Stealers' Sky

Two men, half naked, but with swords bared, came rushing out of the house.

Chenaya stopped and waved her hands desperately. Dismas and Gestus were old friends. They would know her.

They stopped as recognition dawned in their eyes. "Mistress!" Dismas shouted excitedly. "You're back!" He turned immediately to his partner. "Gestus, go wake Dayme. Tell him she's come back. Wake everybody!"

Gestus muttered an incoherent welcome in broken Rankene and ran back into the house. Chenaya whipped off her cloak. When Dismas reached out his hand to clasp her arm in a gladiator's greeting, she threw the cloak over it and dashed after Gestus. "Mistress!" Dismas called in surprise, then he hurried after.

Dayme was halfway down the great staircase when Chenaya reached the main hall. Wrapped only in a brief kilt, he stopped, stood there a moment, and looked at her. Then he rushed down the stairs, only to stop suddenly again. His eyes peered into hers, darted away momentarily, then drifted back. She read so many things in his eyes, things she had seen there before. She knew how Dayrne felt about her, had known for some time. But never had she seen his joy turn so abruptly to pain and hurt.

He reached out and clasped her arm. "Cheyne," he said quietly, using the nickname he had given her years ago. "There's no way to soften it. Lowan Vigeles is dead. So is your Aunt Rosanda."

Stu

Dismas and Gestus were with them now, and they gathered close in a circle and put their arms around each other. The giant she had beaten at the gate rushed into the room, sword drawn. Immediately, though, he grasped the situation, looked shamefaced, and put down his blade.

"My apologies. Lady," he said sullenly. "I didn't know who you were, and you didn't say anything."

Dayrne started to turn and answer, but Chenaya's unyielding grip made him hesitate. She clung to him, grasping his arms, pouring all her strength into her grip. Hold on, she told herself desperately, locking his gaze. Here's your anchor! She felt Dismas and Gestus, their arms around her, too. Here are your anchors!

"It's all right, Dendur," Dayme said over his shoulder. "Have someone see to her horse, then go back to your post."

The soft closing of the door as Dendur departed made a sound that touched Chenaya with its symbolic finality. She let go of Dayme and slipped free of Dismas and Gestus. Slowly, she climbed the staircase and went to her father's room. The door was closed, but she pushed it open. Everything was just as she remembered it. Nothing had been disturbed. She walked to Lowan's sturdy chair by the fireplace. There was no fire, for it was too warm to need one. She unfastened her sword belt and let it drop to the floor. Then she sank down in the chair, just as her father always did, with the same languid motion, pushed her feet out, just as he always did, and stared into the hearth, the way she remembered him doing.

Dayme came into the room and closed the door. She looked up at him, and loved him for the concern he wore so plainly on his face. He knelt down beside her and laid his head on the chair's carved armrest. She rubbed her thumb over his brow, over the lines of his hurt, before her own pain became too great, and she turned away to gaze back into the cold fireplace.

"Cheyne?" he said, looking up. He repeated it. "Cheyne?" He leaned closer, trying to make her look at him, but she wouldn't.

"Chenaya?" He shook her arm, rising to his feet, the worry on his face transforming to fear. "Please, talk to me!"

She clutched the diamond hidden in its leather purse under her tunic, and twisted in the chair to avoid Dayme's face. She drew her legs upher father's chair was big enough for that-and curled into the crook of its great wooden arm. Tears streamed suddenly down her cheeks; she couldn't hold them back any longer. She hugged herself, and cried and cried.

But though she cried, she made not a sound,

Dayme paced about the peristyle, the large central room of the Land's End estate. It was also half garden, and the gray, depressing half-light of the Sanctuary morning streamed in. Though it was spring, there had been so little sunshine of late, Rashan, the high priest of Savankala, and friend of the family, sat motionless on one of the marble benches. Daphne, recently divorced from Prince Kadakithis, now a permanent resident of Land's End, tapped a dagger blade idly against one palm as she watched Dayrne.

"Word's out all over town that she's back," Daphne said with a wicked smile. "Word also has it that Zip decided hiding wasn't good enough. The little coward sneaked out of town before dawn this morning." Daphne flipped the dagger in the air and caught it by the point. "Anyone disappointed?"

Dayrne was disappointed. His hands clenched into fists. He'd have much preferred to find Zip and all the rest of his little PFLS rats and do to them what he'd done to their comrade, Ro-Karthis. He tried. His gladiators had torn up the town looking for piffles, but they'd all burrowed too deeply into the earth after Lowan's murder.

He'd made an example of Ro-Karthis, though. The people of Sanctuary had never seen a Bhokaran ferryboat. Few living in this hellhole even knew of that country far to the west. The sight had impressed them, though. He, himself, had fired the ship as it floated from the harbor with a living, screaming Ro-Karthis crucified on the mast with Lowan Vigeles and Lady Rosanda laid in regal splendor at his feet. Dayrne could still hear Ro-Karthis's shrieks, see the smoke and sparks rising on the wind while the flames burned all. A ferryboat, they called it in Bhokar. Two souls ferried to heaven, one to eternal hell.

It had been too good a death for Lowan Vigeles's murderer, but it had made a point. The few remaining members of the so-called Popular Front for the Liberation of Sanctuary had reportedly crept out of town one by one. Zip, supposedly reformed from the PFLS after being made one of the city's three commanders, had crawled into a hole so deep no one, not the prince, not Molin Torchholder, not even Walegrin, knew what had become of him.

Now, Daphne claimed, even Zip had gotten away.

Dayrne blamed himself. He should never have let old Lowan talk him into taking so many men north to the a

But while he and the best men from Land's End had been up north, Ro-Karthis had used iron claws to scale the wooden stable gate, crept unseen into the main house, and murdered Lowan and Rosanda in their sleep. The gods alone knew who might have been next if Daphne hadn't discovered him. Against orders, she'd been out after dark working the training machines alone-angry, no doubt, because he'd refused to take her to the games.

She'd just come back to her own quarters when Ro-Karthis emerged, bloody knife in hand, from Rosanda's rooms.

Daphne had damn near killed the bastard, and frankly, Dayme marveled at the self-control she'd shown by sparing Ro-Karthis until his return. Of course, Daphne's idea of self-control had been to hamstring Ro-Karthis and sever the tendons in his elbows. It probably hadn't taken her more than the necessary four quick strokes with her sword, either. Then she'd staunched and cauterized the blood flow to save his life.

Of course, long before Dayrne had gotten home she'd extracted from the stupid fool the reason for his crime-to revenge the PFLS for the damage Chenaya had done to their organization.

"What I can't figure out," Dayrne snapped suddenly, smacking his fist against an open palm, "is why she can't talk! She won't make a sound!" He turned toward Rashan. "You should have seen her last night. She cried and cried, tears enough to put Sabellia to shame, if hers could hang in the sky. But not once did she so much as whimper'" He shook his head as Daphne came to his side. "I tell you, it's weird!" She touched his arm, and he met her gaze worriedly. "It's got me scared," he said, no easy admission for a man like Dayme.