"Doshi's idea," said Arizun. "That'll give me time enough to go look at the wall." He strode off quietly, dark robe blending with the stone of the walls.
Sulun looked around at his companions and wrung his hands in dismay. "Aren't we worrying overmuch?" he asked. "Now that we've come to a good place, I had hoped we'll stop expecting enemies everywhere."
"Were we so free of foes back in Sabis?" Yanados asked, trying not to sound bitter.
Sulun just shook his head and walked away. Is there no peace, he wondered, to be found anywhere?
Arizun strolled along the new section of wall, running one hand along the stones, keeping an eye turned toward the gang of workmen busy with their meal downslope. Did the brown-legged mason glance this way a little too often? Was he seated so to keep an eye on the wall? One couldn't walk too slowly, then, or seem too interested.
Arizun felt it first as a subtle heat, something like warmth clinging to the shadowed stone, right in the mortared seam between two blocks. He paused to shake an imaginary stone out of his shoe, casually leaning on the wall for support, one hand pressed to the mortar. Yes, the spell was there, probably anchored in a mage sign scribbled into the mortar under the block. He could almost picture the sign, the feeling was so clear. Yes, picture it: no more or less than a script initial in some foreign alphabet, an elaborate letter Y—no doubt for Yotha, very simple and direct. Well, well. Probe further, but quickly; the man might notice. Arizun closed his eyes and dropped for a moment, deeper into the Meditative State that Eloti had taught him to attain and feel with such facility.
Oh, yes: a simple and direct curse, set in the wall, meant to spread through the entire house, partly vitalized already. No doubt it would increase this very night, once the brown-legged spy got home to his friends. Ah, clever.
Arizun ground his teeth in cold, rising fury. He pulled his shoe back on, straightened up, and strolled on down the wall for a few paces more, down to where the completed wall rose over his head and concealed him from the work gang beyond. There he stopped, leaned against the dark stones, reached into his second belt pouch, and drew out a faceted crystal lens. The essentials, as lady Eloti had told him often enough, were quite simple: concentration, visualization, will, focus, purpose. He had will enough; easy for this rage to power it. The crystal would help concentration and focus. Visualization came easily too. Purpose . . . Arizun smiled wickedly. A simple deflection, change of target, would be so utterly fitting—and was much easier than neutralizing the curse altogether. Yes, just a proper deflection to a new target: he had sufficient talent and power to do that by himself. Eloti would be so pleased when he would tell her.
Arizun stared into the crystal, concentrating.
A second ringing of the iron bell signalled the workmen back to their task. They tossed away crumbs, recorked jugs, climbed to their feet, and went back to the waiting stones, derrick, and wall. The senior of the work gang poked at the trough of mortar, shrugged, added a little water, and stirred it in. The rest of the crew shoved another stone down its track of roller logs to the wooden crane and began tying it on. A mason in brown leggings and a yellow shirt trotted around to the back of the wall, up a makeshift wooden stepladder to the top of the present course of stones, and prepared to guide the new block into place.
On the way up, his foot slipped and nearly sent him tumbling off the ladder. He swore, climbing the rest of the way with more care, too busy thinking of his task ahead to question the minor accident.
"Up!" bellowed the senior workman, and the rest of the crew hauled on the crane's tail ropes. The tail sank, the wooden fulcrum groaned as weight came on the ropes, and the tied block began to rise. "Up, up," chanted the gang's senior.
"Now right, right," shouted the man on the wall, as the block rose level with his breastbone. He reached for the trailing guide rope, missed it, leaned further out—slipped and fell flat in the spread mortar.
The work gang below laughed heartily, but didn't let the ropes slacken.
The brown-legged, mortar-daubed man grabbed for the guide rope, and this time caught it. Instead of pulling slowly, he yanked on it in exasperation.
The guide rope snapped taut, catching on one of the support ropes at the near corner of the block. The support rope, dragging along with the guide, pulled free.
The block shuddered for a second, then slid loose of the remaining guides and fell forward.
It tumbled straight into the brown-legged man, carrying him off the wall, and fell on top of him.
The work gang on the derrick fell flat as their ropes suddenly slackened. They all heard the short screech from behind the wall, and the grisly thud. Some cursed, some groaned, some wailed with horror. The bravest got up and ran for the wall at once; the more timorous followed slowly. Up the wooden scaffolding they ran, across the lower course of stones, through the spread mortar to the inner side of the wall—and paused there a long moment, surveying the damage.
It was impressive.
Arizun took good care to arrive after the others, to sound and look surprised. Doshi and Zeren gave him thoughtful looks as he elbowed through the crowd, but they said nothing. Biddon the blacksmith saw him coming and stepped hastily out of his path, throwing him a white-eyed look, like a frightened horse. Yanados gave him a sardonic smile and a hint of an ironic salute. Arizun ignored her, pushed to the front of the crowd, and looked.
The man was still alive, breathing in thin wheezes, fingers scrabbling aimlessly at the edge of the stone. From the waist down, his body was hidden under the tumbled block. The stone appeared to lie level on the ground, perhaps even a bit sunken into it. Blood seeped from under its edges.
"like a berry under a brick," mumbled one of the workmen watching. A small gang of the more muscular in the crowd was trying to dig under the edges of the block and tie on ropes from the crane. None of them looked at the man under the stone, nor, for all their haste, did they seem very willing to lift the block and reveal what lay beneath it.
"Can't last the hour," one of the nearby watchers mumbled.
"Soon, soon . . ." chanted another, his tone reminiscent of prayer.
The ropes were worked under the corners, looped, tied on, drawn taut. "Its tied!" snapped the head of the work gang, keeping his eyes on the knots. "Haul it!"
On the other side of the wall, the rest of the work gang heaved at the crane's tail ropes. The derrick creaked, and the stone began to rise. Sunlight spread beneath the rising stone. The crowd groaned softly, all together.
The man under the block continued whining thinly, noticing nothing.
The gang on the crane lifted the stone until it reached its niche on the wall, then lowered it. The block slipped neatly into place, perfectly aligned, though no one drew the rope to guide it there. A film of blood on its underside stained the top of the mortar.
Arizun turned away quickly. He'd taken two steps toward the house when a hand caught his shoulder. He glanced up, and saw Sulun glaring down at him.
"No, stay and watch," Sulun whispered fiercely, in Sabirn. "That was your doing; you look at it."
"It couldn't be helped!" Arizun hissed back in the same tongue. "All I could do was deflect the curse, discharge it back on him who set it. Otherwise it would have sprung on us."
"No other choice? Nothing else you could have done?"
"No! I couldn't just wipe it away; I don't have that power, and I didn't dare wait for Eloti to come back and help me. All I could do was deflect it, send it back. Gods, I didn't know it would do that. . . .