Tempus nodded and walked away.
Then he saw her, holding Lastel's hand, to which the prosthetic thumb of hisdisguise was firmly attached. A signal bade Janni await him; he did not have tolook back to know that the Stepson obeyed.
Cime was blond, tonight, and golden-eyed, tall in her adept-chosen robe ofiridescent green, but he saw through the illusion to her familiar self. And sheknew it. "You come here without your beloved armaments or even the god's amulet?The man I used to know would have pulled rank and held on to his weapons."
"Nothing's going to happen here," he murmured, staring off over her head intothe crowd looking for Niko; "unless the message I received was in error and wedo have a problem?"
"We have no problem-" glowered Lastel/ One-Thumb.
"One-Thumb, disappear, or I'll have Janni, over there, teach you how to imitateyour bar's sign." With a reproachful look that Tempus would utter his aliashere, the man who did not like to be called One-Thumb outside the Maze lumberedoff.
Then he had to look at her. Under the golden-eyed illusion, her char-and-smokegaze accused him, as it had chased him across the centuries and made him contentto be accursed and constrained from other loves. God, he thought, I will neverget through this without error. It was the closest he had come to askingVashanka to help him for ages. In the back of his skull, a distant whisperexhorted him to take his sister while he could ... that bush on his rightwould be bower enough. But more than advice the god could not give: "I have myown troubles, mortal, for which you are partly responsible." With the echo ofVashanka's last word, Tempus knew the god was gone.
"Is Lastel telling the truth, Cime? Are you content to face Askelon's wrath, andyour peril, alone? Tell me how you came to half-kill a personage of thatmagnitude, and assure me that you can rectify your mistake without my help."
She reached up and touched his throat, running her finger along his jaw until itfound his mouth. "Ssh, ssh. You are a bad liar, who proclaims he does not stilllove me. Have you not enough at risk, presently? Yes, I erred with Aske-lon. Hetricked me. I shall solve it, one way or the other. My heart saw him, and Icould not then be the one who stood there watching him die. His world beguiledme, his form enthralled me. You know what punishment love could bring me... .He begged me leave him to die alone. And I believed him... because I fearedfor my life, should while he died I come to love him. We each bear our propercurse, that is sure."
"You think this disguise will fool him?"
She shook her head. "I need not; he will want a meeting. This," she ran herhands down over her illusory youth and beauty, "was for the mage-lings, thosechildren at the gates. As for you, stay clear of this matter, my brother. Thereis no time for quailing or philosophical debates, now. You never were competentto simply act, unencumbered by judgment or conscience. Don't try to change, onmy account. I will deal with the en-telechy, and then I will drink even his namedry of meaning. Like that!" She snapped her fingers, twirled on her heel, andflounced off in a good imitation of a young woman offended b'y a forwardsoldier.
While he watched, Askelon appeared from the crowd to bar her path, a golden coinheld out before him like a wand or a warding charm.
That fast did he have her, too fast for Tempus to get between them, simply bythe mechanism of invoking her curse: for pay, she must give herself to anycomer. He watched them flicker out of being with his stomach rolling and an achein his throat. It was some little while before he saw anything external, andthen he saw Nikodemos showing off his gift-cuirass to Janni.
The two came up to him wondering why it was, when everyone else's armaments hadbeen taken from them, Niko, who had arrived in shabby duty-gear, had been givenbetter than ever he could afford. Tempus drew slowly into his present, notingMolin Torchholder's over-gaudy figure nearby, and a kohl-eyed lady who mighteasily be an infiltrator from the Mygdon-ian Alliance talking to Lastel.
He asked his Stepsons to make her acquaintance: "She might just be smugglingdrugs into Sanctuary with Lastel's help, but do not arrest her for trifles. Ifshe is a spy, perhaps she will try to recruit a Stepson disaffected enough withhis lot. Either of you-a single agent or half a broken pair-could fit thatdescription."
"At the least, we must plumb her body's secrets, Stealth," Janni rumbled to Nikoas the two strutted her way, looking virile and predatory.
With a scowl of concern for the Stepson to whom he was bound by ill-consideredwords, he sought out Torchholder, recalling, as he slid with murmured greetingsand apologies through socialites and Hazard-class adepts, Niko's blank andsteady eyes: the boy knew his danger, and trusted Tempus, as a Sacred Bandermust, to see him through it. No remonstrance or doubt had shown in the fightercalled Stealth's open countenance, that Tempus would come here against Askelon'swishes, and risk a Stepson's life. It was war, the boy's calm said, what theyboth did and what they both knew. Later, perhaps there would be explanations-ornot. Tempus knew that Niko, should he survive, would never broach the subject.
"Torchholder, I think you ought to go see to the First Consort's baby," he saidas his hand came down heavily on the palace-priest's be-baubled shoulder.Torchholder was already pulling on his beard, his mouth curled with anger, whenhe turned. Assessing Tempus' demeanor, his face did a dance which ended in amien of knowing caution. "Ah, yes, I did mean to look in on Seylalha and herbabe. Thank you for reminding me, Hell-Hound."
"Stay with her," Tempus whispered sotto voce as Molin sought to brush by him,"or get them both to a safer place-"
"We got your message, this afternoon, Hound," the privy priest hissed, and hewas gone.
Tempus was just thinking that it was well Fete Week only came once yearly, whenabove him, in the pink, tented clouds, winter gloom began to spread; and besidehim, a hand closed upon his left arm with a numbingly painful grip: Jihan hadarrived.
6
Askelon of Meridian, entelechy of the seventh sphere, lord of dream and shadow,faced his would-be assassin little strengthened. The Hazards of Sanctuary hadgiven what they could of power to him, but mortal strength and mortals' magiccould not replace what he had lost. His compassionate eyes had sunken deep underlined and arching brows; his skin was pallid; his cheeks hosted deep hollowslike his colossus's where it guarded an unknown sea, so fierce that folk therewho had never heard of Sanctuary swore that in those stony caverns demons raisedtheir broods.
It had cost him much to take flesh and make chase. It cost him more to removeCime to the Mageguild's innermost sanctum before the disturbance broke out abovethe celebrants on the lawn. But he had done it.
He said to her, "Your intention, free agent, was not clear. Your resolve was notfirm. I am neither dead nor alive, because of you. Release me from this torture.I saw in your eyes you did not truly wish my demise, nor the madness that mustcome upon the world entire from the destruction of the place of salving dreams.You have lived awhile, now, in a world where dreams cannot solve problems, or beused to chart the future, or to heal or renew. What say you? You can change it,bring sanity back among the planes, and love to your aching heart. I will makeyou lady of Meridian. Our quays will once again rise crystal, streets willglitter gold, and my people will finish the welcoming paean they were singingwhen you shattered my heart." As he spoke, he pulled from his vestments akerchief and held it out, unfolded, in his right hand. There on snowy linenglittered the shards of the Heart ofAskelon, the obsidian talisman which herrods had destroyed when he wore it on his wrist.