Aritoli said, "You are a damned fool, Magician."
"Thank you." He gave the skull to the Countess. "I began my study late in life, but I am a clever pupil." His last words rasped from his throat.
"Drink this!" The Countess held out the ruby vial.
Trav shook his head. Sweat burst out upon his brow.
"Even if your magic keeps you alive," Aritoli said, "you must feel a terrible burning."
Trav nodded. He reeled about, grunted something that might have been pain or farewell, and staggered away.
High above, the nighthawk cried again, a brave and lonely sound in the darkness.
Bazaar Day, Beggar's Night
Lieutenant Lian Jassil raised his fist to pound upon the naked wood of the front door to 39 Beach Drive. A gleaming brass gargoyle's head rose from the oak beneath his hand like a swimmer surfacing in a pool. Its teeth glistened like fresh-forged daggers as it said, "Dawn is vastly overrated. Consider carefully before you decide to share it with us."
"My sister is missing, Didi."
The head retreated, and the door swung wide, revealing a dark hallway. Gas lights lit themselves as the lieutenant stepped inside. Small orange flowers grew in a pot on a wall shelf, scenting the air with a smell like tangerines.
Two kittens, one tiger-striped and one beige, ran in to circle his boots. The first backed away to watch from under a corner cloak rack. The tan one stood with its hind legs on the toes of Rusty's boot as though it intended to climb him, so he stopped to stroke it.
A small woman with hair like a cloud of copper coils came barefoot down a stairway, tying the sash of her short white robe as she walked. An incoherent voice called querulously from behind her. She answered over her shoulder, "A friend! Go back to sleep, Vay!"
Rusty stood and touched the fingertips of both hands to his forehead. "Mistress Gogoaniskithli."
The woman shook her head, and her hair bounced as though in water. "I said a friend, Rusty. What's happened?"
He held out a creased scrap of rice paper. Gogo scanned it once. He knew the words perfectly: If you value Sessi Jassil's life, have The Magician come alone one hour after sunset on Beggar's Night to the gate where a Liavekan captain surrendered his pistol to three sorcerers.
"That's the Tichenese embassy," Gogo said. "But it would not be like them to kidnap a girl. Or to leave a note directing the kidnappers there."
Rusty nodded. "It's a meeting place, nothing more. But without The Magician …" The kitten bashed its head against his ankle, so he picked it up and stroked it, trying not to think of how much it would delight Sessi.
Gogo lifted the note. "Who brought this?"
"A girl from a dockside inn. She said a tall woman paid her to deliver it. No reason to doubt her. The description wasn't very helpful. Middle-aged woman. Dark skin, gray hair. An accent that the girl described as 'funny.' No one else in the inn remembered the woman. During Festival Week, that's not surprising."
Gogo handed back the note. "I could disguise myself as Trav. Illusion's a simple spell."
Rusty took the note in his left hand because the kitten had gone to sleep in his right. "It's a simple spell to detect, I hear. We'd use a Guard magician if we thought that'd work. I don't like involving Master Marik, but I'm afraid for Sessi."
Gogo set her hand on his upper arm. ''I'm sorry. If there's anything I can do—"
"The Magician. That's all."
"No one knows where he is. His house has not been on Wizard's Row for months. He's The Magician. He could be anywhere."
"Wizards can't find him, either? I thought he had duties as The Magician of Liavek—"
Gogo released his arm. "His spells are intact. The entire community of magicians will know well in advance if Liavek's attacked by magic or if armies come by land or sea. But this is … a private matter."
Rusty rubbed his brow with his free hand. Something like a headache wanted to settle on him, but he could not let it. He had slept several hours in the last few days; that had to be enough. "My parents put notices in all the half-copper sheets, asking him to find us, asking people to tell us where he might be. There's no response so far. I hoped he might tell a friend where he was."
"I consider him a friend, but he doesn't consider me one." Rusty glanced at her, and she added, "I tried to help. I tried until I realized I was the only one trying, and he was content for things to remain as they were." She moved her chin, indicating the upstairs. "So I moved in with Vay, and Didi joined us. We're happy now. Is that wrong?"
He made a sound that she could interpret as she wished. "There's no one else he might see?"
"There's Tenarel. The Ka'Riatha. But I doubt he'd go to her. She'd tell him what she thinks of the way he's been behaving."
Rusty nodded and handed the kitten to Gogo. He would return to his parents' home and wait with them, before he had to go back on duty. A Guard should be very good at waiting.
"He's given up, Rusty. I would've seen it a century ago, if I hadn't loved him so much. I don't know why. Maybe he's retreated too far from the world. Didi and I were falling with him. That's why we left the Row, finally."
"You don't have to explain—"
"I'm not making excuses! I'm trying to warn you!"
He blinked, realizing that he had not been listening for the meaning behind her words. "We won't find him?" He shook his head. "I can't stop looking."
Gogo's hand rose for a gesture of emphasis that she did not complete. She let it return to stroking the sleeping kitten. "It's all you can do. So do it. I'll try to find him, too. But you should worry less about finding him and more about whether he'll care to help you, if you do find him."
"I see." Rusty scratched the kitten's head, then turned to go. "Thank you."
"Wait!" Gogo held a red playing card in her hand. "Take this. Vay and I're going away for a few days. We might be back by Festival Night. If you need me before then, tear this card, and I'll come."
•
Rusty woke to a pounding that could only be Stone's fists on his door. His first thought was that Captain Bastian would lecture him for being late. As he opened his eyes and saw the plaster ceiling of his mother's living room, he forgot Bastian and Stone. He sat up from the wicker couch, saying, "Has anyone heard—"
His father shook his head and opened the front door. Stone stood in the hallway, clutching his blue beret in one huge hand. "Master Jassil," he said. ''I'm sorry. Really, I am." Tears fell from his eyes. "We looked everywhere. We talked to everyone."
For some reason, his parents and Stone turned to stare at Rusty. He sat on the couch and began to pull on his boots, saying, "We keep looking." He smelled hot kaf and buttered toast in the kitchen, but he wanted to act, not to eat.
His mother's face was very grim, so he added, "The Magician likes her. He'll help." What point was there in repeating Gogo's warning?
"The Magician likes money," his father said. "Little else."
Not even that, anymore, Rusty thought. He repeated more firmly, "He likes Sessi. He'll help us find her."
"I've got a hundred and twenty-one levars saved," Stone said. "He can have that."
"Oh, gods," said Master Jassil, slumping into his chair and covering his face with his hands.
Mistress Jassil put an arm around his shoulders and said very calmly, "She's not dead."
"We'll find The Magician," Rusty repeated, and Stone followed him out the door.
The streets were a maze of carts and spread blankets at midmorning on Bazaar Day. What was not offered freely was sold for its cost, or so every seller swore. Within a few feet of the Jassils' door, a tailor invited passersby to feel embroidered silk robes to appreciate their quality, a baker gave out bits of warm brown bread and honey cake, a woman and a man in garlands of Worrynot kissed anyone who sought an embrace. A girl offered rides on her camel, and three identical boys sang a song that claimed that every purchase was an exchange of gifts.
Through this bustle, an unshaven young man in a green robe strode
toward Rusty and Stone without a glance to either side.
"Magician!" Rusty called in disbelief.
"I understand advertising in The Liavekan Herald," Trav replied. "But did you really think I read The Old Town Inquisitor?"
•
Several Tichenese guards in quilted yellow robes stood with shouldered muskets at the gate to their embassy. Golden Festival lanterns hung from the walls and on poles beyond them, as though a sea of moons swayed restlessly in the night.
Trav stepped beneath one. He wore a blue cotton robe, low boots, and black trousers; his hair and his skin still smelled of peppermint soap. He smiled, knowing this would be a good place to attack him, and he had done all he could to be a fine corpse.
A small boy ran up to him with a folded bit of rice paper in both hands. "Are you Master Spider?"
Trav coughed something like a laugh. "I think I'm Master Fly tonight." He touched one hand to his forehead and bowed.
The boy squinted. "The letter's for Master Spider."
"That's a courtesy or a mockery. But I'll be Master Spider." He gave the boy a silver coin and ignored his thanks.
The note said, Shall we meet in the rear gardens of the Zhir ambassador? Walk briskly, and you will arrive on time. Do not travel by any other means or route, and do not dawdle. There are a thousand ways in which you can fail in your mission. and only one in which you can succeed. It ended, You're still a magician. Destroy this.
The message seemed to confirm what the earlier note's reference to a Liavekan captain's pistol had suggested. Djanhiz ola Vikili had returned to Liavek. Knowing the identity of one of his opponents told him surprisingly little. Djanhiz ola Vikili had twice failed to capture or kill him; her second failure had resulted in the permanent loss of her magic. Whether she came now as a Tichenese agent or for her own revenge made no difference, though he wondered if the Zhir played a major part in this, or if Djanhiz simply preferred embassy grounds, where Liavekan officials could not interfere.
At his nod, the note ignited in his hand.
He hurried through crowds of laughing beggars, many of whose sores were paint and whose tatters were velvet and otter or artfully shredded silk. He wondered if Djanhiz ola Vikili had expected the Festival to impede his progress through the city. He could not tell if he was followed, and did not care. He would play the game fairly, and by doing so, he would win. Sessi meant nothing to Djanhiz, so she would be freed. And he meant everything to Djanhiz, so he would finally die.
The Zhir embassy was a large whitewashed building, noteworthy only for decorative iron bars on every window and a high stone wall that enclosed it. The embassy's inhabitants had gone to sleep or had left for the more exciting quarters of Liavek; every barred window was dark. Two Zhir musketeers stood at the front gate.
"I believe I'm expected," Trav announced.
"I believe you're invisible," one guard answered, stepping aside so Trav could pass.
He followed a brick path around the building to the only source of light, a three-legged iron brazier in the center of a tiled patio. When he came near, Djanhiz ola Vikili stepped from under a tree and began snapping her fingers, setting a moderate, steady tempo. She recited, "You will not speak or so disrupt in any way my little song. Four verses tell what you must know. The girl dies if you interrupt."
He nodded, pleased that Djanhiz expected him to trick her and wondering what he might have done if he had intended to try.
"A man and she wait somewhere near. He watches while you hear me speak. If my lips pause at any point, he'll cut her throat from ear to ear."
Trav glanced at the quiet windows of the embassy and saw no sign of anyone's presence.
"You need not wonder if I lie. I know the vessel of your luck. Discard it now and back away, or leave and let your young friend die."
Centuries of habit made him reluctant to expose and abandon the container of his power; this amused him when he considered his resolve. His smile grew, and he wondered how Djanhiz interpreted his humor.
"The final verse must now be said." Her voice might have quavered as she began the line, but her expression preserved infinite confidence.
Trav rested his left hand on the bracelet around his right wrist and felt his birth luck pulsing there. He could do anything except kill himself. Anything he did would result in Sessi's death. Yet the power tempted him. A last magical feat that Liavek would remember forever …
"The watcher's knife is at her throat. In sixteen syllables—"
He tugged at his wrist, suddenly sure he had waited too long, that the knife in the hand of Djanhiz's hidden companion would part Sessi's throat before Trav could comply.
"—we'll learn if you prefer—"
He felt his vessel sliding free in his left hand.
"—her live—"
He dropped the vessel onto the patio and hurried backward.
"—or dead."
His right hand lay on the flagstones. As he took his fourth or fifth step away from it, he felt his magic dwindle and disappear, lost to his senses and his control.
Djanhiz smiled. "I congratulate you on your choice." She picked up the hand by the tip of its little finger. It dangled like a small, dead animal. She glanced at Trav, as if about to speak, then smiled and threw the hand onto the coals of the brazier.
He started forward without thinking, moving close enough that a shadow of his birth luck caressed him.
Djanhiz said, "Remember the girl!"
Trav nodded and backed again. The brazier had darkened when his hand fell into it. As the hand began to smoke, Trav gasped and dropped to his knees. His luck whirled about him, wild and strange, a storm that he perceived as silver light and tamarind scent and something like burning honey. Then his luck fled, freed from the prison that had been his severed hand. Every spell that he had ever made dissolved in that instant.
His sight left him, and so did his balance. He fell forward, bruising his left hand and his right stump on the tiled patio, then vomited.
Djanhiz sighed "I suppose it was too much to hope that your own magic kept you young. You still trust Gogo with your life, though she left you? Or another? It is a weakness, Magician."
His vision returned, though there was nothing he wished to see. He wiped his chin and rose unsteadily, sneering as he said, "It'll keep me alive until I invest my luck again." He and Gogo had always used their magic to keep each other alive during their birthdays, when their magics failed as their birth luck returned to their bodies. Gogo had left Trav at the end of the month of Fruit and found or hired someone else to help her through her next birthday. Without telling him, she had renewed the spell that would keep Trav alive through his. He had cried then, though not since.
Djanhiz said. "Take off your clothes."
He glanced at her and began to undo his sash.
She laughed. "Because I remember when you walked freely into Chiano Mefini's trap, and I would know what preparations you might have with you now."
He stood naked in the night while Djanhiz ran her hands over his clothing and prodded his coin purse. Frowning, she stepped closer to him. Her eyes narrowed, and she reached out, touching a thin pink slash across his chest. He almost grabbed her hand, then remembered the knife at Sessi's throat.
She said, "It would've been easy to heal that entirely. It must itch—" Her fingers moved to a shorter reddish line just beneath his sternum, a puckered line as wide as two fingers.
She held his gaze. After a moment, he nodded and glanced away. She prodded the wound with her fingers, and he cried out, bringing his left hand and the stump of his right wrist up to cover his chest.
"You disgusting—" Her full lips curled, but found no words. He waited, wondering if she could understand, or if her loathing would help him understand himself.
"I'd planned to kill you quickly," she said softly, "if another's magic kept you young. I couldn't decide whether to sink you in the sea and let the fish clean the living flesh from your bones, or to close you in an oven until even
your bones were ash. I doubt anyone's spell would keep you alive then. But now I suspect that keeping you alive would be the crueler choice." She smiled again. "We've nine months before your birthday and the return of your luck. That's sufficient time to decide."
"No!" Trav drove his left fist toward her face, forgetting everything for a moment. Her smile disappeared, but her left arm came up in the smooth movement of the experienced martial artist. Her right hand knifed into his solar plexus. He fell again and lay on the ground, hugging himself. When air returned to his lungs, he began to cry.
Djanhiz touched her ring to his bare arm. Trav felt the bite of a needle, then nothing. As the world retreated, he wondered if that had been an act of convenience, or of kindness.
Festival Day
Rusty's mother met him at the door to her apartment. "Here," he said, thrusting a folded scrap of rice paper at her. "Where's Dad?" He glanced past his mother and saw the apartment had been hung with small blue lanterns and sashes. A blue glass chipmunk sat behind a bowl of candied cashews, Sessi's favorite Festival treat.
"Sleeping." The hollows of his mother's eyes were dark, and he hoped he had not woken her. She took the note. Sessi's abductor had written, The Magician has arrived. Expect Sessi Jassil on Restoration Day. She will be healthy and unharmed.
"Bastards," his mother whispered.
"She's all right."
"You believe that?"
He glanced at the blue glass chipmunk. "Why would they send the note if she wasn't?"
"To gain time to escape, my son, the Guard lieutenant." When he winced, she said, "Why not send her home now?"
"My best guess? Because she knows something that would hurt them. Something that won't matter tomorrow. Who they are, maybe how they'll leave the city. The Guard is still watching for her, in case she's not in the Zhir embassy."
"Can't a magician verify that Sessi's there, at least? Just knowing if she's alive—"
Rusty shook his head. "The Zhir aren't the most sophisticated wizards, but every Guard magician says they outdid themselves laying blankets of secrecy spells on their embassy. Four of our wizards are trying to find a path through. I asked if Gogo could help. They say it's not a matter of power, but of patience. Let Gogo enjoy Festival Week. Someone should."
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