“Business?”
“Oh, come down from it, Gorbel. You know my business. I’ve got a load of hay for the residence stables, and I’m late enough without all this.”
“You’re almost too late. Word runs there’s a hunt tonight. Get in and get out.”
“I’d ‘a been in and out except for a broken wheel. Don’t shut the gate ‘til I’m through. Won’t be long.” When the wain turned into a side street, out of sight of the gate, I slipped away into an alley. The late afternoon light made cold blocks of shadow in the streets. People were leaving the park, the alleys. Doors were shutting. A food cart still plied along one alley; I hid my face behind a meat pie, working my way toward the center of the town.
From there one could see in all directions down radiating avenues, almost to the wall. I ensconced myself in a deep doorway, black with shadow. After a time I heard the distant creaking of wheels as the last wagon went out through the gate.
The gate closed with a metallic, clamoring echo.
Nearby, at the residence, the great gong rang its tremorous demand upon hearing, shattering into silence.
The streets were empty. On the western horizon the sun sank in a swollen ball, leaving a stripe of red like a bloody sword upon the horizon. Dusk came, then the rushing dark, then the first light of the full moon setting alternating blocks of gray luminescence and ebon shadow, long diagonal lines of black slanting down the sides of walls and into the street to make hard-edged crevasses of dark. I walked from light to dark to light again, no less conscious of being watched in the darkness than I was in the light. And yet, it was almost an impersonal watching. A machine kind of watching.
High on the walls the twined letters of the Dream Merchant’s monogram glittered and twinkled, little gems gleaming with a light of their own. It was a machine watching! Up there on the walls were eyes.
But who observed what the watchers saw? Was there some deep den in this place where human observers crouched, seeing through these glittering eyes? I thought not, sensed not. The city of Fangel watched for itself, but what it watched for or why it cared, I did not know. There was undoubtedly some action that would bring out the denizens of this place.
Briefly I wondered what would happen if one rang the great gong now, in the middle of the night. The idea sent horrid premonitory shivers down my spine, a kind of visionary grue, as though a door had opened into some unpleasant future.
I shut down the thought, crept around a corner, paused within sight of the residence, its serpentine gates now opened wide.
Somewhere in the city a pombi roared and was answered by another, a howling, grumbling tumult that waxed for a time, then waned into silence. There were beasts loose in the city. And hunters. What had the guard at the gate said about a hunt tonight? For whom? By whom?
Somewhere a baby cried, shockingly close, and a woman’s voice hushed it. Echoes from this, from one side, from the other. No direction. I sought the location frantically, running back the way I had come.
Nothing. Nothing but the sound of my own steps magnified. Nothing but the sound of laughter. Laughter. Somewhere. Nasty, chuckling laughter, a sound that reveled in its hunt, in its prey.
Valearn?
Footsteps, not my own. I shrank against the wall, into a hollow there where a heavy door barred entry to the courtyard beyond. Out in the street a skulking figure walked from shadow to shadow, its long staff tickling the stones with a small clicking, barely audible.
Again a pombi roared, closer this time, perhaps only a street away. The skulker turned, mouth stretched wide in a gape of surprise, Ogress fangs exposed to the moon. Yes. Valearn!
She moved too fast for me to follow her. One moment she was there, the next moment gone.
Again the baby cried, was silent.
So. The Ogress was hunting the baby. Sylbie was fleeing from the Ogress. The pombis would eat either the Ogress or Sylbie, though it seemed the Ogress might not have known of their presence. And Jinian . . . What are you doing? I asked myself. You’re not being useful here!
Light and shadow. A sound of something panting, a massive body running, scratch of claws upon the stone, heavy lungs heaving as the thing went past. I expelled my breath, tried to melt into the stones, thanking whatever gods there were that I smelled only of greens and hay. That had been something larger than a pombi. I remembered the caged gnarlibar in the procession and cursed silently. What kind of zoo was loose in the streets? How many hunters were there?
Now a horn. A horn and the sound of hooves, far away. An echoing clatter in the hard streets. It was to be a drive. The game was to be driven into the hunter’s claws. Or the hunters upon the game? Or both against the wall for the amusement of whoever was coming?
Enough of this. Risk or no risk, I had to find Sylbie and the baby. Huldra or no Huldra, I had to use the art. I fled along the streets, seeking. Somewhere should be something besides blank, closed walls. A window that could be used for window magic, to make a summons. Even a room, an enclosure, a corner of a courtyard.
Everything closed tight, obdurate walls towering over my head, stone streets, black and gray, the moon swimming in silence, far off the horn and
