But deep in his heart he had seen that Ischade was nec-romant, not hieromant; that the lighting of candles and the stirring of winds were only tricks to her.
And he had breathed the wind and sensed the power, and he was snared for reasons that had nothing at all to do with love or gratitude, for he was Nisi and witchery was in his blood.
Tonight he walked the streets and crossed lines and no one dared touch him. And something cramped in him for years spread wings (but they were dark).
He might have lived in the uptown house.
But he took the other way.
The sound of the river was very close here, where the old stones thrust up through newly trampled brush. Squith shivered, blinked, caught something darker than the night itself in this place unequally posed between two houses on the river.
"Squith," a woman said.
He turned, his back to an upthrust stone.
"No respect?" she asked.
He took his hand from the stone as if he had remembered a serpent coiled thereby. Vashanka's. All these stones were; and he would not be here by any choice of his.
"Moruth-Moruth couldn't come. 'S got a c-cold."
"Has he?" The woman moved forward out of the dark, dark-robed, her face dusky and all but invisible in the overhang of sickly trees. "I might cure him."
Squith tumbled to his knees and shook his head; his bowels had gone to water. "S-sent me, he did. Respectful, he is. Squith, he says, Squith, you goes and tells the lady-"
"--What?"
"Me lord does what you wants."
"He may survive his cold. It's tonight, beggar."
"I go tell him, go tell him." Squith made it a litany, bobbed and held his gut and sucked wind past his snaggled row of teeth. He had a view of a cloak-hem, of brush; he kept it that way.
"Go."
He scrambled up, scrabbling past thorns. One tore his cheek, raked his sightless eye. He fled.
Ischade watched him, and forbore spells that would have urged him on his way. Roxane was at home tonight, not so far away. Thorns regrew. Snakes infested the place. Burned patches repaired themselves with preternatural speed.
A beggar sped toward the beggar-king Moruth. A black bird had landed in Downwind, on a certain sill. And Squith came. Moruth had a cold, and languished in mortal cowardice.
But Moruth had met something one night in a Downwind alleyway that mightily convinced him where his interests lay.
"Go to Roxane," she had whispered in Moruth's unwashed ear. "Go to Yorl, to whatever wizard you choose. I'll know. Or you can promise beggars they'll be safe on the streets again. At least from me. From other things, perhaps. Or at worst they'll be avenged. When a bird lights on your sill-come to Vashanka's altar on the Foal. You know the place."
A nod of a shaggy head. The beggar-king knew, and babbled oaths of compliancy.
Wings fluttered nearby. She glanced up where the dead branches overhead gave rest to other shadows, inky as her robes. A messenger returned.
It was a familiar room, one they had used before and had rather not use again; but it was Vis they had, and Straton operated under certain economies these days-not to let Vis see too much; and not to let Vis be seen.
Vis glared at him, between two Stepsons-real ones- who had brought him to this attic unbruised. So one reckoned. Vis had a ruffled look-smallish and wide shouldered and dark, and with a look in those dark eyes under that shag of hair that said he had as lief kill as talk to them.
That was well enough. Straton had killed a few of Vis's sort, in this room, after they had been useful. Vis surely had the measure of him and of this place. There was outrage in that stare and precious little hope.
"You had news," Strat said. "I trust you-that it's worth both our time."
"Damn you. I came to you. I sent for you-I thought I could trust you-if they told you any different-"
"News," Strat said. Outside, on the stairs, a board creaked. But that was the watch he had passed. He sat down in the single chair at the single table which, like the ropes on the wooden wall, had their uses. Mradhon Vis stood there between two guards, all disarranged-they would have found a knife on him, at least; maybe a cord; seldom a penny, though Vis sold himself to at least two sides. Jubal's. Theirs. Gods knew who else. Hence the guard. Hence the forced meetings. The streets were quiet, too quiet. There had been nothing on the bridge but one one-eyed, halfwit beggar. Nothing stirring anywhere on the street outside.
"Get them out of here," Vis said.
"You want to talk this over, or just talk. Vis? You got me here. I've got all night. So have they."
Vis thought that over. So he had run his bluff and made his point. But he was not stupid; and knew where his remaining chances lay. "I get paid for this."
"One way or the other."
"There's rumor out.. .got something coming down."
"What?"
"Not sure." Vis came closer and began to lean on the table. Demas moved to stop him. Strat held up his hand and Vis stayed unmolested. "Something-I don't know what. Nisi squads-they've got a big one brewing. Heard talk about something down at the harbor. Uptown at the same time."
"What's your source?"
"I don't tell that."
"Huh." Strat rocked the chair back, foot braced "That so?"
"Word's out they've got help. Understand?"
"The Nisi witch?"
There was long silence. Vis stayed where he was. Sweat was on his brow.
"Something got your tongue?"
"I'm Nisi, dammit. She can smell-"
"Roxane might help you. Might not. I don't think I'd shelter with that one. Vis."
"Word's out she's looking for revenge. The harbor- some move there. That's what I heard. Heard someone's going to move there, hit the Beysibs; maybe warehouses. Death squads. I don't know whose. But I know who pays them."
Strat let the chair thump down. "Don't leave town, Vis."
"Dammit, you're going to get me killed-you know what they'll do, with you bringing me in here?"
"You go on making your reports. If anything comes down and we don't find out understand? Understand, Vis?"
Vis backed away.
"Let him go," Strat said. "Pay him. Well. Let him figure how to get himself clear. Tomorrow. Whenever. When I'm clear. When this is proved one way or the other."
"You want a partner?" Demas asked.
Strat shook his head and gathered himself to his feet. "We've got difficulties. Stay here. Vis, mind you remember who pays you most. You want more-you tell us... right?"
Vis gave him a sullen look-not greedy, no. It was an invitation to a final meeting-more demands. And Vis knew it.
"I'll see to it," Strat said to Demas. "I don't think anything will happen here. Just keep him off the streets." He took a cloak from the peg by the door, nondescript as other clothes they kept here. The horse he rode was the bay, not nondescript, but it would serve.
"You're going to Her."
He heard the upper-case. Turned and looked at Vis, who stood there staring at him.
"You met the one she's got?" Vis asked. "She's finally got a lover she can't kill. Fish-cold, likely. But she's not that particular."
Strat's face was very calm. He kept it that way. He thought of killing Vis. Or passing an order. But there was a craziness in the Nisi traitor. He had seen a man look like that who shortly after set himself on fire. "Be patient with him," he said. "Don't kill him." Because it was the worst thing he could think of for a man with such a look.
He left then, opened the door onto the dark stinking stairs and shut it behind.
The footsteps thumped away below, multiplied; and Mradhon Vis stood there in a gray nowhere. Tired. Cold, when the room was far too close for cold.
"Sit down," one said.
He started to take the chair. A foot preempted it. The other Stepson leaned on the table. It left him the floor.
He went over to the comer, liking that at his back more than empty air, braced his shoulders, and slid down agai
nst the wall. So they all sat and waited. He did not stare at them, not caring to provoke them, recalling that he had tried that with their chief and recalling why he tried-a dim rage of sympathy for a fellow fool.
She. Ischade. It took no guesswork where the Stepsons would look for help when Roxane was on the move. Where that one would look for help, where his thoughts bent. He had kept a watch on Straton-for the pay he got from other sources; and he knew. That was a man infatuated with death, with beating it day by day. He recalled it in himself; until the day he had learned death's infatuation with him-and that put a whole different complexion on matters.
Fool, 0 Whoreson. Fool.
Sanctuary's enemies ringed it round and, with the border northward cracking, Ranke went suicidal as the rest. The very air stank-autumn fogs and smokes; the fevered river-wind found its way through streets and windows, sweet with corruption; and there was no sleep these nights. There was nowhere to go. Part of Nisibis had slipped through the wizards' hands; but Nisi gold. Nisi training still funded death squads throughout Ranke-not least among their targets were Nisi rebels like himself. It was desert folk moving in Carronne; Ilsigi in Sanctuary port; gods knew where the Beysib came from, or what really sent them.
He knew too much; and dreamed of nights, same as the Stepson dreamed: the Stepson's cause was tottering and his own was dead. And the river-wind got everywhere in Sanctuary, sickly with corruption, sweet with seduction; and promised - promised -
He had tried, at least. That was the most unselfish thing he had done in half a year. But no one could save a fool.
There were houses in the uptown more ornate than their own. This was one, with white marble floors and Carronnese carpets and gilt furnishings; a fat fluffy dog of the same white and gold that yapped at them until a servant scooped it up. And Mor-am thought hate at the useless, well-fed thing, hate at the servant, hate at the long-nosed fat Rankan noble who came waddling from his hall to see what had gotten past his gate.
"I've got guests"-the noble wheezed (Siphinos was his name)-"guests, you understand...."
Mor-aro sucked air and stood taller, with a drawing of one eye, while in the comer of the good one he spied Ero spying out the other hall beyond the archway. "I tell Her that?"
"Out." Siphinos waved at the servants, fluttering Mor-am toward a door, the accounts room: they had been there the last time. Siphinos closed the door himself. Ero stayed outside.
"You were to come after midnight-only after midnight-"
Mor-am held up the packet; and the pig's face and the pig's eyes suddenly had sobriety and a furious red-cheeked dignity, amid all his jowls. Mor-am gave him back his own one-eyed stare and handed it over, watched him examine the seal.
"It'll be coming here," Mor-am said. "That's the word comes with this. They got their eye on you. Death squads move uptown tonight. You hear me, man?"
"Whose? When?" The flush went hectic. A sweat glistened on jowls and brow. "Give me names. Isn't that what we pay you-"
"Word for Torchholder this time. Get the word upstairs. Tell him-look out his window tonight. Tell him-" he tried to recall precisely the words he had been primed with, that Haught had told him a dozen days ago-"tell him he'll understand then what the help we give is worth."
No shrieking, no cursing, not the least cracking of the fat man's fury. Ilsigi dog, the look said, wishing him to heel. And fearing the bite he had.
"He knows," Mor-am said, neat and measured, and gods, gods, let the tic stay still. "He can tell the prince-g-govemor-" Damn the twisting of his face, the drawing of his mouth. "He'll know where his safety is. He'll pay the cost, whatever we ask. We got our means. Tell Kittycat look out his window too."
Alarms were on their way, plainclothes and moving with deliberation, not panic, word back to the command post, to various places and offices. And Straton rode alone now- imprudence, perhaps; but a full troop of Stepsons clattering up the riverside slow or fast, plainclothes or not-drew too much attention. He slouched like a drunk, kept the bay to an amble, and sweated the entire last block. He had sent his three companions off the other way. Foalside was a mixed kind of street, wide near the bridge and well-used; but higher up the Foal, buildings crowded close and the street became a rough track with only the remnant of ancient stones for pavings. Trees grew untended on the Foalside in a widening lower terrace by the road. Weeds crowded close on that margin. And crouched like some lurking aged beast- a cottage occupied the upper terrace, the northern house on that black river, a tiny place like the southern one-both of which had been singed, both of which had been swept over with fire enough to blacken the brush and kill the trees that grew hereabouts. But nowadays neither showed traces of burning; and both stood just as before, surrounded with brush, and smelling that wet, old smell of places long untended in the dark, in the starlight, with old trees lifting autumn (unscarred) branches at the sky.
Ischade maintained a fence and hedge: her house clung to its strip of river terrace and faced beyond its yard and gates a row of warehouses, at a little respectful distance from the ordinary world, distance which the wise respected one of those places in every town, Strat thought, which had that dilapidated look of trouble and contagious bad luck.
Ischade's territory. He had been in it for the length of the solitary ride. And no squad he knew of dared that little strip of street or the warehouses near it.
Strat slid down, looped the reins over the fence, and opened the ridiculous low gate. There were weeds, gods, everywhere. In so short a time. She grew nightshade like flowers.
His pulse quickened and his mouth went dry as he came up to the paint-peeled door and reached out to knock, half-expecting it to do the thing it had done before and swing open.
It opened, without his knock, without a sound on the other side. And he was facing not Ischade but the freedman Haught, Nisi-complexioned and dressed far too well and standing there as if he owned the room.
"Where is she?" Strat asked, vexed.
"I don't give out her business."
Something warned him-about that line that was the threshold. On the brink of hasty invasion, of drawing his sword and prying it out of pretty-lad, alarms went off. He stood slouched, hands on hips. "Stilcho here?"-as if that were what he had come for. He let his eyes focus however briefly on the dim room beyond. He remembered that place, that it always had more size than seemed right. And there was no sign of the man.
"No," Haught said.
The pulse was up again. Strat looked the ex-slave in the eyes-remarkable: Haught never flinched, and had before. Rage ticked away, a twitching of his mouth; gods, that he was reduced to this schoolboy standoff, eye to eye with a jealous slave who was-dangerous. No wilt, no bluster. Just a cold steady stare, Nisi and Rankan. And he thought of Wizardwall, and things that he had seen.
"Try the river," Haught said. "It's a short walk. You won't need the horse. You're late."
The door shut, with no hand on it.
He caught his breath, swore, looked back where his horse stood and snorted in the dark.
It was not a place for horses, down on Foalside, beyond the house, where the brush grew thick along the shore.
Fool, something said to him. But he cursed the voice and went.
* * *
"Siphinos's son." Molin Torchholder cast a misgiving look at the door and shrugged on his robe with the sense of something gone badly amiss. He waved a hand at the servant who fussed up with slippers while another stirred up the fire. "Move. Move. Let the lad in."
"Reverence, the guards-"
"Hang the guards-"
"-want to search the boy, but being nobility-"
"Send him in. Alone."
"Reverence-"
"Less reverence and more obedience. Would you?" Molin drew his lips to a fine humored line that betokened storms. The servant gulped and fled doorward, returned, and dropped the slippers face-about for him.
"Alone!"
"Reverence," the flunky breathed, and sped.
Molin worked
one slipper on and the other, fought off the interventions of the other servant who drew near to fuss with his robe. Looked up suddenly as the fellow desisted. "Liso."
"Reverence." Siphinos's lanky blond son made a bow, all breathless, all courtesies. "Apologies-"
"It should be good, lad. I trust it is."
"It isn't. I mean, not-good." The boy's teeth began to chatter. "I ran-" He raked at his strawthatch hair. "Had my father's guard with me-"
"Can you get to it, lad?"
The boy caught his breath and, it seemed, his wits. "The witch-ours; she says-"
Straton shoved the brush aside, more and more regretting this imprudence. He was not ordinarily a fool. Such was his foolishness at the moment, he reckoned, that he was not even capable of knowing for sure he was a fool; and that alarmed him. But the Nisi witch on the prod-that sent alarms of its own crawling up his back.
You're late, the slave had said-as if Ischade had put it all together long before; as she would if that kind of alarm was ringing, audible to mages, wizards, and those wizardry had set its mark on-gods, that he tangled himself in the like, that he picked Roxane for an enemy or the vampire for an ally. He could not even remember clearly which way around it had been; except Ischade had agreed in Sync's case when there had been no other way, and in doing that, marked every Stepson her ally and Roxane's enemy.
Fool. He heard Crit's voice echoing in his mind.
Vis knew. The jolt of that caught up with his befogged wits and he hesitated on the narrow path, hanging by one hand to a shallow-rooted bit of brush, with one foot over black water and empty space. Vis knew where he was going.
Damn.
Down the river, beyond the lights of the bridge, a flash of lightnings showed, and, gods knew, with Roxane stirred up, that lightning-flash set a panic in him. He hauled himself back to balance on the narrow path and kept moving.
Faster and faster. No way to go now but straight on. His messengers were dispersed, alerting what wizard-help they had; one had headed the Prince Governor's direction, if he got that far. There was no calling back anyone for rethinking.
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