Read Blood ties-- Thieves World 09 Online

Authors: Robert Asprin

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Blood ties-- Thieves World 09 (2 page)

BOOK: Blood ties-- Thieves World 09
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"I fear for my town," he said, turning to gaze out the window once more. "The people have changed since the Beysib arrived.

"Not that I blame you," he amended hastily. "You had to go somewhere, and certainly your people have done everything possible to adapt to what I know is a very strange and often hostile environment to you.

"No. What has happened to my town was done by those who have lived here the longest. Oh, true enough, many of the changes were forced on them by the Rankan Empire and its gods-and I know that all things must change. Still, I fear the townspeople have lost the will and certainly the wisdom to survive the changes which must follow as surely as a storm follows lightning. Even now the new Rankan Emperor gathers troops to-"

He stopped abruptly as he realized the Beysa was laughing silently.

"I had not intended to be amusing," he said stiffly, anger flashing just below the surface. "While I know the problems of a mere storyteller pale to insignificance before-"

"Forgive me. Wise One. I meant no disrespect. It's just that you.... Please, let me be the teacher for once."

To Hakiem's surprise, she joined him at the window, leaning far over the sill until only the tips of her bare toes touched the cool floor.

"I fear you are too close to the problem," she said solemnly. "You know so much about Sanctuary and watch so many of its citizens that you have become overwhelmed by surface changes and are blind to the currents moving beneath. Let me tell you what I see as someone new to Sanctuary.

"You underestimate your town. Wise One. You love it so much that you think that no one else does-but that is incorrect. In the two years since my people arrived here, I have yet to meet a man, woman, or child of Sanctuary who did not, despite their very loud protests to the contrary, care as deeply for Sanctuary as you do, though they may show it differently. And I find, to my surprise, that their feelings are quite contagious."

She caught his surprised glance and laughed again. "Yes, I find that even with the blood of forty generations of Beysas and our island empire running in my veins, neither I nor my goddess has been immune to the lure of your town. At first it seemed to me to be vicious and barbaric, and it is, but there is a zest and vigor here that is invigorating and quite lacking in my own very civilized people. While you may fear that it has changed or lost, as one watching through new eyes, I can tell you that it is still there, and if anything it's stronger than when we arrived. Oh, they may squabble over their new wealth and power, but this is still Sanctuary. If threatened, the people here will fight or do whatever is necessary to keep that feeling of independence and freedom they have toiled so long for. The Beysib will be at their side, for my people and I are a part of it, just as you and yours are."

After that, she lapsed into silence and, side by side, they studied the town, living symbols of the old and the new Sanctuary. In their own thoughts, they each hoped desperately that she was right.

LADY OF FIRE

Diana L. Paxson

A peach tree grew in the courtyard below Lalo's stairs. It was only a little tree, but Gilla had covered its roots with straw to protect it from cold and dribbled precious water around it when the sun burned in the sky, caring for it as she cared for her children, and through war and wizard weather it had survived. But in the bitter spring of the Emperor's visit to Sanctuary the tree stood barren, with scarcely a leaflet on its twisted branches, and no blooms. Lalo paused beside it on his way to the palace, wishing that he could breathe life into the tree as he had once breathed life into the work of his hands. But with the destruction of the Nisibisi Globes of Power everyone's magic seemed to have become as strengthless as Master Ahdio's cheap ale; Lalo dared not test his own. And even at his most powerful, he had only transformed symbols, not already living things.

He did not know if he could create anything anymore.

The building behind him was as silent as it had been in the dreadful days when Gilla was Roxane's captive. Latilla and Alfi were with Vanda at the palace. Wedemir was enviously watching the Stepsons maneuver themselves back into shape for campaign, and Gilla herself was at the Aphrodisia House, watching over Illyra's slow recovery from the wound she had taken in the riots when her daughter died.

If Illyra's body had been all that needed healing it would not have been so bad, Lalo thought. But it seemed to him that both women were nursing grief like a child. A pang twisted in his own belly at the memory-his middle son, Ganner, had been struck down, outside the goldsmith's shop where he was apprenticed, in that same climax of disorder that had killed Illyra's girl.

The town was quiet now, but it was the peace of exhaustion-more like a coma than the sleep of healing, and who could tell whether Sanctuary, or any of its people, would awaken to life again?

Lalo shivered and squinted at the sky. Even if it was useless, he ought to get up to the palace before the morning light was gone. As part of a sequence of political and religious negotiations which Lalo did not even try to understand, Molin Torchholder had commissioned him to paint an allegorical mural of the Wedding of the Storm God and Mother Bey. The work was as lifeless as everything else he did these days, but he was getting paid for it. And he did not know what else he could do.

"She was going to be pretty..." said Illyra in an oddly conversational tone. "My Lillis had golden hair like her father's, do you remember? I used to comb it and wonder how anything that pretty could have been born from me...."

"Yes," answered Gilla quietly. "I know." She had only seen Illyra's daughter a few times, but that did not matter now. "Ganner was the fairest of my children..." Her throat closed.

"How can you understand?" exclaimed the half-S'danzo suddenly. "You still have children! But my daughter is dead and they have taken my little boy away! There is nothing left for me."

"Your child was young," said Gilla heavily. "You do not know what she would have been. But all the labor of raising my boy to manhood is wasted. He will never give me grandchildren now. I have buried one infant and lost one from the womb; the boy that was born after Ganner died of a fever when he was six years old. I know the pain of losing them at all ages, Illyra, and I tell you truly that whatever age your child is taken from you is the worst. But I will bear no more. You are still young-you can have other children."

"What for?" Illyra said harshly. "So that this town can kill them, too?" She sank back upon the silken pillows with which the Aphrodisia House furnished even a sickroom and closed her eyes.

From somewhere on the floor below them came a mocking echo of music. The faded silk of the cushions glowed softly in the afternoon light, but to Gilla they seemed as colorless as everything else had been since that terrible day when so many died. Illyra was right-why give more hostages to malicious fate?

Someone scratched hesitantly at the door. When neither Gilla nor Illyra answered, it opened softly and Myrtis, a little thinner, but as impeccably painted and jeweled as ever, came in.

"How is she today?" She gestured toward the half-S'danzo, who lay with her eyes tightly closed.

Gilla got to her feet and moved heavily to meet the older woman-at least one assumed that Myrtis was older, and today she looked it, as if the spells by which Lythande had preserved her famous beauty were fading too. Molin Torch holder's gold had paid for Illyra's convalescence here, but the famous madam of the Aphrodisia House had given them more than a landlady's care.

"The scar is healing, but Illyra grows weaker," Gilla said in a low voice. "I think she does not want to live. And why should she?" she added bitterly. For a moment Myrtis's eyes glittered. "Do you need a reason? Life is the only thing there is! After all she's survived, and you, too, are you going to give up and let them win?" Her gesture seemed to encompass everything outside the room. Then she drew back her hand as if surprised by her own intensity.

"In any case, there are others who need her," she continued more calmly. She moved aside and Gilla saw another figure in the doorway behind her, tall, black haired, with a lithe poise that the rich gown she wore so awkwardly could not disguise and an energy that made even Gilla give way as she swept into the room past Myrtis.

"What are you doing? She's not well enough-" Gilla began as the newcomer strode to the bed where Illyra lay, and stood looking down at her.

"They say the S'danzo have no gods, and no mages," the woman said gruffly.

"Well, the gods the rest of us had aren't talking these days, and the mages are useless. I need information. My old comrades said you're honest. What will you take to See for me?"

"Nothing." Illyra pulled herself up against the pillows, stony-eyed.

"Oh, no-enough of my comrades came to you in the old days that I know you keep to the traditional rule. If you take my coin you are bound to answer me...." She pulled gold from her pouch and held it out. Furiously, Illyra dashed it from her hand.

"Do you know who I am?" the woman said dangerously.

"I know you. Lady Kama, and there is nothing in Sanctuary that will make me See for you!" She caught her breath on a half-sob. "I could not even if I would. When my-in the riots-my cards were destroyed. I am as blind as any of the rest of you now!" She finished with bitter triumph.

"But I have to know!" Kama said angrily. "I have promised to wed Molin Torchholder, but when I ask him about the ceremony he puts me off with theological caveats. And the Stepsons are taking the Third Commando with them on some mysterious campaign-all my old comrades! I could go with them-I'd rather go with them, but I have to know what I should do!"

Illyra shrugged. "Do what you please."

Considering that Molin Torchholder had taken Illyra's other child away, Gilla thought the S'danzo's reaction to this request from his woman mild. Kama bent suddenly and gripped Illyra's shoulders. "What does that have to do with it? I've sworn oaths-they still bind me even if the gods aren't listening anymore, and I've lost too much blood in this town to just walk away without knowing why. Do you think I've stopped being a warrior because I'm wearing these?" She twitched angrily at the rich folds of her skirts. "I will have answers, woman, if I have to wring them out of you!" Illyra shook her head. "Can you wring blood from a stone? Do whatever you like to me-I have no answers anymore."

"There may be no blood left in your veins," Kama said dangerously, "but what about your husband's? I've learned a lot in this cesspool you call home-will you sing the same song when you see me applying some of that knowledge to Dubro?"

"No..." said Illyra faintly. "He has nothing to do with this. You can't make him suffer for me . .."

"Were you somehow under the impression that life is fair?" Kama straightened and stood looking down at her. "I will do whatever I have to do." Gilla looked from her to Myrtis, who was watching with a faint half-smile. Had the madam of the Aphrodisia House put Kama up to this in an attempt to shake Illyra out of her depression? She could believe it of Myrtis, but she found it hard to imagine Kama cooperating in anyone else's schemes.

"But I cannot..." said Illyra pitifully. "I told you. I have no cards. And I cannot borrow a set-each deck is attuned to the S'danzo who owns it. Mine came to me from my grandmother, and there is no S'danzo craftsman in this town who could paint a new deck for me."

Kama stared at her. Then her gray gaze moved thoughtfully from the S'danzo to Gilla and back again.

"But you know the patterns of the cards-"

Now it was Illyra's turn to stare.

"And her husband is a painter who is said to have certain powers ..." As Kama continued, Gilla read in Illyra's face her own anguished awareness that they both still had hostages to fate.

"Molin Torchholder is the limner's patron. He will order Lalo to come to you, and together you will make a new deck of cards. And then-" Kama's lips twisted in what was intended to be a sweet smile. "Then we will see if there is any magic left in this world."

Lalo pinned another rectangle of stiff vellum to his drawing board. He could feel the tension in his neck and shoulders, and Illyra looked pale, with a sheen of perspiration on her brow. The two cards they had already finished were drying in the sunshine that came through the window.

"Are you ready?" he asked softly through the mask over his mouth he always wore now while working, to keep his breath from accidentally giving life to what he made. "We don't have to do any more today. ..." Even if he had had the energy to continue, he did not think that the S'danzo woman could go on much longer.

"One more..." Illyra winced as she pulled herself upright against the pillows. She was pushing herself. Lalo wondered if she was beginning to feel incomplete without a set of cards, as he always did without drawing materials somewhere at hand, or if she simply wanted to get rid of Kama.

"The next card is the Three of Flames," said Illyra. Her voice altered, developed a peculiarly flat timbre, as if even visualizing the cards was enough to push her into the seer's trance. "There is a tunnel, dark at one end and at the other bright. In the tunnel I see three figures bearing torches. Are they moving toward light or darkness? I cannot tell...."

As if the S'danzo's words had entranced him, Lalo found his hand moving, dipping up dark pigment for the shadows and red-orange for the three bright flowers of flame. As Illyra spoke of the meaning of the card, shape and color emerged from the slip of vellum before him as if his brush were a wand that made visible what had always been implicit there.

The torchbearers were in silhouette, their faces hidden, but he could see that one was small, one broad, one wiry and active. Could the big shape be Molin Torchholder? Lalo finished painting in the number of the card, and in the moment between the last brush stroke and his return to normal consciousness he thought he saw something of Gilla in the larger figure. Perhaps the other two were Illyra and himself, then, but were they moving into deeper shadow or toward the light?

BOOK: Blood ties-- Thieves World 09
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