Jaril frowned, shook his head. “Back home, we didn’t fight them, we just ate them. Stuvtiggors, I mean. The stuv weren’t as… well, smart as this bunch and they didn’t play round with urn magic; these smiglar stink of it. So I don’t know. Except, maybe you should try Maksi again.”
Brann nodded. She left, came back with a call-me cupped in her palm. She dropped it on the floor, knelt beside it and hammered it to dust with the heel of her mucky sandal.
The glassy fragments vibrated wildly; miniature, hair-fine lightnings jagged over them, died away. Nothing else happened.
Brann dropped the sandal, got to her feet and wiped her hands on her shirt. “That does it, Jay. He’s in trouble. Slya bless, everything’s twisting into, I don’t know.” She bent and brushed her knees off, straightened and gazed at the fluttering curtains. “You didn’t fight them,” she said slowly, “You ate them. You could still do that, I mean even if you’ve passed from aeta to auli?”
“Yeh. So?”
“The Skia Hetaira, remember? We did have Ahzurdan to shield us, but…”
Jaril blinked at her, puzzled. Then he grinned, beat his hand on the table. “Don’t fight ‘em, eat ‘em. You and me and Yaro, we ATE Amortis. We whittled her down and sent her scatting off, scared to her toes.”
She sat. “Quiet, Jay. We don’t want to wake Carup. Pour me some wine.” She lifted the glass, took a sip and sat watching the red change as the lamplight wavered. After a while, she shook her head, as if she were shaking out uncertainty. “We’ll keep it simple. If we’re lucky… though the way things are going, I doubt we get any breaks… maybe the Chuttar will be gone for the night, give us less to cope with. Whatever, we go in tomorrow, after midnight, when the servants and so on will be asleep. You circle overhead until I’m inside, then come down fast. That could reduce the time they have for reacting. Unless they can locate me as easily as they can you. We’ll just have to hope they can’t. Argument?”
“None. Go on.”
“Everything we’ve learned says the Chuttar’s personal suite is the heart of that place, so that’s where she’d most likely keep Yaro. No one goes in there but smiglar, not her clients, not the maids, no one. It’s on the third floor, the main house. There’s a smiglar guarding the roof, another at the top of the stair and a third guard stays in the suite whenever the Chuttar’s not there. Not counting the Chuttar, that leaves two other smiglar. One of them acts as relief, the other is the Chuttar’s Housemaster. Camam Callam, Carup called him. Got his nose in everything, day and night. You say he’s second to the Chuttar in power and if the two of them get together, that’s trouble for us. I think you’re right. Without Maksi to back us, all we can do is try whittling them down. Eat ‘em.” She gulped some wine, drew her hand across her mouth. “I’ll get over the wall and into the house, shouldn’t be too hard, break a pane on the glass doors that open on the terrace, turn the latch. You overfly first, let me know where the Housemaster is and the spare guards. I’ll avoid them, if possible, drain them if I have to. That’ll warn the others, won’t it?”
“Yeh. When a bunch of aetas hit a stuv nest, they suck them up and get the hell out, fast, because the place is going to be swarming in minutes.”
“You’ll feel it too?”
“Yeh.”
“Good. You stay high and keep track of me. If I make contact before I reach the stairs, you come in, take out the roof guard and if need be, the stair guard. Eat ‘em fast, Jay, I don’t want them landing on my back. If there’s no contact, if I get up those stairs with no trouble, I’ll mindyell as soon as I’m ready to take the guard there, that’s when, you come in. We’ll try hitting the stair and roof at the same time. Then it’s a dash for the bedroom. If the Chuttar’s out for the night, we hit the guard there, grab Yaro and get out before the others converge on us. If the Chuttar’s there, I’ll keep her busy while you see if you can get Yaro out of stone and mobile. Yes, yes, you told me, it’s likely to be a slow unfolding. If you can’t get her out, can you fly and carry her?”
“I suppose. You mean leave you there?”
“If you have to. I’ll be doing what I did with Amortis. Draw and vent. Draw down the Chuttar and use her energy to fry the other smiglar if they come at me.” She smiled at him, lifted a hand. “Once you get Yaro someplace fairly safe, if you feel like coming back, I wouldn’t mind a bit.”
“This sounds more like a stampede than a plan. Bramble, there are at least a hundred ways we could screw up.”
“I’d say more like a thousand.” She shrugged. “Nothing ever goes like you plan it, you should know that, Jay. If we keep moving fast enough, maybe the momentum will carry us through. It’s got to be fast. For Yaro’s sake.” She pushed the straggling gray hair off her face. “If you can think of a better way, tell me.”
He shook his head. “I’m not even going to try.”
Veiled and cloaked, dressed with a subdued richness, she’d absorbed taste from the Chuttar if nothing else, Carup took the bodyguard’s hand and climbed into the traveling gada; she ignored his blatant appreciation of her body, but she was pleased by it. Her dark eyes flicked to his face for a moment, then she settled back and he closed the door. He climbed to the seat beside the driver, slapped the man’s arm; the driver snapped his whip over the ears of the lead pair and the gada started north along the dusty, rutted road, heading for Pattan Haria.
Brann watched for a while, wondering if Camp would relent and wave. She didn’t. From the moment they stepped onto the landing, Carup had refused to see her. She hadn’t said good-bye and she didn’t look back now. Her resentment had gone deep; she would have rebelled if she’d dared, but she knew too well the futility of fighting powers greater than her own. Bitter, resentful, and rich. A bad combination. She was going to make someone’s life a hell.
Brann sighed and stepped into the longboat. “Go,” she said, and settled back as the man pushed off and began rowing her across the moat. I’ve done the best I can, she told herself, I can’t change the world by myself. Maksi tried changing a piece of it and look what happened to him.
13
Raining again.
Strong winds, sleet, heavy cold.
The next storm would probably bring snow.
Brann huddled in the entranceway of a kotha, a house built directly on the street without the size, the grounds or the enclosing wall of a doulahar. The kotha belonged to an ancient fence who’d survived purges, investigations and other worries thought up by the Isun, not only survived those but managed to hang onto the greater part of his profits. The door at the back of the short passage was small and massive and there was a trap in the ceiling in front of it; persistent and annoying visitors got a most uncivil welcome; more than once his guards had poured burning oil on a man who wouldn’t take go away for an answer. He was even nastier to street folk who tried to sleep there, but she was safe enough if she didn’t linger too long or make a fuss.
Jaril came trotting in; he was using the horny, water-
shedding form he’d dreamed up that night above Kukurul. He shifted and stood shivering before her. “She’s staying home tonight. I’m not surprised. With weather like this I’d rather be inside myself. Callam smiglar is in his room, the one on the third floor; he’s busy about something, I couldn’t see what, I was too far off to do anything but place him. Be better if he was downstairs, soon’s we make a noise he’ll be over with the Chuttar. Can’t help that, though. The relief is at the back of the house in another wing doing something with the other smiglar, the one who stays in the suite when the Chuttar’s not there. That’s all right, they’re nowhere near the terrace, you can go in there without worrying about them. The stair guard and the roof guard are in their usual places.”
“Anything I should worry about?” •
“Callam. He and the Chuttar are wide awake and up to something. Most nights they’re resting by now if the Chuttar doesn’t have a client. Dormant. Like Yaril and me, you know. Otherwise nothing different.”