him, as if anyone could. Then he wondered where he’d go as he stepped out into
the Green Zone streets and saw torches flaring Mazeward-tiny at this distance,
but a warning that there was trouble in the lower quarter of the town.
Niko didn’t want to mix in any of Sanctuary’s internecine disputes, to be
recruited by any side-even Strat’s- or even know specifics of who was right and
wrong. Probably everyone was equally culpable and innocent; wars had a way of
blotting out absolutes; and civil wars, or wars of liberation, were the worst.
He wandered better streets, his hand upon his scabbard, until he came to an
intersection where a corner estate had an open gate and, beyond, a beggar was
crouched. A beggar this far uptown was unlikely.
Niko was just about to turn away, reminding himself that he was no longer
policing Sanctuary as a Stepson on covert business, but here on his own
recognizance, when he heard a voice he thought he knew.
“Seh,” said a shadow separating itself out from shadows across from where the
beggar sat. The curse was Nisi; the voice was, too.
He stepped closer and the shadows became two, and they were arguing as they came
abreast of the beggar, who stood right up and demanded where they’d been so
long.
“He’s drunk, can’t you see?” said the first voice and Niko’s gift gave him a
different kind of light to place the face and find the name he’d known long
since.
The first speaker was a Nisi renegade named Vis, a man who owed Niko at least
one favor, and might know the answer to the question Niko most wanted to ask: