"This is my friend Autad," she said. "He owns the Demon's Whip, a tavern in Merchants' Walk. He's agreed to cart you, since I wasn't sure how far you'd be able to walk on your own."
"You've thought of everything. Where are we going?"
She tilted her head back as if she'd heard something, and sprang up the steps to vanish into the hall, sliding shut the door behind her. She was gone as quickly as if he had only dreamed her.
"Get in, ver," said the man in a genial voice, pitched low. "Hurry. I'll cover you with the blanket." He moved up beside Joss, and even in the night Joss could sense that terrible grimace. "Whew! Begging your pardon!"
"Where did she go? Where are we going?"
"Where she tells me, ver."
"Do you trust her that much?"
"She's a true servant of the gods, that one. Very pious." The man hesitated. "If you wouldn't mind, ver." He indicated the cart, coughed, gagged a little. "Geh. Well. Best if we do this quick. If you don't mind."
Once in Haya, one summer when he was a lad, he'd been out swimming with his friends and been grabbed by a rip current that had dragged him out into the sea. But you learned growing up on those shores to let go instead of fighting what you could not resist, because fighting would kill you. Eventually, of course, the rip current had slackened, and he had worked free of it and swum back to land.
"Thanks, ver," he said to Autad. With the man's help, he clambered into the belly of the cart. Autad flipped the cloak over him. The cloth smelled of hay, but it was a good, honest, clean smell, one he appreciated. The cart rocked beneath him as Autad lifted and pushed and began walking. The wheel rumbled over stone. The movement jostled him.
For a long way Joss just lay there, thinking of nothing, really, too drained to fret or scheme. The streets were quiet around them. Evidently in Olossi people did not commonly walk out at night, while he was accustomed to the streets of central Toskala, which were more or less awake at all hours. Sometimes it seemed they rattled up a hill, and sometimes it seemed they rolled down one, and only once in that journey did Autad speak, in the manner of a man who has been mulling deep thoughts in his mind and finally found words to express them.
"I'd do anything for that girl. I do owe her, for saving the life of my sister. She had that rash that eats the skin. Poor thing, suffering so. Zubaidit spent her own coin to buy the oil of naya, which is the only unguent that cures it. I couldn't afford such a luxury."
"But-"
"Hush! Now we're coming to where folk are about. I don't want anyone suspecting. I'd lose my license, and be subject to exile. Or worse."
They moved into a neighborhood where there were, indeed, a few folk out even at this late hour, judging by the sounds of footfalls and soft conversation and the occasional clink or clatter of unseen objects changing position. Joss's hip was bruising where it pressed against the bottom of the cart, and every time they lurched forward his right shoulder knocked against wood. Autad hadn't brought any padding, more's the pity.
Abruptly, the cart rocked to a halt and Autad pulled the blanket off. "Can you get out?" He stood back, not offering a hand.
Joss got first to his hands and knees, and then awkwardly clambered out by levering his legs out first and following with his body. He was weak, but damned if he would inconvenience the man with his stink, when it was so obvious how appalling it was. They stood in an alley of towering white walls, both ends lost in shadow. A lit lantern hung from a hook protruding from one of the walls above doubled doors. These were broad and high enough to admit wagons, and a smaller "walking" door for foot traffic was set into the larger door. All around, the cobblestone pavement had been swept clean; there was no trace of litter or noisome debris. Indeed, it was pretty obvious that the only nasty thing in this tidy alley was Joss himself.
"Wait here," said Autad. He probed in his sleeve, withdrew a ball of rice rolled up in a se leaf, and without quite touching Joss gave it into his hands. Joss was so hungry that he ate it at once, trying not to choke on big bites, forcing himself to chew. Autad moved off with the cart while Joss had his mouth full, but when Joss tried to speak, the other man paused, hoisted the cloak, took a whiff, and tossed it at Joss, then with the cart trundled off down the alley until he vanished into the night.
Joss finished the rice, then chewed up the se leaf-beggar's food, as they called it, but despite being stringy and tough, it was edible and it settled lightly in his stomach.
Neither bell nor device adorned the door, by which a man could signal that he stood outside. Any night noises were here muted by the walls and the isolation. He could not even tell how long the alley was, or how far it reached on either side, but he guessed that he stood between two large compounds that were likely either temple establishments or the households of rich men.
For a few breaths he simply stood there to quiet his heart, calm his mind, and consider his options, alone in the dark city with a chance to escape. Definitely his best bet at this point would be to turn and walk away and hope to make it out of the city without being stopped, although it would be tricky to get past the gates of the inner wall.
Without warning, the "walking" door opened and there stood Zubaidit.
"The hells! Come inside quickly! Anyone might see you out there!"
Since he could think of no clever rejoinder, he followed her into a wide court with trough, cistern, hitching posts, stable, and a small warehouse. Here tradesmen could bring their provender without sullying the main entrance of the rich man's home, for certainly a rich clan's compound was what this was.
"Over here," she said, indicating the trough. "Best hurry. There's a change of clothes. He'll never speak with you if you're not cleaned up a bit."
"Where are the guards?" he asked.
"Right there." She indicated the opening of the stable, where a trio of men were trussed and gagged, but still alive by the way they twitched their shoulders and waggled their feet to get his attention.
"What game are you playing?"
"There is only one," she said with a smile, pressing a bag of rice bran into his hand. "The game of life, death, and desire. We haven't much time." She turned her back and folded her arms.
Though he was shaking with weakness, and could not trust her, the entire night's adventure had taken on such an air of unreality that he let himself be dragged onward and outward, as into the sea. He stripped, with some difficulty prying himself out of the tight leather trousers, and tossed trousers, jacket, shirt, and cloak to one side. All were unbelievably foul, soaked through, matted, dried, and stiff in spots. A bucket stood beside the trough. He filled it and dumped it over his head, filled and dumped, filled and dumped, until he was soaking. Using handfuls of the bran, he scrubbed himself, working quickly, finding all the worst layers of grime. After, caught by a sense of impending doom, he dressed in the simple shirt and knee-length jacket provided, draped and tied into place with a sash. She did not once turn to look, although he had wondered if she would. He crossed to the cistern, took down the drinking ladle from its hook, dipped, sipped, and hung it back.
"Ready," he murmured.
"This way."
He followed her into the warehouse, whose walls in this darkness he could not perceive. If folk slept here, he did not hear or see them.
"This way."
Behind her, he groped his way up the rungs of a ladder into the attic. Here she lit her tiny globe to reveal a long chamber with a steeply pitched roof on both sides. The low walls were lined with shelves on which rested various boxes and bags neatly filed away according to a system he could not quickly comprehend. She moved to a cabinet, opened it, and gestured. Ducking through after her, he was at once choked with a sense of closeness, weight pressing on him, dust a congestion in his lungs, walls falling at him on either side. But after all he fixed his gaze on her backside, very shapely, as she climbed stairs in what was little more than a narrow tunnel, the ceiling so low that he kept thinking he would slam his head against it and the walls so close that if he leaned any little bit left or right his shoulders brushed the paneling. It was quite dark, although the glow of her light outlined her figure most pleasingly. Hers was an easy target to aim for. He mounted the steps behind her, but she got farther away and he fell behind because the climb exhausted him and she was swift.