He set off across the rooftops, between chimneys streaming with the fragrance of morning bread.
“So,” Jame said, skidding down a steep, slippery incline to keep pace with him. I used to do this all the time, she thought, breathlessly catching her balance. Never mind. The knack will come back. “How have things been here?”
Sparrow paused on the eaves above a three-story drop.
“In general, not good. They say that people are being snatched off the streets on dark nights and others wander when they shouldn’t. Sometimes we see things pass below, and sometimes they climb. Whatever they are, where they pass rot takes hold after them. More roofs crumble every day. How are we supposed to keep our footing?”
He gathered himself and leaped across the street far below.
“Some Cloudies say,” he said when Jame caught up with him, “that we should take shelter below, but I don’t hold with that. Born in the clouds, I was, and so I will die, if nothing plucks me off a gable first.”
That was the Cloudies’ creed. They lived above, drawing sustenance from below with hook and tackle, in touch with the street life but separated from it as an angler is from a fish.
Here was a housetop, higher and broader than most, with a flat roof. Nets surrounded it below the uppermost floor. On top, she found the Cloud King holding court.
Dandello sat on throne of pillows, all in white, looking like a discontent angel under a halo of fluffy, fair hair. On either side of him, portly courtiers tried to interest him in their accounts, scrawled in chalk on roof slates.
“As your Highness can see . . .” one was saying.
“Or would if he deigned to look,” muttered the other.
“. . . we have lost another half dozen citizens. Two came back, but hadn’t the wits left to climb. I saw them. They just stared upward, like lost souls, then wandered away. More and more roofs are collapsing. We’ve sent down messages, but the houseowners ignore us. We might as well be so many pigeons, for all they care.”
“It’s this plague of returned gods,” said the other. “I’m telling you, it isn’t good for architecture.”
“Talisman!” The prince jumped to his feet, scattering pillows. “You two, go away.”
The courtiers withdrew, looking disgruntled, and threw themselves off the roof. Just in time not to embarrass herself, Jame remembered the nets. Dandello’s passion, before his rise to the throne, had lain in pushing people off of rooftops to watch them twirl in midair. What happened afterward had never interested him.
“Have you come to dance for me at last?” he asked hopefully.
“Not today, your Highness. Condolences on your uncle’s descent. Congratulations on your rise.”
His full lips pursed into a dissatisfied moue.
“It’s so boring. I can’t do anything I like anymore. They won’t even let me look over the edge. What is life without grace, without fun?”
“My own people won’t let me out of their sight either. Being a leader isn’t easy, sire.”
Oh, Brier, she thought as she said this, her conscience smiting her. What are you doing right now? Will you ever forgive me? Only if I return in time, and maybe even not then.
At least she had left a note: “Away on personal business. Don’t worry.” On second thought, that message might only annoy Brier more.
Four days until Summer’s Eve . . .
Sparrow plucked at her sleeve. “The Archiem of Skyrr is coming down River Street,” he hissed. “We think there may be trouble.”
“Trinity. He’s in town?”
She gave Dandello a hasty salute that he received with an impatient gesture, muttering, “No one lets me do anything,” and followed the little Cloudie.
II
SPARROW led her back to the Tone. Down the south bank road came a procession of brightly garbed hill nobles, at their head a dark, thin figure, plainly dressed, on a tall gray mare. Jame would have known those sharp, cynical features anywhere. He had acted once to save the Res aB’tyrr in its trade war, hinging his judgment on her own sense of honor, but she had never doubted that Arribek Thane sen Tenzi served first his country, then his canton, then himself. She had only mattered to him as a means to his end.
The Archiem’s kinsmen followed him, their harnesses shining with ornate plaques of gold and silver. They carried banners—a green background and against it a bay horse running. Men on foot came after, holding bows half-cocked. It was odd to think that, like the Merikit, the sen Tenzi were a hill tribe, but in some ways a more sophisticated one. She had heard that they moved about their territory in felt-covered carts, each night creating a new, temporary city. Their wealth lay in their herds and in the precious metals with which their land was rich. They fought incessantly with neighboring tribes, except when the Archiem could negotiate periods of peace.
“Look,” whispered Sparrow, pointing.
From this height, Jame could see figures lurking around corners and on lower rooftops along the Archiem’s route.
“Look out!” she shouted down at him.
Arrows flew. The Archiem’s guard barely had time to shield him against a storm of wooden shafts that plucked against their defense. Then they charged the shadows. Some attackers fled. Others drew again and brought down several horses, including the Archiem’s gray with an arrow through her throat. His followers covered him as he fought clear of her thrashing body. When a clutch of would-be assassins was driven back to him, he was kneeling with the mare’s head in his lap, her blood running over his knees. She twitched and was still. He rose.
“I liked that horse. Why are you trying to kill me?”
His guards held a young man with his arms twisted painfully up behind his back. He glared at the Archiem.
“It’s all your fault.”
“What is?”
“What happened to my father. You drove him to desperation. He was ready to try anything, to break your hold.”
“My dear boy. Harr sen Tenko and I have been at war in the hills since before you were born. That was his doing, by the way, not mine, as is his impending defeat. But we currently have a truce. He came here. What happened next, I do not know.”
“Liar!”
Arribek’s sharp gaze lifted to Jame, who had bidden a hasty goodbye to Sparrow and descended to the ground. Now she hovered on the edge of the crowd. It hadn’t been her intention to pitch herself into local politics. “Here is one who would take exception to such a word as, in fact, do I. Talisman, what do you know of this matter?”
“Nothing, my lord. I just got here.”
His thin lips quirked. “That explains, then, why we are not yet engaged in a full-blown crisis. Ah, yes, little sister. I remember you. Where is your fine hunting ounce?”
“At home.”
“Wherever that is. No doubt he pines for you. Harri, I wish you no harm. Why you should wish it of me escapes my understanding.”
Tears ran down the young man’s face, making him look little older than a boy. “Then you are either a fool or a monster, just as Father says.”
“Harr sen Tenko never had much sense. I hope for better from you. Now go away.”
The guards released him. He stood for a moment rubbing his arms, then drew himself up and stalked off, followed by his men.
“Was that wise?” asked Jame.
“To release him? Perhaps not, but diplomacy is made of calculated steps. Why, what would you have done?”
“Probably the same, not that I understand the situation.”
“Nor do I. Granted, Harr is on the edge of final defeat, not that I intend to press him beyond endurance. His son is intelligent, but only when he comes out of his father’s shadow. I was much the same. So, breakfast?”
Jame blinked. “I don’t understand.”
“You aren’t hungry? I can hear your stomach gurgling. The Five meet within the hour to discuss our current situation. Tell me that you aren’t curious.”
Of course she was, although her past as a thief gave her pause. N
o one in the lower ranks of the Guild wanted to attract the Five’s attention.
Arribek led the way down the River Road, past Ship Island, toward Gold Ringing District, where the Five held council on an island-spanning mansion set in the middle of the Tone. Jame hung back as the Archiem entered, then followed like a cautious cat, keeping to the edge of rooms to avoid notice. It was a luxurious manse full on the first level of ceremonial spaces. The breakfast room was huge, extending at least a hundred feet back at the nether point of the island with towering windows overlooking the Tone on either side. The clutch of people there was dwarfed by their surroundings, as if by the city itself.
Here was the representative of Metalondar: a stout diplomat with ornate hair piled a foot high, secured with glittering pins. Here, the official from Skyrr, looking nervous. Here three representatives of the Tastigon guilds—on this occasion, a merchant, a thief, and a priest.
Looking out of place, a sulky young man stood to one side, holding a glass of wine. He wore a Kencyr court coat of faded purple, rendered further out-of-date by the fussy ruffles around its cuffs. Hunting leathers would perhaps have suited him better. When he thought no one was looking, he sneered at the Metalondrian noble.
Then Jame’s attention was drawn to someone else and she slid over to a plump, balding man in a darned robe.
“Loogan, hello!”
“Didn’t expect to see me here, did you?” The little priest took her hands. “Nor did I you. Welcome home!”
“Um, not so much that anymore.”
He beamed up at her. “Well, I should have expected that. You were just passing through, after all, weren’t you?”
“And you, politics?”
He laughed. “It’s a change from the old days, isn’t it? I was a joke then—no, don’t deny it, and no doubt I deserved to be. But it matters that Gorgo overlaps the Old and New Pantheons. Then too, we priests are important in this city, and this city is important to us. Especially now.”
“And Gorgo?”
“You may say hello, if you like.”
He flipped open a beaded pouch that hung around his neck. It quivered as delicate green toes crept over its braided lip. Wide, bulbous eyes rose, blinking.
“. . . quink . . . ?” said a tiny, nervous voice.
“Sweet Trinity. He’s . . .”
“Very, very small. I know. It’s been happening throughout the Temple District ever since the dead gods came back, or perhaps that’s the other way around. Some have shrunk enough to come untempled, like Gorgo here—rather the reverse of what happened when you were here. Others are trying to take up normal lives outside the district. I never realized how bored they were. I mean, they’re gods! Who would think it? Then too, they’re frightened.”
Servants emerged from an inner door at the western end of the room bearing laden platters. Grilled trout, oatcakes drizzled with honey, eels in cream, porpoise pie, parsnip pastries . . . Jame pressed a hand to her stomach to suppress its noise.
“Eat, eat!” a server urged her out of the corner of his mouth. “It’s all fresh from the country this morning, I swear, and none of it your mewling street vegetables.”
A fish, although boned, began to twitch on its silver platter.
“We have come here to discuss matters,” said the Archiem, addressing the other officials, with a gesture relegating his own representative to insignificance. “Shall we begin? First, my lord, our thanks to you for the loan of your palace.”
He spoke with an incline of his head to the master thief.
Jame had been regarding this individual askance, sure that she should know him, but the light was in her eyes and he stood in the shadow between window arches. Just the same, it was clear that he must once have been an imposing man. Now he appeared shrunken into his rich robes like a tortoise into its shell. Loose, patchy skin hung from his jowls and a sickly odor emanated from his clothing. His sunken eyes, however, were still fierce.
“My house is at your command,” he said, in a grating voice. “As are my services.”
“Well then.” The Archiem turned from him to the others. “My concern with the current situation is primarily financial. This city pays me—and Metalondar, of course—handsomely for its freedom from our territorial claims. I need that money to support my war in the hills.”
“Which you have now brought to our streets,” said the representative of the merchants. “There is blood on your hands.”
“Wars tend to spread,” the Archiem replied lightly. “So, hopefully, does peace, for which I strive.”
“Then too,” said the thief, with a sneer at the merchant, “war is bad for business, is it not?”
The merchant shook out his pearl-encrusted sleeves as if to call attention to them, releasing a haze of perfume from their folds against his colleague’s stink.
“If our prosperity suffers, than so does yours. You thieves make a fuss about the glory that your Sirdan says you bring to our city. However, what are you but lice on the body mercantile?”
The thief barred yellow teeth in a death’s-head grin at the other’s florid face. “Say, rather, that we are leeches. Your blood is too rich. We thin it.”
“Oh, please don’t squabble!” Loogan burst out. “People are suffering! Their city is dying around them, whether you deign to see it or not, and the gods that they look to for help are failing.”
“That no doubt cuts back on temple offerings,” said the merchant not quite in a whisper to his assistant.
“No new robes again this year,” murmured the latter in reply, with a smirk.
Loogan heard and drew himself up, an oddly dignified little figure amidst all of their finery.
“Whoever our god, we serve as best we can, to the greater good of our people. I see you sneering at my threadbare clothes. These patches are badges of honor, others before myself. You walk the day. By night, no doubt, you sit before roaring hearths in sealed rooms and stick your fingers in your ears. What do you know of the terror after dark? Have your sons and daughters, your wives and mothers, risked the streets in service of their gods, of each other? Have you gone to seek them with the dawn and found them wandering without shadows, without souls? If so, what then? Some let them go, even drive them away. Others take them in, and then they must be confined because that gnawing restlessness is upon them. But if they die while under such constraint . . .”
“Enough.”
Talk of death upset the master thief. Others looked relieved at his interruption.
“All right.” Loogan seemed to deflate. “I’m just saying that that something is preying on the gods, their people, and this city, just as the Lower Town Monster once did on the children of that district.”
“That’s still happening,” said Jame, and then wanted to kick herself for attracting attention.
Loogan turned to her. “You said once that your temple was responsible for the New Pantheon in the first place. I don’t know if I believe that, but less power is coming to us than it used to, and we dwindle. Something terrible is going on. Do you know what?”
“I’m trying to find out.”
The young man in the dress coat was frowning at her, perplexed.
The Archiem’s thin lips twitched into a smile. “Forgive me,” he said smoothly. “You two haven’t been introduced, have you? My lord, this is the Talisman, one of Tai-tastigon’s most . . . er . . . famous thieves. Talisman, meet Lord Harth of East Kenshold.”
The Highborn stared at her. “I thought you were Kencyr the moment I saw you, but here, dressed like that, and a thief?” Outrage suffused his plain, fleshy features. “Blasphemy!”
Jame felt her hands curl into fists, claws pricking her palms.
“I’ve heard of you, my lord. You drove six aging Kendar out of East Kenshold because they had grown too old in your father’s service to suit you. They all died on their way here but one, and that was Marc, my dearest friend.”
In the face of her cold rage Harth looked suddenly nervous and drew back a step.
“I didn’t . . . I don’t remember . . . who are you, anyway, to criticize me? Who were they . . . oh, now I recall. It wasn’t that they were old . . . well, not primarily. They lectured me. Me, their lord! They stood there and said I wasn’t the man that my father had been.”
“I think I know why.” Jame’s voice threatened to thicken into a purr. She cleared her throat and fought for control, but still she stalked him into the middle of a room from which all others had retreated. “You abused your father’s Whinno-hir mare, Nathwyr.”
The Metalondarian looked shocked. “Sir! You molested a horse?”
“I only wanted to ride her!”
“Against her will.”
“But she is just an animal!”
“So, my lord, are you. You said it best: blasphemy.”
“Here now.” The thieves’ representative stepped out of the shadows, seeming to grow as he advanced. “You are the Talisman? Then I have a question for you, bitch: what did you do to my son?”
Jame felt as if she had stepped off a cliff unawares. “Er . . . what?”
Now she was the one being stalked. The morning sunlight that streamed through the windows was dazzling. The master thief loomed against it, bearing down on her like a mountain about to fall. Dust seemed to rise off his shoulders, or was that smoke?
“His mother tried to ruin him with her heathen beliefs, but I beat that nonsense out of him. He was mine, to do with as I pleased. Didn’t I show him how best to direct his passions? Oh yes, he liked that, my dear late wife be damned. When I set him his final test, he agreed, and so he was apprenticed to Sirdan Theocandi himself. Then along you came. ‘Good riddance,’ I thought when you disappeared, but so did he, on the same night. Where is he?”
By Demons Possessed Page 8