Robert Asprin - Wings of Omen

"It'll be coming here," Mor-am said. "That's the word comes with this. They got their eye on you. Death squads move uptown tonight. You hear me, man?"

"Whose? When?" The flush went hectic. A sweat glistened on jowls and brow. "Give me names. Isn't that what we pay you-"

"Word for Torchholder this time. Get the word upstairs. Tell him-look out his window tonight. Tell him-" he tried to recall precisely the words he had been primed with, that Haught had told him a dozen days ago-"tell him he'll understand then what the help we give is worth."

No shrieking, no cursing, not the least cracking of the fat man's fury. Ilsigi dog, the look said, wishing him to heel. And fearing the bite he had.

"He knows," Mor-am said, neat and measured, and gods, gods, let the tic stay still. "He can tell the prince-g-govemor-" Damn the twisting of his face, the drawing of his mouth. "He'll know where his safety is. He'll pay the cost, whatever we ask. We got our means. Tell Kittycat look out his window too."

Alarms were on their way, plainclothes and moving with deliberation, not panic, word back to the command post, to various places and offices. And Straton rode alone now- imprudence, perhaps; but a full troop of Stepsons clattering up the riverside slow or fast, plainclothes or not-drew too much attention. He slouched like a drunk, kept the bay to an amble, and sweated the entire last block. He had sent his three companions off the other way. Foalside was a mixed kind of street, wide near the bridge and well-used; but higher up the Foal, buildings crowded close and the street became a rough track with only the remnant of ancient stones for pavings. Trees grew untended on the Foalside in a widening lower terrace by the road. Weeds crowded close on that margin. And crouched like some lurking aged beast- a cottage occupied the upper terrace, the northern house on that black river, a tiny place like the southern one-both of which had been singed, both of which had been swept over with fire enough to blacken the brush and kill the trees that grew hereabouts. But nowadays neither showed traces of burning; and both stood just as before, surrounded with brush, and smelling that wet, old smell of places long untended in the dark, in the starlight, with old trees lifting autumn (unscarred) branches at the sky.

Ischade maintained a fence and hedge: her house clung to its strip of river terrace and faced beyond its yard and gates a row of warehouses, at a little respectful distance from the ordinary world, distance which the wise respected one of those places in every town, Strat thought, which had that dilapidated look of trouble and contagious bad luck.

Ischade's territory. He had been in it for the length of the solitary ride. And no squad he knew of dared that little strip of street or the warehouses near it.

Strat slid down, looped the reins over the fence, and opened the ridiculous low gate. There were weeds, gods, everywhere. In so short a time. She grew nightshade like flowers.

His pulse quickened and his mouth went dry as he came up to the paint-peeled door and reached out to knock, half-expecting it to do the thing it had done before and swing open.

It opened, without his knock, without a sound on the other side. And he was facing not Ischade but the freedman Haught, Nisi-complexioned and dressed far too well and standing there as if he owned the room.

"Where is she?" Strat asked, vexed.

"I don't give out her business."

Something warned him-about that line that was the threshold. On the brink of hasty invasion, of drawing his sword and prying it out of pretty-lad, alarms went off. He stood slouched, hands on hips. "Stilcho here?"-as if that were what he had come for. He let his eyes focus however briefly on the dim room beyond. He remembered that place, that it always had more size than seemed right. And there was no sign of the man.

"No," Haught said.

The pulse was up again. Strat looked the ex-slave in the eyes-remarkable: Haught never flinched, and had before. Rage ticked away, a twitching of his mouth; gods, that he was reduced to this schoolboy standoff, eye to eye with a jealous slave who was-dangerous. No wilt, no bluster. Just a cold steady stare, Nisi and Rankan. And he thought of Wizardwall, and things that he had seen.

"Try the river," Haught said. "It's a short walk. You won't need the horse. You're late."

The door shut, with no hand on it.

He caught his breath, swore, looked back where his horse stood and snorted in the dark.

It was not a place for horses, down on Foalside, beyond the house, where the brush grew thick along the shore.

Fool, something said to him. But he cursed the voice and went.

"Siphinos's son." Molin Torchholder cast a misgiving look at the door and shrugged on his robe with the sense of something gone badly amiss. He waved a hand at the servant who fussed up with slippers while another stirred up the fire. "Move. Move. Let the lad in."

"Reverence, the guards-"

"Hang the guards-"

"-want to search the boy, but being nobility-"

"Send him in. Alone."

"Reverence-"

"Less reverence and more obedience. Would you?" Molin drew his lips to a fine humored line that betokened storms. The servant gulped and fled doorward, returned, and dropped the slippers face-about for him.

"Alone!"

"Reverence," the flunky breathed, and sped.

Molin worked one slipper on and the other, fought off the interventions of the other servant who drew near to fuss with his robe. Looked up suddenly as the fellow desisted. "Liso."

"Reverence." Siphinos's lanky blond son made a bow, all breathless, all courtesies. "Apologies-"

"It should be good, lad. I trust it is."

"It isn't. I mean, not-good." The boy's teeth began to chatter. "I ran-" He raked at his strawthatch hair. "Had my father's guard with me-"

"Can you get to it, lad?"

The boy caught his breath and, it seemed, his wits. "The witch-ours; she says-"

Straton shoved the brush aside, more and more regretting this imprudence. He was not ordinarily a fool. Such was his foolishness at the moment, he reckoned, that he was not even capable of knowing for sure he was a fool; and that alarmed him. But the Nisi witch on the prod-that sent alarms of its own crawling up his back.

You're late, the slave had said-as if Ischade had put it all together long before; as she would if that kind of alarm was ringing, audible to mages, wizards, and those wizardry had set its mark on-gods, that he tangled himself in the like, that he picked Roxane for an enemy or the vampire for an ally. He could not even remember clearly which way around it had been; except Ischade had agreed in Sync's case when there had been no other way, and in doing that, marked every Stepson her ally and Roxane's enemy.

Fool. He heard Crit's voice echoing in his mind.

Vis knew. The jolt of that caught up with his befogged wits and he hesitated on the narrow path, hanging by one hand to a shallow-rooted bit of brush, with one foot over black water and empty space. Vis knew where he was going.

Damn.

Down the river, beyond the lights of the bridge, a flash of lightnings showed, and, gods knew, with Roxane stirred up, that lightning-flash set a panic in him. He hauled himself back to balance on the narrow path and kept moving.

Faster and faster. No way to go now but straight on. His messengers were dispersed, alerting what wizard-help they had; one had headed the Prince Governor's direction, if he got that far. There was no calling back anyone for rethinking.

Another lightning-flash. A sudden wind swept down the black, light-rimmed chasm of the river, stirring the trees on the terraced shore. Brush cracked beneath his step on the eroded brink, beneath the sickly trees-she would know his presence, Ischade would; she had her ways. Had said once that she would know when she was needed, which intimation he had seized on with the misery and hope of all fools: so he was here, trusting a witch no sensible man would have sought in the first place-ignoring common sense and rules-gods, Crit-Crit would swear him to hell and back-What was wrong with him?