The Seeker - Section III
by Mosylu

Last update January 1,2002

The Beginning
Previous Section

Chapter Thirteen Part One

They checked at the temple of Usabata next. "Armeth?" the slim, doe-eyed priestess repeated, backing away. "Oh, no. He's not allowed here anymore."

They were standing in the middle of a sick ward, rows and rows of white-clad beds filled with the sick stretching out on either side of them. The air was heavy with the smell of illness, and their soft moans and cries rebounded off the walls. Kylara felt vaguely jittery, being here and whole. "But he's hurt," she said.

The priestess had sworn to heal all who came to her temple in need, and she looked torn. Then she shook her head. "Madness might be catching."

"A couple of dreams--"

"A couple? He has them nightly. The last time he slept here, he woke up screaming and disrupted the entire nursery. It took us three hours to get all the children calm and sleeping again, and some of them were very ill. We can't possibly let him in here again. There's no cure for madness."

Kylara was opening her mouth to tell the priestess exactly what she thought of her and her no cure for madness when Durnan put a warning hand on her shoulder. That won't do us any good, Kylara.

It'll do me good. But Kylara closed her mouth again. He was right.

"If you see him," he said in that iron-calm voice, "please try and keep him here for a little while, and send a message to Mistress Thulla on Yardeck. We'll come right away. We truly do need to find him."

"Well--all right," the priestess said, slowly and doubtfully, wiping her hands on her apron. "I suppose we could do that. We can't keep him overnight, you understand. And I don't even know if we can keep him until you come."

"Gods," Kylara said in deep disgust, "can't you even stand to have him around for half an hour?"

The priestess shook her head at once. "Oh no, it's not like that. He runs away so much, you see."

No news there.

They went into the main sanctuary, where Durnan said, Find a place and kneel for a moment.

Why? I don't worship him.

Neither do I, but it's only polite. We are guests here, after all.

Sighing, she followed his example and knelt just long enough to polite, but no longer. Kylara had little use for Usabata even when she was ill.

She bought an icon from the little temple shop, though. "Elayza didn't have one," she explained when Durnan raised his eyebrows at her. "I thought she'd like one. Mistress Thulla keeps hers with her always."

Durnan's face went flat and blank. "'Layza's . . . not particularly fond of Usabata."

"Why not? Seems logical to me."

"Elayza is dedicated to Usabata, of course, but she--isn't on good terms with him."

Now that was strange. But Kylara didn't pry. She didn't exactly have a firm moral ground on this subject.

The priestess was waiting for them outside the temple shop. She looked pityingly at them. "I really do need to warn you--he'll probably run away from you. He's like an animal sometimes. I don't think he even talks anymore."

"I'm not surprised he doesn't talk to her," Kylara said out on the street a few moments later. "I wouldn't talk to her."

"Be fair," Durnan said.

"Why should I? Why the hell should you? All we're coming up with is dead ends and people telling us how crazy he is." Kylara kicked a stone so hard that it bounced off the side of a temple. "I hate this."

"Kylara, what if he is mad?"

"Not you too!"

He didn't answer that, just stopped walking, then reached out and took her hand, pulling her to a stop too. "I mean it," he said then.

A headache was forming, and Kylara rubbed at her temples. Muttering pedestrians were detouring around them with glares. "Look, Durnan, Armeth's strange voices and sights don't mean he's mad. I really think they mean he's the Seer."

"I never said he wasn't," Durnan said, dropping his voice and stepping a little closer. "But what if they've driven him mad? It's happened before, with Sabadar's priests. At least once every few years, Father Junek said. At least. And they're trained, and expecting them. That doesn't sound as if it's the case with Armeth."

All at once, Kylara felt very tired, and very old. All that messing around with Elayza, and now Armeth and his running away. She hadn't really expected that the Gathering would be easy, but this was ridiculous. "If that's the case," she said in a voice flatter then Durnan's, "then we'll deal with it when it comes. Between the three of us, and Mistress Thulla, we should be able to think of something. But for now, we need to concentrate on finding him."

He covered their joined hands with his free one. "I just don't want us to be unprepared for the possibility."

She made herself smile at him. This close, she had to tip her head a little to look into his eyes--an unaccustomed adjustment. "You worry too much." She tugged at her hand, trying to unweave it from his.

"That's because you don't worry enough," he returned, and let her go. "Where are we going now?"

"The temple of Ricate," she said, turning away. "You remember the novitiate I waved to?"

"Vaguely," he said, at her side again in a moment. It was nice to be able to depend on that, she thought absently.

"His family lives near my aunt. His name's Dandow, and that kid has the biggest mouth this side of a sea dragon."

"A reward?"

She glanced over at him in surprise. "That was smooth. I didn't even feel you in my head."

"That's because I wasn't in your head. I just know how your mind works by now."

"Now that's scary."

The musicians had gone back inside, their concert over for the day, so Durnan and Kylara had to actually enter the temple. When Durnan turned towards an empty spot on the floor, Kylara resigned herself to a few more minutes of polite faux worship.

It wasn't too bad a concession to make--Ricate was one of the gods she could have worshipped, if she weren't so laissez-faire about the whole business of the spirit world. Besides music, Ricate was the laughing, merry trickster god, guardian of thieves and con men. Her father had occasionally come to pray and donate here, especially after a particularly successful burglary. Grackin Marzen had believed in quid pro quo worship.

She couldn't think of anything to ask Ricate for, though, except to please send his champion to them with the minimum amount of fuss, so when Durnan got to his feet after a moment she followed suit.

She glanced around, rubbing her aching knees absently. A green-robed novitiate passed by, and she caught his arm. "Do you know where Dandow is?" she asked in a low voice.

"He's selling prayer lamps today." He pointed to a shelf-lined alcove near the front of the temple, where another green robe stood carefully filling the ceremonial prayer lamps with oil.

"Thanks," Kylara said, and let him go.

Dandow looked up as they drew close to him, and he grinned suddenly. "Hey, Kylara. I didn't know you converted."

"I didn't," she said, leaning against the wall by his alcove. The myriad scents of the oils tickled her nose, and she rubbed it absently. "I came to find you."

His dark brows, the only hair on his head, drew together, and he set the heavy clay jug of oil down. "Is something wrong at home?"

"Everyone's fine," she reassured quickly. "I had a favor to ask, is all."

"Oh. Well, ask away."

"Do you know a boy named Armeth?"

A worshipper, head covered, came up to buy a prayer lamp. He gave Kylara and Durnan's bare heads a sidelong glance, but didn't say anything as Dandow counted out his change.

"Armeth," Dandow repeated when the worshipper had left with his lamp. "I dunno. It sounds familiar. Is he a novitiate somewhere?" Most of the novitiates knew each other, even if they were devoted to different gods. Godstown was a very small, tightly webbed community within the larger world of the city.

"He was a novitiate at the larger temple of Gzigas, a few years back. He's a street kid now." Kylara hesitated, not really wanting to say it, but knowing it was probably the best indicator she could give Dandow. "He's supposed to be mad."

Dandow's face cleared at once. "Oh, him! Yeah, I know him. Little skinny kid? Dark hair?"

"That's him."

"He comes to listen to the concerts most every day. He's a little creepy, but he never does anything but listen. What do you want with him?"

"It's a really long, strange story. We just need to find him. I know you know a lot of people around here, so I was wondering if you could spread the word that we're looking. You never know, there might be some money in it."

"For Armeth? What's so special about a crazy little street kid?"

"For information about him--where he goes, where he's holed up, where we could find him." She couldn't resist adding, "And he's not mad."

Dandow's eyes went thoughtful, and then he glanced around. "Wait a moment--I think I see someone who could help you." He ducked under the counter and went towards the street entrance of the temple.

Kylara watched him go. "He probably thinks he's going to get a cut." She shrugged. "It'd only be--" She broke off as the Amulet throbbed against her skin.

Durnan looked at her, hard. "Kylara?" he said softly. What is it?

I think he's here, Durnan. I feel something.

Durnan pushed off the wall and moved around the pillar so he could have an unobstructed view of the temple.

The Amulet was getting hotter and hotter, and she said to Durnan, Do you see him?

Nothing, but he's small. The Amulet is still reacting?

Yeah.

He's close, Durnan. He--

"How much money?" At the third voice, the Amulet blazed against her skin. She looked up sharply, fully expecting to see Armeth standing before her.

It wasn't.

Chapter Thirteen Part Two

Durnan!

He was around the pillar in a heartbeat. What is it? His body had snapped into a defensive mode before he realized that the tickle at the back of his brain was missing. Kylara wasn't in any danger; the reason she'd "shouted" was surprise and joy, not fear.

She flashed him a brilliant grin. Our fifth Guardian.

"Kylara," Dandow said, "this is Loret. He can find anything--for a price."

"Yeah, lady, and before I start lookin', I expect to hear what I'm gonna get out of it."

Durnan looked doubtfully at the tall, gangly boy who said this. Unlike Armeth, his thinness was not from starvation--at least, not completely. Durnan recognized it as being partially the effect of bones growing too fast for flesh to keep up. His clothes were plain, somewhat ragged, and too short for him. The seams of his shirt strained at his growing shoulders, and the ragged hem of his pants flapped against the swell of his calves. His feet were bare, and dirty. His eyes, with stubby pale orange lashes, were brilliant green and slightly slanted up at the corners. His hair--"red" and "curly" didn't even begin to describe it. Durnan decided, with uncharacteristic fancy, that it looked like the gods had lit a bramble bush on fire and attached it to a human head. Under the wild mop, his face was narrow and pointed, like a fox's, the nose sharp, the cheekbones angular, the lips thin with a cynical twist to them. The "lady" he used was not the respectful form of address to a noblewoman--it was sarcastic and dismissive. All in all, he looked like someone Durnan would watch from behind his eyes, keeping his hands in his pockets to make sure they weren't being picked.

And this was their fifth Guardian?

Kylara said, "Two noskits," in answer to his question.

The boy snorted. "Are you serious? That is a creepy little kid. There's priests that won't even look at him." His eyes flicked to Durnan, then away, dismissing him. "Twenty."

"The heat must be getting to you," Kylara retorted. Durnan realized she was having the time of her life. "Twenty? Unless you know where he is right this very second, I can only give you two and six."

The boy didn't answer, but turned to Dandow, leaning against the counter of the prayer-lamp alcove. "Dandow, who am I?"

Dandow, his eyes dancing, answered readily, "Loret the Fox."

"You think I could find this kid?"

"You can find gold in a pauper's pocket. You could find a glowworm in a room full of lamps. You can find this kid."

"So what?" Kylara said. "I'll bet anybody else in Godstown could find Armeth for us. What makes you so special?"

"Lady, if that little ghost doesn't want to be found, ain't nobody could catch even a glimpse of him--except me. I'm the best."

Kylara's eyes narrowed speculatively. "Do you know him? Are you the one who's taking care of him?"

Loret made a noise of sheer scorn. "Please. Do I look like some kind of wet nurse?"

"Then why do you want to do this so bad?" Kylara persisted.

"I want your money. That's all." Loret snorted again. "Taking care of him!"

"Don't you even care what we want with him?"

Loret's flat gaze was her only answer.

He's cold as ice, and just as hard. Kylara, are you sure--

The Amulet is going haywire.

Maybe Armeth is in the temple.

No, it's definitely him.

"Look, lady, I don't have all day. Are you gonna talk money or just stand around?"

They fell to bargaining, hard and fast. Kylara looked as if she was having fun, and she was, but in her mind Durnan could feel shadows of doubt and dismay.

He wasn't too pleased himself. How could this foul-mouthed, disrespectful, utterly self-absorbed boy be brought into the Guardians? How could they ever work together even if he was?

"Ten noskits, and that's all I'll give," Kylara said with an air of finality.

"Done," Loret said at once, holding out his hand.

Kylara looked at it. "What?"

He gave her a flat look. "I'm waiting for the money."

"Yeah, right. Payment on delivery, kid."

"Well, forget about me even looking then." Loret put his hands in his pockets and started to walk away.

"Wait!"

Loret turned around, his face bored.

Kylara heaved a sigh and fished in her pouch. "Five now and five when you find him for us."

He thought that over, head tilted to one side and slanted eyes narrowed. "All right," he said, taking the money she held out. "Fair enough."

He started to walk away again, and Kylara called out, "Loret."

"What now, lady?" Apparently being in their employ was not enough to erase the insouciant tone from his voice.

She gave him a toothy smile. "If you hurt or frighten Armeth in any way--the deal is off. And--"

He sneered. "And what? You'll come after me?" He looked her up and down, and his lip curled.

"No," she answered. "Durnan will." She turned to him. "Durnan, did we ever find all the pieces last time?"

He caught on, and made a show of thinking hard. "I think we were still missing a hand, a foot, and a kidney. And the heart."

"But we know what you did with the heart."

"That's true."

Loret looked from one to the other, and sneered. But the sneer was a little shaky around the edges. "Fine--message taken. I'll coddle the kid if you want me to." He turned away and strolled out of the temple, muttering.

Kylara turned to Dandow. "Thanks for that. It helped in more ways then you know. Could you still spread the word?"

He blinked at her. "What for? Loret will find him."

"I'm saying--just in case--"

"There wouldn't be a point. Loret will find him."

Kylara looked at him, hard, then shook her head. "You have an awful lot of faith in him."

"If there's money involved, Loret will do anything. He'd climb the mountains and steal the chair from under Ricate's behind if someone was paying him enough."

"Yeah, that's the impression I got." Kylara pushed her fingers through her hair. "You doing okay? Because you know your mum's going to ask."

He grinned up at her. "I'm fine."

Durnan took her hand. We should go.

She allowed herself to be pulled along, waving to Dandow. "See you around!"

Outside, on the street, Durnan said, "Ten noskits? Kylara, you still don't have a job."

"Hey, I was only planning to give him five at most. He's good."

"And you really think he's one of us?"

"Of course!" Her hand went to where the Amulet should be, under her shirt, and her mouth fell open. "Oh, gods."

"What? What is it?"

She put her hand on her forehead. "I can't believe this. Oh, he is definitely the Wily One."

"Why do you say that?"

She looked up at him and ruefully held her shirt away to reveal her bare throat. "He stole the Amulet right off my neck. And I didn't even notice." She spun, looking up and down the teeming street for a bright red head. "We have to get it back. Right now."

"No, wait."

She turned on him. "What? We need that Amulet!"

"I know we do, but--think. For just a moment. This could be insurance."

"Insurance for what, that our entire scheme will fail and the dark god will win?"

"Shh! No. That he'll come back to find us."

She shook her head, her eyes puzzled.

"The Amulet will react to him even without you around," he explained. "It reacted to me before you'd even touched it. And--"

Her face lit. "And he's going to come back to find out just what the hell is going on. So even if he doesn't find Armeth--"

"Or if he never meant to look for him in the first place--"

"I think he did. There is that five noskits." Her face clouded again. "But what if he just writes it off as something weird and takes it to a pawn shop?"

"I think it's a gamble we're going to have to take. Do you really think we could find him again if he didn't want to be found?"

Her mouth pursed. "No."

"No. And remember, the Amulet has a funny way of finding its Seekers again. Even if he does do that, it'll come back to you."

She smiled at him. "And now we know who else to look out for."

Chapter Thirteen Part Three

Loret glanced behind him. In front of the temple of Ricate, he could just see two tall figures talking, their heads bent close together. His employers, for the moment.

He snorted. What a pair of loons.

He hadn't really believed that fairy tale about a hand, a foot, and a kidney--at least, not completely. Maybe that block of stone was capable of it, but Loret didn't think so. What kind of man let some woman order him around?

Putting a hand in his pocket, Loret wondered if she'd missed her necklace yet.

It had been an impulse to take it. Loret didn't often give into impulses anymore, because they usually turned right around and bit him on the ass. But when he'd seen the dull glimmer of real gold--and he knew real gold from the fake stuff--against her throat, the tips of his fingers had started itching like crazy. The challenge had been absolutely, irrationally irresistible.

And he'd pulled it off.

Yep. I'm the best.

He knew better then to examine his booty in the middle of a crowd. For one thing, it would be like an announcement to the other gutter trash that he'd come into money, and that was the surest way to earn a knife in your gut. For another, there was the risk--however slight--that word would get back to his employers that Loret the Fox had a real gold necklace.

What if they figured out he'd taken it?

Loret shrugged. They hadn't impressed him as being too bright; even if they did put two and two together without having to use their fingers, he could make up some story that they'd probably swallow whole. It wasn't too hard.

He took a circuitous route back to his place. Not a living soul knew where he holed up, and he liked to keep it that way. A quick glance around confirmed that nobody was looking, and he ducked under the half-door and splashed into the perpetual swamp of mud that was the base floor of the long-abandoned watch tower. Something chittered at the splashes and made little splashes of its own, running away.

When Loret had found the tower, three years ago, the door had been crumbling, the ladders inside rotting away, the dirt floor perpetually flooded, and half the slates and supports of the roof simply nonexistent. There were also rumors that it was haunted.

Like anyone believed in ghosts anymore.

He'd left the door and the ground floor mostly as they were. To anyone looking in, it still looked like a bad deal for a shelter--home to gods knew how many mice, rats, and other unsavory inhabitants. He still got the occasional really desperate shelter-seeker, but a few moans and howls usually drove them off, adding to the tower's reputation in the bargain.

Loret clambered up the ladder, hardly even having to watch anymore for broken rungs. The pattern was engraved in his feet and legs. Skip one, step, step, skip two, step, skip one . . .

The top of the watch tower was one single, round, windowless room--or it had been. When Loret found it, the roof had been half-gone and the wooden floor under it so rotten that he'd nearly fallen through more then once. It had taken a day or two of careful work to simply break out the rotten portions. The other half of the room was still pretty good, although he listened to its creaks and groans carefully for more signs of rot. It was in that half-circle of wooden floor that Loret had settled into. It wasn't much, but it was enough for him, especially after he'd stolen canvas and stretched it out over the hole in the roof.

At the moment, the floor was speckled with slender bars of light, the sun shining through the minute spaces between the still-present slates of the roof. Most of the floor area was bare, since he'd never felt the need for very much furniture. Against the curved wall, he'd arranged a haphazard pile of blankets and outgrown clothes that served as his bed. Beside his bed, there were a few crates, containing the few stores of non-perishable food he kept around for emergencies. He didn't have much beyond that--a few changes of clothing and one or two trinkets he could sell in the lean times.

In the middle of the floor, in a particularly large patch of sunlight, there was a puddle of splotchy, ragged fur with a black tipped tail that curled up and down. One ear was ragged around the edges, and entire tufts of fur stood straight up or were simply missing. It was as thin as a rail, and quite possibly the ugliest thing on four legs. At least, it was the ugliest thing Loret had ever seen. "What are you doing here?" he demanded. "I told you to leave."

The adolescent cat opened a green eye, looked at him with it, and closed it again.

"C'mon, leave! You're not getting any more food from me!"

The cat yawned elaborately, showing a hint of fang. She blinked once or twice, revealing that the other eye was blue, and went back to sleep.

"Stupid cat," Loret muttered. Settling himself on his bed, he reached over into one of the crates and pulled out a squat brown bottle. Popping the cork, he took a swig of the ale and set it beside him before pulling out the necklace he'd taken.

Kinda showy, he decided, turning the big amulet over and over in his hands. Definitely one of a kind. With that in mind, he'd have to pop the stones and sell them separately--that big one should fetch a sweet price. The gold foundation of it wouldn't be a problem--any jeweler with half a brain would melt it down for re-use. He could save the chain for lean times--

Abruptly, one of the stones exploded with blinding light. Loret winced and turned his face away. It must have caught the sun. He moved his hands to alleviate the brightness, but the stone continued to glow, so brightly it hurt his eyes.

Loret stared at it, completely baffled. He shaded it with one hand. It still glowed. And now it was--getting hot?

With a yelp, he flung it away from himself. The chain jingled musically as the amulet bounced across the floor, settling to rest three inches from the cat's black-speckled nose. The cat's bi-color eyes opened slowly, and she reached out one curious paw to bat at the still-glowing stone.

"Don't touch that!" Loret almost shouted.

The cat turned her head to look at him, curious and a little scornful. The light was slowly dying, and in a moment it was gone. Loret felt like an idiot.

It must have been the sun after all.

"What are you looking at?" he demanded of the cat.

"Mieh?"

"Shut up."

"Mrow."

Loret got up and went to retrieve the amulet. The moment he picked it up, though, it started again, brighter and hotter then before.

Suddenly angry, he hurled it at the far wall. It bounced off the stone and hurtled through the hole in the floor. After a moment, there was a soggy thump as it landed in the mud.

Cautiously, Loret leaned over the edge. In the darkness of the tower, the faint, fading blue light was like a beacon. He scooted back, scowling.

The cat sat up, her front feet neatly together and her tail curled around them. "Rur," she announced.

"What do you know?" Loret said scornfully, but he was starting to wonder about those loons, and just what they did want with that crazy little ghost, Armeth. What kind of people would have a spooky thing like this?

Swearing under his breath the entire way, he climbed down the ladder to retrieve the damn thing from its muddy resting place.

"Meh?" the cat asked curiously as he returned, wiping the grime off the jewels with the ragged bottom edge of his tunic. The same damn stone was at it again.

"Shut up," he snarled, dropping the amulet into one of the crates. He was going back and getting the whole story before he even starting looking for that kid. He wasn't gonna get mixed up in anything that would bring the spirit world down on his damn head. "And that's why," he said fiercely.

"Ehr."

"No other reason!"

The cat, with typically feline disdain, began to wash herself.

Chapter Fourteen Part One

Elayza's eyes were very sharp. "Where's Armeth?" she asked the moment they walked in the door. "And where's the Amulet?"

Kylara laughed. "Should you tell her, or should I?" she asked Durnan.

Durnan told his sister all about their unsuccessful hunt for Armeth, and then about Loret. Kylara poked around the kitchen, hunting for lunch, and occasionally throwing in comments.

Elayza was as unimpressed as her brother had been. "He sounds like a selfish little brat," she said, frowning. "Are you sure--"

Kylara would have thrown up her hands if they hadn't been full of bread and cheese. "Look, I'm the Seeker, all right? Trust me a little on this. Just because he's kind of self-centered doesn't mean he won't be a good Guardian. Where's Mistress Thulla?"

"She was called out to attend to a birthing."

"Oh, boy," Kylara said, setting the food on the table and going for plates. "Those can take all day and all night. You didn't want to go?"

Elayza's eyes flickered away. "I--have too little experience with birthing."

"So? All the better--a chance to learn."

"I would only be in the way."

"In the way? You're the Healer."

"Kylara," Durnan said, a note of steely rebuke in his soft voice.

Kylara narrowed her eyes at him. Sooner or later, she was going to have to get to the bottom of Elayza's strange ambivalency towards her role in the Guardians. Sooner would probably be better then later. She was just going to have to figure out how to get around Durnan first. He wasn't helping, damn his stolid immovable hide.

They were just putting the dishes in the wash pot when someone started hammering on the door. "Mistress Thulla! Mistress Thulla!"

They exchanged startled glances, and then Kylara went to answer the door. "Oh gods!"

There was blood spattered over the white face of the man who stood outside, and even more on the tiny, broken body he held in his arms. "Please," he gasped. "Mezo--the Regent's Guard--horse--Mistress Thulla--"

Oh gods-- She hated it when this happened. She felt so helpless, telling some frantic parent or relative that the healer wasn't here and she didn't know where she was--

A hand took hold of Kylara's arm, shoving her briskly aside. "Bring him in--put him on the table." The voice, equally brisk, was Elayza's. "Durnan, go get me some water. Kylara, do you know where Mistress Thulla keeps her stores of gut and bandages?"

"Y-yes--"

"Go get me as many of each as you can find, and a needle." When she didn't move, Elayza snapped, "Now! Go!"

She went.

When she came back, her arms piled high with bandages and catgut, and holding carefully onto one precious steel needle, Kylara saw that Elayza had lit several lamps and placed them around the table for better light. With a healer's natural disregard for such trifling matters as modesty, she'd cut the little boy's clothing away and it lay in tatters around him. Kylara could see the true extent of the injuries now, and she thought she might be sick.

She almost was sick when Elayza drafted her to hold bandages in place to slow the bleeding as she worked on the worst of the open wounds. The boy was so battered, gashes and bruises and broken bones in every possible place. What had happened?

And how could Elayza be so damn calm about it?

Then Kylara snuck a look at the other woman's face. It was white, her lips set, her eyes focused. Her thoughts were moving briskly along, sorting out options and possibilities. Under that, fiercely suppressed, was the horror.

A true healer, Elayza would not allow herself to feel that horror until her patient was safely out of danger--or until he was beyond her help.

You are a healer, Elayza. I don't understand why you resist it.

Elayza looked up sharply, and Kylara blinked. In order not to distract the other woman, she had thought that very quietly, and she was almost sure that Elayza hadn't heard it. But Elayza was examining her face, narrow-eyed. "Durnan," she called over her shoulder, and her brother came to her side. "Why don't you take Kylara's place?" Then she said to Kylara, "You go sit with the father--keep him out of my hair."

Gratefully, Kylara surrendered her place to Durnan and took the stunned, weeping father outside. She sat with him on the fountain in the middle of the square until he was ready to talk, and then she said, "What happened?"

He was looking at his hands numbly, as if they weren't really his. "Mezo--was playing," he said slowly. "In the street--I told him to come in--"

Kylara remained silent, letting him speak at his own halting, stumbling pace.

"And the Regent's Guard came galloping down the street--he didn't get out of the way in time--" His face twisted. "They ran right over him, and didn't even pause to see if he was all right." He began to weep again. "He's all I've got--my wife just died--he's all I've got. They didn't even look--damn them--"

Kylara knew better then to mouth platitudes or comforting nonsense. Something told her it wouldn't have succeeded. She sat with him hours as the afternoon deepened into evening. Every so often, she would dip into Elayza's or Durnan's thoughts, but they told her very little, concentrating as they were on specific injuries.

Evening was dissolving into night when the father stirred. "It's been so long--what's happening?"

She thought of asking Durnan or Elayza mentally, but she didn't want to distract them from their task if Elayza was at a delicate stage. "I'll go and look. Stay here." She didn't think he could have handled seeing his son if--

She crossed the square and slipped in the door as quietly as possible. The flames of the lamps were flickering wildly, casting patterns of light and shadow over the myriad bandages and splints that covered the tiny body on the table. Elayza wasn't leaning over it, however. Instead, she was standing a little ways away, arguing with her brother in harsh whispers.

"Durnan, why are you asking me to do this? You know how I feel--"

"But if you don't, he'll die 'Layza."

"What's going on?" Kylara asked.

Elayza looked up. Her face was pale, her eyes red-rimmed and deeply shadowed. She looked as if she'd been through three kinds of hell. "He's not going to make it, Kylara."

Durnan said, "He would, if you would just--"

"No, Durnan! I've told you and told you, I can't!"

"You won't."

"It's the same thing."

"Wait--wait a minute. Durnan, are you saying that she--" and Kylara pointed to Elayza, "can save Mezo's life? But she won't?"

Durnan crossed his arms. It took Kylara a moment to recognize the emotion in his mind--it was a kind of ice-cold fury, more enraged then any of Kylara's flashfire temper spats had ever been. "Yes. That's exactly it."

Kylara swung on the other woman. "Why the hell not?"

"You don't understand--" Elayza tried to say.

Kylara said in a hard voice, "What I understand is that the man sitting out there is going to be told in a few minutes that his son--his only child--all he's got in the world--is dead, because you wouldn't save him. And you call yourself a healer?"

Elayza's eyes blazed. "All right," she said in a voice as hard as Kylara's. "All right." She stepped closer to the table and laid her right hand palm-down on the little chest. "Will you help me?" Her eyes dared Kylara to say no.

"Elayza," Durnan said sharply.

"Yes," Kylara said at the same time.

"Take hold of my hand," she said, holding out her left hand.

"Elayza--"

Kylara realized that this was not a matter of concocting a tisane or something that would pull the boy through--this was something deeper, something more mysterious--the gift that made Elayza the Healer Guardian rather then a mere physician such as you might find anywhere.

"You said you'd help." Elayza's voice was very cold.

Kylara looked quickly at the tiny, battered body on the table, and took Elayza's hand.

"Don't let go, whatever happens. You can't let go."

"Elayza!"

"I won't," Kylara said.

At first, it was as if nothing happened, but then--

Her fingers tingled. Then her arm. Then her shoulder. And then, it was as if her blood and her bones, and something more then either, were being drawn out of her body through her fingers. Kylara gasped aloud.

"Elayza!" Durnan shouted. "Dammit!"

"Stay away, Durnan, stay away!"

Kylara's stomach heaved, and cold sweat broke out on her skin, rolling down in chilly lines down her body. The room wavered, the colors reversing themselves in mad flickers, and the familiar lines and curves twisting out of shape. The only reality was Elayza's grasp, crushing her fingers. Her breath hitched, and hitched again. Her head spun madly, and then--

"That's enough, I think."

Elayza's fingers loosened and fell away, and then, as if it had been the only thing holding her upright, Kylara's knees buckled and she began to fall.

She fell onto, or into, something warm, something that surrounded her and held her up. Under her ear, there was a deep, fast thud, like the beat of a heart, and over that there were voices, richiocheting inside her spinning head.

"Dammit, Elayza! You didn't have to do that to her!"

"You wanted me to do it; I did it!"

"I would have given it to you, Elayza, you didn't have to take it from her!"

What happened? What did you do? Kylara tried to say, but her mouth couldn't quite remember how to open, and her tongue had forgotten how to bunch and flex to produce words from sound.

All in all, she was grateful when her world went black.

Chapter Fourteen Part Two

She didn’t wake up. That was too abrupt a word. She drifted into wakefulness, lazy as a molasses flow. She wasn’t aware of anything but her own consciousness, floating in the darkness behind her eyes.

She only became aware of the warmth against her back when it was removed. Her eyelids lifted slowly, curious. She saw only the wall, and it took several moments to work out that she had to roll over to see what the source of the missing warmth was.

Durnan was leaning over the low table by her bed, striking flint and tinder near the wick of the oil lamp. Finally, it took, and he braced his hands against the table top, letting his head droop. The flickering baby flame on the wick of the lamp illuminated his profile.

He looked tense, she thought, and tired. The corners of his mouth were tight, and there were worried lines in his forehead. His hair was ruffled and rumpled, and she realized that the light summer cover had been pushed aside. He’d been the warmth, sleeping at her back with his body curved into hers like a pair of spoons. Except, by the look of those under eye shadows, he hadn’t been doing much sleeping.

“Durnan?”

Her voice was as much as a surprise to him as it was to her--his head jerked up so fast she heard something crack. He didn’t appear to register it. “Kylara,” he said, going to his knees by her bed. “How are--how are you feeling?”

She thought about it. “A little weak. A little strange.”

He was searching her face with intent eyes. “Strange bad?”

“Strange strange.”

He touched her cheek, as if assuring himself she was real. His fingertips were as gentle as a breeze. “How weak?”

“Not bad--just as if I’ve been sick. But getting better.” She caught his hand. “What did she do? She did something.”

Durnan got to his feet, but didn’t extricate himself from her grip. “She’ll tell you in the morning. Go back to sleep.”

She scowled at him, but didn’t for once feel like arguing. “Why did you light the lamp?”

“To see how you looked,” he said. “Did it wake you?”

“I woke up when you got out of bed.”

He shifted, turning his face so that his hair shaded his eyes. “Go back to sleep.”

“Only if you come back to bed.” She didn’t know why she was so insistent on this, but she was. She’d liked his warmth, and wanted it back.

“Kylara--” For the first time since she’d known him, his voice was hoarse and less than steady. “I can’t.”

“Why not?”

He didn’t answer that out loud, but dull red spread over his cheekbones. She stared at him in surprise. She’d never known him to blush, either.

Then she read his mind, and she blushed too.

He found his voice first. “I--I’ll go sleep in the other room--you need your rest.”

She made a sudden decision. “No, I don’t.”

His eyes lifted to hers, asking a silent question.

Her idiotic blush persisted, but she knew what she wanted. “Blow out the lamp, Durnan.”

He blew out the lamp.

When she woke again, Durnan was gone. It wasn’t quite hot enough to melt lead yet, so she decided it must be early morning. She felt a little forlorn for a moment, but then, Don’t you dare get up, said a voice in her head.

Elayza?

I’m coming upstairs, and you’d better be flat on your back.

I am, I am!

Oh hell, she said a moment later, very deep in her mind, and scrabbled under the bed for her tunic. She was hauling it over her head when she heard the door in the outer room creak a little as it swung open, and after a few moments, the curtain divider swished aside. By that time, she was decent.

“Good,” said Elayza. “How do you feel?”

“Better then I did last night,” Kylara answered honestly. “What did you do?”

Elayza’s eyes flickered away from her. “You should eat something. Can you sit up?”

She tried it, warily. “Looks like.”

“Good.” Before Kylara could say another word, Elayza had disappeared into the other room. She was back momentarily with bread and a bowl of something. “Eat,” she commanded, putting the bread in Kylara’s lap.

Kylara obeyed. “How’s the kid?” she asked with her mouth full. “Mezo?”

Elayza busied herself with stirring the soup. “He’ll be fine. He needs lots of rest and good food, but I think he’ll pull through.”

Kylara nodded and swallowed. “Good.”

Elayza said after a moment, “I want to apologize. For last night.”

Kylara shrugged. “It’s all right.”

“No it’s not.” Elayza sighed. “Durnan was so mad, you know--I’ve never seen him that angry. I honestly thought for a moment that he was going to hit me.”

Kylara snorted. “Durnan would never--”

“He came close last night. I wouldn’t have blamed him, either. It was unforgivable. I was just so angry at you for pushing that I deliberately didn’t warn you what would happen.”

Kylara said, “What did happen?”

“Well, you fainted, and--”

“You know that’s not what I’m talking about. You said last night that he wasn’t going to make it. Then you did--something, and now he is. I’m figuring it was your Guardian’s gift, but what was it?”

Elayza set the bowl on the floor and rubbed her temples. “Gift,” she said bitterly. “You could call it that.”

Kylara said, “Explanation, please.”

Elayza’s voice was flat. “I took your life and gave it to him. That’s my gift. There, are you happy?”

“I--don’t really understand.” Kylara reached down for the bowl and started eating. It was something spicy with carrots and a little bit of beef, but she was more interested in listening to Elayza.

The other woman sighed again. “Everyone has a certain amount of--we’ll call it life energy. It renews itself through food and sleep and all those things. When you’re tired, or ill, or wounded, that life energy is consumed in keeping you going, because it requires more then if you’re healthy. When it drops below a certain point, your body simply can’t keep running, and--you die. What I do is to--” She struggled for words. “--siphon off one person’s energy and pour it into someone else.”

“How?”

“I don’t know! I’ve just--always been able to do it. It’s not automatic--it’s an act of will.” She rested her hands on her knees, palms up, and stared at them as if revolted and sickened by what they could do. “And I can’t give anyone my own life, either. It has to be from someone else.” Her right hand closed into a fist. “To give life--” she clenched her left hand “I have to take it.”

“But that’s incredible!” Kylara burst out. “You can pull someone back from the brink of death--you have! How can you possibly hate that?”

“I have to take someone else’s life to do it!” Elayza flashed. “I have to pull them that much closer to death in order to pull the first person back! I could kill someone doing that. What kind of a healer is that?”

Kylara gestured to herself. “You’re obviously careful enough that I could never see that happening--”

“But it has.”

“What?”

“I killed my mother.”

“Oh, come on. She died when you were born. It’s sad, but it happens. It happened to me, and I don’t blame myself--that would just be stupid. It wasn’t your fault.”

“No. I killed her. I remember it.”

“Elayza--”

“I remember it.”

Kylara fell silent.

Elayza’s voice was flat and dull. “I remember. I remember--” Her fist settled on her breast. “I remember my heartbeat--stuttering. Stumbling. I remember gasping for air and not getting it. I remember my life energy draining like sand through a sieve, scattering away. And then--I remember--my mother’s life energy. It was right there. I took it. I took all of it, until there was nothing left for her.”

Kylara reached out. “Elayza--”

Her exotic eyes were haunted when she looked up. “I am the Healer,” she said quietly. “And the first thing I did in life was to take life. Do you blame me for not wanting to repeat that crime?”

Kylara couldn’t even look at her. There was just no answer to that.

Elayza nodded, slowly. “I’ll take your bowl.”

Durnan was back--she could feel him. She couldn’t exactly explain why she could, but decided that their new physical closeness had sparked a concurrent mental one. She shut her book and went downstairs.

He was stirring the contents of a small pot, which Kylara could tell from here definitely wasn’t stew. But at her step, he looked up. His eyes warmed, and her heart warmed in response. He tapped the excess liquid off the spoon, laid it on the hearth, and came to her. “How are you?” he asked, putting his hands lightly at her waist.

He wasn’t just asking about her lowered life-energy, she knew. “Great,” she said, grinning at him and stepping closer. “Where’s Elayza?”

“Mistress Thulla took her to her favorite herb merchant’s.”

“Good.” She poked him lightly in the chest, a non-vocal scold. “You knew about her gift.”

There was a little pause. “Yes,” he said, reluctantly. There was resignation in his mind, a sort of, I should have known this was coming. Damn straight he should have.

“And you knew how she felt about it.”

“Yes.”

She backed out of his arms. “Why haven’t you--”

“I have tried,” he said, hearing the rest of her thought before she voiced it. “You don’t know how much I’ve tried to talk her around. She refuses to budge.”

“Gee, wonder where she gets that from.”

“She despises her gift,” he said patiently, wearily, “and absolutely refuses to use it. Nothing I can do has ever changed her mind.”

“Has she actually ever let someone die because she won’t do her life energy transfer?”

He hesitated a little. “No,” he admitted. His eyes darkened with remembered anger. “Last night was the closest to it. ‘Layza’s usually seen to it that she doesn’t have to make that choice.”

“She really knows what she’s doing, huh?”

Now his eyes filled with pride. “She really does.”

Kylara threw up her hands and started to pace. “Well, that’s just peachy under normal circumstances, but we’re going be facing a god. We need all the advantages we can get. Besides--” Kylara dropped into a handy chair and propped her chin on her hands. “I just have this feeling that she’s never going to be happy until she squares herself with this gift she has.”

Durnan sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Kylara, the problem is, my sister’s a healer through and through. Do you know what the first vow is that Usabata’s novitiates take?”

She looked up. “Isn’t it, ‘first do no harm’?”

“That’s it exactly. Some physicians and healers just mouth that, I know, but Elayza lives by it. It goes directly against her personal ethics to take life from someone, even if it’s to benefit someone else. If she could give her own life energy, she’d be doing it every day.”

“Probably the reason Usabata didn’t give the Healers that option,” Kylara noted dryly.

He smiled a little at that. “Probably. Talking isn’t going to work, or it would’ve by now. Saving lives with it won’t work--she’s done that before and she still hates it. I just don’t know.”

Kylara took out the icon she’d bought at Usabata’s temple the day before and looked at it. Strung on a sturdy leather string, it was a simple half-sphere of rose quartz, polished to a soft gleam. On the flat side, the temple artisans had etched a tiny bouquet of healing plants--poppy, valerian, pennyroyal, and a few others she didn’t recognize. They were all medicinal in the right quantities, but take too much and it would kill you. Like Elayza’s gift, she thought, setting it on the table in front of her. But healers still use them. Because the benefits outweigh the risks, especially when they’re in skilled hands.

She put her chin in her hands again. “This isn’t going to be easy.”

Durnan didn’t need to answer that.

She turned her head to look at him. “Sit down; we’re going to have a visitor in a moment.”

He barely had time to raise his eyebrows before the door shook under a barrage of hard knocks.

Kylara picked up the icon and settled back in her chair facing the door. “And now for our Wily One.”

Chapter Fourteen Part Three

“Come in, Loret.”

There was a little pause, the sort that might be made by someone staring at a door and thinking, How did she do that?

Kylara twiddled Elayza’s icon in her fingers as she waited. “No butlers around here,” she called out after a moment. “You’re gonna have to do it yourself.”

Reluctantly, the handle turned and Loret pushed open the door. He glanced at the window to his left, which afforded a limited view of the street, and his face relaxed a little.

“Come on in,” Kylara said again. “So you--ah--found my amulet.”

Briefly, Loret wore the expression of someone who has just realized he approached the house from the right. Then he rallied and pulled the amulet out of his pocket. “Yeah. You oughta be more careful with this thing, ya know.”

Internally admiring his talent at brazening it out, Kylara held out her hand. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

He made no move to drop it in her open palm. “What is it?” he said instead.

Kylara thought about keeping her hand out, but it would make her look really silly after awhile, and that was the last thing she needed when dealing with the Wily One. “Just an amulet,” she said, weaving the leather string of Elayza’s icon through her fingers. “Just a piece of jewelry. Nothing special.”

“Don’t give me that.” He opened his palm. One of the stones was glowing brightly. “That,” he said, jabbing a finger at it, “ain’t just an amulet. Look, I grew up in Godstown, right? I know what happens when you start messin’ around with magic--the gods get really pissed. I don’t need that, okay? I’m just somebody trying to make a living. I don’t need the gods to be pissed at me.”

There was a point to this, and Kylara got to it. “How much?”

Without invitation, Loret took a chair and turned it around so he could straddle it backwards. “The story first, and then we’ll talk about my fee.”

Kylara quirked her brow, but let it pass. “How much do you know about the kings?”

“What kings?”

“Of Surania.”

Loret gave a one-shouldered shrug. “They’re dead. What do I need to know about them for?”

Kylara nodded. “Settle down, kid, you’re in for a story.”

Loret’s eyes narrowed. “So you’re saying--this ‘dark god’ has come back.”

“Yes,” said the block of stone, one of his few words throughout the narrative.

“And--you’re the ones who are supposed to defeat him. Or restrain him. Or send him away.”

“Us two, and five others,” said the woman. Kylara, that was her name. “Yes.”

“O-kay,” he said slowly, humoring them. They sure did look like they believed it--but they said that was the mark of a really crazy person; they believed their own delusions. And these two were absolute loons.

But they were loons with money, so what did he care?

“And you think that little ghost is one of you?”

“Yes,” said the block. Durnan.

“The Seer,” Kylara put in.

“All right. And--what does the amulet have to do with all this?”

Kylara smiled, slowly. It looked like the kind of smile that pesky cat would give a mouse. “When the Amulet--” he could hear the capital A--what was the deal with this? “--comes in contact with a Guardian,” she said, “one of the stones--just one--lights up and glows.”

Involuntarily, Loret looked down at the amulet, still in his hand. The same stone still throbbed red.

He dropped it in horror, and it clattered to the floor. Kylara leaned down and scooped it up. The first stone’s glow was fading, but another one was already lighting.

Shit.

“No.”

“No what?” Kylara said mildly.

He gave a derisive laugh that almost sounded genuine. “No. Nuh-uh. You’re not sucking me into this.”

Her eyes stayed steady on his, unnerving. He hated himself for jerking his eyes away first, but hated it more that they collided with Durnan’s, just as steady, just as unnerving.

Loons, he chanted desperately to himself. Pair of crazy loons.

He pulled out the five noskits she’d given him the day before and tossed them on the table. They landed with a clatter, one spinning slightly away from the others before it rattled to rest. It hurt, but five noskits wasn’t worth this. “There’s your money back,” he said, backing away. “I’m out.” He turned and ran for the door.

He was just swinging it open when Kylara’s voice rang out, scornful. “Loret the Fox. What a joke. Loret the Mouse, more like.”

He stopped dead, half in and half out of the door. “I’m not falling for that,” he said. “You’re just trying to get to me.” It had worked, though. His pride was sorely pricked.

“So who would you recommend? Who could possibly find one little boy that everyone knows? Hm?”

His mouth did the thinking. “Like I told you yesterday, there’s nobody that can find him if he doesn’t want to be found.”

“Not even you, I guess.”

Loret spun. “I can find anybody.”

“Would you care to make a bet?”

His eyes narrowed. “What kind of bet?”

She pushed the coins he’d tossed on the table slightly towards him. “We’ll meet you in the temple of Ricate at--” she tilted her head. “Noon, tomorrow, we’ll make it. If you can bring Armeth with you, willingly, we’ll pay you twenty noskits--twice the original fee.”

“And--?”

“And we’ll never say another thing about you being a Guardian.”

Loret’s eyes narrowed, trying to find the trick. There was always a trick. “And if, by some incredible bad luck, I don’t find him?”

Her cat smile returned. “If you can’t find him, you’ll agree to join us. And keep looking.”

Loret’s mouth worked. Twenty noskits--his fingers itched. But that little kid was awfully elusive . . .

But he was Loret the Fox. He could steal anything--he could con anyone--and he could find anything. It would be worth busting his ass to have them and their crazy ideas of him being some sort of hero off his back.

“Thirty and it’s a deal.”

“Done.”

He came forward and took the five noskits back. “Noon.”

Her eyes were too knowing. “Noon.”

When the door closed behind him, Kylara let out a breath. “Well. That was nerve-wracking.”

“Thirty noskits,” Durnan murmured, shaking his head.

“Money well spent, if he can bring us Armeth,” Kylara said firmly. “Besides, it wasn’t the money. He was testing me.”

“What will you do if he does find Armeth before noon tomorrow?”

“Actually, I think he will. I’ve pricked his pride and offered him an incredible amount of money.” She echoed the red-headed boy’s words. “And if by some incredible bad luck he doesn’t--well, that works out just fine for us, doesn’t it?”

Durnan’s eyes were full of doubt.

“Don’t forget, I only said we’d never talk about it again. I didn’t say we wouldn’t do anything else.” She tossed Elayza’s icon in the air and caught it as it came down. “We’ve planted the thought in his head. He’s not as sure as he seems. All we have to do is wait.”

Chapter Fifteen Part One

From the house of the loons, Loret went directly to his favorite pub. The food wasn’t particularly good, the ale was a few steps below horse piss, and the place in general was pretty seedy. But everyone in Godstown who wasn’t a priest--and a few who were--eventually ended up here, which made it perfect for Loret’s purposes.

He didn’t ask around right away--to do that would have betrayed his anxiety, and to do that was to invite fees for the information. He knew how the game worked--he’d played it himself too many times not to.

Instead, he sat at the bar, drinking absently and listening to the gossip of Godstown.

The supposedly ever-virgin priestess of Argolit was pregnant, and bets were on her chief priest. The small temple of Hagra was going to help out, probably. There was only one thing the temple of Usabata didn’t do, and that was it.

The new novitiate at the small temple of Usabata was reputedly the chief priest’s nephew, which explained his complete and total lack of medical talent.

The eternal flame in the house of Fate had gone out twice in the past week, which was a really bad omen. Of course, everything that happened at the house of Fate was a bad omen. Fate, or at least Her servants--Fate had no priests or priestesses, only servants--didn’t seem to go in much for good omens. But this was a worse omen then most. Loret privately decided someone had forgotten to refill the oil bin.

It was while he was playing darts with Gammer Johas that he asked casually, “You seen that little crazy kid around?”

Gammer was hard of thinking, and the question, with its attendant mental demands, made him misjudge his throw. Loret, marking the points, looked at the total with satisfaction.

Gammer said, “What crazy little kid?”

“The one who hears voices. You know him.”

Gammer rubbed his thick neck. “Dunno.”

There were drawbacks to dealing with Gammer, but he was honest--mostly because it took too much imagination to be anything else--and good-natured, and in his own plodding way, as observant as an alchemist. And he usually didn’t want much more then a drink for his information.

“The one who had a fit in the fountain square last summer,” Loret said patiently, taking his throw. It hit the third ring out, and he frowned. “You remember,” he went on. “I won three noskits off Yedder Skurs because it took ten minutes for him to pass out.”

Gammer’s face brightened. “Oh. Yeah. Doesn’t he hang around the little temple of Gzigas sometimes?”

“The dump with the old priest?”

He had to pause for several minutes to calculate his next throw. It stuck in the wall three feet away from the board, quivering slightly. Just below it, a lucky drinker cautiously raised his head.

“Yeah,” Gammer said as if Loret had just spoken.

“I walked by there on my way and didn’t see him.” Loret’s throw hit the second ring.

“Oh.” There was a brief pause. Gammer took his throw, and hit the windowsill. “Well.” Loret could almost see the steam coming out of Gammer’s ears as his sluggish brain worked. “He picks through the garbage at the docks,” he volunteered. “I seen him.”

Thin, but it was better then nothing. “Thanks, Gammer,” Loret said, and picked up his last dart.

Gammer had a brief moment of genius. “Why d’you want to know?”

Loret thought fast. “He owes me money.”

“Oh.” Gammer accepted this without a blink. Loret lent out money freely, and took it back somewhat less so. His rates of interest had been known to double the amount owed to him, and that was if the lendee was lucky.

Loret smiled at the dartboard. “Bull’s-eye.”

Gammer sighed.

“D’you want to take your last throw?” Loret offered generously. “And then I’ll buy you a drink.”

“Sure,” said Gammer morosely, and threw.

Winding around tables on his way to collect his darts, Loret said, “Ale?”

“All right,” Gammer said, plucking his darts from wall, ceiling, floor, table, and one really unlucky patron who should have known better then to sit within six feet of the dartboard when Gammer was playing.

“Only maybe you’d better get the dart from outside first.”

With Gammer’s money jingling in his pocket--of course they’d been playing for money; otherwise what was the point? but in deference to the unequal nature of the contest, it hadn’t been much--Loret strolled down to the docks. He loved the docks. There was so much to see, so much to do, so much to hear--and so much to steal.

The smell of the docks was a sinus-clearing combination of salt, tar, fish, sailors, and the streetwalkers who knew what six months at sea could do to a lonely man. The noises were a mishmash of sailors’ shouts and conversations in many languages, and under that, the creaking of sails, and the soft, perpetual slap-slap-slap of waves against the wooden dock support. The sights were myriad--merchants from all over the island countries overseeing sailors tanned to the color of mahogany unloading crates and crates of exotic merchandise.

He loved the docks.

He came down here pretty often, and had seen that little ghost every so often. He frowned. What was his name? Armut? Armeth. It was Armeth. Not that it would matter right up until the moment he actually had to talk to the kid.

Today, the docks were more subdued then usual. There wasn’t a breath of wind in the place, and how could you get anywhere without wind? Loret could feel the tempers strung as taut as bow strings, both on the sailors and the captains. He shook his head. They needed wind. They needed a break in the weather. Hell, they needed rain.

As he dodged a mob of shouting men, surrounding a fight that he was tempted to stop and see, he saw Shatz the beggar, crouched in a doorway. Like Gammer, Shatz was a reliable source of information. Unlike Gammer, Shatz was actually bright enough to charge for it. But not much.

He detoured, leaving the fight behind a little regretfully. “Hey, Shatz. What’s the word?”

Shatz spat in the dust. “Hasn’t been a breath of wind all day,” he grumbled. “Becalmed.”

“That’s not news,” Loret said. “The entire city’s like a cook pot--has been for days. C’mon now, what’s happening around here?”

“Isn’t natural,” Shatz grumbled.

Loret gritted his teeth. Sometimes Shatz got like this, and getting information from him was torture at best. “Right. See you.”

“--isn’t natural,” Shatz was repeating as he walked away. “Fate’s flame gone out--no rain, no wind--the mad boy is getting worse--”

Loret paused and backtracked. “The mad boy’s getting worse?”

“Mad little Armeth,” Shatz nodded. “Getting worse.”

Armeth. Perfect. “How do you know?”

Shatz emerged for a moment from his superstitious grumbling, peering up at him. “Why d’you want t’know?”

“I’m looking for him. Have you seen him today?”

“Maybe.”

Loret knew a cue when he heard one, and held up a single copper quarter-noskit, just out of Shatz’s reach. “Where did you see him? And when?”

Shatz gazed narrow-eyed at the coin. “He was heading for the alley back behind the Three Bo’suns.”

“And when?”

Shatz was silent.

Loret held up another coin.

“Half an hour ago.” Shatz reached for the coins. Loret held them out of his reach.

“Where’s his hidey hole?”

“Dunno.”

Loret gave him the coins. Shatz would never lie, not if he thought the truth would get him more money. “See you, Shatz.”

“Dark eyes off you,” Shatz said absently, biting his coins.

Loret felt a little chill flicker down his spine, and shook it off irritably. It was just a farewell, he told himself. He’d heard it, from Shatz and others, a million times.

The hair at the nape of his neck stood at attention.

The Three Bo’suns was a sailor’s dive, its customers interested in three things--drink, women, and real food. In that order. The garbage pile behind it was rich, and Armeth crouched at the edge of it, picking through and occasionally putting something in his mouth. Against the darkness of his tangled hair and the grime of his face, a bandage gleamed white. Loret wondered about that for a moment, then put it away as Armeth went very still.

“It’s all right,” he said.

Armeth’s head turned slowly, his spooky eyes fastened on Loret’s face. He held a stale chunk of bread.

“I’m not going to hurt you.”

The boy spoke, his voice a whisper, as if his frail body couldn’t support more. “I know who you are.”

“Do you?” Loret kept his distance. The kid would cut and run if he came closer.

“You’re the wily one. The Fox. Loret.”

Wily. Yeah. Wily was a good word. He liked wily. “And you’re Armeth,” he said.

Armeth ducked his head and started picking through the garbage again.

Loret risked coming closer. “You know,” he said, “you don’t have to eat this.”

Armeth’s hand paused. By his thumb, something squirmed.

“Someone sent me to find you.”

Armeth stiffened.

“It’s nobody bad,” Loret said. He didn’t know one way or the other whether they were bad or not, nor did he care. They probably wouldn’t be bad to Armeth. “I promise. No perverts. They just wanted me to find you. They told me to go find Armeth.”

He could see Armeth turning the unaccustomed idea over and over in his head. The notion of being wanted, himself, was something he probably hadn’t encountered before. He was more used to not being wanted.

Loret edged closer and crouched, a foot away from the edge of the garbage heap. He said softly, “They’ve got a place you can go. They eat good. They eat real good.” The smells in that kitchen had gotten to him, too. “They’d let you sleep there too.”

“Why?”

That was a poser. He hadn’t expected Armeth to ask this. He didn’t feel up to explaining the whole mess about dark gods and Guardians and kings, especially when he didn’t half-believe it himself. “I dunno,” he lied. “You can ask them.”

Armeth scooted away and started picking through another section of the heap. “They won’t like me when the demons come,” he said.

Demons. Demons. The word hung in the air, and Loret suddenly saw his way in.

“You know,” he said softly, “they talk to the gods. Maybe they could take your demons away.”

For a moment, when Armeth looked up, he wished he hadn’t. The naked hope in those spooky eyes was like a flame, searing straight down into some withered portion of Loret’s mottled soul.

Armeth’s voice was a mere breath. How Loret heard it, he never knew. “They could?”

He swallowed, and thought ferociously about twenty noskits, and the promise of being left alone. “Yeah.”

Chapter Fifteen Part Two

This time, Elayza absolutely insisted on going with them to Godstown, in order to meet both Loret and Armeth. She had not been happy about missing Loret’s earlier visit, and was determined not to miss this encounter.

Durnan was looking very dark, but Kylara said, “Don’t worry about it,” and he actually subsided. Elayza nearly swallowed her tongue.

As they wended through the Merchant’s Quarter to Godstown, Elayza snuck looks at her brother and Kylara, and every time she did, her stomach jumped a little.

She wasn’t naive--she knew her brother had had lovers before. It wasn’t the kind of thing you could keep secret for long in the tightly packed and webbed world of the slave quarters. But Durnan’s previous lovers had never been anything like Kylara, who was--who was--

What was she? It was impossible to describe her, except to say that she was the kind of person who could fill a room with her presence--brilliant, energetic, reckless, hot-tempered, quick to laugh, acid-tongued, iron-willed, casually affectionate . . . the list went on and on. One thing she was not was Durnan’s obvious choice.

However, Elayza knew, by the way her brother looked at her, touched her, listened to her, and spoke to her that Kylara was not simply another lover. She would be his last. His only. And that was what was causing Elayza’s unsettlement.

For twelve years, she had known, like you knew the sun would come up in the morning, that she was the first person in her brother’s heart. And now, in the same way, she knew she wasn’t.

She wasn’t jealous. She hoped she wasn’t that small. But it was leaving her feeling strangely forlorn--bereft, even.

They paused to make way for a wedding procession. It was a rich one. The petals that the slave girls were scattering had been imported from the mainland, and the bride and groom’s long white tunics were of shimmering silk, shot with gold. The arch that two more slave girls carried over their head wasn’t wound about with the traditional live flowers, but fake ones cunningly worked in gold.

Kylara, her hands in her pockets, made a face. “Showy enough,” she said to Elayza.

Elayza stifled a laugh. It was awfully showy.

“My aunt,” Kylara said, “really really wants me to get married. I think this is why, so she can show off with a wedding procession.”

Elayza looked at the bride and groom, stalking haughtily past in their silk tunics and glittering jewelry. “You mean you don’t want one like this?” she teased, feeling very daring.

Kylara snorted with laughter. “Hell no.”

Durnan was watching with his head tilted to one side. “Slave marriages are much more quiet then this,” he commented in reply to Kylara.

She looked at him. “I thought slaves couldn’t get married.”

“Not in the eyes of the law,” Durnan told her. “But there’s an unofficial marriage tradition among slaves.”

“Some of the masters recognize it,” Elayza put in. “The bride and groom both have to buy or make an icon to any god, and they trade them in front of at least one witness. After that, they’re considered to be married.”

Kylara looked back at the wedding procession. The bride and groom had passed, and now the parents were going by. Like their children, they were dressed in silk--red for the groom’s parents, and black for the bride’s, because they were losing their daughter. Tradition said that she was dead to them from that moment on, but tradition didn’t have much to do with reality.

“It sounds terribly simple,” she said. “But--slaves don’t get that much money, do they? Or much time of their own to make something. So it’s really more meaningful then it sounds. More of a sacrifice--that’s not the right word.”

“Commitment,” Durnan said quietly.

“Commitment,” Kylara echoed. “Yeah.” She chewed on her lip. “You said some masters recognize it?”

“A few,” he said. “They’ll respect the marriage enough not to sell them away from each other, or their children.”

“What about the ones who don’t?”

“The slaves do it anyway.”

“But why? When they could be sold away from each other, and the law doesn’t recognize it, what’s the point?”

“But they know. There’s some part of them that will never belong to any master, but only to each other. The ceremony is not for the world, it’s for themselves.”

The tail end of the procession, with young slave boys throwing armfuls of the little luck-cakes, was passing them now. One of the sugary cakes arched towards them, and Kylara caught it before it hit her in the face. She took an absent bite. “I think I understand,” she said slowly when she’d swallowed. “It’s just--different then what I’m used to. People will always find some way to be together, I guess.”

With the procession past, the crowd surged back into the street, and they started moving again. “And for the gods to bless it,” Elayza said.

The corners of Kylara’s mouth quirked up. “That too.”

It was a few minutes past noon, and the little ghost was getting restless. Loret, leaning in the blessed shade of a pillar, kept a sharp eye on him. He was standing a little ways away, half-hidden by another pillar. Loret shook his head. What was it about that kid and hiding?

Loret’s fear of the kid slipping away had won out over his innate sense of privacy the night before, and he’d taken the kid to his tower. He hadn’t spoken, except when Loret asked him a direct question, and he’d looked surprised when Loret passed him half a loaf of bread and a chunk of dried meat. It had all disappeared, but Loret wasn’t sure Armeth had eaten it.

Loret wasn’t sure the kid had slept either. When he, Loret, had fallen asleep, Armeth had been sitting at the edge of the floor, staring down into the darkness. In the morning, he’d still been there.

He was going to be relieved when the kid was gone. Something about Armeth hooked sneaky little claws into some part of him that Loret thought he’d tucked away forever.

Where were they?

Armeth shifted, and Loret said, “They’ll be here. Soon. Promise.”

As if his meaningless pledge had summoned them, he saw Kylara’s blond head in the crowd, and a moment later, it turned and her eyes landed on him, sharp as a knife. In spite of himself, he swallowed.

“See?” he managed. “There they are. What’d I tell you?”

Armeth drew in a soft breath and, strangely, drew further back into the shadow of his pillar.

Kylara was working her way through the crowd towards them, unstoppable as a tidal wave. Durnan and some dark-haired girl Loret had never seen before trailed in her wake.

“Well, here he is,” Loret said loudly as she stopped before them. “Told you I could find anyone.”

Kylara didn’t even look at him. All her focus was for Armeth. “Hello, Armeth,” she said softly.

He didn’t answer, but his eyes were wide and solemn.

“I’m Kylara,” she said. “This is Durnan--and this is Elayza. Did Loret tell you why we were looking for you?”

Armeth said something very softly, and she leaned closer. “What was that?”

“Loret said you could take away my demons.”

She paused and looked quickly at Durnan. He stepped forward and knelt so he was at Armeth’s level. “What are your demons, Armeth?”

Armeth’s breath came quickly. “They show me things and they tell me things--and they want me to do things--and I hate them. I hate them! I want them to go away! Loret said you could take them away!”

“Oh gods,” Kylara breathed.

Durnan said very gently, “Armeth, those aren’t demons. Those are visions--and they’re why we need you to come be with us. You can see things that--”

Armeth’s face twisted, and he jerked. “You’re not going to take them away, are you?”

“We can’t. But even if we could, we wouldn’t, because we need them and we need--”

“You lied to me,” Armeth cried out at Loret. “You lied!”

“Armeth--” he stumbled. “I didn’t know--”

“I hate you!”

When Durnan’s hand lifted to touch his arm, Armeth jerked away a second time, then ducked his head and dove into the crowd. He was lost to sight within heartbeats.

Kylara started to dive after him, but Durnan sprang to his feet and caught her hand. “Kylara, don’t! You’re only going to frighten him!”

She struggled for a moment, then abruptly sagged, rested her forehead against his shoulder. “I know. But--godsdammit! We were so close!”

“I know,” he said softly, putting his arms around her waist.

Loret felt a little funny, watching their obvious ease with each other, and apparently so did the dark-haired girl, Elayza, because she turned on Loret. “Why did you tell him that?” she hissed. “What ever made you think that we could take his demons away?”

Guilt was wallowing in the pit of his stomach, and as always when he felt guilty, he went on the defensive. “Look, I didn’t know, okay? I was just trying to get him here. And I never promised him nothin’. I just said maybe.”

“That does us a lot of good,” Durnan said coldly.

“Stop it,” Kylara said.

“I’m sorry he did a runner,” Loret snapped, “but I delivered, all right? Now you gotta hold up your end of the bargain. Twenty noskits, and you never bother me again.”

“You never delivered anything--” Durnan started, but Kylara slapped him on the chest.

“Yes, he did. The bet was only that he’d bring Armeth to this temple at this time, not that we’d be able to keep him.” She held Durnan’s gaze until the man closed his mouth and looked away. Then she turned to Loret, reaching into the pouch at her hip and bringing out a small drawstring bag. “There it is. The rest of the money we promised you.”

He grabbed it and clutched it to his chest. Durnan was looking as if he wouldn’t mind taking it back. “Okay,” he said, backing away. “That’s it then.”

“Loret,” she called out just as he turned away.

He turned back, his eyes narrowing in suspicion.

“I know you probably won’t believe me, but if you ever need anything, even just a bed for the night, you can come to us.”

“You said you weren’t going to bother me about that Guardian shit again!”

“I’m not trying to get you to join us--although I wouldn’t deny you if you wanted to. I’m just saying--if you need anything, we’ll help you out.”

“Why?”

“Because we take care of our own, even if they don’t want to be our own.”

Chapter Fifteen Part Three

It stuck in Loret’s head the entire day. We take care of our own. He tried to convince himself that it was just a line, and he wasn’t going to be sucked in, no way . . .

But there had been an edge of disconcerting sincerity to the words that kept echoing in his ears.

He sat in the Dragon, staring at his drink, for so long that the bartender snapped, “What, ain’t it good enough for ya?”

“Huh?” Loret blinked and looked at his drink, which he hadn’t really been seeing. “Oh. No. It’s fine. Just thinking.”

Mollified, the bartender started wiping glasses. “Isn’t that bad for you?”

“Probably.” Loret picked up his drink, drained it, and thunked the glass back on the bar. “Thanks.” He fumbled for money, and realized that all he had with him was the bag Kylara had given him.

“You’re loaded today,” the bartender commented as he sorted through the little bag, looking for something small enough to pay for his drink.

“Yeah,” Loret said absently. “Just got paid for a job. You got change?” he asked, giving up and setting a noskit coin on the bar.

“Yeah. Hard job?”

“Not really, but they thought so.”

“Not too hard for the Fox, huh?”

“Nothing’s too hard for the Fox.” He dropped the change back in the bag, pocketed it, and swung off the stool. “See you later.”

Hands shoved deep in his pockets, he went out onto the street.

We take care of our own.

Stop it!

In self-defense, he started working through all the things he needed to do. With this money, he could go buy food enough to last awhile, and maybe even some new clothes--he was growing out of his--and--

If he hadn’t been so determinedly distracted, he might have wondered just why the bartender was so interested in his windfall.

Armeth didn’t weep. He’d stopped weeping years ago. It wasn’t worth it.

Hope was an awful thing, he reflected bitterly, resting his chin on his drawn-up knees. It was nice while it lasted, but when it was dashed--

For the space of a night and part of a day, he’d actually thought the demons might go away. That he might be normal, and that he might be able to have a normal life.

He should have known better.

You’ll be crazy little Armeth your entire life, he thought, looking out at the street. The crowds passing by didn’t give him a second look. He was just another ragged beggar boy.

The worst part of it was that he’d wanted, terribly, to step into the little circle of three. Kylara, Durnan, and Elayza, who had looked at him with warm, kind eyes, even when they found about his demons. He could almost see the space, reserved for him, in their midst.

One for Loret too . . . and two more that weren’t filled yet . . .

He shut his eyes. Not now . . .

The circle is incomplete. The empty spaces must be filled--they MUST--all of you are needed if this is ever to succeed . . .

“Stop it,” he hissed, suddenly furious. “Go away.”

For the first time he remembered, the voices fled. He blinked in surprise, body tensed for another assault.

It didn’t come.

It didn’t come all that day, as he ate part of the food Loret had given him. It didn’t come that evening, as he crept around his usual spots, looking for one that wasn’t filled. He finally holed up in the shade of a warehouse, pressing his cheek to the welcome coolness of the cobbles. They’ve got a place you can go. . . . They eat real good. They’d let you sleep there too.

For once, the voice didn’t belong to one of his demons. Instead, it was Loret’s own, echoing cajolingly, painting for him a beautiful picture. He shook his head. Loret had lied.

Now it was Kylara’s voice. Did Loret tell you why we were looking for you?

He lied . . . he lied . . . he lied . . .

I hate you, he seethed. You lied to me--you made me think--I hate you! I hate you!

He saw again Loret’s freckled face, smiling encouragingly, speaking lies . . . He saw the rope around his neck.

His eyes were wide with terror, and it made him look younger then he was. His temples were shining with sweat in the sun, the freckles standing out against the dead white skin. In his throat, under the rope that collared his neck, a pulse was throbbing frantically. His clothes were streaked with dirt and torn worse then usual. His hands were tied behind his back, and his ankles were tied as well.

The hangman called out the traditional phrase: “Who speaks for this accused criminal? Let him come forth!”

Nobody stepped forward, and Loret closed his eyes.

The hangman pulled the lever, and the platform dropped out from under Loret’s feet. His downward plunge was yanked short by the rope around his neck, and the crowd roared.

The long, angular body swung like a doll’s. His neck had broken.

In death, the eyes slid half-open, their glassy emptiness focused right on Armeth.

His own harsh breathing roaring in his ears, Armeth stared out at the street, unseeing.

Of all people, he knew the difference between imagination and vision. Regardless of his anger towards Loret, he would never have wished that on him. But there was no way around it.

The Fox was going to die.

Chapter Sixteen Part One

Dinner was a silent affair. Elayza had quietly told Mistress Thulla what had happened, so she didn’t question them.

Durnan ate in fits and starts, more then once setting down the spoon entirely to stare into space. Finally, he stood and took his bowl to the slop bucket, scraping out more then half of it.

Kylara looked up, her brows drawing together. Durnan still didn’t eat as much as most people, but it had been days since he’d left that much food behind. And his mind was--she took a look--his mind was deeply troubled. “Durnan? What is it?”

He stood by the slop bucket for a moment, then shook his head and squatted to put the bowl in the basin on the hearth. “I don’t know,” he said finally, still crouching by the fire. The flickering light cast strange shadows on his face.

“Durnan, none of us are really happy about the way things turned out--” Elayza started.

“No, it’s not that, ‘Layza. It’s got nothing to do with today. I just feel as if--there’s something wrong.” Standing, he rubbed the back of his neck.

The unaccustomed gesture tipped Kylara off. “Durnan,” she said, rising and going to him, “is someone in danger?”

“Maybe,” he said slowly. “But--it’s all so fuzzy. If someone is, I don’t know who, and I don’t know where, and I don’t know how--”

“Okay--okay,” she soothed, rubbing his tense back. If she hadn’t been so concerned, the role reversal would have struck her as funny. “Well, it’s obviously not one of us, right?”

His eyes went unfocused as he probed the nature of the tickle at the back of his mind. “No,” he admitted. “No, it’s none of us. It’s usually more specific then this.”

“Could it be one of our two holdouts?”

“Maybe.” He dropped his hand. “I just don’t like this not knowing, Kylara.”

“I know.”

It bothered him all evening, like a constant itch, or a voice whispering in his ear. One of your own is in danger--one of your own needs you--

“Which one?” he bellowed out over the rooftops. “Which one?”

He was sitting on the roof, holding his head in his hands. Kylara had stayed up the longest with him, but he’d finally sent her to bed around midnight. He couldn’t have so much as dozed if he tried, but Kylara had been half asleep on his shoulder.

It was close to dawn now, the eastern horizon starting to be streaked with sunrise. And he was no closer to ferreting out the cause of his protective instinct’s going haywire then he had been at dinner.

As he had so many times over the course of the night, he began slowly sorting out his Guardians in his mind, trying to pinpoint which one of them could possibly be in so much danger.

Kylara . . .

Sleeping, a little restlessly, because he wasn’t there. He knew it without vanity--he missed having her by his side too. But there was no point in both of them losing sleep. His prickle was silent. She was safe.

Elayza . . .

Also sleeping, more deeply, but the easily-awoken sleep of the healer. And she was safe as well.

He took a deep breath and carefully formed the image of Armeth in his mind. He had a deep sympathy for the little boy, especially after this. No wonder the boy had grasped at any chance to lose his demons.

His danger sense prickled a little, but not enough to equal the hounding persistence of the entire evening. Armeth was in danger, true, but it was the diffuse, semi constant danger of a child alone on the streets, exposed to hunger, the elements, and the casual brutality of those stronger then him.

Which included Loret.

As it had every time before, anger rose in a dark red haze. Durnan hadn’t really liked Loret from the beginning. He was too sly, too self-preserving, too--well--wily. He hadn’t liked the deal Kylara had struck with the boy, but Kylara had convinced him that money was the only language that always spoke to the street thief. Then Loret had lied to Armeth to bring him to the temple of Ricate, and that, Durnan couldn’t forgive.

If not for Loret’s self-serving lie, Armeth would even now be safe and with them, instead of alone on the streets again.

Durnan shook his head hard. Railing at Loret wasn’t getting him anywhere.

He stared out over the city again, letting his mind empty and his breathing quiet. If he was going to be fair about this, he would admit that Loret couldn’t help being wily--it was bound up in the essence of him. It was both his personality and his role.

His role . . .

His role.

Durnan closed his eyes. The Seeker? he asked the prickle in his mind.

Safe.

The Healer?

Safe.

The Seer.

Less safe, but not in immediate danger.

The Wily One.

His eyes flew open, staring stunned and unseeing at the dawn. “Oh gods,” he breathed. “Oh gods.” The soft voice was now like a scream in his ear, the bleak, despairing cry of a boy facing death.

Kylara’s voice, soft and fuzzy with sleep, came into his mind. Durnan? What’s wrong? What is it?

Loret, he replied grimly, leaping for the edge of the roof and vaulting onto the next one over. Its Loret. He’s going to die if I can’t get to him.

Her mind was fully awake now. What? What the hell--

I’m going to Godstown. Wake Elayza up--he may need her too.

She didn’t ask any more questions. His desperation must have leached through the mental channel. He felt her attention turn away from him--she was going for Elayza.

Leaping and vaulting over the rooftops, he kept his own mind focused on Loret. Where was he? For a moment, he cursed his lack of a mental connection to anyone but Kylara, and then he realized that he was being stupid. Kylara? Can you hear him?

There was a pause as she searched. Nothing specific, but I think I feel the sense of him.

Where?

Another, longer pause. Godstown--

That doesn’t help.

Damn! No, not Godstown!

What? He paused on a corner roof.

Not quite, anyway. At the edge. At the--

Which edge?

Kylara went silent, and when she “spoke” again, her mind was full of fear. Durnan, he’s at the prison on Dashel Street.

The prison on Dashel Street had a large courtyard before it, and was used for the housing and punishment of criminals that the Regent’s Guard wanted to make an example of. Making an example usually involved beheading, drawing and quartering, or hanging, on the fifteenth of every month. It was a monthly holiday as crowds gathered to see infamous criminals meet their ends.

Kylara, what day is it?

It’s Deathday.

And Deathday started at dawn--with the most famous criminal in the bunch. Unless someone truly spectacular had been captured, they would start with the Fox.

He swung himself over the edge of the roof, making the downward climb as fast as the crumbling, pitted wall would allow. Kylara, they still offer mercy, don’t they?

Of course--it’s tradition. But--Durnan, nobody’s taken them up on it in years--it’s just a tradition--it’s--

It’s a chance, Durnan said, leaping the last five feet to the alley below. The shock of his landing reverberated up his legs, but he only took a moment to get his balance again before leaping into a run. It’s a chance.

He turned a corner too fast, skidding slightly on the stone cobbles. He had to slam a hand against the near wall to keep himself from falling, but he didn’t slow his pace. All he could hear now was his protective instinct, almost screaming in his head. He needs you--the Wily One needs you NOW--

They couldn’t lose the Wily One, even if they had to take Loret as well. There wasn’t time--there just wasn’t time--

I can’t fail you. I won’t. I won’t.

The streets began to fill with people, going to the prison on Dashel Street for the show. Durnan forced himself through them, for once not caring about the people he shoved aside. Loret was more important.

The bass boom of the great drum in the prison courtyard began, measuring out the last beats of the doomed men’s hearts. Overheard, the line where night faded into day moved west. His breath heaving in and out of his lungs, his muscles screaming, his eyes stinging from the sweat that dripped into them, Durnan sprinted on, racing the sun for a Guardian’s life.

He turned the corner onto Dashel Street, and heard the warden begin to reiterate Loret’s crime.

“On the thirteenth night of this month, this hardened criminal did willfully--”

Loret, standing on the platform with his hands tied behind his back and the rope already around his neck, bellowed, “I didn’t do it, willfully or unwillfully, you fat greasy bastard!”

Ordinarily, Loret’s mouthiness would have gotten on Durnan’s nerves, but as he elbowed and pushed through the dense crowd, he blessed it. Keep talking, Loret--anything to give me time to get to you--

The hangman turned and cuffed Loret hard across the back of the head. He was thrown forward, and then jerked back by the noose. He went white and coughed for breath as the warden continued speaking.

“--did willfully break into the home of one Lord Dackis Floresa, taking from him--”

“I didn’t take nothing!” Loret shouted, having gotten his breath back.

The crowd grew thicker the nearer Durnan got to the platform, and they weren’t too pleased about being pushed aside. Durnan’s progress was achingly slow.

“--taking from him diverse items of jewelry valued at over five thousand noskits.”

Loret’s shouting took on an edge of pure panic. “It wasn’t me!”

The warden’s voice was detached as he droned the traditional call for mercy. “Who will speak for this accused criminal? Let him come forth!” Almost before the last word had left his mouth, the hangman reached for the lever that would drop the trapdoor.

“I WILL!”

At the howled words, the hangman’s hand paused on the lever. Around Durnan, the crowd shifted away, staring at him. He took advantage of their amazement to get to the steps of the platform.

His feet made hollow thuds on the wooden steps as he mounted them. He was breathing hard, sweat dripping down his face, but he repeated, “I will stand for this boy.”

Loret stared at him, slack-jawed. His face was very white, and close to, Durnan could see that sweat shone at his temples too. He met his eyes, trying to communicate reassurance.

The warden had recovered a little. “What--what can you say for him?”

Durnan moved across the platform until he stood behind Loret, his feet on the same trapdoor. A fall from this height would injure him badly, even without a noose around his neck. “Your charge is incorrect,” he said. “He couldn’t possibly have robbed the house of Lord Floresa.”

“What is your proof?”

Durnan put his hands on Loret’s thin shoulders. They were trembling, just a little. “On the thirteenth night of this month, he stayed in my home the entire night. He couldn’t have left without my knowing.”

“Who are you to this criminal?”

“Loret is my ward.”

Under his hands, Loret’s shoulders jerked, but Durnan dug his fingers in, just a bit, and the boy was mercifully silent.

“He is accused of other crimes,” the warden said. There was a disbelieving edge to his voice, as if he thought he was dreaming.

“Are any of them as serious as the one I’ve disproved?”

“No.”

“Then I will punish him as I see fit.”

The hangman hesitated, looking at the prison warden.

Durnan’s voice rang out over the crowd, holding every one of them spellbound except for the two women pushing their way to the front. “Under the laws and traditions of the kingdom of Surania, you are obligated to release a minor criminal into the custody of a guardian, should one step forward. The boy is my ward, and I will take care of him.” He held the prison warden’s eyes until the other man looked away.

“It is tradition,” he said reluctantly. “It is law. Release him.”

The hangman, just as reluctantly, stepped forward and lifted the thick noose from around the thin neck. As the crowd roared, Durnan felt Loret crumple against him. The boy had passed out.

Chapter Sixteen Part Two

Durnan took him to Elayza, who said, “He’ll be fine with water and rest,” after a quick, efficient examination. “He probably hasn’t had any food or water for several hours.”

“Why waste it?” Durnan murmured grimly, shooting the prison warden a hard look.

“You need some help?” Kylara asked as Durnan hoisted the unconscious boy, limp as a rag doll, onto his back.

“I’ll be fine,” Durnan said, shifting his burden until he was sure Loret wouldn’t slide off. “Let’s go.”

As they worked their way back through the crowd, they got some stares and mutters, but the warden had started with the next criminal, and attention was focused on that.

They were almost clear of it when Kylara touched his mind. Durnan--Armeth is over there. By the post.

He turned his head and caught just a glimpse of the frail boy before he ducked behind another spectator.

“Why is he hiding?” Durnan murmured.

“He’s scared. Or stunned. I don’t know.”

“Why is he here?” Elayza whispered.

“I don’t know. I think he knows we saw him, but he doesn’t want to come out.”

“We need to get Loret home,” Elayza said. “We can find him later.”

“Yeah. And we’ll just scare him more if we go after him.”

As the little group walked away from the prison courtyard, Armeth huddled against the wall, his hand over his mouth. He hadn’t honestly wanted to come--having seen Loret’s death once, he didn’t really want to see it again. He’d been horribly drawn to it, however, and then--

As long as he lived, Armeth would never forget the moment Durnan’s voice had rung out, strong and sure. “I will stand for him.”

Always before, the demons had been right. He’d never seen one of the pictures they showed him proved false, and he’d hoped every time. As frightening as they were, they were also absolutely accurate.

But Durnan had stood there with his hands on Loret’s shoulders like a father or an older brother, and twisted fate out of shape with his words and his will. He had overcome the demons.

Who were they? And why did they want him?

Loret kept his eyes shut. He was in a bed--a cot, really. That meant a few different things. One, he wasn’t in his tower. Two, someone had put him there--he didn’t remember getting there himself. Three, he was definitely in someone else’s house.

“Stop pretending.”

The absently admonitory voice was familiar, although he’d only heard it once. Elayza--one of the loons. The one with the gold cat eyes. He opened his own.

He was in a little corner, curtained off with a swathe of rippling cotton material that the sun shone through. He was alone.

His brows drawing together, he sat up and pushed the white curtain aside. The rest of the room turned out to be the kitchen he’d stood in two days before, bargaining for his fee. Elayza sat at the table, working at something with a mortar and pestle. She looked over her shoulder. “That’s better. You’ve been awake for the past ten minutes.”

She couldn’t have seen him move behind that curtain, or heard his breathing change. “Lucky guess,” he said.

“You think that if you like.” She rose and brought him a mug half-full of some liquid. She smelled like ground herbs. “Drink slowly. Don’t gulp it or you’ll make yourself sick.”

He took a small sip. “It’s only water,” he groused.

“That’s the best thing for you right now.”

“I want ale.”

“No. Drink the water.” Her voice was absolutely no-nonsense, and he found himself lifting the mug to his lips again.

“Can I have ale after this?”

“No.”

He opened his mouth to argue, and she just looked at him. He said instead, “What am I doing here?”

“Because my brother brought you here.” He must have looked blank, because she added, “Durnan is my brother.”

“I knew that,” he lied. “How come I don’t remember getting here?”

“Because you passed out.”

He almost spilled the mug on himself. “I what?”

“You collapsed. You lost consciousness. You swooned.” She gave him a bright smile. “Coming clear yet?”

“Did not,” he said hotly. Swooned? He had not swooned, like some noblewoman overcome by the heat. Gods.

“Sorry, but you did. Durnan caught you halfway down.”

“I did not!” Gods, he hoped nobody’d seen that. His street credit would take a nosedive.

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Between dehydration, hunger, exhaustion, and extreme terror, I would have been surprised if you hadn’t passed out.”

This was not good for his ego. “I wasn’t scared.” He wondered, in passing, how she’d known about the hunger and the exhaustion. He had been desperately hungry and lacking in sleep when they’d led him up to the platform, but he’d never given it away. He had more pride then that.

“Then you’re very stupid. Drink your water.”

Loret saw red. “Hell if I will. What do you know about it?”

“Only a fool isn’t afraid of death.”

“I woulda gotten out of it.”

“Before or after your neck was broken?” It was Durnan, pushing open the front door with a dark look on his face.

Loret was spoiling for a fight, and he snarled, “I didn’t need your help.”

“Tell that to the hangman.”

“Stop it, both of you,” Kylara rapped out, closing the door behind her. “Of all the times to get in a pissing contest.”

“You didn’t find him?” Elayza asked.

“Couldn’t find hide nor hair, and we looked all over Godstown.”

“Who?” Loret asked without meaning to.

“Armeth,” Kylara said, rubbing her hands over her head. “Hey, is that water you’ve got in there?”

“It’s mine,” Loret said, and took a deep gulp. It hit his stomach like a lead weight, and for a moment, he thought he might puke it up again.

Elayza gave him an ironic look. “I told you to drink slowly.”

He swallowed hard and hoped he wasn’t turning green. “What makes you say that?”

“Probably because you’re turning green,” Kylara said, leaning on the wall next to his cot.

He glared at her. She was toying with her damn Amulet, tilting it this way and that to watch the stones sparkle. “You’ve got me right where you want me, don’t you?” he said belligerently.

She looked up. “How’s that?” In contrast to Elayza’s businesslike briskness or Durnan’s impatient scorn, her voice was mildly interested.

“You--” he jabbed a finger at Durnan, “--saved my life, and now you think I’m gonna give it back, right? Spend my whole damn life being this Guardian, this chump dedicated to the king and the gods and I don’t know what all. This is just what you were waiting for, wasn’t it? Why else would you do what you did? You hate me.” His eyes narrowed. “Were you behind that, just so you could go pretend to save my life?”

Durnan stared at him for a moment, then turned and left the room. Elayza’s lips tightened, but she shook her head and went back to her herbs.

Loret looked up at Kylara, to find her amiable half-smile gone and her eyes dark and cold. “I think,” she said slowly, “that you need to understand something. Durnan is the Protector. That means his duty, his goal, even his passion is to protect the other Guardians. What he feels about them personally doesn’t enter into it. His life is to guard us from harm.”

Loret sneered. “You think I’m gonna believe that?”

“I don’t give a flaming dragon fart what you believe,” she tossed back. “I’m just telling you how it is. Durnan has an instinct that tells him when he’s needed, and that instinct kept him up all night last night, like a voice screaming in his head. Then when he figured out it was you, he nearly killed himself to get to you. I don’t know if being the Wily One is what makes you such a suspicious little bastard, but you need to get it through your skull right now: Durnan saved your sorry ass because you’re a Guardian. Because you’re a Guardian, and you’re one of his, and that’s what he does. No other reason.”

Loret sat frozen by the vehemence of her words. For once, he had no ready retort.

Kylara turned to Elayza. “I’ll be upstairs with Durnan. We’re going out later on to look for Armeth again.”

“What about him?” Elayza nodded at Loret.

“He can do what he likes.” She shot him a look over her shoulder. “I know how to find him now.”

Chapter Sixteen Part Three

Durnan felt her approach. “Don’t,” he said, “tell me he didn’t mean it. He did mean it. He really thinks that.”

He was standing by her reading table, staring out the window. She climbed on the chair and sat on the table so she could look him in the face. “I wasn’t going to say that.”

“How are we going to do this?”

“We will,” she said, taking his hand. “The thing is, Loret’s entire focus is taking care of himself, and himself alone. All we really have to do is expand that little bubble to include us.”

He gave her an ironic look. “Of course. Why didn’t I think of that? We can do that in ten minutes or so.”

She thumped his shoulder with her free hand. “You know what I mean.”

He shook his head. It wasn’t negatory, but a motion of helplessness. “I know what you mean, Kylara, but you’re making it sound very easy, and I don’t think it will be at all. What will happen when he leaves?”

Kylara dug her toe into the join between the seat and the back of the chair. “He might. I don’t think he will. And besides--I’m starting to be able to hear him.” She tapped her temple. “Here.”

His brows drew together. “I thought we decided that the Amulet did that. That and joining us.”

“I know, but maybe--knowing him has something to do with it. Being around him. Maybe the amulet and joining us just facilitates that.”

“Can he hear you?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t tried.”

“Won’t he be delighted if he can.”

She sighed. “Durnan, why don’t you like him?”

His answer was a level look. She threw up her hands. “Durnan!”

“We lost Armeth because of him.”

“Be fair. Yes, Loret made a promise he couldn’t back up, but he didn’t know that. For all he knew, we might have been able to take away Armeth’s demons for him.”

“He’s the Wily One. He should have enough sense to realize we’re not miracle workers.”

“You’re being impossible on purpose.”

“He didn’t even care,” Durnan snapped. “He mouthed that apology. He didn’t even care that Armeth was hurt and frightened and angry, because of his actions.”

She let out a breath. “Ah. It comes out.”

Durnan shut his eyes. “I just can’t understand how he could not care,” he said wearily, with his eyes still closed.

“That’s because you’re you,” Kylara said. “Maybe he doesn’t want to care. Maybe he doesn’t understand why he should. But I’ve got a feeling he does.”

He opened his eyes to look at her. “Did you pick this out of his head?”

She smiled and shook her head. “No. I understand the way he thinks better then you do.” She flattened her free hand against his chest. “You’re reacting to the tough guy outside, and the Wily One we need is inside that shell. Cut him some slack, all right? ”

She held his gaze until he nodded, and then she smiled. “I think you need to get some rest before we go out into Godstown again. It’s too hot now to do anything anyway. Come on. I’ll join you.”

Loret sat cross-legged on his cot, watching Elayza patiently mix her herbs together. After several long seconds, he spoke. “I’m not gonna be able to go back, am I?”

She crossed to the hearth and poked at a tiny cauldron dangling above the small fire. Apparently satisfied, she tipped her mixture in and started to stir it with a long spoon. “To where?”

“Godstown. My turf. My place.”

“Probably not.”

He sighed and started playing with the ragged hem of his pants. His feet were dirty. Since this was their normal state, it usually didn’t bother him, but the sheets that he sat on were so clean he felt a little guilty about getting them all streaked with dust. “Durnan really didn’t have anything to do with that,” he said.

Her voice practically had icicles hanging off it. “No.”

He swung his foot thoughtfully. “I pay my debts, you know,” he said.

“Do you?”

“Yeah.” He looked up. “What, you think I wouldn’t? That’s just stupid. That means you owe people favors, if you don’t pay your debts, and they get to call it in when they want, instead of when you want.”

“Ah,” she murmured. “So how will you pay this debt?”

He swung his foot some more. “I could get Armeth for you.”

“He doesn’t trust you anymore,” Elayza pointed out, pulling her cauldron off the flames and setting it carefully on the hearth to cool. “And you can’t go around on your own.”

“I wouldn’t be going around on my own.” He nodded over to the window. “He’s outside.”

“He’s what?” She bolted to the door. Loret looked at the ceiling and whistled.

“He’s hiding, probably.”

Elayza stepped outside and looked around. The street was empty.

“He’s not gonna come out for you,” Loret’s voice floated out the doorway.

“Hush.” She closed the door behind her.

Undaunted, Loret stuck his head out the window. “I’m telling you, he won’t come out. He’s like that.”

Elayza pretended not to hear him. She leaned against the door, thinking.

From what she knew of the little boy so far--and it was nearly all hearsay--Armeth wasn’t going to come out unless he was sure there was no threat. If she went after him, he would perceive that as a threat. Yet he had come all this way to creep around the house--which meant he was curious about them.

“Loret?”

“Yeah?”

“Pull your head in the window and don’t say anything until I come back in.”

He called her a name and pulled his head back in.

She crossed the square to the fountain and sat on the lip. It was a decorative fountain, with a tier in the middle that poured water down to the main bowl, and she put her hand into the curtain of water, watching the way it split and splashed.

When her hand got cold, she pulled it out and rubbed it over her face and wiped it on her hair. “That feels nice,” she said to nobody in particular.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw movement. She didn’t look at it or even acknowledge it. Instead, she took off her sandals and, setting them by her on the lip of the fountain, dunked her feet in the water.

“That’s really nice,” she said, wiggling her toes against the patterned tile of the bottom. The fish that lived in the fountain investigated her feet for a moment.

She couldn’t hear his footsteps, but she heard the rustle of his clothing. She turned her head. He was standing about three feet away, watching her with those clearwater eyes, his hands behind his back and the toes of one small, dirty foot curled on top of the other.

“You can sit with me if you want,” she said.

He looked at the fountain’s lip, empty except for her, and around at the empty square. It was the worst heat of the day, and nobody besides themselves were outside. He bit his lip, then sidled closer to the fountain, though not to her, and leaned over to look into the water.

“There’s fish!”

His voice, surprised and just touched with glee, made her smile. In some ways, he was a lot like other little boys.

“Don’t people drink them?” he asked, leaning further over and putting his face so close to the water that the fish fled.

“People don’t drink out of this fountain,” she told him.

“Why?”

“It’s just here to look nice.”

He put out a hand towards the closest fish, then pulled it back, giving her a sideways, fearful glance.

“You can play with them. Just keep them in the water.”

He put a hesitant finger in the water, then pulled it out when the dirt from it puffed out in a cloud in the water. “I’m getting it dirty.”

“It’s all right--nobody drinks from this fountain,” she repeated.

He put his hand back in, tensing at the further dirty cloud. She gave him an encouraging smile.

She sat for several minutes, watching him play with the fish, who were even more fascinated by the white wormy things fluttering at them then they had been with her toes. Once or twice, she saw the ghost of a smile flicker across his face.

After several minutes, he said, staring at the fish, “He made my demons wrong.”

“My brother?”

“The man.”

Durnan, she decided. “How?”

“The demons showed me the Fox being hung,” he told her. His voice was as matter-of-fact as if he were reporting on the weather.

She was horrified, both at the content of his words and the tone of his voice. “You--you saw that?”

He nodded, wiggling a finger that one of the fish was nibbling on. “Last night,” he said. “I didn’t want to see it this morning, but then I went. And then Durnan made them wrong.” He looked up. “How did he do that?”

Elayza looked down at her feet, swishing them in the water. Fish darted away. “How much did Loret tell you about what we are, Armeth?”

“He said you talked to gods.” Armeth looked at the fish again, biting his lip. He said in a very low voice, “And the demons said there were empty spaces. And one of them was for--for him.”

“For Loret?”

He nodded.

Elayza put out a tentative hand towards him, her fingers just brushing the matted hair at his temple. He went very still. “Did they tell you there was a place for you too?” she asked softly.

He stared at the fish for so long that she wondered if he’d heard her. Then, in a low voice, “Yes.”

“They were right.”

He was silent.

She sighed and let her hand drop. “We’re a group, Armeth, called the Guardians. There’s a spot for Loret, and one for you, and then two more for people we haven’t found yet. We all have different jobs. Mine is the Healer. If you were sick, it would be my job to make you better. Durnan is the Protector. It’s his job to make sure you’re safe. That’s why he saved Loret’s life--and why he made your demons wrong.”

“How?”

“He has an . . . an instinct, one that tells him when one of us in the group is in danger. He tells me that it’s like a little tickle in the back of his mind, or sometimes a very soft voice telling him he’s needed.”

Armeth’s head snapped up. “He has a demon too?”

Elayza blinked. “I--suppose you could call it that.”

“But demons are bad.”

“Not this kind. And not your kind, either. Armeth--”

“Demons are bad,” he insisted. “And they go to bad people. I know. The priests told me. I’m bad.”

Oh gods. “Armeth, is my brother bad?”

Armeth’s gaze dropped. “He has a demon,” the boy almost whispered.

“But he saved Loret’s life, because his demon told him to. Is that bad?”

Armeth, looking torn, pulled his hand out of the water and sat on the cobbles, hugging his knees to his chest. “Demons are bad,” he said, but there was a note of uncertainty in his voice.

She pulled her feet out of the water and climbed down from the fountain lip to sit next to him on the cobbles. “Armeth,” she said softly.

He refused to look at her.

“Armeth, your demons aren’t bad.”

“Yes they are,” he whispered. “They show me bad things.”

“Durnan’s demon is there so he can protect us. Maybe your demons are there for the same reason.” She leaned over until she could see into his face, and gave him a little smile. “I don’t think you’re bad, Armeth.”

He stared at her, his mouth flat and solemn.

“Do you want to sleep here tonight, Armeth? We’d like to have you.”

One shoulder rose and fell, a half-shrug.

She waited moment, then got to her feet. “All right,” she said, as if he’d spoken. “If you change your mind, you can come and knock on the door. Any time. We don’t mind.”

He laid his head down on his knees and stared down the street. His cheeks were flushing, slowly--perhaps at the unaccustomed attention. She waited a moment, then turned and went back to the house.

“Well, that worked like a charm,” Loret said sardonically as she came in.

She closed the door behind her and leaned back against it. “I’m hoping it did.”

Chapter Seventeen Part One

A woman they called Mistress Thulla came in a few hours after Elayza had gone out to talk to the little ghost. As the others in the house spoke to her, it only took a few moments for Loret to realize that she actually owned the house, and Kylara only rented the top floor from her. He prepared himself to be tossed out.

She examined him narrowly. “Good job,” she said to Elayza. “He’s fine. Of course, they bounce this young.”

“Who bounces?” Loret said belligerently. “What am I, a frickin’ ball?” He resented also the implication that he was some little toddler. He was fifteen, after all--or thereabouts. Maybe sixteen. Maybe fourteen. That didn’t matter--he wasn’t some kid--

Mistress Thulla gave him a level look. She had calm, gray-blue eyes. “No, you’re a boy. You need to remember that.”

He scowled. “I’m the Fox, lady.”

“If you like to call yourself that, fine. Have some more water.” She put a mug to his face and probably would have tipped it down his throat if he hadn’t grabbed it.

“I was thinking,” Kylara said to Mistress Thulla. “He can probably sleep in the outer room. Isn’t there somewhere we could buy a cot?”

Buy? A cot?

For him?

“I have several I can put together,” Mistress Thulla replied.

That seemed to surprise Kylara. “You do? Why?”

Mistress Thulla smiled gently. “Plagues,” she said. “Sometimes there’s no other place for them to go.”

“I’m not sleeping on no plagued-up cot,” Loret hollered.

“On any,” Kylara and Durnan said in unison.

“They’re fine, Loret,” Mistress Thulla told him. “The last plague was over six years ago, and they’ve been washed thoroughly in the intervening years.”

“I’ll keep this one,” he said stubbornly.

“All right,” she said. “But you should probably move it upstairs. I’m sure you’ve realized I’m a healer, and there are occasionally hammerings on the door in the middle of the night.”

He found himself lugging his own cot up the stairs. “I’m sick, dammit--passed right out--I could have a relapse--”

“Not now you’re not,” Kylara said cheerily, coming up behind him with all the bedding piled in her arms. “Highly unlikely.”

“How do you know?” he said over his shoulder. “My belly is on speaking terms with my backbone. Maybe I’ll pass out from hunger--you ever think of that? I feel woozy--”

“You’re a terrible liar,” she said, reaching under his shoulder and pushing the door open.

“I’m a fantastic liar,” he proclaimed, dumping the cot in the corner and sitting down on it. “I’m known for my lies. I’m--what are those?”

She dropped the bedding in his lap, and he had to grab it all quick before it fell on the floor. “Books,” she said.

“I knew that.” He’d seen books before, but never so many in one place. “Do I look dumb? Why do you have them?”

“To read.” She plucked one off the shelf and looked at the cover. “You can borrow them if you want.”

Instinctively, he curled his lip. “Why would I wanna do that?”

She looked over the top edge at him. “I didn’t think you could read.”

That stung. The Fox could do anything. “I could read,” he said, crossing his arms. “If I wanted to. It’s not that hard.”

She brought him the book. “What’s the title?”

He looked at the cover, and the squiggles of gold on it blurred and squirmed together like a bucket of worms. He looked away. “My eyes are tired.”

She leaned down to look in his face. “Liar,” she said gently.

He could feel the tips of his ears turning red. “Who wants to read anyway,” he muttered. “Ain’t no use to anyone.”

She opened the book, stroking its pages. “Durnan loves to read,” she said. “He didn’t get to while he was a slave. He reads every chance he gets now.”

The block had been a slave? “Slaves aren’t supposed to read,” he said.

“Do you know why?”

It wasn’t something he’d thought of. It was just a fact of life. “Because they’re supposed to be working?”

“Because reading gives you knowledge. And knowledge is power.” She put the book in his lap again, open this time. “Would you like me to teach you?”

He looked down at the words, mere spikes and loops of black ink on a page. It was hard to believe that they would hold power--but . . .

“Why are you doing this?” he asked abruptly.

“I thought you might like to learn.”

“No. All of this.”

“I don’t need to tell you again, Loret, do I?”

He leapt to his feet, furious. The book thudded to the floor. “I’m not gonna be a Guardian. Hear me? No.”

She crouched and picked up the book, holding it as gently as a baby. “Can’t you just for once take something at face value? Assume a motive is kindness or generosity?”

Loret snorted. “It never is,” he said. “But I’m on to you. I know your game. If the price for all this is signing my life over, I’ll go back to my tower, thanks. Danger or no danger.”

She looked at him for several moments before crossing the room to put the book away. “Before you do anything rash, why don’t you come downstairs and have some dinner? You being so hungry and all.”

He’d been tensed for another fight, but she’d surprised him. At the mention of food, his stomach rumbled. “Well,” he said. “Maybe.”

Durnan watched with slight amazement as Loret plowed his way through his third bowl. Great gods, how did the boy stay so skinny?

The boy scoured his bowl with the last piece of bread, popped it in his mouth, swallowed, and burped. He looked at Durnan’s nearly empty bowl--his first. “Are you going to eat that?”

“No, go ahead.”

His ironic tone didn’t seem to have registered with Loret, who reached over a grinning Kylara to switch bowls.

“Leave some for Armeth,” Elayza said, guarding her bowl.

Loret, through a mouthful, made a rude noise. “He ain’t comin’.”

“He might.”

“What did you say to him, ‘Layza?” Durnan asked.

“What did he say?” Kylara put in.

“Nothing, I’ll bet,” Loret said. “He doesn’t talk with his mouth at all.”

“What?” Durnan turned to stare at him, and Elayza looked thoughtful.

“That’s actually a very good way to put it, Loret. He speaks more with body language than with words.”

Loret smirked at Durnan.

“Well, what did you get out of him?” Kylara asked.

Elayza stopped smiling. “He’s got this idea that he has the visions--his ‘demons’--because he’s somehow bad.”

“What? Where did he get that idea?”

Loret bellowed, “Hey, knock it off!” at Durnan, who had glanced in his direction. “Don’t blame me for this one!”

“I wasn’t,” Durnan said impassively.

“Yeah. Right.”

“It sounds as if it came from the priests in the temple orphanage,” Elayza cut in. “He said the priests told him his demons were bad.”

Kylara called the temple priests a name that had Loret looking impressed. “Good one. I’ll have to remember that.”

“How can they do that?” she wanted to know.

Durnan told her, “The same way, I suspect, that his parents could just leave him there at the age of three.”

“They what?” Elayza and Mistress Thulla demanded in unison.

Kylara blinked at them. “You didn’t hear this, did you?” While she wasn’t looking, Loret took her bowl, too. “Father Junek told us that Armeth’s parents sent him to the temple when he was two or three.”

“Isn’t that terribly young for a novitiate?” Elayza wanted to know.

Kylara nodded. “They probably couldn’t take the visions, either.”

“I don’t understand people like that,” Elayza murmured, her eyes very dark.

“Yeah, yeah, very sad, weep weep,” Loret said impatiently. “Look, is there any more bread?”

Durnan snapped, “You know, it wouldn’t kill you to show a little compassion once in awhile.”

“Why? It’s not special. Kids are nothing but trouble. It happens all the time. Take me--my ma dumped me off when I was born, and you don’t see me sniffling and sobbing, do you?”

All motion stopped, except for Loret’s chewing. “You know that for a fact?” Kylara said slowly.

Loret gave her an incredulous look. “No, I’m making it up. Yes, I know that for a fact. She’s an abbess down in the Whore Pits--a good one. She tried to offer me a job once, but I turned her down. I don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

He sneered. “Bend over and take it like a man. Like I say, that’s one thing I don’t do, even for money.”

“Your--mother wanted you to do that?”

“Hey, I’m not too ugly, all right?”

“But that’s your mother!”

“Cripes, you people watch too many plays. Real life isn’t like that. She needed a new boy, she knew I was around and didn’t look too bad. Hell, I’m practically her all over again. About that bread--”

Durnan looked down at his plate. He was starting to get a better idea of the atmosphere in which Loret had grown up to be the Fox, and he was feeling a little sick. “You can have mine.”

Chapter Seventeen Part Two

Loret was lying on his cot with his feet up against the wall, watching Durnan and Kylara argue about a word. He couldn’t quite believe it. A word.

He’d been in the house for about a day now, and he kept waiting for them to notice he was still there and correct that. He had a little packet of food and some money hidden back under the cot, ready. Nobody took the Fox by surprise.

It surprised him, though, that they seemed to be perfectly content with him around. Even Durnan.

Weird.

Kylara hadn’t offered to teach him to read again, but he’d watched her writing and reading for the past hour or so, and it didn’t look too bad. He bet he could do that. But in modern-day language, thanks--the kind you didn’t have to translate, like Kylara was. That was what the fight was about.

She’d been reading some old book written years and years ago, and she’d asked Durnan how he would translate a particular passage. He’d told her, she’d objected. Cripes, if she was gonna argue, why the hell had she asked? Now they were going through a dictionary, trying to figure out whose translation was probably more accurate.

“Kylara, that word is so often used figuratively. In fact, I’ve so rarely seen it any other way that--”

“But the context,” she shot back. “The context is concrete, not figurative.”

“I have my doubts about that too. Kylara, ‘the time of the thinning’ says to me an age in general, not a specific time. When is the time of the thinning? It doesn’t say anything about that--just that it has come before and will again.”

“And the fact that Kasole doesn’t bother to go into specifics makes me think it was general knowledge--at least to the Guardians.”

Durnan let out a short huff of breath. “That’s our problem. Kasole is all we have to go on, as far as the knowledge of the Guardians goes.”

Kylara grunted. “We need the Scribe, that’s what we need. Bet he’d know. Or she.”

“What’s the point?” Loret called out. “It’s just a word. What is there to fight about?”

“It’s not a fight, it’s a debate,” Durnan told him.

“Call a spade a spade,” Kylara interjected, “it’s a fight.” She grinned at Durnan, whose lips quirked in response. “I love a good fight.”

That was another thing that puzzled Loret. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what they were doing, but Durnan was treating Kylara like he was still trying to get her into bed. In Loret’s experience, once a man talked some stupid girl into sleeping with him, all the fake niceness went away--but Durnan’s wasn’t.

“What’s it matter?” Loret said again.

Kylara turned to him. “The thing is, if it translates the way I want it to, it’ll mean there’s a specific time when--” she turned to her table and picked up the paper that she’d been doing the translations on. “‘--when the veil between the mortal world and the spirit world shall become as thin as it may be.’”

Loret looked at her blankly. “So?”

“So it means that if that time is a specific day, or moment, that’s when the dark god will make his move to break through. And we’ll have to find out when that is so we can--what the hell is that?”

That was a high-pitched, seemingly endless yowling emitting from somewhere in the street. Loret put his hands over his ears. “A cat,” he yelled over the din, and then realized. “Oh, shit! She wouldn’t--”

When he got down the stairs, the cat who had haunted his tower was already prowling around the kitchen, investigating various nooks and crannies. “What the hell are you doing here?” he demanded of her.

At the sound of his voice, she deserted the slop bin and made for his ankles. He reached down and picked her up. “Go back home.”

She started climbing up his chest to his shoulders, her claws scratching him through his shirt. Elayza and Mistress Thulla were hiding smiles. Gods! “I mean it,” he insisted, plucking her off and holding her at arms’ length. “Go away.”

“I didn’t know you had a cat,” Kylara said from behind him.

“I don’t,” he grumbled, carrying her over to the door. She meowed at him admonishingly. “I did not invite you here. Go away.” He managed to open the door and dump her outside, closing it quickly before she could streak back in. Almost at once, the horrible yowling started up again as she expressed her displeasure. “Go away!” he hollered again. His ears were burning.

Durnan crossed the room and looked out the window. “I don’t think it’s going to stop.” There was a thud, and she gave an especially earsplitting screech. “Someone just threw a shoe at it,” he added. “Open the door and let it in, Loret.”

“No!”

“Then I will.” Durnan looked like he was considering just picking Loret up and moving him, so Loret moved first.

“Fine--just keep her away from me. I don’t want no stupid cat.”

“Any,” Durnan corrected, opening the door and catching the cat as she bolted in. “Ow!” He dropped her again, and she was climbing up Loret’s legs again in half a second. “It bit me!”

Forgetting his avowed hatred of the animal, Loret snickered and pulled her off his legs. “Guess she doesn’t like you.” She hissed at Durnan, reinforcing Loret’s statement. He snickered again. “Better hope she’s not rabid.”

“Are you all right, Durnan?” Kylara asked.

He cradled his hand, looking disgruntled. “It’s not bleeding too much.”

Elayza was looking at it too. “You’ll be fine, with a bandage.” She glanced at the cat. “Loret, may I--”

He snorted. “Be my guest.”

Elayza only got a scratch for her trouble. The cat had apparently decided to be nice to her.

“What’s her name?” Kylara asked, keeping her distance.

“Doesn’t have one,” Loret said, letting her climb up over his chest and onto his shoulders. “She just hangs around my place. I didn’t know she was going to follow me. Guess she couldn’t find anyone else stupid enough to give her food.”

Kylara’s eyebrows quirked as she heard the cat, now comfortably draped across Loret’s thin shoulders, start to purr. “Guess not.”

Kylara had always thought cats were supposed to be finicky, but Loret’s cat ate like he did: everything, and constantly. She also refused to be handled by any hands but Loret’s, biting, scratching, and hissing when an attempt was made. Loret tried to ignore her, but she would climb up his legs and over his shoulders whenever anyone else was in the room, as if proving to them all just whose cat she was.

For his part, Loret could be counted on to swear at, insult, and generally deride the cat whenever he was around them. But Kylara noticed that in spite of his loud protests, he never physically harmed her, and when nobody was looking, he would occasionally pass her food or scratch her behind the ears.

Loret, she thought, hiding a smile, you’re such a fake.

He gave her a sharp look, and she looked back innocently. Had he heard? She hoped so. But he made no comment, and looked away after a moment.

It had been a day since Loret’s cat had appeared at the front door, and two days since Durnan’s premonitory night. Kylara was doing everything she could to drag Loret into their circle, but he held stubbornly back, rejecting every overture. Kylara’s obscene vocabulary was growing by leaps and bounds as she listened to Loret’s insults and invectives.

It didn’t help that Durnan still didn’t think much of him, although he had relented a little. Kylara and Elayza had an unspoken pact to keep the two apart for now.

But there were signs, every now and then, that Loret was slowly being pulled into the group. He’d stopped squirreling away food, for one. And no more of her money had gone missing. Kylara knew exactly where it was, but hadn’t made an issue of it--yet. She could hear his thoughts more and more clearly by the minute, it seemed.

She turned her own attention back to Kasole’s book, which she had been working on in every spare dreg of light she could wangle. In spite of her debate with Durnan over the translation, she wasn’t really sure of what the first Scribe could have meant by “the time of the thinning.”

She wanted to think it meant what Durnan thought--a general term meaning an age or an era. But that would have meant something was going their way for once.

And if it was the other, how long did they have?

Dammit, they needed the Scribe. Or the Seer.

She closed her book. ‘Layza?

What is it?

I’m going to Godstown to look for Armeth. Coming?

“You’ll never find him,” Loret called out.

Kylara’s head whipped around. “Who?”

Are you sure we should?

Wait a minute, ‘Lazya. Loret just heard me.

What?

Sh!

“Armeth.” Loret was lying on his cot, with his feet up against the wall and his head hanging over the edge. It seemed to be his favorite position. The cat was sitting by his head, batting at the curly mass of his hair. “You don’t know Godstown like I do.”

He’d heard her. Great gods, he’d heard her. “Armeth doesn’t trust you,” she said slowly, fighting not to give away her elation. “If he sees you, he’ll bolt again.”

Loret made a rude noise and rolled over on his stomach. His face was bright red from hanging upside-down for so long. “Who says he has to see me? I can just find out where he is.”

Kylara decided to test him. Fine, but we’re going with you.

His eyes narrowed. “Hell you are.”

Hell we’re not. You can’t talk to him.

“Fine. Just don’t let anyone know you’re with me.”

Deal. Kylara grinned to herself. Loret hadn’t noticed a thing.

“And quit doing that mind-talking thing to me,” he added. “It’s creepy as hell.”

Chapter Seventeen Part Three

Loret smirked to himself over the look Kylara had given him when he’d told her to cut out the mind-talking thing. He’d first heard her “voice” as a faint murmur in his ears, and then not all the time. As time had gone on and it had gotten clearer when he did hear it, he’d realized two things--that it was always aimed at him, and that nobody else could hear it. He’d entertained the suspicion that he could be going crazy like the little ghost, but rejected that after a while. The things he heard in Kylara’s “voice” sounded like perfectly natural things to say, considering the hard time he’d usually been giving her when he’d heard them.

He’d been saving his knowledge of it for another time, but he hadn’t been able to resist wiping the smirk off her face. He’d probably regret the loss of his weapon sometime in the future, but what the hell.

Elayza and Durnan were waiting for them when they got downstairs, and Loret looked at them askance. Could they “hear” Kylara too? That explained a lot.

He thought about asking one of them about it. Now that the secret was out, he was curious about all the little details of it. Curiosity might have killed the cat--he gave the cat, who had invited herself along, a sideways glance--but Loret thrived on it.

In the end, he asked Kylara. “So this mind-talking thing.”

“Yeah?”

He squinted at the sun, trying to formulate a question that didn’t sound so much like he really wanted to know. “Can I do it?” he asked, watching a seabird circle lazily.

A smile played around her mouth, but he couldn’t “hear” anything from her mind. “Yes. But only to me.”

He took his gaze out of the sky. “Whaddya mean?”

“I mean,” she said, “that you can swear at Durnan in your head all you want, but he won’t hear it.” She gave her lover, walking ahead of them with his sister, a grin.

“Good thing, too,” Durnan said calmly over his shoulder.

Loret looked at him narrow-eyed. He would have liked to know what the block of stone was saying about him in the privacy of his head. “So can you hear anyone, and talk to anyone?” he said to Kylara.

“No. Just the Guardians.”

The Guardians again. He was not--

Yes, you are.

He shoved his hands deep in his pockets and scowled ferociously at nothing for several moments. He didn’t want to be a Guardian, but he was starting to wonder if maybe he was.

“So why can’t they, if it’s a Guardians thing?” He didn’t want to say, Why can’t we, or why can’t I.

“It’s not really a Guardians thing, Loret. It’s a Seeker thing. It’s part of the gift that makes me both a Guardian and the Seeker.”

“Gift?” It was the first time he’d heard of this.

“Like Durnan’s instinct and fighting skills make him the Protector,” she explained, “or Elayza’s knowing how you’re feeling or--other things--make her the Healer.”

He turned that over in his head, wondering what other things she might be talking about. “I don’t have a gift,” he said abruptly. “I’m not a Guardian. I don’t have some spooky gift.” He should be grinning, he thought, but the realization was oddly depressing.

She bit her lip, touching the lump of the Amulet under her shirt. “I’ve been thinking about that,” she said. “The Amulet doesn’t lie, Loret. Nor does it make mistakes. It recognizes you. Maybe your gift is one that comes out at odd times, or you haven’t really gotten it yet--or . . . something. I don’t know. The point is, you are one of us, and your gift is somewhere inside of you.”

Unaccountably, his temper flared. “Don’t you know what my gift is? Don’t all your stupid books tell you?”

“We only have one book written by a Guardian, Loret, and I have to translate that, bit by bit. It’s tough work. Old Kashlan is an extremely . . . dense language. One word means a lot of things, or it can mean different things, depending.”

“Fine. Didn’t anyone else write about the Guardians?”

“Yes--but they wrote about the things they did, not the things they were.”

Loret made a rude noise and looked up ahead. Durnan’s pocket was about to get picked by some kid he didn’t recognize. “Back off, troll fucker,” he growled. “They’re mine.”

The hapless pickpocket scuttled, and Durnan looked over his shoulder. “What?”

“Not you--the dimwonkie who was trying to pick your pocket. Gods, for someone who’s supposed to have this great instinct, you sure don’t know much about taking care of yourself, do you?”

Durnan’s brows lifted. “Well. Thank you.”

Loret curled his lip. “It wasn’t for you. How would it look if someone got away with picking your pocket while you were with the Fox?”

“Sorry.”

“Better be.”

“Hey, Loret!”

He peeled off from the group. “Hey, Dandow.”

The novitiate, standing just outside the temple doors with a table of icons in front of him, gave Loret a grin. “You landed on your feet as usual.”

“Don’t I always?”

Dandow’s face went solemn, and he leaned over the table. “I heard about you being grabbed that same night. We all figured the Fox was finally going to live with the ghosts.”

“Who, me?” Loret snorted. “Hell no. I’ve got some serious living in this place to do first.”

“No kidding. That damn luck of yours came to the rescue--not only did you get a dawn reprieve, but you got yourself a roof.” Dandow’s grin returned. “How do you like it?”

“Like you said, it’s a roof--plus it’s food and a bed.” Loret shrugged. “Not a bad scam, ya know?”

Dandow shook his head admiringly. “I don’t know how you do it. Why’d they want you?”

“Who knows? I’m not complaining.” Loret didn’t really feel like explaining the whole thing about Guardians and gods and kings to his friend.

Dandow looked over Loret’s shoulder and waved. “Hey, Ky.”

“Hey, Dandow,” said Kylara from behind Loret. “Your mum says to come see her once in awhile.”

“I went to see her a week ago!”

She shrugged. “Guess she figures that’s long enough.”

Dandow grinned at Elayza, his most charming grin. “Hello,” he said in a suave voice. “I don’t think we’ve been introduced.”

Loret, who knew about Dandow and girls, said flatly, “Hands off.”

Elayza put her hand over her mouth, but her eyes danced, and Loret’s ears started to burn. Dandow was his own age--fifteen or sixteen. Elayza was four or five years their elder, at least. She was in no real danger from Dandow. But--hell.

Dandow coughed. “Wanna buy an icon?” he asked diplomatically, spreading his hands to indicate his merchandise. “All proceeds go to the temple.”

Kylara, also grinning, leaned over to examine the stock. “Loret, do you have one of these?” she asked.

“Huh?”

“Do you have an icon of Ricate?” she repeated patiently.

“Yeah--somewhere. Why?”

Kylara shrugged. “You’re his champion anyway. I think it would be a good thing.”

Dandow’s brows drew together at that, but he didn’t ask. “What about you?” he said instead.

Kylara shook her head. “I don’t need one.”

Durnan said suddenly, “Does the house of Fate sell icons?”

“All the temples do,” Dandow said. “Even Fate has to keep the flame burning. I know it’s our main source of income--that and prayer lamps. And donations. Wanna donate something to the temple?”

Kylara surveyed Dandow’s clean, new tunic and then looked at the exterior of the temple, gleaming brightly. “No, I think you’re doing fine,” she said dryly. “Listen, we’re looking for Armeth.”

“Are you still looking for him?” Dandow tsked at Loret. “You’re losing your touch, Fox.”

“We’re looking again,” Loret retorted. “I got him within a day the first time. Have you seen him?”

“Not today.” Dandow frowned. “He didn’t come to the concert this morning, either.”

Durnan’s body shifted to subtle alert. “Is that unusual?”

“Yeah, he’s almost always here.”

Kylara raised her eyebrows at him, but he shook his head, his shoulders relaxing. Loret guessed Durnan had checked his instinct to see if Armeth was in any danger, and found the answer to be no.

“Loret,” said Durnan. “Where did you find him the last time?”

“The docks,” Loret told him. “But it doesn’t help--he wanders all over the slums, the docks, and Godstown. I’ve even seen him in the Whore Pits.”

“What were you doing in the Whore Pits?” Kylara asked.

Loret could feel his ears turning red again. “What do you think?” Actually, he’d only ever been there for picking pockets--the Whore Pits were great for that, especially as hapless brothel patrons were going home, half-drunk and walking funny. He’d seen too many whores with dead, flat eyes to ever want to go one of them for--that.

A flourish of trumpets drowned out whatever Kylara had been going to say, and around them, the crowds compressed as somebody’s path was cleared. Somebody important, Loret thought, craning his head to look. Out of habit, his fingers slipped into a handy pocket.

Kylara elbowed him sharply. “Stop that,” she murmured.

Loret scowled, but pulled his hand out empty.

Whispers started rising up. “The Regent--it’s the Regent--”

The man that Kylara was planning to kick off the throne . . . somehow. . . . Loret looked at Kylara quickly. Her eyes were wide and startled.

The Regent was a haughty-looking man. He rode a black horse with silver saddle-tack, and his clothing was rich and almost too fancy for the middle of the day. His head turned towards them, and Loret could see that he had a thin nose and sharp, dark eyes, and a flat, thin mouth.

Those eyes swept over the crowd, and for a ridiculous moment, Loret held his breath. But they passed over the little group impersonally, and continued on.

Loret relaxed and looked further along the Regent’s procession. Directly behind him, on a delicate white horse, rode the source of most of the whispers.

“Look at her--”

“Have you ever seen--”

“The greatest beauty to be found anywhere, they say--”

She was slim and graceful, her slender hands lightly controlling the reins. Her perfect features, shaded by a parasol that somehow attached to her mare’s saddle, were so pale they might have been carved out of alabaster. Her mouth, full and very red, and her enormous pure blue eyes, fringed with dark lashes, were the only spots of color. Her real glory, however, was the waterfall of curling golden hair that fell in a long cape over her shoulders and down her back nearly to the saddle. As she moved her head, tiny gems scattered over the curls caught the light and glittered. The pale blue dress she wore glittered as well. It had a wide, shallow scoop neck that showed off her delicate throat and collarbone, but didn’t dip low enough to expose even the tops of her breasts. The drape of the bodice took care of that.

She rode sidesaddle, and the rippling skirt of the dress fell open nearly to her hip on the outward side. The material was so sheer that the pure whiteness of her skin glowed through the blue.

Dandow sounded a little dazed as he said, “Who . . . is that?”

A man close to them spat. “The Regent’s whore,” he said coarsely. “Woman like that shouldn’t be allowed to display herself in public.”

The procession continued on, and the crowds were allowed to surge back into the street in its wake. Kylara didn’t move, even to get out of the way of the people moving. She kept staring after the procession.

Durnan touched her arm. “Kylara? What is it?”

Only her lips moved. The rest of her face might have been set in stone. “She’s ours.”

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