flowed down from his nose and around the comer of his mouth where the stick was
set between his jaws. Jihan looked puzzled and Randal stood there breathing in
great gasps with the sweat standing on his white face and his hands all black
and red, his lips drawn back in a grimace of pain and doubt.
Cloth whispered. Molin glanced aside in his distress and saw Ischade move and
rise on one elbow and the opposing hand. Her dark hair hid her face. She looked
up then, toward Niko, and that face was drawn and grim.
Tempus stirred and shoved himself up off the floor. His jaw clenched and knotted
as he looked into Niko’s face; while Jihan carefully pulled the stick from
between Niko’s jaws and closed his mouth, down which a ribbon of blood still
poured.
“He’s alive,” Ischade said. Her voice was ragged and hoarse. “He’s free of her.”
“But not of it,” Tempus snarled, “dammit, not of it-“
“Let it alone!” Ischade shouted. Her voice broke. She reached out a forbidding
hand and straightened the other arm, supporting herself. “It’s not loose. Yet.
Don’t meddle with it. It’s not something you can handle. Or that I can. I don’t
make that kind of bargain.”
“Do it!”
“No!” She got herself up on her knees and staggered to her feet. “He’s got Janni
still. And Janni on that ground is power enough to keep him till he wakes. She’s
still loose, do you hear me? Roxane’s still free, and she’s pacted with that
thing. She’s somewhere, and your meddling in that Place can only make it worse:
she’s still got ties there. She doesn’t want that gate open any more than we do: