Soul of the City Part 7

"From you or from the witch? Or from your commander?"

"From me. Privately. In regard to the other two."

Jubal's square-nailed finger traced an obscure pattern on the aged wood. "Your commander and I have a certain-history."

"All the more reason to deal with me. He owes the witch. She owes me. I want this town quiet. Now. Before it loses whatever it's got. If Tempus is here he's here for reasons more than one."

"Like?"

"Like imperial reasons."

Jubal laughed. It was a snarl, a slow rumbling. He spoke something in some tongue other than Rankene. The man by him laughed the same. "The Emperor, is it?

Is it treachery you propose? Treachery against your commander?"

"No. n.o.body benefits that way. You make your living in this town. I have interests here. My commander has interests only in getting out of here. That's in your interest. You can go back to business. I get what I want. My commander can get out of here without getting tied down in a fight in Sanctuary streets.

All that has to happen is a few weeks of quiet. Real quiet. No theft. No gangs.

No evidence of sedition."

"Stepson, if your commander heard you promise that he'd have your guts out."

"Give me the quiet I need and I'll give you the quiet you need. You and I understand each other. You won't have a friend left in our ranks-if I fall. Do you understand me?"

"Do I understand you've got your price, Rankan?"

"Mutual advantage." Heat rose to his face. Breath came shorter. "I don't give a d.a.m.n what you name it, you know where we all are: trade's slowed to a stop, shops are closed, taverns shut down-are you making money? Merchants aren't; you aren't; no one's happy. And you know and I know that if this PFLS craziness goes on we've got a town in cinders, trade gone down the coast, revolutionary fools in control or martial law as long as it takes, and corpses up to the eaves. You see profit in that?"

"I see profit everywhere. I survive, Rankan."

"You're not fool enough to go up against the empire. You make money on it."

Bodies stiffened all around the room. Strat folded his arms across his chest and recrossed his ankles top to bottom.

"He's right." Jubal snapped his fingers. "He said the right word. Let's see if he goes on making sense. Keep talking."

There was disturbance on the Street of Red Lanterns; but the crowd that gathered did it in the discreet way of Red Lantern crowds: peered through windows and out of doorways of brothels and taverns and just stopped in ordinary pa.s.sages down the Street if they were far enough away. It was glitter and drama, was this district; and a great deal of the tawdry, and in this thunder-rattling night and the bizarre quiet in town since the fire, it was a rougher-than-usual place, the clients that showed up being the sort who were less delicate about their own safety, the sort who took care of themselves. So the wh.o.r.es on the Street were unsurprised at the commotion down by Phoebe's: the small office where Zaibar and the remaining h.e.l.l-Hounds served quiet duty as policemen on the Street-that office was unastonished tod, and tried to ignore the matter as long as possible. Zaibar in fact was deliberately ignoring it, since rumor had spread who was on the Street.

He poured himself another drink, and looked up as a rider on a sorrel horse went clattering past his office as if that man had business.

Stepson. He was relieved, and took a studied sip of the drink he had poured, feeling his problem on its way to resolution without him. The disturbance was far from the house in which he had a personal interest; and that rider headed down the Street was one of Tempus's own, which interference stood a much likelier chance of curtailing the trouble down the street. So it was wise to have sat still a moment and trust the problem to go away; the screams went on, but they would stop very shortly, only one life was in the balance, and the madam of the house (if not the wh.o.r.e) would probably agree that this intervention was better than police.

They were nothing if not pragmatic on the Street.

"Well," said Jubal. "I like your att.i.tude. I like a sensible man. Question is, is your commander going to like you tomorrow?"

"An empire runs on what works," Straton said. "Or it doesn't run. We can be very practical."

Jubal considered a moment. A grin spread on his dark, lined face, all theater.

"This is my friend." He looked left and right at his lieutenants, and his voice hit registers that ran along the spine. "This is my good friend." Looking back at Straton. "Let's call it a deal-friend Straton."

Straton stared at him, with less of relief than of a profound sickness in his gut. But it was a victory. Of sorts. It just did not come with parades and shouting crowds. It came of common sense. "Fine," he said. "Does this include a deal about that stupid blindfold? Where's my horse?"

"At the contact point. I'm afraid it doesn't include my whereabouts, friend. But I'll send you back with a man you know, how's that? Vis."

Mradhon Vis slipped his knife into sheath and let the front legs of his chair meet the floor as he got up.

It was not the man Strat would have chosen to go with, blindfolded and helpless, down an alley. Protesting it sounded like complaint and complaint did nothing for a man's dignity in this situation that had little enough of dignity about it and precious little leeway. Straton stood up, his arms at his sides as a man behind him took the chair away. Another man put the blindfold back in front of his eyes and tied it with no less uncomfortable firmness. "Dammit, watch it,"

Straton muttered.

"Be careful of him," Jubal's deep voice said. But no one did anything about the blindfold.

It was less trouble finding Tempus than Crit had antic.i.p.ated when he talked to Niko and knew where Tempus had gotten to. He reined in at Phoebe's Inn (so the sign said) and shoved the sorrel's reins through a ring at the building's side.

There were bystanders; and part of their interest diverted to him, who added himself to the diversion-he scowled blackly and glanced around him with the quiet promise what would befall the hand that touched his horse or his gear.

Then he walked on into Phoebe's front room and confronted the proprietor, a fat woman with the predictable amount of gaud and matronly decorum. "Seen my commander?" he asked directly.

She had. Chins doubled and undoubled and painted mouth formed a word.

"Where?"

She pointed. "T-two of them," she said. "F-foreign lady, sh-she-"

That took no guesswork. "Tell my commander Critias is downstairs. Do it."

There was another scream from upstairs. Of a different pitch. For a wh.o.r.ehouse the desertion of the front room was remarkable. Not a wh.o.r.e of either gender came out of the alcoves. The madam ran the stairs and went careening down the upstairs hall, vanishing into the dark.

And still not a beaded curtain shadowed in the downstairs. Not a sound, except upstairs: a knock at a door, the madam's voice saying something unintelligible.

A door opened finally. A heavier tread sounded in the upstairs and Crit looked up as Tempus appeared at the head of the stairs-looked up with a stolid face and a moil of trepidation in his own gut that was only partly due to disturbing Tempus at this particularly agitated moment.

He watched Tempus come down the stairs; stood quietly with his hands in his belt and composed himself to inner quiet.

And it occurred to him, staring Tempus eye to eye, that he had been a fool and that he might have just killed the partner he was trying to save, because it was not reason he saw there.

"What?" Tempus asked with economy.

"Strat-after we cleaned up on riverside, the witch-left. Strat and I parted company. He's gone missing. He's not back at riverside."

Of a sudden it seemed like his problem, like something he never should have brought here. He seemed like a thoroughgoing fool. There was another tread on the stairs now, and that was Jihan coming down, trouble in duplicate. But Tempus's face got that masklike look, his long eyes gone inward and deep as he looked aside, a frown gathering and tightening about his mouth.

"How far-missing?" Tempus asked with uncomfortable accuracy and looked him straight in the eye.

"He told me to go to h.e.l.l," Crit said, had not wanted to say, but Tempus did not encourage reticence with that look. "Commander, he'd listen to you. She's got him-bad. You, he'd listen to. Not me. I'm asking you."

For a long, long moment he reckoned Tempus was going to tell him go to h.e.l.l too.

And a.s.sign him there. But he was a shaken man, was Critias. He had seen the most practical-minded man he knew go crazy and desert him. Possession he could have coped with; he might have put an end to Strat the way he would have dispatched a comrade in the field, gut-wounded and suffering and hopeless; a man dreamed about a thing like that and never forgot it, but he did it. Not this time. Not with Strat cursing him to his face and telling him he was wrong. He was accustomed to regard Strat when he said wrong and stop, and hold it, Crit, Crit, stop it-. Straton the level-headed. Straton who seemed at one moment coldly rational and in the next rode off on-whatever that bay horse had become. "Where did you leave him?"

"Mageguild post. He left me. He rode off. I-lost track of him. He wasn't at Ischade's. I thought he'd come to you. Niko said not, Niko said-find you."

Tempus exhaled a long breath, took the sword he was carrying and hung it where it belonged. Thunder rattled. The inn echoed with it as Jihan came on down the steps. "Barracks, maybe," Jihan said. "I don't think so," Crit said. "Where do you think he's gone?" Tempus asked. "To do something," Crit said, and out of that fund of knowledge a pairbond held: "To prove something."

Tempus took that in with a grave and quiet look. "To whom?"

"To me. To you. He's being a fool. I'm asking you-"

"You want an order from me? Or you want me to find him?"

Of a sudden Crit did not know what he wanted. One seemed too little; the other, fatal.

"I'll find him," Crit said. "I thought you'd better know."

"I know," Tempus said. "He's still in command of the city. Tell him he'll be at Peres on time. And he won't have done anything stupid; tell him that too."

A horse snorted softly, hooves shifted on cobbles; and Straton heard the sound of their steps between narrow walls, knew before the hands left his arms that they had come back to the alley and the little stable-nook where he had left the bay. He felt the grip lift, heard retreating steps as he raised his hands and pulled the blindfold off. The bay whickered softly. A trio of cloaked figures went rapidly down the alley, one more than had brought him; the third would be the man who had kept the horse safe in the interval.

He walked over and patted the bay's neck, finding his hands shaking. Not from any fear of violence. Even Vis's personal grudge did not do that to him. It was himself. It was knowing what he had done.

He took the reins and swung up to the bay's back, reined about to ride out of the alley and caught his balance as the bay rose up under him: a cloaked shadow had slipped round the comer in front of him.

"That horse isn't hard to find," Haught said as the bay walked backward and came down on four feet again, still shying. Strat reined him out of it, and held him, hand to the sword he had never given up.

"d.a.m.n you-"

Haught held up something between two fingers. "Calm yourself. She sent me. With this."

Strat reined the bay quieter, still too wary to bring his horse alongside a man who might have a knife. He slid down to his own feet, keeping the reins in hand, met the ex-slave on a level and took the object Haught offered at arm's length.

A ring lay in his palm. It was Ischade's.

"She wants you-not at the uptown house tomorrow. Stay away. Come to the riverhouse. After midnight."

He closed his hand on the ring. A shudder ran through him with a reaction he had no wish to betray to the slave's amus.e.m.e.nt. He kept his face cold and his voice steady. "I'll be there," he said.

"I'll tell her that," Haught said with uncommon civility, and whisked himself around the comer again.

Strat slipped the ring on his littlest finger, and suffered a spasm that took his sight away. The bay horse pulled the reins from his hands and then, sheepish, stood there with the reins adangle while his master recollected his sight and got his heart settled from its pounding.

It was apology, from Ischade. It was invitation as plain as ever witch or woman sent a man. His heart pounded as he climbed up to the saddle and clenched his fist on the ring that had now the slow sweet bliss krrf never matched.

He fought his head clear, knew that what the slave asked- what she asked-was trouble, trouble not with Crit this time. Trouble that might take everything he had done and his life and sweep everything away, but the witch knew that, but Ischade wanted him and by this gift he knew how much she wanted him; he felt it continually and the world swam in front of his eyes.

What are you doing? he asked her in absentia. Do you know what you're asking?

And in the gnawing doubt that had been between them at the beginning and now again: Does it matter to you?

The bay moved, and the alley pa.s.sed in a blur of starlit cobbles, the glare of a lantern. Things pa.s.sed in and out of focus.

And in a profound effort he took the ring from off his finger and put it in his pocket where it was only mildly euphoric.

Sweat ran on his body. He mopped at his face, raked his hair back and tried to think despite the erotic mist that hazed the seeping brick, the effluvium of rubbish and the gutter. The bay's steps clopped along with a distant, dazed echo in the alley's wending transformation into a street where a dope den and a tavern maintained half-open doors and a clutch of krrf-dazed sleepers sitting in the mire outside. Music wailed; strings needed tuning. No one cared, least of all the player. The alley meandered on. The horse did, while the mist came and went.

Tempus would want him at that gathering at Peres. Tempus would want to talk to him, want sense out of him, would look at him with that piercing stare of his and spit him with it till he had spilled everything. That was what Ischade knew.

That was why Ischade wanted him out of there.

But then what, when he had fought with Crit and defied his commander and dealt with Jubal and through Jubal, with the gangs. There were ways and ways to die.

He had invented one or two himself. Lying to Tempus offered worse. Desertion, dereliction. Treason.

He felt a stab of ecstasy, and one of utmost terror; and knew he ought to take that ring and fling it in the mud and go confess everything to Tempus, but that was against his very nature- he had never run for help, had never thrown himself at anyone's feet, never in his life. Fixing things took nerve. It took the raw guts to hang on to a situation long after it stopped being safe.

He was no boy, no twenty-five-year-old in shining armor, head full of glory stories. He had worked the Stepsons' shadowy jobs for a decade. He had just never had to think that Tempus himself might be involved in a mistake. The man the G.o.ds chose-But G.o.ds had self-interest right along with the rest of creation; G.o.ds might trick a man-might trick an empire, play games with souls, with a man who served their cause.

Tempus could be wrong. G.o.ds know he could be wrong. He doesn't care for this town. I do. I can give it to him. Is that treason?

An empire runs on what works, doesn't it?

I've just got to live to get it working. Prove it to Crit. Prove it to Tempus.

If it takes staying out of their way till I can get this thing organized-I know holes Crit doesn't.

d.a.m.n, no. They'll go for her.

He gripped the ring in his pocket, suffered a twinge that dimmed his vision and reminded him it was no small power the Stepsons might take on in Ischade. There would be fatalities. Calamity on both sides.

He made up his mind, then, what he had to do.

The sun was a glimmer of red-through-murk above Sanctuary's east when Ischade came to the simple little shop in the Bazaar; she came after a trek through Sanctuary's streets and in a sordid little room in the Maze left a dead man the world would little miss. That man left her disgusted, p.r.i.c.klish, soiled; and such was the charge of energies in the air of Sanctuary that she hardly felt that ebb of power his death made, felt not even a moment's relief from what ran along her veins and suffused her eyes and made that victim, in the last moment of his life, wish he had never existed at all.

It left not the least satisfaction; more, it left a gnawing terror that nothing would ever be enough, that there was no man in all the world sufficient to ease that power which threatened to break loose in the muttering storm and in her vitals. She blinded herself: she saw too much of h.e.l.l and not enough of where she was going, and if a gang of Sanctuary's predatory worst had confronted her and seen her eyes this moment, at dawn's breaking, they would have stopped cold and slunk away in terror. She had become-known. Victims were harder to come by.

Only fools approached her. And they were without sport and without surprise.

Tasfalen. Tasfalen. She clung to that name and that promise as to sanity itself a prey that offered wit, and hazard, and difficulty.

Tasfalen could be savored, over days. Put off and extended for a week- She might, she reasoned with herself, make Strat understand.

She might-yet-get through that sh.e.l.l of unbelief Strat made around himself, teach him the things he had to know. He was ready for that. His infatuation was sufficient. That her hunger threatened him, this, everything-was unbearable.

It was weakness. And she had not yet accounted for Roxane. No scouring of the town had discovered her. That the dimwitted fiend had not found her tracks, but that she had discovered nothing to indicate that Roxane had not perished-did not make her secure in her present weakness. It was exactly the moment and the mode in which the Nisi would seek her out....

... Strike through Strat, through this stranger Tasfalen, through anything at all she least expected; most of all through a weakness....