“He’s lucky the bastard didn’t stick a knife in him,” said Shamur. “Perhaps he had qualms about killing a fellow boater. Anyway, let’s talk to him.” She nudged the captive with the toe of her boot. “We know you’re awake. Let’s chat.”
The captive warily opened his eyes. “What do you want with me?” he croaked. “You talk like I’m some sort of ruffian, but I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“You bolted as soon as you heard that two strangers were seeking you, ostensibly to give you a reward,” Thamalon said. “Is that the act of an innocent man? To me, it seems more like the jumpiness of a blackguard who took part in the assassination of two nobles less than twenty-four hours ago.”
The bravo swallowed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You’re lying,” Shamur said, “and there’s no chance of you convincing us otherwise. It was dark when you saw us last, and we’ve changed our appearances since, but look at my face. Look closely.”
The bully did as she’d bade him, then blanched and cringed. “You people are dead!”
“No,” said Shamur, “just very annoyed. We can vent our spleen on you, or you can tell us who hired you and your fellow toughs.”
“I don’t know. I was just a member of a crew,” the waterman said, “just doing as I was told. I never heard the wizard’s name, nor saw him without the moon mask.”
“Then tell us how you wound up working for him,” she said.
He hesitated. “I can’t. If I turn nose, the others will kill me.”
“Do you think we won’t?” she replied. “Husband, I believe this fool needs to be convinced that we’re in earnest.” She hefted her dagger. “What shall we take, a thumb?”
“An eye,” said Thamalon with a lightness that served well to reinforce the bluff. “It always gets a man’s attention when you pop an eye.”
“Very well.”
They flung themselves onto the bravo, who screamed and flailed wildly, but who, spent and battered as he was, could do little to keep them from pinning him to the deck.
“Try to avoid any further struggling,” Thamalon advised the rogue. “If you thrash about, the blade could plunge too far down, all the way into your brain.”
“No!” the bravo shrieked. “Get off me! I’ll tell! I’ll tell!”
“Drat,” said Shamur, “I never get to have any fun. All right, then, spill it.”
“The thing is, I belong to the Quippers,” the ruffian said.
The nobles exchanged glances. Named for a species of savage freshwater fish that, traveling in schools, posed a threat to even the largest animal, the Quippers were a notorious outlaw fraternity operating chiefly on the waterfront, where their crimes often involved smuggling, theft, and extortion. The gang had been in existence for a long while; Shamur had had dealings with them in her youth, and in recent years Thamalon had occasionally tried to suppress them and so eliminate a threat to honest merchants.
“Then was the murder scheme a reprisal against me?” Thamalon asked.
“No,” the bravo said. “We were hired, just as you first supposed, but I swear, I don’t know by whom.”
“Then we’ll have to ask some of your cohorts,” Shamur said. “Where do the Quippers have their stronghold these days?”
“In the Scab,” the ruffian said.
Thamalon frowned. “That’s unfortunate, but never mind. Let’s discuss your future. You’ve already said yourself that your cronies will kill you for informing on them, and I personally will make sure that the Scepters start hunting you tomorrow. If you want to live, I’d advise you to flee Selgaunt this very night.”
“How?” the bravo rasped. “The way your woman beat me, I can hardly walk.”
“I’m sure you’ll manage,” Shamur said. “Meanwhile, you’re a waterman, so make yourself useful. Bring this boat back around to link up with the others.”
Groaning and grunting the while, the bravo obeyed. When the sloop floated next to the catboat once again, Thamalon waved his hand, bidding the man with the ring in his lip begone. Perhaps fearing that his captors would change their minds, the ruffian limped quickly away.
“I hope he doesn’t run and warn his gang,” Shamur said.
“I doubt he will,” Thamalon replied. “He meant it when he whined that they routinely kill informers. In any event, we couldn’t very well maintain the pretense that we’re dead and turn him over to the Scepters, also. Nor could we drag a prisoner around with us. So unless you had the stomach to kill him in cold blood …”
“No,” she said. “Anyway, I assume our next stop is the Scab.”
He looked at her, and once again, she noticed that same odd quality in his gaze. “I hope you don’t mean tonight. At the risk of you curling up your lip and calling me ‘old man’ again, I have to say that after what we’ve been through, I’ve had enough cold weather and exertion for a while. I’d rather repair to one of those shabby little inns along the harbor, and tackle the rest of the Quippers tomorrow.”
She smiled. “I must confess, I’m not quite as young as I once was, either, and I daresay that’s not such a bad idea.”
CHAPTER 13
Bileworm had spent much of his existence in proximity to colossal fortresses built of iron, basalt, and sorcery, but even he had to admit that the playhouse called the Wide Realms presented a pleasing spectacle, if only in a tawdry, terrestrial sort of way. The entrance to the theater, a ring-shaped structure with a tiring house and stage at the rear and a pair of multi-level galleries curving out and around to meet at the gate in the front, shone like a jewel in fields of magical light, as did the gaudy pennants flying and banners hanging from the thatched roof. The humbler patrons had all packed inside prior to the start of the performance, but a few aristocrats were still arriving, pulling up in their carriages, on horseback, or strolling behind torch-bearing linkboys in scarlet capes. Music, the declamations of the actors, and, periodically, applause, cheers, laughter, catcalls, and booing, drifted up through the open space in the center of the building.
Of course, Bileworm hadn’t come to admire the view but to scout the disposition of the enemy, and having accomplished his task, he supposed he’d better return to Master and report. He turned and skulked along the rooftops, a shadow moving virtually invisibly against the night sky, until, lengthening and then shortening his leg, he stepped lightly down into the alley where the wizard and his mortal henchmen waited.
Garris Quinn, clad tonight in a plum-colored hat with an upturned brim and yellow plume, a loose, thigh-length mandilion overcoat in the same colors, and baggy galligaskin breeches, glanced around, discovered Bileworm leering at his elbow, yelped, and recoiled.
Not the least bit startled by his aide’s outburst, or at least not betraying it if he was, Master casually turned toward his familiar. “What have you learned?” the masked wizard asked.
“They’re guarding the lad,” Bileworm said, “just as you expected. They have warriors hiding in four buildings adjacent to the Wide Realms, six to ten in each detachment. I imagine other guards are waiting inside the playhouse.”
“Thank you for giving us the benefit of your tactical expertise,” said Master, a hint of impatience perceptible in his tone. He’d been out of sorts since Thamalon Uskevren’s eldest boy had escaped him earlier that day.
“Then it’s a trap,” Garris said uneasily.
Master sighed. “I’m surrounded by strategists, it seems. Naturally it’s a trap. Did you think that with young Talbot’s parents missing, and his brother already assaulted, his retainers would let him wander off to do his acting unprotected? But we’re going to trap the trappers.”
Garris nodded. “All right. Do we attack?” The bravos massed behind him stirred.
“Not yet,” said Master. “Since I want to neutralize all the warriors outside without giving any of them a chance to warn their compatriots inside, Bileworm and I will attend to that particular chore by ourselves while you fellows wait here.”
; The spirit sniggered. “I thought you promised I could take it easy from now on.”
“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 specifi
c 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 the 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.
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