The jolt did not knock him entirely unconscious, but it dazed him and left him scarcely able to crawl the little distance into the shadows. It was a while before he had recovered sufficiently to try to walk again, at times losing clear realization of how he had reached a particular place.
He reached the main street. It was deserted. Kurt took to it only as often as he must, finally broke into a run as he saw the door of Osanef. He darted into the friendly shadow of its porch.
No one answered. Light came through the fog indistinctly on the upper hill, a suffused glow from the temple or the Afen. He remembered the festival, and decided even Indras-influenced Osanef might be at the temple.
He took to the street running now, two blocks from Elas and trusting to speed, not daring even the other Indras houses. They had no love of humans; Kta had warned him so.
He was hi the final sprint for Elas’ door before he realized Elas might be watched, would logically be watched unless the Methi’s guards were about. It was too late to stop. He
reached its triangular arch and pounded furiously on the door, not even daring to look over his shoulder.
“Who is there?” Hef’s voice asked faintly.
“Kurt. Let me in. Let me in, Hef.”
.The bolt shot back, the door opened, and Kurt slipped inside and leaned against the closed door, gasping for breath in the sudden warmth and light of Elas.
“Mini,” said Hef. “Lord Kurt, what has happened? Where is Mim?”
“Not-not here?”
“No. We thought at least-whatever had happened-you were together.”
Kurt caught his breath with a choking swallow of air and pushed himself square on his feet. “Call Kta.”
“He is out with Ian t’Ilev and Val t’Ran, searching for you both. Ai, my lord, what can we do? I will call Nym-“. “Tell Nym-tell Nym I have gone to get the Methi’s help. Give me a weapon, anything-”
!]I cannot, my lord, I cannot. My orders forbid-”
Kurt swore and jerked the door open again, ran for the street and the Afen gate.
When he reached the Afen wall, the great gates were closed and the wall-street that led to the temple compound was crowded with Sufaki, drunken, most of them. Kurt leaned on the bars and shouted for the guards to hear him and open them, but his voice was lost in the noise of the crowds, with all Sufak Nephane gathered into that square down the street and spilling over into the wall-street. Some, drunker than the rest, began also to shake at the bars of the gates to try to raise the guards. If there were any on duty to hear, they ignored the uproar.
Kurt caught his breath, exhausted, far from help of Kta or Djan. Then he remembered the other gate, the sally port in the far end of the wall where it touched Haichema-tleke and opened onto the temple square. That would be the one for them to guard, that nearest the temple. They might hear him there, and open.
He raced along the wall, jostling Sufaki in his exhausted weaving and stumbling. A few drunk ones laughed and caught at his clothing. Others cursed him, trying to bar his way.
A cry began to go up, resentment for his presence. Jafikn-wearing Sufaki barred his path, turned him. Someone struck him from the side, nearly throwing him to the pavement.
He ran, but they would not let him escape the square, blocking his way out, t’Tefur’s men, armed with blades.
Authority, he thought, sensible authority would not let this happen. He broke to one side, racing for the temple steps, sending shrieking women and cursing men crowding out of his way.
Hands reached to stop him. He tore past them almost all the way to the very top of the long temple steps before enough of them seized him to hold him.
“Bias* doing!” a hysterical voice shrieked from below. “Kill the human!”
Kurt struggled around to see who had shouted, looked down on a sea of alien faces in the torchlight and the haze of thin mist. “Where is Shan t’Tefur?” Kurt screamed back at them. “Where has he taken my wife?”