"Siveda of the White Star preserve us," said Pelaya quietly. Her own name had become a horrid jest-the ocean was now the city's worst enemy. "Three Brothers preserve us. Zoria and all Heaven preserve us." So many ships filled the strait that surely the gods themselves, looking down, would not be able to see water between them. "May Heaven save us."

"Amen, child," said Olin Eddon in a stunned whisper. "If Heaven is still watching."

The streets were full of murmuring crowds as Daikonas Vo reached his rooming house, a dilapidated place near the Theogonian Gate, just inside the city's ancient walls and just beneath the ramshackle hillside cemetery which had once been the estate of a wealthy family. The narrow street was not in the least fashionable now, but that didn't bother Vo, and in all other ways a house full of transients suited him excellently.

Most of the people seemed to be heading for the nearest Trigonate tem¬ple or across the city toward Three Brothers and the citadel. When he had passed through Fountain Square on his way back from the stronghold, hun¬dreds of citizens had already gathered outside the citadel gates, staring anx¬iously at the lightening sky as though the clamor of bells would be explained by heaven itself.

Many of them had guessed the cause of the alarm, and shouts and curses directed toward the Autarch of Xis were mixed with some harsh words about their own so-called protector, Ludis Drakava.

Vo, of course, was pleased. He had thought the invasion still months away, and had been creating and examining plan after plan for smuggling the girl out of the city. He had experienced a few bad moments when she seemed to attract the attention of one of the noble prisoners in the citadel, Olin Eddon, the king of Southmarch, but to Vo's relief whatever flash of interest had provoked the northerner seemed to have died away. He had been aghast at the idea that the Marchlander might plan to make the girl his mistress: nothing would make his task harder than having to smuggle her out of

Drakava's own palace under the noses of Drakava's own guards. But instead, she was still in Kossope House and still unprotected as far as he could tell.

He would be able to sneak her out of Hierosol now in the confusion of the autarch's attack. Easier still, if the triumph of the invaders was quick, he would be able to walk out of the city with Autarch Sulepis' safe-conduct in his hand and approach the Living God-on-Earth in high honor, to hand over the prisoner and receive his reward-and, he hoped, to have the nox¬ious thing inside him removed. Daikonas Vo was not so naive as to feel cer¬tain that would happen-after all, why should the autarch take him off the leash precisely when he had proved helpful? But the Golden One was no¬toriously whimsical, so perhaps if Vo pleased him he would do just as he had promised.

Just now, Daikonas Vo couldn't imagine needing more from life than to serve a powerful patron like autarch Sulepis, but he was no fool: he could imagine a time might come when he might wish to be free from this liv¬ing god. Vo decided that if the autarch didn't immediately remove the in¬vader from inside his body, he should find his own way to loose himself from his master's fatal control, just to be on the safe side,

He reached the inn by the Theogonian Gate. Most of the patrons seemed to be out, summoned from their flea-infested beds even earlier than usual by the clamoring bells. He made his way up the rickety stairway and into his room, which was empty now. He climbed under the reeking blan¬ket and listened to the sound of a city woken to war. Everything would change. Death would lay a skeletal hand on thousands of lives. Destruction would reshape everything around him. And Vo would move through it as he always did, stronger, faster, smarter than the others, a creature that lived comfortably in disaster and thrived on chaos.

It was exciting, really, to think about what was to come. He closed his eyes and listened to his blood rushing and buzzing in sympathy with the vibration of the bells.

30

The Tanglewife

Soshem the Trickster, her cousin, came to Suya and gave her a philter to make her sleep so he could steal her away fir himself in the

confusion of the gods' contending. But when he carried her away, the stinging grit of the sandstorm woke her and she fled from him, becoming lost in the storm, and his dishonest plan was defeated.

— from The Revelations qf Nushash, Book One

AT TINWRIGHT STOOD FOR A LONG TIME in the muddy, rain-spattered street, surprised at his own timidity. It — wasn't going back to the Quiller's Mint that made him fret so, or even having to deal with Brigid, although he certainly hadn't forgot her cuffing him silly the last time he'd seen her. No, it was the line he was about to cross that frightened him. Elan M'Cory, sister of the wife of the Duke of Summer-field-who was he to have anything to do with her at all, let alone to meddle in this most profound and dreadful of decisions?

Courage, man, he thought. Think of Zosim, stepping forth to save Zona her¬self, the daughter of the king of heaven! Tinwright had been considering the god of poets and drunkards quite a bit-he was thinking of making him the narrator of the poem Hendon Tolly had demanded. Zosim had acted bravely, and he was but a small god.

God? He had to laugh, standing in the street with cold rain dribbling from his hat brim and running down his neck. And what of me? Me wasn't even much of a man, according to most. He was just a poet.

Siill, he thought to himself, if we do not reach, as my father used to say, our hands will always he empty. Of course, Kearn Tinwright had likely been talk¬ing about reaching for his next drink.

"Look what the wind has blown in." A sour smile twisted Brigid's month. "Did they run out of room up at the castle? Or did you leave some¬thing behind the last time you were here?"

"Where's Conary?"

"Down in the cellar trying to kill rats with a toasting-fork the last I heard, but that was hours ago. He never bothers to tell me anything-just like you." Even the false smile disappeared. "Oh, but of course, you don't remember me, do you? You were telling your wrinkled old friend just that while he stared at my tits as if he'd never seen anything like them."

At this time of the morning there were only two or three other patrons nodding in the dim lamplight-all flouting the royal licensing laws, which said that no one might visit a tavern until an hour before noon. Tinwright suspected it was because they had all slept on the straw floor and only re¬cently woken up. Conary, the proprietor, must be getting slack not to have noticed them, but it was fearfully dark in the place with the window shut¬tered against the winter chill and the fire not yet built up again.

Tinwright stared at Brigid, who had gone back to gathering tankards from beneath the stained benches. He was about to make an excuse for his last visit-for a moment a multitude of explanations swarmed in his head, although none of them seemed entirely convincing-but then, and some¬what to his own surprise, he shrugged his shoulders. "I'm sorry, Brigid. That was a shabby thing to say, about not remembering your name. But don't blame Puzzle for staring-you are something fine to look at, after all."

She looked hard at him, but her hand stole up and brushed a curl of her dark hair away from her face, as if she remembered all the sweet words he had whispered to her only the previous spring. "Don't try to honey-talk me, Matty Tinwright. What do you want? You do want something, don't you?" Still, she seemed less angry. Perhaps there was something to be said for a simple, truthful apology. Tinwright wasn't certain he wanted to make a regular practice of it, though. It would take up a lot of his time.