"Where's Krystyna?"
"Please!" The girl was young, her face marred by furrows which had torn her cheek and ruined her nose and upper lip. "The cowl."
Dumarest watched as the face disappeared into kindly darkness. An apprentice or someone filling in. The former, he guessed, for someone so scarred and lacking the funds to have the damage repaired opportunities of earning a living would be few.
She said, "If you want a reading give me your hand."
"No, give me yours." He heard the sudden intake of her breath as he ran a coin over her palm. "You've been badly taught, girl. Always have your hand crossed with silver before doing anything else. Here." He dropped the coin into her palm. "Where's Krystyna?"
"Resting."
"At this time of day?" He guessed the reason. "Is she just tired-or sick?"
He knew the answer as soon as he stepped into the cubicle she called home.
"The doctor," he snapped at the girl who had guided him. "Run to the infirmary and get medical aid."
Alone he stooped over the narrow cot and the supine figure it contained. Devoid of her shielding cowl the old woman looked like a mummified corpse. The skull was bald but for a few wisps of straggling white hair, the skin creped and looking like leather. The eyes opened as Dumarest touched the scrawny throat.
"Water! I thirst! Give me water!"
A plea couched in a whisper which he barely heard. A small table stood beside the bed containing a decanter of water, a glass, a small bottle of some volatile liquid. A few crumbs lay scattered on a scrap of brightly colored paper; the remains of a snack bought at one of the stalls.
Dumarest poured the glass half-full, sniffed at it, held it to the parched lips. She drank as he supported her, lifting her almost upright, laying her back as she finished the water.
"You shouldn't be alone," he said. "I've sent for help."
"Which I don't need-and my own company's good enough."
"I'll pay for it." Dumarest guessed the reason for her objections. Quietly he added, "Who put you up to it, Mother?"
"What?" Her eyes were suddenly bright, wary. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Yes you do."
"No, I-" She licked her lips. "My head hurts and I've a burning in my stomach. Leave me. I must sleep."
"The reading," he said. "Reiza brought me to you, remember? Who told you what to say?"
"A reading? You want a reading?" Her hand fumbled beneath her pillow and returned bearing the familiar deck. "Shuffle. You have to shuffle."
Dumarest said, harshly, "Quit trying to con me. I've handled an arcana deck too often not to know when one has been stripped. The pack I shuffled was too thin. You'd selected the right cards and made the switch after I'd finished with them." He leaned closer to the withered face. "Who told you to do it? Who told you what to say?"
The skull-like head rolled a little as, again, Krystyna licked her lips.
"Water! God! I burn!"
Dumarest could feel the heat of her as he lifted the thin body with his left hand. Water dribbled from the glass over her chin, spattering as it fell to her chest.
"Help's coming," he said as he put her down. "The girl is getting the doctor." And taking too long about it or the man was hard to find. "Now tell me who gave you the orders."
"Orders?"
"About the cards." Dumarest forced himself to be patient. The woman, old, afflicted by what ailed her, could be finding it hard to concentrate. "The reading. Reiza brought me to you. Who arranged with you to make the switch?" A thing easily done in the guttering candlelight; cards placed on the pack he'd shuffled from where they'd been kept hidden in a wide sleeve of the robe. "Who told you what to say?"
"Eh?"
"Who told you what to say?" The important question, one he repeated. "Who told you what to say? Tell me, damn you! Tell me!"
She responded to the raw anger in his tone, trying to rise in the bed, gasping as he supported her. Cards riffled from the gnarled hands to lie in a scatter on the bed, the floor. One lay face-up on her chest. The depiction of an hourglass.
Time-for him it was running out.
"Krystyna!" Dumarest leaned over her, fingers searching, finding no movement beneath the dry texture of her skin. "Krystyna!"
She was dying, already dead, showing no sign of a pulse in neck or wrist. Dumarest lowered his hands, thrust his clenched fists hard beneath the breastbone in a series of impacts against the heart. As again he made to check her pulse the doctor burst into the cubicle.
"Here, let me!"
He was skilled, fast and efficient, working with drugs, a hissing hypogun, trained massage. For long minutes Dumarest could do nothing but stand and watch.
Then, as the doctor straightened, shaking his head, the girl who had followed him into the cubicle said, "Will she be all right now?"
"No, I'm afraid not. She's dead."
"Dead?" Her voice rose a little. "But she was just tired and wanted to rest for a while. How can she be dead?"
The doctor glanced at Dumarest then at the girl. Gently he said, "It happens, my dear. Krystyna was very old. She could have gone at any time."
"But-"
"There's no more I can do." At the door the doctor paused, turning to look back at the dead woman. "I'll send men to take care of things. The best thing you can do, my dear, is to get back to work."
To the booth and the anodyne of effort. Dumarest caught her by the arm as the girl headed toward the door.
"Do you know if she was close to anyone in the circus? Or if anyone had a hold over her?"
"Krystyna? No." Her eyes were moist, soon the tears would flow. "Everyone loved her."
"That food." Dumarest nodded at the crumbs and paper. "Did you bring it to her?"
"No." Her lower lip began to tremble. Her head turned from him, hands rising to mask the ruin of her face. "Let me go now. Please let me go!"
He heard the fading noise of her running feet and turned for a last look at the cubicle, the body it contained. One surrounded by the cards she had used, one still held in her stiffening fingers.
Dumarest pulled it free and looked at the coils, the raised head, the iridescent scales. The Snake-the symbol of lies.
CHAPTER NINE
Dumarest heard the roar from the crowd, the following, pregnant silence and guessed that Reiza was heading for the grand finale of her act. A moment of tension in which Chang would rear before her, poised with claws extended, then to drop, one paw lashing out, the razor claw shearing through the fabric of her halter to release the confined breasts.
A dangerous trick requiring split-second timing and fine precision but one the crowd loved. As the roar came again, men yelling their appreciation, Dumarest moved quickly beneath the stands. Next would come the clowns, then, the ring cleared, the final procession. A time in which the artists would be engaged as would most of the roustabouts, the musicians, Zucco himself.
The best time for him to act.
He pressed on, heading toward Shakira's private quarters, with a deliberate economy of movement. A man dressed in functional blue glanced at him, recognized him and turned away. A guard or technician and Dumarest passed two others. In a secluded corner he had chosen from previous examinations of the area he knelt and produced rags from beneath his tunic, a bottle of volatile spirit from a pocket, a package of chemicals from another.
Fire fumed from his hand, caught the spirit-soaked rags and leaped in consuming hunger. As it grew he threw the chemicals on the flame and, as smoke billowed in thick, dark clouds from the fire, rose and ran down a curving passage.
The fire was harmless; the plastic membrane would not burn but it would sag and shrivel in the heat. A true blaze would have been dangerous, the smoke was merely to give the impression of a holocaust.