"You froggin" missed him, Bezulshash. He was here when I came downstairs-talking with the aromacist."
"The what?"
She shrugged, a very distracting gesture. Bezul missed her first words. "-of winter. Set himself up off the Processional. Froggin" fancy place: fancy bottles, colored oils, silks and ta.s.sels hanging from the walls."
"A perfumer?"
She shook her head and everything else. " "Aromas" he called them, better than perfume. Said no man could resist his "aroma" of pa.s.sion. Frog all, Bezulshash-do I look like I need help attracting men? He never fit inside the Unicorn; a little like you, Bezulshash: You don"t belong here. But he came by, every few days, late morning or early afternoon, when it was slow and quiet. He"d take one of the side tables, buy a whole ewer of ale, leave it, too-unless he got company-your brother, a handful of others. Come to think of it- they left together. First time, I think, for that; first time I noticed: Your brother, he was tipsy, noisy. Don"t think he"d"ve made it outside by himself-"
"A fancy shop off the Processional?" Bezul asked and tried to keep the rest out of his thoughts for a few moments longer. He was ready to leave, but found his way blocked. In his concern-his anger-he"d forgotten something more important than her name. "Stop by the changing house," he urged. "There"s a pair of earrings tucked away with your name on them."
She grinned and let him depart.
The Processional between the harbor and the palace was neither the longest nor the widest street in Sanctuary. With the tight-fisted Irrune in the palace, it wasn"t even the busiest street. Mansions, some of them still abandoned after the Troubles, lined both sides of the street. When the residents left their homes, they traveled in clumps. A solitary man was marked as a visitor and ignored.
Lord Kuklos-a bearded magnate with an oversized cloak, a bright-red hat, and a flock of aides-rushed past Bezul without a by-your-leave. Probably on their way to the tournament. A slower clutch of nursemaids and guards surrounding a pair of children stopped when the better-dressed boythrew himself into a tantrum. Probably wanted to go to the tournament.
As Bezul wove around them-stepping carefully over one of the two gutters running from the palace to the harbor-he took note that the second child, equally winsome but less lavishly dressed- received the thrashing his companion deserved.
The third procession bore down rapidly on Bezul from behind. A man with a clanging bell and a loud voice ordered him out of the way. Prudence, rather than obedience, launched Bezul up on a curbstone.
He clung to a pedestal that had long since lost its commemorative statue while a woman wrapped in a sea-green mantle and seated in an open chair charged toward the harbor. A whiskery dog with jewels in its ears yapped at Bezul from the lady"s lap. The rest of her retinue-a brace of underdressed porters that might have been twins, three breathless maids clutching their skirts with one hand, their mantles with the other; five guards whose legs were taking a beating from their scabbards, and the lead man with the bell- spared him not a single glance.
Watching them sweep around the corner that was his own goal, Bezul offered a quick prayer to any nearby G.o.d that the lady"s final destination not be the aromacist"s shop. Someone listened. The lady and her retinue were rounding the next corner when Bezul turned off the Processional. Perhaps the lady knew something the corseted wench at the Unicorn had not: The aromacist"s shop-its business proclaimed in both Ilsigi and Rankan script on a bright signboard- was shuttered tight from the inside.
"Perrez," Bezul called, giving the handle a firm shake. "If you"re in there, open the door!"
He shook the handle a second time and kicked the door. When that produced no response, Bezul berated himself for imagining that his quest would end any other way. He should return to the changing house: His own business was suffering and his brother would return. Men like Perrez landed on their feet and on the backs of their families.
Bezul turned away from the shop; and as he did, he noticed that the door beside it-the alleyway door between the shop and its leftside neighbor-was not completely closed. By Ils"s thousandth eye, Bezul was a cautious man and, to the extent his profession allowed, an honest man. Undoubtedly, there were objects on the changing house shelves which had not been placed there by their legitimate owners, but Bezulshash, son of Bezulshash, did not knowingly trade for suspect goods. He did not venture into another man"s domain uninvited, or he hadn"t before. After glances toward the Processional and away from it, Bezul slipped into the alley and pulled the door back into its almost-shut position.
The alley proved to be a tunnel running beneath the upper floors of the aromacist"s building. Bezul scuttled as quickly as he dared through the darkness, emerging into a tiny fenced-in square with another door to his right. This door had been properly closed and bolted, but the bolt was on Bezul"s side. The aromacist, then, was more concerned about escape than invasion. After listening for sounds of life on the far side, and hearing none, Bezul slid the bolt from its housing. Still gripping the bolt, he lifted the door so its greater weight was in his hands, not on its hinges, then eased it open.
Bezul stuck his head into what looked, at first, to be a long-abandoned garden, strewn with discarded barrels, crates, and overturned furniture. On second glance around, Bezul realized that while the garden was, indeed, abandoned, the other wreckage was more recent. Perhaps very recent: There were puddles in the dirt around a broken barrel. Bezul eased the rest of the way into the garden. He grabbed the nearest chunk of st.u.r.dy wreckage and used it to insure that the door remained open.
Bezul was taking his time, a.s.sessing everything in sight, when he spotted a broken barrel-stave with a sc.r.a.p of red-stained cloth caught in its splintered end.
"Perrez?" he asked himself, then, louder: "Perrez?"He heard the sound of a heavy object thudding to the ground. The shop"s rear door, Bezul realized, was open and the sound had come from within. He ran across the garden.
"Perrez! Per-!"
Horror, relief, and anger were only three of the emotions that bottled Bezul"s voice in his throat. He"d found his younger brother, found him alive, but b.l.o.o.d.y. Beaten b.l.o.o.d.y, bound with ropes and rags, gagged, and hung from a roof beam were he swayed like a dripping pendulum, an overturned bench beneath. Not-thank all the G.o.ds that ever were-hanged by a noose around his neck, but slant-wise with from a noose that pa.s.sed under the opposite shoulder. The shoulder-slung noose wouldn"t make much difference, if Bezul didn"t cut through it quick. Perrez was already wheezing for air.
Bezul righted the bench and went to work with his knife. He freed his brother"s wrists with a single slash, then hacked through the hanging rope. Bezul meant to keep hold of the loose end and lower Perrez gently to the floor, but the rope wasn"t long enough. Perrez hit the floor with a moan-but he was breathing easier even then.
"Hold still!" Bezul commanded as he slipped his knife beneath the gag and for, perhaps, the first time in his life, Perrez obeyed.
"Bez...Bez!" the battered man gasped. "Father Ils! Never thought... you"d find..."
"Save your thanks." Bezul had gotten a closer look at his brother. On the ground, it was clear that none of Perrez"s wounds was close to mortal and that meant Bezul could vent his anger. "I don"t know which is worse: that you cheated the Nighters or that you got cheated by some Ilsigi fly-by-night yourself."
Through the bruises and blood, Perrez protested his innocence.
"I"ve talked to Mother," Bezul snapped. "I"ve talked to a wench at the Unicorn who seemed to remember you well enough. And I"ve done more than talk to that Nighter."
"What Nighter? What are you talking about, Bez?"
"Don"t "Bez" me. You knew he"d come looking when you didn"t show up to return his d.a.m.n lucky so you pointed him at me. What did you expect? That I"d keep him out of your way until you had your seventy royals? Or was that just a number you threw at Mother? Did your aromacist friend make you the same sheep-s.h.i.te promise you gave the Nighter: Give me what I want and I"ll make you my partner? By Lord Ils"s thousandth eye, what else have you been doing besides making us the guarantor for every bet in Sanctuary?"
"I"d have split the royals with you, Bez... with you and the frackin" froggin" Nighter!" Perrez studied his torn, stained sleeve before cursing softly and swiping his face with the cloth. He ignored the jibe about his oddsmaking activities. "It was a fair deal, Bez, a good price. That "lucky" wasn"t any ordinary piece of gla.s.s. It"s an attractor. The fish-folk made them: hollow bulbs filled with their magic. If you want something bad enough it"ll bring it to you, or lead you there. Worth their frackin" froggin" weight in gold when the fish-folk made them and ten times that now. Nareel-"
"Your buyer? The aromacist? The man who strung you up?" Perrez hesitated, then nodded. "Nareel will get a thousand for it up in Ilsig... once we"d gotten the crabs out of it. Shalpa! Those Nighters were using a fish-eye attractor as bait in their crab traps! Now, there"s a waste, Bez, a true crime. Once we got it focused on gold-"
"What "we," Perrez? I should think it would be clear-even to you-that this Nareel has plans that don"tinvolve you."
Perrez wanted to disagree; Bezul could see the arguments forming, then fading on his brother"s face. It was painful to watch, but Bezul did, in icy silence, until Perrez broke.
"I should have come to you," he admitted. "As soon as I realized what the Nighter had baiting his traps, I should have come to you and let you handle everything: getting it away from the Nighter and finding a buyer, too. But it was going so well... I was going to come to you with the seventy royals, Bez, I swear I was. I"d lay them down on the counter and you"d be proud of me. Shalpa, Bez-I don"t want to be Nareel"s partner. I want to be yours. I want you to trust me with the changing house. You"ve done so well, and what do I have to show for myself?" From his knees, Perrez reached up to take his elder brother"s hand. "Help me, Bez. I know where Nareel"s gone, I think. If you confront him, he"ll honor his bargain. I"m begging you, Bez. Our honor"s at stake, here. You can"t let Nareel get away with what he"s done."
It was a good speech and it might have melted Bezul"s heart, if he hadn"t heard similar speeches too many times before. He withdrew his hand. "Nareel"s robbed a thief. Where"s the honor on either side in that?
That gla.s.s never belonged to you. No, it"s over. The aromacist"s made a fool of you, and there it ends.
Stand up. We"re going home. Be grateful you still have one... and pray you"ve figured the odds right.
What little I hear, it"s not going the way anyone expected."
With a whimpering groan, Perrez rose unsteadily. His brother could not tell how much was genuine pain, how much just another part of the act.
"What about Dace?" Perrez asked. "If the attractor wasn"t mine, then it belongs to the Nighter, not Nareel. We can"t walk away, Bez. We"ve still got to get it back."
Bezul scarcely believed what he was hearing. "Don"t you-" he cut himself short. The aromacist"s workroom was no place to continue an argument with Perrez, who would neither listen nor change. "I gave Dace one of Father"s gla.s.s bulbs to replace his "red lucky." "
He returned to the garden. Perrez followed.
"You can"t do that, Bez. You can"t replace a fish-eye attractor with a bulb of ordinary gla.s.s. It"s not going to catch crabs. I mean, a few nights, and he"s going to know it"s not their frackin" froggin" lucky."
"Maybe; maybe not."
"No maybes. The attractor"s got pull, froggin" fish-eye sorcery. There"s nothing in Father"s chest to compare with it, nothing in the whole shop. Dace"ll be back... with his relatives. I"ve seen "em. The gimp"s one of the normal Nighters, Bez. You"ve got to think they"ve been s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g rats and trolls-"
Bezul opened the gate. He had the impression of a face and a yell, then he was reeling as something surged past him. The fence kept Bezul upright. Perrez was not so fortunate. He was on his back, bellowing panic and pain, beneath not the mysterious aromacist, but Dace, who attacked him with wild fury. Bezul seized the youth"s shoulder, hoping to pull him off Perrez, but he underestimated Dace"s determination, not to mention his skills and his strength. The Nighter broke free with an elbow jab between Bezul"s ribs.
With greater caution and an eye for self-defense, Bezul tried again and succeeded.
"He can"t say that!" Dace growled while struggling to get his fists on Perrez again. "He lied. He stole the lucky."Realizing that he couldn"t break free, Dace twisted about and attacked Bezul. Bezul successfully defended his groin and his gut, but lost his grip when Dace stomped his instep. Still, he caught the Nighter before he laid into Perrez.
"Enough!" Bezul gave Dace a shove into the fence that nearly toppled it and quieted the youth. "Yes, he stole it and lost it, because he"s a frogging fool, but, you"re no better. You gave it to him for a sc.r.a.p of cloth and a promise! Let it be a lesson to you both." He shoved Perrez, who"d just gotten his feet under him, at the open gate. "Start moving."
Perrez, who hadn"t actually lost anything that could have been called his in the first place, went through the gate without protest. Not so Dace. The Nighter retreated toward the aromacist"s workroom.
"I"m stayin". That Nareel comes home, I"m gettin" the lucky back. Don"t care "bout no royals."
By that Bezul a.s.sumed Dace had overheard his entire conversation with Perrez. "You don"t need sorcery to bait crabs, Dace. The lucky"s not worth dying for," he told the youth and silently chided himself for caring. He turned around and nearly walked into Perrez.
"We don"t have to wait. I know where Nareel"s gone-he"d brought a map with him from Ilsig. He was looking for some dead s.h.i.te"s h.o.a.rd. Fastalen-something like that. The map didn"t match with what he found in the quarter. There"s not a house up there now that was standing when whoever drew Nareel"s map. That"s where the attractor came in. He and I were going to use it to find the h.o.a.rd. Said it had to be today-couldn"t wait "til tomorrow, something about the sun. He"s up there now-I swear it-and we don"t need an attractor to find a man rooting through rubble."
"We don"t need anything," Bezul replied. "We"re going home to Wriggle Way." But Bezul stopped short of shoving his brother toward the gate again. He wasn"t blind to the allure in Perrez"s argument. "Look at yourself," he said in one last attempt to free them all from temptation. "Clothes torn. Face bloodied. And don"t tell me you"ve got full use of your right arm. The aromacist has already beaten you once today, Perrez-"
"Because I wasn"t ready. This time, I"ll be surprising him... and you"ll be with me."
"No."
"Bez-"
"No."
"You"re getting old, Bez. Ten years ago, you"d have led the way."
"Not a chance," Bezul said confidently.
Children hadn"t changed him, marriage hadn"t changed him, even the Troubles hadn"t changed him. He"d changed the day his father abandoned their uptown shop for Wriggle Way. Perrez couldn"t remember that day; he"d been a toddler, younger than Lesimar; but Bezul had been old enough to see the despair on his parents" faces and it had burnt the wildness out of him forever.
"Let it go, Perrez. Come home. Chersey will bind up your ribs and cuts."
"No. It"s the Nighter"s lucky and our gold, not Nareel"s. Tell Mother I"m coming home rich, or not at all."
Dace-Father Ils bless his limp and his stubbornness-had hobbled out of the workroom to stand beside Perrez, all but announcing that they were partners again. Bezul closed his eyes. He imaginedhimself returning to Wriggle Way: sober, righteous... alone. Wealth had never tempted him. It still didn"t, but the tide had turned regardless.
"If we"re going," he conceded, "we"d best get started."
Between Dace"s withered leg and Perrez"s bruises, the three men crossed Sanctuary slowly. Bezul considered that their prey might be flown by the time Perrez got them to the right quarter. He kept his thoughts to himself. If they missed the opportunity, then they missed the danger, too.
"Not far now," Perrez a.s.sured them as they trudged up one of the steepest streets in the city.
They"d paused for water at a communal well where Perrez had washed the worst of the blood from his face, which only made the bruises more noticeable, and the swollen kink in his nose. Bezul was a grown man with children of his own, but he"d always be the elder brother. He reserved the right to pummel Perrez; he conceded it to no one, especially not an aromacist from Ilsig.
Perrez led them down a treacherous alley to a courtyard that had seen better days, much better days, a generation or more earlier. Patches of fresco murals clung to the weathered walls, none of them large enough to reveal a scene or subject. The windows and doorways were empty, stripped of everything valuable or moveable.
"Where to?" Dace asked.
There was no need for Perrez"s answer. They could all hear a man shouting, "Slowly... Slowly, you worms!" with the rounded accent of old Ilsig.
"Nareel!"
Perrez grinned and Bezul had to move quickly to stop his brother from racing to a confrontation.
"Slowly"s a d.a.m.n good idea, Perrez. Slowly and quietly. He"s not alone."
"You first," Perrez urged and Bezul obliged.
There was a sameness to the ruins of Sanctuary. After beams burnt and walls fell, it could be difficult to say if the ruins had been a mansion or a hovel. For Bezul, it was enough that there was rubble to hide behind and see around in a deeply shadowed corner not far from the gaping doorway. He motioned to Perrez and Dace and they joined him.
Perrez clapped his brother on the arm and pointed at a tall man with gray-touched hair. His lips shaped the word Nareel. Bezul nodded and wished he could have asked Perrez if the aromacist regularly dressed in long black robes or tied an antique bronze breastplate over his chest-though, judging from the puzzled expression on his brother"s face, the answer would have been No.
The "worms" at whom Nareel shouted were a pair of laborers- the ragged unskilled sort who sometimes showed up on Wriggle Way, hoping to exchange their sweat for a few padpols. They"d dug themselves a pit a few paces north of the ruins" center. Beyond them, three sell-swords who, together, wouldn"t be a match for either Ammen or Jopze, if Ammen or Jopze weren"t still in the Shambles. A sixth man stood east of the pit. Younger than Nareel and possibly his son, the sixth man also wore a long black robe, though without the shiny breastplate. He held a wicker-work triangle between his hands.
A bright-red lump dangled from the triangle"s peak. Although the light wasn"t good and the angle was worse, Bezul could see that the gla.s.s teardrop wasn"t hanging straight down, but strained toward the pit, pulled by an invisible hand. Bezul"s breath caught. Neither Perrez nor Dace had lied; the red lucky wasfilled with sorcery and, s.h.i.te for sure, Nareel wasn"t hunting for crabs!
"See? I told you!" Perrez whispered excitedly. "Fish-eye sorcery. We"re rich!"
Bezul raised an arm to clout his brother, but before the blow landed, he had worse problems to contend with. The Nighter was up and on the move toward his d.a.m.ned lucky. Without thinking, Bezul lunged and tackled the youth. He"d swear the ground shook when they struck the ground and thunder was not half so loud. Bezul pinched his eyes shut, convinced that when he opened them, he"d be looking up into the face of his death.
"Sorry," Dace said, the merest breath of voice in Bezul"s ear. "Can"t breathe."
So Bezul moved and there were no sell-swords standing over him, no death awaiting him. He and the Nighter crawled back to Perrez. The reason for their survival was simple enough: Nareel and his men had been moving, making their own noises, at precisely the right moments.
The two diggers had climbed out of the pit. They and the sell-swords now stood together on the opposite side of the pit. The sell-swords had their hands on the hilts of their weapons, but they weren"t looking into the shadows where three spies were hiding. They were watching the pit and even at this distance, Bezul could see that they were afraid.
Bezul couldn"t fault them. When he looked, there were faint bluish flames rising from the hole and he was frightened, too. The younger man who"d carried the attractor had exchanged it for a plain, bronze disk, polished to a mirror shine, which he held before his face like a shield as he slowly circled the pit against the sun. Nareel had his back to Bezul, but he was also circling and his face would come into view-or rather, his mask, because it was clear that he, too, had a disk in front of his face, tied around his skull rather than held in his hands. Both black-robed men were chanting, not in unison, not in Ilsigi. Bezul didn"t recognize the language at all, and he"d heard a good many in the changing house. That added to his fear.
The bluish flames rising from the ground got brighter and sound, like a chorus of cicadas on a hot, summer night, emanated from them. Bezul looked at Perrez; Perrez was already looking at him. They didn"t need words: The aromacist hadn"t come to Sanctuary to look for gold, he"d come for sorcery and, thanks to Perrez, he"d found it. The world was full of sorcery, but sorcery that put fear in a man"s heart wasn"t welcome in Sanctuary. It was the one thing everyone agreed upon. Perrez had the decency to hang his head.
That was all Perrez did: He hung his head. He didn"t run, he didn"t hurl stones, didn"t do anything to make the rubble near them shift; but shift it did and this time the noise attracted the sell-swords" attention. They advanced, drawing their weapons. Bezul grabbed his brother and the Nighter.
"Run!" he commanded them and shoved them toward the doorway as he cast a warning-not a prayer-to Father Ils in Paradise: Take care of Chersey; make her strong for the children. Don"t blame her for my sins. Then he pulled the fighting knife out of his boot. It wouldn"t serve against three swords, but it might give Perrez and Dace time to reach a street where the presence of pa.s.sersby would protect them.
Bezul saw the sell-swords choose the doorway, not him, and somehow got in front of them, then desperation took control of his mind. He parried for his life-there was no thrusting with a knife against three swords-and parried a second time and a third, because he wasn"t dead yet and he wouldn"t stop fighting until he was. There were more swords, then fewer swords, screams, and a thunderclap so loud it flung Bezul into the wall.
His head cracked against the plastered brick; he lost consciousness for a heartbeat or two, just longenough for his heels to sink to the ground. A sell-sword charged toward him. Bezul could see his knife, flat across his palm, but his arm belonged to someone else when he tried to clench his hand around the hilt. It didn"t matter. The sell-sword wasn"t interested in him; he raced through the doorway without stopping to kill a defenseless man. The diggers staggered along behind the sell-sword which left two men standing in the ruins. Neither was a man Bezul had seen before.
The nearer of the pair, a man about Perrez"s age with a hardened face and a brawler"s body advanced toward Bezul. "You hurt?"
Bezul shook his head. With the wall solidly behind him, he pushed himself upright and looked around.
One of the sell-swords lay motionless in the rubble. By the angle of his head and the size of the blood pool beneath it, he wouldn"t be getting up again. Nareel and his companion were down, too. The other victorious stranger-another man who preferred a one-color wardrobe: black boots, breeches, cloak, and tunic-prodded Nareel with his sword, trying to loosen the mask.
"What drew you here?" the brawler asked.
Bezul spotted the lucky red attractor, apparently unbroken. "That," he said, pointing to it.
The brawler"s eyes all but disappeared in his scowl. "You"re the Shambles changer, right? What"s your tie to the sorcerer or a Beysib attractor?"
"It"s a long story," Bezul answered with a weary nod. "I have a troublesome brother-"
A third stranger entered the ruins through the doorway. Short, shapeless and unbearded, Bezul decided the stranger was a man simply because he didn"t want to believe that a woman could be so ugly. The new arrival dipped his chin to the brawler and the man in black then, with more agility and speed than Bezul expected, leapt into the pit and out of it again, a deep blue enameled chest clutched like an infant in his arms.
"It"s all here," he announced with a eunuch"s boyish voice.