The Face of Chaos tw-5 Read online

  'Give him to me,' Ischade said very quietly, as if everything was sleeping and voices ought to be hushed. 'Mradhon Vis -' She had never looked around, and knew him, somehow, by means that set his teeth on edge. So did calling his name here. 'This man they have. Get him up. Whatever you can do for him. Mor-am knows the way.'

  He looked past her, to the wretch on the floor, to what this ragged, awful crowd had left of a man. He had seen corpses, of various kinds. This one looked worse than most and might still be alive, which daunted him more than death. But it was a question of downhill. He walked in, among the beggar-horde, among ragged men and women. Gods! there was a child, feral, with a rat's sharp, frozen grin. He bent above this seeming corpse and picked it up. not even thinking of broken bones, only struggling with limp weight; the head lolled. It only had one eye. Blood was everywhere.

  Haught met him, passing Ischade, got the other arm of this perhaps-living thing, and they took it to the door. Moria was there. Mor-am stood against the wall.

  'Mor-am,' Ischade said, never turning her head. 'Remember.' And more quietly: 'Get him away now. I have further dealings with these here.'

  The nightmare lasted. The silence held, that chill quiet lying over all the alley with its sea of tents. Not the look of her eyes that had wrought this quiet, no, Mradhon reckoned, but some subtler spell. Or fear. Perhaps they knew her. Perhaps here in Downwind she was better understood than across the river, for what she was, and what her visitations meant.

  'Come on,' Mradhon said. He heaved the limp arm further across his shoulder. 'Gods blast you,' he said to Moria, 'get going -' for Mor-am began to run, limping, down the lane between the tents and shelters, off into the dark.

  It would hold, he thought, only so long as Ischade was in the way, only so long as Ischade dealt with Moruth, who was somewhere in that room. What estate would distinguish a beggar king, he wondered in a mad distraction, panting through the tents, managing with Haught to drag the bleeding half-corpse past obstacles, boxes, litter and heaped-up offal of the beggar-king's court. He wished he had known the face, had gotten the image clear, but he had focused clearly on none of them, not one, the way he had not focused on the man he was carrying. He had nightmares enough to last him; he bore this one with him, past the end of the street, around the corner. He twisted his neck to look to his side.

  'Moria. Little fool,' he panted, 'get up ahead, get in front of us, don't straggle.'

  'Where's my brother?' she asked, her voice verging on panic. She had her knife; he saw the dull gleam. 'Where has he gotten to?'

  'Back to the street,' Haught guessed, between breaths, and they laboured along, dragging the dead weight, back the way they had come. No sign of Mor-am. Nothing.

  'Bridge,' Mradhon gasped, working with Haught to run with their burden as best they could. 'Stepsons want this bastard, they get themselves out there and hold that Ils-forsaken bridge.'

  It was a long way through the streets, a long, long course, the noise of their footsteps, of their ragged breathing like the movement of an army. Moria ran ahead of them, checked comers.

  Then one moment she failed to bob into sight again. Haught began to pull forward, doubling his pace. Mradhon resisted.

  Then Moria reappeared, dodging round the comer, flat shadow, her hand up as if the knife was in it, and another shadow came shambling round wide of her, standing in the way - Mor-am was back.

  'B-b-boat,' he said. His breath came raw and hoarse. 'Sh-she says - this p place. 0 g-g-gods, c-come on.'

  'The river's up,' Mradhon hissed, the limp weight sagging against his shoulder, the feel of chase behind. 'The river's up to the bridge bottom, hear? No boat can handle that current.'

  'Sh-she says. C-come.'

  Mor-am lurched off, dragging one foot. Moria stood where she was, plastered to the wall. Wrong, a small faint voice was saying inside Mradhon Vis, a prickling of his nerves where Moria's twin was concerned. And another voice said she. The river. Ischade.

  'Come on,' he said, deciding, and Haught shouldered up his side as they headed after Mor-am.

  Moria cursed as they passed and came too, jogging along with them in the dark, under the dripping eaves. She took the lead again, serving as their eyes in this winding gut of a street.

  Now there were sounds, many of them.

  'Behind us,' Haught gasped; and where they were Mradhon could not have sworn, but it sounded like behind. He threw all he had into running, pulled a stitch in his side as Haught stumbled and recovered, and now Moria was gone again, in the turning of the streets.

  They staggered the last alley and on to the downslope to the river, splashing through the outpourings of Downwind's streets, past a low wall and down again. 'This way,' Moria said, materializing again out of the brushy dark, in the sound of the river, which lay like a black gulf downslope. Mradhon went, steadied his footing for Haught's sake. There was the reek of blood from their unconscious burden, and now the taste of it was in Mradhon's mouth, coppery; his lungs ached; he was blind except that Moria was at his nght telling him come on, come on, down to the river, to the flooded dark, the curling waters that could snatch any misstep and make it fatal. He flung his head up, sweat running in his eyes, sucked air, staggered on the uneven stony shore and nearly went to his knees on the rain-slick rock.

  There was a boat. He saw Mor-am struggling with it, and Moria running to it, a black shell amid the brush, not distinguishable as a boat if he had not known what it was. There was a muddy slide: boats were launched here, from Downwind, in sane weather, when the river was tamer. But this one hit the water and rode calm, stayed close as if there were no currents tearing at it, as if it and the river obeyed two madly different laws.

  'G-get him in,' Mor-am said, and coming to the edge, Mradhon took the limp weight all to his side, going into water to the knee to reach the boat, staggering as he flung the body down. The boat hardly rocked. He gripped the side of it, stood there, uselessly, to steady it. Haught crouched on the muddy shore, head down, breathing in great gulps.

  'Sh-she said w-wait,' Mor-am said.

  Mradhon stood, still leaning on the side, his feet going numb and the sweat pouring down his face into his eyes. Go out in this against orders - no. He saw Moria collapsed, head and arms between her knees, in the clearing of the sky that afforded them some starlight; saw Mor-am's hooded shape standing further up, holding to the rope. When he glanced across the river, he could see Sanctuary's lights, few at this hour, could see the bridge, sane and reasonable crossing.

  And from the man they had carried all this way, there was no sound, no movement - dead, Mradhon thought. They had just carried a corpse away from Moruth; and everyone was robbed.

  Stones rattled, high among the brush. Heads lifted, all round; and she was there, coming down, gliding down the rocks like a fall of living dark, making only occasional sound. 'So,' she said, reaching them. She put out a hand and brushed Mor-am. 'You've redeemed yourself.'

  He said nothing, but limped down to the water's edge, and Haught and Moria were on their feet.

  'Get in,' said Ischade. 'It will take us all.'

  Mradhon climbed aboard, stepping over the corpse, which moved, which moaned, and his nerves prickled at that unexpected life. Greater mercy, he thought, with this stirring between his feet, to use the sword: he had seen deaths such as this Stepson faced when the wounds went bad, the gaping socket of the missing eye thus close to the brain - it would be bad, he thought, while the boat rocked with the others getting in. He reached over the side, dipped up water with his hand, passed it over the Stepson's lips, felt movement in response.

  Ischade's robe brushed him as she took her place. She knelt there all too close for any comfort; she bent her head, bowed over, her hands on the wounded face. There was suddenly outcry, a struggling of limbs beneath them ... 'For the gods' sake!' Mradhon exclaimed, his gorge rising; he thrust at Ischade, shoved her back, froze at the lifting of her face, the direction of that basilisk stare at him.

  'Pain is life,'
she said.

  And the boat began to move, slowly, like a dream, the while the wind swirled about them and the river roared beneath. His companions - they were hazy shapes in the night about Ischade. The wounded man stirred and moaned, threatening instability in the boat should his thrashing become severe. Mradhon reached down and held him, gently. The witch touched him too, and the struggles took harder and harder restraint. The moans were pitiful.

  'He will live,' she said. 'Stilcho. I am calling you. Come back.'

  The Stepson cried out, once, sharply, back arching, but the river took the sound.

  It was a boat, running on the flood. Erato saw it, his first thought that some riverfisher's skiff had come untied in the White Foal's violence.

  But the boat came skimming, running slowly like a cloud before the wind across the current, in a straight line no boat could achieve in any river. Erato stirred in his concealment, hair rising at his nape. He scrambled higher amongst the brush, disturbed one of his men.

  'Pass the word,' he said. 'Something's coming.'

  'Where?'

  'River.'

  That got a stare, a silence in the dark.

  'Get the rest,' Erato hissed, shoving at the man. 'They're going to come ashore. Hear me? Tell them pass it on. The back of the house: that's where they'll come.'

  The man went. Erato slipped along the bank at the same level, towards the brambles, which served as effective barrier. The house they watched - they did not venture liberties with it, did not try the low iron gate, the hedges. Try reason, he thought. He was in command. It was on him to try reason with the witch; and it had to be the witch out there: there was nothing in all sanity that ought to be doing what that boat did. He moved quietly, gathered up men here and there while the boat came on.

  The bow grated on to rock and kept grating, pushing itself ashore, and the Stepson moaned anew, leaning against the gunwales of the boat.

  'Bring him,' Ischade said, and Mradhon looked up as the witch stepped ashore, on the landing which rose in steps up to the brambles. He flung an arm about the Stepson, accepted Haught's help as he stood up, as now the Stepson fought to get his own feet under him, more than dead weight. The boat rocked as Mor-am went past and stepped out, close to Ischade. They went next, stepping over the bow to solid if water-washed stone footing, and Moria came up by Haught's side, while Ischade stood gazing into the dark beside them.

  Men were there, armed and armoured. A half a dozen visible. Stepsons.

  The foremost came out a few steps. 'You surprise us,' that one said. 'You did it.'

  'Yes,' Ischade said. 'Now go away. Be wise.'

  'Our man -'

  'Not yours,' she said.

  'There's more of them,' Mradhon muttered to her; there was the light of torches up on the height of the bank, just the merest wink of red through the brush. 'Give him over, woman.' He was holding the Stepson still, and the man was standing much on his own between himself and Haught, standing, having no strength, perhaps, to speak for himself. Or no will to do so - as there seemed a curious lack of initiative on the part of the Stepsons who faced them in the dark.

  'Go away,' Ischade said, and walked past, walked up to the iron gate that closed the bramble hedge at the back of her house. She turned there and looked back at them, lifted her hand.

  Come. Mradhon felt it, a shiver in his nerves. The man they were carrying took a step on his own, faltering, and they went on carrying him, up the steps, to the gate Ischade held open for them, into a garden overgrown with weeds and brush. The back door of the house swung open abruptly, gaping dark; and they went towards this, up the backdoor steps - heard hasty footfalls behind them, Moria's swift pace, Mor-am's dragging foot. The iron gate creaked shut.

  'Get him in,' Ischade hissed at their backs; and there was not, at the moment, any choice.

  Light flickered, the beginnings of fire in the fireplace, candles beginning to light all at once. Mradhon looked about in panic, at too many windows, a house too open to defend. The Stepson dragged at him. He sought a place and with Haught's help bestowed the man on the orange silk-strewn bed, the gruesomeness of it all niggling at his mind - that and the windows. He looked about, saw Moria close to the shelf-cluttered wall, by the window - saw the gleam of fire through the shutter-slats.

  'Come out!' a thin voice cried, 'or burn inside.'

  'The hedges,' Haught said, and Ischade's face was set and cold. She lifted her hand, waved it as at inconsequence. The lights all brightened, all about the room, white as day.

  'The hedges,' said Mor-am. 'They'll burn.'

  'They're close.' Moria had sneaked a look, got back to the safe solidity of the wall. 'They're moving up.'

  Ischade ignored them all. She brought a bowl, dipped a rag, laid a wet cloth on the Stepson's ravaged face, so, so tenderly. Straightened his hair. 'Stilcho,' she addressed the man. 'Lie easy now. They'll not come inside.'

  'They won't need to,' Mradhon said between his teeth. 'Woman, they don't care if he fries along with us. If you've got a trick, use it. Now.'

  'This is your warning,' the voice came from outside the walls. 'Come out or burn!'

  Ischade straightened.

  Beyond the window slats a fire arced, flared. Kept flaring, sun-bright. There were screams, a rush of wind. Mradhon whirled, saw the blaze of light at every window and Ischade standing black and still in the midst of them, her eyes -

  He averted his, gazed at Haught's pale face. And the screams went on outside. Fire roared like a furnace about the house, went from white to red to white again outside, and the screams died.

  There was silence then. The fire-glow vanished. Even the light of the candles, the fire in the fireplace sank lower. He turned towards Ischade, saw her let go a breath. Her face - he had never seen it angry; and saw it now.

  But she walked to a table, quietly poured wine, a rich, rich red. She turned up other cups, two, four, the sixth. She filled only the one. 'Make yourselves at home,' she said. 'Food, if you wish it. Drink. It will be safe for you. I say that it is.'

  None of them moved. Not one. Ischade drained her cup and drew a quiet breath.

  'There is night left,' she said. 'An hour or more to dawn. Sit down. Sit down where you choose.'

  And she set the cup aside. She took off her cloak, draped it over a chair, bent and pulled off one boot and the other, then rose to stand barefoot on the litter that carpeted this place; she drew off her rings and cast them on the table, looked up again, for still no one had moved.

  'Please yourselves,' she said, and her eyes masked in insouciance something very dark.

  Mradhon edged back.

  'I would not,' she said, 'try the door. Not now.'

  She walked out to the middle of the silk-strewn floor. 'Stilcho,' she said; and a man who had been near dead moved, tried to sit.

  'Don't,' Moria said, a strangled, small voice - not love of Stepsons, it was sure; Mradhon felt the same, a knot of sickness in his throat.

  Ischade held out her hands. The Stepson rose, swayed, walked to her. She took his hands, drew him to sit, with her, on the floor; he knelt, carefully.

  'No,' Haught said, quietly, a small, lost voice. 'No. Don't.'

  But Ischade had no glance for him. She began to speak, whispering, as if she shared secrets with the man. His lips began to move, mouthing words she spoke.

  Mradhon seized Haught's arm, for Haught stood closest, drew him back, and Haught got back against the wall. Moria came close. Mor-am sought their corner, the furthest that there was.

  'What's she doing?' Mradhon asked, tried to ask, but the room drank up sound and nothing at all came out.

  She dreamed, deeply dreamed. The man who touched her -Stilcho. He had been deep within that territory of dreams, as deep as it was possible to go and still come back. He wanted it now: his mind wanted to go fleeting away down those dark corridors and bright - Sjekso, she chanted, over and over: that was the easiest to call of all her many ghosts. Sjekso. She had his attention now. Sjekso. This is Sti
lcho. Follow him. Come up to me.

  The young rowdy was there, just verging the light. He attempted his old nonchalance, but he was shivering in the cold of a remembered alleyway, in the violence of her wrath.

  She named other names and called them; she sent them deep, deep into the depths, remembering them - all her men, most ruffians, a few gentle, a few obsessed with hate. One had been a robber, dumped his victims in the harbour after carving up their faces. One had been a Hell Hound: Rynner was his name; he used to play games with prostitutes - his commander never knew. They were hate, raw hate: there were some souls that responded best to them. There was a boy, come with tears on his face; one of Moruth's beggars; one ofKadakithis's court, silver tongued, with honey hair and the blackest, vilest heart. Up and up they came, swirled near, a veritable cloud.

  She spoke, through Stilcho's lips, words in a language Stilcho would not have known, that few living did. "Til dawn, 'til dawn, 'til dawn -'

  The dream stretched wide, passed beyond her control in a moment of panic. She tried to call them back, but that would have been dangerous.

  'Til dawn, she had said.

  * * *

  There were so many pressing at the gates, so very many - Sanctuary, the whisper went. Sanctuary's open - and some went in simple longing for home, for wives, husbands, children; some in anger, many, many in anger - the town inspired that, in those it trapped.

  A wealthy widow turned in bed from the slave she kept and stared into a dead husband's reproachful eyes: a yell rang out through marble halls, high on the hill.

  A judge waked, feeling something cold, and stared round at all the ghosts who had cause to remember him. He did not scream; he joined them, for his heart failed him on the spot.

  In the Maze there was the sound of children's voices, running frenzied through the streets - 0 Mama, Papa! Here I am! One such wandered alone, among the merchants' fine houses, and rapped on a door. I'm home - o Mama, let me in!