Free Wheel of the Infinite by Martha Wells Page A

somewhat strayed from the subject at hand.
    She looked at him. He looked back, still with that same air of ironic comment. He wasn’t afraid of her at all. Careful, but not afraid. That might be ignorance, but he had called her a wizard, and if she understood what the Sitanese meant by the word, then he should have been. “Why did you follow me? You were avoiding the road, weren’t you? Why come to the Sare and risk the temple guards?”
    As if she hadn’t spoken, he said, “If it wasn’t the priests that sent that boy, who was it?” Since she had left Duvalpore years ago, no one had spoken to her with this sort of directness. If they believed her guise as a travelling Koshan nun, they treated her with the deference due a religious under the protection of the Celestial Empire and the temples. If they knew who or what she really was, they were afraid. Even Rastim and Old Mali, her best friends among the Ariaden, never questioned her like this, possibly because they dreaded to hear the answers.
    No one in years had told her she was wrong, or so much as implied that her judgment was wanting. She found herself grinning. “It wasn’t the priests. One of the most sacred duties of the Koshan is to serve the Voices. That’s why the head priest of the Temple of the Sare offered me hospitality, though he knew what he was letting himself in for, from his own people and from the one who sent the boy.”
    He stared at her. She knew she had had the satisfaction of finally really startling him, though she wasn’t sure how. He said, “Are you a nun?”
    “Once. Not now.” She adopted a bemused expression, though she hadn’t much confidence in it.
    “Are Voices celibate?”
    “No.” She had actually opened her mouth for an explanation of the Koshan Order and how the Voices were lifted above it when they were chosen, when he kissed her.
    A persistent rapping at the side of the wagon interrupted them. Maskelle sat back from Rian and saw an eye peering cautiously at them through a gap in the partly closed flap. Rastim’s voice said, “Excuse me.”
    Maskelle got up and tore the flap open. “What, what, what?”
    Rastim stepped back, pointing across the compound. “The guards are still watching us,” he whispered urgently.
    She looked past the wagons toward the post and saw several of the guards at the bottom of the stairs, apparently in idle conversation. Stepping out onto the tailboard, she could see the flickering lights of small handlamps around the compound between the Mahlindi’s wagons and theirs and also at the edge of the trees and up at the road. Rian leaned on the gate beside her and pointed out, “They would have to be moon-crazy not to watch us.”
    “That’s true,” Maskelle said, trying not to be distracted by the warm presence next to her thigh. “They’ll keep anything else from coming into the camp tonight, Rastim.”
    “I did realize that, thank you both very much,” Rastim said through gritted teeth. “But there’s something else.”
    Damn Ariaden anyway
, Maskelle thought, resting her forehead against the rough wood. “Just tell me, Rastim, really.”
    Rastim cast a worried look at Rian, then lowered his voice and said, “It’s knocking.”
    “What’s ...” Maskelle frowned. “Oh. It.” Of course it was knocking. The damn thing had an instinct for when to cause trouble.
    “I’m afraid they’ll hear it,” Rastim elaborated.
    “Yes, I’ve got the idea now.”
    Rian looked from one to the other. “Hear what?”
    She let out her breath. “All right. Let’s go do something about it.”
    Rian jumped down from the wagon behind her and followed them over to Rastim’s wagon. Within a few steps, Maskelle heard the knocking. If it got any louder, the post guards would hear it, too.
    Firac and Therasa stood near the box where it hung beneath the wagon. Maskelle folded her arms and contemplated it with annoyance. The knocking was slow and paced evenly, with a funereal quality. She glanced