The Clandestine Circle

by Mary H. Herbert

  Linsha gratefully sampled the wine as she followed Lord Bight. It was a white of local vintage, light and refreshing on a hot night. She passed the sack to the lord governor, who look a long swallow before he passed it back. Linsha slung it over her chest for later.

  Although she would have liked more, she needed to stay alert. Something wasn’t right in these streets she knew so well. The taverns and shops were open but were nearly empty, and every house she saw was closed and barred, despite the hot night. There were the usual gully dwarves and stray dogs rooting about the refuse heaps and some groups of happily chattering kender, but there were very few people of any race outdoors. She noticed, too, a faint stench of death on the wind that had not been there a few days ago.

  Shortly, another smell masked the scent of death, smoke thick and black. It boiled out of the burning warehouse and clogged the streets downwind with a choking, blinding haze. Linsha decided she’d had enough of hot fumes for one day and tugged the governor in another direction. She brought them around through the warehouse district so they could approach the burning building from the north, where the smoke wasn’t so thick. A few other people, mostly men, hurried in the same direction.

  By the time Linsha and Lord Bight reached the warehouse—a two-story structure of timbers and stucco—the fire was out of control. A desultory bucket line made some attempt to keep it from spreading to a neighboring warehouse, but the fire was so intense, the wall of the neighboring building was starting to smoke. The wind didn’t help either, for it whipped the fire into a conflagration and blew sparks and embers onto other buildings. The summer had been too hot and too dry, and the city was like a tinder pile waiting to burn.

  The lord governor made a quick assessment of the emergency. Before he could take action, however, a tall, smoke-covered man recognized him and burst out of the bucket line. “Lord Bight,” the man cried frantically. “You’ve got to help us. That warehouse is empty, but the one about to catch fire is filled with barrels of wine and lamp oil.” It was Vanduran Lor, head of the Merchants’ Guild. His long face was streaked with oily sweat and flushed from the heat of the fire.

  The governor rolled his eyes. Could there be a warehouse in the district any more volatile?

  “Vanduran, what are you doing here?” Lord Bight growled. “I thought the council voted to shut the city gates. Shouldn’t you be in the inner city?”

  The merchant drew himself up. “I didn’t vote for that, Your Excellency. My business and my workers are here. I stayed to look out for them.” He leaned forward, his hands clasped in supplication. “Please, we had to move the sick house this afternoon to that larger warehouse on the next street. It’s in the direct path of the wind and sparks.”

  “Why was it moved?” Lord Bight demanded, his eyes lost in the shadows of a frown.

  Vanduran looked puzzled that the lord governor didn’t know. “The previous house was overwhelmed,” he told Lord Bight. “The healers there died, and the plague has spread through the harbor district so fast we can no longer control it.”

  “In two days?” Linsha said, appalled.

  The merchant nodded sadly. “The disease flared up like … like that.” He pointed to the fire. “Once the gates were locked, there was no one to enforce the quarantine, so we just packed up everyone in the hospital and moved them to a larger building. At least the people who want care can go there and receive help. We have volunteers taking care of the sick, keeping the delirious away from others, and a few healers are there.” He paused again, his eyes haunted. “But it’s dreadful.”

  At that moment, everyone’s attention was drawn to a clatter of horses’ hooves, and a contingent of City Guards and the Governor’s Guards turned a corner and rode into the street where the bucket line struggled to hold back the fire. Commander Durne rode at their head. He spotted Linsha and Lord Bight, and his face split in a grin of relief and pleasure.

  “Lynn,” Lord Bight said to Linsha, taking her arm. His voice was low and urgent.” There’s something I want to do, but it requires time and concentration. I cannot be constantly interrupted. Tell Commander Durne to keep the bucket line moving and do what he can to keep the fire from spreading. I will be back.”

  “Where are you going? Let me come with you,” she insisted.

  “Not this time. I won’t be long.” He gave her arm a slight squeeze, and as the guards rode toward them, he faded back into the milling crowd of helpers and onlookers.

  Vanduran turned around to say something more to the governor. “Lord Bight, I—Where is he?”

  Linsha, aggravated that she couldn’t follow the governor, pretended not to hear him. The roar of the fire was increasing by the moment, making any conversation difficult.

  Commander Durne and his men rode over to where Linsha and the guild merchant stood across the street from the fire.

  A flush of pleasure warmed Linsha’s face and took her by surprise. For two days, she had been gone from Sanction and inundated by the magnetic presence of Hogan Bight. She had deliberately tried not to think about Ian Durne in the hope that she could forget her senseless infatuation for him. But the moment she saw his long, lean figure sitting so easily in his saddle, the yearning came washing back, and she caught herself staring at his face.

  To hide her discomfort, she didn’t give the commander a chance to start demanding answers. She saluted to him as he dismounted and focused on the emblem of the burning sword on the chest of his uniform coat. She brusquely said, “Sir, Lord Governor Bight asks that you organize the fire fighters as best you can. He will return shortly.”

  Durne nodded as if used to such requests. “Good evening to you, too, squire. I am pleased to see you returned safely.”

  An unexpected warmth in his voice pulled her gaze back to his face, and their eyes met in a brief moment of silent union. He lifted a devilish eyebrow and grinned.

  “Commander Durne,” an insistent voice demanded loudly. “Lord Bight has slipped off again! Would you please do something before the other warehouse goes? There’s a street of apartment buildings right next door.” Vanderan waved an agitated hand in the general direction of the conflagration.

  “And the sick house,” Linsha added, having to shout now over the noise of the raging fire.

  Her words were lost in a sudden roar as a section of the roof collapsed into the building in an explosion of sparks and flames. Burning debris fell on buildings close by and threatened new fires. She heard the rumbling groan of tortured timbers in the dying warehouse.

  “Let’s go,” Commander Durne bellowed. Swiftly he organized his men into two more bucket lines and commandeered the use of every barrel, bucket, box, or container he could lay his hands on. Spectators were pressed into service, either manning the public water pumps or carrying buckets. Other volunteers wielded shovels to put out ground fires or to smother burning debris.

  Another crash signaled the fall of the rest of the roof in a shower of burning embers. The smoke and the heat grew worse. Suddenly someone shouted and pointed toward the roof of the wine storehouse. The eaves on the corner nearest the fire were scorched and smoldering. As people turned to look, the roof burst into flames. Guild Master Vanduran gave a horrified shout and swiftly led a small group of helpers into the smaller warehouse. Moments later they were rolling barrels of wine out of harm’s way.

  Linsha found herself in the bucket line, frantically passing buckets back and forth to douse the flames of the second fire. She wondered briefly where Lord Bight had gone and why, then her mind returned to the threatened building and the desperate need for water.

  “Lynn, thanks be, You’re all right. Where have you been?” a familiar voice murmured beside her.

  Linsha glanced sideways. Lady Knight Karine Thasally stood in the line beside her, her face begrimed with sweat and soot, her pale hair speckled with ash. She exchanged an empty bucket for the full one in Linsha’s hand.

  Linsha turned her head so only Karine could hear. “Lord Bight took me to see Sable,�
� she answered as softly as she could over the uproar of the fire.

  Karine nearly dropped her bucket. “What?”

  The expression on her leader’s face was worth the trip under the mountains.

  “You’d better report this in person. The Circle is starting to question your silence.”

  Linsha ignored that. “Are you doing well?”

  Karine grimaced. “So far. But we’ve lost two others. Good men. Lynn, be very careful. There are ugly rumors spreading in the outer city that blame Lord Bight for this catastrophe. The citizens here are outraged about the closing of the city gates. They fear the city council is leaving them out here to die.”

  “That’s preposterous,” Linsha snapped, passing on a bucket.

  “You know that and I know that. But everyone is terrified. They want someone to blame. Rumors are rampant.”

  Linsha remembered the man who incited the boys to throw bottles at Lord Bight and the crowd. “Is there a possibility these rumors are linked to one person or a group of persons?”

  Karine was surprised by the suggestion. “Not that we know of. Why?”

  “Just a thought.” She started to ask Karine to have someone look into it, but an ugly thought stopped her. The three leaders of the Clandestine Circle wanted Lord Bight discredited. What was to stop some of their other operatives from making a few well-chosen comments, opinions, or hearsay rumors in some busy tavern or crowded street? No one would know the source of the rumors. She wondered if Varia had had any luck finding the man with the strange gait. A talk with him could be very interesting.

  Another thought, a safer one, occurred to her, and she asked, “Have you heard anything about Elenor? I’m worried about her.”

  “Not yet,” Lady Karine said. “If I can, I’ll send someone to check on her.”

  They worked in silence side by side, passing buckets until their arms and backs ached and their eyes and throats stung from the smoke.

  “ ’Ware the walls!” someone shouted.

  Everyone turned to stare at the first warehouse. Its roof gone and its interior gutted with flame, the warehouse looked like a burning shell, and the outer walls, weakened by heat and a lack of support, began to sag. The danger lay in the fact that no one could be certain which way the walls would fall. Two appeared to be sagging inward, but the other two bulged out over the streets, crowded with volunteers and onlookers.

  Linsha felt a strange trembling in the soles of her feet. It reminded her of her passage under Mount Ashkir when the earth shook from the power of the volcano. But she wasn’t near a volcano vent now. The trembling increased dramatically until her legs were shaking. Other people noticed it, too. Voices broke out in cries of fear.

  Commander Durne identified it first. “Earthquake!” he shouted. “Earthquake! Everyone away from the buildings.”

  Shouting and screaming, people tried to run as the shaking became stronger. The fire fighters staggered away from the burning buildings. The first warehouse shivered violently, its walls swaying, then it collapsed in a blazing heap of timbers and rubble. The fire in the second warehouse abruptly leaped skyward as the structure cracked apart, allowing air to rush into the interior. The fires roared, their ruddy light stark against the night sky. The earth groaned and shook like a thing in pain.

  Linsha and Karine threw down their buckets and turned to run. Suddenly Karine grabbed Linsha’s arm and pointed with a shaking finger. “Lynn, look!”

  Not more than five paces away from the two women, the paving stones in the street started to shake so hard they vibrated loose from their places. Linsha looked closer and saw the worst of the tremors radiated out from the center of the block containing the two burning warehouses. Everything within the roughly oval area shook as if battered by a giant, while the earth outside the affected area seemed only to tremble in shock. Beset by the unending tremors, the ground became like quicksand, unstable and hungry.

  With sudden ferocity, a massive sinkhole yawned open beneath the two warehouses. Rubble, flaming timbers, masonry, wine barrels, oil kegs, and the burning remains of two buildings collapsed into the gaping hole in a rending, sliding crash. Smoke and dust roiled up into the night sky.

  Deeper into the hole slid the wreckage. Street pavers, hitching posts, buckets, and a freight wagon trembled on the edge of the monstrous hole, then slipped over into the churning flames and debris.

  Karine and Linsha stood awestruck, gazing at the sinkhole so close to their feet, until someone drew them away.

  “I’d hate to see you two fall in there,” Commander Durne shouted over the cacophony of the collapsing buildings.

  Karine shot Linsha a quick glance, nodded her thanks to the commander, and hurried away.

  Durne remained standing by Linsha, his pale eyes glinting in the reflected light of the fire.

  By now the wreckage of the two buildings had slid out of the sight of the stunned spectators on the street, and the fires, smothered by earth and rubble, died out. Darkness, hot and steaming, closed down over the block, broken only by a scattering of torches and smaller debris fires.

  The shaking slowed, and the tremors finally ceased. The earth settled quietly back to normal.

  Into the sudden, shocked silence, one voice said loudly, “Suffering shades of perdition! That’s one way to put out a fire.”

  Scattered laughter helped ease the frightened tension.

  “Broach the wine casks,” Vanduran Lor shouted. “Let’s drink to that.”

  There was a ragged chorus of cheers and a rush to the small pile of salvaged casks. The guild master stood aside and let the fire fighters have their reward.

  Commander Durne put his men and Linsha back to work smothering the remaining fires before another one went out of control. A small group of people gathered at the rim of the sinkhole to stare down.

  Linsha took a minute to snatch a look and saw the hole was not as deep as she imagined. The building debris filled the bottom, and earth had collapsed over and around the pile. Anyone with a little determination could fill in the hole, level the lot, and build another warehouse. There was plenty of determination in Sanction.

  Then she overheard a man say, “At least we now have somewhere to put the bodies.” And her heart turned cold. She could hardly bear the thought that the spirit of the city she admired so much had been forced, almost overnight, to shift from looking for possibilities to looking for mass graves.

  “I heard someone say this fire was started deliberately to spread into the infected district,” a man said in a cold, penetrating voice that drew people’s attention.

  Linsha stiffened, her ears pricked to listen.

  “They’re all infected,” a sailor snorted. “All but the inner city.”

  The first speaker pointed eloquently at the smoldering remains in the sinkhole. “He wanted to burn out the infection at the hospital. So they start it here, make it look like an accident so no one will know. Maybe burn out the rest of us in the process.”

  “Who does?” a third man asked.

  “Lord Bight!” the speaker cried angrily. “I’ve heard he’s ordered his guards to set fires in warehouses like this where they won’t be obvious.”

  Linsha sidled nearer to the speaker. She crossed her arms over the emblem on her surcoat and hoped the soot, dirt, and darkness would hide the color of her uniform. Although she had not seen the man who caused the boys to pelt the guards with bottles, she had Varia’s description of a man with a strange gait. This man she watched now was slight, dark-haired, narrow in the face, and had a twisted foot. She didn’t recognize him, but she would wager a steel coin he was the same troublemaker.

  So why was he here, agitating the people, now? Linsha dearly wanted to know if he just carried a giant grudge, or if he was in someone’s pay.

  A few of the spectators had left once the fires were out, but the guards, the volunteer fire fighters, and many stragglers remained to finish the wine and gawk at the sinkhole. The group by the speaker near the pit was growing
into a crowd as more people, drawn by the gathering and the loud voices, pressed around to listen. Linsha could hear other people in the crowd pass on the overheard rumors. The story grew with every telling. Faces already strained with fear turned hard in anger. A few tried to argue for Lord Bight’s sake and were shouted down.

  Linsha tried to think of a way to extricate the speaker from the mob without attracting attention, but nothing creative came to mind. She was about to summon Commander Durne for help when she saw Lord Bight walk slowly out of a darkened alley. For the first time since she had known him, he appeared tired and sapped of his usual boundless energy. Commander Durne hurried to his side, and they conversed quietly.

  A small light clicked in Linsha’s mind. Now she knew why the sinkhole appeared so conveniently under the warehouses. I must be really tired not to have thought of it sooner, she grumbled to herself. Then anger welled up in her soul. These people knew their lord governor wielded magic that could control the earth. Why couldn’t they understand that now?

  Later she realized what a risk she took, but at that particular moment, exhausted, sore, thirsty, hungry, filthy, and angry, she let go of her common sense and marched into the thick of the crowd like an avenging spirit.

  “Are you fools that you listen to such drivel?” she shouted furiously at the mob around her. She stamped up to the dark-haired man and shoved her face close to his. “Who do you think formed the quake and the sinkhole and put out the fire? Have you forgotten the man who tamed your volcanoes? Who preserved your peace? Who dedicated his life to saving this pathetic city? Lord Bight isn’t going to burn something he has worked so hard to build.”

  The speaker’s eyes glittered feverishly. “Why should he worry about us when he has the fat, wealthy merchants and the elders in the city to protect?” he yelled back at her.

  “You are the city, all of you. He is doing his utmost to save everyone he can. Merchant, sailor, baker, or laundress.”