Uneasy Alliances Part 16

Dayme sprawled over the altar and over the woman's limp form, his fingers clutching her thighs for support. He sucked for air to relieve his tortured lungs and tried to fight the weakness that numbed his limbs. He lunged with the point of his sword, but his strength faded too swiftly, and his foe retreated beyond his reach.

The wizard flattened against the wall, and his fear was a tangible force. Then, fear turned to anger as he realized Dayrne's impotence. "All the way from Carronne I came to this miserable dung-hole!" He was still careful to keep his blades touching and pointed at the gladiator. "The tales had reached even that far of the strange affairs transpiring here, stories of G.o.ds and demons and dead souls that walked the streets. Clearly, there was power here for the taking, and who deserved it more than I? So I came disguised as one of the laborers who build your walls."

Dayrne hissed through his teeth, barely able to form words. "Human sacrifice? Never in our empire-not even in this rotten town!" He tried to glance over his shoulder, wondering if he could make it back to the safety of the entrance where the wizard's spell didn't reach. But he knew that was useless. It was a struggle even to raise up on one elbow and look his foe in the eye.

"The sacrifices are to placate whatever G.o.d has stolen my magic!" The wizard dared to come closer. "In Carronne I was a hazard-cla.s.s magician -curse the fate that brought me here! My simplest spells go completely awry. All those stories of power-there must be some secret!"

"No secret," Dayme managed. "Go back to Carronne." He dragged one foot, then the other, under himself and tried to stand. It was useless.

His heart hammered against his ribs; the room spun crazily. The wizard's face swam out of focus. "Tasfalen's,"-he fought to get the words out"magic burned out!"

But the wizard didn't hear or didn't understand. "I'll find the G.o.d who has cursed me and broken my skill and offer blood to appease him, until I'm strong again-strong enough to break your secret and seize the magic that pervades this city!"

Another voice called suddenly from the entrance. "It's always good to have dreams." Dayrne recognized it immediately and turned to shout a warning. All he managed to do was fall. Daphne didn't spare him a glance. "Have a long one in your death sleep." Her dagger flashed across the s.p.a.ce.

The wizard cried out and bounced against the wall, clutching his shoulder. When he straightened. Daphne's blade protruded near his collar bone. A wet stain blossomed rapidly on his dark garment. Still, he managed to lift his own daggers and slam the points together and breathe his Word of Power.

Dayme thought his heart would burst. From the comer of his eye he saw Daphne double over as she stepped across the threshold with drawn sword. The weapon tumbled from her gripBut then, impossibly, she began to laugh. She straightened, threw back her head and let the mirth flow from her lips. She looked around for her sword, but as she bent to retrieve it she tripped on her own foot and fell, only to clamber up again laughing.

Dayrne felt it, too- The hand that squeezed his heart began, instead, to tickle it. His pain turned slowly into renewed energy. Strength flooded his limbs. He chuckled. Then, uncontrollably, he laughed. He looked at the bodies suspended on the walls, at the prost.i.tute bound to the cross, at the astonished expression on the wizard's face.

It was all so funny!

The wizard smashed his daggers together, cursing, and stamped his foot. With a bellow he struck them once more. The blades shattered under the impact, and the pieces fell at his feet. His face paled, and his mouth gaped. Then, gathering his robes about him, he raced from the room and into the tunnel.

Daphne shot out a foot as if to trip him, but he was already gone. She rolled kittenlike onto her back, clutched her stomach and howled.

Moments pa.s.sed before the twisted spell dissolved. Dayme got to his feet, wiping spittle from his chin. He sheathed his sword and turned to help the princess.

But Daphne rose on her own. "If you breathe a word of this," she threatened, red-faced, "I'll wear your mouth for a garter."

"Just see to that one," he snapped, pointing to the prost.i.tute on the altar. "Later we'll talk about your following me. I told you this was personal business."

She put a hand on his chest before he could pa.s.s her. "You're my business," she answered stubbornly, her gaze hard and glittering. "Good trainers are rare."

He regarded her for an instant, then remembered the wizard. "We'll talk," he said, and he ran into the tunnel.

The echo of fleeing footsteps sounded from the direction of the Promise. Dayrne sped after, drawing his blade once again. He quickly pa.s.sed the final lamp and plunged ahead. The darkness, though, forced him to slow. He put a hand to the wall and hurried as rapidly as he dared, cursing under his breath.

The wizard's footsteps faded. Had he reached the tunnel's end at the shrine of Us? If he had emerged, Dayme knew he might never find him.

His answer came as he spied the shaft of moonlight that lanced the blackness. But strange sounds wafted through the opening, swelling as he approached-shouts and curses, high, frantic voices: Dayrne raced toward the moonlight. It had to be the prost.i.tutes! He took the steps two at a time and ascended into open air.

The women of the Promise surrounded the wizard in a wide ring. He spun in confusion, weakling brandishing Daphne's dagger. It gleamed wetly with his blood. The wh.o.r.es, too, waved daggers, the small weapons they wore in their garters. Still, they didn't know their foe's power!

Dayme tried to warn them. "Asphodel!"

At his shout, the wizard whirled. Their eyes met for an instant. Hatred and anger burned in that furious gaze, and Dayme felt a force reach out for him.

The prost.i.tutes saw their chance. They fell on the wizard, hacking and stabbing with their tiny blades. Arms rose and plunged with frantic outrage and swiftly blackened with the blood of their stalker.

Dayme could only stare as the wizard sank under the onslaught. The women did not stop. They stabbed and stabbed, giving release to all the rage and terror they had lived with the past nights. Then, Asphodel stepped back gasping and wide-eyed, her white dress a stained ruin. Dayme went slowly to her side.

"Who was he?" she asked, barely able to speak as she trembled.

She might have been a spectre that haunted the park the way she looked. Dayme wiped a smear of blood from her cheek and patted back the hair that had fallen around her face. "He came from Carronne," he finally answered. "I never learned his name."

Asphodel sighed and looked over her shoulder. The wh.o.r.es stood away from their grisly work. Pieces of the corpse lay hacked and scattered around their feet. The women stared from one to the other with expressions that betrayed confusion in some, fury and vindication in others. One by one they drifted back into the bushes. From somewhere in the foliage came the sound of weeping.

"I guess it doesn't matter," Asphodel said. "One of my ladies found this opening, and we waited to see who came out. I knew it had something to do with my missing ones." She sighed again and peered into the tunnel's gloom. "They're dead, aren't they, Tiana and all the rest?"

He nodded quietly. "All but the one he took tonight. She's still alive, though somewhat battered."

Daphne chose that moment to emerge from the opening with the prost.i.tute slung over her shoulder. She dumped her burden unceremoniously in the gra.s.s.

Dayrne frowned and knelt beside the woman. "He didn't hit her that hard. She should have come around by now,"

Daphne spat. "She did. Then, she took a good look at-" the one-time princess, hesitated, looked at Asphodel, and spoke more softly. "She saw her friends and realized how close she'd come to joining them." Daphne shrugged and c.o.c.ked her head to one side. "She fainted."

Asphodel glanced from Dayme to Daphne and back again. She realized who the princess had meant, and that the younger woman had tried to spare her some horror. Her old eyes misted over, but she blinked back any tears- "Some of my brothers will bring them up in the morning," Dayme said gently. "There's no need for you to see them the way they are."

"They're family," Asphodel answered. She held up her dagger. With a look of disgust she flung it aside and wiped her hand on her dress. "I'll be here to help."

Dayme started to protest, but Daphne touched his sleeve. "It's her decision," she told him. "You know, personal business." Then, with her usual tact, she pointed to the wizard's remains. "Besides, they don't look any worse than that."

Asphodel walked to the corpse and stared at it for a long moment. Daphne went with her, bent down and retrieved her dagger from the ground near the wizard's hand. "It's Chenaya's," she informed Dayme. "She'd be p.i.s.sed if Host it." Then, she turned away and vanished into the park.

Alone, the old wh.o.r.e turned to Dayrne and touched his arm. "Thank you," she said.

"For what?" he answered with a shake of his head. "I didn't do anything."

It was almost true. With all the blood spilled this night, his was the only clean blade in the park.

Daphne scandalized the palace by arriving, not in a gown, but in an outfit borrowed from Chenaya's closets. She looked as beautiful and deadly, all in soft black leather, gleaming with buckles and ringlets and weapons. Her night-black hair flowed over her shoulders. Pride stiffened her spine; she lifted her chin high as she strode into the Hall of Justice.

Two seats had been placed upon the dais. Kadakithis and Shupansea sat there side by side, looking down upon her. Molin Torchholder stood beside the Beysa, Walegrin by his prince. It was the audience she'd requested and no one else. Her husband simply had no sense of theatrics. But then, he had no sense, period.

She looked up and met his stare as she stopped at the lowest step. His jaw gaped in astonishment. It was the acknowledgment she had sworn to get from him-and it tasted sweet indeed.

"Second thoughts, my husband?" She rested one hand on her hip, taunting him.

His hands fluttered. "You look-" he bit his lip and cast a sidewise glance at Shu-sea. The sentence hung unfinished. The Beysa at that instant looked less like a carp, more like a shark protecting her catch.

Daphne had expected to gloat, to draw out the moment of her triumph, but she found now she had little stomach for that. Better, she decided, to end this quickly, break her ties with this pathetic little man, and get on with her new life.

"You want a divorce, Kitty-Kat?'' She looked at each of the four on the dais and grinned. It's all a game, Chenaya had once told her, everything is a game. Daphne realized the truth of that. These were the master gamers of Sanctuary she faced. "These are my terms."

"List them, Princess, and we'll consider."

Daphne shot Molin a withering look. "Shut up, Torch. This is between Kadakithis and me. You're merely here to witness, and I extend you that courtesy only because I know you're even more eager for these two to wed than they are. I half expect you'll share the marriage bed."

Molin maintained an outward calm, but Daphne knew him better than that. She turned back to her husband.

"First, I want the estate immediately south and adjacent to Land's End. It's abandoned right now, but the way people are flocking to this p.i.s.shole these days it's not likely to be so for long." She paused, and her brows narrowed, "I require agreement. None of this is negotiable."

Kadakithis rubbed his thinly bearded chin and glanced at Molin. The Torch gave a not-very-subtle nod, and Daphne smiled to herself. Puppet and puppet-master.

"We'll draw up a deed," the prince answered.

"Second term," she continued. "One half of your personal fortune."

Kadakithis rose from his seat. His eyebrows shot upward, and he gripped the arms of his chair to steady himself. "What!"

Daphne clucked her tongue. "Won't it be worth it to get rid of me? Besides, think of all that gold on the Beysib ships. I'm sure your bride will offer a dowry worthy of a man like you."

The prince sank back into his seat. At last, he waved a hand. "All right, d.a.m.n you! Yes, I'll even agree to that. As you say," he added caustically, "it'll be worth it to be free of you." He glowered down from his high position. "You're not at all the sweet wife you used to be,"

The accusation caught her completely off guard, and she barked a short laugh. To her utter surprise she found within herself a sudden sympathy for Shupansea.

"Third term," she said, regaining control of herself. 'T retain all my t.i.tles and any property in Ranke that Theron hasn't seized along with the throne."

"Done," Kitty-Kat agreed disinterestedly. "What else?" She rested a hand on the pommel of her sword and let go a small, inaudible sigh. "There was one more term, originally," she said. She faced Walegrin and waited until he shifted uncomfortably. "I wanted the first knuckle of the little finger of your right hand to wear on a chain about my neck," she told the garrison commander. She watched all their faces as she said it, and she wasn't disappointed by their reactions. "Look at them," she said, addressing him directly. "They'd have given it to me, too."

Molin stepped to the very edge of the platform, but Kadakithis caught his sleeve and pulled him back. "You're insane!" her husband shouted.

"That's right!" she shot back. "You made me insane when you abandoned me to the gentle mercies of Scavengers' Isle!"

Only Shupansea kept a measure other composure. She leaned forward, regarding Daphne with sudden interest. "Why our commander?"

Daphne faced Walegrin again. "You betrayed the Lady Chenaya," she charged, "and let Zip go free after she handed the little b.a.s.t.a.r.d over to you. Now, the common people of the city shower her name with praise and beflower her gate while Molin and the powerbrokers of Sanctuary rant and rave about her so-called treachery. Yet, no one speaks of your treachery, Walegrin. You made love to her, then you betrayed her. You helped shape her plan, and you killed piffles right beside the rest of us." She stabbed a finger at the Torch and Kitty-Kat. "Then, on their orders, you freed the man who murdered your little niece and gutted your own sister with an ax." She gave him a cold look, finding small reward when he turned away from her gaze. "You've thrown away your honor, Commander. Molin and his cronies may praise you for your obedience and sense of duty. But the common men and women of this town know you now. Look in their eyes the next time you walk the streets. You'll find reflected there nothing but scorn."

She turned to Molin who seemed ready to swoop down on her like the carrion bird he so resembled. "Keep your toy soldier, Torchie. But keep him away from me. He pollutes the air."

"I am curious," Shupansea spoke, leaning forward. "If you wanted our commander's finger, why did you change your mind?"

Daphne allowed a wan smile. "It's nothing any of you will ever grasp," she answered. "But I found true honor in this city last night among some wh.o.r.es in a dirty park, where a group of women struggle every moment of their lives to eke out an existence you and I would die to avoid. For all their misery they take care of each other like a kind of family." She hesitated. "I've found a similar kind of honor at Land's End, but you wouldn't understand that, either. Walegrin can keep* his finger." She c.o.c.ked her head to one side, recalling her night in the tunnel and an odor that still lingered unpleasantly in her memory. "It would have made a smelly bauble, anyway."

She gave her back to the masterplayers, then, winning her best victory by walking away from the game.

Just beyond the Processional Gate she found Dayme waiting. He'd washed and changed since the morning's training session, and his essence was sweeter than the day, itself. "I thought I'd walk you back," he said.

She grinned up at him. He really was the hugest man she'd ever seen, yet she found in him the most unexpected gentleness. Chenaya was a fool not to love him. Daphne shielded her eyes from the sun as she gazed at his face. The brightness lent a halo to his features.

"How about I buy you a mug, instead," she offered. "You pick the tavern. Make it someplace raunchy."

He frowned. But then, he clapped an arm around her shoulders, and his lips curled upward into the barest smile-t

"A gold sheboozh," she answered, "that you can't."

THE VISION OF LALO.

Diana L. Paxson

Lalo twitched the mask back into position over his nose and mouth and dipped his brush into the gray paint once more. Another three feet of this wretched wall and he could stop for a bit. The brush rasped the coa.r.s.e canvas, deftly suggesting texture; a touch of black gave it depth, and another stone was finished. From somewhere out front he heard hammering. The opening of the second production of Sanctuary's first and only resident theatre troupe was two days away. The painter wondered if either their rehearsals or his sets would be finished in time.

Lalo stepped back to consider his work and grimaced beneath the mask. Even with shading the canvas looked like a collection of blobs. He supposed that from the audience the flat would create the illusion of reality. It occurred to him then that if he took off his mask and breathed on those rocks that they would be reality. . . . Was he resisting the temptation because he was not sure the stage would take the weight of the stones, or because he feared that he had lost the power to make them real?

Lalo told himself it was a small price to pay for the return to (relative) normalcy in Sanctuary. Perhaps his son Wedemir and that girl he was courting up at the Palace would be able to raise all of their children in peace. Except when some spell-supported building collapsed as its magic decayed, the debris of the explosion of sorcery that had nearly destroyed Sanctuary had been cleared away- The town was rebuilding. Lalo supposed he should be glad. But the period of escalation in magic had also seen the flowering of his own creativity. He was not sure now which of his talents were magic, and which had been simple craftsmanship. He felt half-blinded-see.

-"head-blind" the mages called it. But he dared not try to And so he was painting scenery for a production of something called The Accursed King, which seemed more depressing the more of it he heard.

"We'll take it again from the beginning, then," said Feltheryn over his shoulder as he strode onto the stage- "Two days to opening, dear G.o.ds! But at least this piece can offend no one . . ," The repercussions of the troupe's first production were only now beginning to fade in public memory.

Feltheryn the Thespian, the troupe's founder, director and star, took his place before a post that was going to become a tree as soon as the carpenters got around to it, and thumped his staff against the floor. Simpering girlishly, Glisselrand scurried across the stage after him and took his elbow.

"Tell me, my daughter, where have you come to now With your blind old father? What is this place, my child?"

Feltheryn's stentorian tones rang out with remarkable resonance for a monarch as enfeebled as he was supposed to be.

"It's little I ask, and am well content with less.

Three masters-pain, time, and the royalty in the blood- Have taught me patience-"

The stage shuddered as something large and heavy hit the floor. Feltheryn broke off and turned. "Patience!" he roared. "G.o.ds give me patience-I have to work with fools!"

"It was the hoist," came a plaintive voice from backstage. "It wasn't my fault, master-the rope slipped-"

"Lempchin! You misbegotten son of a sheep-swiving Rankan!" He gathered breath, and ominous tones rolled across the stage. "What fell?"

There was a silence, and Lalo bent to gather up the brushes that had been knocked from their stand.

"It was ... the thunder machine."

"Vashanka's rod! Do you know how much that thing cost? A gift from the Prince himself it was, and after everything-" he took a deep breath, then launched into a monologue of sorrows as eloquent as anything in the play.

Lalo found that he had put the brushes back into their case instead of on the stand, and grimaced. How could anyone be expected to painteven to paint scenery-with this sort of thing going on? Darkness had fallen an hour ago. Gilla would already be angry with him for being late, but perhaps dinner would not be completely cold. He was hungry and tired. As Feltheryn stormed backstage to survey the damage, Lalo finished capping his paints and putting them away, strapped the brush case to his belt, and headed for the door.

"Oh Lalo, are you going already?" Glisselrand called after him. He mumbled something about Gilla and continued up the aisle. "Yes, do give my love to dear Gilla-I'm working on a shawl for her-rose-colored yarn with lemon yellow and a lovely purple from Carronne. . . ." As the door closed behind him Lalo could still hear her describing the color scheme.

He shook his head. The tea cozy had been bad enough. The thought of a shawl large enough to cover Gilla. ... He shuddered. And Gilla would insist on keeping it! He wondered if he could persuade her to keep it somewhere out of sight. . . . Still contemplating the horror of Glisselrand's sense of color unleashed on something the size of a shawl, he hurried on through the darkness.

Lalo had rounded the comer of the Serpentine and was starting down when he became aware of the footsteps behind him. Close-too closethey must have been waiting in an alley, or perhaps his own abstraction had kept him from hearing them before. Reaching for his knife, he started to turn.