The Guildmaster interrupted his thoughts. His expression had gone very bland again. He was planning something….
"You've been very clever, young man," he said, in a voice unctuous with flattery. "I don't see nearly enough cleverness in the people I hire— well, Jass was a case in point. Now at the moment, we seem to be at a stalemate."
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Alberich writhed in a futile attempt to get free. His captor laughed, and punched the shoulder wound again, and Alberich went white. "If I kill this Herald," he pointed out, "I lose my shield against whatever you might pick up and fling at me. You can't go anywhere, because Kash is between you and the door. Stalemate."
Skif nodded warily.
"On the other hand," he continued. "If you decided to switch allegiances, I could strangle this fool and we could all escape from here before the help he has almost certainly arranged for arrives."
Skif clenched his jaw. In another time and place— "An' just what'm I supposed to get out of this?" he asked, playing for time to think.
Cymry was oddly silent in his mind. In fact— in fact, he couldn't sense her at all. For the first time in weeks he was alone in his head.
"What do you get? Oh, Skif, Skif, haven't you learned anything about the way Life works?" the Guildmaster laughed. "Allow me to enlighten you.
No matter what these fools have told you, the only law that counts is the Law of the Street. What you'll get is to be trained by me, in something far more profitable than the liftin' lay."
"Oh, aye—" Skif began heatedly.
"No. You listen to me. This is what is real. These are the rules that the real world runs by." He stared into Skif's eyes, and Skif couldn't look away, couldn't stop listening to that voice, so sure of itself, so very, very rational.
"Grab what you can, because if you don't, someone else will snatch it out from under you. Get all the dirt you can on anyone who might have power over you— and believe me, everyone has a past, and things they'd rather not have bruited about. Be the cheater, not the cheated, because you'll be one or the other. There's no such thing as truth— oh, believe me about this— there are shades of meaning, and depths of self-interest, but there is no truth. "
Skif made an inarticulate sound of protest, but it was weak, because this was all he'd seen at Exile's Gate, this was the way the world as he had 315
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always known it worked. Not the way it was taught in the Collegium. Not the way those sheltered, idealistic Heralds explained things—
"And there is no faith either," the Guildmaster continued, in his hard, bright voice. "Faith is for those who wish to be deceived for the sake of a comforting, but hollow promise. Think about it, boy— think about it. It's shadow and air, all of it. Cakes in the Havens, and crumbs in the street.
That is all that faith is about."
The priests— oh, the priests— how many of them actually helped anyone in Exile's Gate in the here and now? Behind their cloister walls and their gates, they never went hungry or cold— they never suffered the least privations. Even the Brothers at the Priory never went hungry or cold….
Skif's heart contracted into an icy little knot. Alberich's eyes were closed; he seemed to be concentrating on getting what little air the Guildmaster allowed him.
"Throw your lot in with me. I won't deceive you with pretty fictions.
You'll obey me because I am strong and smart and powerful. You'll learn from me to be the same. And maybe some day you'll be good enough to take what I've got away from me. Until then, we'll have a deal, and it will be because we know where we stand with each other, not because of some artificial conceit that we like each other." He laughed. "The smart man guards his own back, boy," the insidious voice went on. "The wise man knows there is no one that you can trust, you take and hold whatever you can and share it with no one, because no one will ever share what he has with you. Hate is for the strong; love is for the weak. No one has friends; friend is just a pretty name for a leech. Or a user. What do you think Bazie was? A user. He used you boys and lived off of your work, kept you as personal servants, and pretended to love you so you would be as faithful to him as a pack of whipped puppies."
And that was where the Guildmaster went too far.
Bazie, thought Skif, jarred free of the spell that insidiously logical voice had placed on him. Bazie had shared whatever he had, and had trusted to his boys to do the same. Bazie had taken him in, with no reason to, and 316
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every reason to turn him into the street, knowing that Londer would be looking for him to silence him.
And Beel— Beel had protected him, Beel could have reported a hundred times over that Skif had fulfilled his education, but he didn't. And when Beel could have told his own father where Skif was, he'd kept his mouth shut.
And the Heralds—
Oh, the Heralds. Weak, were they? Foolish?
Skif felt warmth coming back into him, felt his heart uncurling, as he thought back along the past weeks and all of the little kindnesses, all unasked for, that he'd gotten. Kris and Coroc keeping the highborn Blues from tormenting him until Skif had established that he was more amusing if he wasn't taunted. Jeri helping him out with swordwork. The teachers taking extra time to explain things he simply had never seen before.
Housekeeper Gaytha being so patient with his rough speech that sometimes he couldn't believe she'd spend all this time over one Trainee.
The girls teasing and laughing with him in the sewing room. The simple way that he had been accepted by every Trainee, and with no other recommendation but that he'd been Chosen—
Cymry.
Cymry, who had filled his heart— who still was there, he sensed her again, now that he wasn't listening to the poison that bastard was pouring into his ears. Cymry, who cared enough for him to wait while he listened— to make his own decisions, without any pressure from her.
No love, was there? Self-delusion, was it?
Then I'll be deluded.
Did the Guildmaster see his thoughts flicker across his face? Perhaps—
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"Kash, now!" he shouted. The wounded bodyguard lunged, arms outstretched to grab him—
But Skif was already moving before the bodyguard, clumsy with his wounds and pain, had gotten a single step. He jumped aside, his hands flicking to each side as he evaded those outstretched arms.
And between one breath and the next—
The bodyguard continued his lunge, and sprawled face-down on the floor, gurgling in agony, one of Skif's knives in his throat.
The Guildmaster made a strangled noise— and so did Alberich.
The arm around Alberich's throat tightened as the Guildmaster slid down the wall.
Skif's other knife was lodged to the hilt in his eye.
But Skif's dodge had been deliberately aimed to take him to Alberich's side. The Guildmaster had been a stationary target. And at that range, he couldn't miss.
In the next heartbeat he had pried the dead arm away from the Weaponsmaster's throat, and Alberich was gasping in great, huge gulps of air, his color returning to normal.
Skif helped him to his feet. "You all right?" he asked awkwardly.
Alberich nodded. "Talk— may be hard," he rasped.
Skif laughed giddily, feeling as if he had drunk two whole bottles of that fabulous wine all by himself. "Like that's gonna make the Trainees unhappy," he taunted. "You, not bein' able to lecture 'em!"
The wry expression on Alberich's face only made him laugh harder.
"Come on," he said, draping his teacher's arm over his shoulders. "We 318
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better get you outside an' get back to where th' good Healers are afore your Kantor decides he's gonna put horseshoe marks on my bum."
They got as far as the door when Skif thought of something else. "I don'
suppose you did arrange for help, did you?"
"Well," Al
berich admitted, in a croak. "It comes now."
:Cymry?:
:Half the Collegium, my love.:
Skif just shook his head. "Figgers. Us Heralds, we just keep thinkin' we gotta do everything by ourselves, don't we? We can't do the smart thing an'
get help fixed up beforehand. Even you. An' you should know better."
"Yes," Alberich agreed. "I should. We do."
We. It was a lovely word.
One that Skif was coming to enjoy a very great deal A Herald he didn't recognize brought Skif his knives, meticulously cleaned, as the Healer fussed over Alberich right there in the street, which was so full of torches and lanterns it might have been a festival. Well, a very grim sort of festival.
It actually looked more like something out of a fever dream; the street full of Heralds and Guards, more Guardsmen swarming in and out of the warehouse, a half-dozen Heralds and their Companions surrounding Alberich— who flatly refused to lie down on a stretcher as the Healer wanted— while the Weaponsmaster sat on an upturned barrel and the Healer stitched up his wounds. Four bodies were laid out on the street under sheets; one semiconscious bullyboy had been taken off for questioning as soon as he recovered. Not that anyone expected to get 319
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much out of him. It wasn't very likely that a mere bodyguard would know the details of his master's operations.
No one had sent Skif back to the Collegium, and he waited beside Alberich, between Kantor and Cymry, listening with all his might to the grim-voiced conversations around him. Most of the Heralds here he didn't know; that was all right, he didn't have to know who they were to understand that they were important. He did recognize Talamir, though, who seemed considerably less otherworldly at the moment and quite entirely focused on the here and now.
"This is going to have an interesting effect on the Council," he observed, his voice heavy with irony.
Alberich snorted. "Interesting? Boil up like a nest of ants, when stirred with sticks, it will! Sunlord! Guildmaster Vatean! Suspect him, even I did not!"
"Gartheser is going to have a fit of apoplexy," someone else observed.
"Vatean was here was here at his behest in the first place."
Hadn't they noticed he was here? This was high political stuff he was listening to!
:They know,: Cymry told him. :But you're a Herald, even if you aren't in Whites yet. You proved yourself tonight. No one is ever going to withhold anything from you that you really want or need to know.: Well! Interesting….
"Gartheser will be a pool of stillness compared to Lady Cathal," Talamir observed, with a sigh. "He was a Guildmaster after all, and she speaks for the Guilds."
"Oh, Guildmaster, indeed," someone else said dismissively. "Becoming a Master in the Traders' Guild…." He left the sentence dangling, but everyone— including Skif— knew that the requirements for Mastery in the Traders' Guild mostly depended on entirely on how much profit you 320
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could make. Provided, of course, that you didn't cheat to make it. Or at least that you didn't get caught cheating.
"He was," Talamir pointed out delicately, and with a deliberate pause between the words, "quite… prosperous."
"And now, know we where the profits came from," Alberich said harshly.
"It is thinking I am that Lady Cathal should be looking into profits, and whence from they come."
" And Lord Gartheser," said Talamir. "Since Gartheser wished so sincerely to recommend him to the Council."
"There is that," observed someone else, in a hard, cold voice. "And now we know where the leak of Guard movements along Evendim came from."
"It would appear so," Talamir replied thoughtfully, "Although… it is in my mind that Lord Orthallen was equally, though less blatantly, impressed with the late Guildmaster's talents…."
But a flurry of protests broke out over that remark; it seemed that the idea of Lord Orthallen having anything to do with all of this was completely out of the question.
Except that Skif saw Talamir and Alberich exchange a private look— and perhaps more than that. Looks weren't all that could be exchanged when one was a Herald, and far more privately.
I wonder what all that's about.
And Lord Orthallen had "particularly" recommended Jass to Vatean….
Well, if he wanted to know—
No, he didn't. Not at all. He knew quite enough already. All of this was going right over his head, and anyway, there wasn't anything one undersized thief could do about it even if he did know.
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Or— if there was something one undersized thief could do about it, he had no doubt that Alberich would have a few words with him on the subject.
And maybe a job.
So, perhaps his roof-walking days weren't over after all.
Better get myself another sneaky suit.
:I believe that Alberich already has that in mind,: said Cymry.
The little group continued to paw over the few facts they had until they were shopworn, and even Talamir, whose patience seemed endless, grew weary of it.
"Enough!" he said, silencing them all. "There is nothing more we can do until we know more. The boy and Alberich have told us all they know.
Herald Ryvial and our picked Guardsmen-Investigators are on their way to Vatean's home even now, and if there is anything to be found there, rest assured, they will find it. Every known associate of Vatean will be under observation before sunrise, long before word of his death leaks out—"
"Uncle Londer," Skif interrupted wearily. Now that the excitement was wearing off, he was beginning to feel every bruise, and was just a little sick.
"And the man Londer Galko will also be observed," Talamir continued smoothly. "Because he clearly knew a great deal about the child stealing although he is not connected with Vatean in any way."
Now he looked at Skif, and put a hand on Skif's shoulder that felt not at all patronizing. Comradely, yes, patronizing, no. "Trainee Skif is weary to dropping, Herald Alberich is in pain, and we are fresh and have constructive work ahead of us. I suggest we send them back to their beds while we get about it, brothers."
There was a murmured chorus of assent as the Healer put the last of the stitches into Alberich's scalp wound, and the Heralds magically melted 322
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away, leaving Skif and Alberich alone in a calm center in the midst of the bustle.
"You won't travel in a stretcher as you should, " the Healer said wearily, as if he had made and lost this same argument far too many times to bother again. "So the best I can do is order you to back to the Collegium and to rest."
"Teach from a stool I will, tomorrow at least," Alberich told him.
The Healer sighed, and packed up his satchel. "I suppose that's the most I can get out of you," he said, and looked at Kantor. "Do what you can with him, won't you?"
The Companion tossed his head in an emphatic nod, and Skif added, "Jeri an' Herald Ylsa can run th' sword work for a week— an' Coroc an' Kris can do archery." Kantor nodded even more emphatically.
Alberich glared at him sourly, made as if to shrug, thought better of it, and sighed. "A conspiracy, it is," he grumbled.
"Damn right," Skif said boldly. And when Alberich got to his feet and made as if to mount, Kantor stamped his foot, and laid himself down so that Alberich could get into the saddle without mounting. When his Herald was in place, Kantor rose, and shook his head vigorously.
"You make me an old woman," Alberich complained, as Skif got stiffly into Cymry's saddle and the two of them headed up the street away from the scene of the activity, riding side by side.
"Naw," Skif denied, very much enjoying having the fearsome Weaponsmaster at a temporary disadvantage. "Just makin' you be sensible.
Ye see—" he continued, waxing eloquent, "there's th' difference between a Herald an' a thief. Ye don' have t' make a thief be sensible. All thieves are sensible. A thief that won't be sensible—"
"—a thief in gaol is, yes, please spare me," Alberich growled.
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But it didn't sound like his heart was in it, and a moment later he glanced over at Skif. "That was one of your mentor— Bazie— that was one of the things he told you, yes?"
Skif nodded.
"And now, revenge you have had."
True. Jass was dead, Vatean was dead; the two men responsible for Bazie's horrible death were themselves dead. Skif's initial bargain with himself— and with the Heralds— to work with Alberich because they had a common cause was over.
"Regrets?" Alberich prompted.
Skif shook his head, then changed his mind. "Sort of. There weren't no justice. "
"But it was your own hand that struck Vatean down," Alberich said, as if he were surprised.
It was Skif's turn to bestow a sour look. "Now, don' you go tryin' that sly word twistin' on me," he said. "I know what you're tryin' t'do, an' don'
pretend you ain't. No. There weren't no justice. Th' bastid is dead, dead quick an' easy, he didn' have t'answer fer nothin', an' we ain't never gonna find out a half of what he was into. I got revenge, an' I don' like it.
Revenge don' get you nothin'. There. You happy now?"
But Alberich surprised him. "No, little brother," he said gently. "I am not happy, because my brother is unhappy."
And there it was; the sour taste in Skif's mouth faded, and although the vengeance he thought he had wanted turned out to be nothing like what he really would have wanted if he'd had the choice, well—
I am not happy, because my brother is unhappy.
That— that was worth everything he'd gone through to get here.
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"Ah, I'll get over it," he sighed. "Hey, I get t' boss you around fer a week, eh, Kantor? That's worth somethin'."
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