Free The King's Justice by Stephen R. Donaldson

such quality. Their training was diligent, their skill prodigious, and their vigilance in their master’s name exceeded all bounds. If they ever ate or slept”—she remembers them with as much awe as her nature allows—“I say this seriously, Black—they did so only when he admitted one or at most two of them to his house. With four such men in my employ, I could dispense with ten others and call myself well defended.”
    For a moment, Kelvera drifts among her memories. To prompt her, Black asks, “He named his destination, this Sought?”
    Her full attention returns to the shaped man. “He did not,” she replies more sharply. “He said that he would go with me as far as I went. Then he would find another caravan to continue his journey.”
    â€œYet he turned aside?”
    She folds her arms. “As I have said. He did not emerge from his wagon while we rested here. But when we had passed a league beyond Settle’s Crossways, his teamster pulled his oxen from the road. There the old man informed my captain of wagons thathe was content. He needed rest, he said. He would bide where he was for a time. His guards would suffice to fend for him.”
    â€œFend for him?” Black interjects. The phrase troubles him. It matches his hasty speculations too closely.
    Again Kelvera shrugs. “So he said. As he asked no return of coin, I had no cause to refuse him.”
    Black is silent for a moment. Within himself, he wonders whether his purpose will require him to confront a foe he cannot comprehend. A foe against whom his own powers will have no meaning. Despite his ability to forget, and his singular resolve, he is forced to acknowledge—not for the first time—that he is afraid.
    Yet he masks his uncertainty. His manner is unchanged as he asks, “The place where he joined your train. Is it known for its winds?”
    â€œKnown?” snorts Kelvera. “Say infamous. It is an unholy hell of winds. Their dust can strip the flesh from bones. Every outcropping of rock has been sculpted until it resembles a fiend yearning for release. Those winds—” She shakes her head to dispel thoughts of over-turned wagons, mangled deaths, spilled goods, maimed beasts. “There is a price in pain to be paid for crossing that stretch of desert.”
    By these words, Kelvera tells Black that the land of her birth holds to an alien theology, one which would not be recognized in the kingdom he serves. The temples created by the King have not yet excreted such arcana as hells and fiends. Perhaps sorceries are possible in the west that are inconceivable here.
    He knows now that he has entered deep waters. For him, they may be bottomless. Nevertheless his purpose is at its most compulsory when he fears it.
    As he gathers himself to thank the caravan-master, however, his doubts prompt one more question.
    â€œA dire desert, then,” he remarks. “What gods are worshipped there?”
    If the old man is in truth a hierophant—
    Kelvera rolls her eyes. “What else?” She has her own reasons to scorn religions. “Wind and sun. In that region, there are no other powers that can be asked for mercy.” Then she shrugs once more. “Those prayers are not answered.”
    Thinking, Lungs and livers, air and heat, Black can delay no longer. He must obey his purpose.
    But when he rises from his chair, the caravan-master stops him with a gesture. He has warned her. She has a warning of her own to deliver.
    Leaning close, she says, “Heed me, Black,” a whisper no one will overhear. “You are a shaped man. That Sought was not. Be wary of him.”
    Black raises an eyebrow at her recognition. She does not need to say the words he hears. If the old man is not shaped, he may yet be a shaper. Also his guards are fearsome.
    More formally than is his custom, Black replies, “Accept my gratitude, Blossom. I am in your debt.”
    This debt