Soul of the City tw-8

by Robert Lynn Asprin

  Thrush and Cythen stood guard outside the open door.

  "How is she?" Walegrin asked as they slid the bolt open.

  "I'm fine," Kama assured him herself, swinging long, leather-clad legs off of Cythen's bed.

  A dark smear covered most of the right side of her face but it seemed mostly soot. She wasn't moving like she'd taken too much punishment.

  "I guess I owe you my life," she said uncomfortably.

  "I didn't think you'd kill Strat. You'd had too many opportunities before-better opportunities. And you wouldn't care if he was shacked up with the witch."

  She scowled. "You're right on the first, anyway."

  "Piffles, Chief," Thrusher interjected from the open doorway. "Two of them guarding the cellar we found her in."

  Kama stood in front of Walegrin, looking through and beyond him. She had that way about her-even dressed in scratched and rag-tied leather she had elegance and, however unconsciously, the powerful demeanor of her father. The garrison commander never had the upper hand with her.

  "Personal?" he stammered.

  "Personal? Personal? Gods, no. They saw me with Strat and you. They thought I'd sold out-nothing personal about that," she snapped.

  Then why lock her up and put an arrow in Strat? And why Strat and not him?-he was every bit as easy to find. It was personal, all right, as personal as the sharp-faced PFLS leader could make it.

  "You've got worse problems," Walegrin told her.

  Finally she turned away, watching the lamp-flame as if it were the center of the universe. "Yeah, so they tell me. He used one of Jubal's arrows, didn't he? All hell broke loose, didn't it?"

  Walegrin couldn't suppress a bitter laugh. "Not quite. Came close. Seems someone came out of the witch's house an' dragged .Strat back in. Stepsons thought they'd go in to rescue him. Found the place'd been warded: Nisi warded-like you'd remember, I guess. Old Critias lit back for the palace and found out that Roxane'd broken out of wherever she'd been hiding and went there 'cause some slave-apprentice of Ischade's'd stolen a Globe of Power and stashed it there. So, no, hell didn't quite break out-it's sort of holed up there in the old Peres place."

  Kama ran her hands through her hair. Her shoulders sagged and when she turned around again she looked straight at Walegrin. "There's more, isn't there." She didn't make it a question.

  "Yeah. There's a boat down at the wharf with Vashanka's arrows flying from its mast. They say it's Brachis at the least and maybe our new Emperor as well. Can't be sure because we've told them the town's under plague sign: no one from Sanctuary's been on board; no one's gotten off either. Whatever it is, it's got the whole damn palace fired up. They mean to have the town quiet if they have to kill every known troublemaker before sunrise-and your name's at the top of everyone's list. Word was that you didn't even have to be brought in alive."

  "Crit?" she asked. "Tempus?"

  Walegrin nodded after both names. "Kama, the only Stepson who might not want you dead is inside the witch's house with bigger problems than you've got. The nabobs were in trouble anyway; Strat's arrow didn't make their problems but the way it's comin' down you'd think you stole the globe and let Roxane out."

  "So what am I supposed to do? Hide the rest of my life? Climb to the highest rooftop and leap to my ignominious death? Maybe I'll just go back to Zip and the rest. I can take care of that myself, at least." She began pacing, though there was barely enough space between the bed and the wall for her to take two steps before turning. "I could get on that boat. Reach Theron, if he's there-"

  The garrison regulars exchanged glances. Under no circumstances was anyone who knew what had been going on in Sanctuary going anywhere near that wharf without an arm-long scroll of permissions. Walegrin took a step forward, blocking Kama's path.

  "I've sent word to Molin Torchholder. I told you about him. If there's anyone in the palace who'll understand the truth of this. it's him."

  Kama stared in disbelief. "Molin's coming here?"

  "To perform your funerary rites. The diggers went to get him. He'll come. He might not be too popular with you Wiz-ardwall veterans but he takes care of Sanctuary. You can trust him-I told you that," Walegrin assured her, misreading the shadows that fell across Kama's face.

  "How long?"

  "I've sent word. He'll come as soon as he can. The Interiors," by whom he meant the few Rankan soldiers still on detail within the palace, "say there was some sort of big Beysib gathering around sunset-some sort of ritual. I don't know if he was involved or not. If he's got to eat with them he may not get here till midnight."

  Kama strode to the little window overlooking the stables and a corner of the parade ground. She popped the shutters and leaned out into the night air.

  "I'd just as soon you kept the windows closed and stayed out of sight," Walegrin requested, unable to give her a direct order.

  An inaudible sigh ran the length of her back. She pulled the boards closed and stared expectantly at him. "I'm your prisoner, then?"

  "Damn, woman-it's for your own good. No one's going to think of looking for you here-but I can't keep them out if they get a notion to look. If you've got any close friends you think you'd be safer with you just tell me about them and I'll see that you spend the night there."

  Kama had pushed as hard and far as she dared-more from habit than grand design. "Is there any food left below?" she asked in a more civil voice, "or water?"

  "Fish stew with fat-back; some wine. I'll send some up."

  "And water, please-I'd like to wash before my funeral rites." She flashed the smile that made men forget she was deadly.

  Torchholder, still garbed in the regalia he had worn when the Beysa had healed the Stormchildren, came to the garrison barracks flanked by the gravediggers. The diggers demanded to view the body but Molin, once he saw Walegrin's anxiety, dismissed them with a wave of his hand.

  "Not before the rites," he snarled contemptously. "Until the spirit is sanctified and released, the impure may not view the remains."

  "Ain't no 'Shankan funeral I've ever heard of," the second of the gravediggers complained to his superior.

  "The man was an initiate into Vashanka's Brotherhood. Would you risk the Stormgod's wrath?"

  The gravediggers, like everyone else in Sanctuary, suspected that the Stormgod was impotent or vanquished but none of the trio was about to say so to a palace nobleman whose power in the simple matters of life and death was not in question. They agreed to return to their posts and await the delivery of the body. Molin watched the door close behind them, then pulled Walegrin back into the shadows.

  "What in seven hells is going on here?"

  "There's a bit of a problem," the younger man explained, drawing the priest up the stairs. "Someone you should talk to."

  "Who've you got-?" Molin demanded as Walegrin knocked once, then shoved the door open.

  Kama had put her time and the water to good use. The soot and grime were gone from her leathers and her face; her hair framed her face in a smooth, ebony curtain. Walegrin saw something he did not immediately understand pass silently between them.

  "Kama," Torchholder said softly, refusing for the moment to cross the threshold. Throughout the afternoon and into the evening he had forced any thought of her from his mind; had, in effect, abandoned her to fate. He believed she would not have expected, or appreciated, anything else and saw by her face that he had believed correctly-but correctness did nothing to alleviate the backlash of self-imposed guilt which swept up around him.

  "Shall I leave?" Walegrin asked, piecing the situation together finally.

  Molin started; weighed a dozen responses and their probable consequences in his mind, and said: "No, stay here," before anyone could guess he had considered some other course of action. "Kama, why are you here, of all places?" he asked, closing the door behind him.

  With Walegrin's help, she explained her situation. How the PFLS leader. Zip, had misinterpreted her encounter with Stra-ton and Walegrin and how that mistake had star
ted the downward spiral of events which culminated with not merely the attempt on the Stepson's life but the sabotage of all he had tried to accomplish.

  Molin, though he listened attentively, took a few moments to congratulate himself. Had he dismissed Walegrin, he would have helped Kama because he loved her-and, in time, she would have rejected him for it. Now, he could help her because he had heard and believed her story before witnesses. She might still reject him-she would always prefer action to intrigue, he suspected-but it wouldn't be through the weakness called love.

  "You have two choices, Kama," he explained when both she and Walegrin were silent. "No one would be surprised if you had died today. I could easily see to it that everyone believed that you had. You could take a horse from the stables and no one would ever think to come looking for you." He paused. "Or you can clear your name."

  "I want my name," she replied without hesitation. "I'll appeal to the Emperor's justice...." It was her turn to pause and calculate options. "Brachis-" She looked around the room and remembered the Stormchildren, the witches, and the ir-remedial absence of Vashanka. "I'll get the truth out of Zip," she concluded.

  Molin shook his head and turned to Walegrin. "Would you believe anything that young man told you?"

  Walegrin shook his head.

  "No, Kama, maybe if Strat's still alive in there and he says it wasn't you, you'd be believed, but no one else's word will count for enough. You'll do best coming in to face your accusers."

  "Under your protection?"

  "Under Tempus's protection."

  Walegrin broke into the conversation: "He's one of the ones who've ordered her dead!"

  "He ordered her captured-the rest is the enthusiasm of his subordinates. He's got caught in another skirmish with the demon-and Roxane:-for Niko's soul. Jihan barely pulled him out and she is, until the next sea storm at any rate, as mortal as you or I. Tempus is in no mood for death right now."

  "You're wrong if you think he'd go lightly with me," Kama warned in a low voice. "He acknowledges my existence- nothing more than that. It would be easier for him if I did die."

  It cost her to admit that to anyone, stranger or lover. Molin knew better than to deny it. "I'm not interested in making things easier for that man," he said in his own low, measured voice. "He will not dare to judge you himself, so he will be scrupulously honest in seeing that justice is done by someone else."

  Kama tossed her hair behind her shoulders. "Let's go to him now."

  "Tomorrow," Molin averred. "He has other obligations tonight."

  Prince Kadakithis took the tray from the Beysib priest. He was gracious, but firm: no one besides himself was attending Shupansea. It was her wish; it was his wish; and it was time everyone got used to the idea that he gave orders too. The bald priest had seen too much upheaval in one day to argue successfully. He bowed, gave his blessing, and backed out of the antechamber. The prince set the careful arrangement of chilled morsels beside the bed and returned his attention to the Beysa.

  Streaks of opalescent powder shot across the bleached white imperial bedlinen. Brushing aside a blue-green swirl, Kadak-ithis resumed his vigil, waiting for her eyes to open and more than half-expecting that he'd made a terrible mistake. He smoothed her hair across the pillows; smiled; dared to kiss her breasts lightly as he'd never dared to do at any of the few other times they'd stolen moments alone together and jerked upright when he felt something move against the back of his neck.

  The Beysa ran orchid-colored fingertips down his forearm. "We are alone, aren't we?" she inquired.

  "Quite," he agreed. "They've sent food up for us. Are you hungry?"

  He reached for the dinner-tray and found himself restrained. Shupansea raised herself up and began dealing with the clasps on his tunic.

  "Kith-us, I have two half-grown children and you have had a wife and concubines since you were fourteen. I surrendered my virginity in a ritual that was witnessed by at least forty priests and relations-tell me the first time wasn't just as bad for you."

  The prince blushed crimson.

  "Very well, then. We're pawns. The cheapest whore has more freedom than I've had. But everything's in flux now. Even Mother Bey is affected. She says not to be alone tonight; I don't think she can absorb your stormgod into herself as She has done with all our heroes and man-gods. I could choose to be with a priest or one of the Burek but I've chosen to be with you."

  She stripped the loose tunic back from the prince's shoulders and pulled him toward her. He resisted, fumbling with the accursed buckles on his sandals, then committed himself to the changes she promised.

  It was night at last, with the darker emotions of the mortal spirit obscuring the heavens as surely as the smoke and the eternal fog. Ischade extinguished her candles and gathered her dark robes around her. She had planned and deliberated as she had seldom done, choosing decision over reaction despite its risks and unfamiliarity.

  She sealed the White Foal house with a delicate touch; if she failed, the dawn would find nothing more than rotting boards rising from the overgrown marshes. The black roses opened as she passed them, giving her their arcane beauty for what might be the last time. With a caress she savored their death-sweet perfume and sent them back where she had found them.

  Across the bridge, deep within the better part of town, the bay horse consumed the last of the ward-fire, leaving the Peres house naked to whatever moved in the darkness. Ischade clung to the shadows with more than her usual caution; she was not immune to mortal forms of death and there were others migrating instinctively to the house now that its defenses had vanished. Crouched in a doorway, she lit a single candle and studied the wisps of magic rising through the ruins of Roxane's wards.

  At her unspoken command the front door faded from its hinges. Ischade crept through, bristling with alertness and prepared to utilize every trick in her carefully prepared arsenal. There was nothing to challenge or greet her as she glided along the hallway, vanishing amid her numerous possessions.

  She found the trail Straton's blood had made and followed it through to the kitchen. Stilcho's heroism had borne fruit; but Straton's safety was not her only goal. Haught was here; the Nisi witch was here and she would not leave until she had consigned both to hell and beyond.

  Continuing her search, Ischade swept from room to room to the waist-thick beams of the cluttered attic where her search had to end. Haught crouched outside the sphere, enraptured by the nether-world dazzle of the globe, his eyes as wide and glazed as any Beysib's. Shiey's cleaver lay in a twisted lump at his feet. Tasfalen sang with a dead man's voice, dragging one leg stiffly as he shambled around the perimeter of the globe's light.

  Tasfalen?

  Ischade did not immediately comprehend the changes which had overtaken Tasfalen Lancothis. Had Haught somehow kept the globe? Had she simply imagined Roxane's taint on the corroded wards? Surely Tasfalen's flawed resurrection had been her one-time apprentice's work; Roxane's efforts were brutal but never so crude. Concealed by shadow and the skein of magic she had spun, the necromant dared briefly to listen to the globe's song until she could piece the truth together.

  She noted, even as Haught had noted, the carelessness which marked the Nisi witch's failure to protect her mortal shell and recognized the same mystic illness from which she herself had only just recovered. For a fleeting moment Ischade felt a sense of pity that one so powerful should be conquered by an accumulation of minute errors. Then she set about weaving a gossamer web to ground the globe's radiant energy in her focal possessions as fast as Roxane/Tasfalen could create it.

  The faster the globe whirled, the stronger Ischade's binding threads became, until the whole house rattled and dust fell in flakes from the ancient roofbeams-and still the Nisi witch sang her curses into the artifact. The necromancer played out the last strand and stood up in the wash of blue light.

  Tasfalen's dead eye gave no indication of recognition; Rox-ane was too deeply enmeshed in her spell-casting to spare the energy for simple wor
ds. A shriek of rage emanated from the globe itself as the Nisi witch launched her attack-a shriek that shattered abruptly as the power surged into Ischade's handiwork and made the web brilliantly visible. Curls of smoke twisted up from the weaker foci, but the web held. Ischade began to laugh, savoring her counterpart's growing terror.

  Roxane flailed helplessly with Tasfalen's rigor-stricken arms, struggling to free herself from the power gnawing at her soul.

  "The wards!" Roxane's disembodied voice howled above the globe's whine. "No wards! He comes for me!"

  The Globe of Power spun faster, first swallowing the witch's voice, then swallowing her body within its cobalt sphere. Gouts of fire sprang up in the joists and floorboards where Ischade's web had touched them. Ischade covered her hair with her cloak as she inched away from the conflagration swirling around the globe. The Nisi witch was trapped, along with her accursed artifact; it was time to see that Straton was safely away from the house and its outbuildings. Straton-she put his face in the forefront of her mind and looked toward the comer where the stairs had been.

  An orange nimbus surrounded the image Ischade formed of her lover. A demonic nimbus, she realized too late-after she had turned to face the throbbing cobalt sphere again. No wards, Roxane had screamed: no wards to keep Niko's demon at bay. It had one soul but it could claim many. Her foot scuffed against the rough planks, but Ischade moved forward as it beckoned.

  "Straton."

  Haught kept himself small and low against the roofbeams. Insignificant-as he had always been as a dancer or a slave; beneath the notice of witches and, certainly, of demons. He saw the thing which had been Roxane flickering between an awful emptiness and the dozen or more bodies the witch had taken during her life. He saw Ischade think to escape-and fail, and lurch inescapably forward. But mostly he saw the globe hanging midway between Ischade and the demon: motionless and, for the moment, ignored.

  Still keeping himself invisible in the demon's perception, he drew himself into a compact crouch. There was no need for the globe to be destroyed by this, he thought while massaging the finger which bore Ischade's ring. One leap would take him across the sphere and down the stairs. He was a dancer still, in his body; the leap was no great feat for him.