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promise! Let it be a lesson to you both." He shoved Perrez, who'd just gotten
his feet under him, at the open gate. "Start moving."
Perrez, who hadn't actually lost anything that could have been called his in
the first place, went through the gate without protest. Not so Dace. The
Nighter retreated toward the aromacist's workroom.
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"I'm stayin'. That Nareel comes home, I'm gettin' the lucky back. Don't care
'bout no royals."
By that Bezul assumed Dace had overheard his entire conversation with Perrez.
"You don't need sorcery to bait crabs, Dace. The lucky's not worth dying for,"
he told the youth and silently chided himself for caring. He turned around and
nearly walked into Perrez.
"We don't have to wait. I know where Nareel's gone he'd brought a map with him
from Ilsig. He was looking for some dead shite's hoard. Fastalen something
like that. The map didn't match with what he found in the quarter. There's not
a house up there now that was standing when whoever drew Nareel's map. That's
where the attractor came in. He and I were going to use it to find the hoard.
Said it had to be today couldn't wait 'til tomorrow, something about the sun.
He's up there now I swear it and we don't need an attractor to find a man
rooting through rubble."
"We don't need anything," Bezul replied. "We're going home to Wriggle Way."
But Bezul stopped short of shoving his brother toward the gate again. He
wasn't blind to the allure in Perrez's argument. "Look at yourself," he said
in one last attempt to free them all from temptation. "Clothes torn. Face
bloodied. And don't tell me you've got full use of your right arm. The
aromacist has already beaten you once today, Perrez "
"Because I wasn't ready. This time, I'll be surprising him& and you'll be with
me."
"No."
"Bez "
"No."
"You're getting old
, Bez. Ten years ago, you'd have led the way."
"Not a chance," Bezul said confidently.
Children hadn't changed him, marriage hadn't changed him, even the Troubles
hadn't changed him. He'd changed the day his father abandoned their uptown
shop for Wriggle Way. Perrez couldn't remember that day; he'd been a toddler,
younger than Lesimar; but Bezul had been old enough to see the despair on his
parents' faces and it had burnt the wildness out of him forever.
"Let it go, Perrez. Come home. Chersey will bind up your ribs and cuts."
"No. It's the Nighter's lucky and our gold, not Nareel's. Tell Mother I'm
coming home rich, or not at all."
Dace Father Ils bless his limp and his stubbornness had hobbled out of the
workroom to stand beside Perrez, all but announcing that they were partners
again. Bezul closed his eyes. He imagined
himself returning to Wriggle Way: sober, righteous& alone. Wealth had never
tempted him. It still didn't, but the tide had turned regardless.
"If we're going," he conceded, "we'd best get started."
Between Dace's withered leg and Perrez's bruises, the three men crossed
Sanctuary slowly. Bezul considered that their prey might be flown by the time
Perrez got them to the right quarter. He kept his thoughts to himself. If they
missed the opportunity, then they missed the danger, too.
"Not far now," Perrez assured them as they trudged up one of the steepest
streets in the city.
They'd paused for water at a communal well where Perrez had washed the worst
of the blood from his face, which only made the bruises more noticeable, and
the swollen kink in his nose. Bezul was a grown man with children of his own,
but he'd always be the elder brother. He reserved the right to pummel
Perrez; he conceded it to no one, especially not an aromacist from Ilsig.
Perrez led them down a treacherous alley to a courtyard that had seen better
days, much better days, a generation or more earlier. Patches of fresco murals
clung to the weathered walls, none of them large enough to reveal a scene or
subject. The windows and doorways were empty, stripped of everything valuable
or moveable.
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"Where to?" Dace asked.
There was no need for Perrez's answer. They could all hear a man shouting,
"Slowly& Slowly, you worms!" with the rounded accent of old Ilsig.
"Nareel!"
Perrez grinned and Bezul had to move quickly to stop his brother from racing
to a confrontation.
"Slowly's a damn good idea, Perrez. Slowly and quietly
. He's not alone."
"You first," Perrez urged and Bezul obliged.
There was a sameness to the ruins of Sanctuary. After beams burnt and walls
fell, it could be difficult to say if the ruins had been a mansion or a hovel.
For Bezul, it was enough that there was rubble to hide behind and see around
in a deeply shadowed corner not far from the gaping doorway. He motioned to
Perrez and Dace and they joined him.
Perrez clapped his brother on the arm and pointed at a tall man with
gray-touched hair. His lips shaped the word
Nareel
. Bezul nodded and wished he could have asked Perrez if the aromacist
regularly dressed in long black robes or tied an antique bronze breastplate
over his chest though, judging from the puzzled expression on his brother's
face, the answer would have been No.
The "worms" at whom Nareel shouted were a pair of laborers the ragged [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]