She skipped along, the strength flooding back into her, the breath hissing regularly between her teeth. She found herself again in familiar territory, known alleys; found one of her narrowest boltholes and rid herself of the prince's purse, all but one coin, itself a bit of recklessness. After that she ran and paused, ran and paused, slick with sweat and light-headed with fortune and danger and hunger.
The Bowel took her in, and Blindman's—home territory indeed; her sore, slippered feet pattered over familiar cobbles; she loosed her skirt and whipped it about her, mopped her face with her scarf and knotted that about her waist, leaving her curls free. The door to the Rose was before her. She pushed it open.
And froze to the heart.
5
All the rose was a shambles, the tables broken, a few survivors or gawkers milling about in a forlorn knot near the street-side door. There was chill in the air, a palpable chill, like a breath of ice. Fat Jochen lay stark on the floor by the counter, with all his skin gone gray and his clothes. . . faded, as if cobweb composed them.
"Gods," Gillian breathed, clutching at the luck piece she bore, easygoing Agdalia's. And in the next breath: "Jensy," she murmured, and ran for the stairs.
The door at the end of the narrow hall stood open, moonlight streaming into a darkened room from the open window. She stopped, drew her knife— clutched the tawdry charm, sick with dread. From her vantage point she saw the cot disheveled, the movement of a shadow within, like a lich robed in cobwebs.
"Jensy!" she shouted into that dark.
The wraith came into the doorway, staggered out, reached.
Nessim. She held her hand in time, only just, turned the blade and with hilt in hand gripped the old man's sticklike arms, seized him with both hands, heedless of hurts. He stammered something. There was a silken crumbling in the cloth she held, like something moldered, centuries old. The skin on Nessim's poor face peeled in strips like a sun-baked hinterlander's.
"Gillian," he murmured. "They wanted you."
" Where's Jensy?"
He tried to tell her, pawed at the amulet he had worn; it was a crystal, cracked now, in a peeling hand. He waved the hand helplessly. "Took Jensy," he said. He was bald, even to the eyebrows.
"I saved myself—saved myself—had no strength for mousekin. Gillian, run away."
"Who, blast you, Nessim!"
"Don't know. Don't know. But Triptis. Triptis's priests. . . ah, go, go, Gillian." Tears made tracks down his seared cheeks. She thrust him back, anger and pity confounded in her. The advice was sound; they were without power, without patrons. Young girls disappeared often enough in the Sink without a ripple.
Rules changed. She thrust past him to the window and out it, onto the creaking shingles, to the eaves and down the edge to Blindman's. She hit the cobbles in a crouch and straightened. They were looking for her. For her, not Jensy. And Nessim had survived to give her that message.
Triptis.
She slipped the knife into her belt and turned to go, stopped suddenly at the apparition that faced her in the alley.
" Gillian," the shadow said, unfolding upward out of the debris by Goat's Alley. Her hand slipped behind her to the dagger; she set her back against solid brick and flicked a glance at shadows. . . others, at the crossing of Sparrow's. More around the corner, it was likely.
" Where is it?" the same chill voice asked.
"I sell things," she said. "Do you want it back? You have something I want."
"You can't get it back," the whisper said. "Now what shall we do?" Her blood went colder still. They knew where she had been. She was followed; and no one slipped up on Gillian, no one.
Seals and seals, Nessim had said.
"Name your price," she said.
"You gained access to a prince," said the whisper. "You can do it again." Osric, she thought. Her heart settled into a leaden, hurting rhythm. It was Osric it was aimed at.
"We also," said the whisper, "sell things. You want the child Jensy. The god has many children. He can spare one."
Triptis; it was beyond doubt; the serpent-god, swallowing the moon once monthly; the snake and the mouse. Jensy!
"I am reasonable," she said.
There was silence. If the shadow smiled, it was invisible. A hand extended, open, bearing a tiny silver circlet. "A gift you mustn't lose," the whisper said.
She took the chill ring, a serpent shape, slipped it onto her thumb, for that was all it would fit. The metal did not warm to her flesh but chilled the flesh about it.
A second shadow stepped forward, proffered another small object, a knife the twin of her own.
"The blade will kill at a scratch," the second voice said. "Have care of it."
"Don't take off the ring," the first whispered.
"You could hire assassins," she said.
"We have," the whisper returned.
She stared at them. "Jensy comes back alive," she said. "To this door. No cheating."
"On either side."
"You've bid higher," she said. "What proof do you want?"
"Events will prove. Kill him."
Her lips trembled. "I haven't eaten in two days; I haven't slept—"
"Eat and sleep," the shadow hissed, "in what leisure you think you have. We trust you." They melted backward, shadow into shadow, on all sides. The metal remained cold upon her finger. She carried it to her lips, unconscious reflex, thought with cold panic of poison, spat onto the cobbles again and again. She was shaking.
She turned, walked into the inn of the Rose past Jochen's body, past Nessim, who sat huddled on the bottom of the steps. She poured wine from the tap, gave a cup to Nessim, drank another herself, grimacing at the flavor. Bread on the sideboard had gone hard; she soaked it in the wine, but it had the flavor of ashes; cheeses had molded: she sliced off the rind with a knife from the board and ate. Jochen lay staring at the ceiling. Passers-by thrust in their heads and gaped at a madwoman who ate such tainted things; another, hungrier than the rest, came in to join the pillage, and an old woman followed.
"Go, run," Nessim muttered, rising with great difficulty to tug at her arm, and the others shied from him in horror; it was a look of leprosy.
"Too late," she said. "Go away yourself, old man. Find a hole to hide in. I'll get Jensy back." It hurt the old man; she had not meant it so. He shook his head and walked away, muttering sorrowfully of Jensy. She left, then, by the alleyway, which was more familiar to her than the street. She had food in her belly, however tainted; she had eaten worse. She walked, stripped the skirt aside and limped along, feeling the cobbles through the holes that had worn now in her slippers. She tucked the skirt in a seam of itself, hung it about her shoulder, walked with more persistence than strength down Blindman's.
Something stirred behind her; she spun, surprised nothing, her nape prickling. A rat, perhaps; the alleys were infested this close to the docks. Perhaps it was not. She went, hearing that something behind her from time to time and never able to surprise it