The Desert Spear

Jardir’s strength couldn’t make the slightest bend in the gold.
    Inevera bowed and took the crown, slipping it over his turban. Though light as a feather, Jardir nevertheless felt a great weight lay upon him as it settled at his brow.
    “Now, we can invade the green lands,” he said.

[] SECTION 2
    OUTSIDE FORCES

CHAPTER 12
WITCHES
    p.
333 AR WINTER
    LEESHA’S PARENTS’ HOME CAME into sight. It was a modest house, considering her father’s means, but it served her family well enough, built against the back wall of her father’s paper shop. The path leading to the front door was warded.
    Not that Rojer was paying much attention. He walked slightly behind Leesha, so he could gaze at her without her noticing. Her pale skin was a sharp contrast to her night-black hair, and her eyes were the color of sky on a clear day. His eyes drifted over her curves.
    Leesha turned to him suddenly, and Rojer started, quickly raising his eyes.
    “Thanks again for doing this, Rojer,” Leesha said.
    As if Rojer could refuse Leesha anything. “It’s hardly a chore to sit through a meal, even if your mother’s cooking could try a coreling’s teeth,” he said.
    “For you, maybe,” Leesha said. “If I show up alone, she ’ll plague me until I’m ready to spit over when I’m going to find a husband. With you there, she may at least cover her fangs. Perhaps she ’ll even take us for a pair and draw off entirely.”
    Rojer looked at her, his heart stopping. He slipped into his Jongleur’s mask, face and voice betraying not a bit of what he was feeling, and asked, “You wouldn’t mind your mother thinking us a pair?”
    Leesha laughed. “I’d love it. Most of the town would accept it, too. Only you and Arlen and I would know how ridiculous it is.”
    Rojer felt like she had slapped him, but his heart resumed beating, and with his mask in place Leesha noticed nothing.
    “I wish you wouldn’t call him that,” Rojer said, changing the subject.
    “Arlen?” Leesha asked, and Rojer winced. “Arlen! Arlen! Arlen!” she said, laughing. “It’s just his name, Rojer. I’m not going to pretend he doesn’t have one, however mysterious he wants to seem.”
    “I say let him seem as he likes,” Rojer said. “Arrick always said, if you rehearse an act you never mean the audience to see, sooner or later they’ll see it. All you need is one slip, and his name will be on every lip in town.”
    “So what if it is?” Leesha asked. “The ‘Painted Man’ isn’t comfortable in town because folk treat him differently. Admitting he has a name might go a ways toward fixing that.”
    “You don’t know what he’s left behind him,” Rojer said. “Could be some folk might get hurt if his name got out, or others might come hunting him with some account to settle. I know what it’s like to live like that, Leesha. The Painted Man saved my life, and if he doesn’t want his name out, I mean to forget I know it, even if it means giving up the song of the century.”
    “You can’t just forget things you’ve learned,” Leesha said.
    “Not all of us have as much space upstairs as you,” Rojer said, tapping his temple. “Some of us fill right up, and forget the old things we have no use for.”
    “That’s nonsense,” Leesha said. Rojer shrugged.
    “Anyway, thank you again,” Leesha said. “I’ve no end of men volunteering to stand in front of demons for me, but not one who’ll stand in front of my mother.”
    “Reckon Gared Cutter would do both,” Rojer said.
    Leesha snorted. “He’s as much my mother’s creature as any. Gared destroyed my life, and she wants me to forgive him and make him babies still, as if him taking so well to demon killing somehow makes him a catch worth having. She’s nothing but a manipulative witch, poisoning everyone around her.”
    “Bah!” Rojer said. “She’s not so bad. Understand her, and you can play her like a fiddle.”
    “You’re underestimating her,” Leesha said. “Men see her beauty and refuse to look past it. You may think it’s you doing the charming, but in truth she’ll be seducing you like she does every man, turning them against me.”
    “That’s tampweed talk,” Rojer said. “Elona isn’t some corespawned genius bent on destroying your life.”
    “You just don’t know her well enough,” Leesha said.
    Rojer shook his head. “Arrick taught me all about women, and he said the ones like your mum, who were really beautiful once but are starting to