Soul of the City tw-8

by Robert Lynn Asprin

  Walegrin raised a finger for silence; the hawk's cry rose and fell in a new pattern. "Keep talking," he told the Stepson. "Don't look around-we're being watched. Thrush?" he asked the darkness.

  "There was one following him-" a voice explained from the shadows behind Walegrin's back. "He's up on the roof over your right shoulder-with a bow that'll put an arrow through you both. There was another-no weapons that we could see- came up a bit later. Now the second's seen the first an' he's circling around."

  "Friends of yours?"

  "No, I came alone," Strat replied without confidence as a hiss that might have been an arrow crossed the open sky above them.

  "Let's go," Walegrin ordered, pushing away from the barrel head.

  The gods alone might know who had followed Straton, Walegrin thought as he crouched and ducked into the shadows where Thrusher was waiting for him. Every Stepson had enemies in this part of town and Strat had more than most. He might even have enemies who'd kill each other for the privilege of killing him.

  Walegrin couldn't indulge in expectant curiosities, though- not with Thrusher picking a cat's path through the garbage ahead of them. His squads had patroled these warrens and knew where safe footing lay. He could only follow and hope Strat had the good sense to do the same. Thrush led them onto the nearby rooftops in time to see their bow-carying quarry land on the muddy cobblestones below.

  "Recognize him?" Walegrin demanded, pointing at the receding silhouette.

  "Crit."

  Stepsons hunting Stepsons, was it? "After the other one," Walegrin barked at whichever of his men could hear. There were better ways to get information from Critias than risking a rooftop confrontation. He turned to follow Thrusher and realized that Strat hadn't moved since identifying his erstwhile partner.

  "It's no time to be asking yourself questions, Straton."

  "He came to kill me," Strat whispered, then stumbled on a loose roof tile and lurched toward the eaves.

  Walegrin caught a fistful of shoulder. "He hasn't-yet. Now move it before we lose the other one, too."

  Strat glowered and thrust Walegrin's arm aside.

  The second interloper knew the backways of Sanctuary and was hugging darkness back toward the Maze and safety. Moonlight caught a youthful outline arching from one rooftop to the next and Thrusher's crablike scuttle as he followed.

  "Not for the likes of us," Walegrin decided, judging the weight of the leather armor he and Strat wore. "We go below. It's our only chance."

  He led the way, crashing through the rubble and needing Strat's help more than once to shoulder through a crumbling door or wall that threatened to block their way.

  "Lost 'em," Strat muttered when they burst through a flimsy gate to find Lizard's Way deserted.

  Walegrin cupped his palms around his lips and emitted a passable imitation of a hawk. "Gave it a good try, though," he added between gasps. "Worth a jug between us."

  Strat was nodding when a hawk cried and a face appeared in the gutters above them.

  "Round the alleys and back. Captain. We caught her."

  "Her?" both men said to themselves.

  Kama glared at the night from the calf-deep stench of a Maze rooftop rain cistern. Stupidity and bad luck. Another fifteen steps and she would have been so deep in the Maze they would never have found her, but not this time. This time the damn shingle had to give way and take her sliding down a rain trough. That was the bad luck. Stupidity was not knowing the trough ended in a cistern when she had taken this exact route a dozen other nights. She would have ignored the makeshift rope Thrusher dangled above her if survival weren't more important than pride or if her ankle weren't already swollen from the fall and her hands abraded by her efforts to free herself on her own.

  She bore the indignity of being hauled up like a sack of dead fish, knowing that the worst was yet to come.

  "0 gods, no-" a familiar voice breathed softly. "Not you-"

  Kama refused to look in that direction but stared instead at the young-ish officer in charge of the garrison troops who had pursued, then rescued, her.

  "Well," she demanded, "are you satisfied or are you going to drag me up to the palace?"

  Walegrin felt his throat tighten. Not that he wasn't accustomed to seeing a woman in men's clothing-in a thief's night-dark clothing at that. This was Sanctuary, after all. The garrison soldier guarding their flank was a woman he'd hired himself and as nasty a fighter as was ever bred in the Maze. But the young woman standing in front of him, her wet clothes plastered to her and her long hair snapping like whips when she tossed her head, was the backbone and brains behind the 3rd Commando, and probably the PFLS, for that matter. Worse-she was Tempus Thales's daughter.

  "Who sent you?" he stammered, and had the god's good luck to find the one question that would leave her as uncomfortable as he was.

  "Did your... did Tempus send you?" Strat asked, stepping into the light of a freshly kindled torch.

  Kama tossed her head, barely acknowledging Strat's question, and stood silent until Thrusher stepped forward and grabbed her weapon hand.

  "Lady, you want to use this again?"

  "Yes-let go of me-"

  "Thrush." Walegrin moved to restrain his lieutenant who had already unstoppered his wineskin. "I'm sure the lady has her own... resources."

  Thrush turned around, exposing the wound to the torchlight. Everyone in the courtyard who carried a sword felt a twinge. The skin on Kama's palm lay in twisted spikes cross-hatched with black splinters from the cistern walls; not a wound that killed but one that stole reflexes and precision, which was just as bad. Kama shed a fraction of her composure.

  "Lady," Thrush stared up into Kama's eyes, "you got a good doctor in there?" He shrugged a shoulder Mazeward and pointed the wineskin at her palm.

  "Are you any better?"

  Thrusher bared all his teeth.

  "He's not bad," Walegrin confirmed, "but the demon's piss he keeps in that sack of his is guaranteed." , "Given to me by my one-eyed grandmother...." Thrusher explained as a stream of colorless liquid spurted toward Kama's hand.

  "It'll hurt like hell," a faceless voice warned from beyond the torchlight.

  But Kama already knew that. Her face went white and rigid and stayed that way until Thrusher put the cork back in the wineskin. Strat offered a strip of his tunic as a bandage as her own clothing was as filthy as the wound had been. She seemed relieved when Strat put his hand under her arm.

  "Why?" Strat asked in a voice Walegrin saw rather than heard.

  "Go on back to the barracks," Walegrin ordered quickly but made no move to leave the courtyard himself. "We'll see the lady to her lodgings." He met Strat's glower and outlasted it. "You and I have a jug of wine to split," he explained when his men had vanished.

  "Why, Kama?" Strat repeated. "Didn't he think Crit would carry out his orders?"

  They began moving slowly toward the warehouse where Strat had left his bay horse.

  "I've been following Crit," Kama admitted. "When I saw him with the bow-I don't know if he's got orders or not." She paused to tuck a hank of hair behind her ear. Whatever pain remained in her face had nothing to do with her injuries. "Nobody in the palace understands any more. They haven't set foot in the streets. They don't understand what's happening. ..."

  Like everyone else who had spent the winter in Sanctuary- rather than in the palace, or Ranke or some relatively secure war zone-Kama had lived through hell. Walegrin guessed she would have more faith and friendship for anyone who had also endured those long, dead-cold nights on the barricades, regardless of the color on their armband, than she could feel for any outsider-even her father.

  "It takes someone who's been out here to understand," he agreed, sliding his arm under Kama's other arm so she didn't need to put any weight on her twisted ankle. "There's one I trust. I'd trust him at my back on the streets and I trust him in the palace...."

  Molin Torchholder slouched back against the outstretched wings of a gargoyle. He would have
preferred to be somewhere well beyond the city walls but winter was finally yielding to Sanctuary's fifth season: the mud, and he wasn't desperate enough to brave the quagmires masquerading as streets and courtyards. The palace rooftop was deserted except for workmen and laundresses who could still be counted on to leave him alone. He closed his eyes and savored the gentle warmth of the sun.

  In a methodical fashion he reviewed the conversations and rumors that had passed his way. The garrison commander, Walegrin, was finally showing promise; acting on his own initiative, he had established friendly relations with Straton and Tempus Thales's daughter, Kama. That was a good sign. Of course, the fact that Straton was on the streets, cut off from both Ischade and the Stepsons and dealing with Jubal, was a bad sign. And confirmation that Kama was the intelligence behind the PFLS was the worst information he'd had in months- even if it wasn't a surprise. Tempus, never an easy man to predict under the best of circumstances, would be chaos incarnate if any of his real or imagined family turned on one another.

  The whining hawkmask the garrison had interrogated had told them everything he knew, and a good deal he did not, about Ischade. Like Straton, the priest found it interesting that Ischade had rivals within her own household-rivals who could transform an Ilsig harridan into a Rankan lady. Molin knew the necromancer had been detaching herself from her magic since her raven had appeared on his bedpost with no message and less desire to return to the White Foal. If Ischade found her focus again, the bird would let him know by its departure. If she didn't, well: Jihan could protect the children, Randal would protect his globe, and the rest of magic could destroy itself for all he cared.

  On the balance, then, the thoughts percolating through his mind were satisfying. The street powers-the Stepsons, Jubal, the 3rd Commando, and the garrison-were reining in their prejudices and rivalries without overt interference from the palace. Sanctuary-flesh-and-blood Sanctuary-would be quiet when the imperial delegation made its appearance. The disorganization of magic and the broodings of Tempus Thales seemed soluble problems by comparison.

  "My Lord Torchholder-there you are!"

  Prince Kadakithis's relentlessly cheerful voice dragged the priest from his reverie.

  "You're a devilish hard man to find sometimes. Lord Torch-holder. No, don't stand-I'll sit beside you."

  "I was just enjoying the sunshine-and the quiet."

  "I can imagine. That's why I followed you-to get you while you were alone. My Lord Torchholder-I'm confused."

  Molin cast a final glance at the glimmering harbor and gave his whole attention to the golden-haired aristocrat squatting in front of him. "I'm at your service, my prince."

  "Is Roxane dead or alive?"

  The young man wasn't asking easy questions today. "Neither. That is, we would know if she were dead-a soul such as hers makes quite a splash when it surfaces in hell. And we would know if she were alive-in any ordinary sense. She has, in effect, vanished which we think, on the whole, is more likely to mean that she is alive, rather than dead, but safely hidden somewhere where even Jihan can't find her-though such a place is beyond all imagining. She might, I suppose, have become Niko herself-though Jihan assures us she would know if such a thing had happened."

  "Ah," the prince said with an indecisive nod. "And the Stormchildren-nothing will change with them one way or another until she's either fully dead or alive?"

  "That's a rather inelegant way of summing up a week's worth of argument-but I think that you're fairly close to the heart of the matter."

  "And we don't want our visitors from the capital to know about her or the Stormchildren?"

  "I think it would be safe to say that whatever chaos the witch could cause on her own it would be made immeasurably worse were it witnessed by someone, as you say, 'from the capital'."

  "And because we don't know where she is, or what she's going to do, or when she's going to do it; we're trying to guard against everything and starting to distrust each other. More than usual, that is-though not you and I, of course."

  Molin smiled despite himself-beneath that affable dense-ness the prince concealed a certain degree of intelligence, leadership, and common sense. "Of course," he agreed.

  "I think, then, we're making a mistake. I mean, we couldn't be making it easier for her-assuming she actually is planning something."

  "You would suggest we do something different?"

  "No," the youth chuckled, "I don't make suggestions like that-but, if I were you I'd suggest that, rather than guarding against her, we put some sort of irresistible temptation in front of her-an ambush."

  "And what sort of temptation would / suggest?"

  "The children."

  . "No," the priest chided, only half in jest now; the prince's suggestion had him thinking of intriguing ways to deal with both Tempus and magic. "Jihan wouldn't stand for that."

  "Oh." The prince sighed and got to his feet. "I hadn't thought about her. But it was a good idea, wasn't it-as far as it went?"

  Molin nodded generously. "A very good idea."

  "You'll think about it then? Almost as if I had inspired you? My father said once that his job wasn't finding the solutions to all the Empire's problems but inspiring other men to find the solutions." Molin watched the prince make his way back to the stairway, greeting each group of laborers. Kadakithis had been raised among the servants and was always more confident, and more popular, among them than his aristocratic relations suspected. He might astound them all and become the leader Sanctuary, and the Empire, needed.

  The priest waited until the young man had reentered the palace before quietly making his way toward a different stairway and the Ilsig Bedchamber where he would promote the prince's notions and his own inspirations to those most able to implement them.

  Jihan was bathing Gyskouras when the Beysib guard announced him. She handed the inert toddler to a nursemaid with evident reluctance and headed for the door with the long, rangy stride of a woman who had never worn anything more confining than a scale-armor tunic. Water was her element; she glowed where it had splashed against her.

  For a moment Molin forgot she was a Froth Daughter, remembering only that it had been well over a month since his wife had left him and that he had always been attracted to a more predatory sort of woman than was socially acceptable. Then an involuntary shiver raced down his spine as Jihan passed judgment on him; the flash of desire vanished without a trace.

  "I was expecting you," she said, stepping to the side of the doorway and allowing him into the nursery.

  "I didn't know I was coming here myself until a few moments ago." He lifted her hand to his lips, as if she were any other Rankan noblewoman.

  Jihan shrugged. "I can tell, that's all. The rabble," she gestured toward the doorway and the city beyond it, "aren't really alive at all. But you, and the others-you're alive enough to be interesting." She took the Stormchild, Gyskouras, from the Beysib woman's arms and went back to the obviously pleasurable task of bathing him. "I like interesting..."

  The Froth Daughter paused. Torchholder followed her stare to its target. Seylalha, the lithe temple-dancer and mother of the motionless toddler in Jihan's arms, was doing a very attentive job of wiping the sweat from Niko's still-fevered forehead.

  "Don't touch that bandage!"

  Seylalha turned to meet Jihan's glower. Before becoming the mother of Vashanka's presumed heir, the young woman had only known the stifling world of a slave dancer, trained and controlled by the bitter, mute women whom Vashanka had rejected; she seldom needed words to express her feelings. She made a properly humble obeisance, cast a longing glance at the child, her own son, Gyskouras, cradled in Jihan's arms, and went back to stroking Niko's forehead. Jihan began to tremble.

  "You were saying?" Molin inquired, daring to interrupt the fuming creature who was both primal deity and spoiled adolescent.

  "Saying?" Jihan looked around, her eyes shimmering.

  If Jihan had not had the power to freeze his soul to the bedchamber floor, Mo
lin would have laughed aloud. She couldn't bear to see something she wanted in the possession of anyone else and she always wanted more than even a goddess could comfortably possess.

  "I wanted your advice," he began, lying and flattering her. "I'm beginning to think that we should seize the initiative with Roxane, or her ghost or whatever she's become, before our visitors from Ranke arrive. Do you think that we could bait a trap for her and-with your assistance, of course-catch her when she came to investigate?"

  "Not the children," she replied, clutching the dripping child to her breast.

  "No, I think we could find something even more tempting: a Globe of Power-if it looked sufficiently, but believably, unattended."

  Jihan's grip on Gyskouras relaxed, a faint smile grew on her lips; clearly she was tempted. "What do I do?" she asked, no longer thinking of children, or even men, but of the chance to do battle with Roxane again.

  "At first, convince Tempus that it's a good idea to give the appearance of doing something very foolish with the Globe of Power. Suggest to him that he could solve the problems within the Stepsons by letting them prove to themselves and everyone else that Roxane is dead and powerless."

  "Tempus? He spends more time with his horses than he does here with me or the Stepsons. I'd like to do more than talk to Tempus." Her smile grew broader when she mentioned the man who was, by Stormbringer's command, her lover, companion, and escort during her mortality. "The two of us alone could take the globe and the witch...."

  Molin felt a trickle of sweat run down his back. Jihan had taken the bait, embroidering his notions with her own, mortally incomprehensible, imagination. If he could not lure her back to plans he could shape and control, the exercise would become a disaster of monumental proportions.

  "Think of the Stormchildren, dear lady," he said in what was both his most unctuous and commanding voice. "Think of your father. You can't leave them behind-not even to travel with Tempus or to destroy the Nisibisi witch."

  Jihan wilted. "I couldn't leave them." She patted Gy-skouras's golden curls apologetically. "I must put those thoughts behind me." With her eyes closed, the Froth Daughter focused divine determination against mortal free will until her shoulders slumped in defeat. "I have so much to leam," she admitted. "Even the children know more than I do."