UNEASY ALLIANCES

 

CONTENTS

 

Dramatis Personae, Lynn Abbey

Introduction, Lynn Abbey

Slave Trade, Robert Lynn Asprin

The Best of Friends, C. J. Cherryh

The Power of Kings, Jon DeCles

Red Light, Love Light, Chris Morris

A Sticky Business, C. 5: Williams

The Promise of Heaven, Robin Wayne Bailey

The Vision of Lalo, Diana L. Paxson

 UNEASY ALLIANCES

 

Dramatis Personae

 

The Townspeople

 

AHDIOVIZUN; AHDIOMER viz; AHDIO-Proprietor of Sly's Place, a legendary dive within the Maze.

 

THRODE-An employee at Sly's Place.

 

CLEYA; JODEERA-The woman Ahdio loves, and who works for him at Sly's Place. Since she is far too beautiful to travel safely through the Maze, Ahdio has arranged for her to be protected by a disguise of ugliness.

 

LALO THE LIMNER-Street artist gifted with magic he does not fully understand.

 

GILLA-His indomitable wife.

 

GANNER-Their middle son, slain during the False Plague Riots of the previous winter which signaled the end of severe civil unrest in Sanctuary.

 

VANDA-Their daughter, employed as nursemaid to the Beysib at the palace.

 

WEDEMIR-Their eldest child and son. A member of Walegrin's guard patrol.

 

LATILLA-Their youngest daughter.

 

ALFI-Their infant son.

 

HAKIEM-Storyteller and confidant extraordinaire.

 

HORT-Son of a fisherman and Hakiem's apprentice.

 

JUBAL-Prematurely aged former gladiator. Once he openly ran Sanctuary's most visible criminal organization, the Hawkmasks, now he works behind the scenes.

 

SALIMAN-His aide and only friend.

 

MORIA-Once one ofJubal's Hawkmasks, then a servant of Ischade. She was physically transformed into a Rankan noblewoman before the magic died, and the transformation endures. She is in hiding with Stilcho.

 

MYRTIS-Madam of the Aphrodisia House.

 

SNAPPER JO-A fiend who survived the destruction of magic in Sanctuary. Once employed as a bartender in the Vulgar Unicorn.

 

STILCHO-Once one oflschade's resurrected minions. He was "cured" of death when magic was purged from Sanctuary.

 

zip-Sitter young terrorist. Leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Sanctuary (PELS). Now he and his remaining fighters have been designated as officials responsible for peace in the city.

 

The S'danzo

 

ILLYRA-Half-blood S'danzo seeress with True Sight. Wounded by PELS in the False Plague Riots.

 

DUBRO-Bazaar blacksmith and husband to Illyra.

 

THE TERMAGANT-Oldest of the S'danzo women practicing her craft in Sanctuary.

 

The Magicians

 

ILSIGI MAGES:

 

MARKMOR-A powerful, ambitious, youthful wizard.

 

MARYPE-His arrogant, yet blundering, apprentice.

 

MIZRAITH-Marype's father, slain by Markmor shortly after the Prince arrived in Sanctuary.

 

RANKAN HAZARDS DWELLING AT THE MAGEGUILD;

 

RANDAL; WITCHY-EARS-The only mage ever admitted into the Sacred Band of Stepsons or trusted by them. Now a teacher at the Mageguild.

 

Those who adhere to no hierarchy or discipline but their own:

 

ENAS YORL-Quasi-immortal mage cursed with eternal life and a constantly changing physical form.

 

ISCHADE-Necromancer and thief. Her curse is passed to her lovers who die from it. Since the diminution of magic in Sanctuary, she has been in isolation at her house on the White Foal River.

 

STRICK;TORAZELAN STRICK TIFIRAQA-White Mage who has made Sanctuary his home. He will help anyone who comes to him, but there is always a Price, sometimes trivial and sometimes not, for his aid.

 

Visitors in Sanctuary

 

THE SHEPHERD-A figure of considerable mystery. By his panoply he might be an Ilsigi warrior-but all such men have been dead for years.

 

The Rankans Living in Sanctuary

 

CHENAYA; DAUGHTER OF THE sw-A beautiful and powerful young woman, the Prince's cousin, who is fated never to lose a fight. In her arrogance and innocence she made more enemies in Sanctuary than even fate could handle and has left town until her reputation repairs itself.

 

DAYRNE-Her companion and trainer.

 

LEYN, QUIJEN, DISMAS AND GESTUS-Her friends and gladiators at her father's school.

 

DAPHNE-Rankan noblewoman and first wife of Prince Kadakithis. Ostensibly sent to safety before the arrival of the Beysib, she was actually kidnapped and sold into slavery on Scavenger's Island where Chenaya rescued her. She is estranged from her husband.

 

PRINCE KADAKITHIS-Charismatic but somewhat naive half-brother of the assassinated Emperor, Abakithis.

 

LOWAN VIGELES-Half-brother ofMolin Torchholder, father of Chenaya. A wealthy aristocrat self-exiled to Sanctuary and hoping to return to the Rankan capital in triumph someday. He operates a gladiator school at his Land's End estate and has built a small, temporary arena there.

 

MOLIN TORCHHOLDER; TORCH-Archpriest of Sanctuary's wargod (whichever deity that is at the moment). Architect for the rebuilt walls of Sanctuary, Supreme bureaucratic administrator of the city.

 

RASHAN; THE EYE OF SAVANKALA-Priest and Judge of Savankala. Highest ranking Rankan in Sanctuary prior to the arrival of the Prince, now allied with Chenaya's disaffected Rankans at Land's End.

 

STEPSONS; SACRED BANDERS-members of a mercenary unit loyal to Tempus. Their years in Sanctuary were among the worst in their history and all but a few of them have gratefully left town.

 

CRITIAS;CRIT-Longtime mercenary in the company. Tempus left him in charge of peace-keeping in Sanctuary when everyone else left. Also the partner of Straton, though that pairing has been in disarray for some time now.

 

STRATON; STRAT; ACE-Partner ofCritias. Injured by the PELS at the start of the False Plague Riots. He has been Ischade's lover and though her curse has not killed him, most of his former associates count him among Sanctuary's damned.

 

WALEGRIN-Rankan army officer assigned to the Sanctuary garrison where his father had been slain by the S'danzo many years before. He is now one of three officers responsible for the peace in Sanctuary. He is also Illyra 's half-brother.

 

The Beysib

 

SHUPANSEA; sw-SEA-Head of the Beysib exiles in Sanctuary; mortal avatar of the Beysib mother goddess. Lover of Prince Kadakithis whom she wishes to marry.

 

INTRODUCTION

 

Lynn Abbey

 

"No! No more blood! Make it stop!"

 

Shupansea awoke at the sound of her own scream. The nightmare had propelled her out of bed and to the window of her bedchamber. With a trembling hand she pulled the casement shut- This wasn't the first time she'd found herself before an open window; wasn't the first time she shed a cold sweat wondering what would happen if some night she did not scream herself awake.

 

"0 Beysa, forgive my intrusion. I-I heard you scream . . ."

 

Shupansea turned to the lamplight and faced the frightened eyes of Kammesin, the woman who had cared for her since infancy. "It was nothing-a noise in the dark. Nothing at all."

 

Kammesin did not relax. The old woman's eyes remained wide, round and steadily unblinking. Mother Bey! Had she been exiled so long among the fluttering Rankans that her own people looked strange and unnerving? Was her soul forgetting that the fixed stare was a gesture of honesty and transparency as much as it was a measure of uncontrolled anxiety? And had she, herself, blinked even once since waking from the nightmare?

 

"Yes, Kam-sin," she admitted, forcing the membrane to withdraw and her eyelids to descend. "It was the nightmare, again. But I'm all right now. Just light my lamp, then you go back to sleep."

 

The woman gave a shrug that every servant knew. It meant the same to both Rankans and Beysibs; disbelief and resignation. "As you wish, 0 Beysa." She lit the lamp beside the bed as she left.

 

A flush of shame burned across the Beysa's face as she heard the door close. Those folk who believed aristocrats were unaware of their servants had no understanding of the matter at all. Shupansea felt her old nurse's censure as a sad, painful twinge in her heart. All her life she had confided in Kammesin, but now, when she was overflowing with despair, she could speak to no one.

 

In point of fact, the Beysa wished to speak to the goddess Bey. She wanted to know why, after these seasons in Sanctuary, her sleep was haunted by memories of the final, bloody days of her brief, unsanctified reign over the Beysin Empire. But it had been more than a year since the Mother's voice had resounded within her head. Mother Bey, like everything else magical or divine in Sanctuary, had been reduced to shadow strength.

 

The town which had been god-ridden was now virtually god-less. Mother Bey was the merest whisper of empathy in Her avatar's mind. A calming whisper nonetheless, and it seemed to say that the goddess was content with exile and did not plan to return home soon.

 

That's not enough, the Beysa thought loudly enough, she hoped, for the goddess to hear. / can't stay here and remember the past, too.

 

The flicker of empathy shifted, resonating love and the smiling face of Prince Kadakithis. Shupansea grit her teeth and shook the feeling away. Mother Bey had strengthened every cynic's hand when She tumbled into a divine infatuation with the wargod, Stormbringer. Half the people in Sanctuary-if not the known world-had shared hot frustration in their dreams as the would-be lovers contended with a mismatch of immortal anatomy.

 

Such divine emissions had ceased when the magical nouma of Sanctuary was burned away, but Shupansea knew the pair chased each other still and she was more than slightly embarrassed by her progenitor's lusty behavior.

 

Though Shupansea purged the goddess from her thoughts and feeling, the prince was not so easily removed. Surely it was no coincidence that the nightmares had started right after they'd announced their intended. but still unscheduled, marriage. Right after she'd decided to abide by Rankan standards of acceptable behavior and moved her personal entourage out of Kadakithis's suite.

 

Love had never been part of Shupansea's emotional vocabulary. Indeed, no Beysa had ever dared to love-not when her blood was venom and all her male offspring were condemned to death in her womb. At home they sacrificed the royal consort, and the Beysa insured her line with casual, guilt-free affairs.

 

Could she doubt for one heartbeat that the nightmares-the cold fear that lived in her belly-were the underside of her love for an unlucky Rankan prince?

 

Shupansea shivered from the fear, and the everpresent dampness that permeated the palace. She shrugged her gown over her shoulders and looked beside the bed for her slippers. It was no wonder that Rankan women swaddled themselves in layer upon layer of cloth. Sanctuary was always damp; it was hot and damp in the summer, then chilly and damp the rest of the time. Either way you wrapped yourself in soft, absorbent cloth for comfort.

 

She opened the door quietly, half expecting to find Kammesin crouched beside the latch-hole. The corridor was empty, but her lamplight caught the final sway of a nearby drapery. Despite her age, Kam-sin had retreated to her alcove and, after another moment, began snoring gently.

 

A faint smile crossed the Beysa's lips as she headed for the sunrise wing. Twice a year everyone who was anyone changed residence from one side of the palace to the other-adjusting the social hierarchy in the process. The best people had sunrise suites in the warmer months and sunset suites in the dreary winter.

 

At first Shupansea and her comrades-in-exile had taken all the good rooms for themselves-winning themselves no friends among the Rankans. Moving days had been tense, bristly affairs with frequent brawls between the servants and the occasional duel between the incoming and outgoing residents.

 

The palace, like the city, had mellowed in the last year. Some of the Beysibs had moved to renovated estates beyond the walls; some of the Rankans had as well. Those who remained got along better-as well as any court in either empire-and Beysibs began mixing with Rankans on both sides of fortune's wheel.

 

The man whom Shupansea sought could have had an apartment on the sunset side, but he chose, for reasons of his own, to live in counterpoint to both the Beysa and his prince.

 

"Ambitious people have stronger stories," Hakiem always insisted when moving day found him marshalling his possessions against the tide. "And unhappy people have tragic ones."

 

The Beysa never argued with the storyteller, who was her closest friend among the natives. Privately she thought he was wrong, at least about tragedy. She knew her own story, and that of Prince Kadakithis, and she'd gladly have changed with a sunrise resident whose life was both comfortable and dull.

 

Trusted servants slept in alcoves and on pallets beside their masters' doors. The more alert and reliable managed to be wide-awake as Shupansea walked by with her lamp. Most of the Beysibs kowtowed to her shadow, some of the Rankans glowered with scant respect-but not as many as once had done. The Beysa ignored them, which was what they all expected anyway.

 

Hakiem's knotted latchstring was drawn to the inside of his door, and Shupansea was suddenly aware of the late hour. The storyteller said he was always ready to be her ears-any day, any night-but he wasn't a young man. Men and women offered themselves to a Beysa or a Prince in the sublime confidence that their gift would never be called.

 

Twice Shupansea pulled her knuckles soundlessly back from the door. The third time she touched the wood, but still there was no sound as the door swung open on well-oiled hinges.

 

"Hakiem? Friend?"

 

The room was empty; the storyteller's pallet was rolled up into a daycushion. Shupansea felt awkward and foolish. Hakiem was old enough to be her father, but that didn't quite make him old. Certainly he was charming, witty, and-now that he was better groomed and bathed regularly-cut a handsome figure among the court ladies who commonly complained that men talked only of war and politics. Surely he had offers -no doubt his assignations were more easily arranged from this side of the palace.

 

She resolved to make no mention of her untimely visit and was about to leave when the lamplight fell on a pile of drawings. She saw her prince with a bloody sword, and herself with bloody hands-and curiosity got the better of her good sense.

 

Lighting Hakiem's lamp from her own, Shupansea settled down to examine the colored sketches more closely.

 

Not all of Sanctuary ran on palace time. The Street of Red Lanterns was ablaze well past midnight. The Maze didn't start to get interesting until respectable people pulled their shutters in. And a dive like the Vulgar Unicorn hit its stride a good deal later than that.

 

Through all Sanctuary's vicissitudes, the Vulgar Unicorn had been a touchstone of a sort of stability. Its bartenders-human and otherwisewere uniformly ugly; its wenches were invariably on the downside of careers that had never looked promising. Its food was uncompromisingly vile, and the swill they tapped from their kegs . . . The beer at the Vulgar Unicorn was generally regarded to be the worst of mixing sludge from the harbor and goat urine; the wine-well, the beer was better than the wine.

 

Irony of ironies: Hakiem the Storyteller, who had spent the better part of his adult life in a drunken stupor, begging coppers to squander on the vulgar wine, now had enough money to buy the tavern's entire cellar, and he could no longer drink the bilge. The taste was the same in his mouth, and it brought back bittersweet memories of a vanished Sanctuary, but he dared not swallow. Fortunately no one noticed when he hawked the bloody liquid at the floor.

 

He was in disguise-that is, he wore the old clothes he'd sworn to incinerate years ago. Most people knew he'd come up in the world; most people didn't recognize him when he looked liked his old self. A few even worried about him and warned him away from the Unicorn now that he had a few coins in his pouch and access to the palace. Those few were probably right, but he could no more live without the Vulgar Unicorn than he could . . . Than he could live in the palace day after day.

 

Late at night, long after his respectable patrons had shut down their respectable soirees, Hakiem eased back to the Sanctuary they could not imagine and harvested another crop of tales. He had an apprentice of sorts, the fisherman's lad, Hort, who did the first winnowing and pruning, but nothing could replace his own senses. And nothing could replace the parade of life in the Vulgar Unicorn.

 

He let his eyes go out of focus-an easy task since his hair had begun turning white as well as gray-and was struck by a wild insight that shook him in his shoes: His beloved Unicorn and the palace weren 't so very different after all. He gulped his mug of wine and blamed his seeping eyes on it.

 

But, no, the comparison was in his mind and the similarities would not go away. The Vulgar Unicorn and the palace were both places where style was generally more important than substance. They were both places where you belonged, or you didn't belong-and where you had to always prove that you still belonged. Both had reputations which exceeded reality, and-might as well admit it-both were parasites in the city's lifeblood.

 

Dark Shalpa knew how many honest men it took to support a thiefeven one who lied as all thieves lie. Hakiem guessed it took about as many as it took to support an aristocrat.

 

"You look like you've seen a ghost," Hort said cheerfully as he took the chair opposite his mentor.

 

Hakiem raised his head to see twins smiling at him. Puttering Nethergods! What did these people put in their wine? Old habits, however, died hard and stood him in good stead as he reestablished conscious control over his body with slow, deliberate gestures. Old habits, and the fact that he had drunk no more than half a mug of sour wine.

 

"You've forgotten everything I've taught you," he said, using drawling sarcasm to mask the stiffness in his tongue.

 

"What sort of introduction is that? Make a point, Hort. Get your audience's attention. Add color. What manner of ghost; what sort of look-"

 

They had played this game before. Hort puffed up his chest and spread his arms wide. "Ye gods, old sot, your eyes are as red as the gutters in Shambles Cross; you're as pale as a man who's seen his mother's ghost dancing naked with Vashanka's tent peg!"

 

Hakiem swallowed hard, and not because of the wine. The boy had talent; had learned everything he'd been taught. He didn't need a mentor any longer.

 

"Better, lad. Much better. You do yourself, and myself, proud. Now, tell me, what have your pointed little ears heard this week?"

 

"Tales of vengeance: brothers for brothers, fathers for sons. Ordinary folk are confident that the worst is over and are stepping out to settle their own scores."

 

Hakiem nodded. He'd sensed as much himself. The Nisibisi-funded PFLS anarchy was over and there was a sense that the future would not be like the past. But debts had to be evened before the future was embraced.

 

"What else?"

 

"A whole new society growing in Shambles where the rousters who moved Torchholder's stones make their homes. They think the streets of Sanctuary are paved with gold-or at least the walls are-and, dammit, if they don't seem to be right. Everybody's swinging a mallet or smoothing mortar, even our Prince, and the common folk think the world's getting better each day."

 

"Are there any clouds on our cheerful horizon?"

 

The young man shed his expansiveness. His eyes grew intense and he leaned across the table. Still good storytelling, but Hakiem sensed there was something more in Hort's eagerness.

 

"Men are vanishing, maybe five or six a week. And they're not turning up in any of the usual places. Some say it's the Mageguild trying to get power back, but I've found a blind alley there. Best guess points toward the harbor."

 

"You've checked that out?"

 

Hort drew back a hand's breadth. He was the son of the best fisherman in town, and, while he had no taste for salt water himself, he had the confidence of those who did.

 

"We're taking more trade up and down the coast: stone for the walls and pretties for Beysib gold. Most goes where it should, but some sails west and hooks about the Hag Banks-and you know what that means."

 

It galled a bit, but Hakiem had to shrug and shake his head. He'd heard of the banks, where the Beysib fisherfolk had taught Hort's people to set their nets for deep water fish, but he knew nothing more.

 

Hort's smile deepened. "Catch the current there," he whispered, leaning further across the table. "And you bring up in the lee of Scavenger Island with a harbor as deep as ours, twice as wide-and no law at all to interfere with your gold."

 

The master storyteller twirled a grey tuft of his beard. He knew the history of Sanctuary better than any other man. These days the Rankans were the tyrants and the townsfolk pointed with underdog pride to their Ilsigi ancestry; it hadn't always been that way. Not far beyond the reach of living memory the Ilsig kings had been the enemy, and Scavenger's Island had been the sanctuary toward which the oppressed fled.

 

Scavenger's Island-pirate haven. A place which made Sanctuary at its worst seem serene and orderly by comparison. Scourge of the seas, Harrier of the coast, and, also, a place which had generally regarded Sanctuary as a poor relation and left it alone. But Sanctuary wasn't poor any longer.

 

"How does this tie to the missing men?" Hakiem asked, completely sober now.

 

Hort shrugged. "Some go willingly as recruits, the rest as galley slaves."

 

"And no one else suspects that we're being harvested by pirates?"

 

"Did you?"

 

Again Hakiem had to shake his head. Sanctuary had always been downtrodden-a home to thieves, not the target of pirates. Old habits died hard, indeed.

 

"The Old Man," Hort continued, speaking of his father, "says you can always trust kings and princes to build their walls in the wrong place."

 

I suppose you can, Hakiem agreed in silence.

 

"You'll tell them, won't you?" Hort asked, no longer a storyteller but simply a young man who was afraid for his home and his life.

 

Hakiem nodded. He would, of course; nevertheless, a tale like this was wood-ripe for burning and required special care. There were people in Sanctuary who could confirm the substance of Hort's suspicions, and few of them owed an old storyteller a favor. He'd get started tomorrow, but without Hort. There were some tricks to his trade Hakiem hoped the younger man would never need to know.

 

"Anything else, my boy? Scandals, magic, two-headed calves?"

 

Hort relaxed and began one of many tales, about a love charm gone remarkably awry.

 

It was nearly dawn when Hakiem made his way out of the Maze to West Gate Street. He'd stayed out later than planned, drunk more than he should, and could practically feel his plump bed beneath his cheeks. A group of tired guards hailed him as he came through the gate, then looked the other way as he took a candle from the rack and slipped into the backways.

 

The backways were always the fastest, most discreet ways through the palace. A warren of hidden stairways, corridors and cul-de-sacs had been built in order to be officially forgotten at the end of each burst of palatial expansion. Like the Maze and the sewers, they were runwred to be more mysterious than they actually were. Beneath the Hall of Justice, Hakiem passed not one but three courtiers scurrying back to their proper beds; he didn't even try to count the servants.

 

There was only one protocol along these backways: silence. One might look, but never see; hear but never speak. Hakiem remembered what he saw, but unless he saw the same event in a public area it stayed locked forever within him.

 

As the storyteller rounded the dusty comer where the backways merged with the public ways, he was minded again of the similarities between palace life and criminal survival. There were seeds of an epic tale sprouting in his mind and no room for other thoughts.

 

Later on Hakiem would say of those next few moments that he was neither a kowtowing Beysib nor a stiff-backed Rankan courtier and so he looked the Beysa straight in the eye as a proud Ilsigi. Truth was, though, that the sight of Shupansea-with her dark gold hair night-braided, her soft wool gown and slippers, and her deadly emerald beynit draped across her shoulder-sitting on his cushions completely unnerved him.

 

"0-0-0 Bey-" Words failed him as they had never failed before.

 

The Beysa reacted with more aplomb. She tittered like an apprentice handmaid and scattered a pile of drawings clear across the floor. Only the slender serpent retained its dignity; it yawned, showing its ivory fangs and crimson maw, then wove itself deep into her hair.

 

Shupansea grabbed the nearest of the drawings. She got to her feet and held it out as a peace offering. "I'm sorry. Storyteller . . ." Her lamp was guttering. A swathe of pale light came through the narrow window. She realized she'd spent the night in his room-with him or without him. "Oh, I'm really sorry."

 

Hakiem bent down to pick up another drawing, and to look at something besides her face. A successful drunk leams that death is not the likely consequence of embarrassment. He had mastered that lesson years ago, but the Beysa, obviously, had not. She was redder than her serpent's mouth.

 

"Had I known it was you, 0 Beysa," he tried to keep the absurd amusement from his voice and reached for another drawing. "Had I but known, I would have come home much sooner."

 

Time froze for a moment, then thawed as Shupansea exhaled in a long, trembling sigh. "I-I had nightmares. I thought you might be able to help . . . If I could think of an ending for the dreams, perhaps they'd go away. You always seem to know how things should end."

 

Hakiem shook his head sadly. "That's because stories may end while the hero-or heroine-is still alive. Life is different, 0 Beysa. But I would be glad to listen."

 

"No, I guess I understand that they're my dreams, and I must conquer them." She crouched down and gathered more of the colorful parchment scraps. Her fingers paused above a portrait of Prince Kadakithis standing uneasily beside a corpse. "I think maybe I learned something just looking at your pictures. It's strange-I've never thought of Ki-this using his sword. I mean, he's not weak, but I love him because he's gentle. He's strong and gentle-and someday maybe his people will realize that. But looking at this-well, I could see it happening. I knew. this man was a traitor, and that Ki-this had to kill him. He was proud and disgusted both at the same time-and he grew up that night.

 

"I'll have to do the same thing-well, maybe not with a sword, but I've got to grow up if I'm to help him turn Sanctuary into one city for everyone, You should draw more pictures and put them where everyone can see them."

 

Hakiem made a sour grimace and took the scraps from her hand. "That, I fear, is the general idea. I tell stories while an artist sketches, and then the Torch-excuse me. Lord Torchholder-intends to have them painted on his new walls."

 

Shupansea straightened as if the priest had entered the room. She had a half-dozen contradictory opinions about the omnipresent bureaucrat. Not that anyone claimed to understand Molin Torchholder. He was a black-haired Rankan, a dedicated priest of a vanquished god and the driving force behind the resurrection of a city he openly loathed.

 

"It's a good idea. He hasn't mentioned it yet, but he will, and both Kithis and I will tell him so. He'll grumble something about doing what's necessary and walk away under a dark cloud. It must be hard, I think, to work as hard as Lord Torchholder does, and get so little satisfaction."

 

"They say hate is as satisfactory a mistress as love."

 

"I prefer love."

 

"Lord Torchholder does not."

 

The last drawing had slipped beneath the cushions. They both saw it at the same time and Hakiem, who recognized the subject from the visible corner, dove to retrieve it first. He would have had it, but his sudden lunge aroused Shupansea's serpent. Discretion was always the better part of valor, still a lump hardened in his throat as she pulled the sketch out.

 

Torchholder's orders had been precise: illustrations from Hakiem's stories of the events that had shaped Sanctuary since the Prince had arrived as governor. There had been few occasions more momentous than the afternoon when Kadakithis had handed the Savankh to the Beysa and her court-in-exile for "safe-keeping." Hakiem liked Shupansea now-the Prince wanted to make her his wife-but they'd hated her that afternoon and it showed clearly in Lalo's sketch.

 

Draped in jewels and cloth-of-gold, hard-eyed, her face and naked breasts painted an iridescent green, Shupansea had been the archetype of arrogance. The storyteller seldom connected the young woman he'd come to know and the alien creature he remembered, but he could not deny that the Beysib, with their abundant gold and equally abundant contempt for all non-Beysib things, had been the prime cause of Sanctuary's horrors. The Rankan campaign against the Nisibisi in the north would scarcely have touched the city-much less divided it-if the Beysib hadn't riled it first.

 

"Does he intend to have them all painted?" Shupansea asked in carefully measured tones, her gaze never rising from the picture.

 

"With the Prince's approval, and yours-of course."

 

The parchment fluttered in her hand. Her eyes went wide and glassy, the beynit rose from her hair, and Hakiem began to doubt that she had, in fact, truly changed during the years he'd been advising her. She had returned the Savankh to the prince's keeping, but not the power behind it.

 

"We looked like that, didn't we?" Shupansea whispered as she put the parchment on top of the pile. "And nothing I ever do will erase that picture, will it?"

 

Hakiem caught her hand and squeezed it gently. "I don't tell stories about the future, you know, but it's my guess that Lord Molin means to leave the largest space-the space above the main gate-for a commemoration of your wedding with Prince Kadakithis-"

 

Shupansea sighed and pulled her hand away. "If we marry. Maybe hate is stronger than love." She stood in the doorway, looking over her shoulder, waiting for Hakiem to deny what she did not believe could be denied.

 

"Hope is the strongest of all," he assured, and watched her walk slowly down the corridor.

 

SLAVE TRADE

 

Robert Lynn Asprin

 

Saliman did not have to stretch his acting talents-to maintain an air of disdain as he carefully picked his way through the rows of chained slaves. He had performed this task hundreds of times before, so though unpleasant, the odor of so many close-packed, unwashed bodies was not new to him. The fact that he was on board a ship only added a new batch of musty smells to the proceedings. Pulling his cloak high to keep it from the filth on the floor would do no good. The air itself would invade the fabric until it would either have to be thoroughly cleaned or discarded altogether. One didn't wear one's best clothes to shop for slaves.

 

No, it was not the distasteful nature of the job that had Saliman in such a vile mood, but rather the hour. The fact that he had been rousted from a warm bed shared by an even warmer bed partner to carry out this mission in the pre-dawn hours virtually guaranteed that he would be less than generous in his negotiations with the slavers.

 

"I shouldn't be doing this," the man holding the lantern grumbled loudly. "I got better things to do, what with the ship to get underway and all."

 

This was, of course, the reason for this sudden assignment. The ship was due to sail on the morning tide, and it was important to carry out this mission before it left Sanctuary's waters. Still, it gave Saliman a focus for his irritation.

 

"Do you want me to tell that to Jubal?" he said, his expression bland. "I'm sure if I alert him to your inconvenience, he'll be careful to only bother you with important matters in the future."

 

The thinly veiled threat was not lost on the slaver.

 

"No! I ... that won't be necessary."

 

The slavers had paid well to be sure that Sanctuary's crime lord did not interfere with their operation, and did not wish to raise that price by denying his request. Particularly not when Jubal's prices were known to occasionally include blood as well as money.

 

"If you could simply speed your selection?" The man was pleading now. "This is the third time we've been through the rows, and if I don't set sail soon, I'll miss the morning tide and lose a full day's travel."

 

Saliman ignored him, not deigning to dignify the whine with a response as he peered around the darkness of the ship's hold. Sailing ships were not noted for their punctuality, not when winds and storms could affect their schedules by weeks, not just days.

 

Still, he was secretly in agreement with the slaver. This was taking much longer than was necessary. Of course, the search was slowed by his reluctance to admit that he was searching for two particular men rather than two slaves in general. If he were to impart that piece of information, the process would be speeded, but the price would doubtless increase with the implied importance of the individuals in question,

 

Surprisingly enough, it was the man Saliman only had a description of who had been the easiest to find. While his features and hair had been obvious enough, that slave had been rocking back and forth, hugging his knees and moaning his own name as if trying to cling to his pre-slave identity. It was the other man, the one Saliman knew on sight, who had thus far eluded his search.

 

A movement in the dark caught his eye, and he grasped the slaver's arm, redirecting the light of the hooded lantern.

 

"What's that?" he demanded, gesturing toward a large sack, its mouth secured by ropes.

 

"That? Oh, that's a special deal we made. A fellow and a couple of his friends brought that one by ... said they were getting rid of his wife's lover. They made me promise not to let him out of the bag until we were at sea."

 

"You bought a slave without even looking at him?"

 

"They weren't asking much for him," the slaver shrugged. "If he's alive, we'll show a profit, and from the way the bag's been jumpin' around it's pretty safe to say he's alive."

 

"Well, open the bag and let me see him."

 

"But I just told you-"

 

"Yes, yes. You promised. But if you're about to sail, who's to know whether you opened it early or not?"

 

The slaver drew a breath to argue, then shrugged and gestured to the two burly sailors who had been standing by to insure that none of the slaves attempted either attack or escape while the hold was open. Those stalwarts seized the bag, kicking aside any slave who happened to be in their path, and began fumbling with the ropes that secured its mouth. There were a few underbreath grumbles about landsmen who didn't know proper knots, then the bag was opened and its contents jerked upright for display.

 

The slave was a slim youth, still clothed-which confirmed the slaver's claim that he had been untouched since being brought aboard. His wrists were bound and his mouth gagged, and he blinked painfully in the sudden light of the lantern's glare.

 

Saliman knew him instantly, though he was careful not to let any sign of recognition show on his face. Shadowspawn. One of Sanctuary's homegrown thieves who had stolen and fought his way to the top of his profession.

 

The thief gave no sign of recognizing Saliman, though whether this was from any cunning on his part or from simple lantern-blindness and drug-confusion, was hard to tell. Whichever it was, he decided to act before the scene had a chance to change.

 

"Well, he's not much . . . but he's the closest I've seen. I'll take him."

 

He made a point of turning away before the slaver could even begin the anticipated protest.

 

"But ... I can't do that!" came the expected sputter. "I told you, we weren't even supposed to open the sack until we were at sea! If the ones who sold him to us see him walking around town-"

 

". . . You won't care one whit because you'll already be at sea with your profits," Saliman finished loftily. "Spare me your efforts to wheedle a higher price. Remember, I'm not some landowner who only buys one slave a year. I'm too familiar with the trade to be convinced of the worth of a slaver's word."

 

"But-"

 

"I'll give you fifty in gold for him. If that isn't sufficient I'll just have to review the rest of your stock again. I was trying to be considerate of your schedule, but if you prefer to spend time haggling I have nothing else to do before midday."

 

Faced with logic, an ebbing tide, and a more than generous offer, the slaver surrendered ... as Saliman had known he would. Still, by the time the money had changed hands and the slaves hauled out of the hold and offloaded onto the wharf, the sun had already begun its slow climb into the heavens.

 

A wagon was waiting there, and the slaves were put in the load and covered with a tarp, the thief still secured in his sack. Saliman had a healthy respect for the youth's talents, and did not wish to return to Jubal with one slave and a tale of escape. The one called Shadowspawn would have to wait until they were in more secure quarters before his bonds were loosened . . . quarters safe not only from escape, but from prying eyes as well.

 

Despite his offhand manner with the slaver, Saliman kept a careful watch until his cargo was covered from sight. The fishermen had already left for their day's task so the wharf was deserted, but that could only serve to focus attention on his own activities. Though he had had no specific instructions for secrecy, he could see no advantage to letting it be known that the two slaves were still in Sanctuary, and countless disadvantages.

 

The driver clucked to his team and departed without a wave or a backward glance, leaving Saliman to find his way to the rendezvous on his own. Again, this was as planned. While it would have been easier to ride in the wagon, there were too many in town who recognized him on sight and knew him for Jubal's lieutenant. Shopping and hauling were not among his normal duties, and his presence on the wagon would have drawn unwanted attention to the cargo and its destination.

 

He was not normally awake, much less about at such an early hour, and as he trudged through the streets Saliman peered about him curiously as the shops and stalls of Sanctuary came to life, preparing for the day's business. There seemed to be more people in town now, a lot of strange faces what with the work being done on the walls. Work meant money in the pockets of the laborers, money which was quickly transferred to the coffers of shopkeepers, tavern owners and whores. The old hopelessness of Sanctuary and the more recent fears during the street wars and magic upheavals seemed to have disappeared in the light of the new prosperity. There was even a light, mischievous tone to the street haggling over prices which had never been there during the old days of desperation.

 

As he walked and listened. Saliman allowed himself a rare, leisurely moment of envy. It seemed so simple to earn your living that way . - . stock and customers, straightforward transactions where the biggest worry was price-setting and the rent.

 

How many years had he worked for Jubal now? Did any of these people appreciate or even suspect the amount of work necessary to maintain the crime lord's illusion of omnipresence?

 

Take this morning's exercise for example. His instructions had been simple enough: Two slaves of a given description, or rather one of a given description and the other a specific, known individual, were to be purchased from a ship where they were being held before that ship set sail.

 

There had been no explanation as to how Jubal knew of their captivity or reason given for their rescue, just the instruction to effect their release and to deliver them to Jubal with a minimum of disruption or attention.

 

It would have been a simple enough matter, if it weren't for the short deadline for his work. First, there had been a matter of arranging for operating capital at an hour when no goldsmith or moneylender was functioning. Then someone had to be sent to fetch a wagon and driver to meet him at the ship while he prepared for the visit by learning all he could about the slaver he was to deal with. Though in this case it had proved unnecessary, the information that the slaver had a favorite mistress in town could have proved invaluable if he had proved to be difficult to negotiate with. A timely kidnapping would have given Saliman all the leverage he would need to effect the rescue . . . and of course, that contingency had had to be arranged as well. The men standing by near the mistress's dwelling would have to be paid for their time as well as their skills, even though the latter had not been called on.

 

Fortunately Saliman's records on the night shift of the city guard were up to date, though the recent reorganization had thrown everything into a cocked hat for a while. He knew who was on duty, what their patrol patterns were, who was lax and who was bribable, so the return journey from the wharf could be routed to best avoid interference or questions. It might seem a minor thing, but the recent rash of slaver kidnappings had set the watch on edge, and Saliman had no desire to purchase the two men only to be accused of kidnapping them himself.

 

Yes, it would be nice to be able to do business openly and simply. Boring perhaps, but nice. Saliman smiled at the thought, then dismissed it. The truth was, he enjoyed his work. If anything, his administrative duties had doubled when Jubal moved his organization underground, and the challenge and excitement generated by the simplest of tasks, like the release of two slaves, was payment in itself . . , though his actual salary was nothing to be ashamed of. Being close to the crime lord meant not only having an overview of everything that happened in town, but actually having a hand in shaping events as well. It was a fascinating job. One Saliman wouldn't give up for the world.

 

His thoughts amused and occupied him all the way to his destination ... the delivery entrance of The House of Whips and Chains. This brothel was perhaps the most dubious member of Sanctuary's Street of Red Lanterns, catering to the most bizarre and jaded tastes of a notoriously tasteless town. Even so, it would be strange to have an open wagon pull up to the front door, and as such the use of the delivery door was a must. Even here, or, perhaps, especially here, the streets had eyes and it did not pay to relax one's vigilance.

 

The thief had been released from his sack and was being held, still bound and gagged, between two retainers. Saliman noticed that the youth's eyes were alert and wary, and assumed that whether it was drugs or seasickness which had caused the earlier dullness, it had since worn off. There was no sign of the brothel's women; caution or the hour confined them to their rooms. Also, there was no sign of the second slave, which he assumed meant that Jubal was currently occupied with the interview. This last assumption, however, turned out to be incorrect.

 

"He wants you upstairs, third door," one of the retainers greeted him flatly. "You're to take this one with you."

 

So Jubal had finished with the other slave already and was waiting . . . impatiently from the sounds of it.

 

Saliman fought back the urge to grimace and simply nodded as he motioned for the thief to precede him up the stairs. Any indication of difficulty or disunity within Jubal's forces had to be hidden from outsiders. He had worked too hard teaching new recruits the necessity of maintaining that illusion to shatter it himself.

 

His charge paused in front of the indicated door, and he reached past to rap sharply on the door with a knuckle. The particular rhythm he used signaled that he wasn't alone, but when several moments passed without a call to wait, he opened the door and ushered the thief inside.

 

The room was dark, one of the windowless, possibly soundproof chambers of the house. The only light came from a small brazier filled with glowing embers from which protruded the handle of a branding iron. There were shackles on the wall, and a low sofa where one could recline comfortably while watching the branding process.

 

"Close the door."

 

Jubals voice came from one of the comers the light didn't reach. Saliman obeyed, smiling at his employer's invariable flair for the dramatic.

 

"Remove his bonds."

 

Again Saliman moved to comply, this time twirling a blade from its hiding place in his sleeve. He made the move deliberately showy. The thief had a reputation for knives. It wouldn't hurt him to know there were others in Sanctuary who prided themselves on their blade-handling ability. As he reached for the gag, however, the youth beat him to it, ungagging himself with hands that were somehow free from the ropes that had secured them.

 

Though Saliman showed no reaction, he knew the thief had won this particular round of showing off. So did Shadowspawn, who shot him a mocking glance as he tossed the gag and ropes aside. It seemed doubtful the two would become fast friends.

 

"Hanse . . . sometimes called Shadowspawn," Jubal said, moving into the light of the brazier. "Do you know who I am, thief?"

 

The youth folded his arms across his chest, his stance arrogant and rebellious.

 

"We've never met, but it's easy to figure who you are. You're Jubal, right? You're older than I thought."

 

Saliman winced at the thief's brazen mockery of Jubal's spell-aged body, but the crime lord seemed to take no offense.

 

"True, we've never met. In fact, you're one of the few of the local talent who never approached me for work, or at least to sell information. I was always curious as to why."

 

"I work alone," Hanse shrugged. "Besides, I'm choosy about my friends."

 

"Not too choosy, if your friends include the likes of Tempus Thales," Jubal retorted, his voice hardening. "And as for being your own man . . ."

 

He lifted the iron from the brazier.

 

"... I fear that came to a halt when the slavers took you. You're mine now. Bought and paid for."

 

Saliman expected Hanse to flinch, but the thief was uncowed. Though his eyes followed the iron, his voice was firm and confident.

 

"You aren't going to brand me," he said, more as a statement than a defiant challenge.

 

"I'm not?"

 

"You don't have to untie me to brand me," Hanse pointed out. "If anything, the process would be easier if I were still tied. That means you want to talk. All right. Quit waving that iron around and let's talk. What is it you want?"

 

Jubal stared at the thief for long moments before returning the iron to the brazier. Saliman could understand why. There was nothing in their record to indicate Hanse possessed the intelligence he was now displaying. He wondered if this would mean a change in Jubal's plans.

 

"You've changed, thief," the crime lord said at last. "What happened while you were gone to change you?"

 

For the first time since removing his bonds, Shadowspawn seemed to falter.

 

"I ... I'd rather not talk about it."

 

"Very well," Jubal nodded. "Shall we get down to business?"

 

Interesting, Saliman thought. The thief doesn't fear the branding iron, but his recent past makes him uncomfortable. Though Jubal did not look his way or give any other indication, he knew he was expected to make note of Shadowspawn's apparent vulnerability and investigate it as soon as possible.

 

"How did you know where I was?" Hanse said suddenly.

 

"I have many sources of information." Jubal waved deprecatingly. "That particular piece of news came to me from the S'danzo."

 

"The S'danzo?" the thief frowned. "I didn't know you had any friends among the S'danzo."

 

"I don't," the crime lord acknowledged without rancor. "But now at least a few of them owe me a favor for arranging your freedom. No, the information came from one of your friends."

 

"My friends?"

 

"Two of them, actually," Jubal added, apparently relishing the thief's surprise. "One of them, the older, sensed your danger and went to the younger, the blacksmith's wife, to divine your specific location. Hers was the added price of freeing the other slave as well . . . a favor to another client, I believe. Anyway, realizing time was short, they passed word to me, asking for my intervention in your behalf."

 

Saliman was listening attentively. This was the first he knew of the source of this morning's exercise. Learning it now, he realized why Jubal had been so eager to have this mission completed, and completed efficiently. He knew a moment's pride that the crime lord had turned to him as his first choice for crucial work, then returned to his analysis.

 

The S'danzo were tight-knit and mutually supportive. Jubal had been trying for years to find a chink in their armor, and now their desperation over the welfare of a thief had delivered opportunity into his hands. Saliman wondered briefly of the price exacted for his work. Had Juba! demanded guarantees and assurances, or had he risked it all on performing this favor gratis, preferring to leave the repayment unspecified and therefore open. Probably the latter. Jubal had gained much of his power from Just such favors owed in return for his help at key moments.

 

"Then I'm free to go?" Hanse said uncertainly, glancing again at Saliman.

 

"I didn't say that." Jubal smiled.

 

"But you said the S'danzo paid for you to have me freed."

 

"What I said was, they asked me to free you from the slavers. That's been done. However nothing was said about freeing you from me ... and I happen to have need of your services myself."

 

"Since when did you need help to steal something," Shadowspawn sneered, his old arrogance back.

 

"I don't, thief. At least, not from the likes of you," Jubal replied coldly. "There is, however, a task you can perform for me in return for your complete freedom . . . one involving someone who trusts you."

 

"I'm a thief, not an assassin," the youth snapped proudly.

 

The crime lord raised his eyebrows in exaggerated surprise.

 

"Reluctant to kill. are you? Strange, I don't recall your showing any reluctance the night you helped Tempus kill four of my men."

 

Even in the brazier's glow Saliman could see the thief blanch.

 

"You do remember, don't you? That night outside the Lily Garden? Or perhaps you thought I didn't know about it."

 

"They attacked us. It was self-defense," Shadowspawn seemed suddenly aware of the hot iron again.

 

"They were trying to punish Tempus for murdering their comrades . . . and stop him from continuing his sport of hunting Hawkmasks, of course," Jubal intoned. "I know you had no choice, however. Otherwise I wouldn't have left your killings without response."

 

He paused to study the thief.

 

"Now, if I thought you had a hand in freeing Tempus from Kurd's, I might not be so generous in my treatment of you."

 

Saliman kept a blank expression as he watched the tl]ieftry to hide his discomfort. It was clear that Hanse was unsure if Jubal was truly ignorant of his part in Tempus's escape, or if he was simply being toyed with. His fear of the crime lord was great enough, however, that he wouldn't risk Jubal's possible wrath by openly admitting his guilt. Saliman knew, however, that now that fear was foremost in the thief's mind, they could get down to business.

 

"That's all behind us now. Rest assured I don't need you to kill anyone," Jubal said smoothly, as if reading Saliman's thoughts. "Actually, all you have to do to win your freedom is to arrange a meeting for me."

 

"A meeting?"

 

"Yes. With Prince Kadakithis. I believe he's a friend of yours?"

 

The thief was clearly off balance now.

 

"How did you know that?"

 

Jubal smiled.

 

"I've been aware of it for some time. I would suggest, however, if you want it kept secret, that you try to keep the Prince from shouting about it in public . . . like, from the top of brick piles?"

 

Hanse flinched at the memory, but gathered himself to rally back.

 

"Why do you want to meet with him? I'd have to tell him something."

 

"Probably not. I believe my name is not exactly unknown to him. Still, if it will ease things, tell him I have a business proposition for him."

 

"What kind of a proposition?"

 

Jubal turned back to the brazier and poked at the coals with the iron as he answered

 

"There's a civil war coming, thief. Not a local upheaval like we've just survived, an Empire-wide struggle. Even you should be able to see that. This town's only hope of success is to rally behind one leader . . . and right now Kadakithis would seem to be that leader. I plan to offer him my services . - . mine and my organization's. I believe we can aid him as an intelligence network, providing information and, if need be, stilling dissenting voices. I think even Vashanka's priest would admit our value in that capacity."

 

The crime lord turned to face the thief.

 

"All you have to do is arrange the meeting. Unfortunately, my position makes it difficult, if not impossible, to approach him through normal channels. Arrange it, and you may go free."

 

"What if I agree and just keep going?"

 

"I'll find you," Jubal said calmly. "More important, until you've discharged your obligation to me, you'll be my slave. Legally, bought and paid for. I don't have to brand you."

 

The crime lord tossed the iron back into the brazier to illustrate his point. "You'll know it, and I'll know it. I think that knowing you're not your own man, that you belong to me, will mark you more than I could ever do with a branding iron."

 

Saliman was not so sure, but he had learned to trust Jubal's judgment when it came to people- Watching the thief ponder the proposal, he began to believe anew.

 

"What if the Prince doesn't agree? He's changed since I've been gone. There's no guarantee I can convince him if he isn't interested in your offer."

 

"All I ask is that you try." Jubal grimaced. "If he refuses, then I'll let you buy your freedom ... for five hundred in gold."

 

Shadowspawn's head came up.

 

"Five hundred? That's not enough!"

 

Jubal laughed.

 

"I should think you'd be more likely to argue the price was too high, especially considering what we paid for you. Still, if it will make you feel better, I could name a higher figure."

 

Shadowspawn shook his head. "You could double it ... triple it even and it would be too low."

 

"I know," Jubal said solemnly. "The price always sounds low to a slave. It's because he thinks of his worth as a man, while the buyer and seller see him only as merchandise."

 

Saliman could see the crime lord's thoughts turning to his own beginnings in the gladiator pens, but then Jubal seemed to shake off the memories as he continued.

 

"The price stands at five hundred," he stated, eyeing the thief. "Frankly, I'd rather you concentrated on arranging the meeting. That is priceless to me."

 

"I'll see what I can do. Can I go now?"

 

"One more thing. While you belong to me, I feel a certain responsibility for your safety. Here."

 

The crime lord produced an oilskin-wrapped package from within his tunic and tossed it to Shadowspawn. Opening it, the thief found a familiar assortment of knives and throwing stars.

 

"I wouldn't ask you to walk the streets of Sanctuary unarmed. You'll probably feel more comfortable with your weapons. In case you're wondering, a man named Tarkle was selling them."

 

"I know," the thief growled, settling the glittering bits of death in their customary places. "I recognized his voice when they loaded me on the ship."

 

Saliman had to hide his smile. Obviously Jubal had planned this surprise as the climax to the interview ... a final demonstration of his access to secret information. The thief had already known the secret, but luckily Shadowspawn was so preoccupied with his knives that he didn't realize how anti-climactic the announcement was.

 

"Well, whatever you're thinking will have to wait until after you've seen the Prince," Jubal ordered irritably. "I didn't go to all this trouble to lose you in an alley brawl. Remember, for the time being at least, you're not your own man- You're mine."

 

"Oh, I'll remember. Believe me, I'll remember."

 

Saliman felt a sudden chill as Shadowspawn met the crime lord's look with a gaze that was not at all subservient.

 

THE BEST OF FRIENDS

 

C. J. Cherryh

 

Morning on the streets of Sanctuary, a cold, knife's edge wind that rattles at shutters prudently closed in the thief-plagued maze, and drizzle comes on that wind, to slick the stones and darken the aged wood and make muck out of the filth that lies in every crack and crevice of the cobbles.

 

Citizens stir out, nonetheless. A body has to, who wants to eat. Everyone goes cloaked and muffled, from the beggars in their grime-colored rags, to the well-to-do factor on his way to the wharfside warehouses.

 

Thus Amhan Nas-yeni, an ordinary sort of man, a man with a nobody face and a nobody shock of dark hair beneath the hood, neither tall nor short, stout nor thin. Nas-yeni goes at a moderate pace in these streets, cloaked and muffled, and quite unremarkable among the average Ilsigis of better than average means, merchants, shopkeepers, traders and smiths.

 

In fact he is a tradesman and still solvent, despite the recent chaos that saw blood, not rainwater, running in the gutters of the town-some might say, because of that chaos, which needed supply of weapons and other such illicit things, as well as licit ones, to people who could pay not always with coin, but sometimes in protection, sometimes in elimination of threats, sometimes in liberated goods that had the stamp of Rankene military on them, but there was always a market. There was always a market, that was what Nas-yeni would say. He walked a careful line, did Amhan Nas-yeni, and walked it with, in his own estimation, scrupulous integrity: a man of honor. A man of principles.

 

A man who loved his son, and who had warned him; at the same time he understood young idealists, and was proud of him.

 

"Be sensible," he had told his son. "Trade is the way to power."

 

And his son Beruth: "Trade! When the Rankene pigs tax us to the bone and confiscate our shipments!"

 

"Did I say, compliance?" he had said. "Did I say, stupidity?" Tapping the side of his head. "Brains, young hothead. Trade is an art of the mind. Trade is an art of compromise-"

 

"Compromise! With Rankan pigs?"

 

"-In which you contrive each time to make a profit. In which you use your head, young man."

 

"When they use the sword. No, papa. Not when they can just take everything. Not when they don't have to play the game. Not with the sword only in their hands. You fight your way. I'll fight mine- We're both right."

 

With that light in his eye and that half-smile that haunted a father's sleep. Like the way he had found him two days later, where the Rankans had thrown the body, out on the rubbish heap where birds, in those dark days, gathered in black, carrion-hunting clouds. Beruth had had no eyes, then. And what else they had done to him before the birds got to him . . .

 

Nas-yeni had fought his war of trade then. Had stripped himself to the bone, not selling, at the last, but giving away everything that he had to the rebels, paying out coin and weapons and supply to hire men who would find Rankans to question, to find out one thing, only one thing: who.

 

Who, because the why of it did not matter. He was Ilsigi. He was an honorable man, the way Ilsigis had been, before Ilsigis tried to trade with Rankan lords who had a sword, when they did not. He was of a very old family. He remembered, as many Ilsigis no longer did, the entire tale of his ancestors and the worth of them.

 

He remembered, as even he had forgotten for a while, until his son reminded him, that blood is worth everything in the world; and that once that debt is made, only blood can pay it.

 

Their names, he had asked of his informants. Give me their names.

 

And the answer came back, finally: The Stepsons Critias and Straton.

 

He began then, to leam everything that he could leam about these two names. He learned their partnership in the Sacred Band. He learned what this meant. He learned their wamames and their histories, as much as his informers could extract from gossip and the talk of Rankan soldiers in bars and whorehouses.

 

He wanted more than their deaths. He wanted revenge. He wanted their ruin, their slow, suffering ruin, of a sort that would erode the soul, such a soul as such butchers might have; and he wanted them to fear, at the last, the way their victims had feared them, with a sickening, hopeless fear.

 

Therefore he had held his hand from Straton, when his informants told him Straton's soul was already in pawn-to a witch. Therefore he had sweated in agony, seeing the Stepsons ride north and Critias ride with them: therefore he had prayed nightly to the darkest of gods for the saving of one Stepson from war and from the chances of war-and for the weaving of spells about the other, spells that should damn him to hell and bring Critias-the stiff-necked, hard-handed Critias, straight from war and arriving bloody-minded in a town rife with ensorcelments, a town Straton commanded-bring Critias back with a vengeance, oh, yes, the man of war to the man bespelled, his partner, his-lover, doubtless, in the way of Sacred Band partners: Nas-yeni knew every detail he could glean of the Sacred Band, studied them, obsessively, the way he had once studied his rivals in business, and studied, most particularly, this Pair, their reputations, their manner, the time of their sleeping and eating and the look on their faces . . . even that, because he had been near them, oh, often, that he had stood so close to one or the other of them, had brushed against them in crowds, had looked once in Straton's very eyes as they collided, unexpected-

 

-eyes that looked into my son's eyes. eyes that had no pity, eyes looking out of Hell now, is it, murderer? I could take you. I could slip a knife into you and watch those eyes go, oh, so shocked and frightened. . . .

 

But far too quick, far, far too quick. Good day to you, Rankan. Good day and gods protect you, Rankan, against any chance of the streets.

 

He had smiled at Straton, friendly as could be. And the Rankan, with whatever burdened his conscience, whatever hate, whatever distrust of Ilsigis who smiled at him, had looked confused and angry that an Ilsigi had touched him.

 

Perhaps . . . expecting that knife in the gut.

 

Often, on the street, once Straton settled into pattern, in those dark days, when only a fool would observe patterns-but Straton went befuddied in those days, befuddled and more and more hell-ridden-Nas-yeni would smile at him, that same, secret smile that had everything of obsequiousness in it-Hail, our conqueror. How brave of you, to ride among us, morning and evening, mazy-eyed and bewitched.

 

Do you know me yet? His mother always said Beruth had my eyes, my mouth.

 

But he would not have smiled at you.

 

His mother died, do you know. in the winter. Took to her bed. Never smiled again. Just died. She took all the drugs I bought, one dose.

 

I owe you so much. Stepson. Truly I do.

 

They say the Stepsons are coming back to Sanctuary.

 

Critias . . . is coming home. What will you say to him, my friend? What will you tell him about this town you rule?

 

Who will you sleep with. then?

 

And how will the Riddler deal with you?

 

Every morning, every evening. One of the crowd.

 

Part of the crowd when Critias rode in, grim and hard-hard and soldierly, where Straton had grown fey, and strange.

 

Where Straton served Her who was whispered about only rarely and in the lowest of tones among the few Ilsigis who knew they had a Patron, of sorts-

 

It confused even Nas-yeni.

 

But the torment, the absolute hell in Straton's look nowadays-that satisfied him. So did the rumors of estrangement.

 

And to help it along, he took to the skills of his youth-set up an archery butt in the warehouse now largely depleted of goods, but enough for a man to live on, who did not plan to live forever.

 

He had been a damned fine shot, in his youth, in the time that he had spent in the city guard. The hand and the eye remembered. Hate might make the one tremble. Grief might blur the eye. But purpose-that was clear and cold. Critias was back. Straton was in ruin already: one of the Pair was broken, and too difficult to predict.

 

Eliminate him.

 

From a rooftop.

 

In a way that an assassin could escape, and lay guilt upon the other Partner, and fear on all their company. It was what Beruth would have done, it was his kind of vengeance; it had sharp, keen savor, the drawing of that arrow-blue-fletched, Jubal's colors, not because Nas-yeni had any particular grudge against the ex-slaver, but because it might make the maximum of trouble-

 

And the wind being what it was, and Straton's damned horse in the way-

 

But it had hit, all the same, and created havoc beyond Nas-yeni's own imagining-delivered Straton wounded, into the hands of enemies who had not handled him gently, by all accounts; and crippled him; while Tempus, displeased with a city block in ruins and with the rise ofwitchly influences in his ranks, one supposed, demoted him.

 

And departed, leaving, the gods be thanked, Critias in command of a city Straton had lusted after, Straton crippled and drinking himself stuporous night after night in the Vulgar Unicorn, Straton with so much witch-sign about him that he was notorious, and even footpads refrained from cutting his throat on his drunken wanderings to and from the barracks or the bars. They refrained because the word was out in the underworld of Sanctuary that this man was protected, and that throats would be cut if this man's was.

 

Things were altogether as Nas-yeni would have them: one enemy in a living hell, banished even from the witch's bed, living because no one was friend enough to kill him; and the other-the other-

 

There was no more to be done to Straton.

 

There was Critias . . . safe as yet, newly set into an office that Tempus had given him, perhaps with a sense that here was the only place that Straton might stay alive and Critias the only man who might have a chance to heal him: that much understanding Nas-yeni had of his enemies as he had had of his rivals in trade, canny trader that he had been, and smuggler, and judge of men. It was a fool who failed to see his enemy as man like any man, needing the things a man needed, like companionship, like solace, like-the illusions of these things, where the substance failed. By such things a trader lived and prospered; by such things, the likes of Straton and Critias worked on their victims, breaking their confidence as they broke the body.

 

By such things a man could unravel another.

 

A hunter had to be his own prey. They were locked together in this hunt, which had achieved a certain intimacy. Nas-yeni who had no family, had two men whose every thought he surmised, whose every move he could now predict; they kept him from loneliness, they kept his heart beating and the blood moving in his veins; they gave him something to think about and to look forward to, something which made him very glad his shots had gone amiss.

 

First Straton. Now Critias. Critias-who already suffered. He might simply live and watch Critias, watch the slow embitterment of a man left to a town which hated him. But he knew this man like a son. He knew that such embitterment would leach the feeling out of a man like Critias;

 

knew that some morning Straton would simply turn up dead of drink or some mischance no bribe could save him from, and Critias would be sorry and relieved, and the boil would be lanced, that was all, the pain stopped.

 

That would never do.

 

A change in fortunes for Critias, the man facing all directions; and absolute hell for Straton, the man who had lost his way. The very plan was an indulgence approaching the sensual for a man who had restrained himself so long, so very long, and nightly prayed for his enemies, that they go on living.

 

And it was so easy, for a man so like every other man in Sanctuary, to the eyes of the invaders.

 

Wind and rain spatter at the eaves, rattle the shutters and bring cold into the room where Moria dresses, hastily, in the stink and the squalor of the tenement she shares with Stilcho, late oflschade's service. A gray, dim light reaches the bed where Stilcho rests, drugged with what krrfshe can buy him-sleep, peace which she can buy him, who has so little peace nowadays.

 

He is so handsome, so very beautiful to her whose beauty a mage gave her, whose beauty, Rankene-fair, Haught bespelled with stolen magic;

 

Stilcho's, she had never seen-had been terrified of him, whom Ischade had raised from the dead; she had dreaded the sight of him, shrunk from the chance touch of his hand, which in those days had been chill, had seen only his scars, which the beggar-king had given him, a Stepson, in the long, long night that he had been the beggar-king's prisoner, and they had taken out his right eye, and were about to take the other when Ischade had intervened.

 

Ischade had claimed him then, since the Stepsons would not have him, a walking dead; and Ischade, whose curse took the life of her lovers, (except Strat, gods only knew why but Moria made guesses) had taken Stilcho in Straton's stead on those terrible nights when the black mood was on her, and she evaded Straton and drove all her servants from her presence-except Stilcho, on whom the curse fell with all its force, who could die, and die, and die, because she had strings on his soul, and could pull it up again from hell-

 

Moria had seen him on such mornings, had seen his face and shuddered at that look, that bleak terror, that awful intensity with which he would sit and feel of things, the table, the texture of the cloth, the flesh of his arm-as if it were precious and all too fragile.

 

She had heard him scream-had heard him, as no woman should hear a man, break down in tears and plead with Ischade, not again, not again, no more-

 

She had shuddered at the mere sight of him in those days.

 

But those arms, however chill, had been there to hold her when her own world came tumbling down. And his goodness, his loyalty, had touched even Ischade's sense of justice: she had brought him all the way back. She had set him free-free as a man could be, who had suffered what he had, and who still waked screaming of nights, seeing hell, and demons.

 

Krrf gave him peace. Krrf let him lie safe from his devils-so, so good to see, his quiet sleep, his face that was always so pale, at rest, the patched eye and the fall of dark hair, all that was dark about him: the rest was light, white-washed in the light that, like the chill wind, came through the shutter slats.

 

She tied a ragged brown scarf about her blonde hair. And from its place in the corner, disguised with clay, she took a lump that was heavier than any rock ought to be, a lump that weighed like sin-or pure gold.

 

She put it in the ratty basket she had, along with some rags of laundry, She was very careful going out the door, and left the latchstring inside, so only he could open it.

 

He would know, she feared, when he woke. The first thing he would check would be that comer where they hid the lump she had salvaged from the Peres house. Last night she had begged him to let her take it to old Gorthis, who would give her, she argued, fair price for it. He had fenced for the gangs, back before the war. She knew Gorthis, that he was an honest fence, at least, he gave the fairest rates in Sanctuary. He need not suspect that it was Ischade's gold.

 

No, Stilcho had said, absolute and angry. No!

 

What do you want? she had cried, too loudly, in this damned tenement where every sound found other ears. Us to starve?

 

Better that than some things, he had said, his hands hard on her shoulders, his voice the lowest of whispers. Moria, Moria, it's too dangerous, the damned thing's too big! It's too much! Your fence can't afford a lump like that, he can't pay you, he'll cheat you or he'll rob you, one or the other, damn it all, Moria, you can't take that thing through the streets'

 

He was close to panic. His grip hurt her shoulders and the fear in him frightened her, who knew what his panics were like, how bad they were, how unreasoning and how difficult for her to bear, old nightmares, old memories (not so many months ago) of Stilcho's voice shrieking terror through the river house, haunting all their nights. A woman could not take that, in the man she loved. She did not want to remember that. She did not want him to break, who was at once so strong and so fragile.

 

We'll melt it down, he said.

 

When? she cried at him, and sucked in her breath and bit her lip. They had been over that territory. It was what he always promised whenever she talked about selling it- It took a fire bigger than they could raise in their apartment to melt a lump like that. They could not heat it and hammer it. The walls would carry every sound. The smell would go through the cracks and the gaps. There would be outcries: fire was the eternal terror in the tenements, and neighbors would come hammering on the door demanding answers, threatening them with violence, because they already knew that her man was . . . peculiar, and likely a fugitive mage: that was the whisper about him that she had heard, a dangerous kind of whisper, because mages were trouble, and a block of Sanctuary in ashes had proved it to the town at large.

 

And so, so easily in a place like this, a rumor could get started that would damn them both, and have their apartment broken into.

 

Or their throats cut.

 

She would go to Gorthis. He would take the tump and set up an account for her, and there would be no money, except what it took to get a better place to live, and then the things they needed, and the lease of a shop-a little shop, that was what she wanted with that gold. A livelihood for herself and her man where he could find the quiet he needed to forget, and shutters and a stout door she could bar against the dark, where She walked, and hunted.

 

Down the stairs, out onto the streets, a woman with a basket of rags, a woman with a scarf over her head and a heavy shawl and long skirts to disguise her youth and her looks.

 

Uptown, like some cleaning woman going to work, for some middlingwell-to-do family not rich enough for servants. She was legion, in the midtown of Sanctuary: cook or maid, respectable enough and not soliciting, and not a mugger in the town would waste time on her, when there was richer prey abroad.

 

Straton slid from the saddle and caught himself, hanging from the bay's stirrup-leather, a little short of impaling himself on the iron spikes that thrust up through Ischade's hedge. The bay whickered, swung its head around and nosed at him with the roughness a big horse could use -warm, warm, not like Crit said, a dead thing, nor hell-spawned. /;

 

loved him. He took it for omen. He clung to that omen, that Ischade who had withdrawn every sign of gentleness toward him, did not take the horse back, but left it with him, left him one gift of hers, at least, which had no hidden thom.

 

He wept against the bay's neck, standing there in the rain, both of them wet and chilled. He was very drunk. And he knew that he ought to get back on the horse and ride, quickly-

 

But he did not. He pushed himself away from the warmth of the horse and staggered a step to the gate. The cold of the iron burned his hand. A rose thorn pricked his thumb and he carried his hand unconsciously to his mouth and sucked at the blood that welled up.

 

The gate swung inward and the way lay open through the yard, the maze of hip-high and scraggly weeds, the thornbushes and black, skeletal trees that all but obscured the little house, the gray stone porch.

 

He went, staggering a little and desperately trying to balance himself between the drunkenness it needed to come this far and the sobriety he had to muster to deal with her.

 

The thumb still bled, when he looked at it, and he wiped it on his breeches and looked up again at the door just in front of him, hearing the give of the hinges.

 

The sight of her hit him in the gut-so beautiful, all dark and light, her black dress blowing in the gusts, her square-cut hair flying like smoke about her face, about dark eyes that seized on his soul and threatened to uproot it.

 

"Ischade-" His jaw refused to work without his teeth chattering. He was cold through. The wind bit like a knife, here so much in the open, on the high shore of the White Foal. And there was no promise of yielding in the look she gave him. "Ischade, I hurt, I hurt so damned bad-" He held his arm, and the pain was there, even through the alcohol, worse, in the rain and the cold; aching so he could not sleep. "You healed the damn horse, can't you help me?"

 

"There are physicians."

 

"For Vashanka's sake, Ischade-"

 

"Vashanka didn't help Tempus. I doubt he has power here."

 

"Damn you!"

 

"Better men have tried. Leave, Strat. Now."

 

He stood there, shivering, his teeth chattering and the pain in his shoulder a dull, bone-deep ache, the way it had been for days and nights of this weather, the way the pain got into bone and brain, and he wished he had the courage to kill himself, but he kept holding out some idiot hope that someone, somewhere made this pain worthwhile. He had had her. He had had Crit. Neither one was acting sane. Neither one had acted sane for months. A man who had been loved once and twice in his lifewent on expecting more of it, and believing things could be right again; a man who had seen the two people he most respected-yes, dammit, respected, for all she was a damn woman-in the whole universe . . . lose their minds and act like lunatics-kept expecting that they would wake up one morning with their wits about them and come to him and tell him they were sorry.

 

A man couldn't kill himself, whose world was that badly skewed. A man could not go-wherever he had damned himself to go-with his whole universe gone crazy and right and wrong all tangled; most of all with the faith (still) that if he could just hold on, if he could just beat reason into one of them, that everything would somehow sort itself out.

 

"Ischade, dammit, I didn't mean what I did! I didn't understand! Ischade. dammit, it's enough, it's parking enough, open the damn door!"

 

That was his voice, cracking and breaking like a teenaged boy's. That was himself, on his hands and knees in the wet weeds, because the world had suddenly spun around to the left, and gone black a moment, and he had landed there, and hurt his shoulder in the process. He nerved himself to push, and got the arm up against him and one foot and then the other under him, and turned and walked back to the gate, thinking that was about as far as he could walk before he fell down and lay there and froze to death in the rain.

 

But he did not. He made it to the bay horse, and hung there against its warmth a while till he could get his breath backTake him, why don't you?" he muttered to the hedge, the unnatural roses, the witch who had his soul in pawn. "You've taken everything else, Take him and be damned to you."

 

If she heard him, in her sorcerous ways of being aware of everything near the wards, she gave no sign. The bay horse stood rock-steady for him to mount, and bore him away, where it chose:, he did not care whether it was a shelter or over the cliffs: let it choose. The White Foal, beyond the trees, was roiled and muddy, and looked friendlier than the town did.

 

Ischade sat down, at the table in the house that was somehow larger inside than outside, and which had more rooms and windows than appeared from outside. She sat in her cluttered living room, where the cloaks of former lovers, like torn moths' wings, gave riotous color to the floor, the couch, the chairs, the bed, cloaks and bright cloth and here and there a trinket which a careless foot might tread upon and break ... of no interest to her these days, these gray and deadly daysShe rested her elbows on the table and her face within her hands, and went into that nowhere place which she had learned to find within herself, as the Stepson Niko had had it, that inner landscape which in her case was a maze of many doors, each one with a key and a lock.

 

The hallway was safe. It had turnings and there were dark places, and there were doors that rattled ominously and clamored with lost voices, doors which weakened if she thought of the thing behind themSo she did not.

 

But somewhere, somewhere down the hall, there was a door still open. She knew that there was. She sensed it. And it was in that darkness far down the hall, where she did not willingly go. She might go up to that door and try to slip up on it and slam it quickly and lock it. But she was paralyzed with dread of it, that what was inside would remain tranquil for years if she did not attempt it. There would be time. There would be time to gather strength-

 

There was a room within which was treasure. A blue fragment spun within that room, power, secret power, filched from the ruin of magic in Sanctuary. She had hid it within herself, in that place where no other mage could go without killing her, and she, by the very curse that created her, could not die.

 

There was that place far away in the dark, where something waitedalmost she could see it, red-eyed and smiling at her within that room at the end of the hall.

 

And there were the doors behind which she had shut away everyone who trusted her. She held those keys. She kept them in the room with the fragment of the Globe of Power.

 

It was her virtue, her sole virtue, that she listened to their rattling and their clamor at her sanity, when everything in her ached to let them out, to have them with her, vulnerable to that thing that waited down there, in the dark.

 

Especially Straton-

 

You healed the damn horse, couldn't you help me? She hurt inside.

 

Heal him-yes. And prove to him by that, that she had not forsaken him, that there was hope for him and her. And after that, after that-

 

She saw him lying still as all her other lovers, by morning light. It was the very fact that he loved her, that would damn him. He could not, now, take his healing as a kindness. No, to him, it would be an absolution. It would bring him to her as he had been-but more insistent, more himself, more violent and more desperate to prove his manhood after what he had suffered-

 

-and that was the very thing that would kill him. That was the nature of her curse.

 

The thing in the dark snickered filthily. I knew. It was amused by her helplessness, when she was one who held what it wanted.

 

Go to Randal, she thought. Seek help in the Mageguild.

 

But that would precipitate things for which she was not yet ready. She knew that she was not ready and would not be ready perhaps for years. She was far too unbalanced now. The tides of need and satiation which ruled her with the changing moon-were running too high, too violent. She prowled the Maze and the Downwind and sometimes the high streets near the palace, and dead happened, happened with more frequency than made her feel safe with anything she valued.

 

She needed, that was the unpalatable truth, needed sex the way Strat needed drink, to deal with the dark and the pain. And she wanted him-so damnably much.

 

The thing-was there again. Stilcho saw it, the red eyes glowing in the murk, the smile like a smug face lit from inside, leaking red light at nostrils and mouth and blazing behind the eyes like hell itself.

 

It grinned, and the terror of that waked him with a yell that was still dying in his ears as he sat up, sweat-drenched and ashamed and expecting Moria's arms to hold him, Moria's voice to bid him hush, hush, and rest, Moria's lips to kiss him and whisper that he was safe.

 

"Shut up!" came the yell from somewhere else in the building. "Shut it up, dammit!"

 

He propped himself against the wall, blinked and shivered in the draft against his bare skin, still krrf-fogged and searching dazedly for Moria.

 

Not there.

 

She must have gone out to market.

 

But they were out of money. Flat broke, except- •

 

Except-

 

"Ogods."

 

He scrambled out of bed. He went to the corner and looked amid the junk and the clutter.

 

Not there. The gold was gone- So was Moria.

 

And he knew where.

 

Gorthis's shop was still shuttered at this hour, but he was stirring about inside by now, Moria knew his habits. The shop was on the lower floor of his apartment, in the building that he owned, and Gorthis, being more than prudent, never left his jewelry downstairs in the shop at night. He packed everything up and brought it upstairs, where a pair of vicious dogs guarded the upstairs halls.

 

In spite of the fact that no thief in Sanctuary tended to prey on a fence, whose good will was important as sunrise-such precautions were necessary because there was always the disgruntled customer.

 

Or the rival.

 

Moria seized the bellpull, of the doorbell in the shape of a smiling Shipri-better, she thought in the hysterical humor that came of having gotten this far unmolested with her cargo, that it should be Shalpa, god of thieves. The bell chimed inside, and she waited, her laundry basket on the doorstep, herself within the shelter of the alcove, out of the rain.

 

The little peephole opened. She stood on tiptoe, and back a little.

 

And suddenly remembered-0 fool!-that she no longer was darkhaired Moria the thief, Mona the Ilsigi.

 

It was a beautiful stranger stood on Gorthis's step, her blonde curls wrapped in rags, but her brows still pale, her eyes blue, and her complexion whiter and fairer than any Ilsigi's could be.

 

"Gorthis," she said, "let me in."

 

The peephole stayed opened a damned long while longer than its onceupon-a-time wont. She sensed the consternation on the other side of the door-

 

"Who? What do you want?"

 

"Gorthis, it's Moria. Moria. You remember me. I bribed this mage-"

 

It was not the truth, but it was close enough to the truth, and simple enough to explain through a peephole.

 

The peephole shut. The door opened, on a fat, huge man who looked more apt to be a blacksmith than a goldsmith. Not a hair on his head except a tuft above either ear that stuck out like some brindled monkey's ruff. He utterly filled the door. His eyes, Ilsigi-dark, were wide and worried.

 

"Moria?"

 

"Makeup," she said, clutching her laundry basket, which had gotten heavier and heavier from block to block. "Corn' on. Gorthis, f'gawds'sake-it's me. Moria. Mor-am's sister."

 

He hesitated a moment longer, then backed out of the doorway and held it open for her and her basket, admitting her to the dim interior of counters and barred doors and barred sections: a goldsmith even in this section of town and in these days, had to worry, and Gorthis believed in defense. He always had.

 

"Shalpa's ass," Moria breathed, setting down the basket and looking open-mouthed at the maze of bars, "whole Rankan army couldn't make its way through here."

 

"Whole Rankan army ner Piffles ner any other damn pack of looters, girl, ain't nobody going to break into my place! I been respectable, I been respectable ever since the Troubles started. I ain't doing no more, so you can take yourself and whatever you got there-"

 

"This ain't no problem, Gorthis, I swear to you it ain't." She bent and dived after the lump in the middle of the laundry, held it up in both her hands, because that was what it took. "This here's gold. Gorthis. You don't got to fence it, you don't got to tell anybody, you just use it and gimme an account here-look, look-" She set down the clay-covered lump and stripped off her headscarf, shaking out blonde curls the sort that Moria of the streets never had had. "It's still Moria," she said in purest Rankene accents, "But I've come up in the world, Gorthis, Ipass, and I need the money. Do me this favor and I won't forget it when I'm back in society."

 

"Magery," Gorthis breathed, wide-eyed. "You been witched."

 

"Expensive magery. And it lasts." She picked up the lump and held it toward him. "Lift it. It's a lot of gold. A lot of gold, Gorthis. No plated rock, you can test it. You'll have it. Like I said, all you have to do is pay me out a little at a time, in silver I can spend without answering questions."

 

"Shalpa and Shipri." Gorthis drew out a handkerchief and mopped his face. "They said it was you uptown. They said it was you, Mor-am come in here-trying to pawn this knife, fie said you'd gone uptown."

 

"Where is my brother?" She did not want to know, she truly did not want to know. He was still Ischade's creature. He must always be, or suffer in terrible pain. But not to know whether he was living or deadthat uncertainty she could not bear.

 

"Ain't seen him since. I got no idea. Lemme see that thing."

 

She handed it to him. He hefted it.

 

"Damn-" he said.

 

"Told you, that's no rock inside."

 

He took it over to a work counter, through a barred gateway to a table where a barred shutter gave a little light. She followed, anxious, biting her lip as he brought the lump down hard on the table and shattered the clay around it.

 

Yellow gold shone in the light, veined with lines of soot.

 

"This's melted stuff," he said.

 

"It's not stolen." That was half a lie. She clenched her hands together. "It came from friends. They died in the riots. But I haven't got a place to melt it down. I know you're honest, Gorthis, you always were. You take your old cut, same as you always did, and you pay me out little at a time, isn't that fair?"

 

"Wait here. I got to get something." Gorthis hurried back past her to the cage door and through it.

 

He slammed it shut, and Moria stared at him open-mouthed in shock. But Gorthis was a little crazy about security. He always had been. She was willing to think it was that.

 

Until he turned the key and took it.

 

"It's my damned gold, Gorthis, I'm not going to steal it!"

 

"You ain't going nowhere," Gorthis said, and went and pulled on the cord that rang a bell somewhere way up on the roof, a thief-bell, that called the watch.

 

"What are you doing?" she yelled at him. She shook the bars of the gate, hopeless, because Gorthis's locks were always sound. "Gorthis, have you lost your mind?"

 

"I'm respectable," Gorthis said. "I been respectable ever since the Troubles started. I ain't getting into it any more, I got too many uptown clients." Another series of tugs at the bell rope. "Sorry, girl. Truly I am."

 

"I'll tell them! I'll tell them who you are!"

 

"Who are they going to believe, huh, girl, when I turn over you an' that great lump of gold to the watch? No, missy, this is going to be better fer me than fer you. I prove to 'em I changed my ways, that's what this'll do."

 

"I have friends uptown."

 

"No, you don't. I know what yow friends are, girl, the neighbors done talked, the neighbors what got burned out around Peres, uptown. They got a warrant out fer you, hiring mages and all, arson and murder-you know the law doesn't come down on mages, ain't no way the watch is going to arrest them. now, is they? But them as hires 'em, now, they're responsible, ain't they? You go burning the whole town down, come in here with a lump of witched gold-"

 

"It ain't witched!"

 

"It come from the burnin'! Ever'thing up there's witched! And I ain't makin' no jewelry out of it and sellin' it to my clients' You're goin' to the watch, girl, an' you can explain to your neighbors 'fore the magistrate what you done up there on the hill, / ain'tl"

 

"Let me out of here! Damn you, damn you, I got friends, Gorthis, I got friends'H fry your insides, you damned snitch! I got wizard friends!"

 

"No way," Gorthis said, pale-faced and sweating, and still ringing the bell for all he was worth. "No way you got friends like that, missy, or they'd melt that there gold for you and not need no furnace- I ain't no fool! And you're going to hang, that's what's going to happen to you-"

 

An alarm was ringing in midtown, and Crit stopped the gray to listen. Not particularly his business: the watch and the guard responded to that sort of thing, and his own mind was on personal problems-a partner who had had a run-in with the watch last night, and who had been let go because the watch did not know what to do with him-and a PrinceGovernor whose orders were getting more and more arbitrary-now the damned be-curled and perfumed prig wanted a barrel tax and wanted all the taverns in town to pay a head tax ... per customer. And he was supposed to break the news to Walegrin, whose men were supposed to make the thing work.

 

An alarm was not the kind of thing the city commander took for a personal responsibility. But he was in a mood to crack heads. He debated it a moment, then, set the horse off at a good clip-no run, counting the slick cobbles, just a businesslike jog that cornered well enough in the twisting streets, with their ghostly drift of cloaked, hooded figures themselves heading toward the trouble-daytime reflexes, the more so that the watch was surely on the way and folk figured there was some kind of entertainment to be had, watching the guard putter about after a thief who had probably run like hell when the bell went, and listening with delicious smugness to the shopkeeper tearing his hair and wailing ... a morning's worth of gossip, at least- And more of them would come, when they saw the city commander involved in it.

 

Damned busybodies.

 

He had an idea where the bell-ringing was coming from when he found the right street, about the time the bell went silent and he had an idea the watch had gotten there ahead of him. There was a jeweler hereabouts notorious for his eccentricity-and a shady past; and he saw the crowd and the waiting horses that said that matters were tolerably well under control.

 

He almost turned the gray about to go back about his business, back to his troubles with Strat and with the Prince-Governor, figuring there was nothing here that needed intervention.

 

But the crowd ohhhed and aaaahed to a great deal of shouting, and pressed close upon the door, where there was evidently something going on. A guardsman was trying to keep spectators out.

 

Maybe, he thought, someone had cut the jeweler's throat.

 

But the place was supposed to be a real obstacle course. So the rumor ran. Real crazy man.

 

Curiosity drew him, since the morning's business was not that attractive. He nosed the gray on through the crowd, figuring the guard could use a little help-might well be a few neighbors there hoping for free samples, if there had been some fracas inside and some stuff scattered.

 

"Get out of here!" the beleaguered guard was yelling, shoving with his sheathed sword at a clutch of women who wanted to get their noses in the door. The crowd booed that, and guffawed when a fat man appeared behind the guard and screamed at them to get out of his door.

 

"What's going on here?" Crit asked the guardsman, forcing the gray into service as a living barrier, and its teeth and the stamp of its feet made a little room.

 

"Dunno, sir," the guardsman said. "We got a woman and a laundry basket and a damned great lump of gold old Gorthis says is witched and stolen and he locked 'er up and called the watch." The guardsman looked doubtful a second, then: "Woman looks Rankan, sir, and old Gorthis says she's a thief named Moria who lived in the Peres house, and we got a warrant out on her. The corporal don't know. We got a lot of warrants.

 

But she talks uptown."

 

"Moria. Out ofPeres." Crit drew in a deep breath, all at once awake in this slow and nuisanceful morning. He slid down and threw the gray's reins at the guardsman as he ducked under the horse's neck and put his

 

head into the jeweler's shop.

 

The damn place looked like the city jail, it had so many bars. And in the clutches of a trio of guardsmen was a blonde and distraught young woman, answering questions, shaking her head furiously, no, no, and no.

 

"Hey," he yelled, interrupting it all. The woman looked at him, and gods, it was for certain Moria, who had hosted the whole Sacred Band at the truce-feast in the Peres house.

 

Before it ended up a pile of blackened sticks and tumbled stone.

 

"Moria?" he asked. And listened to the whole thing over again, from the jeweler Gorthis shouting in one ear, the guard corporal shouting at Gorthis to shut up, the woman sobbing and shouting that she was innocent, that Gorthis was a crook who wanted her gold, which was hers, and Gorthis her enemy who had lured her here with promises of help.

 

"Gold might be hers," Crit said slowly. "Ease up a little. Let's just all be calm, can we? Ma'am, I think you and the gold and Gorthis here better plan to spend the morning uptown and get this straightened out. They say there's a warrant out on you- I don't know about that. I know I've got a few questions. Where are you staying?"

 

The woman's face might have been a waxen mask. An honest woman might have answered. There would not have been that desperate dart of the eyes, like something trapped. Crit had had a lot of experience, judging reactions like that. He pulled out his kit and rolled himself a smoke, giving her time to answer, if she would. Then, finally, lighting the smoke from the lamp by the door.

 

"Well, sergeant, I think you might as well take the whole damn mess uptown. You can have Gorthis. Woman goes to my office. Gold goes to your captain and it damn well better stay accounted for. Hear?"

 

"Yessir," the sergeant said, and Crit nodded, puffed on his smoke to calm his nerves and walked as far as the door. He had a rare impulse to chivalry, and turned back to the sergeant.

 

"Don't take her through the streets like that. Put a wrap on her and don't bruise her up any, all right?"

 

"Yessir."

 

He walked out, collected his horse and climbed up, riding out through the crowd, paying no attention to the shouted questions and the ohhhs and ahhhs and the rumors flying thick and fast. Up the street, then, where the last few shyer onlookers stood gawking, and around the corner.

 

A man fled his path. There was one with reason to avoid him. He was halfway moved to find out why, but the streets were slick and there was enough commotion hereabouts. The chance of overtaking the man was nil, without risk to the gray, and he was not about to take the chance. Dawn, and there were still some of the night-skulkers out, pickpockets, for sure, who worked their best in circumstances like the press and commotion back there.

 

Not his business, that. Not a soldier's business at all.

 

He rode on his way, down the mostly deserted street, at a walk, already back to the problem of the head tax.

 

And was halfway startled when a cloaked man came out of the alley and looked up at him and ran over to him. "Officer-officer-my son, f'godssakes, my son, they stabbed my son-"

 

"Who?" He reined in the gray, which was as like to take a piece out of the man as not. "How many of them?" The whole, damn district watch was tied down back around the corner, and a purse-cutting that went to murder was the way of things in this damn town.

 

"Come on!" the man cried, running back for the alley-merchant, to look at him. And distraught.

 

"Hell!" Crit threw down his smoke, gathered up his crossbow from the saddle-ties and turned the gray down the alley after him. He had wanted a head or two to crack. He was still in the market.

 

The iron gate flared blue as Stilcho brought up against it and pushed, sweating and gasping and desperate. Witchfire stung his hands and ached in his bones, but the gate gave to his push, and he waited for no other invitation from the river house. He ran as far as the gray stone steps before slick stone and his exhaustion betrayed him: he sprawled painfully against the edge of the steps and lost his wind, fighting even so to pick himself up.

 

"Stilcho," Her voice said, and he looked up, heart hammering, at the face that figured in so many of his bad dreams.

 

"Stilcho?"

 

He gathered himself up to his knees and to his feet, hanging onto the post which supported the roof. He was taller than She was, if he were not standing beside the porch and She, on it- But Her presence was overwhelming, so that all the warmth of running leached out of him, and all the months of hiding seemed useless. He was back. He had never been free. He had never owned his soul, from the night Ischade drew it back into him.

 

"The w-watch has M-Moria," he stammered, while the pain in his ribs bent him against the post that was the only thing keeping him on his feet. "They've arrested her-"

 

"For what?" Ischade asked, a soft voice, precise, and cold.

 

"Th-the-" 0 gods, there was no lying to Her. There could not be. He tried for breath and knew what bargain he had come to strike, a bargain for what She already owned. "The gold from P-Peres house. They say she stole it."