Guards and the Governor’s Guards turned a corner and rode into the street where the bucket line struggled to hold hack the fire. Commander Durne rode at their head. He spotted Linsha and Lord Bight, and his face split in a grin of relief and pleasure.
“Lynn,” Lord Bight said to Linsha, taking her arm. His voice was low and urgent.” There’s something I want to do, but it requires time and concentration. I cannot be constantly interrupted. Tell Commander Durne to keep the bucket line moving and do what he can to keep the fire from spreading. I will be back.”
“Where are you going? Let me come with you,” she insisted.
“Not this time. I won’t be long.” He gave her arm a slight squeeze, and as the guards rode toward them, he faded back into the milling crowd of helpers and onlookers.
Vanduran turned around to say something more to the governor. “Lord Bight, I-Where is he?”
Linsha, aggravated that she couldn’t follow the governor, pretended not to hear him. The roar of the fire was increasing by the moment, making any conversation difficult.
Commander Durne and his men rode over to where Linsha and the guild merchant stood across the street from the fire.
A flush of pleasure warmed Linsha’s face and took her by surprise. For two days, she had been gone from Sanction and inundated by the magnetic presence of Hogan Bight. She had deliberately tried not to think about Ian Durne in the hope that she could forget her senseless infatuation for him. But the moment she saw his long, lean figure sitting so easily in his saddle, the yearning came washing back, and she caught herself staring at his face.
To hide her discomfort, she didn’t give the commander a chance to start demanding answers. She saluted to him as he dismounted and focused on the emblem of the burning sword on the chest of his uniform coat. She brusquely said, “Sir, Lord Governor Bight asks that you organize the fire fighters as best you can. He will return shortly.”
Durne nodded as if used to such requests. “Good evening to you, too, squire. I am pleased to see you returned safely.”
An unexpected warmth in his voice pulled her gaze back to his face, and their eyes met in a brief moment of silent union. He lifted a devilish eyebrow and grinned.
“Commander Durne,” an insistent voice demanded loudly. “Lord Bight has slipped off again! Would you please do something before the other warehouse goes? There’s a street of apartment buildings right next door.” Vanduran waved an agitated hand in the general direction of the conflagration.
“And the sick house,” Linsha added, having to shout now over the noise of the raging fire.
Her words were lost in a sudden roar as a section of the roof collapsed into the building in an explosion of sparks and flames. Burning debris fell on buildings close by and threatened new fires. She heard the rumbling groan of tortured timbers in the dying warehouse.
“Let’s go,” Commander Durne bellowed. Swiftly he organized his men into two more bucket lines and commandeered the use of every barrel, bucket, box, or container he could lay his hands on. Spectators were pressed into service, either manning the public water pumps or carrying buckets. Other volunteers wielded shovels to put out ground fires or to smother burning debris.
Another crash signaled the fall of the rest of the roof in a shower of burning embers. The smoke and the heat grew worse. Suddenly someone shouted and pointed toward the roof of the wine storehouse. The eaves on the corner nearest the fire were scorched and smoldering. As people turned to look, the roof burst into flames. Guild Master Vanduran gave a horrified shout and swiftly led a small group of helpers into the smaller warehouse. Moments later they were rolling barrels of wine out of harm’s way.
Linsha found herself in the bucket line, frantically passing buckets back and forth to douse the flames of the second fire. She wondered briefly where Lord Bight had gone and why, then her mind returned to the threatened building and the desperate need for water.
“Lynn, thanks be, You’re all right. Where have you been?” a familiar voice murmured beside her.
Linsha glanced sideways. Lady Knight Karine Thasally stood in the line beside her, her face begrimed with sweat and soot, her pale hair speckled with ash. She exchanged an empty bucket for the full one in Linsha’s hand.
Linsha turned her head so only Karine could hear. “Lord Bight took me to see Sable,” she answered as softly as she could over the uproar of the fire.
Karine nearly dropped her bucket. “What?”
The expression on her leader’s face was worth the trip under the mountains.
“You’d better report this in person. The Circle is starting to question your silence.”
Linsha ignored that. “Are you doing well?”
Karine grimaced. “So far. But we’ve lost two others. Good men. Lynn, be very careful. There are ugly rumors spreading in the outer city that blame Lord Bight for this catastrophe. The citizens here are outraged about the closing of the city gates. They fear the city council is leaving them out here to die.”
“That’s preposterous,” Linsha snapped, passing on a bucket.
“You know that and I know that. But everyone is terrified. They want someone to blame. Rumors are rampant.”
Linsha remembered the man who incited the boys to throw bottles at Lord Bight and the crowd. “Is there a possibility these rumors are linked to one person or a group of persons?”
Karine was surprised by the suggestion. “Not that we know of. Why?”
“Just a thought.” She started to ask Karine to have someone look into it, but an ugly thought stopped her. The three leaders of the Clandestine Circle wanted Lord Bight discredited. What was to stop some of their other operatives from making a few well-chosen comments, opinions, or hearsay rumors in some busy tavern or crowded street? No one would know the source of the rumors. She wondered if Varia had had any luck finding the man with the strange gait. A talk with him could be very interesting.
Another thought, a safer one, occurred to her, and she asked, “Have you heard anything about Elenor? I’m worried about her.”
“Not yet,” Lady Karine said. “If I can, I’ll send someone to check on her.”
They worked in silence side by side, passing buckets until their arms and hacks ached and their eyes and throats stung from the smoke.
“ ’Ware the walls!” someone shouted.
Everyone turned to stare at the first warehouse. Its roof gone and its interior gutted with flame, the warehouse looked like a burning shell, and the outer walls, weakened by heat and a lack of support, began to sag. The danger lay in the fact that no one could be certain which way the walls would fall. Two appeared to be sagging inward, but the other two bulged out over the streets, crowded with volunteers and onlookers.
Linsha felt a strange trembling in the soles of her feet. It reminded her of her passage under Mount Ashkir when the earth shook from the power of the volcano. But she wasn’t near a volcano vent now. The trembling increased dramatically until her legs were shaking. Other people noticed it, too. Voices broke out in cries of fear.
Commander Durne identified it first. “Earthquake!” he shouted. “Earthquake! Everyone away from the buildings.”
Shouting and screaming, people tried to run as the shaking became stronger. The fire fighters staggered away from the burning buildings. The first warehouse shivered violently, its walls swaying, then it collapsed in a blazing heap of timbers and rubble. The fire in the second warehouse abruptly leaped skyward as the structure cracked apart, allowing air to rush into the interior. The fires roared, their ruddy light stark against the night sky. The earth groaned and shook like a thing in pain.
Linsha and Karine threw down their buckets and turned to run. Suddenly Karine grabbed Linsha’s arm and pointed with a shaking finger. “Lynn, look!”
Not more than five paces away from the two women, the paving stones in the street started to shake so hard they vibrated loose from their places. Linsha looked closer and saw the worst of the tremors radiated out from the center of the block containing the two burning warehouses. Everything within the roughly oval area shook as if battered by a giant, while the earth outside the affected area seemed only to tremble in shock. Beset by the unending tremors, the ground became like quicksand, unstable and hungry.
With sudden ferocity, a massive sinkhole yawned open beneath the two warehouses. Rubble, flaming
