"Sorcery."

IT WAS WAS THE HIPPODROME. AND MORE. AS GHORT AND Hecht discovered after the dust subsided enough to let them approach the scene of the disaster. THE HIPPODROME. AND MORE. AS GHORT AND Hecht discovered after the dust subsided enough to let them approach the scene of the disaster.

"Sorcery," Ghort said again, looking down into the vast hole full of rubble that had swallowed the racing stadium.

"Sorcery," Hecht agreed. He would rather have blamed the collapse on time and failure of strength in the catacombs helow, but had seen what he had seen earlier.

"Ever see anything like this?"

"Never." And, as an afterthought, "You were there every time I've ever had any run-in with the things of the Night."

"Hey! Don't go blaming it on me."

"This is probably something you should handle." Some of Ghort's soldiers were there already, standing around looking dazed. Along with hundreds of gawkers. "We don't want a lot of people getting hurt."

"Too late for that, Pipe. There's gonna be plenty of bodies in that mess, you can bet." Looking down into the pit.

No doubt. Craftsmen would have been doing renovations. And there were always squatters hiding in the great stadium.

Hecht could see corpses and parts of corpses already. "There may be survivors down there, too, Pinkus. You get to it. I'll muster my troops and send them over to help."

There was a brilliant flash beneath the rubble. Crackling, muted thunder followed. Then the earth shifted.

They retreated. The pavements where they had stood tilted, slowly slid into the pit. On the far side the last surviving wall of the hippodrome sank majestically into the earth. More dust roared up, less dense than before. A breeze from the south pushed it away from Hecht and Ghort. "Later," Hecht said. "And be careful."

"Careful is my new family name. You see anything around here worth stealing?"

"Huh?"

"I'm thinking my guys might have to worry more about looters than rescue and cleanup."

Hecht granted agreement, then headed for the Castella.

Hecht found his staff in place, at work, when he entered the suite provided by the Brotherhood. "Have you all heard what's happened?"

"Some kind of disaster," Colonel Smolens said. "I sent people out to investigate. So did the Brothers."

"A disaster. Yes. The hippodrome fell down. Because the catacombs caved in. Sorcery was involved. I saw it happening. It's a huge mess. I expect we'll need to help keep order."

Everyone asked questions at once.

"That's all I know. Except that there'll be casualties. Call out the soldiers. a.s.semble them in the Closed Ground. Weapons and kit. Do we have enough messengers?"

"We can borrow from the Brotherhood. They've got a lot of extra mouths around here lately."

"Good. Go. t.i.tus. Who owns the hippodrome?"

"The Church. Why?"

"That's what I thought. Meaning the Church will have to clean up and rebuild."

"Sir?"

"If Sublime has to do that, he'll have less to invest in us and his ambitions."

"Oh. My. Are you talking about sabotage? A scheme to disarm Sublime?"

"No. We know people who are ruthless enough. But not smart enough to recognize the opportunity. Actually, I think the disaster could be the by-product of something much darker."

Everyone stopped work and turned.

"The sorcery involved was huge. You won't believe the eyewitnesses."

Hecht, with t.i.tus Consent in tow, went to review the troops. The few seemed lost in the expanse of the Closed Ground. Colonel Smolens reported, "This is all we could pull together. So far."

Hecht guessed he was looking at a hundred twenty men. Something we'll have to work on."

"Sir?" Consent asked.

"Responding to the unexpected more quickly."

Colonel Smolens observed, "They'll come as soon as they get the word. We need a signal. A horn, maybe."

Hecht grunted. The slow response was his fault. He had not wanted his married soldiers living separate from their families. He had suffered too much of that when he was Sha-lug. The trouble with the horn notion was that the city was loo big.

t.i.tus Consent said, "Company coming. Looks like Princ.i.p.ate Doneto."

Doneto, Donel Madisetti, and several lesser lights of the Collegium. Doneto demanded, "What are you doing, Captain-General?"

"a.s.sembling my troops in order to help keep public order around the collapse."

It would be dark soon. The looters would bloom by moonlight.

"Admirable," Doneto said. "Exactly the responsible sort of action we expect of you, Captain-General. But I have to change your plans."

"Sir?" Insanity. The Brothen people would be outraged if the Church did nothing. Loving Mother Church with her infinite charity.

Princ.i.p.ate Doneto did one of those disconcerting mind-reading tricks Collegium sorts enjoyed so much. "We won't deliberately withhold a.s.sistance, Captain-General." He jerked his head sideways. He wanted a private word.

Hecht joined him. "Sir?"

"There's an uprising coming tonight. Possibly connected to what happened at the hippodrome."

"There hasn't been much disorder since Colonel Ghort got aggressive."

"A change of strategy by those who would misbehave, I expect."

"What am I supposed to do?"

"Back up the Palace guard. The mob is supposed to hit us here."

Princ.i.p.ate Doneto was an accomplished liar, hard to read. But Hecht thought he was being sincere but not entirely forthcoming. "This is what His Holiness wants?"

"Desperately."

Oh? The response suggested some special interest by the Patriarch's cousin.

Men continued to a.s.semble. Smolens and the staff kept order while Hecht conferred with Doneto. The Drumm brothers arrived filthy, sweaty, and minus their tunics. The elder, gasping, reported, "There's a huge mob in the Memorium, sir. They chased us. Because of our uniforms. We almost didn't get away."

The mob could be heard outside, getting louder.

The Chiaro Palace had been built at the height of the Old Brothen Empire, when the frontiers were a thousand miles away and whole legions quartered in the city, capable of suppressing disorder instantly. There had been no need to make the Palace defensible. A bastion of bureaucracy, it remained untouched during even the ferocious Imperial civil wars.

Whoever crowned himself Emperor needed the tax rolls and a means of extorting money from the citizenry.

The mob poured into the Closed Ground. Brothens had been accustomed to do so for two score generations. These pilgrims were drunk. Some carried torches. Weapons were makeshift, cudgels, bricks, tools, knives, and, rarely, a rusty keepsake military sword purloined by an ancestor.

"Looks like mainly refugees," t.i.tus Consent told Hecht. "I've heard several languages already that aren't native to Firaldia.

"They don't seem eager for a confrontation, though."

Some sobering up was taking place out there.

Someone whose job it was to stir trouble threw a stone. Hecht told his staff, "I don't want anyone doing anything unless they actually break in. They'll go home if they just stand around long enough for their heads to start hurting."

Voices exhorted the mob. It was not necessary to understand to get the gist.

Hecht said, "They'll be too tired and hungover to become o obnoxious if we don't respond."

Captain-General Piper Hecht's Patriarchal soldiers were combat veterans. He was able to cherry-pick the very best available. Having seen the elephant up close and smelled her foul breath, his men were not eager for a bloodletting contest.

The Palace guards did not suffer a comparable level of basic sense.

"That d.a.m.ned fool will get us all killed," Colonel Smolens said, indicating a guard officer who was headed out with three uniformed footmen.

"Must think the livery makes him invulnerable," Hecht said. "Princ.i.p.ate Doneto, how about you... Where did he go?" Doneto, Madisetti, and the others had vanished. "Doneto could have ordered him back." He could not. He might be Captain-General but there were a thousand exceptions to his being in charge.

t.i.tus Consent observed, "They might deal with him too fast to get the mob fired up. Here! What are you doing?"

Hecht had started to go out. Consent's outburst stopped him.

A waving torch had revealed two familiar faces. One belonged to Pinkus Ghort's man Bo Biogna. Biogna would be right at home in a seditious mob, identifying ringleaders. It was the man next to Bo whose appearance froze Hecht's heart.

He was a little older, a little grayer, showed a hitherto unsuspected bald spot, and was less enthusiastically bearded, but there was no doubt. Hecht would know Bone anywhere, if all that was left was his skeleton. Bo and Bone. Bone and his bones. What the h.e.l.l was Bone doing on this side of the Mother Sea? Let alone being here, in the front rank of a mob quickly losing all enthusiasm for an a.s.sault on the beating heart of western religion?

Hagid.

There must be a connection.

Bone, known by no other name insofar as Hecht knew, had been the leading sergeant in the special company commanded by the Sha-lug captain, Else Tage.

"Sir?"

"Bechter. There you are."

Sergeant Bechter had been forced to take a long way around. Accompanying him were the newly minted Bruglioni Princ.i.p.ate, Gervase Saluda, and old Hugo Mongoz. Princ.i.p.ate Mongoz appeared to be having a good day. Hecht told Saluda, "Congratulations. Finally." Paludan Bruglioni, the chieftain of the Bruglioni family, had nominated Saluda long ago, after Princ.i.p.ate Divino Bruglioni had been discovered dead on the battlefield outside al-Khazan, scant hours before the conclusion of the Calziran Crusade.

There had been fierce opposition to Saluda. The man had not been inside a church since his christening. He had no supernatural talents. He was a strong personality. He was dedicated to the Bruglioni family fortunes. And, from Hecht's point of view, he was dangerously smart. He had held the Bruglioni together for the last ten years.

"The right always triumphs," Saluda replied, in a sarcastic tone. He was amoral, and cynical in the extreme.

"Pardon me. We have a situation here."

More than one, possibly. Osa Stile materialized back in the shadows, behind the soldiers. The catamite tried to get Hecht's attention.

Studying the crowd again, Hecht could not find Bone or Bo Biogna. The mob was dispersing, the provocateurs first to go. Those who stayed were content to taunt the Palace guards.

Hecht shuddered suddenly.

"Sergeant Bechter."

"Sir?"

"To the left, there. In the second rank. Behind the guy with the huge beard. Wearing brown."

"Got him, sir. That's the man I've been talking about. And I got the chill a minute ago."

"Cloven Februaren," Hugo Mongoz said, peering between Hecht and Bechter, hanging on to their shoulders, leaning forward and squinting. "That would be Cloven Februaren. No doubt about it. The Ninth Unknown himself."

Only Hecht understood. "The Ninth Unknown, Your Grace? But he's been dead for fifty years."

"Yes," the old man said, musingly. "He should have been. So you'd think." Mongoz looked resentful for a moment, then a shadow stirred behind his eyes. He slumped, his grip weakening. Hecht and Bechter caught his arms. He turned panicky, suddenly lost.