Wizard and Glass

would tell her, she knew the smell of his hair and skin very well—but she thought she would do better to put such soft impulses behind her. What she needed now was to be hard and quick—to move without pausing or looking back.

Ashes, Aunt Cord whispered in her head, almost too faintly to hear. Susan shook her head impatiently, as if to clear that voice away, and walked out back.

There was nothing behind the bunkhouse, nothing behind the privy or to either side of it. She went around to the back of the old cook-shack next, and there she found what she'd come looking for, placed casually and with no attempt at concealment: the two small barrels she had last seen slung over Caprichoso's back.

The thought of the mule summoned the thought of Sheemie, looking down at her from his man's height and with his hopeful boy's face. I'd like to take a fin de ano kiss from ye, so I would.

Sheemie, whose life had been saved by 'Mr. Arthur Heath.' Sheemie, who had risked the wrath of the witch by giving Cuthbert the note meant for her aunt. Sheemie, who had brought these barrels up here. They had been smeared with soot to partially camouflage them, and Susan got some on her hands and the sleeves of her shirt as she took off the tops— more ashes. But the firecrackers were still inside: the round, fist-sized big-bangers and the smaller ladyfingers.

She took plenty of both, stuffing her pockets until they bulged and carrying more in her arms. She stowed them in her saddlebags, then looked up at the sky. Three-thirty. She wanted to get back to Hambry no earlier than twilight, and that meant at least an hour to wait. There was a little time to be soft, after all.

Susan went back into the bunkhouse and found the bed which had been Roland's easily enough. She knelt beside it like a child saying bedtime prayers, put her face against his pillow, and inhaled deeply.

'Roland,' she said, her voice muffled. 'How I love thee. How I love thee, dear.'

She lay on his bed and looked toward the window, watching the light drain away. Once she raised her hands in front of her eyes, examining the barrel-soot on her fingers. She thought of going to the pump in front of the cookhouse and washing, but decided not to. Let it stay. They were ka-tet, one from many—strong in purpose and strong in love.

Let the ashes stay, and do their worst.

9

My Susie has'er faults, but she's alwayson time. Pat Delgado used to say. Fearful punctual, that girl.

It was true on the night before Reap. She skirted her own house and rode up to the Travellers'rest not ten minutes after the sun had finally gone behind the hills, filling the High Street with thick mauve shadows.

The street was eerily deserted, considering it was the night before Reap; the band which had played in Green Heart every night for the last week was silent; there were periodic rattles of firecrackers, but no yelling, laughing children; only a few of the many colored lamps had been lit.

Stuffy-guys seemed to peer from every shadow-thickened porch. Susan shivered at the sight of their blank white-cross eyes.

Doings at the Rest were similarly odd. The hitching-rails were crowded (even more horses had been tied at the rails of the mercantile across the street) and light shone from every window—so many windows and so many lights that the inn looked like a vast ship on a darkened sea—but there was none of the usual riot and jubilation, all set to the jagtime tunes pouring out of Sheb's piano.

She found she could imagine the customers inside all too well— a hundred men, maybe more—simply standing around and drinking. Not talking, not laughing, not chucking the dice down Satan's Alley and cheering or groaning at the result. No bottoms stroked or pinched; no Reap-kisses stolen; no arguments started out of loose mouths and finished with hard fists. Just men drinking, not three hundred yards from where her love and his friends were locked up. The men who were here wouldn't do anything tonight but drink, though. And if she was lucky . . . brave and lucky…

As she drew Pylon up in front of the saloon with a murmured word, a shape rose out of the shadows. She tensed, and then the first orangey light of the rising moon caught Sheemie's face. She relaxed again—even laughed a little, mostly at herself. He was a part of their ka-tet; she knew he was. Was it surprising that he should know, as well?

'Susan,' he murmured, taking off his sombrero and holding it against his chest. 'I been waiting for'ee.'

'Why?' she asked.

' 'Cause I knew ye'd come.' He looked back over his shoulder at the Rest, a black bulk spraying crazy light toward every point of the compass. 'We're going to let Arthur and them free, ain't we?'

'I hope so,' she said.

'We have to. The folks in there, they don't talk, but they don't have to talk. I knows, Susan, daughter of Pat. I knows.'

She supposed he did. 'Is Coral inside?'

Sheemie shook his head. 'Gone up to Mayor's House. She told Stanley she was going to help lay out the bodies for the funeral day after tomorrow, but I don't think she'll be here for the funeral. I think the Big Coffin Hunters is going and she'll go with 'em.' He raised a hand and swiped at his leaking eyes. 'Your mule, Sheemie—' 'All saddled, and I got the long halter.' She looked at him, open-mouthed. 'How did ye know—' 'Same way I knew ye'd be coming, Susan-sai. I just knew.' He shrugged, then pointed vaguely. 'Capi's around the back. I tied him to the cook's pump.'

'That's good.' She fumbled in the saddlebag where she had put the smaller firecrackers. 'Here. Take some of these. Do'ee have a sulfur or two?'

'Aye.' He asked no questions, simply stuffed the firecrackers into his front pocket. She, however, who had never been through the bat-wing doors of the Travellers' Rest in her whole life, had another question for him.

'What do they do with their coats and hats and scrapes when they come in, Sheemie? They must take em off; drinking's warm work.'

'Oh, aye. They puts em on a long table just inside the door. Some fights about whose is whose when they're ready to go home.'

She nodded, thinking hard and fast. He stood before her, still holding his sombrero against his chest, letting her do what he could not … at least not in the conventionally understood way. At last she raised her head again.

'Sheemie, if you help me, you're done in Hambry … done in Mejis .. . done in the Outer Arc. You go with us if we get away. You have to understand that. Do you?'

She saw he did; his face fairly shone with the idea. 'Aye, Susan! Go with you and Will Dearborn and Richard Stockworth and my best friend, Mr. Arthur Heath! Go to In-World! We'll see buildings and statues and women in gowns like fairy princesses and—'

'If we're caught, we'll be killed.'

He stopped smiling, but his eyes didn't waver. 'Aye, killed we'll be if ta'en, most like.'

'Will you still help me?'

'Capi's all saddled,' he repeated. Susan reckoned that was answer enough. She took hold of the hand pressing the sombrero to Sheemie's chest (the hat's crown was pretty well crushed, and not for the first time). She bent, holding Sheemie's fingers with one hand and the horn of her saddle with the other, and kissed his cheek. He smiled up at her.

'We'll do our best, won't we?' she asked him.

'Aye, Susan daughter of Pat. We'll do our best for our friends. Our very best.'

'Yes. Now listen, Sheemie. Very carefully.'

She began to talk, and Sheemie listened.

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