City of Night (36 page)

“It’s her,” she said bluntly. “She’s back.”

She could hear Teller’s breath break; it wasn’t a sharp inhalation, but it was a pause. After which, he started writing. She couldn’t remember whose idea it had been to write things down. She couldn’t even remember when they’d started. But now? It was part of the vision, part of the nightmare—the last, and best, part. She could listen to the even scritching of chalk against blackboard, and even when she spoke, she was aware of what it meant: people were
here,
they were
with her,
and they believed enough in what she said that they were willing to transcribe it.

“Still no name?”

She shook her head.

“I don’t know what she is,” Jewel whispered, “but she’s not a god.”

Teller’s hand paused. “How do you know?”

“Because I saw gods.”

“Gods. As in plural.”

“I think so.”

“Sorry,” he added. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“Tonight,” she said softly, “Interruptions are good.” She turned in her chair, draping one arm across its back. “Interruptions are good because it’s
too damn big
. What can we do about gods?”

“Die?” Jester suggested.

She heard someone hit him. “Don’t.”

“He was joking,” Angel said.

“I know. But it’s not really a joke. If these dreams can be trusted—if we can even
figure out
what they mean—what can we possibly do about them? I can’t even protect my own,” she added bitterly. “And gods aren’t likely to give a damn about something as insignificant as one den in Averalaan.”

“We won’t have to say anything,” Teller told her. “If the gods do
anything,
the god-born will know. They’re not a den in the twenty-fifth; when they speak, the Kings will have to listen.”

Everyone nodded. Everyone.

She wanted to leave the table. Instead, she put her hands across it and splayed the fingers wide. “She’s there,” she said, waiting for Teller to start writing. He did, and she continued, feeding him the stream of her words. “She’s red and black; she’s taller than Arann. She has a sword, in this one,” she added softly. “And a red dress that’s all of one piece.”

“Sleeves?”

“I don’t think so. Does it matter?”

“You could ask Haval.”

She could, at that. She probably wouldn’t. He’d just ask her why she wanted to know, and that led places she wasn’t willing to go with him.

Instead, she concentrated, because the dream might slip away. “Long sleeves, or at least they look like sleeves; they’re so close to her skin they might as well
be
skin. Did I tell you she’s tall?”

“Yes.”

“But she’s not.”

“Where is she?”

“In the darkness,” Jewel replied. “It’s—it looks like the undercity darkness, not the streetside night.” A shudder took her, momentarily robbing her of words. “But it’s not the undercity; that’s not what the darkness is. I think I can see the moons, but they’re warped and twisted, and they look summer red.

“They’re not moons.”

The silence contained only the movement of Teller’s hand, and this, too, came to a close.

“They’re eyes,” Jewel said softly. “And suddenly the woman is way too short, and thing towering behind her is—the size of nightmare. And it speaks, and I hear it, and I can’t understand what I hear—but I try to plug my ears. Doesn’t help. Nothing does.”

“Where are you?” Teller asked, gently.

“Alley, I think. Some place with walls on either side. I turn to run. There’s nothing I can
do
but run, and I
know
this.” She drew a deeper breath, raising her hands to push her hair out of her eyes. “But . . . I run into trees, of all things, into forest, and . . . someone is waiting for me.”

“He steps into my path. There’s moonlight here, but he’s hard to look at, and I realize it’s hard to look at him because he’s constantly changing. He’s always tall,” she added, forehead briefly creasing in frustration, “but his body shifts in place. I can’t describe it,” she added. “But it’s strange, not terrifying.

“I try to move past him, but he lifts a hand, palm out, and I stop. I look over my shoulder,” she added. “I can’t help that.

“But he knows. He tells me that:
I know what you’re running from.
”

Duster was restless. Out of the corner of her eye, Jewel could see the glint of steel in her hand.

“He’s a god, Duster,” she said, more sharply than she intended. “I can’t exactly tell him to drop dead.”

Duster shrugged.

“He says, ‘I know what you’re running from. And you know that you can’t run from him, in the end; there is nowhere safe to go if he is free.’

“And I tell him that I
can’t do anything else,
and he says, ‘I know. Understand, now, that you
cannot
do anything to fight him. You are not, yet, armed, if you will ever be. This fight
is not your fight,
and you must have the humility to accept this as truth.

“ ‘But it
is
mine. Lead me out of this forest, lead me into your grove of standing stone and dead wood and stunted tree, and I will stand where you cannot.’

“I turn back, then, but it’s all damn trees as far as I can see.

“ ‘Find a way,’ he says. ‘Only you can.’

“But I
can’t
. I can’t even see the City anymore. I can just hear the screaming.

“And I know that everything—
everything
—that I care about is dying, or will die, and I can’t do
anything
—” She lifted her hands to her face.

Teller finished his writing, then. He added this third slate to the others, making a careful pile of them. “Rath?” he asked her softly.

She lowered her hands, and nodded.

Jewel went to Rath’s by street after the daily trip to the Common. She didn’t go alone, although she did, briefly, try. She took Carver, Duster, and Angel with her, but only after they agreed to wait outside. The slates hung on her back in a pack, but she had bundled them with as much care as possible; chalk smudged.

No one talked much. Duster was silent, but she often was; Carver was silent, which was unusual. The silence of Duster and Carver silenced Angel as well, and Jewel was not up to shouldering the entire weight of conversation. She walked in silence, surrounded by the noise of the streets as they crossed invisible holding boundaries on their trek.

When she arrived at Rath’s apartment building, Duster, Carver, and Angel, as promised, took up lounging positions to one side of the door. They looked clean enough—just—not to seem too threatening. She hoped.

She still had keys to Rath’s place, and she used them all. It wasn’t the first time she cursed his locks, because in her opinion, one would have been more than enough, and the third one was still a little high. But she opened them, took a breath, and opened the door.

She was very proud of herself; Rath was standing inches from the arc the opening door made, and she did not start or scream. Instead, she slid the pack from her shoulders and handed it to him.

Rath’s hair was pulled back, which wasn’t unusual; it was shining in the magelight, which was. It was also darker than it had been the last time she’d seen him. His skin was the type of smooth and pale that only makeup could achieve, and she could only see his scars because she knew where to look. He wore a jacket that was mostly burgundy velvet to her eyes, and a shirt.

“New jacket?” she asked, as he took the pack from her hands and stepped to one side to let her in.

“Relatively.”

“You’re going out?”

“Not immediately.” He glanced at her face, and his tone softened. “Why are you here, Jewel?”

She gestured at the backpack. “In there,” she told him. “Three slates.”

“Ah.” His expression softened as well, and he turned and walked the length of the hall to his room. Jewel trailed in his wake like a slightly detached shadow.

When he reached his room, he set the backpack on the bed, untied it, and carefully retrieved its contents. He unbundled the slates from the blanket with more care than Jewel could have managed, and then took them to the table. There, magelight shone.

“Sit,” he told her.

Nodding, she walked to the bed and sat on its edge. After a few moments, she eased backward, until she was lying down, staring at the ceiling. She could hear the slight clack of slates as they were separated; could hear a slightly different clack as he discarded them. When she heard it for the third time, she pushed herself up on her elbows.

Rath turned in his chair. “When did you have these dreams?”

“The past three nights.”

“Three,” he said. He rose then and went to one of the boxes on the mantel; from this, he pulled his pipe. Jewel watched him line the bowl with leaves taken from the same box. She closed her eyes until the faint and oddly comforting aroma of smoke drifted toward her.

“I don’t know what it means,” she said softly.

He nodded. “This woman,” he said quietly. “Does she remind you of anyone you’ve ever seen?”

“You couldn’t forget seeing someone like her,” was the quiet reply.

“No. I don’t imagine you could.”

Jewel’s eyes narrowed. “You’ve seen her?”

Rath, silent for long enough that Jewel thought he wouldn’t answer the question, finally nodded. “I have.”

“Where?”

He shook his head. That question, he would not answer. But after a moment, he added, “Someplace you will never be. I admit, however, that she does not obviously carry a sword or cloak herself in shadow.” His lips turned up at the corners in what might have been a smile.

Jewel closed her eyes again.

“It’s too much, Rath,” she whispered. “It’s too much for us. Do you know what it means? There were
gods,
” she added, raising her arm and settling it over her closed eyes.

“I think,” he said, words drifting and mingling with that familiar scent, “I have some idea of what it signifies.” His voice was quiet and soothing, and she heard no lie in the words. “But you are right; it is not information that you, or your den, can use to any purpose.”

“Can you?”

“I can. And if not I, the Magi of my acquaintance. It is important information; I do not mean to lessen its significance. But it is something that they will be both familiar with and competent to analyze, if you will allow me to retain the slates.”

“You might as well. We haven’t been using them much.”

“You mistake me. Which you do not often do. Take mine in their place; I will keep these.” Smoke eddied as Jewel removed her arm and slowly opened her eyes. “If you will allow it, I will take responsibility for what they contain. You may, of course, feel free to attempt to further interpret them.”

She shrugged. “I’ll see what the others have to say.”

“If anything they say strikes you as interesting, write it down.”

She nodded again.

“You’re upset, but not about the dreams,” Rath said. He had always been too damn perceptive.

“I am,” she whispered. Then, aware that she was not to lie to him in his own home—the first rule he had established—she added, “There’s something else, as well.”

He waited in silence while she tried to find words. The ones that finally came out were, “We lost Fisher.”

What the dreams hadn’t done, these words did; he was utterly still for a moment, his face that mask that meant his expression would show exactly—and only—what he wanted it to show. “What do you mean?”

These words were harder to force out. She didn’t manage before he asked one question.

“Where?”

“In the undercity.”

“While you were there?”

No lying to Rath in his own home. Jewel stood.
They’re not my pets and they’re not my children. I can’t just keep them locked up in the apartment, waiting on my permission to even breathe.
She was angry, and it was like a summer storm; she shook with it. But she did not say the words.

Because she only
wanted
them to be true.

If he had shouted at her, it might have been easier. Because then, she could have shouted back. Instead, after the silence, heavy with unspoken words, had gone on too long, he said, “Who was with Fisher?”

She exhaled. “Duster, Carver, Angel, and Lefty.”

“They heard nothing?”

“Nothing.”

“And saw nothing?”

She nodded.

He rose. “When?”

“On the eighth of Emperal. Or maybe really late on the seventh.”

“I will not lecture you,” he told her quietly, walking over to the mantel and opening the box again. “I can’t say anything to you that you haven’t already thought.”

She opened her mouth and closed it again. “Is he dead, Rath?”

“You don’t know?”

“No. I felt
nothing
. I saw
nothing
.”

Rath’s back was turned toward her; she couldn’t see his face. But after a silence, he offered what he could. “He is almost certainly dead.”

“But
why
?”

“I don’t know,” he replied, and this time he did turn. “I have to leave soon, Jewel. You can remain here, if you want.”

“I can’t. Carver, Duster, and Angel are outside, waiting.”

He raised a brow. It was the same dark that his hair now was.

“We don’t go out in the streets alone, if we can help it. And I wasn’t sure I could make it here on my own if I—” No. That wasn’t true. What was true was this: she was afraid to go into the maze. “The streets of the undercity have changed.”

“Yes,” he said. Just that.

 

He let himself out of his apartment quietly. He did not linger by the door, and did not listen for her familiar, if slightly heavier, footfall. Her gift and her talent made it very difficult to lie to her, but Rath had the advantage of knowledge and experience. He had not spoken a lie. But he had acted one. He had been quiet, reasonable, suggesting a calm acceptance of the three dreams that he in no way felt.