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him to his bath and his anticipations . . . which were for the first time
since he was twelve outlandish and hopeful and full of delicious
dreams . . .
Til he heard the front gate squeak and, with thoughts of returning
husbands or ogres or Shalpa only knew what sort of interruption in this
lovenest, hastily dressed in what the lady had provided.
Crit trod the garden path most warily, with an eye to the front door.
He was sure the vampire knew he was there. He had his hand on his
sword for all the good it would do, tramping through the weeds, under
dead trees, up the rickety steps.
The door opened as he had thought it would, since he had been un-
blasted by magics getting this far; it opened the instant he trod on the last
step, and she came out wrapped in black and glaring at him with the
warmth of an adder.
"What do you want?" she asked. "Am I not through with Stepsons?"
He kept his hand on his hilt, like a religious talisman. He said, "Evi-
dently you aren't through with my partner. I'm here to ask you to leave
him alone."
He was not a man who found asking easy, and all but impossible when
it sounded like empty-handed begging because he had no negotiating
points and there was not a damned thing he could do to the bitch, not a
damned thing he could do to save his life if she took a notion to do to him
what she had done to Strat, and so many, many others.
In point of fact he knew he was a fool to come here, but he had gone in
under fire for Strat before, and more to the point, Strat had gone in for
him; at times he had wanted to beat Strat senseless for his foolishness
once he had even done it; and once he had thought he had a chance of
shaking Strat back to sense. But Sanctuary had dealt hard with them
both, as it dealt with everyone who came here. It was a sink that drank
down lives. And Strat's seemed to be the price it wanted.
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So he came here, unarmed as witches and wizards reckoned such
things, and looked up at the witch, and said the only thing he could say:
"Let him go.'*
510 STEALERS' SKY
Ischade held her door in her hands, a shadow against the lamplight
slanting past her and reflecting off the boards. She said, "I have, Crit."
"The hell!" He came up that last step onto the porch, where he tow-
ered over her. "Stop playing games'"
"I assure you." She left the door standing half-open and came closer,
holding her cloak about her, black velvet about bare shoulders, a whisper
of silk, a waft of musk. He was sure she was naked under it some other
tryst, some other damned soul. "Leave! Now!"
"Name your price. A favor. A disappearance. I'm not particular. You
want some pretty boy, dammit, 1*11 buy you one, just leave my partner
alone."
The shapely chin set, eyes hooded like a snake's. "What about you,
Crit?"
He glanced away quickly, but not quickly enough.
"Look at me," she said, and he had to, knowing it was a slide over the
brink, knowing there was no way out. Her hell-burned eyes had no bot-
tom, except Hell itself, and there was no looking away. But he could still
want to be off the porch, down the walk, and out the gate, that was the
bad part he could still want escape.
"Bargain?" he said. When he had begun to deal with her, maybe he
had known that. Maybe that was why he had ditched Strat and come
here, stupid as it was, because he was out of answers, and he finally cared
about something again, and hated his helplessness.
"Get out of here," she said, and shoved him without laying a hand on
him. "Get out of here, dammit!"
He caught his balance at the bottom of the steps, he caught his breath
there, staring up at cold rejection of himself, his offers, his stupid hope of
weaseling himself and Strat both out of this situation a hope of escape
for both of them ... in a day that Ranke was falling and they were
posted here behind the lines, no use, no future, no damn use to anyone
including themselves. Strat could not leave this city. Take him out by
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force and he would escape and ride back to it, that was how bad it was
and he had known that, had not objected overmuch when Tempus had
left them here in command of the rear guard.
He had hoped to solve this cure Strat and get him away from this
woman.
"Out!" she said, and that voice went through brain and bone.
He heard the door slam before he got to the gate.
He had thought about killing her but that thought had completely
fled him when he stood in front of her. His hand had been on his sword
WINDS OF FORTUNE
511
all the time, for all the foolish good it had been: he had not even been able
to think of it in that context when he had been close enough.
He flung open the low iron gate, heard it clang shut behind him.
"Ma'am," the boy said tentatively, with his knife in hand
With a thief's knife, a gentleman's clothes; and a staunch resolve on a
fresh-scrubbed face. "M'lady?"
Ischade gazed at this chivalry in the light and the heat of the candles,
heat so intense it made sweat run, light that blinded and blazed white
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