by Doris Egan
I waited until I didn't care whether I put down one card or another, and so I put one down. It was The Old House, a stone place in the forest, half in sunlight and half in tree-shadow. Why in the world did that turn up? A reference to the House of Cormallon? In an ordinary configuration it might suggest regrets or nostalgia… Before I could ruin the reading by analyzing it, I put my finger on the picture.
And I was standing in an old passageway, in a place half-familiar. I started walking down the passage. My footsteps made no sound. Why did I know this place?
A moldy, tattered hanging was in one doorway. I passed by and went down a staircase, feeling a terrible sense of abandonment about the building with every step I took. There was nobody living here, I was sure of that. At the end of the staircase there was a short hallway and a massive wooden door. Some kind of old moss was growing on the side of the wood. I pulled it open with an effort—and remembered suddenly how Stereth had pulled this door open once, days ago.
I was in the Poraths' house in the old quarter of town. What did this have to do with me and the other side of the mirror? I walked out onto the low wooden porch with its lacquered pillars… rotting now, with great gaps in the floor that I had to inch around. No sound of bird or insect came from the garden, overgrown and abandoned. I stepped off the porch in the unnatural silence.
I took the remains of the path through the garden to the place where we'd spoken with Jusik Porath. The silver arc in memory of Kade was gone, but there was a white marble statue in its place. And somebody was sitting where Jusik had sat, in a tangle of silk robes. He stood up, looking past me. It was Ran.
He turned toward the statue. I called "Ran!" and heard the sound echo in my head as though it only existed internally. It was the kind of sound you hear through ear coverings, though my ears were open. I walked toward him.
The statue was of me! That was somehow the most horrible touch of the night, and I felt shivers run up my arms. It wasn't a classical statue, there was no noble look on my face; it was me in one of my street outfits, looking as though someone had tipped a thin sheathing of white over my head and trapped me in a passing moment. Ran put a hand on the crook of the statue's elbow. A surface of red pooled up beneath it.
The statue was bleeding. I was vaguely aware that I was watching this from some other place, and was sorry that I'd come. More wounds appeared. Ran stripped off his outerrobe and his shirt, and tried to clean the statue off. But the blood was inexhaustible. It pooled at the statue's feet, soaked through the shirt, and left stains on Ran's face and hands and clothing.
I wanted to leave here. I wanted to leave here now. I didn't live here, right? I came from some other place. This was just a picture, I could go back if I wanted to!… If I could remember how.
I started yelling. It echoed in my head without disturbing the air around me. I was completely alone.
Chapfer 14
I woke up in my bed. The room was light. I looked around; Kylla was dozing on a cushion by the wall, the long gold string-earring in her left ear curling on her chest where the robe fell open.
I still felt unreal. I was afraid to take a step out of bed, not knowing if the floor would open beneath me or the walls would start to bleed. Somehow I'd lost control of normalcy.
Kylla's eyes opened. "Theo," she said, not that awful silence of the symbolic world of the cards, but "Theo," like any summer afternoon. The world righted itself, as quickly as waking up from a nightmare and suddenly knowing what was true and what wasn't. "Are you all right?" she asked, getting up and coming over to the bed.
"I guess. What happened?"
"Wait." She walked to the door and called, "She's awake!" Then she came back to the bed. "Theo, darling, I understand you've been messing with magic that you shouldn't."
"I've done it before—" I began to protest, but she put a finger on my lips.
"Save it for Ran. I'm sure he'll have lots to say."
I supposed that he would. Ran is not one of those people who are above second-guessing you. Kylla busied herself putting the cushions back on the cedar chest, then picked up a glass of water she had ready and waiting on the side of the sleeping platform and handed it to me. I drank it to please her, though I wasn't thirsty.
Ran appeared, fully dressed. I wondered what time it was. He came over and sat on the side of the platform. He took my hand. Then he said, "What in the world did you think you were doing?"
By all means, let's not waste time on being sentimental. "Come on, Ran, it was just a normal run of the cards."
"I don't have to carry you, unconscious, out of the study after a normal run of the cards. You don't start screaming during a normal run of the cards."
"All right, I grant you, you might have a point—"
"During a normal run of the cards," he said, "you maintain control."
Oh-oh. The lecture on "the most dangerous thing"—
"The most dangerous thing you can do with magic is to let it have the least bit of random freedom! You have to define and control every variable! Sorcery is not a place to have a na' telleth attitude!"
This is the one topic I never fool with Ran about. I made myself look attentive and embarrassed, and in fact it was not at all difficult.
He said, more quietly, "Theodora, I hesitate to say this, but—were you asking an open-ended question of the cards?"
"I've asked general questions before," I said, trying to recall exactly what my state of mind had been last night— death, children, memories of the assassin in the marketplace, all mixed up together. Perhaps I had been a little too open-ended in my worries.
"You've asked general questions before, but not when you use that na' telleth technique, that wipe-your-mind and see what happens thing that you do. You know I don't like it when you experiment. The cards are a perfectly reasonable source of information when you use them as a simple window. So use them that way, Theodora. Half the time when you use this off-the-wall method we get symbolic answers we can't even interpret!"
"I'm sorry if I worried you."
He sighed. "What where you so curious about, anyway, that you had to get up in the middle of the night and do dangerous experiments to find out?"
I was not up to opening that discussion now. I felt wrung-out, as though I'd just recovered from a long illness. "Can we go into it later?"
He hesitated. His face went expressionless. "Of course," he said stiffly. "We can discuss it some other time. I have to call Mira-Stoden anyway and arrange to postpone my trip."
"What trip?"
"We decided in council that I'd arbitrate Jula's dispute in person. It'll probably take a couple of days, it's not the sort of thing to try over the Net."
"Why are you postponing it? Did something else happen?"
"Yes, Theodora, I picked you up off the floor of the study."
"Oh." He really did not look pleased with me at all. "Look, you don't have to stick around for me, I'm fine."
"I'll stay."
"Honestly, I'd prefer it if you went."
He was silent. I said, "I'm perfectly well."
Finally he said, "You want me to leave."
"Well, why get the council any more annoyed than we have already?" And I didn't want to face all the questions I knew he'd have as soon as he got off the Net.
He stood up. "As you wish." He certainly didn't sound any happier about it or me. "I'll see that it doesn't last beyond noon tomorrow." That last came out almost like a warning. He added, "Sim will be here, and Kylla will look in on you tonight."
Belatedly, it seemed to occur to him that he might ask Kylla how she felt about that. "Ky, you won't have any problem dropping over, will you?"
Before she could answer, I said, "It's not necessary, Ky. Last night was a fluke. I'm all right now, really."
"I'll come by this evening, just the same," she said.
So Ran left, looking dissatisfied.
To give you an idea of my state of mind as we approached High Summer Week, I suppose I should mentio
n that at least once every few days I found myself sharply reliving those seconds in the sorcerer's tent in Trade Square. I'd heard of people flashing back to traumatic moments, and I don't know if this was what was meant by it or not. I was never in any doubt as to where I really was, or what was really happening, but in the midst of walking down the street or opening up a food container, or—most often—lying in bed waiting to fall asleep—I would suddenly find myself, double-vision-like, inside an amazingly vivid memory of those few seconds. I could feel the grit under my hands when I hit the ground, see that knife looming up, and sense the horrible twisting in my stomach that had taken place at that moment.
I experienced it again, after Kylla and Ran had left and I was sitting in the larder spooning jam onto a piece of bread. Interesting, said a detached part of my mind, as jam dribbled onto my fingers. It didn't do a lot for the appetite, though.
"Are you finished with that jam?" asked Sim's voice.
I turned around. "Oh. Sorry, yes, here you are."
"Thank you, my lady."
"You know, you can call me Theodora. We are cousins."
He took a big bite of bread and jam.
As he chewed away, I said, "So you're taking a holiday. Have you been to the Lavender Palace yet?"
He shook his head.
"The Lantern Gardens? The Imperial Park?"
"No, my lady."
I didn't correct him. "Well, do you want to go out? I'm tired of being a burden on society. Go on, see the sights."
"No, thank you, my lady."
"There's a flyer race in Goldenweed Fields today."
"No, thank you."
It was clear that Ran had gotten in before me. He, on the other hand, felt free to go off to Mira-Stoden by himself, while not bothering to ask my permission before chaining this babysitter to me. I pried the jam pot away from Sim and spooned out another sliceful, thinking vengeful thoughts. It was nice to be angry at somebody else for a while.
The doorbells rattled furiously and I put down my breakfast and went to see who it was. Sim was already checking the spyplate. "Nobody I know," he said to me.
I looked for myself. It was Trey Lesseret, Loden's co-worker from the Mercian agency. "We'll let him in," I said. "But stick around."
Sim nodded. He approved of paranoia. I hit all the locks and opened the door.
Trey Lesseret bowed quickly, saying, "Gracious lady. May I speak with you a moment?" He wore the trousers and tunic of his profession, and looked to be either on his way to work or on a break in midassignment. His expression was unhappy, and a little desperate.
He ignored Sim. As soon as he was inside, he turned to me and said, "Forgive my imposition, but do you know where Loden Broca is?"
"Why should I know where sir Broca is? Surely he's at work. Why don't you ask your supervisor?"
"Excuse me, but Loden already told me he was staying here." Well, Pinnacle-of-Discretion Loden. "I have good reason for asking, you see—a Net inquiry was made this morning at the agency—someone wanting to know where he is. Loden's only family is in the provinces, and none of them would use the Net."
"I see." I hesitated. "Are you aware of Loden's situation?"
"He told me someone's trying to kill him, if that's what you mean. That's why I figured I'd better find the young idi—why I'd better locate him. It's the first time, ever, that anyone's tried to reach him at work. Anyone who's not a girl, I mean." He paused and ran a hand through his sparse grayish hair. "Now, I only know about this because I overheard the secretary talking. I haven't got details. But I think he's damned lucky he was sent off till his probation's over. Otherwise he'd've been locatable within minutes— we're all supposed to be constantly locatable, it's part of our coverage strategy."
I considered this. "Did Loden tell you exactly where he was staying?"
"In your parcel receipt. But there's no answer when I hit the entrance with my knife butt."
"Wait." I ran and got my overrobe, tied on my belt and pouch, and slipped on a pair of sandals. "Sim, come with me."
We all filed outside and down the steps to the parcel receipt entrance. While Sim watched to make sure Lesseret was looking elsewhere—as he was, in all politeness—I keyed open the entrance. Metal slid aside and a man-sized opening formed to the right of the locked delivery tube. It struck me suddenly that this was the place, in one of those old puzzle-stories, where the second body would be found.
A strong smell of bredesmoke assailed us. I started to cough, and Lesseret looked a little embarrassed. I stooped and peered through the drug haze to the interior; empty, but for a pallet of old cloaks and half a nutcake. Getting that close made me cough some more. "You could get high just sitting in there," I said, as I stood up straight and topped the entrance. "Evidently he isn't worried about ventilation."
"Please help me," said Lesseret.
I was surprised. "What can I do? You see he's not here."
"He needs to be warned. But I can't look for him, I have to be back at my assignment in twenty minutes. I'm on probation, too, but they're letting me keep working—I can't afford any black marks."
"I'm sorry, but I don't see what it is you want me to do."
"Look, he's not at work and he's not here. He's almost certainly at a tith-parlor."
I glanced at Sim, who was expressionless. "Are you suggesting I call every tith-parlor in the capital… ?"
"No, of course not. They'd never tell you the truth about whether a customer was there. You'll have to go personally and look."
I would, would I? "Sir Lesseret… you seem like a nice person, and it's good that you're concerned about a friend, but this is getting out of hand. I don't even know Loden."
"He could be killed! He could die today! I don't know who else to go to. Look, I don't have a lot of money, but I could pay you a little a week—"
I winced, thinking of Kade and Coalis. "No, wait." I said to Sim, "Do you have any idea how many tith-parlors there are in this city?"
"I'd figure, thirty or forty," he said.
"It's not that bad," said Lesseret eagerly. "He always goes to the gambling quarter, and there are only about twenty there."
"The gambling quarter" is a five-block section of town where tith-parlors and cardhalls and things I still don't know about seem to have congregated; there are a lot of pretty colored lights there. At least it was a relatively small distance to cover.
A small distance for Loden's enemies to cover, too, if they figured out that that's where he was.
I sighed. "I take it he doesn't have a favorite place."
"Not really. He usually goes to Red Tah Street, there are five or six places there… but sometimes he goes somewhere else."
"Terrific." I suppose I'd accepted responsibility for him when I'd stuck him in our mailbox. I should have let him find his own way out to the provinces in the beginning. Appropos of nothing, I pointed to the half-eaten nutcake on the floor. "You know, I asked him not to bring food in there."
"The boy doesn't listen," said Lesseret worriedly, echoing my own thoughts.
"No," I sighed, "he doesn't." I looked at Sim. If you can't trust your husband's taste in bodyguards, what's the point of being married? "Are you game for this? We're not under obligation."
"It's not for me to say," he replied primly. "If you go, I go with you."
"Cousin Sim, this is the time for you to raise objections. We can go back inside and have lunch, if you want. If there's any danger in this, you'll probably get hit first, and I won't take you into something you'd just as soon avoid."
"It's up to you," he said stubbornly. The Cormallon sense of duty. I gave it up.
"Go back to your job," I said to Trey Lesseret. "We'll see if we can find Loden."
"My thanks," he said happily, going so far as to take my hand and bow over it.
"Never mind. We probably won't run across him anyway."
But he was too thrilled with having dumped his problem in someone else's lap to let me dampen his spirits. He hurried o
ff down the street before anyone could change their mind.
Red Tah Street has closer to a dozen parlors on it, counting the cardhalls and smoke dens on both sides of the road. I'd never stopped in this little part of town before; it had no attraction. Aside from an occasional card game to pass the time, gambling has always been a closed book to me. The more random chance rules a situation, the more I tend to avoid it—probably because I lose. It's amazing, in fact, how consistently I lose. Back on Pyrene, when I was a kid, there was a little arcade off the recreation hall where we could bet study-tokens on a wheel with six numbers. I was the only child in the creche who never won even once in all the years I was there. Winners got to pick from the bakery products left over from that day's kitchen detail. It was understood that our creche-guardian would have to bring hard currency and purchase one for little Theodora, since she was incapable of winning any.
It was a good inoculation against gambling fever; all I associate it with is disappointment.
Red Tah Street was packed, even in the afternoon, so obviously others don't have the benefit of my bad luck. We were standing on the edge of the neighborhood, beside the first hall, under a painted wooden sign that showed a giant wheel with kings, princes, and beggars falling off into the mud as it turned. Clearly not an establishment that made great promises. "We could split up," I said to Sim. "Take different sides of the street."
He shook his head.
"I won't tell Ran. It's not as if these people were looking for us. It's Loden they're after."
He shook his head.
"Fine. Let's try the Wheel of Illusion first. I look forward to seeing a gambling parlor with a na' telleth name. You think maybe they don't play for money?"
He held the door patiently for me, not responding. Sim has standards when he's on duty. Inside, the place was cramped, dark, and not very well cleaned; it took about ten seconds to ascertain that Loden wasn't around. There was a numbers wheel in back and a set of card tables and benches in front, with fanatical looking men and women of all ages. A twenty-ish woman in a gold-threaded robe sat opposite a man in his sixties with a ragged tunic and no teeth. Their attention was solely on the game. I began to realize that gambling creates an equality of citizenship societies have toppled trying to achieve.
