sockets.
'Don't you hear?' the man demanded.
Bryck barely lifted his face from the circle of his coat collar. 'What do you want?' he asked, voice pitched softly. He didn't recognize the man.
'I want to know what's become of your
It occurred to Bryck then that this might merely be someone mad, mistaking him for some bygone acquaintance who had wronged him and unable to realize he had the wrong individual, even now, when they were this close to each other.
'I made you no promises.' Bryck turned. He would simply and quietly go back the way he'd come.
But the man seized his shoulders and spun him back. He had some strength to him. 'Now you make your lies worse! Haven't you a shred of honesty?' His coat appeared to be loosening at every seam, and it was generously stained.
There were just enough people in the street by now for this commotion to be drawing attention. It was the last thing Bryck needed. He wrenched his shoulders out of the man's grasp.
'You are mistaking me,' he said, enunciating it clearly, concisely, hoping against all reason that this would penetrate.
The man's eyes went a bit wilder. 'In the tavern...'
Despite himself, Bryck asked, 'What tavern?'
'Those beautiful, beautiful words. In the tavern. The songs. Then... then your words. About rebellion. About people rising against the Felk in Windal. Godsdamnit.
The man had heard him some night, when Bryck had been going from tavern to tavern throughout Callah, posing as a troubadour and spreading the gossip about an uprising that hadn't occurred (at least to his knowledge) and a rebel underground here in Callah that didn't exist (or hadn't at the time).
Bryck looked beyond the man, saw watching eyes in the street. None of them belonged to a Felk soldier, but one might come by at any moment.
He had to end this. Now.
Bryck edged once more toward the litter-strewn alcove. The man grabbed for him a second time. Bryck side-stepped, drew him farther within the fetid recess.
'You'll pay for your lies,' the man said. His teeth showed. His hands rose, fingers spread and claw-like. He lunged, this time catching Bryck's coat as he tried again to dodge. Bryck's heel slid in something damp, and he found himself suddenly tipping backward. He clutched the man's tattered merchant's coat and pulled him down as well.
They crashed together among the refuse, a board splintering across Bryck's back. He had pivoted so that the man's weight didn't come down entirely on top of him, and also so that his elbow struck the man's chest with a good thump.
Bryck turned farther, throwing off the body, scrabbling for the broken length of wood. His searching hands snatched it up. He spun around on one knee, raised the board and swung it.
It broke into two even smaller segments, this time across the man's temple. It had been a powerful blow; but unlike that time he had killed the Felk garrison soldier, he knew that this wasn't a fatal strike. The man slumped down heavily in the garbage, but his chest was still rising and falling. Bryck had knocked him unconscious.
He came back out onto the street, brushing hurriedly at his clothing and hiding his face down in his coat's collar once again. He met no one's eyes and, thankfully, heard no one else hail him as he made for the Broken Circle's refuge. Whatever else, this early morning outing had taught him that staying put was the wiser course.
It had been a jolly household in which he'd spent his childhood, his young impressionable years wrapped in a fondly remembered familial warmth. He recalled with a distinct immediacy, even now, songs sung around the great dining table, his mother's lilting laughter, his father's wit and ribald dash with a vox-mellifluous.
Good days. They were, Bryck realized, the foundation stones on which his own character had been built. He had chosen laughter over tears, humor over sarcasm, a jolly disposition over a sour one. These choices had served him well; and when he eventually found himself wed and with a family of his own making, he had done all he could to impart these same gifts to his children.
Of course, it had helped that as a wealthy noble and successful playwright he could also provide comforts and luxuries beyond the grasp of most people.
As an outgoing gregarious individual, Bryck had felt free to indulge his appetites for life. Sometimes these were in mild excess. Sometimes he gambled a bit too much or drank an inordinate amount. But these were simply expressions of his basic character and a desire to live to his fullest.
Despite his propensities, however, he had never performed in one of his own works. While he was perfectly at ease entertaining friends at a celebration or comrades at a tavern, the notion of reciting words before an audience and acting out some spectacle was, frankly, terrifying. He couldn't imagine how the actors did it, night after night.
But it didn't matter now, none of it. The extrovert was dead. As dead as U'delph, the city where Bryck had been all those things—husband, father, playwright, noble. He retained only one facet of his original character. He was still able to work his very minor feats of magic, an innate ability.
'I still don't understand. Why're we doing this? You said this dye won't poison the water. It wouldn't even change the taste.'
This undertaking, Bryck supposed, was a sort of magic. Not the mystical breed. More the obvious magic of turning whimsy into believable fiction.
He regarded the adolescent girl. A frown creased a very adult line between her brows. Tyber had finally made her wash, scrubbing the scabs from her fingers and the lice from her hair. She looked fairly presentable now. She also, unfortunately, looked too much like recruitment age.
'We don't want to poison the water, Gelshiri,' he said. 'We have to drink the water, too.'
'But who's going to want to drink it? Especially when it's
'Just keep going with that thought. You'll figure it out in the end.' Bryck didn't say it condescendingly, and the girl didn't take it wrong. She was at that age when emotions were their liveliest and their hardest to manage. But she was also a full-fledged member of the Broken Circle, a group of rebels dedicated to the overthrow of the Felk here in Callah.
Gelshiri scampered off—or went as fast as her 'missing' leg would allow. She wore a long coat, with her left leg folded up behind and secured with cord. It had to be quite uncomfortable, but she didn't complain. She worked the crutch they'd found for her like she'd been born to it. When people saw her, they saw someone crippled and ineligible for service in the Felk army.
She had her packets of dye and had memorized her assigned itinerary. Bryck had no doubts she would visit every one of the public cisterns. If she wasn't as bright as she could be, she was certainly single-minded.
Bryck examined the marked map. Callah's reservoirs were indicated. Four other members of the Broken Circle were on similar errands today. It was the first united organized effort for this group, and Bryck was pleasantly surprised how smoothly it had all gone. So far. The results of this operation, of course, were yet to be seen.
Bryck, after his morning adventure, had returned stealthily to these rooms, which were behind a row of metal- and woodworking shops. During the day there was a steady clangor and also the seeping heat of furnaces, which Bryck enjoyed. Winter in this northerly state, no doubt, would be quite harsh. He didn't know if he would still be in Callah then. His work might not yet be done. Also he had to wonder where he would go from here.
The rooms weren't too squalid. They certainly weren't worse than the cheap lodgings he'd taken when he first arrived in the city. Still, this was a step up from that dilapidated and deserted warehouse where they had been holed up. Bryck had relocated the group here. As enticingly clandestine as that warehouse had appeared, he had deemed it better that they base themselves somewhere where they could come and go without drawing notice. This was a busy district. Despite the shortages pressing on Callah and an announcement of new severe taxes, these craft workers remained active.
