A Cook, Armorer, Cobbler, and Smith are also needed.

Great Pay Great Risk

Past Faerie? That meant Melawei. The slavers raided into Melawei all the time, but they didn't hire mercenaries to help them. They'd only do that if there was something more dangerous than a bunch of Mela"

No.

Father was going after the sword, and Ahrmin was going after him.

He s.n.a.t.c.hed the broadside down from the wall and dashed for the arching door. "Doria!"

Two slim women emerged from the shadows, barring his way. "You may not enter the Residence, Jason Cullinane," the nearest one said.

"Doria!" he shouted again.

But there was no answer.

"I have to see hera""

"You may not enter."

Neither of them was close to his size; he tried to push past them as gently as possible, but one of them caught his left wrist with her slim hand, the long, delicate fingers wrapping themselves tightly around his wrist.

He should have been able to break the grip with a twitch of his arm, but as the woman muttered words that could only be uttered and forgotten, her grip tightened, and then tightened some more, until his bones threatened to break.

Time froze as Jason's free hand fastened on the hilt of his bowie, and he started to draw his knife.

"Ta havath," Doria's clear contralto proclaimed, shattering the moment. "What is it, Jason?" she asked, separating him from the others, rubbing at his wrist with strong fingers that seemed to ease the pain magically, even if he knew that was impossible.

"Read this."

Doria's face went ashen. "Past Faerie. Ita""

"It has to mean what we think it does," Jason said. "These are going up all over the city."

"It must be," Doria said, as she turned to the other two Hand women. Their fingers met and clasped for a moment, before she turned back to Jason.

"The word is out," she said. "Karl is making an overland try for the sword, and Ahrmin plans to beat him by sea." She gripped his arm, with far more strength than she had any right to. "He's painted a target on his back, and Ahrmin is setting sail to put a cl.u.s.ter of arrows in the bullseye."

Jason nodded. "How soon?"

"I don't know. But we had best find out."

"That we had."

The night pa.s.sed slowly, as they lay on their blankets in the single room they had rented. The night was hot and muggy; sweat ran down Jason's forehead and into his eyes as he sat at the window, looking out into the street.

He rubbed his stinging eyes. He couldn't sleep; it was just too hot. He uncorked a jug of water and tilted it back. The water was blood temperature; it quelled his thirst without giving him any satisfaction at all.

"I don't know, Doriaa"what can we do?"

Getting an opportunity to kill Ahrmin was out, now; the slaver was due to leave in only a couple of days, and he'd certainly be unusually careful until he left, his suspicious mind open to the possibility of an attack.

Of course, Jason could sign on with Ahrmin . . . possibly.

But what good would that do?

Doria muttered a few harsh words that could only be forgotten. Jason turned to see a fat, dark-haired woman of about fifty, who reminded him of U'len.

"I picked it from your mind," Doria said. "U'len looks like a cook. I . . ." Her voice trailed off into a gurgle, as she staggered back against the wall and slipped to the floor, one outstretched arm fluttering at him to keep his distance.

I can't help you," she said, her form shimmering, waves of shadow washing across her bulk. The voice wasn't hers, not really, it was richer, deeper, older, more powerful.

"No," she said in her own voice. "I can do whata""

"No. I can'ta""

"Yes. I can take on a form that will protect me. I can go where I please, and I can disguise myself for my own protection. For my own protection, I can disguise myself."

She clenched her fists tightly, leaning back into shadow as dark sweat beaded on her forehead.

Jason picked up a cloth, uncorked the water jug to wet it, and went to wipe her forehead.

"No. Keep your distance. My burden. Price to . . . pay for challenging the Mother."

He pushed aside the vague fingers and daubed at her face. "Easy, Doria. Easy."

The cloth came away dark with blood.

Doria held up a hand. "Don't come closer. You'll only make it worse."

His gorge rose; he fell to his hands and knees and vomited until he was bent over double, his belly wracked with pain from the dry heaves.

"Jason . . . I'll be okay. Jason. Jason."

He waved her away as he tried to get his churning belly under control. He had to; he just had to. If they were going to sign up with Ahrmin tomorrow, he'd have to be in command of himself.

"I'll . . . be okay, too," he said. "And call me Taren. Even when we're alone."

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:.

Ahrmin.

In a well-governed country, poverty is something to be ashamed of. In a badly governed country, wealth is something to be ashamed of.

a"Kung-Fu-Tze.

His heart thrumming a steady backbeat, Jason slowly advanced in the line outside the Slavers' Guildhall.

He wasn't impressed with the others in line with him; they were a dirty bunch of swordsmen.

But he couldn't really look down on them. Maybe they weren't cowards.

"Where you from, boy?" the man in front of him asked, probably just to make conversation.

Jason ignored him. The man took a too-long moment deciding whether or not to take offense, decided against it and then struck up a conversation with the man in front of him.

Doria had warned Jason about getting involved in idle chatter. It wasn't a deliberate interrogation he had to worry abouta"he knew enough about the fict.i.tious Taren ip Therranj to answer questionsa"but an accidental slip.

It was a deceptively pretty building, or set of buildings: four connected three-storied structures of glistening white marble, surrounding an interior courtyard. Each of the linked buildings was supported by a pair of high fluted columns, guarding an entry arch.

He had seen the spreading branches of an ancient oak through an archway. It looked gorgeous, rising cleanly into the sky.

But the facade faded at the edges. A pair of rag-clad Mel women, the younger about Jason's age, the other perhaps a decade older, were on their hands and knees a short way down the corridor to Jason's left, scrubbing the floor under the watchful eye of a half-tunic-clad boy, of about fifteen or so, who, every now and then, snapped his many-stranded whip to draw their attention to missed spots, real or not.

Jason wasn't sure what the purpose of it all was, or if the boy was merely being cruel to no purpose. Blood was trickling down the back of the younger of the two women, staining the marble, causing the slaver to redouble his efforts.

Jason turned his face away, but the sound persisted.

The line in front of him slowly shrank. Over the background noise of whip cracks and stifled screams, the guard at the door looked into the room beyond and nodded.

The grizzled soldier in front of him had been gone only a few moments when the guard nodded at Jason.

"Next. Taren ip Therranj."

Jason followed the guard's gesture into the outer room, where a skinny, cringing man knelt in front of him with a damp rag.

"To wash your feet," the guard explained, as the slave began scrubbing at Jason's sandals and feet. "Must mind the carpeting, even in the Stranger's Room."

The soap felt slimy between his toes. Jason forced himself not to let the disgust he felt show in his face.

"Lift your arms," the guard said, patting Jason down thoroughly, checking even the contents of Jason's purse, and, after a quick explanatory gesture, even checking to be sure that there was nothing in Jason's scabbard other than his sword.

"Nice blade," the guard said, slipping Jason's saber back into its scabbard and handing it to Jason. "You can keep that; I'll need the beltknife."

Jason handed over his bowie. He wasn't worried that the Nehera markings on sword or bowie would expose him; smiths all over were trying to copy the dwarf smith's striations, even if they couldn't get quite the same strength and sharpness from their own inferior steel or quite the same edge from imported Home wootz.

"And now," the guard said, knocking a staccato tattoo against the oaken door, "they should be ready for you."

He wasn't sure what he had expected, but this wasn't it.

The room was about as he'd thought it would be: high ceiling above, plush crimson carpet below, the pile tickling his ankles. One wall was windowed, the gla.s.sa"far clearer, less mottled than the best that Home and Holtun-Bieme could boast ofa"revealed a huge oak that stood in the courtyard between the buildings that made up the guildhall.

The other wall was covered with a faded tapestry. Or perhaps it wasn't really a tapestry; the endless scenes of buxom young women in iron collars and chains kneeling before muscular, whip-bearing men seemed to repeat in some sort of odd progressiona"it could have been some sort of complex print.

The two guards to either side of the large padded chair impressed Jason. Even the slightly smaller one was larger than Father; they were armored from greaves to helmet; each man held a short fighting spear easily, comfortably.

Jason wasn't surprised that Ahrmin would have a bodyguarda"under these circ.u.mstances, it would otherwise have been too easy for Karl to send an a.s.sa.s.sin into Ahrmin's presence.

Between the two, sitting comfortably in the chair, was a small man in a dark slaver's robe.

He was repulsive, of course. What Jason could see of the side of his face that the slaver turned away was an awful brown ma.s.s; the right side of his cheek was gone, revealing gapped, yellowing teeth and burned gums. A claw of a right hand was almost concealed in the folds of his robes.

Jason had expected something more than a crippled little man in a chair. From all that he had heard about Ahrmina"from him, from Tennetty, from Valeran, from Mothera"Jason had expected an aura, an atmosphere of evil to surround him.

There was nothing of the sort. "Taren ip Therranj?" Ahrmin asked, consulting a sheet of paper in his lap. "Swordsman, it says."

Jason nodded. "I am."

"Good. You're willing to take a risk for good pay?"

"Yes."

Ahrmin nodded, turning to the guard on his left. "Fenrius, I like the looks of this one."

"Your pardon, Master Ahrmin," the big man said, "but our manifest is only halfway full, and the day is no longer young. We need to hire a cook, and at least anothera""

"Yes, yes, it's just that I used to be a swordsman, when I was younger. I like to talk to the type." He gestured to Jason. "Show me something."

"I fight two-swords-style. The guard outside took my second."

"Pretend. Please. And we do not have all day, as Fenrius quite properly pointed out."

Jason reached across his waist and drew his saber with his right hand, pretending to draw his bowie with his left.

He tried to repeat his battle with Kyreen, with a few minor improvements: Jason parried an imaginary lunge, but the fact that there was no blade to beat aside put him off. Still, he feigned a high-line attack with his saber, binding his imaginary opponent's blade and slipping in until they were chest to chest.