But the wizard didn’t hear or didn’t understand. “I’ll find the god who has cursed me and broken my skill and offer blood to appease him, until I’m strong again-strong enough to break your secret and seize the magic that pervades this city!”
Another voice called suddenly from the entrance. “It’s always good to have dreams.” Dayrne recognized it immediately and turned to shout a warning. All he managed to do was fall. Daphne didn’t spare him a glance. “Have a long one in your death sleep.” Her dagger flashed across the space.
The wizard cried out and bounced against the wall, clutching his shoulder. When he straightened. Daphne’s blade protruded near his collar bone. A wet stain blossomed rapidly on his dark garment. Still, he managed to lift his own daggers and slam the points together and breathe his Word of Power.
Dayme thought his heart would burst. From the comer of his eye he saw Daphne double over as she stepped across the threshold with drawn sword. The weapon tumbled from her gripBut then, impossibly, she began to laugh. She straightened, threw back her head and let the mirth flow from her lips. She looked around for her sword, but as she bent to retrieve it she tripped on her own foot and fell, only to clamber up again laughing.
Dayrne felt it, too- The hand that squeezed his heart began, instead, to tickle it. His pain turned slowly into renewed energy. Strength flooded his limbs. He chuckled. Then, uncontrollably, he laughed. He looked at the bodies suspended on the walls, at the prostitute bound to the cross, at the astonished expression on the wizard’s face.
It was all so funny!
The wizard smashed his daggers together, cursing, and stamped his foot. With a bellow he struck them once more. The blades shattered under the impact, and the pieces fell at his feet. His face paled, and his mouth gaped. Then, gathering his robes about him, he raced from the room and into the tunnel.
Daphne shot out a foot as if to trip him, but he was already gone. She rolled kittenlike onto her back, clutched her stomach and howled.
Moments passed before the twisted spell dissolved. Dayme got to his feet, wiping spittle from his chin. He sheathed his sword and turned to help the princess.
But Daphne rose on her own. “If you breathe a word of this,” she threatened, red-faced, “I’ll wear your mouth for a garter.”
“Just see to that one,” he snapped, pointing to the prostitute on the altar. “Later we’ll talk about your following me. I told you this was personal business.”
She put a hand on his chest before he could pass her. “You’re my business,” she answered stubbornly, her gaze hard and glittering. “Good trainers are rare.”
He regarded her for an instant, then remembered the wizard. “We’ll talk,” he said, and he ran into the tunnel.
The echo of fleeing footsteps sounded from the direction of the Promise. Dayrne sped after, drawing his blade once again. He quickly passed the final lamp and plunged ahead. The darkness, though, forced him to slow. He put a hand to the wall and hurried as rapidly as he dared, cursing under his breath.
The wizard’s footsteps faded. Had he reached the tunnel’s end at the shrine of Us? If he had emerged, Dayme knew he might never find him.
His answer came as he spied the shaft of moonlight that lanced the blackness. But strange sounds wafted through the opening, swelling as he approached-shouts and curses, high, frantic voices:
Dayrne raced toward the moonlight. It had to be the prostitutes! He took the steps two at a time and ascended into open air.
The women of the Promise surrounded the wizard in a wide ring. He spun in confusion, weakling brandishing Daphne’s dagger. It gleamed wetly with his blood. The whores, too, waved daggers, the small weapons they wore in their garters. Still, they didn’t know their foe’s power!
Dayme tried to warn them. “Asphodel!”
At his shout, the wizard whirled. Their eyes met for an instant. Hatred and anger burned in that furious gaze, and Dayme felt a force reach out for him.
The prostitutes saw their chance. They fell on the wizard, hacking and stabbing with their tiny blades. Arms rose and plunged with frantic outrage and swiftly blackened with the blood of their stalker.
Dayme could only stare as the wizard sank under the onslaught. The women did not stop. They stabbed and stabbed, giving release to all the rage and terror they had lived with the past nights. Then, Asphodel stepped back gasping and wide-eyed, her white dress a stained ruin. Dayme went slowly to her side.
“Who was he?” she asked, barely able to speak as she trembled.
She might have been a spectre that haunted the park the way she looked. Dayme wiped a smear of blood from her cheek and patted back the hair that had fallen around her face. “He came from Carronne,” he finally answered. “I never learned his name.”
Asphodel sighed and looked over her shoulder. The whores stood away from their grisly work. Pieces of the corpse lay hacked and scattered around their feet. The women stared from one to the other with expressions that betrayed confusion in some, fury and vindication in others. One by one they drifted back into the bushes. From somewhere in the foliage came the sound of weeping.
“I guess it doesn’t matter,” Asphodel said. “One of my ladies found this opening, and we waited to see who came out. I knew it had something to do with my missing ones.” She sighed again and peered into the tunnel’s gloom. “They’re dead, aren’t they, Tiana and all the rest?”
He nodded quietly. “All but the one he took tonight. She’s still alive, though somewhat battered.”
Daphne chose that moment to emerge from the opening with the prostitute slung over her shoulder. She dumped her burden unceremoniously in the grass.
Dayrne frowned and knelt beside the woman. “He didn’t hit her that hard. She should have come around by now,”
Daphne spat. “She did. Then, she took a good look at-” the one-time princess, hesitated, looked at Asphodel, and spoke more softly. “She saw her friends and realized how close she’d come to joining them.” Daphne shrugged and cocked her head to one side. “She fainted.”
Asphodel glanced from Dayme to Daphne and back again. She realized who the princess had meant, and that the younger woman had tried to spare her some horror. Her old eyes misted over, but she blinked back any tears-
“Some of my brothers will bring them up in the morning,” Dayme said gently. “There’s no need for you to see them the way they are.”
“They’re family,” Asphodel answered. She held up her dagger. With a look of disgust she flung it aside and wiped her hand on her dress. “I’ll be here to help.”
Dayme started to protest, but Daphne touched his sleeve. “It’s her decision,” she told him. “You know, personal business.” Then, with her usual tact, she pointed to the wizard’s remains. “Besides, they don’t look any worse than that.”
Asphodel walked to the corpse and stared at it for a long moment. Daphne went with her, bent down and retrieved her dagger from the ground near the wizard’s hand. “It’s Chenaya’s,” she informed Dayme. “She’d be pissed if Host it.” Then, she turned away and vanished into the park.
Alone, the old whore turned to Dayrne and touched his arm. “Thank you,” she said.
“For what?” he answered with a shake of his head. “I didn’t do anything.”
It was almost true. With all the blood spilled this night, his was the only clean blade in the park.
Daphne scandalized the palace by arriving, not in a gown, but in an outfit borrowed from Chenaya’s closets. She looked as beautiful and deadly, all in soft black leather, gleaming with buckles and ringlets and weapons. Her night-black hair flowed over her shoulders. Pride stiffened her spine; she lifted her chin high as she strode into the Hall of Justice.
Two seats had been placed upon the dais. Kadakithis and Shupansea sat there side by side, looking down upon her. Molin Torchholder stood beside the Beysa, Walegrin by his prince. It was the audience she’d requested and no one else. Her husband simply had no sense of theatrics. But then, he had no sense, period.
She looked up and met his stare as she stopped at the lowest step. His jaw gaped in astonishment. It was the acknowledgment she had sworn to get from him-and it tasted sweet indeed.
“Second thoughts, my husband?” She rested one hand on her hip, taunting him.
His hands fluttered. “You look-” he bit his lip and cast a sidewise glance at Shu-sea. The sentence hung unfinished. The Beysa at that instant looked less like a carp, more like a shark protecting her catch.