Stealers' Sky

Wedemir's face tightened when Walegrin joined the words died and Uptown in the same sentence. Refiexively, the young man checked his weapons; just as reflexively, the fingers of his right hand made an Ilsigi wardsign. The commander didn't blame him, though he had no personal faith in gestures or amulets.

They went through the gate at a twenty-league pace. Urgency radiated from them, and the few people on the streets scuttled under the eaves to let them pass. The stench rose like a wall across Safe Haven.

"What died?" Wedemir asked, for although the odor was unlike anything in his experience it was profoundly organic and decayed.

Walegrin shrugged and adjusted his headband. Safe Haven was empty, all the windows were tightly shuttered. The commander could follow his nose, or he could trust his instincts. He chose his instincts and left the street for an alley and a flight of worn, stone steps. Wedemir was right behind him. Anyone who lived through that night would never forget this path.

They emerged in a burnt-out courtyard. The Peres house looked pretty much as it had since it burnt. Storms had tumbled a few more of the beams and a skeletal tree, but no one scavenged here for wood or charcoal. After the False Plague Riots there'd been a dozen burnt-out quarters; now only Peres remained. And would remain at least so long as anyone remembered.

A pillar of fire had surrounded the Peres house that night. It reached from the depths of hell to the heights of heaven. It illuminated a war between gods and demons, if not good and evil. Magic fueled it, and when it collapsed all magic was gone from Sanctuary. No one came straight out and said the Peres quarter was cursed,.or blessed, by what happened, but it was shu

The stench hovered over the ruins, neither stronger nor weaker than it had been on Safe Haven. Walegrin held his breath. He reached into his memory for the tricks of perception every soldier had been forced to learn when magic was rampant- He knelt down and squinted.

Scraggly weeds and nettles with nasty, velvet leaves grew in the ashes, just as a feral sort of magic was creeping back into Sanctuary. Beneath the notice of reputable farmers, or mages, but good enough for the desperate. And not the source of the death stench.

Wedemir hunkered down beside his commander. "Should we have the priests come and burn it off?"

"Probably." Walegrin got to his feet. "Looks harmless enough to me, but what do I know about these things, eh?"

Wedemir was wisely silent. "The other place?" he asked after a moment.

Heavy vines grew across the windows and doors of the home of the missing and presumed dead Tasfalen Lancothis. They reminded everyone who passed that this was a place not to be tampered with. The Peres quarter was where magic died; the Lancothis quarter was where it lingered. There had always been ghosts in Sanctuary. The problem with Lancothis was not that it was haunted, but that it leaked.

Unpleasant faces appeared in the windows of Lancothis. Strange sounds oozed through its crumbling plaster. Flashes of light in colors the mind cared not to remember shot through the holes in its roof. Rumors said the house wasn't haunted; it was a prison for whatever had lost the fight over at Peres. The priests of Us and Savankala professed not to know the truth. Those who did know hid that knowledge carefully.

"What's that?" Walegrin pointed to a second-story window where a tattered curtain waved in the harbor breeze. The vines around the window were broken. Withered leaves rustled in the breeze.

Walegrin frowned. He'd noticed the rupture right off, and hoped his new lieutenant was less observant. He'd sooner go to hell than into Lancothis. Someone would have to find out what had happened, but not him-not this afternoon-because whatever had happened here, it didn't stink. The breeze was clear and lightly scented with honeysuckle.

Gratefully choosing the lesser of two evils, Walegrin led the way back to Safe Haven, where they followed their noses instead of their assumptions. There were more false starts and dead ends, but finally they reached a house that made their guts heave and their eyes water. With one hand clapped over his face, Walegrin motioned for Wedemir to follow him into the courtyard.

The commander expected to see something vast and revolting; what he saw was an unhappy donkey and a high-wheeled cart, both unfortunately familiar.

Wedemir couldn't understand Walegrin's muttering. He lowered his hand from his face. "Wha ... ? Ough! Gods-" He hastily re-covered his mouth and lurched toward the archway, where he could be heard heaving.

An anger approaching mindless fury kept Walegrin breathing. He strode across the yard to the reeking midden. He kicked aside a bit of straw. His worst suspicions rolled into the sunlight. Filling his lungs with the foul air, Walegrin bellowed her name.

"Theudebourga!"

Silence. Wedemir rejoined the commander. He didn't recognize the name, but he shouted it anyway. The air wasn't going to kill him. and he wasn't going to be able to stop breathing it. The stench wasn't as noticeable now that he'd purged himself, rather like the numbness that follows an injury.

'Theu-de-bour-gaP

Walegrin grabbed a spar of firewood. He struck the iron rim of the cartwheel with such force that the firewood splintered and both men had to dodge the pieces. When they reopened their eyes a thin nervous woman stood in the archway, flanked by a passel of children and another woman holding an infant.

"What in the names of a thousand forgotten gods are you doing here?" Walegrin pointed the remnant of wood at the midden, Theudebourga's eyes were as wide as any Beysib's and her quivering voice seemed to come from somewhere in the next quarter. "Schapping."

Walegrin glanced at Wedemir, who shrugged and shook his head. "Tell me that again," the commander said in his best threatening tones. "I didn't understand you."

The woman with the infant looked at Theudebourga, as did the children, then they all eased away from her.

"Schapping," she whispered, scarcely louder than the first time.

"Make sense, woman." Walegrin took a step toward her. He'd never struck a woman in anger or the line of duty, but the temptation was growing very strong.

Theudebourga fell to her knees. "Schapping ... schapping ..."

Wedemir risked his life and closed his hand over the commander's upraised arm. "Beating her won't help. She sounds foreign. I don't think she understands you."

"She understood me well enough when she got me to buy this witches' brew for her."

Weemir released him. Sanctuary hadn't gotten so civilized that a man could stand on honor for a stranger. Theudebourga would have to stand for herself, which she did, scurrying over to the midden. She plunged her arm into the mess and came up with a fistful of sticky, stringy stuff. Holding it before her like a weapon or a shield, she advanced into Walegrin's reach.

"To make silk, you must schappe-get rid of the part of the cocoon that isn't silk."

In a comer of the commander's mind there was a mote of dusty knowledge whispering that silk didn't come into being as dyed, woven cloth, any more than wool or linen did. Wool came from sheep, and linen came from a plant, and silk ... ? Did silk come from a cocoon?

When he thought about it, the garbage they had bought on the wharf did look like cocoons all wadded together. But that goo hanging over her fingers like so much melted cheese or worse ... that couldn't possibly be silk.

"She's trying to make fools of us," Walegrin assured his lieutenant.

Wedemir wasn't so sure. He wasn't an artist like his father, but Lalo had taught him to keep an open mind about beauty. And Gilla, his mother, had taught him to keep an open mind about people. He extended his arm and allowed Theudebourga to drop the mess in his palm. It had a texture appropriate to its smell. Wedemir closed his eyes and remembered the few times he'd encountered real silk. He went past the slime and the stickiness to the fiber itself.