The Yellow Silk - Don Bassingthwaite [81]
Laera turned and darted for the door to the dark second room. She caught a glimpse of Veseene grabbing the linen bag that held her special tea and stuffing it into her shirt, and then the door was closed behind her. She leaned against it.
The footfalls on the stairs were thunder. They stopped-and a splintering crash seemed to shake the entire building. Veseene shrieked, gasped, and choked, "You-!"
"Olore again, Veseene." Laera recognized that rich, warm voice. Brin! Her breath stopped. The door she leaned against wouldn't stop him-or whoever was with him. The footsteps on the stairs had been too heavy for just a halfling. She could feel a blade on her throat again. Her eyes darted around the room, looking for an escape, a hiding place.
The window. Tycho had left his rope tied to the bedpost; she had pulled it up and coiled it neatly after he and an invisible Li had climbed down. As massive footsteps moved in the outer room, she ran for it and heaved the heavy coil out. It slapped against the side of the building.
"The back room!" snapped Brin and the footsteps moved faster. Laera twisted her body over the windowsill, wrapped her hands around the rope, and let herself drop.
The rough fibers burned her palms and fingers like grabbing hold of a blazing torch. She hit the ground before she could cry out, though, and new agony flared through her right ankle. She slammed down into the melting snow and icy muck of the alley just as a door slammed open in the room above.
There were shadows. A crooked niche where this building and its neighbor came together. Ignoring the pain in her palms and ankle, Laera scrambled for the niche and jammed herself into it. She choked her whiin-pers into silence. Distantly, she heard footsteps and a grunt of frustration from up above. A moment later, there was a slither of rope on wood. Tycho's rope being pulled up again? Being dropped into the alley? She didn't dare to look. Above her, the footsteps moved away. Voices, too indistinct to make out-until Veseene shrieked again. And stopped.
Laera squeezed herself into a tiny, trembling knot.
Word that there were mages holed up at the Eel must have gotten around, Lander thought. Mid-afternoon and the festhall was barely half as full as usual. Just the whiff of serious magery was enough to keep most folk away and to set those who did come in on edge with suspicion. And Lander, by virtue of being the mages' keeper, had become suspect, too. Customers gave him a wide berth as he walked carefully across the floor of the Eel and back once more to the Blue Room, a foaming tankard of ale in one hand, a tiny eggcup-sized glass of strong Chessentan wine in the other.
Mosi Anu and Hanibaz Nassor didn't even look up as he nudged the door open. They had stopped looking up some time ago. Mosi was deep in reading a scroll; the tiny glass of wine his first indulgence in Brin's invitation to take advantage of the Eel's facilities. Hanibaz, on the other hand, had indulged freely. The ale Lander carried was his fourth, the skeletal remains of a whole roast chicken lay picked clean in front of him, and not so long ago Lander had been obliged to summon one of the women who worked in the festhall's pleasure rooms to administer a Mulhorandi massage to the hefty mage. Hanibaz slouched in his chair like a great rotund cat: feet propped up on a second chair, relaxed, half-asleep, and reeking of warm, exotic oils. Lander set the fresh ale beside him and the wine beside Mosi and quickly turned to go.
He wasn't quite quick enough. "When will Brin return with the Yellow Silk?" asked Mosi. He didn't look up from his scroll.
"Soon," Lander responded, adding silently, / hope! "My patience grows thin."
"You grow thin, Mosi," said Hanibaz. The big man stirred himself and sat up. "Have something to eat. Or try a massage. Or take some ale instead of that vile wine." He groped for his tankard and raised it to his rival. "That will put hair on your chest!"
"I don't want hair