Robert Asprin - Wings of Omen

Men whooped and raced toward her. Sync, beside her, looked around calmly, his brow knitted as if a slightly amusing problem had him distracted.

Strat, wondering if he was dreaming-if it could really be this easy-got there fast, and with Ischade's help pulled Sync up behind him on the horse.

The fire was loud, and hot, and the horses and men milling around them made talk nearly impossible. But Strat bellowed to the man next to him: "Put her up before you. Let's get out of here!"

The Stepson's mouth formed the word: "Who?"

Strat looked back down, and Ischade was gone. So he gave the signal to end the sack, and with Sync holding tight to his waist, aimed his sweating horse at a narrowing portal in the flames.

In the thick of Downwind, it was nearly dusk, but the flames from the southeast made a second sunset which wouldn't die.

Zip was in a twilight all his own, stumbling from sewer to alley to dungheap, one hand against his bleeding side, nearly doubled over from the pain.

He'd been stabbed before, beaten often, starved and fevered in the course of life, but never so close to death as this.

He'd pulled the barbed missile out; he didn't understand why it hurt worse now, not less.

He was sick to his stomach and only intermittently did he recall his determination to get home. Home to his own safe haven, or home to Mama Becho's, where someone would tend him, home to... anywhere where he could lie down, where the Beysibs or the Stepsons or the 3rd Commando or the army wouldn't find him.

He was sweating and he was thirsty and he was nauseated. There was a red film before his eyes that made it hard to tell which comer he was on.

If he was lost in Downwind, he was nearly dead: he knew those streets like he knew the tunnels, the sewers... the sewers. If he could find a rat-hole, he could curl up in one; he didn't want to die in public. That thought, and that alone, kept him on his feet just long enough for him to stumble into Ratfall, where people knew him.

He heard his name called, but he was down on his knees by then, with his head between them. The only thing he could do was curl up before he passed out.

When he woke he was under blankets; there was a cool cloth on his head.

When he could he reached up and grabbed the hand there, held tight to someone's wrist.

He opened his eyes, and a face swam, unrecognizable above him. A voice from that direction said, "Don't try to talk. The worst is over. You'll be all right if you just drink this."

Something was pushed between his lips-hard like clay or metal; it grated on his teeth. Then his head was raised by another's will and liquid spilled down his throat.

He choked, sputtered, then remembered how to swallow. When he couldn't swallow more, someone wiped his lips and then his chin.

"Good, good boy," he heard. Then he slept a sleep in which his side burned and flamed and he kept trying to put the fire out, but it kept starting up from ashes, and his body walked away from him, leaving him invisible and lonely on a deserted Downwind street.

When he woke again, he smelled something: chicken.

He opened his eyes, and the room didn't spin. He tried to sit up, and then it did.

Voices mumbled just beyond earshot, and then a form bent over him. Long black hair brushed his cheek.

"That's a good one; here you go, drink this," said a blurry face.

He did, and well-being surged through him. Then his vision cleared, and he saw whose face it was: the lady fighter, Kama of the 3rd Commando, was tending him. Behind her, the soldier-mage Randal craned his swanlike neck and rubbed his hands.

"Better, you're right, Kama," said the mage judiciously, and then: "I'll leave you. If you need me, I'll be right outside."

As the door closed and he was alone with his enemy, Zip tried to push himself up on his arms. He didn't have the strength. He wanted to run, but he couldn't even raise his head. He'd heard all about Straton's skill at interrogation. He'd have been better off dead in the street than being alive and at the mercy of such as these.

She sat on the bed next to him and took his hand.

He tensed, thinking: Now it will begin. Torture. Drugs. They've saved me one death to offer me another.

She said, "I've wanted to do this ever since I first saw you." Leaning close, she kissed him on the lips.

When she sat up straight, she smiled.

He didn't have the energy to ask her what she had in mind for him, or what the kiss was meant to mean; he couldn't find his voice.

But she said: "It was a mistake. Gayle didn't understand what you were trying to do. We're all sorry. You just relax and get better. We'll take care of you. I'll take care of you. If you can hear me, blink."

He blinked. If Kama of the 3rd Commando wanted to take care of him, he wasn't in any condition to argue.

"Did you miss me?"

Kadakithis whirled away from his window at the sound of that voice and stared in mute disbelief at the young woman in his doorway. She moved through his apartment toward him, aswirl in a summer cloud of dazzling white silks and shimmering sun-drenched hair. Smiling, she reached out to embrace him.

"Cousin!" They squeezed each other until they were breathless, then the Prince held her back at arm's length and laughed. "Gods, how yor've changed!" He made her turn while he rubbed his chin with mock-seriousness. "Chenaya, favorite of favorites, you were lovely even before I left Ranke, but you've grown positively exquisite." His fingers traced a thin, pale scar barely noticeable against the deep bronze of her left forearm. "Still playing rough, I see."

He clucked his tongue chidingly and sighed. "But what are you doing in Sanctuary, cousin? Did your father come with you?"

It was Chenaya's turn to laugh, and the sound rolled silver-sweet in her throat. "Still my Little Prince," she managed finally, patting his head as if he were a puppy in her lap. "Impetuous and impatient as ever. So many questions!"

"Not so little anymore, my dear," he answered, patting her head in the same condescending manner. "I'm taller than you now."

"Not by so very much." She spun away, her gown billowing with the movement. "Perhaps we should wrestle to see if it makes any difference?" She regarded him from across the room, her head tilting slightly when he didn't reply. A silence grew between them as he studied her, brief but suddenly more than she could bear. She crossed the apartment again in swift strides and seized his hands in hers. "It's so very good to see you, my Little Prince."

Their arms slipped about each other, and they embraced again. But this time his touch was different, distant. She backed off, slipping gently from his grasp, and gazed up at his face, at the eyes that suddenly colored with tints of sadness, or something just as disturbing.

Could he know the news from the capital?

"I smelled a garden when I entered the grounds," she said, tugging his hand, urging him toward the door. It struck her now how dark his quarters seemed, how sparse and empty of warmth or light. "Let's go for a walk. The sun is bright and beautiful."

Kadakithis started to follow, then hesitated. His gaze fixed on something beyond her shoulder; his hand in hers turned cold, stiff with tension. She felt his trembling. Slowly, she turned to see what affected him so.

Four men, guards apparently, stood just beyond his threshold. She had noticed several like them as she passed through the palace-strange, blank-eyed men of a racial type unknown to her. She'd been so eager to see her cousin, she had paid little attention. She'd assumed them to be mercenaries or hirelings. She took note of their garb and the weapons they wore, and hid a private smirk. A man would have to be good with his steel to dress in such a tasteless, gaudy fashion.