back deep in the safe shadow, in the dark. “Niko, wake up, wake up, for the
gods’ sake. Niko-“
A breeze stirred from off the meadow, loosening more leaves, which turned yellow
and tumbled and lay like a carpet, covering the stream.
Then the water began to move, reversed its former course and flowed out of the
meadow into the forest, moving sluggishly at first, sweeping the leaves on in a
golden sheet. Then the current gathered force and swept all the leaves away as
he hastened into the dark.
A red thread had begun to run through the water, a curling wisp of blood that
ran the clear depths and grew to an arm-thick skein.
Janni ran and ran, breaking branches and stumbling over falling branches and the
slickness of the dying leaves.
“Ischade!”
Strat ran the stairs and nearly took the fragile bannister post down as he spun
round it on his way to the bedroom. He hit the doorframe with his arm as he
fetched up in it and stopped still at the sight of the figures in the tumbled
bed, the dark and the light entangled.
He stood with his mouth open, with the words choking him. And then waded forward
in a blind rage and grabbed the man by the shoulders with both his hands, hurled
him over and confronted a face he had seen before in this house.
“Strat!” Ischade shouted at him. It had the grotesquerie of comedy, himself, the
shocked uptown lord, the woman’s shout in his ears. He had never looked to be
made a fool of, dealt with the way she and Haught had dealt with him, made a
partner to her rutting with another man-who for one moment hung shocked in his