"What's the matter?" another Grey asked.
"Something bit me... " He squealed again, which indicated that he was in a great deal of agony, for Shadar were proud of their ability to endure pain without outcry or even flinching.
Two of the sergeant's men tried to lift his shirt while a third clung to his arm in an effort to keep him immobile. He shrieked again.
Smoke began to boil out of his side.
The Greys were so startled they backed away. The sergeant went down. He went into convulsions. Smoke continued to boil up. It assumed a form none of the Greys wanted to see.
"Niassi!"
The demon Niassi began to whisper secrets no Shadar wanted to hear.
Grinning to himself, Goblin slipped into Chor Bagan. He disappeared long before anyone wondered if there might not be a connection between the sergeant's discomfort and the veyedeen dervish.
Greys arrived from all directions. Officers barked and cursed and drove them back to their stations before the denizens of Chor Bagan seized the opportunity to escape. Obviously this was a distraction meant to give their prey the chance to run.
A crowd had begun to gather, too. Among them was a Nyueng Bao boy who picked his moment, cut a purse and fled past the Greys, one of whom recalled him from the evening when one of their own got stoned. Discipline began to collapse.
The Grey officers tried. And managed rather well, considering. Only a few people escaped Chor Bagan. And a half-dozen slipped inside, among them a skinny little old man in the all-enveloping yellow of a leper.
One-Eye was not pleased. He was sure strategy had had nothing to do with it being him who had to assume the yellow. Goblin was up to something wicked.
The six raiders approached the target tenement from front and rear, in loose teams of three. One-Eye was around front. People cleared off fast when they saw the yellow. Lepers were held in absolute terror.
None of the men wanted to carry out a raid in broad daylight. It was not the Company way. But darkness was denied us till Soulcatcher pulled her shadows back off the streets. And the consensus of the Annalists and wizards was that it was less likely that the Daughter of Night could summon Kina's help during daylight. Daytime also offered a better chance of taking her by surprise.
Each team paused to make sure every man still wore his yarn bracelet before they stormed into the tenement. Each wizard set loose an array of previously prepared low-grade confusion spells that buzzed through the ramshackle structure like a swarm of drunken mosquitoes. The attackers passed inside, stepping over and around frightened, shivering families who, till now, had considered themselves wildly fortunate to have a roof over their heads, even if that meant renting floor space in a hallway. Both teams posted a man who would make sure no one went outside. Another two men met at the foot of the rickety stair. They would prevent movement up or down. Goblin and One-Eye met at the cellar entrance and shared a few complaints about being desperately undermanned, then a few exaggerated courtesies as each offered the other the opportunity to go down into the enemy's den first.
Goblin finally accepted on the basis of superior youth, quickness and alleged intelligence. He launched a couple of luminary floating stars into the pit, where the darkness was blacker than Kina's heart.
"Here!" Goblin said. "Ha! We've got—"
Something like a flaming tiger burst out of nowhere. It leaped at Goblin. A shadow drifted in from the side. It flicked something long and thin that looped around the little wizard's neck.
One-Eye's cane came down on Narayan's wrist hard enough to crack bone. The living saint of the Stranglers lost his rumel, which flew across the cellar.
One-Eye's off hand tossed something over Goblin's head, toward the source of the tiger. A ghostly light floated up like a wisp of luminescent swamp gas. It moved suddenly, enveloping a young woman. She began to slap at herself, trying to wipe it off.
Goblin did something quick, while she was distracted. She collapsed. "Goddamn! Goddamn! It worked. I'm a genius. Admit it. I'm a fucking genius."
"Who's a genius? Who came up with the plan?"
"Plan? What plan? Success is in the details, runt. Who came up with the details? Any damned fool could've said let's go catch them two."
Both men tied limbs as they nattered.
One-Eye said, "Plan the details on this. We got to get out of here with these people. Through all the Greys in the world."
"Already covered. They've got so much trouble they won't have time to worry about any damned lepers." He started trying to get a yellow outfit over the head of the Daughter of Night. "Remind me to warn them back at the shop that this one can put together an illusion or two."
"I know that's the way its supposed to go." One-Eye began dragging Narayan Singh into another yellow outfit. In a moment Goblin would trade his brown for yellow, too. Upstairs, the four Company brothers, all of Shadar origin, were turning themselves into Greys. "I'm saying it ain't got a prayer of working."
"That because I planned it?"
"Absolutely. You're beginning to catch on. Welcome to reality."
"It goes to shit in our hands, you can blame it on Sleepy, not me. It was her idea."
"We got to do something about that girl. She thinks too damned much. Will you quit farting around? Them goddamn Greys out there are going to have time to go home for lunch."
"Don't hit him so hard. You want him to walk out of here under his own power."
"You talking to me? What the hell you doing with... get your hand out of there, you old pervert."
"I'm putting a control amulet over her heart, you dried-up old turd. So she won't embarrass us before we get her home."
"Oh, yeah. Sure you are. But why don't I look on the bright side? At least you're interested in girls again. She built as nice as her mother?"
"Better."
"Watch your mouth. The place might be haunted. And I got a suspicion maybe some of those ghosts can talk to each other, no matter what Murgen claims." One-Eye began to bully the groggy Narayan Singh up the steps.
"I do believe this is going to work," One-Eye crowed. The combination of Greys and lepers seemed the perfect device for exiting the Thieves' Garden—particularly now that the real Greys were running around distracted.
"I don't want to break your heart, old-timer," Goblin said. "But I think we done been fished." He was looking over his shoulder.
One-Eye looked back. "Shit!"
A small flying carpet dropped toward them, accompanied by crows making no sounds at all. Soulcatcher. And her very stance suggested mischievous glee.
She threw something.
"Spread out!" Goblin barked. "Don't let those two get away." He faced the descending carpet, heart in this throat. If it came to a direct face-off, he was going to get splattered like a stomped egg. He extended a gloved hand, caught the falling black globule, whipped his arm in a circle and launched the missile back into the sky.
Soulcatcher shrieked, outraged. The people of Taglios did not have that kind of nerve. She drove the carpet to one side, avoiding the black globe. And well she moved when she did.
Her luck had served her yet again. A screaming fireball ripped right through the space she had vacated, the same kind of fireball that had eaten all those holes in the Palace wall and had set the bodies of so many men burning like bad fat candles. She continued to dive. Two more fireballs barely missed her. She put a tenement between herself and the sharpshooters. She was extremely angry but did not let rage cloud her thinking.
Above her, her crows began bursting like soundless fireworks. Blood, flesh and feathers rained down.
In seconds she figured it out, conversing with herself in a committee of voices.
They had not been hiding inside Chor Bagan after all. She could not have caught anyone trying to slip away like this if they had not come in to retrieve something they did not want found. "They're here in the city. But we haven't found them. We haven't seen a trace or heard a rumor that they didn't want to reach our ears. Until now. That takes wizardry. That bold little one. That was the toad man. Goblin. Though the Great General of the Armies Mogaba assures us that he saw the body himself. Who else is alive? Could the Great General himself be less trustworthy than he would like us to believe?"