She'd never know, because she hadn't said it or anything like it. How could she, when she'd perceived what was in his heart? He'd said he needed to go for the sake of their future, and he meant it, but he also
Maybe that had been because he was of Mulan descent, hence, at least in theory, a scion of the aristocracy. She, a member of the Rashemi underclass, had never had any particular feeling that she was entitled to a better life or that it would prove her unworthy if she failed to achieve it. He might have believed differently, knowing that at one time, his family had been rich and then lost everything.
Well, no, not everything. They'd still possessed their freedom, and with that reflection, dread clutched her even tighter, and sorrow sharpened into abject misery.
She lay helpless in their grip until someone off to her left started to cry. Then, despite her own wretchedness, she rose from her thin, scratchy pallet. The barracoon had high little windows seemingly intended for ventilation more than illumination but enough moonlight leaked in to enable her to pick her way through the gloom without stepping on anyone.
The weeping girl lay on her side, legs drawn up and hands hiding her face. Tammith knelt down beside her, gently but insistently lifted her into a sitting position, and took her in her arms. Her fingers sank into the adolescent's mane of long, oily, unwashed hair.
In Thay, folk of Mulan descent removed all the hair from their heads and often their entire bodies. Rashemi freemen didn't invariably go to the same extremes, but if they chose to retain any growth on their scalps at all, they clipped it short to distinguish themselves from slaves, who were forbidden to cut it.
Soon, Tammith thought, I'll have a hot, heavy, filthy mass of hair just like this, and though that was the least of the trials and humiliations the future likely held in store, for some reason, the realization nearly started her sobbing as well.
Instead she held her sister slave and rubbed her back. 'It's all right,' she crooned, 'it's all right.'
'It's not!' the adolescent snarled. She sounded angry but didn't try to extricate herself from Tammith's embrace. 'You're new, so you don't know!'
'Someone has been cruel to you,' Tammith said, 'but perhaps your new master will be kind and wealthy too. Maybe you'll live in a grand house, wear silk, and eat the finest food. Maybe life will be better than it's ever been before.'
Even as she spoke them, Tammith knew her words were ridiculous. Few slaves ended up in the sort of circumstances she was describing, and even if you did, how contemptible you'd be if mere creature comforts could console you for the loss of your liberty, but she didn't know what else to say.
Light wavered through the air, and something cracked. Tammith looked around and saw the slave trader standing in the doorway. An older man with a dark-lipped, crooked mouth, he looked odd in his nightclothes and slippers with a blacksnake whip in one hand and a lantern in the other.
She wondered why he'd bothered to come check on his merchandise in the dead of night when he already employed watchmen for the purpose. Then a different sort of man came through the door behind him, and she caught her breath.
CHAPTER TWO
10 Mirtul, the Year of Risen Elfkin
Despite its minute and deliberate imperfections, the sigil branded on Tsagoth's brow stung and itched, nor could his body's resiliency, which shed most wounds in a matter of moments, ease the discomfort. The blood fiend wished he could raise one of his four clawed hands and rip the mark to shreds, but he knew he must bear it until his mission was complete.
Perhaps it was the displeasure manifest in his red-eyed glare and fang-baring snarl that made all the puny little humans cringe from him-not just the wretches scurrying in the streets of Bezantur, but the youthful, newly minted Red Wizards of Conjuration guarding the gate as well. Tsagoth supposed that in the latter case it must have been. With his huge frame, lupine muzzle, and purple-black scaly hide, he was a monstrosity in the eyes of the average mortal, but no conjuror could earn a crimson robe without trafficking with dozens of entities equally alien to the base material world.
In any case, the doorkeepers were used to watching demons, devils, and elementals, all wearing brands or collars of servitude, come and go on various errands, and they made no effort to bar Tsagoth's entry into their order's chapter house, a castle of sorts with battlements on the roof and four tiled tetrahedral spires jutting from the corners. A good thing, too. He could dimly sense the wards emplaced to smite any spirit reckless enough to try to break or sneak in, and they were potent.
Inside the structure he found high, arched ceilings supported by rows of red marble columns, faded, flaking frescos decorating the walls, and a trace of the brimstone smell that clung to many infernal beings. He tried to look as if he knew where he was going and was engaged in some licit task as he explored.
No one questioned him as he prowled around, and after a time he peered into yet another hall and beheld a prison of sorts, a pentacle defined in red, white, and black mosaic on the floor. The design caged two devils, both displaying the ire of spirits newly snared and enslaved. The kyton with its shroud of crawling bladed chains snarled threats of vengeance. The bezekira, an entity like a lion made of glare and sparks, hurled itself repeatedly at the perimeter of the pentacle, rebounding each time as if it had collided with a solid wall. Judging from their chatter, the two Red Wizards minding the prisoners had made a wager on how many times the hellcat would subject itself to such indignity before giving up.
It wouldn't do for either the warlocks or the devils to spy Tsagoth, not yet, so he dissolved into vapor. Even in that form, he wasn't invisible, but when he put his mind to it, he could be singularly inconspicuous. He floated to the ceiling then over the shiny shaven heads of the Red Wizards. Neither they nor their captives noticed.
Beyond the hall with the mosaic pentacle was a row of conjuration chambers adjacent to a corridor. Three of the rooms were in use, the occupants chanting intricate rhymes to summon additional spirits. One of those chambers was several round-arched doorways removed from the other two, and Tsagoth hoped its relative isolation would keep the warlocks in the other rooms from overhearing anything they shouldn't. Still in mist form, he flowed toward it.
Beyond the arch, a Red Wizard chanted and brandished a ritual dagger in front of another magic circle, this one currently empty and drawn in colored chalk on the floor. Though intent on his magic as any spellcaster needed to be, he had a glowering cast to his expression that suggested he was no happier to be practicing his art than Tsagoth was with his own assignment.
In the wake of Druxus Rhym's assassination, Nevron, zulkir of Conjuration, had directed his underlings to summon spirits to buttress the defenses of himself, Aznar Thrul, and Lauzoril, the third member of their faction. If, as many people believed, Thrul himself had engineered Rhym's death, then it followed that the effort was merely a ruse to divert suspicion, and maybe the fellow flourishing the knife resented being forced to exert himself to no genuine purpose.
Perhaps, Tsagoth thought with a flicker of amusement, he'll thank me for helping him complete his chore quickly. He floated through the arch, over the mage and along the ceiling, then, fast as he could, he streamed down into the center of the pentacle. There he took on solid form once more. His forehead immediately throbbed.
The conjuror stared. A demon was supposed to materialize in the chalk figure, and to superficial appearances, that was exactly what had happened, but it wasn't supposed to manifest until the Red Wizard finished the spell.
'Eenonguk?' he asked.
Tsagoth surmised that was the name of the spirit the warlock had tried to summon, and he was willing to play the part if it would help him complete this phase of his task more easily. 'Yes, Master,' he replied.
'No,' the wizard said. 'You're not Eenonguk. Eenonguk is a babau demon.' He dropped the athame to clank on the floor and snatched for the wand sheathed on his hip.
