Glen Cook - Sung In Blood

But he is old and powerful and tricky."

"I'm going looking too. He isn't getting away with Caracene if I've got anything to say about it."

"I don't know how he could have gotten through that alive," Rider repeated. "Unless he was not aboard the airship at all. Which could have been, though I don't see how he could have managed the airship so deftly from ashore."

Chaz, a glob of moroseness feeling sorry for itself huddling in a corner, did not look up. No slightest trace of Caracene or the green-eyed man had come to light yet.

"We'll hear from Shai Khe again," Rider said. "If, indeed, it was he that Chaz saw." Rider was not convinced that his only witness was reliable. "His ego wouldn't let it be otherwise." What was meant to be a feather of hope fell flat with Chaz.

"If it was Shai Khe, I'm convinced he has left the City. He would have to do so. He would need to restore the edifice of terror that began crumbling with the report of his death. If he lives, and Caracene is with him, he will be in the east and we will have report of them soon enough."

But the big northerner refused to be encouraged. "I'll find her," he mumbled. "I'll find them both. And when the dust settles there won't be no more green-eyed spook doctor hanging around. No more slave-master for her to be afraid of."

Rider looked at his friend with compassion, but he said nothing more. There was nothing to say. What was needed now was the passing of time. It would be a time shorter than any of them imagined.