Wake of the Riddler by Morris Janet

Author:Morris, Janet [Morris, Janet]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy
ISBN: 9780985166861
Publisher: Perseid Publishing
Published: 2012-05-29T21:00:00+00:00

–– 4 ––

Ischade’s Foalside home was dimly lit, numinous. When they got there, Kama recognized Crit’s gray horse and squeezed her eyes shut. No wonder Strat had come running to get her: Crit closeted with Ischade was naphtha too close to a torch.

“Gods, Strat, we both still love him, you know?”

“I figure,” Strat agreed in an odd tone. “But he doesn’t love us. Get him out of there, Kama. If I go in, it’s just more trouble. She won’t have taken kindly to him sticking his nose in where it doesn’t belong.”

Kama was already off her horse, handing Strat its reins. “I know. You stay mounted then: there’s no use of you two getting into a brawl over this.” Poised to sprint for the door, she turned back: “Strat, we have to get used to things the way my father left them, even though it hurts all of us. Crit didn’t want this command. Not this way.”

“That and a silver coin will still get you laid at Myrtis’.”

Bitterness unanswerable. Kama sprinted for the door she’d always shunned, behind which was something she didn’t want anything to do with: Ischade.

Through the gate, up the steps, and stop; hearing your own breathing, wondering what you’ll do if she’s hurt him, ensorcelled him, gotten her claws into him as she had gotten them into Strat and Janni and Stilcho and the rest….

Knocking with your heart pounding louder, suddenly aware that there was more than one male in there behind that forbidding door, and hoping those other voices aren’t undead voices. You’ve only seen the undeads at a distance, and even the memory raises gooseflesh….

Ischade’s door doesn’t open, so much as disappear, cease to be.

“Ah, Madame Ischade, I’m here for Crit.” Blurted like a fool in a voice higher than you’ve heard yourself use since school days.

Inky eyes deeper than any uncursed well, a pale face whose features are somehow indiscernible, and a hand cold as anything Kama could remember touching.

“Good,” nodded the creature in her cowl. Behind her were colors, rioting jewel tones, but Ischade was all white and black. Black. “Come in.” Black eyes, so deep you could sleep in them.

Don’t fall into any trap. Don’t look at her too long. “Crit?” On tiptoes. “Crit?” The swathed shape moves away. “Critias?”

There he is, with two men she recognizes: Vis, and a beggar with a stutter, a creature called Mor-am. Wrong company, wrong place, wrong something going on here.

Kama shivered and felt the jab of throwing stars nestled in her belt. She’d gotten those stars from Niko and they were poison-tipped, deadly. Yet…. Could you kill anything here, in the lair of the necromant, Ischade? Would anybody killed here – or anything – stay dead? Could Kama take out the beggar, the mercenary – and Ischade – if Crit needed that much help?

She could try, couldn’t do less.

Then Crit came slowly to the door, his gait telegraphing annoyance, but nothing worse. “Good evening,” he said and Kama couldn’t figure where the vampire woman had disappeared to.

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