Priesthoods, Randal considered as he met Molin's stare, did a better job of educating their acolytes than the mageguilds did with their apprentices. Askelon, at his most magnificent, could breathe more life into the simplest phrases, making every word a threat and a promise and a truth. But Askelon was hardly mortal anymore. Not that Molin Torchholder was exactly typical ofVashanka's priesthood. Randal had met Brachis, Molin's hierarchical superior, and been singularly unimpressed. The truth was that only Tempus, who broke mercenaries', mages', and priests' rules at his whim, could conceal more raw power in his voice and gestures.
It was a realization to make a cautious mageling look in some other convenient direction. "You might make a mistake one day, Torchholder," he said with a confidence he did not feel.
"I will make many mistakes; I already have. Someday, I expect, I will make a mistake I cannot survive-but I haven't yet."
Randal found himself staring at the unfinished portrait of Niko, Tempus, and Roxane that Molin had nailed to the wall behind his worktable. There was considerable similarity between the witch and the priest even though she had been portrayed transforming herself into her favored black eagle and Molin's facial bones showed some of the refinements ofRankan aristocratic patrimony. It wasn't surprising: the priest had been born to a Nisi witch. He had, thus far, adhered to his promise to learn only enough to defend his soul from his heritage, but if he ever wavered from that determination, now that the destruction of Roxane's globe had every latent magician in Sanctuary on the threshold of Hazard status, he would make the Wizardwall masters look like children.
Molin said, "Not if you help me," as if he'd read the younger man's thoughts. "The price is too high."
The mongoose, who in the transfer from the forest to Sanctuary had experienced being Randal as much as he had experienced being a mongoose, responded to her desired mate's distress with an eruption of motion and noise that bounced the cage onto the floor. She set her teeth into the wooden slats and splintered two of them before Randal reached her. Two were all she needed, however, to squeeze out of her confinement. She was on his shoulder in an instant, her claws finding purchase in his brocaded cloak and her tail ringing his neck.
"I'm ... going ... to ... sneeze!" And he did-with an eruption that sent his defender, and a small portion of his left ear, flying across the room.
Molin dove toward the door to capture the lithe creature before it gained freedom in the endless corridors of the palace. Randal laughed through his sneezes; the sight was worth an earlobe. Nothing remained of Torchholder's intensity or his dignity as he slid along the polished stone on his belly.
Despite these losses the priest kept his reputation: he did what had to be done. Blunt fingers pinched the animal's collarbone and a well-protected arm both supported her and pinned her against his ribcage.
"Chiringee?" Molin crooned, rubbing a free finger under her chin as he got to his feet, his long robe wrinkled, twisted, and revealing the naked, muscular thighs of an experienced soldier and brawler. "So eager, are you?" He squared his shoulders, the weighted hem dropped, and he resumed his perfect lifelong disguise as priest and court functionary. "Well, let us go to the nursery then and let you meet the little ones you'll be guarding."
Randal followed, blotting his wounds with his sleeve.
The nursery was more a chaotic phenomenon of palace society than a physical location. Its denizens were moved from dungeons to rooftops, from the depths of the Beysib enclave to the warmth and abundance of the kitchens as the fears and influence of its overlords shifted. For three days a cavern-ceilinged hall known as the Ilsig Bedchamber had managed to contain it to everyone's satisfaction.
Protocol demanded that no one pass the guards without careful inspection. Molin, Randal, and Chiringee waited until Jihan pushed her way through the doors. She accepted the men in an eyeblink but stared hard at the mongoose, drawing on the arcane intuitions she possessed as Froth Daughter to archetypal Stormbringer only temporarily in mortal form.
"So this is the unnatural creature who is supposed to protect the children better than I? It smells of Wizardwall magic."
"Well, she is larger and more intelligent than she should be. It was an unexpected benefit from the transition-"
Randal had more to say, but Molin took command again, leading their way into the nursery.
The hour candle beside Jihan's cross-legged stool was half-burnt-nearly midnight. The chamber was silent except for the rapid, shallow breathing of the Stormchildren who should have been in their hardwood beds but had been in Jihan's arms and were now draped one over the other on the floor. She scooped them up before settling back on the stool.
"They should be in their beds," Randal complained. "How can you protect them with them sleeping in your lap?"
"They were restless with fever."
"They're two steps from death, lady. They haven't moved in a week!"
"I will protect them as I see fit-and I don't need a little mage flaunting his borrowed power and his menagerie...." Her eyes had begun to glow and the air in the bedchamber had gone frosty.
Molin dropped the mongoose and placed his hands against both of them. "Jihan, Chiringee is only another precaution, like the guards outside, to assist you. No one challenges what your father has ordained: you are the Caretaker."
Jihan's eyes cooled and the room began to warm.
In point of fact, Randal was not tremendously impressed by Jihan's caretaking. The woman, if she could be called that, was obsessed with maternal longings; she had clutched the Stormchildren to her breast when Roxane's snake made its attack rather than drawing her sword and attacking like the hellcat fighter she was. Both children had been bitten and she had taken a divine battering, but the worst injuries had fallen on Niko when he had come to her rescue.
Jihan had recovered almost at once and Sanctuary was better off with Arton and Gyskouras deep in envenomed slumber but Niko, despite Tempus's concern and Jihan's healing, looked and felt worse than the White Foal undead. He was also, because of his need for Jihan's healing touch, a permanent resident of the nursery along with the Stonnchildren.
Randal didn't pretend to understand Niko's enthrallment with Roxane or his all consuming interest in the Stonnchildren-he didn't even understand his own affection for the jinxed mercenary who had rejected his friendship more than once. He had touched Chiringee when they mingled in the transfer sphere, inoculating her with his love for Niko and an awareness of Roxane's essence (an essence which, albeit neutralized, pervaded his own Globe of Power whose previous owner had loved and used the beautiful witch countless times). The mongoose might not be able to slay the snakes but she would give Niko a few moments of warning and that, not the safety of the Stormchildren, was all that mattered to Randal.
"We had a cage built for her but, with the influence of the transfer, it wasn't enough to hold her," Molin was explaining to Jihan. "We'll have Arton's father make a stronger one in the morning. In the meantime I'll tell the guards to keep the Beysib women out. She'd go after their vipers."
"Then don't build a cage," the Froth Daughter said with an icy laugh. "They need a few less snakes."
"The vipers are sacred to the Beysib and to Mother Bey. You, most especially, should respect this," Molin said sternly as the temperature continued to drop.
"Mother Bey! Mother Bey, my hind foot. Do you know where she found her first snake? That's all she needs, you know, a silly blood-mouth World Serpent. Not my father. No, she doesn't need him at all!"