"Tell your story, Sister," Greystone said. His crossbow remained unwavering. "I haven't heard a good fairy tale in years."
"Kralj Odehnal—the sorcerer who had you captured, and would have had you killed had he taken Ride-Master Jehrke into his power ... "
"We know all that. We want to know about you. Who are you?"
"Easy, Greystone," Chaz said. "Would you care for something to drink, sweet lady?"
The woman glanced at the remains of the Protector. "I couldn't."
"Going to have to do something about him," Chaz muttered. "Starting to spook me, hanging there. Like he was watching everything we do."
"Tell your story," Greystone snapped.
"I am Caracene, a slave of Kralj Odehnal, who is known to his creatures as The Master. I was given to him as part payment for his joining the scheme to destroy Protector Jehrke and unseat Shasesserre as mistress of the world."
She was no Shasesserren, nor had her like appeared among the city's slaves. At least openly.
Such beauty was too rare and precious to be allowed public display. Nor did she dress as, or have the manner of, a slave. Those eyes ... She was a slave-taker.
Puzzled, Chaz asked, "Who gave you to him?" He found that name Odehnal vaguely familiar. He could not imagine anyone bribing such a monster.
The woman stared at the cadaver on the wall. "I cannot say. One greater than he. One from whom none escape."
"Horsefeathers," Greystone said again. "We're being stalled, Chaz. It's time for a truthcasting. I'm no sorcerer, but I can manage that much."
The woman bolted to her feet. "No! It would kill me! I must go. I was wrong to come here.
There is no hope here, either." She looked at the dead Protector once more. "Not even he ... "
Chaz moved to comfort her. As he reached out, a loud pop! pop! pop! came from beyond the door.
The woman gasped, "He knows I thought to betray him!"
Greystone jerked his crossbow irritably, indicating that she should retreat into the connecting library. Chaz moved to a peephole that, through a succession of mirrors, would show him who was outside without his having to reveal himself.
VIII
Rider slowed his pace after he had run three miles. Not that he was exhausted. He'd barely worked up a sweat. He ran ten miles every morning. But the tracks he followed were increasingly fresh. He did not want to overtake his man here, between the piers and yards and warehouses and ways of the Golden Crescent, and the strip of ten thousand markets the great ships served. There were crowds like no other city ever boasted. This was the hub of world trade, where the quarters of the earth came together in a frenzy and babble. Here there was no privacy, ever.
Rider's mouth was set in a grim smile. No doubt about it. His father's killer was headed into the trap prepared.
He stopped to purchase a quart of juice and a meat pasty. There had been no time to eat before. When he estimated time enough had passed, he washed at a public fountain, then strode toward the airship yards.
None but guards were on duty there, for it was a public holiday. The gatemen knew him, waved him through. He strode between vast construction docks, mooring stays, gas works where Jehrke's apprentices produced the magical air that buoyed the ships of the sky. All this vast industry was his father's doing. His greatest legacy to the city, perhaps, for it would go on even if his peace failed to persevere. The secrets here would be the first plunder sought by Shasesserre's enemies.
Thus, Rider had altered his father's message, knowing his murderer would believe the airship yards the likeliest place for the Protector to hide something.
The nethermost part of the yards occupied a promontory overlooking the Golden Crescent, the miles of waterfront facing the Bridge of the World, that long, narrow, snaking channel connecting the Amor Ocean with the Middle Sea. The ruin of an ancient watchtower stood at the headland's tip.
Around it were structures of recent vintage, the Protector's original and now personal shipyard.
As Rider approached he saw his father's ships protruding from their cradles like the brightly colored humped backs of whales breaking the surface of a flotsam-strewn sea. Twelve of them, in a variety of shapes and sizes. The family wealth.
The Jehrke yards were more still than the greater yards around them. Here even the guards were on holiday.
A shadow fell across Rider's path. He looked up at the four-hundred-foot mast which rose beside the ruined watchtower. In his youth, in rare moments when he was free of studies, he had climbed that tower and watched the particolored sails scud along the Bridge, outward bound or coming home. So often he had longed to fly away upon those canvas wings, to lands of adventure ...
There was adventure enough now. And a lifetime's worth to come.
He entered the vast, long, hollow building where airships were brought out of the weather, making not a sound. He listened. Seconds later there was a pop, like a dry branch breaking, from far down the building. A startled exclamation, then curses, echoed off the empty walls.
Rider began walking, making no effort to keep his heels from clicking on the polished stone floor.
The cursing ceased. It was followed by a rustling, like that of frantic rats in a wall. As Rider neared the doorway beyond which his quarry waited, he heard a sob of frustration.
He stepped through the doorway into what had been his father's shipyard office.
The man caught there, one hand inside a desk that refused to let him go, was not surprised to see him. He had a dagger in his left hand.
"Vlazos!" Rider said, startled. "I thought you were with the army in Kleyvorn."
Vlazos said nothing.
Rider pulled up a chair. "It does come together, though."
Vlazos hammered the desk with his dagger.
"Tell me about it," Rider said. He stared hard at his captive, his gaze like that of the fabled snake. He made a gesture with his left hand, caught Vlazos' gaze and held it.
Vlazos' mouth opened and closed like that of a guppy as he fought a compulsion to betray his confederates. "Tell me who else is participating in this atrocity."
Rider took several measured breaths, counting. His anger threatened to overwhelm him. He could not comprehend why a man of Vlazos' status would betray Shasesserre for personal gain.
Rider's spell took the inhibitions off the telling of the truth. He used it sparingly, for societies are founded upon mutually shared self-deceptions. But in Vlazos' case the spell opened no floodgate. Had the man acted from idealistic, if misguided, motives, he would have defended himself.
Silence, too, is a telling of truth. Greed and powerlust were the foundation stones of the conspiracy threatening Shasesserre's peace.
"Where, besides your mansion, has your cabal set up?" Rider demanded. "Who belongs?"
Vlazos was under the spell fully now. He began naming names, most of them ones Rider expected.
They were men who obstructed the Protector at every turn.
"And Kralj Odehnai? How did he become involved?"
Vlazos' breath caught in his throat. He gobbled, and scratched at his neck. His face puffed and darkened. His eyes grew huge. He was strangling on sorcery.
Rider heard someone move in the great space outside. He did not turn, for he was trying to find the end of the spell killing Vlazos, to unravel it before the man suffocated. He could not
... Vlazos got out one whimper before life abandoned him.
Rider rose. "Shy key?" he murmured. "What would that mean?"