Shadowplay

The passersby might not look at him, but Vo looked at them. He was a

spy by nature, curious in a mildly contemptuous way as always about crea-tures that seemed to him like another species from himself, things that wore their emotions as openly as their clothes, faces that reflected fear and anger and something he had come to recognize as joy, although he could not co

Vo paused, his attention returned to the ships moving placidly in the gentle tides of the bay, tied up alongside the quay like so many great cows in a barn. That one, there, with the lean bow like the snout of a hunting animal: that must be the one he sought. The name painted in sweeping Xixian characters was unfamiliar, but anyone could change a name. It was less easy to hide the shape of a ship as swift as Jeddin's.

Daikonas Vo approached the gangway and looked up to the nearly empty deck. It could be that Dorza, her captain, was not here. If that was so, he would ask some questions and Dorza would be found. He felt con¬fident that he could get everything else he needed from Axamis Dorza himself. It was an impossibly long coincidence that the captain should sail out from Xis in the disgraced Jeddin's own ship on the very night of both the Leopard captain's arrest and the disappearance of Vo's quarry. Captain

Jeddin, despite torments that, had impressed even Vo, had denied any in volveinenl with the girl Qi

He shouldered his bag and walked up the gangplank of the ship that had been the Morning Star of Kirous, whistling an old Perikalese work song his father used to sing while beating him.

Since Dorza had thrown her out, it had taken Qi

The citadel's laundry was huge, a vast space that had once perhaps been a trader's warehouse, but which now was filled not with cedar wood and spices but tubs of steaming water, dozens of them-the room, Qi

Qi

"What do you want?" she said in flat, unfriendly Hierosoline.

Qi

"Yes, I am, and I am a busy woman. What do you want?"

"You…from Xis? Speak Xis?"

"For the love of the gods," the woman grumbled, and then switched to Xixian. "Yes, I speak the tongue, although it's been years since I lived in the cursed place. What do you want?"

Qi

Soryaza wasn't so easily flattered. "Yes?"

"I… I have lost my father and my mother." Qi

Soryaza raised an eyebrow. "Brother? Are you sure you do not mean a lover? Tell the truth, girl."

Qi

"All right, brother it is. But what in the gods' names could this possibly have to do with me?" Soryaza was already wiping her hands on her volu¬minous apron, like someone who is finished with something and about to move on to the next task.

This was the risky part. "I… I heard you were once a Hive Sister."

Both eyebrows rose. "Did you? And what do you know of such things?"

"I was one myself-an acolyte. But when my mother was dying I left the Hive to help her. They would have let me come back, I'm certain, but my father wanted me here in Hierosol, his home." She let a little of the very real tension and fear mount up from inside her, where she had kept it carefully bottled for so long. Her voice quivered and her eyes filled with tears. "And now my brother and I must sleep in the alleyways by the harbor, and men… men try…"

Soryaza's brown face softened a little, but only a little. "Who was the high priestess when you were there? Tell me, girl, and quickly."