She lay there panting, deep in griefs apathy, not knowing it, not caring. The garbage all around her smelled wonderful, and she had no appetite for it. Inside the Unicorn there was the sound of people moving around, and from upstairs a cat wailed an enraged challenge, and Tyr couldn't even summon up the energy to get up and run away. She made a sound half whimper, half moan, and behind it a feeling that a human looking through her mind would instantly have recognized as a hopeless prayer. Oh, whatever there is that listens, please, please, make it didn't happen!....
... and suddenly there was someone there beside her, and old reflex took over. Tyr struggled to her feet, ready to run. But her nose countermanded her legs, and Tyr froze-then leaped up, whining madly, bouncing in a frenzy of relief, licking at the skinny figure that was crouched down next to her. The skinny one tasted better than usual. There was something else with her-a black bird of the kind Tyr usually liked to chase-but somehow the bird also smelled like the skinny one, so she let it be. She crowded into the skinny shape's arms, whimpering incredulous welcome, terror, reawakened hunger, sorrow and loss, the news of the world turned upside down ...
"I know, I know," Mriga said, and though the words meant nothing to Tyr, the dog was comforted. Mriga knew exactly how she felt, without omniscience being involved. Her own retarded mind, before the onslaught of divinity, had been the same nounless void, full of inexplicable presences and influences. Now the dog nosed at her, both vastly relieved and freshly wounded by the reminder of what was wrong with the world. She whimpered, and her stomach growled.
"Oh, poor child," Mriga said, and reached sideways into timelessness for the rib bones she'd been working on. Tyr leaped at the half-rack of ribs almost before they were entirely into time, and fell to gnawing on them.
"She thinks she's in hell," Mriga said to Siveni.
The raven laughed, one harsh bitter caw. "Would that she were, for he's certainly there. She could lead us to him...."
Mriga looked at the raven in swift admiration. "That lost wisdom's coming back to you, sister. So she might. Of course, we would have to find a way to get into hell ourselves."
"Then think of one," Siveni said, sounding both pleased and annoyed.
Mriga thought. Her omniscience stirred, though not precisely in the direction required. "I don't know how just yet," she said. "But there are experts in this town ... people who know the way. They've sent so many others down that road. And they bring them back again."
Tyr looked up and yipped. She had been bolting the meat and already looked somewhat better-not just from having eaten after a long fast. The food and drink of the gods work strangely in mortals. Tyr's eyes were already brighter and deeper than Mriga ever remembered having seen them; and the dog had abruptly stopped smelling like a garbage-heap.
"Yes," Mriga said. "It might just work. Finish that, little one. Then we'll go down by the White Foal ... and go to hell."
Tyr yipped again and went at the ribs with dispatch. The raven looked sidewise at Mriga. "What if she won't help us?" she said.
Omniscience spoke up again, and Mriga frowned, for it was no comfort. "She will," she said. "Always assuming that between here and there, we can figure out the right things to say...."
Even necromants need to sleep occasionally, and in the last few days Ischade had gotten less sleep than usual. Now, in this bright chill winter afternoon she had evidently counted Sanctuary deep enough in shock at its troubles that she might rest a little while. The shutters of the house by the White Foal were all closed. What black birds sat in the trees did so with heads under wing, mirroring their mistress. There was no sound there but the rattling of dry leaves and withered rose-hips in the thorny hedge.
"This place smells like death," said the raven perched on the shoulder of the skinny, ragged girl who stood by the little wicket gate.
"It should," said Mriga, and reached out sorrowfully to something that wasn't wholly there. At least her mortal senses refused to acknowledge it. Her godsight clearly showed her a big bay steed, still saddled, its reins hanging loose, standing forlornly by the gate and gazing at the rundown house. As Mriga reached out to it the bay rolled eye-whites at her and put its ears back, but the gesture was half-hearted. After a second it relented, whuffling, and put its nose in her hand, then swung its great head around to breathe of her breath by way of greeting.
"Poor, poor ..." Mriga said, stroking the shivering place just under the bay's jaw. Tyr looked on suspiciously, eyeing the horse's hooves. Siveni in her raven shape cocked a bright black eye. She was fond of horses: she had after all invented them, thereby winning a contest.
"One more ghost," she said. "And recent. The woman breeds them."
"Recently, yes." And the door at the top of the steps opened, and there was another ghost, more or less. At least the man was dead. Outwardly he merely looked scarred. One eye was covered with a patch and his face was a wealed ruin in which an old handsomeness lurked as sad and near-unseen as the ghost-bay. His carriage had ruin about it too. Mriga saw the ghost of it, straight and tall, under the present reality-a hunched posture, the stance of someone cowering under the lash of a fear that never went away.
The man stared at them, more with the patched eye than with the whole one, Mriga thought. "Stilcho," she said, "where's your mistress? Bring us to her."
He stared harder, then laughed. "Who shall I say is calling? Some guttersnipe, and her mangy cur, and ..." He noticed the black bird and grew more reserved. "Look ... get out of here," he said. "Who are you? Some Nisi witchling, one she missed last night? Get out. You're crazy to come here. You're just a kid, you're no match for her, whoever you think you are!"
"Not Nisi, at least," Mriga said, mildly nettled.
Siveni looked up at Stilcho from Mriga's shoulder and said, "Man, we are the goddess Siveni. And if you don't bring us to your mistress, and that speedily, you'll be spoiled meat in a minute. Now get out of our way, or show us in to her." The scorn was very audible.
Tyr growled.
"Stilcho you fool, shut that, the wind's like knives," said another voice from beyond the door. And there came a smaller, slimmer man, who wore a cold composure exactly the opposite of Stilcho's desolation; but under it, ghost to its solidity, dwelt the same impression of unrelenting fear. The man looked out and down at them, and his face went from surprise to amused contempt to uncertainty to shocked realization in the time it took him to take a breath and let it out in cloud.
"You at least have some idea what you're looking at, Haught," Mriga said, waving the wicket gate out of existence and walking through where it had been. Haught stared, as well he might have, for the deadly wards laid inside that gate unravelled themselves and died without so much as a whimper. "If I were you, I'd announce us."
With some difficulty Haught reassumed his look of threat and contempt. "My mistress is unavailable," he said.
Mriga looked at the raven. "Slugging abed again."
The raven snapped its beak in annoyance and napped away from Mriga's shoulder. Abruptly a helmeted woman in an oversized tunic stood there, a spear in her hand, and rapped with its butt on the ground. With a roar, the dry hedge and the barren trees all burst forth in foliage of green fire. Screeching, the black birds went whirling up out of the tree like scorched papers on the wind, leaving little trails of smoke and a smell of burnt feathers behind them.
"She's up now," said Siveni.
One last man came hurriedly to the door, swearing, a tall, fair, and broad man and Tyr launched herself at him, stiff-legged, snarling. "No, Tyr!" Mriga said hurriedly, and grabbed at the dog, just catching her by the scruff of the neck ... a good thing, for a knife had appeared as if by magic in the man's hand, and was a fraction of a second from being first airborne and then in Tyr's throat. Tyr stood on her hind legs and growled and fought to get loose, but Mriga held on to her tight. "This is no time to indulge in personalities," she hissed. "We've got business." The dog quieted: Mriga let her stand, but watched her carefully. "Straton, is the lady decent?"