The street ahead began to rise for a long ridge ran along the western side of Souterm, anchored on its southern end by a looming castle of gray stone and on the north by a tall white cathedral to some Ennead God or another, with ordered blocks of buildings in between. Edgewise took a street to the right before the one they were on mounted the ridge proper, and continued north on the plank sidewalks on the right-hand side. The left side, at the foot of the ridge, had stone walks and gutters above the cobbled street, and the brick buildings there had a sort of uniformity not matched by the various materials and styles of those Edgewise and Nesha-tari had been passing. It was the sort of detail Nesha-tari had never noticed before in a city, though she had of course never been in one until a couple of months ago. She wondered if there was a reason for it and considered calling out to Edgewise now several strides ahead of her. When she looked at the goblin she almost failed to recognize him.
This street was lined with quiet houses shut-up tight while their owners were out at midday, and as the block was empty Edgewise was no longer gamboling. The goblin strode ahead on straight legs and feet, hands thrust into jacket pockets, and with a stream of pipe smoke drifting back over one shoulder, which Nesha-tari could smell as a sweet and woody tang. For some reason the change in the goblin’s whole aspect startled her. Nesha- tari remembered where she was, and where she was going, and she did not enjoy the rest of the walk.
Nesha-tari had doubted from the first whether she, of all her Master’s servants, was best suited for the task she had been given. She did not doubt her own ability to ultimately accomplish it, but the fact that it meant leaving the Desolation for this noisome world was a constant trial. Though she had managed to control herself so far, Nesha-tari was learning that her power to control others, what her Mother had with a toothy grin called her Charm, operated whether she wanted it to or not. Thus far it had been more of an inconvenience than anything else.
Nesha-tari had hired the Far Westerners to accompany her before leaving Ayzantu City, and they had already proven to have been a good choice. As a woman Amatesu was outside of Nesha-tari’s influence, and the strength she had immediately sensed in Uriako Shikashe had allowed the samurai to maintain his own self-control. His will was as rock. The only problem was that the Westerners’ lack of spoken Zantish necessitated the presence of a translator. The first man had been a local merchant also hired in Ayzantu and he had not been up to snuff, though admittedly Nesha-tari had erred by not remaining sequestered in her cabin aboard ship from the Ayzantine capital to besieged Larbonne. Her presence on the decks of the first ship had in time worked perniciously on both the weak-willed merchant and the crew. That had led to a bloody fight among the men, and caused the delay in Larbonne to find new transportation, and the new translator. Nesha-tari had every intention of keeping away from the man Zebulon Baj Nif as much as possible, for it would surely be even harder to find someone speaking both Zantish and Codian hereafter.
That of course assumed that Nesha-tari would still be alive to continue on her task in another few hours, which to her mind was far from certain. While she was confident she could fulfill her Master’s purpose if she could get to where she had to go, the fact that her only viable route there led through Codian Souterm was patently ridiculous. Not because of the Codians themselves, for their bureaucracy was easily defeated by official paperwork, and if the girl Wizard at customs was a fair example then the Circle was every bit as feeble as Nesha-tari had been led to believe. Again, the world of humanity was an inconvenience, but not really a problem.
The Codians, however, were merely the newest bunch of humans to claim dominion over the city now known as Souterm, which the locals still called The Lady. There was something much older here, someone to whom the rise and fall of kingdoms and empires was only of passing interest. She was mistress of a realm marked on no map, but it was a realm which Nesha-tari could not pass through without permission.
Providing of course that the Lady did not simply kill one such as Nesha-tari Hrilamae, daughter of the Lamia, just on principle.
Edgewise walked most of the length of the ridge north and only capered at the intersections. They went on until they were almost directly below the white cathedral at the end, with its flying buttresses and spires filling the sunny sky above. Ahead of them loomed a great wall of giant black stones interlocked like bricks, running across the street and right up a steep side of the ridge. The old work gave the appearance of having thrust up from the ground in the middle of the neighborhood, though surely it had been here long before and the houses only built much later, flush against it. Edgewise took the last left before a cul-de-sac in front of the old wall, turning onto a lane that was as much a staircase as a street, multiple terraces several strides across that climbed the ridge. The goblin mounted several until reaching a fenced gate across the narrow alleyway between two tall houses in the shadows of the angling black wall. Nesha-tari caught up to Edgewise as he stopped to fish out one particular key on a ring holding many.
“How far are we going?” Nesha-tari asked, not winded but apprehensive.
“Until we get there,” Edgewise snapped without looking at her, as though that had been a stupid question.
The goblin opened a large iron padlock and swung the gate open. He gestured Nesha-tari into the narrow alley, and after a look at him she went. He stepped in behind her and pulled the gate shut, and in the deep shadows Nesha-tari’s blue eyes and Edgewise’s bronze ones both flared.
She could see perfectly now despite the shadows. The alley was uncluttered but so narrow that Edgewise could not easily squeeze around her. Nesha-tari went forward as there was no other choice, stopping only as she heard the big padlock snapping shut on the other side of the gate, though Edgewise was still right behind her. Nesha-tari went on. The houses to either side had fronted narrowly on the street, but both were very deep so that the alley between was almost a canyon, ending at the towering black wall after short lengths of tall fences enclosed the back yards.
The moment Nesha-tari drew even with the fences an explosion of snarling barks came from behind the one on her right. She hissed and flattened herself against the left fence, eyes flaring but seeing only the outlines of a hulking shape through the slats. Edgewise chuckled, rapped his knobby knuckles on the fence, and almost cooed in soft-spoken Codian. The barking changed to pants and whines, and the goblin grinned at Nesha-tari.
“I hate dogs,” she said.
“That,” the goblin said, “is not a dog.”
Edgewise stepped into the lead as Nesha-tari remained flattened against the fence. She sidestepped after him, still pressing back hard enough that splinters snagged her cloak. The unseen shape behind the fence growled, but it did not bark again.
The goblin rounded a corner, for while the right-side fence was built flush to the stone wall, that on the left turned in at a post and left a gap. Both Edgewise and Nesha-tari had to turn their shoulders sideways to step along, hands on the smooth stones and hips squeezing around posts. The goblin trailed the pads of his fingers along until halting halfway down, and held his hand sideways as though the tips were in the faintest crack. He turned to look back and up at Nesha-tari, one pointing earlobe twitching as it brushed the fence.
“Be right back,” he said, then turned and followed his hand into the crack that was not wide enough for a playing card. Edgewise.
Nesha-tari blinked at the space where the goblin had been, but in another moment there was a startling creak from the wall right in front of her. The dog, or whatever, started to bark again from the next yard, booming yaps that covered the grinding sound of stone moving against stone as a block as tall and wide as a doorway rumbled down right in front of Nesha-tari’s nose, and into the ground at her feet.
Edgewise doffed his hat in the doorway and waved Nesha-tari inside with a flourish.
It took her a moment to proceed. As much as a squeeze as the alley and fences had been, there was still open sky high above Nesha-tari’s head. Edgewise was beckoning her forward into a low-ceilinged tunnel, the interior the same black stone as the rest of the wall. She looked at the goblin’s eyes, and the glowing bronze pupils by which she had recognized him for what he was, just as he had known her by her blue ones. Nesha-tari balled her fists and stepped in past the goblin.
Edgewise knelt and spread his hands flat atop the section of wall that had slid into the ground, a great block as thick as it was wide. He lifted his hands, not gripping, but the block rose with them and continued to do so even when he took his hands away. The gap closed with a sound Nesha-tari imagined like a shutting tomb, and she shivered. With all natural light cut off she could see absolutely nothing until her blue eyes flared a bit brighter, and then she could. Edgewise was still grinning at her.
“Allow me a guess. You hate enclosed spaces as well.”
Nesha-tari did not answer. The goblin chuckled and stepped past her, wide feet slapping the smooth stone