Read Online The Brazen Gambit by Lynn Abbey - Free Book Online Page A

the storeroom as well; he must have been behind the half-giant earlier. A hideous scar in
the form of the Escrissar family crest had been burned into the halfling's face. The slave worked alone in a corner,
blending zarneeka powder in a bowl with what looked and smelled like golden wine. A similar bowl bubbled on a tripod
set over a blue-flamed lamp.
    The implication was clear enough, even to a punch-drunk regulator: zarneeka was the necessary ingredient in
Ral's breath, but, contrary to Metica-and King Hamanu's assertion-it was also the necessary ingredient in something
else. "Pavek, Pavek, Pavek," Escrissar chanted, sucking his teeth and shaking his head between each repetition of
Pavek's name. "Whatever are we going to do with you? You've made quite a nuisance of yourself. Too bad you
weren't born in Tyr; there they might call you a hero, but here you're just a pathetic little man. A jozhal nipping at the
Dragon's heel."
    The question was pure rhetoric. Pavek knew what they intended to do with him. He had nothing left to lose or
defend. That realization made him reckless. "Haven't you heard-the Dragon's dead-brought down by a pack of
jozhals."
    Escrissar's enameled talons flashed in the lamplight. They were razor-sharp near the tips and opened Pavek's
cheek despite his belated efforts to dodge them. He caught his balance dangerously close to the halfling's tripod. The
scarred slave's eyes were dead-black and filled with contempt; that expression did not change when the slave looked
past Pavek to his master. Pavek let the wall do the hard work of keeping him upright while he sorted through what he
saw.
    Slaves did not cherish their masters. Hatred, intense and justified, seethed just below the most obsequious smile.
Insolence that fell just short of disobedience had to be tolerated, even in Urik, but no slave should have survived the
look the halfling gave his master.
    Yet, like Rokka with the druid woman, Escrissar didn't retaliate.
    Through the aches and haze, Pavek slowly understood that Escrissar didn't know the secret of the simmering
decoction. He stared at the tripod, envisioning his foot thrust through the tripod's legs, overturning the crucible, and
blatantly daring Escrissar to pluck his thoughts. The mask chuckled.
    "Try it, if it will make you feel better before you die, but heroics will buy you nothing. We already have enough
Laq to delude all Urik. We have plans, Pavek, plans for all Athas now that the Dragon, as you said, has been brought
down by a pack of jozhals."
    Laq.
    Pavek's foot stayed where it was. Ral's Breath took the ache out of a strained muscle or throbbing head. Laq
made people crazy, then it killed them. It didn't add cleanly, but then, he wasn't an alchemist. That halfling undoubtedly
was; and that halfling was making Laq in his crucible. With those hate-filled eyes, the slave was closer to pure evil
than Elabon Escrissar could hope to be; closer, even, than the sorcerer-king, Hamanu.
    Maybe death now, before Escrissar's alchemist spread his poison across the Tablelands, would be a blessing.
    "King Hamanu will take you apart." He spat out the words before he thought to censor them.
    "Who will tell him? You? Our mighty king will never know-until it's too late. The rains have come; Athas will
belong to us." Escrissar's voice was tired; he'd grown bored with the game. "Get rid of him!"
    Pavek glanced at the alchemist before Dovanne and Rokka seized his arms. The halfling's expression had not
changed. A tiny thrill of victory beat against Pavek's ribs: slaves were still slaves. This one, he decided, would slit his
master's throat when the moment was right and take Escrissar completely by surprise when he did.
    Then Dovanne shoved him through the door. The half-giant gathered him into a death-hug.
    "Sassel!" Dovanne shouted, treating the half-giant as if he were deaf as well as impressionable. "Let go of him."
So, she wasn't going to give anyone else the honor of getting