Chapter 17: Suspicion

"You should have attacked when you had the chance, killed them all!" Arragin stamped his feet as he strode about the tent, raging in a voice that was shrill with fury. "You had Dalliktan in your clenched fist, and you let him go. I wanted him killed!"

"Perhaps I should have killed him, your Majesty. But I didn't, for what I considered good reasons. We were outnumbered, it was dark, and I am a trader, not one of your soldiers. We did what we came for, not only proving that Dalliktan was responsible for the terror but also destroying the weapon that he used to do it. Also, I had found my two helpers and wasn't about to expose them to further danger."

"They are only women, even if they did fight like true warriors this one time. I have sent out squads of soldiers to capture Dalliktan. His best chance is for him to flee toward Chammar. If he isn't stopped before he gets there, he will be certain to join forces with Captain Torvash and the remnants of Essgant's army. You already know how that one feels toward traders, or toward anyone he suspects is allied with the MotherGoddess."

Arragin paused to take a sip from his goblet of wine, his massive head cocked to one side as he glared suspiciously at Neal. They were in Arragin's newly mended tent, once more surrounded by the bustle and clamor of an armed camp.

"That would be bad news for me, all right," Neal answered. "We'll have to go back that way when we return home."

"If you are allowed to return home," Arragin snapped. "I'm still not at all satisfied with your account of yourself. You're no simple trader, and now it seems that one of your helpers is a priestess of the MotherGoddess."

"I made the priestess in Chammar a gift of seasalt. In return, she aided us. Jewel learned their secret language, at least a few words of it, but she is no priestess. You should be glad that the followers of the MotherGoddess have been willing to help you against Dalliktan."

"They do so for their own reasons, not because they are friends of mine. I care for neither side. Now that Essgant is defeated, there are no more rebel armies roaming the northlands. I will be most pleased if only I can return to Harbassass with word that this part of Khamus is peaceful once more, and has no more need of my armies." Arragin finished his wine, setting his cup down with a decisive thump. "Leave me now. I am grateful to you for defeating Dalliktan, but don't think to presume on my gratitude."

"I wouldn't think of doing any such thing, Your Highness." Curbing his temper, Neal backed out of the tent and made his way to where his own tent had been set up.

Jewel looked up from helping Amy restore their few belongings to a semblance of order as Neal entered their tent.

"Who stepped on your toes?" She quickly hid the smile that was provoked by his angry scowl. "As if I hadn't already guessed. Better speak English."

"Right. That son of a bitch can probably guess what I'm thinking, but it had better stay a guess." He flung himself down on a pile of furs. "He's madder than Hell because we didn't go ahead and wipe out Dalliktan when we had the chance. He's also griped because the followers of the MotherGoddess are friendly to us, and he's not about to let us out of his sight. We know too much, and we've done too much. He neither trusts nor understands us, nor does he want to."

"Did you expect him to love us?" Jewel removed a cloth cover from a tray, setting it on a low stand in front of him. "Here, we saved some dinner for you. The Prince couldn't be expected to understand your appetite, either."

"Thanks. No, his idea of a square meal is a couple of fancy little snacks and a jug of wine. Sour wine, at that. Khamus should be a real market for decent liquor if we ever get our trading posts set up here. Just imagine how they would react to even a moderately good Burgundy or Chablis, and I'm sure that they'd be overwhelmed by a few bottles of Champagne."

Jewel glanced at him, surprised. "You're still thinking about your 'World Traders' idea, then?"

"I don't see why not. If not here then somewhere else, maybe even somewhere else on this same planet. This is almost certainly not the only world we can reach that has intelligent life on it, even if it's the first one we've found. I expected all along to find planets with civilizations, though I'll admit it surprised me to meet up with other human beings. It may even be that transdimensional portals can occur naturally, letting things through from one dimension to another. That would certainly go a long way toward explaining a lot of our world's old folktales. Anyway, there have to be ways to make my invention pay off for us, and trading back and forth across the universes could well be one of the simplest and least harmful ones." He finished cleaning off the last bits of food from the wooden platter, leaning back against the pile of sleeping robes and trying to stifle a yawn. "Buy where things are cheap, sell where they are expensive. That's the way to make money, in any culture. But that's a long ways off in the future. Right now, our biggest worry is getting the three of us back home alive and in one piece. Time passes faster here than at home by nearly two to one, but we still have to hurry. We should have been back long before this. It won't do us any good to reach our pickup spot if there's nobody waiting for us on the other side to pick us up."

"What if we don't make it in time," Amy asked. "Couldn't you build another portal here, and go back through that?"

"I suppose it's possible." Neal leaned back against the pile of furs as he considered the idea, his brow once again furrowed with worry lines that Jewel ached to smooth away. "Yes, I think that I could. The portal itself is simple enough to build if you know its secret, but it still might take us years and there's no way of telling where on Earth we'd come out. We'd have to build everything from scratch, and make our living at the same time. No, we'd better just figure on getting back as soon as we can."