The venomous devil beat its wings once, twice, and then it darted straight for her, stabbing with its barb just as a knife fighter might slash and thrust with a poisoned blade. Illyth jumped back, tangled her feet in the curtain ropes, and fell heavily on her backside. Jack grabbed a small three-legged stool from the set and threw it at the little monster, driving it back from Illyth. The creature recovered instantly and came after him. Jack drew the dagger at his belt and slashed wildly at the thing, trying to avoid its sting.
"I fail to see how Master Alcides's arrival has improved the situation," he said to Illyth, as the tall stern mage strode past the stage.
A sudden bright flare of lightning from just beyond the curtain threw a brilliant white glare all across the backstage. The mage looked back at them to see how its minion fared and then stepped out onto the stage. In the light, Alcides's face was gray, almost insubstantial. Shadowlike.
"It's another one, Illyth!'' Jack said. "A shadow simulacrum!"
He defended against a sudden furious attack on the part of the imp, who missed with its venomous barb but managed to lock its small, sharp jaws on Jack's left arm and started to worry at him like an infernal terrier. Jack gave out a strangled cry of disgust and pain and fell back into the curtain, but he managed to seize the monster's stinger with his right hand and wrestled it away from his face.
The archmage-or to be exact, his copy-stepped boldly onto the stage and was instantly targeted by several crashing bolts of lightning. They struck some kind of invisible shield or barrier surrounding him and died out as if they were nothing more than pretty lights. The shadow-Alcides grinned feverishly and filled the theatre floor with a great blast of fire that shriveled the Red and Black Lords to ashes and started the whole place burning merrily. Game-players still fought desperately to escape the killing place, hemmed in by Tiger's armsmen at the exits. What can this possibly signify? Jack wondered for one fleeting instant. Then the imp started scratching at his face and throat with its claws while it still ripped and tore at his arm with its teeth and stabbed at him with its stinger. Jack howled in pain.
Something big hit the devil from behind, then again, and again. The creature crashed into the stage floor next to Jack, bludgeoned there by a short board wielded by Illyth.
"Hah! Take that!" the noblewoman cried. She jammed the end of the plank hard at the imp's head, but the creature released its grip on Jack's arm and twisted out of the way.
The timber slammed into the stage only a few inches from Jack's face, but he ignored it and reached out to seize the devil by the throat. Reversing its sting, he jammed the barb into the little monster's belly and squeezed, pumping its own poison into it. The thing wailed in agony, a high scream like a tea kettle hissing on a hot stove. Then it disappeared in a puff of stinking sulfurous smoke. Jack coughed and gagged, but Illyth reached down and hauled him up.
"Come on," she said. "If your shadow was close to a match for you, we don't want to be anywhere near Alcides's shadow. He's an archmage. Oghma knows what he might do next."
Jack risked one more look at the battle in the theatre. Hovering in midair, protected by a spell shield, Alcides directed radiant blasts of magic at whatever target struck his fancy-Game players, Faceless Lords, arms-men, or now at the city watchmen who appeared on the scene, trying to fight their way into the auditorium.
"I agree," he said. He clamped his right hand around the bloody bite wound on his left forearm, and led Illyth toward the stage exit again.
This time, no one blocked their escape. They clattered down the short flight of rickety wooden steps leading into the alleyway behind the theatre and headed out toward the street. Smoke poured out of every window; people screamed inside, and a handful of Game-players and attendants scrambled out of windows facing the alley and jumped or fell to the dubious safety of the narrow lane outside.
"There must be dozens of people dead," Illyth said. "Oh, Jack, I just can't believe that Dulkrauth's plot was so murderous. What kind of person would do something like that?"
"Be thankful we have survived more or less uninjured," Jack replied.
They reached the end of the alleyway. In the street, dozens of city watchmen and firefighters rushed about, trying to make sense out of the chaos. Mages from the Ministry of Art watched the building, preparing to use their magical powers to aid in the effort to quell the riot and extinguish the fire.
"There he is!"
Jack glanced up in surprise, Lady Mantis stood beside Ashwillow, the Hawk Knight, and several city watchmen. The conspirator pointed at him. "I saw him speaking with the mercenaries before the attack. That's the man!" The watchmen nodded and advanced on Jack.
"Is there any way this situation could get worse?" Jack muttered to himself. He raised his hands and adopted an expression of earnest contrition. "Ashwillow, listen to me. Lady Mantis seeks to shift the blame for this fiasco. She and her accomplice, Lord Tiger, arranged this whole thing. Now she hopes to convince you that I am in some way responsible."
The Hawk Knight narrowed her eyes. "You can explain it all to the magistrate, Jack Ravenwild. In the meantime, I am placing you under arrest on charges of murder, conspiracy, arson, assault, unlicensed magic, and high treason. Gentlemen?" The last remark was aimed at the watchmen who now closed in on Jack.
"I understand, dear Ashwillow," Jack said with a shallow bow. "I hope you'll forgive me if I attend to my defense against these charges?"
He started to work the spell of shadow-transport-only to have his feet kicked out from under him before he'd even muttered a single syllable. Someone standing behind him knelt and caught him in a hammerlock, beating his forehead into the cobblestones hard twice, then three times, until his ears rang and all he could see were stars.
"I knew you were going to do that," snarled a familiar voice. Marcus bound his hands tightly behind his back, and then gagged him as well with little gentleness. "There, that should keep you from working any spells. You're not going to get away quite so easily this time."
Jack was hauled to his feet and held up by his arms, although his vision swam and blood ran down his face. He caught one glance of Illyth's horrified face, and then he was wheeled about and frog-marched down the street in the center of a knot of watchful guardsmen.
CHAPTER TWELVE
As might be expected of someone in Jack's line of work, he was no stranger to the city's gaols. Fortunately, he had endured no long incarcerations, nor had he ever been convicted of any serious crimes. More than once, he'd simply waited until no one was looking to charm a guard and talk himself out of prison or absented himself from the judicial process with a well-timed spell of invisibility or disappearance. In fact, Jack had acquired a dangerous level of confidence in his ability to avoid legal complications.
This time, the city officials were not treating him as a common burglar, rumored fence, or suspected swindler. They were treating him as a murderer, traitor, and spy, whose known magical powers merited the utmost caution. He was fitted with a set of enchanted fetters that utterly blocked any attempt on his part to wield magic, then he was interred in the strongest, most secure, and incidentally most dismal cell in the city, in the prison-fortress of Ill-Water.
Ill-Water was not actually located in the city proper; it was built on an artificial island of massive stone slabs a few hundred yards out beyond the harbor entrance, surrounded by the cold waters of the Inner Sea. Raven's Bluff reserved Ill-Water for prisoners whose crimes, abilities, or stations were so far beyond those of the common criminal that no possibility of escape could be allowed. For cutthroats, brawlers, smugglers, and highwaymen, the city's prison hulks offered weeks, months, or years of backbreaking labor. For crimes of a less violent nature, the Nevin Street Compter sufficed, but for those who had aligned themselves against the powers of Raven's Bluff, Ill-Water was the fortress of last resort.