SECRETS. SOME ARE WORTH A LIFE, SOME ARE SILLY, SOME ARE BOTH. THIS ONE TILMAN SANG WOULD HAVE PAID A LOT FOR; IT WOULD HAVE CLEARED UP HIS CONFUSION IF HE COULD HAVE SEEN THE FOOL BEHIND THE FACE OF THE FACEMAN. IF HE COULD HAVE KNOWN THAT THE HIDDEN FUNOR FEMALES HELD THE REAL POWER, NOT THOSE GLITTERING SWAGGERING MALES HE SAW WIELDING THAT POWER. HERE’S WHAT ANGELSIN YAGAN WOULD NOT TELL SKEEN: EVERY SEVEN YEARS (AND, TOUCHED BY MALA FORTUNA’S NOT SO BAD HAND, THE COMPANY HAD LANDED IN CIDA FENNAKIN ON A SEVENTH YEAR) THE FIRST MOONDARK OF THE YEAR’S LAST QUARTER MARKED THE TIME OF TAPPING. EVERY FEMALE FUNOR ABOVE PUBERTY RETREATED INTO PREPARED ROOMS AT THE CALL OF THE HORN, JOINING HER SISTERS IN RITES THAT INITIATED THE GIRLS WHO’D REACHED THE PROPER AGE INTO WOMANHOOD AND PERFORMING OTHER ACTS THAT SOLIDIFIED IN THEM THE SENSE OF THEIR POWER. WHAT THOSE ACTS WERE ONLY A FEMALE FUNOR KNEW AND EVEN THE OUTCASTS NEVER TOLD; IT WAS A MYSTERY, IT REMAINS ONE IN ALL THE DEEP OLD TERRIBLE SENSE. A DAY AND A HALF AFTER THEY RETREAT BEHIND LOCKED DOORS THE FEMALES BURST FORTH INTO THE HALLS OF THE UPHILL KEEPS, SHOUTING THAT DEEP HOOMING CRY THAT FREEZES EVERY MALE IN EVERY HOUSE. THE YOUNGEST AND THE ELDEST LEAD THE WOMEN, THE YOUNGEST HOLDING THE SIMMRAEL STAFF THAT WOULD TAP THE NEW GREAT FOOL INTO BEING, THE ELDEST WHISPERING TO HER, DIRECTING THE CHOICE OF THE FOOL. THE MALE THE ROD TAPPED WOULD BE THE SECOND MOST POWERFUL FUNOR IN CIDA FENNAKIN; HE WOULD BE THE COMMON PROPERTY OF ALL ADULT FEMALES, SERVING THEM IN EVERY WAY THEY REQUIRED, YET HE WOULD HAVE AUTHORITY OVER ALL MALES AND FEMALES BUT THE BOHANT, THE FIRST AMONG WOMEN, THE LAWGIVER, AND ONLY SHE COULD COUNTERMAND ANY OF HIS ORDERS. THE GREAT FOOL WAS THE FACEMAN, THE FORM THROUGH WHICH THE BOHANT SPOKE TO THE OUTSIDERS IN THE CUSPS OF LOWPORT AND THE TRADERS FROM EVERYWHERE. HE MIGHT SERVE THE WHOLE SEVEN YEARS OR HE MIGHT SUCCUMB TO A FOLLY REAL RATHER THAN CEREMONIAL (THE FOLLY OF THINKING THE POWER HE WIELDED WAS HIS OWN, NOT SOMETHING BORROWED FROM THE WOMEN THAT HE WOULD HAVE TO SURRENDER TO THEM AT THE END OF HIS TERM). MORE THAN ONCE THE WOMEN HAD TO UNMAKE WHAT THEY HAD MADE AND CHOOSE A SECOND FOOL TO FINISH THE SEVEN OUT.

ANGELSIN YAGAN WAS DUE IN A HOUSE UPHILL THIS VERY NIGHT, DUE TO ANSWER THE CALL OF THE ELDEST OF HER HOUSE OR BE CAST OUT. DEATH WAS THE ONLY ACCEPTABLE EXCUSE FOR ABSENCE FROM THE RITES AND EVEN THAT WAYS SHAKY; IF THE DEATH WAS JUDGED SUICIDE, THE BODY WAS EXPELLED FROM THE COMMUNION AND IF THE WOMAN WAS REBORN AT ALL, IT WAS AS A LOW-CASTE MALE, NOT A FATE TO BE DESIRED. ANGELSIN MUST NOT ALLOW SKEEN AND COMPANY TO HOLD HER AWAY FROM HER HOUSE, NOR WOULD PRIDE OR THE OATHS SHE SWORE AT HER OWN PUBERTY ALLOW HER TO EXPLAIN ALL THIS TO SKEEN. HER BRAIN IS TEEMING WITH SCHEMES FOR HER ESCAPE; SHE IS GOING TO HAVE TO CHOOSE BETWEEN WEAKENING HERSELF, PERHAPS FATALLY, DOWN HERE IN SOUTH CUSP OR DESTROYING HERSELF UPHILL. OF COURSE, SHE HAS NO REAL CHOICE; SHE WILL BEND HER PRIDE A LITTLE, COMPLAIN OF THE PAIN IN HER KNEES AND ASK SKEEN TO LET HER RETREAT INTO HER OFFICE WHERE HOPFLEA CAN PUT FOMENTATIONS ON THEM AND EASE THE ACHE A LITTLE. SHE IS REASONABLY SURE SKEEN WILL PERMIT THIS THOUGH SHE IS EQUALLY SURE SKEEN WILL KEEP A SHARP EYE ON HER. SHE IS HOPING FOR A DEGREE OF OVERCONFIDENCE, SHE IS HOPING THAT THE AGGITJ WILL BE LEFT OUTSIDE THE OFFICE, SHE IS HOPING THAT HOPFLEA HAS MANAGED TO GET HOLD OF A NAGAMAR DAGGER DART AND HIDDEN IT ON THE STEAM TABLE WHERE HE COOKS THE TOWELS. ONE TINY SCRATCH FROM THE POISONED TIP OF THAT TINY DAGGER AND GOODBY SKEEN. ANGELSIN SITS AND STARES OUT THE DOOR AT THE EMPTY STREET AND RUNS HER PLAN OVER AND OVER IN HER MIND, SEEKING FOR EVERY POINT OF WEAKNESS SHE CAN VISUALIZE.

“Maybe you could convince me to let you go.”

Angelsin stared at her a long minute, then looked away, saying nothing.

“If you want to be like that.” Skeen slid off the bar and went back to her seat at the table. She fished in her belt pouch, pulled out the bit of wood she’d cadged off Lipitero and began working on it with her boot knife. As the hours passed, the quiet inside and out intensified and with it, Skeen’s uneasiness. The sleepers by the fire woke, looked around, went out. Angelsin stopped fidgeting; she was stone now, not even her eyes moved.

Midafternoon. Domi came sauntering in with a hot meat pie in each hand; he gave Skeen one of them and settled beside her to eat his. “Chulji dropped down,” he murmured, his voice so soft it almost seemed he hadn’t spoken, that the movement of his mouth was due to his chewing. “Maggí’s ship is about an hour away downriver.”

Skeen forced herself to keep chewing steadily. It was a while before she could trust herself to speak. “He is sure it’s her?” She kept her voice as soft as his. “An hour?”

“He talked to her. Less than that now.”

Skeen swallowed, closed her eyes. For a moment she felt events rushing out of control and panic urging her to do something, anything, to release the tension that threatened to overwhelm her. She took a bite of the pie, chewed with careful stolidity and swallowed the mouthful before she tried to speak. “Did he tell her about this mess we’re in? Give her the chance to back away?”

Domi wrapped both hands about the remnant of his pie, mischief sparking in his eyes, his whole body laughing at her.

She glared at him, wanting to throttle him, which he guessed and which amused him even more.

“She sent you a message,” he murmured. “She said, ‘Don’t be an idiot, Skeen. Do what you have to, then get on board.’”

“Ah.”

“And she says she’s sorry she’s a day late, but the wind turned contrary and she couldn’t start up the Slot till this morning.”

Skeen rubbed her hand across her mouth. “Less than an hour.” She frowned down at the ring chron, then looked round at Angelsin. The Funor woman was watching them; she had to know something important was happening. Maybe it was a good thing those Funor rites were going to absorb most of her attention. Still, I have to hold the lid on till after dark, or do I? She ran her hands through her hair, shook herself as if that would settle the uncertainty in her mind. “Um … less than an hour, yes … Domi, fetch Ders and the Boy, then you go upstairs and wake everyone and see our gear gets packed.” She looked over her shoulder at Hal and Hart, who’d stopped their game to watch her. “Um … we’d better stay here on guard, the three of us, until you get things ready … um … have a word with Chulji, tell him to warn us the moment the ship is tied up so we can clear out of here fast. Ti and me, we’ll find a place to lie up until we can go after Tod’s gold. We’ll take that boat you and Ti decided on and follow after.”

“Will do, Skeen ka, but I’ll wait with you.” Laughter in his eyes again, he said, “You need someone to sail the boat.”

“I’ve done a bit of that now and then here and there.”

“Here and there. Oh, sure you have, Skeen ka. How many of those boats went by wind alone?”

She wrinkled her nose. “You’ve got a point, my friend. Um … not Ders too, he’s a lovely boy but … um … fidgety.”

“And I’d rather have him safe away from here. Yes. And you’ll have to sit on Hal a bit. He’ll want to be the one, he’ll never admit I’m better than him with boats.”

“I hear. Stop by Hal and give them the news. And be careful, Domi; I’ve seen too many folk get killed a hair before they’re safe. They relax too soon.”

“Yes.” He got to his feet, set the pie end on the table. A glance at Angelsin, a shudder, then he said, “She scares the stiffening out of my bones; I won’t feel good again until we’re out of the reach of her horns.”

Shadow crept toward the door. Angelsin began shifting position again, grunting, opening and shutting her hands. At first Skeen thought it was jumpiness like her own nervous fidgets, but as the show went on she began to wonder whether it was pain or plot. Though the grunts and grimaces got on her nerves, she ignored them and continued chipping at her block of wood.

After a half hour of this with no reaction from Skeen, Angelsin gave up. “Pass-Through,” she called out, a whine of pain in her voice, “I need to retire into my office to apply fomentations to my knees. If you’d call Hopflea to me, I think he must be in the kitchen.”

Skeen swung around, beckoned to Hal. When he reached her, she said, “Take a look outside and see if Chulji’s somewhere about. If he is, I’d like to talk to him.”

Hal nodded and marched out. Hart sat at the table fingering the gamepieces, his eyes shifting from Angelsin to Skeen.

Angelsin clutched at the chair arms, her breath coming in hoarse pants as she fought to retain control of the rage in her. She’d slashed her pride raw to maneuver Skeen into what could have developed into a trap with a little luck. Now it seemed that scarifying exercise was useless.

Skeen sat with her hands clasped in front of her, watching the shift of Angelsin’s features, wondering how far she could push the Funor before the situation turned irretrievable. Not much farther, from the look of her. Yes, yes, calm down, woman, Djabo! “Give me a minute, Adj Yagan. A little patience and,” she watched the door but slipped quick glances at Angelsin who had slid into a steady-state simmer, “we can ease apart, both sides still whole.” She kept talking in that vein, her voice quiet, soothing, but not so soothing Angelsin could mistake care for condescension.

Hal came back with Chulji-Skirrik tick-tocking along behind him.

Skeen leaned forward, whispered, “It’s getting late. Where’s the ship?”

Chulji clicked his mouthparts; his antennas shivered. “My mistake, Skeen. I forgot about the current in the river. She took longer than I thought to make the distance. She’s tying up now.”

Skeen sighed, gripped the edge of the table, fighting against the effect of the sudden rush of relief. She pushed the chair back and stood up. “Hal, get the others down here; make sure they’ve cleaned out the rooms, we don’t want to leave anything behind.” She glanced at Angelsin, then at the door. “I’ll keep the lid on until you’re all out. Take Hart up with you. Chul, flit over to the ship, tell our friend we’re on our way.”

Angelsin was panting again, her face working. She wanted to throw Skeen onto the floor and dance on her bones. Yes, she wanted to hook those horns into her flesh and worry them about; Skeen didn’t have to mindread to know all that. She waited, tense and wary, to see what the Funor would do. If she had to, she’d lay Angelsin out right there, but she’d prefer to keep the precarious peace intact; this wasn’t her homeplace but she had no wish to bring down a power struggle on it.

Angelsin sucked in a long breath, snorted it out as she gripped the chair arms harder, the muscles defining themselves in her arms when she put pressure on her hands. She grunted onto her feet and got down from the chair. Ignoring Skeen she circled to the door at the end of the bar and pulled a bulky key from her pocket.

Skeen moved closer, stopped just beyond the reach of the massive arms that had given Timka such a bad time. As Angelsin pulled the key from the lock and started to push the door open, Skeen said softly, “Move slow, my friend. Try shutting that door in my face and I’ll put you out so fast and hard you won’t move for a sennight.”

Angelsin stiffened; her broadfingers twitched, her slimfinger coiled into a knot. Saying nothing, she pushed the door wide and walked with difficulty toward her masterchair. She grasped the arms, muscled herself up and around, dropped heavily onto the seat. Skeen pulled the door shut, moved a few steps into the room.

“Call Hopflea,” she said. “I want him where I can see him.”

Angelsin smoothed her hands over her thighs. “You’ll have to fetch him.”

“No, I don’t think so. You have a way to reach him from here; don’t try to tell me you don’t.”

“What you think doesn’t change what is. Do what you will, I can’t call him.” She blinked slowly, stubby white lashes glinting. “Send the barman.”

Skeen frowned at her. Sounds logical, but I’d have to go out and leave you here alone; I don’t think so. She moved closer, circled round the chair, looking it over as minutely as she could while staying beyond the woman’s reach. She came round again, scanned Angelsin’s face. The Funor had decided to be stubborn about this minor point. Well, so be it. One last thing. “How soon do you have to leave to be in time to make your duty uphill?”

Angelsin pressed her lips together. Her hands opened and closed, opened and closed. Nothing she could do about the situation as long as Skeen kept away from her; the ache in her bones that slowed her to a crawl denied her that satisfaction.

“Look, Adj Yagan,” Skeen tried to cram all the reasonableness she could into her voice, “I’m going out of my way for you. It’s a long, long story why—so don’t ask. Tell me. Sundown, moonrise, midnight, what?”

A sharp jerk of the big head, the ivorine horns jabbing, then Angelsin sighed, snapped out a single word. “Midnight.”

Skeen risked a glance at her ring chron; sixth hour from noon. If she put a single dart into the woman, Angelsin would wake with at least an hour clear. “See you never,” she murmured and touched the trigger sensor.

She slipped from the office, pulled the door shut, locked it with the key she’d taken from Angelsin’s pocket. Domi and Timka were waiting for her “They are cleared out?”

“On their way.” Timka flicked fingers at the door. “The Yagan?”

“Out of it. Domi, stand watch here; Ti, come with me, we’ve got to find Hopflea.”

Moondark. Scuds of clouds obscured most of the stars, hanging low enough to be stained with pallid reds and golds from the bonefires burning in a ragged arc to the south of Fennakin. The streets were empty and silent except for the dank wind that wasn’t especially cold but nonetheless bit to the bone. Timka-owl flew over the roofs, crossing and recrossing Skeen’s path, a dark silent shadow lost in the fog beginning to thicken the already stygian air.

Skeen swung along covering ground without seeming to hurry, her senses at their widest outreach, though she kept her body relaxed and seldom looked behind her. The matte-black eddersil tunic and trousers absorbed what little light there was and with her black boots and black gloves and near black hair and leaving aside her pale face, she was close to invisible; a long black knit scarf was wrapped about her neck and over the lower part of her face, its presence amply justified by the temperature of the ambient air. She carried a large leather bag, one gloved hand holding it against her side, the shoulder strap taking most of its weight. Several times she met other Cuspers out on nocturnal errands (she suspected these were similar to her own), passing them without interference or interfering.

When she was within a few minutes of Tod’s House, she moved off the Skak and plunged into the maze of narrow winding alleys and byways no wider than a deerpath through thick brush. Here near the river the fog was denser. She slowed, groped along, one hand brushing the walls of the warehouses and shuttered shops that backed onto these smelly lanes, stopped now and again to run over once more the route she and Timka had laid out in their planning sessions, to check on touchmarks. A brick wall, the bricks in an intricate pattern of verticals and horizontals. A plank with a hole in it half the size of Skeen’s fist shaped like a pointed oval. A rickety fence of scavenged lumber. A dump of fish offal that never seemed to get larger or smaller; no need to touch that, it announced its presence a dozen meters away. And so on. Past shuttered windows and blank walls. No one about, not even a drunken derelict sleeping in a sheltered corner. Grope along and hope to get it right. She let herself sigh with relief when she saw the fuzzy reddish glow of the torches on Tod’s watchtowers. Another interval of groping, mercifully brief, and she was standing in the mouth of a narrow alley looking across a broad cleared stretch at the tatty whitewashed walls that shut in Nochsyon Tod’s house and business. She took the darter from its holster, unsnapped the lanyard from the loop in its butt and drew the ring across the stone wall at her side making a small grating sound. She repeated that twice more, then stood waiting.

Ti-owl dropped out of the fog, flew low over her head, swept up, circled and came round again. Skeen held out the darter. With a powerful delicacy the owl’s talons closed on it and lifted it from her hand, then the bird powered up until it was an indistinct blur in the fog.

By straining her eyes and knowing where it was going, Skeen could follow the blur to the tower. It hovered a moment outside one of the high narrow unglazed windows, then drifted on out of sight around the bulk of the tower. She waited, tense, until the dark blotch appeared again and settled gently onto the wall where it shifted into a larger different shape and vanished into the tunnel walkway where the wall met the tower.

Skeen pulled up her tunic, unwrapped from around her waist a length of light rope knotted at intervals for quick climbing, an iron claw tied on one end, the metal warm where it had rested against her skin; she stripped the leather pads off the claws and dropped them into the lootbag, smoothed her tunic down, resettled the shoulder strap and waited.

A long shape eased out of the walkway and stood a moment at the wall’s edge. Skeen held her breath, but there was no alarm. Timka was having trouble managing the darter; she went squat and broad into the owl shape, left the weapon lying on the wall and launched herself into the air; she swung round the watchtower, swept down, snatched up the darter and flew off, the fog closing about her as she moved deeper into the slaver’s hold.

An eternity later the owl swooped down, hooted a warning and dropped the darter into Skeen’s reaching hands. It landed in the alley mouth and shifted.

Shivering as the cold air hit her bare skin, Timka grinned at Skeen as the Pass-Through dug into the lootbag and found the fur cloak they’d lifted off Angelsin. Timka wrapped it round her and sighed with relief. She kicked the end under her to get her feet off the damp icy cobbles and managed to stop shivering.

“Well?”

Timka’s grin widened. “So easy it was almost shameful. The wallguard and the towerwatch were wrapped in blankets snoring by a brazier; they’d split a jug of homebrew between them and wouldn’t have noticed anything if I’d stepped on them. I put a couple of darts in each just to make sure and went for the pen tower. There was just one there, a Pallah with a royally juicy head cold; I was doing him a favor putting him out of his misery for a while.” She pulled the cloak tighter about her. “And I took a last swing around the grounds, the housetowers were empty like always, the woffits are out and prowling like always; maybe a handler somewhere about, but I didn’t see anyone. I still think I should go in with you; if there are surprises anywhere it’ll be in the house.”

“I thought we settled that a week ago. Inside’s my job; I don’t want anyone but myself to worry about. You keep the guards off my back and make sure I have a way out if I run into trouble I can’t handle.” She slid her arm through the coil of rope and moved off, heading for that section of wall where she’d decided to go over.

Skeen whipped the claw loose, pulled the rope through her hands and caught the grapple before it hit the hard-packed earth. She looped the rope and thrust her arm through the coils, then ghosted along the wall to the narrow end of the slave pen.

Though she had planned this for days, though she had done this sort of prowl a thousand times before in circumstances far more demanding, she was nervous as a ferg in a high wind; this was so easy it was actually frightening, she felt as if she were being pushed into something before she was ready. As she moved along the pen, she decided the feeling came mostly because she wasn’t used to depending so much on others; Timka had done all the scouting and a lot of the planning, Angelsin and Maggí had determined the timing. She didn’t like this. No, not at all. She turned the corner of the pen and moved along it, fingertips slipping along the stone.

The walls of the slave pen were thick and there were no windows in them, but she felt vast groans issuing from the stone, groans impressed into it by decades of misery. Not much rage. Those who spent their days and nights in there had long ago exhausted their capacity for anger.

Her fingers slid off the stone. An arched opening. She hesitated, moved into it. A door. Built from massive planks held together with iron straps and studs. She explored the lock. The opening was large enough to admit a forefinger to the last joint. I haven’t time for this. Djabo’s throb, I’ve got things to do. She knelt by the lock, took out the sturdiest of her picks and began working; throwing the wards took more strength than skill, the lock was disengaged a few breaths after she began. She got to her feet, scowled at the door. Inside locks. No. After I clean up the strongroom. She smiled at the thought of Tod waking to find his gold gone and a good part of his slave shipment. Yes. That’s good.

The claw bit into the inner wall with a satisfying chunk-unk. She waited a few breaths to see if the noise had alerted anyone, froze as she-heard a coughing bark, but it was some distance off, muffled by the intervening greenery. She looked up. Ti-owl dipped a wing, signaling all-clear. She went up and over the wall in a swift silent glide and found herself in an open-air scullery. Sinks and buckets, brooms and mops, sponges and pumice stones scattered about, dropped when the staff was done with them. The pavingstones were clean enough and there was little smell, well, that was easy enough to explain; you can’t confine a stink and it meant trouble if a wandering stench reached the master’s nose. She walked warily through the clutter and stopped before a well-worn door, the wood splintering, disintegrating from dry rot. She pulled on the latch. With a small click it moved down and the door swung open, pressing against her hand, catching her off guard; she nearly stepped into a bucket, caught herself before she clattered like a rank amateur. Eh, Skeen, get serious. Want to or not, you’ve got to go in there. Settle down, or you’ll get yourself scragged and wouldn’t that be a shame. She eased the door open enough to slip through into the kitchen and pulled it shut behind her, tugging on the latch until she heard it clunk home. Well, old Tod, maybe this will be a lesson to you. Check your arrangements at least once a purple moon and you’ll save yourself nasty surprises.

The darkness in the kitchen was stiff with smells; bread was rising somewhere, the yeasty odor dominant over damp stone and old food and ash from the banked fires; a kettle of soup simmered in a warming hole, adding warmth and a rich meaty aroma to the mix. Skeen sniffed and sighed with pleasure, then shook herself. Eh, old girl, you’re sliding again. Business, business, do get on with it. She dipped out several pinlights, attached them to her sleeves and powered them up, then moved quickly across the kitchen and passed into the servants’ refectory and workroom. The furniture there was made of some tight-grained wood, knocked together by someone with little taste and less skill but it had a certain charm in its utilitarian simplicity and the wood was heavy, polished by long use into a mottled smoothness that took the light like tortoiseshell. She touched the table with appreciative fingers, remembering all too well the synths that furnished her uncle’s house, gaudy, tawdry pseudo-elegance; she gave the table a final tap and moved on to the door that led into the main part of the house.

No latch or anything this side, nothing but a hexagonal iron boss about chest high. She flattened her hands on the wood and pushed gently. About half a centimeter’s give, then the door bumped against an obstruction. Bar. Right. Wouldn’t want lovey’s sleep disturbed. She slipped the cutter from its nest, shorted the beam to three cm and took out a plug; the beam seared the green wood as it cut and there was the smell of hot resin. Skeen sniffed, wondered if the woffits might smell that and gather round. She listened but heard nothing, then held a pinlight close to the hole. Not quite through. She cut a bit deeper, checked again, pursed her lips in a silent satisfied whistle. She readjusted the beam, swept a smooth arc across the door, cutting a slot a finger wide in the heavy tight-grained wood. More stink. New door, well, he’s not completely hopeless; he takes good care of his fine pink skin. She switched the cutter for a tap awl, screwed it into the wood of the bar; silent whistle going again, beginning to feel like she was really working, she raised the bar to the vertical and started to push the door open. No, no, Skeen. We listen again, don’t get sloppy. She gripped the awl’s handle to hold the door shut, set her ear to the slot.

Nothing. Nothing. She started to straighten, froze. Click-scratch of claws on hardwood. A woffit. Moving closer. Only one. Skeen held her breath and thought: moonlight playing on gently moving lake water. Click-scratch, brisk, steady as a metronome, coming at a trot. A wandering breeze ruffling the water, the plop of fish leaping. Butterflies circling in sunlight over the sand. The trot slowed, the tock of the claws grew confused. The sound of panting, a soft whine. The door moved slightly as the woffit scratched at it. Flowers swaying like dancers, soft bright green grass rippling like lakewater. No other sounds but the whines and the scratching; the woffit was alone. Woffits curled sleeping in the sun, intricately intertwined brown and gray fur. The tocking of the nail clicks speeded up, steadied, moved away. Skeen listened until she couldn’t hear the sound any longer; around her there was only silence that was made yet more silent by the nearly subliminal creaks and groans of the resting house. She unscrewed the tap awl and tucked it away, pushed the door open and stepped into a long, bare hallway. The pinlights showed her rough plaster walls, a pale splintery wood floor with a narrow hessian drugget down the middle. Right. Now we begin.

Down the hall, following Timka’s instructions. Djabo whip her with wet noodles for being so miserably good at this business. A right-angle turn, the drugget changing to a thick soft carpet that glowed mulberry red in the pinlight beams. She stopped a step away from the heavy lined hanging that was drawn across the end of the hallway. What Timka said, draperies all over the place, hardly a wall without its hanging. Cuts the drafts, she said. Tod’s got this thing for covering walls and doorways, she said, with fancy work that probably blinded generations of weavers and embroiderers. A yellowish unsteady glow crept under the bottom of the drape. Skeen tapped off the pinlights and pushed an edge of the hanging aside.

A few night candles in wall sconces, burning in tall glass cylinders, shed only enough light to thicken shifting shadows into impenetrability. The Great Hall looked, smelled, felt empty. Skeen waited several breaths longer, then slid into the room. She drifted along the walls, avoiding the light patches about the candles, dipped into the shadow under the balcony, reached the black arras without stirring up any guards—either four-legged or two. She glided along the hanging, stopped outside the arch and listened again.

What she heard and felt was a stifled stillness. According to Timka, it was a much smaller, odd-shaped room, ceiling half the height of the Hall so it was hard to judge the difference in the feels. She frowned, tapped the pinlights back into service, edged the arras aside.

A weak red glow from the cylindrical fire basin, reflected down at the floor by the polished smoke funnel; a slight draft slipped past her, moving from the Hall into the sitting room, stirring the air. She could smell the smoky musky odor of woffit, hot ash, stale brandy fumes, the cold food she saw congealed on plates left sitting on the edge of the fire basin. She unfastened the holster flap, tucked it behind her belt, made certain the lanyard was securely clipped to the butt ring on the darter, then she shouldered the arras aside and stepped into the room.

Three paces in she stopped and darted the pinlight beams about. The fire basin. The two long chairs Timka mentioned, a few cushions and backed benches scattered about, nothing more. Across the room she saw the dark blotch that was the hanging Tod used to conceal his strongroom door. She started for it, moved past the long chairs—

A weight landed on her, driving her off her feet, a meaty arm slapped round her neck, squeezing, studded leather straps and hard round breasts pushing against her back. A curse in a hoarse contralto as she hit the floor and her attacker’s elbow banged against the wood. Quick shift of large strong hands. She saw black spots swimming behind her eyelids. The breath had been knocked out of her, she was strangling, going out fast. Heavy thighs squeezed her, meaty buttocks bounced on hers, waves of stale sweat, woffit musk and oiled leather rolled over her. She grabbed at the woman’s hands, found the little fingers and twisted. Hard. The woman howled, yanked loose, slammed an elbow into the back of Skeen’s head, driving her face into the floor. Skeen locked her jaw against the pain and bucked wildly, trying to dislodge her rider before she could use that elbow again or get another grip on her throat. Woffits were growling and snarling around her, tearing at her; she kept her hands clear and ignored them, trusting boots and eddersil to keep their teeth out of her until she could deal with them. The darter jolted out of the holster, bounced against the floor as the lanyard jerked it about. Still humping, twisting, scrambling, Skeen flailed about for the lanyard. Woffit teeth slashed along her hand, nearly tore her thumb off. Their handler was slamming her fists into Skeen’s neck and shoulders, squealing with pain and belting out broken curses. Skeen got her mangled hand about the darter’s butt, twisted it round until it was pointing over her shoulder, went suddenly limp and touched the sensor. And touched it. And touched it, swaying the darter back and forth only by luck missing her own head.

The cursing broke off, she heard a half-cough, then a ton of dead weight fell onto her shoulders, pinning her to the floor. Using her legs to power her, she drove her body into a twisting scramble and dumped the handler off her back. Growling, Djabo bless, but not barking or howling, the woffits flung themselves at her. She spun about, leaped onto one of the benches, spun again, kicking out at them while she clumsily switched to sprayshot and spat darts in a wide circle about her at images her pinlights picked out for her. Hating eyes that flared red as the beams sliced across them, snarling mouths with dripping yellow saber teeth, lean gray-brown sides working like bellows, whimpy ragged tails straight and stiff behind powerful hind legs—ghostly feral forms leaping, curvetting, catching and rejecting the light in a frightening dance of death. Round and round she spun, spraying darts at them, kicking at them when they leaped too close. Round and round until the darter hissed, clicked, the reservoir empty.

Chest heaving, she lowered the weapon. In a silence that seemed somehow more threatening than the noises a moment before, she lowered herself warily from the chair and picked her way through the comatose woffits to stand over their handler, gazing down at her. A Pass-Through, not one of the Wavers. She didn’t recognize the species. Square body, mammalian to the extent of having breasts, each mound equipped with three fingerlength nipples, brawny arms, thin legs, broad flat feet. Round ball of a head, flat features squeezed into a ludicrously small area, leathery pointed ears, large and mobile as a bird’s wings, toothless mouth pursed into an eternal pout. Dark droplets fell on the woman’s skin. Skeen blinked, tried lifting her torn hand and was startled to realize how weak she was getting. The adrenalin high receding, she grimaced at the pain in her hand and a number of other places, fumbled for the darter and made a tourniquet of sorts from the lanyard. She was dizzy, not thinking too clearly, though it struck her as strange no one had heard the noise they’d made; at the moment it seemed to her the fight’d been noisy enough to wake the dead. The dangling darter knocked against her thigh. Empty. Got to fill the reservoir. She stumbled across the room to the archway and pushed past the arras into the Great Hall; moving seemed to help, at least it cleared some of the fuzz out of her head. Kitchen. Water there. She looked at the blood still oozing from her hand; the flow had lessened considerably thanks to the lanyard’s pressure. Clean dishtowels. Yes.

She forced herself to move quickly across the Hall, down the corridor and into the kitchen. Dimly she remembered the woffit that had nosed at the door, but there was no sign of him. Possibly he was one of those stretched out in the sitting room.

Without bothering with neatness or too much quiet, she pulled open cabinets and drawers until she found a stack of cloths, old, stained, but clean and worn soft with much usage. With the help of her boot knife, she tore several of them into long strips, folded another into a pad and made a crude bandage for her hand, pulling knots tight with her teeth and her other hand. Every moment made the pain more insistent but she ignored it as she refilled the reservoir with water from a large crock sitting in a corner away from the ovens. Dizzy, half-fainting, she leaned against a worktable and tried to think. Apparently the fight hadn’t been as noisy as she’d thought; otherwise there’d be guards pouring in by now. She looked at the hand. No way I’m going to be climbing ropes with this. Well, a bit of luck—eh, Bona Fortuna, you’re overdue this night, what about dropping in for a visit, just a look-see, well?—I can get through the gates. She thought about the slave pens and nodded. No way am I going out without finishing there. She smiled at the thought of Tod’s consternation and the pain retreated before her pleasure. Or mixed with it? Djabo, am I going to be inviting this kind of nonsense from now on? Ah ai, I need to have a long talk with Picarefy. She’s sorted me out before.… Another sort of pain, a loss like a rip down her heart. Picarefy—ah, I can’t believe … he must have tricked you somehow. She shook off the ugly thought and straightened. Get to work, Skeen. Timka is going to be throwing triple fits if I don’t get out of here fairly soon.

Dragging down on the hanging so the rings wouldn’t rattle on the rod, Skeen pulled it clear of the iron door. She took out her cutter and sliced through the lock’s tongue; inelegant and humiliating to be so crude about such a silly lock, but she hadn’t the time or energy or dexterity now to tickle the lock open and pander to her pride in her work. She tugged the door open and stepped in.

The pinbeams flickering about showed her shelves from floor to ceiling, a chest at the far end. She fished out a stickum from her kit, clicked it onto the wall near the door and touched it on.

Boxes on boxes, undecorated simple forms all made of wood rubbed to a high gloss—some flat like jewelry cases, some standing higher like miniature chests—they filled many of the shelves. Bibelots, glittering, gleaming, filled with sliding glows—gold, silver, bronze, shell, crystal, grown work from the Skirriks. Several swords and some knives. Rolls of canvas, probably more wall hangings, ones he only put out for special occasions. All of it made her tingle with wanting, but most was too delicate, too complex or too heavy to take along. She moved to the chest. Another lock. She squatted beside it, knocked her wounded hand as she lowered herself. For several breaths she clutched at the chest with her good hand, cradled the other on her thighs and wept with pain, shock, dizziness.

The worst of the shock passed off; she pulled herself together and cut through the lock. Grunting with the effort, she pushed the lid up and looked inside. She smiled. The cavity was filled with small canvas bags, tied neatly at the neck with heavy cord, the knots sealed with red wax, a sigil stamped into the wax. She sliced one open and dumped out hexagonal gold coins, the Lesket Perpao mintage that wide-ranging Balayar traders had turned into something like universal exchange counters. She gathered them up and dumped them into the lootbag. One by one she opened the bags (not trusting Tod in any way, she needed to be sure she knew exactly what she had) and dumped the gold after the first coins. When the lootbag was three-quarters filled and about at the limit of her ability to haul it around, especially now when her strength was so depleted, she shut the chest and got unsteadily to her feet. Her knees went watery and she collapsed onto the lid. Djabo’s weepy eyes! Come on, Skeen, so you’ve got a bad hand and a throat so sore suffocating would be a pleasure, you’ve been through worse. Lost a little blood, so what. She passed her good hand across her face, surprised herself with a jaw-straining yawn. Oh fuck, it’s stimtab time, you know it, woman, you just don’t want to admit it. Willpower won’t do it, that’s obvious by now. So you pay for it later. Later’s when you’ve got the time. She dug out a stimtab, glared resentfully at the small gray-brown pill, tossed it to the back of her throat and swallowed it; she sat for several breaths waiting for the pill to act, then got to her feet and began inspecting the contents of the boxes. Jewelry. Some was fairly standard, diamonds and gold, fussy stuff; that she discarded without bothering to evaluate it; its weight wasn’t worth what it’d bring on the far side, too much floating about just like it. In one large flat box she found a massive gold chain, odd dullish stones set in every third link; each of the ungemmed links was engraved with a fantastically convoluted line, many of the details too small to make out, even when she moved a pinlight close and scanned the shadows. She clicked the lid shut and tucked the box into the lootbag. The bag’s flap couldn’t be buckled down over it but she ignored that and went on searching. Another box held triangles of jet, Skirrik work; someone had killed an old male and pried loose his jet inlays. Each piece was intricately carved, low relief, semi-abstract plant forms. They felt warm, vibrant, as if the life of the old Skirrik had passed into them. She closed the lid, hesitated, but put the box into the bag. They were lovely things and she knew a buyer who’d salivate over them. Very tempting to take them and keep quiet about it, but the one rule she never broke was don’t hit on your friends; in spite of the compromises life forced on you, real friends were rare and to be cherished. And you had to live with yourself. The Skirrik hadn’t harmed her; no, they’d gone out of their way to help her; besides, she liked Chulji, he was a good kid. Bona Fortuna/Mala Fortuna, she wasn’t leaving this with Tod the Creep. Chulji could have it and do what he wanted with it. She opened one of the thicker boxes and stopped breathing for a minute. Ancient Min work, drawn silver brooches and rings set with ovals of crystallized resin that glowed blue then green then purple and released a subtle scent when she warmed it with her hand. Sweetamber. She recognized it for she’d got a tiny flawed piece of sweetamber set in a stab pin of a ring brooch as part of her pay for extracting Timka from Dum Besar and the Poet’s bed. Feeling a little lightheaded, she grinned down at the treasure in the box and made the warding circle, a tribute to Bona Fortuna and an attempt to chase away the bad vibes that sniffed about her gifts. She clicked the lid down and shoved the box into the bag. Mala takes, Bona gives—almost like it was a payment for sticking to principle and giving up thief’s right to the jet. She looked around at the unopened boxes, sighed. The bag was full and there was some question about whether she was going to be able to haul it out. It was heavy, yes, heavy was the definitive word. She sat on the chest, got her uninjured arm through the strap and heaved. With considerable effort she got the strap over her shoulder and managed to stand. She giggled; there was a pronounced list to the left. She collected the stickum, clicked it off and put it away. Forcing her bandaged hand to work, she got out the darter and held it along her thigh. Anything that came at her she’d have to deal with at a distance. Not much fight left in this poor old body.

She glanced at the woffits and the handler as she went past. The darts would hold them for two, three hours more. Probably. Anyway, long enough for Domi to get us well away from Cida Fennakin. She pushed past the arras and cut across the Great Hall, moving as steadily and quickly as she could; already the strap was biting into her shoulder and every time the bag tapped into her hip, it jarred her whole body, starting new waves of pain out from her wounds and bruises. It offended her sense of herself to be so slapdash; ordinarily she would have closed and locked the strongroom door, drawn the curtain over it; ordinarily she would have taken time to close and rebar the refectory door, but she couldn’t spare the energy or the time; she slipped out the kitchen door and stepped into a thick swirling fog, couldn’t even see her own feet. She crossed to the wall and the door that led from the private quarters into the guards’ quadrangle. It was barred on this side, but it had no lock. She slid the bar out of its hooks and pushed cautiously at the door.

For all her care, the hinges squealed; she stopped being careful, shoved the door open and ran through, counting on the fog and the darkness to conceal her; the only concession to caution she made was to stay close to the midwall where the shadow was thickest until she reached the watchtower by the slave pens; Timka had reported that the guards passed into the auction section through the tower, matched doors standing open during the day. Skeen sliced her way past both locks and stood trembling in the corner where the tower met the pen.

She slipped the loot bag off her shoulder, worked arm and shoulder to get some feeling back in it; she was faintly sick and wholly drained; she leaned against the pen wall and wondered how she was going to get going again. She touched the bag with her toe. I should really get the hell out and not bother with fancy flourishes. That’s the sensible thing to do; those gits in there probably wouldn’t thank her for interfering. No doubt they’d be a lot worse off it they were turned loose—starve to death or freeze. Trouble was, none of that changed her determination to cut them loose and goose them out of their security chains; she was doing it for that angry hurting child that lived somewhere down in her gut, she was doing it because she wanted to kick Tod where it hurt, she was doing it because … fuck all that, she didn’t care why, she just knew it was something she had to do.

Faint susurrous, flutter of air across her face, Ti-owl landing in front of her, shifting to Pallah. “You all right, Skeen?” Timka moved closer, sucked in a breath as she caught sight of the bandages, a small sharp sound that made Skeen wince. “I knew I should.…”

Skeen cut her off with a quick irritable wave of her good hand. “I’m fine, Ti. Don’t fuss.” She spoke in a low mutter that made Timka lean closer so she could hear. “I made some noise coming out. You notice anything, anyone stirring?”

“No. I heard woffits howling a while back, but things have been quiet since.”

Skeen rubbed at her throat. “Must have been when I put their handler out.”

Timka sniffed. “Looks like he nearly put you out.”

“She … what am I doing arguing gender? Ti.…” She straightened, swayed, flattened her good hand against the wall to keep from falling over. “Shit, I’m weak as a five-minute cub. Ti, the wickets in the gates over there, get them open, will you? I know they’re locked, here.” She fished out the cutter, gave it to Timka, showed her how to operate it. “Bring that back here when you’re finished.”

Timka came swimming from the fog, held out the cutter. “Open.” She shivered. “Miserable night. I’m going to put on some fur.”

“Wait.” Skeen bent over, biting back a groan, lifted the bag. “Take this out first, put it somewhere you can keep an eye on it; better wrap Angelsin’s cloak around it. I don’t want her tied into this, she’s too close to us. I’ll be along in a minute or so.”

“What? Let’s get out of here now, there’s nothing more we can do.”

“Scat. I’m going to turn the slaves loose. No, don’t argue, waste of time.” Skeen started walking away along the wall, moving toward the entrance she’d unlocked at the beginning of this bungled business. She smiled as she heard Timka sputtering, then a sigh, a scrape of feet as the little Min accepted the inevitable.

Skeen’s head swam; chills were beginning to travel along her bones. Fuckin’ woffits, filthy mouths. I should do something about this; she fumbled at her belt, leaned against the wall, closed her eyes. Got to get through this first, yes, I’ll worry about my hand soon as I have some real time to deal with it. She pushed away from the wall, tugged the door open and stepped into a broad, bare, very clean, lamplit corridor. Very little stench; that surprised her. No, no, old girl, you’re thinking of contract labor depots, there it doesn’t matter what the carks look like as long as they can stand up and move the proper fingers or other appendages. This world might be primitive, but don’t go thinking the folk here are stupid; they know healthy livestock when they see it and clip the price otherwise. Wrought iron lamps hung from black chains attached to a heavy iron grating high overhead Smell of heat, burning oil. Doors marched down both sides of the corridor, planks bound with black iron, square air holes high up in each door with their own smaller grates.

Skeen swung along the corridor trying to ignore the various ills that elbowed about under her skin. The stim tab was working hard. She was jittery and in between the shakes got jabs of energy that unfortunately ran out of her almost immediately. Like I got a hole in my heel. Body’s leaking, that’s what it is. Yeah, for sure, got a leak somewhere. Leak in my hand, oh shit, it hurts. Forget it, Skeen; think about Tod’s face tomorrow when reports start coming at him from all over. She stopped before the last door on the right, sliced the cutter beam through the bolt and tugged it open.

Skeen, Skeen, get your head together; she’d expected to find slaves chained hand and foot and laid out on cold bare stone. Remember, this is prime stock, meant to bring in the gold Nochsyn Tod loved to fondle. She shivered as icy cold air slipped past her.

Seven Aggitj extras stretched out on clean straw spread on shelf cots a good meter off the floor. The floor was another grating, like animal cages she’d seen, meant to let wastes drop below. That was where the cold air came from; she could hear the muted sound of water flowing down under it, how delightfully hygienic.

The boys were sitting up, the one on the cot nearest the door smoothed down his kilt, then passed his hands over his silvery not-hair. He blinked at her. “Who?” The word was heavily accented, almost garbled.

Skeen felt a chill sinking that had nothing to do with the wind that slid around her. Maggí said lots of Backlanders never got near Min or otherWavers and had at most a few words of Trade-Min; Djabo’s nimble tongue, what if she couldn’t talk to him. Her jaw started quivering as much from tension as cold. “B-Bona Fortuna,” she stammered. Her lips felt stiff, hard to control. “Come to k-kiss your hand. Lifefire, Aggitj, who the hell could I be, looking like this coming this time o’ the night?” Running off my mouth like this, she added to herself and shut her teeth on the flood of comment gathering down her throat. Djabo bless, look at the boy grin, I think he’s got it, at least he’s not ear to ear ivory.

‘Unfriend to Tod?” Again the words were fractured by his accent, but she could understand them; that was all that counted.

“You might say that.” She swayed. In spite of the heroic efforts of the stimtab she was beginning to fade in and out, better get done with this. “Listen,” she said, “I’m going back along this hall here and I’m going to slice open all the locks. Then I’m going out the gate, the one they maybe brought you in through.” She straightened her shoulders, tried to chase the fuzz from her head. There were things she had to say; in her mind, somehow, these slaves had turned into an omen of her own success or failure. If they won loose and stayed loose, maybe so could she and there’d be some simple happy explanation for Tibo running off with Picarefy and leaving her stranded; Djabo’s kinks, this is ridiculous—no meaning, no omen, no whatever. She forced herself out of that muddle and came close to snarling when she saw the concern on the young Aggitj’s face. “You’ll be clear, you Aggitj, once you make the local Slukra. From what I hear even the Funor don’t mess with it.” She closed her eyes, swallowed, propped herself against the jamb. “The others, tell ’em … tell ’em to keep low and get the hell out of here, don’t wait around for Funor guards to come looking for them. Y’unnerstan? Good. Good. Best way’s south along the river. North you got farms, they’ll turn in runaways there. South’s best long as you stay away from the mines.” She yawned, a jaw-cracker that sent her sagging against the jamb.

The Aggitj nodded.

“Um … one thing more, do me a favor, huh? Wait a tick or two before you come out. Lemme finish with the locks.” She rasped her tongue over dry lips. “’N keep back. Follow me close ’n I get nervous, might do something, you catch?”

“I hear you, Bona kai Fortuna.” He swept her a graceful bow.

“Aggitj,” she muttered and started off. Because she didn’t bother opening the other doors, the job was done in a few minutes; she went out the entrance, a murmur of voices getting gradually louder behind her. She hesitated before leaving the shelter of the entranceway, but there was little to see and less to hear. Shudders passed in waves along her body while her hand was so hot she feared the bandage would start smoldering. Fuckin’ fine fever, she told herself and giggled at the alliteration.

A shadow in the fog, coming at her. She fumbled for the darter.

“Skeen.” A murmur soft as the pulse beating in her ears; she slumped, her knees went liquid, she cursed under her breath (which seemed to help a little). A small hand closed around her arm. She heard a soft gasp as Timka felt the heat in her.

“You finally ready to go?” There was more than a touch of acerbity in Timka’s voice.

“Ready. Ready.” She grimaced, forced herself to take one step, another, another. The hand left her arm and the shape beside her changed, a cat-weasel padded beside her, long and lithe and lethal. And voiceless, something she was happy about, she wasn’t interested in hearing Timka’s views on her shortcomings. She pulled the wicket open and sent Timka through ahead of her with a quick jerk of her hand.

The cloak-wrapped lootbag was, leaning against the wall in the short area between the gates. Timka trotted on through the second wicket and waited outside in the street while Skeen knelt, slid the strap over her shoulder, then began the effort to get on her feet again. When she was up, she wiped the back of her good hand across her forehead; she thought vaguely about shooting some amvarban into her swelling hand, but Timka thrust her head back through the wicket and growled at her. She forgot about the shot and stumped out after the cat.

Timka trotted through the alleys, looking over her shoulder every few steps at Skeen; the tall woman was moving easily, without obvious trouble, but Timka grew increasingly worried as they neared the wharves. She could hear Skeen muttering to herself, a rising falling thread of sound; she couldn’t distinguish the words, but they weren’t Trade-Min; the intonation told her Skeen was chatting animatedly with herself; she wasn’t here but off somewhere in a world that existed inside her head.

They moved down an alley between two warehouses and came out on a wharf; the fog was thicker here. Ti-cat trotted more slowly, stopping at intervals to peer around and sniff at the planks. The hair along her spine was pricking straight up, her belly was up and tight. Nothing obvious, nothing she could smell or see or taste, not even a stray Min about who might mean trouble, but she sensed danger around, ahead, above, she didn’t know which, maybe all of of them. She ti-tupped along on the tips of her claws, head swinging, tail erect, the tip twitching like a metronome; she heard feet scraping behind her, the continuing thread of mutters.

A warbling whistle. Ahead, to the right. Hard to say how far off, judging distance was chancy in this fog. Timka mewed deep in her throat, heard Skeen’s feet stop, the mutters die off. Lifefire be blessed, she wasn’t wholly out of it. Timka glided in a tight circle about Skeen. The Pass-Through had her darter out, she looked alert and dangerous, never mind she was cumbered with that heavy bag. Timka hissed with relief.

A horde of children came swarming out of alleys, off roofs, up from under the wharf, whooping and hooting, poisoned needle stilettos in their small fists; they swirled around Timka and Skeen, feinting, diving at legs and any other target presented. Eddersil turning the points, Skeen moved in small tight circles, darts spraying over the attackers; she couldn’t move fast and she didn’t try. She also wasn’t keeping track of Timka. Timka had to duck and weave as she slashed at the Ants, doing her best to avoid their knives and sweep them off the wharf into the water. Several times she shifted to rock-leaper to shed the effects of the poison; the cat-weasel’s fur turned most of the points but not all; she used the rock-leaper’s horns and razor-sharp hooves on the Ants, then shifted to cat-weasel when the knives got through the leaper’s long white hair.

The Ants began thinning as Skeen’s darts and Timka’s claws, horns and hooves got rid of them; slowly, painfully, they worked their way toward the boat where Domi was using his saber to keep the decks clear.

Skeen stumbled, almost went down; her eyes were glazed over, she was shooting wildly, missing more than she hit, as much danger to Timka and Domi as she was to the Ants. Timka roared and raced around Skeen, shouldering the Ants off their feet, slashing at them, driving them off into the fog. She roared again and Domi came leaping off the boat. He scooped Skeen up (she was about to fold into a heap on the wharf), grunted with surprise at the weight of the bag. With Timka wheeling and snarling as rearguard, he ran breathing hard to the ship, jumped down onto the deck. He slid Skeen down, wheeled and yelled, “Ti-cat, the chains, can you do them?” He didn’t wait for an answer but jumped from deck to rail to wharf and stood panting beside her. “I’ll handle these rats.”

Timka mewed, switched ends and landed beside Skeen. She shifted to Pallah, dug out the cutter and managed to reach the stern without falling overboard though the boat rocked wildly under her; she twisted the cap off, flicked the sensor cover aside and slashed the beam through the metal; the chain clanked against the side of the boat as she loped to the bow and cut through the chain there. Once again she wondered at the power in the tiny cylinder and felt apprehensive about following Skeen through the Gate into the universe that made such things. “Loose,” she cried. “Let them rot.”

Domi jumped onto the deck, moved to the stern with an easy grace that made her want to spit at him. He settled there, took the tiller. “Push off,” he said, “the current will take us.”

The boat edged out from the dock, moved faster as it touched the fringes of the strong current in the main channel; it slid off one boat’s side, banged into another, slid along it, broke free. Impossible to see anything in this mess of night and fog, hard even to see your own hands. Which was why Domi wasn’t raising the sail yet. The current gave him enough way to steer the boat, but wasn’t pushing if fast enough to damage it or the boats it knocked against.

Timka knelt beside Skeen, brushed the spiky black hair off her brow; her skin was hot and tight, she was breathing heavily, moaning. Domi hadn’t had time to be careful, he’d dumped her on her mangled hand and she’d lost consciousness immediately from the shock to her system. Timka straightened her out, put the hand on her chest. The bandages were sticky and stiff with blood, the flesh puffed between the strips of cloth. It didn’t seem like flesh; touching it made Timka feel nauseated. She put the cutter in its pocket and snapped the flap over it, sat on her heels and frowned at the belt. There were medicines in some of those pockets, but only Skeen knew which and how to use them. She lifted an eyelid, smoothed it down; Skeen wasn’t going to be giving directions for a good long time. She worked the lootbag off Skeen’s shoulder, unwrapped Angelsin’s fur-lined cloak, spread it over Skeen. She tucked the edges under her, folded one end around the battered boots, pulled the other end tight about Skeen’s head, leaving her only space enough to breathe. She sighed; that was all she could do for the Pass-Through, except hope she’d wake up enough to help herself.

“How is she?” Domi’s voice, just loud enough to reach her, tense, filled with anxiety.

“Not good.” Leaving Skeen in her fur cocoon, she moved back so she wouldn’t have to raise her voice to be heard. “Woffit tore her hand; they’ve got dirty mouths, almost worse than poison. Nothing I can do right now. When we’re downstream far enough, I’ll try bathing her face, see if I can get that fever down some; the water here, it’s so foul, it’d probably kill her.”

“She going to lose that hand?”

“I’d say that was a fair bet, unless she’s got something to kill that strong an infection.”

Domi squeezed his long graceful fingers about the tiller bar, sighed. “Better than being dead. I suppose.”

They scraped by a mid-sized merchanter moored out farther than most. A bleary looking Balayar popped his head over the rail and cursed them in half a dozen tongues; he beat on the rail in time to his cursing and started to pull himself up so he could jump into their boat and beat on them. Timka went cat-weasel and roared him into a fast sweaty retreat.

As the merchanter vanished in the fog behind them, Domi stretched his legs, moved his shoulders, grinned at her. “You’re handy to have about, Ti-cat.”

“Hunh.” Timka crawled over to the gear, found shirt and pants and pulled them on. When she was back by Domi’s knees, she said, “I just wish I could keep the fur and talk at the same time.”

“Hm. That’s something I’ve wondered about, Ti. Seems there’s dozens of shapes you can take if you count all the variants of the basic ones. How come you can’t mix them and come up with some sort of composite?”

“It just doesn’t work that way.…” Her voice trailed off as she gazed into the darkness. “Shapes have integrity … or so I’ve always thought anyway … try to change part and nothing can work … no one ever tried to … that I heard about … and I would have heard if … everything came to Carema’s, though she might not tell me. Lifefire singe your toes, Domi; you’ve started me on something and I don’t know where it’ll end. Ahhh, forget it. Something else. How soon before we sight Maggí’s ship?”

“Hard to say. Can’t tell much about the time without the stars to measure it.”

“Ah, wait a bit.” She crawled rapidly to Skeen, found her good hand, checked the ringchron. After tucking the cloak into place again, she touched the back of her hand to Skeen’s face. No better, and Lifefire be blessed, no worse. She left Skeen lying in that near coma and went back to Domi. “About two hours before dawn.”

“Right, then. According to Chulji, who got it from Maggí, the Chute is a good half day from Fennakin, upstream, that is. Downstream, it might be less time, but our loa, ah, that’s length more or less, Ti, isn’t a third of Maggí’s, so we’re a lot slower. I’m not going to raise sail as long as there’s this much fog. It’s too dangerous. There’s a good channel mostly snag free, and long straight stretches of river between some easy bends, but if we hit a sand bar too hard, that’s it, Ti; you want to try carrying Skeen on foot? Remember there’s hill country south of us. And mines. I’d rather keep a long distance between me and any mine guards.”

“So?”

“So, some time round midafternoon, maybe even as late as sundown.”

“Lifefire!”

“I know. Nothing we can do to change it either.”

Hours slid one into the other. The sun rose and the fog burned away. Skeen alternated between a frightening lethargy and an equally frightening delirium that at times turned violent. Timka had to exert all her strength and the entangling effect of the cloak to keep her from throwing herself overboard or capsizing the boat.

As Domi had hoped, the wind swung around shortly after sunup and sent them slicing along, lines humming, sail taut, boat singing—bubbling, staccato, even cheerful noises. Laboring over Skeen, Timka was feeling far from cheerful. Skeen was sinking deeper and deeper into unconsciousness. Timka worked off the eddersil tunic, rolled it into a pillow for the Pass-Through’s head and used the undershirt as a sponge, bathing Skeen’s face and torso with cold riverwater, tryng to convince herself that she was doing some good, that she was indeed keeping Skeen’s temperature from soaring out of sight, but she grew more and more frustrated with the little she could do. The flesh of the mangled hand looked worse, the cloth bands cut deeper and deeper as the swelling continued; she thought about taking the bandage off, but she had nothing on board to replace it and she was afraid to expose the torn flesh to contamination and what could she do if the wounds started bleeding again? She chewed on her lip and tried to think.

Domi looked her way now and then but most of the time his eyes were fixed on the river ahead and the sail as he rode a narrow balance between speed and stability. He whistled snatches of song time and again, but was mostly silent, not even asking how Skeen was doing.

Clouds scudded past overhead, high and thready, not threatening rain but keeping the day gray and muggy and cooler than Timka liked. Cida Fennakin was far behind now; they were passing through wild country, nothing impressive, fold on fold of scrubby barren hills that sent the river into long serpentines and kept Domi constantly adjusting sail and tiller. There were scattered groves like clumps of hair on a mangy dog; they had a gray, stunted look Timka found depressing; even the water was beginning to take on an unhealthy grayness. She stopped using it to bathe Skeen, tucked the cloak back around her and settled into a cross-legged slouch as she watched the land slide past. They were coming into a peculiarly lifeless section of hills; a few birds flew in lazy spirals high overhead, slipping in and out of the clouds, but she saw no signs of beast life on the ground, not even the omnipresent squirrels that had made her home forest noisy and full of rustling life, swift impressions of darting leaps tree to tree, brown streaks along the ground. She could see puffs of steam rising from vents in the hillsides; at first she thought it was smoke from camp-fires, but there was no smell of smoke, only a vague rotten-egg unleasantness when a gust of wind caught one of the closer plumes and blew it into rags that fluttered around her. Except for the hooming wail of that wind, the soft brushing of the water and the small talk of the boat, they slid along in an eerie silence. Dead lands, drear lands. Was Skeen going to die? How much longer before they got to Maggí? Pegwai, he was a Lumat Scholar, wouldn’t he know more than anyone about how to treat other Wavers?

That was the thing that bothered her the most; she knew quite a lot about treating Min ailments; at one time when she was considerably younger, she had tried using that knowledge to treat members of the Pallah families she lived with and it was only luck that kept her clear of total disaster. She learned then that there was no correlation between what worked for Min and what eased Nemin ills. She touched Skeen’s face. Hot and dry. She sighed. Skeen looked diminished. Like the dead, diminished. Not dead yet, how long?

She slipped her sandals off, got warily to her feet. “Domi,” she called.

His face and voice carefully neutral (she suddenly remembered how very young he was) he said, “Trouble?”

“I’m not going to wait any longer. I’m going to fly ahead. Maybe Maggí or one of the others will know what to do.” She watched his face muscles fight his control, aware he was terrified of being left alone with Skeen and the boat; well, he had reason enough. Lifefire knows a thousand things could happen he couldn’t handle alone. But there was no help for it, she had to go. “I’ll climb high,” she said quickly. “The winds up there blow faster, I’ll be back before you notice I’m gone.”

“Ti …” He cleared his throat, giggled suddenly, surprising both of them. “You’re not seeing something staring at you. Tell Maggí to up anchor and come meet us, that’ll make things move a lot faster. You know you can’t carry much when you sprout feathers.”

“Hai!” She slapped her forehead. “Stupid. You’re right.” She grinned at him as she started undoing her trousers. “Never you mind my feathers. Medicines don’t weigh all that much, I’ll bring back something to start on. Hm. I haven’t the least idea how long this is going to take. Expect me when you see me.”

She fought her way up the wind layers until she found a southbound stream; it was faster than any she remembered trying to negotiate and more turbulent. It frightened her, but she cast herself into it; battered and disoriented, she beat herself straight and went sweeping south. When her initial dizziness passed off, she looked for the river, tried to locate Maggí’s ship. She was flying above a layer of clouds; what she saw most of the time was a thready whiteness though she caught glimpses of the land through scattered small breaks in the cover; unhappily, she passed over them too quickly to see more than a few blurred details.

It was stony, barren country, with sluggish streams and shallow ponds matted thick with ancient layers of algae, meager scrub, grass like hair on an old man’s head, thin, patchy, drained of color. Off to the right, where the hills swelled into mountains, she caught glimpses of ugly gray structures. Mine works. Except for those, it was an empty land. Nothing moved on those hillsides but the plumes of vented steam.

Without warning the windstream turned east, straight away from the river’s course. Uttering an irritated squawk she dropped and began casting about for a new southflow where she could save energy and glide along faster than she could fly. When she was stabilized again, she started looking for the ship with hopes this time of finding it.

And nearly lost her hold on the wind. It was directly below her, swinging slowly about its anchor lines, bare masts swaying to the tug of the wind. Giddy with relief, she spiraled down to land on the quarterdeck beside Maggí Solitaire.

Shifting from hawk to cat-weasel, she growled deep in her throat, rubbed past the Aggitj woman’s leg and went bounding down the steps to the deck. She dropped her hindquarters to the wood, growled again; tail tip twitching like a metronome, she rose, stalked below, stood waiting at the door to the Captain’s cabin.

Maggí pushed past her, opened the door and went inside. She turned to face Timka who had shifted again and was pulling on the robe Maggí kept for her on a hook behind the door. “Trouble?”

Timka smoothed the sash ends down, sighed. “One thing I like about you, Maggí Solitaire, you don’t need long explanations. Skeen got her hand mangled by a woffit and she’s laid out with a fever. I need help.” She allowed herself a brief smile. “Domi says it’d be a good idea if you upped the anchors and came to meet him. Us. I’ll be flying back in a minute, after I talk with the others. By the by, you wouldn’t have any ideas how to break that fever?”

Maggí scowled past her, chewed on her lip. “Ah … I’d be a bit nervous about trying.… A minute, I’ll be back.” She circled the long table and vanished into her bedroom; Timka heard her rummaging about in there, heard a chest lid crash down. Maggí came back with a roll of bandage and a jar of ointment. “Fever I don’t know about, but this mess seems to work on all sorts of flesh. I’ve used it on close to everything that walks on this world.” She smiled at Timka. “I even had occasion to use it on a Min once.” She looked from her burden to Timka, frowned. “Lifefire, how are you going to carry this? Think it would be too heavy if I put it in a sack and tied it around your … um … foot?”

Timka giggled. “Be just fine.” She sobered. “Leave room for whatever Pegwai or … well, anything I need to fly back to the boat.”

Maggí set the bandages and jar on the table. “I hear you. I’ll have one of the crew sew you up a sack. And I’ll send the rest of your company down here. You want the Boy too? He’s playing with my daughter.”

Timka collapsed into a chair. “No, don’t bother him. But you could stir up the cook and send down some hot sweet tea and a bun. I haven’t had anything to eat since I don’t know when and flying back’s going to be harder work.”

“I hear you.” Maggí went out walking quickly, the soft patter of her bare feet faded almost before the sound of her last word.

Timka folded her arms on the table and rested her head on them. She was tired, hungry, afraid that whatever they tried would be too late. And angry with herself; Lifefire be blessed, Maggí had offered what she hadn’t thought to ask for, the fresh bandages and the antiseptic. Stupid, stupid, Timka. This is the second time I’ve missed the obvious, my brain must be rotting.

Pegwai came in on a rush of words. Timka lifted her head but didn’t try to sort them out until he calmed a little and settled into a chair. He flattened his hands on the table and sat staring at her. “What’s wrong?”

Before she could answer, the three Aggitj came tumbling in; Ders ran at her shouting in Aggitchan; he caught hold of her shoulders, shook her. He was frantic, almost weeping, spitting in her face. Hal and Hart pulled him off her and got him settled in a chair. Looking almost as disturbed, Hal stood beside him, patting his shoulder to keep him from exploding again.

“Domi’s fine,” she said, “it’s Skeen.…”

Lipitero came through the door in a whirl of silk and excitement almost as frantic as Ders’. “Skeen? What about Skeen?”

Timka sighed. “Hart, pull the door shut, will you. Thanks.” She rubbed at her eyes. “Listen a minute, you all can ask questions later. Like I said, Domi’s fine. He’s taking care of Skeen and the boat right now, which is too much for anyone to handle alone, so I want to get back as fast as I can.” She blinked. The ship was rocking. Lipitero stumbled against Pegwai, caught his shoulder with a grip so hard he grunted with pain. Timka smiled, relaxed a little. Maggí was getting underway, Skeen would have the help she needed, Bona Fortuna willing, as she’d say. She leaned forward, elbows on the table, fingers laced. “A woffit chewed up one of Skeen’s hands; it’s a dirty wound and she wasn’t able to tend it for a lot too long, so right now it’s a mess and she’s laid out with fever.” She nodded at the bandages and the small crock of antiseptic ointment. “Maggí came up with that for the wounds. That’s good but what bothers me most is that fever. I want to get it down. Can any of you help me?”

A knock at the door. Hart opened it, let in Chulji and the cook who was carrying a tray with a pot of tea and some sandwiches. The cook stared around at the stiff faces, raised his brows at the ominous silence hanging about like smoke; he produced half a smile for Timka, gave her the tray, looked round again, sniffed with disdain and waddled out without saying a word. Timka reached for the teapot, stopped with her hand outstretched when Pegwai pushed his chair back and stood. “Let me look through my kit,” he said. “I remember several antipyretics that work across species.”

Lipitero caught hold of his arm, stopped him. “The Balayar cordial, do you have any of that? It put strength in me when I was very close to dying.” She looked anxiously at him, fingers trembling as she waited for his answer.

“Yes. I hadn’t thought of that, you’re right.” He edged away from her, almost ran through the door as Hart opened it for him.

“Skeen mustn’t die,” Lipitero whispered. “She must not die.”

The intensity in the Ykx’s voice made Timka uncomfortable. She gulped nervously at her tea, looked with distaste at the sandwiches. She could feel the tremble of hunger in her arms and legs, her head was too heavy on her neck, but the thought of eating made her a little sick; she forced herself to bite into a sandwich, chewed unhappily at the meat and bread and washed it down with large drafts of tea. Pegwai was away an eternity, or so it seemed; he came back at that eternity’s end with a stoneware flask of the cordial and a purplish brown syrup in a small glass vial.

He set these beside the roll of bandage. Hand on the flask, he said, “The cordial. It sits easy on the stomach; get as much down her as you can, at least half a cup before you try giving her this.” He moved his hand to the vial. “The antipyretic. Give her no more than two drops an hour.” He frowned. “If it’s going to work at all, you might see signs of change before the end of the first hour.” He examined his palm as if expecting to read the answers there. “I wouldn’t worry too much if … ah … if you saw nothing happening for an hour, even two. After that, well, I don’t know. Skeen.…” He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“So say we all.” Timka sighed. “If it does nothing more than bring her awake long enough to answer a few questions … Lifefire grant that happens. Pegwai, take these things up to Maggí; she’s having a bag run up so I can carry them back to the boat. Chul, will you fly with me? I want to make sure nothing happens to that bag.”