He grunted. “You would say you have no choice? They must make their own way in this world, as all people do.”
She lifted her chin and looked him directly in the eyes. “My father is a cobbler. He invested money we don’t have to send me to school. Either that woman acknowledges me so I can get a real job charging real money for my work or we default on my debt.”
One corner of Xar anKebbal’s mouth twitched. “Probably calling her ‘that woman’ doesn’t help.”
She felt her face grow hot and bowed her head. Now she understood why her father had said he would worry less about the manners of a child. Before she spent those years at university, she wouldn’t have felt so confident in the presence of a great man like this and would have been more judicious with her words. Her rudeness had seemed to entertain him, but she would be more careful from now on.
“Is this why you settled on me, then? You have an interest, if not in vengeance, at least in vindicating yourself?”
“We have no desire to punish anyone in any way,” her father answered for her. “But we thought, since you don’t have a group of young people already established here, you might have fewer qualms about a Pemets student—”
“Fa.” She laid a hand on her father’s, silencing him. “I don’t think that’s what he means.”
Xar anKebbal grunted, not confirming this. But she looked in his eyes and felt certain she was right. He had heard their story and grasped why they had chosen him. He wanted to know how honest they would be.
“You have a reputation,” she told him, meeting his eyes, “for championing hopeless causes and helping underdogs.”
It was at this point that the barbarian chose to leave. Qanath had forgotten about him, but it would have been impossible to fail to note his departure. He wore a strand of tiny silver bells tied about one thigh that tinkled as he moved, and he chose to walk between them and Xar anKebbal, disrupting the interview deliberately. Qanath could hardly help but look at him when he thrust himself into her view; it was an automatic reaction, innocent of intent.
Her eyes would linger on him, though, as he stalked from the room. She hadn’t grown up in luxury and had never seen one before, but she knew she was looking at a bed-bonded. The knowledge drew her eyes inexorably off his face. Those tiny underpants left the lower curve of his buttocks bare, and he was beautiful, lithe and fit, his coloration startling.
Her father’s elbow connected with her ribs again. He glared at her from the corners of his eyes, head bowed so low his chin almost touched his breastbone. A bead of sweat traced a slow line along his temple, then made a sudden dash down his cheek for the jaw.
Only then did it strike her that Xar anKebbal was the only person in this house. She put her eyes back on the hands making fists on her thighs, and knew they were wide. He never commented on her manners; if he had noticed her admiring his lover’s butt, he must not care. He hadn’t batted an eye when the man wandered in, then wandered out again, passing between them both times.
Clearing her throat, she forced herself to say, “My mother has a seat on the Senate. We knew I couldn’t keep my story secret, not living in your house for years. And any other fighting-master might not be willing to antagonize her.”
Xar anKebbal looked at her for the length of several minutes, saturnine face conveying nothing but thought. Then the stony planes of his visage cracked to let loose a smile that was almost mischievous. “You’re right that I have a hard time turning away from an underdog.”
***
Havec lay on the scorching-hot flagstones of the patio, one knee cocked, arms stretched out above him, glorying in the heat of the sun. He had been gone long enough that his memories of home were hazy and unreliable, but he was pretty certain its sun had been a weak flame beside this blazing furnace-heat. He had hated every moment of his incarceration in the hellish freak-show that was this civilization and dreamt each night of going home. But when that day finally came, there were things he would miss.
He heard a door slide open and felt his master’s oppressive presence buffeting against him. The man came to crouch beside him, and he didn’t need to have studied Havec’s visage a thousand times while he was sleeping to know he was awake; the Avatethura Master had spent fifty years steeped in the ways of war and knew at a glance the difference between a body that was relaxed and one that was still with readiness. Havec kept his eyes closed anyway.
“So,” the man said after the length of a minute, “what did you think?”
He grunted a question.
“Of your new playmate?”
His eyes flew open in spite of him. “You said yes?”
Xar studied him, dark eyes sad. Then one corner of his lips twitched. “She has spirit. I think she may survive your company long enough to become your friend.”
“I await the day with bated breath,” he replied, closing his eyes again and slinging an arm across his face.
“I think this will be fun,” Xar opined.
“It should be entertaining to watch you attempt to put an adult through the acolyte’s discipline. Her body is going to be too weak to manage it, and her will is probably too strong to let you keep pushing past the point where it becomes obvious this is a colossal waste of time.”
The man made a sound conveying his indifference, although it wasn’t clear whether this meant he didn’t care that it wouldn’t work or actually thought it might. “The girl’s been to the Collure, were you there for that part?”
That got his arm off his eyes, and he sat up on his elbows to examine his master’s face, wondering what he was up to.
“I saw the diploma for myself. Doesn’t look like she stuck around to pursue any of the graduate tuition, but that scrawny little ferret-faced girl is a sorceress, boy. Be warned.”
This made him laugh. “Yes, I’m sure she’ll blast me into a smoking crater. As soon as she tears her eyes off my ass.”
His master didn’t respond to that, quirking one satiric brow.
He lurched upright and thrust a finger in the man’s face. “Why is she here? What are you up to?”
Xar rested his forearms on his thighs and spread his hands. “I had no hand in bringing her here, you heard their story for yourself.”
He laughed again, bitterly this time. “They came to beg your help. The great Avatethura Master who has a tender spot for those in need. Shall I tell them how gross that irony is?”
“Pure serendipity,” Xar replied, ignoring both his words and his manner. “I simply leapt on the opportunity to provide you with a friend. When was the last time you had a conversation with someone who wasn’t thrice your age?”
Havec made a slashing gesture with one hand. “I don’t believe you. You can’t be trusted, I learned this years ago. You’re a liar and a wicked man, you aren’t capable of doing something innocent for harmless reasons.”
His master stood, turning away. “You need to get out of the sun. You’re going to get a sunburn.”
He opened his mouth to retort, but the man thrust one arm at the door he had exited through a few minutes earlier. “Inside. Now.”
There was no choice but to rise and leave. As he passed Xar anKebbal, though, he said through his teeth, loud enough to be certain the man heard him, “I dream about you dead.”
M.C. Burnell
