Angel of Storms (Millennium's Rule, #2)(111)
Hapre glanced at Baluka and the rebels he’d saved. “Could you leave us for a while?”
Once the room was empty but for the four of them, Tyen stilled the air around the walls to muffle their voices further. “Any ideas?”
Silence followed, then Hapre shifted her weight from one foot to another. “We could go to Faurio.”
Volk shook his head. “None of us are sick.”
The name was familiar. “It that the city dedicated to healing?”
“Yes,” Hapre replied. “Not just one city, but many. The world has made its name and fortune out of being a centre of healing. People will still be travelling there, too. The risk is worth it for the chance to be cured.” She looked at Volk. “But we do need a reason to go.”
“Reke,” Frell said.
The woman who had left the clues leading to this meeting place. Tyen frowned. “Do we even know where she is–if she’s still alive?”
Hapre nodded. “One of the servants here said Reke collapsed when she arrived to place the last clue. She’s been taking care of Reke since.”
Tyen nodded. “Well, let’s find out if Reke is in any condition to travel to begin with–and if she wants to make the journey to Faurio.”
“It will seem odd if several sorcerers turn up with one sick friend,” Frell pointed out.
“Then just us three and one of our assistants will go,” Tyen decided.
“And once Reke is cured?” Volk asked. “We’ll have no excuse to be there.”
Tyen spread his hands. “We only need to be there long enough to decide what to do next. Perhaps we’ll see a good hiding place in the mind of one of the other patients or their companions. So. Does anyone else have a better idea…?”
The three generals exchanged glances, and shook their heads.
“Then let’s work out the details.”
CHAPTER 14
Tyen took a deep breath, then regretted it. He was certain that, after he left Faurio, the last details of the place that left his memory would be the smells. Some were intended to disguise the odours of sickness, some to treat it. The worst were either bracingly awful, or disturbingly attractive.
They’d found a hollow-cheeked Reke living with the bath-house servant, too weak to rise from her bed. He’d been relieved to see neither hope nor dismissal in her mind at the suggestion of going to Faurio to seek a cure.
“If they can, they can,” she’d said. “If they can’t…” She shrugged. “I’m already far from home, and I don’t care if I die there, here or anywhere else. I only wanted to do something for the rebellion, and since you all got here safely I’m content that I have.” She’d paused then. “But if taking me to Faurio puts any of you in danger, leave me here.”
He sometimes wished they had. What made this world a good hiding place made it an unpleasant location. Being in a place full of the sick and dying meant they were surrounded by suffering, fear and grief. A scan of the minds around him required bracing himself for the raw emotion of people in pain and great discomfort, facing death or the loss of a loved one. It made the cost and risks of agelessness seem worthwhile.
But scan he must, and as he finished his sweep of the minds beyond the small room–one he and Volk had been sharing since they’d arrived–he let out a sigh of relief. Turning to the others, he cleared his throat to gain their attention.
“I have decided,” he told them, “after considering everyone’s advice and suggestions, that keeping all the rebels in one world is impractical and dangerous. Instead the recruits should establish themselves over many worlds, waiting for the call to meet and fight.
“This is not entirely my idea,” he acknowledged. “The Traveller suggested something like it, though his ideas have flaws and weaknesses. We need to recognise and discuss those flaws and weaknesses now–one being how to inform everyone safely of our change of plan, another to delivering the call to gather for battle.” He looked at the generals, noting their surprise at his endorsement of Baluka’s idea, which Hapre had championed but he had resisted until now. “Suggestions?”
“The rebels are already scattered through the worlds,” Volk said. “I don’t think we need to gather them together in order to send them away again. We just need to get instructions to them.”
“That could take a while, with only four of us and our assistants,” Hapre pointed out.
“We can put messages about as we intended, but instead of instructions to find the new base we tell them to find a place to hide and wait,” Frell said.
“Your assistants will have to place the messages,” Tyen told them. “I have other tasks for you.”
Hapre shook her head. “I need Baluka with me. Send Daam in his place.”
Tyen’s heart sank a little. This would ruin the best part of his plan. “The Traveller is stronger and more experienced at travelling between worlds. Daam is the least experienced–but he’s efficient and will cope with being assistant to all of us for a few days.”
He glanced at the other generals. Though they agreed with Tyen’s assessment of the two assistants’ abilities, they all suspected he was trying to send Baluka away.
Tyen held back a sigh. “So…” he began, then paused, distracted as he saw that Frell was wondering now whether Tyen was blind to Baluka’s potential. “Recruitment. So far we’ve not had to make much effort: they’ve come to us. How do we get the message out that we want them to wait for a call without the allies hearing about it?”