Uneasy Alliances

"You want a divorce, Kitty-Kat?'' She looked at each of the four on the dais and gri

"List them, Princess, and we'll consider."

Daphne shot Molin a withering look. "Shut up, Torch. This is between Kadakithis and me. You're merely here to witness, and I extend you that courtesy only because I know you're even more eager for these two to wed than they are. I half expect you'll share the marriage bed."

Molin maintained an outward calm, but Daphne knew him better than that. She turned back to her husband.

"First, I want the estate immediately south and adjacent to Land's End. It's abandoned right now, but the way people are flocking to this pisshole these days it's not likely to be so for long." She paused, and her brows narrowed, "I require agreement. None of this is negotiable."

Kadakithis rubbed his thinly bearded chin and glanced at Molin. The Torch gave a not-very-subtle nod, and Daphne smiled to herself. Puppet and puppet-master.

"We'll draw up a deed," the prince answered.

"Second term," she continued. "One half of your personal fortune."

Kadakithis rose from his seat. His eyebrows shot upward, and he gripped the arms of his chair to steady himself. "What!"

Daphne clucked her tongue. "Won't it be worth it to get rid of me? Besides, think of all that gold on the Beysib ships. I'm sure your bride will offer a dowry worthy of a man like you."

The prince sank back into his seat. At last, he waved a hand. "All right, damn you! Yes, I'll even agree to that. As you say," he added caustically, "it'll be worth it to be free of you." He glowered down from his high position. "You're not at all the sweet wife you used to be,"

The accusation caught her completely off guard, and she barked a short laugh. To her utter surprise she found within herself a sudden sympathy for Shupansea.

"Third term," she said, regaining control of herself. 'T retain all my titles and any property in Ranke that Theron hasn't seized along with the throne."

"Done," Kitty-Kat agreed disinterestedly. "What else?" She rested a hand on the pommel of her sword and let go a small, inaudible sigh. "There was one more term, originally," she said. She faced Walegrin and waited until he shifted uncomfortably. "I wanted the first knuckle of the little finger of your right hand to wear on a chain about my neck," she told the garrison commander. She watched all their faces as she said it, and she wasn't disappointed by their reactions. "Look at them," she said, addressing him directly. "They'd have given it to me, too."

Molin stepped to the very edge of the platform, but Kadakithis caught his sleeve and pulled him back. "You're insane!" her husband shouted.

"That's right!" she shot back. "You made me insane when you abandoned me to the gentle mercies of Scavengers' Isle!"

Only Shupansea kept a measure other composure. She leaned forward, regarding Daphne with sudden interest. "Why our commander?"

Daphne faced Walegrin again. "You betrayed the Lady Chenaya," she charged, "and let Zip go free after she handed the little bastard over to you. Now, the common people of the city shower her name with praise and beflower her gate while Molin and the powerbrokers of Sanctuary rant and rave about her so-called treachery. Yet, no one speaks of your treachery, Walegrin. You made love to her, then you betrayed her. You helped shape her plan, and you killed piffles right beside the rest of us." She stabbed a finger at the Torch and Kitty-Kat. "Then, on their orders, you freed the man who murdered your little niece and gutted your own sister with an ax." She gave him a cold look, finding small reward when he turned away from her gaze. "You've thrown away your honor, Commander. Molin and his cronies may praise you for your obedience and sense of duty. But the common men and women of this town know you now. Look in their eyes the next time you walk the streets. You'll find reflected there nothing but scorn."

She turned to Molin who seemed ready to swoop down on her like the carrion bird he so resembled. "Keep your toy soldier, Torchie. But keep him away from me. He pollutes the air."

"I am curious," Shupansea spoke, leaning forward. "If you wanted our commander's finger, why did you change your mind?"

Daphne allowed a wan smile. "It's nothing any of you will ever grasp," she answered. "But I found true honor in this city last night among some whores in a dirty park, where a group of women struggle every moment of their lives to eke out an existence you and I would die to avoid. For all their misery they take care of each other like a kind of family." She hesitated. "I've found a similar kind of honor at Land's End, but you wouldn't understand that, either. Walegrin can keep* his finger." She cocked her head to one side, recalling her night in the tu

She gave her back to the masterplayers, then, wi

Just beyond the Processional Gate she found Dayme waiting. He'd washed and changed since the morning's training session, and his essence was sweeter than the day, itself. "I thought I'd walk you back," he said.

She gri

"How about I buy you a mug, instead," she offered. "You pick the tavern. Make it someplace raunchy."

He frowned. But then, he clapped an arm around her shoulders, and his lips curled upward into the barest smile: "I think I can find a place to make you blush," he said.

"A gold sheboozh," she answered, "that you can't."

THE VISION OF LALO by Diana L. Paxson

Lalo twitched the mask back into position over his nose and mouth and dipped his brush into the gray paint once more. Another three feet of this wretched wall and he could stop for a bit. The brush rasped the coarse canvas, deftly suggesting texture; a touch of black gave it depth, and another stone was finished. From somewhere out front he heard hammering. The opening of the second production of Sanctuary's first and only resident theatre troupe was two days away. The painter wondered if either their rehearsals or his sets would be finished in time.

Lalo stepped back to consider his work and grimaced beneath the mask. Even with shading the canvas looked like a collection of blobs. He supposed that from the audience the flat would create the illusion of reality. It occurred to him then that if he took off his mask and breathed on those rocks that they would be reality... . Was he resisting the temptation because he was not sure the stage would take the weight of the stones, or because he feared that he had lost the power to make them real?

Lalo told himself it was a small price to pay for the return to (relative) normalcy in Sanctuary. Perhaps his son Wedemir and that girl he was courting up at the Palace would be able to raise all of their children in peace. Except when some spell-supported building collapsed as its magic decayed, the debris of the explosion of sorcery that had nearly destroyed Sanctuary had been cleared away- The town was rebuilding. Lalo supposed he should be glad. But the period of escalation in magic had also seen the flowering of his own creativity. He was not sure now which of his talents were magic, and which had been simple craftsmanship. He felt half-blinded-see.