the silence. “There’s been trouble.”
“I suspected it.” Tenquis’s voice was flat. His fleshy tail snaked slowly back and forth through the air. “I really was tempted to leave you in the street, but since I’d guess this has something to do with the false rod, whatever happened to you puts me in danger, too.” He cocked his head and his gold-flecked black horns flashed in the light of the lanterns that lit the barn. “Lhesh Tariic discovered the deception.”
“Good guess,” said Geth.
“I wish it wasn’t. Given that you came on the night of his coronation, it seemed obvious, though.”
“Wait.” The tiefling’s words settled into his head like leaves drifting to the ground. “On the night of Tariic’s coronation? How long have I been here?”
“Three nights.”
“Three?” He sat up again, threw his legs over the side of the bed, and stood-almost. Tenquis darted in and grabbed him before his legs folded completely.
“Give yourself a moment,” he advised.
Geth nodded numbly. He wore only his smallclothes. Tenquis dragged a sheet off the bed and draped it around him, then helped him out into his workshop in the main room of the barn.
The bright light of noon shone around the edges of the shuttered windows. “Tiger, Wolf, and Rat,” Geth muttered. He looked at Tenquis. “I need to go.”
“Easy.” Tenquis guided him to a table and pulled out a straight-backed chair so he could sit. Geth grabbed the back of the chair and hung on. Tenquis shrugged and let go. He left him holding onto the chair, fetched a broom, and began to clean up a mess of broken glass and thin, smoking liquid.
Across the workshop, Geth’s clothes lay on another table together with Wrath and his great gauntlet. Geth shook out his legs, took a deep breath, and walked-wobbling only slightly-to the other table. Tenquis paused in his sweeping to watch him. “In a hurry?”
“I’ve been in a bed for three days. I need to get out. I need to find out what’s been happening.” Geth held onto the edge of the other table and let his breath catch up with him.
“As far as I can tell,” Tenquis said, “not much.”
Geth stared at him. “What do you mean ‘as far as you can tell?’ And what do you mean ‘not much?’”
Tenquis ignored him, tipping a bucket on its side, sweeping the glass and smoking liquid into it, then shaking sand from a second bucket over the remaining liquid. When he’d finally finished, he looked up at Geth and flashed sharp white teeth in a sly grin.
“Did you think I was sitting by your bedside? I may make good guesses, but there’s only so much I can glean from someone who’s unconscious. And I’m not the kind of person who waits for trouble to come creeping up on him. While you were sleeping, I went out to see what kind of danger I was in.”
He set the broom aside and moved around the workshop, gathering things-a basin, a brush, hot water from a small iron stove-as he spoke.
“That first night, there were guards from Khaar Mbar’ost looking for a shifter in parts of the city, though not around here and not for long. By dawn, there was no more search. Tariic’s been putting himself on display to the people for the last two days. He’s getting them ready for war with the Valenar-not that dar need much encouragement. I want to see one of his speeches so I could get a look at him, and I noticed two interesting things. The first was that whatever he might know about it, he was still using the false rod. I recognize my own magic.” He stopped in front of Geth, basin held in his arms. “The second thing is you shouldn’t be here because for all appearances, you were there, standing with Tariic.”
Geth’s lips peeled back from his teeth. “How-?”
“A changeling? An illusion disguising someone else?” Tenquis shrugged again. “How it’s been done doesn’t matter so much as that it’s been done at all. Someone, whether it’s Tariic or someone else, is trying to cover up the fact that you’re missing. And given that neither you nor Tariic has the true Rod of Kings right now, I’m going to guess that someone else has it. Am I right?”
Geth blinked, then nodded slowly.
“Boiled down, yes.” He looked at Tenquis for a long moment and the tiefling looked back. Questions raced through Geth’s head. What had happened to Ashi and Midian? Where was Chetiin now? Had Dagii and Ekhaas engaged the Valenar? What was Tariic up to?
The one that made it to his tongue, though, was, “Why are you doing this? You didn’t want anyone to know your name. You didn’t want to be involved.”
“I told you-whatever happened to you puts me in danger too. If Tariic knows about the false rod, he could find a way to track it back to me. I think we’ve just been lucky that he hasn’t.”
“No,” said Geth, shaking his head. He felt ashamed at the suspicions that gnawed at him. Tenquis had hidden and healed him. Why shouldn’t he trust him? But he’d trusted Chetiin, too. “I mean why are you still here and not halfway out of Darguun? Why go out looking for answers?”
“Like I said, I’m not one for letting trouble creep up on me.”
“Trouble’s not going to creep up on you if you’re in Breland or Aundair.”
“If I were Tariic and I was looking for the true Rod of Kings, a little thing like distance wouldn’t stop me. But your point is taken.” Tenquis grimaced and set the basin, brush, and water down on the table. “I thought about running-for about the time it takes water to boil. The thing is, I don’t run easy. Most tieflings have the fury of ancient devils in their blood. I’ve got the other side of our heritage too: the curiosity of the sorcerer-kings who made deals with those devils.”
His tail lashed from side to side. “You know I’m interested in the lost lore of the Dhakaani daashor. Darguun is the place to be to look for that lore. Ekhaas still owes me the stories preserved by the Kech Volaar. You still owe me time with your sword and I have a feeling that if I stay with you, I’ll find out even more. Why would I give that up by running?” Tenquis crossed his arms. “When I was young, my grandmother said to me, ‘Quiso, curiosity has consequences-if you’re going to ask questions, you need to be ready for the answers, or they’ll take you down hard.’ I’m all for self-preservation, but outright fear is something else, and I haven’t seen anything yet that makes me think I should be afraid of helping you.”
Geth looked at him again, suspicion turning into a strange camaraderie for the feisty artificer. “Are you sure about this?” he asked. “You really don’t know what you’re getting into.”
“Do I need to remind you that I’m already in it?”
Geth felt a crazy grin spread across his face. “You’ve got guts, Tenquis. You’re like rolling over a log and finding a wolverine underneath.”
Tenquis snorted. “You don’t know many tieflings, do you? I’m practically a coward.” He picked up the brush from the table and thrust it at him. “Clean yourself before you get dressed. Brush off the healing compound first or it will turn to mud when it gets wet. Are you hungry?”
He was. “Ravenous. Like I haven’t eaten for three days.”
“I’ll cook something and you can tell me all about what I’m really getting into.” Tenquis stepped behind Geth and the shifter felt him unfastening the bandages around his chest. “Let’s start with how you ended up looking like you found the bad side of an angry ogre.”
“I jumped out of Khaar Mbar’ost.”
The hands on his bandages paused. “You’re joking.”
Geth thought of the stones of the plaza rushing at him. His belly clenched and rose at the memory. “I wish I was,” he said.
The tiefling was not a good cook. The stove on which he made their food seemed to be the same one on which he heated various experiments. The spices and herbs he used came out of jars plucked from among others that Geth felt certain contained alchemical ingredients. The bowl he eventually put in front of Geth contained balls of starchy noon bobbing in an over-spiced broth alongside uncertain meats, mushy vegetables, and bits of black loosened from the bottom of the pot. More noon balls, slightly stale, were served as bread, with hard cheese, slightly moldy, on the side.
But with one bite, Geth’s hunger seemed to explode and he ate everything. As he spun out the story of the Rod of Kings, however, Tenquis’s appetite appeared to shrivel. Finally, he pushed his bowl away. “So the true rod wants to make its wielder an emperor bent on conquest and can give him the power to make it happen. Tariic knows about the true rod and is aligned with Makka, who wants to kill all of you. Chetiin has betrayed you twice and
