all the same, watching his footing on this treacherous ground. He could look
away from that face, or look back again, and a strange peace came on him, facing
this creature who was the centre of all his fears. No more running. No more
evasion. There was a certain security in loss. He stopped, took an easy stance,
there above the flood.
‘What’s the job?’ he asked, as if there had never been an interlude. The light
brightened fitfully, in the witch’s outheld hand.
‘Mor-am,’ she said. A shadow moved from among the pilings to stand by her. Light
fell on a ruined, still-familiar face.
‘0 gods,’ Mradhon heard beside him, Moria lunged and he caught her arm. Hers was
hard and tense; she twisted like a cat, but he held on.
‘Moria,’ her twin said, no longer twin, ‘for Ils’ sake listen -‘
She stopped fighting then. Perhaps it was the face, which was vastly, horribly
changed. Perhaps it was Haught, who moved in the way of her knifehand, making
himself the barrier, too careless of his life. Haught was a madman. And he could
win what no one else could. Moria stood still, still heaving for breath, while
Mor-am stood still at Ischade’s side.
‘See what love is worth,’ Ischade said, smiling without love at all. ‘And
loyalty, of course.’ She walked a pace nearer, on the slanted stones. ‘Mor-am’s
loyalty, now – it’s to himself, his own interests; he knows.’
‘Don’t,’ Mor-am said, with more earnestness than ever Mradhon had heard from the
hardnosed, streetwise seller of his friends; for a moment the face seemed
twisted, the body diminished, then straightened again – a trick of the light,