Sandry almost goggled, but caught herself in time it was unladylike. Instead she returned the curtsy. Yazmin Hebet was the most famous dancer around the Pebbled Sea, where the troupes she belonged to had toured for years. Because she danced in public festivals as well as in the castles of the rich, she was popular with all classes of people. Everyone talked of the great Yazmin, from the clothes she wore to the men she was supposed to be in involved with.
"This is an honor," Sandry told her. To Lark she said reproachfully, "I didn't know you were friends with the
Yazmin smiled. She was pretty, with a tiny nose, large brown eyes, and a small, pointed chin. A mole on one smooth cheek accented a broad mouth with a full lower lip. She wore her tumbled mass of brown hair pinned up, with artful curls left to frame her face. When she spoke, her voice squeaked a little, as if she'd spent years raising it. "I'm honored," she told Sandry. "Larks told me so much about you. She says you're the only mage she's ever known who can spin magic."
Sandry blushed. "It was spin magic or die, the first time I tried it," she explained. "I was just lucky I figured out how in time. Please, sit down. What can I do for you?"
"Lark says you have a student who's a dance-mage," replied Yazmнn, arranging her skirts as she sat. "He needs a teacher?"
Sandry looked from Lark to Yazmнn. Was help for Pasco in sight? "You know a dance-mage?" she asked.
"I've never even
Sandry told herself she should have known she hadn't gotten that lucky. "Then you can recommend a teacher for his dancing? I'll pay his fees," she assured Yazmнn. "I can't teach him myself—I know very few dances, and I'm not any good at them."
Yazmнn folded her hands in her lap. They were covered with designs in henna, Sandry noticed, and henna had been used to put red tones in the dancer's hair. She painted her face, too, using kohl to line her eyes and a red coloring on her mouth.
"Actually, I hoped to teach him myself," Yazmнn explained. "You see, I retired this year. I've been a traveling dancer for—,"
"Twenty-three years," murmured Lark.
Yazmнn wrinkled her nose. "You had to remind me.
"I think you're the answer to my prayers." replied Sandry with relief. "The longer I know him, the more of a handful he is."
"Tell me," Yazmнn ordered.
Sandry did, starting with what she had seen on the beach of the fishing village only two short mornings ago, and going straight on through the foul-up that had set three people hanging in midair. She had finished de scribing her conversation with Pasco's formidable mother at the end of her visit to House Acalon when the door opened and the duke came in.
"My dear, I heard Dedicate Lark was with you and came to say hello," Vedris explained as they all got to their feet.
Lark bowed slightly—temple dedicates were not expected to show great courtesies to nobility. "It's
Yazmin curtsied deeply, so graceful that Sandry was envious: while she could curtsy well, she was always afraid her knees might creak. When the dancer rose, she offered a hand. The duke bowed and kissed it, then released her. "I am a very great admirer of yours," he confessed. "I've seen you dance on many occasions."
Yazmнn smiled at him. "I have seen your grace at quite a few of my local performances," she remarked. "I'm honored that I was able to entertain you."
"Shall I have the pleasure of seeing you perform this winter?" asked the duke. "I have been considering opening this place up and entertaining a bit, if Sandry would like to be my hostess."
"Yazmнn was just saying that she has retired. Uncle," Sandry pointed out.
"Oh, well, I don't plan to give it all up," protested Yazm н n. "Certainly
Sandry explained as Lark and Yazmнn added details. The duke had a few suggestions for spells they could try in dances, in part because he had seen much more of Yazmнn's repertoire than had Sandry, and in part be cause he had dealt with mages all his life. Twice Yazmнn made him laugh, something that Sandry observed with interest.
When the maid who'd directed Sandry to the room came with a tray of refreshments, she took one look at the gathering and disappeared again. She came back with all that would be needed to serve four instead of three. Once she had set out the food and filled their cups, she left the room. She soon, returned, plainly unhappy, curtsied to the duke, and said, "My apologies, your grace, but that mage my lady provost keeps has been, worriting the footmen—,"
"If you'd just told his grace I was here, I wouldn't have 'worrited' anyone, would I?" inquired Wulfric Snaptrap, coming in on the girls heels. "I told you I needed his grace and my lady right away." His sharp eyes swept the room and returned to Lark. "Though actually I wouldn't mind getting Dedicate Lark's opinion, either. It's news that should go back to the temple in any case."
Yazmнn got to her feet. "Perhaps I should go," she said politely. "My lady, you and your boy can stop by my school whenever you like."
"I see no reason for you to leave, if we may be assured of your discretion," said the duke. "Unless you have pressing errands elsewhere?"
Yazmнn resumed her seat. "None, your grace. You have my word that nothing said here will ever be repeated by me," She touched an index finger to her lips and kissed it in promise of silence. The duke smiled.
Sandry raised her eyebrows. Was
needs
Soon the maid had returned with another tray and a glass for the provost's mage. Once she was gone, Wulfric looked at the duke and said, "I experimented with the magic Lady Sandrilene took off your Guardsmen. We've a problem and a half. The half is dragonsalt. The mage who cast that dark magic is an addict."
"How do you know that?" Sandry asked, fascinated.
Wulfric smiled. "At Lightsbridge, where harrier-mages train, they teach all manner of spells to detect things. I've only performed the dragonsalt cantrip twice before, but I'd a hunch it might work."
"Wulfric," the duke said, quietly amused, "if we may continue with your report? You and my niece may talk of magical practice another time."
"My report. Oh, right." Wulfric buttered a scone. "Well, if our mage is a dragonsalt addict, it could be his supplier is in Summersea. My lady provost has the street Guards looking for a 'salt peddler. My guess is, whoever brought the mage brought the drug. The locals won't sell it, not with your grace's penalties."
"Dragonsalt is the most vile drug brewed. I won't have it here," the duke said firmly. "You claim a problem and a half, Wulfric. If dragonsalt is the half, what is the whole?"
"We've a mage who deals in—," Wulfric hesitated. "Unmagic' is the best term. Its—nothingness."
"The absence of all else—of light, magic, existence," Lark said, her eyes troubled. "You're certain, Master Snap trap?"
“I've been at this for thirty years, Dedicate," Wulfric informed her tardy. "I'm not likely to mistake something that marked."
"My apologies," replied Lark. "It's just so rare…"
"You never mentioned it," remarked Sandry, puzzled. "None of you mentioned it to us." She meant herself and her three friends.
"There was no reason to," Lark replied. "None of you showed the least aptitude for it, Mila and Green Man be praised. Unmagic is so rare we never thought you'd encounter it."
"It's a blight as much as magic," Wulfric muttered.
"What can you do with it?" Sandry asked.
"Murder people in plain view, it would seem," remarked the duke, grim-faced. "Walk past human guards and protective spells with no one to suspect you're there."
"People also use it to collapse distances and walk between places, if they can bear it," Lark added. "One man who jumped from Lightsbridge to Nidra through unmagic lay in a fever for a year, raving. Later he wrote that his senses all went dead; he was trapped inside his own mind."
"Can you find who's using it, now that you know what it is? inquired Yazmнn. "If no one minds my asking," she added when they all looked at her.
"It's not that simple," Wulfric replied.
Lark nodded. "It's an
* * *
They were getting clever, Alzena thought as she watched the house on Tapestry Lane. It was the home of Fariji Rokat, one of the Rokat House clerks. In their inspection the previous night, she and Nurhar had sensed watchers. Two large beggars dozed near the corner of Yanjing Street, in a neighborhood where servants quickly sent riffraff on their way. The maids who opened the doors and shutters on the houses facing Rokats were very muscular. They didn't look like civilians at all, but like guards out of uniform. Archers patroled the rooftops along the street. A trip through Cod Alley behind the house showed gardeners and menservants who played dominoes with hands that were blue-knuckled and callused from fighting.
It was to be expected after the first two murders. Alzena and Nurhar had provided for it. This Rokat's protectors were no more imaginative than the Rokat guards in Bihan and Janaal had been.
They had not thought to put more than one disguised guard in front of the stable on Cod Alley that served the Tapestry Lane houses. They had not thought that Nurhar could pass the guard unseen, to leave a small keg of the very flammable jelly called battlefire in the hayloft.
They had not thought that the bunch of rough types—draymen, coal carriers, and the like—that came roistering down Tapestry Lane now, after a night of spending Nurhur's coin in a nearby wineshop, might have an argument not far from Rokat's house. Hiring the rough folk had been the trickiest part, unless watched they would drink up their fee before they were needed. Nurhar had stayed with them until half an hour ago, doling out coins one at a time, buying food to make sure a few heads would be clear enough to remember their orders,
Alzena stepped onto a window ledge on Rokat's neighbors house. Her target's roof was less than a story below. Scouting the areas around some of the less wealthy Rokats' homes had been a task she and Nurhar had done before they went near Jamar. This location had been the best; they had saved it for when Duke Vedris decided to give protection to the Rokat scum. Before dawn Alzena had. walked across roofs; to get here, unseen and unsuspected, by the 'archers, and had entered her current place: through the rooftop door. The house's occupants were up and around, but Alzena ignored them. Her sanctuary was their unused nursery. No one had entered it yet that morning, which saved her the trouble of killing them. From here it was a, four-foot leap to her target's flat roof.
The roughs were a hundred yards away, lurching closer' as they argued.
Peering through the slit in the spells that hid her, Alzena saw a cloud of smoke rise behind the houses. Nurhar's fire arrows had set the Cod Alley stable roof ablaze.
The roughs were fifty yards
Here came the supposed beggars to watch, maybe to interfere. Now all of the roughs were punching, kicking, wrestling. One of the beggars moved in and went flying. A manservant ran out of a house and dove into the fight, as did the second beggar.
Alzena grinned. Now the other false servants would watch their comrades in the fray—not Rokat's house, or anything that took place three stories overhead.
Hot air patted her; a flat boom sounded from the alley. The keg of battlefire in the burning stable had caught and exploded. Bells pealed and horns called, summoning everyone to fight the blaze. The archers on top of Rokat's house ran to the back of the fiat roof.
Alzena checked her rope to make sure it was properly anchored, then jumped out and across from her window to her target. She landed with a thud that went unheard in the fire alarms' racket. Off with the rope. Walking cat-footed, Alzena reached the door to the house, and eased herself inside. The archers, watching the fire as it tried to jump from the stable to the neighboring buildings, never looked behind, them.
Two guards in the garret below had gone to stare out of the tiny dormer window at the fire. Alzena was past them and down the stairs, into the house proper, with no one the wiser.