The dagger, like Niko's sword, was dream-forged and it felt hot in the Riddler's hand.
He raced his Stepson, on his right, to reach the snake and the two of them began to hack away.
With every stroke acid ichor spouted, so that Tempus's skin sizzled, blistered, and peeled.
There was no time to fear for Niko, beside him as if they were once more a bonded pair.
Jihan was wound in coils, protecting one child who was absolutely silent. The other, Arton, was curled up moaning, forgotten on the floor except when ichor struck him and he squealed at the pain.
The snake didn't flail or shrink from the damage Niko's sword did, though Tempus's deeper cuts could give it pause.
The Riddler realized just in time what must be wrong-just as the snake was tensing and Jihan, mouth open and eyes bulging as the breath was squeezed from her, called his name and the viper fixed Niko with a gaze that pushed Stealth backward and made him drop his sword.
For no snake, not even a Nisibisi snake, should be growing larger and bolder as it fought and bled.
Tempus looked up and around and saw the source of the snake's supernatural power: an eagle perched, bating, in the bolthole of the palace wall.
Beside him, Niko faltered, his face blistered, his ankles entangled in the ever growing coils of the snake.
Tempus knew he risked Stealth's life as he stepped out of striking range and raised his knifehand.
His eyes met the eagle's and it called softly, a cry like a baby's, and raised its head and clacked its beak.
Then the dagger Stealth had loaned him flew through the air and struck the eagle's breast.
A screech like a witch burning at the stake resounded, so that Niko lost his footing, hands clapped to either ear, and fell among the deadly coils.
But it was a chance Tempus had had to take.
And as he strode forward, faster than anything else within that room because, at last, his wrath had brought the gods awake and power rose within him, the eagle overhead burst into flame.
The flames began around the dagger in its breast and licked hot and higher as the bird took wing.
But Tempus had no more time for watching birds or taking chances; he heard a dagger fall from the bolthole's height as he waded amid the coils-first to Stealth, who still fought gamely though ichor had burned one eye shut and his limbs were bound with writhing snake.
Pitting all his strength against the failing power of the snake- now shrinking but perhaps not fast enough-the Riddler struggled.
Vaguely he heard voices behind him as palace praetorians gathered. "Stay back!" he shouted without looking.
He was watching Jihan's eyes pop, her more-than-mortal hands clutching the noose of snake still at her throat.
The damned thing was dying and as it did it was whipping back and forth, tossing Niko like a hook on a fishing line, crushing Jihan. And somewhere, in that thrashing mess of green slime and human limbs, a child was lost.
His child, Niko had said. But that wasn't why the Riddler hacked as if splitting cordwood with Niko's dream-forged sword. He'd never fought harder than he did then to free Stealth-if there was kinship between him and any here, it was strongest for his partner.
Admitting this, while all around pieces of snake flew like steaks from the block of a master butcher and smoke rose as ichor ate at stone, Tempus found reserves of strength in anger.
This youth, foolish Stealth, was not going to die on his account and leave the Riddler with that weight to bear eternally. Jihan and the god-child bom of a ceremonial rape-both of them were more than mortal. Niko was just a human fool and human foolishness-honor, valor, sacrifice, and love.-were things Tempus could not ever claim.
He didn't notice when Beysib and human help pitched in beside him-his god-given speed made them seem too slow and the task too great to make them matter.
But Jihan, once he'd cut through the widest coil at her throat, was help worth having.
And once she was free, and it was clear that she'd saved the child from certain death, the Beysibs and the Rankan priest and Kadakithis all crowded round the Froth Daughter and the child.
Which suited Tempus, who finished cutting the yet-quivering coils from the Stepson who'd fought beside him and helped Niko to his feet.
Only when the boy, through his one good eye, put a hand on Tempus's shoulder and said, "Life to you. Commander- and thanks," and collapsed into Tempus's arms did Niko's leftside leader have time for snake-bitten children or Jihan.
For he'd found out, there among the butchered chunks of snake and royal ranks of confusion, that the bond Niko and he once shared was stronger than it had ever been.
Jihan limped over to him, where he lay Stealth down, and frowned at the bums on Niko's face and his acid-eaten eye. "The placenta of a black cat, powdered at midnight, Riddler- that will heal his eye. The rest, I can do."
The Froth Daughter's hand was gentle on Tempus's face, turning it away from the boy. "We have children who are worse hurt," Jihan said. "Both poisoned by the snake who bit them." Her chest was heaving, her muscles torn; flaps of skin hung loose from her thighs as if a man-wide rope had burned her.
But the children-Arton and Gyskouras, who might be his or perhaps just the offspring of the god-had crowds to care for them and all of Sanctuary's priesthood to pray for them, while Stealth had only what a Stepson could expect.
Tempus sat flat on the floor, knees crossed under him, ignoring ichor slick which smarted and caused his skin to hiss and curl. "Get me what medicine you can, Jihan. You and I must heal this one. He wouldn't want life returned by magic."
They exchanged glances-one immortal and mortally tired, one feral and full of the fire of fierce and forgotten gods.
Then Jihan nodded, rose up, and said, "Your dagger skewered the eagle-witch. I saw it. She's wounded, maybe gone for good."
But it didn't please him, not at the price Niko always seemed to pay for others' folly.
Sometime in that interval, because Niko was conscious and could hear, Tempus affirmed and renewed their pairbond so that he had a rightside partner once again. And so that Niko, should it matter, would know that he was not alone.
Down by the White Foal Bridge, the gathered Stepsons waited: Kama was there, with a dozen hand-picked fighters from Sync's 3rd Commando.
It made Crit uncomfortable to command the Riddler's daughter's unit, so he gave them the periphery, made them the watch guards, kept what distance from her he could.
Strat, on the other hand, was comfortable with everything coming out of the dark that evening-with his bay horse, with paired Stepsons riding up, holding torches, with Ischade's whispered council, with men who once were Stepsons and now were no longer men-men who stayed in shadows when Crit looked at them straight on.
Strat had "explained" about Stilcho and Janni and Ischade's talent for raising uneasy dead. Strat said it was a favor she did them, a gift to those who'd died with their honor blighted.
Crit hadn't argued-there wasn't time. Strat was addled, bewitched, and if he got through this he was going to beat some sense into the big fool as soon as possible, do something final about Ischade or make her loose her hold on Strat.
If-
Something puffed and popped and Crit's horse shivered. Looking to his right, Crit saw Randal, the Stepsons' warrior mage, decked out in Niko's armor.
"Greetings, Crit. I heard you'd like some help." The flop-eared mage looked older, more fearsome tonight in dream-forged battle gear. He caught Crit staring at his cuirass. "This?" Randal touched his chest. "It's Niko's, still. Just a loan. We ... have an understanding, but no pairbond." The freckled face aped a smile (hat was wan in torchlight as his horse reared and Crit realized it wasn't quite a horse at all-it was definitely transparent, though horselike in every other respect.
"Help. Right. Well, Randal, you know the Riddler's orders, if you're here. Any advice? Or should we ride right in there, storm the place, bum it to the ground?"
At his knee came a touch
as soft as a butterfly landing. "I told you, Critias, just walk right in and take it-walk in by my side, if you will.... She's not at home and, if my guess is right, quite indisposed."
Crit looked from Ischade to Randal for confirmation. Randal nodded. "That's my best guess as well." The mage scratched one ear. "Only, I'll go in with Ischade. Roxane's my enemy, not yours-at least not so much so. And you don't trust Ischade ... no offense, dear lady."
"None taken. Yet," said the woman whose head reached only to Crit's knee, but who seemed taller than anyone else about.
Strat rode up, concerned, looking at Crit as if to say, 'You'd better not start trouble now, partner or not. Don't push your luck.'
"I'm going," Crit said. "I have my orders."
"Into a witch's house?" Strat shook his head. "You may be my partner, but these are my men, until we've worked things out. We needn't risk them, or you. We've got friends to deal with magic who deal with it routinely. Ischade. Randal. Please be our guests-" As he spoke, Strat bowed in his saddle and, one hand outstretched in a sweeping gesture, motioned the mage and the necromant to precede the fighters up the cart-track to Roxane's house. And as his gesturing hand neared Crit's horse, it snatched a rein, and held it.
"Strat," Crit warned. "You're pushing matters."
"Me? I thought it was you, mixing in what you don't yet understand."
"Let go of my horse."
"When you let go of your anger."
"Fine," Crit sighed, holding up empty hands and feigning a smile. "Done."
Strat stared a moment at him, then nodded and freed the horse. "Let's go, then... partner?"
"After you, Strat. As you say, you're in command-at least till morning."
Inside Roxane's Foalside home was a smell like burning feathers and a glow as if the whole place smouldered.
Ischade was well aware that any instant, the premises might burst into flame. She said so to Randal.
They'd never worked this close, the Tysian Hazard and the necromant.
It was an eerie feeling, especially when Randal drew his kris, a recurved blade, and said, "It directs fire. Don't worry, Ischade. I didn't fight the Wizard Wars for nothing," in his tenor voice.
They walked over boards that creaked as if the place had been abandoned for eternity and Ischade's neck grew cold with trespass.
Randal said, waxing more the fighter with a woman watching, more the expert First Hazard of the Mageguild with a famous witch pacing by his side, "I'll open the rent where she keeps it, get it out for you. But you'll have to destroy it. I can't."
"Can't?" she said, disbelieving.
"Shouldn't, really. You see, I've got one of my own. I wouldn't want it to think I'd turned hostile. You should understand."
She did.
It was odd to work so closely with a rival mage of rival power. She wondered if there would be a price.
And there was, of sorts, though it did not fall on them directly.
When Randal had made the requisite passes with his hands and a flap in space fell down and the globe lay revealed, Ischade's soul wrenched: she loved beauty, baubles, precious trinkets, and the power globe was all of those and more. It was the most beautiful, potent piece she'd ever seen. If not for Randal, here and witness, even despite Strat she would have claimed it for her own.
When he got it out, the floorboards creaked and the roof above began to smoke.
She could see that it singed him and that he'd expected that, now with the timbers above flaring like tarred torches.
In the ruddy light. Randal knelt down, and she did also, and he told her what words to speak.
Then he said, "Reach out and set it spinning-just a push with your palm will do."
As she touched the globe, Ischade felt a shock more intense than any she'd known for ages-this was not a matter of raising dead or ordering the lives of lesser mortals. This was a matter of power great enough to flout the gods.
And there was a bite to all Nisi magic, a corrosion different from her own. She rocked back upon her heels, nearly mesmerized herself though nothing less could have done it to her.
Randal pulled unceremoniously at her elbow. "Up, my brave lady. Up and out before the beams fall down and roast us or she... comes back... somehow."
And then Ischade realized that her sense of Roxane's presence might be more than just echoes from the globe.
Quick as smoke she got her feet under her and ran, Randal beside her, toward an open window.
Once they'd scrambled through, there was a roar as deep as any dragon's and the whole house burst apart in flames.
And in the middle of the blaze Ischade could see the globe, still spinning, spitting colored fire of its own and spouting tongues of purer fire that licked up towards the heavens.
Horses thundered, coming near.
Strat was there, lifting her up onto the bay's rump as if she were a child, and Crit did the same for Randal.
Neither asked if the task was done. All could see the globe, spinning brighter, whirling larger, consuming the lesser flame of burning wood and stone and thatch and blazing like a star.
The horses were glad to be reined back; the heat was singeing. You couldn't hear a word or even the trumpets of mounts who hated fire as they reared and walked backwards on hind legs.
For it seemed, as the house collapsed, that the sky itself caught fire. Demons of colored light slunk through that wider blaze and slipped away.
Wings of lightning beat against the firmament where a rising sun was dwarfed to dullness by their light.
And down from purple lightning and clouds that came together, combusting to form a great cat-thing with hell-red eyes who swiped at it as it came, flew an eagle.
A flaming eagle, descending from the sky, chased by a giant cat of roiling cloud so black it swallowed all the heat, as if a house cat chased a sparrow in the dwelling of the gods.
The bird plummeted, wings bent. The cat struck, sent it spinning, struck again.
A scream like heaven rending issued from one, a growl like hell's bowels settling came from the other.
And the bird tumbled, then righted, then darkened and streaked, shrinking, into the lessening flame that had been the witch's house.
Ischade saw that bird dive among the timbers where a Globe of Power was now melted, fragments of white hot clay and parboiled jewels, and take a fragment in its beak and speed away.
When she looked away, she saw that Randal, face beaded with sweat and freckles standing out black as soot, had seen it too.
The mage gave an uneasy shrug and smiled bleakly. "Let's not tell them," he whispered, leaning close. "Maybe it's not ... her."
"Perhaps not," Ischade replied, looking up at the smouldering sky.
The morning after the sky caught fire, Tempus was sitting with Niko when Randal came to call.
"I'll see to him. Commander," said the mage, who touched his kris, from which healing water could be wrung.
Jihan had applied the powdered placenta of some unlucky cat, and Niko's eye was healing.
But these wounds would take a while, even with magic to help them.
And beside the stricken fighter, in the nursery, two children lay in sleep from which no one had yet managed to rouse them.
That, Tempus knew, was really what Randal must do here. But he had to say, "Stealth and I have reaffirmed our pairbond. Can you tend him in good conscience, with a minimum of magic?"
Randal himself had once been paired with Stealth, at the Riddler's order, and loved the western fighter still.
The mage looked down, then up, then squared his shoulders. "Of course. And the children, too... if I have- their father's permission?"
"Ask the god that; he's the stud, not me," Tempus snapped and stormed out.
He had a woman to rape to placate the god within him, a necromant to thank in person, and a welcome to prepare for Theron, emperor of Ranke, when he arrived.
But Jihan found him before he could find a likely wench on the Street of Red Lanterns. H
er eyes were glowing and she squeezed his arm and wanted to know, "Just what kind of houses are these?"
He had half a mind to show her, but not the time: she'd come to get him to mediate between Crit and Strat in matters of command and to ask whether they could all attend a "fete for returning heroes" being given by friends of Ischade's who lived uptown, and whether he'd noticed anything strange about Strat's bay horse.
And since he had troubles enough of his own, and Jihan was one, he agreed to come with her, gave permission for the Band and Stepsons to attend the fete, and lied about the horse, saying he hadn't noticed anything strange about it at all.
DAGGER IN THE MIND by C. J. Cherryh
"My lady-" Stilcho said, ever so quietly. The dead Stepson hesitated in the doorway of the back room of the riverhouse. Hesitated longer. Ischade sat in the chair before the fire with her hands clasped between her black-robed knees and gazed there, the fire leaping and casting light on her face, on the bright scatter of cloaks and trinkets that made the house like some garish carnival.
And Ischade, a darkness in it, fire-limned. The wind rushed in the chimney. The fire roared up with a dizzy sibilance. The candles burned brighter so that Stilcho flinched back. Flinched and flinched again in the other direction, for he encountered a body behind him and a hard hand on his shoulder.
He turned and looked by mistake straight into Haught's dark Nisi eyes. A muscle jumped in his jaw. His throat grew paralyzed. Haught's grip burned him, numbed him; and there was no sound in all the world but the roar of the fire and no sight in the world but Haught laying a cautionary finger to his lips and drawing him away, quietly.
Back and back into the tangle of silks and drapes and shadow that was that over small room he shared with Haught.
And in this privacy Haught seized his shoulders and put his back to the wall, in the slithery touch of the silken hangings. Haught's eyes held his like a serpent's.
"Let me go," Stilcho said. The voice came through jaws that tried to freeze, that tried to turn to the cold unburied meat and bone that they were without Her influence. No pain, no agony. Just a dreadful cold as if something very solid had come between him and his life-source. "L-let me g-g-go. She s-said-" You weren't to touch me with magic-that was the part that stuck behind his teeth. There were just the eyes.
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