"Fire!" cried Jorian.
There was a clatter of overturned benches and running feet, as the other customers stampeded towards the entrance. Jorian and Karadur snatched their masks and cloaks and joined the throng. Since smoke now filled the room, they waited until the jam at the door had cleared and so got through without being squeezed or trampled.
Outside, they lost themselves in the crowd, which had lined up along Republic Avenue to watch the parade. As they walked away from Cheuro's, they passed a fire company running the other way. In the lead came the fire engine, a wooden tub with handles at the corners and a large pump rising in the middle. Eight stalwarts carried the engine by its handles, and after them pelted the rest of the company, bearing buckets with which to fill the tub from the nearest fountain.
"Let's make for Porrex's room," said Jorian. "If I catch that knave, do you counter his spells whilst I turn him inside out."
Porrex's door stood open, and his room was dark and quiet. Jorian got out his flint and steel, struck sparks into tinder, and lighted a piece of taper. The light showed the room to be not only empty but also stripped. The bed, the bookcase, the chair, the table, and the chests had vanished. A mouse whisked out of sight.
"That's the spryest removal I have ever seen," said Jorian. "He's cleaned the place out."
"Not quite," said Karadur, grunting as he stooped to pick up the little glass-sided lanthorn. "They forgot this. Ah me! The candle seems to have burnt all the way down. With a proper candle, I might do something yet."
"Let me look in the cupboard," said Jorian, stamping on a roach as it raced across the floor. "Here we are, two usable candle stubs. What have you in mind, esteemed Doctor?"
"There is a spell, and I can remember it, which causes the light of a candle or similar source to pierce all disguises. Now leave me to my thoughts, my son."
Karadur took an eternity, it seemed to Jorian, to remember his spell and then to cast it, with a pentacle and chants and passes and powders burning in a broken saucer from the same cupboard. The candle flame in the lanthorn writhed and flickered as if blown upon by unseen lips, though no air stirred in the room. Faces seemed to form and dissolve in the smoke. Karadur, exhausted, had to rest for a time after the spell had been wound up.
"Now," said Karadur, picking up the lanthorn, "we shall see what we shall see."
Along Republic Avenue, the Vindines still stood deeply ranked, awaiting the parade; for this procession, like so many others, was late in starting. Wearing their demon masks, Jorian and Karadur walked slowly along the edge of the crowd. As Karadur held up the lanthorn, both peered at the faces of the crowd. Where the light of the candle fell, it seemed to Jorian as if the costumes and masks and false beards became almost transparent—mere smoky shadows of themselves, through which the Vindines' features stood out clearly.
They walked and walked, up one side of Republic Avenue westward and then down the other towards the harbor. Jorian looked at thousands of faces, but nowhere did he see that of Porrex or that of Laziendo. As they ambled towards the waterfront, Jorian heard band music, coming from the west and growing louder.
"Here they come," he said.
A group of men in the uniform of the Republican Guard, wearing shiny silvered breastplates and bearing halberds, walked down Republic Avenue, shouting to clear the street. Now and then they poked some laggard spectator with the butts of their weapons to hasten him.
As Karadur held up the lanthorn for another look at the crowd, Jorian's eye was caught by a little knot of men without masks or costumes—men in dark, plain garb, with a burly, self-confident bearing. One glanced at Jorian, stared, touched one of his companions, and spoke out of the side of his mouth. Recognizing the man, Jorian said in a low, tense voice:
"Karadur! See you those fellows in black? My Royal Guard. Their leader is a captain who twice caught me when I tried to flee Xylar. Across the street, quickly!"
Jorian plunged through the crowd, dragging Karadur after him. They came out on Republic Avenue in the midst of the guardsmen clearing the street. The band music grew louder, and over the heads of the guardsmen Jorian saw the leading units of the parade, with flags and silvered weapons.
Some guardsmen shouted angrily as Jorian and Karadur zigzagged through them and plunged into the packed mass of spectators on the other side. Jorian, being tall enough to see over the heads of most Vindines, looked back. The knot of men in black were pushing through the spectators on the far side. When they debouched on the avenue, however, they were blocked by a group of guardsmen. There was argument, lost in the growing noise. Arms waved; fists shook. The guardsmen roughly pushed the men in black back into the crowd and threatened them with their halberds. Then the parade arrived.
Gilt and tinsel flashed in the warm light of thousands of lamps, lantorns, tapers, and torches. Bands brayed; soldiers tramped; pretty girls, riding on ornate floats, threw kisses to the crowd.
Jorian and Karadur did not wait to enjoy the spectacle. With a brief backward glance, they set off briskly down a side street. Karadur muttered:
"The parade will hold them up for a little while, at least. What I cannot understand is this: How did these men recognize us in our masks?"
"If you don't understand it, I do," said Jorian. "We forgot that the rays of this little magic lanthorn would have the same effect upon our own disguises as on others'."
"Ah me, I grow senile, not to have thought of that! But whither away, now? We are moneyless in a strange city, with your keepers searching for us."
"Let's find Laziendo's ship and hide in a nearby warehouse. If Laziendo appear, I shall know what to do. If he come not, we'll board the vessel, which is going our way."
Hours later, the parade had ended. The costume contest had been held, with prizes for the most beautiful, the most elaborate, the most humorous, and so forth. The soberer citizens had returned to their homes; the less sober raced and reeled the streets of Vindium City, yelling and singing. There was much hasty, hole-and-corner adultery, as husbands whose wives had grown fat and shrewish, and wives whose husbands neglected them for their trade or craft, sought excitement or comfort with strangers. As the lights of the city went out one by one, the late-rising crescent moon shed a wan illumination in their place. A fog crept softly up the streets from the harbor.
Jorian and Karadur huddled in a warehouse near the Talaris' dock. The warehouse was supposed to be guarded, but the watchman had left his post to join the revelry. Piles of bales and boxes bulked dimly in the darkness. Jorian whispered:
"That's what we get for trusting one of your fellow spookers. I'll swear by Zevatas's brazen beard: It's the old fellows like you who are supposed to be cautious and crafty, whereas the young springalds like me are trusting and credulous and easily put upon. But here we seem to have the opposite."
"Could we not appeal the Vindine Senate to protect us from your Royal Guard?" replied Karadur. "Surely they do not wish harmless visitors kidnapped out of their proud city!"
"Not a chance! Othomae might have protected us, but Vindium is allied with Xylar against Othomae, glad to turn us over. The Twelve Cities are forever forming and breaking these alliances, so that yesterday's implacable foe is today's staunch ally and contrariwise. Like one of those courtly dances, where you trade partners with every measure."
"You Novarians need an emperor to rule the turbulent lot of you, to stop you from wasting your energies in cutting one another's throats. We have a saying: Get three men from the Twelve Cities together and they will form four factions and fight it out to the death."