it for a little way, and then people began moving off in different directions, men pointing things out to the women with them, kids tugging at their parents in an effort to make them hurry, women entranced by the sight of things they'd love to have and towing chuckling men behind by the hand. Food smells competed with one another in the heavy air, and hawkers shouted at the crowds to get mem over to the booths and buying. Clowns ran in and out of the thinner crowds, fighting with one another and making people laugh, urging them to come to their show later and then skipping off. I was doing no more than strolling around, drinking it all in, and then I saw one exhibition that drew me to it.

Outside a big black tent with silver stars and moons on it stood a tall man with a black beard, wearing a long, wide-sleeved dark blue robe and a tall, pointed hat, both

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decorated like the tent. The man was holding a wand and talking to the people who had paused in front of his tent, watching them as they watched the three-legged brazier standing to his right. A thick bed of coats glowed red in the brazier, and just above me coals lazed a wide flame with two very black eyes. The eyes looked up at the people staring down at them, and when they s.h.i.+fted from one face to the next, people gasped.

"Don't understand what that's supposed to be," a quiet voice said from beside me, surprising me into looking around. Targa Emmen Su Daylath stood at my right elbow a short distance back from the people in front of the tent, her eyes on the brazier and the flame, her arms folded across her chest. None of the others seemed to be with her, and then it came to me that she'd asked a question.

"That's a salamander," 1 supplied, studying her as she studied the two black eyes. "The magician is telling the crowd that his arts captured it and keep it in forced service to him, but that's just a come-on to get them into the tent and pay to see the rest of the show. The salamander isn't bound, it's just here visiting and seeing the sights. When it gets bored it will simply move on, and he'll have to find another one to make a deal w^h. They're not master and slave, they're business partners." .

"Thought the thing might need freeing," she said, bring- ing her attention away from the attraction and back to me.

"Don't know more about magic than that it is, and don't really want to know. Shouldn't have wandered away from us in a place like this, too easy to get lost. Rik said we should stay together.' *

"I'm sure Rik says a lot of things," I commented, bringing a flash of amus.e.m.e.nt to her calm, dark brown eyes. "If you're so worried about what Daddy will think, what are you doing away from the nest? I can always use magic to find them, but you can't."

"Wizard said my tracking ability is some kind of magic,"

she informed me, the words as easy and unimpressive as the rest of what she'd said had been. "He fixed it so I could see any trail 1 want to see, and if I can see it I can follow it. That's how I'm following our trail."

"So if you want to go back, you'll just follow your own

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trail to where you left them. then theirs to wherever they went," 1 acknowledged with a nod, still looking up at her.

"That says how you'll get back, but not why you came away in the first place."

"When there's a group, don't like seeing one all alone out of it," she said, a faint smite appearing to add to the calm. "In the tribe, we don't let it happen. You don't like Rik, but he's got the gold and you have to be as hungry as lam."

I studied her in silence for a moment, her big body more man half a head taller than mine and proportionately wider, her long, light brown hair supported in a high tail by its bone holder, the yellow leather and swordbelt she wore doing more to add to her air of competence than detract from it. She seemed to really enjoy going barefoot, so she simply did it. Just the way she seemed prepared to do anything else she felt needed doing. Straight out with no excuses.

"No, I don't like Rik," I said after me moment, giving her the sort of smile she was giving me. "But he's not the only one with coins in his hand, so there's no reason to go back right away. Let's get something to eat first."

I hadn't needed to use a word, only a gesture, which meant that she blinked in surprise when I opened my hand to show the silver. Gold is fine for inns and cities, but at country fairs silver does better. Less change to get when you buy something, and less of a stir when you produce it.

There was a food stall not far from the magician's tent, so we headed for it.

"Your tribe must be a really good place to live,1* I remarked as we walked, privately hoping that the lines at the food stall would move quickly. "If everyone's as friendly as you say, you must miss it quite a lot."

"Would miss it more if my man was still alive," she answered, also eying me lines we were nearing. "He was me one who made me feel a part of it all, without him I don't much care. Hunted for the tribe because they were good people, because they needed all the hunters they could get, but my being gone won't make much differ- ence. A thousand hunters won't keep them alive in those

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empty lands they ran to, and they're too afraid to go back to where the game is."

"Why?" I asked with a frown, stopping behind the crowd of food buyers to look up at her. "Why should they go to a place to starve, and what happened to your man?"

"Died in the fight with the Wolf tribe," she said, her shrug putting the whole thing beyond anyone's ability to change. "Wolf tribe wanted everybody else's land, so they started a war. We were the third they fought with, and we didn't do any better than the rest. Our men died where they stood, and the rest of the tribe ran till they got to the empty land. Nothing left but women and kids and old ones, nothing that could face me Wolf tribe. If they went back the Wolves would take the women and kids and kill off the old, and they don't want that. Without men to fight for them, they have no choice- Wanted to go with my man to stand against me Wolves, but he said no. Didn't want me dead, he said. Dead wouldn't have been as bad as he thought."

Her dark eyes were still calm as she merely stated facts, but / could feel the hurt she wasn't showing. People still enjoyed themselves all around us, but a little of the warm brightness was gone from the^day. I looked down at the piece of silver in my hand, then back up to the big hunter.

"After this quest is over, maybe you'd care to join me on another trip," I suggested, weighing the coin in my hand. "I think I'd like to meet that Wolf tribe."

"Won't like meeting you," was all she said, but the grin she suddenly showed was full of antic.i.p.ation, not to mention the first of its kind to be seen on her. The big woman didn't seem to be the sort to grin much, and I could understand that. Apparently I'd found something she could grin at, which I could understand even better. No, the Wolf tribe would definitely not enjoy meeting me.

The lines in front of us finally thinned enough for us to reach the stall, and the wait turned out to be worth it. The stall people were selling meat pies, vegetable pies and fruit pies, all of them composed of the lightest, most delicious crust I'd ever tasted. AH the fillings were just as special, and I was glad I'd bought one of each for each of us. We stood at the side of me stall eating the delights one after

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the other, trying not to burn our mouths but making no effort to wait until they cooled, and it didn't take long to realize what we were missing. I licked up the last of the crumbs on my hand, then glanced over at my companion.

"After that, Targa Emma Su Daylath, we need some- thing cold and wet," I announced, already beginning to look around at the other stalls and tents. "If you'U tell me what you'd like, we'll go and find it."

"Always been partial to ale," she answered, brus.h.i.+ng her hands together to get rid of her own crumbs. "Pa.s.sed an ale tent on my way here, should be in that direction.

And you can call me Su. My man was Targa Emmen Vad Areth, Vad and Su the hunters, for the Hawk tribe."

"Su, then," I said with a nod and a smile. "I'm Laciel, and ale it is in that direction."

We left the stall and headed toward where me ale tent would be, happily filled and looking forward to quenching our thrist before rejoining me others. People moved every- where and in every direction, making us thread our way through them until we reached a reasonably uncrowded alley between two lines of tents and stalls. With gambling going on inside some of the tents and dancers putting on their shows in others, most of the foot traffic was already under canvas. Su and I, able to breathe again, strolled up me alley looking at what could be seen of the doings in the tents, and were surprised when three men suddenly materialized in front of us. They wore old and dirty leather- high, scuffed boots, plain, worn swordbelts-and two of them had beards. The two with beards were straight-faced, but the shaven one was grinning.

"You girls looking for a good time?" he asked, letting his eyes move back and forth between Su and myself, his book-end friends standing slightly behind him. "You just come along with us, and we'll show you the best time you ever had."

"We're not looking for anything you could help us with," I told him coldly, letting him see I wasn't joking.

"Just get out of our way and find someone else to show a good time to."

"Now, that's not being very friendly," the beardless man complained, his dark eyes finally settling for me, his

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grin undisturbed. "You're the only one at this whole fair who interests me, and 1 won't take no for an answer."

He moved one step toward me, raising his hand to take my arm, but before he could touch me or the step was completed, he was stopped by a big hand in the middle of his chest. The man was barely an inch taller than me, which made it necessary for him to look up at Su, the one whose hand had stopped him.

"Wouldn't do that if I were you," she said in her calm, easy voice, unimpressed by the way the man's grin faded to a scowl. "Better find somebody else, the way she said."

"And I said I didn't want anybody else," he contradicted with a matching evenness, then without warning dropped a wide shoulder to knock Su away from me. The next instant he and his friends were close and grabbing for me, and that got me almost as angry as what he'd done to Su. 1 snapped out a word of power meant to drop them in their tracks-then felt my jaw drop when they did no more man s.h.i.+ver before closing in to grab me. They were under the protection of some sort of warding spell, which probably meant they did that kind of thing on a regular basis. I could have countered their warding spell if I'd known its details, but I didn't know and didn't have the time to find out. They all had their hands or a.n.u.s on me, and despite me way I was kicking and struggling, they were beginning to force me back up me alleyway.

And then a sound came that no one could miss, the sound of a sword being freed of its scabbard. The beard- less man and one of his helpers whirled away from me as they drew their own weapons, paying no attention to the small clumps of people who had appeared from some- where to stare and point and ask each other what was going on. The only one they looked at was Su, her sword in her fist as she stood waiting for them. The third one still had his left arm around my waist and his right hand clamped to my right arm, my kicking doing nothing more than making him curse. I twisted in his grip but couldn't get loose-and then the other two had closed with Su:

The sound of metal on metal turned me more desperate man I had been, especially when I saw that Su was good enough with a sword to hold her own against the two men