CHAPTER 3
THE ROAD OUT OF THE KEEP led down a cobbled way, into a broad square full of merchant stalls and food carts and jostling people.
They got about two blocks down, nearly to the edge of the market, and Caliban had to stop.
It was too much. There were too many people, too many colors, moving too quickly. The sky was too large. He felt dizzy, as if he might fall upward into empty space.
He tried to keep up with the woman—Slate—but his head spun and he staggered. She was moving too quickly, outpacing him as he shied like a nervous horse at the loud voices and flapping cloth.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice high and hoarse. “I—wait—please—”
She turned, startled, and he put his hands over his face to block out the world.
“Hey now—hey—” Her voice was sympathetic but wary, as if she wasn’t sure whether to console him or slap him. “Hey, now, you knew it was a suicide mission, don’t go to pieces on me, the tattoo won’t eat you as long as you’re trying—”
“It’s not that,” he said. “It’s the sky. There’s too much of it.”
Now that’s a sensible thing to say. Perhaps you really are mad.
“Oh. Oh.”
Her fingers touched his sleeve, then she curled her hand around his arm and tugged him forward. “It’s okay. Keep your eyes closed, here—come on—just through here—”
He followed, keeping one hand over his eyes. The sounds of the city were still overwhelming, but they ran together into a muted roar, and he could ignore it.
To think that a season ago, he’d walked or ridden through these streets without thinking them strange at all. He’d moved like a fish through a darting, multicolored sea.
“Come on—step down—you’re doin’ good—”
Such a great champion you are, now, being led blind by a woman half your size. Demons must tremble…
His own particular demon muttered down in the dark, ragged ends of syllables with no earthly meaning. Death hadn’t silenced it completely. It was a more familiar sound than the city, now, but not a comfortable one.
“Here. It’s an alley—this is the best I can do—”
He cracked his fingers cautiously, and saw stone between them. It was indeed an alley, the corners thick with trash, the walls close and comforting. The sky was a narrow crack of blue overhead. A shudder of relief wracked him.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t expect—this is foolish of me—”
“It’s really not that uncommon,” she said.
She was still holding his arm, and patted it absently, as if he were a skittish horse.
“A lot of people get out and get a touch of agoraphobia at first. It’ll pass off in a day or two.
I shouldn’t have taken you straight into the marketplace, I wasn’t thinking. ”
“You sound as if you’ve known a number of prisoners,” he said dryly.
“Oh, yes.”
She released his arm and retreated the few feet to the other side of the alley, leaning against the wall near the mouth. He tried to look out into the market again, found it a dizzying whirl, and looked away.
He looked at Slate instead. She was a small-boned woman, her eyes grey and glittering, like flawed quartz.
She had dark brown hair in a thick braid down her back, and a long, mobile face.
Her skin was a few shades lighter than her hair and her clothes were loosely cut and nondescript.
Mouse brown, sparrow brown—some creature that relied on being small and drab and getting out of the way of predators.
She scowled out at the marketplace as if it had personally offended her.
Caliban was vaguely aware that he would not have looked twice at her in the days when he was a god’s champion. Beautiful women had strewn themselves in his path like rose petals.
And that morning, after you were done with the sword, they were strewn in your path again. Although not many roses are that exact shade of red, and they were not so beautiful any more.
Shut up. You’re out of the cell. Quit wall owing. You’ve told hundreds of people they weren’t responsible for what the demon did with their body. Take your own damn medicine.
It was embarrassing that he’d spoken with the demon voice in the Captain’s office. He hadn’t meant to. It must have been the tattoo, or the tattoo artist. Magic made the corpse stir, as if something were walking past it and kicking up the flies. It took them a while to buzz and settle down again.
Such a lovely metaphor.
The tattoo itched. He wanted to scratch it, but he was afraid it might scratch him back.
My mind hasn’t been my own, and now my flesh isn’t either. At least they’re a matched set.
Slate was peering out the mouth of the alley, chewing on her lower lip.
Her eyebrows were pulled down. She was not a beautiful woman, he was forced to admit, but she had an expressive face.
That was what had struck him, even in the cell, the way each thought passed visibly across her face, like the shadow of clouds moving over a hillside.
Once she’d stopped sneezing, anyway.
Or perhaps she was a perfectly ordinary woman, and he was merely maundering because she was the first one he’d seen in a season. What a thing to wreak on a man—the sky too large, all movements too fast, and all women too interesting.
He risked another glance at the whirl of activity outside the alley. His stomach churned a bit, but it wasn’t quite as dizzying.
“If I called us a carriage,” said Slate thoughtfully, “can you make it to the street? It’s—oh, half a block, I’d say.”
“I think I can make it,” he said, although his stomach knotted at the thought.
The sky, the sky, I’ll fall into the sky…
She gave him a concerned look. “I could blindfold you if you like.”
Caliban had little enough pride left, but the thought at first horrified, then amused him. What a pair they’d make—a short little criminal leading a blind, shambling wreck of paladin. The Dreaming God wasn’t known for his sense of humor, but sometimes you had to wonder.
“As entertaining as that would be for the locals, no. I can make it. Just…don’t walk too fast.”
She nodded, and stepped out of the alley.
They went at a walk. Caliban fastened his eyes on her back.
She was wearing a completely unmemorable skirt and tunic, in dull grey-brown.
If he lost sight of her, he was going to have a hell of a time finding her again.
The seam at her left shoulder was starting to come loose.
He could see each individual thread working free.
Well, she was visiting a prison, not going out dancing.
I wonder what she did to earn a death sentence?
The thought was startling. He glanced aside, caught a glimpse of the market swirling around him, and bore it for as long as he could before returning his gaze to Slate’s back. She turned to glance at him, and he gave her a nod. She nodded in return and plunged forward.
The Dowager’s city didn’t give death sentences for most crimes. The Dowager preferred money and hard labor, in that order, and dead men are notoriously bad at either.
He doubted she was a murderer. Her stained, elegant hands looked like a scribe or an alchemist. A thief, possibly, which conjured up all sorts of images of daring midnight burglaries, and escapes across the rooftops.
Caliban almost snorted at the thought. Did anyone really do that? Pickpocketing perhaps, banditry certainly, but that sort of genteel thievery seemed more like a romantic fiction than an actual profession.
Would they really sentence you to death for it?
A spy? A traitor? Would they send a traitor out on a job like this?
Would they put her in charge?
The cursed tattoo throbbed on his shoulder and he grimaced. It was, he had to admit, an excellent piece of insurance.
They passed a fishmonger’s stall, and a man carrying several wrapped, dripping packages ran into Caliban’s shoulder. He staggered back, more from the unexpected contact than the force.
“Hey, watch where you’re going! Are you drunk?”
“No, I—sorry—” He plunged after Slate, suddenly terrified of losing her in this jumble. She was an unlikely safety, and yet without her—would the tattoo begin chewing at his arm? Would he fall into the sky?
The man cursed after him, brandishing a fish. Slate glanced back, saw Caliban following, and nodded.
He was watching her so intently that when she pulled up short, he nearly ran into her, and then she backed up into him anyway, cursing.
He looked over her head. A space was clearing in the crowd in front of them, as people drew away. He watched a woman trip and fall down, and still keep scuttling backwards with a look of fear and disgust on her face.
“Shit,” Slate muttered. “Another blighter.”
In the center of the circle was the prone body of a man.
He was well-dressed, but there was something badly wrong with his skin.
It peeled away as if he’d been badly burned, revealing bloody grey and yellow shadows beneath it.
As the knight watched, one arm ratcheted upward, pawed at the air, then fell back down.
“That man’s hurt,” he said, starting forward.
Slate grabbed his arm. “Are you nuts? Stay back!”
“But that man needs help!” The sky retreated. The dying man in the middle of the pavement took all his attention. “Why isn’t anyone helping?”
“You’re insane! He’s beyond help!”
The crowd was very quiet. The sound of the man’s breathing rattled against the stones. He pawed at the air again jerkily, running down.
“Damnit, let me go, maybe I can—”
Slate turned into him, rammed a shoulder into his chest, and threw her full weight against it, like a woman trying to brace up a wall. Since he probably weighed twice what she did, this was spectacularly ineffective, but it did at least convince him that she was serious.
“Don’t make me use a knife,” she growled.
My god, I believe she would… “What’s going on?”
“Where have you been for the past—no, never mind, stupid question.” Slate put a hand to her head. “It’s blight.”
“Blight? Here? In the capitol?” Caliban frowned over her head. “There were some rumors that it had been seen in the outer cities, but no one thought it would reach the capitol.”