“Which explains why she chose to stay,” Magnus replied. “You can’t blame Faenaeyon for that. He may have loved your mother as much as he ever loved anyone-but that doesn’t mean he could have taken her with him.”
A deafening boom shook the emporium, then echoed through the gallery like a peal of thunder. Hundreds of bats dropped from their hiding places among the ceiling rafters and swooped toward the windows in black streams, their screeches barely distinguishable from the astonished cries of the throng below. Before the first of the swarm had reached its goal, the air began to sizzle and roar with the sound of a dozen different spells all being cast at once. Bolts of lightning and sprays of orange flame erupted from the main entrance, blasting pillars into bits and washing down the aisles in fiery torrents.
“Death to the slave merchants!” cried a man’s angry voice.
“Death to the slave buyers!” added a woman.
Panicked screeches and cries of terror rang throughout the gallery. Frightened agents and buyers rushed toward Sadira and Magnus in a mad tide, those in the rear trampling those in the front. From behind them blared a clap of thunder, and, for the briefest moment, their pumping legs were silhouetted by white light. In the next instant, a swath of singed bodies fell to the floor, leaving a long, smoking furrow in the center of the crowd. At the other end stood a veiled sorcerer, the tips of his fingers glowing pinkish white.
“Slaves, rise against your masters!” cried Raka’s voice. The young sorcerer spread the fingers of his hand as he prepared another spell. “The time has come to free yourselves!”
In response to the youth’s cry, many slaves tried to slip their black collars over their heads, and others tugged at the greasy ropes securing them to the walls. When they could not work themselves free, Raka created a shimmering sword of golden energy and began cutting their bonds. These people immediately launched themselves at those who had imprisoned them, wrapping the ends of their slave lines around the throats of nearby merchants.
The traders who escaped the angry slaves only ran faster. Magnus placed his bulk in the center of the aisle, forcing the mob to part and flow around him. Pressing herself against the windsinger’s back, Sadira yelled, “Quite the diversion!”
“I should have known they’d do something like this,” the windsinger answered. “The Nibenese Alliance will use any excuse to attack the slave traders.”
Sadira heard the agonized scream of a Shom agent who had just run past her. She spun around and saw a stolen dagger in the hands of the bony slave who had been watering vines earlier. He was using the weapon to hack at the agent’s flabby neck.
As the fat man fell, the slave raised his blade and rushed Sadira. The sorceress sidestepped his clumsy charge, throwing her foot out to catch his ankle and bringing the back of her fist down between his shoulder blades. The old man fell to the floor, then Sadira planted a foot on the wrist of his weapon arm. She reached down and pulled the dirk from his hand.
“Not bad,” Magnus said.
“Rikus taught me,” she replied, stepping away with the knife in her hand.
The man rolled over, cringing and covering his head. A terrified eye, yellow with jaundice, peered out from the crook of his elbow, but the slave did not cry out or beg for mercy.
“We’re on your side,” “Sadira said.
The sorceress reached down and pulled the old man to his feet, then looked around to see if Dhojakt’s followers had shown themselves. Here and there, a few women were calmly watching the revolt from the safety of an empty slave pen, but they had not yet done anything to reveal themselves as templars. Sadira thrust the dagger into the slave’s hand, then pushed him toward the exit. “You don’t have much time. Make good use of it.”
The slave toothless mouth fell open. He gave Sadira a quick bow, then turned to lash out at a woman wearing a silk sarami and a copper bracelet. A long arc of blood shot from the wound, spattering Magnus’s knobby face.
Wiping the sticky fluid away from his eye, Magnus asked, “Did you have to return the knife?”
“If you’d ever been a slave, you wouldn’t ask that question,” Sadira said.
Without waiting for a reply, she took the windsinger by the arm and led him down the aisle. Behind them, the sounds of the battle grew louder and more tumultuous.
When they neared the pillar at the end, a pair of Nibenese templars rushed around the corner, throwing off their saramis and calling upon their sorcerer-king for magic. They stopped two paces into the corridor, and one dropped something on the floor. There was a small pop, and the smell of sulfur came to Sadira’s nose.
A tiny sphere of fire appeared on the ground, quickly growing to the size of a kank. The woman threw her palms out before her as though pushing the flaming ball. It rolled down the aisle, picking up speed and size with each revolution. As the fiery globe passed, it left nothing behind save the blackened vines, charred bodies, and scorched flagstones.
Sadira reached into the satchel containing her spell components, but Magnus caught her hand. “No,” he whispered. “We’re here to get Faenaeyon-not to kill templars.”
The sorceress withdrew her hand, then watched as the two women walked past, following their ball down the corridor. Though her every instinct cried out for her to jump into the battle, she knew the windsinger was right.
About halfway down the corridor, the ball exploded into a fiery spray, then vanished in a puff of black smoke. Blocking the aisle stood a transparent wall of force, and through its shimmering surface Sadira could see Raka turning to flee.
“I think the time’s come to get Faenaeyon,” Sadira said.
As she spoke, the second templar flung her hand at the arc above Raka’s head. A blue stone streaked from the woman’s hand and struck the span squarely in the center. The stones vanished in a cascade of sparks, then the ceiling collapsed, showering the aisle below with stone debris.
Magnus shook his head and looked away. “What a waste,” he commented sadly. “Now how will we find our way out of the city?”
“Perhaps the Alliance will send someone else,” Sadira said, watching as a pair of slaves fell to their knees and began to claw at the rubble. “Besides, Raka might still be alive.”
The windsinger shook his head. “How can you think that?”
Sadira considered taking the time to defend the slaves, but noticed that the young sorcerer’s quivering force barrier still stood. It would prevent the templars from advancing any farther, at least for a short time.
“Let’s get what we came for,” Magnus said, pulling the sorceress around the corner.
Here, the situation was even more confused than where they had just come from. Dozens of men and women dressed in silken saramis cowered in the center of the aisle, just out of the reach of the poor wretches still bound to the wall. Scattered among the stalls were the bodies of those who had not been so careful, buyers and merchants with, puffy, purple-tinged faces, swollen blue lips, and glazed eyes rolled back in their sockets. Often, the greasy cords that had strangled them were still looped tight around their necks, with the dazed, expressionless faces of their executioners hovering above their shoulders.
Halfway down, the aisle, a magical rampart of golden light blocked the corridor. A dozen men carrying shields with House Shom’s insignia stood before the barrier, waiting for three bare-breasted templars to dispel the wall. Through the shimmering barricade, Sadira could see the form of an elderly sorcerer staggering toward the exit.
Magus went to Faenaeyon’s stall and grabbed the slave’s line. The windsinger gave the cord a mighty jerk, but neither the black line nor the stone ring holding it gave way. He pulled the rope taut, then opened his mouth and struck a deep, rumbling note that made the floor quiver. Where the stone ring was attached, the wall shuddered visibly, and the sorceress expected the bricks to shatter at any moment.