The spectators at the kickball game cheered again and Salick craned her neck to see who had scored. “Let’s go for a walk, Garet. I’m too excited to sit down.” She jumped up from the bench and strode off towards the fields, Garet following.
“Salick,” Garet asked, catching up to her, “will Mandarack be the next Banehall Master?”
Salick stopped dead and fixed Garet with a calculating stare. “I see you’ve been thinking again.” Her tone was neutral. “And if he was?”
Garet’s response was immediate. “I think it would be a great improvement.”
Salick smiled. “I agree, but I also think that newly tested Blues, or even Greens for that matter, shouldn’t be saying such things in public.” She turned slowly and continued her walk, now a relaxed stroll around the plaza.
The game had finished and the winners were consoling the losers while the spectators paused to discuss the finer points of the match. Garet wished he knew the rules better, so that he could play it himself, though thinking about it, he had yet to see any Bane, young or old, taking part in the various games of the plaza.
Salick led him into one of the gardens between the fields. Lacking the delicious scents of the summer, the gardens were now mainly a treat for the eye. Birch and maple trees, restricted to a cramped life in clay pots, showed off their new fall colours. Garet felt as if he were moving through a miniature forest. Salick ran her hand lightly along the tops of the trees as she walked.
“These trees are so small,” Garet said.
“Hard to hide a Basher in them,” Salick replied.
When they came to a secluded place, Salick said to him, in a lowered voice, “Garet, I know that you think about what you see, so you must know what is going on in the Hall.”
Garet paused before answering. Adrix’s treatment of him when he arrived and Tarix’s obvious dislike of the Banemaster were only two clues as to what was happening. Lately, the head table had become a mirror of the conflict, with Adrix’s supporters crowding around him at the centre and his opponents pushed out to the ends. Garet had also observed that some masters would not speak to each other in the halls, and he had heard Golds cursing each other for following a Master on the opposing side.
“I know that there’s a split in the Hall, Salick,” he finally answered, “but I don’t know what’s causing it.” He ran his hand along the top of a nearby maple in unconscious imitation of Salick. “Is it because Adrix is such a cruel person?” The red leaves felt smooth against his palm.
Salick picked up a fallen leaf from the ground and absently rubbed it against her cheek. When she saw Garet staring at her, she stopped and said, “This is something people do in Shirath.” She held up the dry leaf. “All the age of your skin goes into the leaf, and you’ll never get wrinkles.” She dropped the leaf, reddening.
Garet had the sense to stay silent.
One hand firmly clasping the other behind her back, Salick continued walking and explaining. “Adrix is cruel, but that’s not why so many are against him. Usually the other Masters can control a Hallmaster if he or she gets too arrogant, but Adrix has proposed something that has won him the support of at least some Masters.” She paused in her speech while a young couple, holding hands and whispering to each other, passed by. The yellow of the girl’s tunic was ablaze in the slanted light as she laid her head on the young man’s shoulder and laughed. Salick watched them walk away, her expression unreadable.
When they were out of hearing, she continued. “Adrix is using this sudden appearance of demons in the Midlands and their increase in Old Torrick to press for more power here in Shirath.” Coming to another stone bench, she sat down. Garet remained standing, looking down at her.
“Well don’t just stand there!” she said crossly. “Sit down! You look like a tree waiting to be pruned.”
Garet sat, wondering what had made her so irritated. “I’m sorry, Salick. Please go on. How can Adrix increase his power?”
“Not just his,” Salick corrected, “but ours as well.” She looked at the open gates of the river wall. Over the hump of the centre bridge, they could see the top floors of the Palace. “Adrix wants the King to cede him power over trade and the Ward courts, the two most important things the King does. Without those powers, Trax might as well go back to being just another lord.”
“Why would Adrix want these powers?” Garet asked, suddenly very aware of Salick’s nearness, the red tinge the sunset gave to her yellow hair, the curve of her jaw above her tunic’s collar. He swallowed and looked away.
“He wants to peel the years back,” she said, her voice soft again. “For a hundred years after the demons came, the Banehalls had much more power and privilege than the lords or the King.” There was a soft scuffing sound as she swung her foot back and forth on the paving stones. “But the Banehalls eventually found it easier to let the nobles run the commerce and courts so that we could concentrate on killing demons. That division of power has worked fairly well for five hundred years.” The sound of her foot stopped, and her voice tightened. “Now Adrix is making all sorts of ridiculous demands on the King. And Trax is not the kind of man to stand by and see his power disappear!”
“What kind of demands?” Garet asked. He looked down at his own feet.
“Oh,” she replied airily, “little things like a personal servant for each Gold and Red Bane, a Banehall more magnificent than the Palace, approval on all trade missions and treaties, and a final say over all court cases, even those not involving the Banehall.”
Garet shook his head. “Why bother with servants,” he tried to joke. “You already have all us Blues and Blacks to wait on you now!” He looked up at her and saw her smiling at him. The world suddenly felt unsteady.
“You’re beginning to sound like Marick!” she chided. “But I’m glad of your support—for Master Mandarack, I mean.” She blushed.
“And what about for you?” Garet said, hardly knowing why he asked but needing to ask all the same. His nerves jumped.
“Me?” Salick asked, as if she didn’t understand. But Garet saw in her eyes that she understood the question, if not how to answer it. She took a breath to speak but was interrupted by a distant scream.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
A CHANGE IN CIRCUMSTANCES
They both jumped up and looked around for the source of that panicked voice.
“The Ninth Ward!” Salick said.
Garet’s gaze followed her pointing finger. One of the Ward gates in the barrier separating the plaza from the city proper was closing. It was the gate nearest the river wall and not far from where Garet and Salick sat in the gardens. Salick leaped over the low hedge in front of her and set off at a run for the gate. Garet hesitated for only a moment, then followed at the same speed.
The gate, its carved symbols proclaiming it to be the entrance to the Ninth Ward, was almost closed when he slipped through, just behind Salick. She turned when he bumped into her and frowned. They were standing in a tiny plaza just inside the gate. Beside them a small stone gatehouse, an overturned stool in the entrance, stood unoccupied. A wheel creaked above them, moving a toothed pole that pushed the gate closed. The weighted rope that turned the wheel by its falling was slack. By craning his neck, Garet could see the catch that had held the weight. In the shadows behind the wall, he traced a cable down to the lever beside the gate house. Once the lever was pulled, the gate would close automatically, and the demon would be trapped in this ward.
Salick stopped suddenly. “We shouldn’t be doing this,” she said quietly.
“Why not?” Garet asked. The gate guard was nowhere in sight. Garet checked for bloodstains around the stool but found none. He became aware that Salick was glaring at him.
“That wasn’t Master Relict or Vinir who called out. It was probably the guard,” she said.
“Does it matter who called?” Garet asked, perplexed by her hesitation. “And where is the guard?”
“Gone. He ran. The demon came close enough to terrify him b
ut was too far away to freeze a man with fear.”
Garet remembered clearly the slow increase of horror he and his family had felt as that first demon had approached their cabin.
Salick turned her head, scanning the streets leading into the ward from the gate plaza. “Once a Master is on the hunt, only he or she can call for help.” She took a half-step forward and stopped again. “Most wouldn’t—for the shame of it, but Vinir’s Master, Master Relict, is more open-minded than some…” her voice trailed off as they heard two voices, a man and a woman’s, calling faintly to each other in the depths of the ward.
Salick straightened, having made up her mind. “We’ll go take a look,” she told Garet. “I can always say we were in the ward before the gate closed.” She glanced at the massive wood and iron barrier. “There’s no help for it anyway. They won’t open the gates until the demon is killed.” She set off at a trot, calling over her shoulder, “Stay with me, but do as I say!”
Her tone rankled him a bit, but he realized that Salick knew much more than he did about what was waiting for them. He ran after her down a narrow avenue.
After the main plazas, which along with the Banehall were the only parts of Shirath he had seen in his two months in the city, the streets of the Ward seemed claustrophobic and dark. The blank walls of buildings, pierced only by high, infrequent windows, ran unbroken, save for the occasional closed door, along the cramped lanes. Salick had paused at the entrance to one such street and scanned the walls and their dark windows, waiting for the calls to start again. Her head snapped up as, far ahead, several voices rose in frantic horror.
“Come on!” Salick cried as she waved Garet past her, then turned to swing shut another gate that would block the way they had come.
Garet put his shoulder to the wooden planks and together they pushed the heavy barrier. It groaned as it swung on its iron hinges. When it bumped against the gatepost, Salick threw a simple bolt to lock it. A small opening cut out of the gate’s planks allowed a person on the other side to reach in and release the bolt. Why no lock, Garet thought, but had no time to consider it as Salick ran off down the uneven, cobbled lane.
They now passed higher walls pierced by two levels of barred windows and well-spaced, locked gates. As they neared the source of the screams, they came upon an open gate, and Salick shouted at the occupants of a small courtyard beyond, “Close this! Now!” An old man crept out from where he cowered behind a sheet drying on a clothesline and pushed at the gate. Garet stopped to help, but Salick called back, “No, Garet! Stay with me.” He had no choice but to follow as other residents of the courtyard rose trembling and moaning to help the old man seal themselves in.
They finally reached the end of the lane, only to find another locked gate blocking their way. Garet wondered how many gates Shirath had, then he remembered what Mandarack had said when they approached the walls, that Shirath was designed to keep demons in, to trap them for the Banes to kill. His stomach did slow flips. He knew the demon was near. The screams rang out again, this time above their heads. Other voices rang out too, harsh, angry calls from the roofs above.
“Up there, on the roof!” yelled Salick. “They have it cornered on the roof!” But at that moment something dark and supple flashed across the space above their heads. Garet had no more than a glimpse of it, but the pointed beak showed it to be a demon. Wider than any he had seen, it looked almost square against the fading light. It disappeared onto the opposite roof, and Salick cursed, “Claws! It’s a Glider.” She stamped her booted foot on the cobblestones and looked wildly about.
“Salick!” a female voice called from above. “Up here!”
Garet looked up and saw Vinir and another Bane, a bearded Red, looking down at them. Salick waved at them and yelled up. “We saw it. It’s on the opposite roof.” She pointed to where the demon had leapt.
“We know!” the Red beside Vinir called. “We’ll follow it. You two try to find a net or some rope and bring it up to us.” He turned to Vinir and they began to thrust a wide plank out over the gap between the roofs.
They’re actually going to walk across on that, Garet thought in amazement, but was pulled away before he could witness the feat.
“Come on,” Salick said and led him to a gate below where they had seen the demon vanish. She reached through a hole and slid the bolt back. They both pushed it open, and Garet closed and bolted it behind him.
“Good!” Salick said. She ran into the courtyard and quickly scanned the interior. Several men and women, some with small children, crouched in their doorways or on the second floor balconies that ran around the interior of the yard. A child screamed in one of the dark apartments on the second floor. “Look for some rope or a net of some kind,” Salick ordered as she ran into the nearest set of rooms, brushing past an old woman who blubbered unseeing at the sky.
Garet took the opposite door, finding nothing but a table with the remains of dinner and a chest of carpentry tools. There was no sign of the apartment’s occupants. He ran to the next door, finding an abandoned loom, and the next, but still did not find what the Red had demanded. He was entering the fourth set of rooms on that side when he heard Salick yell, “Got it!” He ran out and saw her dragging a tangled net out of a door opposite. “Grab the other end!” she ordered, and as Garet scooped it up from the stones, she ran to a corner staircase, half-dragging him behind. The net caught on the carved balustrade, and Garet was forced to tear at it to get it free. He bundled it tightly to his chest and climbed to the second floor. Salick didn’t stop there. She stepped over a child, eyes tight shut, squeezing a rag doll in her hands and rocking back and forth, to ascend another set of steps, leading to the roof.
The net caught on the child’s legs, then the corner post of the balustrade, and Garet finally yelled, “Stop!” His nerves were jumping; the demon was close now. He looked down at the little girl, but she showed no recognition of his presence. Salick tugged on the net again, but he held firm.
“Give it to me,” he yelled, “or we’ll never get to the roof.”
Salick hesitated for a moment then thrust the net into his arms. As he gathered in the trailing edges, strung with ball-like wooden floats, Salick disappeared up the final flight to the roof. The net bundled tightly in his arms, Garet followed as fast as he could. The awkward weight slowed him, and Salick had vanished when he emerged onto the top of the building.
The roof was flat, with shoulder high walls. Awnings and mats, books and food, even musical instruments were scattered across it. The dread that had been growing in him must have already driven the people relaxing here down into the courtyards below.
There was a flash of purple in the twilight and Garet moved through the shelters toward it, lugging the net. He came up against a high wall that split the roof’s surface in half, touching the edge barriers at each side to prevent passage from one section to the other. More walls, thought Garet, but he could see no gate piercing it as he scanned back and forth for his companion. At the corner where the wall met the edge barrier, a water tank stood and Salick was there, jumping up and down, trying to look inside it. Giving up on that, she flattened herself against the staves and pressed her ear to the wood. After a long moment, she turned to Garet as he hurried up with his burden.
“I can’t hear anything sloshing in there, and there’s no demon in this section,” she said, “so it must be on the other side of this wall.” She stomped her foot. “Claws! We came in the wrong courtyard!” Her eyes judged the height of the wall. “Garet, boost me up so I can take a look.”
He dropped the net in an untidy pile at the base of the wall and cupped his hands, but before Salick could place her foot in them, Vinir’s voice called from the other side.
“Salick! Are you there?”
“Yes!” Salick shouted back. “What should we do?”
“Did you find some rope or a net?” Vinir asked.
“Yes, a fish pond net.”
There was a scrabbling on the other side of the w
all and Vinir’s head appeared as she pulled herself onto the top. “Garet! I thought it was you. I’m so glad!” she gasped as she shifted her grip on the edge. “Salick, get some poles and stretch the net out.” She turned her head and listened to a voice below her. Garet couldn’t make it out. Vinir turned back and continued her instructions. “Master Relict and I will drive the creature over this wall. Keep the net stretched between where you hear our voices.” Just before slipping back down on her side of the wall, she called out, “Hold the net high when I tell you!”
Salick surveyed their surroundings. “Quick, tear down that awning!” They quickly disassembled the shelter, using a dropped fruit knife to cut the lashings. The net was in a tangle, and with their nerves jangled by the demon’s proximity, it seemed to take forever to tease it out to its full length. There was a substantial tear on one side. Somebody was repairing this, Garet thought. He threaded a pole through one edge, sliding the point around the wooden floats. Salick did the same on her side. From the other side of the roof, two voices grew louder, one high and screaming “Yahh!” the other lower and yelling “Hoy!”
“Over there!” hissed Salick, indicating a spot halfway in-between the two voices. They lifted the posts into the dark sky, the net stretching up above the wall but nearly invisible in the darkening sky. They pulled on their ends, trying to stretch the net tight. Garet braced the butt of the pole on one hip and pulled back with both hands. He looked at Salick and saw her whole body leaning back as she strained at the weight.
At that moment, a great clatter and hissing rose from just beyond the wall, and Vinir’s voice screamed, “Now!” They hoisted the posts up to shoulder height, and held on. The poles were torn from their hands by an invisible force, and Salick, pulled off balance, tumbled after them, slamming up against an awning pole still set in its socket. She lay there, the breath knocked out of her. Garet pushed himself up from where he had dropped to his knees and ran to her, but she waved him after the moving net.
Gods & Dragons: 8 Fantasy Novels Page 118
