The Reformer

use, the initial covering of soil has partly eroded from the upper surface of the ceiling.

'Yes, by the Gray-Eyed Lady!' Adrian said.

Simun was looking at him with mingled alarm and expectation-the Gray-Eyed was also a Goddess of War; more precisely, of stratagem and ploy, as opposed to Wodep's straightforward violence. Adrian knew that the Emerald mercenaries they'd brought with them thought he communed with Her regularly; Esmond's new troops were picking up the superstition rapidly.

'That's a tunnel-a covered way into the citadel,' Adrian said.

'Oh, ho!' Simun said. 'First in, first pickings. . no, sor, though, even Islanders, they wouldn't leave it open-not when this here place ain't garrisoned, no, no.'

'We'll take a look,' Adrian said. 'Can't hurt.'

Simun nodded. Yes, I know Esmond set you as my watchdog, Adrian thought without resentment-after all, he was the younger brother, and not trained to war. On the other hand, curiosity was an Emerald characteristic; where it concerned his trade, even a professional like Simun had his fair share.

'Oll right, sor, but me'n the squad, we goes along.'

'No argument.'

* * *

'The city of Vase is under attack,' the Eldest Sister said calmly.

A chorus of squeals and giggles died down into uncertain murmurs as the figure beside the head of the hareem stepped forward-it was an entire man, one of the few Helga had seen since she passed through the door. A soldier, one of the Director's personal guard, slave soldiers bought in infancy and raised in the household; armored from head to foot in black-laquered splint mail, with a broad splayed nasal bar on his helmet that hid his face. He rested the point of his huge curved sword on the carpet and folded his hands on the hilt.

'Do not worry!' the stout, robed, middle-aged woman said. 'In all things, we will accompany our lord.'

Helga was standing well to the back, among the junior and childless members of the hareem-even then she took a moment to thank the Mother Goddess for that mercy. Although there was a rumor that all the pregnancies recently were the result of the Director sending in his younger brother under cover of darkness. . She was standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Keffrine, and felt the other girl suddenly begin to tremble. Helga decided that she didn't need to hear the rest of the Eldest Sister's speech.

'What is it?' she whispered sharply in her ear, then gave her arm a pinch to shock her out of the wide-eyed stare. 'Keffrine, what is it?'

'Wuh-wuh-'

'Keffrine!'

A few others glanced at her reprovingly as her voice rose a little. That seemed to bring Keffrine back to herself a little; she dropped her eyes and whispered.

'They think we muh-muh-might lose,' she said.

'What?'

'What the Eldest Sister said, about accompanying our lord.'

'What, into exile? Ransom-'

The guileless blue eyes turned to her, and tears slid down the lovely cheeks.

'No. The Director's honor can't let other men touch his women. They'll cu-cu-cut our th-th-'

Quietly, hopelessly, Keffrine began to sob; she wasn't the only one, either.

Cut our throats, Helga Demansk realized; that was the end of the sentence. In more ways than one.

* * *

The plug at the end of the tunnel took on the flat, greenish-silvery look that Adrian's vision always did when Center was amplifying the available light. Something about extrapolating from partial data. . He shoved away the neck-tensing eeriness and instead tapped on the concrete and rubble with the hilt of his dagger, pressing his ear to listen. Only a dull clink came back through the ear pushed against the porous roughness, but Center spoke with mountainous certainty:

the blocking segment is from five to eight and a half feet in thickness. beyond it the tunnel resumes with the same dimensions.

A picture formed in his mind; the covered passageway on the other side of the block, and then a wooden door beyond that-thick with dust and cobwebs.

How do you do that? he asked.

echolocation, Center answered. your auditory sensors receive much information of which you are not conscious. by calculating the time and angle of sound reflected through and beyond the solid material, i can infer the shapes and relationships of objects.

Oh. Like most of Center's explanations, that raised more questions than it answered-sound could bounce? Anyway. .

one ten-pound cask of powder emplaced at the base will clear the obstacle, Center said. possibility of collapse of tunnel ceiling is 27 % ±7.

'Can't hurt, then,' Adrian mused.

Sure you want to do this, lad? Raj asked. It isn't your proper line of work, really.

Adrian nodded. My brother is out there, under the walls, he replied firmly, swallowing through the dryness of his mouth and acutely conscious of the smell of wet stone and his own sweat.

'Simun,' he said. 'Get someone with a pick up here-two men with picks, and one with a prybar. And a barrel of powder, and-' he consulted his unseen friends '-ten feet of quickmatch. Now!'

The distant thudding sounds were closer now, louder; like nothing so much as thunder. Beneath it Helga Demansk thought she could hear something far less uncanny than thunder from a clear blue sky; a snarling clamor of voices, and the harsh metal-on-metal sound of battle, with an undertone of the flat banging thumps that blades made on shields. The concubines were kneeling silently in rows according to seniority; several more of the black- armored Director's guardsmen had come in. One of them was pale-faced and had a bandage around his forearm; another was limping. The sunlight crawled past under the dappled shade of the dome, the water splashed in the pool, all infinitely familiar sights gilded with a nearly supernatural film of horror now.

Another man came in, the metal heel-plates of his military boots loud on tile and marble, muffled where he traversed colorful rugs. He looked at the guard commander standing above the Eldest Sister, swallowed, and gave a jerky nod.

'It is time,' the commander said harshly.

'It is time,' the older woman said calmly. 'I shall go first, to show my sisters that there is nothing to fear.'

She raised her chin. The soldier shook his shoulders back and raised the blade; sunlight broke off the bright edge as he took careful aim and swung with a huffing grunt of effort.

There was a wet cleaving sound. Blood splashed backward over the gilt mosaics of the wall, over young fleecebeasts gamboling in a spring meadow. Keffrine gave a breathless little scream.

'Time to get moving,' Helga muttered to herself, and took one last deep breath.

* * *

'All right,' Adrian said to the worried arquebusier. 'I'm leaving you the twenty best shots, with all the loaded weapons to hand. They should be able to keep up a respectable fire for half an hour or so, and that's all that we'll need.'

The man nodded, saluted, and trotted away back up the stairs. Adrian looked at the other men near him: Simun; Tohmus, the commander of the Sea Striker detachment; the rest of his gunmen, now holding their cutlasses and targets.

'Everyone!' he said. 'Be prepared for a very loud-'

THACRACK!

Smoke and debris vomited out of the mouth of the tunnel into the basement of the tower, shrouding its dimness and peppering them all with grit and small fragments of rock.