Storm Season

"You will die, you know. This is the last bolthole. Your end is here."

An end for both of us then, Lalo thought numbly. I will not mind-Then his trembling fingers found the crack. He moved his hand along the wall, lips whispering the numbers that had become a litany-sixty-six, sixty-seven steps... Please, Lord Ils, Jet it be here... sixty-eight... Shalpa help me, sixty nine, seventy?

His fingers closed on a rusting semicircle of iron, and stifling a gasp of relief he hauled himself upward, though his fingers slipped on the rungs. The splashing behind him slowed as if his enemy had paused to listen, then became a tumult as Zanderei began to run.

Lalo gained the top, shoved the wooden cover aside, and heart bursting, rolled over the edge into the clean air. But he could not rest now, not yet, not until the trap was sprung. Summoning strength where he had thought there could be no more, he hauled the cover over the shaft and drove home the wooden bar. And without waiting to see if it would hold, he staggered back to the first shaft and did the same thing there.

Then he sank to the cobbles beside it, pulse hammering, knowing that this last, god-given strength was gone and he could do not more. This was the only place in the network of sewers where two shafts entered the conduits so close together. Zanderei was trapped there now.

How sweet the air was to his lungs. From some upper room Lalo heard the tinkle of a gittem and a woman's low laughter. A soft wind comforted his burning cheeks-a sea wind. And then Lalo remembered with mingled satisfaction and horror that Zanderei was doubly doomed. With the sea wind would come a rush of dark water from the Swamp of Night Secrets, propelled by the tidal bore.

"You-Assassin-you've done well-but what made you think you could win this game with me?" Lalo whispered through cracked lips. Laughter rasped his throat, and he sat shaking by the locked well-mouth while the slime of the tu

"Limner, are you there?"

Lalo jumped, hearing the voice so close to him. The wood of the shaft-top shuddered as it was struck from below, and Lalo leaned on the bar. Hanging from the rungs by one hand, there was no way Zanderei could gain enough leverage to break free. That was what Lalo had heard in dark tales whispered by childhood friends, and later, overwinecups in the Vulgar Unicorn. If he lived, he too would have a tale to tell. ...

"Assassin, I am here and you are there and there you will stay," croaked Lalo when the dull hammering finally stilled.

"I will give you gold-I have never broken my word . . . You could establish yourself in the capital."

"I don't want your gold." I don't even want to go to Ranke, his thought continued, not anymore.

"I will give you your life..." said Zanderei. "Coricidius won't believe you, you know, and the Hell-Hounds will have your skull for a drinking bowl. At the very least they will strike off your hands ..."

Involuntarily, Lalo's fingers clasped protectively around his wrists, as if a bright blade were already descending. It was true-surely he had lost all he had ever gained. Better to meet Zan-derei's knife than to live without being able to take brush in hand. If I ca

But he did not move. Shivering with exhaustion and despair, still he would not throw away this victory, even though he hardly understood his reasons anymore.

"Limner, I will give you your soul..."

"You can only give death, foreigner! You ca

"I do not need to-" the voice seemed very tired. "I only need to ask you a question. Have you ever painted your own portrait, Limner with the sorcerer's eye?"

The silence stretched into eternity while Lalo tried to understand. He felt a subtle quiver in the earth that told him the tide was begi

-In the old days, before Enas York had taught him to paint the soul ...

I've been too busy-no... the awareness came reluctantly, I was afraid.

"What will you see on your canvas when you have murdered me?" The voice echoed his fear.

"Stop it! Leave me alone!" Lalo cried aloud. He heard a deep voice shout orders in the street beyond the alley, and saw for a moment the flicker of lanterns bobbing by, pallid in the moonlight.

In a few minutes the poisoned waters would be driven from their bed by the inexorable pressure of the tide, and rush through the sewers of Sanctuary like a host of angry serpents seeking their prey. In a few minutes Zanderei would be dead.

If he disappears, maybe they will blame Zanderei for the Fire. When the stir dies down I'll be free to paint again. His hand twitched as if he held a brush, but the motion triggered Zanderei's words in his memory.

"Have you ever painted your own portrait?"

Lalo shuddered suddenly, violently. Could even Enas Yorl lift the curse this man had laid upon his soul? He heard the irregular tramp of men trying to march in close order over an uneven road. The sound was louder now-in a few moments they would pass his alleyway. In a few moments the waters would be here.

"What will you see when you have murdered me?"

Without conscious decision, Lalo found himself ru

"Ho there! Guards-he is hiding in the sewers-down this alley!" He held his ground while they debated, knowing that they could not recognize him under the sodden clothes and mud, and motioned to them to follow him.

Then he pounded down the alley, bent to wrestle the bar from the shaft-cover and ran on until he found the dark overhang of a staircase to shelter him. Below he felt a trembling and heard the hiss of many waters, and, just as the wooden lid of the shaft was knocked aside, the hollow boom of water forced upward through too narrow a way.

Something dark clung to the rim of the shaft, like a rat flooded from its hole, then clambered the rest of the way out once the fury of the waters had passed. But now the Hell-Hounds surrounded the shaft. There was a flurry of movement and Lalo heard swearing and a cry of pain. Among the voices he distinguished the soft tones of the Emperor's Commissioner.

"Is that who you say you are?" A deep voice, Quag's voice, replied. "Well, if we've lost the dauber, at least we have you. My Lord Prince will be interested to learn what sharp-toothed rats his brother keeps to guard his granaries! Come along, you!"

Lalo sank back against the post of the stair. It was over. The Hell-Hounds were dragging Zanderei away as once they had dragged him into the night.

He would find a way to let Coricidius know what the painting had shown and what Zanderei had confessed to him. Would they call him into court to prove it? Would they dispose of the assassin quietly, or send him back to Ranke to report his failure? With a dim wonder Lalo realized that it did not matter anymore.

Gilla would have harsh words for him when he reached home, but her arms would be soft and comforting ...

But still he did not move, for below the surface questions in his mind pulsed one more perplexing-Why did I let Zanderei go?

Today he had faced death, and fought for his life, and conquered fear. He had realized that the evil of the world was not confined to Sanctuary. But if he could do all this, he was not the person that he had thought he knew.