Robert Asprin: The Dead of Winter

But she didn't. She said, "Ace, come here. Before the fire. Sit with me."

He did that and she cuddled by his knee in that way she had, so much a woman then that Strat could barely refrain from pulling her onto his lap. She looked up from under the darkness that veiled her and her eyes clamped on his: "What I am, you know. What I do, you understand better than many. What life Janni has with me, his soul has chosen. Someone is going to come here, and if you don't tell him all of that, the result will not sit well with you. Do you understand?"

"Ischade? Someone? A threat to you? I'll protect you, you know-"

"Hush. Don't promise what you'll not deliver. This one is a friend of yours, a brother. Keep him from my doorway or, despite what I'd like to promise you, he'll become a memory. One that will hang between us in the air forever." She reached up toward his face.

He jerked his head back; she lay her head upon his knee. He couldn't tell if she was crying, but he felt as if he would, so sad was she and so helpless did the big Stepson feel.

An hour later, outside her door, stationed like a sentry, he began to wonder if her creature hadn't lied. Then his big bay, tied at her low gate, let out a challenge and some horse answered from the dark.

Sword drawn, he sidled down to calm the beast, wondering what in hell he was supposed to do about something she hadn't explained, when a darkness separated from the midnight chill and a tiny coal, red-hot, seemed to bobble toward him in midair.

Closer it came, until the soft radiance of Ischade's hedges caught its edges and he made out a mounted man smoking something-pulcis, by the smell of it, laced with krrf and rolled in broadleaf.

"Hold and state your business, stranger," Strat called out.

"Strat?" said a soft voice full of distaste and some measure of disbelief. "Ace, if it's really you, tell me something a man would have had to fight on Wizardwall to know."

"Ha! Bashir can't hold his liquor, is what-not even laced with blood and water," Strat responded, then added, "Stealth? Niko, is that you?"

The little coal of red grew brighter as the smoker inhaled and in its flare Strat could see the face of Nikodemos-bearded, but with scars showing like white tracks among the hair, just where those scars should be.

A surge of joy went through the Stepsons' leader. "Is Crit with you? The Riddler-is Tempus come back?" Then he sobered: Niko was the problem Ischade'd sent him out here to deal with. Now her distress, and her cautions, made good sense.

"No, I'm alone," came Niko's voice soft as a winter gust as sounds and the movement of the smoke's coal let Straton know the Sacred Bander was dismounting.

They had a bond that should have been deeper than Straton's with Ischade-that had to be. Straton considered alternatives as Niko tied his Askelonian to the fence on the other side of Ischade's gate from where Strat's bay was tethered, and vaulted over the hedge, then grinned: "Not good form to enter a witch's home through a portal she's chosen. How'd you find out about this? No matter-I'm glad to have your help, Ace. Janni's going to be, too."

So that was it-Janni. All Straton's mixed feelings about Ischade's minions roiled around in him and kept him speechless until he realized that Niko was reaching over the fence to get a bow and bladder of naphtha and rags from his horse's saddle.

"Niko, man, this isn't the time or the place for the talk we've got to have."

Stealth turned and as Strat bore down upon him, the Bandaran fighter said, "Strat, I've got to do this. It's my fault, in a way. I've got to free him."

"No, you don't. From what? For whom? He's fighting a war he still has a stake in-fighting it his way. I've fought beside him. Stealth, things are different here from the way they were upcountry. You can't make any headway without magic on your-"

"Side?" Niko supplied the missing word, his face glowing red from the coal of the smoke between his lips. Then he dropped the smoke and ground it under his heel. "Got a girlfriend, do you, Straton? Crit would beat your ass. Diddling around with magic. Now either help me, as your oath demands, or step aside. Go your way. I owe you too much to make an issue of what's right and wrong between us." Niko's hand went to his belt and Straton stiffened: Niko was an expert with throwing stars and poisoned metal blossoms and every kind of edged weapon Strat knew enough to name. The two were thought to be, by Banders, of nearly equal prowess, though Strat's was fading as he aged, Niko's coming on.

"Whatever I'm doing. Stealth, is worse than what you've done? Don't I remember some fight up at the Festival, one in which you protected the Nisibisi witch from a priestess of Enlil?"

That stopped Niko's hand, about to lever a bolt to ready in his crossbow. "That's not fair, Ace."

"We're not talking fair-we're talking women. Or womanish avatars, or whatever they are. You leave this one alone-she's on our side; she's fought with us, for us ... saved Sync from Roxane, for one thing." Suspicion leaped into Straton's mind, suspicion enough to chase the memory of Janni's tortured shade. "Roxane didn't put you up to this, did she? Did she, Stealth?"

Niko, a flint in one hand, naphtha bladder in the other, paused with the bladder poised above the rags on his arrow's tip. "What difference does that make? What's going on here, anyway? Randal's disappeared and no one's looking for him? You're sleeping with a necromant and no one gives a damn?"

"You stay around, and you'll find out. But I can guarantee you're not going to like it. I don't. Crit wouldn't. Tempus would bust all our butts. But he's not here, is he? It's you and me. And I'm bound to protect this ... lady, here."

"More bound to her than to me? Sacred-" Niko stopped and stared, his mouth half open, at something behind Strat, so that the big fighter turned to see what Niko saw.

On Ischade's doorstep, beside the necromant swathed in her black and hooded robe, was Janni-or what remained of Janni. The ex-Stepson, ex-living thing was red and yellow and showing bone; things glittered on him like fireworks or luminescent grubs. He had holes for eyes and too-long hair and the smell of newly-turned earth proceeded him down the steps.

Despite himself, Strat looked over his shoulder at Niko, who slumped against the waist-high fence, his eyes slitted as if against some blinding light, his crossbow pointing at the ground.

Strat heard Ischade murmur, "Go then. Go to your partner, Janni. Stay awhile. Have your reunion." Then, louder, "Strat! Come in. Let them be alone. Let them solve it-I was wrong; it's between these two, not us."

And then, as Niko threw the bow up to his shoulder and took fluid, sudden aim at Ischade-before Straton could put himself between her and Niko's arrow, or even thought to move-Ischade was beside him, facing Niko with a look on her face Strat had never seen before: deep pain, compassion, even acknowledgment of a kindred soul.

"So you're the one. The special one. Nikodemos, over whom even the god Enlil and the entelechy of dreams contend." She nodded as if in her drawing room, sipping tea at some civil table. "I see why. Nikodemos, don't choose your enemies too quickly. The witch who sent you here has Randal-is that not a greater wrong, a deeper evil, than giving the opportunity for vengeance to a soul such as Janni, who craves it?"

Ischade waited, but Niko didn't answer. His gaze was fixed on the thing that shambled toward him, arms outstretched, to embrace its erstwhile partner.

Strat, were he the one faced with love from such a zombie, would have run screaming, or shot the bow, or lopped the head off the undead who sought to hold him.

But Niko took a deep breath that Strat could hear, so shuddering was it, dropped the bow, and held his own arms out, saying, "Janni. How is it with you? Is she right?"