The Dead of Winter Part 25

"But why take my mother if she wanted Lalo?" asked Wedemir.

Randal looked at the limner sympathetically. "The witch didn't expect you to give any trouble or she would have come herself. The Sphere was a Carrier, set to react to your ident.i.ty. And your wife spoke your name-"

"But she must realize her mistake by now. Why hasn't she let Gilla go?"

"Roxane plays for points," said Randal gently. "As long as the woman's no trouble, she'll keep her, maybe use her as a hostage to compel you ..."

No one needed to detail what could happen if Roxane got tired of her captive.

Lalo jerked to his feet and Randal pulled him back with surprising strength.

"No, Lalo-Roxane has no honor. You could not be sure of saving your wife even if you offered yourself in her place. To strike against the sorceress is the only way!"

Lalo sank back onto the bench and covered his eyes.

"Are you with us then. Limner?" asked Randal softly.

"I'm with you," interrupted Wedemir, "if you'll teach me how to fight!"

"That can be arranged," said Randal. He waited for Lalo's answer.

"Help me free Gilla and show me how to protect those who depend on me," the words were dragged from Lalo's lips, "and yes, I'll do what I can to help you."

Gilla sneezed, heaved herself upright, and sneezed again. Something round and hard was digging into her side. She looked down, saw a skull, and jerked away.

So much for the comfortable conclusion that she had been having a nightmare. She still gripped her broom, but she was not at home; no one had cleaned this place for quite a while.

"Ah-fat lady wake now? Fat lady sleep hard; Snapper Jo was lonely!"

Gilla stared. The voice which had uttered these words of welcome was very deep, with a kind of curdled quality that made her think of the bottom of a vegetable bin that had been left alone too long. For a moment her eyes struggled to sort through a confusion of piled boxes and dusty hangings, then she focused on a shape that was tall, and gaunt, and gray. It made a gurgling sound that could have meant anything, and lit a lamp.

Gilla blinked. The creature's general grayness was more than compensated for by a pair of purple pantaloons and a shock of orange hair. He treated her to a sharp, snaggle-toothed smile.

"Fat lady talk to Snapper Jo now?"

Gilla cleared her throat. "Does this place belong to you?"

"Oh, noooo-" The warts on his gray skin seemed to crawl as Snapper Jo glanced fearfully over his shoulder. "Great Mistress rules here! Great Lady, very beautiful, very strong ..." He ducked his head with a kind of fearful reverence.

Gilla thought he was overdoing it, but it was obvious that whoever had brought her here did have plenty of power. Beneath the dust she caught the unmistakable dank perfume of the White Foal River, so she knew she must still be in Sanctuary, and there were only two sorceresses here with that kind of power. Her skin chilled as she thought about it. It was the kind of riddle children asked in play: Would you rather be eaten by a she-panther or a tigress? By Ischade or by Roxane?

Suddenly the dust and clutter around her seemed stifling. Gilla got to her feet and picked her way, between a dusty carved table and a tall vase of dull bra.s.s inlaid with tarnished silver, toward the door. The vase toppled as Snapper Jo leaped with awkward efficiency to block her.

"Fat lady not to go-" the gray fiend said reproachfully. "Orders-Mistress says to keep you here." He favored her with a walleyed leer. "And talk to Snapper Jo!"

Gilla talked to him. She could not tell if it was for hours, really, or only seemed that way. The fiend's conversation was remarkably repet.i.tive, and only long practice in answering the questions of small children while doing something else got her through it still sane. But the light behind the curtains was definitely fading when something moved in the doorway and Snapper Jo's patter abruptly failed.

The room seemed to brighten, or perhaps it was only that this woman left a glamor in the air around her. Local legend had said that Roxane was terrible, but had no words to say how beautiful she was. And surely it was Roxane, for everyone knew that the witch Ischade was pale as a night-born flower, but Roxane's skin bloomed like a rose.

"So, you are enjoying your conversation?" Roxane's little cat smile did not reach her eyes.

You b.i.t.c.h, how dare you ... thought Gilla. Then she met that gaze, and felt her skin grow cold. She bit back the retort that ached in her throat.

"My Carrier was not prepared for such as you." Roxane looked Gilla up and down.

"Count yourself fortunate that your weight did not burst it and leave you floating mindless between the planes!" The Nisibisi sorceress laughed, and Gilla's chill drove deeper. This woman reeked of evil like some deadly perfume.

Gilla found herself retreating within the fortress of her flesh; she had never understood until now how her bulk had protected her. Physically her sheer ma.s.s had made her formidable. And it had shielded her psychically from all but the most powerful personalities. But Roxane was pure power, and Gilla was afraid.

"Great Lady, I am indeed grateful," she said between set teeth. "But surely you have no use for me here-"

"No? We shall see. There is no need to act hastily!" Roxane gave a throaty laugh, as if she were savoring some private amus.e.m.e.nt. "I will keep you for a while as a companion for my servant here. But in that case I suppose you must be fed," she looked at Gilla with another laugh. "Though surely it would do you no harm to starve for a while. Snapper-leave one of the serpents on guard and get food for her."

"And food for Snapper, too, Mistress? Nice food-red, still twitching?" The fiend clutched at the air and smacked his narrow lips, his eyes glazing.

Gilla watched him and shuddered, reminding herself not to trust his apparent affability.

"Snapper, be still!" Roxane flickered her fingers casually and the fiend froze, watching her with rolling eyes.

"Great One, please let me go home," Gilla whispered, bowing her head to keep Roxane from seeing her eyes.

"Oh, you don't want to go home," Roxane smiled prettily. "Your home is going to become very damp and uncomfortable very soon. Believe me, Ilsig sow, you will be much safer here with me. Do you hear the rain?" She paused a moment and Gilla heard its soft, steady patter outside.

"You'll hear more rain soon. But don't worry, my wards will keep the water away from here-the rest of Sanctuary is not going to be so fortunate. Water is coming. A great deal of water is coming!" Roxane lifted her arms with a ripple of silken sleeves. "Oh, they will be sorry, when the flood sweeps their fine temples and palaces away! I will bring the great waters down from the north in such a deluge as this place has never seen!"

Gilla grew very still. If there was a flood her children would be in danger. She had to think of a way out of here! But she had always done her best thinking when she was working; her gaze fell on the broom that had come with her through the void.

"If I am to stay, Mistress, then let me keep busy working for you." She tried to simulate humility. It did not sound convincing to her, but she suspected that the Nisibisi sorceress had spent too much time studying men and other beings to know much about how her own s.e.x behaved.

"I'm a very good worker," Gilla went on. "Would you like me to clean?"

Roxane giggled. "Housecleaning? Oh yes-I with my waters and you with your broom will clean up Sanctuary!" Still laughing, she nodded to Snapper Jo. "You let her clean then, do you understand?" Bright skirts swirled as she turned, and she was gone as swiftly as she had come.

For a long moment Gilla stood utterly still. Then she seized the broom that was all she had left of home and began to sweep furiously.

And Roxane, in her witching room, set her Nisibisi Globe of Power spinning in the air before her so that the jewels inset into its High Peaks' clay gathered up the light from the candles that circled her and sent it shimmering into the bowl of water on the stand below.

Through air and water she drew the secret sigils; inhaled deeply the incense that smouldered in the corners of the room and breathed the charged air into the water until it steamed. Then she began to whisper in a language that no one in Sanctuary except Niko or Randal would have recognized.

The light grew aquaeous and dim; the voice of the sorceress deepened. The Globe that spun before her focused her awareness, heightened and transformed it and channeled it into that plane of the Otherworld where the Water Demons had their home. By their secret names she compelled them, and the water in her silver basin misted away.

But over the plains north of Sanctuary great c.u.mulus clouds began to move, at first reluctantly, and then more swiftly, as if they sensed the waiting sea. And when they met the warmer air of the seacoast they released their heavy loads of rain, and the voice of the White Foal River began to change.

"Look-there are laws that govern magic," repeated Randal. "If you understand them you have control. Visualize! You know how to do that, surely-when you plan a picture don't you see it in your mind before you even take the brush in your hand? Use symbols, whatever you need to focus your consciousness on the part of the Otherworld you're working with, and then do your magic!"

Lalo nodded. He could almost see the sense of it, but it was so hard to concentrate when wind rattled the window-frames and rain beat against the slubbed gla.s.s. It had been raining hard since the afternoon before.

"If you visualize a shield around you that only lets . specific things out, or in, then you can control what you paint, right?" the Tysian mage went on. He sat back and looked at Lalo expectantly.

The limner nodded. "I think I understand. I don't know if I can do it, but I appreciate your effort to teach me. Worry makes me a poor student. When are we going against Roxane?"

"We're not ready yet-you're not ready. Limner, she would swat you like a fly!

Even I-" He broke off, and Lalo was just beginning to wonder if even the mage feared this sorceress, when a heavy tread shook the tower stairs. The door crashed open and they saw Straton, the Stepsons' commander, standing there.

"Vashanka's rod, man, here you are, Randal! You've led me h.e.l.l's own chase, that's for sure!" Somehow he managed to look even more formidable than usual with his hair plastered to his skull and water from wet steel and soggy leather pooling on the floor.

"Trouble?" The mage stood up, freckles suddenly dark against his pallor.

Straton spat. "Do you use those flapping ears of yours just for balance, or what? Can't you hear the rain? The river's overflowed into the Swamp of Night Secrets, and the whole southeastern promontory will be flooded soon. There's reports that the upper ford is turning into a lake and Goat Creek is over its banks already.

"The Beysa's sticking-h.e.l.l, her apartments are on the second floor-but rest of the Fish-folk are heading for their ships in schools! There's nothing much we can do about the barracks or Downwind, but if we don't act fast we'll lose the main town too. I've set all the men I've got to building d.y.k.es above the bridge, but I need more!"

"Can anyone get a message to Zip?" asked Randal swiftly. "Tell him if we channel the flood maybe it'll sweep the Fish-eyes out to sea-that should persuade him!

Use the same argument on Jubal."

Straton's mouth opened as if he were going to object, then it slowly closed again. For a moment he almost smiled. "It would solve a few problems," he said wistfully. Then he shook himself and glared at the mage.

"Fine! I appreciate the advice! But what I want from you, Witchy-Ears, is some wizard's work. You get yourself and your spells out there and do something about those clouds!"

Randal raised one eyebrow. "I will if I can. You know I'm not allowed to alter the balances if this is a natural storm."

"And if it isn't? Have you considered that possibility?"

The mage was still frowning as Straton turned and clattered back down the stairs. He sighed and grasped the k.n.o.b of the balcony door.

Just a touch on the handle was enough to release it. The door banged back against the wall and a gust of damp wind swirled papers around the room.

Ignoring the upset, Randal stepped outside and Lalo followed him.

The wind was coming from the northeast. Ranked banks of cloud rolled steadily seaward as if pushed by inexorable hands. Randal closed his eyes and faced into the wind, then murmured something and traced a Sign upon the air. Lalo shifted focus as the mage had taught him and glimpsed lines of violet fire that wavered a moment and then were torn apart by the wind. Then his vision was sucked upward into the clouds themselves, and he saw as he had Seen in the country of the G.o.ds.

Something moved there with, but not of, the clouds- shapes that were subtly wrong, spirits that took a malicious pleasure in manipulating the elements.

Oblivious to his presence, they played-it would have taken a more compelling personality than Lalo's to disturb them. But were they demonic? Lalo had never seen storm elementals before. He knew only that he did not like these.

With a wrench, Lalo pulled back into his normal perceptions-Randal's training had done this much for him-and looked quickly at the mage. Randal's eyes were still closed, his face set in a snarl; his hands moved, but it was clear that whatever he was doing was not enough. After a few moments he, also, shuddered and sagged back.

He opened his eyes. "Sorcery ..." he muttered, "black sorcery, and I think I know whose! There's a Nisi stink about those demons. That b.i.t.c.h is working her spells, and she has reset her wards. I doubt even Ischade could get to her now!"

Lalo swallowed. If Roxane's house were impregnable, then Gilla was lost. His gaze moved numbly across slick rooftops, alternately revealed and hidden by tattered gray curtains of rain, to the muddy ribbon of the river. Mist blurred his view of the far bank below the bridge where Roxane's house lay, the house where Gilla was now....

"What will you do?" he asked the mage.

"I have a Power Globe of my own," Randal said thoughtfully. "Perhaps I can use it to counter Roxane's magics. I can try." He looked over at Lalo.

"There's no way I can help you here." Lalo answered the question in the mage's eyes. "But if my hands are no use for magic, at least they can build a d.y.k.e as well as another man's. I will be down there." He gestured toward the river. If he could do nothing to save Gilla, at least he could be near her when the river swept everything away.

From the floods, at least, Gilla was not in danger. The bubble of magic with which Roxane had surrounded her house repelled the waters as it repelled all other sorceries. The personnel inside the house were another matter. So far, Snapper Jo had warned off the green house snakes- six feet long with blank ophidian stares more disturbing than the beynit's vicious gleam; undeads with empty eyes and the rotting stink of unburied flesh; and a.s.sorted thralls whose bodies yet breathed but whose souls had fled or, worse yet, were locked in some tormented reality from which an occasional gleam of awareness appealed to Gilla for a release from pain.

Even keeping a houseful of children indoors through a solid month of rain-which had been Gilla's previous definition of purgatory-paled by comparison. And of course, even when she had lived in the depths of poverty at the edge of the Maze, Gilla had never allowed her house to reach such a state of squalor.

Despite herself, she was doing the sorceress good service. For two days she had been cleaning- straightening, scrubbing, sweeping away the thick layer of dust.

Already several baskets full of offal stood waiting for disposal beside Roxane's kitchen door.

But that was all that Gilla had accomplished. She had thought as furiously as she had worked, but still she had no plan. She stood, leaning on her broom and breathing heavily, gazing out through the dirty window and the oily shimmer of the warding shield at the incessant rain.

"Rain fall up and down the town ..." Snapper Jo said cheerfully. "Wash everything away-shacks. Palace, all. All that fresh meat floating by ..." he added with a sigh.

"Don't you smile about flooding-my children are in that town!" snarled Gilla.

She swallowed her instinctive appeal to the fiend's nonexistent sympathy. His only response to her pleas to help her escape had been a reiteration of Roxane's command to guard.

"Fat lady is a Mama? Snapper Jo never had Mama- poor Snapper Jo...." He gazed at her with dim calculation in his mismatched eyes. "Fat lady be Snapper Jo's Mama!" he proclaimed triumphantly.

Gilla looked at that inane grin and shuddered. She thought of her children.

Wedemir had somehow turned into a warrior, and Vanda was growing into a beauty that she herself had never had-those two, at least, could take care of themselves now. Her next boy, Ganner, was still apprenticed to Herewick the Jeweler, and with the streets so dangerous, she hardly ever saw him. She could hope that he was safe, but he, too, was started on his own road now. It was the two little ones who still needed her. How could Lalo manage them alone? Gilla straightened with a motion as inevitable as a tidal wave rising to strike the sh.o.r.e. She had to get home!

One of the undeads stumped up the stairs from the bas.e.m.e.nt, wiping moist earth on the remains of its tunic. Gilla wondered if Roxane's wards extended underground, but even to escape she could not bring herself to go down there.

The thing b.u.mped into Snapper Jo, who snarled and shoved it away.

"Dead thing go back to earth!" The fiend pointed to the stairs.

"It is wet in the earth," the corpse said dully. "Let this one go outside."

"No, not outside-" Snapper Jo shook his head. "She says nothing must pa.s.s the house shield now. Dead thing try, she finds worse place for it than there.!"

The tattered head turned, and Gilla could almost imagine she saw some emotion in those blank eyes. Then it sagged a little and very slowly thumped back down the creaking stairs.

Gilla sighed gustily to clear the stench from her nostrils when it was gone. She had almost forgotten that this house held worse company than Snapper Jo.

"So you want me to be your Mama?" she asked grimly.

"Mama give boy fresh meat!" The fiend simpered, and Gilla swallowed sickly. She had seen Snapper Jo's table habits. They were not aesthetic. Once blood flowed he became a mindless eating machine.

Mindless.... Somewhere in the depths of her own mind Gilla felt something stir.

She looked at Snapper Jo speculatively, and slowly began to sweep once more.

The White Foal River stirred like an awakening animal, expanding through the trees on either side of the upper ford until its shining tendrils crept across the General's Road toward the Street of Red Lanterns. The alleys Downwind were already underwater, and the Swamp of Night Secrets had become a pond.

Water gurgled over the marshy ground above Fisherman's Row and tugged like some marine thief at the small boats tied up on sh.o.r.e. Waterfront merchants labored mightily to protect their wares or fought over the carts that could take them to higher ground. In Caravan Square water stood in muddy pools. But the river roared its frustration where the high banks narrowed it, and nibbled angrily at the supports of the bridge.

Things were not much better elsewhere in the town. Water pounded on tiles and shingles, and roofs which had been at best inadequate turned into sieves. It seeped downward and mud walls began to sag. It pooled in streets and overflowed gutters, floating away the acc.u.mulated filth of years. Block after block, the water scoured, hurrying its captured debris toward the gaping mouths of the sewers, whose hollow roar soon became a constant undertone to the drumming of the rain.