Lalo groped for support and his hand closed on the smooth side of a paintpot. His throat ached, holding back the urge to beg the man to stop. He hated the painting-he wished it had never been done-and yet, why did he feel the same pain as he had when the Hell-Hound struck Gilla to the floor? His eyes stung with unuttered grief for his work, for himself, for his family left fatherless.
The canvas had caught fire and was beginning to crackle merrily now. Bright flame fattened on the paint-soaked cloth and cast demon-flickers on the face of Zanderei.
"No!" The cry burst from Lalo's lips, and as Zanderei straightened, Lalo's hand closed on the paint pot and he flung it at the other man.
It struck Zanderei's shoulder, and red paint splashed like blood across the grey robe.
The assassin exploded towards him and Lalo scrambled frantically around the table, snatching up more paint pots, brushes, anything he could throw. One of them hit Zanderei's forehead, and as paint sprayed across his face he hesitated for just a moment to mop his eyes.
And in that moment Lalo kicked over the table and ran.
Lalo hugged his chest as if he could muffle the drumming of his heart and stared around him.
He had confused memories of having fled down the corridor that edged the upper half of the Presence Hall, towards the back of the Palace, down the stairs by the dais, and then still farther, into a part of the Palace he did not know. Though the floor was still marble, the slabs were cracked and discolored, and plaster was chipping from the wall. Then he heard crockery clattering nearby and realized he must be hard by the kitchens.
At least, he thought gratefully, Zanderei the Commissioner would be even more out of place here than he. Cautiously he turned into another passageway and moved forward. But as he eased open the door at the end of it, he heard once more a faint pattering behind him-the steps of one who from long training ran so lightly his footfalls were only a whisper of fine leather on polished stone.
Stifling a moan, Lalo burst through the door, dashed across the wooden floor and the platform that opened out onto the kitchen courtyard, and flung himself into the first concealment he found.
It had looked like a cart, and as Lalo sank into its contents he realized what it was. Not the honey-wagon, thank the gods, but the cart into which they had collected the garbage from several days' worth of princely meals. Gagging, Lalo wriggled deeper into the mass of turnip peelings and sour curds, soggy rice and pastry crusts and meat trimmings and bones.
He thought grimly, As long as I can retch, I'm stil] alive...
The cart moved beneath him and he heard the stamp of a hoof on stone. He realized then that not only was he alive, he might even escape, for if the horse was hitched, it must be time for the garbage to be taken away. He waited, breathing shallowly, for the endless minutes until he heard voices and the wagon lurched with the weight of somebody climbing onto the driver's bench. Then they began to move.
Faster... Faster! Lalo prayed as he was jounced deeper into the reeking mass. The clatter of wooden wheels on stone was deafening, then there was a pause, a moment's conversation with Honald at the Gate, and the duller vibration as the wagon trundled across the pounded earth of Vashanka's Square.
Then the cart shuddered to a halt. Lalo strained his ears for the night-noises of Sanctuary, but heard instead shouting and the clamor of an alarm.
"Is that smoke? Theba's paps, it's the Palace! Leave the wagon, Tarn, we can give the beasts their slops in the morning!" The wagon heaved again and Lalo heard two sets of footsteps pounding back the way they had come.
He settled back down, realizing with wonder that for the moment at least, he was saved.
And what will I do now? Zanderei would tell everyone that Lalo had killed the guard and started the fire. If caught, he would be cast into the dungeons, if they did not kill him out of hand. And if he offered to demonstrate his skill in his defense, he might wish that they had...
He could not return to the Palace to accuse the 'Commissioner', but if he could reach the Maze he could hide indefinitely-there were still a few who owed him favors there.
And then . . . Zanderei would either assassinate Prince Kadakithis, or go peacefully home. The former seemed more likely, for one does not return a honed blade to the sheath without blooding it, and in that case Coricidius would fall as well.
And what would become of Sanctuary? The thought troubled his satisfaction. What kind of tyrant would the Empire send to avenge its son? For all his clumsiness, at least Prince Kittycat meant well, and if they must be ruled by foreigners, surely the ones they were accustomed to would be best.
And it's all in my hands... Trying to control laughter, Lalo unwisely took too deep a breath, and began to cough again. Here I wallow in the Prince's garbage, deciding what his fate shall be? Power bubbled in his veins like wine of Caronne. I could send word to Coricidius-he started this, he might believe me ... or-he remembered rumors he had heard about Shadowspawn-I might be able to get word to the Prince himself...
But first I have to get out of here?
Cautiously Lalo poked his head over the rim of the cart. There was a whiff of smoke in the air, and above the wall he could see torches winking like glowworms in the upper windows of the Palace, but he saw no glare of fire-perhaps they had put it out in time. The cart in which he was sitting was parked just outside the Zoo Gardens, a few feet from the Processional Gate.
Sighing with relief, Lalo clambered over the side and began to strip off his smock and brush away the worst of the filth that coated him-
-And stopped, feeling a gaze that was not the dispassionate stare of the mangy lions beyond the barrier. He turned then, and looked across the square to the Palace Gate from which a familiar grey-robed figure had just emerged. For a moment fear froze him again, but he was still glowing with the inebriation of power. He let his smock fall to the ground.
Zanderei's robe was of rich silk, while his own worn shirt and stained breeches would attract no attention. If he could entice the Rankan into the town, Lalo would be on his own ground, and the City itself might rid him and the Prince of their enemy.
Grinning nervously, Lalo walked into plain view, and then urged his stiff limbs into an awkward dash through the Gate as Zanderei and half a dozen Hell-Hounds leaped into motion across the Square after him.
Looking back over his shoulder at every other step, Lalo pressed his cramped limbs to greater speed along the Processional Way. Hearing the guards close behind him, he dodged among the merchants' houses to Westgate Street and down Tanner's Row, heading for the Serpentine. And as he ran, the blood began to course freely through his limbs once more, and he shed middle-age and awkwardness as he had shed his ruined smock, and his fear.
Lalo leaped over a handcart that had been abandoned in the road and paused to send it spinning broadsides. That would not long delay them, but he could hear mercenaries laying bets on a dogfight in the next street. Laughing like the boy who had raced through these streets so long ago, he let his pursuers follow him around the corner, slid eel-like through the crowd, and laughed again as the tinny clash of weapons told him that the Hell-Hounds and the mercenaries had met.
But what about Zanderei? Lalo waited in the shadow of a quiet doorway and watched the gap at the entrance to the street. Night had fallen, and the moon, now almost at the full, was drawing free of the distorting smoke of the City and transforming the shape and shadows of the street with its own deceptive dappling. How could he tell which one-