Soul of the City Part 12

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 pa.s.sed 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 n.o.blewoman.

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, Molin 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 G.o.ddess 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 a.s.sistance, 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."

"When the Stormchildren are well again, then you will travel with them to Bandara; you will leam everything that they learn. For now, though, only you can sense Roxane through her deceits and disguises. Tempus can devise a trap for her-but only you will know if she falls into it."

She brightened and Molin almost felt sorry for Tempus. The mercenary would have no choice now but to close ranks within the Stepsons and concoct the tactics necessary to lure Roxane out of her hiding .place; no one, not even a regenerating immortal, could stand for long against Jihan's enthusiasm. The priest relaxed, then caught a flicker of movement at the comer of his eye. Niko had pushed away from Seylalha's tenderness and was staring, with his one unbandaged eye, off into nothingness. Perhaps he had heard them mention Bandara?

Perhaps-? Molin shook his head, preferring not to think at all about any other possibility.

The hand that reached out of the darkness to grab Molin's shoulder had the strength of an iron trap. It was only by yielding to its force, collapsing and rolling through the mud, that the priest avoided becoming a prisoner of his a.s.sailant. He scrabbled for balance, tearing a small knife free from the hem of his priest-robe's sleeve as he scanned the courtyard for some detectable sound or movement. Then he saw the silhouette and threw the knife aside; no four finger blade would deter Tempus for long.

"I've taken all I'm going to take of your schemes. Torch." The mud squished as the big mercenary took a step forward. He leaned down and hoisted Molin to his feet by the front of his robe, then pressed him against the damp brick of the palace wall. "I warned you once-that's more than you deserve."

"Warned me of what? Warned me that you're in over your eyes with capital politics that have no meaning in this town? You want Sanctuary quiet when your high-and-mighty usurping friends get here-well, what are you doing about it? You started off well: you got Roxane's Nisi globe; drove her into hiding- but you haven't done anything since." Molin's voice was cracking from the pressure Tempus put against his breastbone but it could not be said that his courage had failed him as well.

"The streets will be quiet-I've seen to that."

"Straton saw to that. You can't take credit for the acts of a man who thinks you've issued orders to have him killed by his partner, Riddler."

Tempus gave the priest one last, vicious shake, then released him to slide down the wall to his proper height.

"But this scheme of Jihan's-of yours. Torch, it's beneath you, using her against me like that. We've got all our vulner-ables in one place and the strength to guard them. It's no time to be traipsing through the countryside splitting our forces."

"I'm a siege engineer, Riddler. I build walls and I tear them down. It took our golden-haired light-weight, Kadakithis, to point out how predictable our tactics have become. I've got one idea for luring the b.i.t.c.h into the open-but I don't want to try it. I was counting on Jihan's provoking you into coming up with something better."

"And if she doesn't?"

"I'll b.u.m the portrait that little Ilsigi painter made of you, Roxane, and Niko."

"Vashanka's b.a.l.l.s. Torch-you aren't afraid of anything, are you? We better talk this through. Where've you got that painting now? Still here in the palace?"

Tempus took Molin's arm, more gently this time, and led him toward the West Gate of the palace.

"It's where it's always seemed to be, Riddler," Molin said as he shook free of the other man's a.s.sistance. "But don't think that because you can see it you can reach it. Randal's taught me a bit about hiding things in plain sight."

They went through the gate in silence, not because of the tension between them though it was as thick as the perennial fog-but because they were both aware that the walls were the most porous part of the palace and that nothing private should be said in their shadow. They continued in silence, Tempus leading, through the better pans of town into the Maze and toward the Vulgar Unicom where, improbably enough, privacy was sacred.

"I'd leave that picture wherever you've hidden it if I were you, priest," Tempus warned after he'd bellowed their orders toward the bar, "Certainly it would be cleaner if the little ginger-man had painted a simpler picture. I gather he's had more problems with things coming to life. He claims not to know at all what happens when his paintings cease to exist."

Molin looked at a recently replastered section of the wall, still noticeably less grimy than the rest and completely unmarked by grafitti or knife gouges.

Lalo had painted the soul of the tavern there once and a score of people had died before it had been laid to rest again. Both men were thinking about the painter's unpredictable art when a warty, gray arm thrust between them.

"Good beer. Special beer for the gentlemen^" the wall-eyed bouncer with the garish orange hair said with a smile that revealed corroded, and not quite human, teeth.

Tempus froze and Molin, whose aplomb was st.u.r.dier, took the mugs.

"A fiend, I should think. Not quite what Brachis and his entourage will be expecting when they order a drink. If we're lucky they'll blame it on the beer,"

Molin commented as the acid, lifeless brew crossed his lips.

"Hers," Tempus said and hid his face behind his hands. After a moment he raised his eyes. "And n.o.body notices. Roxane's fiend is ladling the Unicorn's swill and no one b.l.o.o.d.y notices'"

"A living fiend, my friend. You've been away too long. In this part of town being alive, in your own life, is all that really matters."

Tempus sighed. He drained the crudely made mug and motioned for another round.

Now that he had adjusted to the smoky light, Molin could see that the Riddler's eyes were bloodshot and the skin around them was bruised from exhaustion.

"I should kill you for that, too," Tempus said, rubbing his eyes, making them redder. "A bad habit, you said. There's a magician-The Dream Lord, Askelon; my brother-in-law- he overstepped himself at the Festival of Man, as you may have heard. Been exiled to Meridian by greater powers than his own. Usually I don't have to worry about him but now, thanks to you, he's always right there at the comer of my mind, waiting to get into my dreams."

"He gets into everyone else's dreams and they're none the worse for it, Riddler."

"Not into my dreams, d.a.m.n you!" He took the second mug from the fiend without a flinch, downing it as he had the first.

"More beer? Good beer for the gentleman?" the fiend inquired. "Snapper Jo gets good beer for the gentleman. Snapper Jo remembers this gentleman, this soldier.

Mistress made sure Snapper always remember... Tempus."

Tempus's hands were on Snapper Jo's throat; Molin's were on a long, wickedly efficient knife but the fiend only smiled. He knotted the muscles in his warty neck and belched his way to freedom.

"Just where is your Mistress?" Tempus demanded, rubbing his knuckles.

The creature shrugged and crossed its eyes. "Don't know," he admitted. "Snapper went looking for her. Nice dark lady asked Snapper to look for the Mistress."

"Did Snapper Jo find his Mistress?" Molin asked.

"No, not find. Look everywhere-look in h.e.l.l itself. Not find. No Mistress!

Snapper Jo free!"

The notion overwhelmed Snapper Jo. He hugged himself, trembling with joy, and went back to the bar without another thought for the two men watching him.

"If we believe him, then she's not dead," Tempus admitted. "If I'd believe a fiend," he corrected himself. "Torch, I talked to Niko about all of this. He says he's free of her-free like he hasn't been in years. I believe Niko, Torch.

There's nothing left of Roxane except memories-and bad habits."

It was Molin's turn to bury his head in his hands. "Niko and the fiend: both free of Roxane. Thank you, Riddler-I'll believe the fiend. He says he looked in h.e.l.l and didn't find her; Ischade sent him to h.e.l.l looking for Roxane and he didn't find her there. Now, Niko, I'll wager he not only told you that he was free of Roxane but that all our precautions were unnecessary. I'll wager he told you that he could take care of the Stormchildren all by himself."

"All right. Torch. We'll tell Niko we're moving the globe and the kids-and then we'll watch him. We'll even send a little procession out past the walls to one of the estates. But by Enlil, Vashanka, Stormbringer, and every other soldier's G.o.d-you're wrong. Torch. Niko's free of her-she's nothing but nightmares to him.

Maybe there's something still after the Stormchildren-or the globe-but not Roxane and not through Niko."

Tempus set his ambush for the night of the next full moon. Walegrin muttered a number of choice, unreproducible words when half of the garrison was pulled off duty to shovel dirt, patch roofs, and in other ways make a tumble-down estate north of the city walls look like the prospective home for what Tempus called his "vulnerables." His muted protests erupted into a full-scale tirade when, by noon of the appointed day, it was clear that any advantage to having the charade on the night of the full moon would be offset by one of Sanctuary's three-day torrents.

The palace parade ground was an oozing mora.s.s which had already foundered three good horses-and it was clear sailing compared to any other street, road, or courtyard. It would be well nigh impossible to get the carriage from the stables to the gate much less up the slopes to the estate. Walegrin pointed this out to Critias as they huddled down under oiled-leather cloaks and slogged across the parade ground on foot.

"He says, use oxen," Crit replied impa.s.sively.

"Where am I supposed to get a team of oxen before sundown?"

"They're being provided."

"And who's going to drive them? Has he thought of that? Oxen aren't horses, you know."

"You are."

"The b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l I am, Critias."

They had reached the comparative shelter of the stable doorway, where the water gushed off the eaves in streams that could, with care, be avoided. Critias removed his dripping rain helmet and wrung it out.

"Look, pud," he said, tucking the hat into his belt, "I don't make up the orders. Orders come from the Riddler and your man, Torchholder. Now when those oxen get here, you hitch them to the carriage and drive them out to the estate.

If they're," he pointed a thumb back toward the palace, "sitting tight with their G.o.ds, everything will go according to plan-somehow. And if they're not then you could be the best b.l.o.o.d.y drover in the world and it wouldn't make a wh.o.r.e's heart's bit of difference."

Thus, some hours after nightfall, Walegrin found himself still in his oiled leathers standing beside the ungainly rumps of a pair of oxen. Randal was slowly making his way down the rain-slicked stairs clutching the skull-sized package containing his Nisibisi Globe of Power. The mage wore a ludicrously old fashioned panoply which hindered his already over-cautious progress. Tempus looked uncomfortable as he waited under the stone awning with a child tucked under each arm.

"Almost there," Randal a.s.sured them, glancing back toward the torchlight and, as luck would have it, overbalancing himself just enough to slip down the last three steps.

There wasn't a person, living or dead, within Sanctuary who hadn't heard a rumor or two about the witch-globes. Walegrin dropped his torch and lunged for the package. His efforts were, however, unnecessary as the package hung politely in mid-air until Randal stumbled to his feet and reclaimed it. The effect was not lost on Walegrin or any of the dozen or so others detailed to escort the oxen-or on Tempus who came down the stairs behind Randal to deposit his silent, unmoving bundles within the ox-cart.

The mage and the mercenary commander exchanged whispers which Walegrin couldn't hear above the sound of the rain. Then Tempus shut the door and came up beside Walegrin.

"You know the route?" he inquired.

Walegrin nodded.

"Then don't move off it. Randal can-take care of the magic regardless but if you want protection from anything else you stay in sight of the spotters."

With a noncommittal grunt Walegrin loosened the long whip from the bench beside him and tickled the oxen's noses. Tempus stepped quickly to one side as the cart lurched into motion. The beasts had no halters or reins, responding only to the whip and the voice of their drover. Walegrin figured he'd try to keep everything moving from the driver's bench but he imagined, accurately as it turned out, that he'd be in the mud beside the oxen before they cleared the old Headman's Gate and lumbered onto the nearly deserted Street of Red Lanterns.

"It'll be dawn before we get there," Walegrin cursed when the rightside ox paused to add its own wastes to the sludge in the street.

But the man-high solid wheels of the cart kept turning and the oxen were as strong as they were slow and stupid. Straton and a pair of Stepsons joined the procession where it cleared the last of the huge, stone-walled brothels. Strat, a lantern dangling from the pike he carried in his right hand, brought his bay horse alongside the ox-cart. Walegrin gripped at a dangling saddle-strap for some security in the treacherous footing.

It was nearly impossible to keep the torches lit. The men on horseback were having a harder time of it than Walegrin and his team. Walegrin watched the mud directly in front of them and lost track of how many checkpoints or spotters they had pa.s.sed. They halted once, when the undergrowth cracked louder than the rain, but it was only a family of half-wild pigs. Everyone laughed nervously and Walegrin touched the oxen with his whip again. Another time Strat spotted shadows moving above them on the ridge, but it was only their own men breaking cover.

They had reached the stony trail leading to the estate when the oxen bellowed once in unison, then sank to their knees. Walegrin dropped the saddle-strap and went racing back to the cart where his sword was stashed. The horses panicked, rearing up and collapsing as much from the bad footing as from the metallic drone every man and beast was hearing, feeling, between his ears.

"Do something!" Walegrin yelled to his pa.s.senger as he tugged his sword free of its scabbard. The first touch of En-librite steel against his skin made a shower of green sparks, but it dulled the pain in his head as well. "Stop her, Randal!"

"There's no one out there," the mage replied, poking his head and shoulders through the cart's open window. His archaic armor, like Walegrin's sword, had a faintly green presence to it.

"There's d.a.m.n sure someone out here!"

Walegrin stood on the drover's bench. Save for Strat all of the escort had been thrown into the mud; save for Strat's bay all the horses were either on their sides screaming or plunging into the mora.s.s of the fallow fields surrounding the estate. One horse, he couldn't tell which, shrieked louder than the rest- a broken leg most likely. Walegrin felt a rising tide of panic only marginally related to the dull roar in his skull.

Strat heeled the bay horse around as if it were a sunny day on the parade ground, then launched it at the only stand of trees in sight. Walegrin watched the bobbing lantern for a few moments before it disappeared.

"Move in. We haven't been hit yet," he yelled to the garrison men who, like himself, held the strange green-cast steel of Enlibar in their fists and were somewhat insulated from whatever a.s.saulted them. "Well, do something, Randal!"

he added for the benefit of the mage who had vanished back into the darkness.

"Use that b.l.o.o.d.y ball of yours!"

As abruptly as it had begun, the droning ceased. Except for the one in the field, the horses quieted and got back to their feet. One of the men slogged through the mud groping for a torch, but Walegrin called him back to the circle.

"It's not over," he warned in a soft voice. "Randal?"

He crouched down by the window, expecting to see the freckled mage bathed in the glow of his magic. Instead he walloped his chin on Randal's helmet.