I cast a quick glance around the room. The husk-like body of the magician Oskin Yahlei had used for his demonstration had rolled against the burning wall and was starting to char. The front wall was largely gone. The last of the other magicians were lowering themselves through the splintered holes down the rubble onto the street. I spotted Flora helping a man with a bloody head and a twisted arm, decided not to bother her, and instead carefully swung the rest of my body over the edge of the roof and dropped past the palm tree to the interior floor. I bent down to examine the huddled figure.
As I’d expected, he was pretty much undamaged; he’d only been hiding. “Hi, Carl,” I said.
He lifted one arm and rolled his eye up. “You,” he said. “You perhaps may be wondering why I did certain things.”
“No,” I said, “I’m not.” I grabbed him by the back of the collar and pulled him to his feet, the new bruises across my ribs and along my side sending out sharp throbs of disapproval. “I think I understand real well why you did what you did. You did real good for yourself, getting your leg fixed, and everybody has to look out for himself first, right?, and how could you have known you wouldn’t end up running the city, and anyway you didn’t actually get me killed yet even if I did lose a perfectly good sword.”
“You don’t hate me?”
“Just because you were on a different side than me? Nah. How could I hate you when you’re about to help me out?”
He rubbed his bottlebrush eyebrows. “Hmm, indeed,” he said. “Hah.”
“Hah,” I said. “Hah.” The building shook again. The floor, which already had about a fifteen degree tilt toward the street, settled some more. “Where’s your friend Yahlei?”
“He has left.”
“I figured that out already. I want to know where he went.” We were next to the door Oskin Yahlei had originally entered through, under my observation spot. The door was closed, but the frame had partially caved in around it and the top panel of the door was mostly splintered board. I kicked at the doorknob with the heel of my foot. On the second try the doorknob tore through and the door smashed open, the hinges came loose from the jamb, and the whole door crashed noisily into the next room.
I still had Carl by the neck, and now I dragged him with me through the empty doorframe. We clambered over a fall of rubble, which was the section of roof that had fallen in next to me moments before, and then just behind us the ceiling creaked, the creak grew into a rumble, and the rest of the roof came down as well; the door I’d removed must have been all that was holding it up. At the end of the room the side wall had fallen into the alley. The largest drop from one major clump of debris to the next was now no more than a few feet, so when I pushed Carl through the wall ahead of me I figured he couldn’t hurt himself that badly, especially not with his new leg and all.
I made it down faster than him, gritting my teeth against my assortment of aches, so I had plenty of time to get him by the neck again before he decided to take off. I may not have hated him but I sure didn’t trust him either. I figured he might not be too happy himself about leading me to Oskin Yahlei’s hideout. Me, I could hardly even believe I was considering what I seemed to have in mind. Unless Gashanatantra showed up unexpectedly, though, the ball was still in my court, and the only way I might get it out was to keep moving.
It was dark so I couldn’t see his face, but I didn’t have to. “You must be insane,” he said, when I told him what he was going to do. “To go deliberately to seek out Oskin Yahlei? Insane, certainly insane, certifiably insane.”
“You’re probably right,” I said, “but don’t let that part concern you. If you have to, think about the terrible things crazy people are apt to do.”
“What, you will kill me? How could that be more terrible than the wrath of Oskin Yahlei?”
“Oskin Yahlei’d have to catch you. Me, I’ve already got you.”
“Hah,” Carl said. “With what you will kill me? You said you have no sword.”
“My bare hands will do if they have to, but I’ve got something easier. You see this?” I waved the walking stick in front of his face.
“Indeed, yes, a basic staff.” Carl sounded less than impressed, but the chuckle he was starting didn’t last more than half-a-second.
The stick began to whine. As Carl looked around for the source, it added a pulsing glow, too, picking up its cue to the hilt. I still didn’t know how smart the sword was, but it did show a sharp instinct for betting on where a meal might come from.
“Ah, hmm,” Carl said.
“Yeah, you should see it when it’s not in disguise. I think it likes you. Of course, it’s been getting pretty hungry.” A spark leapt across and hit Carl on the nose. “I said I’d lost that sword, I didn’t say anything about this one. So, are you ready?”
“Um, hmm, yes, I believe so. You can calm that down?”
“Sure,” I said, “no problem. Now let’s go.”
A buzzing crowd had gathered in the Street of Fresh Breeze in front of the demolished building and its neighbors, which weren’t in much better shape. I had a feeling the crowd wouldn’t be too pleased to greet either one of us at the moment, so I led Carl down through the alleys and out the other side of the block, still feeling an occasional crash and shudder in the ground from behind us. We gained the street and Carl led north.
“What happened in there?” I said. I was finally taking the chance to catch my breath; that had been an intense couple of minutes there.
“For how long did you watch?”
“From the beginning of the meeting. You did say I’d be invited, after all.”
“Hmm, yes. Then you must have witnessed the attack on Oskin Yahlei.”
“The guy with the green meat hook, yeah.”
“Not him alone.” Carl rubbed his eyebrow. “The tremor, the devastation, the ruination of my house, this too was an attack. But by whom?”
“You mean you don’t know? I thought you knew everybody you’d invited.”
“None of the people in attendance has this class of manifestation among their known skills. It is most curious … You have not recently taken to magic, have you?”
“Me!” I said, with what I hoped was not a guilty start. “Hah, what a thought.”
“Hmm, no, no, of course not. Indeed, the emanations were … very peculiar, unlike most anything I have encountered.”
Those emanations were unlike those of anyone in the vicinity except Oskin Yahlei, I bet, unless there was yet another god lurking around I hadn’t met yet. We were still winding our way north. The curfew was up, so we were whispering and sticking to the shadows, not that there had been any hint of trouble. Maybe the Guard had picked up Oskin Yahlei on his way home, hah hah. I was keeping a close eye on Carl’s hands, but even with his recent practice his magic wasn’t heavy on anti-personnel skills; like I said, that’s how the muggers had been able to get him the first time we’d met. “How much further?” I said.
A faint shriek rang in the air from somewhere up ahead, maybe ten blocks. Suddenly it stopped.
Carl had listened carefully. “Approximately that distance,” he told me.
“Thanks a lot. That’ll put us almost at the north wall.”
“That is correct. “
The area where we were heading wasn’t particularly fashionable. The houses leaned out over the street on their own, here, the pavement was more irregular when it wasn’t completely dirt, and the streets were growing into narrow alleys. The streets also wove around more, pointing north, then northwest, then east. It wasn’t the kind of neighborhood where big-time magicians usually liked to hang out. “Just what’s so great about this Yahlei character, anyway?” I asked Carl.