One of the thieves squawked as he fell. They both thudded down hard, lay still for a moment, then started clambering to their feet.
Jhesrhi murmured a charm, twirled two fingers in a circle, and wrapped herself in a shroud of silvery light. It ought to turn a thrown dagger or a dart from a blowpipe, but she mainly wanted it for the glow. She knew that with her willowy frame, amber eyes, tawny skin, and golden tresses-often stirred by a breeze that no one else could feel-she cut a reasonably impressive figure. Perhaps impressive enough to persuade a pair of robbers to surrender without any fuss, provided they could see her clearly, along with a manifestation of her power.
But no. They turned and ran, and she realized she was glad. Now she had a reason to knock them around a little more.
She leveled her staff, and a pair of blue-white beams leaped from the tip, diverging to catch each thief in the back. They staggered and fell.
She walked closer as, shaking uncontrollably, they tried to stand up again. “You aren’t badly hurt yet,” she said, her aura of protection fading, “but my next spell will freeze you to the marrow.”
“F-f-f-filthy w-witch,” said the thief on the right, a scrawny specimen with a black goatee, a sharp nose, and the hint of cropped ears just visible inside his cowl.
“I guess not everyone can be as worthy and upright as the two of you,” she answered. “Now, did you hurt anyone inside the house?”
“N-no.”
“Lucky for you. So this is what’s going to happen. You’re going to drop your weapons and return your plunder, and then I’m going to march you off to jail.”
At first it happened just that way. The burglars were sullen, but she thought she had them properly cowed. Still, she maintained a safe distance between herself and them, and stayed watchful lest they spin around to rush her or simply try to run.
They did neither. But when they passed beyond the confines of the wizards’ quarter, the knave with the cropped ears abruptly shouted, “Help us!”
A dozen figures pivoted in their direction. Intent on her prisoners, Jhesrhi hadn’t quite realized how many people were out roaming that particular section of street, nor was she certain why. Maybe there was a tavern or festhall nearby.
“It’s all right,” she said. “I’m an officer of the watch. These two wretches tried to rob a house, and I’m going to lock them up.”
“She’s a wizard!” said the bearded thief. “Just look at the staff! She attacked us for no reason, and she means to feed us to her demons!”
“I am a wizard,” Jhesrhi said, “but also a member of the watch.” She pulled open her cloak to display her tabard. “See?”
“That wasn’t there a moment ago!” cried the thief. “It’s an illusion! She’s making you see it!”
The onlookers muttered to one another.
“That’s ridiculous,” Jhesrhi said. She flicked her fingers, and the wind moaned and blew back the thief’s hood, revealing his mutilated ears. “You can see that this rogue has faced the war hero’s justice twice already.”
The thief peered around wildly. “What is she talking about? What did she do to me?”
Jhesrhi had to admit it was a good imitation of confusion. But she thought she’d demonstrated her credentials and the trickster’s duplicity to any reasonable person’s satisfaction, and despite the city’s prejudice against mages, she expected the bystanders to lose interest and turn away.
They didn’t. In fact, though it was difficult to be certain in the dark, it looked like their expressions had hardened. It belatedly occurred to her that her demonstration of her powers, petty and harmless though it had been, might have heightened their mistrust.
A woman bigger than most men shouldered a man aside as she stepped to the front of the crowd. Judging from her buckler and her short, heavy cleaver of a sword, she might have been a member of Luthcheq’s underworld too, or conceivably even a sellsword. “Let these fellows go,” she said in a startlingly sweet soprano voice.
“I told you,” Jhesrhi said, “they’re robbers, I belong to the watch, and it’s my duty to turn them over for judgment.”
“If you are a part of the watch, you shouldn’t be. Not when your kind are skulking around murdering decent people. And we’re not going to let you take these lads off to who knows where, and then maybe they turn up torn to scraps before the night is through.”
“If that’s what you’re worried about,” said Jhesrhi, “you can tag along and watch me hand them over.”
“Don’t!” said the thief. “For your own sakes! For all we know, there are more of them lurking in the dark! She could lead you into a trap!”
“Oh please,” sighed Jhesrhi, addressing herself to the crowd. “Surely you people know where the guard station is. It’s just a couple of blocks farther on.”
“Who’s to say they’ll do justice there?” demanded a dandy with a rapier at his hip, a mail glove on his off hand to catch and hold an opponent’s blade, and a brooch adorned with a red wyrm pinning his cape. “The folk in charge of the watch-and the folk over them-are stupid or worse. That’s why they can’t catch the Green Hand. That’s why the realm is falling apart.”
“I think,” said the enormous woman to Jhesrhi, “you’d better let these fellows go and slink back to where you belong.”
Not moving her head, just her eyes-she didn’t want to appear apprehensive-Jhesrhi glanced up and down the street. There had to be a watch patrol somewhere in the vicinity, but none was in sight.
“The thieves are going to the guard station,” she said. “And if you people don’t want to join them in their cell, you’ll disper-”
A clay flowerpot smashed at her feet, dashing shards, dirt, and the twiggy, leafless remains of a dead plant across the ground. Someone had thrown it from an upper-story window.
Startled, she recoiled a step. Her prisoners bolted. She pivoted and pointed her staff at them. The huge woman lunged and cocked her fist.
Jhesrhi glimpsed the threat from the corner of her eye. She dodged and the punch only glanced across her cheek, although that was enough to sting and to infuriate her as well.
She jabbed the head of her staff into the big woman’s stomach and spat a word of command. A burst of force like the kick of a mule flung her attacker back and dumped her on her rump.
But by then, the dandy’s rapier was whispering clear of its scabbard. He extended his arm and charged.
Jhesrhi jabbered rhyming words. Sleep claimed her assailant, and his momentum smacked him down on his belly.
Still, that wasn’t the end of it. The huge woman clambered up and drew her sword. With fists clenched or with knives and cudgels in hand, the other meddlers spread out to flank the object of their hatred. More missiles showered from overhead.
Jhesrhi raised her staff high and cried out to the wind. Howling, it exploded out from her in all directions, like she was a bonfire shedding a tempest instead of heat and light. Her attackers reeled, unable to make headway. Some fell down. The missiles raining from the windows blew off course.
Now she had to decide what to do next. The gale wouldn’t last forever. She surveyed her adversaries, and the answer came to her.
She snarled an incantation in an Abyssal dialect and jerked her staff through short, stabbing passes. Hate buttressed her will and lent additional power to the magic taking form around her, swirling green fumes that stank like carrion.
Because she’d hated Chessenta for her entire adult life, and now she knew she’d been right to do so. Certainly she had every right to despise the idiots before her, brutes and bullies every one.
She was almost at the end of the incantation before something-perhaps the pure concentration required to perform a complex spell with the necessary precision-cooled her fury a little. Then she remembered that she hadn’t gone to war, and that her employers didn’t consider these folk to be their enemies. She mustn’t slaughter them wholesale for fear of repercussions.
Even then, it was difficult to alter the spell so close to completion. The magic was eager to manifest the pattern the opening phrases had defined, and the final words were flowing automatically. Straining, she regained control of her tongue, then recited a line that completed the conjuration-but in an attenuated form, like music
