them.”
“But stil you obsess.”
“I do. Obsession drove me to avenge her. Obsession drove me to win you. And now, despite time-won wisdom, I suffer an intermittent obsession focused on the past.”
“Come have lunch. It wil improve your spirits. Then you can focus on better rat traps.”
Varthlokkur did as she suggested. A half hour later, in the Wind Tower, he could not remember what he had eaten.
Mist’s rascals were too distracting.
His efforts with Ethrian were paying off but he preferred time spent in the Wind Tower. There he felt like he was getting somewhere in his quest to create that better rat trap.
He surrounded himself with notes reminding himself that he was not the first. A mobile hung above his work table. Its strings bore twelve cards, each recording known details of a failed effort to rid the universe of the Star Rider. He would find more as he developed more tools to mine truth from the deep past.
He wanted to dive al the way down to the beginning of the world. To do that his first great task would be to find a means of breaking through barriers set to prevent that, without being noticed. He believed he was making headway. The research, so far, had not been as difficult as expected. The magic of the Winterstorm, and of the Unborn, were key. The grand chal enge was to remain undetected.
Others had believed that the answers could be found hidden in deep time. Several master sorcerers of yesteryear had tried mining the secret histories of the world. They had failed. Their digging had hit a tripwire at some point.
How? Wizards delved the past regularly without drawing fire.
He began by investigating the investigators. He was a loner. They had been loners. He knew how his mind worked. Their mental processes would have been similar.
And he had a big advantage over them.
He had time. Centuries, if he needed them.
“Hey, Uncle Varth! Something’s going on in that tower of Mother’s.”
“What?”
“They’re bringing in new prisoners.”
Which likely meant nothing. But he owed Scalza the courtesy.
Ekaterina leaned on her brother’s left shoulder, enthral ed by the quicksilver surface. Scalza, seated, elbows on the table and chin in his hands, was completely engrossed, too.
Varthlokkur saw nothing remarkable initial y. Then he recognized the tal est man: “Kuo Wen-chin! He’s supposed to be dead. I’d better study this. Thank you, Scalza.” The boy’s bowl offered visual access only. He could not eavesdrop. That was intentional, so Scalza would not be eavesdropping on his elders.
Most far-scryers, though, suffered from that handicap.
Sound was difficult to capture.
The device Varthlokkur activated presented a three-dimensional image and did transmit sound, unreliably. As it came to life it revealed something more amazing and exciting than an unexpectedly healthy Kuo Wen-chin.
Varthlokkur laughed softly, wickedly. This was priceless.
More than priceless if Old Meddler did not know.
That old man might be just what he needed.
And Ethrian might be the key to that old man.
Ethrian would be getting a lot more attention now.
Chapter Fourteen:
Yasmid had gone to her father’s tent again. Elwas had claimed a serious breakthrough. She had been excited. He made it sound like El Murid was back.
Her father disappointed her again. He disappointed Elwas and swami
Phogedatvitsu, too. Both real y believed that the victory was at hand. El Murid proved them wrong. Yasmid was confident that the sabotage was deliberate.
“I know what you’re doing, Habibul ah. It won’t work. I was there. I saw what I saw. He may be my father. His seed may have quickened my life. His early ministry may have given that life meaning. But the soul inside the man we saw tonight is not that of God’s True Messenger.” Habibul ah shrank into himself. “More than you do, now, I believe in the foreigner. He wil lure the Disciple away from the insidious sway of the Evil One, I am confident.” It had grown dark while they were inside her father’s tent. They were returning home now. Light from fires on the field below the New Castle, to their right, and from torches born by Invincible bodyguards, il uminated them. A chip of moon sometimes shone briefly through the grand flocks of clouds cantering westward over the Jebal. Somewhere out there, once the temperature dropped, they would dump their moisture.
Passing the pilgrim camp, Yasmid observed, “Not much interest in shrines anymore, is there? Pilgrims came by the thousands when I was young.”
“They tire. The world tires. Many of those pilgrims there now live off the charity of the Believers.” A voice from the waste cal ed, “Hai! Is truth unknown to…” Whatever fol owed got snatched away by a gust that promised rain, but those words, in that rhythm, seized the imaginations of Yasmid and Habibul ah, both. They stared at one another. Then Yasmid ordered, “Find that man.
Whoever he is.”
Minutes later Invincibles descended on the pilgrim camp.
...
Haroun bin Yousif had not survived so long by being slow to recognize his own mistakes. Somehow, suddenly, he had become interesting to some passing Invincibles.
He faded away immediately, resurfaced in a different guise, amongst people he had believing that they had known him longer than the few days that was the truth.
Scowling Invincibles with bad scars and parts missing took turns interrogating pilgrims. They were looking for someone but had no idea who. They hoped their quarry would give himself away. Haroun had to relate his life’s story al the way back to his great-grandfather.
“Of course,” he said. “Anything you want to know, God be praised. My father was Yousef the shoemaker of es Souanna. His father was… But wait! I remember you. We did this just a few days ago.”
“Hel , he’s right,” said another Invincible. “We did. He’s some kind of mummer. Weren’t you going to head on west with one of the caravans?”
Haroun recal ed having had a hearing problem before.
“Yes. But alMesali would not let me because of my infected ears. Which started healing as soon as it was too late. I am hoping for better luck next time. Meantime, I am surviving on wild greens salads. What’s up, anyway?”
“Nobody knows. The Lady and her eunuch heard something while they were passing by here. They went weird. We’re supposed to find somebody without knowing who we’re looking for.”
“Did you say lady? Your lips are hard to read because of your beard.”
“The Lady Yasmid, blessings be upon her. Daughter of the Disciple.”
Haroun tried to look awe-stricken. He had been that close to greatness!
He had been that close to disaster. He understood that, for the moment, he had eluded an arrow that he had not known was in the air.
The eunuch mentioned must be Habibul ah, who had served Yasmid since she was a child.
It must be the banter that had betrayed him.
He asked, “Do you want to look through my things again?” How stupid could one man be? And how lucky?
