Chapter Fifteen

"There's no way," Pavek muttered, shaking his head. Still in the templar quarter, on a street not far from House Escrissar, he huddled with Ruari and Yohan, Akashia slumped against his side, barely able to stand, oblivious to him and everything else. Yohan had carried her down the side of House Escrissar; the dwarf would carry her forever if he had to, but he couldn't carry her out of the city, at least not the way they'd entered it: the passage was too narrow, too low, with too many tight corners.

"She's got to walk on her own."

Neither Ruari nor Yohan answered, there being no reply to the obvious. He steadied Akashia with his hands on her shoulders, then stepped back. She tottered once from side to side, then her knees gave out completely, and she would have fallen if he hadn't gotten his arm around her quickly.

"What's wrong with her?" Ruari demanded.

"You're the druid. You tell me," he replied, sharper than necessary, sharper than he'd intended.

His nerves were raw. They'd had no trouble-yet-other than the obvious problems Akashia herself had given them, and Yohan had wrestled successfully with those-so far. He didn't trust luck, not at times like this.

The quarter echoed with the clang of brazen gongs, but: those were only domestic gongs summoning household members home from their evening activities before the great city curfew gong struck at midnight. House Escrissar itself remained dark and quiet, unaware, it seemed, that a woman lay dead on an upper-room floor and the prisoner she'd guarded was missing.

For all Pavek had a dozen worries about Akashia, it was Dovanne's face that loomed behind his eyes: her face twisted with mortal pain and hate the instant before she died, and her face as it had been years ago. He told himself he had no regrets, that Dovanne certainly wouldn't let his dying eyes haunt her, if events had gone the other way. They'd had no choice tonight or ever, either of them.

But he still couldn't get that look out of his mind.

"I said: I'm no healer!" Ruari's hand struck his arm, demanding attention. "Wind and fire, Pavek, you're not listening. What's wrong with you?"

He truly hadn't heard the words the first time Ruari must have said them, but something in the words-or tone-of the repetition penetrated Akashia's mindless daze. She whimpered and buried her face against his neck, but when he put his other arm around her, she stiffened, then began to tremble.

His own helplessness in the face of Akashia's need drove Dovanne at last from his consciousness, replaced her death-mask with a black mask and talons. He'd come back. Escrissar would answer for what he'd done.

But first they had to get Akashia out of Urik. "Pavek!"

"Think fast," Yohan suggested. "Curfew's going to ring soon. Inside or out, we can't be here when it does. Don't suppose you had any friends who might do you a favor? A woman, maybe?"

Dovanne returned, hard and angry, and remained with him until he shook his head so vigorously that Akashia's trembling intensified, and she clutched his shirt in fists so cold he could feel the chill through the coarse cloth. Telhami could heal her, he was certain of that, but getting her to Telhami wasn't going to be easy.

He saw no other choice except to go to ground for the night and hope that sleep and food-which they could buy in the morning market-would restore her enough to make the rest of the journey possible.

But go to ground where? The places of his life: the orphanage, the barracks, the archives, and even the customhouse paraded themselves before his mind's eye. Of those, the customhouse, with its myriad maze of storerooms, might be a last-chance refuge-a very last chance.

There was Joat's Den, near the customhouse, where he'd done his after-hours eating and drinking, but Joat wasn't a friend to his customers, and the Den stayed open well past curfew. Besides, there was a reason he'd spent his off-time at Joat's: they couldn't go there without being seen by the very templars whose attention they were determined to avoid.

There was one other place, filled with such mixed memories that he'd forgotten it entirely, even though it was where he'd spent his last night in Urik: Zvain's bolt-hole beneath Gold Street, near Yaramuke fountain. Considering his leave-taking, Zvain was likely to be less a friend now than Joat, but he would take them in-if only because with Yohan and Ruari beside him, they would be three against one.

And maybe tomorrow he could complete the circle by taking Zvain out of Urik with them. There were four kanks; they could do it

"Now, Pavek. Now!"

"All right. I've... thought of a place. We'll be safe there."

Yohan took Akashia in his arms and lifted her to his shoulder. "Where? How far?"

"A bolt-hole under Gold Street." He started walking. "Belongs to an orphan I knew-" He was going to say more, then reconsidered. "He'll take us in, that's all."

Three disparate men marching through the streets with a human woman draped over a dwarf's shoulder wasn't uncommon in a city where marriage was frequently a matter of slavery or abduction. They drew a few stares, but the people who stared were hurrying home, even here in the templar quarter, and not inclined to ask any questions.

They had an anxious moment at the gate between the templar quarter and the rest of the city, but apparently no respectable household had reported a missing young woman. Pavek's explanation that his sister had run off with the wrong man-along with a hasty shower of silver from Yohan's coin poucti-saw them into the next quarter of artisans and shopkeepers with nothing more than a warning to be off the streets by curfew.

The alley where the Gold Street catacomb began had taken a beating in the most recent Tyr-storm. Most of the debris had been scavenged clean, but larger chunks of masonry covered the cistern that, in turn, had covered the catacomb entrance.

Pavek swallowed panic-he hadn't considered what the storm might have done to Zvain's bolt-hole; hadn't, he realized gazing on this small disaster, truly considered what might have happened to Zvain, either. But the catacomb would have survived-the bakery attached to the alley made more money renting space dug out from its cellar than it made from its ovens, and Zvain... Zvain had managed before he'd arrived-he'd have survived his leaving as well.

Pavek glanced around quickly and spotted another cistern. It proved empty and fastened to a slate slab. He had them underground before anyone else realized things weren't quite the way he'd expected them to be.

By night the catacomb was as dark as the Dragon's heart They stumbled into each other, the walls, and the occasional door. There were dozens of people living here, all aware that strangers walked among them. Whispers and warnings disturbed the still air, but no one interfered. Still, Pavek stifled a relieved sigh when he finally felt the familiar wickerwork patterns beneath his fingers.

"Zvain?"

Nothing. He waited and whispered the name again.

Still nothing.

The bolt-hole might belong to someone else entirely; Zvain might have found a better place to live-he certainly hoped that was the case, but it was equally likely the boy's luck had gone bad rather than better.

It didn't matter. The curfew gong would clang any moment now. There was no place else for them to go. Pavek drew his sword-Dovanne's sword; and a loud, unmistakable sound in the darkness-then, squeezing the latch-handle from habit more than hope, put his weight against the flimsy door.

The latch-bolt hadn't been thrown; the door swung wide into a quiet, apparently empty room.

The bolt-hole was musty with the smells food made if it dried out before it completely rotted. Food... or bodies.