the place where Corson had found Nyctasia before was an old stone house on the cliffs just outside of Chiastelm, known as the Smugglers’ House. Nyctasia had bought it years ago, as a retreat from the duties and dangers of her life in Rhostshyl, but she had never passed much time in the place. Now she meant to establish her household there, for the time being, and send for those with whom she must meet-her allies first, and then the others.
It was important that she make them come to her. To obey her summons would be to acknowledge her powerful position, and only if her right to govern was recognized by all could she hope to fulfill her dream for the city’s future. She must return to Rhostshyl as its ruler, or not at all.
She was not surprised to find the house standing open, the locks broken. It had been long empty and unguarded, easy for thieves and vagabonds to invade. But there was nothing left to steal, and Nyctasia found no further sign of intruders as she explored the building by lamplight. She’d heard it said that the house was haunted, and she supposed that such talk kept trespassers away, but she did not suspect that the sinister reputation of the place had grown since the mysterious murders there the year before. The killer had reportedly vanished in the very midst of a troupe of guards, leaving three dead-or six, or eight, according to the varying versions of the tale. But most folk agreed that it looked like the work of demons, and shunned the place more than ever.
Nyctasia wandered through the deserted rooms with Grey-mantle, searching the cellars and the scullery, then each floor above, to be certain that she was alone in the house. There was nothing to find but dust and cobwebs and the ash of long-dead hearthfires. She could have the locks seen to in the morning, and the house cleaned and readied for habitation. She would send for sentries from her own guard in Rhostshyl to garrison the premises while she dwelt there. But tonight while the house stood empty, she had one thing to do there alone.
When she reached the topmost story, Greymantle at once led the way to the one door in the corridor that was closed, and sniffed at it mistrustfully, his ears pricked for any sound within. But Nyctasia looked into all the other rooms before returning to this one, the room where Thierran had been killed, where she herself had come so close to death. Greymantle was pawing at the sill and growling softly, and Nyctasia wondered if it were true that animals possessed a special awareness of immaterial Influences. Perhaps the Smugglers’ House had not been haunted before, she thought grimly, but it surely was now. “You will make me a good familiar, Grey,” she said, and pushed open the door.
She half-expected to see Thierran still lying there, his throat slashed, though she knew that he must have been long since interred in the crypts beneath the palace of the Edonaris in Rhostshyl. As children they had defied their elders’ orders and explored those crypts together, frightened but fascinated, knowing that they would lie there themselves one day among their ancestors-yet not really believing that they would ever die.
But the dark, dried blood staining the far wall and the floor reminded her of how wrong those children had been. Greymantle sniffed at it, and she called him away hastily. Then, when she had looked around the room, she hung her lamp in the corridor outside and came back to the chamber in darkness. The window was still open, as it had been on the night Corson clambered through it to find her, and the wan moonlight it gave the room was quite sufficient for Nyctasia’s purposes.
While she knelt by the spot where Thierran had fallen, Grey-mantle examined every corner of the room, even resting his front paws on the windowsill to sniff the night air suspiciously. When his searching led him out to the corridor again, he looked back, waiting for Nyctasia to follow, but she remained on her knees, silent and motionless. Greymantle came back to her and nudged her chin with his nose insistently until she took heed of him.
“Talk to a hound with your hands,” said Nyctasia. “Talk to the dead in your dreams.” She stroked Greymantle’s rough fur, then gently pushed him away. “You stand guard. Grey. Go on now.” The dog gave a whining sigh and resumed his restless prowling.
We ourselves are the true link between the world of the spirit and the world of matter, Nyctasia mused, and thus the gateway where the two realms meet is rightly to be sought within ourselves and not otherwhere… Nevertheless, in this room she had last seen Thierran in life, and here she had met him again, in her troubled dreams. The way she must take lay within, yes, but here if anywhere was the place from which to depart.
Nyctasia drew her dagger, and slowly closed her hand around the blade. The edge bit deep into her palm and fingers, but she barely felt the pain at first.
“Approach, I am near you.
Speak, for I hear you…”
Nyctasia chanted, over and over again, as the throbbing swelled in her wounded hand.
Behind her closed eyes she thought she saw the reflections of fallen stars, or of stars which had never been. Finally she pressed her hand against the stained floorboards and waited, silent, while the living blood mingled with the dead.
Corson couldn’t stop laughing. Her ribs ached, she could barely breathe, and tears of laughter flooded her eyes. Every time she thought of Steifann and Nyctasia face to face, his red-hot rage facing her pale, cold fury, she collapsed in howls of helpless glee. She could picture them both perfectly.
Trask had reported every word of the quarrel to her, with a few embellishments of his own, emphasizing Steifann’s folly and his own heroism in braving Nyctasia’s wrath to intercede on Steifann’s behalf.
Steifann had contributed an indignant denial here and there, but he was content to let Trask tell the tale while he sat by with a sheepish grin and nursed a mug of ale. Now that Corson was back safe and sound, his good humor was quite restored, and matters did not look nearly so grim. Trask claimed that Her Ladyship had graciously forgiven his behavior, and Corson clearly did not think that much harm had been done. She sat with one arm around him and leaned against him, breathless with laughter. Her hair had started to come undone, and it tickled his neck pleasantly. He was mellowly drunk by now, and feeling far too comfortable to mind her mockery and teasing.
Indeed, the whole affair now seemed nearly as funny to him as it did to Corson.
He could already hear himself repeating the story over his ale in years to come, telling friends about the time he’d threatened to throw one of Corson’s countless lovers out of his place. (“An insolent little minx, no bigger than your thumb, she was, with a way of looking at you as if you smelled of the cesspit. And then when I’d finished telling her just what I thought of her-not leaving out much, you understand-she simply looked me up and down as cool as you please, and said, ‘I’m a Rhaicime where I come from…’ I thought I’d be in the pillory before dawn and on the scaffold before dusk! How was I to know Corson was telling the truth about knowing a Rhaicime? It’s not as if she’d ever told the truth before.”) Steifann chuckled to himself. It would make a fine story-the only trouble was that he didn’t yet know how it ended.
Corson wiped her streaming eyes on her sleeve. “You dolt!” she said for the twentieth time, and kissed him heartily. She didn’t know which delighted her more, Steifann’s jealousy, or the thought of Nyctasia being called a little slut in public. “You must have scared her half to death, you brute-a little mite like that! For shame!”
Steifann was, in truth, ashamed of that. No one who knew him would have supposed for a moment that he would strike anyone as small as Nyctasia. He might at the worst have taken her by the collar and pitched her out the door. But how was she to know that? Still, if she’d been frightened, Steifann thought, she’d certainly hidden it well. “It was that hound of hers scared me out of my wits,” he protested. “I was nearly chewed up and swallowed, but do you care? Anyway, it was all your fault, Corson,” he concluded with drunken complacency. “You should have been here to deal with your Rhaicime yourself-and to protect me from her.”
“By Asye, I wish I had been here. I’d give a fortune to have seen it.” She kissed Steifann again. “Well, I daresay she deserved it. She’s the most vexing little gadfly ever born.”
“And where were you while we were entertaining the nobility here? I expected you days ago.”
“They kept me waiting for my pay in Ochram till a courier arrived with letters of credit. But I made them pay for the delay, and for a room at The Golden Goblet too. I had a fine time.”
“I’ll wager you did,” Steifann said sourly. “You could have sent a message, curse you.”
Corson shook her head, and her braid tumbled down the rest of the way. “No one I met with was leaving for Chiastelm any sooner than I was. I’m not to blame that you’re too hot-tempered by half. You should try not to be so hasty.”
“Hasty! If I weren’t such a forbearing fellow, your ragged Rhaicime would be in shreds and splinters now.”
“Why does she go about looking like a peddler?” said Trask suddenly-a question Steifann and Annin had known better than to ask, and which Corson knew better than to answer. She sent Trask off to the kitchen to find her something to eat.
“Nyc would try anyone’s patience, it’s true,” she said to Steifann, “but really she’s a pet when you come to know her. She doesn’t mind a few rough words.
You’ll see.”
Steifann snorted. “Know her! Rhaicime or no, if she sets foot in here again, I’ll-”
“You’ll beg her pardon,” Annin put in sharply, “if it’ll help us get Destiver back alive. What of that, Corson?”
“I don’t know…” Corson said thoughtfully. “You see, Nyc’s met Destiver, and I don’t suppose she thinks of her very fondly. Destiver was even less respectful to milady than you were, love. Threatened to have her keelhauled, as I recall.”
Annin groaned.
“But all the same, if I ask her, she might do what she can. She’d do anything for me,” Corson continued, grinning at Steifann. She lowered her voice. “If she’s here in secret, though, she can’t very well make herself known to the Guild. I don’t know what she means to do, but I’ll ask her about Destiver-after I’ve had something to eat.”
“What, tonight?” Steifann objected. “You just got here. Wait till morning.”
Corson hesitated. It was late, and she’d been riding since dawn. But Maegor’s words came back to her: “If she returns, she may well be assassinated.” Suppose Nyctasia had sought her out because she needed her services as bodyguard? Corson knew that she wouldn’t rest easy till she’d seen for herself that Nyctasia was safe. “You might have to make do without me tonight, poor creature,” she told Steifann vengefully. “That must be hard to bear. But I’d better go see whether Nyc needs me. She might be in danger. Asye knows she usually is.”