Uneasy alliances - Thieves World 11 (29 page)

Wedemir's voice, brittle with that conscious cheerfulness with which everyone spoke to Lalo these days. Did they think he could not hear? He heard the rustle of silken skirts and turned his head toward the sound. What did she look like, this girl with whom his eldest had fallen in love?

"I'm glad to meet you."

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Her voice was subdued. Lalo wondered if she were embarrassed because of his blindness, or whether she had her own sorrows? Even the privileged ones at the Palace had reasons to grieve, these past years.

"You are in service with the Beysa?" he asked. He wanted to hear her speak again. Silk whispered as if she had shrugged.

"The Prince wants to build understanding between our people and hers. I was glad to be offered the position. My father brought his family

here when the Prince was made Governor, but my parents had gone back to Ranke on a visit when the Emperor . . . fell." Lalo thought she sounded more wistful than bitter. Her voice had a spicy warmth to it. What kind of face would go with those tones? Drifting, he visualized cleanly modeled features, bright eyes, and hair of some

warm color—something like cinnamon, perhaps.

He could hear Wedemir talking to his mother in the other room.

"They tell me that my son is courting you," Lalo said then. There was a pause, as if Rhian had looked around to see who else was there.

"Wedemir is a good man," she said slowly, "but—" Suddenly it seemed to him that her Rankan accent was very clear.

"But he is Ilsigi, and a commoner!" Lalo fought to subdue a bitterness he thought he had forgotten.

"Oh, it is not that!" Rhian said quickly. "What does all that matter, now? But before I met Wedemir, I had given my word—"

"To a mageling—" Lalo remembered now. "Wedemir was telling me. Did you love him so much, then?" He stopped, wondering why he dared question her so sharply. Was it perhaps just because he could not see her?

And was she answering so freely because she did not fear to read condemnation in his eyes?

Rhian sighed. "Wedemir is very warm and alive. When I am with him, I feel safe. I know that I am loved. But I gave Darios my word."

"Death cancels such pledges," said Lalo.

"Darios is not dead."

"She keeps on saying that!"

Lalo started, realizing that Wedemir had come in from the other room.

"Rhian, if he is not dead, he has deserted you! You owe him nothing either way!"

"I can feel his presence! If he is dead, then his spirit is haunting me!"

Her tone had sharpened, and Lalo's sense other presence grew clearer. She was turning from him to Wedemir, her gaze more luminous, as if her eyes had filled with tears. Or was it only the pain in her voice that made

him think so?

"In my dreams I see him, Wedemir - . . Darios is trapped in darkness, and he cannot get free!"

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Trapped in darkness! thought Lalo. Like me! Like me! For a moment a terror that was not his own washed through him. But he could hear voices, feel the sun on his face and breathe in the wind. It occurred to him for the first time since he had been blinded that there were worse fates than his own.

"He is not dead yet," Rhian continued. "But he is dying. He has been buried alive, and if I can't find him, he will starve to death in the dark.

He has lost hope, but still he thinks of me. . . ." Again, the sense of panic washed through Lalo's awareness, as if what the girl was feeling had somehow been transmitted directly from her to him.

"But where?" exclaimed Wedemir, humoring her. "Most of the wreckage from the riots has been cleared away."

"Not all of it—" said Rhian slowly. "No one has dared to touch the parts of the Mageguild that fell down. That's where Darios was living. What if he sought shelter in the cellars and was trapped there? The possibility comes between me and sleep!"

"Well that's easily checked out!" Wedemir laughed. "I'll get a permit from the Palace to excavate, go down there with a fe^ of the lads and some picks and shovels and dig the nibble out. We'll lay your ghost for you, Rhian.'*

Lalo could feel the sudden hostility between them. He understood Wedemir's reaction—he was fighting for his love. But beneath her Rankan elegance this woman was the true steel. The boy would ruin his chances with her if he went on this way, no matter what the diggers found. Why couldn't Wedemir see that? Lalo felt himself straining, as if a

look could silence his son. But he knew that he was seeing through both of them, seeking, like Darios, to pierce the dark.

Darios knows when he is dreaming, because in his dreams, he can see. But when he opens his eyes into darkness, he is afraid. He is going to die.

. . . Why does he keep trying to keep his body going when there can only be one end? He will go through the only door that will open for him now, and hope the gods will forgive him all the petty deceptions and angers of a

student mage.

I have done nothing really bad, he tells himself. Nor anything particularly good, either, his thought goes on. But he has done one thing for which

the Judge might indeed condemn him, though he supposes that hardly a man in the Mageguild or out of it would care. He has deceived a woman in order to compel her love.

Was that evil? He asks himself. What would that deception do to me—

to us—if I were to live? He thinks of Rhian's bright beauty, and knows

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that his own falsehood would stain it for him, in time. As outer vision is

denied, his inner awareness becomes clearer, showing him a future in which one deception leads to another, until he hates Rhian's truth for showing him his own deficiency—until he hates, and at last destroys, the clear gaze that would prevent him from seeing himself as he has made her see him.

Is this knowledge why he is suffering? But now Darios knows his sin. Surely he has been punished enough. Once more. he tried to remember the SigH on the door, the pattern which he must trace in order to be free. . . .

But he cannot see it!

And there is no use in praying for rescue. Darios remembers only too well how the Spell that seals the vault is set to respond if anyone tries to

open it by physical means. . . .

Lalo knew that he must be dreaming, because he could see. He dreamed with a clarity of vision that had never been his in waking life, or

even in sleep, before his sight was taken away. In his dreams, he ranged through Sanctuary at will, invisible, invulnerable, as if all the energy that

had no outlet by day was fueling his nocturnal wanderings—nocturnal in their beginnings, though once he had begun his dreaming, Lalo might find himself moving through night or day, through scenes from the past, or sometimes among people and events whom his waking mind would not have recognized. But he had never tried to bring these visions into waking memory. The contrast would have been too cruel. It was morning now. The clear light glowed in the faces of the young, who woke wondering what the new day would bring, and revealed without pity every line and shadow in those of their elders, who knew only too well. Still, there was a welcome freshness in the air, and the sunlight

gleamed cheerfully from the temple domes. For a moment Lalo thought that he had gone back to his own youth, when the great caravans used to bring the town a rough prosperity. But as he looked more closely he saw the mended cracks the new gilding tried to hide, and turning a corner, recognized the jagged outlines of the Mageguild. This was the present then, or perhaps the future, for the City walls beyond it were perceptibly

higher than he remembered them.

For such an early hour, the place seemed very active. . . . Lalo moved closer, and saw a familiar curly head—his own son Wedemir, with a crowd of his friends from the garrison, big, bronzed men, who laughed and traded good-natured obscenities. But they were carrying picks, not pikes, and instead of swords they swung shovels. Wedemir was trying, with indifferent success, to get them organized. A short distance away Lalo saw his daughter Vanda, and with her another girl whose auburn

hair glinted beneath her veil. R h ian— suddenly Lalo was certain who this

must be. But how had he known?

He moved toward them, calling a greeting, but they looked through him, no more able to see his spirit than he had seen their bodies when they visited him.

Sight and vision are not necessarily the same. . . . The awareness came to Lalo like the answer to some long-debated question ... He was on the edge of understanding when a shout distracted him. The soldiers were attacking the rubble at the edge of the Mageguild's great hall. Dust

puffed up as the first of the great stones was moved. Wind lent the moving particles form and substance. Figures for which ordinary humans have no names seemed to hover for a moment above the workers, then the wind swirled them away. Was that a trick of the light, or was Lalo perceiving the elementals that had been bound to those stones?

Sight ... or vision?

That first success had encouraged the diggers. Picks shattered stones into fragments small enough to be carried away. Now they had bared the ground level. Someone shouted, and the men crowded around a rubblechoked depression next to the wait.

"What have they found?" Vanda asked her friend.

"It should be the stairs to the vaults beneath the Mage hall," answered Rhian. "Darios boasted that he knew the way—he should not have told me, I suppose, but he would never believe he did not need to impress me. . . ."

"His indiscretion may save his life," said Vanda. "If they do find him alive, what will you do about Wedemir?"

Rhian shrugged a little and colored. "I don't know. I love them both—

can you understand that? I love them in different ways." Vanda shook her head. "I have never been in love with one man, much less with two. Perhaps I am the lucky one . . . Oh, look—" she added suddenly, "the men have found a door!"

The digging had continued while the girls were talking. As the last stones were removed, Lalo saw what seemed to be an unbroken slab of stone. A symbol was cut deeply into the smooth surface; Lalo drifted closer to see. It was nothing he knew, but its loops and angles teased at

the memory. Had he seen something tike it at Enas Yorl's?

But he had no time to study it. Wedemir heaved up his pick and brought it down with all his strength upon the stone. Violet light blazed from the sigil, then burst outward in a flare that burned sight away. But Lalo heard the sharp crack, the clatter of falling

rock and then screaming and the ominous, agonized rumbling of settling stone. His cry mingled with the others', but the rush of displaced air was

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whirling him away. Vision was still darkened, but upon his inner eyelids he saw the Sigil imprinted in lines of fire.

"Wedemir! WedemirF

Anguish tore Lalo's throat. He fought the darkness; his flailing hands found something soft and solid, he was held, and presently his breathing steadied. An awareness deeper than sight told him who held him. With a shuddering sigh Lalo rested his head on Gilla's ample breast and breathed in the sweet scent of her hair.

"It's all right—I'm here . . . hush, my love—it was only a dream.

. . ." Gilla was patting his back as if he had been her child. A coolness in

the air told him that it was still nighttime. He could hear the distant barking of a guard dog, and a scream, cut short abruptly, from the direction of the Maze.

"A dream—" he muttered. "Dear gods, I hope so!" He waited for his heartbeat to steady. Images replayed themselves in his awareness—the Sigil, Wedemir's face as the stones crashed down. . . .

"Wedemir said he would excavate the rubble of the Mageguild," he said finally. "When, Gilla—did he say when?"

"I don't really know," she began, and winced as his fingers tightened on her arm. "Tomorrow, perhaps. Does it matter?"

"We've got to stop him, Gilla. If Wedemir tries to break those wardings, he'll be destroyed!"

"What wardings?" He felt her pull away a little to look at him. "The Guildhall is a ruin, Lalo. I've seen it!"

"So have I!"

"Lalo, what are you talking about?" Gilla said sharply.

"In my dream I saw Wedemir digging among those ruins, and I saw him crushed beneath falling stones."

"You are worried about him—well, so am I—" she said carefully. "Ifs part of parenthood. I've had any number of nightmares in which the children were endangered. It was a nightmare, nothing more." Her voice was so reasonable, so soothing. . . .

Lalo shook his head. "Gilla. don't talk to me as if I were one of the children! You're acting as if I'd lost my mind along with my sight!

Listen

to me, Gilla!"

"What do you mean? I've been treating you the way I always do. I've had to take care of you, of course, but—"

"Have you always secretly despised me, then?" he shouted. "Even in our worst times, you never slept in the other room."

"You were hurt," she began. "You needed to sleep alone—"

"Gilla, my head healed weeks ago! I'm still your husband—I'm still a man, even if I can't see!"

There was a silence. He heard her shaken breathing and fought to control his own. Her flesh was so familiar . . . Lalo knew the luxuriant hills and valleys of her body better than he did his own. But now he felt

as if a stranger were lying there.

"Is that the way it seemed to you?" she whispered finally. "I didn't intend it. But you may be right. I was afraid—all I could think about was

protecting the children. Oh Lalo, what can I do?" Lalo was glad that the darkness hid his involuntary grin. Her question had sounded too much like a verse from a bawdy song that he doubted Gilla knew.

"Let me inside your defenses, love," he whispered, touching her cheek with fingers that had grown more sensitive, moving his hand gently downward until it curved around her breast, teasing her nipple until he felt it harden, and she gasped. For this, he did not need to see.