A HAZARD TO OTHERS
The child, Grandmother’s flesh and blood granddaughter—not just a euphemism for an adherent—gave Karigan an enigmatic look and continued on with carrying her burden. Karigan was about to sprint after her when someone grabbed her shoulder.
She whirled in surprise, hand instinctively raised to strike.
“Karigan,” Connly said, jumping back. “Relax.”
She’d stopped herself just in time. “Do you know who that girl is? She’s Lala, Grandmother’s—”
“We know,” he said.
“You don’t know. She’s dangerous. Grandmother trained her.”
“We do know.”
She stared at him. “Then what is she doing here just walking around our camp?”
“She is under guard, all right? We know who she is and what she can do.”
“She needs to be locked away.”
“She’s a child.”
“She’s not just a child.”
“Look,” Connly said, “she is well-guarded while she helps with camp chores. It keeps her busy and she seems to like it. Apparently she was used to doing all kinds of chores in Second Empire’s various camps. Those who are looking after her say that she follows directions and causes no trouble.”
Karigan leaned toward Connly. “She helped torture the king.”
“We know, and he has approved of the handling of her detention.”
“Detention, eh? And how was she captured?”
“It was after the wraiths incident. All of us Riders woke up out in the middle of the valley, and Lala was there, too. We brought her back to camp. She didn’t fight us or anything, she just came with us.”
“She can’t be trusted.”
“She’s a child,” Connly insisted. “But I didn’t come after you to talk about Lala. I came to talk about you.”
This could not be good, Karigan thought.
“Let’s go somewhere where we can speak more privately.”
Karigan deposited Duncan’s tempes stone with Tegan and then walked with Connly to the pickets. There was little privacy to be found in an encampment so large, but this would do. She patted the neck of a friendly mule while she waited for Connly to begin.
He absently scratched the back of his neck and shifted from one foot to the other. Finally, he said, “You did it again.”
“Did what again?”
“You went on your own for a whole month. Yes, I heard your explanation about how time moves differently in Eletia. It was still a month here.”
“I had no control over that.”
He raised his hands as if to stave off further rebuttal. “I know, I know, but isn’t it interesting how often that happens?” When she tried to protest, he cut her off. “When you are with us, you just seem to pull us into danger. Like the wraiths in the Blanding. They were drawn to you, which put the rest of us in danger. And when you used the travel device to take Torq there? The wraiths got hold of it, got it away from you, and endangered the entire encampment.”
He was blaming her for the wraiths?
“You find danger not just for yourself,” he continued, “but for the rest of us, too. Yes, thanks to you, Torq is gone and we didn’t fall prey to the whisper wraiths, but we might not have encountered them in the first place but for you.”
The mule snorted and stamped his hoof as if picking up on her anger. “You can’t—”
“I’m not finished yet,” he said. “Because you are so often putting yourself out on some individual adventure, I am stuck here without a Chief Rider. Fortunately, Tegan can step into that role pretty easily, but truthfully, having you away all the time makes our operation unpredictable and less efficient.”
Unpredictability was the very nature of the messenger service, wasn’t it? But less efficient?
“And now that you are Eletian royalty . . .” Connly said, trailing off to leave the interpretation up to her.
“Yes?” she asked as neutrally as possible.
Connly fidgeted. Scratched the back of his neck again. “I just think it will affect how the Riders relate to you. They won’t see you as just their Chief anymore, but as a noblewoman.”
Noblewoman, she thought, aghast. Ugh. Gathering all the composure she could since lashing out at him would only make matters worse, she said, “So, in other words, I have failed as your Chief Rider and you would like someone else to be Chief. Like Tegan.”
Connly nodded. “She is reliable. And to be honest—and I hope you don’t take offense—you were chosen without my being consulted.”
“You would have chosen Tegan?”
“Yes, or Ty. Now, with the colonel gone, it is my decision as to who is on my command staff.”
“What about Mara?”
“Mara stays.”
“What about Beryl? Might she have something to say about this?” Beryl was a major and, so, outranked Connly. Of course, she probably had no idea she was now a major of the Green Riders, just as Karigan hadn’t known she was Chief until Fergal told her.
“We never see her. I doubt she would care much who was Chief Rider, but it impacts me directly. If Beryl has an objection, we’ll discuss it. I’m sorry, Karigan, or Lady Winterlight, or whatever you are to go by these days, but—”
Before he could finish, she unpinned the gold feather brooch and handed it to him. She walked away without his dismissal.
At first she was too stunned to feel much of anything at having what had only just recently been given to her taken away, but as she walked into camp, her fury grew. The colonel had wanted her, and it wasn’t like the colonel was going to be permanently gone. They were going to get her back, and when they did, would she override Connly’s decision?
Her anger grew even more as she stepped around a pair of soldiers tossing a ball back and forth and thought about how she had good reasons for her absences. She was doing her job on behalf of the realm. It wasn’t like she’d been Chief Rider long enough to be gone so much.
And what of the Eletian title? It didn’t change her or what she could do for the Riders. In truth, it didn’t really mean a whole lot.
When she reached Tegan’s tent, she dropped into a camp chair by the fire with a thump. Most hurtful of all was his assertion that she put others in danger. It was true that if she hadn’t opened the way to the white world, they would not have used that route and encountered the whisper wraiths, and certainly the next time she returned to the white world, the wraiths had indeed grabbed the travel device and threatened everyone in the encampment.
However, the idea to use the white world to go after Colonel Mapstone’s captors had been Duncan’s, not hers, and those in charge had approved it. And was it her fault the wraiths were attracted to her magic? And it wasn’t just hers, but Duncan’s and the rest of the Riders, too. All of that concentrated magic must have been very attractive to them.
Maybe none of it was her fault, but maybe it was true that she was hazardous to be around at times. And, it was certainly true she could not be a good Chief Rider if she were not present to do her job, at least not to her captain’s expectations. Still, the unfairness of it rankled. She wanted to yell and scream and kick things, but restrained herself. She laughed bitterly—if she were alone off on some “individual adventure” as Connly called it, she could kick anything she wanted. But not here. Not here in the middle of this encampment. Such behavior would be seen by all and judged unseemly.
You failed, came a voice in her mind she had hoped not to hear again.
Where have you been? she asked Nyssa.
Missed me, did you?
Couldn’t get to me in Eletia, could you?
I am here now, my pet, Nyssa replied. You thought you were so special, but you’re not even good enough to be Chief among your own kind.
Karigan didn’t respond. She didn’t need Nyssa to tell her to know that this was a blow to her self-worth. She gazed into the campfire. All the activity of the camp seemed far off. Her stomach grumbled, but her confrontation with Connly put her off the desire to eat. She didn’t want to move for fear of running into Connly or anyone else, really. As a Chief Rider, she’d been a fraud. She hadn’t deserved the promotion in the first place.
That’s right, Nyssa murmured. You are a fraud, a terrible Chief Rider.
Karigan sighed and, as dusk set in, tossed sticks onto the fire and gazed into the flames, allowing her anger and sense of failure to simmer. After a while, she followed a spark that blew into the air and saw that she was not alone. Someone in seafaring garb occupied the camp chair across from her. Flames reflected in the lenses of the woman’s specs, which she removed and folded, then wrapped in a cloth and carefully placed in an inner pocket of her coat. It took a moment for Karigan to recognize her.
“Beryl? This is a surprise.”
There was a familiar intensity to Beryl Spencer, a sharp, no-nonsense demeanor even when she was not in uniform.
“I thought you’d been sent east,” Karigan added. “Did the king recall you to go after the colonel?”
Beryl’s eyes flickered with the dance of flames. You must give the king a message, she said.
“Me? Why don’t you give it to him yourself?”
When Beryl’s gaze met Karigan’s, Karigan shivered. There was an otherworldliness to her eyes.
You must tell the king I have failed, Beryl said.
Failed, failed, failed . . . The word echoed in Karigan’s mind as a reminder of her own shortcomings.
“There you are,” Tegan said, suddenly appearing next to the fire.
Karigan jumped and blinked rapidly, and watched as Beryl stood, gazed meaningfully at her, then turned and disappeared into the dark. To Tegan, Karigan said, “Beryl isn’t . . . here, is she?”
Tegan sat next to her. “Beryl? Here? She’s supposed to be out east somewhere.”
“She was just here, when you walked up. Or, that’s what I thought. Maybe I dozed off and dreamed it was her, or . . .” She did not like the implication of what she left unstated.
“If you’re not dreaming and she is here, she hasn’t checked in. Or maybe she wouldn’t, considering the type of work she usually does.”
Karigan wasn’t sure exactly what she had seen or dreamed. Was it a visitation? Usually she felt more clear about these things.
“Now that I’ve found you,” Tegan said, “I need to tell you something.”
“Yes?”
“Connly asked me to be Chief Rider.”
He’d wasted no time, Karigan thought. “And?”
“He claimed you resigned. I didn’t buy it, and said so. What happened?”
Karigan folded her arms and gazed once more into the fire. “I guess I did sort of resign.”
“What?”
Karigan then related her confrontation with Connly.
“You know,” Tegan said when she finished, “he just hasn’t been himself since Colonel Mapstone was taken. He dithers over every decision, and is stressed and anxious. You should have kept your position. He had no right, and his reasoning stinks.”
“I am thinking he may be right on some counts.”
“What the hells, Karigan? You’re one of the best Riders we’ve got.”
“But clearly not one of the best Chief Riders. I certainly haven’t been present to work in that capacity. At least, not with Connly, and as captain, it’s his right to choose someone he can rely on. I think you should go back to him and tell him you’ve changed your mind.”
“Really, Karigan, you’ve got to stick up more for yourself. When we were crossing the Blanding, and then looking for the colonel? You were an excellent Chief Rider.”
“Honestly, Tegan, you were a better Chief Rider than I was when we were crossing the Blanding,” Karigan said. “After I told everyone not to believe what they saw there, guess who fell for the first vision she saw? Me, of course. You kept me going. And, who was doing the Chief Rider job while I was in Eletia?”
“I wouldn’t feel right about accepting the position.”
“Don’t feel bad for me,” Karigan replied, though she found Tegan’s support gratifying. “It would appear I have enough special titles that one less won’t hurt. If you are worried about my feelings, don’t be. It is beginning to feel like a relief not to have that kind of responsibility.” To her surprise, it really was. She wouldn’t be responsible for getting up at dawn to send Riders out on errands, ensuring they were all set with supplies and ready to go. She wouldn’t have to mediate their squabbles and problems, or schedule each Rider’s daily routine. It would now all fall to Tegan. So would dealing with Connly.
“Are you sure?” Tegan asked.
“I am. Now go.” She made shooing motions with her hand. “Go before he finds someone less suitable.”
Karigan nestled beneath the blankets of her bedroll. The day had turned into a long and unpleasant evening. It was hard to believe she had started her day in Eletia.
Tegan’s blankets rustled as she turned over on her cot. After she had returned from talking with Connly, she had tried to suppress her excitement at her unexpected promotion. She’d tried not to be obvious about glancing at the gold feather brooch now pinned to her shortcoat. Karigan had smiled and congratulated her, but she wilted on the inside. Even so, she knew Tegan would prove an excellent Chief.
She sighed and was ready to sleep, but suddenly Beryl was there again, standing over her. There was a faint glow to her, a wavery-ness to her form. This was no dream.
You must tell the king I have failed, the apparition said. Seek the flying dragon shield.
“Shield? What shield?”
The apparition flickered, and faded out.
“Karigan?” came Tegan’s sleepy voice, “are you talking in your sleep?”
“No.”
“Then who are you talking to?”
“Beryl.”
There was a long pause. “Um, sure you’re not talking in your sleep?”
“I’m sure. Beryl is dead.”