Back | Next
Contents

Chapter 3
Into the Labyrinth

THAT NIGHT Jame slept deeply and was pleased to find in the morning that her ankle had all but healed. After she had worked the last bit of stiffness out of it, she went down to the kitchen to inform the household of her plans. She expected opposition. Instead, "I've seen this coming for a long time," said the widow as she cut generous slices of bread and cheese and put them into a knapsack. "You're not the sort to relish life in a cage." Tubain also made no protest but was clearly upset as he intercepted her at the front door and furtively slipped three silver coins into her hand. She thanked him with a quick smile and left the inn.

Marplet sen Tenko was sitting in a window of the Skyrrman smoking a long-stemmed pipe. His big tiger-tom, Fang, crouched beside him on the sill. As Jame crossed the square, both the innkeeper and the cat watched her with almost the same expression, calculating, self-confident, and faintly amused. Neither would relish a quick kill, she realized with sudden insight. This man would toy with the Res aB'tyrr as long as the game entertained him and not a moment longer. Still, his mocking gaze teased the flicker of an answering smile from her, and she saluted him formally with raised fist and open hand, as one does an acknowledged enemy on the eve of battle. Then she left the square.

Her goal was the house of her god, where she meant to ask the priest if she could join the Thieves' Guild without a fatal loss of honor. The many gods of Tai-tastigon had made her question the very foundation of the Kencyrath, their belief in the Three-Faced God; but as she had realized the night before, she could no more separate herself from all aspects of her culture than step off the edge of the world. That was clear to her now, far clearer, unfortunately, than the location of the temple. On impulse, she set off toward the rising sun.

The streets unrolled before her, twisting back and forth under a bright winter sky. They rarely led due east. Realizing that she was not going to get anywhere in a hurry, Jame began to enjoy the challenge of these tangled ways. Some streets were quiet, lined with handsome houses or the back walls of gardens; others bustled with brightly clad crowds, through which peddlers strolled, hawking fermented mares' milk and honeyed locusts, while bands of penitents trotted past chanting their sins in unison. But best of all, in Jame's opinion, was a nest of spiral lanes, each arm of which was devoted to a different sub-chapter of the Glovers' Guild. Here she saw gloves made of leather, linen, and silk dyed all shades of earth and sea, their cuffs sparkling with jewels or heavy with shining threads. It was an elegant pair of black kidskin that she finally bought, however, joyfully spending all the money that Tubain had given her. With gloves on, her differences would not be so apparent. The idea delighted her.

Beyond the glovers' lanes, the buildings began to grow progressively larger and shabbier. This looked promising, she thought, remembering the abandoned structures around the temple; but while there was a growing tinge of darkness in the atmosphere, it was nothing like that which surrounded the dwelling-place of her god. Then she came to the crest of a small hill and found herself looking down over a narrow canal at the charred ruins of the Lower Town.

In a city as thick with gods as Tai-tastigon, only the practice of keeping such beings confined to their sanctuaries made a normal life possible for their mortal fellow citizens. Occasionally, however, one did escape or "come untempled," and that was what some people believed had happened to the Lower Town. At any rate, six years before it had become evident that something that had no right to be there was at large in this rich district; but since no one knew its name, there was no way to drive it out. At last those who could had left the area, putting their homes to the torch behind them. Even this last attempt at purification by fire had failed, however, and the destitute had thus inherited what no one else would have.

This, at least, was the story that Ghillie had told Jame. She didn't know how much of it she should believe, but there was undeniably something wrong here, even after all these years. As she passed more and more of the blackened buildings and the hovels that had sprung up like sickly growths in their shadow, she found herself moving warily, her sixth sense prickling, as though she had invaded, in its absence, the den of some unknown and unimaginable . . . thing.

It was a strange place to hear the sound of rushing water. Drawn by it, Jame continued eastward until she came to a low section of the Old Wall at the end of a street. Beyond it, there was a sharp drop down to the floor of the Rim, that relatively new district that circled the city between the old and inner walls. Some ten feet below her, a cataract of water roared out of a vent in the wall, holding a rainbow captive in its spray.

"Is that the River Tone?" she asked an old man who was standing nearby, watching the waterfall.

"Nay. That be the sewer outlet."

"But the water is perfectly clear!"

" 'Course it is," he said, spitting down into it. "Old Sumph and his priests see to that. We puts it out, they takes it in. Eats shit, does old Sumph—among other things—and loves it. You don't believe me, go over to the inner wall sometime and have a look 'cross at his backside."

Jame reflected that whenever she asked about the gods of Tai-tastigon, she always seemed to find out more than she wanted to know. But if this old man liked being informative . . .

"Can you tell me," she asked him, "where to find the Temple of the Three-Faced God?"

His shoulders stiffened. When he turned, she fell back a step, thinking from his expression that he meant to strike her. Instead, he spat on the ground at her feet and hastily shambled away.

What an odd reaction, she thought, watching him go. Some people, apparently, liked her god even less than she did. Nor was the old man unique. When Jame put her question to other residents of the Lower Town, most were too frightened to say anything, and some became violent. All she found as the day slid down into dusk were hostile looks, incredible squalor, and more sickly or deformed children than seemed possible. Quite a number of these urchins took to following her until, by the end of the day, she found herself at the head of a ragged, hobbling parade, unsure if she should walk slower so as not to tire them or run away from the lot.

However, the problem disappeared along with the children as the sun dipped behind the Ebonbane. Everyone was seeking shelter, Jame realized, and all around her the few feeble lights were flickering out. Clearly, this was not a place to be out in the streets after dark.

Her wandering had by now brought her to the Tone, running swiftly in its deep bed, and hearing faint music ahead, she set off along its left bank in the growing gloom.

Across the river stood rows of shining houses similar to those that once had filled the Lower Town. Beyond them, farther upriver, were the islet estates of the very rich, cradled between the arms of the Tone, separated by canals.

Music came from some of these gleaming isles, but not the boisterous strains that had first reached Jame in the darkness of the Lower Town. These she continued to follow as the two branches of the river drew closer together until the farther one disappeared behind the flank of a large, narrow island ringed with a marble wall in the likeness of a ship's side. Ahead, looming against the Ebonbane, was a huge white structure with mastlike spires from which streamed banners of scarlet and gold. The grounds around it swarmed with people costumed and plain, rich and shabby, all dancing together in the mad grip of carnival, drunkenly singing the praises of the Sirdan Theocandi and the great, the wonderful thieves of Tai-tastigon.

Jame walked on along the far bank, listening, looking, catching delight like a heady perfume borne on the air. It was a long island. At its point the walls rose in a jutting prow set with the figurehead of a woman triumphantly brandishing a severed head in either hand. Their stone beards curled down her arms and the swift waters of the Tone creamed about her bare feet as though the island were surging onward into the heart of the city.

A block beyond that Jame crossed a bridge and turned back. She had gone down the other side of the island almost as far as the stern when out of the corner of her eye she saw something pale falling. There was a loud splash below, closely followed by another, as a young man on the opposite bank dove into the river, fully clothed. She saw him surface, his arm wrapped around something, and begin to struggle across the current toward her side. The racing water would have borne him away if a man on the quay below had not thrown out a line and several others run down the steps to help pull him in.

"Is it another one, Tob?" a latecomer called as he darted past her.

None of the straining figures below had time to answer: they were hauling first the pale object and then the young man up onto the dock. Jame saw that the former was the naked body of a boy. His white skin was oddly marked as though someone had drawn the diamonds of a game board on it and blackened every other one. Then she saw that the dark areas were not skin at all but rather the lack of it.

"Aye," said a bitter voice from the midst of the group bending over it. "Another one." And they all looked up at the Sirdan's palace.

Upstream, the shadowy form of a man stood at the railing of a balcony suspended over the water. He was looking down at them.

The swimmer stood, white shirt plastered to his ribs, and stared back. For a moment the tableau held. Then one of the men coughed and began to struggle out of his coat. They carried the draped corpse up the steps and away, leaving the young man to glare upward a moment longer before he turned to follow them. He passed Jame without noticing her, blinded with anger. She saw him cross one of the catwalks back to the island, then turned away and walked on.

The music died away behind her, and the lights grew dim. A chill wind was blowing off the mountains, pushing at her back. She suddenly felt very cold and tired.

* * *

THE REST OF the night was spent in following first the Tone and then the Old Wall away from slums and mansions alike and in several hours of sleep snatched on someone's second story balcony.

Hovering near the wall a few feet from where Jame had taken shelter was one of the strange light spheres, which she had first seen in the puzzle-box district. She woke in the gray dawn at the sound of a voice and saw the globe darken. Below, a black-robed man paused under the next light and extinguished it too by murmuring "Blessed-Ardwyn-day-has-come" in a bored monotone. He disappeared into the morning mist, banishing the puffs of light as he went,

Jame breakfasted on the cheese and bread that Cleppetty had provided, then swung down to the street.

She had decided not to return to the Lower Town. Even though the violent reactions of the people there had convinced her that the temple of her god lay somewhere nearby, she no longer trusted herself to find it blindly. Better to retrace the wanderings of that first night. . . if she could. Consequently, Jame now followed the Old Wall northward to the Sun Gate. From there, a two-hour's walk along the curving streets of the Rim District brought her to the Warrior Gate, now standing firmly shut against the Haunted Lands, the Feast of Dead Gods being long past.

Like all Kencyrs, Jame had received extensive memory training as a child. She knew the lengthy epics of her people by heart and could recite genealogies of leaders and important people stretching back thousands of years. This, however, did not help her greatly with visual images. It was mid-afternoon before she found the little square with the fountain and only recognized it because of the network of deep cracks that ran through it. Jame followed these westward until they ended suddenly before a familiar gate.

Now she had a choice. Before her lay the puzzle-box, more properly known as the Temple District, which she had previously entered and left by the same route. In that respect, it was a dead-end. Still, she felt drawn by it and curious to know if her earlier impression had been correct. Perhaps she had overreacted. Perhaps these so-called gods were not the threat that she had at first believed. At any rate, it now occurred to her that, to the best of her knowledge, none of the people she had questioned so far about her own god had been priests. That was excuse enough. Bracing herself, she stepped through the gate into the Temple District.

Moments later as Jame walked through cross-currents of incense, hearing the drone of chants on all sides and seeing the tangle of buildings that stretched out of sight at each crossroad, she reluctantly faced the truth. Although the feverish beat of power had now sunk to a steady pulse, it was still undeniably there. The threat was real after all. Damn.

The sound of loud voices nearby broke in on her thoughts. On the steps of a small temple, a round little man in hieratic garb was arguing vehemently with a plump old woman.

"What do you mean, 'No'?" he was saying angrily. "What sort of answer is that?"

"An honest one," the woman retorted, brandishing a fistful of delicate bat bones inlaid with silver under his nose.

"Now see here: I don't read these things for the fun of it You ask me 'Will all be well'; the bones tell me that all won't. There the message ends. But as a far-seer I can tell you this much more: a deadly force is all too near you even now and will come nearer still. You will provoke it; and what it begins, you will finish. There, priest. You wanted your fortune told. Now I wish you the joy of it." With that, she turned and flounced down the steps.

The indignation went out of her gait before she reached the bottom, however, and Jame suddenly found herself looking down into a pair of worried eyes. "Foolish as he is sometimes, he's not a bad man," the old woman said to her in an undertone. "Spare him if you can." Then she scurried away.

Jame stared at her for a moment in amazement, then shrugged. Far-seers had no great reputation for sanity. On impulse, remembering her errand, she went up the steps.

"Excuse me, sir," she said to the priest, who had turned back to his sanctuary and already had one step over the threshold. "Can you tell me where to find the temple of the Three-Faced God?"

The little man spun about. Jame had just time to note the desperate unhappiness in his face before he shrieked "Heretic!" and struck out wildly at her. As she swayed to avoid the blow, her half-healed ankle twinged in warning. Without thinking, she followed the path of least resistance, which happened to be over the guard rail, down five feet, and over backward into a puddle. A burst of laughter greeted this performance and one of the men who had stopped to listen to the previous altercation shouted "Well done, Loogan!" after the priest, who had already disappeared. "All hail Gorgo the Lugubrious God!"

"Loogan, huh?" said Jame under her breath as she got to her feet, flushed with anger. Then she limped back the way she had come, ignoring the jeering spectators.

Her temper had cooled somewhat by the time she reached Judgment Square, that vast open area with the Mercy Seat at its center. On this visit, Jame found it full of people. As she threaded her way through the crowd, fending off peddlers, she marveled at how different everything was from the first time she had seen this place. Then, as she approached the Mercy Seat, she saw that it too was no longer empty. At first Jame thought that the figure lolling on it was an effigy of some sort, then that it was a sleeping man clad in a tight black garment which, oddly, seemed to be moving. It wasn't until she was quite close that she saw the darkness was not cloth at all but dried blood and flies. The man's skin, still attached at the neck, hung over the back of the Seat like a strangely shaped cloak. Under the dangling right hand, someone had scrawled in chalk:

 
Steal a peach, steal a plum,
See to what your carcass comes.

Greatly sobered but undeterred, Jame continued on. After all, that would never happen to her, although it gave her a jolt to think that the thief in the stone chair had probably once said as much to himself.

On the far side of the square, she found what looked like the right street and soon confirmed this by coming to the crowned crossroads. Not far beyond that was the River Tone and the bridge by which she had crossed it. On the opposite side her troubles began again, for this was the area through which she had raced so blindly and one street was no different from any other to her. Dusk was falling too, bringing the prospect of another cheerless night in the open. Discouraged and footsore, she sat down on the edge of a small fountain in a dirty little square to eat the last of her food. Without provisions or money she would soon have to start home, perhaps to mount another expedition later—although it was clear to her now that she might spend the rest of her life bumbling around these streets without coming any closer to her goal. Perhaps it was time to admit that the labyrinth had defeated her and her plans.

To the west, the sun had slipped behind the Ebonbane, kindling veins of fire in its snow-locked passes. Jame was gazing up at the mountain peaks dejectedly when she suddenly remembered the Res aB'tyrr's loft with its fine view of the city. That was what she needed now: height. She jumped up and eagerly scanned the surrounding roof lines. There were several tall buildings visible above the houses bordering the square, but one soared above the rest, its upper stories still flooded with light above the growing sea of shadows. That was the one.

Moments later, Jame stared up at its crumbling façade. The door was bricked shut. She swung herself up onto the portico roof and pulled the rotting boards away from a second story window. Inside, light filtered through cracks and down the stairwell revealing a wilderness of dust and decay. She went up the steps quickly but with care, for many of them were rotten, until a collapsed flight some seven stories up blocked her way. From there, she went out a window and up the side of the building for the last twenty feet, gouging finger holds through the sour plaster to the lath.

When her hand finally closed on the eave trough, she pulled herself onto the roof. She was climbing up the steep slope, eyes fixed on the tiles before her for rotten spots, when a foot suddenly appeared almost under her nose. Something gave her shoulder a strong push, and she found herself slithering down the incline, nails scrabbling for a grip. Then her foot came up against the gutter and the descent stopped. Heart hammering, she looked up. A young man clad all in white was smoothly crab-stepping down the roof toward her. Two other men watched from the ridge.

"If you do that again," she heard herself say in a remarkably conversational tone, "I shall fall off."

"That's the idea," said the descending man with an angelic smile, and he reached out toward her again.

Jame seized his wrist and pulled. Over-balanced, he pitched forward past her into space. She released her first hold and grabbed for his jacket as he shot past. They both went over the edge. Jame's free hand caught the gutter and then nearly lost it again as the other's suddenly arrested weight wrenched at her muscles. She hadn't come up here to kill or be killed, Jame thought savagely, wondering which shoulder would dislocate first, and damned if she would let either happen through some stupid accident—although from the way her companion was dangling, it wouldn't surprise her if she had inadvertently hanged him with his own collar.

Two heads appeared above, silhouetted against the sky.

"Well?" she snapped.

A minute later all four of them were sitting on the roof, feet braced against the gutter, panting. The two rescuers seemed the most shaken of the lot, and Jame's erstwhile assailant the least. The latter was in fact still staring down into the void like a man entranced.

"That's the closest I've ever come to going over," he said at last in an awed voice. "I almost wish you'd let me fall."

"I suppose we could try again," said Jame, anger giving way to curiosity. "Do you often go around pushing people off roofs?"

"Oh, all the time. Only citizens of the Cloud Kingdom are welcome up here and, of course, their guests. Incredible . . . just incredible . . ." He leaned forward, causing Jame and the man on his other side to grab his flowing sleeves simultaneously. "I've seen a hundred, a thousand fall, and each time it seems to take longer. Seconds, minutes, hours . . . twisting, turning, dancing in the air . . . marvelous!"

"Messy too, I should think, when they hit the ground."

"Oh, I never watch that long." He sat back and looked at her with wide, admiring eyes. "No one has ever come so close to sending me over before. You must be an unusual person. You're sure you won't let me push you off? Well, in that case no one else shall have the pleasure. Come to court someday soon and I shall have Uncle grant you the freedom of the skies."

With that, he bowed to her, rose, and seemed to float up the incline. All three men had just disappeared over the ridge when Jame remembered her mission. Eagerly she examined the patterns of the city below, but nowhere in the deepening shadows was there a sign of that desolate circle, those cold white walls.

"Hey!" she called after the trio, and the fair head popped back into sight over the ridge, looking disembodied.

"Yes?" it said, hopefully.

"I'm looking for the temple of the Three-Faced God. Do you know where it is?"

"Oh." Disappointment washed over the features. "Sparrow will show you." And it vanished again.

"Hey! When I come to court, who shall I say invited me?"

"Why, Prince Dandello, of course," the voice drifted back. "The Cloud King's nephew."

* * *

"NO, I DON'T know why the groundlings won't discuss your god or, for that matter, the priest Ishtier," said Sparrow, waiting on the crest of a gambrel roof for Jame to scramble up to him. "They're a fat-headed lot from what I've seen; though mind, I've never had much to do with them. Born in the clouds, I was, and here I'll die—barring accidents—without ever touching the ground."

Without warning, the wiry little Cloudie launched himself down the far side of the roof toward a projecting cornice, bounced off the top of it, and easily cleared the eight-foot gap across to the opposite roof. Steeling herself, Jame followed him. They had come quite a distance across the labyrinth by now with comparative ease. Obviously, this was the way to travel for anyone with good nerves, although not even these saved Jame from a quick spasm of fear as the street flashed past beneath her, some forty feet below.

"Two things, though," said Sparrow as she caught up with him several houses later. "They do tend to treat anything they don't like as if it doesn't exist, and I think the Townies blame your god for whatever it was—no, is, that's happening to them. We Cloudies haven't been overjoyed either, what with the way these roofs have disintegrated. You'd never believe it, but this was a flourishing neighborhood six years ago. Now watch your step. We're getting close."

The warning was necessary. They had reached the edge of the temple's greatest influence, as the condition underfoot clearly showed. Jame went first now, picking her way carefully, hearing plaster rattle down inside as boards groaned under her weight. Then there the temple was, tall, stark, ghost-pale under the new moon. The power that flowed continually out of it buffeted her, but at the same time she felt the attraction of that monolithic structure, the sure, arrogant claim of the force that dwelt within its walls on her, body and soul, as a Kencyr. For a moment, Jame hesitated. Then, "Damnation," she said and, with a gesture as foolhardy as it was defiant, threw down all her mental shields. The power claimed her instantly. She forgot her guide, her resentment, everything as it drew her down from the rooftop, across the graveyard of dust, and into the dark doorway.

The moment Jame crossed the threshold, the maelstrom seized her. It seemed to her dazed mind that two currents flowed through the twisting corridors, the greater bound outward, the lesser on either side of it whirling inward along the walls toward the temple's heart. She was spun forward, whipped around faster and faster until her shoulder crashed into a door and it gave way, spilling her sideways onto a tessellated floor.

Her senses ringing in the sudden lull, she stared numbly at the patterns beneath her hand. They spiraled in toward the center of the chamber. Her eyes followed their curve to the foot of the statue there on its raised dais, then up that towering, black granite form to the three faces of her god. The aspect of Regonereth, That-Which-Destroys, was turned toward her, its features obscured with marble carved veil-thin. Lower down, one hand reached out and upward through a fissure in the masonry as though beckoning. Each long, scythe-curved finger was tipped in ivory, honed and gleaming.

Ishtier, Highborn priest of the Kencyrath, stood in the shadow of his god, watching her with hooded eyes. His nearly fleshless lips were raised in a faint smile, and tongues of power from the outer corridors licked eagerly past her, spiraling into the center. She got quickly to her feet.

"Who are you?" It was a thin, dry voice, not exactly rusty but like the hinges of a door infrequently opened.

"Jame of the Three People."

"That is but half a name. Tell me the rest."

"With respect, my lord, it does not concern you." She did not realize until she saw his slight smile deepen that he had asked and she replied in High Kens. More power swirled into the room, tugging at her mind. It was getting harder to think.

"Very well. . . for now," the priest said, "Why have you come?"

Jame tried to answer, struggling with the unaccustomed clumsiness of mind that prevented her from shielding herself against this man. Much more of this and not even her namelessness would protect her.

"I-I want to join the Thieves' Guild," she said, hating herself for the stammer.

"You, a Kencyr, wish to steal? You would sell your honor so cheaply?"

"I would sell nothing!"

"Then you are a fool," said the priest coldly. "Nothing comes without a price ,. . not even this conversation."

Jame caught her breath as power whipped past her face. A second bolt of energy clipped her shoulder, numbing it and spinning her around. Two more quick blows took her off-balance again, her jacket had begun to smolder. She ripped it off, twisting desperately, futilely, to avoid the invisible assault. Ishtier watched, the thin smile again on his lips.

"Dance, fool, dance," he said softly,

Sudden anger made Jame reckless. Defiantly, she raised her clenched fists in challenge, not to the priest but to the statue towering above him. "Lord, a judgment!" she cried to the three faces of her god.

Ishtier drew himself up with a hiss of outrage. Then, abruptly, his expression changed. "Steal not from your own kind," said the god-voice through his unwilling lips. "Do with others what you will, so that it be done with honor, until in your thoughtlessness you destroy them." The voice ceased. Wiping spittle from his face with a shaking hand, Ishtier said hoarsely, "There, brat. You have the answer you sought. Now get out."

Jame bowed and went, not trusting herself to speak. She had her answer indeed, ambiguous in part as it was. Now it was time to go home.

The moon rose over her shoulder as she walked westward, thinking over the day's events. Twice within the last few hours a priest had humiliated her. She had never liked the breed anyway, not since she had realized as a child that it was because of a priest that Anar had gone mad. It had taken a continual effort to protect the keep from the deadly influence of the Haunted Lands. Before Jame's time, this had been the responsibility of the scrollsman's older brother, a priest of great power and knowledge; but one night this man had fled with a female companion, leaving his inexperienced kinsman to assume the terrible burden alone. By the time Anar had become the twins' tutor, his mind had already begun to crumble under the strain. Soon he was more like a child himself, except that he still kept their home safe and continued to do so until sword's edge and arrow's point had destroyed everything for which he had sacrificed so much.

Indeed, it was a terrible thing to wield the power of a Kencyr priest, to stand between the people and their god. The best, like Anar, were often destroyed by it, while others became so warped in time that allowances had to be made for them, even with the rigid structure of the Kencyrath.

Jame, however, forgave nothing, especially not now, now that she had met Ishtier. Old grief and fresh resentment kept her simmering all that long walk home until, in the early hours of the morning, she turned onto the Way of Tears beside Marplet sen Tenko's inn.

There was a burst of raucous laughter from the courtyard of the Skyrrman as she approached its gate, and a slim figure darted out into the street ahead of her, closely pursued.

Cloth ripped as hunter and hunted converged. The slighter of the two reeled into the opposite wall, clutching the remains of her bodice over small white breasts. Jame saw that it was the black-haired servant girl. Niggen was standing in the middle of the road with the torn fabric in his hand, giggling.

Before the boy even realized that she was there, Jame had spun him around. The heel of her palm caught him under the chin with a blow that snapped his head back and practically lifted him off his feet. A moment later, it would have been hard to say who was more startled—the men at the gate, Niggen on the ground spitting teeth, or Jame herself, who had acted purely on instinct.

"If you touch that girl again," she said to Marplet's son, "I shall gladly knock out whatever teeth you have left."

Not until she was crossing the square toward the Res aB'tyrr and heard someone shouting for a guard behind her did she realize what she had done. Marplet had his excuse at last.

"I'm sorry," she said, pulling her cap off in contrition to the astonished Ghillie who met her at the door. Then she turned to face the small group approaching her from the Skyrrman.

Marplet was in the lead, with two burly guards behind him, and Niggen trotting eagerly at his side. The innkeeper stopped short, however, when he saw Jame's face framed with her mane of black hair. For the first and last time, she saw him pale with anger as he turned on his awkward, bewildered son.

"Do you mean to say," he demanded, pointing at her, "that you were beaten by that. . . that girl? You spineless booby!" Without another word he whirled and stalked back to the Skyrrman.

The guards looked at Jame, at each other, then shrugged simultaneously and walked away.

"Something told me you were home," said Cleppetty wryly behind Jame. "Come and have some supper."

By then, it was very late. The widow had apparently been in bed before the disturbance but showed no sign of returning to it even when Jame had finished her bowl of warmed-over stew.

"Can't sleep yet," she said in answer to Jame's question. 'I'm waiting for something."

"What?"

"With luck, you'll never know."

But Cleppetty had hardly finished speaking when a shriek brought both women to their feet. It came from across the square. Jame was halfway out the front door when the widow grabbed her arm and hung on grimly.

"Let me go!" she cried, trying to dislodge the older woman without hurting her. "I said I'd break that slime-ball's teeth if he hurt that girl again, and so help me God I will!"

"It isn't Niggen," said the widow. "Did you seriously think that Marplet would accept a humiliation like that without revenging himself on someone? Wait."

They stood listening to the cries until the door of the Skyrrman suddenly opened and a figure was thrown out. Even then Cleppetty wouldn't let Jame move until it had staggered halfway across the square toward them. Then they both ran out and helped the sobbing, half-naked girl into the kitchen where the widow brought out a jar of ointment and began to dress the whip cuts on her back. Fortunately, the girl was more frightened than hurt, but there was still a great deal of blood, wailing, and general mess before Tubain arrived in his nightshirt to survey the damage.

"Tuby," said the widow, "we will have to keep her."

From the moment the innkeeper had entered the room, he had been surreptitiously trying to leave it again. At Cleppetty's words, however, he suddenly stopped fidgeting and looked squarely at the weeping girl for the first time.

"Of course, we will," he said.

Jame wondered if she herself had been adopted in a similar fashion.

The bandaging done, Ghillie and Jame helped the newest member of the household up to Taniscent's room. They had just tucked her in and quietly retreated to the gallery when the dancer herself slipped into the courtyard below through the side gate. Ghillie took one look at her and fled. Clearly, something had upset Taniscent badly, and Jame, meeting her at the head of the stair, immediately learned what it was. After weeks of cooling ardor, Bortis had finally called her an old hag and gone off with a fifteen-year-old from the next district.

Jame nearly said "good riddance." Instead, respecting Tanis's distress, she concentrated on putting her friend to bed. This proved difficult. She was just beginning to think that she would have to sit on the dancer until she settled down when the widow's voice rose from the courtyard in an exasperated shout:

"Now listen to me, all of you: Shut up and go to sleep!"

"Yes, Cleppetty," six voices meekly chorused from all over the darkened inn.

Taniscent sighed and closed her eyes. With kohl running down in streaks to puddle beside her nose, she looked, if not hag like, at least thoroughly grotesque, and closer forty years old than twenty-four.

Jame took a blanket and lay down on the gallery floor. It was hard to believe that the long day was over at last. She had a premonition that she had started something—several things—during the course of it that might have alarming consequences later, but was too tired to sort them out now. Besides, here was Boo, lumbering out of the shadows purring loudly. Knowing that if she didn't humor him the cat would probably sit on her face, she opened the blanket and let him curl up inside it against her. Dawn was just beginning to touch the eastern sky as she fell asleep.

Back | Next
Framed