breasts. She had cast aside her bloodied tunic and sopping skirt and now stood mostly nude, feet wide apart before him, her knife menacing the Heheganu.
Motion behind them brought the girl around, weapon ready in fighting stance. The colourless radiance turned Simanuya’s leather skullcap into a ghastly mask. So, the glassblower had taken his counsel and jumped after all!
“Ohe, hold your dagger, woman!” The merchant spat out something unpleasant and edged forward, hands open and empty.
“The torches?” The Livyani’s lighter, foreign voice came from across the Crystal River.
“There, on your side, by the buttress,” Simanuya called back. To Harsan he said, “We must swim to them-or they to us. Better the first, since we-ah, certain comrades and I-have explored that side for some way. A few hundred paces and we come to a stair that leads back up to the dwellings of the Heheganu”
“I will not use it,” Harsan retorted. “One betrayal is enough.”
The Heheganu spoke for the first time. “No betrayal at all, human. Ormudzo led only the foreigner-the Livyani-to you. The assassins were Yan Koryani, I think, and the soldiers, too, were not our doing. What transpired was not our affair.”
“Let me peel the face from his ugly skull,” the N’luss girl suggested pleasantly. Her voice was rough and deep, the accent harsh and yet purring.
“Do as you would with me. Yet know that only I can bring you forth from this place. The glassblower there has only knowledge sufficient to lead you back into Old Town. If your foes have raised a hue and cry, our people will take no action. They will rearrange the mat walls and let you wander until you are taken by your enemies. The Heheganu will want no part of this.”
“We must decide, then, and act together.” The thought of diving once again into the mute, secretive waters of the Crystal River nauseated him. Yet Itk t’Sa might not survive a second wetting.
“This bank of the tunnel-” the Heheganu was saying. “I have not seen them, but my elders have told me of other exits-some beyond the city walls-”
Simanuya interrupted. “I have heard the tales. Mayhap we can get out into New Town, or outside Purdimal entirely. Then you can go your way, and I can return to see what remains of my shop! Oh, I shall demand Shamtla indeed! Come, young man, tell your comrades to come over to us. The torches are tied in a bundle with a length of cord. If your woman cannot swim she can hang onto them and kick with her feet.”
‘‘It is the Pe Choi who cannot live in water. She will prefer the mercies of the Heheganu-and all of Sarku’s legions-to another soaking.”
The Heheganu arose, his dripping robe clinging to the unfamiliar joints and curves of his body. ‘‘Since I am with you-for now-let me go to her. I can cast a dazzle upon her mind so that she will not know that she is in the water. Your comrades there can then float her across upon the glass-merchant’s bundle of torches.”
‘‘Do not trust! Let him not-” the N’luss woman began. She retrieved her garments, wrung them out again awkwardly, favouring her left arm.
The creature shrugged. “I wish to live upon this Plane of Being as much as you. More, I honour the law of noble comradeship until such time as we may mutually and favourably end the matter. ’ ’ He clenched his fist, and the light he bore went out as suddenly as though a door had closed upon it. A splash told them that he was gone.
Minutes passed, uncountable in the folds of darkness. Then the Heheganu’s cold light flared again on the other side of the river. Harsan could see only a huddle of figures there. The light went out, then appeared once more some distance downstream but on their side. Tlayesha knelt on the ledge above a bone-white huddle that must be Itk t’Sa.
The Livyani, nude now save for a loincloth, a belt of many pouches, and his gleaming pectoral breastplate, splashed his way toward them. “Come,” he called, “Morkudz, the Heheganu, asks that we follow him.”
Harsan hesitated. The N’luss girl pointed, however, and he saw that a long rectangle of dancing, ruddy light fell upon the surface of the river from above: torches held over the pit! Something-a rope ladder, probably-splashed down into the current. Prince Dhich’une’s soldiers would not so easily be denied their quarry!
Water still trickled from the spiracles in Itk t’Sa’s abdomen when Harsan reached her. She was trembling, Harsan realised that he had never before seen a Pe Choi so miserable. He joined Tlayesha, and the two of them raised her, supported her, and half-carried her along the tunnel after the others. Itk t’Sa was not heavy, and a momentary vision of the Chakan forests blotted out the dank stones: so had he borne Nekw p’Ki, one of the Pe Choi friends of his childhood, when he had broken a leg in a fall. Harsan would have given almost anything for a breath of fresh air, the scent of green trees, the warm dappling of sunlight upon the leaves.
“Here,” Morkudz broke into his revery. “The branch that leads down to the Mouth of the World.”
This was no time for questions. A sloping oval passage opened into the wall to their left. A gentle breeze, cool and yet faintly alien, came up through it. The Heheganu set foot upon the slippery stone floor and gingerly began to descend. The others followed.
Chapter Thirty-One
They rested in a great-columned chamber where shapeless mounds of fallen masonry warned of danger from the unseen roof above. The current of cold air was greater here, whispering around the jagged blocks to give a semblance of life and movement to a place that seemed not to have known living things for aeons. Shattered effigies of unknown kings lined the walls, and panels of stucco glyphs, blighted and crumbling, climbed into the gloom above them as high as the Heheganu’s light could reach.
“We can speak here, if not too loudly,” the Livyani breathed. He cast a cautious eye over the stones. “There, by that entrance in the far wall.”
The tunnel he chose was the one from which the breeze came, however, and they settled instead for a sloping, rubble-filled space between two of the colossal statues nearest to it. Tlayesha wrung out her skirt and used a piece of the N’luss woman’s tom tunic to sponge and bind her wound. The girl refused to don the garment again but indicated that it should be given to her master. He waved it back to her, however, and sat down crosslegged upon a patch of dry earth. Simanuya the glassblower would have squatted near enough to the Heheganu to whisper privately with him, but Harsan foiled this by placing himself between them. There were enough secrets here already! Itk t’Sa crouched in front of them all, tail wrapped around her feet, her eyes still glazed with shock.
The Livyani nobleman was shivering. Harsan could not repress a glimmer of amusement at the dance the red and black tattooes performed upon his narrow shoulders. The man was not young, and they must soon find warmth if he-no, if they all- were to survive.
Harsan settled himself upon a carven block, the eroded, unreadable symbols upon its sides making comfortable places for his heels. “Your presence here indicates that you do not serve Prince Dhich’une,” he began wryly. “You may as well tell me who you are and which of the mighty, unseen players of this game pushes you about the board.”
The Livyani affected to consider. “I am Taluvaz Arrio, of Tsamra, of the High Temple of Qame’el, and presently in Tsolyanu upon a political mission. Its essence concerns you not at all. A certain circumstance has arisen, however, that made my finding you imperative. Understand that you are only indirectly important to us, the Livyani, but you are a bridge upon which we would cross to other destinations.”
“La,” Tlayesha pushed her damp tresses back from her face. “I have called Harsan many things myself, but never a bridge! Speak more plainly.”
The Livyani ignored her. “At this moment, young man, I serve a power that is friendly to you: one of the servitors of the Lords of Stability and a mighty person in your land.”
“Who?” Harsan snapped. “I tire of invisible and unthinkably puissant masters who prod me hither and thither!”
Taluvaz pondered again. “I see no harm in stating the case as bluntly as the girl demands. It is your Prince Eselne who seeks you through me. I was able to-to cause-the Heheganu to bring you forth where others could not.” Morkudz raised his bald, mottled head to stare expressionlessly. “Your Prince requires the thing you know of, Harsan, priest of Thumis. He must have it to defend against the Yan Koryani who invade your land. Without it, you
