'Aye, what else? The harm they'd wreak would be in a hunt for us. But put to such trouble, they could grow furious and harry our whole world. That's the more likely when Hazroah lies skewered. Who else can control them?'
'None that I know of, and he talked quite frankly to us.' She nodded. 'Yes, it behoves us to die where we are.' Rosanda sank down and blubbered. Danlis showed irritation. 'Up!' she commanded her mistress. 'Up and meet your fate like a Rankan matron!'
Cappen goggled hopelessly at her. She gave him a smile. 'Have no regrets, dear,' she said. 'You did well. The conspiracy against the state has been checked.'
The far side of strangeness - check - chessboard - that version of chess where you pretend the right and left sides of the board are identical on a cylinder tumbled through Cappen. The Flying Knives drew closer fast. Curious aspects of geometry -
Lightning-smitten, he knew ... or guessed he did ... 'No, Jamie, we go!' he yelled.
'To no avail save reaping of innocents?' The big man hunched his shoulders. 'Never.'
'Jamie, let us by! I can close the gate. I swear I can - I swear by - by Eshi -'
The Northerner locked eyes with Cappen for a span that grew. At last: 'You are my brother in arms.' He stood aside. 'Go on.'
The sikkintairs were so near that the noise of their speed reached Cappen. He urged Danlis towards the scroll. She lifted her skirt a trifle, revealing a dainty ankle, and stepped through. He hauled on Rosanda's wrist. The woman wavered to her feet but seemed unable to find her direction. Cappen took an arm and passed it into the next world for Danlis to pull. Himself, he gave a mighty shove on milady's buttocks. She crossed over.
He did. And Jamie.
Beneath the temple dome, Cappen's rapier reached high and slashed. Louder came the racket of cloven air. Cappen severed the upper cords. The parchment fell, wrinkling, crackling. He dropped his weapon, a-clang, squatted, and stretched his arms wide. The free corners he seized. He pulled them to the corners that were still secured, to make a closed band of the scroll.
From it sounded monstrous thumps and scrapes. The sikkintairs were crawling into the pergola. For them the portal must hang unchanged, open for their hunting.
Cappen gave that which he held a half-twist and brought the edges back together.
Thus he created a surface which had but a single side and a single edge. Thus he obliterated the gate.
He had not been sure what would follow. He had fleetingly supposed he would smuggle the scroll out, held in its paradoxical form, and eventually glue it unless he could burn it. But upon the instant that he completed the twist and juncture, the parchment was gone. Enas Yorl told him afterwards that he had made it impossible for the thing to exist.
Air rushed in where the gate had been, crack and hiss. Cappen heard that sound as it were an alien word of incantation: 'Mobius-s-s.'
Having stolen out of the temple and some distance thence, the party stopped for a few minutes of recovery before they proceeded to Molin's house.
This was in a blind alley off the avenue, a brick-paved recess where flowers grew in planters, shared by the fanes of two small and gentle gods. Wind had died away, stars glimmered bright, a half moon stood above easterly roofs and cast wan argence. Afar, a tomcat serenaded his intended.
Rosanda had gotten back a measure of equilibrium. She cast herself against Jamie's breast. 'Oh, hero, hero,' she crooned, 'you shall have reward, yes, treasure, ennoblement, everything!' She snuggled. 'But nothing greater than my unbounded thanks ...'
The Northerner cocked an eyebrow at Cappen. The bard shook his head a little. Jamie nodded in understanding, and disengaged. 'Uh, have a care, milady,' he said. 'Pressing against ringmail, all bloody and sweaty too, can't be good for a complexion.'
Even if one rescues them, it is not wise to trifle with the wives of magnates.
Cappen had been busy himself. For the first time, he kissed Danlis on her lovely mouth; then for the second time; then for the third. She responded decorously.
Thereafter she likewise withdrew. Moonlight made a mystery out of her classic beauty. 'Cappen,' she said, 'before we go on, we had better have a talk.'
He gaped. 'What?'
She bridged her fingers. 'Urgent matters first,' she continued crisply. 'Once we get to the mansion and wake the high priest, it will be chaos at first, conference later, and I - as a woman - excluded from serious discussion. Therefore best I give my counsel now, for you to relay. Not that Molin or the Prince are fools; the measures to take are for the most part obvious. However, swift action is desirable, and they will have been caught by surprise.'
She ticked her points off. 'First, as you have indicated, the Hell Hounds' - her nostrils pinched in distaste at the nickname - 'the Imperial elite guard should mount an immediate raid on the temple of Ils and arrest all personnel for interrogation, except the Arch-priest. He's probably innocent, and in any event it would be inept politics. Hazroah's death may have removed the danger, but this should not be taken for granted. Even if it has, his co-conspirators ought to be identified and made examples of.
'Yet, second, wisdom should temper justice. No lasting harm was done, unless we count those persons who are trapped in the parallel universe; and they doubtless deserve to be.'
They seemed entirely males, Cappen recalled. He grimaced in compassion. Of course, the sikkintairs might eat them.
Danlis was talking on: '- humane governance and the art of compromise. A grand temple dedicated to the Rankan gods is certainly required, but it need be no larger than that of Ils. Your counsel will have much weight, dear. Give it wisely. I will advise you.'
'Uh?' Cappen said.
Danlis smiled and laid her hands over his. 'Why, you can have unlimited preferment, after what you did,' she told him. 'I'll show you how to apply for it.'
'But - but I'm no blooming statesman!' Cappen stuttered.
She stepped back and considered him. 'True,' she agreed. 'You're valiant, yes, but you're also flighty and lazy and - Well, don't despair. I will mould you.'
Cappen gulped and shuffled aside. 'Jamie,' he said, 'uh, Jamie, I feel wrung dry, dead on my feet. I'd be worse than no use - I'd be a drogue on things just when they have to move fast. Better I find me a doss, and you take the ladies home. Come over here and I'll tell you how to convey the story in fewest words. Excuse us, ladies. Some of those words you oughtn't to hear.'
*
A week thence, Cappen Varra sat drinking in the Vulgar Unicorn. It was mid afternoon and none else were present but the associate tapster, his wound knitted.
A man filled the doorway and came in, to Cappen's table. 'Been casting about everywhere for you,' the Northerner grumbled. 'Where've you been?'
'Lying low,' Cappen replied. 'I've taken a place here in the Maze which'll do till I've dropped back into obscurity, or decide to drift elsewhere altogether.' He sipped his wine. Sunbeams slanted through windows; dust motes danced golden in their warmth; a cat lay on a sill and purred. 'Trouble is, my purse is flat.'
'We're free of such woes for a goodly while.' Jamie flung his length into a chair and signalled the attendant. 'Beer!' he thundered.
'You collected a reward, then?' the minstrel asked eagerly.
Jamie nodded. 'Aye. In the way you whispered I should, before you left us. I'm baffled why and it went sore against the grain. But I did give Molin the notion that the rescue was my idea and you naught but a hanger-on whom I'd slip a few royals. He filled a box with gold and silver money, and said he wished he could afford ten times that. He offered to get me Rankan citizenship and a title as well, and make a bureaucrat of me, but I said no, thanks. We share, you and I, half and half. But right this now, drinks are on me.'