Blinding smoke and a near solid wave of heat rolled toward him. A rain of sparks and small coals peppered his head and shoulders. Teigi howled again, batting at sparks caught in her clothing.
Sulun wrapped both hands around the handle of the heat-jammed door, and pulled like a madman.
With a sullen groan of protest, the door came loose and swung open. Sulun dived through it and ran down the main hallway of the servants' quarters, half blinded with smoke. There, the kitchen, and there, thank all the gods, the kitchen door. He plunged through it, missed the step, fell rolling. Teigi yelped at the impact, and went limp.
Sulun staggered to his feet and stumbled out into the kitchen garden. He could hear shouts and wails, but couldn't see anybody. From the outside front of the house he could hear, above the steady roar of the fire, Zeren's voice bellowing instructions to what seemed to be a quickly organized bucket brigade.
Either the fire or the creditors would be on them soon. Where the hell was the wall?
"Sulun!" A long hand grasped his wrist. Yanados. "This way, and fast. We got everyone over the wall except you. All the books, the notes, the diagrams, some of the tools, some of the models . . . Who's that?"
"Teigi," Sulun coughed. "She's the only one left. Shibari stabbed himself. Nanya poisoned herself and the children, and started the fire. Teigi didn't swallow enough—"
"Gods, we're patronless!"
"Teigi—"
"A child! And female. No property of her own, but she'll be liable for Shibari's debts, being the last of the family. Gods help her if the creditors find her."
"Gods . . ." Sulun echoed. He hadn't thought of that. He was too tired to think of all that. "Hide her. Hide us. The lab by the river."
"Good enough. We can decide what to do tomorrow. Here's the wall." Yanados guided his fumbling hands to the climbing holds. "Can you manage, carrying her?"
"Think so."
He managed. Teigi lay like a grain bag on his shoulder, neither help nor obstruction, her small weight growing heavier with every step. By the time Sulun reached the top of the wall and flopped over it, he was as exhausted as he'd ever been in his life. Multiple hands pulled the child-burden off his shoulder and helped him down onto the shop roof below. He flopped among the piled bags and panted. Arizun wordlessly handed him a wineskin.
From beyond the wall came a vast roaring crash, and a soaring column of flame and sparks.
"There goes the roof," Omis mourned from the wall top. "No saving anything now."
"Let the damned creditors pick through the ashes," Vari sniffed. "Ah, gods, what to do now that we're patronless?"
"We go to the workshop by the river," Yanados reported. "We can all stay there tonight, at least."
Sulun pulled himself to his feet and tottered up to the rest of the party—himself and his apprentices, he noted; Omis and his wife and their children, and Teigi. Vari was crouched over the unconscious child, carefully rubbing her face with a wet cloth.
"How is she?" he asked. "Can she travel?"
"There's no injury I can find," Vari murmured, patting over the girl's head. "I think it's just smoke and fright."
"And a touch of tincture-of-poppy juice," Sulun added gloomily. "Well if need be, Omis can carry her. Doshi can carry your boy, and you take the baby. The rest of us can manage the bundles."
Vari nodded agreement. "We'd best go soon, while everyone's busy with the fire. We don't want to be caught by patrols looking for Shibari's runaway slaves."
"No fear of that," Arizun put in from the top of the wall. "Look: Zeren's got them all busy putting out the fire. I think they might save the back part of the house, our workshop, the forge—"
"And the creditors will seize it all," Omis groaned. "How will I make a living without my forge?"
"And what will we do without the big workshop?" Doshi added. "We couldn't get everything out, had to leave most of the models. Without those, how do we make a good enough impression to get a new patron?"
"Tomorrow," Sulun snapped, impatient with fatigue. "We'll deal with that tomorrow. For now, let's get to the river workshop and get what rest we can. Omis, can you carry Teigi that far?"
Before the blacksmith could answer, the child woke up—and howled. "Mama! Mama, no! Not fire!" She struggled out of Vari's startled grip and crawled blindly across the roof. "Where are you? Where?"
Omis caught her before she'd gone more than a few steps. "Hush, you're safe," he said, swinging her up in his burly arms. "We're on the roof of the house next door. I'm your papa's blacksmith, remember? We're all your papa's people, and you're safe."
"Mama." Teigi sobbed, refusing comfort. "Where's Mama?"
The adults looked at each other, wondering what to say.
"She's dead," little Tamiri cut in brutally. "She was in the house, and it's all burned up."
"Who asked you?" Vari snapped, aiming an outraged swat.
"She did," Tamiri chirped, ducking the swinging hand. "The house is all burned up. You can see it from the top of the wall."
"Let me see! Let me see!" Teigi struggled in Omis's grip.
"You may as well let her look," Vari sighed. "Go ahead, lift her up."
Omis shook his head, but lifted Teigi up where she could see over the wall. Firelight reflected off her face as she watched the flames, the smoke, the fire-brigade working below—and the collapsed, burned-out front of the house. She watched until Omis's arms grew tired, very quiet and still.
"There now," Omis said gently, putting her down. "Your mama and papa are gone, but we'll take care of you. We'll take you to a new house. Do you think you could walk a ways?"
Teigi said nothing, only shook her head.
"Well, that's no trouble. I'll carry you." Omis picked her up again.
"Best cover her with a cloak, too," Arizun pointed out. "In those fancy clothes she doesn't look like a blacksmith's child. We don't want to draw attention."
"Good thought." Vari dug among the clothing bundles for a cloak.
"How fast can we leave?" Sulun asked, eager to be gone. "Let's get out of here before the patrols start searching."
The rest of the group caught the mood, and began picking up various bundles and children.
"The models gone, the forge, the workshop," Doshi muttered, trying to manage Omis's two-year-old and a bundle as well. "How will we make a living?"
"Cheer up," Yanados offered. "It could have been worse."
"Oh? How?"
"Well, what if we'd kept the firepowder in there?"
"Oh."
Doshi cheered up considerably, or at least pretended to, and the small caravan cautiously made its way down the stairs.
CHAPTER FOUR
The little workshop had never been more crowded. Vari marshalled the apprentices to clear and sweep the floors, hunt up and spread a modicum of straw, and finally stretch out the salvaged bedding. Omis tended the children, trying to get a smile or at least a few words out of Teigi. Sulun gloomily inspected the salvage from the house and tried to imagine how to make a living from it.
"It'll be crowded, but there's bedding for all of us," said Vari, inspecting her finished work. "Is there any food in the house?"
"Some bread, I think." Arizun padded off to the cupboard.
Teigi began crying again, very softly.
"Ah, there now, dear . . ." Vari rummaged in one of the opened bundles. "Are those burns paining you? Here, they're not very big. Let me put some salve on them."
The little girl kept crying, not noticing her blisters or Vari's ministrations.
Sulun vividly remembered that last look backward at Shibari and his family, and the flames devouring the canopy of the couch. Gods, yes, that would be pure hell for a child to remember. He sidled closer, and draped a cautious arm around Teigi's shoulders.