The Brazen Gambit

"Everything mat's worth knowing." The cleric's grin was as merry as any Pavek had seen on a sober man. "Oelus," he added, offering his hand, which Pavek regarded with undisguised suspicion.

"You are a healer, a cleric bound to some temple or sanctuary? You aren't... hidden?"

"Veiled?" Oelus spoke the word with raised eyebrows; his hand remained outstretched. "No more than you. But, if you're asking if the Alliance knows where you are, the answer is yes."

"I remember a boy. Was there a boy?"

"Very definitely-and scared out of his wits. He'd got you halfway to safety, then had to leave you where you fell. Worst place to be, my friend, halfway to safety. Very exposed and a risk to all concerned. You can be sure our veiled friends moved quick to get you here, no questions asked 'til much later."

Oelus's words percolated through Pavek's skull. By implication, the boy had, indeed, been leading him to an Alliance bolt-hole, which wouldn't have been safety-not for a templar. The templarate hunted Veiled mages as vermin, and the vermin returned the favor. No quarter was asked or given from either side. He wouldn't have drawn two breaths inside an Alliance bolt-hole; the boy, himself, would have needed luck to get out alive.

Making a mistake like that, the boy couldn't be an initiate. Pavek had no idea where he'd collapsed, but the hand of fortune had tripped him just in time: to protect their bolt-hole, the magicians must have spirited him into the hands of an amenable sanctuary and the competent hands of an earth-worshipping cleric, Oelus.

"And the boy? Zvain, Zvain-that's his name, isn't it? I can remember his face. What of him? Did he suffer for what he did? For what he meant to do?"

,. The cleric's eyes narrowed-thinking, analyzing-then the merry grin returned. "He's worried, angry-all the things boys get when they think they're old enough to be included in adult aflairs, but aren't. Nothing worse."

"Free to come and go as he wills?"

Another calculating glance. "Very definitely. The path that lies before Zvain must be freely chosen. There is no other way."

There was more here than Pavek's freshly awakened mind could decipher. He raked his hair and felt matted tangles and grease. Cleanliness was far from mandatory in the templarate, but Pavek had savored the tile-lined baths beneath the barracks. He was appalled that he'd grown so rank and wondered how the cleric could stand so close without gagging. Perhaps it was part of a healer's training as it was, to a certain extent, part of a templar's.

A templar's lifelong training.

His hand began to tremble. Without warning, an abyss opened within his mind, separating what he was from what he'd been. Perhaps he hadn't been so lucky, after all. He covered his right hand with his left and noticed the fresh crimson scar winding around his elbow like one of Dova

The abyss widened. Pavek shook his head helplessly.

"Something wrong?" Oelus asked, taking Pavek's left hand between his own. He poked, prodded, twisted, and flexed until his patient yelped. "Pain? Expect a little stiffness. Your muscles had rotted, Pavek. Would've been easier to lop it off right here-" He pressed the edge of his palm into the muscle below Pavek's shoulder. "But I figured to let you make the decision for yourself: fight for your arm and keep it; languish and lose it."

"You're my problem, Pavek. Mine alone," Oelus stated firmly. "You were my patient; now you're my problem."

"And your solution to that problem? Do I walk out of here or have I been buried forever?"

"Neither. Oh, you could walk out of here, and you might even find your way back to the sun before you starved, but your name, Regulator Pavek, is still written in red on the gatehouse walls. You should be honored: The reward is up to forty gold pieces and, from what I hear, many have died trying to collect it."

He sucked his teeth, but was otherwise speechless.

"It's no great secret that the templarate consumes itself. No secret and no loss. But to be so noisy about it!" Oelus chuckled and shook his head. "I wondered myself: How did a mere third-rank, civil bureau regulator gain so many enemies? And why were his enemies having such trouble reeling him in? You roused curiosity underground, Pavek, as surely as you roused your enemies above it. The weather-eye was out for you, but you slipped through every net until the boy stumbled on you, by chance. Or so I heard."

"Zvain," Pavek repeated the boy's name with a sigh and experimented with a fist. "If you know everything about me, you know his name, and you know it wasn't by chance."

"A slight exaggeration," Oelus admitted. "You raved a bit those first few days, and I know how to read a body's tale. You're basically too healthy for a slave or peasant, too much muscle for a nobleman-not enough for a gladiator. The wrong calluses and scars for any artisan. And you've got all your teeth. Add that up and it comes out yellow, even though you weren't wearing yellow and you had a putrid wound. I read the walls and listen to the morning harangues. I figured the boy was coincidence."

"A coincidence who just happened to know a short path toward the Veil?"

Oelus gave an open-handed smile. "To be sure, that's what he was doing-but did he know it? I don't think so, and neither do you. The boy's his own mystery: not my problem or yours, agreed? If die Veil's got a weather-eye on him, at his oh-so-i

Time was-time when there was a medallion around his neck-that he would have slain the cleric on the spot for the insult. That time was past. "Someone's taught him to read the walls."

"No one from the Veil," Oelus said, weighing his clay beads between his fingers. "If they know your boy can read, they'll keep him at a double arm's length until he's old enough to keep a vow with his life. Too much risk otherwise."

Pavek bristled. "He's not my boy. He's an orphan. Lost his mother and father the same night not long ago. If the Veil's interested in Zvain, they're risking his life leaving him alone on the streets. If they wouldn't take him in, they should've killed him outright. This way, they've got no more mercy than Hamanu's dead-heart necromancers."

"None whatsoever," Oelus agreed. "No room for sentiment behind the Veil. They feed on their own, too. Best be glad that boy's not your problem." Oelus unca

Pavek's wits had steadied. He was not the disoriented man he'd been when he'd awakened, and Oelus, though round-faced and smiling, was not a jovial fool. The beads and the color of his robe proclaimed his devotion to the element of earth; otherwise, there was nothing about him to co

For which Pavek had an inspired solution.

"Initiate me into your order. Let me become one of you. I know-"

Oelus silenced him with a look of genuine astonishment. "Templars have no talent. Mekillots will fly before the elemental spirits hear a templar's prayer, or heed it. It's beyond question."

He hadn't expected the path to true mastery to be an easy climb, but neither had he expected it to be summarily blocked from the start. Pavek responded to the disappointment as he'd responded to it throughout his life: with a jut-jawed scowl and a brazen disregard for consequences.