The price of victory- - Thieves World 13 (70 page)

He rested his face in his hands-How many times had he come here to think, sometimes in joy, sometimes in despair? Why had he never set his

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mind to really seeing what was going on around him, instead of chasing his own thoughts until he grew tired, or Gilla came to drag him home?

Memory moved back to the time of his greatest agony (until now)
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when Enas Yorl's gift had turned to a curse from which he saw no escaping. Lalo remembered how he had gazed into the polluted waters of Sanctuary's harbor. He would have thrown himself into them that day if it had not been for the horrors he saw floating there.

But you cannot see what is in those waters now. . . .

Were the words that came to Lalo's mind his own? Softly, how softly, the wavelets were lapping—they made a hushed, soothing sound, like a lullaby. He turned a little, head tipped toward the water, listening.

Gently rocking, peacefully floating . . . soon the tide would be turn ing, and all broken and useless things that had been cast into the bay would be carried out to sea. The weight of his head drew him downward

. . . moist air cooled the tight skin of his brow. How easy it would be to let himself fall . . . When the dark waters had closed over him it would not matter if he could see.

He let out his breath on a long sigh, not allowing himself to think, wanting only coolness, darkness, rest. . . .

"Papa, Papa! Watch out!" Sharp fingers pulled him upright. For a moment Lalo tensed in resistance. "Papa, were you asleep? You almost fell in!"

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Lalo shook his head despairingly. He had been so close! He struggled to his feet and took a step forward, then stopped, confused. Which way was the water?

Latilla's thin arms closed around him. "It's all right. Papa. You're going the right direction—I won't let you fall!"

The water was behind him, then-All he would have to do was turn, and leap—he felt wetness on his hand. Latilla's tears. . . . One leap and it would be over for him, but not for her. The child would have felt guilty even if his death had appeared to be an accident. Latilla thought she had saved him. Lalo could not kill himself before her eyes.

Oh, my little one—he thought, holding her, ;/ only you could set me free. . . .

He let Latilla lead him homeward without even trying to keep track of the way, let her bright chatter flow over him without answering. The house was full of the rich odor of roasting fowl as they came in the door, but even the relief in Gilla's voice as she announced that the Prince had awarded Lalo a pension could not cheer him. He told them that the walk had tired him, and lay down with his face to the wall.

Darios breathes slowly, deeply, trying to control panic with the knowl
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edge that he is not going to exhaust the air in the room. The water that drips down the wall proves the vault is hermetically sealed no longer. That must be why he has awakened—even the magic that made this place is finally beginning to decay.

But not entirely. The spells that hold—and hide—the door are still intact. Darios has worn his fingertips raw, feeling every inch of stone. He has even spent some of his dwindling strength to conjure up a magelight, but the blue flicker shows him the same blank surface his fingers have found. Without some way to replenish his energy he dares not try that again. He will not die of thirst or suffocation, but without food, how long can he survive? If he uses no energy, and stills his bodily processes in trance, Darios can extend his existence. Buy why? Why, if he is bound to starve to death in the end?

If only he could remember the Sigil on the outside of the door!

That night, he had thought only of getting into the vault—he had been sure that his master was just behind him. . . .

Darios takes a deep. shuddering breath and forces himself to stillness again. Are all the wizards in Sanctuary dead? He tries to use his inner vision, but he has not received the proper initiations to walk the Wizards'

road. All that comes to him is the face ofRhian, gray eyes clear as rainwa ter, auburn hair taking fire from the setting sun. . . .
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Am I being punished for deceiving her? Darios wonders. It was only a little magic, a small glamor to make her look at me! He was a student, and he looked like one—a little round in the shoulders from hunching over a desk, and in the belly, too, though he supposed his gut was growing concave by now. Pale from long hours indoors, how could he compete with the hard-muscled, bronzed men of the Palace guard? But he had skills a soldier never dreamed of, and it had only been a small spell to make him look taller, to broaden his shoulders, to give his dark eyes a mystic gleam.

And it had worked! Rhian had given him her love!

Oh my sweet girl! His heart cries. Where are you now? Did you sur vive, do you remember me? The brightness of her eyes holds his fear at bay. Still clinging to that image, Darios forces himself back into the half sleep that will preserve him another day.

"Papa—I've brought Rhian to see you—"

Wedemir's voice, brittle with that conscious cheerfulness with which everyone spoke to Lalo these days. Did they think he could not hear? He heard the rustle of silken skirts and turned his head toward the sound. What did she look like, this girl with whom his eldest had fallen in love?

"I'm glad to meet you."

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Her voice was subdued. Lalo wondered if she were embarrassed be cause of his blindness, or whether she had her own sorrows? Even the privileged ones at the Palace had reasons to grieve, these past years.

"You are in service with the Beysa?" he asked. He wanted to hear her speak again. Silk whispered as if she had shrugged.

"The Prince wants to build understanding between our people and hers. I was glad to be offered the position. My father brought his family here when the Prince was made Governor, but my parents had gone back to Ranke on a visit when the Emperor . . . fell."

Lalo thought she sounded more wistful than bitter. Her voice had a spicy warmth to it. What kind of face would go with those tones? Drift ing, he visualized cleanly modeled features, bright eyes, and hair of some warm color—something like cinnamon, perhaps.

He could hear Wedemir talking to his mother in the other room.

"They tell me that my son is courting you," Lalo said then. There was a pause, as if Rhian had looked around to see who else was there.

"Wedemir is a good man," she said slowly, "but—" Suddenly it
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seemed to him that her Rankan accent was very clear.

"But he is Ilsigi, and a commoner!" Lalo fought to subdue a bitterness he thought he had forgotten.

"Oh, it is not that!" Rhian said quickly. "What does all that matter, now? But before I met Wedemir, I had given my word—"

"To a mageling—" Lalo remembered now. "Wedemir was telling me. Did you love him so much, then?" He stopped, wondering why he dared question her so sharply. Was it perhaps just because he could not see her?

And was she answering so freely because she did not fear to read con demnation in his eyes?

Rhian sighed. "Wedemir is very warm and alive. When I am with him, I feel safe. I know that I am loved. But I gave Darios my word."

"Death cancels such pledges," said Lalo.

"Darios is not dead."

"She keeps on saying that!"

Lalo started, realizing that Wedemir had come in from the other room.

"Rhian, if he is not dead, he has deserted you! You owe him nothing either way!"

"I can feel his presence! If he is dead, then his spirit is haunting me!" Her tone had sharpened, and Lalo's sense other presence grew clearer.
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She was turning from him to Wedemir, her gaze more luminous, as if her eyes had filled with tears. Or was it only the pain in her voice that made him think so?

"In my dreams I see him, Wedemir - . . Darios is trapped in dark ness, and he cannot get free!"

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Trapped in darkness! thought Lalo. Like me! Like me! For a moment a terror that was not his own washed through him. But he could hear voices, feel the sun on his face and breathe in the wind. It occurred to him for the first time since he had been blinded that there were worse fates than his own.

"He is not dead yet," Rhian continued. "But he is dying. He has been buried alive, and if I can't find him, he will starve to death in the dark. He has lost hope, but still he thinks of me. . . ."

Again, the sense of panic washed through Lalo's awareness, as if what the girl was feeling had somehow been transmitted directly from her to him.

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"But where?" exclaimed Wedemir, humoring her. "Most of the wreck age from the riots has been cleared away."

"Not all of it—" said Rhian slowly. "No one has dared to touch the parts of the Mageguild that fell down. That's where Darios was living. What if he sought shelter in the cellars and was trapped there? The possibility comes between me and sleep!"

"Well that's easily checked out!" Wedemir laughed. "I'll get a permit from the Palace to excavate, go down there with a fe^ of the lads and some picks and shovels and dig the nibble out. We'll lay your ghost for you, Rhian.'*

Lalo could feel the sudden hostility between them. He understood Wedemir's reaction—he was fighting for his love. But beneath her Rankan elegance this woman was the true steel. The boy would ruin his chances with her if he went on this way, no matter what the diggers found. Why couldn't Wedemir see that? Lalo felt himself straining, as if a look could silence his son. But he knew that he was seeing through both of them, seeking, like Darios, to pierce the dark.

Darios knows when he is dreaming, because in his dreams, he can see. But when he opens his eyes into darkness, he is afraid. He is going to die.

. . . Why does he keep trying to keep his body going when there can only be one end? He will go through the only door that will open for him now, and hope the gods will forgive him all the petty deceptions and angers of a
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student mage.

I have done nothing really bad, he tells himself. Nor anything particu larly good, either, his thought goes on. But he has done one thing for which the Judge might indeed condemn him, though he supposes that hardly a man in the Mageguild or out of it would care. He has deceived a woman in order to compel her love.

Was that evil? He asks himself. What would that deception do to me—

to us—if I were to live? He thinks of Rhian's bright beauty, and knows

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that his own falsehood would stain it for him, in time. As outer vision is denied, his inner awareness becomes clearer, showing him a future in which one deception leads to another, until he hates Rhian's truth for showing him his own deficiency—until he hates, and at last destroys, the clear gaze that would prevent him from seeing himself as he has made her see him.

Is this knowledge why he is suffering? But now Darios knows his sin. Surely he has been punished enough. Once more. he tried to remember the SigH on the door, the pattern which he must trace in order to be free. . . .
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But he cannot see it!

And there is no use in praying for rescue. Darios remembers only too well how the Spell that seals the vault is set to respond if anyone tries to open it by physical means. . . .

Lalo knew that he must be dreaming, because he could see. He dreamed with a clarity of vision that had never been his in waking life, or even in sleep, before his sight was taken away. In his dreams, he ranged through Sanctuary at will, invisible, invulnerable, as if all the energy that had no outlet by day was fueling his nocturnal wanderings—nocturnal in their beginnings, though once he had begun his dreaming, Lalo might find himself moving through night or day, through scenes from the past, or sometimes among people and events whom his waking mind would not have recognized. But he had never tried to bring these visions into waking memory. The contrast would have been too cruel.

It was morning now. The clear light glowed in the faces of the young, who woke wondering what the new day would bring, and revealed with out pity every line and shadow in those of their elders, who knew only too well. Still, there was a welcome freshness in the air, and the sunlight gleamed cheerfully from the temple domes. For a moment Lalo thought that he had gone back to his own youth, when the great caravans used to bring the town a rough prosperity. But as he looked more closely he saw the mended cracks the new gilding tried to hide, and turning a corner, recognized the jagged outlines of the Mageguild. This was the present
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then, or perhaps the future, for the City walls beyond it were perceptibly higher than he remembered them.

For such an early hour, the place seemed very active. . . . Lalo moved closer, and saw a familiar curly head—his own son Wedemir, with a crowd of his friends from the garrison, big, bronzed men, who laughed and traded good-natured obscenities. But they were carrying picks, not pikes, and instead of swords they swung shovels. Wedemir was trying, with indifferent success, to get them organized. A short distance away Lalo saw his daughter Vanda, and with her another girl whose auburn