The Dead of Winter Part 24

"You're too kind, Madame," he sighed heavily. "Now, if I could trouble you for a bag?"

The rest of the night was mercifully fuzzy in Zalbar's mind, as fatigue and shock began to numb his senses. Ischade had revived Kurd by the time he arrived back at her house ... which was fortunate, for the vivisectionist was of invaluable a.s.sistance as they faced the macabre task of matching the severed vertebrae to discover which in the bagful of skulls was actually Razkuli's.

He buried his friend's now a.s.sembled body himself, not trusting the necromancer to do it, digging the grave far from the normal graveyards, under a tree they both knew. His task finally complete, he staggered back to the Aphro-disia House and slept uninterrupted for more than a day.

When he awoke, the events seemed so distant and bizarre that he might have dismissed them as a fever dream, were it not for two things. First, the spirit of Razkuli never again appeared to spoil his slumbers, and second, Myrtis threw him out of Aphrodisia House after hearing he had visited the House of Whips and Chains. (She soon forgave him, as she always did, her anger dissipating almost magically.) The only other consequence of the entire episode was that a week later, Zalbar was given an official reprimand. It seemed that while engaging in sword practice with his fellow h.e.l.l-Hounds, he had broken off drilling to administer a merciless beating to one of the onlookers. Reliable witnesses testified that the victim's only offense had been to make the offhand comment: "You h.e.l.l-Hounds will do anything to get ahead!"

THE COLOR OF MAGIC.

Diana L. Paxson

The sky was weeping, as if some artist had muddied all the world's colors to gray and now was trying to dissolve them away. Water dripped from the brim of Lalo's floppy hat down his neck and he tried to pull his cloak higher, swearing.

The saying went that there were two seasons in Sanctuary-one of them was hot and the other was not-and the most miserable was whichever one you were in. It was not a hard rain-more a persistent drizzle that imposed an illusory peace on the town by encouraging the bravos of the dozen or so warring factions to stay inside.

I should have stayed home too, thought Lalo. But another hour in rooms crowded with children and the lingering odors of wet clothing and cooking food would have driven him into a quarrel with Gilla, and he had sworn not to do that again. The Vulgar Unicorn was closed to him, but last he had heard, the Green Grape was still on the corner where the Governor's Walk joined the Farmer's Run.

He'd have a peaceful drink or two there, and figure out what to do....

Lalo ducked under the overhang where the weathered sign with its bunch of peeling fruit knocked forlornly against the wall. The only sign of life about the place was the scruffy gray dog s.h.i.+vering against the door. Then Lalo pushed the door open and the welcome scent of mulling wine overpowered the more familiar odors of mildew and backed-up drains.

Lalo shrugged out of his cloak and shook it. The dog's ears flapped and its collar jingled as it did the same. Then it sneezed and followed him inside.

Lalo sat down next to the stove and draped his already steaming cloak across a chair. A skinny serving boy brought him mulled wine and he clasped his paint stained fingers around the mug to warm them before he let the hot, sweet liquor slide down his throat. He set the mug down, glimpsed his own unprepossessing reflection in a tarnished mirror on the wall, and looked quickly away.

He had looked into a mirror once and seen a G.o.d look back at him. Had that been a dream? And he had seen all his own evil come alive on the wall of the Vulgar Unicorn. That had been a nightmare, and too many others had shared it.

The gift of painting the truth of a man had come originally from Enas Yori. Now, he almost wished he had accepted the sorcerer's offer to take it back again.

These days, Enas Yorl seemed to be chronically incapacitated by his periodic transformations-it was almost as if the sorcerer's mutations paralleled the degenerating situation in Sanctuary.

But with Enas Yorl handicapped and Lythande out of town, who was there to teach him how to use his power? The Temples were useless, and the stench of the Mage guild made him feel ill.

Quite close to him, someone sneezed. Lalo jumped, set his mug teetering, and grabbed for it.

"Do you mind if I borrow your cloak?"

Lalo blinked, then focused on a thin young man clad only in a metal dog collar who was reaching for the garment Lalo had draped over the other chair.

"It's still wet ..." he said helplessly.

"That's the only trouble with these transformations," the stranger shuddered as he wrapped the cloak around him, "especially in this kind of weather. But sometimes it's safer to travel in disguise."

Lalo s.h.i.+fted focus and saw the blue glow of power. The pride in the stranger's face was tempered by an almost puppy ish eagerness, and a hint of wistfulness as well, as if not all his magic could win him what he really desired.

"What do you want with me, Mage?"

"Oh, you can call me Randal, Master Limner ..." the mage grinned. He smoothed back his damp hair as if he were trying to hide his ears. "And what I want is you, or rather. Sanctuary does ..."

Lalo tried to cover his confusion with another sip of wine. He had heard about the Hazard-cla.s.s sorcerer who worked with the Stepsons, but during the weeks when Lalo had been trying to learn magic from the priests of Savankala, the Tysian mage had been unaccountably absent. Lalo had never seen him before.

Randal fumbled at his collar and pulled out a tight roll of canvas. With that confident grin that was already beginning to rasp Lalo's nerves, he flattened it against the table.

"Do you recognize this drawing?" It was the picture of that mercenary Niko, in whose background two other faces had so unexpectedly appeared.

Lalo grimaced, knowing it all too well, and wis.h.i.+ng, not for the first time, that he had never let Molin Torchholder take the d.a.m.ned thing. Certainly no one had given him any peace over it since. It was that, as much as the conclusion that the Temple teachers didn't know how to train him, that had driven him home again.

"How did you get that?" he asked sourly. "I thought His High and Mightiness kept it closer than an Imperial pardon."

"I borrowed it," said Randal enigmatically. "Look at it!" He brandished the paper under Lalo's nose. "Do you understand what you have done?"

"That's what Molin kept asking me-you should talk to him!"

"Perhaps I can understand your answers better than he did ..."

"The answers are all no!" Lalo said harshly. "I don't know what happens if you destroy one of my portraits. I've never tried to animate a portrait, and I'm not about to start experimenting. Not after the Black Unicorn.... You're the mage you tell me what I can do!"

"Perhaps I will," Randal said winningly, "if you'll help us in return."

"Us? What 'us'?" Lalo eyed him warily. Badly as he needed knowledge, he was even more desperately afraid of being used.

This time it was Randal who hesitated. "Everyone who wants to see some kind of order restored to Sanctuary," he said finally.

"By kicking out the Fish-eyes? My daughter serves one of their ladies at the Palace. They're not all bad-"

Randal shrugged. "Who is?" Then he frowned. "We just don't want them running us, that's all. But the Beysib are hardly the worst of our problems-" His long finger stabbed at the woman's face in the picture, that searingly beautiful face whose eyes were like the eyes of the Black Unicorn.

"She-" hissed the mage. "She's at the bottom of it. If we can destroy her-even contain her-maybe we can set the rest right!"

"You go right ahead," snapped Lalo. "Just drawing her picture was bad enough.

Fight your own wars-it's nothing to do with me!"

Randal sighed. "I can't force you, but others may try. You'll wish you had allies then."

Lalo stared sullenly into his wine. "Threats won't move me either, mage!"

There was a short silence. Then Randal fumbled with his collar again.

"I'm not threatening you," he said tiredly. "I don't have to. Take this ..."

From the apparently limitless compartment in his dog collar he pulled a wadded cloth. It opened out as it fell and Lalo saw a garish rainbow of red and blue and yellow and black and green. "It'll get you across town when you decide you need help from me. Ask for me at the Palace ..."

He paused, but Lalo would not meet his eyes. Randal got to his feet, and as his movement stirred the drawing, shadows lifted like dark wings in the corners of the room. Like the winged shadows in the picture, thought Lalo, s.h.i.+vering. Very carefully the mage rolled up the drawing. Lalo made no objection. He never wanted to see it, or the mage, again. His vision blurred and images moved just beyond the limits of his perception. He shuddered again.

"Thank you for the loan of your cloak ..." The words trailed off oddly.

Lalo looked up just in time to see his outer garment settle like a deflating balloon across the chair. Something wriggled beneath it, sneezed, and then pushed free. He saw a gaunt, wolfish dog stand up, shake itself, and lift one large ear inquiringly.

Even as a dog his ears are too big for him, thought Lalo. Fascinated in spite of himself, he watched as the animal sneezed again and trotted across the room. The tavern door obligingly opened itself, then snicked shut after him. And then there was only the crackling of the fire and the whisper of rain against the windows to keep him company.

I dreamed it, thought the limner, but the armband still lay before him, striped with all the colors of the lines that sectioned Sanctuary. And what is my color, the color of magic? Lalo wondered then. But there was no one to answer him.

He dropped a few coins onto the table and stuffed the armband into his pouch.

Then he jammed his hat on over his thinning hair and wrapped the damp cloak around him. Now it smelled of dog as well as of wet wool.

And as that scent clung to the cloak, the mage's words stuck in Lalo's memory.

His step quickened as he headed for the door. He had to warn Gilla-he had to get home.

"You tell me, Wedemir-you see more of the town than I do. Is your father right to be afraid?" Gilla paused in her sweeping and leaned on the broom, staring at her oldest son. Her two younger children were sitting at the kitchen table, drawing on their slates with some of Lalo's broken chalks. Chalk squeaked and Wedemir grimaced.

"Well, you still need a pa.s.s to get around," he answered her, "and who's fighting whom and why seems to change from day to day. But having the real Stepsons back in their barracks seems to have calmed the Beysibs down."

Suddenly Latilla screeched and grabbed for her little brother's arm. Alfi's slate crashed to the floor and he began to cry.

"Mama, he took the chalk right out of my hand!" exclaimed Latilla.

"Red chalk!" said Alfi through his tears, as if that explained it. He glared at his sister. "Draw red dragon to eat you up!" He slid down from his chair to retrieve the slate.

Gilla smacked his bottom and pulled him upright. "You're not going to draw anything until you learn some self-control!" She glanced toward the shut door to Lalo's studio. He had said he was going to paint, but she had seen him fast asleep on the couch when she looked in a quarter hour before.

"You're going to your room, both of you!" she told her small son and daughter.

"Your father needs his rest, so play quietly!"

When they had gone, she picked up the fallen slate and fragments of chalk and turned back to Wedemir, who had sat through the altercation trying to look as if he had never seen either his brother or his sister before.

"That's not what I meant, and you know it," she said softly. "Lalo is not afraid of the Beysib. He's afraid of magic."

"Name of Ils, Mother-the Stepsons' pet mage is trying to recruit him." Wedemir's black brows nearly met as he frowned. "What do you expect me to do?"

"Stay with him! Protect him!" Gilla said fiercely. She began sweeping again with long, hard strokes, as if she could thrash out all her fears.

"He's not going to like me tagging after him-"

"Neither of you will like it if he runs into danger alone...." There was a sudden heaviness in the air. Gilla heard a faint "pop" and turned, the rest of her words dying in her throat.

Above the kitchen table hovered a sphere of darkness, scintillating with flickers of cobalt blue. As she stared, it quivered and began to drift, still expanding, toward the studio. The floor shook as Gilla started toward it.

"Mother, no!" Wedemir's chair crashed behind him as he tried to get around the table, but Gilla was already standing between the Sphere and the studio door.

"Get out of my kitchen, you demon's fart!" She jabbed at the Darkness with her broom and it recoiled. "Think you'll get my Lalo, do you? I'll show you!" The Sphere stilled as she spoke Lalo's name, then suddenly enlarged. Gilla blinked as colors swirled dizzyingly across its slick surface.

"By Siveni's spear, get you gone!" Gilla recovered herself and struck the Sphere with her broom. The stiff straw faded as if she had shoved it into a murky pool, then the shaft started to disappear too. Her screech of outrage was swallowed as the Darkness engulfed her. She heard the second "pop" of displaced air, and all sense of direction and dimension disappeared.

"Papa, are we going to stay here long?" Latilla looked around the courtyard of the Palace, whose usual splendor was muted by the rain, and pressed closer to Lalo.

"I hope not, sweetheart," he answered, scanning the arches of the cloister anxiously.

"I don' like it," Alfi said decidedly. "I want Mama. I want to go home. Papa, will Mama be back soon?"

"I hope so...." whispered Lalo. His eyes blurred with something more than rain as he knelt to hug both children close against him, finding some deceptive comfort in the warmth of their young bodies. He and Gilla had made these children between them. She couldn't be gone!

"Father, Wedemir told me what happened! What are we going to do?"

Vanda was hurrying toward them with her older brother behind her, her bright hair coming undone from its Beysib coiffure.

"I'm going to get Gilla back," Lalo said harshly. "But you'll have to take care of the little ones."

"Here?" She looked around her dubiously.

Wedemir cleared his throat. "They may not be safe at home."

Vanda frowned. "Well, we already have some other children in quarters in the bas.e.m.e.nt-that child of the Temple they call Gyskouras, and Illyra's boy-it's a regular nursery. Maybe I can work something out ... oh, of course I'll take them!" She scooped Alfi into her arms. "Just find Mother!" She stared at Lalo over Alfi's dark head, her grey eyes so much like Gilla's that something twisted in Lalo's chest.

"I will ..."he managed, and could say no more.

Vanda nodded, s.h.i.+fted Alfi onto her hip and reached out for Latilla's hand.

"Come on, levies, and I'll show you some pretty things."

"Toys?" asked Alfi.

"Toys, and other children, and everything ..." Van-da's voice faded as she went under the archway. Then she turned a corner and was gone. -- "At least it was convenient to drop them here," said Wedemir dryly. "Exactly where in the Palace did that mage tell,you to go?"

"I'll have to ask at the wicket. It's like the Maze inside...." Lalo sighed and splashed across the courtyard.

Behind the wicket at the Gate was a little room where litigants had waited to be called to the Hall of Justice in the days when the Prince still pretended to govern Sanctuary. Lalo settled onto one of its inadequately padded benches and closed his eyes. Instinctively he reached out for that current of awareness that linked him to Gilla, but there was nothing there. He had never realized how essential her presence was to him.

Gilla-Gilla! his heart cried, and he did not realize that he had moaned aloud until he felt Wedemir patting his arm.

"You have decided to come to us after all! What is wrong?"

Lalo's eyes flew open. Randal the Mage with his clothes on was an altogether more impressive sight than the man who had borrowed his cloak in the tavern. In this setting, even his freckles seemed less visible.

"Something tried to get him and took my mother by mistake," said Wedemir accusingly. "A black globular sort of thing-it just materialized in the kitchen, and she was gone!"

"A kind of bubble shot with flashes of blue light?" asked Randal, and Wedemir nodded. The mage chewed his lip for a moment, then grimaced. "It sounds like Roxane. She has a habit of kidnaping people, and right now she's h.e.l.lbent on revenge against anyone connected with Molin Torchholder or Niko...."

Randal's voice had softened as he spoke the mercenary's name, and Lalo sensed the complex of frustrated love, longing, and loyalty that explained why the mage had handled Niko's portrait so reverently. But Lalo could hardly worry about Randal's feelings now. He had heard too many tales about Roxane....