Cauvin searched for his cast-off clothes. Leorin had scrambled the clutter, and finding them was more of a challenge than he’d expected. He meant to follow his betraying bride, but he would have failed from the start if the Stick and Leorin hadn’t struck up a shouting match while she was still on the stairs. Though the barkeep didn’t win the argument, he slowed Leorin down. Cauvin was on the window ledge—black cloak flapping, breeches unbelted, boots in hand, and the Ilbarsi knife hanging by a single thong—when Leorin stormed onto the street.
She took a torch from the bucket, lit it from the lantern hanging over the Unicorn’s entrance, then strode east, the shortest way out of the Maze. Cauvin pulled on his boots and dropped to the ground. He didn’t dare carry a torch, even if he’d had the time to grab one. Instead, tightening his belt along the way, Cauvin barely kept up with his bride.
The Hand hadn’t felt a need for stealth when they searched for corruption and impurity, so stalking wasn’t an art that they’d bothered to teach their marauding orphans. Cauvin worried about the noise he made while walking the shadows. Twice within sight of the Unicorn, he tripped over the gods alone knew what, but Leorin never hesitated, never took a glance behind. He kept her in sight.
Leorin turned left on Shadow Street, striding past dives that made the Vulgar Unicorn look respectable. Her golden hair caught the attention of a pair of derelicts just past Slippery Street. One of them lumbered up like a baited bear at Anen’s springtime carnival. Before he could question his own instincts, Cauvin was running to Leorin’s aid, the Ilbarsi knife bare in his hand.
He needn’t have worried. Leorin knew the bear was behind her. When he got close—but not too close—she spun around, showing off a shiny knife of her own. The bear wasn’t drunk enough to impale himself on a lethal length of steel. He called her a “froggin’ witch” and retreated. His unsteady path brought him within a few arm’s lengths of Cauvin, who could have taught him the price of corruption, if he’d wanted to.
But Cauvin’s wants were limited to keeping pace with Leorin. He thought she might be headed for the bazaar and didn’t look forward to tracking her through a quarter where outsiders sometimes disappeared after dark. Fortunately, Leorin turned right, toward the palace gate, not left, toward the bazaar, when Shadow Street butted into Governor’s Walk.
Cauvin faced different problems on the Walk, where the guard kept the peace from two towers, one on either side of the palace gate. The guards were no more blind to Leorin’s golden beauty than the derelicts had been. They offered to protect her from any froggin’ Wrigglie skulking in the shadows behind her and weren’t likely to be cowed by a knife in her small, woman’s hand. Not that Leorin needed a knife to bend them around her fingers. While Cauvin flattened against the palace walls, she laughed and swayed and persuaded a stout fellow—an officer, to judge by his short cloak and shiny scabbard—to be her personal escort, carrying her torch past the other guards.
Cauvin couldn’t keep up from the shadows. He decided to risk walking down the center of Governor’s Walk as though Wrigglies had every right to be there. He’d have been in trouble if Leorin and her officer had entered the palace. The great, iron-banded doors closed at sunset, and a man had to be someone to get through the narrow watch gate. A woman had only to be beautiful, and Leorin was Imperially beautiful.
He thought there was a good chance she was headed for the palace. froggin’ sure, the palace was the quarter of Sanctuary that the Hand knew best. And, froggin’ sure, if that silk-wrapped Ilsigi he’d seen earlier wasn’t the Whip, then he was the Whip’s twin.
The officer stopped in front of the watch gate. His arm found its way around Leorin’s waist. He wanted to take her inside, but she eluded him. Reclaiming her torch, she continued along the Walk. Her jilted escort made Cauvin the target of his frustration. Who was he? What was he doing near the palace? Where had he been? Where did he think he was going?
The rousting could have been worse. Cauvin’s shirt had escaped the worst of the spilled wine, and his black-wool cloak was finer than the officer’s. He wasn’t risking a dungeon cell, but with every question, Leorin’s torch got smaller. Finally, Cauvin said he was trying to find his way to the Inn of Six Ravens. The officer gave him directions—accurate directions—and insisted he carry a torch.
Cauvin accepted the torch; the officer wouldn’t take no for an answer. He followed directions, too, striding down the Processional until he could get onto the side streets and hurry back to the Walk.
“Help me,” Cauvin prayed to Shalpa, for Bec’s sake, not his own. “This could be my only chance. Don’t let me lose her.”
He cast the same prayer toward Savankala, because Bec was an Imperial citizen, then added Vashanka to his litany. One of the gods must have been listening. Cauvin was back on the Walk in time to see Leorin take her torch onto the Promise of Heaven.
Frog all, she was headed for the Hill! The Hand was holed up on the Hill! That messenger boy had been onto something after all. Cauvin ground his torch into the mud-choked ditch on the verge and headed onto the Promise, where he and Leorin were not alone.
Cauvin didn’t remember Sanctuary before the Hand, but from everything he’d been told, the Promise of Heaven had once been a mortal paradise. No longer. The Promise he knew belonged to the sorriest of Sanctuary’s denizens: women who’d lost their beauty, men who’d lost their strength. They looked for each other and for oblivion.
“Kleetel?” a bush called out as Cauvin approached.
He couldn’t hear if voice came from a man or a woman, a seller or a buyer. Kleetel, the poor man’s krrf, rotted the guts and throats of those who chewed its bitter, gummy leaves. Addicts lost their teeth and eventually bled to death from the inside out. But kleetel was cheap—one padpol for a bundle of leaves as thick as a man’s hand—or free to those who braved the brackish Swamp of Night Secrets, where the vine grew wild. By decree, kleetel was as illegal in Arizak’s Sanctuary as it had been in the Bloody Mother’s, but people searching for oblivion didn’t care about laws. When Cauvin mistakenly took a deep breath, his lungs filled with the stench of vomit and kleetel.
He pinched his nose and followed Leorin. Convinced that she was headed for the Hill, Cauvin would have lost her when she veered toward the marble walls of what had once been the whitewalled temple of Ils. But Leorin’s golden hair was unmistakable by torchlight.
She got cautious as she neared the ruins. Cauvin watched her pause several times. She seemed to be calling something, a password or a name; he was too far back to hear clearly. Each time, Cauvin expected a shadow to emerge out of the night. But none did, and, after a final hesitation, Leorin ran up the weedy steps. Her torch cast wild shadows on the inner walls as she ran into the temple’s depths.
Coincidence, Cauvin told himself. Froggin’ coincidence had returned him to the very place where he’d found the Torch. And maybe it was, but Cauvin stuck to the shadows, slipping into the temple from the side and staying far from the light until it flickered and vanished. Suddenly, Cauvin was blind and forced to shuffle through the rubble. He searched for the hole into which Leorin had disappeared and hoped not to fall into it by mistake.
Cauvin found what he was looking for in a recess made by a fallen column and a corner of the temple’s rear wall. There was a shoulder-wide gap into the paving stones and a rope ladder dangling into the pit below. The rope felt new, but the anchoring rings were rusted. The broken marble at the pit’s edge was damp and flaky when Cauvin put his weight against it. The whole area—the column, the walls, the floor, the pit, and the tunnel presumably at its bottom—had been rotted by rain and seepage. A few minutes’ work with an iron-headed hammer, and any sheep-shite stone-smasher could have brought it all down.
Very reluctantly—Cauvin descended the ten-rung ladder. Once at the bottom, he felt his way along a dripping, absolutely dark and unbraced tunnel until it split into two branches. Each of the branches branched again within ten paces. The left-side branches had kneedeep trip-pits, as well. If they marked the path Leorin had followed, then she knew it very well because there was no trace of her in the tunnel, not even the scent of smoke from her torch.
He returned to the temple and found a place where he could see or hear anything rising out of the pit but where—he hoped—torchlight wouldn’t find him.
She’s gone to tell them that she’s got me drugged asleep in her room at the Unicorn. She’ll come back this way, because if there were an easier way, she’d have taken it. And she’ll come back soon, ’cause she can’t know how long I’ll stay asleep—
And then, what? And then, what?
The question pursued Cauvin as he sat with his cloak pulled tight. Would he confront Leorin? Demand that she take him to Bec? Could he hurt her? Leave her bleeding or disfigured? What if she truly didn’t know where Bec was? What if she wasn’t alone when she emerged from the pit? What if there was another way out of the bolt-hole?
Cauvin pounded his head against the temple wall. He was sheep-shite stupid, not meant for thinking, and his little brother was paying the price. Three times, he convinced himself he was wasting precious time. Three times Cauvin stood up, determined to leave, and three times he sat down again because he couldn’t think of any place better to be. He was almost ready to stand up a fourth time when ghostly light arose from the pit.
Leorin emerged with a torch, but before Cauvin could decide to confront her, three other figures—men, by their size and movement—rose behind her. Confrontation was no longer a possibility, so Cauvin tailed them from a safe distance, straight back to the Maze. The Unicorn was busy, which was more of a problem for Leorin and her three companions than it was for Cauvin who, staying in the shadows, retraced his path to the roof outside Leorin’s window. He had his ear against the shutter when the latch clicked.
“He’s all yours,” Leorin advised, as lamplight flickered through the slats.
Cauvin squeezed his fist so hard around the brass he wore at his throat that he almost missed what the men had to say.
“Where is he?” Cauvin didn’t recognize the voice, nor could he easily distinguish it from the others who said, with increasing anger. “The bed is empty.” “There’s no one here.” “This is a poor jest, Leorin.” And, finally, in the threatening tone that was the Hand’s natural voice: “You brought us here for nothing.” “You’ve risked everything for nothing.”
Leorin quickly replied, “I gave him a doubled dose. He was—”
Her explanation stopped, cut short by a sound Cauvin did recognize: a well-made fist striking an unprotected gut. Leorin tried to scream for help, but they covered her mouth before anyone other than Cauvin could have heard her plea. It hadn’t been many moments ago that Cauvin had been asking himself if he could hurt Leorin. He had his answer—he couldn’t, but he wouldn’t risk his life to save her, either.
Cauvin waited until the three men had left before climbing into the room. By the light of the lamp the three men had left behind, Cauvin found his wife alive, but unconscious, on the floor beside her bed. They’d beaten her carefully—no blood, no blows to her face, nothing that wasn’t meant to heal without scars. Which meant, in the Hand’s brutal language, that they hadn’t cast her out.
He could have stayed with Leorin until she regained consciousness, but then he’d have to say something to her, and there wasn’t anything he could say that would change anything. He could have gone downstairs and told Mimise that Leorin needed help, but then he’d get the blame for her injuries—assuming, of course, that Mimise or any of the other Unicorn wenches would lift a finger on Leorin’s behalf. He could have at least laid her on her bed, but he’d already squandered too many moments on the woman who’d betrayed him while the three men who might lead him to Bec were getting away.
Two trios had their backs to the Vulgar Unicorn when Cauvin’s dropped down to the street. One trio, with two torches among them, was headed toward the harbor. The other, without torches, set a fast pace toward the palace. Cauvin followed the second trio. One man split off at Slippery Street; the second at a Shadow Street alley. The third kept Cauvin’s hopes alive until the dark expanse of the Promise was in sight, then he took the Split harborward.
Cauvin almost followed the third man. The Split passed close to Copper Corner, and he could almost convince himself that the Hand had a bolt-hole in that quarter, but almost wasn’t enough. He crossed the Promise instead and entered the Temple of Ils. The Hand had covered its tracks, literally. A scaffold of wood and ragged cloth had been dragged over the pit and against the broken column, concealing the metal rings. It was flimsy. Cauvin pushed it aside one-handed, but it was enough to fool quick observation.
He considered leaving the pit exposed and could almost hear the Torch and Soldt both telling him not to start something he couldn’t finish. He considered climbing down the ladder again. The voices in his conscience grew louder. Maybe Soldt had taken the Torch’s ring to Arizak after all. Cauvin wouldn’t hesitate to follow ten or twenty men like Gorge into the tunnel. And maybe, Grabar had gotten the gods’ own luck on the Hill.
Cauvin made his way from the crumbling temple to Pyrtanis Street. He scaled the stoneyard wall, whispering the yard dog’s name as he climbed. It was waiting, a wag in its tail, when Cauvin swung his legs over the top and let him into the yard without raising a ruckus. The house was shuttered up and quiet. Cauvin knocked lightly, got no response, and retreated to the loft, hoping the Torch was dead.
Never mind that the froggin’ pud had nothing to do with what Leorin was—what she’d been all along. Or, that Cauvin realized he was better off betrayed than otherwise. The Torch had destroyed his dreams, and he wished him dead. His wishes were worthless. Three floating embers, two small and close together, the third, large and getting brighter greeted him at the top of the ladder.
He started to ask, Aren’t you dead yet, pud? but got no farther than the first word before a wind struck his chest. Cauvin staggered backward, striking his head on a roof beam, before sitting hard on the floor.
“It’s me, pud—Cauvin. Frog all, I live here.”
“Where have you been?” the Torch demanded, a hoarse voice in dark.
“I’ve tracked the Hand to their lair—almost. You’re not going to froggin’—”
“Where’s my ring?”
The third ember in the loft—the amber knob atop the Torch’s staff—brightened and the third finger of Cauvin’s right hand became uncomfortably warm.
“What did you do with my ring? I gave you my ring! I gave you instructions—simple instructions: Go to the palace, talk to Arizak. Was that too complicated?”
Cauvin put his right hand behind his back. The burning lessened, but didn’t end. “Listen to me, pud—I know where the Hand is!”
“I didn’t send you on a wild-goose chase, I sent you to the palace! I asked you to do what you were told. Did you? No. No, you got cold feet and took off!”
“froggin’ shite, pud—Soldt and I went to the palace and saw all the wrong men once we got there. The wrong men, no matter what Soldt told you. I recognized a man from when I used to live there, in the froggin’ pits. Soldt didn’t recognize him, not for what he was. Shite for sure, you wouldn’t have recognized him, but I did. The Hand’s in the palace, pud. That’s how they got you.”
The third ember faded. Cauvin’s finger cooled.
“I haven’t seen Soldt since he left with you.”
“Then how did you know I didn’t go talk to your froggin’ Irrune friend?”
“Because I’m alive, Cauvin. I’m still alive. If you’d done what you were told, you wouldn’t have come skulking back here, and I’d be dead by now, damn it. Strike a light. What did you do?”
“I saw a man I recognized from before … we called him the Whip and Leorin told me she’d killed him herself—slit him open with his own knife. He was different—ten years different, with pale hands and a silk robe—but …” Cauvin found his lamp, struck sparks for the wick, and made a nest for it in a sand-filled box—a a man couldn’t be too froggin’ careful with fire in a loft. “Leorin told me the Whip was dead. I couldn’t take the chance; I needed to see her—”
“That does not follow, Cauvin,” the Torch scolded. The only color in his face came from his weird eyes; otherwise, his withered face was white as ice.
“It followed for me,” Cauvin countered. “I went to the Unicorn. We talked; we more than talked. She put something in my wine; I didn’t drink it. Leorin left once she thought I was asleep, but I wasn’t. I followed her to the Promise of Heaven—”
The Torch hummed with curiosity.
—“She went into the old Temple of Ils, all the way to the back and down into a tunnel. I waited. She came out with three men. I’m froggin’ sure they were Hand.” “They must have been quite disappointed to find you among the missing. And none too grateful to your beloved Leorin.”
Cauvin grimaced. “They gave her a warning.”
“Only a warning? You know what this means, don’t you?”
“They weren’t ready to give her to the Bloody Mother. They think she might still be useful to them.”
“Cauvin, you sheep-shite fool, you knew what she was before you took her clothes off. A wise man does not swive with a Dyareelan! You’ve given her a part of yourself and who know what it might grow into. Of course, Leorin’s still useful to them, even if they trust her no more than you do. For a month, at least, maybe longer, if she’s caught you in her belly.”
“Shalpa’s midnight cloak—Leorin … Leorin …” Cauvin groped for words that wouldn’t scald his mouth as he said them. “Leorin’s barren. She’s said so herself: If she could have children, she’d have had a passel of them by now. I’m the one who held back.”
“Until tonight. Need I remind you that you’ve shared your beloved with the Bloody Mother all along? If barrenness served Dyareela, then your Leorin was barren; if not, then quite possibly, not. There’s no guessing what can happen with a god’s blessing.”
“No, Leorin would never give them a child,” Cauvin insisted—though how could he convince the Torch when he couldn’t convince himself?
He covered his face. Better a child not be born that it be born to the Hand—but his child … How could he have done that to his child? The shame was excruciating. Behind his hand, Cauvin closed his eyes and couldn’t say a word.
“You are well aware, I assume, that if you had done what I told you to do, none of this would have happened. Now you’re ashamed. By the gods, I should leave you to wallow in your juices until you truly know the depth—and futility—of shame. But I haven’t the time. There are two treasures left, Cauvin—listen to me! Two treasures. One is sacred to all men of Ranke—the Savankh. You’ll find Sanctuary’s Savankh in a small storeroom out at Land’s End. Getting it away from the Serripines won’t be easy, but you’ll manage. The other is the Necklace of Harmony which once graced the neck of Ils, Himself—
“Oh, not the real one, of course—if there were such a thing. There are as many Necklaces as there are Savankhs, maybe more—there’s no denying that Ils is older than Savankala. Or that His priests have lost a Necklace or two along the way. The one that Ils in Sanctuary wore when I arrived here was stolen by a woman—a tiny creature, a competent thief, but a better curse: a veritable black bird of death. Take Ischade to bed and you’d be dead before the sun rose. Not her fault, you understand, the best curses never are.
“We made a new Necklace after that—couldn’t have the Wrigglies losing faith in their great god, could we? That’s what matters, after all: faith. The gods are real enough, but it’s mortal faith, mortal prayer, and mortal sacrifice that gives Them power—Ah, Vashanka—until They break faith …” The dying priest retreated into himself, then continued—
“Arizak’s wife, Nadalya, wants the Savankh and the Necklace together for her son, to legitimize his expected rule. We’ve disagreed on this, but debate is a luxury Sanctuary can no longer afford. As his god wills, Arizak’s wound may not kill him for another five years, but if he’s got to root the Hand out from beneath the Promise of Heaven, he’s going to have to anoint a successor—or maybe two: Give the Irrune to the Young Dragon and he to them, but give the Savankh and Necklace to one of Nadalya’s city-bred sons.
“The Necklace is ours—I’ll tell you where it’s hidden. But the Savankh is out at Land’s End. Serripines won’t surrender a brass soldat if he thinks it’s going to the offspring of a Dark Horde chieftain—never mind that the Irrune suffered more from the Horde than he did. You’re going to have to handle him carefully. Try not to lie—but a little deception—”
“Games!” Cauvin erupted. “Galya’s right. The Hand’s got my brother, and you want to play froggin’ games with rich, old men. I’m not playing games any longer. I’ve got better things to do.”
“I’m giving you the keys to power in Sanctuary. What could be more important than that?”
“Killing my own snakes!” Cauvin shouted.
Beneath the loft, the mule stirred, and outside, the yard dog began to bark.
“Shhsh! You’ll wake the dead. What snakes?”
“Leorin.”
“Porking bastard!” the Torch shouted, lapsing into Imperial, though Cauvin was quite familiar with the insult. “Leorin’s a problem because you didn’t think ahead, didn’t plan your moves and everyone else’s too. You’ll resolve Leorin after you’ve taken care of larger issues. A resurgence of Dyareela bloodletting would be a catastrophe for Sanctuary. The city needs someone in the palace who commands respect. Get the Savankh! Get the Necklace of Harmony!”
“Get them yourself, pud. If Arizak’s sons are worth respecting, they’ll take care of the Hand without treasure and toys to bribe them. Frog all, Arizak did.”
“Frog all, Arizak got tribute for his trouble! He led the Irrune to Sanctuary because the city promised him—I promised him—the palace and enough treasure to choke his favorite stallion if he dislodged the Hand. If the Hand had offered more, he would have taken their offer. Pay attention, Cauvin—a man like Arizak does what he wants. It’s up to you to make him want what you want.”
“Arizak got tribute?”
“Three coronations for each rider. More for fathers and grandfathers. Much more to Arizak himself. And all of it paid for by the ‘rich, old men’ of Sanctuary—which is why, Cauvin, you’ve got to keep them happy, too. It’s not games, Cauvin, it’s life—diplomacy when it works, war when it fails. And if it fails this time, forget about Bec. Forget Leorin, too.”
“Shite.” He was almost persuaded, but no—“Maybe I can walk away from Leorin—for now. But not Bec. The Hand’s got my brother, and I don’t give a froggin’ ring on a froggin’ rat’s tail for what happens to Sanctuary until he’s safe. So you’d better help me figure out how to get him away from the Hand, ‘cause I’m not doing anything else first.”
“There is only one way. Get the Savankh and the Necklace.”
Cauvin began to pace in and out of the lamplight. “Where’s Soldt?”
“Soldt comes and goes. You’re the one who walked away from him. He could be anywhere by now … or sitting on the roof listening to every word we’ve said. It wouldn’t be—”
Cauvin wasn’t listening.
“Pay attention!” the Torch pounded his staff on the floor. “Saddle that horse and ride out to Land’s End. You can be back here with the Savankh by dawn.”
“You mean locked in a Serripines storeroom. Forget your games, pud—help me think of a way to rescue my brother or shut up.”
“You can win my games, pud. You say you know where the boy is; you’re lying. If you knew, that’s where you’d be. Seems to me, the only one who might know where Bec is, is that woman—”
Cauvin agreed. “Leorin knows. She’s still the key. If I can get to her—”
“You’ll regret it for the rest of what’s left of your life. When it comes to games, pud—that woman’s shown you how she plays. You weren’t there when she brought the Hand to take you—she’s not going to think you got bored and decided to take a walk in the night air, not after dosing your wine. She’ll cut her losses, pud, especially if she can’t deliver you on her second try. Think about what I’m saying, Cauvin—the Hand made her.”
“They made me, too, and I’m …”
“You’re what, Cauvin? You’re cleverer than your ladylove? Well, maybe you are, but she’s not giving the orders, she’s taking them. The Hand’s come back to Sanctuary. They’ve killed me. Don’t let them kill you, too—”
Cauvin said, “The froggin’ Hand never left, pud,” because it might shut the Torch up, not because it was true.
“Nonsense—Maybe we missed a few … your woman. Vashanka’s mercy—you aren’t thinking she’s the chosen one in Sanctuary? Two days ago you swore she wasn’t with them at all.”
“Leorin left Sanctuary with the Whip; she came back with him. Froggin’ sure, she’s been chosen.” Cauvin swallowed hard. His throat was tight, but he got the words out: “The Whip chose her long before you bribed the Irrune.”
“Cauvin,” the Torch drawled, making the name an insult. “Cauvin, shake that notion out of your head. You didn’t see the Whip or any other priest of the Mother at the palace dressed as an Ilsigi merchant. His hands were stained bloodred, weren’t they? He’s not doing business with the majordomo, not with bloodred hands.”
“Wouldn’t you say the Whip’s beloved of Dyareela?” The words seemed to form in Cauvin’s mind; he merely repeated them. “Then there’s no telling what he might be with the Mother’s blessing, right? If the Bloody Mother can quicken Leorin, She can cleanse the Whip’s hands. I know what I saw yesterday afternoon. Unless you’ve got an idea that doesn’t rely on treasure, bribes, or stealing a relic from Land’s End, I’m going after Leorin, and I’m not giving up until Bec’s back here at the yard.”
“Think of Sanctuary—” The Torch began, but didn’t finish. “No, why bother? Why should you care about this gods-forsaken city? Because it’s your home? No, I’ve lived here longer than you, and hated every moment.” The fire dimmed in the old pud’s eyes. His hand trembled, and for the first time in their acquaintance, it was the Torch who couldn’t hold a stare. “We’re tired, Cauvin. You’ve been on your feet for a day and a half and I’m … I’m dying.” He said the last word softly, as though it were the first time the idea was more than a means to an end. “Get some rest before you go acting rash.”
“Can’t,” Cauvin shot back, unimpressed by the old pud’s sudden meekness and not trusting it, either. “You’re in my bed.”
“I only suggest that you reflect on your plans.”
“I did all the reflecting I need to do outside Leorin’s window while they pounded the snot out of her. I don’t know why I bothered to come back here—except to realize that confronting Leorin and getting Bec out is something I’ve got to do myself.”
Cauvin swung a leg onto the ladder and began his descent. The Torch tried to call him back with dire warnings about “unforeseen consequences,” but Cauvin kept going, out of the work shed and onto the streets of Sanctuary. Frog all, if a man started worrying about unforeseen consequences, he’d waste himself worrying and that would be the consequence.
Leorin had found her way to her bed when Cauvin popped her shuttered window open. She moaned softly as he stepped down into her room, but didn’t make another sound until he’d lit the lamp on her dressing table.
“You!” The word carried many meanings, not the least of which were that Leorin blamed Cauvin for every bruise, every ache.
“Surprised?” he replied, which wasn’t what he’d planned to say. “I was when I woke up and found you’d gone.”
“I wanted more wine. I didn’t think you’d notice.” Leorin covered herself with a blanket and excuses. “You were sound asleep.”
“I should have been, shouldn’t I? After drinking the wine you’d dosed for me.”
“Frog all—what are you talking about?” She tidied her hair. If Cauvin hadn’t known what she’d been through, he wouldn’t have guessed from how much each movement must have hurt. “Come over here. Sit beside me. Lie beside me. I missed you when I got back.”
“I wager you did,” Cauvin countered. “You and the three men behind you.”
“Three men? What three men? What are you talking about, Cauvin? Have you been drinking?”
Cauvin shook his head. “No,” he said softly. His anger was gone, replaced by something harsher, yet colder. “I went to the Temple of Ils on the Promise of Heaven. I waited until you climbed out of the pit, then I followed you and the three men back here. I was outside” —he hooked a thumb toward the open window-“when you opened the door.”
“Damn you!” Leorin threw her pillow. Cauvin beat it harmlessly to the floor.
“You’re with them,” he continued, not raising his voice. “With the Hand. You’ve lied to me for two years, Leorin, and last night when I told you about the Torch, you went running to the Whip. But someone made a mistake. They left the Torch on the ground and snatched my brother instead. You see, I know it all. I didn’t want to believe it—froggin’ gods be damned, I didn’t. When I came here last night, I still hoped some part of you loved me, that you’d choose me, instead of the Hand. Everything’s been lies. You haven’t told me the truth, not in two years.”
“I wanted it all to be true, Cauvin. I swear it. Strangle—You called him the Whip because you weren’t told the name the Mother gave him. She named him Strangle—”
“What’s yours, Leorin? What name did the Bloody Bitch give you?” Cauvin demanded, unable to keep a fist from forming or his nails from biting into his palm.
Leorin looked away before admitting, “Honey.”
“Because you attract men.” It was not a question.
“I wanted to tell you. I’ve always wanted to tell you, but I was afraid. I’m not like you, Cauvin. You were strong, even when you were a boy, and you weren’t ever afraid. No matter what they did to you—even when they brought you before the Mother—you never broke. I broke, Cauvin. When they gave me the choice between sacrifice and submission, I couldn’t be strong like you, so I chose submission.”
“It didn’t take strength to say no, Leorin. All it took was eyes to see what the Hand was, what I would have become. The choice was between a quick death and a slow one.”
“All life is a slow death, Cauvin, and I’m afraid to die. It’s not about Purification or the World’s Rebirth. It’s about giving someone else to the Mother when She’s craving, before someone gives you. Strangle hasn’t asked for much. I give him what he wants, and I’ve stayed alive.”
“Until you tried to give him the Torch … and me. And missed both times.”
“That was a mistake,” Leorin admitted, twisting the blanket into a tight coil. “When I came back, and you were gone, I knew—even while they were hitting me—that I’d misjudged you. Everyone’s misjudged you. You’re not strong because you’re too sheep-shite stupid to be afraid. You’re not stupid at all; and your strength is real. I thought I could trick you, but, in the end, you tricked me. No one’s ever done that to me, Cauvin. No one!
“Do you know what that means, what it could mean, if you’d let it?” She reached for his hand.
Cauvin didn’t let Leorin catch him; didn’t let her answer, either. His silence didn’t discourage her.
“With your cunning and my knowledge of the Hand, not just here in Sanctuary but all along the coast, we could make Sanctuary ours, starting with Strangle. Sweet Mother, I do despise him, but we all need partners before the Mother’s altar. Listen to me, Cauvin—” She got out of bed, put her arms around him, and went to work caressing his shoulders. “Between us, we can do it—”
“Don’t,” Cauvin interrupted. He peeled her arms away and held her at arm’s length.
“It wouldn’t be like before, Cauvin. What happened before, that was because men led Her worship. The Mother is different when women lead. There doesn’t have to be blood every day, every week, or even every month. A few sacrifices—Murderers, rapists, thieves, their blood’s as good as anyone else’s. Good people, ordinary people have nothing to fear from Dyareela. Sanctuary will still be Sanctuary—only better, with the Mother’s blessing to protect it. No one we love will ever be sacrificed.”
She was mad, Cauvin decided. Not raving mad or harmlessly mad, like Batty Dol, but hollowed-out mad, missing all sense of what the world looked like through another person’s eyes.
“Cauvin”—Leorin pasted herself against him—“Cauvin, I love you! Dyareela loves you. You can have a better future than you ever imagined.”
“Is that what you were thinking when you straddled me or when you powdered my wine?” He shed her again, this time less gently.
“I’d never let anything happen to you, Cauvin.”
“Frog all, Leorin, what were those three men here for? Supper?”
“If you’d agree, Cauvin. If you could see that serving the Mother of Chaos is serving yourself. The age of Ilsig is over, the age of Ranke, too. The Torch is the dying priest of a dead god. Don’t devote yourself to the dead. Serve the Mother, and you serve the future. Everything can be made right.”
“Froggin’ sure, I don’t serve the Torch or his god. I don’t serve any one, any thing, or any god.” Leorin’s room was too small for pacing, Cauvin simply swayed. Thoughts swarmed like wasps in his head, but only one was important: “What about Bec? Can everything be made right for Bec?”
“He’s not too young to serve Dyareela. The Mother loves children.”
Cauvin froze. The wasps had formed a pattern. He could see a way to save his brother. “Bec gets out. He’s got nothing to do with the froggin’ Torch, nothing to do with the froggin’ Mother. I’m the one you want, right? If I accept Dyareela, then Bec walks away. Froggin’ right? That’s if he’s unharmed. If Bec’s hurt, nobody gets anything.”
The change in Leorin’s smile was chilling. “You’d truly accept the Mother? You’d become my true husband before Her? Don’t lie, Cauvin—She’ll know if you’re lying. Strangle will know.”
“No lies. I see where I belong. I shouldn’t have walked away the first time.”
Leorin flew into his arms. “Everything can be made right—Trust me,” she pled, which was the last thing Cauvin intended to do.
“Take me to them,” Cauvin whispered in his wife’s ear before he kissed her.
They unwound slowly. Leorin sat down on the bed. Suddenly, unexpectedly, her face was dark with doubt.
“If I take you, I can’t—I can’t swear that Strangle will let the boy go. After we’ve sacrificed Strangle, then Bec can leave, if he wants, if he chooses not to serve. But for you, Cauvin—if you think you’re tricking me—once we’re underground, it’s submit or sacrifice. You won’t come up again, except with the Mother’s blessing.”
“You trust me, Leorin, I froggin’ trust you.”
Leorin nodded and reached for cloak. Her bruises had swelled, and she had stiffened. She couldn’t lift the heavy garment. Cauvin wrapped it around her shoulder and carried her over the windowsill, as well—neither of them wanted a confrontation with the Stick.
Leorin stood on the eaves, arms wrapped under her breasts, hands hidden inside her cloak.
“Just step off. I’ll catch you,” Cauvin said from the street.
She didn’t trust Cauvin any more than he trusted her but, like him, Leorin was desperate. She yelped when she leapt and again when Cauvin’s arms closed around her, catching her before her feet touched the ground but not sparing her battered ribs. Walking was impossible without Cauvin’s arm around her waist to support and steady her.
Cauvin could easily have carried Leorin across Sanctuary. They would have reached Ils’s Temple at his pace rather than hers. She didn’t ask, and he didn’t offer, though he did carry their torch. The eastern horizon had brightened by the time they reached the Promise of Heaven. Cauvin let his wife sit on a chunk of Ils’s arm while he dragged the scaffold away from the pit.
“It’s all Strangle’s fault,” Leorin whispered when he helped her to her feet again. “It was him, not the Mother. None of this would have happened if he hadn’t promised a blessing to whoever brought down the Torch. Strangle’s will isn’t Dyareela’s will. Pilfer died because he listened to Strangle, not the Mother.”
They were mad, Cauvin thought as he climbed down the rope ladder, and soon he’d be one of them … or dead. It didn’t matter much, so long as Bec was free.
“I’ll catch you,” he promised Leorin for the second time. She fell into his arms and fainted from the pain. Cauvin chafed her hands and cheeks to rouse her. “Don’t you froggin’ die on me!”
The golden-amber eyes fluttered open. “I won’t, Cauvin, I swear I won’t. Help me up.”
He did. “You’re sure you can find the way?”
“Just stay behind me. Walk where I walk, nowhere else.”
“What about torchlight?”
“What about it? They know we’re here, Cauvin. The temple belongs to Dyareela. There’s always someone watching.”
That stopped Cauvin in his tracks as he recalled his earlier visits. The Hand must not have recognized the Torch, or maybe they weren’t as vigilant as Leorin believed.
Steadying herself with her right hand against the tunnel wall, Leorin led Cauvin into a maze. Cauvin had never imagined that Sanctuary was built on a hollow hillside, but that seemed the best explanation for the wormlike passages. The torch he carried revealed shiny ribbons of stone that looked like silken draperies. He longed to run his hands over them, but Leorin, with her right hand always touching the passage wall, limped on.
Though most of the passages were bone dry, several were flooded to ankle depth. The water flowed from cracks in the passage walls or seeped up through the raw-stone floor. Living near rivers and the sea, Cauvin thought he knew all the ways in which water could kill, but he’d never imagined that a man could drown underground until they entered a cave that was little wider than the stream roaring through it. A waist-high rope had been slung across the turbulent water, leading from the natural arch where they stood to a dark keyhole carved out of the opposite wall.
“When it rains above, the water flows here,” Leorin explained. “Yesterday, we couldn’t have come this way, but it’s safe now—slippery, but not very deep.”
Leorin hitched up her skirt with a moan and grasped the rope with her free hand. Her feet had no sooner touched the rushing water than she lost her balance. A hard fall left her stunned and sliding toward the hole where the stream reburied itself in stone. Cauvin didn’t have hands enough for the torch, the guide rope, and Leorin. He let go of the rope. The stream wasn’t deep—the water didn’t cover his knees—but slippery didn’t begin to describe the stone over which it raced. He lost the torch during his struggle to grasp Leorin and keep his balance.
If the Hand was watching—Cauvin could have used some help finding the way out. He was drenched before he found first the guide rope, then the keyhole exit.
“Ice is slippery,” he complained as he helped a shaky Leorin into the pitch-black passage. “That was worse. Can you get through that?”
“Yes,” Leorin said grimly.
The carved passage was meant for crawling, not walking, and on their palms and knees. But it was no more than twenty feet in length—the longest twenty feet Cauvin had ever crawled—and ended in a cave that was lit by a pair of oil lamps hung from a ceiling too high to see by their light. They picked up an escort coming across that chamber—at least one man whose footsteps echoed in the darkness. Cauvin loosened the bronze slug from his neck, but the escort stayed out of sight.
There was another keyhole passage, this one high enough for walking, and at the end of it, a well-lit chamber. Leorin had told the froggin’ truth about one thing, at least—Cauvin had just two choices tonight: submit or sacrifice. There would be no turning around.
The Hand’s bolt-hole beneath Sanctuary was a sprawling cavern some twenty feet high and divided by a rushing stream, probably the same stream Cauvin and Leorin had crossed earlier. Lashed and floating planks bridged the stream. Judging from the length of the bridge and the high-waterline shining on the sloped floor, the stream had been a foot higher not long ago.
On the far side of the stream, at the limit of torchlight, the Hand had raised an altar to the Bloody Mother of Chaos. It was a small altar compared to the one Cauvin remembered at the palace, barely longer than a man’s spine, but it was ringed with enough chains to hold any man in place while they cut out his heart. The Bloody Mother’s face had been crudely carved into the cave wall behind the attar—Grabar could have done a better job. Unlit candles, mounted on spears, stood in ranks between the altar and the carved face. Skulls and long bones were piled at the base of each spear. And atop the altar, glimmering in firelight, the golden bowls that held the knives and collected the blood of those Mother desired or who got in the way.
The altar and its furnishings were revealed by five great lamps hung along the cavern walls. A dark keyhole passage opened beneath each lamp, and, one by one, the survivors of Hand emerged to greet their visitors. Cauvin counted five men and three women before a tall man strode into view. His head was bald and his hands were pale, but even if Leorin hadn’t hailed him as Strangle or he hadn’t carried a coiled whip below his waist, Cauvin would have recognized the Whip. Put a wig on his head, exchange his breeches and shirt for silken robes in sunrise colors, and the Whip became the Ilsigi broker Cauvin had seen in the palace talking to Prince Naimun.
“So, your sleepwalker came home,” the Whip said to Leorin. “Good for you.” Then he turned his contempt on Cauvin. “Ah, Cauvin—full-grown at last. And why have you come to us, Cauvin? True love? A change of heart? A need for rebirth? Something simpler?”
Leorin tried to speak for him, but Cauvin’s voice was stronger. “Something simpler. I came to offer myself in exchange for my brother. I’m the one you want. I’m the Torch’s heir.”
“So we’ve heard. But, can you prove it, Cauvin? Your word isn’t nearly enough.”
That was a challenge Cauvin hadn’t expected. Froggin’ sure, other than the Torch’s word—which wouldn’t count for much with the Hand—all he had for proof was an old knife, dreamy conversations with dead men and dead gods, and a knack for reading languages he couldn’t speak. He hadn’t even kept the Torch’s damned black ring!
Before Cauvin made a sheep-shite fool of himself, Leorin got between him and Strangle.
“I’ll swear Cauvin’s not the man he was last week. He’s been transformed. He has what we need, and he’s sworn to submit to Dyareeta—in exchange for his brother, who we know isn’t the heir.”
“I’m sure you’ll swear it, Honey. You’ll swear anything to have him in your bed every night.” Once again he turned immediately to Cauvin, asking, “She is very good, isn’t she? Worth waiting for? Worth dying for?”
Watching Leorin stiffen, Cauvin believed she did hate Strangle to the core of her icy heart. It wasn’t enough to make him trust her, but there was a chance that they faced a common enemy. He felt bold enough to say: “I’m not answering any of your froggin’ questions until my brother’s out of here.”
“You’re in no position to dictate terms, Cauvin,” Strangle said. When Cauvin didn’t blink, he shouted, “Show him!”
Another six men entered the altar cave, two of them emerging from the passage behind Leorin and Cauvin. They came in pairs, one carrying a torch and the other a short spear with a barbed point. Although the men appeared to be roughly his age, Cauvin was a little surprised that he recognized none of the faces.
“Go ahead, kill me—and you’ll never know what the Torch knew and who he told. And you’ll never know where he’s stashed enough treasure to raise an army ten thousand strong.”
Cauvin sealed his doom with that empty boast, but it was worth it to watch the Whip’s greedy eyes narrow and hear him shout another order:
“Fetch him! Fetch the whelp!”
Two women hurried into a dark passage. Cauvin clenched his fists to keep them from shaking while he waited—not long—for the women to reappear with Bec. The boy walked tall despite a rag tied over his eyes, his hands bound behind his back, and a noose tied around his neck. He was shirtless—that was to be expected—and filthy. There was a scabby cut on his forehead and two bloody welts crossing his narrow chest. Otherwise, he seemed unharmed, though surely there were bruises under all that dirt. A whip had made the welts, and Cauvin knew who’d wielded it.
Leorin had told the truth about one thing: He wasn’t the man he’d been the week before. That sheep-shite fool would have charged across the stream, attacked the Whip, and gotten himself killed before Bec was home free. The man Cauvin had become stood his ground, and said—
“Untie him.”
Not one of the boy’s captors twitched toward the knots, but Bec recognized Cauvin’s voice. “Cauvin!” he shouted. “Don’t listen to them, Cauvin! Don’t believe them! I didn’t tell them anything!”
Cauvin kept his attention on the Whip. “I said, untie him. He’s free now.”
The Whip cocked his head to one side. “What is it about children,” he asked with gentle malice, “that makes strong men weak? They’re untempered … unfinished. They can always be replaced, and so pleasurably.”
“No answers until he’s free and out of here.”
The Whip sighed. “Unbind him.”
Bec blinked when the blindfold came off. He spotted Leorin. “Furzy feathers! Cauvin, what are you doing here with her?”
“Never mind.” Cauvin opened his arms. The boy scampered over the floating bridge. Cauvin hunched down, embracing him face-to-face. “You get out of here—now!” He spoke softly, even though he knew the froggin’ Hand could hear his thoughts if they wished. “Put your left hand on the passage wall behind me and keep it there—except when you come to a cave with water in it. Then, feel for a rope and hold on tight as you cross the stream. Got that?”
The boy frowned so deeply that the cut on his forehead began to weep. “Cauvin? Cauvin, you can’t stay here. Not with her? Cauvin, you’ve got to come with me.”
“Once you’re in the temple, run straight to the stoneyard. You hear me?”
“Cauvin—Don’t you know who these people are? You can’t stay with them! Grandfather—”
“Grandfather’s dead! They made a mistake when they took you, Bec. They want me. I’ve got to stay; you’ve got to leave.” Cauvin gave his brother a good shake and shove toward the passage. “Put your left hand on the wall and run. Don’t stop running until you’re in the stoneyard.”
“But—”
“Get going!”
Bec stood firm. Cauvin backhanded him across the face. The boy staggered and crumbled. When he stood, his mouth and nose were bleeding and tears streamed over his cheeks.
“Cauvin …”
“Frog all, Bec—run!”
Bec whimpered, then—finally—he ran.
“Grandfather, is it? How touching,” the Whip purred, when Cauvin faced him again. “And you’re the witch’s son?”
Cauvin shook his head. “No witch. The Torch made me his heir.”
“Priests don’t transform heirs, Cauvin. Only witches can do that. If the Torch made you his heir, the question is: Did he make you into a witch, too?”
A part of Cauvin wanted to shout that froggin’ sure he wasn’t a witch, except he wasn’t sure at all, so he said nothing.
The Whip laughed. “No matter, Cauvin. Witchblood is sweet on the Mother’s tongue, but the Torch’s soul is what She’s hungered for.” He turned to Leorin. “Sorry, Honey, but—you can’t have him, not as a lover or a weapon against me. Take them both.”
The spear-carrying man at Cauvin’s back surged, and though Cauvin was willing to trade his life for Bec’s, he couldn’t trade it meekly. The best knife in the world was no match for a five-footlong spear. Cauvin seized the torch from the spearman’s partner, kicking him in the gut as he did. Then he brought the flames to bear on the knuckles of the spearman to thrust at him. The Hand howled as he dropped his weapon and ran for the stream.
Cauvin had a heartbeat to savor his victory as Leorin lunged for the dropped spear, but rather than stand beside him against those who wanted to sacrifice them both to the Bloody Mother, she leveled the barbed point at Cauvin’s breast—or tried to. The beating she’d taken in the Unicorn left Leorin unable to hold even a light weapon steady. She’d have been useless as an ally and wasn’t a threat as an enemy. Cauvin easily wrenched the spear out of her hand, but by then it was too late. The two other spearmen with their torch-carrying partners on the Whip’s side of the stream had crossed the floating bridge, and the two on Cauvin’s side had recovered their nerve.
Even with a spear in one hand and a torch in the other, Cauvin was no match for six men obeying their master’s orders. Before he knew it, his weapons were gone, there was steel pressed into his throat, more hands than he could count pinning his arms behind his back.
His captors dragged Cauvin to the floating bridge, which was nowhere near wide enough, nor sturdy enough for the lot of them. Cauvin had nothing to lose by writhing in captivity, trying to trip his captors into the stream. He kept his balance long enough to break free and draw the Ilbarsi knife, then he grabbed Leorin and held her—spine against his chest—with the Ilbarsi knife at her throat.
From start to finish, it had been a blind, desperate move, and its success gained Cauvin nothing. There were still six men coming after him, and Leorin was not a willing hostage. She clawed at Cauvin’s forearm and stomped on his foot. If the Hand hadn’t beaten her earlier, she would have gotten loose.
“I’ll give you everything the Torch has given me—” Cauvin shouted to the Whip, who was, at that moment, crossing the stream.
A spearman feinted; Cauvin used Leorin as a shield. She bit down hard on his arm.
“Or what?” the Whip asked patiently. “Cauvin, Cauvin—no cleverer now than you were ten years ago. You have nothing to bargain with. The Mother has decided: She hungers for you, Cauvin. She hungers now.”
The Whip gestured toward the altar. Cauvin dared a glance. Women were lighting the ranks of candles. The Bloody Mother’s carved-rock eyes had begun to glow.
“I’ll kill her. I’ll kill Leorin—Honey.” He tightened his grip while she kicked his knees and elbowed his gut.
“You can’t; you love her.” The Whip walked between the spearmen. He came within easy reach of Leorin and the Ilbarsi knife. “Even if you didn’t, even if you could—we all go to the Mother sooner or later. Don’t we?” He caressed Leorin’s chin. “You made a mistake, and you tried to correct it. Sacrifice will complete your redemption, Honey.”
Leorin reacted to that by holding tight to Cauvin’s arm and ramming both heels into the Whip’s groin. The stunned man folded his arms over his injury and struggled to stay on up his feet. Leorin’s heels caught him a second time on the chin.
Before he could take advantage of his wife’s swift vengeance— Before the Hand could react to their master’s collapse—a steeltipped arrow erupted outward between the Whip’s eyes. Dead on his feet, the bald Hand dropped like stone into the stream. Rushing water swirled away the blood trickling from the wound.
Leorin screamed and went limp in Cauvin’s arms as panic spread among the Hand. A spearman tried to pull the Whip’s body out of the water. As he did a gout of fire sizzled out of nowhere and struck him in the chest. The flames engulfed the man with unnatural speed and continued to burn even when he flung himself into the water. Another gout from another quarter of the cave struck a second spearman, while a third hit one of the unarmed Hand on the altar side of the stream and a fourth enveloped one of the candle-lighting women.
All natural flames winked out. The only light came from the Bloody Mother’s glowing eyes and the four living, wailing torches. Cauvin heard footfalls stumbling over themselves. He relaxed his grip on Leorin; returned the Ilbarsi knife to its sheath.
“We’re saved,” Cauvin said to Leorin. “We can get away.” He offered his hand to his wife.
She grasped it left-handed and let him pull her upright. “It could have been perfect, but you destroyed it. You ruin everything! Even as a boy, you ruined everything. You killed your own mother with your blundering, but you’ll never kill me!”
Leorin slashed across Cauvin’s body with a right hand that had suddenly sprouted steel. He dodged, taking the steel along his forearm before knocking Leorin to the ground, but failed to shake free and she slashed again.
“Damn you!” she sobbed, the light of burning men aglow on her face. “Damn you! Take him, Sweet Mother! Take him now!”
Cauvin didn’t wait to see if the Bloody Mother would heed Leorin’s prayer. He lunged for the temple passage, set his left hand on the wall, and began to run. He hadn’t gone three strides before all the light was behind him. The darkness of the passage was absolute, deeper than midnight on a moonless, overcast night. Cauvin’s vision didn’t end at his elbows or his knees, it simply didn’t exist.
He’d slowed to a fast walk and was growing fearful that he’d missed the passage to the water-filled chamber when a hand closed over his right sleeve. Cauvin struck fast with the Ilbarsi knife.
“Easy! I’m on your side.”
Cauvin recognized Soldt’s voice, but his panic was such that moments passed before he could stop struggling and even then, he couldn’t speak.
“This way.”
Soldt tugged, and Cauvin’s left hand lost contact with the stone around them.
“Left hand,” Cauvin protested, barely coherent. “Left-hand passage.”
“Takes too long. Come on.”
Cauvin resisted. “Bec? Did you see Bec? Did he come this way?”
“Don’t worry about Bec. Vex is with him. The dog won’t let him get lost … or hurt. Now, come!”
Soldt’s temple passage was narrower and steeper and, though every bit as dark, it was somehow easier to follow. When the duelist warned, “Careful here, there are pits in the floor. Keep to the right until you’re past the first, then move quickly to the left—” Cauvin remembered his own explorations and knew they had made it back to the Temple of Ils.
Once topside, Soldt attacked the rope ladder with a boot knife, but Cauvin had a better idea. He rammed his shoulder against the undermined marble column.
“Help me. We can bring it down and seal them in.”
“They’ve got other ways,” Soldt insisted, but he attacked the column from a different angle.
Bits of stone and dirt rained into the pit. Cauvin felt the column begin to shift.
“Once more, Soldt. Once more and run for the Promise. The whole outside wall could follow.”
It didn’t, but several blocks of marble tumbled from the roof piers and followed the column into the pit. Rats and mice could still use the passages to the Hand’s bolt-hole, but larger creatures were sealed out.
Safe on the Promise of Heaven, Cauvin was ready to congratulate himself when Soldt said—
“Your arm’s bleeding.”
Cauvin had forgotten Leorin’s parting gift. His sleeve was slashed and blood-soaked. He’d ruined another shirt. But the gash itself wasn’t serious—just a flesh wound.
“Hang on,” Soldt advised, “I’ll clean it out.” He extracted a leather bottle from a scrip beneath his cloak. “You’d better sit down for this.”
“Not now. I’ve got to get back to the stoneyard. I’ve got to know that Bec’s safe—”
Soldt rapped Cauvin on the breastbone. He staggered, tripped, and wound up where Soldt wanted him: sitting on the weedy steps of the Temple of Ils.
“First things first, lad. Lord Torchholder charged me with keeping you alive, and I’m not about to fail him. The only thing the Hand loves more than blood is poison. It’s second nature to them, like breathing—”
“Leorin didn’t have time to load her knife,” Cauvin protested and started to rise.
Soldt rapped him again. “It wasn’t her knife, she pulled it off the corpse. Sit still. You’re fortunate that I know as much about poisons as the Hand.”
“You saw?”
“I put that arrow through his skull.” Soldt opened his cloak, letting Cauvin see the odd-looking bow slung below his shoulder.
“And the fire arrows?”
Soldt shook his head. “Not mine. Not arrows, either.” He unstoppered the leather bottle with his teeth. “We had help back there.”
“Friends of the Torch?”
“Not hardly,” Soldt snorted. “That fire stank of magic, and I can’t say that Lord Torchholder’s got any friends among the wizards and hazards, but the Hand hunts magi with a special vengeance, and they return the favor. I didn’t think there were any master magi holed up in Sanctuary, then again, I didn’t think there was a nest of Dyareelans under the Temple of Ils, either. Brace yourself, lad—this will sting a bit.”
Frog all, the thick, green ooze Soldt squeezed on Cauvin’s wound did a lot worse than sting. It blackened his flesh and filled his nose with acid vapors. Burning agony shot up his arm while Soldt advised the impossible—
“Try not to move,” and squeezed out another knuckle-sized dollop.
The pain spread up his arm, worse than the first time, and then, thank all the god-damned gods, Cauvin felt nothing at all.