This Crooked Way Part 18

"Hey!" he said. "She's all right!"

I was about to correct him, because I ached all over. But then I realized that if I was all right I could sit up. I pointed this out, pushing his ugly face out of my way after patting his cheek, and struggled to my feet.

The room was suddenly full of people who were glad to see me. If you've ever had the experience, you can fill in the blanks here-I'm not going to describe everything that was said and done.

Eventually I noticed Morlock leaning against the doorway with a broad smile on his bruised face, watching me in the bosom of my family.

I glared at him. He was supposed to be invulnerable, protecting me from the bad people. And there he was grinning at me because, through sheer luck, his recklessness and the golem hadn't killed all four of us in Charis's house.

"Thanks for saving my life," he said, when the furor died down a bit.

"Yeah, well," I said huffily. "Watch your step. I might not be around to do it, next time."

He shrugged and opened his hands in a well, you know kind of gesture. This seemed pretty flippant, under the circ.u.mstances, so I clouded up and thundered at him for a while. I was pretty clear about what I expected from him and how he had so far failed to deliver. At least I tried to be, but the fact that my face was buried against his chest part of the time may have m.u.f.fled some of my words, that and some of the weeping.

He patted my back awkwardly until I settled down, and then said, "Eh, what are you complaining about? You didn't even have to walk home."

Charis was standing nearby in the room beyond and he said, "I must say the young lady has a point. We all owe her a great deal. I would estimate-"

"It's not a business relationship," Morlock said. He wasn't smiling when he said it, but his tone wasn't really much different than when he'd been talking to me. Still, Charis crumpled like a moth who'd gotten too close to a candle flame.

I stood back and wiped my eyes. "So you got what you need from Charis's house? Now we go north?"

Charis's twisted face took on a panicky look, which Morlock ignored, saying, "Yes and no."

"Ugh. What a stupid thing to say! Which is it?"

"Yes, we got the information from Charis's house. No, we are not going north, at least not right away."

"Morlock thinks there's some threat to the city from outside," said Roble, coming up beside me. "He may be right."

"So what?" I said. If all Sarkunden sank into the ground it wouldn't ruin my day.

"Eh," Morlock said, "it's not my favorite city either. But it's the keystone of the Empire's defenses in the north. If it broke, the Khroi or the Anhikh could sweep in at will-possibly both."

"You're an imperial outlaw!" I said. "What do you care?"

He shrugged his wry shoulders. "I have friends in the Empire. If it collapses, they'll be in harm's way. I'm going to see about this."

"All right," I said grudgingly. "What do we have to do?"

"You," my mother said, with a calm that was just the thin icy coating on a deep dark lake of fury, "will do precisely nothing."

I didn't feel like arguing with her. First because she obviously was one thumb's length away from crazy and I didn't want to push her in the wrong direction; second because I ached all over, especially in my belly. I didn't want to go anywhere.

"It's someone else's turn on the field anyway," Stador said, apparently thinking I was disappointed. "Come look at the map!"

The map was unrolled on the floor in the next room: a huge map of the city. Looking closely at it, I saw three tiny pieces of gold quivering on the map.

One was not far from the Great Market, where we'd had our run-in with the Sandboys. Another was moving down the twists of an alley toward the South Wall. One was firmly fixed on the citadel, where the Imperial Guards had their headquarters.

I looked at Morlock for an explanation, then decided it would be too much trouble to drag it out of him and turned to Thend.

"You remember those gold pieces Morlock gave the bullyboy in the wh.o.r.ehouse?" Thend asked. "They were ensorcelled. Those gold bits tell us where each one of those gold pieces are right now."

Well, I'd worked in a cathouse. I thought I could follow the reasoning. The Sandboys probably had their little sand-paws into every business on that street. The bullyboy had probably pa.s.sed along what he knew, along with part of his loot. "So who's who?" I asked.

"If I had to guess," Roble said, "I'd guess the coin heading south is in the pocket of your friend from the cathouse. The one still near the cathouse is in the strongbox of the house's pimp or the Sandboys." He crouched down and tapped the gold fleck at the citadel. "This is the interesting one."

"I see," I said. "Someone in the Guards is slurping money from the Sandboys."

"The commander is my guess," Morlock said. "That immunity was the perfect bait to bring me into the city where the Sandboys are strongest. They're connected, somehow."

"But just because the commander's doing business with the water-gangs doesn't mean he's a traitor," Naeli objected. "The Sandboys wouldn't want a foreign conqueror in the city."

"Hard to say," Morlock replied. "They might be hoping for a better deal with the new rulers. Or maybe the commander is the agent of a foreign power, corrupting the local gangs. We'll go and find out."

"How?" I wondered.

Morlock shrugged, and I knew that was as much as he was going to say about it. He rolled up the map and stuck it under his arm. He and Roble spoke apart with Naeli for a few moments and then they were gone.

Then it was time to go back to bed, past time ... but no one did. Bann went off to stand watch, and Naeli paced around in the entryway on the first floor, and Stador and Thend were playing a knife-throwing game in the map room. I was sitting on my bedroll, rocking back and forth, wondering why my gut hurt so much. I was wondering about that, and also wondering why Charis was standing just outside my doorway (as I could tell from his shadow on the floor).

"If you're waiting for me to put the light out," I called to him finally, "I'm not going to."

He appeared in the doorway then. "I'm sorry if I alarmed you," he said. "I'm in a bit of a quandary."

"And you think I can help?"

"I hope not. That is-you've done enough. Too much, I'd say. I owe you a very great debt and I don't see how I can repay it."

"It's on the house."

"Nothing is 'on the house,' if I understand what you mean. Everyone keeps track of these things, and debts have to be paid. Those are the principles by which I have lived my life."

"I can see you've made a big thing of it." This was a little icy, I admit, but my belly hurt and I didn't like the game he was playing (to the extent that I understood it).

His face twisted. "I was doing well enough-until I did business with Morlock."

"You shouldn't have tried to cheat him."

Charis sighed. "My troubles only really began when I stopped trying to cheat' him, as you put it."

"How would you put it?"

"I would say that no bargain justifies putting a man in danger of his life. No one can be fairly asked to trade away his life, because there is nothing of equal value he can receive for it. A bargain that puts my existence at stake is void." His voice was getting almost hysterical and he broke off, looking a little embarra.s.sed.

"Then you shouldn't have struck the bargain in the first place."

Charis sighed. "That's true, of course. But I wanted what Morlock had to offer me. Now I've lost that, and nearly everything else as well, and I've contracted a new debt to you. You see my problem."

"Well, I didn't do it for you, if that helps any."

"It does, a little," he said, stepping into the room. "But-"

"That's close enough," I said. I wanted to have time to call out if he tried anything.

He stopped short, apparently not resenting my suspicion. "But I can't be sure," he said, "that you wouldn't have saved my life, even if others you cared about hadn't been in danger. I've learned a little bit about you, I think. And then there is the undoubted fact that you did save my life, at terrible risk to your own."

"I was saving my own life, too. I was in there in that room with the rest of you."

"Oh, no!" Charis said, shaking his head wisely. "Tell that to the others, if you like; I think it's safer for you that way, blunting the sharp edge of their grat.i.tude. Grat.i.tude can be a terrible burden to live with, day after day, and you're wise to give them the illusion that their debt is less than it really is. But I sau' you. You looked at the window and knew you could escape with your life. Then you did the other thing."

For the first time I was sort of impressed by Charis. He did understand people a little bit. I thought about how I felt about Naeli and all that she'd done for me, and I knew he was right about grat.i.tude, too, although I hoped there was more to it than Charis understood.

What had Morlock said? It's not a business relationship. Was there a way to live your life like that, not totalling up a balance sheet of benefits and obligations but instead ... What? Morlock hadn't said what it was; he'd just said what it wasn't. Maybe Charis was right after all.

My head hurt, and not only my head. My stomach hurt, deep inside. I bent over myself gasping. My legs and the bedroll were all wet with blood. Glancing up I saw Charis was closer to me now.

"Get away from me!" I shrieked. I didn't want him cancelling his debts by getting rid of me.

Charis leaped back to the door. Stador and Thend rushed in, with Naeli and Bann only a few steps behind them.

My brothers pinned Charis to the wall while Naeli came over to me.

"I did nothing to her, Madam Naeli," Charis was babbling. "We were talking and she expressed pain. I'm afraid she is hurt from-"

"Don't call me 'madam,"' Naeli snapped. "I'm not some Coranian bimboherder." She bent over me and investigated briefly. "It's nothing to worry about, baby," she told me after a moment. "Just Aunt Ruby paying a visit."

"What?" asked Bann stupidly.

"Fasra will be flying the red flag for a few days, that's all."

"Huh?" said Thend.

"It's her time."

"Time for what?" Stador asked.

"Time for her period, you clowns. Will you get the h.e.l.l out of here so I can take care of her?"

The boys herded Charis out of the room, and I started to sob.

"Look," Naeli said after we dealt with some of the practical issues, "it's nothing to be embarra.s.sed about."

"I'm not embarra.s.sed," I said, lying a little. I hadn't liked that horrified look all the males had given me before dragging their nonbleeding carca.s.ses out of the room. "But it hurts. Is it always like this?"

"Um. Yes and no."

"Death and Justice, I hate it when people say that!"

"Calm down, honey. It won't usually be this bad, and your first one is hardly ever this bad. It's just that ..

"Mama, are you going to tell me about this or what?"

I hardly ever called Naeli "Mama," and it seemed to steady her a little.

"All right," she said. "Back in the Bargainer village, girls were always sealed to the service of the G.o.d in the Ground when they reached their menarche."

"Sure. But-Oh. You did something."

"Yes. There's a spell you can use to delay a girl's menarche."

"I didn't know you knew any magic."

"I don't know much. But every woman in that village knew this one. We all wanted our daughters free as long as possible. I always hoped I'd find a way to get you out before you were sealed to the Boneless One-and that's how it worked out, thanks to your uncle Roble."

"And Morlock."

"Yes. Him." I got the feeling Naeli wasn't so pleased with Morlock tonight. "Anyway, after we were freed, I stopped renewing the spell. I didn't realize that it would make your first period so severe, but that must be what's happening. I'm sorry, baby: I'm not much of a witch."

"Oh, you're all right, I guess." This was the point to say something mushy, and I was grateful to her. In a way, that was the problem. Did my pain at the moment pay for what she had done? Or had she paid some price I knew nothing of? Probably the latter. So my debt to her was increased by whoknows how much. That depressed me even further.

At some point, in spite of the depression and the pain, I slept. But not nearly long enough.

"Fasra, get up," Stador was saying.

I replied in the negative. That was the gist of it, anyway.

"This isn't a joke. The house is surrounded."

You know all those times you wonder whether you want to go on living? If something actually threatens you during one of those moments, you make your mind up in a hurry.

I sat up, told him to get out so I could change my rags, and got up before he was out of the door.

All the others were down on the first floor. I didn't get there much after Stador, with my pack on my back.

"Who's outside?" I asked Naeli.

"Imperial troops," she said. "They seem to be waiting for something, but they're all around the house."

"They're waiting for reinforcements," Charis guessed. "They're expecting Morlock to be in here. And they have gla.s.s lizards. Gla.s.s lizards from Kaen. They're the best tracking animals in the world. We can never get away."

"So where do we go?" I asked.

"Exactly where they'll expect," Naeli said. "Down through the sewers."

"Why go where they expect us to go?"