“Or something. Talisman or not, I’ve learned enough from his attacks to blur his sight. He’ll know I’m moving, he’ll know the general direction, but he won’t be able to see me or anyone with me. Earth elementals and ariels, I can handle those myself; if you and the children can remove the human watchers, we can get the girl back without him finding out who she is. The fog will be broad enough to cover the hostel and half the quarter around it, he can’t be sure where I’m going, but he’s not stupid, so he’ll guess fairly accurately what’s happening.”
“Kori, you hear?”
“Yes.” The word was a long sigh. She was pale, her eyes huge and frightened. Daniel watched her, understanding well enough what she was feeling now; she’d gone into this blithely enough, enjoying the excitement of her secret maneuvers; her brother’s life rested on her skills, but that wasn’t quite real to her. Settsimaksimin’s power wasn’t real to her. It was now. She was beginning to understand what might happen to her people because of her activities. No, it wasn’t a game any longer.
Brann got to her feet, crossed to stand beside her; she touched her fingers to Kori’s shoulder. “What do you want to do? You’re welcome to stay here.”
“I can’t do that. If I’m gone, HET do something awful to my folk.”
“Dan uh Ahzurdan?”
“These are his people, Brann; remember what I’ve told you about him, he’s always been extravagantly possessive about things that are his. When we… his apprentices finally broke away, he took it as a kind of betrayal. He won’t do anything to them unless he’s driven to it. As long as there’s no overt break, as long as he can strike at you, us, without involving them, he’ll leave them alone. The girl’s right. She has to go back.”
“Soon as the children are back, then, we’ll move. You’ll come with us, Daniel Akamarino.” She smiled. “I can almost hear your mind ticking along. Don’t waste your time, my friend. We won’t be too busy to keep track of you, don’t you even think of slipping off…”
hullo whipped up through the floor, changed. “Taproom’s cleared out except for a couple of drunks. Real drunks, I whizzed them and nearly picked up a secondhand buzz. I went outside and ran a few streets. Lot of men standing in doorways. I counted twenty before I came back, there’s probably twice that.”
Yaril dropped through the ceiling, fluttered into her girlshape. “He’s not exaggerating. They’re watching every street and path around this place, just about every bush. There’s another ring beyond that, almost as tight and beyond that two more, not so tight. There are even some little cats out on the water zipping back and forth through the fog. Must be a couple of hundred men out there. The landwatchers aren’t all that enthusiastic, standing around holding up walls, walking circles in the middle of the street, but seems to me that’s because nothing is happening. Let them spot us and they’ll turn as efficient as you want.”
Brann frowned. “I didn’t expect quite that many… we can forget about the boats and the first ring isn’t a problem, we can get most of them before they realize we’re out. Before He knows we’re out. It’s those next, what, you said three rings? They worry me. Did you scan the rooftops, Yaro?”
“Bramble! course I did. Some people were up there sleeping, there were several pairs of lovers intent on their own business, they wouldn’t give a fistful of spit for anything happening on the street. I didn’t see anyone alert enough to be a spy, but I won’t guarantee I didn’t miss someone.” She hesitated, turned finally to Ahzurdan. “Would he do something like that? Use dozens of visible watchers to camouflage two or three maybe a few more of his best Noses, so we take the guards out and don’t notice some sly rats sneaking after us?”
“He’s a complicated man. I’d say it’s likely.”
Daniel Akamarino watched the working of this odd collection of talents and began to feel better about being involved in this web. They put aside their antagonisms and concentrated on getting the job done, once they’d defined what the job was they wanted to do. It wasn’t a group that could or would stay together in ordinary circumstances, but nothing was ordinary about what was happening. Kori was obviously feeling a little out of it; she was fidgeting in her chair, making it creak and wiggle, not quite overtaxing the weak hind leg. He rubbed a thumb across one of his larger pockets, tracing the outlines of the rectangular solid snugged inside, a short range stunner; he eyed Brann a moment, then the children, then Ahzurdan, wondering if he could take them out and get away; his thumb smoothed over and over the stunner, no, impossible to tell what sort of metabolism the children had; they might eat the stunfield like candy. Besides, old Settsimaksimin had the ground covered out there. He liked the thought of that man operating on him about as much as he liked the idea of the children wiping his mind. When he brought Kori here he hadn’t noticed the watchers, but that might have been the wine, he still wasn’t all that sober, or it might have been worrying about young Kori and what she was up to; whatever, he wasn’t about to argue with the children’s assessment of the danger out there. Shapeshifters, shoo-ee, what a world. Contact telepaths, lord knew what else they were. He eased the zipper open, fished out the stunner. “Hey folks,” he said, “listen a minute. I think I know the problem. Brann, you and the kids have to actually touch someone to take him out, right?” She nodded, a short sharp jerk of her head. “And there are too many watchers out there to get at one sweep, right? So, if you could put them to sleep for say an hour, ten, twenty at a blow, and do it from say roof height, them being on the ground with no one near them, that would erase the worst of your difficulties, wouldn’t it?”
“It’d come close.” She leaned toward him, focused all her attention on him, wide green eyes shining at him. “What have you got, Danny Blue?”
“Being a peaceful man with a habit of dropping into places that don’t appreciate good intentions, I keep this with me.” He held up the stunner. It didn’t look like much, just a black box with rounded corners that fit comfortably in his hand, a slit in the front end covered with black glass, a slide with a shallow depression far his thumb in it that with a little pressure bared the triggering sensor.
Jaril sat straight, crystal eyes glittering. “Stunner?”
Daniel Akamarino raised his brows, then he remembered they, like him, were from somewhere else. “Right. Short range neural scrambler.”
“See it?”
“Why not.” A glance to make sure the thumbslide was firmly shut, then he tossed the stunner to the boy.
Jaril caught it, set it on the bed, switched to his energy form and sat over it for a few breaths like hen on an egg. He shifted, was a boy again. do. You letting Yaro and me use it?”
“You can handle it in the air?”
The boy grinned. “Ohhh yes.”
“Feel free. Need any directions?”
“Nope. We read to the subatomic when we have to.”
“Handy. That work on what they use here?”
“Magic?”
“I’m not all that comfortable with the concept.”
“Better get comfortable, tisn’t likely you’ll go home any time soon.”
“You?”
“Two centuries so far.”
‘‘Ananiles?’’
“We never bothered with those. Natural span of the species is ninety centuries.”
“Hmin.”
“You finished?” Dry amusement in Brann’s voice. “Good. We’ll run out of night if we keep this chatter going. Kori, anything else you need to tell me?”
Kori looked up from hands pleating and repleating the heavy cloth of her long black skirt. “No. Not that I can think of.”
“Jay, Yaro, from the little I understand of your chat with Daniel, it seems you can clear the way for us. How long will it take?”
The changechildren stared at each other for several minutes. Daniel Akamarino felt an itching in his head that rose to a peak and broke off abruptly as Jay broke eye contact with his sister. “We’ll zigzag, trading off, each one take a ring while the other flies to the next. I think we better do at least half each ring, maybe a bit more. Yam?”