Triplet

But before he did so she caught just the hint of a smile as it crossed his face. Great, she thought darkly. Just great. He and Melentha have some sort of feud going, and I've just bought him a couple of points. Well, that sort of nonsense was going to stop damn quick—she'd just escaped from her father's chess game and had no intention whatsoever in joining someone else's.

And yet...

It was the first time Ravagin had showed even a hint of approval toward her... and for some unknown reason it made her feel rather good.

Which in its way was more irritating even than Melentha's condescending attitude toward her. I am not here to gain Ravagin's approval, she told herself sternly; and repeated it several times until it was firmly set in her mind.

In a silence broken only by necessary conversation, the trio made their way down the road toward Besak.

Chapter 12

The village of Besak, or at least the part Danae saw as they rode toward the way house, was exactly as the Triplet information packet had painted it... which was, in Danae's opinion, a bad sign.

Her overwhelming first impression of the place was that it was filthy. The narrow streets that wound between the cottages were lined with piles of garbage, through which small half-seen animals burrowed. Some of the larger and fancier buildings had outhouses out back—or front—for their occupants' sanitary needs; how those in the smaller cottages managed she tried not to think about.

Above it, a variety of odors rose and mingled to become a truly memorable stench.

The info packet had been right about the filth. It had also said Besak's inhabitants were rough, co

For the moment, though, those more dangerous aspects of village life seemed to be dormant. All around them the main activity seemed to be the bustle of commerce, with no more violence in sight than occasional overloud haggling. Children ran and played in the streets, much as children anywhere in small towns in the Twenty Worlds would, their game shifting to a race around the newcomers' horses as Melentha led them along at a brisk walk. Adults, passing by them on various unknown errands, paused to bow their heads to Melentha, their eyes flicking briefly over Ravagin and Danae with obvious curiosity but no apparent hostility. No one seemed particularly clean... but as Danae got used to the grime, she noticed that no one seemed particularly unwell, either. All the sick people are indoors, maybe? But that was unlikely—people in primitive cultures could seldom afford to stay away from their work for the complete duration of an illness. Spirit healing, then, she concluded, the thought sending a shiver up her back. It was one thing to lie in a diagnostic chair in a spotless room with tailored biochips circulating through your body; it was something else entirely to have a living entity doing the probing.

She started abruptly as something hazily bright flashed past her face. "What—?"

"Just a sprite," Ravagin reassured her, bringing his horse up alongside hers.

She licked her lips and exhaled a ragged breath. "Good thing I wasn't galloping," she growled.

"Ru

He eyed her oddly. "Yeah. Well... like I said, the spirits don't especially like us—"

"Nonsense," Melentha said, half turning. "There was no malace there—sprites just aren't smart enough to realize when they're doing something dangerous, that's all."

Danae looked back at Ravagin, saw the other's brief grimace, and decided to change the subject.

"Strange how all these houses are built so close to each other," she commented, waving a hand toward them. "I'd think that with all the open space around for expansion they'd spread out a little more."

"You'll find most villages on Karyx are this tightly packed," he grunted. "There's a limit on how much area a single lar can protect."

"I know that, but what stops them from using more than one lar?"

"I really don't know," he frowned. "Tradition would be my first guess. Melentha, you have any ideas?"

"No," the dark-haired woman said. "But then, I haven't had all that much direct experience with lares on a village-sized scale. I know that some of the other classes of spirits don't get along well with each other—peris, especially, don't work well with other peris. Maybe that's part of it."

They passed by the edge of the village center a minute later, Melentha veering them west then onto the road that would eventually end at the riverport village of Findral some thirty kilometers away.

Danae got only a brief look at Besak's central marketplace as they passed along its perimeter, but it seemed remarkably well stocked with everything from spirit-enhanced tools and weapons to the more mundane items of everyday life. Except that spirit-enhanced items are part of everyday life here, she had to remind herself. Though come to think of it—"Why is there a market here for boundspirit items?" she called ahead to Melentha. "Can't the villagers do the binding part themselves and save the expense?"

"Binding any but the simplest spirits isn't as easy as your teachers probably implied," Melentha answered tartly. "Really binding one, I mean. Anyone can do a temporary lock, but that hardly counts."

"Actually, you'll see a lot more enhanced tools here than in most villages," Ravagin added. "There's a settlement about forty-five kilometers from here in the Morax Forest that specializes in them."

"Yes: Coven," Danae nodded. "I've heard of the place, though no one would say much about it."

"Mainly because we don't know much about it," Ravagin said dryly. "Coven guards its privacy closely."

"Hardly surprising when you consider that their binding spells are the local equivalent of trade secrets," Melentha said. "But that brings up another point. When you start browsing around the Besak marketplace you'll find two or three shops selling spells. Avoid them like the plague."

"Frauds?" Danae asked.

"Borderline incompetent. You're not going to get more than an eighty percent accuracy rate out of them, especially on anything really complicated, and I presume I don't have to tell you what that can mean. If you need to find a particular spell, ignore the locals—come to me and I'll get it for you."

"Thanks. I'll keep that in mind."

They were through the main part of town now, and within a few minutes the tight clustering of houses Danae had already noted gave abrupt way to farmland and wilderness. A few houses were visible outside the city limits, but they were far between and somehow gave Danae the feeling of small beleaguered fortresses. The bandit who'd accosted them the previous evening came to mind; surreptitiously, her hand drifted to her waist and the dagger sheathed there. "Why so far out of town?" she called ahead to Melentha.

"It's quieter," the other woman said. "Also more private—I have a lot of visitors, you know, and a single woman in this culture who has strange men dropping in on her for a few days at a time gains a poor name for herself."

Danae thought back to the reactions of the villagers they'd passed. "The townspeople seem to think highly enough of you," she pointed out.

Melentha threw her a vaguely a

Danae glanced at Ravagin, to see her own frown mirrored in his face. A small village whose inhabitants didn't know everything about everyone was almost a contradiction in terms. "I'd say they seemed more respectful than just—"

"Just drop it," Melentha cut her off. "Here we are—right through the trees here."

The trees mentioned were a double hedgerow sort of arrangement paralleling the road on their right, the rear line set into the spaces left by the first so that the view from the road was completely blocked. Melentha led them between two of the trees in the first line and around to a gap in the second... and Danae felt her mouth fall open.