She'd been relieved at that, afraid, she admitted, that the lord of dreams might tempt him from her side. For when Askelon the dream lord had come to take Tempus's sister off to his metaphysical kingdom of delights, he'd offered the brother the boon of mortality. Now that she'd just found him, Jihan had added throatily, she could not bear it if he chose to die.
And she'd spent that evening proving to Tempus that it might be well to stay alive with her, who loved life the more for having only just begun it, and yet could not succumb to mortal death or be placed in mortal danger by his curse, his strength, or whatever he might do.
The high moon had laved them and her legs had embraced him and her red-glowing eyes like her father's had transfixed him while her cool flesh enflamed him. Yes, with Jihan beside him, he'd swallow his pride and his pique and give even Sanctuary's Kadaki-this the benefit of the doubt - he'd stay though his heart tugged him northward, although he'd thought, when he took her to their creekbed bower, to chase her away.
When they'd slipped into his barracks quarters from the back, he was no longer so certain. He heard from a lieutenant all about the waterspouts and whirlpools, thinking while the man talked that this was his godsign, however obscure its meaning, and then he regretted having made an accommodation with the Froth Daughter: all his angst came back upon him, and he wished he'd hugged his resolve firmly to his breast and driven Jihan hence.
But when the disturbance at the outer gates penetrated to the slaver's old apartments which he had made his own, rousting them out to seek its cause, he was glad enough she'd remained.
The two of them had to shoulder their way through the gathered crowd of Stepsons, astir with bitter mutters; no one made way for them; none had come to their commander's billet with news of what had been brought up to the gatehouse in the dawn.
He heard a harsh whisper from a Stepson too angry to be careful, wondering if Tempus had sent Janni's team deliberately to destruction because Stealth had rejected the Riddler's offered pairbond.
One who knew better answered sagely that this was a Mygdonian message, a Nisibisi warning of some antiquity, and he had heard it straight from Stealth's broken lips.
'What did that?' Jihan moaned, bending low over Janni's remains. Tempus did not answer her but said generally: 'And Niko?' and followed a man who headed off towards the whitewashed barracks, hearing as he went a voice choked with grief explaining to Jihan what happens when you tie a man spreadeagled over an animal's burrow and smoke the creature out.
The Stepson, guiding him to where Niko lay, said that the man who'd brought them wished to speak to Tempus. 'Let him wait for his reward,' Tempus snapped, and questioned the mercenary about the Samaritan who'd delivered the two Stepsons home. But the Sacred Bander had gotten nothing from the stranger who'd rapped upon the gates and braved the angry sentries who almost killed him when they saw what burden he'd brought in. The stranger would say only that he must wait for Tempus.
The Stepson's commander stood around helplessly with three others, friends ofNiko's, until the barber-surgeon had finished with needle and gut, then chased them all away, shuttering windows, barring doors. Cup in hand, then, he gave the battered, beaten youth his painkilling draught in silence, only sitting and letting Niko sip while he assessed the Stepson's injuries and made black guesses as to how the boy had come by green and purple blood-filled bruises, rope burns at wrist and neck, and a face like doom.
Quite soon he heard from Nikodemos, concisely but through a slur that comes when teeth have been loosed or broken in a dislocated jaw, what had transpired: they had gone seeking the Alekeep owner's daughter, deep into Shambles where drug dens and cheap whores promise dreamless nights, found them at Ischade's, seen them hustled into a wagon and driven away towards Roxane's. Following, for they were due to see the witch at high moon in her lair in any case, they'd been accosted, surprised by a death squad •armed with magic and visaged like the dead, roped and dragged from their horses. The next lucid interval Niko recalled was one of being propped against dense trees, tied to one while the Nisibisi witch used children's plights and spells and finally Janni's tortured, drawn-out death to extract from him what little he knew of Tempus's intentions and Rankan strategies of defence for the lower land. 'Was I wrong to try not to tell them?' Niko asked, eyes swollen half-shut but filled with hurt. 'I thought they'd kill us all, whatever. Then I thought I could hold out... Tamzen and the other girls were past help... but Janni -' He shook his head. 'Then they... thought I was lying, when I couldn't answer ... questions they should have asked of you - Then I did lie, to please them, but she ... the witch knew...'
'Never mind. Was One-Thumb a party to this?'
A twitch of lips meant 'no' or 'I don't know'.
Then Niko found the strength to add: 'If I hadn't tried to keep my silence I've been interrogated before by Nisibisi ... I hid in my rest-place ... until Janni - They killed him to get to me.'
Tempus saw bright tears threatening to spill and changed the subject: 'Your rest-place? So your maat returned to you?'
He whispered, 'After a fashion ... I don't care about that now. Going to need all my anger ... no time for balance anymore.'
Tempus blew out a breath and set down Niko's cup and looked between his legs at the packed clay floor. 'I'm going north, tomorrow. I'll leave sortie assignments and schedules with Critias - he'll be in command here - and a rendezvous for those who want to join in the settling up. Did you recognize any Ilsigs in her company? A servant, a menial, anyone at all?'
'No, they all look alike... Someone found us, got us to the gates. Some trainees of ours, maybe - they knew my name. The witch said come ahead and die up country. Each reprisal of ours, they'll match fourfold.'
'Are you telling me not to go?'
Niko struggled to sit up, cursed, fell back with blood oozing from between his teeth. Tempus made no move to help him. They stared at each other until Niko said, 'It will seem that you've been driven from Sanctuary, that you've failed here ...'
'Let it seem so; it may well be true.'
'Wait, then, until I can accompany -'
'You know better. I will leave instructions for you.' He got up and left quickly, before his temper got the best of him where the boy could see.
The Samaritan who had brought their wounded and their dead was waiting outside Tempus's quarters. His name was Vis and though he looked Nisibisi he claimed he had a message from Jubal. Because of his skin and his accent Tempus almost took him prisoner, thinking to give him to Straton, for whom all manner of men bared their souls, but he marshalled his anger and sent the young man away with a pocket full of soldats and instructions to convey Jubal's message to Critias. Crit would be in charge of the Stepsons henceforth; what Jubal and Crit might arrange was up to them. The reward was for bringing home the casualties, dead and living, a favour cheap at the price.
Then Tempus went to find Jihan. When he did, he asked her to put him in touch with Askelon, dream lord, if she could.
'So that you can punish yourself with mortality? This is not your fault.'
'A kind, if unsound, opinion. Mortality will break the curse. Can you help me?'
'I will not, not now, when you are like this,' she replied, concern knitting her brows in the harsh morning light. 'But I will accompany you north. Perhaps another day, when you are calmer ...'