The Dark Remains - Mark Anthony [121]
Sickness flooded her. The cup fell from her hand. She bent forward to spill what wine she had drunk onto the pavement.
That action saved her life. Something hissed just over her head, like an insect, and there was a flash of silver. She jerked her head up. A slender knife quivered in the trunk of an ornamental tree only an arm’s length away. Already the bark of the tree was turning black where the knife had pierced it.
Poison.
She turned, searching with her eyes; she did not dare use the Touch, not now. The tangle still seethed on the corner of her vision. If she tried to touch the Weirding, it would drag her in for certain.
There—a flash of gold. A figure clad all in black stood in the dimness of an alley. It was him, the one she had seen at the docks. Then she saw the figure lift another knife. There was no time to turn, to run.
At least the tangle will not be able to consume you if you are already dead, sister.
It was small consolation. The figure in black tensed to throw—
—then snapped his head around. Again Lirith caught a glint of gold deep in the cowl. The figure stood motionless, as if listening. Then, like a shadow before the dawn, he spun around. There was a flutter of black, then the alley was empty.
Lirith lifted a hand to her throat, quite stunned to discover she was still alive. Surely the figure in the alley had possessed the necessary desire and skill to murder her. Why had he fled so suddenly? It was as if he had seen something coming toward him.
She looked around but saw nothing that might grant her a clue. The tangle had disappeared, and the courtyard beyond the arch was empty. Lirith hesitated, then reached out with the Touch. She sensed life all around, whole and beautiful: people, trees, birds in the air. That was all.
No, that wasn’t true. For a fleeting moment she felt something else: a presence, watching her. But that was not the thing that shocked her most. For a delicious warmth rose within her, flooding her veins like rich, heady wine.
Then the presence was gone, and the feeling spilled out of Lirith, leaving her an empty husk.
40.
Aryn spun one more time, reveling in the soft swish of fabric around her. It was foolish, she knew, and more becoming of a girl than a woman grown, but there was something about her new garb that simply required spinning.
“By the Swiftest Arrow of Yrsaia,” she said, “I thought I would never be clean again. I had imagined that the thieves and beggars in this city might have to dwell in the sewers. But I never thought Geb’s temples would be there as well.”
“Well, he was the Rat God,” said Lirith, who sat before a window in their room at the hostel. “I believe they prefer those sorts of places.”
Aryn shuddered, wondering if any amount of perfume would be enough to make her forget the smell. At first, in the Fifth Circle, when she and Durge had asked folk where they might find the Rat God, she had thought their answers to be mocking insults at the god’s expense. However, before long it became clear it was no jest.
They had entered the sewers through the mouth of a pipe tall enough for them to walk upright next to one another. An old woman had told them to follow the rat once inside. Aryn had wondered how a rat could possibly lead them, then Durge had pointed to scratches on the wall: a triangular shape with two dots. Clearly it was meant to represent the face of a rat. Beneath had been an arrow; they had followed, carrying a torch Durge had bought from a vendor.
As far as Aryn could tell, the sewers ran for leagues beneath Tarras. Many of the tunnels were obviously ancient and unused, and those were not so terrible to tread, aside from being musty and littered with broken tiles that were treacherous underfoot. A few times she reached out with the Touch, and she sensed the threads