Robert Asprin - Thieves World

'No!' Dubro exclaimed, beginning to pace like a caged animal. 'No, I want none of this. I will not have magicians and sorcerers in my home!'

'You weren't here, and I did not invite him in.' Illyra's dark eyes flashed at him as she spoke. 'And he'll come back again if I don't do these things, so hear me out.'

'No, just tell me what we must do to keep him away.'

Illyra dug her fingernails into the palm of one hand hidden in the folds of her skirts.

'We will have to - to stop the consecration of the cornerstone of the new temple for the Rankan gods.'

'"Gods", Lyra, you would not meddle with the gods? Is this the meaning you found in "death and sacrifice"?'

'It is also the reason Lythande was here last night.'

'But, Lyra ...'

She shook her head, and he was quiet.

'He won't ask me what I plan to do', she thought as he tied the rope across the door and followed her towards the city. 'As long as everything is in my head, I'm certain everything is possible and that I will succeed. But if I spoke of it to anyone - even him - I would hear how little hope I have of stopping Molin Torch-holder or of changing Marilla's fate.'

In the dream, her already dead body had been offered to Sabellia and Savankala. Her morning's introspection had convinced her that she was to introduce a corpse into Molin Torchholder's ceremonies. They passed the scene of the murder, but Jubal's men had reclaimed their comrade. The only other source of dead men she knew of was the governor's palace where executions were becoming a daily occurrence under the tightening grip of the Hell Hounds.

They passed by the huge charnel-house just beyond the bazaar gates. The rain held the death smells close by the half-timbered building. Could Sabellia and Savankala be appeased with the mangled bones and fat of a butchered cow? Hesitantly she mounted the raised wooden walk over the red-brown effluvia of the building.

'What do the Rankan gods want from this place?' Dubro asked before setting foot on the walkway.

'A substitute for the one already chosen.'

A man emerged from a side door pushing a sloshing barrel which he dumped into the slow-moving stream. Shapeless red lumps flowed under the walkway between the two bazaar-folk. Illyra swayed on her feet.

'Even the gods of Ranke would not be fooled by these.' Dubro lowered his- head towards the now-ebbing stream. 'At least offer them the death of an honest man ofllsig.'

He held out a hand to steady her as she stepped back on the street, then led the way past the Serpentine to the governor's palace. Three men hung limply from the gallows in the rain, their crimes and names inscribed on placards tied around their necks. Neither Illyra nor Dubro had mastered the arcane mysteries of script.

'Which one is most like the one you need?' Dubro asked.

'She should be my size, but blonde.' Illyra explained while looking at the two strapping men and one grandfatherly figure hanging in front of them.

Dubro shrugged and approached the stern-faced Hell Hound standing guard at the foot of the gallows.

'Father,' he grunted, pointing at the elderly corpse.

'It's the law - to be hung by the neck until sundown. You'll have to come back then.'

'Long walk home. He's dead now - why wait?'

'There is law in Sanctuary now, peon, Rankan law. It will be respected without exception.'

Dubro stared at the ground, fumbling with his hands in evident distress.

'In the rain I cannot see the sun - how shall I know when to return?'

Guard and smith stared at the steely-grey sky, both knowing it would not clear before nightfall. Then, with a loud sigh, the Hell Hound walked to the ropes, selected and untied one, which dropped Dubro's 'father' into the mud.

'Take him and begone!'

Dubro shouldered the dead man, walking to Illyra who waited at the edge of the execution grounds.

'He's - he's -' she gasped in growing hysteria.

'Dead since sunrise.'

'He's covered with filth. He reeks. His face ...'

'You wanted another for the sacrifice.'

'But not like that!'

'It is the way of men who have been hung.'

They walked back towards the charnel-house where Sanctuary's undertakers and embalmers held sway. There, for five copper coins, they found a man to prepare the body. For another coin he would have rented them a cart and his son as a digger to take the unfortunate ex-thief to the common field outside the Gate of Triumph for proper burial. Illyra and Dubro made a great show of grief, however, and insisted that they would bury their father with their own hands. Wrapped in a nearly clean shroud, the old man was bound to a plank. Illyra held the foot end, Dubro the other. They made their way back to the bazaar.

'Do we take the body to the temple for the exchange?' he asked as they pushed aside their chairs to make room for the plank.

Illyra stared at him, not realizing at first that his faith in her had made the question sincere.

'During the night the Rankan priests will leave the governor's palace for the estate called Land's End. They will bear Marilla with them. We will have to stop them and replace Marilla with our corpse, without their knowledge.'

The smith's eyes widened with disillusion. 'Lyra, it is not the same as stealing fruit from Blind Jakob! The girl will be alive. He is dead. Surely the priests will see.'

She shook her head clinging desperately to the image she had found in meditation. 'It rains. There will be no moonlight, and their torches will give more smoke than light. I gave the girl cylantha. They will have to carry her as if she were dead.'

'Will she take the drug?'

'Yes!'

But Illyra wasn't sure - couldn't be sure - until they actually saw the procession. So many questions: if Marilla had taken the drug, if the procession were small, unguarded and slowed by their burden, if the ritual were like the one in her dream. The cold panic she had felt as the stone descended on her returned. The Face of Chaos loomed, laughing, in her mind's eye.

'Yes! She took the drug last night,' she said firmly, dispelling the Face by force of will.

'How do you know this?' Dubro asked incredulously. 'I know.'

There was no more discussion as Illyra threw herself into the preparation of a macabre feast that they ate on a table spread over their dead guest. The vague point of sundown passed, leaving Sanctuary in a dark rainy night, as Illyra had foreseen. The continuing rain bolstered her confidence as they moved slowly through the bazaar and out of the Common Gate.

They faced a long, but not difficult, walk beyond the walls of the city. As Dubro pointed out, the demoiselles of the Street of Red Lanterns had to follow their path each night on their way to the Promise of Heaven. The ladies giggled behind their shawls at the sight of the two bearing what was so obviously a corpse. But they did nothing to hinder them, and it was far too early for the more raucous traffic returning from the Promise.

Huge piles of stone in a sea of muddy craters marked the site of the new temple. A water-laden canopy covered sputtering braziers and torches; otherwise the area was quiet and deserted.

It is the night of the Ten-Slaying. Cappen Varra told me the priests would be busy. Rain will not stop the dedication. Gods do not feel rain! Illyra thought, but again did not know and sat with her back to Dubro quivering more from doubt and fear than from the cold water dripping down her back.

While she sat, the rain slowed to a misty drizzle and gave promise of stopping altogether. She left the inadequate shelter of the rock pile to venture nearer the canopy and braziers. A platform had been built above the mud at the edge of a pit with ropes dangling on one side that might be used to lower a body into the pit. A great stone was poised on logs opposite, ready to crush anything below. At least they were not too late - no sacrifice had taken place. Before IHyra had returned to Dubro's side, six torches appeared in the mist-obscured distance.