On the other hand, in about eight more days, people he had known all his life would be dead. He hadn't especially liked any of them except Leah, but they were his own people. Practically family. And you didn't have to like your family to protect them.
At that moment, the steel in his blood ran out. Azura suddenly felt as if it weighed as much as a blacksmith's anvil, and the hilt wrenched itself out of his hand. As soon as the sword left his fingertips, it vanished.
Kai had been able to let the sword go whenever he wanted without it vanishing; there must be some trick. Hopefully he would learn that with time. More importantly, his head swam, and his vision was so blurry he could barely make out anything besides a moonlight-colored smear. He dropped back onto one of the crates.
The chains on his arms didn't vanish, but they started to retreat. He could feel them crawling down his shoulders like steel-scaled serpents.
Was the light-headedness related to the chains in some way? Or was this what happened when he released the liquid metal power too quickly? He had always felt less when he lost his enhanced abilities, but he had assumed that was just what it felt like when you went from being a superhuman Traveler to a young man with too-thin arms. Maybe there was some kind of aftereffect, like with his mother's stronger powders? Or maybe he was just tired.
"Kai could tell me," Simon mumbled thickly. It was a measure of his disorientation that he spoke to himself; he had always hated it when others did that. "If he was here."
Well, he's not, came a woman's voice. And good riddance. The voice was soft, as though coming down a long tunnel, and overlaid with a sound like wind whispering through trees.
Simon's first thought was to turn to see who had spoken, but he wasn't being honest with himself. He knew who it was.
He met the painted wooden eyes of the doll across from him. "Are you speaking to me?"
No answer.
The dizziness had mostly passed, so he hauled himself over to the doll's crate and picked her up in one hand. She was even lighter than she looked, her light blue dress woven of finer and softer material than anything his mother had ever owned.
"If you're talking to me, talk," Simon said to the doll. She gazed at him out of a wooden face. "What's your name?" Nothing. "Aren't you my advisor? Advise me!"
He had gotten more conversation out of tree roots.
Roughly he shook the doll in his hand. "Answer me!"
Of course, Olissa picked that moment to check on him. She froze halfway inside the wagon, holding the canvas flap over her head with one hand. There he was, holding a little girl's doll in one hand, standing over it, screaming. A rush of heat set his face aflame. He stammered something, trying to come up with a reasonable-sounding explanation, but evidently the fact that he was standing up outweighed his obvious insanity in Olissa's mind. She moved the rest of the way into the wagon, her face firm.
Her voice, however, remained gentle. "You shouldn't be up on your leg so soon," she said. "It needs a chance to heal."
"Um, no ma'am, thank you," Simon responded. "It's better now. See?" He stepped from behind one of the crates so that she would have a clear view of his previously-injured leg.
Her brow furrowed as she looked. The rock-worm's teeth had shredded his pants leg into tatters, most of which had to be removed before they could put bandages on him in the first place. As a result, his left pants leg ended above the knee.
From her distance, Olissa should have been able to make out the lack of blood, even in the dim light. But she frowned and moved closer.
"Put the leg up," she said, motioning to one side. Simon did as he was told and put his right foot on a crate. As though she couldn't believe her eyes, Olissa reached out and poked his leg with a finger. Nothing happened, and she gasped, sharply raising her head to look him in the face.
It occurred to Simon for the first time that Andra and Lycus' mother was a more-than-pretty woman. Her honey-colored hair-a shade lighter than any he'd ever seen, except on her daughter-spilled in waves down her back, and she stared at him with wide eyes of pale green.
If it was possible, the realization made him even less comfortable. She was old enough to be his mother, after all-if she had looked older, maybe put on a few dozen more pounds, he would have had no problem. But as it was, all he saw was a pretty woman, and that weighed down his tongue.
"Uh," he said. "I healed it. It was...I mean, it's healed."
Awkwardly he pulled his leg from the crate and, just to give his hands something to do, began brushing off his pants.
"Amazing," Olissa breathed. "The children told me, but I wasn't sure...You must be a Traveler. Asphodel?"
Simon just stared at her for a moment, trying to figure out the word. Asphodel had to be the name of another Territory. One connected with healing, maybe?
"No," he said. He should say something else, but nothing came to mind.
She leaned forward. "Did you come here for us? Do you work for the Overlord?"
Simon let out a short laugh before he could stop himself. "I mean, no, I don't work for Malachi. I'm just-"
Something she had said jumped out at him, and he stopped mid-sentence. "What do you mean, did I come here for you? Why would the Overlord be sending you a Traveler?"
Olissa shifted her eyes uneasily and opened her mouth as if about to respond, but she was interrupted by the sound of hooves on hard-packed dirt. It sounded like many horses, not just one.
For the first time, Simon realized the wagon wasn't moving. "We're stopped," he said. "Where are we?"
She smiled and gave him a reassuring pat on the arm. "You slept a long time. We've stopped at the northwestern edge of the Latari Forest. Don't worry, we've put that...Cave..." she shuddered, "far behind us."
Northwest of Latari? That would put them close to Myria. Simon opened his mouth to ask what they were doing there, but a voice from outside called Olissa's name. She apologized quickly and hurried out of the wagon, pulling the flap shut behind her.
He should probably leave. Whoever was riding into camp, odds were good that they were Damascan, and there wasn't anything good that could come of mixing with a crowd of strange Damascans. He couldn't escape by Traveling through Valinhall, he knew that; the Gate opened wherever you had last made it. But he could be out the back of the wagon and into the night before anyone knew he was missing. It would probably be the smart thing, in case the Damascans somehow learned he was from Myria.
On the other hand, how would they know him? His skin and hair were too dark for a real Damascan, but they would only think of him as the strange villager boy who had saved two children. Now that he thought of it, the fact that he had rescued Andra and Lycus would probably weigh the scales heavily in his favor. And there was nothing that marked him out as from Myria rather than from a hundred other towns and villages in the realm. He should be safe.
Besides, what if these riders weren't friendly to the Agnos family? His presence could mean the difference between repelling the attackers and the four of them being robbed, captured, or killed.
His stomach rumbled, and that decided the matter. He wasn't going to get any food in here.
He started toward the flap, but something made him hesitate. He turned his gaze back, staring at the doll in the powder-blue dress.
Black painted eyes stared him straight in the face. He was sure that when he sat her down, she had faced a different direction.
With a reluctant sigh, he walked back and picked up the doll. He didn't want to walk out in front of a bunch of strangers carrying a girl's wooden doll, but he couldn't risk leaving her behind. No matter how much the idea appealed to him.
As he crept outside, he thought the doll's face now looked just a bit smug.
Caius and Olissa, their children gathered before them, stood at the very edge of a ring of firelight. Someone, apparently, had built a bonfire as soon as the wagons had stopped, and it was just beginning to really blaze up. In the darkness beyond the fire's reach, Simon caught glimpses of a column of men on horseback. Only one had moved close enough for Simon to make out details: an old man, maybe sixty or seventy, with a wrinkled face that looked like it had dried into an eternal frown.
The man with the iron-gray hair stepped into Simon's view, standing between the Agnos family and the riders. To Simon's surprise, the lead rider saluted, hand to chest.
"Captain Erastes, sir," said the old man on the horse.
"Ansher," Erastes responded. "Come on down. You can make your report after we eat."
So the man with the iron-gray hair-Erastes-was a captain in the Damascan army. He had always looked like a soldier, but knowing his identity for certain somehow made him twice as frightening. Sure, a human soldier wasn't anything compared to a carnivorous serpent of living rock, but in Myria, Damascan soldiers had been the stuff of legend. They were the unending, faceless extensions of Zakareth's will. If Erastes decided Simon looked suspicious, he could have the full might of the Damascan nation behind him.
Ansher shook his head and stayed on his horse. "I'd advise against it, sir. There's something in the trees." He gestured to the edge of the forest, about fifty paces away, where shadows flickered back and forth. "Nobody's seen anything clear, but...I get reports. We're all on edge. Even the captives."
Erastes nodded and cast a glance into the shadows. Even though Simon could only see the back of his head, he got a sense that the man was suddenly alert, ready for action.
"Then we had best get moving," Erastes said. "Bring in the captives; we'll load them up on the wagons and leave this place. Once we're on the road, I'd like to speak with you, Ansher. We've had an eventful evening." His voice turned dry at the last sentence, and Simon was sure the captain was talking about him. It was an uncomfortable feeling. If a Damascan captain had taken a closer interest in Simon, then he should have left long since.
Simon slipped into the shadows between wagons and drew lightly on the Nye's essence. Not enough to slow his perception of time, he breathed in just enough for an extra edge of reflex and coordination that let him move both quickly and silently. His footfalls fell so lightly on the sandy dirt that he doubted anyone would have heard him ten feet away.
Sneaking away, in total silence and under cover of darkness, would be easy as picking fruit. He had even begun when a shout from out beyond the wagons snapped him short. It was a man's voice, strangled and desperate. Simon couldn't quite make out the words, if words there were, but it sounded like he was pleading.
Simon knew that voice.
Without really thinking about it, Simon called steel. Cold ice in his veins joined the cool breath of the Nye, and in one smooth motion he leapt onto the top of a wagon. He was careful to land on one of the broad wooden supports, not on the canvas; no matter how strong or swift he was, he didn't want to risk dropping his full weight on a loose stretch of fabric.
From this vantage point he could make out the Damascan soldiers much more clearly. There were maybe seventy-five of them, about fifteen of whom were on horseback. The rest walked behind in neat ranks. And behind them, stretching off in a line easily as long as the rest of the column, stumbled the captives.
They were all held on one long rope, with both their hands bound and tied on to the main line. They wore loose clothes of brown and tan, desert colors, with worn shoes or sandals and little more than a stretch of rope for belts. The same clothes Simon wore, that he had worn all his life. One of the men, larger than most in the line, crouched on his knees, holding his arms above his head defensively. A soldier standing over him beat him with a long stick, yelling something Simon couldn't catch.
The man on the ground yelled again, pathetically. Simon recognized that voice: Chaim, son of Moseth, as far as Simon knew the only one of the Mayor's advisors to survive the Damascan attack. His daughter, Orlina, had been one of Cormac's victims.
Simon almost lost his balance, and had to steady himself before he fell off the wagon. Now that he was looking for them, he recognized other faces from the village. Why? What were the people of Myria doing all the way out here?
Olissa had told him that the wagons were moving toward Myria, but Simon hadn't thought much about it. Had Kai known something of this?
Was Damasca attacking the village again?
Chaim, in the middle of taking a beating from a Damascan soldier, had already lost his daughter. He didn't deserve this. And it was up to Simon had to do something. but what was he supposed to do? If the Damascans had another Traveler with them, Simon wasn't sure what he could do about it. If they just summoned a monster, sure, he could fight it. But what would happen if someone hurled lightning at him? Or called fire down on his head? Burn and die, he supposed. And even if they had no Traveler, the thought of slicing up seventy-five people-even Damascans-made him a little sick.
Simon felt chains pressing against the backs of his hands, and he glanced down. Between the sinking moon and the nearby fire, he had just enough light to make out the chain-shaped shadows slowly growing on his hands, one link at a time, as the Nye essence drifted through him. How dangerous were these chains, anyway? He needed to ask Kai before he got himself killed. Or maybe...
He looked at the blond doll in his left hand. She still had that smug smirk on her face. What was he thinking? Of course she did. She had been painted that way. He wasn't as crazy as Kai, so until one of these dolls proved otherwise he would treat them like ordinary toys.
Still. Maybe she could answer his questions. She might be able to help him decide what to do.
Simon shook his head, disgusted with himself, and pulled his mind back to the task at hand. His anger, buried but never smothered since the attack on his village, demanded that he make an example of these Damascans. If they had no Traveler, he could most likely destroy them singlehandedly. He spun a rage-fueled fantasy of killing them all, piling their heads into one of these wagons, and sending the wagon back to Bel Calem. Let Malachi see what happened when he attacked an innocent village.
Simon's queasiness grew worse when he realized what he was considering; and worse, when he realized that he could actually carry it out. Back home, he had occasionally nursed angry fantasies, mostly about beating an older boy until he gave up. But Simon had never had the power to do anything. Now, though, everything was different.
If he wanted the Damascans dead, he could have it. Right now.
The thought terrified him. And yet, if he did nothing, the people of Myria would continue to suffer.
Finally it occurred to him that he was going about this the wrong way. From his perspective, he could see only two options: attack the Damascans or leave the villagers in captivity. But that was based on only what he knew, which wasn't much. He didn't have the whole picture, and something still didn't make sense. It was three or four days' hard travel to Myria, even for one man alone. He didn't know how much longer it would take a column of soldiers with captives, but certainly at least a day or two longer.
So what were they doing all the way out here? It was a long way for the soldiers to go just to round up some more captives, and the Myrians shouldn't have come so far from their newly rebuilt homes. What was going on?
He had to know before he did something foolish. And there was only one way to get that information.
Ask.
On the far side of the camp, Ansher sat on his horse, barking orders to foot soldiers who hurried to and from various wagons, hauling crates from one to another. The Agnos family rushed along in their preparations to leave: checking wagons, seeing to horses, rubbing down oxen, asking questions of the soldiers and examining the captives.
Lycus glimpsed Simon once and brightened, starting to run over to him, but his mother grabbed him by one arm and spoke to him sternly. Sulkily he levered a bag of some kind of vegetable onto one shoulder and walked off to a wagon in the back of the camp. Olissa gave Simon a hurried smile and a wave, then ran off to complete her work.
Erastes was sitting on the edge of a wagon, pulling on his armored boots, when Simon walked up to him.
"Feeling better?" Erastes asked when he saw Simon. His eyes were as hard as his voice. They flicked down to Simon's bandage-free leg. "I see you are." He didn't seem much surprised at Simon's accelerated healing.
"I came to ask you about the captives," Simon said. "Who are they?"
Erastes looked at him sharply. "Not your concern. Though if you'd like to know, you should travel with us a while longer. I suspect Overlord Malachi would like to meet you himself."
Simon nodded, not in agreement, but because the captain had confirmed something Simon already suspected. "You're heading for Bel Calem, then?" Simon asked.
"We're going in that direction, yes," Erastes said. He seemed determined to give away as little as possible.
"The captives as well?"
Erastes stared at Simon a little too long, clearly trying to come up with an answer that would put him off. Fortunately, at that moment Caius walked by, huffing and hauling a huge crate.
"Captives?" Caius asked. "Rebels and insurrectionists is what they are. Caught them dealing with Enosh, and you know what trouble that brings. The collar is too light a punishment, if you ask me."
The collar. They were going to be sold as slaves. It was a good thing Simon didn't have a sword on his hip, or he would have been gripping it so hard Erastes couldn't miss it.
Just to have something to do with his hands, Simon reached into the back of his belt, where he had tucked the doll. Having her there was uncomfortable and obvious-anybody who saw him from behind couldn't help but notice that he had something hidden between his pants and shirt-but he had to put her somewhere. Besides, he almost heard her indignant squawk when he put her back there. Eventually she would slip up and speak to him directly.
But once again, Simon was distracting himself from the matter at hand, trying to ignore his rising anger.
With a sigh, Erastes motioned for Caius to move on. "I wasn't going to tell you, boy, but Caius has the truth of it," he said. "We had captured some criminals up there a few months ago, and the Overlord was concerned that the rest of the village might unjustly blame him and turn to rebellion. We were sent in to get the feel of the place, maintain order. Didn't expect to find anything."
Behind the captain, one of the soldiers had untied a few of the villagers, and was herding them at swordpoint into one of the empty wagons. A bruised and battered Chaim happened to stumble, catching a glimpse of Simon as he did. Their eyes locked. Chaim's widened, even as the soldier grabbed him and brought him to his feet.
Erastes noticed nothing. He shook his head as though saddened by his own tale, but his voice did not soften. "It only took us about two hours to find out that they've been making daily trips into enemy territory. Accepting food, supplies, workers. They had even provided shelter to one of those enemy Travelers, if you can believe it.
"Naturally, we settled the whole thing down. Except a few of them escaped, we suspect headed for the capital to try and rescue their criminal friends. Spent the last six weeks hunting them down from here to the Badari Desert. And that's as much as you need know and more."
Chaim strained desperately against his captors, shouting, "Simon! Run, Simon!" The Damascans ignored him, or else didn't connect 'Simon' with the strange maybe-Traveler who had saved the Agnos children. It didn't matter. For whatever reason, they had missed their only chance to stop him.
Almost against his will, Simon drew more deeply on the liquid steel. The chains stretched up his skin, twisting around his forearms. The icy cold, rushing through his veins in complement to his anger. Ice leaked out into his voice as he spoke.
"Why weren't you going to tell me?" he asked.
Erastes shrugged and pulled on his last boot, stomping it on the ground to get it settled. "I don't trust you, boy," he said. "I don't even know your name."
"My name is Simon. Son of Kalman." His tone put heavy significance on the last three words. Damascans with a long heritage or those living in the city had family names, like Agnos. Only those who lived on the fringes of the nation, in remote villages, took their father's name. Simon watched Erastes' face as all those thoughts flitted through his mind.
Behind him, Chaim shouted one more time before he was shoved roughly into a wagon: "Run! Don't let them get you too! Run, Simon, run!"
Then Simon added, almost casually, the last part of his name.
"From Myria village."
It took the Damascan captain only a second to register the significance of the name. Once he did, his eyes widened, and his sword flashed from its scabbard. "Traveler!" he bellowed, deeply enough to be heard across a distant field.