'He speaks the truth.'
Saltaja's voice cut through like a silver knife. 'And do you welcome this match, merchant?'
He drew a deep breath. 'No. I have always promised Frena that I would let her choose her husband. Meaning no personal disrespect to your nephew, my lady, for I have never met him, I do not think my foster daughter would favor a Werist.'
'So what were you planning to do about it?' The menace was clear.
'Submit, of course! What else could I do about it? You have seers, you have Werists. Could we run away? Leave all my wealth behind? You think I am crazy?'
'Then why have you been packing chests with gold?' Saltaja demanded. 'Why did you have them moved aboard a ship in Weather Haven in the night? Why did you send hampers of your clothes and the girl's with them?'
Trapped!
There was no acceptable answer, and Horth remained silent, waiting for the battering to start. They would kill him and take it all, declaring Frena underage and a ward of the satrapy. They had done as much to others before him. He ran sweat and every muscle in his body cringed.
He was saved from having to answer by the voice of the Witness. 'I am not normally permitted to volunteer information, but under the circumstances I should advise you that a major storm surge has struck the city. Many sixty have drowned already and this cellar is about to be flooded to the roof.'
twenty
FRENA WIGSON
flew out into a yard darkened by the black tent of storm now pitched over the gorge. A deafening flash welcomed her, whirlpools of leaves danced across the stable yard, flights of black birds gyrated in panic, and a steady drum-roll from the stables told of onagers kicking their stalls. Three teams had been harnessed already and old Permiak was struggling to keep them all calm, which was an impossible job in this turmoil, even for a Nastrarian. One of the chariots was hers, all bedecked with ribbons and blossoms in celebration, with Dark and Night harnessed to the yoke. She boarded in a flying leap, holding her skirts up around her knees. She pulled the reins free and smacked the onagers with them in one wild move. The chariot seemed to spring clean off the ground. She hit them again before it came down.
'Mistress!' Verk screamed, sprinting after her.
'You follow!' Her yell was probably lost in another bellow of thunder. She took the gate on one wheel. Lavender fire streaked the clouds. Hauling the whip from its socket, she gave the onagers more hard whacks. They shrieked and went even faster.
The road was empty, of course. No sane person would be outdoors now. Thunder roared, and the first raindrops, big as grapes, splashed icily on her skin. The bridge to Blueflower was straight ahead. It came at her like an arrow, but even as it grew, it faded behind a gray gauze of rain. By the time she reached it water was falling from the sky in rivers, beating on her like sixty-sixty hammers.
Wheels growled as they raced over the timbers. Up on to Chatter Place, another big shipping island. Tearing down a street with not a soul in sight. She lacked her alms bag, her veil, the two lily blossoms, and several other things needed for the ritual. Not to mention the sad state of her dress, her hair, her makeup. These things mattered not to Fabia, because she wasn't going to the Pantheon. She was going to the palace to give Eide and Saltaja a piece of her mind. Two pieces, one each. She was driving under water, barely able to recognize the way from Chatter Place to Eelfisher. Huge swells were running, surging up almost to the bridge deck—indeed, she could see the bridge swaying ahead of her. That was ominous. She glanced seaward and saw only fog.
Where were those Werist swine? She had expected to catch up to them by now. Even if the satrap owned the finest onagers in the world, Dark and Night should have been able to outrun them when they only had Frena as cargo. The brutes might have gone by way of Lobsterclaw instead. She peered around but saw no sign of Verk and Uls behind her, or anyone at all for that matter, but she couldn't see far. Streets were brown rivers. The air was a sea, the train of her dress a mess of filthy tatters. Shivering violently and trying to remember the last time she had been cold, she took another one-wheel corner and shot out onto the bridge to Temple. The deck was empty, booming under the wheels.
Lightning turned the gloom milk-white; instant thunder struck like sixty-sixty sledgehammers. Night and Dark panicked and bolted. She dropped her whip and almost lost the reins; when she regained them she clung like death to the rail and screamed at the onagers to go faster. Under the roar of the rain lay a deeper, more sinister sound. Something that should not be there loomed up in the mist downstream, something advancing purposefully up the channel. Fabia howled and tried to rein in.
She couldn't see much, but there was a ship, certainly, and what looked like the remains of houses, and this wall of death rode relentlessly up the channel on a high gray wave. The bridge was doomed and so was she, unless she could reach the far side before that mess arrived.
'
Fortunately, she made it out from under the ship and other flotsam before the wave hit close behind her, crumpling and burying the bridge. The onagers saw it or felt it, and seemed to redouble their speed. As the final span lifted and broke apart under their hooves, they reached land, but certainly not dry land. The chariot sprayed up the slope with the storm surge frothing at its wheels, then raced along a street with a smaller wall of water still pursuing. Frena no longer pretended to be in control, or even aware where on this rock pile of an island she was. They had missed the turnoff to the Pantheon. The onagers took a right fork, then a left, and came to an intersection where a muddy torrent raced across their path. Then she saw a door she recognized from her dreams.
'Whoa!' She reached for the brake just as one wheel dropped into a pothole as big as a bathtub. The river was cold as death and deep enough to break her fall. It lifted her, rolled her, and seemed to be carrying her straight back into the killer storm surge. Dazed and choking, she struggled to her knees and grabbed hold of the wall. She
