The price of victory- - Thieves World 13 (91 page)

Lalo glared at him. The boy was unnatural. Lalo was the one who should have been making the careful explanations, complaining about hotheaded youth when his apprentice protested as his own master used to do. But it was only a fluke of fate that had made the mageling his student at all.

"You're wasting your time, Darios. Why don't you go back to the Mageguild? Now that things have settled down, they're trying to rebuild the school," Lalo exclaimed. It was not yet noon, but the day was hot already. He could feel perspiration adhering his thin tunic to his skin like one of Cholly's glues. "What in the name of Us do you think you can leam from me?"

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"The things that no one at the Mageguild knows." Darios combed his fingers through his curly black beard. Young as he was, it flowed across his chest like a master's. Gilla's feeding had filled him out. He took refuge sometimes in a dignity that gave him the air of a much older man.

"You can kick me out, but no one can force me to go back there. Even in the old days wizards like Enas Yorl and Ischade could go their own ways, and now Markmor is back, and there are half a dozen other inde pendent operators trying to hide the fact that there's precious little of the old magic left in this town."

"Well, if my magic has survived because it's different," Lalo said tri umphantly, "why are you trying to change me?"

"Because magic draws magic," Darios replied. "You've got it, and you can't get rid of it—wouldn't if you could—" The dark eyes lifted, and Lalo grimaced, remembering the days when he had thought both mortal and magical sight lost. He knew better now. Even if fate should blind him again, he could see in the Otherworld.

"Randal tried once to recruit you, and as things calm down, others will be after you—others who fear you and want to get you out of the way. Or who want to use you, as Molin Torchholder is using your paintings of

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Sanctuary's past to shape the future. Don't you wonder about some of those symbols he's having you put in? Here's the key to them—" He tapped the diagram. "I'm just trying to help, you know. Molin or Randal or anyone else with knowledge can use you as you use your own paints until you learn!"

Lalo covered his eyes. His head still hurt sometimes since the concus sion that had temporarily blinded him. There was a pounding in his temples now—if he was going to have the headaches, he might as well start drinking again!

"The second plane," said Darios implacably, "is the sphere of the moon. It governs all things fluid, both the ocean and the astral sea. A good source of symbols for operations involving the Beysib, wouldn't you

say?"

This afternoon, thought Lalo, Darios is going to practice drawing until

his fingers wear away!

They had reached the fourth sphere when the sound of feminine laugh ter from the kitchen broke Darios's concentration.

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"I doubt I'll remember even what we've done so far—" said Lalo, taking pity on him. He could hear Gilla and their oldest son, Wedemir, but neither of the other two voices sounded like the girl with whom both Wedemir and Darios were in love. Darios can't hear the difference, he realized. Maybe I do know a few useful things after all. He opened the

door.

A wave of chypre scent tantalized his nostrils even before he saw the two women who were eating Gilla's Enlibar orange nut cake at the new kitchen table. Gowns of sheerest gauze struck a compromise between Sanctuary's minimal demands for decency and the unseasonable heat. They were a strange sight in Gilla's kitchen, brightened though it was by the burnished copper pots and bunches of peppers that hung from the beams.

Parasols of painted silk leaned against the whitewashed wall. One of the women had a tumble of garnet curls dressed high through a circlet of pearls. The intricately knotted dark braids of the other seemed dusted with gold. It was only when she turned to face him that the sophisticated veneer vanished and he saw the bright spirit within, as he had seen it once through garish face paint and the pinched face of poverty.

"Valira! You're looking well!"

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Darios, following him through the door, stopped short, staring.

"Joia and Valira are from the Aphrodisia House," said Gilla, sup pressing a smile. "Ladies, this is Darios, my husband's apprentice."

"He's wearing a mage-robe—" said the second girl. Her voice was strained.

"He used to study at the Guild," explained Gilla. The girl looked up then and Lalo recoiled, seeing the naked face of fear.

"Sabellia be praised. Perhaps they can help me!"

Darios sent Lalo a glance in which panic and professional interest warred. The limner found himself relaxing. Magic might still frighten him, but mere physical beauty had no power over him now. Wedemir leaned back in his chair and grinned at the mageling's discomfort.

"Have another slice of cake," said Gilla. "You girls worry about your figures too much to eat properly, but troubles are best faced with a full belly. We'll get some real food into you as soon as the sausages are done."

Valira set down her teacup and laughed. "I remember—you used to feed half the neighborhood when I was a child."
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"It's not food I need, but sleep!" said Joia.

Lalo cleared his throat. "Neither of which I can help you with. So just what is wrong?" Joia wiped away tears without smudging her eye paint and began to tell her tale.

"And Joia is not the only one," said Valira when they had finished.

"Doree has been having nightmares too, and some of the others. Well, after the past few years there's hardly a one of us who hasn't lost some one she cared for. We're supposed to be professional, but when a man has been kind to you, it's hard."

"I wanted Aglon alive! Why is his ghost trying to kill me?"

"His ghost, or is it something else, taking that form?" asked Darios.

"A demon lover?" Wedemir laughed. "At the Aphrodisia House?" He sobered as Valira glared at him. "Sorry, lass—but you have to admit—"

*T hope Aglon's ghost comes to the barracks to haunt you!" Joia ex claimed. "You were his friend!"

"Aglon—" said Gilla into the strained silence. "The name sounds fa miliar. Did we ever meet him, dear?"
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"He was one of the lads who helped me dig out Darios," Wedemir said bitterly. "Got knifed in a little cleanup action Downwind a few days ago."

"He was a lovely boy when he was alive—" sniffed Joia. "Always gentle with me; he used to give me things—"

Lalo sighed. "I understand your sorrow, but what can I do? If you want an exorcism, perhaps Darios—"

"Oh, I'm just a pleasure-giri, a hysterical bit of fluff! Of course you don't believe me!" Joia began to cry in earnest now and Wedemir gal lantly offered her his military scarf when her wisp of a handkerchief failed. She accepted it with an automatic flutter of her lashes, but Lalo did not think she really saw.

"I have been certificated as an exorcist by the Mageguild," said Darios

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stiffly. "I would be willing to conduct a purification of your chambers tomorrow if you desire."

Joia opened her eyes at the polysyllables and Valira's lips twitched.

"Well, Joia, at least he is taking you seriously," the older girl replied.
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"Why don't we let him try?"

"Now on this panel," said Molin Torchholder, "I want you to paint a design of crossed swords and spears on the border of Lady Daphne's gown."

"Hakiem didn't mention that detail," said Lalo, looking from the de sign he had already roughed in on the plaster to the drawing again. He pulled his straw hat forward to shade his eyes. It was another in the string of very hot days that had been baking Sanctuary, and sunlight blazed back from the white wall with a painful glare. He supposed that he should be grateful he was not working on the new walls outside the city, as had been at first proposed. It was the newly resurfaced wall around the palace that Torchholder had decided should display Lalo's skill.

"Hakiem isn't paying you," said the priest. He stepped back from the wall, and the servant who held the broad parasol moved with him. That was a good idea, thought Lalo. They had already put up hoardings to protect the unfinished work from curious eyes. Maybe he could get a portable canvas sunshade as well. Torchholder turned. "I was there too, remember. Are you doubting me?"

The limner frowned. He had sketched from the storyteller's descrip tions without thinking, and as Hakiem spoke he had seen, as if the images
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were flowing directly from the old man's memory through his fingers onto the page. Those scenes had felt right. What Lord Torchholder was telling him now did not. And this was not the first time.

The picture of Prince Kadakithis's first entrance into the city showed a rising sun haloing him with gold. But the prince had actually arrived through the north gate. Along with most of the rest of the population, Lalo had been there to see him ride in. He had made the change in the picture, but it had rubbed him the wrong way-Like this. Now he began to wonder about the devices he had been told to paint on the parade shields of the prince's guards. Unimportant details, he had thought them, but what if they were something more? He shivered a little despite the heat of the sun. Danos's warnings were beginning to make more sense to him now.

"If I'm going to make a change in the design, I want to know what it means—"

"What it means?19 Torchholder stared at him. "Why should it have to mean something?"

"In that case, I think it would be more aesthetic to give her gown a pattern of eagles with outstretched wings. In gold, since she comes of noble kin."

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The priest's gaze sharpened. "Limner, you presume! You are only a tool in my hand, and you will do as I say!"

"No." Lalo held out his paintbrush, then laid it down. "This is a tool. It has no choice but to do my will-But though you can put me down and hire another painter, you cannot force me to work for you. And there is no other artist in Sanctuary who can do what you really hired me for, is there, Torchholder? There is no one else in the Empire, perhaps in the world ..."

The silence stretched out between them. Beyond the hoardings he could hear a beggar cursing two soldiers with demon-haunted sleep as they ordered him to move on, the whining song of the water seller, a distant scream—all the normal sounds of a Sanctuary summer day. Fi nally the priest grimaced and looked away.

"Don't argue with me, limner," he said. "Don't meddle with things you don't understand."

Lalo started home down the Wideway as dusk began to shade the streets and the sea breeze lent a welcome coolness to the air. In the end he had agreed to paint the gown as Torchholder had ordered it—for now. It had occurred to the limner that Gilla was a crony of Glisselrand, and the prima donna of Feltheryn's company seemed to be on good terms
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with the people at Land's End. If he wanted to know what Daphne had really worn that day, he could ask. But the priest had a point. Even Darios must agree that there was no use in standing up for a principle he did not understand.

He felt exhausted. He wondered how Darios's day had gone—Lalo's lips twitched as he visualized his apprentice trying to maintain his dignity in the Aphrodisia House. He would have to keep a straight face tonight when he asked him how the exorcism had gone.

"Lalo . . ." The croak of a call came from close behind him.

Lalo stopped short in the street, then whirled, hand going to the hilt of his dagger as someone stumbled into him.

"Cappen Varra!" Lalo stared. "Where in Shalpa's name have you sprung from? It's been years!"

"You recognized me!" The minstrel straightened, pushing back the hood of the extremely tattered cloak that covered disreputable breeches and a tunic scarcely less worn.

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"Of course—" the limner began, then flushed, realizing which kind of sight he had been using, for such a getup was inconceivable garb for the
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dapper musician he had known. Only the battered harp case was the same. "But this is no place to stand talking. You look thirsty, man, and here's the Unicorn—let me buy you some beer!"

"I'm not going to tell you where I've been," said the harper when they were settled in a back booth with two big tankards of brew. It was early yet for the Unicorn; except for two guardsmen they had the place to themselves, and a slatternly girl was still wiping down the bar.

"You don't want to know, and I don't want to remember. Not sure it's safe to tell you anyway." For a moment the minstrel's fingers closed over the silver amulet at his neck and his gaze went inward. "All I'll say is that when I walked through the gates this place really did look like a sanctuary."

Lalo stared. "Well, it's true that things here have finally settled down. Trade's reviving, too."