"The lack of a god also has its consequence," Ischade said. Her hood had blown back. Her hair streamed like ink in the dark. Lightning lit her face, and her eyes when she turned his way shone like hell itself. "Chaos, for instance. Petty usurpers."
"We going in there?" It was the last place Strat wanted to go, but he had his sword in hand and the shreds of his courage likewise. Inside might be warm. For the moment they lived. And here his bones were freezing.
"Patience," said Ischade; and holding out her hand: "Stil-cho. It's time."
There was silence. Strat wiped his tearing eyes and turned his head. The steady flicker of lightnings showed a masklike face set in horror. "-No," Stilcho said. "No-I don't want-"
"You're essential, Stilcho. You know that. I know you know the way."
"I don't want to-" Childlike, quavering.
"Stilcho."
And he tumbled down, facedown, a dead weight that collapsed against Strat's side, utterly limp. Strat flinched aside in a paroxysm of revulsion, held his balance on his sword-hand, and blinked in the sting of wind and leaves. "Dammit "
But Ischade's voice came to him through the dark: "... fmd him, Stilcho, find him: bring him up-he'll come. He'll come. He'll come^-"
He made the mistake of lifting his head, looking up just where a thing materialized-a thing ribboned red and nothing-surely-ever human; but he knew its face, had known it for years and years.
"Janni-"
The murdered Stepson wavered, assumed a more human aspect-Janni the way he had been, before the Nisi witch had him for the night.
"She's yours, Janni." Ischade's distant whisper. "Stilcho. Come on back. Ace-"
His war-name. He had never told her that.
"Get her," Ischade whispered. "I'll hold-hold here. Get her. Bring it in on her...."
Janni turned, like an image reflected in brass; moved like one, jerking and indistinct. Another presence stirred, more substantiaclass="underline" Stilcho staggered up, clawed branches for support. Strat moved, stung to be the last. "Janni-dammit, wait!"
But nothing could catch that rippling thing. It paid no heed to winds or brush. Strat thrust out his arm and forced his way through brush, passed Stilcho's efforts-crashed against a projecting branch and broke it on his leather jerkin, a crack swallowed in the wind.
Thorns raked him; the wall of the house loomed in front of him, and Janni was far ahead, diminishing as if he ran some far shore, then vanishing within the dark of that river-stone wall, with its oaken door.
"Janni!" No more need of silence. Janni had lost to the witch before-was alone in there, past barriers-gods knew what-"Janni!" He hit not the door but the shutters, shattered the rotting wood and plunged through in a roll over shattered pieces, into furnishings-blinding light. Shock lanced through his marrow, flung him flat. His head hit the floor, his sword was-gods, where?-his fingers too numb to feel it; but Stilcho was in, scrambling past him, hacking at something-
Muscle rolled over him, live and round and moving. He yelled and thrust it off and lurched for his knees-snake, the motion told him; he yelled and hacked at it, and it looped and thrashed-not the only one. He rolled to his knees and chopped at the looping coils for all the strength that was in him. Stilcho got the head off it: it had begun to scream.
Coils passed through Janni. He just kept moving. And Roxane-the witch Roxane, amid the room-in the midst of that place-stood black in the heart of fire; a pillar of dark, whose hair crackled with the light that came from her fingers and her face. Her hand lifted, and pointed, and the fire leaped. Janni went black himself against that light, a shadow, nothing more. The fire began to wail.
Strat tried; he flung himself forward.
"Get back!" It was Stilcho grabbed him, on some brink he could not see, beyond which was a fall that took them both, down, down, into dark-
But Janni had his arms about the witch, and lightnings wrapped them and crawled up and down the pair of them like veinwork, till the thunder rolled. The light riddled him, shredded his darkness, blew both of them in tatters; and sucked inward then with one deafening clap of thunder.
Darkness then. The stink of burning.
"Janni? Janni? Stilcho-'
The wind fell. Fell so suddenly it was like death; with one great crack of thunder that must have hit something near.
The ships started pitching on a sea gone chaotic, no longer heeled by the wind, no longer straining at the cables. "Gods!" Kama breathed.
"-hit somewhere riverside," the servant said, superfluous as ever. Molin Torchholder clenched the sill and felt his heart start labored beats again.
"I'd say it did."
But where, he could not tell. There was a blossoming of flame in that far dark, not the only one. There were burnings here and there.
None large yet.
And nothing had gotten through.
It was nothing he wanted to remember. It was most of the walk back before he could hear; and most of the long walk he staggered off on his own, reeling this way and that like a drunken man. But sometimes Stilcho had his arm about him, sometimes She had his hand...
... There was fire, another sort of fire, safely in a hearth. The smell of herbs. Of musk.
Ischade's dusky face. She knelt beside his chair, by her fireside, by the tame light. Her hood was back. The light shone on her hair.
"Janni-" he said. It was the first thing he remembered saying.
"Stilcho brought you," Ischade said. She leaned aside. Wine spilled with a liquid, busy sound, the pungency of grapes. She offered him the cup. And he sat still.
The mind took a long time collecting images like that. He sat staring at the fire and feeling the ache in all his bones.
"-Janni?"
"Resting."
"Dead. He's dead, leave him dead, dammit-" thinking of Niko, of Niko's grief, half-of-whole. It would break Niko's heart. "Isn't a man safe dead?"
"I'd have used others. Other souls were-inaccessible. His wasn't. To reach him took very little, in that cause. Stilcho's gotten adept at that two-way trip." A step drew near. Haught's face loomed. "You can go," she said, looking up at Haught. "See to the uptown house. They'll want reassuring."
Haught padded away, took his cloak. There was brief chill as the door opened and closed again. The fire fluttered.
"Roxane," Strat said.
She put the cup into his hand. Closed his fingers on it. "Power has its other side. It's not well to be interrupted- in so great a spell."
"Is she dead?"
"If not, she's uncomfortable."
He drank, one quick swallow after the other. It took the taste of burning from his mouth. She took the cup, set it aside. Leaned her arm and head on his knee like any woman gazing into the fire. And turned her head and looked up at him. A pulse began, the chill about him thawed, but the world seemed very far away.
"Come to bed," she said. "I'll keep you warm."
"How long?"
She shut her eyes. For a moment he was cold. Opened them again and the room grew warm and the pulse grew in all his veins.
"You've always mistaken me," she said. "Vampire I am not. You think it's what I choose. I don't. But some things I can choose."
Her hand closed on his. He leaned down and touched her lips, not caring, not caring to recall or think ahead. It was the way he had gone into that house. Because Ranke might well be through. And he was, soon; and time was, he had learned in his own craft, no one's friend.
"Damnedest thing," Zaibar said, wiping at his soot-streaked face, and a moment's consternation took him. His eyes refocused. "Begging pardon, reverence-"
"Report."
"Got a dozen dead out there we've counted so far, just up and down the streets. Dead men-throats cut, some; stabbed-"
"The ships, Zaibar."