She clicked her tongue again. “I wonder if the allies even know.”
Tyen opened his mouth to voice his earlier idea of capturing and questioning an ally, then quickly closed it again. He wasn’t supposed to be encouraging the rebels to attack anyone. Sometimes it was too easy to forget that he was a spy, not a rebel.
“If you don’t mind, I’ll start investigating once we’re settled again,” she said.
“I don’t mind. Just be careful,” Tyen replied.
“I will.” She paused. “Can I…?”
Tyen grimaced. “Yes, send him in. I’d like to know his reasons for joining us.”
“Thanks.”
Sitting down in the only chair in the room, he listened to the noises of the city. At the end of the street a woman was laughing hysterically. Groans were coming from somewhere closer, in the direction of the brothel, but he resisted the temptation to seek out the mind behind them. The cause could be good or bad, and both disturbing and distracting either way. Instead he scanned the minds in the local area for signs of the Raen’s allies again.
A knock came from the door. He opened it with magic. A faint light etched the outline of a young man with curly hair, hesitating on the threshold.
“I guess I didn’t even consider there might be a hierarchy,” Baluka was thinking. “I don’t know if I like their… no, don’t think about that.”
“Come in, Baluka,” Tyen said.
The Traveller entered, stopping a few steps inside the door.
“You have some questions,” Tyen said. “And so have I. For a start, I want to know why you sought us out.”
At once a face appeared in the man’s memory. A woman of striking beauty. Tyen almost smiled. He’d learned that, most of the time, the difference between a beautiful and merely good-looking face existed only in the mind of the admirer. The depth of feeling behind a lover’s recollection would make anyone’s face glow with magical enchantment.
But then another, familiar face replaced the woman’s, and Tyen’s amusement evaporated as he realised Baluka had seen the Raen–and recently.
“The Raen stole my fiancée,” the young man said in a low voice.
A scene was playing out in Baluka’s mind. The woman smiled and turned away. The Raen appeared out of the darkness. A gasp came from the woman, before they both vanished.
“I intend to find and free her.”
Tyen frowned. “Do you know why he took her?”
Baluka nodded. “She is a Maker.”
And a powerful sorcerer, Baluka added silently. An unusual combination. Almost unheard of.
“So… you believe your fiancée…”
“Rielle.”
“Rielle is in the Raen’s palace. In his world.”
“Yes.”
At least it’s unlikely the Raen will harm her, Tyen thought. Though what he might do to persuade her to work for him if she resisted… He shivered, glad that Baluka could not see into his mind. He’d seen things done by the allies, in the rebels’ memories, that he wished he could forget. Yet nobody recalls the Raen dealing out such cruelties. Still, he has aligned himself with these allies, and they act on his behalf, which is almost as bad. All the uneasiness he’d ignored in the past at serving the Raen stirred in him again, followed by a stubborn hope that the ruler of worlds was not as terrible as his allies–or that not all the allies were bad.
He sighed. “I’m afraid it’s going to be a very long time before we will be strong enough to attack his world. We don’t even know where it is.”
“I understand. If it was easy, it would have been done already.”
If Tyen hadn’t been able to see Baluka’s mind, he’d have read no more than acceptance and determination in the man’s tone. But in the newcomer’s mind the words were laced with sarcasm and dismay. The Traveller was not impressed with what he had seen of the rebels so far. He was half tempted to leave and seek another way to retrieve his fiancée. The other half wanted to take this disorganised rabble in hand and shape it into a force even the Raen would fear.
And then he remembered that Tyen could read his mind.
Tyen had no intention of pretending he hadn’t seen everything. “So what would you do to make us such a force?”
Baluka swallowed audibly. “I have some general ideas.”
“Only general ideas? Details are the scaffolding of a war plan. Without them you only have a pile of materials and ambitions.”
“Well, I only just got here.”
“Tell me what you’ve thought of so far, then.”
“I’d spread our bases across the worlds, so we can’t all be trapped in one.”
“And how would you communicate with them without the messengers being detected travelling between worlds?”
“I wouldn’t. We would send a message to them only when we are ready to attack. It would be safer, for most, if they stayed in their home world until then.”