“Yes, his bloody message!”

“He said your bag is very heavy, and any carpenter in Tirlin would be proud to carry it for you some day. Are we walking up and down hills, mistress? Because it feels that way.”

Meralda frowned. “My bag isn’t that heavy…”

Meralda paused to let a trio of carpenters pass. One smiled at her and winked, and for an instant his face was Donchen’s.

“Actually, I could use some help,” she said aloud.

“I’d be honored,” said the man. His face was now Tirlish, his clothes stained and sweaty, his brown hair filled with sawdust. “Where are you heading, milady?”

“Just down the walk,” said Meralda. “Thank you for helping.”

Donchen hefted the bag across his shoulder. “Think nothing of it,” he said. His fingers flew in a series of small gestures. “We can speak, for a bit. You were followed here, Mage. I believe he meant you harm.”

Meralda smiled, as though discussing the sunshine. “What stopped him, then?”

“Three very determined wizards with a bagful of horrors. Your friends have been quite effective, Mage. The Vonats are beginning to distrust their co-conspirators. And each other. Remind me to avoid playing your card games with any of them.”

Meralda nodded. “And you? What have you been up to, sir?”

“Oh, idling in beer halls, gambling at dice, napping.”

“I doubt that.”

Donchen grinned. “We’re nearly there. You’re bound for your laboratory?”

“Yes. More work to do.”

“I’ll bring supper. Until then, be wary. I fear Nam’s mischief was merely delayed.”

“I have a bit of horror in my bag as well,” said Meralda. “But I thank you for your concern.”

Donchen smiled and nodded. “I’ll be close all the way to the palace,” he said. The Wizard’s Walk ended, leaving Meralda and Donchen to weave their way through the crowd to the curb, where Angis waited atop his buggy.

“Mug was right,” said Donchen, as he handed the sheet-covered bird cage to Meralda. “It is a nice red ribbon.”

And then he was gone, lost in the noisy crowd.

Mug feigned snores until the park was well behind them.

Tervis dozed in his seat. Angis and Kervis sang atop the cab, laughing at each other’s missed notes. Meralda pulled the ribbon from her hair and shoved it down in her bag and fumed as the carriage made its way slowly toward the palace.

Mug remained silent, though Meralda did catch a glimpse of a small brown eye peeking up at her from beneath the bed sheet’s edge.

The carriage rolled to a halt. Meralda leaned out of her window and saw that traffic up and down the street was at a standstill. In the distance, she heard whistles blow.

“Looks like a pair of fools have gotten their harnesses tangled up ahead, ma’am,” shouted Angis. “We might be here for a bit.”

Tervis stirred, rubbed his eyes, and reached suddenly for his sword.

Meralda’s door was flung open. Sunlight rushed in.

Time slowed to a crawl.

Tervis shouted. Whether a warning or his brother’s name or hers, Meralda couldn’t say.

Someone tossed a bundle of dirty rope through the open door. Meralda kicked at it, slid away from it, and tried to open the cab’s other door.

The handle wouldn’t budge. As Meralda struggled to open it, something struck the door hard from the outside. A length of thick dirty rope fell through the open cab window and looped itself over Meralda’s right shoulder.

The rope stank of oil and soot. A remote, perfectly calm corner of Meralda’s mind noted that the oil must have come from the dirigible docks, and that the stains would never come out of her blouse.

Tervis grabbed the rope with one hand and tried to draw his sword with the other. The cab was too confined to let his blade clear the scabbard. Tervis twisted and pulled, but before he could draw he was yanked whole by his ankles from the cab and dragged out the open door.

More stinking rope fell through the cab window. Meralda tried to slide away, but the ropes moved about her, pinning her right arm, wrapping themselves tight about her ankles, coiling and climbing up both her legs.

Mug screamed. A loop of rope coiled and struck like a serpent, smashing Mug’s cage nearly flat.

The ropes holding Meralda flexed and stood, knotting themselves suddenly into a crude simulacrum of a person, with loops of rope for arms, for legs, for trunk, for head.

Meralda managed to get her left hand in her bag before a turn of rope closed about that wrist, too.

Outside the carriage, Tervis screamed and Kervis swore and Angis flailed away at something with his stick. Meralda could see blades rising, men running, and impossible lengths of rope standing and moving and fighting.

Her hand closed about a warm, smooth metal cube as the rope man before her leaned down and slid his open noose of a face over Meralda’s head.

As the rope around her neck began to tighten, Meralda pulled the metal box from her bag and spat out the short harsh word that loosed the spell inside.

There was a flash, the smell of fresh air after a summer thunderstorm, a crack of infant thunder.

The rope man gripping Meralda sagged and dropped to the cab’s floor. The ropes about her arms and legs fell away.

She pulled the rope around her neck over her head, flung it down, and leaped from the cab, Mug’s crumpled, sheet covered birdcage in her hand.

Kervis and Tervis rose from the cobblestones, each covered in tangled ropes, each red-faced and winded. Angis leaped down from his cab, his nose bloody and his eyes wild.

Mug moaned softly beneath his bed sheet. Meralda grabbed Tervis and dragged him toward the sidewalk, where a frightened crowd gathered.

“Move away!” shouted Meralda. “They’ll be getting back up any moment now. Move! Run!” She lifted the icy cold cube and held it high. “Magic! Run!”

The crowd scattered. Meralda dragged Tervis as far as she could, then waved to Angis and Kervis to follow.

“Go!” she shouted. “Indoors! Hurry!”

Angis mopped blood with a handkerchief and spat. “Not without you, Mage.” He’d lost his stick, but he bent and pulled a short plain knife from his right boot. “I’m too old to run, anyway.”

“Ma’am, they’re moving,” said Kervis, lifting his sword. “What do we do?”

Run like I told you, thought Meralda.

But they won’t. They’ll stand here and try to fight a hundred feet of mooring ropes with swords and kitchen knives.

She put Mug’s cage behind her, searched Milhop’s Irresistible Void for any hint of remaining capacity, and then let it fall to the street.

Filled. Impossibly so, but filled nonetheless. Useless.

The ropes stirred, coiling and shifting, animated again by some dark, foreign spell.

Whistles blew, down the way, and horns answered. The guard will be here in moments, Meralda thought.

A rope man rose. And another.

But the guard will be too late.

Tervis and Kervis moved to stand on either side of Meralda, blades level and ready, faces frozen in identical masks of grim determination. Angis cussed and bled and spat, shifting from boot to boot as if deciding on a dance.

The rope men stood. There were five, then six, then seven.

“It’s you they want, Mage,” said Angis. “Take to your heels. We’ll hold them here.”

Meralda dropped her bag. She held her arms out beside her, hands open and empty, and as the rope men advanced she called upon her Sight.

Instantly, a pair of flitting shadows descended, darting and swooping, just out of her reach.

“What oath would you speak to us, imperiled mage?”

“No oaths,” said Meralda, aloud. The steady scratch-slide of ropes dragged across cobblestones grew louder. “No vows. You help me, or you don’t. The choice is yours.”

“No oath?” said one.

“No vow?” said another.

“Many would pledge their lives.”

“Many would offer their souls.”