Melissa McShane (11 page)

His eyelids fluttered. “You’re sort of blurry,” he said.

“That’s because you’ve had your brains rattled a bit,” said the healer. “Do you feel dizzy?

Nauseated? Have a headache?”

“Of course I have a headache, I got hit in the head by a lump of
seicorum
the size of my fist.

Have you seen the size of my fist?”

Zerafine laughed. It was only a little wobbly.

“If he can make jokes, he’s probably going to be fine,” the healer said. “But stay there for a minute, sirrah. I want to see how bad that cut is.”

Gerrard lay there long enough that Zerafine’s legs started to go numb. The cut turned out to be small but bloody, easy enough for the healer to deal with. Finally she allowed him to stand. It took both of them to get Gerrard to his feet, and he wavered a little bit, enough that Zerafine inserted herself under his arm to give him support. Not that her short frame would make much difference if he decided to go down again. But he seemed stable enough.

“Keep him awake,” the healer told Zerafine, “and if he starts feeling sick or dizzy, or has trouble keeping his balance, get him to one of Kalindi’s
theloi
. I’d say let Jerontius take care of it now, but I’m afraid my colleague is exhausted.” They all looked at the little man with the suns on his tunic, who sat on the curb looking more ill than his patient, who was lying on the ground talking emphatically with some of the members of the crowd. He stopped talking long enough to look at Gerrard, then struggled to his feet. The healer tried to make him sit, but the man persisted.

“You saved my life. I can’t begin to repay that debt. Thank you, thank you,” he said,

clasping Gerrard about the shoulders. The woman—his companion, possibly his wife, held out a heavy sack. “They all helped gather it up for you. You’re all right, yes? I can’t believe you were willing to pull me out of there, and at such a cost to you! You’re not badly injured, I hope?”

“I’m fine,” Gerrard said. By the still-ashy cast to his skin, he was lying. He took the bag filled with
seicorum
and said, “Half of this is yours, by right.”

The man flushed and stepped back. “I couldn’t possibly take it. I can’t allow myself to

benefit from simply being in the wrong place when it showed up. Perhaps the healers...?”

“Good idea,” Gerrard said. He dug through the pouch until he found something he liked.

“Look,” he grunted, and showed the stone to Zerafine. One corner of the irregular chunk was stained dark with blood. “I’m keeping this one.” Zerafine grimaced.

Gerrard then approached the healers and gave them each a large handful of
seicorum
, which turned out to be a double handful for them. He tucked the bag with its remaining contents into his belt. “Excuse us,” he rumbled, and led Zerafine through the crowd. Nacalia followed close behind, her hand gripping the hem of Gerrard’s tunic.

“Sorry,” he said when they’d left everything behind. “I’m just feeling a little—dizzy.” He tottered over to sit on the rim of a convenient fountain. He used some of the water to splash his head. Pale red trails of water ran down his scalp and into the neck of his tunic.

“We need to get you to a divine healer,” Zerafine said, but he shook his head, and winced.

“No, I was only dizzy because there were so many people there,” he replied. “I’m going to be fine. The nice healer said so.”

“We should go back home and do this another day.”

“And give me time to think of reasons why we shouldn’t? You really want that?”

“What I
want
is a
sentare
who isn’t going to pass out on the docks.”

“At least you’d have a crane handy to get me up again.”

“Could you take this seriously, please?”

“Zerafine, I
am
taking this seriously. I’m not stupid and I’m not foolhardy. If I thought I was in the least bit incapacitated, I would be the first to go to a
thelos
for healing. Could you stop behaving like a mother hen?”

Zerafine, stung, retorted, “You didn’t have to see yourself lying there with blood all over your head and a face like death! You scared the life out of me! I thought—” She stopped, feeling the tears well up again.

Gerrard looked at her, then reached out to hold her close. “I’m an idiot,” he murmured into her hair. “I’m a big dumb ox. Forgive me.”

Zerafine nodded into his chest. He was large and warm and solid and she felt at peace for the first time in—how long had it even taken? An hour? Five minutes? She wrapped her arms around his waist and hugged him.

“I’ll stop mothering you,” she said, wiping her eyes, “if you swear you won’t push yourself and you’ll tell me if you start feeling strange.”

He held her tighter. “Promise.”

Something about the way he said it made her feel awkward, and she stepped away. “I do feel hungry,” he added. “But that’s not strange, for me.”

She laughed a little too loudly, trying to cover up her discomfort. “Nacalia, find us

something to eat,” she said. But as they walked along, eating roast lamb off wooden skewers, she had a hard time not keeping an eye on her
sentare
.

Baz wasn’t on the pier and Solina wasn’t in the dock master’s house. A little asking around turned up a sailor who said that she’d gone into town on an errand and should return shortly.

They decided to do some shopping in one of the nearby markets, its booths crammed with goods from all corners of the known world. Gerrard found a new belt to replace the one he’d been wearing for two years. Zerafine wavered between an ivory hair clasp and a pair of delicate earrings of interlocking golden rings. In the end, she bought both, even though Gerrard had to change some of their
seicorum
for money to pay for them. She put the earrings on immediately, enjoying the way they tinkled when she turned her head. She considered buying Nacalia a

present, seeing how avidly the girl eyed a stall selling necklaces of beaten bronze, but

remembered her conversation with Gerrard about Nacalia’s prospects when they left, and

decided against it. Instead, she bought her an overpriced cone of toasted pine nuts.

“It’s strange,” Gerrard said as they left the market. He weighed his coin pouch before

tucking it securely away. “I got a surprisingly good exchange rate for the
seicorum
. The moneychanger seemed eager to have it. Maybe Berenica and her
theloi
are squirreling it away for the winter.”

“You’ve seen how Berenica lives. I can’t imagine frugality is in her vocabulary.”

“Well, the ghost rate can’t have gone down here, or we’d have heard about it.”

“And ghost hunters are even bigger spenders than Berenica. You’re right, that’s strange.”

“It’s not like I’m complaining. I always forget how expensive it is to live in a big city. I’d hate to think how much it would cost if we had to rent an apartment, or a house.”

“Especially since the Council isn’t paying us for this job—did you realize that?” Zerafine sighed. “Let’s see if Solina is back.”

She wasn’t. They ambled back down to pier 7, still empty of ghosts, ships, sailors, or cargo.

Probably everyone knew about Baz. Zerafine took her hood and cowl off and sat on the pier, dangling her feet over the edge. The tide was high enough that the waves flowed over her feet and dampened the hem of her long tunic. With the overcast, the sun was just warm enough to be pleasant rather than broiling. The salt breeze coming off the ocean mingled its briny scent with the hot tang of tar and the stink of ox dung, and Zerafine tipped her head back and closed her eyes. For ten soldi she’d take off her robe and sandals and go wading through the surf.

“Zerafine,” Gerrard said, his voice guarded. She opened her eyes to find Baz sitting next to her. Gerrard stood about a foot away, Nacalia peering out from behind him. “What’s your plan?”

“Let me think.” She rolled up her sleeve and reached out, slowly, inching her outstretched fingers closer until they brushed the edge of the apparition. As before, Baz showed no sign that he—it—was aware of her. She reached further and sank her hand to the first knuckle into the image. Still nothing. She felt nothing, either—it might have been a little warmer than its surroundings, but that could have been her imagination. She closed her eyes, drew a cleansing breath, and attempted to reach the same state she’d been in when she’d witnessed Sukman’s appearance at the banishment. There, again, was the knot of threads she’d seen before.

“I’m going to touch it,” she said, not sure if she were speaking on the spiritual plane or in her own voice, then brushed her fingers over the surface of the knot and felt a thrill go up her arm. It felt alive in the sense one might say the night was alive with movement; it hummed with energy. It showed no reaction to her touch. She traced the threads lightly with her fingertips, feeling her way along where they emerged from the knot. She could still feel them under her fingers for a short distance after they became invisible. It was like stroking a horse’s mane, although it was the finest, silkiest mane imaginable. But eventually they faded into nothing. She still had no idea what the knot attached to.

Now, what symbol would reach it? Nothing of the gods, certainly; if that wasn’t

blasphemous, it was certainly dangerous, if only because too powerful a symbol might cause it to react violently, or destroy it. Or her. She thought for a moment, then settled on the circled cross, a circle divided into four parts, unity from many. Among other things, it meant finding common ground. She drew the symbol in golden fire on her wrist, pushed her first two fingers into the knot, and let the symbol roll down her hand into the creature.

She screamed. It was as if her entire hand had caught fire. The last thing she saw before dropping out of her meditative state was the knot coming apart explosively, loose threads flying in every direction. She snatched her hand close to her chest, drawing in great sobbing breaths.

Through dry, burning eyes, she saw the apparition of Baz shred into a million pieces that vanished with the wind.

“What happened?” Gerrard demanded. “Let me see.” He crouched beside her and peeled her

arm away from her chest.

“It feels burned,” she said through gritted teeth.

“It looks fine,” Gerrard said. He forced her fingers open and hissed. Burned like a brand into her palm was the circled cross.

“I guess I got its attention,” Zerafine said weakly. The pain in her arm had already subsided, and despite the raw lines of the burn, her hand felt fine. “It didn’t like the symbol.”

“Didn’t like that symbol, or didn’t like any symbol?”

“I don’t know, and I have no inclination to find out. That
hurt
.” Zerafine stretched and rotated her arm at the elbow. “I think I just performed my very first banishment. Wait a minute.”

She breathed deeply and once again opened her heart’s eye. Unlike Genedirou’s banishment, no trace of the knot remained, no loose waving threads, not even barely visible ones. It seemed to have completely vanished.

“It’s gone,” she said. She stood up and dusted off the seat of her robe. “No residual spirit.”

“I can see why Genedirou wouldn’t have gone that route. Painful, huh?”

“Yes. I wouldn’t want to go through that again, even as transitory as the pain is.” She

massaged her arm, then let it fall to her side. “I think—” she began, then stopped.

“You think what?”

She pursed her lips. “Everything that lives has a spirit,” she said. “People, trees, animals, everything.”

“Yes, Zerafine, I took the same classes you did back in Atenar.”

“Shut up and listen. I’m trying to work out how these apparitions could exist in the first place.” She rubbed her chin meditatively. “The knot of threads at the heart of each apparition is attached to something. It’s not an independent spirit the way you and I are. It’s part of something bigger. But if this apparition and the one Genedirou banished come from the same source, that’s pretty damn big.”

Gerrard shook his head. “And it would have to be invisible, too.”

“Maybe not. You know how people talk about Portena like it’s a living thing? Maybe it is.

Maybe all these people living here for all these centuries have given it a life of its own. Not a life exactly, but an independent spirit.”

“Is that even possible?” Gerrard scratched his beard. “It’s kind of a stretch.”

“Well, I’m not attached to the idea. It’s just a theory. But it makes more sense than that there’s a two-mile-long invisible creature sitting on top of the city.”

“Or under it.”

“They have sewers. It would have to be pretty far down.”

Gerrard stretched. “Shall we try to tackle Genedirou with our new information? Assuming

he’s willing to speak to us?”

“Oh, I thought of a plan for that.” Zerafine grinned.

***

“It all depends on whether Genedirou is actually in there.” Zerafine adjusted her hood. They were concealed along one side of the temple, out of sight of the door. Just a few more seconds....

Nacalia skipped down the temple stairs. As instructed, she ignored them and ran to the

fountain to get a drink. About a minute later, Genedirou left the temple and descended the stairs.

When he’d gotten a few feet from the temple, Zerafine and Gerrard emerged and flanked him on both sides.

“
Tokthelos
Genedirou. You’re a hard man to reach,” Zerafine said.

He gave her a sour, disdainful look. “So, you’ll ‘be at the temple in five minutes,’ will you?

I should have guessed you would stoop to trickery.”

“You’ve engaged in a little deception yourself, though, haven’t you?” Zerafine said. He

continued to glare. “Genedirou, we can have this conversation on the street or we can have it in your office. I’ll let you choose.” After another glare that, had it been steel, would have killed her, Genedirou turned and led the way back into the temple.

Once in his office, Genedirou sat behind his desk and moved some papers around in what