Molin didn't bother to hide his laughter. "You accuse me because of something you saw in a fortune-teller's ball? You're as insane as Daphne!"
"No, Uncle," she answered. "What I saw was real. It was no mere fortune-teller. I promised Daphne the names of her tormentors, and I did what I had to do to get those names. Gods know every one of them deserves to die. Scavengers' Island is filthier and more vile even than Sanctuary." She clasped both ends of the chain around his neck, slid her hands toward his throat. "But when I left here over three months ago it was to find and save any remaining members of the Royal Family. And for better or worse, you're Family. I won't turn you over to Daphne. If we ever do get the chance to strike back against Theron we may need someone with your ability to scheme and plot." She released the chain, smoothed a wrinkle from his tunic. "And if we never get the chance," she smiled darkly, "then, in time, I'll take care of you myself."
Molin drew himself proudly erect. "Don't threaten me, Niece. The gods have made you powerful, but you forget I know your secrets. I know how you can die!" Chenaya grabbed Molin by the front of his robe, ripped the hem of her own gown as she lifted and bent him backward over the balcony, twisted him so he could see the ground far below.
"You know how," she growled, "but not when. Would you drown me. Uncle, throw me in the river? You foolish old man! After I discovered what a snake you are the first thing I learned to do was swim. You have my secrets, but see what good they do you." She set him back on his feet, pleased by the fine, sudden sweat sheen on his brow.
Molin rubbed his back where the stone had bitten into it. "Damn you! Don't you ever get tired of games? Don't you weary of always winning?"
Amazed, she threw back her head and laughed. "Uncle, you're such a delight! The joy isn't in the winning, but in seeing the effect of winning on the loser."
She left him, then. Inside the hall, the noise of conversation had reached a new height. Shupansea had not returned, nor was Kadakithis anywhere in sight. Daphne moved through the crowd, smiling and tinkling with laughter with Dayrne as her escort. Lowan and Rosanda stood alone in a corner in private dialogue.
"Is it true you were undefeated in the Rankan Games?"
Chenaya looked disdainfully at the little man who had dared to brush her elbow. He offered her a goblet of wine which she refused, and he repeated his question.
"Your name is Terryle, isn't it?" she asked innocently. "The tax collector?"
His face lit up, and he made a slight bow. "My fame precedes me!"
Chenaya wrinkled her nose and imitated his tone. "Is it true you're the most detested man in Sanctuary?" His brows shot up. She walked away before any more could come of the conversation. She saw the man Lastel coming her way.
Strange, she thought. None of this is as I thought it would be. She'd won, but there was a bitter taste in her mouth. She recalled something she'd said to Daphne: Even winning can cost a dear price.
Without a word to anyone she mounted the steps, nodded goodnight to Lu-Broca and left the Palace. A few guests mingled in Vashanka's Square on the Palace grounds, but she avoided them. Just outside the Processional Gate four of her gladiators waited with her palanquin. Too late, she realized she'd left a fine cloak inside. No matter, she would send for it tomorrow. Right now, she wanted to get home, change into leathers and take a walk with Reyk. The falcon was the only company she wanted.
The palanquin began to move. Chenaya sighed, pulled the curtains closed and hugged herself against the cold.
ARMIES OF THE NIGHT by C. J. Cherryh
I
It was an uncommon meeting of Stepsons, recent and previous. It took place one night at winter's edge, outside the weed-grown garden of a smallish house on the riverside, a house in which the outer dimensions and the inner ones did not well agree. Ischade was its owner. And this meeting was on a midnight when She was occupied with another visitor in the inside of this outwardly-small house . and a bay horse waited sleepily at the front.
"Stilcho," the Stepson-ghost whispered; and Stilcho, fugitive from his bed within the house (rejected lately, solitary within the witch's abode) stirred in his dejected posture and lifted his head from his cloaked arms and opened his eyes, only one of which existed.
Janni hovered by the back step, in one of his less palatable manifestations, adrip with gore, rib-bone showing through shreds of skin. Stilcho gathered himself to his feet, wrapped his cloak about him and put a little distance between them-he was no ghost, himself, but he was dead: so he understood ghosts all too well and knew an agitated one when he saw it, both in this world and the next.
"I want to talk with you," Janni said. "I've got to talk."
"Go away." Stilcho was acutely conscious of the living presence in the small house, of wards and watches that existed all about the yard. He spoke in his mind, because Janni was in his head as much as he was standing on the walk-and just as definitely as Janni was there in his mind, he was standing on that walk. Stilcho knew. He had raised this ghost. Revenge, Stilcho had whispered simply, and this ghost, wandering aimless on the far shores of nowhere among other lost souls, had turned and lifted its bloody face and licked its bloody lips. Revenge and Roxane. That had been enough to bring Janni back to the living.
But there were penalties for revenants such as Janni. Memory was one. Attachments were another sort. Hell was not the other side alone. Such dead brought it with them and made it where they walked, even with the best intentions. And this one had been too long out of hell, ignoring orders, going where it pleased in the town.
The aspect grew worse. Blood dropped onto the steps. There was a reek in the air. It would not be denied, would not go away; and Stilcho walked away down the tangled path to the iron gate, where the brush and the trees and the earth itself gave way to dark air, to the black river that gnawed and muttered at the shore on which the house sat. He looked back, never having hoped the ghost would retreat. "For godssakes, man-"
"He's in trouble," Janni said. "My partner's in trouble, dammit-"
'Not your partner. No longer your partner. You're dead, have you got it yet?" Stilcho blinked and ran a hand through his hair, grimaced as the ghost achieved his worst aspect. Stilcho had a real body, however scarred and maimed; and Janni had none; or had whatever his mood of the moment gave him, which was the way with ghosts of Janni's sort. "If She finds you off patrol again-"
"She'll do what? Kill me? Look, friend-"
'Not your friend. There're new ghosts in hell. You know them. You know who made them-"
"It was overdue." Janni's face acquired eyes, glaring through a red film in the moonlight. "Long overdue, that housecleaning. What were they to you? Half Rankene, nothings-They had their chance."
Stilcho turned and glared, his back to the river. "My dead-you sanctimonious prig. My dead-" Stepsons murdered by Stepsons, his barracksmates slaughtered, and several-score bewildered, betrayed ghosts were clamoring tonight at the gates of Hell. It was Ischade's doing, and Straton's; but Stilcho did not carry that complaint where it was due. "No wonder you don't want to go back down there-Is that it, Janni-butcher? Partner to butchers? Hell got too large a welcoming-committee waiting for you?" Janni reached for him in anger and Stilcho retreated against the low gate. It gave backward unexpectedly, above the abyss, and Stilcho's heart jumped. He feared wards broken. He feared the steep slope that the path took along the riverside, and remembered that he could die of other things than Ischade's inattention. He stood in the gateway and held his ground with bluff. "Don't you lay a hand on me. Or I'll take you back where I got you. Now. And you'll find the witch-bitch Roxane was pleasant company. What's in hell is forever, Janni-ghost. And they'll love to have you with them, damned, like them. They'll wait at the gates for you. Real patient. Or shall I call their names? I know their names, Janni-prig. I don't think you ever bothered to learn them."