Smiling, Corbinye closed her eyes. And, very shortly, slept.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  It was not in his house; nor was it in the warehouse at the port; nor at the fashionable UpTown office.

  It was not in his mistress' lavish river-view apartment; it was not on the premises of any of the eight businesses of which he was part owner.

  Gem ordered a cup of strong tea and stared out the window of the cafe, wondering for the nine hundredth time in six days where in the name of all demons Jarge Menlin kept the Bindalche Trident.

  Six days gone. He had until First Dawn tomorrow to discover the thing, steal it and bring it safely to Saxony Belaconto. That she would then allow Corbinye and himself to depart peacefully he did not expect; yet it was impossible to form further plans until he had the Trident in hand.

  And if the Trident did not come to hand? He shook his head and sipped the hot beverage. He had no doubt he could steal Corbinye from the Blue House; little doubt that Linzer Skot would hold Dart in readiness, once he claimed the message waiting for him at the port.

  But he felt utterly certain that Saxony Belaconto would hunt them with her last breath and hold them up as an example of what became of those who dared to thwart the Vornet.

  Out of the office building across the street came a fleshy, half-bald man in clothes too fashionable for him. Gem put aside his cup and slipped out of the cafe to follow Jarge Menlin, wherever he might go.

  He went all over UpTown; visited each of the eight businesses of which he was a partner; stopped briefly at Iliam's, rather longer at Korson's Jewelers; and no time at all, really, at the Flower Basket. Gem fidgeted and thought about the mistress' legendary temper and her passion for a certain exotic blossom; and cursed Jarge Menlin, the Five Telios of the Bindalche and the Vornet, in no particular order.

  Jarge Menlin came out of the Flower Basket, turned right through the thickening crowds of Second Noon, and went with uncharacteristic vigor toward the River DownRamp.

  At River Plaza, he hailed a cab and Gem swore and broke into a run. His elbow caught Menlin in the middle of his back as he began to bend to the cab, nearly overbalancing him. Gem grabbed the older man's arm, spouting apologies, brushing at the expensive clothing—

  "Enough!" Menlin roared, one large hand flashing out toward Gem's throat. "Try to pick my pockets, will you?"

  Gem danced back a pace, empty hands out and up, an expression of well-meaning vacuity on his face.

  "No, then, sir, I was only meaning to help, since my clumsiness almost tumbled your honor straight onto your head! As to picking your pockets, sir—I'm not half clever enough to be a thief. Check and see if it's not so!"

  Frowning, Menlin patted his pockets; pulled out a wallet and slid it back away; did the same with a flat velvet jeweler's box and a folder of keycards.

  "All right, then," he said irritably; "but watch yourself. There's some not as easy-going as I am, who'd shoot you and then count their change."

  "Your honor, I know it," Gem assured him fervently. "My sincerest thanks for your good humor and your advice." He bowed, backing away slightly as he did. "Fortune keep your honor and may blessed circumstances surround you."

  Menlin had turned his back before this pleasantry was half-done and climbed into the cab, snarling directions into the driver's speaker. Gem stood on the walkway, watching the little blue-and-gray vehicle zip down the road and 'round the first bend. Then he ran out into the road and commandeered a cab for himself.

  * * *

  The blip was strong and steady. Gem directed the cab in an unhurried murmur, eyes on the wrist readout. Number Six, certainly the humblest and least complex of spiders, clung to his target and broadcast his simple message over and over with a tenacity that commanded his master's love.

  The signal stilled; began to move again, much more slowly.

  "Stop here," Gem murmured to the cab and slid a coin into the meterbox as the door cycled open.

  On the walk, he spun slowly around to get his bearings. Just so. Three blocks from the Port; very near the warehouse district, yet not quite among them. A neighborhood of sullen shops and shabby offices, street and sidewalk bare of traffic at barely past Second Noon.

  A glance at the readout told him that, two blocks southwest, Jarge Menlin was walking at a hurried pace. Gem smiled to himself and ambled along, looking into dusty shop windows and trusting to Number Six.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  "Corbinye Faztherot?"

  She deliberately speared the last morsel of breakfast, chewed and swallowed before looking up at him, and frowning.

  "Yes."

  He was scowling; thick brows pulled together and down, cheeks furrowed and fleshy mouth turned down. His fingers quivered, ever so slightly, no doubt yearning for the grips of the weapons riding on his hips.

  "Saxony Belaconto sends for you," he snarled. "You will come with me."

  Corbinye inclined her head. "Very well. Await me in the hall."

  The brows lowered further, and the fingers of his right hand, at least, found solace 'round a gun-grip. "I can pump you full of tranquilizer and carry you out, or you can walk out on your own two feet," he growled. "But you're going and you're going now!"

  Corbinye came to her feet with perhaps a quarter of her old speed, hands slapping the breakfast table, pitiable muscles tensing for action.

  "I will go when I am prepared to go and not an instant sooner," she said coldly. "Try me at your peril, Grounder."

  The brows were somewhat less definite. Corbinye pushed her advantage.

  "Does your mistress go from council room to council room all mussed from sleep, like a whore?"

  This argument held some force, she saw from his face. She called up the Command voice and pointed at the door. "Await me in the hall!"

  He started, even beginning a salute before he caught himself; stiffened and marched out the door.

  Shoulders abruptly sagging, Corbinye looked around at the prison room that suddenly seemed like sanctuary. After a moment, she went to take a shower.

  * * *

  Some while later, dressed in dark trousers and boots and a scarlet shirt with blousing sleeves; hair braided with a length of ribbon exactly matching the shirt, Corbinye looked at Number Fifteen, watching patiently from his perch on the mirror's edge.

  "Anjemalti?" she said, very softly. "Cousin?"

  Number Fifteen blinked golden eyes and relapsed into stillness.

  Sighing, Corbinye stood and held out a hand. The spider came readily into her palm, claws mincing; she brought it nearer, peering, as if she could see through the golden eyes and down along the invisible lines that kept it tied to Anjemalti. . ..

  She shook her head at her own folly, and gently put the spider in her pocket. Of the other objects in the room, she took only the flat folder containing her IDs, credit chits and cash. Slipping it into her other pocket, she went to the door and laid her hand against the plate.

  As never before, it slid open, and she stepped out into a hallway crowded with armed guards.

  Corbinye stopped, sought and found he of the scowling brows and pointed. "You. What is the meaning of this?"

  He started, stared around him as if only now seeing the mob of his mates, and looked back at her, brows twitching.

  "Ms. Belaconto sent us to get you." He grinned, gap-toothed. "Maybe she wanted to be sure you didn't get any ideas about going solo, huh?"

  Corbinye stared at him coldly. "Saxony Belaconto has my word that I will behave as befits a guest. She might as easily have sent her grandmother to show me the way, and let you free for—other endeavors." She shrugged, eloquent of resigned outrage. "Why do we tarry? I had thought I was to come to your captain immediately."

  Thus recalled to a sense of his duty, he barked orders and the rest of the crew formed themselves into a square around her, guns very apparent, and marched her out of the Blue House and into a waiting car.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The fat man came, as he always did, red-faced and breathing hard, shoving open the door as if it were man's place alone, and not also the abode of that which was not man.

  Witness for the Telios sighed and wondered in his private heart what it was that Shlorba's Smiter wished of the fat man. Certainly, it was not reverence; though Witness-memory taught him that a thirst for reverence had not in the past been characteristic of the Smiter. Yet, those Chosen of the past had had a certain—boldness—in common; a certainty of purpose, no matter that each purpose had been as different from the other as each grain of sand was different from its brothers. Witness for the Telios, in his private heart, believed that Shlorba's Smiter found this boldness—exhilarating.

  The fat man was not bold. He came as if compelled to the Smiter's Center, smelling of liquor and women and flowers; laid his hand upon the grip and muttered his name as if any moment his bones would give up their duty and there would be nothing left of the fat man at all, excepting a smear of pudding on the floor.

  As part of his duties as Witness, he had studied the fat man's society and culture and as much of the fat man himself as it was possible to do, to thus give context and perspective to the Memory. It annoyed him, in his private heart, that an Epoch that had so much potential—the Smiter sets forth from the Bindalche, forsooth! and rises into the stars to clutch who knows what new and terrible magics to itself—should wither into boredom in the fat man's soft, scented hands.

  The fat man had turned from the Smiter and was standing now before him, hand clenched, the stink of liquor on his breath. Witness for the Telios sighed and stood, awaiting the inevitable. At first, he had not understood the fat man's insistence on asking these questions, on seeking assurance, as if he were a boy untried rather than an adult, Tried and Named and Tested. Study had provided him with certain answers. Within the fat man's culture, there was neither Testing nor Trying, and one might go from womb to pyre bearing only the milk-name given at birth. In a sense then was the fat man a boy untried, laboring under the milky influence of an infant-name. Witness for the Telios endeavored to keep this truth before his heart's eye in all their dealings.

  "Is all well with you?" inquired the fat man, wrinkles around his moist brown eyes.

  "All is well," replied Witness, with the gentleness one reserved for children, reminding his heart that the question was meant kindly and not as the deadly insult it must have been, asked between men.

  The fat man nodded. "And—that?" He gestured toward the Smiter. "Does it require anything? Is it—content?"

  "I am Witness for the Telios," Witness said, as he always did; "you are the one Chosen."

  "Yes, of course," muttered the fat man, as he always did, with his eyes dropping and darting tiny sharp glances around the room. He pulled himself upright, with a boy's brittle bravado, and nodded his head sharply.

  "Until next time, then. You know how to get in touch with me, if anything should happen."

  This was merely a nonsense phrase, a pleasantry, or so Witness thought. For what could it mean, "if anything should happen?" when everything within the Thought of the gods—fat men, the Bindalche, Shlorba's Smiter, and every Witness the Telios had brought to the Smiter—was caught forever in a state of event? How could it be that something not happen? But, there, it was merely the milky thinking of a child. And who could expect more, from one denied the Trial and the Naming?

  Witness for the Telios bowed, since the fat man had in the past understood this to signal agreement, and then had gone away.

  Today, however, he hesitated.

  "No one else has been here, have they? Asking questions? Trying to buy the Trident? Have they?"

  There was fear in the moist eyes. Witness brought his hand up in the gesture of Truthtelling. "No one."

  The fat man stared, long and hard, finally nodded his head and moved to the door. "All right then. But you keep an eye out, all right? It'll go bad with you, if somebody steals that thing from under your nose."

  Mere sound, signifying nothing. Witness bowed and the fat man slipped out the door, looking both ways with a stealth clumsy enough to make a fond father laugh.

  Sighing, Witness turned back to the larger room, eyes straying to the magnificence of the Smiter, reposing in its Center. He checked for a moment, and his private heart rose, singing, in his breast.

  Crouched upon Shlorba's Smiter, Mighty Weapon of the Mightiest Warrior, Destroyer of God; and undisturbed by any of the magics that warded lesser creatures and left their small husks in a litter on the floor beneath the Center, was a spider.

  Witness for the Telios walked slowly backward across the room, eyes on the Smiter and on the spider sitting there, so bold. So bold.

  He walked backward until his knees touched the study-chair, and then he sat, prepared to Witness all.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The room was below ground level, windowless and large. Whether it was in UpTown, DownTown, near the Port or by the river Corbinye prayed Number Fifteen knew, for the only certainty she held was that they remained upon Henron.

  The car windows had been opaqued; and the driver had exerted some ingenuity to confuse her sense of direction, so that they drove for more than an hour, east and west, north and south. When they finally came to rest, he of the scowling brows made a sign to another of the troop, who snapped forward in the crowded passenger bay and pinned Corbinye's arms to her side. She gritted her teeth and made no struggle against this indignity, though she nearly cried out when the blindfold came down over her eyes.

  Sightless, she was dragged along by both arms, led stumbling up three short steps and quick-marched down a long expanse of carpeting. There was a brief, downward ride in a lift, another march, this time over a floor that rang with their footsteps—tile or stone, Corbinye thought—and the hiss of a door mechanism.

  Her guards pushed her then, and the body failed her, so she crashed to her knees upon plush and cried out even as her hand came up and tore the blinders away.

  Uninterrupted white walls; carpeting like a field of snow, stretching away in all directions. Pale blue chair; white lacquer desk; silver reading lamp on a white wood table. A silver tray holding four blue mugs painted with dainty white flowers, and a crystal decanter.

  Pillows—pale blue, rose, dark white—heaped like barrows above the snow.

  Corbinye came slowly to her feet, caught a glimmer of movement from the corner of the eye and spun.

  The other woman spun, as well, dropping cleanly enough into the crouch; flipping the long braid behind her back with a head-jerk as her hand dropped toward right boot-top and the knife she no doubt wore there. A competent opponent, but slow, and handicapped doubly—once, by heavy Grounder bones; twice, by the very voluptuousness of her figure.

  The black eyes were opened wide, betraying concern; yet the face showed cool determination. Well enough.

  It was only then that she recognized the clothes, the braid, the face—and snapped erect, went a dozen steps forward, reached out and touched her own mirrored hand, cool and very smooth.

  "Aiiee . . ." she breathed and let her hand drop away. Number Fifteen stirred in her pocket, spider claws pricking skin comfortingly through fabric. She made as if to bring him out; checked at the slight sound and spun once more, this time toward the door.

  Saxony Belaconto came with none to guard her, a plain silver band held in one hand. At the room's center, she stopped and bowed, very slightly.

  "Corbinye Faztherot. I trust I find you well?"

  "Well," she said uncompromisingly.

  Amusement showed in the aquamarine eyes. "I hear from my captain that the escort I sent you was deemed insulting. Accept my apologies, for I did not intend it so."

  "No," said Corbinye; "you merely did not believe that a barbarian could keep her word." She shifted. "Where is my cousin?"

  Exquisite eyebrows rose. "About the business for which he was hired, I do most sincerely hope." She smiled, coldly. "And you must hope so, as well, for if he does not come to me with the item I have commissioned by tomorrow, First Dawn, your life is forfeit."

  Corbinye frowned. "You tie us both with the same cord, Saxony Belaconto—I to die if he does not do as you wish; he to die if I do not."

  "Are the knots undone?" The other shook her head, and held out the hand with the silver circlet. "Enough pleasantries. I have brought you this, which you are required to place upon your wrist. Do so now, and do not remove it."

  She hesitated and Saxony Belaconto laughed and threw, lightly, but with enough accuracy so Corbinye was forced to fling a hand up and catch the thing to prevent it striking her face.

  "Look." Saxony Belaconto had pulled one of her sleeves up, displaying the dull sheen of a bracelet very like the one Corbinye held.