Robert Asprin - Aftermath

It was the proximity to Ischade's wards, she told herself- Nothing to fret over. She had plenty to worry about without adding the talisman into the bargain.

Crit crossed one leg over his saddle's pommel and lit a smoke, staring at the building across the street. No sign on its steps or to either side of the rubble they'd passed getting here, of the whirlwinds and firestorm of destruction that had ravaged Tasfalen's ancestral home.

This building was intact, its shutters drawn. The vampire had been certain of where to look, but uncertain that looking was wise.

"She said," Crit told Kama, "that Tasfalen's in there, with Haught. You remember Haught."

"I remember," Kama said through clenched teeth.

Mor-am and Vis were off to one side, ordered to accompany them by Ischade, who evidently was in charge of more than her Foalside cottage. Damn Tempus, for putting Crit between sorcerous rocks and political hard places. Vis had brought him to Mor-am, who'd grinned and brought him to Ischade with more satisfaction than Crit liked.

And the vampire had been civil. Both of them had kept Strat's name out of the conversation. "Our mutual friend" was what they called Straton, and because of that friend, Ischade was willing to tell Crit where to look.

And to warn him: "There is more, Critias, in that home than just two men in a house. Do not go inside, but merely open the doors-if you can."

This was said for Strat's sake, Crit knew, not his own. He unclenched a fist with difficulty and found he'd dug his nails into his palm, that his fingers were stiff from the clench. "She said," he told Kama, "you'd have the right key for this lock."

"Excuse me?" The woman on the roan kneed her mount closer.

"You heard me. Got anything on you that might do the trick?"

"You're sure she didn't mean that metaphorically?"

And Crit knew what Kama was alluding to: Tempus and an inhuman sprite had coupled before a magically locked door uptown, and things had happened.

"I don't care what she meant, we're not trying anything like that. What have you got that might work?"

"Keys," said Kama with maddening common sense. "Lots of keys. To my place, the guardhouse, the Shambles safe house, Molin's-"

"Spare me the list. Let's try some." He swung first one leg and then the other over his gray's withers, reaching for his crossbow as soon as his feet hit the ground. A bolt might smash the lock, even if it were a stout one.

They drop-tied the horses without a word, a sign both of them were thinking this might not be survivable. Crit cast a look at Kama, wonder- ing how she'd managed to insinuate herself into this so fast, so deftly. And admitting he was glad to have someone there. He was a Sacred Bander, trained to depend on a partner. He wouldn't have tried this alone, and Vis wasn't the sort of man you could trust your right side to.

Not that Kama was any sort of man at all.

Having crossed the street, Crit looked back once because he'd heard Vis's voice-not words, just a tone. And saw a wave of farewell so elo- quently hostile and so gloating that he almost shot the mere there and then.

But Kama read his mind and touched his arm. "They're Ischade's.

They'll wait. They'll run back with word if we don't come out. We need that."

"Crap," Crit said.

"Agreed," Kama said with a ghost of her father's smile.

Then they climbed the steps and Crit put his back against the stone, crossbow ready, attempting to cover every avenue of attack while Kama tried key after key and cursed like a Nisibisi freeman.

Finally she said, "No luck. Nothing works." And slumped against the doorjamb.

They looked at each other too long, and Crit had to look away. It was in that silence that they heard something move inside, behind the stout wood of the door.

Then they looked at each other again,

"Want to knock?" Kama said lightly.

"I don't think so," Crit replied in the same tone. "We could start digging at the wood with-"

"Wait," said Kama, simultaneously digging in her belt. "This, maybe."

She held out a piece of bronze about half the length of her hand and shaped like a knobbed bar or rod.

"Never fit," he said critically, still holding his crossbow at the ready, still glancing from shadow to shadow down the quiet street. Still watch- ing Vis and Mor-am as best he could.

"Might not have to. It washed up on the beach. I heard about it from some of my ... people. Turned a gold coin to lead, and copper to clay, in the finder's purse."

"So?"

"So, let's see if it'll do something to that metal."

"We're here." Crit shrugged, trying to ignore the implications. Kama wasn't the finder. Kama had appropriated this thing from someone, for her own purposes- And she'd heard about it through some informer of whom Crit was totally ignorant. Nothing was going to work right in Sanctuary unless they all started pulling together. But what he wanted to do to Kama right then wouldn't facilitate anything of the sort.

She shrugged, too, added a sour twist of her thin lips, and bent to the door. He didn't dare look away to watch, but he heard her tap bronze against bronze. And curse. And tap again, and chortle.

"So?" he said when she stood up and carefully put the talisman back in her belt.

"So, do we want to be polite, now that the lock's no problem?"

He took one hand away from the crossbow and, balancing it on his hip, felt for the lock. It was gooey. He brought his fingers to his lips and smelled White Foal mud, rank with rot. He swore and asked her to explain herself.

"I heard," she said, "it might be something like this. That's all."

"Great." He spat over his shoulder. "Next time you 'hear' of some- thing like this, you come to me with it."

"I did."

"Beforehand," he said, just as there was a scuffling sound and then a dragging noise behind the door and he and Kama jumped back in unison.

The door opened like a casket's top. And there, behind it, stood some- thing very much like Tasfalen, the popinjay noble who'd been missing so long. "Yessss," said the noble in an entirely horrible voice, a voice that seemed not to have been used for a thousand years.

And behind this shape, Crit could see another: Haught.

And over those two images, he saw superimposed the glowing counte- nance of Ischade, a slight crease between her eyes, and Ischade was shaking her head, her lips forming a word.

And that word was "Run." In his inner ear, he heard it again; Run, if you value your soul.

"Come on, Kama. Sorry to disturb you, Tasfalen," said Crit as he backed down the stairs, Kama's arm in a deathgrip and still holding the loaded crossbow one-handed. "We just needed to verify your where- abouts. Stop by the palace when you can-Molin Torchholder wants to see you."

By the time he'd finished saying alt of that, he'd dragged Kama half- way to the street and she was whispering urgently, "What's the matter with you? Lost your mind? Your nerve?"

"Finished, that's all. We're finished here. I have no reason to arrest that man. I only had to find him." His voice was shaking and Kama heard it.

He didn't look at her as they made for their horses. He couldn't stand to see scorn in her eyes. But he saw it in the eyes of Ischade's two waiting minions, and it burned like hellfire.

"What's the matter, Stepson, Tempus take your balls upcountry?" Vis shouted from a safe distance as Crit mounted up.

He got off one quarrel, but his aim was half-hearted. It smashed harm- lessly against the brick beside Vis's head.

And then there was Kama to deal with, slouched in her saddle, frown- ing.

He said, "We have to report this to Torchholder. I need you. Let's go."

She reined her horse after his, either unwilling to dispute his statement or unable.

One way or the other, he'd let the matter of the talisman go if she'd just give him a chance. How he was going to keep Kama with him tonight, Crit couldn't fathom, but he was going to give it a try. Torchholder would have to make do with a written report. It was just too damned cold in Sanctuary to sleep alone tonight.