barely under way, they had already started. This night’s work was her pleasure
and his profit. When they reached his modest east-side estate, she showed him
the portion of what she had done to the First Hazard which he would like best
and most probably survive, if his heart was strong. For her service, she
demanded a Rankan soldat’s worth of black krrf, before the act. When he had paid
her, and watched her melt it with water over a flame, cool it, and bring it to
him on the bed, her fingers stirring the viscous liquid, he was glad he had not
argued about her price, or about her practice of always charging one.
2
Wizard weather blew in off the sea later that night, as quickly as one of the
Sanctuary whores could blow a client a kiss, or a pair of Stepsons disperse an
unruly crowd. Everyone in the suddenly mist-enshrouded streets of the Maze ran
for cover; adepts huddled under beds with their best warding spells wrapped
tighter than blankets around shivering shoulders; east-siders bade their jesters
perform and their musicians play louder; dogs howled; cats yowled; horses
screamed in the palace stables and tried to batter their stallboards down.
Some unlucky ones did not make it to safety before a dry thunder roared and
lightning flashed and in the streets, the mist began to glitter, thicken, chill.
It rolled headhigh along byway and alley, claws of ice scrabbling at shuttered
windows, barred doors. Where it found life, it shredded bodies, lacerating
limbs, stealing away warmth and souls and leaving only flayed carcasses frozen