He thought he saw a face there; a woman, more beautiful than any he had ever encountered. Was this what it was like to die? Was death the embrace of a beautiful woman? It wasn’t so bad. She looked at him, and he thought he saw tears of pity, but he knew no tears could form underwater. Then she kissed him. The fire in his flesh faded. More strangely he found he could breathe. Perhaps he was only breathing in water. He was still sinking. The lights from the bridge were more distant now. The woman’s face disappeared, if it had ever been there. The water was cooler down here than near the surface. He felt buoyant. He thought this must be the euphoria of death. But he was floating up.
He was no longer bound. And a woman was beside him, his hand held in hers. She dragged him along just beneath the surface. She swam through the lake, away from the bridge, past the pylons of the outer and inner ring. Then she was lifting him out of the water onto a tiny grassy sward beside a verdant grove. She kissed him again and the water flowed out of his lungs and he collapsed to the grass coughing and spluttering. He lay back on the grass and stared at the stars. The full moon cast its spectral beams across the trees behind him. The woman sat down beside him. They were still at the water’s edge, and her feet trailed in the water.
Now that he saw her clearly he knew he had been right. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Her eyes were green. Her skin seemed almost transparent, and he thought he could see the light of the moon passing through her. He pressed his eyes tightly closed. He must be hallucinating. Or dead.
“What kind of spirit are you?” he asked, opening his eyes again.
She made no answer. Her hair, fine, translucent seemed to be flowing down over her shoulders. Other than her hair she was completely naked and her body was perfectly formed. Her hips curved gently like a river, her breasts swelled with every breath.
“Am I dead?”
She shook her head.
“You saved me.”
She smiled, and a feeling of refreshment washed over him. Then he remembered. “You were crying.”
Her smile faded, and he felt a deep sadness wash over him. He sat up, reached out. She didn’t stop him. She didn’t recoil. His fingertips touched her face. It felt like touching a running stream.
“Who are you?”
She raised one of her own hands and held his to her face. It felt as though he had plunged his hand into fresh water. He drew closer to her. She kissed him again. He had never felt so euphoric a sensation. Then she placed her hands on his cheeks and pressed her forehead to his. He felt the flowing across his forehead. He looked into her eyes, and they were deep pools of crystalline, emerald hued water. The water sparkled and winked. She whispered in his ear and the sound was like a burbling brook in springtime. But he could understand the burbling. He didn’t know how.
“My sister is missing.”
“Your sister?”
“Yes. My father grieves. My sisters and I mourn her. We cannot find her. I fear some great evil has befallen her.”
“Who is your father?”
“The river.”
“Your father is the river? How can a river be a father?”
“I am one of his daughters.”
A possibility occurred to Corin now, but it was so absurd he could barely believe it. It couldn’t be true. It was a myth. Yet who was this beautiful creature? What was she? She scarcely seemed possible herself. And how had she freed him from his bonds? And she had swum under the lake from the bridge to this grove. He drew his face away from hers and looked towards the city. He was at the edge of the caldera lake. They must have swum more than a mile to get here. Under the water.
She grasped his face again and pressed it to her own.
“You’re a nymph?”
“Some call us that.”
“A Nymph of the Fountain.”
“The girls who come to our lake or here to our shrine seeking purification call us that.”
“So you’re a goddess.”
He felt her smile against his face and then she kissed him again. “Will you help me find my sister?”
“But you’re a goddess. You’re powerful. I’m only…”
“My power is blocked. I don’t know how. I cannot enter the city. I suspect she is there…somewhere. But I have no power there.”
“I’m only a thief.”
“A thief can find what other men will miss. But that is not why I chose you.”
“Why did you?”
“The heart of fire.”
“The what?”
“The heart of fire has touched you. I heard its call in your pain. It rules Blood-spate. Together...”
“Blood-spate?”
“The sword of kings.”
“Ah!” Corin said, still not understanding.
“Fire without water will burn. My sister will feel your pain also. Perhaps she will come to you. Her compassion will draw her heart to yours. Or perhaps you must find her. I do not know.”
“I feel no pain.”
“I have healed you as much as I can, but that will not last. Seek out my sister.”
“And she will heal me permanently?”
“She cannot. The heart of fire is too strong. Only Blood-spate can undo the harm. Find the sword. But find my sister first. I fear my father grows angry. He only withholds his benediction from the city now. If he cannot find her…if he suspects the city of complicity…”
“What?”
“He may destroy it.”
“The city is protected against flood. Its aqueducts are controlled by engineers. Most of the river is diverted around the caldera.”
“He can overcome the inventions of man if he chooses. He has never done so before. The city has always worshiped him, and us, and respected the rituals. The city has always loved us. But if it has abducted my sister…his rage…it will know no bounds. You must help me. Help me find her.”
“What if she isn’t in the city?”
“I sense that she is.”
“But not where?”
She shook her head. “Powerful magic is being used to hide her.”
A thought occurred to him then, though she shook her head, as if she read it before he could speak it. “What if she hides herself.”
“I have many sisters, but she is the closest to me. We were born together. She would not hide from me. She could not, any more than I could hide from her. Someone else has done this.”
“But who could have the power to…who could overpower a goddess?”
“I do not know. It should not be possible. No mortal could. At least not in the natural order of things. But the time of change is nearly upon us. The planets are nearly aligned. The cusp will soon be here.”
Corin didn’t understand any of this, but he suggested what seemed most sensible. “Another god? The myths I’ve heard the bards singing say a lot of that happens among gods and goddesses.”
“I wouldn’t sense her presence in the city if she had been abducted by a god. Will you help me?”
“You saved my life. How could I not help you?”
She kissed him again.
“But where will I find her?”
“Follow your heart. It is touched by fire now.”
“That’s not much to go on.”
“Seek out power.”
“The king?”
She shook her head. “Sorcerous power. Great magic.”
“So I need to find a powerful mage and piss him off. Sounds like a suicide mission.”
“I will be eternally grateful.”
“And I suppose you’re one of the few women who can honestly say that.”
She smiled and kissed him again.
He heard dragging footsteps behind him and turned. An old woman shuffled out of the grove, leaning against a tall, gnarled staff that looked like it had been carved from a branch of the grove. Around her neck was a necklace of smooth pebbles, sinking into her sagging, wrinkled cleavage. Her hair was white and wild and her eyes had a hint of madness. They seemed to be all
pupil and stared at him as if both seeing him and looking through him.
“You can’t be here,” she said querulously, “no man can be here. The shrines must not be polluted.” She raised her staff, seeming almost to collapse without its support. Thinking better of striking him and risking falling she planted it on the ground again, catching herself just as she was about to topple. She glared at him, as if he was responsible for the infirmities of her old age. “The goddesses will punish you,” she said, “they will answer my prayers.”
“Like this goddess?” he said, turning to look at the nymph. She was gone. He looked back at the aged priestess. She looked at him strangely. Then her eyes opened wide.
“One of the sisters was here?”
He nodded and touched his lips.
“But why would she…why are you doing that?”
“Doing what?”
She touched her lips. “She spoke to you?”
“She whispered in my ear.”
“Why? Why would she bless a man?” She seemed about to collapse. “Why?” Her eyes watered, then her gaze hardened. “You lie. The goddesses drown men.”
“Or save them.”
She lifted her staff and shook it at him, quickly planting it again to support herself. “Leave. You can’t be here. It’s not right. This is a sacred place. It is forbidden.”
“She brought me here.”
“No.” She shook her head, vigorously, angrily. The spectral light of the moon reflected off her eyes, making them seem more mad. “Leave.”
He saw no point in arguing further with her so he slipped into the lake and swam for the northern shore. He felt as though he swam with more than usual ease, as if he was borne up from beneath, and a friendly current drew him along.
As he pulled himself up onto the shore he saw from the position of the moon that the night was still young. But where would he start his search? He knew nothing of sorcerers. He did know someone who might though.
Chapter 4: Theatre of Lowlife
Three circular buildings dominated the moonlit skyline of North Bank. Tallest of all, at six stories, the Pit was a former baiting pit and theatre. Long since adapted by the Obsidian City’s lawmakers into North Bank’s prison, its grimy brick walls tottered perilously to one side in a corrugated curve, propped on makeshift buttresses fashioned from roughly sawn tree stumps, like an age bent geriatric who couldn’t decide which walking stick to lean on. A hundred yards away, side by side, forming a figure eight, the baiting pit and the theatre both rose four stories high, two to three stories higher than most of the surrounding buildings. Both were wood, plaster and thatch constructions, walls splattered with many years of bird shit, thatch infested with rats and pigeons. Against the south side of the theatre, built in an arc to match the curve of the greater building’s walls, leaned the House of Delights, Thedra’s most famous brothel. A flag with a harlequin dressed joker fluttered above the main entrance to the theatre, on the east side. The Fool’s Flag was the heraldic sign for the Court of Misrule and the theatre and baiting pit were the domain of the Guild of Misrule, whose members were actors, jugglers, bards, and other disreputable types.
But there was another guild with influence here, at least where some activities were concerned. Though the thieves’ guild hall was under the theatre, the pickings in the theatre galleries were the richest in North Bank, and were viciously protected from freelancers, especially if they were foreigners. Just outside the main entrance to the theatre, under the aptly titled “Hanging Tree,” several guild manglers were bashing a smallish cloaked man. They snarled and stomped as he curled up and covered his head with his arm, screaming. Only members of the Guild of Misrule were immune from this harsh justice of the Courts of Law, not only here but around the city, since their entertainments provided so much convenient distraction for thieves of the guild.
Even if the manglers hadn’t been so preoccupied with the pleasures of thuggery, they wouldn’t have noticed the slight hooded figure of Corin slipping past. He had a sixth sense for shadows and their unpredictable movements, as they played against the flickering light of guttering torches, that made him seem at most a momentary trick of the light. Once inside the Court of Misrule, he slipped through the crowds in the area beneath the theatre-stage known as The Yard. The stench of unwashed bodies pressed together in high summer didn’t bother him, having grown up on the rougher streets of the city. Anyway, by comparison with the recent stench of the lake mud it almost smelt as sweet as roses. Foreign aristocrats in the galleries above pressed nosegays to their more sensitive noses. Some of the groundlings roared in laughter at two actors fighting slapstick on the stage in front. Others booed and threw peanut shells at the performers. Later, when they were properly drunk, these disagreements about the quality of the performance might break into open fighting, but for now the crowd was only moderately raucous. Here, among the loud, unwashed, ale swilling crowd only child thieves and foreign thieves worked, licenced either by the Courts of Law or the Courts of Misrule. Since the groundlings were usually too poor to pay for a gallery seat, the pickings were slim. Visiting thieves, for a fee, would be allowed to try their luck down here alongside the quick-fingered children of the streets. If they targeted the aristocrats who occasionally slummed it in The Yard they would have to hand over most of their takings or have them taken by force, as perhaps had happened to the thief outside the theatre. If they were talented, and obeyed these rules, they might be invited to enter the lower galleries, and eventually, having proven themselves worthy of guild membership, the middle and upper galleries. Guild manglers stood at the stairs from The Yard up to the lower galleries, watching for any of these foreign thieves who might try to sneak past to the greater profits that could be stolen above. By a careful combination of theatrical nonchalance and perfectly timed coordination with the movement of some theatre-goers to and from The Yard, the slight hooded figure of Corin eluded their hawk eyes. Though the King of Cripples had challenged the Lord of Law’s right to rule him, he was sure the manglers would take any chance to give him a friendly warning bash.
Without being noticed Corin reached a whore who was receiving a cut purse from a man in the row in front of her. She moved slightly to hand the purse back to another whore in the row behind. Corin squeezed past her, brushing her passing hand on his way. She recognized him and winked. He had been largely raised by the whores of the House of Delights, so most of them knew him. Corin handed the purse back to the second whore and continued along the row. The first whore, inconspicuously tapping her partner in crime, Rubbery Roberto, on the shoulder to indicate she was moving, casually got up and followed Corin past a dandy, who reached for her on her way, unaware, as she bent to give him a free grope of her mostly exposed breasts, that she used the opportunity to pick his breeches pocket. A little later a young boy in harlequin colourful doublet and hose, selling peanuts, reached the man who had had his purse cut.
By this time Corin and the whore, a faded middle aged beauty named Sandy, had seated themselves in the shadow of a column next to which leaned a massive, sheathed, two handed sword, just beyond a tall auburn haired man, and watched the drama unfolding away from the stage. Roberto, a member of the Guild of Misrule, with as much theatrical as thieving talent, had seen the peanut boy coming and, rather than removing himself from suspicion, stayed for the opportunity to act. The victim, reaching for his purse, found it gone, and next to him on that side saw Roberto.
He rose to his feet and indignantly cried out, “Thief!” pointing an accusing finger.
Some turned to look curiously. Others looked with lazy eyes, recognized Roberto, and lazily swivelled their eyes back to the stage. Most didn’t bother to look. For those who did, Roberto now performed.
“My dear sir…”
“You’re a thief. My purse was here.” The man patted his side. He smiled with smug certainty. “Only you could have taken it.”
Roberto placed hand on supposed heart, and presented a sorely aggrieved expression. “
But sir, you can’t possibly think…”
“Thief!” the man screeched.
Now more eyes turned to watch the scene, ignoring the indifferent drama on the stage.
Roberto rose to his feet. He was much taller than the victim, but he didn’t threaten. His voice trembled, his eyes watered. “But sir, I swear, by all the gods.” He began to cry. Corin and Sandy laughed quietly in the shadows.
The man stepped back and drew a dagger.
Roberto feigned almost fainting at the sight. A rapier hung by his side, unused. “Please, sir. Please don’t murder me.” He raised his voice. “Murder is the most foul of crimes.”
The man looked about him and saw all the eyes on him. “But you stole my purse, villain.”
“I swear I did not. I would not. I could not. I never. Ever. I could never even conceive of such a thing. I am a simple man. I have no disguises to hide behind. I offer you whatever satisfaction is necessary to your honour. Search me. See if I am not an honourable man.” Roberto raised his arms, inviting the other to search him.
The man advanced.
Roberto’s face showed abject terror. “Oh, please don’t murder me. Honourable sir, please.”
The man sheathed his dagger and searched Roberto. He found the many throwing knives sheathed about Roberto’s body under his cloak, and the performer’s own purse, but nothing else. He held it, opened it.
Roberto, his expression subtly changing, said, “Will you rob me, sir?”
The man looked up, looked around at the faces in the gallery, and some in The Yard, watching him, waiting. “I’m not…I’m not a…”
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