glistened there. He stepped back. There was a dry rustling, a pushing and
shoving, and something very like a living black blanket of many pieces settled
above the glistening puddle on the cobbles. He backed away and spilled more.
“There’ll be more,” he said. “All you have to do is follow.”
Some ghosts turned away in horror. Most followed, a slow drifting. He dribbled
more of the blood. He had not asked where it came from. These days it was easy
come by.
For Ischade-more than most.
Strat struggled to open his eyes, and when he did there was a whisper in the air
like bees in summer, there was a darkness above him like uncreation. “You
suspect me,” a voice said, like the bees, like the wind out of the dark, “of all
manner of things. I told you: self-interest. Mine is this town. This town is
where I hunt. This wicked, tangled town, this sink into which all wickedness
pours-suits me as it is. I lend my strength to this side and to that. Right now
I lend it to the Ilsigis. But you’ll forget that by morning. You’ll forget that
and remember other things.”
He got his eyes open again. It took all the strength he had. He saw her face in
a way he had never seen it, looked her in the eyes and looked into hell, and
wanted now to shut them, but he had lost that volition.
“I’ve told you what to do,” she said. “Go. Leave, while you can. Get out of
here!”
High on the hill a horn blew, brazen and pealing alarm. The alarm outside the
Unicorn was more mundane and less elegant: a series of old pots battered with
all the strength in a watcher’s arm. Help, ha! Invasion, incursion, mayhem!