Mercy, Niko had asked of her. She wondered if she knew, still, what it was and how to show it to creatures like these.
"Ischade... Mistress, aren't you curious?" Haught was rubbing the ring and she could feel the feedback of magic twisted, a deadly loop fashioned by a brash and foolish child.
Temptation made her shift from foot to foot. She was stronger, she could feel it: Niko and his guardian spirit had given her that. She could end them, here and now-Haught and whatever animated Tasfalen. For, though she hadn't seen him yet, she knew he must be here: the rest-place revelation was like a map, a schematic, a design which fit over human ones. So he was here, reborn, animated by some power. And Niko had wanted mercy for Roxane....
Two and two fit together with a snap.
Ischade whirled on her heel and fled out the door. For a moment it resisted, but her strength prevailed.
Haught, behind her, came running down the stairs with a shout.
But she was faster: she wrenched the door open, slipped through, and bolted it with magic from the farther side.
Then, stepping back, Ischade considered mercy in all its meanings: if Tasfalen and Roxane were with Haught, in any stage of being whatsoever, mercy could only take one form.
And with strength loaned her from the rest-place of a mystery she didn't understand and under the benediction of the high priest of a god in whom she had no faith, Ischade began to weave a spell so strong and fast she had no doubt about it holding.
All about Tasfalen's house she wove the ward-a special one, one that would keep the house sealed and keep those within locked up until they learned what mercy meant.
When it was over, she realized she had worked her spells in the midst of a downpour which had soaked her to the skin.
Picking up her heavy robes, she headed homeward. Perhaps she should have found the Riddler and told him what she'd done. But there were Crit and Strat to think of, and she didn't want to think of Strat-who was with Tempus by now, alive or dead.
She wanted to think only of herself for now. She wanted things to be just as they always had been before. And she wanted to think about mercy, a quality quite strained and strange, but strengthening, in its way.
In Tasfalen's house, what had been Roxane lay abed in Tasfalen's body, half conscious, rent in memory and power, a mere fragment knowing only that it wanted to survive.
"Duuu," it mumbled, and tried again to move the lips of a corpse twice resurrected. "Dusss." And: "Dusssst. Haughttt... dussst."
The ex-slave was rattling windows barred by magic, cursing horrid spells that couldn't get outside, but bounced around the comers of the house and back upon him like ricochets, so that each one was more trouble than it was worth.
Eventually his panic ebbed and he stalked over to the bedside, looking down at the fish-white pallor of the man who'd brought him here.
Snatched him from somewhere-from elsewhere ... perchance from oblivion. Someone else might have been grateful, but Haught was too wise, too angry: he knew that all witches took their price.
He'd thought to win; he'd lost. He was captive now, captive in a mansion with fine stuffs around him, true. But he was caged like an animal by his former mistress. And he was here only because of Tasfalen.
Nothing else could have done it. So he crouched down, thinking of ways to kill the already-dead, ways to get the Roxane out of Tasfalen, where it was bodiless and weak.
But then he began to listen, to try to understand what the thing on the bed was saying: "Duuussss, duuussss, duuussss..."
"Dust?" he guessed. "Do you mean dust?"
The eyes of the revivified corpse blinked open, startling him so that he fell back and caught himself on his hands.
"Duuussss," the blue lips said, "on tonnnn."
"Dust. On your... tongue?" Of course. That was it. The dust. It wanted the dust.
Not ordinary dust, Haught realized: the hot dust, the bright dust, the fragments of the Nisi Globes of Power. And the corpse was right: the dust was their only hope-his as well as... hers.
For the first time, Haught thought about what it meant, being caged with Roxane, the Nisibisi witch-in-man's-body-or what was left of her. If she perished, those who held her soul would come for her. And Haught might be embroiled. Entangled. Taken. Swallowed. Absorbed like interest payments.
His skin hompilated: there was enough intelligence in that body to have seen the answer before he did.
What else was there, he was in no hurry to find out. And he had a long, trying task ahead of him: the dust in question must be collected, mote by mote.
It was going to be arduous: the place was full of dust, most of it nonmagical. It might take days, or weeks, or years, to gather enough-especially when he had no idea how much was enough.
And when he had it, what would he do with it? Give it to the invalid ex-corpse? Or find a way to make use of it himself? He didn't know, but he knew he had plenty of time to decide. And, since he had nothing better to do, he thought, he might as well start collecting what dust he could, mote by mote by mote....
The storm pelted Sanctuary with all the fury of affronted gods. Rain sheeted so hard that it punctured skin windows in the Maze; it ran so thick and wild in the gutters that the tunnels filled up and sewers overflowed in the better streets while, in the palace, servitors ran with buckets and barrels to place under leaks that were veritable waterfalls.
On the dockside, everything was awash in tide and downpour, which gave Tempus the perfect opportunity to suggest that Theron, Emperor of Ranke, Brachis, High Priest, and all the functionaries forget protocol and begin their procession now, to higher ground and drier quarters.
By the time the Rankan entourage reached the palace gates, Molin Torchholder had already arrived, Kama in tow.
In the palace temple's quiet, he was giving grateful thanks for the storm which had come to quench the fires (that, unattended by gods, threatened to bum the whole town down) while, at the casement, Kama stared out over smoking rooftops toward uptown, where the pillar of fire spat and wriggled.
She had sidled into the alcove, away from priestly ritual, and she couldn't have said whether it was the cold storm winds with their blinding sheets of rain so fierce that she could see it bounce knee-high when it struck the palace roof, or the demonic twistings of the fiery cone which resisted quenching that made her hair stand on end.
She was more conscious of Molin than she should have been. Perhaps that was the reason for the superstitious chill she felt: she was about to be indicted for attempted assassination and what-have-you, and she was worried about what the priest really felt in his heart-about how she looked and whether he believed her and what he thought of her... about whether anyone of her lineage ought to be thinking infatuated thoughts about anyone of his.
It wouldn't work; he was a worse choice for her than Critias. But, like Critias, it was impossible to convince Molin of that.
It was nothing he'd said-it was everything he did, the way their bodies reacted when their flesh touched. And it frightened Kama beyond measure: she'd need all her wits now just to stay alive. Her father would take Crit's word over hers without hesitation; oath-bond and honor outweighted any claim she had on the Riddler.
If she'd been born a manchild, it might have been otherwise. But things were as they were, and Torchholder was her only hope.
He'd said so. He knew it for a fact. She didn't like feeling weak, being perceived as vulnerable. And yet, she admitted, she'd spread her legs on the god's altar for the man now coming up behind her, who slid his arm round her shivering shoulders and kissed her ear.
"It's wonderful, the timely workings of the gods," he said in an intimate undertone. "And it's a good omen-our good omen. You must... Kama, you're shaking."