The price of victory- - Thieves World 13 (95 page)

"What's the matter with you?" Crit asked quietly. "What in hell's—

the matter with you?"

One dreamed, that was all.

"I'll kill her," Crit said.

Strat grabbed Crit by the sleeve, hard. Maybe it was a measure of how
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far he had come that it was Crit's danger he thought of most acutely. It was all right for him, he didn't matter, he had stopped mattering; but Crit, he thought, Crit had no logical part in this, and Crit, who had come alive through coups and assassinations and battles, had no chance at all against Her. "Crit," Strat said. "Crit, I'm going to the damn palace. I'll be there, I'll be there, all right?"

Crit didn't say anything. That scared him, and got his attention, when damned little else could.

"I'll get up there," Strat said. "I'll do the damn duty.—Crit, I'm through, you hear me? I'm through with her, I'm not going back, I promise you."

Crit still said not a thing.

That scared Strat—more than any threats Crit could have made.

Night, more than night, in days of slow business and unseasonable weather, an exhausted, weary town—those hours when even the inns, even in Sanctuary, began to give up their last customers and throw out the drunks—and the bar help went home, some two by two, some

not ...

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A woman screamed in an alleyway near the Vulgar Unicorn, a small yelp of a scream, cut off of a sudden, followed by a grunt of pain—the Unicorn's barmaid knew where to put an elbow and a heel. But the man was big and he was gone on krrf. A thump! followed, then a slither—of a light body hitting a brick wall and slumping to the trash at the bottom of

it.

The rapist liked that fine. He liked it so well he grabbed the woman up by the hair and kicked her, which it took, besides the krrf these days, to get him excited—

But in the interval of a kick and the body hitting the pavement, the rapist heard another step on the dusty cobbles, a soft, stealthy step be hind him.

He let his victim lie, facing—it was incredible to him—a cloaked, aris tocratic woman, here, in these streets, in this alleyway.

He heard his earlier victim crawl aside, scrabble in the trash trying to escape, but this hooded, this incredibly elegant slut—amazed him—

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Amazed him so much he was not expecting the sudden crack of a brick across the back of his skull . . .

Ischade faced the bloody, panting barmaid across the body—in a de sire both dark and frustrated by the assistance. "Thank you," Ischade said with irony, wrapping her cloak about her for the sensuality of it; and shuddered at what it stirred. "Do you live in this alley? No? I'd seek lodgings on the Unicorn's street—if I were in your place. Too far to walk

—at this hour."

"Who are you?" the barmaid asked; it not being incredible to her, perhaps, that a woman in silk and velvet knew her nightly route. Perhaps it frightened her. Perhaps it told her she might have escaped the rat to run straight-on into the cobra's sliding coils—

But: "Go home," Ischade said. "Don't linger here. What's one more body—in Sanctuary?"

The barmaid caught a breath, looked at Ischade a moment longer, as if the spell touched even her—

It might. The curse was never specific. Only Ischade's personal taste was—and Ischade felt nothing but frustration and a rising anger at the girl's very existence, and at her courage—in a world where help was scarce, and no one cared. Perhaps she saw Ischade for what she was. But
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few did. Few—hearing of her—understood. People looked for vampires.

"Go," Ischade whispered, and the barmaid turned and ran, limping, for the end of the alley.

Ischade followed her—hoping—in case of some other trouble that might be drawn like predators to a crippled fish. She saw the young woman haul herself up a rickety steps in the alley next, saw the door shut; and eventually saw dim light from the shutter seams, the woman having, after some effort, Ischade supposed, gotten a lamp lit.

One remembered such necessities. Dimly. Long ago.

She had her own necessities—deadly, urgent necessities, since Strat had left—since she had broken the ties that held him. She had lives to hunt, to sustain her own; and she had her preferences in victims.

She walked on her way, walked the roughest areas of Sanctuary, that region south and harborward of the Unicorn. It was a thief who accosted her finally

"I've nothing for you," she told him, having some conscience, at least, or having acquired one from her associations. He was very young, he had offered her no violence—and perhaps there was something in her manner that warned him, made him the least bit anxious: he looked behind him and to either side, as if suspecting some sort of ambush in which a
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woman obviously out of place in these alleys—might be the bait.

508 STEALERS-SKY

He seemed to decide otherwise then. He whipped out a knife, advanced a step or two as if she might leap at him—or someone might pounce from the shadows. He demanded money.

It was the knife that decided the question. She put back her hood, she caught his eyes and said, in a low voice, "Are you sure you want what I do have?"

The robber hesitated—the knife gleaming uncertainly in the dark. "A whore," he said, "a damned whore—"

"I know a place," she said, because now she had a look at him he was handsome, if he were washed, and he had a wit that might save his life—

a few days, at least; and longer, if he would listen.

He came with her to the house on the riverside, that house which passers-by somehow failed to see, or, seeing, failed to notice—a house lost in hedges, behind a low iron gate, behind overgrown grounds and half-dead trees—

She wanted light—and light blazed from candles and from lamps,
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bright, so bright her young thief flung up his knife-hand to shield his eyes

—he had never put the weapon away—and swore.

Taz swore again once his eyes had cleared and he had gotten a look at his surroundings, an untidy tumble of silks and satins, garish fabrics, costly furnishings—in a house which had ways of looking much smaller outside than in.

A nook and a silk-strewn bed—she never made it, only tidied it occa sionally. She dropped the cloak like a spill of ink on the bright rugs, the busy fabrics. She was all in black, a necklace like drops of blood—a dusky skin, straight hair black as night, eyes—

Eyes that every man in his youth knew were waiting for him, some where, somewhen, if he was man enough. . . .

He forgot about his thieving. He forgot about everything except this woman, never even took offense that she insisted he go into the back room and bathe-One could hardly take it amiss, since she offered him a gentleman's clothes, the kind of perfumed soap the gentry used, and trailed a finger along his neck and said, softly, smelling of foreign spices and musk—

"Do everything I tell you and you'll be here more than tonight, you'll be here many, many days and nights—do you like that idea? You won't have to steal again. You'll have everything you could want—does that
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appeal to you?"

He could not believe this was happening. He only stared at her, with the soap in his hands, and said, "Are you a witch?"

"Do you think so?—What's your name?"

509

It was dangerous to answer that with witches. He had heard so. He looked into her eyes and found himself saying truthfully: "Taz. Taz Chandi."

Her finger traced his chin. "How old are you, Taz?"

He said, lying, knowing she was at least older, but he had no idea how much older, "Twenty-two."

"Nineteen," she said, and he knew he had been dangerously foolish to lie: he was afraid then. But she kissed his lips gently and sweetly, and left him to his bath and his anticipations . . . which were for the first time since he was twelve—outlandish and hopeful and full of delicious dreams . . .

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Til he heard the front gate squeak and, with thoughts of returning husbands or ogres or Shalpa only knew what sort of interruption in this lovenest, hastily dressed in what the lady had provided.

Crit trod the garden path most warily, with an eye to the front door. He was sure the vampire knew he was there. He had his hand on his sword for all the good it would do, tramping through the weeds, under dead trees, up the rickety steps.

The door opened as he had thought it would, since he had been un blasted by magics getting this far; it opened the instant he trod on the last step, and she came out—wrapped in black and glaring at him with the warmth of an adder.

"What do you want?" she asked. "Am I not through with Stepsons?" He kept his hand on his hilt, like a religious talisman. He said, "Evi dently you aren't through with my partner. I'm here to ask you to leave

him alone."

He was not a man who found asking easy, and all but impossible when it sounded like empty-handed begging—because he had no negotiating points and there was not a damned thing he could do to the bitch, not a damned thing he could do to save his life if she took a notion to do to him what she had done to Strat, and so many, many others.
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In point of fact he knew he was a fool to come here, but he had gone in under fire for Strat before, and more to the point, Strat had gone in for him; at times he had wanted to beat Strat senseless for his foolishness—

once he had even done it; and once he had thought he had a chance of shaking Strat back to sense. But Sanctuary had dealt hard with them both, as it dealt with everyone who came here. It was a sink that drank down lives. And Strat's seemed to be the price it wanted.

So he came here, unarmed as witches and wizards reckoned such things, and looked up at the witch, and said the only thing he could say:

"Let him go.'*

510 STEALERS' SKY

Ischade held her door in her hands, a shadow against the lamplight slanting past her and reflecting off the boards. She said, "I have, Crit."

"The hell!" He came up that last step onto the porch, where he tow ered over her. "Stop playing games'"

"I assure you." She left the door standing half-open and came closer, holding her cloak about her, black velvet about bare shoulders, a whisper of silk, a waft of musk. He was sure she was naked under it—some other
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tryst, some other damned soul. "Leave! Now!"

"Name your price. A favor. A disappearance. I'm not particular. You want some pretty boy, dammit, 1*11 buy you one, just leave my partner alone."

The shapely chin set, eyes hooded like a snake's. "What about you, Crit?"

He glanced away quickly, but not quickly enough.

"Look at me," she said, and he had to, knowing it was a slide over the brink, knowing there was no way out. Her hell-burned eyes had no bot tom, except Hell itself, and there was no looking away. But he could still want to be off the porch, down the walk, and out the gate, that was the bad part—he could still want escape.

"Bargain?" he said. When he had begun to deal with her, maybe he had known that. Maybe that was why he had ditched Strat and come here, stupid as it was, because he was out of answers, and he finally cared about something again, and hated his helplessness.

"Get out of here," she said, and shoved him without laying a hand on him. "Get out of here, dammit!"

He caught his balance at the bottom of the steps, he caught his breath
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there, staring up at cold rejection of himself, his offers, his stupid hope of weaseling himself and Strat both out of this situation—a hope of escape for both of them ... in a day that Ranke was falling and they were posted here behind the lines, no use, no future, no damn use to anyone including themselves. Strat could not leave this city. Take him out by force and he would escape and ride back to it, that was how bad it was—

and he had known that, had not objected overmuch when Tempus had left them here in command of the rear guard.

He had hoped to solve this—cure Strat and get him away from this woman.

"Out!" she said, and that voice went through brain and bone.

He heard the door slam before he got to the gate.

He had thought about killing her—but that thought had completely fled him when he stood in front of her. His hand had been on his sword

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all the time, for all the foolish good it had been: he had not even been able to think of it in that context when he had been close enough. He flung open the low iron gate, heard it clang shut behind him.

"Ma'am," the boy said tentatively, with his knife in hand—

With a thief's knife, a gentleman's clothes; and a staunch resolve on a

fresh-scrubbed face. "M'lady?"

Ischade gazed at this chivalry in the light and the heat of the candles,