Quard was asleep. The bed was small and hard, but so finely carpentered it must have been his own work. He was sprawled on his stomach, head turned to one side. His wig was off, and the smooth complete hairlessness of his head and neck and face made him look like an unfinished doll.
She put two fingers to his temple. His pulse hammered. His eyelids twitched as he dreamed.
"Who killed Imbre?" she said into his ear. "We can stop him if only we have his name."
"No," Quard muttered. "Can't go there."
"Imbre. Who was Imbre's friend? Who killed him?"
"Die, all die."
"We have to drive out the green man. Who is he?"
"Gorodain," Quard said. "Friend, priest, kill. Gorodain."
She kissed him and went out, went north, to the Street of Thwarted Desire, and the House of Responsible Life.
She asked to see Gorodain. The clerks sent her to a small office, barely big enough to pace comfortably. Its walls were painted a pale green. Arianai thought that she was becoming quite physically sick of green.
After a few minutes an unprepossessing man came in. "Are you Gorodain?"
"My name is Verdialos," he said, in a lame little voice. "I am…oh, say that I deal with requests."
''I'm not here to die."
"But you are looking for someone who is?"
"I want to talk to the priest called Gorodain. Tell him it's about five dead wizards."
"I will tell him that. But he won't see you on that matter."
"Then tell him it's about Imbre."
"All right," Verdialos said equably. "Dead wizards and Imbre. Please wait here. Sit if you like."
"Your chairs aren't very comfortable."
"Most of our visitors have other things on their minds." Verdialos went out.
He was not long in returning. "Serenity Gorodain regrets that the press of duties keeps him busy for the next several days. If you would care to make an appointment, or leave your name…" He sounded vaguely uneasy.
"Arianai Sheyzu, eighty-five Healer's Street." Then she recalled what The Magician had said, about her discovering the green man's name. The Magician was one of the murkiest of an opaque lot, but what was in the fog was always truth.
Verdialos had started writing the address. He looked up. "Are you well, Mistress Sheyzu?"
"Yes," she said. "I've got no intention of dying anytime soon."
"A good death to you nonetheless," Verdialos said.
•
Shortly after the Healer Sheyzu had gone, Gorodain came into Verdialos's office. "Did she leave her name and address?" the Serenity asked.
Verdialos gave him the paper. "Forgive me for asking, Serenity…but my schedule is rather light this week, and if I could assist you…"
"I forgive you for asking, Verdialos. And I forgive you your ambition. You do know that you will succeed me as Serenity, when I finally"—he smiled—"achieve the goal?"
"I had supposed I was one of those in line."
"Good. One should not face death with false modesty." He glanced at the paper, then crumpled it. "If the woman should return, another dose of your usual kind firmness, eh, Dialo?"
Verdialos nodded as the Serenity went out.
It was in fact a busy day for Verdialos; the mob had done quite a bit of superficial damage to the House, especially the gardens, and the repairs had to be supervised and accounted. They were, Verdialos thought, very often an order of bookkeepers and tallycounters, and he wondered if perhaps the work they did for the House bound them to it, created exactly the responsibilities they were supposed to be severing in their quest for the regretless death.
And then again, he thought with a stifled chuckle, neither the tomatoes nor the tomato worms would feel guilt at the gardeners' passing.
It was quite late when the last note had been written on the garden charts, the last cracked window mended against the night air. There was nothing artistic about any death that involved sneezing.
Verdialos ate a light dinner, a chop from the rioters' poor pig, and began a discussion with his wife concerning the healer and the Serenity. She ended it shortly by saying quietly, "Asking for an extra opinion never killed anyone." Verdialos laughed and kissed her warmly. Then he put on a cap and cloak of neutral gray (because prudence in troubled times had never killed anyone, either) and went out to talk to a City Guard.
He was directed to the Guard office in the Palace itself, and finally to Jemuel, who was studying reports and drinking kaf thick as syrup—"It's not supposed to taste good," she said, "it's supposed to keep me standing."
Verdialos told her about the day's events. "I am troubled by all of it," he said, "both the healer's interest in us, and the Serenity's interest in her."
Jemuel said, "It bothers me, too. I want to have a talk with your Serenity." They shared a footcab back to the House, and climbed the stairs to Gorodain's chambers. Verdialos knocked on the door.
"Come in," said a voice that was not Gorodain's. Verdialos opened the door. His eyes widened. Captain Jemuel said, "You."
The Magician sat in a wicker chair, looking at a table with an etched-glass top. There was no one else in the room.
"May I ask," Verdialos said, "how you come to be so far from your usual, um…"
"A fool's errand," The Magician said. "I came to talk a priest out of his faith. But I arrived too late; he has already gone."
Jemuel said to Verdialos, "I have the right to commandeer the fastest horse in the neighborhood. I hope you have it."
"I have a faster horse," The Magician said, "and we all may ride. Open the window, please."
"Trav—the Serenity—"
"Is a branch of the Old Green Faith," The Magician said. "Those Who Assume Responsibility."
"Yes. I had been rather afraid of that. In our defense, he was never allowed to—well. Nothing to say now, is there." Verdialos opened the window.
•
Arianai had been dozing, nearly dreaming, when the knock came at her front door. It was a faint tap, hesitant. Shaking herself awake, she rushed to answer it, swung the door open. "Qua—" she said, before seeing anything in the dark, and only gurgled the rest.
Gorodain's hands were crossed in the grip called the Butterfly; they closed easily around Arianai's neck, fingertips thrusting into the hollows at the base of her skull, tightening, lifting. She lost the power of speech and movement at once. Her toes scraped the doorstep. Gorodain held her for several heartbeats, wishing that there were time for something more elaborate. So often he felt like a master chef who knew a thousand exotic recipes and was forced to prepare a single bland pudding for a toothless stomach patient.
Then, he thought, minimal art was still art, and this was the brush stroke that would complete his masterpiece, to confound a metaphor. And there simply was not time. Gorodain flexed his wrists, and there was a single sharp crack from Arianai's neck.
He lowered her, turning her on her back so that she lay across the threshhold of her front door, her head draped—quite elegantly, Gorodain thought—over the edge of the step. It might well be taken for an accident. Not that it mattered what it was taken for. Then, on impulse, he knelt beside her, stretched out a hand, tapped into his luck. The green glow would be simple enough to induce. Closure, that was what a work of art needed, a bright green line to link all the deaths.
There was a cold pressure at the back of Gorodain's neck. For a moment he thought it might be Quard—but the time was not right, it was still most of an hour until midnight. Then the touch resolved itself into pistol barrels. Gorodain looked up, saw Verdialos approaching, and with him The Magician—himself, out of his house!
The gun pressed hard against him, and a woman's voice said, "Just move. you dirtwad; just do us all a favor and make one little move."
"Don't, Jemuel," The Magician said, in that irritating prettyboy voice of his. "The favor would only be to Gorodain."
Gorodain grinned involuntarily. The Magician was right. There was nothing they could do now,
any of them. Death would come for his dead lover, and to save her be forced to admit that he was truly Death, take the power that could not be controlled. In less than an hour, Imbre's son would be loosed upon Liavek; before dawn, Liavek would be Necropolis. He wondered if the glow of all the dead would shine out upon the sea, like a green dawn.
•
Quard was sitting on the floor of the toyshop, arms and legs at odd angles, like a marionette cast aside.
He had intended to go away. He had started to pack a bag with everything that was meaningful to him, and then realized that such a bag would be empty. He had been sitting on the floor for most of the day now, waiting for night, for midnight, the hour of his birth and his power. There was nothing for him in Liavek but Death, but there wasn't anything more for him anywhere else.
So he would stay, and when next someone came into his shop they would find him on the floor, green.
The door swung open and Theleme came in. "Master, master! You have to come, master!" She rushed to him, and without thinking he opened his arms and hugged her.
"What is it, Theleme? What's wrong? Where's Anni?"
"Anni's sick, master, sick. The green man. You have to come. You have to ride the camel for Anni." Quard's throat tightened. He tried twice to speak and failed. On the third try he said, "Where is she, Theleme?"
"Home," Theleme said. "Come, master. Captain Jem will take us."
"Who…?" Quard stood up, walked with Theleme to the door.
Just outside was a woman in Guard officer's uniform. Her face was pretty, but hard as a cliff. She had a pistol out, casually ready. "Good evening, Toymaker," she said, in a cold voice. "I've been wanting to meet you. But we've got some other business first."
Quard walked mechanically down the stairs. The Guard captain pointed at the toyshop door. "Aren't you going to lock up?"
"Why?" he said. "There's nothing in there that isn't mine."
It was not far to Arianai's house. There was a sphere of lucklight illuminating the scene, in the grainy, unreal fashion of magic.
Arianai was lying on the doorstep, half-in, half-out. The healer Marithana Govan was there, kneeling next to Arianai. Quard looked around at the rest of them: The Magician, Verdialos the Green priest…Gorodain.
"Welcome, son of Imbre," Gorodain said, and pressed his palms to his forehead. No one paid any attention.
Jemuel took Theleme inside. Quard said quietly, "Give her something to make her sleep," and Marithana went inside as well. The others stood out in the cold, around the body.
When the two women came out again, Jemuel said, "Well?"
"Her neck's cleanly broken," Marithana said. "She didn't suffer."
"I am an adept of my order," Gorodain said.
In a tightly controlled voice, Jemuel said, "If you speak out of turn one more time I will surely shoot your balls off."
"Can you mend the break?" Quard said abruptly.
Marithana said, "Young man, she's—"
The Magician said, "I can mend the bones, with guidance from Mistress Govan. Marithana, if they're splinted by magic, will they knit?"
"Trav, she's dead."
"If that changed?" The Magician said, and all of them stared at him, except for Gorodain and Quard, who looked at one another with unreadable expressions.
"In time," Marithana said. "Perhaps more than a year. Your birth time…"
"If it takes that long, Gogo can renew the spell."
"You're serious."
Quard said, "More than you know. Do it."
The Magician said, "Marithana, concentrate on the bones as they should be. We'll do it together."
Marithana Govan put her hands on Arianai's throat, straightening it, massaging it. There was a faint sound of grinding, crunching. Verdialos looked worried, Jemuel impassive, Gorodain positively merry.
The healer and the wizard moved back. Quard stepped forward. He said to The Magician, "If something goes wrong—if I come back before she does, it'll mean that—"
''I'll do what I can," Trav said.
Quard knelt by the dead woman. Gorodain was speaking again; Quard shut him out, looked up. Full moon at the top of the sky. Close enough to the crease of midnight. Quard stared at the moon, feeling the weight of luck tug at his heart, the tides of fortune raising his salt blood.
He stepped from his flesh and into his birthright.
Around him was still Liavek, still streets, houses, windows, rooftops, still just as lovely and hideous as any other Liavek; if anything, perhaps a little more precisely defined, cleaner of line and truer of angle, small where it should be small and grand where grandness was deserved. For it is not true that the dead know all things—indeed the dead know nothing that the living do not. But the dead have perspective.
Quard was surrounded by wraiths, human figures in translucently pale shades of green: not the dead but the living, dwelling here in their minds as they wished for death, in the degree of those hopes. Marithana Govan and Jemuel were barely even visible, delicate as soap bubbles. Verdialos was nearly solid, but without luminance; certain but not eager.
Quard looked at The Magician, who stood there with one hand already in the quiet world; Quard examined the rest of The Magician, studied his wish, and almost laughed. He did not: laughter and tears were things of the full world.
Quard looked with interest at Gorodain, who flickered, wavering to and from oblivion. Quard reached out and touched Gorodain's shade. Its eyes opened wide, and the figure knelt out of Quard's way, growing fainter as it did so. As ever with the voyeur, Quard thought, recoiling at the actual touch. He walked by.
There was no source of light in the city: it was uniformly dim, dull perhaps, though the effect was not drab but soothing. And there was no glass in the windows, nor glasses on the walls, nor puddles on the ground—nothing at all that might cast a reflection.
He moved easily on the dustlessly clean streets, passing among the shades of the still living, looking up at windows luminous with their death wishes. "I felt Death breathe on me," their living selves would be saying, in the full world; "someone is walking on my grave." Quard could see easily through the windows, or the walls for that matter, and no door was closed to him: even Wizard's Row would be present, should he desire to travel it. Nor did he have to walk; others rode, he supposed, or flew, but walking was the one way he knew.
Quard paused at a house on Cordwainers' Street: in an upstairs room, a crowd of shades stood around a man on a bed. The supine figure was deep green, and his shade was very thick.
Quard held out his hand. "Come if you are corning," he said, and there was a sound somewhere between a sigh and the pop of a cork, and the shade on the bed was suddenly a body dressed in clothes of subdued color. The man rose up and followed Quard, as the shades they left behind—some fading, some thickening—threw themselves upon the empty bed.
There were others after that, the sick, the old, the murdered and suicided, a Vavasor who had eaten a spoiled fish, and nine sailors drowned off Eel Island. Some of their bodies were young and robust, some old and elegant in appearance, but they all walked steadily, and there was among them no mark of decay, no wound, no lesion, bloat, nor worm.
They all followed Quard, winding through the streets of that other Liavek like a streak of smoke, pointing and touching and talking among themselves in a low murmur, passing through the green shades of the wishful living without notice—as indeed they could not see them. That was for Quard alone.
Finally, after he had fulfilled his duties among the lastingly dead, he returned to find Arianai, in ber house, searching through the rooms cluttered with what she loved. "Theleme," she said, "Theleme, where are you?" She ran her hands over Theleme's bed, touching, seeing nothing.
Quard saw Theleme, asleep on the bed even as Arianai's hands passed through her shade. Theleme clutched the cloth camel and rider to herself, and her wish shone in the cool-colored room. Quard shook his head and took Arianai by the wrist.
She looked at Quard, and in a
n instant she understood. Quard did not know what the dead saw in him, and there were no mirrors to show him. He led her from the house, to the street where the column of dead waited. Arianai saw them, standing patiently and calm, but looked right through the shades of the living clustered around her, each of them waiting for some kind of miracle.
Quard knew there were no miracles.
Arianai said, "You came to bring me back."
Quard said, "This is not the story you think it is. I did not charm you free from here. There was an exchange."
"Who? Not Theleme!"
Quard was silent. "Is it Theleme? Or is it you? I won't accept such a trade."
"You are dead," Quard said, "and have no choice in the matter."
"If someone will die in my place, surely I have the right to know."
Quard said, "No knowledge is ever taken from this world." He pointed at the street, where he could see the shade of Marithana Govan kneeling. "Go, if you are going. We have a final destination, and you may not see it."
Arianai looked at the column trailing behind Quard. She seemed to be trying to recognize individual faces, but Quard gestured again, and she lay down on the ground. The air shuddered, and in place of the solid Arianai there was now a shade, even less substantial than Marithana's.
He had not lied to her. Gods never lie, even if they then change the world to suit their words. He had struck the bargain with himself.
Quard turned and left the square, the dead in quiet files behind him.
•
"Is he dead?" Jemuel said.
Marithana held a bit of polished metal to Quard's nostrils. "To the best of my ability to tell." She looked down. "Dear Lady around us," she said. "Anni's breathing."
Jemuel said, "He could do it, then."
Gorodain said, "Ah, but that is only the beginning."
"Shut up," Jemuel snapped at him, than looked at Quard, crouched motionless over Arianai, who was now only sleeping peacefully. "Gods, how are we going to tell her?"
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