The Gate of Fire (50 page)

The roar of noise from the crowds that had surged out into the city streets had woken her, called her forth to this place, the one remnant of her youth that still stood within the confines of the city. She looked down, seeing the pain and agony of this king of the day-people as he staggered to the altar. She smiled, smelling the poison and disease that was upon him. She wondered, shading her eyes from the burning rays of the sun, which of his servants had turned against him. Who had put the golden droplets in his wine or the shining white crystals in his meat? His fear was rank in her fine white nostrils, even at this distance.

A doomed man
, she thought, finding a small pleasure in his agony.
Another soon to pass from this way station on the Wheel
.

The dark lady turned, fading into the shadows behind the lithe statues of the goddesses. Her pale blue-white eyes blinked, and she smiled. With so many out of their homes thronging the streets, there would be good hunting once darkness fell. She smiled, and the tip of a pink tongue appeared between her sharp white teeth. The pain curdled in her blood, but soon she would have surcease from it, respite in the panting fear of a dying day-man. Like a ghost, she passed among the statues and descended a stair that led down into the nave of Hecate's Temple and thence to the cellars below.

Nicholas staggered down the hallway of the apartment, his head spinning with excess. Behind him, in the room with the balcony, the redhead was sprawled amid the tangled sheets and blankets of her too-comfortable bed. She was snoring, overcome by exhaustion. For a moment, as he groped in the darkness, trying to find the edge of the door, he remembered. Then his fingers found it, rough and poorly planed, and he made his way into the stairwell. The
insula
was a three-story building of cheap brick and half-cured wood quite close to the western end of the Hippodrome. It was not an elegant district—where else could two attractive young seamstresses find lodgings for themselves without undue comment?

Weaving down the stairs, Nicholas felt pleasantly exhausted, the memory of the woman, her skin gleaming with a sheen of sweat, her mouth hot on his, playing back in his memory. He smelled the common privy on the ground floor and managed to keep—by blind luck—from braining himself on the low doorway. He pushed aside a heavy curtain, hung on copper rings from a crossbar, and stepped into the common area between the washroom on his left and the toilets on his right.

There was a sound, an odd moan, and he turned, one hand fumbling for the hilt of his sword.

He had no sword;
Brunhilde
was upstairs, hanging in her leather and cloth sheath on the head of the big carved bed.
Not good
, his mind started to say, and then he stopped, eyes widening.

Vladimir was in the washroom, his lean, muscled form naked but for a loincloth, bent over the still body of the blonde. In the flickering light of a night lantern in the hallway between the two rooms, her flesh had turned a pasty white. Nicholas hissed in surprise and backed up. Vladimir turned, his dark eyes enormous and gleaming like the moon with the reflection of the lantern. There was blood streaking his chest and his hands. Behind him, the girl lay half in and half out of the big stone washtub, her hair drifting in the water, the side of her throat a bloody mass of skin.

Vladimir blinked, his eyes focusing, the snarl fading from his face. Nicholas watched in sick fascination as he wiped the clotted blood from his mouth and his bright white teeth. In the dim light, the long narrow head and wiry body seemed streaked with fur. Even the man's hands were twisted and strange.

"Vlad?" Nicholas felt behind him for the edge of the door, his mind, dulled by wine and exhaustion, groping for words. "What happened?"

Vladimir shook his head and then looked around, awareness entering his eyes. He frowned, confused, and put out a hand on the doorjamb of the washroom. "Where am I?" The Northerner's voice was thick, his accent coming back. "There was a woman with hair like pale gold..."

Nicholas cursed, a vile string of words he had once heard a Roman sea captain use, seeing the sleek gray ships of the Scandians closing on his fat merchantman in the waters off the Batavian shore. He stepped forward and grabbed his friend by the arm. "Come on," he snapped, "we have to get out of here."

Vladimir nodded, still confused, but he followed along readily, taking the steps up to the second floor two and three at a time, like Nicholas. The mercenary's mind was spinning, desperately trying to figure a way out of this fix.
All we can do
, he realized as he skidded to a halt in front of the redhead's bedroom,
is slip away in the night and hope that this one is too drunk to remember what we look like
.

He snatched up Vladimir's breeches from the other bed and threw them at the Northerner. "Get dressed, we've little time."

Vladimir nodded dumbly and began putting on his pants. Blessedly, the redhead was still snoring, sound asleep. Blood, dripping from Vlad's chest, spattered on the floor in tiny red dots.

"Get out!" Heraclius' voice rose in a scream, and his arm, still strong, hurled a heavy porphyry vase at the priest. The holy father fled, and the vase shattered on the facing of the wall by the door. The Emperor cast about for another missile. The other priests who had made to enter his chamber also fled, seeing his intent. It was dark in his chambers. He had knocked down or put out all of the lights save one guttering candle. In the darkness he could not see his legs, or the bulbous protrusion of his lower body. In the dark, if he lay still, he could still believe that he was a whole man again. Weeping, he crawled back onto the bed, dragging his useless feet. Even those movements, jarring as he rolled onto the silk sheets, sent jagged spears of pain through his abdomen. His breath was hoarse, but he managed to turn over.

The canopy of the bed was a dim shape above him. If the room were lit, he knew that it would be rich velvet, a cerulean blue, like the sky. Now he could distinguish nothing. He could hear voices raised in fear and anger outside, in the hallway. His councillors were arguing among themselves. The Emperor made to rise up, for he could hear the dissention and distrust in their voices. Only his will had bound them together before, and now the bonds that tied the state together would begin to fray.

His leg twinged, and he lost his breath. The pain washed over him, and he shuddered. He lay back down in the quiet darkness.

After a time, the voices quieted and went away. The Emperor dozed, feeling some surcease from his fear in dreams and fantasies.

"My lord?" Heraclius raised his head. It was Rufio—the only one who did not fear him, save his brother Theodore. The scarred face of the centurion was a jarring sight, his dark eyes in shadow. The man was carrying a lantern, half shuttered. In the light of the oil flame, he seemed ominous. "My lord, Empress Martina is outside. She wishes to see you. Shall I let her in?"

"No!" Heraclius blurted before he could think. But the fear was there, and a terrible shame washed around him. "No, good Rufio, send her away. Tell her I will come to her when this... this affliction has passed. Let me sleep, just for a little while. I will see her in the morning, I am sure of it."

Rufio's face was stolid, but Heraclius thought he saw a flicker of distaste in the man's eyes. The Emperor knew that his voice held the edge of a whine in it, and he loathed himself even more. But the centurion turned, and went away, taking the lantern with him. The darkness returned, cool and soothing, and Heraclius surrendered himself to his dreams again.

Nicholas sat on the edge of his bed,
Brunhilde
bare on a towel on his knees. He held a whetstone in one hand, and oil in the other. While he worked, keeping just the right edge to the sword, he listened.

"It comes upon us all—the people of my tribe—when the hunger grows too great. The pain, you see, the pain can become too much." Vladimir's voice was low and filled with shame. The Northerner was sitting opposite, on his own bunk. Nicholas, not trusting the night, had lit all of the candles he could find, and they clustered on the tiny wooden table like a forest of stars. Their smoke, sweet with the smell of honey, curled toward the ceiling. On any other night he would have thrown the wooden shutters of the window wide, but now—with the image of the dead girl in the washtub floating behind his eyes—he did not. They were latched and locked.

"I did not think it would happen here... but I drank too much wine. I am sorry, my friend."

Nicholas looked up, his eyes cold and guarded. Vladimir had cleaned up in a public fountain, washing the crimson stains from his chest and face. The crowds that danced in the streets had not marked him, no more than any other man nursing an incipient hangover in this city of its millions. "When this hunger comes," he said, his words bitten out, "can you choose who to take? Can you sate this thirst before you lose control? Can you drink just a little?"

Vladimir hung his head again, burying it in his hands. "Yes," the Northerner said. "I could... I should have, but I have been trying to master myself, to better it by my will. Some few of us, the
rashkashutra
, can do so. They are our wise men, our war chiefs. They can command it. I thought that I could... it is..." The Northerner paused, groping for the words he wanted. Nicholas felt a change in the air in the room and half turned.

"It is dangerous to hunt here," whispered a rich voice, redolent of dead flowers and the curling vapor that rises from newly turned earth, "without my leave."

Nicholas froze, hearing the scrape of the door closing. There was a presence behind him, something cold and old and very angry. Under his hand,
Brunhilde
quivered, sending up a faint almost imperceptible keening sound. By sheer will, he mastered the gibbering fear that the voice engendered and he turned, rising, the blade in his hand.

There was a woman at the threshold of the room, with a face like the moon in clear water. He met her eyes—a blue so clear, it was almost white—and felt the blow of her will. He stepped back, between the woman and Vladimir, and
Brunhilde
was singing in his hand. Pale light gleamed along the spine of the dwarf-steel blade. The woman stepped forward from the door, her thin white hand on a staff of bone as tall as a Varangian. Her bracelets made a soft clinking sound. Nicholas did not move, though he felt Vladimir's fear at his back like the heat from a fire.

"What a sight," she said, low voice purring, "the
a'ha-tri'tsu
child defends the murderer, the one who has taken a day-walker woman without my leave. Stand aside, O man, and let my justice take him."

"No," Nicholas grated between clenched teeth. Fear ran riot in him, the sight of those white eyes triggering a heedless desire to run. Only the shudder of
Brunhilde
in his fist made him stand his ground. "He is my friend, and I owe him my life. You cannot have him."

"I cannot?" The woman circled to the right, her dark red hair spilling over her shoulder like a wave of drying blood. Her cloak shifted as she moved, showing deep green glints in the fabric that he had first thought black as night. Her hair was bound back by thin silver wires, and the gleam of ruby shone at her neck. "You should welcome me and my justice. The
k'shapâcara
are not well known for their mercy toward the children of the day."

"He did not hunt in your domain," Nicholas said, thinking furiously, "save in extremity."

"Cannot he speak for himself?" The woman edged closer, and Nicholas felt the wash of fear at his ankles, rising like a cold chill tide. "Why does he hide behind you, O man?"

"I can speak for myself," a quavering voice came over Nicholas' shoulder. "I beg your indulgence,
bidalak'sha-virazh'oi
—the pain was upon me! Please, I did not mean to trespass."

The woman stopped and smiled, her fine white teeth gleaming in the candlelight. Then she laughed, a sweet sound like the chime of silver bells. Nicholas felt a pain in his bones at the sound and memory stirred in his heart. An odd longing came upon him, but he pushed it away.

"You are a polite creature," she said. "It has been a long time since one of the
dushkula
spoke so to me. Indeed, I am flattered. But you know the law. You may not feed, even among the least of the
a'ha-tri'tsu
, without my leave. Death is the price of your weakness."

"No," Nicholas quietly said, his jaw clenched. "Not without passing me. This man was driven to break your law by hunger, but he is still my friend, and I will not let you take him."

The woman drew back, seemingly growing in stature, her presence filling the room. "You put great trust in that sliver of iron, day-walker. Do you not believe that I can put forth strength enough to overcome you? Do you not believe that I may summon my pack to me, and they will rend you with tooth and claw?"

"There is no need of that, noble lady. I will vouch for his parole—let me take him away from this place, from your city. He will trouble you no more."

Nicholas felt Vlad tense, gathering his legs under him. The woman's eyes met his, and Nicholas felt the world spin around him, the room growing faint and distant. Pools of blue-white opened before him, and he felt the feather touch of a power on his soul.
Brunhilde
keened sharply, but her warning and anger seemed very far away.

"Ah..." The woman sighed in surprise, and her staff made a tapping sound on the brick floor as she turned. "You have your parole, day-walker child. But do not waste it, for even in age, my patience is short." Then she was gone, a dark blur, and the door swung slowly closed.

Nicholas shuddered, feeling his muscles relax and tension flood from him. He stepped to the door and pushed it tight. The bar had moved aside, and he replaced it, sliding it firmly home, with a bleak face. When he turned around, he found Vladimir curled into a ball on the narrow cot. "Are you all right?" he asked, though his voice seemed very distant.

Vladimir whimpered, though at the sound of Nicholas' voice, he slowly uncurled, looking this way and that, sniffing the air. "The Surâpa Queen is gone?" Vladimir's voice was shaky.