No, there were only two ways out: as a passenger on one of the wagons back to Mimph or on tomorrow morning’s riverboat. Either way, he’d have to be careful not to be spotted. If by wagon, he could hide overnight in the stables then board at the last moment after making certain Zelia wasn’t also catching a wagon back to Mimph. Bundled in a heavy blanket, he’d be indistinguishable from any other passenger. There was always the risk that some stable hand or driver would find him in the stables, but he could give the simple excuse of not having enough coin for an inn, and charm the fellow into agreeing to let him sleep in a stall.
If by riverboat, he’d also have to find a way to board without Zelia seeing him.
Two men were approaching—the sailors who had been mounting the repeating crossbows on the boat earlier. Fortunately, the snow was still falling. Screened by its mottled white curtain, Arvin stepped into the shadows at the rear of the Eelgrass Inn and watched the men enter another of the inns. He glanced at the boat they’d just come from. Of the dozen tied up to the piers, it was the only one with a guard—Arvin could see him moving on the boat’s raised stern, beside a dull red glow that must be a brazier. The guard obviously wasn’t going anywhere, which meant the riverboat had cargo loaded on board. It was the one that would sail in the morning. It would be an easy matter for Arvin to use his psionics to distract the guard then slip into the hold and hide. That would ensure that Zelia wouldn’t see him. Then, with Tymora’s blessing, Arvin would be on his way to Ormpetarr. Zelia would never even know that he’d nearly blundered into the inn where she was staying.
Unless she, too, was planning on leaving by riverboat.
Arvin couldn’t very well hide in the hold for the whole of the two-day journey to Ormpetarr. He had to know whether Zelia was planning on being aboard the riverboat tomorrow morning. More important, he needed to learn what she was doing here. Had she heard that Arvin was alive and on his way to Ormpetarr, then positioned herself at the one place he was sure to pass through on his way there?
In order to find the answers to his questions, Arvin had to take a risk.
A very big risk.
Taking a deep breath, he placed a hand on the rough wooden wall next to him. He withdrew into himself, drawing his consciousness first into the “third eye” at the center of his forehead and deeper, into the spot at the base of his throat. Tightly coiled swirls of energy were unleashed in each location; a heartbeat later he heard the low droning noise that accompanied his manifestations of this power. Silver motes of light sparkled in his vision then flared out around him, sputtering into invisibility as they moved away from him.
They penetrated the walls of the inn. Following them with his consciousness, Arvin quested about mentally, looking for the distinctive disturbances that accompanied the use of psionics. He found none. At the moment, Zelia was not manifesting any of her powers.
Thus reassured, Arvin shifted his consciousness away from his throat and into a spot at the base of his scalp. Energy awakened there with a prickling that raised the hairs on the back of his neck as he manifested a second psionic power. Once again, the silver sparkles erupted around him. He sent his consciousness into the inn a second time, searching, this time, for thoughts. He skipped lightly from one patron of the inn to the next. Strangely, he could not locate Karrell—had she left the inn without Arvin spotting her? But Zelia’s mind, powerful as it was, rose above the others. Catching his breath, he listened.
She wasn’t thinking about him. Instead her thoughts were focused, impatiently, on someone she was waiting for: a male—someone who couldn’t come inside the inn, for some reason. This someone probably wouldn’t arrive for another day or so, given the unusually snowy weather. She was stuck here until he arrived, and she wasn’t happy about it. But all she could do was wait. He would send her a message as soon as he was in the vicinity of—
Arvin felt Zelia’s thoughts jerk to a sudden halt. There was a faint tinkling noise at the edges of her awareness—the secondary display of the power Arvin was manifesting. Zelia focused on it. Someone was trying to contact her. Was it—?
Instantly, Arvin disengaged. He scrambled away from the Eelgrass Inn, putting as much distance between himself and Zelia as possible. The power that allowed a psion to detect manifestations in his or her vicinity had a limited range, typically no more than twenty paces. Likewise the power that allowed a psion to detect thoughts—a power Zelia also had.
