Ord's expression changed, and he nearly laughed.

"Admiral Mond Vitendi has his own fleet, a marvelous navy that rarely gets a chance to fight anyone," Ord said in a complete turnabout. "Excellent choice."

Myrmeen wondered what Reisz had on the man, then shook her head. "So how do you intend to get to him?"

With a smile Reisz said, "Do you have any more gold?"

Several hours later, at twilight, Myrmeen, Krystin, and Ord stood beside Reisz near the docks.

He had chartered a small vessel and was preparing to depart. Two new guardsmen made their presence known without engaging the group. "They're charging us a fortune," he said. "They tell me there's a storm on the approach, a bad one."

A ma.s.s of clouds had gathered over the city. Myrmeen forced away memories of the night she had lost her child.

Reisz shrugged. "Of course, the interesting thing will be the Djenispools' reaction when Vitendi's ships arrive in their port."

"They'll probably welcome them as tourists," Myrmeen said. "Keep the men on the ships, or their discipline will be corrupted by this city within an hour of landfall."

"Provided they'll come," Reisz said with a wink to Ord.

"There are no guarantees."

Ord looked away, grinning.

"I'll see you soon," Reisz said as he turned.

Myrmeen glanced at the child who might have been her daughter. "Reisz, I want you to take Krystin."

"Absolutely not," Krystin said.

A single eyebrow rose on Reisz's worn face. "I'm not going to drag a prisoner behind me.

Krystin, do you want to come with me or stay behind to face the night people?"

"I'm not stupid," she said. "I don't want to die, but the couple who adopted me is in the city, looking for me. I have to get them to safety first."

Myrmeen felt a heavy weight rise from her heart, lodging deeply in her throat.

"Then I'm going to tell them I want to return to Arabel with Myrmeen," Krystin said, "if she will have me."

Staring at the girl in total surprise, Myrmeen whispered, "Of course I will. But I still need to know what happened to my daughter."

"I understand," Krystin said, taking the conversation no further. Reisz nodded and walked down the pier.

"Wait," Myrmeen called, running after him. She stopped before Reisz, her chest heaving. "I just-I don't know. You've been so good to me over the years, Reisz."

"I know," he said. "I'm a wonderful man."

Her shoulders sagged."Let's not beat it into the ground," he said. "You know how I feel about you. Nothing's changed."

Reisz leaned in, kissed her, then turned and walked away. Myrmeen was speechless as she watched his receding form become swallowed by the shadows. Krystin and Ord came to her side.

"Do you think he'll make it?" Krystin asked.

"I hope so," Myrmeen said, but she knew why the girl was concerned. The storm promised to be terrible.

Night was almost upon them. Watch fires burned along the dock. Myrmeen was about to leave when she sensed a familiar presence. Someone was watching her. As if answering an unspoken summons, a woman eased from the shadows. It was Tamara. Myrmeen spun, blade in hand, as Ord and Krystin readied themselves for battle. The guardsmen who had been watching them had vanished.

"He seems like a good man," Tamara said.

Myrmeen's heart raced, but she could tell from the dark woman's relaxed manner that no attack was pending. Tamara held out her hands to show that she carried no weapons.

"I thought we should talk," Tamara said. "You see, the time you thought was yours is gone. The festival will commence tonight."

"No," Myrmeen said. She was certain she had a span of days ahead of her, time enough to fulfill Krystin's mission and send the girl away to safety; time enough to do something for the children who were in danger.

"W; returned much earlier than you," she said. "Listen. The opening movements of our grand composition have begun."

From above Myrmeen heard the roll of thunder. Tamara spread her arms wide as she spun like a child, her head thrown back with a rapturous smile as the heavy wind blowing from the coast lifted her hair and ran through it with invisible fingers.

"By night we can ride the shadows, we can navigate the winds of darkness. A hundred strong, a thousand strong, we could breeze past you and steal the flesh from your bones with ease. Without a mage you would never sense us."

Myrmeen wondered where the other members of the Night Parade were hidden. She had not forgotten that Tamara had tried to kill her; she also had not forgotten that the woman-spider had stepped back, allowing Myrmeen to live. An odd sensation had pa.s.sed between them, something that Myrmeen desperately had tried to forget.

If Krystin is not my daughter, who is?

Recognition.

Impossible, Myrmeen thought as she stared at the lithe, dark-haired woman with red specks in her eyes. She looks too old to be my daughter. But, then, these creatures' appearances often are deceiving.

A flash of pure white light shocked Myrmeen from her thoughts and she registered the sizzle of lightning as a bolt reached down from the darkened skies and struck a building a few blocks away.

Krystin eased into her arms in a natural embrace. Myrmeen wondered if Tamara had killed the pair of guardsmen a.s.signed to watch them or if the soldiers had run to get help. The latter was unlikely, as Tamara appeared completely human in this form.

"I know you're thinking about running," Tamara said as she made her final turn and stopped abruptly, her hair whipping around to obscure one side of her face. "If I meant you harm, you would know by now."

Myrmeen tensed as thunder rolled again, louder, closer.

"I want to help," Tamara said. "I was wrong about you. I was wrong about so much I believed about you."

The fighter could not stop the flood of thoughts that filled her mind and might drown her if she were not careful: The Night Parade took my daughter. Krystin is not that child. Tamara could be. She has more of Dak in her, but she could wefl be my child.

"How do you expect us to believe you?" Ord said.

Tamara gazed coldly at the man. "What you do is of little consequence to me. My concern is forMyrmeen."

"Why?" Myrmeen asked, shocked that the words had leapt from her mind to her tongue with so little restraint.

"I have my reasons," Tamara said. "Do you hear it?"

The first drops of rain began to fall, heavy, violent splatters of liquid.

I'm dripping. Honey, I hate that.

Myrmeen shook the image from her nightmare away. Above, a blanket of storm clouds had covered the city. She thought of Reisz and knew that they had acted too late.

"The children," she said, hoping there was time enough to find one orphanage and try to save the infants from the Night Parade.

"Yes," Tamara said darkly, "the children will suffer this night if you do not listen to me."

From somewhere far off Myrmeen heard the dulcet sounds of a harp intertwined with a sweet, joyous voice that was accompanied by a flute and the delicate reverberations of a triangle. The sounds were carried on the wind, and Myrmeen suddenly felt weak. As her knees turned to liquid and she fell, Myrmeen was vaguely aware of Krystin and Ord also succ.u.mbing to the lure of the strangely beautiful music, a lullaby more irresistible than any they had ever heard before.

Tamara s.n.a.t.c.hed up the blade that Myrmeen had dropped. The music was not harming her. She slashed Myrmeen's palm, then her own. Pressing her wounded hand against Myrmeen's, Tamara threw her head back and repeated a phrase in an ancient language that humans could never speak. As their blood mixed, Myrmeen's eyes fluttered and suddenly she pulled away from Tamara, scrambling back in fear and distrust.

"Bellophat's music cannot harm you now," Tamara said. "You will not be another human cow to be slaughtered. My blood has touched yours, as yours touched mine, long ago."

Myrmeen did not have time to ask Tamara to explain her cryptic statement. "Protect the others, too."

"As you wish," Tamara said, taking Krystin's and Ord's palms and sharing blood with them. As Krystin and the last Harper shook off the sudden, numbing effects of sleep, they dragged themselves to their feet and stood beside Myrmeen, whose hand was outstretched to catch the rain.

Krystin touched Myrmeen's arm. "The Devlaines."

"Don't bother," Tamara said. "The Devlaines are dead. Doppelgangers have taken their place."

Somehow, Krystin was not surprised to learn that Lord Sixx had lied and that he had murdered her adopted parents. What shocked her, however, was her own lack of emotion at the news that they were dead. She felt very little for these people, her memories of them hazy and indistinct. It would strike her later, she was certain of that. For now, her mind seemed willing to protect her from the shock.

"Bellophat," Myrmeen said absently.

Vizier Bellophat promised us sustenance.

She had heard those words on the black ship that had been smuggling inhuman cargo into the city's port. She remembered the monstrosity that could twist its body into instruments and produce sounds she had never heard before.

"We killed Bellophat," Myrmeen said, "drowned him."

"Not all of our kind need air to breathe," Tamara said. "You inconvenienced us, that's all."

"The children," Krystin said insistently.

"Yes," Tamara agreed, "they are the most vulnerable. The only chance you have to save them is by killing Bellophat. If you silence his music, the people will wake and take arms against my kind. It is the only chance humans have this night. The festival is overdue, and Calimport will be gutted much worse than during the last storm."

"Which had not been a storm," Myrmeen said, wondering if the rain she felt also was an illusion.

Thunder clapped and lightning crackled over the water.

"I still don't understand," Myrmeen said as she heard the music grow even louder. "Why are you helping us?"

"For selfish reasons," Tamara said. With those words she turned and leapt toward a nearby wall,which she scaled and vanished over before Myrmeen could ask her question a second time.

Myrmeen looked at the child who might have been her daughter had circ.u.mstances been different, and the young man who had been thrust into a life he had not chosen for himself, and said, "We have to end this if we can."

Krystin and Ord nodded in agreement, and together they ran toward the music, the sounds of the storm and the encompa.s.sing fingers of rain closing over them as they disappeared into the night.

Twenty-One.

"That you are my son disgusts me."

Alden McGregor tried to keep his own revulsion at bay as he stared at the red-skinned man who had spoken. The man's flesh appeared to have been flayed, leaving only bare muscle and tissue. Alden could tell that the man before him in the darkened chamber once had been a beautiful physical specimen that had literally been turned inside out and st.i.tched back together. He wore a black leather tunic, st.i.tched up the front, his arms and legs exposed. Rubies adorned his waist sash and the bands around his arms and thighs. His eyes were sky blue.

He was Magistrate Dymas, he explained, Lord of the Dance. When he performed, his motions could cause even the casual observer to experience vertigo and lose all motor functions. The nightmares he could provoke began with the fulfillment of fantasies and ended with the most humiliating of disappointments. The feeling of loss after even one such dream could drive a person to suicide. The elegance of his movements were balanced by the crudeness of his appearance, speech, and manner.

Although he was intelligent and educated, his speech often lapsed into the gutter slang of his youth. He was like an animal who fiercely labored to maintain a civilized appearance. Alden loathed him.

"These is my powers," Dymas said. "What's yours? You're a dog. You hunt and sniff and follow the scent of blood. You ain't one of us. You're fodder. I weren't happy when your mother died, but at least she didn't see the wretch you are!"

Holding back his tears, Alden looked away from the man who claimed to be his father. Dymas moved with unbelievable speed and agility, leaping to his son's side and kneeling beside the boy as Alden recovered from the slight dizziness he felt after watching Dymas in motion.

"I want to see Pieraccinni," Alden said firmly.

"That old woman has hawked you enough. Don't you mention his name."

Furiously whirling on the flayed man, Alden shouted, "Pieraccinni was there for me. Where were you?"

Dymas laughed. "You call yourself his, but you ratted on the pig when you knew he was one of us. I bet you weren't pleased none to learn you wasn't exactly much better." He frowned. "Come on now, boy. Admit it. Ain't you happier knowing your blood ain't tainted with humanity?"

To the night people, humans were monsters, Alden knew.

Dymas's features softened. "Ah. You never seen the lands of your people. Our kingdoms make this world look like nothing. If I could take you there, you wouldn't act like this at the thought of your true sire. %u'd be happy with what you are. You would, you know."

Raising his misshapen hands before him, Alden found he no longer could hold back his tears. His gentle hands, which had caressed the soft flanks of a dozen women, now would tear b.l.o.o.d.y gashes in their skin. He was becoming more of an animal with every hour.

"If it was such a paradise, why leave?" Alden asked.

"We didn't have no choice," Dymas said ruefully. "The prey we had ate for as long as we could remember was dying off. All we could do was eat off each other or find new worlds with new prey.

There was somethin' of a war. All this energy was released. The sages said our reality was torn. Doors opened, gateways to other realms, like this one. Most of us fought the new order. I mean, it would've bred the hunter from us, would've made us less than we are. We left our homes for these new worlds.

We've been quiet, secret like, you know, but we've grown. Don't fool yourself, we've-""What is the apparatus?" Alden said, interrupting.

Dymas smiled. "That you'll know tonight."

Alden thought of the scene he had witnessed at the cavernous retreat, the plans Tamara and Zeal had made to betray Lord Sixx. He had kept his silence. Staring into the flayed man's deceptively soft eyes, Alden said, "I look forward to that, father. I do."

"Maybe there's hope for you," Dymas said as he took the young man in an embrace that startled Alden.