FORTY-SEVEN.
The dark brought madness to the alleyways around Sleeping Worms Street.
Crafty ones might see in the dark, but blowing dust reduced visibility to a foot or less, and the wind masked the sounds of screams and cries. Pomegranate, bent over her broken fragment of looking gla.s.s in the shelter of the alley behind Chirak Shaldeth"s house, didn"t hear the men coming until they were upon her, shrieking shapes emerging from the storm"s wildness armed with clubs, swords, chains. She rolled, dodged, scrambled behind the mountain of broken baskets at the back of the alley; and they hacked and waded through the matted straw after her, heedless of the cloaking spells she flung around herself. Either the influence of the Dreamshadow reached out this far, she guessed, or they saw something or someone else in her place.
She slashed and struck with her staff, as she"d learned to on those rare occasions when a beggar more desperate than she had tried to rob or rape her. She jabbed with the pole"s end and saw it do damage she knew a sane man could never have sustained, but these men were not sane.
Their eyes stared with madness, and the words they screamed were in no language she knew. When Pebble came rushing down the alley with a broken-off length of cartpole and rammed it like a dagger into one man"s back, the man turned and fell, not upon Pebble, but upon his two companions. Pebble grabbed Pomegranate"s wrist and dragged the old woman past the ensuing brawl toward the empty windy street.
Dreams, Shaldis had said.
The dreams that lingered in corpses" brains after their death.
Dreams of dying, of being killed.
Two of the men-they"d looked like respectable merchants and householders of the neighborhood-sank down, both eviscerated and still clawing at each other with their nails as Pomegranate looked back. The third man had collapsed into the pile of baskets, his body curling in on itself and darkening as if burning up in some invisible oven. When he opened his mouth, a little green mist flowed out.
It had started.
Above the storm"s howling Pomegranate dimly heard shouting coming from somewhere close by and elsewhere, dimly, a s.n.a.t.c.h of singing, instantly lost in the wind. Even before the tug of Shaldis"s mind on hers, she and the others had begun walking the perimeter of the area that felt wrong-evil and frightful for no reason they could ascertain-marking the walls with chalk. Now they pounded on the door nearest them, and a boy answered, ashen faced with confused terror. He whispered, "My mama . . ." and Pomegranate heard from the steep black stairway behind him a sustained and eerie wail.
"We"re here to help your mama," said Pomegranate. "You run now to the Citadel of the Sun"-he looked to be eleven or twelve, old enough to find it with ease even in the tail end of the storm-"and take them a message." She held out her hand; Pebble slapped a note tablet into it and a hairpin for a stylus.
Pomegranate scrawled, Dreamshadow eats dreams, burial wards, obsidian, gla.s.s, Sleeping Worms Street, spreading, need help NOW, and shoved the tablet into the boy"s hand. "Go. Now. Quickly." The boy pelted off into the darkness. Green light glowed at the top of the stairs, threads of mist moving downward. Pomegranate listened for other sounds within the house and heard nothing. The wailing had stopped. Dead already? Sleeping unaware? In need of rescue or past it?
Was anyone really there at all?
She stepped back into the street, slammed the door.
"If it takes one of us, cutting will let it out," she said.
"Is that with a spell or just cutting?" asked Moth at once, since none of the three knew how much time they might have to share this information. " "Cause those guys back there was cutting each other plenty and didn"t look like they was gettin" no saner."
"I don"t know."
"Then it"s probably better none of us gets took."
They backed from the door, their hair and veils tangling in the screaming wind. "Was that Shaldis?" whispered Pebble after a few moments, when nothing further happened.
Pomegranate recapitulated in as few sentences as possible her conversation: "She said Pontifer was with her, which I"m glad of. I worry about him. If anything should happen to me, who would be his friend then? I"m glad he"s making new friends."
Pebble and Moth exchanged a look.
"She said the Dream Eater can be spelled into obsidian or gla.s.s," added Pomegranate, "but she didn"t say how. Could we put a barrier of gla.s.s around the bad area, the way my granny used to put broken gla.s.s under the doorsill to keep the Bad-Luck Shadow away?"
"You think maybe this green stuff is the Bad-Luck Shadow?" Moth speculated doubtfully.
"If it is, we"re in trouble," said Pebble, " "cause I"ve heard about sixteen thousand spells to keep the Bad-Luck Shadow away and not one of them was anything like any of the others. And as far as I could see, none of them worked."
Moth patted Pebble"s arm. "We figured out already we"re in trouble."
A trickle of green mist began to creep through the lattice of the shut door. Pomegranate edged closer, scribbled with her fingertip on the wall nearby the strongest ward she knew, mingling with it the name of Dream Eater and the signs of earth. It flowed past this without the smallest check, the women backing away before it. "Where can we get gla.s.s?" whispered Pebble. "Even if that boy runs it"ll be an hour or more before anyone comes."
"Grand Bazaar," said Moth. "It"s two streets away, way closer than the Gla.s.smakers" Quarter. I think I can get through the locks. Pebble, you stay here-"
"No, both of you go," said Pomegranate. "Two of you can carry more, and one of us not being able to do anything here is just as good as two of us not being able to do anything."
The two young women disappeared into the whirling gloom; Pomegranate retreated down another alleyway, her heart pounding. Someone or something rushed down the street at the alley"s far end. When the wind lulled, she heard the incoherent clamor of voices and a woman"s scream.
And the night, she knew, was only beginning.
Raeshaldis. Raeshaldis, please . . .
Pomegranate? Shaldis slipped her crystal into her palm, angled its central facet to the thready light of the stars.
It was close to midnight. Dusty winds still breathed across the sand in a steady river, but visibility was up to several miles now and overhead the sky was clear. She didn"t dare tell Jethan to stop the camels, wondered if she even possessed the strength to scry without sliding into sleep. Despite the profundity of her sleep, when she"d woken at Jethan"s side, lying in the crook of his arm, she"d felt crushed by exhaustion, as if all her hours on the Island of Rainbows had been hours of waking.
She had moved away from him, as silently as she could, so that when he woke they would be at opposite sides of the crowded little tent. She told herself that it was out of kindliness, since she knew Jethan would be disturbed enough that he"d gone to sleep under the same undivided roof as a woman not of his family. He would be so horrified that he"d fallen asleep with her in his arms, he wouldn"t know what to do or say.
But the truth was that she feared he would turn away from her, if he remembered that in his exhaustion he had held her so.
And that, she realized, she could not bear.
Her mind aching, she reached into the half trance of scrying, and the scratched, dirty face that appeared in the crystal was that of Foxfire.
"Oh, thank the G.o.ds," the girl gasped, and her words poured out like a spring mountain torrent after the rains. "I was afraid. . . . I tried to reach you last night. I didn"t think I could ask for help any sooner because Grandmother has her spies in the king"s palace. Shaldis, I"ve left, I"ve run away. I"m on my way into the city, but I need someone to come and meet me. They"re after me, I know they"re after me even though I can"t see them. Grandmother"s with them-she can track like a hunter and I can"t use spells to hide from her."
"Where are you?"
"The Dead Hills. Father has a house in the Valley of the Hawk. That"s where we"ve been, Grandmother and I. Shaldis, I can do it! I can work the spells to send the crocodiles away and the serpents, and to undo poison, any kind of poison, at a distance. We did it with teyn and yesterday morning we did it with some of the guards." Foxfire"s voice caught on a sob, even as Shaldis"s heart jolted, as if she"d swilled raw wine.
The king would be safe.
"Shaldis, I can"t let her catch me! I don"t know what she"d do if she caught me. The king"s got to protect me."
"He"ll protect you," promised Shaldis, almost light-headed with shock, relief, wild fear that even yet something could go wrong. "Are you alone?"
"I have a teyn with me, to carry water and food. She"s really smart; she helped cover our tracks when she saw me trying to do it."
In other words, she was alone. Shaldis wondered if she"d left that poor maid of hers back at her father"s house and what awful thing Red Silk would do to the girl in retaliation, but it meant that Foxfire would be that much more difficult for her grandmother to find.
They needed to get word to the king.
Fear flashed through her, and an instant later, despair. Pomegranate had cried, Dear G.o.ds, and her image had vanished. We"re trying to hold it, she"d said, Moth and Pebble and I. Shaldis had waited an hour, then tried to reach each of the three in quick succession.
None had been able to reply.
And she had only to think about what Cattail would do with the information about Foxfire"s defection to discard the idea with a shudder.
Which left who?
During the preceding weeks of weaving over and over again the spells of healing-and the preceding months of contemplating the upcoming Summoning of Rain-she had frequently been in despair at how few they were. Now their fewness became, not an inconvenience or a worrisome peril, but a crisis, like an injury in the deep desert, not fatal in itself but guaranteeing inevitable death.
Shaldis took a deep breath. For all she knew the other three Raven sisters might be lost in the kind of coma that had engulfed Summerchild, and the deadly madness of the Dreamshadow might be spreading out from her grandfather"s house to turn the whole district-the whole city-into the horror she"d seen at Three Wells. Even if they were still conscious, they would be fighting for their lives.
And whipping, twisting at those fears was the wild triumphal chorus: Foxfire had stumbled on the spells-or found within herself the necessary power to fuel her spells-to get the king through the ordeals of the jubilee. And she was willing to give her allegiance to the king.
No mention of Red Silk being able to do them. Presumably that grim old lady couldn"t, if she was hunting her granddaughter like a gazelle through the hills. Unless she was simply so infuriated at the girl"s defection from the family that she"d rather have a rebellious prisoner than an ally not completely under her control.
And Shaldis shivered, remembering the formidable old lady"s anger. Foxfire better run, and run fast.
"Foxfire, listen," she said, trying to think through the buzzing exhaustion of days without sleep. "There"s no one-none of us-at the palace. I don"t think I can reach the other three-I"ve been trying for hours. I"m going to send Jethan to meet you; he"s the only one with me." She glanced ahead of her at the strong square shoulders, the turbaned head bowed before the wind, outlined in the faint glimmer of starlight.
Did he know where the Valley of the Hawk was?
She certainly didn"t.
"Can you get yourself close to where the road runs out of the hills onto the rangeland? Don"t show yourself on the road but hole up where you can watch it. Jethan will show himself there-"
"I"ll what?" He drew rein, let his camel fall back to keep pace beside hers. "Who are you talking to? What are you saying I"ll do?"
He must know that for Shaldis to reply-especially as exhausted as she was-would cause her to lose the image in the crystal, possibly past recovery; or at least he should have known. Even her flash of anger at him was dangerous, like taking her eyes off a single goose in a flock if she hoped to find it again.
"Can you come?" Foxfire sounded desperately forlorn. Terrified, too, thought Shaldis, and well she should be.
We"re trying to hold it, Pomegranate had said.
And the images of the bird-chewed bodies in the lanes of Three Wells, the tiny picture of far-off carnage in her crystal when she"d looked at the camp of the guards who"d been left there. Dear G.o.ds, had anyone gotten Foursie and Twinkle out of her grandfather"s house? Had anyone gotten her mother away or Tjagan"s children?
Her voice shook with the effort to keep it steady and cheerful. "I"ll come if I can," she said. "I"ll send others if I can, the moment I can-I probably won"t reach the city till sunset tomorrow, and at sunrise after that, the king goes to his consecration."
If the city is still standing, she thought. If anyone remains there alive to care.
"And if the king fails," whispered Foxfire, "my father will be king. And then there will be no escape for me. Ever."
FORTY-EIGHT.
Don"t be stupid," said Jethan when Shaldis told him what she wanted him to do.
"Don"t you be stupid," retorted Shaldis, wondering why she"d ever cared enough about this stubborn man"s feelings to take such pains about where he thought she"d slept. "The king"s life depends on you getting Foxfire safe to the city."
"The king"s life also depends on you getting safe to the city-"
"And you think I won"t, without you standing guard over me?" If they"d both been standing on the ground she"d have turned and stalked away in a huff, but since they rode side by side on swaying camels her movements were limited.
He made no reply to that, but his upper lip seemed to lengthen as his mouth pressed into a line of disapproval. He saw his duty, she thought furiously, and he was going to do it come death and destruction.
"She"s better than I am," said Shaldis softly, the admission like a fishhook in her flesh. Not that Foxfire was better, but that a girl younger than she had had that greater power given her.
Jethan said, "I don"t believe that."
"Whether she has as much power as I do or not," said Shaldis, "she"s the one who knows the spells that will save the king. I don"t. You have to go to her, to keep her from falling into her grandmother"s hands again. To keep her from falling into Mohrvine"s hands. You have to."
He looked aside for a few moments, his face like stone in the ragged frame of his veils.
He knows I"m right, she thought, and won"t admit it. Doesn"t think I can look after myself. How dare he, after I turned aside the winds, after I tracked the Crafty woman and her teyn for three days out into the desert? How dare he think I can"t take care of myself?
"Take care of yourself, then," he said, as if he"d heard her thoughts, and turned back to meet her indignant eyes. "I don"t mean fight off wolves and bandits and lake monsters and tribes of ravening teyn. I know you can do all that, or could, if you weren"t so tired you"re falling out of the saddle. I mean rest when you need it. Sleep if you can. You push yourself too hard. Why do you think I-?"
He stopped himself mid-sentence, lips closing on whatever he was going to say. His face in dust and starlight had a remote harshness to it, as if, in weariness, he had pa.s.sed somewhere beyond human emotion.
"If things are as bad as they seem to be in the city, you"ll need your strength when you get there. I"ll join you as soon as I can."
Without waiting for a reply he tapped his camel"s shoulder with the stick and moved away from her, the beast and the remount lengthening their strides, like long-legged wading birds through the streaming dust along the ground.
Shaldis watched those dark, swaying shapes for a long while as they retreated through the starlight toward the distant hills.
She pushed on through the night, and on into the deathly silent stillness of the following day alone. Toward morning, with the last of the storm dying to whispers, she dropped into uncontrollable sleep, and only the camel saddle kept her from falling long enough for the jerk of sliding sideways to wake her. She stopped after that and slept for nearly two hours in a little camp ringed with whatever ward spells she still had energy to write. Waking, she summoned the image of her grandfather"s house in Sleeping Worms Street and saw only a confusion of images: one of a house burning-but not her grandfather"s house-and another of her grandfather"s house with blood running from the windows and the door transformed into a mouth that grinned and spoke unknown words.
Attempts to view the familiar streets of the Bazaar District yielded tangled images of alleyways she had never seen in all her years, fading into the sight of familiar streets with men and women racing about in the duned dust of yesterday"s storm or fighting one another bloodily in the doorways. The king"s red-clothed soldiers were there, and the constables of the city guards: she thought she glimpsed Commander Bax striding among them in the square before the Grand Bazaar, shouting orders.
Neither Moth nor Pebble nor Pomegranate responded to her pleas to look into their scrying tools, not much to her surprise.
Though she knew it was idiotic to suppose that Jethan was more than a quarter of the way to the northern road leading into the Dead Hills, she summoned his image anyway and saw him riding fast and steadily through the broken brown emptiness under the glare of morning sun. Why this sight comforted her she didn"t know, but it did. Over the six months she"d known him, she"d come to value that big, quiet man whom nothing could disconcert.
Maybe it was because, as he had said about animals, he acted rather than spoke.
She ate a little, drank some water, and rode on. When she stopped at noon, unwillingly recalling Jethan"s instructions-only they"d sounded more like orders-the images she was able to summon were no less frightening and no less ambiguous. If what she saw in her crystal was true-and she reminded herself desperately that it might not be-fires and riot were spreading through the Bazaar District, with the brain-infected mad roving the streets, attacking whomever they met, and looters from the Slaughterhouse slums moving in to steal what they could. She saw the city guards fighting with men who, like the howling man who"d attacked her in Little Hyacinth Lane, seemed unaware of their hurts. Saw, too, city guards emerging from houses as mad as those who"d slept there in the previous haunted night.
I have to get back, she thought desperately. I have to get back.
She was only once able to look inside her own house, and the carnage she saw there she hoped was only the Dream Eater"s illusion. Where her three Raven sisters were she did not know, but sometimes she saw ward signs new marked on house walls, signs that incorporated formulae that she recognized from her studies of ancient tombs (they must have contacted Rachnis!)-and in many places she saw where broken fragments of mirrors and gla.s.s had been wedged into window frames or doorsills.