aren’t dead. Ex-partners that aren’t ex…. Very confusing-“
“We know, we know,” soothed the priest with wicked eyes. “We’re here to help you
sort it out. Come with us and-“
“Who’s we?” Niko wanted to know, but two of Molin’s cohort already had him by
the armpits. They lifted the only mildly protesting fighter up and eased him out
the door to where a carriage with ivory screens was waiting and, after some
little difficulty, boosted him inside and closed the door.
Niko, who’d been abducted more than once in his life, expected the carriage to
jerk and horses to lunge and to be carried off into the night. He also expected
to fight being bound hand and foot. And he expected to be alone in there, after
that, or at least alone but for the company of guards.
None of his expectations came to pass. Before him, on the other side of the
carriage, were two children, one on either side of a harried looking woman who
might once have been beautiful and whom Niko, who liked women, vaguely recalled:
a temple dancer. The two children were hardly more than babes, but one of them,
the fair-haired, sat right up and clapped his little hands.
And the sound of those hands clapping rang in Niko’s ears like the thunder of
the god Vashanka, like the Storm God’s own lightning that seemed to issue from
the childish mouth as the boy began to giggle in joy.
Niko sat back, slouched against the opposite corner of the wagon, and said,
“What the … ?”
And though the child was now just a child again, another, deeper voice, rang in