And without another word, she stalked off down the tunnel to the homestead.

Sunbright was left talking to himself in the dark. "Another thing I forgot to add. Shamans are teachers. But you need to have the student listen in order to explain something...."

Chapter 9.

Karsus was away. No one knew where. With all the inbred intrigue of the empire, Candlemas first suspected that everyone knew but wouldn't tell, but even pestering folks couldn't make them spill secrets, and he concluded that really, no one knew where Karsus had gone. This was both mysterious and frightening, considering how heavily the empire depended on the man.

a.s.signed no particular tasks-no one could even guess what Karsus wanted Candlemas to do-the friendless mage wandered the halls, laboratories, workshops, animal collections, and libraries.

Everywhere were fascinating magical works, most of which he couldn't understand, but idleness made him itchy. At least, slaving for Lady Polaris, he'd had too much work to be bored. Uselessness was a new sensation.

Finally, he sought out Lady Aquesita. He told himself he was merely being useful, seeking out Karsus's only living relative for practical advice. But in fact, he had a nagging doubt something else pushed him. Another weird sensation he couldn't finger.

By now he'd oriented himself somewhat. Karsus controlled the top of a low hill called Mystryl's Mound by some. There had originally been two mansions atop it and a half dozen smaller ones encircling it. As his importance grew, Karsus had bought or been given all of them, and the city had erected an encircling wall and called the entire complex Castle Karsus. The eccentric magician had then, as if to put his own stamp on it, had the buildings linked and modified and added to, with some torn down or turned at a crazy angle, until the whole sprawl was brain wrenching to look at. The most disturbing aspects for Candlemas were the doors that opened from third floors into midair, or the winding staircases that just stopped.

But Lady Aquesita had been given a smaller mansion-Candlemas suspected she'd coveted the gardens-stripped all rococo from her sight, painted it a lovely rose, and concentrated on improving the grounds. So his sandals crunched on plain white gravel as he wended his way to her "simple cottage" of only sixty-odd rooms and its acres of gardens both symmetrical and wild.

A manservant conducted Candlemas to a stretch of garden behind a tall screen of blue-green spruces. There Lady Aquesita directed a dozen gardeners in the planting of a wagonful of cuttings and small bushes. She wore a gown of spring green that featured gold lace tucked and folded to hide her ample curves. She was issuing clear and polite orders for the plants' placement when Candlemas rounded the corner. Oddly, she stopped in mid sentence to brush back her hair and smile brightly.

"Good day, milady." Candlemas found his stomach fluttering as he spoke, as if he'd eaten rye bread and beer for breakfast. "I, uh, just came to see you. Or, how you were doing. Or, rather, uh, whether you knew where your c-cousin was. Karsus, I m-mean," d.a.m.n it, why was he stuttering?

Aquesita licked her lips and fussed with her hair some more. "Good day, Master Candlemas," she said brightly. "I trust you're well."

She glanced at the servants and gardeners, told them to carry on, then took his arm to lead him along another path. Candlemas supposed she had some secret to convey. He found the touch of her cool hand tingly, as if she were enchanted. Or enchanting him.

"I'm so glad you've come, Candlemas. I wanted to show you some of my work. I like to show off my gardens, and I get so few visitors." The mage nodded vaguely. He'd come to ask about Karsus, though. Or had he already? He couldn't recall. What was wrong with him?

She seemed to read his mind, saying, "Oh, Karry is away. That's Karsus, my little cousin. No one knows where, least of all unimportant me. But he'll return shortly and throw the whole castle into a tizzy. But I suspect you want something to do in the meantime. You seem the responsible, productive sort I so admire. I suggest you find an unused bench and work at whatever you like. Any of the apprentices will fetch whatever you need. Karry has nine hundred of them, I think he said once. I'm sure someone as clever as you can think of lots to do."

Candlemas found himself grinning like an idiot. He hadn't felt clever lately, actually the opposite, since he knew less magic than most of the apprentices. But her words made him feel clever, against all logic.

"That's kind of you, Lady Aquesita. I was wondering-"

"Please, call me Sita," she interrupted. Her smile seemed brighter than the sun. Her cheeks rounded nicely, he thought, and were dimpled at the corners enticingly. Funny he'd never noticed that on a woman before.

As they strolled along a blue slate path, Candlemas suddenly wasn't concerned about Karsus at all, only walking and talking with Sita. Perhaps the outside air had infected his brain, sucking out the nourishment. His feet felt lighter too, and the gra.s.s and flowers smelled heavenly.

"Oh, I can keep busy," he a.s.sured her. "But what did you want to show me? I'd love to see anything you find interesting. What were you directing so competently back there?"

Strangely, she blushed, and tightened her grip on his arm, tugging his elbow to brush her round bosom. When Candlemas jerked away, she deftly drew him back and said, "Speaking of work, that's more of mine. As I mentioned before, my lifelong project has become the gathering of the cream of the empire. Inside, I've tried to collect the most beautiful artifacts our people can fabricate. Out here, I collect their natural works."

She stopped at a long raised bed of small flowers, all the colors of the rainbow jumbled in soft petals.

"These, for instance," she continued, "are every variety of pansy I've been able to locate. I correspond with a great many people, you see, and humbly ask that they send me cuttings. They do, of course, from all over the empire. When I started this bed, there were only the white and the purple. But see how many others the Netherese have bred? I try to cultivate every useful and beautiful plant for the betterment of our empire. Really, in my own small way, I emulate my famous cousin."

"Admirable. Wonderful." Candlemas fingered the pansy petals as he spoke. They had a fine fuzz that softened their brightness. "And this is no small effort. Anyone would admire your taste and good sense. You must be the talk of the empire."

"Oh, no." Aquesita rubbed her nose to hide a flush. "No, I spend more time alone that anything else. There are sometimes whole series of b.a.l.l.s held and I'm not even invited, just forgotten . . ." Her voice trailed off, sounding infinitely sad to Candlemas. He wanted to do something to a.s.suage her loneliness, but for the life of him, he couldn't think what to do.

Aquesita sniffed and wiped her eyes while Candlemas looked elsewhere. Here, raised beds surrounded a croquet green with a babbling fountain in the center. Bushes with huge white flowers screened more gardens. The mage started when a pair of white-spotted deer no more than knee-high padded from under the bush to crop foliage.

The lady went on, "It's good to have a cause and busywork. Between corresponding, managing the rest of Karry's estates, and encouraging artists at the guild, I'm never very lonely. And of course, I see Karry when I can. He can be difficult-not ornery, you understand, just preoccupied-but I try to steer him toward creative, helpful magic projects, not frivolous and destructive ones. But he loves to pursue everything, and . . . well, you must know how it is."

Candlemas nodded, not smiling now. He thought of the ragged prisoner suffocated in the testing of an imprisonment spell, the random conjuring of strange beasts from who-knew-where, and how one had killed three apprentices with its unearthly screech.

But Aquesita was talking. ". . . Karry will be hailed as the empire's savior in time. With his abilities and the guidance of wise rulers, the Netherese Empire will stretch beyond the horizons, expanding ever outward to the far seas. We'll bring peace and justice, and-but silly me, I'm rambling. Perhaps, when things settle down, there'll be a need for all these plants, and new beds faraway where they can prosper."

"Well, please then," he said, "show me more." Her bright smile rewarded him. Candlemas covered her cool hand with his own as they walked the gardens, she pointing out this and that plant, he murmuring appreciatively. But he felt a shiver as from a cloud. From hints and glimpses he'd seen of the empire, it was neither prospering nor bettering the world. Food riots, obsessions with gambling and a.s.sa.s.sination, the casual destruction of the poor, insensitivity to growing problems . .. if the empire were to grow to new heights, its "wise rulers" had better see to shoring up the foundation first.

And may the G.o.ds have pity if mad Karsus really did rule the empire.

"Push this up. But quietly."

Shifting Harvester's scabbard and bracing his feet, the barbarian put his back against the stone grate and heaved upward. Instantly one of the twins, Zykta by the scar on her cheek, stuck her head past him like a topknotted gopher. "Clear!"

"Slide it over," said Knucklebones in her low, dulcet voice.

Sunbright obliged, grunting, and stood up in the hole. Zykta had already climbed through. She hunkered on her skinny hams in the dark cellar, peering at oblong sh.e.l.ls on the floor. Sunbright sniffed and asked her, "What are those? Dead c.o.c.kroaches?"

Knucklebones elbowed him aside, deftly slapped her hands on the rim and vaulted through the hole like a wildcat. The barbarian felt the caress of her warm leathers. Her lean muscled neatness reminded him of Greenwillow. She squatted in bare feet and inspected the round carapaces. "We catch them and kill them," she explained, "then spread their sh.e.l.ls on the floor near our exits. If they're crushed, we know someone's been sniffing around."

"Hmm. Smart."

Sunbright levered himself through the hole. Although lean for a big man, he had trouble wriggling through. That was why the giant Ox hadn't come this time. Normally, Knucklebones had explained, he lifted the heavy grates that were the gang's best protection against a.s.sault.

Sunbright shuffled aside while the rest of the gang hopped up. Aba, the other twin; Mother; Rolon toting Lothar's thin, weighted chain; a sunken-chested man named Hute who coughed whenever he talked. And Sunbright, clubfooted and clumsy compared to these silent thieves. When he accidently trod on a c.o.c.kroach, making the tiniest crunch, they all froze, then turned to stare. Their eyes were ghostly in the phosph.o.r.escent light cast by Knucklebones's hands.

"Make noise in the wrong place and our heads will be spiked around the archwizard's park!"

Knucklebones whispered harshly.

"Sorry."

The party crept up broken stairs to a floor littered with trash. The old building reeked of cold fires and urine. Sunbright peeked past Knucklebone's slim shoulder and asked her, "What was this place?"

"Bookbinders," the thief answered, "A woman named Roni and her family. Friends. Guards confiscated her goods and tools for taxes. She couldn't work, so she took her children to the edge and jumped."

"Edge of what?"

"The edge of the city," she snapped. "What did you think, the archwizard's wading pool?"

Sunbright shook his head absently. In two days amidst these thieves, Knucklebones hadn't once mentioned his having killed her lover, Martel, nor their fight, nor offered thanks for his rescuing them from the city guards.

Lacking anywhere else to go, Sunbright stayed in the homestead. Talking to Mother, he learned more all the time. He was tolerated, but doubted he was considered a member of the gang. He didn't know what he was, except a barbarian out of time, too far from the tundra, stranded under a city suspended too d.a.m.n high in the air. The thought of someone jumping into that mile high void turned his bowels to water.

Squinting in the dim light, Mother waggled her fingers as she crept to the door and broken crockery and splinters were brushed aside as if by an invisible broom. Another thief's cantra, Sunbright realized.

They had over a dozen between them. What did he know? Minor healing.

Knucklebones crouched by the door, lithe as a seal. She put her slanted eyes to a crack through the door, eased it open and shooed out a twin. Others waited, then there came the squeak of a rat trapped under a cat's paw. Sunbright found that amusing: a city wildlife call. Silently, one by one, with Knucklebones watching everywhere at once, the party slipped outside. Sunbright was last, and scuffed as he stepped. Knucklebone's hissed order to, "Pick up your feet!" cut the night.

Outside, the street was black. Sunbright had been told the mission, a raid on a butcher in a district where n.o.bles' servants shopped. This shop preserved meats like ham, bacon, and sausages. Good for the larder, Knucklebones explained, good to trade with other scavengers. Sunbright thought it simple enough, but Knucklebones seemed tense as a bowstring-though the barbarian had barely said a dozen words to her, so he couldn't claim to know her. Neither could Mother, she said, who'd known her for four years.

Sunbright picked up his feet and crossed the black street after the part-elf. The twins occupied opposite doorways with thin pipes in hand. Mother had somehow climbed atop a stone lintel, and hunkered on arthritic knees like a weather-beaten gargoyle. The barbarian couldn't see Rolon, but heard the clink of his new weighted chain. The sound drew a sharp hiss from their leader. The man Hute was out of sight. Sunbright felt a small hand on his belt buckle, was guided into a niche between buildings. Strong fingers signaled he was to draw Harvester and hold it ready, then Knucklebones was gone.

Sunbright tuned his ears until he heard ringing and probed with his eyes until he felt blind. He was used to night hunting in a forest, where he could feel hooves fall against soil and boot soles, smell oncoming game by fur and musk, and sense the wind on his cheek lessen as game closed. But this city was alien, bound by stone flags and hard walls that cut and trapped the wind. He could only guess what his teammates were doing.

He heard a fizz and saw a white light outline Knucklebones's tousled head for a second. Some magic lock defused? Then he heard the clattering of a key.

A savage growl, deep and low-throated, from a wolf or big dog, echoed around them. The growl stopped as the dog's mouth clamped down, then changed to a frenzied snarling as the beast worried flesh and bone. Knucklebones gasped.

Keeping quiet as he could, Sunbright streaked across the narrow street. By sound he located the thief, on her back, straddled by a mastiff.

There was more movement. Mother was suddenly across from him; one of the twins scooted past, bent low. They didn't seem to be doing anything so, still silently, Sunbright hoisted Harvester, aimed as best he could, sent up a prayer, and struck.

The heavy, keen blade cleft the dog's spine with a meaty smack. The animal flopped limp atop Knucklebones, who grunted at the weight. But before Sunbright could jerk the brindled hound loose, slicking his hand and forearm with blood, the thief had wriggled loose. She whapped at his elbow and whispered urgently, "Go back! There were two of them!"

"Two of what?" he whispered.

But she was pattering for the disused bookbinders', rallying her troops with chitters and low whistles.

A voice behind Sunbright stage-whispered, "Stand or die!"

The barbarian whirled. He hadn't even heard the enemy approach. It was a pair of city guards, starlight and the glow of distant gasglobes flaring on polished helmets. Ahead galloped a tongue- lolling mastiff, twin to the dead one at Sunbright's feet.

Oh, he thought. Two dogs, one to attack and one to fetch help. But why need the city officials be silent too?

Then he had his hands full, and his feet.

The dog bounded, mouth open, and snapped for Sunbright's knees even as the guards split to bracket him. No clubs now, but short swords. Instinctively the barbarian dropped to a fighting stance, feet braced and pointed out to allow him to swivel to both flanks. His boot thumped the dog's big foot and almost tumbled him. The guards, partners in practice, swung at the same time.

To shrink from one blow was to drive into the other, so Sunbright gritted his teeth and took it.

Flicking Harvester at the right-hand guard, he deflected the blow with a tiny ting of blades. He'd ducked his shoulder and curled to avoid the other swipe, but felt the cold, bloodcurdling kiss of steel as it sliced open the muscle of his upper arm.

Sucking wind, he swung his left heel up hard to kick the dog in the stomach or crotch, to get it from underfoot. The mastiff yipped at the thud and skipped its bony back up, jarring Sunbright's own rump.

But as it hopped clear, he decided to use the beast in defense. Hooking his foot, he caught the dog above the hock to stop it and stepped back alongside its head. The maneuver put the dog between Sunbright and the left-hand guard for just a second. In that second, the barbarian lashed at the guard on his right.

Eager to strike, the man came too close and overreached to thrust straight with his short sword. The whole weapon wasn't as long as Harvester's blade. Sunbright aimed below the guard's blade and arm, and drove the wicked hooked point into the man's armpit. The guard gasped, whimpered, but Sunbright used the sword's great weight to free it, adding his own muscle to wrench down. The barbed hook tore tendons and arteries. Hot blood gushed along the blade as the man's heart emptied.

At the same time, the other guard struck. Sunbright felt the blade split his goatskin vest, pierce his shirt, and slice his skin above the shoulder blade. It was a glancing blow, but one that burned like cold fire. Sunbright even used that advantage, whipping around so the short blade fetched for a second in his leather. Seeing his mistake, the guard let go of his weapon. Too late. Harvester slammed into his belly, bowling the man back and spilling his guts. Another blow sheared half through the falling man's neck. Sunbright wrenched his blade free, and the guard fell like a tree. His polished helmet slammed the flagstones with a crunch.

Panting, throat wheezing, wounds aching, blood singing, and ears ringing with a battle high, Sunbright tracked back and forth with his sword, wary, seeking another enemy. But there were none, as part of him had known. The guard dog was gone. So was Knucklebones. In fact...

He stepped away from pools of blood and cooling bodies, put his back against a shop front. Where was everybody? The whole battle had been waged in an eerie silence that he still didn't understand. He was used to hollering war cries and epithets, and just plain noise. Now the whole block seemed deserted. It was as if Sunbright and the guards were ghosts who waged war in a dead city.

Scanning, listening, peering, he found no one. Thoughts of ghosts and barbarian superst.i.tion caught up with him. It had been in just such a dead block that he'd once crashed into the Underdark, a misty non-world where a wraith had almost sucked the life and soul out of him. He still wasn't recovered from its effects, and sometimes wondered if that wraith still hunted and haunted him across leagues and years- "Sunbright!"

The barbarian jumped so high his sword point tinked on the stone lintel over his head. The voice had come from alongside his elbow, sudden as a panther attack.

It was Rolon, the skinny boy. "That way."

"Right! Yes." Leaving ghosts and dead men behind, Sunbright shuffled in the direction that the boy had pointed. Behind him he heard stealthy c.h.i.n.king as the boy looted the guards' bodies. Sunbright was content to get his breath back.

Another tiny shadow hustled people into the ruined bindery. Sunbright was last in, but Knucklebones paused to fix the door and erase all sign of their pa.s.sing. Their last act was for Sunbright to hold Mother up through the hole. With her finger-sweeping cantra, she scattered the trash and dust evenly across the floor again, and replaced the dead c.o.c.kroaches.

It was only after they'd pa.s.sed deep into more twisting tunnels, some so low the barbarian had to go through them doubled over, that he realized they hadn't accomplished their goal of stealing meat.

They'd gotten nothing except a handful of coins and wounds.

And more. For when they reached a pocket with stone walls where Sunbright could stand erect, he caught h.e.l.l.

The party was lit by the strange blue-white stripes that Knucklebones employed. Now, in this small s.p.a.ce, some disused cellar or stone foundation, the small thief whirled on him.

"How could you be so stupid?" Her face was hard, her one eye glaring, her lips pulled back from her teeth. She rapped with her bra.s.s knuckles on his chest, yet still kept her voice pitched at a whisper.

"How could you endanger us so? You've doomed every person in this party!"

"What?" Sunbright had cleaned and sheathed Harvester, and stood with his left hand across the slice on his shoulder. "I saved your life!"

"Temporarily! We never kill city guards. It's insanity! You'll bring sniffers down on our heads!

They'll hunt us down like terriers after rats."

"Sniffers?"

More d.a.m.ned city magic, he supposed. His ignorance angered him, but her att.i.tude angered him even more. "That dog was poised to tear your throat out, or bite through your face! And those guards wouldn't have spared you! They'd have hacked you to crow fodder-"

"Bah!" She scoffed, waving a gold glittering hand. "The dog was no threat. I could have slipped out from under it, and the guards . . . why couldn't you just knock them down? You'll have the whole cadre after us now! They always avenge-"

"No one told me!" Sunbright bellowed. This was the first real noise he'd made in hours.

Instinctively the other thieves shushed him. "No one told me not to kill guards. I thought you hated them. And why was everyone so quiet? Even the dogs didn't bark!"

"Fool! Don't you know anything? That district is famous for quiet. The n.o.bles like it that way.

Even the guards are trained to never make noise, and the dogs have their voice cords slit. How have you survived this long? Killing those guards will prove fatal. But that's all you can do, flail away with that sword! It's how you killed Martel, wasn't it?'

"What?" he whispered, the change in topic confusing him. It was the first time she'd mentioned her former lover. Was this city madness, thief strangeness, or woman contrariness? "That was an accident!