Children of Chaos

to the sanctuary of holy Sinura at once, mistress.'

Suddenly she felt incredibly weary, as the stressful days and sleepless nights caught up with her. 'No. Just home. The Healers will be overloaded with far worse injuries than mine. I took a tumble, is all. Nothing serious.' The cut on her hand would not be noticed among all the other scrapes.

Yelling and cracking his whip, Verk began the tricky process of guiding the onagers out of the crowd, but they were almost uncontrollable, driven out of their asinine minds by the rain and tumult.

'What are all these people doing?' she demanded.

'Giving thanks for not being drowned, mistress.'

The disaster had allowed her to make her vows of the Old One as she had wanted, but she did not like to think that it might have been sent for that purpose. 'What about those who did drown?'

His pale eyes twinkled. 'They were impious people who deserved what happened.'

They laughed together. Unkind, yes. Blasphemous, certainly. But they were alive when so many were not, and it was only human to rejoice. Between cursing at idiots of two and four legs both, Verk explained how he had seen the bridge go, but only after Fabia had already vanished into the rain. He had taken a roundabout way to the Pantheon and been waiting and watching for her ever since, overhearing news of terrible destruction on the seaward islands—Crab, Blueflower, Saltgrass, and Strand—and lesser damage as far upstream as Slanted. Naturally, he had no information on what had happened to Horth since the Werists had carried him off.

She gave him a vague account of her accident, reflecting that if she told him the whole story he would faint right out of the chariot. She had not yet grasped all the consequences of her actions. From now on her life would never be free of danger. And what had she gained, in return for a lifetime of jumping at shadows? A long lifetime, supposedly, if she could avoid being buried alive too early. She could see in the dark better than before, which might be useful, but what of the strange power that had destroyed Pukar and Satrap Karvak? A knack for making men walk backward was certainly not a skill to be displayed in public, and of limited usefulness, since she could not count on finding rebel archers or bottomless chasms in the background very often. It might be a form of the evil eye. The seer had hinted that Paola had brought down some of her Werist assailants in her death struggles, and polytheists could not do that. Fabia needed a teacher, but she just could not imagine herself hailing down Saltaja Hragsdor with a cheerful demand for lessons in cursing.

Fabia had killed a man. She tried not to think too hard about that...

'Verk?'

'Mistress?'

'Why did you come here and wait for me? You must have known I was heading for the palace?'

The chariot lurched down the muddy street. Verk stared straight ahead, rain dribbling from his helmet to his craggy, fresh-shaven face and on down his shiny mail.

'A lucky mistake, mistress.'

'Yes, but now tell me the real reason.'

He squirmed. 'Last night, mistress ...'

'Well?'

'I had a dream. I was in that place and many, many people were wailing. And you were there, calling me ... mistress.' He shot a nervous sideways glance at her, eyes all white.

Dreams came from the Mother of Lies, of course. And Fabia had tried to rescue the Chosen at Bitterfeld. That was why he looked so frightened.

'Then it was a miracle. But I will see that Father rewards you well.'

She was very tempted to add, 'And I give you my blessing.' But Verk had been very loyal, and it would not be fair to terrify him even more.

¦

The crisp smell of the sea bore sinister, sour overtones. Weed and debris on the streets were the first signs of flooding, but not the last, and soon the destruction was total—ships on top of houses and houses on what had once been ships. Skjar had not been smitten so badly in many lifetimes. Many bridges had gone, but Verk found a way back to Crab, where great stretches of island had been swept clean.

Horth's extravagant habit of building in stone had paid off, for the Wigson residence remained standing, solitary defiance in the midst of desolation, with lights showing in downstairs windows. There had been damage, of course—doors and shutters ripped away, the grounds devastated, the main floor gutted. Dazed servants were digging golden goblets out from heaps of sand, seaweed, and shattered furniture.

Fabia's appearance was greeted with cries of joy. Dozens crowded around her, gabbling out all the good news hidden behind the bad. The first warning surf had come surging over the docks just after she left, they said, while everyone had still been in the great hall, no doubt enjoying a juicy gossip about the master's abduction and his daughter's unorthodox departure. Master Trinvar had rushed everyone upstairs and there had been no casualties, as there surely would have been had the staff been scattered throughout the whole complex as usual.

So the goddess of death had spared this house? The Bright Ones expected praise and sacrifices when they behaved nicely, but even to suggest these for holy Xaran would be regarded as blasphemy.

Fabia had just established that there had been no news of the master himself when more cheering from the entrance announced his return, and Horth limped forward into the torchlight. His hat had gone, his jeweled robes were muddy and sodden, and the city's richest inhabitant resembled a bedraggled, shipwrecked bindlestiff, but he seemed to be unharmed, which was all that mattered. Fabia ran to him and they hugged, two battered waifs jabbering delight and relief, tears and laughter. She ex plained about her narrow escape on the bridge and the chariot upset.

He sighed. 'So we will have to start over. You will have to organize a new celebration. We must ask the high priestess to set a new date for your vows.'

Thereupon Fabia had what seemed like a brainwave. The idea of swearing false oaths was repugnant; Paola had passed on her dislike of hypocrisy. 'Celebration, yes, but when I reached Temple and the bridge fell behind me,