night!'
Thasha ran as she had not run since fleeing the constable, the leather pouch under her arm. All the bright life of Etherhorde-laughing boys in a fountain, old men throwing knackerballs on a close-trimmed lawn, a sourdough heat from the baker's door, Nunekkam flutes in the shadows like whistlers in a cave-all this she barely noticed despite two years of longing for it. Suddenly the evening made a horrid kind of sense. They meant to send her back! Thasha knew it had never happened before: the Accateo did not grant leaves of absence. It had to be her father. Only he could be influential enough to challenge seven centuries of rust-rigid practice.
Eberzam Isiq was a retired admiral, commander of not just a ship but a whole fleet that had swept down the Chereste Coast five years ago, from Ulsprit to a place called Ormael. What was it all about? Killing pirates, some said. Killing rebels, traitors to the Imperium, said others. Her father had just chuckled and said it was a matter of opinion.
But everyone seemed to agree that it had been a mighty victory, and that her father was the hero of the campaign. At banquets, fat dukes and generals pressed their wine-sour lips to Thasha's cheek. Such an elegant girl! Eberzam has the Gods' own luck! They said her father would make Prefect of Etherhorde one day, or perhaps governor of one of the greater Arquali territories. It made little difference to Thasha. All she knew was that her father had come back wounded-struck in the head by a fragment of cannonball-and that his illness began shortly thereafter.
He was better now, or so the letters from Syrarys claimed (Eberzam himself had written just twice, on her birthdays). But an ambassadorship? That meant sailing beyond the Empire, didn't it? And why send an old warrior across oceans to speak for Arqual?
Obeying a sudden impulse, Thasha crossed the road, climbed a low fence and dropped into Gallows Park. It was darker under the park's old oaks and conifers, but it would save her five blocks. She ran downhill, barely glancing at the famous wishing-well (some girl was always crying there, ostentatiously), or the melted iron lump that was a monument to the Heroic Blacksmiths, or the glowing webs of the torch spiders luring moths into the trees. At last she reached the Ool, flanked here by a ruined wall left over from days when bandits still dared to cross the river into Etherhorde. A few fishermen crouched among the gloomy stones. Otherwise the park looked deserted.
If it was her father who wrote to the Lorg, Thasha decided, it was Syrarys who put the pen in his hand. Every year they were together her influence over the admiral grew. And although she had never spoken of it, Thasha was all but convinced that Syrarys was behind the decision to send her away in the first place.
How long had they told the Sisters she would be gone? A month? A week?
I'll change his mind, she thought. I have to, I-
'Pah! Too easy!'
An arm caught her broadside across the chest. From the corner of her eye she saw a tall man step through a gap in the ruined wall. The arm that had stopped her slid to her throat and jerked her toward the gap.
No time to think. Thasha drove an elbow into the man's side, twisted out from under his arm and flung herself backward and away. Her fists were raised to strike him again. But she was off-balance, winded by his first blow. Some root or stone caught her heel, and she fell.
Instantly the man was on her. A knee pinned her legs to the ground. A dagger! In the fastest act of her life Thasha flailed at the blade as the man stabbed downward. But she was not fast enough. It was over, and she'd barely felt it. The knife was buried to the hilt in her chest.
'Dead,' said the man. 'Dead for a five-penny sweet.'
One shock chased another: she was still breathing, she felt no pain, she appeared unharmed. Strangest of all, the face of her attacker belonged to a friend.
'Hercуl! You monster!'
'You are quick,' said the man, 'and stronger than I recall. But carelessness trumps both speed and muscle. It is one thing to scurry through a park at night, another to do so with your mind in a fog.'
'I was so anxious to get home.'
The man's eyebrows rose. 'If you dare make excuses to me.'
'No excuses. I'm sorry, Hercуl, I failed. May I get up now?'
The man lifted a hilt without a blade from her chest, then rose and helped her to her feet. He was a slender, elfin-eyed man in middle years, with unruly hair and somewhat threadbare clothes. Now that he was no longer attacking her he assumed a cordial air, folding his hands behind his back and smiling fondly. Thasha looked at her chest: bits of a glittering something clung to her blouse.
'Sugar knife,' said Hercуl. 'A very popular candy. Boys across the city play with those foul things, more's the pity.'
'I never thought my first fight would be with you.'
'Be glad it was.'
Hercуl Stanapeth was her old dance instructor, from the days before the Lorg. But Thasha had learned (from certain military cousins) that he also taught fighting-that he was, in fact, from Tholjassa, where princes the world over sent for bodyguards. The cousins whispered of great deeds at arms, long ago, but Hercуl would not speak of his past. He also refused to give her fighting lessons, until she began paying bullies in the street for black eyes and bloody noses. She did not fool him with this tactic, but she did convince him of her desire to learn. His price: strictest secrecy, even from her father. If there was no law against training girls to hit and kick and use knives, it was merely because such an outrage had not occurred to anyone.
'Let us be off,' he said. 'Even I do not linger here after dark.'
They set off along the Ool. Bats skimmed low over the water, feasting on flies. In the south the countless stars that made up the Milk Tree were starting to wink above the hills.
'My letters reached you?' Thasha asked.
Hercуl nodded. 'I commend your decision, Thasha. The Lorg is an abomination. And of course I am happy to see you myself. What's that you're carrying?'
Thasha handed him the leather pouch, now slightly muddied. 'It's just an old Merchant's Polylex. The Mother Prohibitor just gave it to me. She told me a strange story from it as well, about a girl called Erithusmй and her Nilstone.'
'She spoke to you of the Nilstone!' said Hercуl sharply. 'I dare say you won't find mention of that in the Polylex.'
'The Mother Prohibitor said I would,' said Thasha. 'But don't worry, I know the book can't be trusted. And this one's the thirteenth edition, so it's completely out of date.'
Hercуl's hand froze. 'You mean of course the fourteenth edition. Or the twelfth?'
Thasha shook her head. 'The thirteenth. I saw the title page, before the Mother Prohibitor tore it out. Why she did that I can't imagine-she said it was one of the most valuable books in the school.'
'The most valuable, I should think. And the most dangerous. Put it away.' He handed it back to her.
They walked on, Hercуl frowning slightly. At last he spoke again.
'You're right, of course. A normal Polylex is a hotchpotch: the work of brilliant explorers and charlatans, geniuses and frauds, all bound together in a single volume. The newest version, for instance, declares quite seriously that Tholjassans cannot be harmed by Tholja stingrays. Trust me, we can.
'But the thirteenth Polylex is an entirely different matter. Each book is written by the Ocean Explorers' Guild, which is an ancient club of sailors and businessmen here in Etherhorde. His Supremacy the Emperor is their honorary president, and approves each new Polylex before it is sold. No one took the book seriously until a century ago, when the thirteenth Polylex was written. Its editor was a man named Pazel Doldur. He was the brightest historian of his time-and the first in his family ever to go to school. They were poor folk: his father and elder brother joined the army because no one starved in uniform. Both were killed in mountain campaigns. Afterward his heartbroken mother sent Doldur to the university, on 'gold the Emperor pays to widows and mothers,' she claimed. As I say, he was brilliant, and studied hard. But his mother soon grew ill and died. It was only decades later, when he was starting work on the Polylex, that Doldur learned she had given her body to lords and princes in the Emperor's court, night after night, in exchange for his school money. Her disease came from one of those men.'
'How perfectly ghastly!'
Hercуl nodded. 'Doldur lost his mind with guilt. But he devised a brilliant revenge. It took many years, but he
