THE REASONING HAD to wait because the door was locked and no one answered their persistent knocking. Dorict searched under his jacket for a moment, reaching this way and that until he produced a remarkable set of tools.
“What under Heaven’s Shield are those?” Garet asked.
Dorict smiled and shook his head. “Marick begged me to carry this thieve’s vest of his until he got better. I think he was afraid Banerict would confiscate it.”
Garet leaned over to look at the small blades and picks in Dorict’s hands.
“He might have, just to use some of those tools on injured Banes! Can they open this door?”
The Blue slipped the thin knife into the gap between the door and the jamb. He wiggled it back and forth until it stopped.
“If this is a simple bar, I might be able to raise it,” he said, and tried to force the blade up. It refused to move. He withdrew it and reached again into his clothes until he pulled out a long key-like tool. It was thin enough to slip through the gap, and its teeth were as long and sharp as a comb’s.
“The bar might be one that slides rather than lifts,” Dorict explained. “So this might move it back.”
“You seem very educated in this,” Garet said. “And yet I always thought you were an honest Bane!”
“I suppose a long friendship with Marick has ruined me,” Dorict said, and twisted the shaft of the tool. There was a grating sound, then another, and the door swung in a bit.
“Corruption be praised,” Garet said. “Here, put those back in your pocket and ready your club.”
He pushed the door wide and jumped in and to the side, but no attack came. Dorict followed. They edged inside, each taking a different direction and waiting for their eyesight to adjust to the dimmer light. Garet swung the door shut behind them and threw the bar across it. When they could see, they found themselves in a storehouse of sorts, with boxes and bales stacked against the walls and in the middle of the floor.
“Nobody here,” Dorict said. He moved further inside the room, checking behind each pile of goods.
“Wait, these carpets are meant for the Third Ward, or so the tag says. And this cask of wine has the Palace symbols on it!”
“There’s a cot here, and a bit of bread,” Garet said. He looked at all the stuff around them and shook his head. A gallery above them, reached by a ladder in the corner, had even more barrels and boxes.
“Perhaps the uncle is a thief.”
“Who says so?”
Garet and Dorict both turned to see a bearded, middle-aged man standing in the doorway, a tool remarkably like the one they had used still in his hand. In his other hand was a skin of wine.
He waved the wine skin at them, and a few droplets sprayed out.
“You two clear out or I’ll call the guard!” he slurred.
“Do you have that rope handy?” Dorict asked.
Shinock, for so he was, turned out to be hard to tie down. He twisted, bit, scratched, cursed, and assaulted them with breath that had been soured by wine for half a century. They finally had him fastened to a large, rolled carpet and could stand far enough away to breathe without retching.
“Where is Shirin?” Garet asked.
“Claws take you!” was the only answer, aside from a prodigious burp.
Dorict tried his luck. “We only want to talk to her. We mean her no harm!”
Shinock gave them a half-toothed smile. “A child lies better than you two. I know what you want. You want to banish her! The talk’s all around the Maze, how the Banehall wants all the Masks banished and the King agreed. You two just want spy’s gold for taking her to them. Well, I won’t turn my niece over to the likes of you! Claw you both, and the beasts take you!”
Dorict bristled. “The King might arrest you for helping her. It would mean a chain gang or worse.”
Garet held up his hand, and Dorict stopped.
“I won’t threaten you, Shinock. We’re Banes, not spies or kidnappers.”
The bound man spat on the floor.
Garet picked up his shield from where he had dropped it to tie the man’s hands and feet.
“I don’t care how you feel about us. It doesn’t matter anyway. You’re not the one we want.”
Dust showered them. Coughing, Garet stood back and looked up. A figure dressed in black and holding a spear crouched on the boxes in the upper gallery.
“No, it’s me you want,” Shirin said, and jumped down to land on bales of wool, roll off, and launch a feinting thrust at Dorict, who leaped away.
Garet jumped between Shirin and his friend, shield held ready.
“Kill these clawed Banes, Niece!” Shinock yelled. “They took away my wine!”
He rolled back and forth until the carpet slid from its stack and fell across Dorict’s back.
“Don’t fret, Uncle. Our guests are going to be leaving, permanently. And as for where they go, well, they say most of the houses in the Maze are built over bones.”
She stabbed at Garet, and he barely blocked the move. A line of bright metal now lay across the duller sheen of his shield.
“We aren’t here to fight!” he shouted.
Dorict wriggled out from under the carpet and searched for his club. Shinock grabbed his trouser cuff in his jaws and pulled him back.
“Dorict, don’t interfere, and don’t hurt her,” Garet said, then ducked as the butt of the spear swished over his head.
Shirin pushed the point forward again and stalked the Bane around a pile of wooden crates.
“I know you’re angry at me,” Garet said, and blocked a thrust before stumbling back.
“I deserve some of that,” he continued, shield raised again to deflect a ringing blow from the side. “But we both know you don’t really want to kill me.”
Three more slapping strikes and a volley of thrusts kept him quiet for a moment as he used all his skill to block her spear.
Shirin grinned. “In just a little bit, you’ll see how wrong you are.” She came forward again, making small circles with the point of her spear while Garet moved to put more obstacles between them.
“It’s you who has been shadowing me in the past days, isn’t it? So why wait until now? You’re a Duelist; you could have killed me at anytime.”
He raised the shield just in time to protect his face. The strength of the blow sent him back a few feet.
“When you followed me, how close did you get? Close enough for a knife in the back?”
He charged forward and struck the spear aside, but didn’t close for a strike with his shield.
Standing to the side and hampered by both Garet’s instructions and the maniac chewing on his pant leg, Dorict could only watch, his heart in his mouth at each near miss.
“Why not an arrow from the rooftop, or was that too far away to satisfy your hatred for me?” Garet asked.
The spear snaked out and cut his cheek, just below his left eye. He fell back, one hand to the fire in his face.
“See!” he yelled at her. “It would have been easy to kill me if that was all you wanted. But it wasn’t. What is it, Shirin? What do you want of me?”
Blood trickled through his fingers.
The woman stared at him, trembling with some strong emotion while the world held its breath. Then she drove the point of her spear into the floor planks, and left it there to wobble between them.
“What do I want?” Shirin asked. “I’ll tell you, Bane. I want you to see me! I want you to see that someone else is as worthy as a Heaven Blessed Bane. I want you to stop looking down on me as some play-actor waving a sword while you attend to all the important business of the city!”
She fell to her knees and pounded her fists on the floor. “I want you to say that we matter, to know that we want to protect Shirath too. That is what we want, Bane, yet you despise us. Is it any wonder we hate you?”
Garet knelt where he was and looked at the sobbing woman. The planted spear still swayed.
“No,” he said. “It’s no wonder at all. Shirin, I once felt as you, that I mattered to no one in this world. That changed for me when I came to Shirath. It changed because I killed a demon. You’ve done the same.”
He took a deep breath and edged closer. He reached one hand out to touch the fist still clenched on the floor.
“I honour what you have done, Shirin. By Heaven’s Dome, I swear it! I see you now as I should have seen you then, had I been wiser. I would be your friend, and your ally in protecting Shirath.”
“No,” she wept, “you are my enemy. You have to be!”
There was a rustling and creaking around the building. Shadows moved across the narrow windows set with scraped parchment instead of glass.
Shinock spit out Dorict’s cuff and yelled at his niece, “They’ve brought the guard, Shirin. Run! Save yourself!”
The door shuddered, cracked, and fell open. A squad of Ward Guards filled the room, and all found blades at their throats.
“Let those two be,” someone said, and Garet looked sideways to see Lord Sacourat enter behind her guards. The sword was removed, and he stood to face her. Shirin and Shinock were being secured. In Shinock’s case, that just meant keeping out of the way of his teeth. Shirin was bound in chains at both wrist and ankle. She kept her head low, refusing to look at either Garet or the Ward Lord.
“Well, Banes,” Sacourat said, “It seems you’ve found a wanted criminal, and I’ve found you, so I will take charge of them. This is my Ward after all.”
She smiled, and the guards dragged Shirin and her uncle out into the alleys of the Maze. The Mask resisted only once, pausing at the door to shoot Garet a look he couldn’t interpret.
“How did you find us, Lord Sacourat?” Dorict asked. He had recovered his club and disposed of his hat.
“Oh, I know all that goes on in this Ward, Bane. And you, aren’t you the Midlander? Yes, you were at that confusion near my house the other night, weren’t you?”
“Yes, my Lord,” Garet replied. He sketched a short bow, and Dorict copied him.
“I wish you had been quicker to stop, well, to save my house,” she said. “I’m sure the Masks were at fault, weren’t they?”
“No, I think that the demon was more to blame.”
Sacourat flinched at the word and narrowed her eyes. “Perhaps. Well, I must go now and deliver these two to the King.”
“A show of loyalty, Lord Sacourat?” Garet asked, and Dorict drew in breath at the rudeness of the question, but Sacourat merely laughed.
“Loyalty must be displayed to have value, Bane. Tell Branet that the Fifth Ward keeps faith with the Banehall. Good-bye.”
Garet and Dorict were left alone in the storeroom. The Green pulled the spear out of the floor, needing both hands and several attempts to do this. He shouldered the weapon and looked at Dorict.
“Where’s your hat?” he asked.
His companion scratched his blonde hair and smiled.
“I had to shove it in Shinock’s mouth. The guards were afraid to come near him.”