WOULD YOU PLEASE, said Loogan, "go over that again?"
Jame did. It was midmorning by now on the day after the Feast. She was explaining, for the third time, the series of experiments that had led to Gorgo's sudden demise and the theories that had prompted them. Then she told him about her adventures in the loft.
"As soon as I realized that the dead gods weren't beyond help," she concluded, "it occurred to me that something similar but more extensive might be done for Gorgo: I think your god can be resurrected if only we can restore his peoples' faith in him."
"That's all very well," said Loogan, "but how do we accomplish that when I wasn't even able to make them keep what little they had left?"
"That is a problem," Jame admitted, "but I can't help feeling that there's a way. After all, Gorgo must have been a fairly important deity once to have rated even a small temple in the District. Perhaps our answer lies in the past. What was he like in the beginning?"
"Foolish as it sounds, I don't know. Back during , the Skyrr-Metalondrian War, Great-great-great-great-great-grandfather Bilgore, who was high priest then, seems to have made some fairly extensive doctrinal changes. Then, to make sure there would be no turning back, he destroyed the early records and forbade the acolytes and celebrants ever to pass on the old ways again."
"All the old documents were destroyed? What about those two I found in the idol's hands?"
"Oh, those," he said. "They have nothing to do with Gorgo directly. You've been interested in them from the start, haven't you, or at least since the night the reservoir was drained. They're part of a secret that only the high priest of the order is supposed to know, but it doesn't matter anymore, does it? No secrets, no priests, no god. If you really want to know, come with me." And he led the way down the stairs, a plump, oddly dignified figure in a darned under tunic.
They went across the outer chamber and into the little courtyard beyond, with its now-silent fountain. Cracks of blue sky showed above between the overhanging buildings. In the farthest corner, in the deepest shadows, Loogan bent and slid his fingers under the edge of a large flagstone. Obviously counterweighted, it rose easily, disclosing the first steps of a spiral stair dimly lit with light spheres. They descended.
It was a dizzying way down, farther beneath the streets of Tai-tastigon than Jame had ever imagined that one could go. Plaques set in the outer wall indicated the burial slot of many a hierarch, while squares of rock crystal gave distorted, highly unwelcome glimpses of each occupant. At the bottom, tucked into a widened sweep of the stairs, was a high, conical room lined with shelf after shelf of scrolls, extending up out of sight.
"These," said Loogan, with a gloomy sort of pride, "are the elder archives of Tai-tastigon. They were hidden here during the last battle of the Skyrr-Metalondrian War when it looked as if the winner, whichever side it was, would celebrate by razing the city. The only ones who knew about the transfer besides the novices who effected it were the Senior Archivist (who was one of us) and Great (times five) Grandfather Bilgore. The novices were given a very handsome wall slot each for their pains. The battle ended quite suddenly when the Archiem of Skyrr and the Metalondrian king decided it would be better to make Tai-tastigon a charter city and have it pay them both for the privilege than for one side to slaughter the other and then destroy the place. The Senior Archivist was brained by a flowerpot upset by a lady on an upper terrace while both were watching events below on the plain.
"That was when my ancestor began to change things. He seems to have had the idea that just in case anyone else did know where the documents were, the alterations would make them that much harder to find. Also, I think, it was an excuse to arrange affairs more to his liking. He got away with it too, on both counts. You're the first outsider to see this room in nearly two hundred years."
"But if it was such a secret," said Jame, "why risk betraying it by taking manuscripts up into the temple?"
"Had to," said the priest with a shrug, beginning to slide back into the depression from which his bit of story-telling had temporarily roused him. "They have to be resanctified regularly to stay here. . . or did. One a day, twenty-two years to a cycle. If you want to stay, stay. I'm going back to bed."
He departed. Jame heard his slippers shuffle up the steps and felt the dead, earthen silence close in their wake. She was alone in the midst of one of the richest troves of its kind in all Rathillien.
THE SHROUD-LIGHT of dawn lay heavy on the southern plain, giving it the texture of a singularly dull tapestry woven with shadows. Birds flitted over it under a pewter sky. The road to Tai-Abendra, a ribbon of silver in the gloom, stretched away to the south, following the Ebonbane's dark curve. The small caravan was already a long way away. Jame and Dally stood on the battlements of the outer wall, watching it go.
"Do you suppose," said Dally, "now that Canden's gotten safely away, the old man might simply let him go?"
"I doubt it. He'll probably have about two days' grace before his grandfather finds out he's gone, and then maybe two hours more if the Sirdan's spies are slow about picking up his trail."
"Then we shall have to muddy it a bit for them. There are plenty of people who will be glad to lay some false scents for the Sirdan's hell-hounds. Damn!" he said suddenly, torn between exasperation and amusement. "All these intrigues, all this deceit. Of course, we'll do away with the lot after the election; but Canden is well out of it for now. I almost wish I were going with him."
"I wish you were too," said Jame, "and myself as well."
Dally glanced at her sharply, hoping to see one thing, finding another that confused and disconcerted him. What had he said now?
"Well, it's time we were getting back," said Jame, turning from the parapet. "After all, if we're going to be dragging bagged foxes around town for the benefit of the pack, it won't do to be seen waving good-bye from up here."
They crossed over to the inner wall on the same rope walk Jame had used when she plunged to Jorin's rescue.
There was the cattery, there the pool, but (thank God) no man carrying a sack from one to the other. Out in the foothills, the ounce would probably be wondering where she was, since this was the time when she normally brought him some food to supplement whatever he might have caught. He would have to wait a little longer.
They were on the Rim now.
"What a night!" said Dally. "I thought they'd never get everything packed. Canden's going to have a fine time with that lot if they're always so disorganized."
He found he was talking to himself. As he turned to look for his companion, there was a sudden scuffling sound in an alley that he had just passed and then a loud yelp. Running back, Dally found Jame seated on a small rodent-faced individual whose right arm and wrist had achieved an unusual angle in her grasp.
"Look what I've caught," she said, adding in a dangerously pleasant tone to her victim: "Must I promise to nail the ears of every spy who comes crawling after me to the nearest door in order to be left alone?"
The little man made violent signs to the negative. By now, virtually no one in Tai-tastigon took the Kencyr's word lightly.
"But Jame, it's all right," Dally protested, approaching them. "It's only one of the Creeper's men."
"What?"
The spy, taking advantage of her start, twisted free and sent her tumbling back into the wall as he scrambled to his feet. She was up almost as quickly as he, but ignored him as he scuttled away.
"How long has that creature had people following you?" she demanded. "Does your brother know?"
"Why, I suppose so," said Dally. "It's for my own protection, after all. Mendy worries about me. Stop looking at me like that—it's true. Listen, it's been a long night. Let's go to the Moon and have a drink. Then I can start being devious and you can go on with whatever it is you've been doing in the Temple District this last fortnight. Come on, let's."
"LET'S SEE," Raffing was saying owlishly, "who else will be up for promotion when the Guild Council convenes? You, Darinby, for one. Drink to all candidates for master!"
"Including Bane?" asked Patches mischievously.
"Man's a rogue," said Raffing, twisting about in his chair and scowling horrifically at the rest of the Moon's common room, which as usual at this early hour was full of thieves relaxing after their night's work. "A rogue, I say! Bought his commission. Everybody knows it."
"So they do, old chap," said Darinby soothingly. "You needn't shout it at them. I suppose," he added, trying to return the conversation to its original channel, "that the Talisman will be on the lists too, for a journeyman."
"Same difference," said an apprentice from the Rim. "Theocandi's pupil uses his father's money; Penari's, his master's secrets. Either way, it isn't fair."
"Oh, come now. Secrets? What master doesn't pass along his own, if the student is worthy?"
"You know what I mean," said the other stubbornly. "Look at the work he's done: the Sky King's britches, the Peacock Gloves, and half a dozen other things that no one else has even been able to touch, much less take. That's not common, honest skill, no, not any more than Penari's theft of the Eye of Abarraden was. There's sorcery in it, or worse."
"Jealousy too, I should think. It may be only a game to him—I mean to her," he corrected himself with a grimace, "but by all the gods she plays it fairly and well."
"Drink to the Talisman!" roared Raffing, echoed by Patches.
"I still say it's not right," muttered the Rim apprentice, "and what's more," he added, on a surge of false courage, "if he turns up here tonight, I'll tell him so to his face!"
"Then let us hope 'he' doesn't," said Darinby softly, remembering the death of Scramp. "For both your sakes."
"ON SECOND THOUGHT," said Jame, "let's not go to the Moon after all. We're closer to home here anyway. If we ask her nicely, maybe Cleppetty will make us honey cakes for breakfast."
IN A ROOM hung with silver and blue, Men-dalis was pacing back and forth. Wherever he walked, the light went with him, clinging softly to his hair and clothes, the god-glow of Dalis-sar's true son. For the thousandth time, he was counting up the odds.
Masters Gold and Shining were Theocandi's; there was no helping that. Mistress Silver still kept her own council, but was said to be furious with the Sirdan over her son. A pity the boy had only been exiled. The four Provincials were, of course, his. (He would not learn until much too late that one of them was not.) Jewel? The man might jump either way. A show of confidence would have more weight with him than bribes, but not so with Glass or the master thieves' two representatives. There was the crux, for those four votes might well decide the election. Theocandi thought he had bought them. Men-dalis knew that, with the proper backing, the old miser could be outbid; and that backing he would ,have, although not until the very day of the Council. His supporter had been inflexible about that. His integrity was under suspicion, he had said, and he must establish it at least in the public eye before daring to draw such a sum from the city treasury. Something about dispensing justice in an undeclared trade war on Winter's Eve . . .
With a start, Men-dalis found that the Creeper had entered the room and was walking with him nearly at his elbow. The thin, scratchy voice began its whispered report. Men-dalis listened to most of it without comment, asked a few questions, then suddenly turned on the master spy and said, quite loudly, "What?"
The information was repeated. He began to pace again, frowning.
"Well, what of it? If Dally helps that Kencyr hoyden to embarrass Theocandi, all the better. A pity the old man's grandson got away, though; we might have found a use for him later. . . . Yes, yes, I realize that her master is the Sirdan's elder brother. Those two have been at dagger's point for a dog's age. . . . You think their rivalry is all a ruse? Yes, if that were true, the Talisman would make a good agent for Theocandi. No one would ever suspect her of it, not with the old men constantly feuding. . . . Dally? The boy's not very bright, but he can be trusted—I think. Besides, there's been talk of Penari's professional secrets again. If Dally can worm them out of his 'prentice, it will be quite a gem in our crown. . . . In love with her? Well, well, I don't know . . ."
Back and forth he went, arguing as though with himself while his familiar kept pace one step behind him, its avid face out of his sight. The whispering voice went on and on, and bit by bit the room began to dim.
JAME THOUGHT at first that she had begun to hallucinate. In that silent, underground room, time might have stopped for all one could tell. How many hours had it been since she had parted with Jorin on the hillside and Dally (who had gone out with her) at the gate? Two? Ten? And nearly twenty-four awake before that, helping Canden prepare for his flight. No, one didn't begin to imagine things in that length of time. She read the manuscript again, then rolled it up and went quickly out of the room and up the stairs with it in her hand.
Loogan was sitting on the steps to the upper apartment. "Well, it's happened," he said gloomily. "My acolyte's father has gotten the Priests' Guild to annul his contract to me. I can't say that I blame him."
"Never mind that now. Listen: 'By day and night, the battle raged, wheels of fire dashing over the seared plain while the heavens burned. Lances of lightning had Heliot and Dalis-sar, the moon for a shield. Their swords were tongues of flame, of woven comet's hair their armor. The earth trembled when they met, and the old gods fled to the deep places thereof to shiver in the dark.' "
"Why read me all this?" said Loogan wearily. "What difference can it possibly make?"
"Listen, dammit! 'One alone stayed, saw through the green roof of his home the terrible conflict, felt the earth's agony, the forests burning, the waters boiling. And when Dalis-sar had won, Gorgiryl came from his sea-deep house to plead for the scorched earth. Taking pity on him and on the blackened land, the new lord of the sun raised him to the heavens so that his tears falling might restore the sunken seas, bring life to the charred fields.'
"Now, is that or is that not, in unscrambled form, part of the ninth canticle of your evening service?"
"Yes," said the priest, looking puzzled, "but the name isn't right."
"That's just the point. It is. Look, I've been going over the religious tracts in your collection this past fortnight, and so far I haven't found one reference to Gorgo, which is ridiculous considering his obvious antiquity. Gorgiryl, however, gets at least a mention from nearly everybody because he was one of the few deities to make the jump from the Old Pantheon to the New essentially unaltered. Then along came your multiple great grandfather Bilgore. It wasn't just Gorgo's name that he changed, either . . . you're looking remarkably blank. Am I going too fast for you?"
"N-no. I'm told I always look that way just before the rotten eggs hit."
"Well, this is more on the order of a spinach custard— just as messy but potentially more nourishing. As I was saying, the old attributes seem to have been kept, but not with the same emphasis . . . and that's where things began to go sour for poor old Gorgo—pardon, Gorgiryl. Instead of the tears of life—rain, that is—you have sterile salt water; instead of the world's salvation, endless sorrow. It's the whole myth frozen in the wrong place, with everything distorted to make its lowest point look like its proper end. What easier way to turn a simple, rather dignified religion on its ear? You're still looking blank. Come, I'll show you an example, the best one of all."
She took him by the arm and led him half against his will to the threshold of the inner chamber. Neither had entered it since the night its occupant had died. The basins were still there, also the short scroll peeking over the idol's webbed fingers; but more vivid than either was the memory of the bowed, bewildered figure in its garish finery that had stood trembling before them for so short a time.
"As the man that Bilgore made him," said Jame, "he was ludicrous." Then she pointed at the statue looming dark and cool in the shadows. "But as a giant frog . . . ?"
IT WAS EARLY EVENING on a day some three weeks into autumn, and the light was failing rapidly. Marc put down the tiny figure he had been carving. The rough form was there— the cowled head, outstretched arms, even some folds of the enveloping garment—but he didn't trust himself with the finer details at this time of night. Ah, but it felt good to have a bit of work in his hands again. He had almost forgotten the pleasure of making small, cunningly fashioned objects, not to mention his old dream of becoming a master craftsman before necessity and his own remarkable physique had defeated all such gentle ambitions. If he had a hearth of his own, he might have retired to it now to perfect this skill. Instead, all he possessed after a long life of service was his honor—and a few friends to brighten the way.
Still, one might do worse.
A mouse scurried across a beam overhead. Boo was getting lazy, Marc thought, staring up contemplatively at another sample of his handiwork. He and Rothan had had quite a time repairing the loft after its midnight visitor. Matters could easily have been worse, though: without Jame, the top two stories would probably have collapsed into the hall.
She was clever, that lass, but more than a bit strange. Marc knew how afraid many Kencyrs were of people like her, but he himself had seen too much of life to take fright at something a little odd. He wondered idly how much Highborn blood she had, all Shanirs necessarily possessing at least a trace. A quarter at most, probably. Pure Highborn women and even many half-bloods were strictly sequestered and used by their men folk to bind together the ruling houses of the Kencyrath. Those with less Highborn blood, especially if it came with Shanir traits, could receive some pretty rough treatment. That might explain Ishtier's initial hostility toward Jame.
Ishtier. Strange things certainly happened to Kencyrs in this city, Marc thought, shaking his head. Here he was carving the image of one dead god for a small household shrine while Jame acted as temporary acolyte to another and their own priest set traps to snare them both. Then there was Bane, who acted like a Shanir, but (as far as Marc could tell) wasn't one, and that old Kencyr, Dalis-sar, deified. No wonder few of the Kencyrath stayed in Tai-tastigon longer than they could help.
So what are you doing here now, old man?
A wail split the air, breaking his line of thought. Someone's baby? No, cats—squaring off in front of the inn directly below. There was a covered chamber pot near at hand. Marc flipped off the lid and tossed the contents over the parapet without bothering to look down.
"Hey!" said a familiar voice below in sharp protest.
JAME HAD BEEN in the Lower Town that afternoon, checking on Taniscent. Dusk was gathering and the byways were rapidly clearing of their shabby traffic when she left Patches' home. To save time, she turned down a narrow side street, which, according to the patterns of the Maze, should have been a short-cut to the fosse that bounded the area. Several turns in, however, the lane was blocked to shoulder height with the debris of a collapsed wall. Jame climbed the mound and set off along its spine, expecting the way to open up again somewhere beyond. Eventually it did, but only into a wasteland of fire-ravaged buildings and thoroughfares so choked with rubble as to be quite invisible. To her exasperation Jame realized that she was lost. Her knowledge of the city, theoretical and practical, had made her careless, here where the lack of all customary landmarks made caution most necessary. She had forgotten how quickly Tai-tastigon could revenge itself on those who took its mysteries lightly.
It was getting dark. Silence clung bat like to the charred rafters, swelled up out of the shadowed hollows in the heaped debris. A rat scratched and snuffled in the ruins, claws scrabbling briefly on a bone-white board. To go back or forward—return to the heart of the lower Town or press on toward the deadly circle of her own temple? Night breathed in her ear, waiting to pounce.
"Salutations."
Jame started violently. A dark, elegant figure had appeared on top of a broken wall above her. "Well, look who's perching on the battlements," she heard herself say in a shaky voice. "Come down, gore-crow."
"Gladly," said Bane, and leaped.
Jame sprang backward into a defensive pose. Water flowing met fire leaping, channeled its force aside with a blur of moving bodies once, twice, and again. They broke apart, regarding each other, now that the initial shock was past, with something like satisfaction. Neither had been so well matched in a long, long time. When they met again, it was not in the whirlwind fashion of the first round but with more subtlety of attack and response on both sides. Darkness gathered about them, two lithe, shadowy forms tracing the patterns of ritual combat as old as their ancient race.
Jame could never afterward say when the fight ended and the dance began. No need to ask then where in the night her partner was, for his movements had become an extension of her own. The kantirs flowed together, water and air mingling with touches of dark fire to smolder at nerves' end, fingertips tingling with a nearness that never became contact.
Where had she done this before, and with whom? . . . a vast chamber as dark as this place was now, surrounded by blazing tripods, a canopied bed, a man dancing, his face . . . no!
Cloth ripped, and Bane sprang back in a startled exclamation. The left sleeve of his d'hen was split from the inner elbow to the wrist. On the forearm beneath, black in the moonlight, was a thickening line of blood. He regarded it with a slow, secret smile. Jame's throat tightened. Without a word, she turned and climbed the wall of jumbled beams. As she set off through the wilderness beyond, Bane was walking by her side.
"The old man knows that you helped his grandson escape," he said, as though nothing had passed between them. "I've never seen him so furious."
"Damn. That will mean assassins lurking under every flowerpot, I suppose."
"Oh, he wouldn't be so angry if it were as simple as that. At the moment, he's afraid to interfere with you at all. The bones have warned him. According to them, if he's going to win the election, you'll have something to do with it."
"What, for God's sake?"
"I shouldn't stop here if I were you," he said. "It's following us."
"It? Oh." Jame looked back, saw nothing but jagged, darkening shadows and the cusp of the old moon rising. Nevertheless, there was only one thing "it" could be, here in the Lower Town. "You don't seem very concerned," she said, resuming her pace.
"M'lord Ishtier tells me that I shouldn't be," he said cryptically. "I'm to trust in him and all will be well. But I don't think it is, even now. If that man has betrayed me, kin or not, the next time he deigns to give me an order, the results may surprise him."
"Bane, I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about. Now will you please tell me how I'm supposed to help Theocandi retain his power?"
"If he knew, he would have found a way to get rid of you without endangering his own future long before this, if only to stop the nightmares. Remember the statue at the prow of Ship Island? Every night for the past month, he's dreamed that it had your face and was brandishing his head. Have you noticed," he said, examining his arm, "that every time we meet, someone ends up bleeding?"
"I've noticed. Not very auspicious, is it?"
"That depends," he said, with an ambiguous smile. "This much at least is clear: If you stay in Tai-tastigon after the election, there'll be trouble—regardless of who wins. Don't trust Men-dalis anymore than Theocandi, despite that baby brother of his. Something nasty is brewing in that quarter, though no one seems to know exactly what. Beware of the Creeper, and also of m'lord Ishtier. Not only does our esteemed priest hate you, but there are rumors that he had more to do with the Sirdan during the last Council than either cares to admit."
"Oh? In what way?"
"My spies suggest an exchange of information, probably arcane. Theocandi is a fair Kencyr scholar, and I know that he has several of our 'lost' documents in his library that Ishtier might well have wished to see. Of course, the reverse is true too; remember, this was just before the appearance of the Shadow Thief.
"And now," he said with a sudden laugh, "having uttered my share of warning croaks, I'll flap off to the nearest rookery. Your way lies in that direction, over the fosse and home. Our murky friend will follow me, I think; it always does. But there's no point in tempting it."
On the other side of the little waterway, Jame suddenly turned. "That statue of yours . . ." she called after him. "I've just remembered. It carries two heads, not just one. In Theocandi's dream, whose was the other?"
Bane paused, a black silhouette against the sky. "Oh, didn't I tell you?" he said, the now familiar smile coming back into his voice although the dusk hid his face. "The other head was mine."
KITHRA SANK her jug into the public fountain and heaved it out again, full of water, to balance on the limestone rim. Pretending to check it for cracks, she peered over its round shoulder at the Skyrrman.
What was that man Marplet up to? He had dragged out the construction of his precious inn for nearly two years, and now, suddenly, everything must be finished at once. Even at this time of night, there were craftsmen at work inside, fitting inlaid panels around the walls. What was he readying the inn for? Kithra checked off the major, upcoming public events in her mind; the Thieves' Guild Council, several festivals in the Temple District, the biennial meeting between the Archiem of Skyrr and the Metalondrin king . . . of course, that must be it. Everyone knew that while their heralds exchanged ritual insults, the two rulers usually slipped off to spend Winter's Eve going from one tavern to another. Marplet must be hoping that they would honor him with a visit.
Ah, if she could only get the Archiem's attention for half a minute, what stories she could tell him about his "honorable" countryman! Gods, what a chance to gut that sleek pig of an innkeeper . . .
Niggen dashed out of a side street with a howl. Although he was feigning terror, Kithra recognized that detestable giggle welling up under all his clamor and wished savagely that the Talisman could be induced to knock out a few more of his teeth.
And here, as though in answer to her thoughts, was Jame herself, standing hands on hips at the mouth of the street from which Niggen had just bolted. The boy was in front of the Skyrrman now, loudly begging his father's servants for protection and casting looks of mock terror back across the square. The apparent cause of this scene regarded it with raised eyebrows and a look oddly compounded of perplexity, amusement, and distaste on her handsome face. Kithra found herself wishing, not for the first time, that the Talisman really was a boy.
At that moment, two other voices joined the uproar, cutting across it with their undisguised notes of raw hatred. Fang was stalking Boo on the very threshold of the Res aB'tyrr.
"Oh, for pity's sake," said Jame, and went to the rescue.
At the last moment, something made her look up. She saw what was falling from the loft and, with a shout of protest, leaped for the doorway, snatching up Boo en route. Fang was not so fortunate. Drenched, he backed rapidly away, shaking his head, then turned and dashed off.
"Sorry," said Marc, looking down.
Jame lugged Boo up to the loft, hoping to keep him out of further mischief. The cat continued to whuffle ferociously at nothing in particular up all three flights of stairs. He gave the impression that when set down he would bounce for some time like a clockwork toy.
When Jame had told Marc about Bane's warnings, the big Kendar said, "He's right, you know. It isn't safe for you here even now, nor for anyone else, I sometimes think. Too much is coming to a boil too fast. We Kencyrs are used to trouble, but this time most of it isn't even our own; and I'm getting too old to enjoy the thing for its own sake. What are we doing here, lass? We don't belong in this city, however entangled we're become with it. We should be going home."
Home—the broken walls, the doorways that gaped, the waiting dead—no. The images touched Jane's mind only for a second, then faded away. Home . . . no longer a place but a people whose face she barely knew but suddenly wished very much to see. The sun on spear points and the moon on shields, the rathorn cry and the charge that makes the earth shake; scrollsmen walking in their cloisters, thirty millennia of knowledge lying cool and deep in their minds; the hearth on a winter's night when friends meet; Tori . . . a place to belong. It was calling to her here in the dark, stirring her blood as the moon does the sea, and at last—after days, weeks, months of hesitation—she answered its summons.
"Yes," she said, "we should go home. Trinity knows what will happen to either of us when we get there, but we should go. Soon."
"Over the Ebonbane? The passes won't be safe for months."
"True. How about going south, either cross-country or down the Tone to Endiscar? The storm season will end soon. Then, dead water or not, we can take ship around the Cape of the Lost and reach the Central Lands by the sea route."
"You don't know what it s like down there," said Marc, grimacing. "The land is as rotten as the water, and as haunted as the north in its own way. Still, it may be our best chance at that. When should we leave?"
"Say, as soon after the election as we can manage. I'd like to set something right before I go, and it will probably take me that long at least . . . if I can bring it off at all," she added to herself, a worried look settling on her face in the darkness.
THE EVENING SERVICE had ended. Jame, by the door, watched the congregation file out, then went down to the front where Loogan was putting his cue cards back in order. Each scrap of paper had part of the revised ritual on it, gleaned from any one of a dozen different sources. With their help, supplemented by some vigorous pantomiming by Jame at the back of the room, he was attempting to replace the old, corrupt words—engraved on his memory by thirty years of use— with the new ones.
"That went quite well," said Jame, coming up to him. "I'd say that the people were impressed and pleased. They're taking the changes much better than I'd hoped. Gorgo"— they had decided to keep the old name—"probably hasn't been this popular in years."
"It helps to be a rain god in the middle of a drought," said Loogan. "Up to a certain point. You know, the people of the Far Isles have a priest-king who they believe can summon the rains at will out of his belly. If he fails, they rip him open."
"In other words, an impressive performance isn't enough. Hasn't it made any difference, getting all these people to come back?"
"None," said Loogan heavily. "He's as dead as ever, poor thing, and all that we do in his name is futile. Only a miracle can help him now."
"Hush."
A stranger was standing on the threshold, his broad shoulders nearly filled the doorway. "Are you the high priest?" he demanded.
Loogan drew himself up, some of his old authority returning. "Yes, I am," he said. "How may I serve you?"
"Huh!" said the man, giving the modest interior of the temple a quick, scornful glance. "I'm part of a delegation of farmers from the Benar Confederation, come up river to petition all the appropriate gods for rain. Damn waste of time, I say, but there you are. We must have it before Winter's Eve or the wheat crop will fail, and that will mean famine throughout the Eastern Lands. I hear that this Gurgle of yours is a rain god. What d'you charge for extra prayers?"
"Sir," said Loogan stiffly, "Where the good of the community is involved, we charge nothing."
"I should damn well hope not," said the other in a tone of satisfaction mixed with contempt for a fool who drives a poor bargain. "After all, it may be our wheat, but it's your bread." And with that he turned on his heel and stomped away. They heard his heavy boots clumping on the tiles, then the slam of the front door.
"What an odious man," said Loogan with distaste, "and what an odd sight you make, capering like that. Whatever for?"
"An idea. You wanted a miracle? Well, so did that oaf, and I think I see how we might be able to provide it!"
Three weeks before the Thieves' Guild Council, ninety-nine of the hundred landed masters—one for each district in the city—converged on the Guild Hall to choose their two representatives. Eleven candidates vied for these honored and potentially lucrative positions, six promising if elected to vote for Men-dalis at the general meeting, five for Theocandi. Each needed two-thirds of his colleagues' votes to win and was dropped from the running if his share fell to less than half that. At the end of each round in which no victor was forthcoming, all the ballots were gathered up, wrapped around the shaft of an arrow, and sent—blazing—into the sky as a sign to the rest of the thieves' community of a null vote.
This had been going on since midmorning. By nightfall, twenty-six such votes had been taken, eight candidates eliminated (one by assassination) and two citizens injured by spent arrows. Nerves were raw, tempers flared. Emotionally as well as physically the city of Tai-tastigon was tinder, waiting for the first careless spark.
Jame had gone up into the hills the night before upon learning that her master really did not intend to join his peers in the Guild Hall. This had come as a jolt to her. She had always assumed that Penari would support the Sirdan in the end, despite the former's professed neutrality. Instead, he stayed home and she fled temporarily into the countryside, not wishing to defend the old man's actions among her fellow apprentices. Her affection for him had not changed, but there was nothing in her nature that helped her to understand, much less explain, the failure of a man to stand by his own brother, however unworthy the latter might be.
Another arrow, a pinprick of light at this distance arcing into the night sky. Even with a glum Cloudie sitting on every roof with a bucket of water, didn't those fools at the Palace realize how easy it would be to set the whole town ablaze?
Here in the parched hills, she would not have dared to start a cooking fire, even if she and Jorin had found any game to prepare on one. Nonetheless, there had been food for both: hers, from the city; his, from a more puzzling source. On arrival the night before, Jame had found the remains of a stag in the back of the cave, a far larger animal than Jorin could ever have pulled down by himself. Besides, it had died with its throat ripped out, an unlikely way for an ounce with its short canines to dispatch its quarry. She could only think that he must have stolen it from a larger predator, but what beast in all the hills was big enough to have left such marks on its prey?
The grass under her hand crackled drily. The hills on all sides lifted seared slopes the color of Jorin's fur as he lay beside her. When would the rains come?
"It must be before Winter's Eve," she had told Loogan, "for the sake of the wheat and, by extension, to serve our own purpose. Remember, you're going to tell the people that if they believe Gorgo can make it rain, he will. The threat of famine should be enough to get them involved. I don't know if the faith-creating-reality aspect of this city will actually work that way, but if it does, or even if the rains simply fall in the course of nature, enough faith may be restored in Gorgo to resurrect him."
"But if it does rain, won't every god in Tai-tastigon claim the credit?"
"Let them. Gorgo is still the most likely candidate, since it was just such a miracle that made him a New Pantheon god in the first place. His people will remember that. They must. . ."
Hullo, flames—a viper's knot of them growing red and vehement in the darkness. Had those idiots managed to set the city alight after all? If so, they had started with their own house, for surely that fantastic roofline could only belong to the Palace itself. Now there was a sound coming from below, fainter than the crickets that called on all sides but somehow rising above their clamor and growing louder each moment. Shouts, cheering. So the representatives had at last been chosen. Now the real fun would begin.
THE RIM APPRENTICE was on his feet, glaring down at Raffing. "Take that back," he said through his teeth.
"Why?" said the other, giving him an insolent, somewhat blurry grin. "Everyone knows it's the truth. Your master may have been chosen as Theocandi's man, but we all know that he'll vote for whoever pays him the most."
"Liar!" screeched the apprentice, and he leaped forward with steel bright in his hand, as the startled Raffing went over backward off his bench, feet in the air.
Darinby was between the two. As the Rim thief lunged over the table in front of him, the journeyman caught his knife hand and twisted. Turned over in midair, he crashed down on his back. Tankards flew in all directions. The members of both factions, some with knives already out, froze, staring.
"Let me remind you all of something," Darinby said quietly in the sudden lull. "Open conflict between factions can be interpreted as the beginning of an undeclared guild war. If your side starts one, the Five will fine you out of existence. If they can't decide who's to blame, both parties will suffer. If, despite all this, any of you still want a fight, I suggest that you start it with me, for by all the gods I most assuredly will finish it."
There was an awkward silence. Then, one by one, the thieves sat down again, glaring at Darinby if they had the nerve to face him at all and muttering among themselves. The journeyman watched them, casually flipping the Rim thief's knife end over end. When he was sure nothing more would happen for the moment, he tossed the blade back to its owner and said pleasantly, "If I were you, I should leave. Now." The apprentice shot one last venomous look at the bemused Raffing and slipped through the crowd toward the door. Darinby resumed his seat, signaling for a new tankard to replace the one now somewhere under the table. Slowly, his heartbeat returned to normal.
In ten other public houses, three younger brothers, two nephews, and five cousins—Guild-men all—waited as he did now, with a timely warning and, if necessary, a ready blade. With luck and considerable impudence, they just might get Tai-tastigon through the night.
THEN AGAIN, thought Jame, surely there were still a few sane people left in the city. Things would be bad from now until the election, but there would always be those, longer-sighted than the rest, who would try to hold the Guild together despite itself for the future's sake.
Jorin was dozing beside her, his chin on her knee. Suddenly he woke, head jerking up, ears twitching. Jame also tensed. She seemed to smell something, a wild, musky scent not at all unpleasant but oddly stirring. No odor had ever evoked such a response from her before. She wondered briefly if it was reaching her through the filter of Jorin's senses. Then she remembered the stag carcass in the cave and leaped to her feet.
They had been sitting on a slope. The hilltop above them was crowned by a huge thorn bush whose branches spread from a solid black core out to a nimbus of fragile spikes. At its center were two points of light about five feet off the ground. They moved. The whole dark heart of the bush moved, detached itself, became a great, shadowy form gliding along the crest. Jorin, with an excited chirp, bounded up the slope to meet it. Gravely, the huge head bent to touch noses with the ounce, then lifted again, turning toward Jame. It winked, and both were gone, leaving the night empty in their wake.
Jame stared after them. "An Arrin-ken," she said out loud with awe in her voice. "I've just seen an Arrin-ken."
THERE WERE ISOLATED clashes in Tai-tastigon that night after word spread that Theocandi's chosen representative had secured one position and Men-dalis's the other, but none of these were witnessed by the guards or resulted in the death of anyone particularly notable.
Patches, on her way home, found Raffing in an alley near the Moon. Only his clothes made identification possible. Of the many knife blows struck, it was to be hoped that the first had brought death.
"I'M SORRY," said the secretary, "but Master Men-dalis doesn't have time to see you today."
"So you've been telling me for the last week. Are you sure? I'd just like to talk to him for a minute."
"Sorry," said the man again, beginning to shuffle through the papers he carried. "We are busy here, you know. The election is only a fortnight away now. Try again tomorrow. Good day."
Out again on the steps of the New Faction headquarters, Dally paused. Had someone just ducked back out of sight around the corner? Another of the Creeper's agents, probably. "Watch out for that man," Jame had told him. "I think he wants your brother all to himself, and you're in his way." He knew now that he was followed everywhere. Mendy wouldn't tell him if this was by his orders or not. Mendy wouldn't even see him. What had gone wrong between them? When the election was over, perhaps all would be well again. Yes, of course—it was only tension that made his brother act this way.
But if so, why was Dally suddenly so frightened?
SOMEONE WAS SHOUTING and others rushing about inside the Skyrrman calling to each other in excited voices.
"What now?" Ghillie said to Rothan as they stood at the Res aB'tyrr's front door, listening.
"I smell smoke," said Rothan suddenly. "Look. Something is burning, perhaps in the kitchen."
Behind the front wing of the building, a horse screamed in terror.
"No," said Ghillie the hostler sharply. "It's in the stable. Here, you!" he shouted at a servant who had come running out to the public fountain with a bucket. "D'you need any help?"
"From you?" the man replied with scorn, hurriedly dipping his vessel in the water. "Think you haven't done enough already, do you? Well, just wait. You'll pay for this, you'll pay!"
"Pay?" Ghillie repeated in confusion. "For what?"
"Quiet," said Cleppetty. She had come up behind them unnoticed and now stood fists jammed on hips, scowling at the activity across the square. "I don't like this," she said. "I don't like this at all."
AND THEN, at last, it was the dawn of Winter's Eve. Jame was asleep in the loft. The gray morning light touched the sharp line of her cheekbone and jaw, but failed to erase the darkness under her eyes. Over the last few weeks, her triple role of thief, dancer, and acolyte had taken its toll. She had lost weight and slept badly, with the growing foretaste of failure to poison her dreams. The deadline was almost here, and still it had not rained.
She was dreaming now.
Images came and went; faces whirled past like drowned rats in a river. Scramp, Hangrell, and Raffing; Theocandi and Men-dalis; Marplet and Tubain; Gorgo and Loogan dancing together, both so horribly alike. They froze, staring at each other, then shrieked and simultaneously melted away. "The Anti-God Heresy?" croaked the idol. "Don't know, couldn't care (ribbet) less. Excuse me—my constellation is rising." And it jumped, up through the smoke hole in the sky. Beams came crashing down, mounds of debris grew. A dark, elegant figure was walking across them under the old moon, an unnaturally swollen shadow at his heels. He turned, and his face was Tori's. "Shanir!" he cried. "Priest's-Bane, see what you've done!" A figure crouched before her, rings, chains, and amulets raining down from it; but surely that wasn't Loogan's corpulent form. Bent back, narrow shoulders, hooded visage, and then an altar, tessellated floor, her own ungloved hand raised as though in summons. The figure looked up. Ishtier. Shocked recognition, then hatred and something not unlike fear ripped the remaining shreds of humanity from his skull-like face.
Jame woke with a start, gasping for breath.
What time was it, she wondered confusedly. Ah, dawn . . . but if so, why was the light steadily failing, and what was that distant sound, like rocks cannoning down the mountainside? She threw back her blanket and sprang up. The sun was indeed rising, but toward it rolled such a mighty rack of clouds from over the Ebonbane that it was as if a great shroud were being pulled across the earth. Lightning flickered within the black billows, tingeing them with silver; and the thunder sounded again, closer this time. It was growing steadily darker. As Jame stood by the parapet, the wind came, slipping through the loft, lifting the black wings of her hair, and then the first chill drops of rain struck her face.
At first she could hardly believe what was happening. Then she threw back her head and gave full tongue to the great war cry of victory, waking every sleeper in the house. Before they could even ask themselves what on earth they had heard, she was gone, flying across the rooftops northward toward the Temple District, pulling on her clothes as she went.
The rain was falling harder now. Slates were slick with it, and every gutter held a raging torrent. Soon it was hard to see, even to breathe in the downpour. Jame got as far as the River Tone, then was forced down to street level opposite Edor Thulig. Both arms of the Tynnet were roaring around the island on which the Tower of Demons stood, its upper heights lost in the driving rain. When she came to the first bridge after that, Jame found that the high gates that gave access to the side streets on either side of it were shut. Puzzled, she crossed over to the north bank and loped westward toward the next intersection.
High above, a man struggled with a shutter loosened by the wind. Looking down, he saw the lone figure making its way up an avenue already half awash and shouted at it, "Get out of the street, you fool! D'you want to drown?" The shutter closed with a bang.
Jame caught her breath, realizing at last what she should have guessed immediately. She began to run. At the next bend in the road was another closed gate, but this one had a rickety ladder nailed to it. Jame sprinted for it. Already she could hear the approaching roar. Her foot was on the first rung when a wall of water twenty feet high appeared around the street's next bend. She climbed frantically, hearing it smash into the opposite houses and cannon off them. Her leg was over the top of the gate when the flash flood boomed into it.
Every board shook. A sheet of spray, exploding upward, lifted Jame neatly off her perch. She tumbled down on the far side, more through water than air, to the hard cobbles below.
It was a thoroughly bedraggled, badly limping figure that at last presented itself on the threshold of Gorgo, formerly the lugubrious god. Loogan darted across the outer room, grabbed Jame's hand and half dragged her, hopping on one foot, to the door of the sanctuary. It was raining inside almost as heavily as out, from a private miniature bank of clouds up near the ceiling. A grotesque, indistinct form cavorted about in the middle of the room, bouncing over benches, splashing boisterously in the growing puddles.
"He—ah—isn't very big, is he?" Jame said.
"No," Loogan agreed, beginning to grin, "but he's very, very green."
Solemnly, they drank to the health of the newborn god in rainwater from cupped hands.