Lady Sarai did not stay to hear what he might have to say; she marched out the door onto Wizard Street.
The morning was a bright and cheerful one; she could hear children laughing as they chased each other through the alleys, and somewhere a block or two away a hawker was shouting out praises of his wares. There was no outward sign at all that a dangerous lunatic had overthrown the government the night before, that the overlord and half his court had fled.
In fact, Lady Sarai suspected that most of the city was unaware of Tabaea’s accession to the throne. It would probably be a few days before the average citizen became aware of any change.
Or perhaps not—one of the shops across the way was shuttered and barred. Had the proprietor fled?
Or maybe the proprietor was in bed with a fever, or just taking a day off to go down to the beach. Lady Sarai snorted at her own eagerness to see some difference in the city. Just because her own life was all awry, that didn’t mean that the entire city’s was.
She did expect that Tabaea’s usurpation of power would have its effect eventually, since she doubted very much that Tabaea and her cohorts could rule the city as well as the old overlord had, but it would be a slow, subtle thing. A city the size of Ethshar mostly ran by itself. Lady Sarai thought of it as a great spinning top, and it was the government’s job to keep it balanced—a touch here, a touch there. Tabaea would be bound to miss a wobble here, push too hard there, and before long the whole thing would careen wildly out of control, maybe come smashing to a halt.
But for now, it looked just as it always had. She paused a few steps from Mereth’s gilded door, looking about.
“Lady Sarai!” someone called. Sarai turned, a finger to her lips.
It was Alorria who had spoken; she stood in the doorway, leaning forward, her feet still safely within the threshold in case she had to slip quickly back inside. Behind her stood Kelder of Tazmor on one side, Thar on the other.
“Don’t use the title,” Sarai said mildly. “It might be unhealthy just now.”
“Oh,” Alorria said. She looked uneasily out at the street.
“What is it?” Sarai asked.
“I’d like to come with you,” Alorria said. “I think they’re going to argue all day, and I want to see my husband. And I don’t know the way to this Guildhouse they talk about. And I don’t like traveling alone.”
“I would be glad to provide an escort,” Kelder said, in his odd Sardironese accent, “but I fear I don’t know the house’s location, either.”
“Well, come on then, both of you.” Sarai waited while the two of them hurried out. Kelder, she noted, carried a large knapsack; a floppy, broad-brimmed hat shaded his face, and his feet were ensconced in large, well-worn boots. As for Alorria, while she was not dressed for serious travel, she wore three assorted pouches on her belt; both were probably better equipped than she was herself, Sarai thought wryly.
Together, the three of them strolled northeastward on Wizard Street, moving at a leisurely pace so as not to tax the pregnant Alorria. The sun was bright, and Sarai quickly regretted not having a hat like Kelder’s. When she had left the palace in the middle of the night she hadn’t worried about sunlight.
They crossed North Street and a block or so later moved on from Nightside into Shadyside—but it was hardly shady today; the shadow of the palace dome could never have reached this far out; the name was more symbolic than descriptive.
“Warm,” Alorria remarked. She pulled a gauzy red kerchief from one pouch and draped it over her head, then secured it in place with her coronet. Sarai admired the effect—barbaric, but not unattractive.
She glanced enviously at Kelder’s hat—that wasn’t exactly barbaric, but it was rather outlandish. There was nothing unreasonable about that, since he was an outlander.
The two foreigners made rather a striking contrast—Kelder in his rough and practical attire, Alorria in her barbarian Small Kingdom splendor of silks and gold. The coronet and kerchief might be pretty, but on the whole, Sarai thought she would prefer Kelder’s hat.
And thinking about Kelder, something struck her.
“You said you don’t know where the house is,” she said accusingly, “but of course you do.”
“I do?” Kelder asked, startled.
“Certainly! You’ve been there.”
“I have? No, La... no, I haven’t.”
“You said you had been there. Did you lie to me?”
“No! How did I lie? I haven’t been to the wizards’ Guild-house, and I never claimed I had.”
“Yes, you have, if you really did the investigating you told me about. It’s the old wizard’s house. Serem’s.”
“Ah,” Kelder said, nodding. “I see. Then it stands at the corner of Wizard Street and Grand Street, and we are now on Wizard Street, are we not? Need we just follow this right to the door, then?”
“If we want to take all day, we could do that,” Sarai agreed, “but Wizard Street turns south and makes a long detour, through Morningside and Eastside, before it comes back north through Midway to Grandgate. We’ll be turning and following Harbor Street from Shadyside to Midway, then Gate Street from Midway to Grandgate, and then we’ll meet Wizard Street again for the last few blocks.”
“Ah,” Kelder said. “I see. The streets of Sardiron are not so complex.”
“Sardiron isn’t as big.”
Just then a pair of spriggans ran across the street in front of the threesome, shrieking. Someone shouted imprecations after the creatures. Alorria sighed. “I wish Tobas had never invented those things,” she said.
“Did he really?” Sarai asked.
“Not on purpose,” Alorria explained. “A spell went wrong. But yes, it was really his doing.”
Sarai looked at her, then around at the shops, at the signboards promising miracles of every sort, at the window displays of strange apparatuses or stuffed monsters, at the posted testimonials from satisfied customers.
Magic really could do amazing things. If anyone could ever get it all organized, all working toward the same end, who knew what might be accomplished?
And of course, who knew what might go wrong?
“Harbor Street,” Alorria said. “Isn’t that where most of the fighting was last night?”
“I think the worst was on Quarter Street,” Sarai said, “but yes, there was fighting there. We’ll be reversing the route of Tabaea’s march for about half our journey—the entire time we aren’t on Wizard Street, we’ll be on the streets she used.” She had not really thought about that before; it would be interesting to see if there was more obvious evidence of Tabaea’s accession than there was on Wizard Street.
Alorria shuddered. “I’ve never been on a battlefield before,” she said.
“A battlefield?” Sarai had never thought of any part of Eth-sharof the Sands as a battlefield. Battlefields were far-off places, in the Small Kingdoms or on the borders of Sardiron, not here in the heart of civilization. But what else was Tabaea’s route from Grandgate to the palace, but a battlefield?
“We’ll see it soon enough,” Sarai said. “We turn at the next corner.”
CHAPTER 28
At first, when Tabaea awoke, she didn’t remember where she was. She looked up at the ornate canopy, the incredibly high, elaborately painted ceiling with its gilded coffering, and wondered what sort of an inn she had found this time.
The bed was broad and long and soft, the coverings rich and luxurious—a bed fit for the overlord, she thought.