Jagat's men would see him to the road out near the Stepsons' barracks; they took his sagging weight in brawny arms.
And Roxane, for a time, was free to quit this scrofulous town and wend her way northward: she might be back, but for the nonce the journey to her lord's embrace was all she craved. They'd leave a trail well marked in place and plane for Tempus; she'd lie in high-peak splendour, with her lover-lord well pleased by what she'd brought him: some Stepsons, and a Froth Daughter, and a man the gods immortalized.
It took until nearly dawn to calm the fish-faces who'd lost their five best ships; 'lucky' for everyone that the Burek faction's nobility had been enjoying Kadakithis's hospitality, ensconced in the summer palace on the lighthouse spit and not aboard when the ships snapped anchor and headed like creatures with wills of their own towards the maelstrom that had opened at the harbour's mouth. Crit, through all, was taciturn; he was not supposed to surface; Tempus, when found, would not be pleased. But Kadakithis needed counsel badly; the young prince would give away his imperial curls . for 'harmonious relations with our fellows from across the sea'.
Nobody could prove that this was other than a natural disaster; an 'act of gods' was the unfortunate turn of phrase.
When at last Crit and Strat had done with the dicey process of standing around looking inconsequential while in fact, by handsign and courier, they mitigated Kadakithis's bent to compromise (for which there was no need except in the Beysib matriarch's mind), they retired from the dockside.
Crit wanted to get drunk, as drunk as humanly possible: helping the Mageguild defend its innocence, when like as not some mage or other had called the storm, was more than distasteful; it was counterproductive. As far as Critias was concerned, the newly elected First Hazard ought to step forward and take responsibility for his guild's malevolent mischief. When frogs fell from the sky, Straton prognosticated, such would be the case.
They'd done some good there: they'd conscripted Wrigglies and deputized fishermen and bullied the garrison duty officer into sending some of his men out with the long boats and Beysib dinghies and slave-powered tenders which searched shoals and coastline for survivors. But with the confusion of healers and thrill-seeking civilians and boat owners and Beysibs on the docks, they'd had to call in all the Stepsons and troops from road patrols and country posts in case the Beysibs took their loss too much to heart and turned upon the townsfolk. .
On every corner, now, a mounted pair stood watch; beyond, the roads were desolate, unguarded. Crit worried that if diversion was some culprit's purpose, it had worked all too welclass="underline" an army headed south would be upon them with no warning. If he'd not known that yesterday there'd been no sign of southward troop movement, he confided to Straton, he'd be sure some such evil was afoot.
To make things worse, when they found an open bar it was the Alekeep, and its owner was wringing his hands in a corner with five other upscale fathers. Their sons and daughters had been out all night; word to Tempus at the Stepsons' barracks had brought no answer; the skeleton crew at the garrison had more urgent things to do than attend to demands for search parties when manpower was suddenly at a premium; the fathers sat awaiting their own men's return and thus had kept the Alekeep's graveyard shift from closing.
They got out of there as soon as politic, weary as their horses and squinting in the lightening dark.
The only place where peace and quiet could be had now that the town was waking, Crit said sourly, was the Shambles drop. They rode there and fastened the iron shutters down against the dawn, thinking to get an hour or so of sleep, and found Niko's coded note.
'Why wouldn't the old barkeep have told us that he'd set them on his daughter's trail?' Strat sighed, rubbing his eyes with his palms.
'Niko's legend says he's defected to the slums, remember?' Crit was shrugging into his chiton, which he'd just tugged off and thrown upon the floor.
'We're not going back out.'
'I am.'
'To look for Niko'! Where?
'Niko and Janni. And I don't know where. But if that pair hasn't turned up those youngsters yet, it's no simple adolescent prank or graduation romp. Let's hope it's just that their meet with Roxane took precedence and it's inopportune for them to leave her.' Crit stood.
Straton didn't.
'Coming?' Crit asked.
'Somebody should be where authority is expected to be found. You should be here or at the hostel, not chasing after someone who might be chasing after you.'
So in the end, Straton won that battle and they went up to the hostel, stopping, since the sun had risen, at Marc's to pick up Straton's case of flights along the way.
The shop's door was ajar, though the opening hour painted on it hadn't come yet. Inside, the smith was hunched over a mug of tea, a crossbow's trigger mechanism dismantled before him on a split of suede, scowling at the crossbow's guts spread upon his counter as if at a recalcitrant child.
He looked up when they entered, wished them a better morning than he'd had so far this day, and went to get Straton's case of nights.
Behind the counter an assortment of high-torque bows was hung.
When Marc returned with the wooden case, Straton pointed: 'That's Niko's isn't it - or are my eyes that bad?'
'I'm holding it for him, until he pays,' explained the smith with the unflinching gaze.
'We'll pay for it now and he can pick it up from me,' Crit said.
'I don't know if he'd ...' Marc, half into someone else's business, stepped back out of it with a nod of head: 'All right, then, if you want. I'll tell him you've got it. That's four soldats, three ... I've done a lot of work on it for him. Shall I tell him to seek you at the guild hostel?'
'Thereabouts.'
Taking it down from the wall, the smith wound and levered, then dry-fired the crossbow, its mechanism to his ear. A smile came over his face at what he heard. 'Good enough, then,' he declared and wrapped it in its case of padded hide.
This way, Straton realized, Niko would come direct to Crit and report when Marc told him what they'd done.
By the time dawn had cracked the world's egg, Tempus as well as Jihan was sated, even tired. For a man who chased sleep like other men chased power or women, it was wondrous that this was so. For a being only recently become woman, it was a triumph. They walked back towards the Stepsons' barracks, following the creekbed, all pink and gold in sunrise, content and even playful, his chuckle and her occasional laugh startling sleepy squirrels and flushing birds from their nests. .
He'd been morose, but she'd cured it, convincing him that life might take a better turn, if he'd just let it. They'd spoken of her father, called Stormbringer in lieu of name, and arcane matters of their joint preoccupation: whether humanity had inherent value, whether gods could die or merely lie, whether Vashanka was hiding out somewhere, petulant in godhead, only waiting for generous sacrificers and heartfelt prayers to coax him back among his Rankan people - or, twelfth plane powers forfend, really 'dead'.
He'd spoken openly to her of his affliction, reminding her that those who loved him died by violence and those he loved were bound to spurn him, and what that could mean in the case of his Stepsons, and herself, if Vashanka's power did not return to mitigate his curse. He'd told her of his plea to Enlil, an ancient deity of universal scope, and that he awaited godsign.