to you. You want my help, I’ll give it to you.”
“What kind of trap is it?” It was an ingenuous question. He meant it to be. The
whole affair, Kama, the shot from the roof, had ceased to trouble him acutely,
had become part of the ennui that surrounded him, everywhere, in every
inconsequential move he made, every damned, foredoomed, futile move he made
since She had turned her back on him and decided to play bitter games with him.
Haught had given him the ring; Haught had made a move which might be Her move,
gods knew, gods knew what she was up to. The whole world seemed dark and
confused. And this man, this distant, small voice, wanted to hold onto his arm
and argue with him, which was all right as far as it went: he had a little
patience left, while it asked nothing more complicated than it did. “Whose
orders, Crit?”
“I’m on my own. I’ll go with you. Easier than following you. I’ll do that, you
know. I’ve been doing it.”
“You’ve been pretty good.”
“You want the company?”
“No,” he said, and shrugged the hand off. “I’ve got places to go, rounds to
make. Stay off my track. I’d hate for somebody to put a knife into you. And it
could happen.”
“But not to you.”
“Not so likely.”
“You hunting that Nisi bastard?”
It was more complicated than that. Ischade was involved. It was all too
complicated to answer. “Among others,” he said. “Just stay off my track. Hear?”
He walked on out the door.
The bow thunked at his back, the air whispered by him and the quarrel stood
buried in a single crash in the stout railing just ahead of him. He stopped dead