Sword of the Gods - Bruce R. Cordell [43]
“Then what?”
Chant began walking. He said, “We find a spot where we can observe the Motherhouse from a distance, and we watch.”
“What’s that going to accomplish?” The man’s lips were thin with impatience.
“We wait until we see Leheren or Jett emerge. We follow them without revealing ourselves until they’re well away from the structure. That way, if we confront them for answers, they won’t have the entire strength of the Firestorm Cabal to call in their defense.”
Demascus considered. He said, “What if they don’t come out?”
“Then we devise a new plan.”
“That sounds awfully close to making it up as you go.”
“My speciality.”
Damascus sighed. Finally he said, “That sounds … reasonable. Thanks for helping me, Chant. It seems I’ve got something of an impetuous nature.” He frowned, as if unhappy with the idea. “I really appreciate you going out on a limb for me, especially given my situation.”
“Like I said before, I’m helping you because information is coin, and this situation is shaping up to be a dragon’s hoard.” And only coin will see Jaul to safety, he thought.
They made their way in casual fashion, by roundabout routes suggested by Chant, until they reached an earthmote with a parklike overlook. From it, they could look down on the Firestorm Cabal’s main safehouse.
Demascus scanned the vista, his eyes growing wide. “I don’t understand. Are we lost?”
Chant was confused too. He hated that feeling. “No … we’re not lost, but …”
The Motherhouse was gone. In its place was a gutted, fire-blackened ruin of tumbled stones that sent a pillar of smoke into the sky.
“Lords of light,” whispered Demascus. “What’s happened?”
Throwing caution to the wind, they descended, until they stood with the crowd of onlookers who’d gathered to regard the spectacle of destruction.
Demascus accosted a genasi at the edge of the crowd. “What happened to the Motherhouse?”
The genasi shrugged and said, “No one knows. Sometime in the night, it must have caught fire.”
Demascus turned to Chant, his expression stricken.
The pawnbroker could only shake his head. His aches had aches, and he felt a powerful need to sit down. He backed away from the press, then slumped onto a street bench. He sighed. If Demascus failed to recover his memories, then any hope Chant had of riding the stranger’s coattails was gone. His debt to Raneger would continue crushing him beneath its merciless weight.
He gave a halfhearted chuckle. It had been a stupid plan anyway.
Demascus followed him to the bench, but the man’s attention remained riveted on the destroyed structure.
Chant rubbed at his eyes so hard that tiny lights flashed behind his lids. When he blinked away the tears, he noticed someone with white leather boots had joined them.
Chant looked up into the dark eyes of a woman somewhere in her second or third decade of life. She clutched a mace in one hand so tightly her fingertips were white. Her long-sleeved, floor-length court dress was unadorned save for a scattering of gold stars around each sleeve. Her hood was pushed back, revealing traceries of gold running through coffee skin; she was an earthsoul. She wore an emblem of a silver disk, with seven stars around a pair of eyes.
“Hey,” said Chant. “Who’re you?”
The woman said, “My name’s Carmenere. Word is, you’re looking for Rilta. Why?”
Murmur blinked the eyes of its fleshy costume. It experimentally opened and closed the mouth, clacking the teeth. The body Murmur inhabited had again succumbed to sleep, allowing Murmur to wake in turn.
Murmur picked itself up, still awkward in the fragile form. The body was beginning to show signs of the approaching molting; the flesh was becoming slightly tougher than mortal bones and skin. But until the day when Murmur could take complete control of the vessel, it must be careful to keep its ill-fitting flesh suit in one piece.
If being careful was the only price it had to pay,