tragedy. Could it be a woman? Unlikely. Safar was much too young.
He was forming the words for a new plea of caution when loud voices and the sound of running feet interrupted.
The both looked up to see a small figure in bare feet and raggedy clothes sprinting down the alley towards them.
'What's wrong, Nerisa? Safar cried as she approached.
Then he heard voices just beyond the alley mouth shouting, Stop thief! Stop thief!'
Nerisa ran past him and shot up the fig tree like a bolt fired from a bow, disappearing into the thick foliage.
A moment later the fat stallkeep, trailed by several hard-looking men, lumbered into view. They slowed, panting heavily.
'Where is he? the stallkeep demanded when he'd reached them. Where'd he go?'
'Where did who go, sir? Katal asked, face a mask of surprised innocence.
'The thief, one of the rough men said.
'He's a big brute of a lad, the stallkeep broke in. A real animal, I tell you. I don't mind saying I was in fear for my life when I caught him stealing from me.'
'We've seen no one matching that description, Safar said. Have we, Katal?'
Katal made a face of grave concern. We certainly haven't. And we've been sitting here for hours.'
'Let's check around, one of the rough men said. Maybe these two good citizens were dipping in the wine too deeply to notice.'
'I assure you no one looking like the one you described has come this way, Katal said. But feel free to look all you like.'
Nerisa gently parted a branch to peer at the scene below. While the rough men searched, Safar and Katal engaged the stallkeep in casual conversation to soothe suspicion.
The young thief was not pleased with herself. She'd let her emotions spoil her timing and then she'd reacted in a panic when things went wrong. The execution, to the dismay of many of the heaviest gamblers, had gone off without a hitch. Tulaz's reputation was intact. The adulteresses head was not. And the plaza crowd had gotten a good show. The victim had been as beautiful as advertised. And she'd wailed most entertainingly when the jailers stripped her, trying pitifully to hide her nakedness with chained hands. Tulaz had played the showman to the hilt, pretending to hesitate several times over the lovely curls bent beneath his blade. Then he'd whacked off her head with such ease that not even a blind fool could doubt the minuscule size of his stony executioner's heart.
But just before he'd struck, the woman had let out a mournful groan that had echoed across the hushed plaza. It was a groan of such anguish, hauled up from the darkest well of human misery, that Nerisa had been wrenched from her emotional moorings. For the first time in her life she'd burst into tears. An uncontrollable urge to leave that place of horrors, and leave it quickly, had overwhelmed her.
Then Tulaz's blade severed the woman's head. The crowd thundered its approval. Nerisa leaped off the wagon, landing with her face to the stall. The object she'd come for gleamed at her from the trays and instinct took over. She scooped it up, heard the stallkeep's alarmed howl of discovery, and dived blindly into the crowd.
'Thief! the stallkeep had cried.
Despite the after-execution chaos the plaza guards had heard the stallkeep's cry and had come running. The blackest of fates must have made the crowd part before them. One of the men had even managed to get a grip on her arm, but she'd clawed him and he'd yelped and let go. Nerisa ran as hard as she'd ever run in her life. But the plaza guards were street-smart pursuers and so they knew all her tricks, blocked all her avenues of escape. And Nerisa, to her present immense shame, had taken the panicked route of least resistance and had led her pursuers directly to the Foolsmireher only place of refuge where anyone at all cared about a skinny little girl thief who had no memory of mother, father, or even the slightest touch of warmth.
She patted the small object hidden under her shirt. It was a gift for Safar. She peeped through the broad leaves of the fig tree and saw him shove coins forward to buy the stallkeep a jug of wine. She hoped Safar would like his present. Stolen or not, it had been purchased at a greater price than he could ever know. Nerisa saw the rough men return, shaking their heads and saying their quarry had escaped. Safar called for more wine. Katal obliged. And while the tumblers were poured and the first toasts drunk, Nerisa slipped off the branch onto the alley wall.
Then she shinnied up a drain pipe to the roof and then to an adjoining building and was gone.
CHAPTER NINE
The Student Quarter was the oldest section of Walaria, an untidy sprawl between the rear of the many-domed temple and the western most wall. The western gate had been built many centuries before. It was so little used it had fallen into disrepair and the king had it permanently sealed to avoid the expense of fixing it. The Quarter itself was a warren of broken cobbled streets so narrow that front doors opened directly into traffic. The residences and shops were among the poorest in the city and were stacked atop one another with no particular plan, leaning crazily over the streets.
Safar lived in the near ruins of the one remaining gate tower on the western wall. He'd rented it from an old warder who considered himself the owner because in his view the king no longer had any use for it. He also offered boardone meal a day cooked by his wife. The gate tower consisted of two rooms, one without a roof, and strolling rights along the wall. It wasn't just the cheap price that had attracted Safar to his accommodations. He was a child of the mountains, the gate tower gave him an unimpeded view of the entire city on one side and the broad empty plains on the other. At night the tower also made a marvelous observatory where he could study the heavens and check them against his Dreamcatcher books.
It was also good for sunsets and on this particular day, some hours after he'd left the Foolsmire, Safar was sprawled across the broad stone windowsill, toasting the departing sun with the last of his wine. From the other side of the Quarter he was serenaded by a priest singing the last prayer of the day from the Temple's chanting tower. It was magically amplified so it resounded across the city. The song was a daily plea to the gods who guard the night:
We are men of Walaria, good men and pious. Blessed be, blessed be. Our women are chaste, our children respectful. Blessed be, blessed be. Devils and felons beware of our city. Blessed be, blessed be. You will find only the faithful here. Blessed be, blessed be…
When the song ended Safar laughed aloud. He was still a little drunk and found the song's sanctimonious lies amusing. The prayer was a creation of Umurhan's, coined in his youth when he was second in command of the temple. It was considered by manymeaning Umurhan's most fervent political supportersto be the mightiest spell against evil in the city's history. Umurhan had used the acclaim to help topple his wizardly superior. Once that had been accomplished he'd joined with Didima and Kalasariz, both ambitious young lords at the time, to make Didima king and Kalasariz the chief wazier. The three ruled Walaria to this day with brutal zeal.
To Safar the nightly spellsong had become an ugly jest, a riddle that would be a worthy creation of Harle, himself, that dark jester of the gods. Was the evil outside the walls of Walaria? Or within?
He'd heard the song the first time only a short two years before. The setting sun had been in his view that day, just as it was now…
It was a small caravan, a poor caravan, carrying castoffs from the stalls of distant markets. The finest animal was the camel Safar sat upon, a fly-blown, bad-tempered male he'd hired for the journey. He'd made the jump from Kyraniamore a wobble, actuallyin three stages. The first was a traveling party to the river towns at the foot of the Gods Divide. The second was with a group of drovers herding their cattle across the dry plains to new grazing grounds. He'd come across the caravan during that leg of the trip. It was heading directly for Walaria and so he'd joined it, saving many days and miles.
