Kelder looked worried, but did not reply immediately, so Emmis added, "I think the monster would also like to know that Zhol had the honey I had promised it."
"Honey?"
The guardsman started at the inhuman voice that came from empty air. Then Kelder was torn from Emmis's grasp and dragged upright until his toes barely touched the ground. "Tell!" the creature said.
"Aggkh!" Kelder said.
"Perhaps you should lower him so he can talk," Emmis suggested.
The guardsman frowned at Emmis. "You're a warlock?"
"No," Emmis said, exasperated. "I'm not any sort of magician, but I did promise this thing the honey that Zhol was carrying. Now, where is he?"
"Alley!" Kelder said, as the grip on his throat loosened. "Alley near Southmarket!"
"Lead the way," Emmis said, sheathing his belt-knife.
"Wait a minute…" the guardsman began.
"We don't have a minute!" Emmis shouted. "Zhol could be bleeding to death!"
Kelder suddenly crumpled to the ground as the creature released him. "Lead," that ghastly voice said.
"Lead," the guardsman agreed. "Come on, you." He prodded Kelder with his truncheon.
Kelder screamed as his broken arm folded under him; Emmis started back, but the guardsman reached down and grabbed the fallen assassin by the shoulder and hauled him upright. "Which way?" he demanded.
Kelder whimpered, and pointed.
The three men – and presumably the invisible monster, though Emmis couldn't be sure of that – made their way through the late-night streets, with the guardsman supporting the reluctant Kelder, who directed them down Merchant Street to Cut Street Market.
They saw a few people as they walked, but always at a distance; the few who noticed the three men generally took one look at the guardsman hauling a captive and decided they would rather be somewhere else.
The market, when they reached it, was deserted and dark – hardly surprising, as Emmis estimated it must be about midnight by now.
"He came here first," Kelder explained, "but of course everything was closed, so he went down Embroidery Street. Listen, I really think…"
"Shut up," Emmis told him.
This, he realized, was not at all the most direct route to Southmarket, or presumably to where Zhol was; instead they were retracing the route that the guardsman had taken, with the pair of would-be killers following him. He didn't bother to protest, though – having gone as far out of their way as Cut Street Market, the route from here was probably about as direct as one could get in Ethshar.
As they marched south on Embroidery, and then turned east on Carriage Street, Emmis kept urging the other two to go faster. "It's his arm that's broken, not his leg," he pointed out.
"I'm in pain!" Kelder protested.
"So is Zhol, if he's still alive."
"I don't think he is," Kelder said, with a wary glance at the guardsman's face.
Emmis glared at him. "You better hope Zhol is still alive," he said. "It's the only way you'll escape the noose."
Kelder looked unconvinced; he clearly thought he and his partner had killed Zhol. Emmis still held out some hope, though; the pair were obviously not very good at their job, or much of anything else so far as Emmis could see, so they might well have misjudged how effectively they had dealt with Lord Ildirin's guard.
When Carriage Street dead-ended in a T intersection in a neighborhood Emmis had never seen before they turned south again for a block, then east, then south on what Emmis thought might be an unfamiliar stretch of West Avenue, which curved down the slope to Southmarket.
"Shouldn't we have my arm tended to first?" Kelder whined.
"No," Emmis said. "Would you rather worry about your arm, or your neck?"
Kelder just whimpered in reply.
Emmis wondered whether Kelder was really suffering as much as he appeared; he knew the man was a liar, but surely he had the sense to see that his best chance of survival was finding Zhol alive, and would understand that dawdling was counter-productive.
Or was it, from Kelder's point of view? Perhaps he was hoping someone would intervene on his behalf – his partner Tithi, for example.
Or the Lumethans. Emmis frowned, and started looking around more carefully at the alleys and rooftops. Tithi probably didn't have the nerve to attack two grown men, even if he didn't think the invisible monster was still around, but he might have had the nerve to find the Lumethans and ask for their help.
Hagai was a theurgist, and the other two might be magicians, as well, for all Emmis knew. They might be a real problem if they did come to Kelder's assistance.
Southmarket, when they finally reached it, was as dark and almost as empty as Cut Street Market had been; a few stalls stood along the sides, but all were securely closed up for the night, with heavy bars and sturdy shutters guarding whatever might be inside. There were parts of the city that stayed bright and active all night, but they were in Camptown or Westgate, not here in the respectable neighborhoods of Southmarket and Freshwater.
"This way," Kelder said, pointing east.
Emmis began to wonder if the scoundrel was really leading them to Zhol at all. Perhaps this was all a diversion of some sort? Were Tithi and the Lumethans and an assortment of hired thugs besieging Ithinia's house even now, trying to kill the ambassador?
No, that was absurd, Emmis told himself. No one would attack the home of a powerful wizard – well, no one but an equally powerful magician, and Emmis doubted that any of the Lumethans qualified. When he had met them at the Crooked Candle they simply hadn't had the air of authority, of power, that high-order magicians always seemed to have.
But even so, he wondered what was happening back on Lower Street. Was Lar still a stone statue in Ithinia's parlor? Were Ildirin and Ahan and Shakoph worried about Zhol and himself? What had Ildirin wanted to discuss with the Guildmaster?
Kelder had led them out of the market and up Circus Street – Emmis remembered it from a long-ago day when he and his sisters had met up with a friend's cousins in Freshwater, then cut through Southmarket on the way to a performance at the Arena, the eight of them laughing and teasing one another.
It looked very different by night, but he still recognized it.
But then they turned north onto… Canal Avenue, was it? Emmis wasn't sure.
"There," Kelder said, pointing. "That's the alley. Tithi lured him in and I stabbed him."
The guardsman started to say something and to shove Kelder forward, but Emmis ignored them and ran to the narrow opening Kelder had indicated.
The alley beyond was almost totally black; there were no lit windows, no torches, no moonslight, and the dull glow reflecting off the overcast did little to help.
"I need a light," Emmis said, peering into the gloom. "Give me your lantern."
"It's not lit," the guard said, as he awkwardly unhooked it from his belt, using just one hand because his other was still locked onto Kelder's shoulder.
"I'll manage." He took the lantern, then fished in his belt-pouch for flint, steel, and tinder.
As he knelt in the mouth of the alley, struggling to strike a light, he listened closely, hoping to hear breathing in the darkness around the corner, breathing that would mean Zhol was still alive.
Even better, perhaps, would be if Zhol was not there at all, if he had recovered enough to make his way out of the alley to find help – but if he wasn't there, how would they find him? If there was no sign he had been there, would that mean he had recovered, or that Kelder had lied?
Then the tinder caught, and he opened the lantern and carefully held the spark to the wick within. It caught, and light flared up.