'They won't need to,' Mradhon said between his teeth. 'Woman, they don't care if he fries along with us. If you've got a trick, use it. Now.'
'This is your warning,' the voice came from outside the walls. 'Come out or burn!'
Ischade straightened.
Beyond the window slats a fire arced, flared. Kept flaring, sun-bright. There were screams, a rush of wind. Mradhon whirled, saw the blaze of light at every window and Ischade standing black and still in the midst of them, her eyes -
He averted his, gazed at Haught's pale face. And the screams went on outside. Fire roared like a furnace about the house, went from white to red to white again outside, and the screams died.
There was silence then. The fire-glow vanished. Even the light of the candles, the fire in the fireplace sank lower. He turned towards Ischade, saw her let go a breath. Her face - he had never seen it angry; and saw it now.
But she walked to a table, quietly poured wine, a rich, rich red. She turned up other cups, two, four, the sixth. She filled only the one. 'Make yourselves at home,' she said. 'Food, if you wish it. Drink. It will be safe for you. I say that it is.'
None of them moved. Not one. Ischade drained her cup and drew a quiet breath.
'There is night left,' she said. 'An hour or more to dawn. Sit down. Sit down where you choose.'
And she set the cup aside. She took off her cloak, draped it over a chair, bent and pulled off one boot and the other, then rose to stand barefoot on the litter that carpeted this place; she drew off her rings and cast them on the table, looked up again, for still no one had moved.
'Please yourselves,' she said, and her eyes masked in insouciance something very dark.
Mradhon edged back.
'I would not,' she said, 'try the door. Not now.'
She walked out to the middle of the silk-strewn floor. 'Stilcho,' she said; and a man who had been near dead moved, tried to sit.
'Don't,' Moria said, a strangled, small voice - not love of Stepsons, it was sure; Mradhon felt the same, a knot of sickness in his throat.
Ischade held out her hands. The Stepson rose, swayed, walked to her. She took his hands, drew him to sit, with her, on the floor; he knelt, carefully.
'No,' Haught said, quietly, a small, lost voice. 'No. Don't.'
But Ischade had no glance for him. She began to speak, whispering, as if she shared secrets with the man. His lips began to move, mouthing words she spoke.
Mradhon seized Haught's arm, for Haught stood closest, drew him back, and Haught got back against the wall. Moria came close. Mor-am sought their corner, the furthest that there was.
'What's she doing?' Mradhon asked, tried to ask, but the room drank up sound and nothing at all came out.
She dreamed, deeply dreamed. The man who touched her -Stilcho. He had been deep within that territory of dreams, as deep as it was possible to go and still come back. He wanted it now: his mind wanted to go fleeting away down those dark corridors and bright - Sjekso, she chanted, over and over: that was the easiest to call of all her many ghosts. Sjekso. She had his attention now. Sjekso. This is Stilcho. Follow him. Come up to me.
The young rowdy was there, just verging the light. He attempted his old nonchalance, but he was shivering in the cold of a remembered alleyway, in the violence of her wrath.
She named other names and called them; she sent them deep, deep into the depths, remembering them - all her men, most ruffians, a few gentle, a few obsessed with hate. One had been a robber, dumped his victims in the harbour after carving up their faces. One had been a Hell Hound: Rynner was his name; he used to play games with prostitutes - his commander never knew. They were hate, raw hate: there were some souls that responded best to them. There was a boy, come with tears on his face; one of Moruth's beggars; one ofKadakithis's court, silver tongued, with honey hair and the blackest, vilest heart. Up and up they came, swirled near, a veritable cloud.
She spoke, through Stilcho's lips, words in a language Stilcho would not have known, that few living did. "Til dawn, 'til dawn, 'til dawn -'
The dream stretched wide, passed beyond her control in a moment of panic. She tried to call them back, but that would have been dangerous.
'Til dawn, she had said.
There were so many pressing at the gates, so very many - Sanctuary, the whisper went. Sanctuary's open - and some went in simple longing for home, for wives, husbands, children; some in anger, many, many in anger - the town inspired that, in those it trapped.
A wealthy widow turned in bed from the slave she kept and stared into a dead husband's reproachful eyes: a yell rang out through marble halls, high on the hill.
A judge waked, feeling something cold, and stared round at all the ghosts who had cause to remember him. He did not scream; he joined them, for his heart failed him on the spot.
In the Maze there was the sound of children's voices, running frenzied through the streets - 0 Mama, Papa! Here I am! One such wandered alone, among the merchants' fine houses, and rapped on a door. I'm home - o Mama, let me in!
A thief stirred in his sleep, rubbed his eyes and rubbed them twice. 'Cudget,' he said, knowing that he was dreaming, and yet he felt the cold drifting from the old man. 'Cudget?' The old man swore at him just as he used to do, and Hanse Shadowspawn sat up in bed, petrified as his old mentor gazed on him, sitting on his foot.
Outside, the streets rustled with the gathering of the dead. One hammered at a door with thin rattling result; Where's my money? it wailed. One-Thumb, where's my money?
The booths at the Vulgar Unicorn grew crowded, buzzed with whispers, and the few diehard patrons went fleeing out the door.
Brother, a ghost said to the fat man in an uptown bed, and to the woman beside him - is he worth it, Thea?
Screams rose, long ones, echoing above the streets, a thin clamouring that the wind took and carried through the air.
A Beysib woman felt the stirring of the snake that shared her bed, opened dark strange eyes and stared in wonder at the pale night-gowned figure that stood within the room: Usurper, it said. Get out of my bed. Get out of my house. You have no right.
No one had ever told her that. She blinked, confused, hearing the screams, as if the town were being sacked.
Across the river Moruth hurried along, hastening in the night for a newer, more secure place, in the madness of the hour, in streets insane with screams.
He stopped, seeing the way closed off. They were hawkmasks. four of them, who began to come towards him; he turned, and there were Stepsons, armed with swords.
In the guardroom a Hell Hound wakened, bleary-eyed from drink, looked up with the interest of one who hears the step of a friend returning, a singular pattern, so familiar and loved among a thousand others; and then with a sinking of the heart remembered it impossible. But Zaibar looked all the same, and stood up, overturning the chair with a crash.
Raskuli was standing there, unmarred, his head firmly on his shoulders. I can't stay long, he said.
And higher in the palace, Kadakithis screamed and yelled for guards, waking to find strangers in his room, a horde of ghosts. some with ropes about their necks; and soldiers all dusty in tattered armour; and his grandfather, who did not belong in Sanctuary, wearing a shadow-crown.
Shame, his grandfather said.
Walegrin sat up in bed, in the barracks below the wall - heard the clash of bracelets, ominous and clear. He reached for his knife, beneath the pillow. But as the sound ceased, faint as it was, he heard screams from beyond the walls, and leapt up, knife in hand, to fling the window wide.