"Thank you," said Sulun, vastly relieved. "But . . . that leaves our tools and gear, here in the house."
"My forge," Omis groaned. "Everything here."
"One cannot do everything," said Eloti. "I'm sorry."
"Mistress, I'm grateful for what you've done already," Sulun vowed. "If we can get to the riverside house, we could work unhindered. Entori's hired wizards can guard this place."
"But we can't leave!" Omis groaned. "Not until the new wizards come. He wants us to show them the workings of our tools, and the engine, so they can apply protections."
"A pity," sighed Eloti. "But for that, you would have a perfect excuse to absent yourself from the house and go work at the riverside shop. I could go myself, except he specifically bade me stay too—and, knowing him, he might call on me at any moment."
"Then we're all rooted here, idle, for the day," Sulun said gloomily.
"A single day." Eloti smiled. "I doubt that our projects will suffer much for losing a single day."
CHAPTER TWO
It took three days.
The two new wizards arrived, ushered in by a much crestfallen Elizan, before lunchtime on the first day. They spent the rest of the morning and afternoon inspecting the house, muttering, making notes to themselves and generally giving an impression of serious study. Entori, stamping along two steps behind them, was not much impressed. They did manage, by dint of much muttering and chanting, to clear the curse out of the kitchen and larder so that some sort of dinner was possible that night.
The second day, much to Sulun's and Omis's relief, the visiting wizards inspected the courtyard workshop. Everyone took pains to describe their tools and the workings thereof, and Arizun took particular joy in describing the details of the steam engine's -construction—much to Entori's ill-suppressed fury. After much work and two false starts, they managed to disenchant the tools to the point where Omis dared to start up his forge. Between the wizards' prolonged well-wishing and the engineers' care, a few more engine parts were cast and cut assembled without incident—but by then it was close upon dinnertime.
"Two days wasted," Omis complained over the poorly cooked evening meal. "Two days! By now I could have had the bombard smoothed and drilled and ready for its first test. Gods, if we can only get out tomorrow . . ."
"Hope the old vulture's stopped peering over our shoulders by then," Sulun commiserated. "Hope he's turned his attention somewhere else, or at least that Mygenos has. Most likely, though, Entori will want us to make up for lost time on the damned engine."
"And this one's taking longer because we have to make the valves ourselves. Gods' curses! I feel like a turtle trying to outrun a fox."
"With luck, we can get to the laboratorium tomorrow." Sulun wondered if they could expect any luck at all, now that they had Myggy snapping at their heels. No doubt his master would come sniffing around Entori house soon enough, hoping the old miser's ill luck would make him more amenable to a deal. When he found Entori still unwilling, he'd have Mygenos increase the pressure: more trouble, more delays, more work for Entori's hired wizards, more of his attention focused on his engine building, less chance for Sulun and his company to slip away. "We have to get out of here," Sulun muttered to no one in particular.
And on the third day, disaster came home.
The guards opening the city gates at dawn were first to see the dust rising on the road. After that came the first messengers on lathered horses, with the first retreating troops hard on their heels. The news went up to Imperial House first, but it reached the marketplaces less than an hour later.
The Ancar had crossed the Dawnstream by night, smashed the garrisons one after the other, rolled the Sabirn army all the way back down the south shore to the Baiz itself.
Lutegh had fallen.
The Ancar were less than five days' march from Sabis.
Panic hit the city.
Vari heard the signal tap on the rear gate, scrambled up on the small pyramid of barrels, and tossed the rope ladder over the other side. It creaked alarmingly as Arizun, then Sulun, and finally Omis climbed up it. They tumbled, panting, down the barrels as Vari pulled back the ladder and listened briefly for sounds of anyone following.
"How are the children?" was the first thing Omis asked.
"Well enough," Vari whispered. "They think its a fine -adventure, all except Ziya, who's turned quiet and morose again. Get inside, quickly."
They hurried through the darkened courtyard past barricades of more barrels and crates, into the silent corridor and off to Omis's room, carefully barring the doors behind them.
Yanados and Doshi, clanking softly with belt-strung weapons, half rose as the others came in. "Are you well?" Yanados asked first. "Sulun, your arm—"
"Only a shallow cut." Sulun tried to smile. "I got it ducking behind some timbers when a gang of mercenaries went by."
Vari shook her head and set to cleaning and bandaging the scratch.
"How has it gone here?' Arizun asked. "Any more rioters trying to break in?"
"Not tonight, not so far." Doshi shrugged, making his hatchet clank against the wall. "The old man has the place barricaded with damn near everything from the storerooms, swearing the house will stand until the very mountains fall. Then again, if the door does go down, there's hardly anyone in the house who could stop then."
"Entori still hasn't hired more bully-boys, then?" Omis winced as Vari pulled the bandage tight. "With all these damned -troopers-for-pay hanging about in the streets, one would think . . ."
"Even Entori wouldn't trust that lot," Omis snorted. "Gods, how right Zeren was. We saw enough of them lolling about the streets, drinking the wineshops dry, looting wherever they fancied, and bashing anyone who complained. As if the starving refugees weren't enough . . ."
"What happened to their officers?" Doshi hissed between his teeth. "Why in the nine hells aren't they outside, defending the city as they were hired to do?"
"Too many of the regular army officers were killed during the overrunning of the Dawnstream." Arizun leaned his head back against the wall, as if infinitely tired. "The mercenary troops won't obey anyone but their own commanders, who claim that they no longer had anyone to report to. Now their commanders won't take orders from anyone 'not properly authorized,' so they say."
"Which means no one who doesn't come from high up in the court, with gold ready to hand," Omis finished. "Nobody in the court has done that yet."
"Gods," Vari muttered, packing her remaining healing simples into a bag. "Why not? What's wrong with the high court?"
"Utter confusion." Sulun winced, and not from his minor wound. He hesitated to tell the worst of the news, wondering how the others would take it. "There seems to be . . . some manner of faction fight going on at the moment. Some gang of fools wants to send envoys to the Ancar, make terms with them. There have been . . . disappearances, mysterious sudden deaths, messages gone awry . . . No one's sure of anything. No one knows how bad it is, truly."
"Why hasn't the old Emperor done something?" Vari insisted.
Sulun heaved a profound sigh, feeling Omis's eyes on him, knowing he'd have to say it. "He hasn't appeared publicly. There are rumors that he's . . . ill, perhaps very ill."
"Maybe dying?" Yanados guessed.
Sulun only shrugged. The others looked at each other.
"And . . ." Doshi hesitated. "The rest of the city?"
"Thievings, riots, everyone running," Arizun recited wearily. "The city guards are trying to round up everyone they can, hauling folk off to the army court—not for trial, but to be pressed into service for defense of the city. You can imagine how much success they're having, especially with the mercenaries."