The palanquin began to move. Chenaya sighed, pulled the curtains closed and hugged herself against the cold.

ARMIES OF THE NIGHT.

C. J. Cherryh

I.

It was an uncommon meeting of Stepsons, recent and previous. It took place one night at winter's edge, outside the weed-grown garden of a smallish house on the riverside, a house in which the outer dimensions and the inner ones did not well agree. Ischade was its owner. And this meeting was on a midnight when She was occupied with another visitor in the inside of this outwardly-small house .

and a bay horse waited sleepily at the front.

"Stilcho," the Stepson-ghost whispered; and Stilcho, fugitive from his bed within the house (rejected lately, solitary within the witch's abode) stirred in his dejected posture and lifted his head from his cloaked arms and opened his eyes, only one of which existed.

Janni hovered by the back step, in one of his less palatable manifestations, adrip with gore, rib-bone showing through shreds of skin. Stilcho gathered himself to his feet, wrapped his cloak about him and put a little distance between them-he was no ghost, himself, but he was dead: so he understood ghosts all too well and knew an agitated one when he saw it, both in this world and the next.

"I want to talk with you," Janni said. "I've got to talk."

"Go away." Stilcho was acutely conscious of the living presence in the small house, of wards and watches that existed all about the yard. He spoke in his mind, because Janni was in his head as much as he was standing on the walk-and just as definitely as Janni was there in his mind, he was standing on that walk.

Stilcho knew. He had raised this ghost. Revenge, Stilcho had whispered simply, and this ghost, wandering aimless on the far sh.o.r.es of nowhere among other lost souls, had turned and lifted its b.l.o.o.d.y face and licked its b.l.o.o.d.y lips. Revenge and Roxane. That had been enough to bring Janni back to the living.

But there were penalties for revenants such as Janni. Memory was one.

Attachments were another sort. h.e.l.l was not the other side alone. Such dead brought it with them and made it where they walked, even with the best intentions. And this one had been too long out of h.e.l.l, ignoring orders, going where it pleased in the town.

The aspect grew worse. Blood dropped onto the steps. There was a reek in the air. It would not be denied, would not go away; and Stilcho walked away down the tangled path to the iron gate, where the brush and the trees and the earth itself gave way to dark air, to the black river that gnawed and muttered at the sh.o.r.e on which the house sat. He looked back, never having hoped the ghost would retreat. "For G.o.dssakes, man-"

"He's in trouble," Janni said. "My partner's in trouble, dammit-"

'Not your partner. No longer your partner. You're dead, have you got it yet?"

Stilcho blinked and ran a hand through his hair, grimaced as the ghost achieved his worst aspect. Stilcho had a real body, however scarred and maimed; and Janni had none; or had whatever his mood of the moment gave him, which was the way with ghosts of Janni's sort. "If She finds you off patrol again-"

"She'll do what? Kill me? Look, friend-"

'Not your friend. There're new ghosts in h.e.l.l. You know them. You know who made them-"

"It was overdue." Janni's face acquired eyes, glaring through a red film in the moonlight. "Long overdue, that housecleaning. What were they to you? Half Rankene, nothings-They had their chance."

Stilcho turned and glared, his back to the river. "My dead-you sanctimonious prig. My dead-" Stepsons murdered by Stepsons, his barracksmates slaughtered, and several-score bewildered, betrayed ghosts were clamoring tonight at the gates of h.e.l.l. It was Ischade's doing, and Straton's; but Stilcho did not carry that complaint where it was due. "No wonder you don't want to go back down there-Is that it, Janni-butcher? Partner to butchers? h.e.l.l got too large a welcoming-committee waiting for you?" Janni reached for him in anger and Stilcho retreated against the low gate. It gave backward unexpectedly, above the abyss, and Stilcho's heart jumped. He feared wards broken. He feared the steep slope that the path took along the riverside, and remembered that he could die of other things than Ischade's inattention. He stood in the gateway and held his ground with bluff. "Don't you lay a hand on me. Or I'll take you back where I got you. Now. And you'll find the witch-b.i.t.c.h Roxane was pleasant company.

What's in h.e.l.l is forever, Janni-ghost. And they'll love to have you with them, d.a.m.ned, like them. They'll wait at the gates for you. Real patient. Or shall I call their names? I know their names, Janni-prig. I don't think you ever bothered to learn them."

Janni stopped at least. Stood there on the path, silent, solid- and live looking, give or take the blood that smeared his face. Janni wanted badly to be back among the living, for reasons not all of which were savory. Love was one.

And it was never a savory kind of love, the dead for the living. Janni had not learned that.

Stilcho had. In that improbably small house he knew himself supplanted by the living-perhaps fatally.

"You're Rankene," Janni said. "You somehow forget that, boy?"

"I don't forget a thing. Look at me and tell me what I can forget. Look what happened to us for your sake, while you were off a-heroing and left us this sinkhole. And you come home with thanks, do you? Straton slaughters my barracksmates for failing your precious purity and your Niko, that paragon of virtue, falls straight into bed with the Nisi witch-"

"Lie."

"The witch who killed you, man. Where's his virtue? Sent to h.e.l.l with the likes of me and you? I don't b.l.o.o.d.y care!"

Ischade half-heard the whisperings of her ghosts outside the house, the true and the half-dead; and ignored them for the living inside-for the warm and living and far more attractive person of the third Stepson, whose name was Straton. He gazed at her, his head on her silken pillow, in her silk-strewn bed-chief interrogator, chief torturer, when the Stepsons had to apply that art-soldier by preference. He was a big man, a moodish man of wry humors and the most delicate skills with a body (one could guess where acquired), and he would survive this night too-she was determined he should, and she gazed back at him in the dim light of golden candles, in the eclectic clutter of her private alcove-strewn spiderlike with bright silks, with the spoils of other men, other victims of her peculiar curse.

"Why," he asked (Straton was always full of questions), "why can't you get rid of this-curse of yours?"

"Because-" She laid a cautioning finger on his chin, and planted a kiss after it, "because. If I told you that you'd not rest; you'd be a great fool all for my sake. And that would be the end of you."

"Ranke's ending. What have I got? Maybe I'd rather be a fool. Maybe I can't help but be one." A tiny frown-line knit his brow. He stared into her eyes. "How many men are this lucky this long?"

"None," she whispered, low as the rustle of wind in the brush, as the ghost voices outside. "None for long. So far. Hush. Would you love me if there were no danger? If I were safe you'd leave me. The same way you left Ranke. The same way you've stayed in Sanctuary. The same way you ride the streets on that great bay horse of yours that too many know-it's death you court, Strat. Indeed it is. I'm only a symptom."

"You mean to add me to your collection, dammit; like Stilcho, like Janni-"

"I mean to keep you alive, dammit, for my reasons." The dammit was mockery. Her curses were real, and deadly. She touched his temple, where a small scar was, where the hair was growing thin. "You're no boy, no fool, I won't have you become one at this stage of your life. Listen to me and I'll tell you things-"

Stilcho shivered there in the dark against the gate, his back to the river-he still could shiver, though his flesh was less warm than formerly. And having been rash with Janni he pa.s.sed further bounds of good sense. He stared at the ghost and saw that Janni was not his usual furious self. There was something diminished about the ghost. And desperate. As if his arguments had told. "So you want my help," he said to Janni, "to get Niko back. You and he can go to h.e.l.l together for what I care. Ask Her, why don't you?"

"I'm asking you." The ghost wavered and resumed solid shape. "You were one of the best of the ones we recruited. You were one-who'd have been one of us, after. After the war. Where were those precious lads when you wanted help out on that bridge, in that sty Downwind while the Ilsigi took you apart? Who helped you? The Ilsigi-loving dogs Strat cleaned out? You're Rankan."

"Half. Half, you b.l.o.o.d.y prig, and not good enough for you till you were short of help. No, there's a d.a.m.n lot I don't forget. You left us as b.l.o.o.d.y meat-Ran out on us, left us to hold this h.e.l.l-hole, dammit, you knew the Nisi would hit at your underbelly, come in here where Ranke's hold's weakest. Not with swords, no; with witchery and money, the sort of thing the Nisibisi are long on and this G.o.ds-forsaken pit of a town is apt for-"

"And corruption inside, inside the corps. Dammit, how quick did you forget? You love the Wrigglie b.a.s.t.a.r.ds that did that to you? You defend your Wrigglie-loving barracksmates? Stilcho," Janni's face wavered in and out of solidity. "Stilcho your barracksmates d.a.m.n well left you on that bridge. They left you to die slow.

/ know about dying slow, Stilcho; believe me that I know. And you're right about the Nisibisi outflanking us-everlasting right. But what else could we do? Lose it up north? The Band did what they could. Men coming back from that-maybe maybe they had to save what of their honor they could here in Sanctuary. And you know what your barracks-mates were into, you know what the Band found when they walked in-It was only the dregs survived. Some on the take from the Wrigglies; some, dammit, from the Nisibisi themselves; the rest who dodged every duty they could-you know 'em, doing their patrols in the wineshops and the wh.o.r.ehouses while you stood out on that bridge while the d.a.m.n rabble cut you to-"

"Let it go," Stilcho hissed; and in the little house beyond Janni's insubstantial body-G.o.ds, the lights dimmed, Stilcho imagined the harsh breathing, bodies twined, knew another of them was in the toils and irretrievable; and was in a h.e.l.l of jealousy. "We left all of that. You've left it further than I have. You ought to learn that-"

"-it's in my interest," Ischade whispered against Straton's ear. "Whatever else you trust in this world, believe in self-interest; and my self-interest is this city; and against my self-interest is Roxane of Nisibis. Hostilities were her choice-far from mine. I never like noise. I never like attention-"

"Don't you."

She laughed without mirth, ignored his moving hands, took his face between hers and stared until his eyes grew quiet and deep and hazy. "Listen to me, Strat."

"Spells, you d.a.m.ned witch."

"Not while you can still curse me. I'm telling you a truth."

"Half our nights are dreams." He blinked, shook his head, blinked again.

"Dammit-"

"There's no street in Sanctuary I don't walk, there's no door and no gate I can't pa.s.s, no secret I can't hear. I gather things. I bundle them together and put them in your hands. I have no luck of my own. I give it away. I've left n.o.bleborn dead in the gutter-oh, yes, and gathered up a slave and made him a lord-" She bent and kissed, lightly, gently, teased the thinning hair at his temple. "You feel a rumbling of change in the world and you rush to court your death. But change isn't death. Change is chance. In chance a man can rise as well as fall. Name me your enemies. Name me your dreams, Straton-Stepson, and I'll show you the way to them."

He said nothing, but stared at her in that dim lost way.

"No ambition?" Ischade asked. "I think you have- more ambition than I. You belong in the sun; and I can't bear that kind of light-Oh, not factually-" She laid a finger on his lips. He was always quick with his questions on that score, always mistook her. "It's questions I can't bear. It's notice. I find my a.s.sociates in the dark places: the unmissable; the directly violent. I scour the streets. But you belong in the sunlight. You were made for leading men. Listen to me and think of this-are you a greater fool than Kadakithis?"

"Not fool enough to be Kadakithis."

"A man could take this town and make it the wall behind which Ranke could survive. Kadakithis will lose you your Empire and you could save it. Don't you understand this? Ranke is in retreat already. Forces are gathering here in Sanctuary, in the last stronghold Ranke has. And this wispy-minded prince of yours will lie abed with his snake-queen till the venom corrodes the rest of his wits: Do you not see this? Do you see only chance in this Beysib invasion?"

He blinked again, blinked twice. "What are you talking about?"

"Do you believe all the Beysib have told about their coming here? What monstrous coincidence-their arrival here among us just as Nisibis exerts pressure from the north and Ranke begins to totter. I don't believe in coincidence. I don't trust coincidence where wizards are concerned. Kadakithis in his folly has let a foreign fleet in among us at our south door ... while Roxane from the north pours foreign gold into the hands of Ilsigi death squads and promises the fools self-rule. Self-rule! Listen to me. I can take care of Roxane. But I can't come into the daylight. You can. You're a man who understands hard choices. A better man than any in Sanctuary right now, a far better man than Kadakithis-"

"I have my duty-"

"To what? To the Stepsons? Lead them."

"We have a leader. I have a partner-"

"Critias. He follows Tempus. And Tempus-Do you understand him, half? He could take a world. One of his men could take a city, sh.o.r.e up an empire. You, Straton. And hand it to him. Tempus has a chance here-but you're the one that can take it for him; you're the only one who's in position. Ranke has a chance.

Behind Sanctuary's walls. What if Tempus is coming? He might well be too late.

What good anything if they come too late? Listen to me. Listen to what I have to tell you and test whether my advice is good."

"You," Janni said, and Stilcho, his back to the black air and the river, felt a tenuous grip on both his arms, gazed into a face all but solid, and Janni's best aspect-Janni as he had been-before. Before Roxane. "You're the only one I can go to. The only one I can reach. I've been through the town-" G.o.ds knew what that compa.s.sed, the nightbound wandering down the winds: Stilcho guessed. "Stilcho, before the G.o.ds, we've got precious little left. The dead of this pesthole patrol her streets; they watch her bridges. Half of them are Roxane's. Some of them-some of them aren't anyone's. Man, you are still a man, they left you that much-are you that afraid of Ischade? Is it that? You slip her cord and she-takes away whatever she gave you? Is that what you march to now, man? You took an oath. You meant it once. You kept it and those dogs fouled it; and I'm asking now, I'm asking you get my partner out of this. He's necessary, don't you see that? He's-what he is. And they'll use him. Roxane's wrung the sense out of him and the priests will get the rest-"

"You're the worst kind of ghost, Janni. The worst kind. The walking kind. You won't go back. Will you? Not till someone settles you."

"No," Janni said, and the tendrils of something very cold wove their way around Stilcho, between him and his body. Stilcho opened his mouth to cry out; but he had made the mistake, he had let Janni into his mind. And the spot that was Janni got wider. His dead-alive heart lurched against his ribs as the river-wind skirled up at him. "No," Janni said. "You want to know the difference in what you are and what I was? / was better than you. I was stronger. I still am. You want me to show you, Stilcho?"

Stilcho's legs trembled. His left foot sc.r.a.ped backward, against Stilcho's every effort to stand firm on the brink.

"A step-a small step, Stilcho," Janni said. "I'll only grow stronger. If the witch does send me back I'll be in h.e.l.l every time she sends you down after souls-and some night you won't come out of h.e.l.l, Stilcho-lad. And not all your dead dog-lovers will save you. Or you listen to me now, you get him out-"

"Bluff."

The foot dragged backward, knees shook beneath him. "Try me. How much have I got to lose?"

"Stop-stop it."

The foot stayed. A feeling of oily cold settled into Stilcho's gut. "There are advantages to being wholly dead. But few." Janni's voice faded. "I see the dead walking patrol in h.e.l.l and in the streets. No way out. I see the past and the future and I can't sort them out-I see Niko-I see two ways from here-and I can't sort them out. Two ways for Ranke-for the corps-for him-Niko's got to be free, no priest's p.a.w.n-free-Has to be-the G.o.d-the G.o.d-"

"Shut up!"

The feeling went, just-went. Stilcho stood shivering and leaned on the fence, staring out over the gulf. He had no illusions that the ghost was gone. It was revenge-bound and bound to the living and bound to hang about.

In truth he had nothing left of loyalty himself-not to comrades, not to anything so much as the thin thread that each time hauled him up out of h.e.l.l when Ischade sent him down.

That thin thread grew strongest when he looked closest into her eyes, when he shared her bed and each morning died for it and came back from h.e.l.l again, because the thread was always there. It was all he had of pleasure. It was all he had of life. He knew what h.e.l.l was, being too frequently a visitor; and when he went down again the souls of his dead would cling to him and clamor at him and beg him for rescue-and he would strike at them and leave them in the dark, clawing his own way to the light like a drowning man, back to the next breath that he could win in the world and back to the bed of the woman who killed them.

So much for loyalties. This constant pa.s.sage back and forth left him no illusions such as Janni had-of ties to anything. There was only fear. And sometime pleasure. But more of fear.

Ischade-had a new amus.e.m.e.nt. Ischade had herself a man she had not yet killed; one useful to her in this world, and Stilcho was starkly terrified that when Strat died-she might find Strat still useful, in place of a scarred and maimed husk that had never been the man Straton had been.

Stilcho was, at the depth of his attentuated life- terrified; and Janni had put the name to it.

Brush moved, ever so quietly. It might have been the wind. But a touch brushed his arm, a touch where no sound had been; and Stilcho gasped and spun, and all but took that fatal fall-except for the hand that closed on his arm and kept him from headlong flight.

"Does the river draw you?" Haught asked. "The place ef one's death-has a hold on a soul. I'd avoid the water, Stilcho."

Straton's eyes glazed, the pupils slid aside in slitted lids, as he lost awareness for the dreams he dreamed, that were a drug more potent than any apothecary's.

And Ischade shivered, letting the spell wind and build till the candles fluttered-she was lost a moment, self-indulgence. But only a moment.

She bent and whispered more things in Strat's ear and he stirred and gazed up at her with pupils wide and black and drinking down all she might give him.

"There are actions you have to take," she whispered, "for Ranke's sake, for Crit's-for Tempus. I'll tell them to you, to save this city, save the Empire, save what you've always fought for. You stand in the light, Strat, Ace, in the clean sunlight-and never look into the dark; never try to see the shadows.

They're far too dark for you-"

"Who was here just now?" Haught asked; and Stilcho twisted away, wishing to go back from the river-edge. But the ex-slave, Ischade's Nisi apprentice-had more strength in his fine hands than seemed likely.

"Janni," Stilcho said. "It was Janni."

"That wants fixing," Haught said.

Time was that Stilcho would have spat on the man; when he was alive and Haught was no more than a slave. But Haught served Her now. And Haught had talent that Her talent fed; and the stripping of a soul from a body was likely a negligible thing for Haught these days. Stilcho felt the chill that came when Haught's substance pa.s.sed between him and Ischade. "Don't-I tried to reason with him. I tried to tell him he's dead. He's not listening. His partner's in trouble."

"I know," Haught said. His hand was viselike on Stilcho's cloaked arm, numbing.

"And you very much don't want to go after him, do you. Stepson?"

"He's-crazy."

Haught's eyes met his, deceptively gentle, woman-gentle. The fingers loosened.

"Difficult times, Stepson. She has company and you wander the dark." The fingers wandered gently down his arm and took his bare hand. "You have such simple loyalties now. Like life. Like those who can hold you to it. Ask me-how you can help me?"

"How can I help you?" The words poured out without a thought of resistance. The same way they did for Ischade. It was only afterward that the shame got to him.

After-ward when he had time to think; but that was not now, with Haught this close, death gaping and lapping below the drop from the garden fence.

"You can go to h.e.l.l," Haught said.