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Chapter 2
The House of Luck-Bringers

THE FIRST THING JAME saw upon opening her eyes was the cat. It was rather hard to overlook, being very large, very close and, in fact, very solidly sitting on her chest. They stared at each other. It yawned, showing white teeth and a great expanse of pink ribbed gullet, then snuggled down with its nose tucked under her chin and one forefoot resting firmly in the hollow at the base of her throat. This made it somewhat hard to breathe. Jame raised her hand to shift the paw, then froze, staring at her arm. It was not only still there but almost healed, with nothing but white scars to mark the injuries that might well have cost her both limb and life. Dwar sleep had come in time after all.

For a moment, sheer relief made her almost dizzy. Then she began to wonder where she was and how she had gotten there.

From what Jame could see, she was lying on a cot in a small room, at the other end of which was a narrow doorway blazing like the mouth of a furnace with the level rays of the rising sun. The light made her eyes ache. She shut them for a moment, then craned backward until above and behind her a window framed with ivy leaves came into sight. Toward one edge, suddenly appearing in silhouette as a gust of wind pushed back the greenery, were several small stone heads, all frozen in fits of mad laughter.

That stirred a memory.

Jame relaxed, trying to remember what had happened after her awakening in the rain. She had slept again and dreamed that she was walking—well, clearly she had been, although out of all that time only one image remained: the façade of a house covered with small figures carved in full relief that gamboled up the walls, clustered around the windows, and clung together under the eaves, all looking like deformed children, all making gestures that bordered on the obscene. The door had opened at her touch. And beyond it?

Think. Yes, now bits of it came back: a room full of faces, of eyes wide with fear staring at her. After that, it had been like sinking into deep water, alone at first but then the familiar forms had begun to slip past in the darkness, faces, hands, hair, touching, clinging, dragging her down beyond light, beyond life . . .

The beams overhead had white roses painted on them against a cerulean blue ground. They were not part of any nightmare, past or present. Why then was it so hard to breathe?

Oh, you fool, thought Jame. It's that damn cat.

She was trying to dislodge the beast, who only responded with a loud purr, when a woman darted into the room crying, "Boo, you great lump!" and heaved it off her chest onto the floor, rump first.

"Oh, the wretch!" the newcomer exclaimed, shoving the offended feline out of the room. "I'm only gone a minute, a few seconds, and he comes sneaking in. You haven't been smothered, have you? I mean, it would be a bit much after surviving the Feast of Dead Gods to be done in by Mistress Abernia's pet tabby, wouldn't it? I'm Taniscent, by the way —Tanis to my friends." She perched on the edge of the cot and leaned forward eagerly. "Well? Don't you want to ask where you are?"

"I seem to remember lots of tables and men with ale mugs," said Jame slowly. "Everyone stopped drinking when I came in, though. Is this an inn of some sort?"

"Yes, the Res aB'tyrr—that is, the House of Luck-Bringers—and as for stopping, aiee! Some of our patrons were like to drop dead of fright when you opened that door, and the rest nearly jumped out the windows. If you hadn't gone down in a heap a moment later, there wouldn't have been a full bladder in the house."

"I'm sorry I broke up your party. But what about my arm?"

"Oh, that was a proper mess!' said Taniscent with relish. "The healer said it would have to be amputated—bitten off, preferably, if we could find someone with a suitably tame demon—but while Tubain was trying to make up his mind, it began to mend. Damnest thing he'd ever seen, the healer said; but then he'd never tended a Kencyr before. Thirteen days it took. Yes, you've been asleep that long."

Jame's startled reaction to this was cut short by the appearance of a large, dark form in the doorway. After several moments of maneuvering, it came edging sideways over the threshold and turned into a big-bellied, bald-headed man.

"Every year those frames get narrower," he said cheerfully. "So you're with us again. We'd begun to worry. I'm Tubain of Endiscar, your host. Be welcome to this house and peace be yours therein."

"Jame of the Kencyrath. Honor be to you and to your halls."

"Kencyr! Well, now, so the healer was right. We don't see many of your kind here these days except for those bound for East Kenshold or west over the Ebonbane. Where did you come from? Where are your people?"

"My people are dead." The words came flatly now, a mere statement of fact. Already the nightmare images were fading and so, she suddenly realized, was the room about her. I'm slipping again, she thought with a flicker of panic, and fixed her attention on Tubain's broad, bland face. "I came from the north."

"No one comes from that direction," the face said decisively. 'The fever must have confused you. You must have come from East Kenshold. On this side of the mountains, there's nowhere else . . ." nowhere . . . nowhere . . . nowhere . . . a word echoing in the distance, then dying away. Jame slept again.

* * *

IT WAS NOT A CAT that woke her the second time but a great clatter. She opened her eyes just in time to see Taniscent scoop a small bronze mirror off the floor, toss it on the opposite cot, and run out in a flurry of bright shawls, not noticing that her new roommate was awake. Jame stared after her. When they had first met that morning, she had assumed that Tanis was at least in her thirties, but how could the girl who had just rushed out of the room be more than nineteen? Perhaps dwar sleep had dulled her senses. . . or perhaps not. After all, she had accepted far stranger things without question on that first night. But there would be time for answers later; now what she wanted was food, for the long healing process had left her desperately hungry.

She sat up carefully, then swung her feet to the floor and, after several tries, succeeded in standing up. There, that wasn't so difficult. With fresh confidence, she took a step toward the door, only to discover that the folds of her overgrown nightgown were snugly twisted around her legs. She stood there swaying for a moment, then lost her balance altogether and came tumbling down on the opposite cot.

A face stared up at her from the mirror beside her hand. Was that really what she looked like, all sharp lines and huge, silver-gray eyes? Certainly, no one would ever call those features beautiful, Jame thought ruefully; but were they really enough like a boy's to have fooled that old man in the alley? Well, maybe, with all that long black hair out of sight under a cap. It was a very young face, and a defiant one, she thought with an odd sense of detachment, but frightened too. And those extraordinary eyes . . . what memories lived in them that she could not share? Stranger, where have you been, she asked silently. What have you seen? The thin lips locked in their secrets.

"Ahh!" said Jame in sudden disgust, tossing away the mirror. Fool, to be obsessed with a past she couldn't even remember. But all that was behind her now. A new life had begun, and with it came at least the prospect of food. Spurred on by her growing hunger, she soon managed to untangle the gown and then set off gamely for the door.

Beside it, crouching darkly in a corner beneath a wall vase full of flowers, was her knapsack.

The sight brought Jame up short. It seemed to have been waiting for her, patiently, dull malignancy gathering in its dusty folds. I haven't outrun anything, or left anything behind, she thought bitterly. For two weeks she had carried the relics of her past, known and unknown, on her back like a deformity. Even now they were part of her, and so were those lost years, whatever terrors they might have contained. The latter were beyond her reach now, but as for the pack and its contents, she must find a safe place to hide them as soon as possible. Then, forcibly putting all of this out of her mind, Jame lifted the hem of her gown and unsteadily left the room.

Outside, an open gallery stretched some ten paces in either direction, connecting the north and south wings of the inn. Below, one story down, was a courtyard bounded on the far side by a stout wall. From below came the pungent odor of manure and the sound of hooves shifting on straw, mingled with a more distant clatter of pots and a sudden whiff of something cooking. Whatever the latter was, it smelled delicious. Jame was trying to locate the source when there was a crash somewhere nearby, closely followed by an angry shout. A tall, aproned woman emerged from a side door to the left holding a piebald cat at arms' length, dropped it on the pavement and stalked back inside.

Ah, the kitchen. Now, how to get down to it?

At the northern end of the gallery she found a broad flight of stairs angling around the sides of a square well. Trailing skirt gathered up in her hands, Jame cautiously started down the steps. All went well at first, but halfway to the bottom, her foot caught in the hem and she found herself falling. Instinctively, she curled into a ball and finished her descent in this manner, in no immediate danger of breaking anything but under the distinct impression that she was renewing every bruise she had ever had in her life.

She was stretched out on the tiles at the bottom gathering her wits and admiring, in a rather dazed way, the carved rafters high above, when a head blocked her view and demanded, "Are you quite finished?"

"Y-yes, mistress," said Jame, staring up into the hard, bright eyes of the woman from the courtyard. "I ran out of steps."

"In well-regulated households," the irate voice said, "invalids do not come casually tumbling downstairs. And I'm the Widow Cleppetania, cook and housekeeper . . . not the mistress."

"And I'm Jame of the Kencyrath," the other replied rather sharply, "not an invalid."

The widow snorted. "I'll believe that when I see you stand up."

Jame did, very slowly and painfully, clutching at the nightgown as it tried to slip off both shoulders simultaneously.

"Humph!" said the widow, not quite so harshly. 'If you can walk, you can eat. Come along, young lady, and be fed."

Jame followed her into the kitchen, a high-vaulted room with three fireplaces, two of which had large kettles hanging on rachycrokes over the flames. The one on Jame's right as she entered contained boiling water, and behind it she saw a tiny scullery tucked under the stairs. The pot to her left, which hung between the kitchen and the main hall, gave off the marvelous odor that had drawn her from the gallery. The widow gestured her to a seat on the raised hearth of the third fireplace, whose back was to the courtyard. Jame sat down beside it, grateful for the warmth of its flames, while the widow ladled broth into a bowl.

"Watch your mouth," she said, giving her the steaming porringer. "It's hot."

Jame ate, too hungry to be careful or even to mind the burned tongue that her first taste gave her, while the widow finished sweeping together the remains of a dish and then returned to the bustard, which she had been preparing on the central table. The kitchen filled with the fragrance of thyme, basil, and rosemary. She was dicing figs when Jame finally put the bowl aside, scraped clean.

"Cleppetania . . ."

"Call me Cleppetty," said the widow, reaching for a beaker of white wine. "Everyone else does."

"Cleppetty, what is the Feast of Dead Gods?"

"Ha!" She started to flourish the vessel, remembered just in time that it was nearly full, and put it down with a thump. "I told Tubain that only ignorance or imbecility could have brought anyone out on such a night. The Feast of Dead Gods is what I expect you narrowly missed becoming. Once a year, on Autumn's Eve, all the gods who've lost or outlived their worshippers come back from wherever it is they've been and spend the night wandering the streets. Some are harmless enough, but most are hungry and out hunting for sacrifices—which is fine if they happen to relish potted begonias, but not so good if their people were fools enough to raise them on baby's blood or virgin's hearts. It's said they can't enter any building without an invitation, but most Tas-tigons seal up their windows and doors on that night just to be sure. Not Tubain, though; it wouldn't be hospitable, he says."

She snorted, reached for a spoon, and began to stir the mixture so energetically that part of it flew out of the bowl.

"It would have served him right if something big, red, and ravenous had strolled in that night instead of you. That man and his hospitality! We would have been ruined years ago if it were not for Mistress Abernia."

While she had been speaking, the piebald cat had furtively slipped back into the kitchen and was now sitting beside Jame, cleaning itself. Another cat joined it, and then Boo. Jame watched them, digesting this information, while the widow seized the bustard and began to cram stuffing into it as enthusiastically as if it were a defunct enemy being dealt the final insult.

"Cleppetty . . ." she said at last, very slowly. "If there are so many dead gods here, how many live ones are there?"

"Why, hundreds, thousands." The widow stared at her over the carcass. "Bless you, child, what island of the moon did you come from not to know that every god in the Eastern Lands has a temple here? Tai-tastigon is the holy city of them all. That's why things are so strange here sometimes: we're not just god-ridden, we're overrun. Everyone knows that except, apparently, you. Now, is there any other common knowledge I can astound you with?"

Jame considered this for so long that the widow, after a moment's wait, went back to her bird. There were any number of questions she would have liked to ask about these gods, but she hardly knew how to frame them and was, moreover, rather afraid of the answers she might get. Better let them wait, she decided, as Cleppetty maneuvered the bustard onto a gridiron and started toward the fire with it, her back arched against the strain.

"There is one thing," she said, getting out of the way as the woman bent to fit the iron into its fireside slots. "About Taniscent. . ."

The widow froze, one side still unsecured. "What about her?"

The sharpness of her tone startled Jame. "Well," she said hesitantly, "this morning I could have sworn that she was about thirty years old. But now, just a few minutes ago. . ."

Cleppetty dropped the rack. The bustard plunged into the fire in a fountain of sparks as cats scattered in all directions (except for Boo, who only tucked in his paws), and the widow dashed out the door shouting, "Tanis, you damn fool!" Jame heard her thunder up the stairs and along the gallery as she tried to rescue the bird from the flames. She was still trying when Cleppetty stalked back into the kitchen, seized a pair of tongs, and rolled the singed fowl out onto the hearth. She regarded it balefully for a moment, then turned sharply to Jame.

"There's a drug called Dragon's Blood," she said in a hard voice. "It temporarily restores youth—or the illusion of it—but the more often you take it the more you need, and the faster you age between times. Tanis started using it four years ago when she turned twenty and thought that age was ruining her dancing. Now she takes it because of that worthless lover of hers, who I suppose she's with now. If this goes on much longer, she'll destroy herself. I'm telling you this because we care for each other here, and that poor, foolish child needs all the help she can get. Remember that."

Then they heard heavy feet stamping into the hall, and someone shouted for food.

"Customers already!" Cleppetty surveyed the kitchen with despair, taking in the burnt bustard on the hearth, the mound of broken crockery still on the floor, and the piebald cat on a high shelf, peering warily around a china plate that had already begun to teeter ominously.

"What an afternoon . . . for you too, now that I think of it. Back to bed with you and let me salvage what I can of the day; and the next time you come downstairs," she shouted after Jame as she started carefully up the steps, "please do it the regular way."

* * *

AFTER THAT, Jame recovered rapidly. In a few days, she was running all over the inn, as bright-eyed with curiosity as a cat; but for all her pleasure at finding herself in a new, intriguing situation, she did not forget what brought her to this city in the first place. Now that she had seen Tai-tastigon, however, she realized that it would be virtually impossible to find news of her brother in so large and complex a place. Anyway, if Tori had come this way, he probably hadn't stayed here long, not with the Riverland—the home of the Kencyrath on Rathillien—waiting on the other side of the Ebonbane. She would have to follow her brother there, Jame decided, if they were ever to meet again on this side of the pyre.

"But how do I get out of the Eastern Lands?" she asked Cleppetty.

"Just now," said the widow, "you don't. The mountain passes snowed in a week ago and won't clear again until the spring."

"But surely there are other routes."

"Once, yes. Folk used to go overland around the Ebonbane's southern toe, but now the Mildarien Peninsula is infested with haunts—and worse. As for the sea lanes, an early storm season has closed them, too. Every year we get more and more sealed off. Someday the routes westward will disappear altogether, but in the meantime if you meant this to be a short visit, your timing's as skewed as your sense of direction."

Jame's first impulse was to set out anyway—southward, perhaps, in search of a ship willing to dare the Cape of the Lost in storm season. The psychic attraction that held the Kencyrath together tugged at her. Once she would have yielded to its pull without a second thought, but now she found herself hesitating. After all, her full strength had not yet returned, and she must not foolishly endanger the ring and shattered sword, her brother's lost birthright, which she would be carrying to him. No, she must wait either until she was completely fit again or spring made travel less hazardous. After all, what were a few more weeks or possibly even months when it had taken her years to fight her way back to that terrible homecoming at the keep? The world of her people would open up before her soon enough, she told herself. Her task now was to prepare herself for it.

Meanwhile, life at the inn whirled along, each day repeating the basic patterns and yet improvising on them endlessly. Cleppetty set the pace. Every morning she started out by scrubbing the kitchen, the tiles of the great hall, and the floor of the side room where those too drunk to go home the night before had been dragged. Then there was the marketing, then the cooking, which kept her in the kitchen all afternoon. By early evening, the central cauldron was full of soup or stew and all available surfaces were covered with brie tart, humble, galantine, and eel pie, haslet for the hunters, leek dishes for the lustful as well as meat laid out ready for the spit and an odd assortment of other viands depending on who was in town for what religious festival. Then the customers began to arrive. From early evening until the late watches of the night, the inn filled with clatter, song, and ceaseless shouts for wine. Every third day, the widow baked bread, spreading flour all over the north wing with the vigor of her kneading. Every seventh day she did the wash.

As soon as Jame was strong enough, she began to help whenever Cleppetty and the others would let her. At first, this was mainly in the kitchen. Cleppetty had a minor talent for theurgy and, with her book of common household charms, could do a number of handy things such as kindling a fire with its own ashes, making broken china whole, and raising bread in half the normal time. At the end of Jame's second active week at the inn, she suddenly found the book thrust into her hands.

"Now let's see you try," the widow said, plopping a lump of unleavened dough down on the table before her.

Jame hesitated. Many of her people had such talents if not far greater ones, but those that did were feared and often compelled to enter the priesthood. Apprehensively, she recited the charm. It usually took Cleppetty half an hour to ready her bread for the oven; Jame's rose in five minutes. When the widow sliced into the baked loaf, however, they discovered that its sudden expansion had been due to the growth of rudimentary internal organs.

That was the end of Jame's apprenticeship in the kitchen. From then on, she helped with the laundry, washed dishes, and assisted in the great hall every night,

Tai-tastigon, by daylight, was a quiet place as far as she could tell; but as dusk crept through the streets, strange new sounds and smells took root in the shadows and grew. As she darted between the tables under the three great chandeliers, Jame often heard the distant clamor of some religious festival or glimpsed the bizarre costumes and gilded faces of the celebrants themselves as they entered the Res aB'tyrr to drink a noggin to luck before some important rite. Once they brought with them a silent woman clad only in golden ornaments. Ghillie, the hostler, pointed her out to Jame, whispering that she was to be their sacrifice. Jame thought he was joking until she met the woman's haunted eyes across the table.

And so the days passed. The people at the inn continued to treat her well. Tubain was always courteous as, indeed, he was to all who entered his establishment. Cleppetty remained brusque but not unkind. Rothan, Tubain's nephew, was friendly enough but rather pompous as befitted the innkeeper's heir. More observant or less tactful than the others, Rothan's young cousin Ghillie made the mistake at first of teasing Jame about her hands, and got the scare of his life when she nearly went for his throat. Luckily, he was a lightheaded, good-natured boy and soon forgot the entire episode. As for Tanis, she was delighted to have a roommate patient enough to listen to the tale of the endless fluctuations in her affair with Bortis, a handsome, arrogant bandit, come down from the hills to winter in the city.

The only member of the household whom Jame did not come to know was Mistress Abernia. Tubain's wife never left her own chambers in the south wing. Jame heard her from time to time shrilly berating her husband for some outrageous piece of generosity or other, but never saw more of her than a shadow cast on a closed curtain, gesticulating wildly. No one would (or perhaps could) tell her why Tubain's wife lived in such seclusion.

Nor was this the Res aB'tyrr's only mystery. Of more pressing concern was its relationship with the establishment across the square, an inn called the Skyrrman, run by a native of the Tenko canton of Skyrr named Marplet. Ever since her arrival, Jame had been puzzled by a series of small, unpleasant events at Tubain's hostelry. One morning, for example, she came down to find Rothan and Ghillie grimly scraping excrement out of the mouths of the B'tyrr figures on the front wall. Another day, someone tossed a sealed jug over the wall into the inner courtyard where it shattered, spraying Cleppetty's newly washed sheets with urine. It didn't occur to Jame to connect these events with the Skyrrman, however, until one afternoon something flew through the window and landed in a heap on the table that she was scrubbing. It was the piebald cat. Patches of its fur had been burned off and three of its legs were broken as well as its neck. Then Jame heard Marplet's household rowdies out in the square, laughing.

A black rage rose in her. She dropped her washrag and sprinted for the door, only to be jerked back on her heels as Cleppetty grabbed her collar from behind.

Half-strangled, she heard the widow's harsh, angry breath in her ear and, through clearing eyes, saw Rothan and Ghillie on the other side of the room, both obviously furious but doing their best to ignore the taunts now being shouted in the square. Tubain had simply disappeared into the cellar. Then the voices outside faded into the distance, and Cleppetty let her go.

"Why?" she demanded hoarsely, one hand on her bruised throat. "We should all have gone after them. Why didn't we?"

"Child, if you have any friendship for us at all," said the widow, "don't ask . . . and above all, don't interfere." With that, she turned and stalked back into the kitchen.

Jame stared after her. Bound by the Kencyr law of hospitality, she must obey; by that same law, however, the honor of the household had become her own, to defend or forfeit. But how could she defend what she didn't understand? The sudden passivity of her new friends, whom she didn't believe to be cowards (except, perhaps, for Tubain), baffled and unnerved her. And that wasn't the worst of it, either. Cleppetty and the others knew exactly what was going on, Jame realized suddenly with growing dismay, and had probably known since well before her arrival. But they hadn't told her. Why? Because, for all their friendliness, they still didn't trust her. Because she was an outsider. Again.

At first, she pretended that it didn't matter. After all, these people had a right to their secrets and no reason as yet to trust her with any of them. But as the days passed and Marplet's growing, unexplained harassment brought the others closer together in their passive resistance, she felt her own exclusion more and more. It reminded her all too vividly of life at the keep. For the first time, she realized how much being a full member of this household mattered to her, and how much she needed it.

I've got to belong someplace, she said to herself one day, and if not here, where?

She was lying on the warm tiles of the north wing roof, four stories up, looking out over the city. Ivory spires rose in the distance, tipped with light as the sun began its slow tumble down the far side of the Ebonbane. Night always fell quickly in Tai-tastigon, and with its fall the city sprang to life. Jame longed to be down in those convoluted streets, sniffing out their secrets. She had not forgotten the subtle lure of the maze, much less the gods of Tai-tastigon and the challenge she had issued because of them before her own temple. But Tubain had requested that she not leave the inn at all. He seemed to think that if she ever did, she would become instantly and irretrievably lost. Regarding the darkening tangle of streets below, Jame thought wryly that he might well be right; but the day might come when she would have to risk it. As much as she liked these people, she couldn't stay here indefinitely on mere sufferance. If matters didn't improve soon, she would have to slip the silken collar of Tubain's concern and disappear into the night, as alone and friendless as she had come.

Below, someone made a remarkable noise, half-gurgle, half-squeak. Looking down, Jame saw Tubain at the rail outside Taniscent's room, staring up at her. There was so much horror in his expression that she promptly slithered down the tiles, jumped to the second story roof and, catching the eaves, swung down to the gallery floor beside him.

"What's wrong?" she demanded, sudden eagerness sharpening her voice. Was he at last going to take her into his confidence?

"You could have broken your neck!" the innkeeper said, almost incoherent with agitation. "What were you doing up there?"

"Oh." Damn. "I was looking at the city. Why would anyone have laid out the streets in such an insane jumble?"

"Well," said Tubain, making an obvious attempt to regain his composure, "it's partly intentional and partly not. You see, we're rather prone to disasters here, natural and otherwise. Old buildings are always getting knocked down, washed away, or trampled flat, and new ones rise wherever there's room. But that's the least of it. Ever since Tai-tastigon was built back in the days of the Old Empire, folks in these parts have loved puzzles. Once their whole culture was built on them, social conventions and all, and the highest form of art was the labyrinth. Of course, things have changed a lot here since then, but some folk still hold to the old ways. For example, when the Sirdan Theocandi of the Thieves' Guild came to power, he reconstructed part of the Palace into a perfect maze; and old Penari lives in the heart of one so complex that its own architect lost his way trying to get out and was never seen again."

That latter name made Jame start. "This Penari. . . who is he?"

"Why," said Tubain, surprised, "the greatest thief in the history of Tai-tastigon, which is as much as to say in the world, and the only man ever to know all the streets of the city. The Temple District is his manor, but he's not very active or much seen these days. Where did you hear of him?"

Jame hesitated, then told the innkeeper about the incident in the alley. Tubain's eyes grew wide as he listened.

"For fifty-six years," he said at last, "ever since that man stole the Eye of Abarraden under circumstances that weren't just difficult, mind you, but physically impossible, every thief in the guild has dreamed of becoming his apprentice. For fifty-six years! And on your first night in the city, he makes you the offer. By all the gods, that will make some faces red at the Palace, the Sirdan's not the least."

"Do you mean to say," said Jame, quite horrified, "that he was offering to teach me how to steal?"

"Why, what else, and why not? Nearly everyone in Tai-tastigon does or has or wants to. It's fine work, I hear, if you can get a good master and, of course, don't get caught." At that moment Cleppetty called him from the kitchen door. He excused himself and trotted off, saying, "Penari, eh?" out loud to himself. "Just think of that!"

Jame did, long and seriously over the following days.

Meanwhile, she continued to room with Taniscent, but began to find this arrangement increasingly unpleasant. Soon after her arrival, Cleppetty had wrung a promise out of the dancer never to use Dragon's Blood again. This was a relief of sorts, but it didn't save Jame from the days of brittle smiles that followed nor the nights of hysterical weeping when it became clear with the wearing off of the drug that Tanis had paid all too heavily for those brief returns to her lost youth. On the other hand, Jame was keenly aware that she herself was not the most desirable of chamber-fellows; her own sleep still brought her dreadful shapes, and she would often wake with a start, unsure if the voice she had heard cry out was her own. On such nights she would take a blanket and go up to the fourth story solar to sleep, if she could, and often to wake in the cold dawn with Boo snuggled warmly against her.

This large, empty loft soon became her refuge from the tensions of life at the inn. As a rule, no one bothered her there, since the whole area was much too open to serve either for storage or guests. Here she at last found a hiding place for her pack, behind some loose stones in one corner, and also the necessary open space to experiment with the Senethar training patterns.

She often wondered who had taught them to her. When her brother Tori had first begun to learn the arts of war all those years ago at the keep, she had begged to be taught them, too. Her plea had been flatly refused. And yet now the knowledge was there, as she had discovered in the Haunted Lands. It was wonderful suddenly to have the benefit of such training, but frightening too not to know where it had come from or what other skills she might have brought out of those lost years.

The incident with the bread had shaken her badly. She was different, she always had been, Jame thought, staring blindly at her hands, and her father had not been able to accept it. Shanir, god-spawn, unclean, unclean . . . words out of the past, shouted at her from the keep gate. That had been soon after her nails had first worked their way to the surface. How her fingertips had itched, and what a relief it had been (as well as a surprise) when the sharp points at last broke through the skin. Nail-less until then, unlike everyone else at the keep, she had been proud of her new acquisitions. The horror and disgust of the others had bewildered her. Jane realized now that they had been afraid, frightened of what she was, of what she might become, although no one had ever made it clear to her exactly what that was. Would her people always react to her this way? If so, what sort of a fool was she too long for them, for the unhappy home she had lost? A Kencyr fool. Well, now she had six months to learn if she could make a life for herself apart from the Kencyrath.

But days passed, and Jame remained an outsider at the Res aB'tyrr although virtually a prisoner within its walls. As this confinement became more and more burdensome, she spent longer periods in the loft, working eventually with the Senetha dance patterns that corresponded to the four Senethar types of combat, discovering as she went which ones she knew. Earth moving, fire leaping, water flowing, wind blowing . . . the second was still almost beyond her in her weakened state, and the fourth (assuming she knew it all) quite impossible, but it pleased her to at least have made a start. So she kept pushing at the limits of her knowledge and endurance, both to expand them and, often, simply to wear herself out. Exhaustion made sleep easier and certain thoughts less gnawing.

One morning a few days after Winter's Eve, she was doing the kantirs of a fourth-level water flowing pattern when she saw Ghillie, upside down from her position at that moment, staring at her open-mouthed around the newel of the spiral stair.

"Ee!" he said when she stopped rather suddenly, her back arched in a curve that from his position must have looked almost impossible. "Why didn't you say you were a dancer?"

Jame straightened, grinning, and turned. " 'Ee' yourself," she said. "I didn't because, strictly speaking, I'm not.

This is a kind of fighting practice. But what are you doing up here at this hour? I didn't expect to see you until afternoon after last night's debauch."

"Aunt Cleppetty got me up," said the boy ruefully, "and gave me a fine lecture on disappearing before all the guests were in bed. She also told me to tell you that she's going marketing just now and wants you to go with h—hey, watch out!"

But Jame was already past him, boots in hand, ricocheting down first one stair and then the other toward the front door where Cleppetty waited impatiently, a shopping basket on her bony arm.

* * *

THEY CROSSED the square with Jame hopping on one foot, trying to get herself shod without falling down, too excited even to notice the derisive hoot from the door of the Skyrrman that greeted this performance. At the southwestern corner of that inn, piles of bricks, dressed stone and timber—all waiting to be hoisted up to the unfinished fourth story— were spread out on the pavement, partly obstructing the side street. Cleppetty marched straight through these, looking neither right nor left nor—more to the point—up, where a heavily laden sling swung creaking in the breeze. It was typical of Marplet sen Tenko's attitude toward the general public that he should permit such a thing to hang there apparently unattended, and typical of the widow's attitude toward Marplet that she should completely ignore it. As for Jame, only stubborn pride carried her after Cleppetty through that sinister shadow as a gust of wind made it shift on the ground and set the supports high above to groaning.

Then it was behind them, and they had turned onto the small street called the Way of Tears, which ran along the west side of the Skyrrman, past the gate to its inner court and the back wing that housed the servants' quarters. Here a slim, black-haired girl leaned out of a window to stare down at them. Jame, her mind still on falling objects, almost shied before she saw that the other's hands were empty and her expression showed only curiosity. For a moment their eyes met. Then the road twisted away behind the inn, and the brief contact was broken.

Tai-tastigon by daylight proved to be a much different place from the one Jame remembered seeing on her first night. Now, instead of dark, empty ways, the streets were full of life. Men hurried past, intent on their own business. Women leaned out of upper windows to gossip with neighbors across the way, while lines of wet laundry flapped languidly between them. Children, playing in the gutter, stopped to watch and giggle as a stray dog urinated on someone's pet geraniums. All that was mysterious or menacing seemed to have vanished or to have grown as pale as the moon set high against a bright, late morning sky.

Then they passed under the arch of an old gate into a tangle of backways. The main streets had been confusing enough, but here even the residents seemed to rely heavily on members of the Pathfinders' Guild, who hawked their expertise at every crossroad. Those who weren't willing to pay a guide's fee had scrawled directions to themselves all over the walls. One had even anchored himself to his own front doorknob with a string, which stretched along the pavement for five blocks before ending suddenly in the middle of an intersection, the victim, perhaps, of some indignant guide.

Jame was just thinking that their route couldn't possibly get any more complex when the widow dove into yet another maze-within-a-maze composed of dank, rapidly narrowing lanes. Caught between claustrophobia and wall-slugs, Jame was almost ready to retreat the way they had come (assuming she could find it) when they suddenly emerged from a crack between two buildings into a small square bustling with people: the vegetable market, reached by some arcane shortcut.

While Cleppetty shopped, Jame wandered around the stalls and carts, admiring the great piles of produce. She noticed that two municipal guards armed with the usual iron-headed truncheons were also on the prowl, presumably looking for thieves. It didn't occur to her that they might actually find one until a boy suddenly winked at her across a stand and made a potato disappear into his pocket as if by sorcery. Jame thought of those iron-bound clubs and went on to the next stall without a word.

Barring that incident, nothing disturbed the general air of normalcy about the market; and even the theft, in an odd way, seemed a natural part of the scene. Sitting on the edge of the central fountain with her fingers dipped in the cool water, Jame wondered if the exotic image she had built up of Tai-tastigon had anything to do with the true life of the city. Once a year, perhaps, the very stones went mad, but was the rest of the time passed like this, in steady industry spiced with nocturnal revels for those who desired them?

She was still wondering when someone shrieked.

Jame's head snapped up. She saw a gnarled farmer drop the turnips that he had been showing to a customer and snatch a broken scythe out of his cart. God of her ancestors, he was coming straight at her. The end of a blue ribbon curled over his arm as his blade leaped up. But surely that first wild cry had come from behind her, Jame thought in confusion, springing to her feet; yes, there it was again not ten feet away, mixed now with a great splashing. She twisted about and saw a heavyset man festooned with blue ribbons charging at her through the fountain. He was brandishing a short, sharp sword.

For a whole second, Jame simply froze, paralyzed with amazement. Then she dove for cover under the bed of a tomato cart and came up again on the far side. Cleppetty, who had taken refuge in a doorway, reached out and pulled her into the recess. Together, they watched the fight.

The two men met almost on the spot where Jame had been standing, but they did not remain there long. Step by step, the older man with the scythe was forced backward. He used his improvised weapon well, swinging in tight, vicious arcs that hissed and flashed in the sun, but he was at a disadvantage: his adversary, while a hopeless swordsman, had the dubious fortune to be completely berserk.

The farmer's ramshackle cart was close behind him now. Beyond both men and wagon, Jame saw the guards watching with interest.

Then the older man's foot came down on one of the turnips he had dropped, and he went over backward, crashing into the cart with such force that the near wheel fell off. A torrent of vegetables cascaded to the pavement. The swordsman sprang forward with a triumphant shriek, only to stagger and fall himself on the treacherous footing. He tried to get up again and again, foam dribbling down his chin, too deep in madness to remember his weapon or look where he put his hands or feet.

The farmer rose slowly, carefully, and picked up his scythe. He touched the edge once as though to be sure of its keenness, then stepped toward the fallen man through the field of squashed vegetables. The latter rose to his knees, his voice a squeal of frustrated rage. The sound stopped abruptly as the blade caught him under the chin. Something went flying through the air and landed wetly on top of the pile of tomatoes before Jame. She stared at it. The eyelids were still fluttering. Then the farmer stalked over, grabbed the thing by the hair, and walked off with it.

Cleppetty left the doorway, muttering savagely to herself, and half dragged Jame through the wagons toward the fissure by which they had entered the square. Looking back, Jame saw the tomato-seller examine his produce, throw two into the gutter, and carry several others over to the fountain. He was washing them when the wall cut off her view. The murmur of renewed business followed them for several turnings into the dank nest of lanes.

"Cleppetty. . ."

". . . think they'd have more self-respect than to do it in public," the widow was saying to herself in tones of profound disgust and unusual distinctness. "Some people have no sense of propriety. And what a mess . . ."

"Cleppetty. . ."

". . . no consideration for others, either. At least I got the salad makings before . . ."

"CLEPPETTY!"

Jerked to a halt by Jame's sudden stop, the widow turned and glared at her. "Now what's the matter?"

"Cleppetty, what happened back there?"

"If I tell you, will you stop yelping at me and get a move on? We've lost enough time already. Besides, you're standing in a puddle."

And so she was. Boots squelching loudly, Jame followed the widow out of the tangled maze, several times treading on the older woman's heels in her impatience. Cleppetty, however, said nothing until the road widened and they were walking side by side again.

"Those men!" she said, beginning with a sort of explosion. "Their sects are involved in a temple war. The ribbons prove it's a legal one, and so, having paid for it, they've the right to do whatever they want or can to each other, anywhere, anytime."

"Legal? Paid? To whom?"

"Why, to the Five, our governing council." She gave Jame a sharp, sidelong look. "Surely you've at least heard of that."

Jame nodded. Ghillie had mentioned it several times, but never this business of warfare in the streets, which was odd, given his taste for the sensational. "It's made up of King Sellik's representative, the Skyrr Archiem's, and three that the city guilds choose themselves, isn't it?"

"Of course," said the widow, "and they need money to pay for the guards, themselves, and especially the city charter. Tai-tastigon is half in Metalondar and half in Skyrr because of the River Tone, you know (or do you?), and must pay for the privilege of belonging to neither. So the Five levy taxes and license violence. As for the wars, there are four kinds." The basket handle slid down to the crook of her elbow as she brandished a knobby finger in Jame's face. "One: private, for individuals and families. Two: trade, for merchants. Three: temple, for religious fanatics like those two oafs back there. Four: guild, and very messy those can get, too. You may yet see one for yourself if the Sirdan Theocandi of the Thieves' Guild loses any more of his people to that Tai-abendran upstart, Men-dalis. Praise be that my sister's daughter's son is well out of it back in Emmis."

"Your—uh—grand-nephew is a thief?"

"Oh aye, and a good one too, I'm told . . . and we shall never get home if you keep stopping like that."

"S-sorry," said Jame, making a fast recovery. "But why do the citizens put up with it, I mean with madmen lopping heads off in the streets and ruining merchandise? Those two back there might have killed anyone, including me."

"That," said the widow, "was because you were unlucky enough to get caught between them and fool enough to stand there gaping until they nearly ran you down. You seem to have a knack for that sort of situation, by the way, which I hope you will in future try to control. As for the rest of us, the more wars there are, the less we have to pay in taxes. So we take an occasional risk. There are worse systems."

At that point, they turned yet another comer, and Jame recognized the Way of Tears with Marplet's wall stretching out on her left. Cleppetty, like a horse nearing the stable, picked up speed. Jame was fairly trotting to keep level with her as they approached the corner. Her sodden right boot kept slipping down, however, and she entered the square as she had left it, hopping on one foot, this time tugging the boot off. Cleppetty was already among the brick mounds, several paces ahead of her. The servant girl Jame had seen at the window was just turning away from the fountain, an ewer full of water clasped carefully in her arms. She looked across at the two from the Res aB'tyrr, and the pitcher slipped out of her grasp.

Then time seemed to slow for Jame. She saw the ewer falling, falling, and the girl's face distort with a look of horror. She was staring not at Jame and the widow but above them. Simultaneously, Jame heard a rush of air overhead and saw the shadow of the sling darken across Cleppetty's shoulders. The ewer was falling, falling, and she was springing forward. Bare toes and shod dug frantically at the cobbles. Her hands struck the widow's back, and they were both falling, with Cleppetty propelled ahead, her hands in the air, her basket flying away. . . and the ground leaped up at Jame's face.

The ewer shattered, cobbles bit into her cheek, and then the sky fell.

Bricks crashed to earth all about her in a deadly hail, smashing on impact, filling the air with flying shards. One grazed the arm that she had flung up to protect her head, numbing it at the elbow. Far away, a woman began to scream. Then something all too close struck the ground with a resonant boom, making the pavement pressed against her face jump. There was another crash, even nearer, and then nothing.

Jame thought she must have gone deaf. A moment passed, however, and through the savage ringing in her ears she heard dust rattling down, the fountain splashing, and then, nearby, Cleppetty's oh-so-welcome mutter, no louder, no more or less indignant than ever.

She carefully unwrapped her arms from about her head. The right was still partly numb but moved without difficulty. Not so her leg. Looking back, Jame saw the last object that had fallen. It was a beam, some ten feet long and nearly a foot square at the head. The first end to hit had gouged half a dozen cobbles out of the ground; the second had smashed into a pile of bricks, fragmenting the first seven layers. Her bare foot was wedged between pavement, girder, and the two surviving tiers of bricks.

The widow was kneeling beside her now, but her words were only noises to Jame, for she had just heard something else, high above, which seemed to thicken the blood in her temples and pull her head back as though it were on strings.

Niggen, Marplet's ungainly son, was leaning out of the third story window, where the tackle rope had been secured, snickering.

He stopped abruptly when he saw Jame's face.

The killing madness had come on her too suddenly to be checked or controlled. She was still thinking quite clearly, but only about how to get to that window, to get at that toad-faced boy, and what she would do then with red hands, red nails. But first one had to be mobile. She began to pull at the trapped foot. Something gave in the ankle, and then it was free. She tried to stand. Far back, behind the madness, there was pain, but now only a certain weakness registered, which must be kept in mind lest it betray her. Someone was saying, "Stop it stop it stop it," over and over again, and then a hand gripped her hair, jerking her head around.

Eyes stared into her own, inches away, and a voice demanded, very distinctly: "Do you want to destroy us all?"

Jame blinked. It was Cleppetty, her face dirty and scratched. Over the widow's shoulder, she saw Ghillie and Rothan running toward them across the square.

"All right?" The widow gave her a light shake. "All right?"

Jame nodded, speechless.

Cleppetty sighed and let go of her hair. "Good. Now come along home, child. There's nothing more to do here, and you're hurt."

The cousins had reached them by this time. Ghillie made a gesture as though to help Jame, but Rothan, for once showing more sensitivity, stopped him. They walked back to the inn with Jame a little apart from the others, limping badly. No one said a word, not even the servants who had appeared in the door of the Skyrrman. Certainly, no one laughed.

Once inside the Res aB'tyrr, however, the silence broke. As Jame slowly pieced her senses back together, she found herself seated in the kitchen with Cleppetty bent over her ankle and everyone else crowded around them, talking furiously.

"Did you see . . . did you hear . . ." someone was babbling in the background. ". . . could have been killed," said another voice, nearer, angrier. "I tell you, this time they've gone too . . ."

"Just cuts and a pulled muscle . . . then why . . . I don't know." Ah, Cleppetty and Tubain, coming rapidly into focus.

"Kencyrs are odd people," the widow was saying, quite clearly now, "and this child is odd even for a Kencyr. Just look at those . . ."

Jame closed her hands with a snap and thrust them out of sight behind her. "Why did you say 'Do you want to destroy us all?'"

Everyone in the room spun around and stared at her.

The corpse has sat up on its pyre, she thought grimly. Hurrah. "Why did you say that?"

"Well?" Cleppetty glared at Tubain. "Are you going to tell her? She's earned the right to know."

The innkeeper raised his massive shoulders and let them drop again in a gesture of complete helplessness.

Cleppetty snorted explosively. "Very well," she said. "If you won't, I will. The sum of it is that we're involved in an undeclared trade war with Marplet sen Tenko. It began about a year ago when he started to build the Skyrrman, which he had no right to do in the first place since Tubain here has the tavern charter for the whole district. We went to the Five to protest and were sent to the Skyrr representative, Harr sen Tenko. He wouldn't even see us."

"Even if he wasn't the most corrupt magistrate in the city," said Rothan, "his wife wouldn't let him. We found out afterward that she's Marplet's sister."

"It gets better," said a mournful voice under the sideboard, where Ghillie had gone to earth to avoid being trampled by Cleppetty.

The widow snorted again. "You may well say so. After that the goading started. It looked odd to us from the start, and so we held back—a damn good thing, too, because pretty soon we noticed that every time Marplet's lot tried to start a fight, there were always one or two guards lurking around just out of sight. So that was it, then: Marplet had bought them; and if we reacted, they would swear before the Five that we had started the trouble in the first place, had in fact begun an undeclared trade war, and so as the instigators would have to pay. Wars are expensive. The fine for an illegal one would ruin us—will ruin us, if we fall into Marplet's trap. Now do you understand?"

"I. . . think so," said Jame. "But why didn't you tell me this before?"

"He," said the widow, jabbing a finger a Tubain, "didn't want you caught up in it. He seems to think that if he ignores it, the whole thing will dry up and blow away. Well, it didn't blow away, it fell down—and the gods know what it will do next. Now will you take this business seriously?" she demanded, turning on the innkeeper. "Now will you admit that something has to be done?"

Throughout this tirade, Tubain had been leaning against a post of the cellar door with his eyes closed, like a small boy pretending to be asleep in a room full of bogles. Now that they were all staring at him, he opened them, said with great dignity to no one in particular, "I'd better go check those new hogsheads," and disappeared down the basement steps.

"He won't even talk about it!" Cleppetty exclaimed, hoarse with exasperation. "Mind you, he's a good man—one of the best—but there are some things he simply can't face, and that doesn't make it any easier on the rest of us. If you stay here, child, you'll have to be especially careful because you seem to attract violence and have a potential for it that, I think, will mean disaster for someone sooner or later. That's the trace of far-seer in my family speaking. Take it for what it's worth. But remember, it would be a poor return for Tubain's hospitality to pull the inn down on his head.

"Right. That's enough of that," she said, clapping her hands. "The rest of you, scat. We all have work to do and no more time to waste."

* * *

AFTER THE OTHERS had left, Jame stayed in the kitchen for a while with her foot in a basin of cold water, surrounded by a growing cloud of cinnamon, ginger, and galingale as Cleppetty attacked the ingredients of a goat's heart pie. Then Tanis, who had been out, burst into the room and so embarrassed her with praise that she was forced to flee. Although her ankle throbbed savagely with every step up to the loft, she was almost dizzy with relief. The waiting was over. She would not have to leave the inn after all. For as long as she needed it, she had a home.

And yet, somehow, that wasn't enough.

Sitting on the ledge looking out over the city, Jame considered this. A home, yes, but the inn could never be her whole world. She had too many questions that could only be dealt with out there in the labyrinth of Tai-tastigon, questions that no outsider could hope to answer. Only when she knew the city could she hope to know its gods. She must find a way into the heart of this larger society—as she had into that of the Res aB'tyrr—and how better than by joining the city's most powerful guild?

But to become a thief! No proper Kencyr would even consider the idea. But hadn't she been told often enough that she wasn't proper and never would be? She would probably go through life as she had begun it at the keep, with only a precarious toehold in the world of her people. Honor alone —as the Kencyrath understood it—kept her secure, and only a scrollsman or a priest could tell her if such a thing as an honest thief was possible. The spirit of the law would undoubtedly be outraged, but if the letter remained intact. . .

Jame suddenly grinned. It seemed she had already made up her mind. In the morning she would first seek her priest's blessing (ha!) and then the killer-maze that Penari called home. If she survived both, it looked as if the Kencyrath was about to acquire its first official thief.

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