"All you have to do is lead me to the guards," Master replied, "so it shouldn't tax your stamina unduly. Specifically, I want you to guide me to the aspects of the watch posts opposite the Wide Realms. Presumably, the soldiers are all peering out at the playhouse, and if we approach their positions from behind, they shouldn't see us coming."
Bileworm grinned. "Consider it done." He escorted Master to the improvised sentry station on the east side of the theater, a candlemaker's shop. The familiar assumed the warriors had paid the proprietor, his family, and any apprentices to clear out for the evening.
Unfortunately, the establishment had no back door. "You could climb in through a window," Bileworm whispered.
"I might make noise," Master replied, his voice equally low. "Let's try a little magic."
The wizard removed a pinch of sesame from one of the pockets in his dark blue mantle, swept his hand in an intricate mystical pass, and whispered a sibilant tercet. The air in the vicinity rippled for a moment, like hot desert air birthing a mirage, then a round hole appeared in the wall of the shop.
Master slipped inside. Bileworm followed and found himself in a storeroom, with tubs of beeswax and tallow sitting about. Voices murmured through the doorway leading to the front of the shop.
The wizard took out a blowpipe, tiptoed to the opening, raised the weapon to his lips, and puffed explosively. Bileworm watched several armed men fall unconscious; the unlucky ones who'd been standing thumped down to the floor. After a moment, two of them started to snore.
"I concocted this dust when I was young, and used up most of it before my death," Master remarked. "I was pleasantly surprised to return thirty years later and find the rest still in its jar. I guess no one else in the family knew what it was,"
"Are we going to kill these mortals?" Bileworm asked. Master sighed. "I wish you'd grow up a little. We have riper fruit to pick. Come on, we'll go back out through the hole."
As they made their exit, Bileworm reflected that Master simply lacked panache. Yes, they had no need to murder the slumbering warriors. Yes, it would require a few moments that might be spent more efficiently elsewhere. Yes, the method he had in mind would cause a stir when they'd already resolved to be stealthy. But still, with all the combustibles on hand, the candlemaker's shop could be made to burn magnificently, and the heat would almost certainly wake the soldiers up in time to perish in agony in the flames.
Deploring a squandered opportunity, the spirit led Master to the other watch posts. The warriors stationed to the south and west succumbed as easily as the first detachment, but matters fell out a bit differently at the last stop on their circuit, a fragrant perfumery, the shelves behind the counter lined with porcelain and crystal bottles. After the blowpipe discharged its contents, one warrior remained on his feet, a lean, middle-aged man with a stern, humorless mouth, pale, narrow eyes, and a grizzled widow's peak. Judging from the markings on the blue surcoat he wore over his mail, he was probably Jander Orvist, captain of the Uskevren household guard.
Though surely startled by the sudden collapse of his men, Jander nonetheless reacted quickly. He drew his long sword and charged the wizard. Giving ground, Master plucked a packet of folded paper from his mantle, brandished it, and spoke a word of power.
Jander was only a stride away from being close enough to attack when the spell took hold. A smear of slick white slime materialized beneath his boots. Slipping, he cut at the wizard anyway, a stroke that would have landed had not Master parried it with his staff. Purple radiance sizzled from the black wood, down the blade of the long sword, and into Jander's body, playing about his armored limbs as he fell.
Twitching and shuddering, Jander tried to flounder back to his feet, made it as far as his knees, and, realizing he could go no farther, drew in a ragged breath to shout. Master rattled off a brief incantation and spun his arm in an intricate gesture that ended with him planting his hand on the fallen captain's shoulder.
Magenta light and a kind of ragged darkness flickered about the point of contact. His mouth drawn in a rictus of agony, Jander convulsed and then collapsed, his sinewy warrior's body now withered to little more than skin and bones.
Bileworm leered. "He should have skipped off to dreamland with his men."
"He couldn't," Master replied, "his spirit was too strong." Evidently having run out of dust to charge it, he set the blowpipe down atop the counter. "Let's fetch Garris and the others."
Brom had been to the theater before, but had generally found himself in the cheap seats far back from the stage, or even squashed in the press of groundlings standing in the open area in front of it. It was still a novel experience to sit up close with plenty of elbow room in a box overlooking the stage, and he wished he had the leisure to enjoy it.
But he didn't. Like the warriors in mufti stationed about the playhouse, he had to watch for the first signs of an attempt on Master Talbot's life.
He would have found it easier had all the members of the audience been content to sit or stand and watch the performance. Unfortunately, however, the Wide Realms was a raucous carnival of diversions, of which the tragedy unfolding onstage sometimes seemed the least compelling. People were chattering to their friends, munching pears and sausages, passing wineskins and jugs of ale and applejack around, playing cards, throwing dice, tossing a knife in a game of mumblety-peg, and conducting assignations with their sweethearts or bawds. It all combined to make a shifting, churning confusion, in which even the most blatant sign of hostile intent might go unnoticed for a few moments. Brom worried that for all their vigilance, he and his comrades would fail to spot it in time.
Yet when trouble erupted, it did so in the one place where no one could have missed it, on the stage itself.
A shaggy white wig on his head and long, snowy whiskers gummed to his chin, leaning heavily on his gnarled staff, Talbot railed at his absent son for betraying him. Some of the groundlings yelled to tell him that no, the prince was faithful, the evil counselor had lied, but of course the deluded old monarch Talbot was portraying mustn't hear them, or else it would ruin the story.
The part of King Imre was a departure for Tal, who was usually cast in secondary roles that showed off his theatrical fencing more than his acting ability, and he was enjoying the challenge, though not as much as he might have if he weren't waiting for someone to try to murder him. In the wings, Mistress Quickly and some of the other players watched his performance with encouraging smiles.
Behind them sat an iron cage, a prop, but also Tal's prison on nights of the full moon. He thought briefly how odd, even sad, it was that he'd never felt able to tell his own family of his transformations, yet had nonetheless confided in the members of the troupe. Perhaps it was because, while he didn't necessarily love them any more than he did his parents, Tazi, or even Tamlin, he supposed, he trusted his fellow players not to judge him.
A chorus of shouts jarred him from his momentary reverie. For a second, he thought the groundlings were still trying to enlighten old Imre about his heir, then realized they were crying, "Look up! Look up!"
Nothing in the scene should have provoked such an outburst. He turned, lifted his head, and beheld a pair of black spiders, each as big as a donkey, leaping down from the balcony stage above.
The only other actor on stage was Lommy, playing the role of Imre's court fool. His fantastic yellow motley and clown makeup concealed the fact that he wasn't human but a tasloi, with the greenish skin, thin black fur, golden eyes, and apish frame of his kind. When he spotted the spiders, he fled.
Talbot was relieved to see his unarmed friend take himself out of harm's way. He was confident that neither of the spiders would chase after the tasloi, because these were clearly summoned creatures like the ones Tamlin had encountered, charged with the task of killing one specific victim.
Since Tal was that victim, he reached for the long sword hanging at his side. Brom had cast a glamour on it to keep anyone from seeing it, but it became visible as it scraped clear of th
e scabbard. The noble wore a brigandine as well, the armor concealed beneath Imre's crimson robes.
The spiders scuttled toward him, and he willed himself to be calm. Certain members of the audience were screaming, some sincerely, others in the giddy manner of folk relishing an imaginary peril. Apparently, unfazed by the fact that the sick, doddering old king had inexplicably turned into a swordsman, or that giant arachnids invading the royal palace would seem to have nothing to do with the rest of the plot, these latter assumed the spiders were part of the show.
Fortunately, the hideous creatures didn't work in concert as men might have done. They came at him separately, and one closed the distance before the other. Hoping to dispatch it before its comrade entered the fray, Talbot lunged at it at once.
His blade sank deep into the spider's mask, bursting two of its clustered, globular eyes, but the creature kept scuttling forward, drops of oily amber venom glistening at the ends of its fangs.
Talbot scrambled out of the spider's path, ripped the long sword free, and, knowing he could have at most a second or two left before the other arachnid pounced at him, cut at the place where the wounded creature's head joined its thorax.
The blow half severed the head. The spider continued to turn in his direction, and he feared he still hadn't killed it.
Then it crumpled.
Tal heard footsteps drumming up behind, spun around, and cut. His sword sheared off one of the second spider's chitinous front legs. The arachnid lurched off balance for a moment, then scuttled toward him scarcely less nimbly than before.
Shouting a battle cry, Talbot lunged to meet it, and his point slammed deep into the center of the spider's pulsing mouth. It still kept coming, ramming into him, knocking him down, and crouching on top of him. Heedless of the fact that it was driving his blade even deeper inside its body, the creature dipped its head and bit him. Talbot went rigid with terror, but only felt a pressure, not the agony he'd expected. The steel plates riveted on the brigandine kept the poisonous fangs from penetrating his flesh on the first try, and the spider never got a second. Rather, it convulsed and slumped on top of him.
Tal clambered out from beneath the carcass and yanked the long sword free. Some members of the audience were still cheering and whooping, but more were now screaming in earnest. The noble peered about, trying to make out the totality of what was going on, and why none of his retainers had yet rushed to his aid. He was still struggling to sort out the chaos before him when he heard the door at the rear of the stage bang open, and something scratching and scrambling in the balconies above. He pivoted and came on guard.
Galvanized by the appearance of the spiders, Brom sprang from his chair, spun the head of his staff in a mystic pass, and began to recite an incantation that would launch darts of destructive force at the creatures. Then something, perhaps a sight half-glimpsed from the corner of his eye, perhaps simply an intuition honed in scores of battles, warned him that he was in danger. Abandoning his conjuration, he threw himself flat.
Crossbow bolts whizzed over his head and cracked into the walls. An instant later, a blast of cold swept over him, so bitter that he cried out, and his body clenched. Had it struck him squarely, it might have stopped his heart or frozen him solid, but the paling at the front of the box shielded him from the worst of it.
Shivering, wishing his foe had chosen to strike at him with any force other than cold, Brom fumbled a flake of turtle shell from one of his pockets, rattled off an incantation that would protect him from any more quarrels, then peeked over the rime-encrusted paling.
From that vantage point, he could see that the wizard in the crescent-shaped mask, a number of bravos, and more conjured servitors, giant spiders and the potbellied, long-armed creatures called ettercaps, had burst in through the front entrance. All the wizard's minions were trying to work their way toward the stage and Talbot. Due to the press of the panicking crowd, the ruffians were finding it hard going, but the summoned creatures, clambering along the palings at the front of the middle and upper galleries, were covering the distance more rapidly. The Uskevren guards had taken out their crossbows and swords and were doing their best to slay the attackers, and a few other courageous members of the audience had elected to engage them as well, but the defenders were too few to hold back the tide. Brom wondered what had happened to the soldiers stationed outside the playhouse. Why hadn't they intercepted the masked wizard and his accomplices before the villains ever made it past the gate, and why weren't they charging in after them now?
Brom really had no time to puzzle over their absence, nor to hurl his magic against any of the spiders, ettercaps, or bravos, either, because the masked wizard had cast an enchantment of flight and risen above the crowd. His dark blue mantle fluttering about him, purple fire dancing on the black staff he held above his head, he was soaring directly toward Brom.
"I suspected I'd see you again," the masked man said. Assuming that the other wizard had once again armored himself against lesser spells, Brom hastily attempted one of the greater. Snatching out a handful of clear glass marbles, he raised them high and rattled off the proper incantation. The orbs exploded into powder, veils of shimmering ruby light coiled through the air, and then a corona of brighter radiance blazed around the masked man's head.
Brom peered intently, trying to judge the effect. If the charm had worked, it had robbed the other wizard of the ability to cast spells by stripping away most of his intellect, and the change would likely manifest itself immediately, in a wail of anguish, perhaps, or a general appearance of confusion.
But the masked man simply kept gliding closer as gracefully as before. "You're good," he said in his mild, dry voice, "but I fancy I was better even before my death, and I've learned all manner of tricks in the years since. Allow me to demonstrate."
Green and purple lightning crackled down the length of his staff.
Crouched on the roof of the Soargyl family's box, Thazi-enne had been feeling smug till the trouble began. Her brothers, Erevis, and Brom had been idiots to think they could hold her prisoner and hog all the excitement of unknown enemies, attempted assassinations, and the ensuing battles for themselves. It had been simplicity itself to slip out the casement in her bedchamber and climb down the wall. Afterward, she'd hurried to the Kit, the inn where she kept a room, weapons, and an outfit of dark, oiled, close-fitting leather, suited up for action, and then headed to the Wide Realms. The playhouse wall was considerably easier to scale than that of Stormweather Towers, and once she reached the roof, she had only to avoid rustling the snowy thatch while she found a perch on one of the solid rafters underneath. Tazi hunkered down, watched, and waited.
It only took Talbot a few seconds to kill the first two spiders, but by then, all manner of interesting things were happening. Three more arachnids were making their way onto the stage, as were a pair of swordsmen. A veritable horde of bravos and conjured creatures had pushed in through the front gate. The wizard in the moon mask was flying through the air, heading straight toward the Uskevren family box where Brom was stationed.
Thazienne's first impulse was to rush down onto the stage and fight alongside her hulking brother, but aspects of the situation unfolding below nagged at her. For one thing, as she could see from her elevated position, none of the soldiers positioned outside the playhouse was rushing toward it, which meant that Tal and his supporters were severely outnumbered. For another, since the enemy had evidently found a point of entry at the back of the tiring house, why had the majority of them come in through the gate at the opposite end of the playhouse, placing themselves considerably farther away from their quarry than necessary?
She could conceive of one explanation. The wizard in blue was a commander who planned for contingencies and did his best to control his opponents' actions. The spiders and ruffians already onstage were no feint but a deadly serious threat. But suppose Talbot somehow disposed of them all before their fellows reached the stage. Then, with the bulk of his retainers having mysteriously
failed to appear, and an overwhelming force charging toward him, he would see no option but to flee in the only logical direction: back toward that door at the rear of the theater. Where, Tazi suspected, an ambuscade awaited him.
If she was mistaken, if no one was lurking there, she would have wasted valuable time that she could have spent helping Tal fend off the attackers who had already reached him. If she was right, then someone had to clear away the trap and provide him a means of egress, or he'd never make it out of the playhouse alive.
Running lightly, trusting her thief's agility to keep her feet on the sturdy beams beneath the flimsy thatch, she dashed to the rear of the Wide Realms and peered downward. As she'd anticipated, there was an open door there, and clustered around it, half a dozen ettercaps. Four clung higher up on the wall like ticks attached to the hide of some unfortunate host; the pair directly above the exit appeared to be clutching a net. The other two crouched on the ground on either side of the door, ready to attack Talbot the instant he plunged through.
Other than observing captured specimens in carnivals and menageries, Tazi had no firsthand experience with ettercaps, but it was her understanding that the brutes were adept at laying snares and catching unwary woodsmen unawares. That was probably why the masked wizard had selected them for this duty, but she was going to show them what sneaking and attacking by surprise were truly all about. She silently swung her legs over the edge of the roof, then hesitated.
What if everyone was right? What if she actually wasn't well yet, nor ready for a fight to the death against superior numbers?
Scowling, she thrust the timorous thought away. She was recovered, curse it, and even if she wasn't, it didn't matter, not with Talbot's life in jeopardy. She started down the wall.
In some ways, it was the most challenging climb she'd ever attempted. She had to find her hand- and footholds in the dark, then transfer her weight in utter silence, lest the ettercaps hear her coming. Yet she also had to descend quickly, for if she took too much time, she might well engage the foe too late to do Talbot any good.
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