There was a portentous knocking, the butt of a staff pounding on the wood of the dais with the five throne-chairs. The chairs were filled now with black hooded figures, velvet halfmasks reinforcing the shadows from the hoods; the men wore heavy jeweled chains with jeweled pendants that caught what light there was and broke it into particolored glitters, they wore silks and velvets subtly draping about their hidden forms, richly tactile, magnificently sweet to the eye. A sixth man stood with staff in hand, robed and hooded too, but more simply, with plainer stuffs and a plainer chain. The six of them had slipped in while Danny Blue dozed and arranged themselves in dignified poses; now they waited for the drama to begin, waited in a silence as portentous, as theatrical, as essentially hollow as that knocking-a reaction Danny shared with the Daniel phasma who saw it was the sort of idiocy that disgusted him in the by-the-book, spit-and-polish conformity he had to put up with whenever he shipped on carriers like the Golden Lines. Danny Blue sat up warily, folded his legs and waited. What he saw was far tawdrier than the images he’d evoked; the phantom impressions of past trials were realer than the reality. The Ahzurdan phasma was annoyed with Danny and Daniel both and irritated by the figures in the chairs. In the days before he got tangled in the plots swirling about the Drinker of Souls, he cultivated such men and found a validation in their acceptance; they acknowledged his power as he paid homage to theirs, tacitly, placidly, both sides blessed by the certainty of their superiority. But the recognition, the certainty were missing now and he resented that. They should have known. If they were the real powers of Dirge Arsuid, they should have seen the power he had, or rather, the power possessed by the body he dwelt in. They should have given Danny the honor he deserved even if he was too stupid to demand it.
“I am the Prenn Ysran of Dirge Arsuid.” The voice echoed hollowly; it took a moment for Danny to identify who spoke; it was the man in the center seat. If Prenn Ysran meant what he thought, this was the high judge of all Arsuid. He wasn’t happy with the identification; it told him he was in more trouble than he liked to think about. The man spoke again, “State your name, felon.”
Danny thought that over before he answered; Daniel prodded him to demand an explanation; Ahzurdan wanted him to be meekly courteous. “My name is Lazul,” he said. “Why am I here?”
“You lie. Your name is Ahzurdan.”
“No. Ahzurdan is dead.”
“You are a sorceror. You are addicted to dreamdust and come seeking it here. The sale of dreamdust is illegal here. To attempt to buy it is to break the laws of Dirge Arsuid.”
“I am who I say I am. If I’m a sorceror, that’s my business, unless you passed a law against them. Have you? Not only am I not addicted to the dust, I’d put a knife through anyone who tried to force it on me. Who says I court such idiocy? Who says I importuned him to sell me anything? Bring him. Show him to me so I can call him the liar he is.”
“The deed is not required, only the intent.”
“Intent? You reading people’s hearts now?”
“It is not necessary. You are here. Your habits are known. You are guilty. Do you repent?”
“How can I repent what I’ve neither done nor thought? How can I repent another man’s sins?”
“He is contumaceous, brothers; he is intent on his illegal purposes. I say there is no point to further deliberation. How say you?”
“Guilty,” intoned the figure to the far left: “Guilty.”
“Guilty.”
“Guilty.” The lesser judges condemned him in whispers, squeaks and muted bellows.
“So say I. D’wab-ser, dissolve the cage and bring the man before us.”
Danny Blue prepared himself, ready to move when he felt the eventflow shift. He watched the cowled sorceror change his grip on his staff, saw the silver lines inlaid in the wood come to life, running like moonwater from tip to butt. He saw a shifting of shadow under the hood as the man’s lips moved, though he couldn’t hear words. The cage melted away around him. He stood up.
Free hand twisting through complex, awkward gestures, D’wab-ser Braspa Pawbool came down the stairs.
Danny waited, ready to counter if he could figure out how, waited for the moment when the man broke through the pentacle, expecting the attack then. Ready to attack the stone beneath. Pawbool, the air around him, ready…
No attack.
Braspa Pawbool simply reached across the lines, cancelling them. “Come,” he said. “Don’t be foolish. Come.” He took hold of Danny’s arm near the wrist, tugged at him. “Face your sentencing like a man not a child.”
Startled, Danny took a step toward him. Pawbool’s grip shifted. The Ahzurdan phasma screamed, *Pull away, pull…*
He was too late. Danny Blue felt the pricks from the twin fangs of the ring on Pawbool’s center finger. His wrist burned. He started to jerk his arm away, Pawbool tapped the point of his shoulder with the staff; his arm went limp. “What… what are you…”
“Nothing to worry you. It’s just to keep you quiet. Come with me.”
Pawbool took his hand away. The fangs withdrew, the burning cooled until Danny couldn’t feel it. Slowly, slowly the strength began returning to his arm. He followed Pawbool. The Sorceror stopped him with a touch of the staff when he was in front of the Prenn Ysran. Danny stood there rubbing at his wrist; he could feel the drug beginning to work in him. A pleasant euphoria spread through his body; he felt lethargic, didn’t want to move or think.
The Prenn Ysran waited until Braspa Pawbool climbed the stairs and resumed his place beside the last chair on the right, then he leaned forward until his nose and chin were visible as the light from one of the three lamps edged under his cowl. “The D’wab-ser lied,” he said. “You have your death inside you, but you need not die.” He spoke quickly, nervously; his heavily gloved hands tightened on the arms of his chair. ‘There is a way of atoning for your guilt, felon. There is an antidote. You can earn it. It will save you if you get it within the next four months. After that you die.” He cleared his throat, his hood swayed as he turned his head slightly side to side as if he watched for something he feared to see. “What say you?”
“What do I have to do?”
“Say the words, felon. Say you accept the task.” Again that twitch of his head, the shimmy of the hood.
Danny thought it over; he didn’t like anything about this business, he also didn’t have much choice. “If I can do it, I accept the task.”
There was an odd creaking sound, a plopping like bubbles breaking in hot mush. Startled, Danny looked around.
A large head had pushed up through the stone, dark and shifty, quivering as if it were sculpted from gelatinous mud; on hair like seagrass it wore dripping, leathery leaves in a limp off-center wreath. Large dull eyes stared at them all, passing along the line of judges, dropping, stopping at Danny Blue. They fixed on him, gray and filmy fisheyes.
Danny Blue began to understand more of this. The god was behind what was happening. Arfon. Dwalluparfon. Mixed up somehow with the Chained God and his convoluted plots. The Daniel phasma sniggered. *Traded to a bush league, that’s you, old Dan. Traded like a broke-down offwing.*
*Be quiet,* Danny snarled at his half-sire, *I need to pay attention here.*
The Prenn Ysran settled back in his chair, his relief palpable. “There is in the city Hennkensikee one of the Great talismans, Klukesharna. You are a sorceror, you must know of Kluke.shama.”
“Sorceror or not, I know of Klukesharna.”
“Do you know what it looks like?”
“It’s star-iron, shaped like a key about the length of my palm.”
“Good. Bring us Klukesharna and we will give you the antidote.”
“In four months? Impossible.”
“We will underwrite your expenses and provide useful companions.”
“Why me? The Peroraglassi passes through Lake Patinkaya; if his Riverine Sanctity over there wants the talisman, why doesn’t he reach out and take it?”
“It is not for us to question the tasks the Great One sets us, felon; even more is it unseemly for you to intrude yourself.”
“Hmh! Fancy language for blackmailers.”
“Watch your tongue, felon, or your back will suffer for your insolence.”
“Oh really?”
“We can find another easily enough.”
“That I believe. However…” He yawned, patted the yawn, hooked thumbs into loops on his vest. “Dead is not what I want out of life, so let’s talk about this underwriting business. I need a reason to visit Hennkensikee. What do you suggest?”
The Prenn Ysran stood. “This is nothing to do with the Ystaffel. Make your arrangements with the D’wab-ser; he has our authority to proceed.” He walked along the dais, skimming past the knees of the sitting judges and vanished behind an ancient dark arras that shifted slowly in the many drafts wandering about the chamber; after he was gone, Danny Blue deciphered the image embroidered there, it was a repeat of the Head silently watching the business, the river god protruding from the floor. Silently the other four judges rose and marched out, leaving Braspa Pawbool alone with the prisoner and the god.
Pawbool settled himself into the end chair. “Well, Ahzurdan, you’ve changed the furnishings somewhat, but you smell the same.”
“Ahzurdan’s dead,” Danny murmured; in his head the Ahzurdan phasma gibbered a denial, but he ignored that. “Call me Lazul.”
Pawbool laid his staff across his knees. “The dreamdust must have rotted your brain, you were easier than a first year apprentice, not a ward in sight. Makes me wonder if we were right involving you in this business. Well, what’s done is done. Your question. It’s the end of the trading season; the Silk Road is shut down though there’s no snow in the passes yet, which is odd, there should be some by now, the last caravans left for the east a couple weeks ago. What that’s got to do with this is this: every year when the season closes, the Lewinkob Spinners get rid of the ends and bolts that didn’t sell. They cut the selvage off so the Hennkensikee sigil is gone and reduce the price to something like a third of what it would have been. What happens is small-time traders come in from everywhere to hunt through the leavings and get what they can. Even without the name, Lewinkob silks bring big money. You play things right, the Wokolinka’s Amazons will think you’re just another trader.”
“I know as much about silks as you do about fire, Poo Boo.”
“There you come, sneaking out, Firenose. Say your greets to the real world.” Pawbool ran his fingertips delicately along his staff. “We know how ignorant you are, Little Zhuri. We have provided. Of your three companions, two know as much about silks as any specialist would. One steals them, the other wears them.”
“A thief and a…”
“Courtesan.”
“And the other?”
“Thief and assassin, you get two for one with her. Oh, you needn’t be worried about their commitment to the enterprise; the basis of their loyalty is much the same as yours.”
“I see.”
“I’m sure you do.”
“Right. If you want this thing to work, I’ll need a few items. An up-to-date map of the city. I presume you know where the talisman is housed, so lay out for me whatever information you have about that, a floor plan of the structure, if you can come up with one that’s reasonably accurate, a description of how the thing is guarded-and warded. I assume it’s powerfully warded and our silent friend back there would have got his fingers singed if he tried this on his own. I need what you know about the local god and what’s his or her attributes.” He paused a moment, thought a question at the Ahzurdan phasma, got back the equivalent of a shrug. “I’ve never been there and I haven’t bothered to learn the basics. Too busy with more immediate concerns. I need to know them now.”
Pawbool glanced at the god, then nodded. “Everything we have will be ready for you before the day’s out.”
“Good. I need to meet with and assess these aides you’ve roped in for me; any plan I make has to include their weak points and strengths. I’ll go there by river, but I want strong, fast horses waiting for me and the others when we leave Hennkensikee. If things go well, we’ll get out without raising a stir, but it’s stupid to count on that. You know as well as I do, if anything can go wrong, it will. Set up relays along the river so we can change mounts and come straight through to Arsuid without stopping to rest.”
“Travel both ways by river. We can guarantee protection as long as you’re on water.”
“Lovely. It’s my skin, Poo. I know what I can do, I’m not all that sure of your urn protection. It’d be so very easy to take that talisman off me and leave me to the tender mercies of the Wokolinka. If you want me to do this, set up the relays.”
“You don’t do it, you die. Painfully.”
“Without the relays, I’m even more apt to die. Painfully.”
There was a bubbling grunt from the god. Danny stiff-
ened, then relaxed as he recognized the sound. Arlon was laughing. “Do it,” the god said; his voice was like mud flowing, liquid and thick. “I like this one’s wits; he doesn’t cringe like you worms and he uses his head. I like him.” Pawbool’s hands tightened on the staff; he waited until he was sure the god had finished, then his hood jerked as he nodded. “Agreed,” he said to Danny, carefully not speaking to the god. “I will arrange for the relays come morning. What else?”
“If the three you’ve planted on me look like everyone else in this city, they’ll need less conspicuous clothing. I won’t travel with things out of some dye-master’s nightmare. I’ll need more gear myself; set me up as a Phrasi on the tawdry side, a small trader just barely making it. And I’ll need enough coin to be convincing. Over and above what you found on me, which I’ll want back. I’m supposed to be going there to buy, not shoplift. Everyone’s heard that much about Hennkensikee; they don’t let deadbeats through the gates.”
“That has already been arranged. We will send you properly equipped.”
“Nice of you. I’d better not go back to the Estron Coor, I don’t want rumors to get out connecting me to anything Arsuider, especially your lot. I presume you’ve thought of that and set up quarters for me here, wherever this is.”
“Yes.”
“You left my gear in my room?”
“Yes.,’
“Transfer it. I’m tired and hungry and filthy. I want food and a bath, then I want to see the three I’m supposed to be working with.”
“Snipsnap, Firenose, is that all? Shall I send along some dreamdust too?”
“Stuff it up your own nose.”
“Hostile, aren’t you.”
Danny Blue looked over his shoulder. The god was gone. He snorted, it took that to give Poo Boo some stiffening in his spine. He stretched, rubbed at the back of his neck. “How much more time we going to waste playing one-up games?”
Braspa Pawbool stood. The light flared in the silver inlay of his staff as he fashioned a small amber will-o which drifted over to Danny and hung before his face. “Follow the light, Firenose. I’ll follow you.”