Robert Asprin: Soul of the City

What Vashanka wanted? Tempus, who never backed away from any fight, took three retreating steps as Jihan whispered, "Riddler, my lord? What is it? Has she witched you? I will tear her legs off one by-"

"No, Jihan," he muttered through clenched teeth in Nisi, a tongue neither prince nor consort understood. He shook Jihan's grasp from his arm and rubbed the depressions her fingers had made: the Froth Daughter's strength nearly equaled his own. But neither of them was a match for Vashanka who, Tempus was now certain, in some way had come again. He was here- more infantile, more tempestuous than ever, but here.

And what that meant to a man who'd forsaken the Pillager and taken up with Enlil to balance a curse no longer so sure upon his head Tempus couldn't say. But there was no doubt in him that soon he'd take some woman-this one if Vashanka had His way of it-and consecrate whatever wench into the service of the god.

He just stepped forward, on his best behavior where the prince could see, one palm sweating on the hilt of the sharkskin-pommeled sword, and took her hand. "My lady, Shupansea, men call me Tempus-"

She interrupted: "The Riddler. We have heard tales of thee."

And then from behind a curtain came Isambard, acolyte and priestly apprentice to Molin Torchholder, running without regard to his priestly dignity, calling out: "Quickly! My lady! My lord! There are dead snakes in the palace! There are more snakes than there ought to be! And in the children's rooms, where Nikodemos is ... he's cut one of the sacred snake's heads off!"

Isambard skidded to a stop an arm's length from Tempus's chest and lapsed into panicked silence until his master entered the chamber. Molin Torchholder, ever mindful of his position and demeanor, did not immediately clarify his acolyte's exclamations but appraised the assembly as if they, not he, were the breathless intruders.

"Ah, Tempus. Back in town at last?" Sanctuary's hierarch inquired, his voice carefully modulated to conceal the manifold anxieties which that man's unexpected presence caused him.

"That I am." Tempus detested priests, especially this one. And so he grinned once more, thinking that Brachis, when he arrived with Theron's sailing party, would put this foul, dark-skinned priest in his proper place. "Well, Torch, your minion seemed to have a problem moments ago. Surely you've got it as well?" His sword was out by then, and Jihan's also.

Kadakithis was scratching his golden curls, his handsome but vacant face inquiring: "What's this, Molin? Dead snakes? Is your state-cult out of hand again? I told you Nikodemos was no fit guardian for those children. I-"

The Beysib monarch interjected smoothly: "Let me see these dead snakes, priest. And mind you, I'm never sure that these troubles aren't made by the Rankans who announce them."

By then Tempus and Jihan were running down the hall, toward secret passages Tempus knew like the back of his sword-hand or Jihan's female mysteries, which led to the lower chambers where, near the dungeons, Niko and the children-whom some said were more than that-were being kept.

Ischade's Foalside house was more home than haunt, less forbidding than Roxane's to the south, but hardly an inviting place to visit.

Unless, of course, one was Straton, her lover whom she'd guided to de facto power in Sanctuary's factionalized streets, or an undead such as Janni or Stilcho (both of whom had once been Stepsons), or a mageling such as Haught, who learned what he could from the witches and sought to wake the power in his Nisibisi blood.

Strat had been with Ischade hardly long enough for a candle to bum low when Haught, whom Straton hated, came gusting in the door.

The place was softly lit and full of colors; precious gems and silks and metals strewed the floor.

Straton was, by then, the finest thing she had, though-a human man, with all his prowess, not an animated corpse or witchling.

She could love him, could Ischade, with a finer passion than the rest. But she could feel in him a struggle, one that made shoulders sweat and muscles twitch. She'd known that, hold him though she would, the day must come when holding Straton would be hard.

His narrow Rankan eyes were haunted, deep-set, his jaw squared with indecision lately when he came. And now, rolling off her at the sight of Haught, a hated, half-understood rival, a symptom of all about Ischade Strat couldn't justify or wish away, he reached for a robe she'd found him, shrugged it on and, with just his swordbelt, stalked outside.

"When you're done with... it, him, whatever... I'll be seeing to my horse."

Strat still grieved for his lost bay warhorse; its death was something she could and would undo, if only she thought Stra-ton could handle the revelation that death was no barrier to Ischade.

Oh, he'd seen Janni, seen Niko embrace an undead partner. And Strat had not reacted well.

"What is it, Haught?" she asked, impatient. She didn't like the hubris growing in this Nisi child. He was difficult, growing stronger, growing bold. And she wanted to get back to Straton, who served her ends, who worked her will and excused her wiles and helped her hold her interests in the town. Ischade's interests were important. And they were too tied up with Strat now to let Haught get in the way.

So she thought to dance around the Nisi ex-slave, freed by her but not free of her. She'd only started her mesmerizing when a sanguine hand reached out and grasped her wrist.

Impertinent. This one soon would need an object lesson. She swallowed his will with a stare and let him see he couldn't even blink without her say-so. She whispered, "Yes? Your business, please."

And Haught, so pretty, so fiery underneath his slave's face, said, "I thought you'd want a warning. His boyfriend's coming. ..." Haught's chin jutted Mazeward. "What use he'll be once Crit's come hence, you might not like. So if you want, I could-"

There was murder in the slavebait's eyes. Murder sure of itself and offered teasingly, a sexual ploy, a sensuous violence.

She denied it, not telling Haught that Strat was so much hers that Crit couldn't get between them... because she wasn't sure. But she was sure that Straton's leftside leader, Critias, could not be murdered by one of hers. Not ever. Not and allow Ischade to keep what she had now-subtle power over more factions than any other had, even those who dwelled in the winter palace and looked to gods to aid them.

The dusky wraith that was Ischade said a second time, "I don't want, Haught. I never want. You want. I have. And I have need of both Stepsons-of Straton and his... friend. Go back uptown, see Moria, talk to Vis; we'll have a party for returning heroes tomorrow evening-in the uptown house. Wherever Crit is, Tempus is as well. Find the Band's best and invite them all. We'll play a different game this season; you tread carefully, do you hear?"

Haught, motionless and unblinking till she loosed him. sought the door with the slightest inclination of his head and the most refined swirl of his cloak.

Trouble, that one, by and by.

But in the meantime, if she must fight for Straton, would she? She didn't know. She had a horse to raise, now, to see for certain what would happen. Strat would have more decisions to make tonight than one.

Niko was holding one child under either arm when Tempus and Jihan came upon them in the nursery.

One babe, Alton, had thumb in mouth; the other, Gyskouras, gave a single cry on seeing the interlopers.

Then Gyskouras-god-child, Niko was certain-held out his tiny hands and Jihan, mayhem forgotten, stepped over a decapitated snake oozing ichor, her own arms outstretched and the red fires of Stormbringer's passion in her eyes.

"Give him here. Stealth," Jihan crooned, calling Niko by his war-name. "My comfort's what he seeks."