Teri McLaren
morsels with keen regret. He must have looked ready to drop with hunger, because the stallkeeper, clearing his brazier for the day, left a haunch of lamb on it and nodded to Cheyne as he seemed to melt into the wall. The young man eagerly grabbed up the meat, not minding the several grains of sand he found included. The lamb was tough and dry, stringy and oversea-,soned, but Cheyne wolfed it down.
In another moment, he stood hovering in front of the stall, ticking his fingers, still wondering how to get out of the Mercanto. Then he saw how the stallkeeper had disappeared so thoroughly-behind the flimsy tent, almost invisible in the deepening shadows, a large crack parted the stonework. Cheyne looked around, and finding no one to tell him he couldn't, took a deep breath, scuttled through the narrow passage, through a dark slaughterhouse, and out into the Barca. From the well-worn path under the wall and the cloying smell of old blood, both the butchery and the hidden entrance had probably been there since antiquity.
Exhaling, Cheyne walked through the shabby streets until he found the outer wall, and then studied it for similar openings. Behind the hanging tent cloth and lean-tos, he found dozens of such breaches, most of them seemingly natural, that had been made in the outer wall over the centuries.
It looks so solid from the outside, but it's just layers and layers of whitewash. I guess the Fascini wouldn't repair anything they didn't have to look at, Cheyne mused.
Soon he was on the flat, dusty road back to the older ruin, wondering just exactly what he would tell Javin.