conceal themselves from her view, and started down the ladder to the warehouse floor. Wyla followed. As with wearing her sword, negotiating the ladder was hard on her leg. With her muscular arms, it was actually easier to hoist herself up and down on the lift. She refused to resort to such a shift, however, lest it make her feel like a cripple in truth.
Magnus and Chade sauntered outside to wheel a wagon into position for loading, slamming the door behind them. Wyla limped back toward her office, through a shadowy, cavernous space packed with wood carvings, rolled carpets, kegs of nails, stoneware, cheap pine coffins, unassembled looms, and countless other items the House of Uskevren bought, manufactured, and sold.
A mild tenor voice said, 'I'm sorry, but you're wrong.'
Wyla spun around. A stranger dressed in a crescent-shaped Man in the Moon mask and a dark blue mantle stepped from behind a shelf laden with scythes, sickles, hoes, and plows. A creature of oozing darkness, its precise shape difficult to make out in the dimness, flowed out in his wake.
'You're the wizard who led the attacks on Lord Tha-malon's children,' Wyla breathed.
'I am indeed,' the masked man said, 'and as I was observing, as a result of my efforts, I'm afraid the House of Uskevren is actually rather far from being 'all right.' I killed Thamalon and Shamur already, and with your help, I'm about to dispose of their children as well.'
Wyla didn't understand what the spellcaster meant, nor did she especially care. She was too busy trying to figure out how she might possibly survive this encounter, for plainly, whatever else was afoot, the masked man must surely mean her harm.
It would be useless to scream. With its rows of shelving and stacks of goods piled everywhere, the warehouse swallowed sound. And, given her lameness, it would be equally futile to turn and run. The wizard would undoubtedly have sufficient time to cast a spell on her before she scrambled out of sight, and for all she knew, his shadowy companion might pounce on her from behind.
She had only one option, then. Try to get in close, hurt the masked man, and keep on hurting him until he was dead. Her old master-at-arms had taught her that was how you kept a hostile wizard from working any magic.
She'd have a better chance if she could somehow catch him by surprise. To that end, she said, 'Just tell me what you want from me, and I'll do it. I don't want to die.'
'Would that I could trust you,' the wizard replied. 'But I remember how devoted you were to Thamalon in the old days, I rather doubt you've-'
She whipped out her sword and charged him. Reacting instantly, the wizard skipped nimbly backward, snatched a small length of iron from one of his pockets, brandished it, and rattled off a rhyme.
Purple fire flared from the end of his polished staff, bathing her in stinging though tepid flame. Her muscles clenched painfully, depriving her of the ability to move. Off balance, she fell facedown on the floor.
Struggling to jump back up, all Wyla's rigid body could do was shudder. He took hold of her, and, grunting, rolled her over onto her back. Gazing helplessly up at him, she noticed the strange pale eyes peering from their holes in his blandly smiling mask.
'That ploy might almost have worked,' he said, 'except that two nights ago, Shamur Uskevren made a move and caught me flatfooted when I was in mid-sentence. I've been more careful since. Good-bye, Wyla.' He took hold of a portion of his mantle, folded it to make a double thickness, then pressed it down on her face.
Bileworm watched avidly as Master smothered the woman. By his standards, it wasn't an especially long or excruciating death, but he could certainly imagine Wyla's terror and frustration as, deprived of all capacity to resist, she suffocated, and that gave him something to savor.
After a minute, Master took the folds of cloth away and held his hand above her mouth, making sure her breathing had ceased.
'Well, thank goodness that's done,' he said. 'I thought those two loafers in the loft were never going to leave.'
'Shall I?' Bileworm asked.
'Of course.'
The spirit spiraled upward, stretching his substance thin, then swooped down and slid through the tiny space between Wyla's upper and lower teeth. Once he was completely inside her, and had aligned his own ethereal limbs with the coarse matter of the corpse's, sensation came. The floor, hard and cold against his back. His hand clenched painfully tight on the sword hilt. A slight rawness on his face, where the weave of Master's mantle had chafed Wyla's skin.
He reached inside himself for the lame warrior's memories. For an instant, he glimpsed a chaotic jumble of images and sensations, loves and hates, joys, sorrows, and regrets. Then it burst like a bubble and left nothingness behind.
He frowned, prompting Master to ask, 'What's the matter?'
'We have a problem,' Bileworm said, climbing to his feet, surprised by the sharpness of the twinge in the calf of the bad leg. 'I own the body, but her mind is gone.'
'Don't worry. It shouldn't matter.'
Bileworm hesitated. 'Are you sure?'
'Of course. No one will doubt you're the person you appear to be. Why should they? Nor will our dupes, worried as they surely are, bother you with personal questions to which you have no answers. Their only concern will be the tidings you bring.'
Chapter 17
Shamur watched with admiration as Thamalon, seemingly recovered from the ill effects of his head wound, approached the dais and throne at the far end of the cavernous chamber. With his chin held high and his easy smile, he looked more like an honored envoy at the court of some friendly monarch than a prisoner in a den of robbers and murderers.
Meanwhile, the chieftain of the Quippers, a blond, square-jawed hulk as huge as Talbot or Vox, evidently liked to affect the appearance of a simple fisherman, for he sported the sandals, slop-hose, and open, sleeveless tunic that such folk often wore in clement weather. The creature on his knee, however, rather spoiled the illusion, for it was a gray, red-eyed galltrit. Such gremlins lived in filth and, like leeches, subsisted on the blood of others. No common waterman would treat such a nasty beast like a pet. Shamur suspected no one would, unless his own disposition and habits were equally foul.
Arriving at the foot of the dais, Thamalon inclined his head, respectfully but by no means servilely. 'Good morning, or is it afternoon by now? Either way, you must be Avos the Fisher. My name is Balan, and my companion is Evaine. We work for the House of Karn.'
It was a bold lie, but not, Shamur thought, an idiotic one. Though Thamalon had opposed the Quippers off and on for a number of years, it had always been through the medium of the Scepters and other agents, never face to face. It was quite possible that none of the rogues assembled in this room had ever seen him up close, or her either. Or at least, not unless the knave in question was one of the those who had accompanied Master Moon into the woods.
Even if some of them had, the Uskevren still might go unrecognized. They'd changed their appearances since the previous encounter, and, by venturing unescorted into the Scab, had behaved in a manner that no one would expect of an aristocrat. Moreover, all the scoundrels gathered here presumably 'knew' that Shamur and Thamalon were dead, and that false certainty might serve to disguise them best of all.
She held her breath as she waited to see if he was going to get away with the deception.
By the time the ruffians in the street had finished subduing and disarming her, she'd realized she hadn't been stabbed or cut in the back after all, just clubbed very painfully, and thereafter, all the toughs had contented
