Hart's Hope

14

Servants

I never knew what seeing was except coming out of the fog. So said Orem, the Little King; so he said to me when he thought he was not wise.

The Queen's Water

It hardly seemed morning when Orem came out of the inn, the fog was so thick. Buildings across the street were invisible until he was in the middle of the road. Other walkers in the early morning loomed suddenly, nearly colliding with him. He had to walk slowly and watch carefully. There were curses here and there; now and then the sound of an argument about whether someone was blind or just a fool. Orem was afraid of getting lost, and wasting his last full day in the city, but Flea found him.

"What's fog?" Flea said. "If we let fog keep us indoors here, there'd be damn little work done in Inwit. For me it's a golden day. I've had three coppers already without even a knife to cut a purse."

It made Orem uneasy to know he was companioned with a thief, but he had no other guide, and on a day like this he needed Flea more than ever. They had tried the north side yesterday. Today they went east, hoping to find work for Orem in a counting house, somewhere that his literacy might make him valuable.

But it was not readers and writers and counters that they wanted in the eastern part of the city. It was boys, for the cruel sports of Gaming, for the beds of the pederasts—boys who could disappear and no one would care to look for them. Twice Orem talked them into a place where they should not have been; twice Flea had to get them out, and not by talking. They left a gamer nursing a well-kicked crotch. They were in more danger in the Great Exchange, for when they refused the lucrative offer of a pimp of a banker, he raised a cry of thief. The fog saved them, that and Flea's ability to find his way through places that adults would not think to look. They found themselves in late afternoon, exhausted from running, near the end of the aqueduct.

"Thirsty?" asked Flea.

"Would it be safe for us to wait so long here? Are you sure they won't follow us further?"

Flea grinned. "Let's see if we can make the line shorter." He walked between queues to a place fairly near the pool, and then with a broad gesture he loudly said, "The kindness of the Queen."

Someone close by hushed them softly, but the others pretended not to hear. "Water," said Flea, "from the great Water House in the Castle. A spring that runs strong all year, without digging, just flows, and out of her kindness the Queen lets fully half the water flow down into the city. And after water has been piped down into the rich houses on either side of Queen's Road, and after the Temple has its water and the Guilds have their water and the water falls in the Park, then there's a bit that dribbles out here and fills a pool for the people of Inwit."

The speech did its work. They were alone at their spot at the pool, for those ahead of them and behind had moved away, separated themselves from the loud discussion of the Queen. Yet nothing treasonous had been said; the guards could only glower as Orem dipped his flask into the water and brought it up brimming. He did not drink, however. Rather he handed the water to Flea, deliberately letting a little spill on the boy's hands as he reached to take it. Flea looked at him in surprise, and then gravely sloshed the water back at him. It was only fitting to do the sharing of water, even if Flea was a thief, and Orem once nearly a Godsman.

A Servants Servant

They rested north of the pool, by the mouth of a wide alley that ran between two great houses. Liveried servants made a heavy traffic in and out of the alley. Orem watched them, all so busy, all so important, yet time enough for a smile or a nod at each other, regardless of livery. Oh, there were some who passed cold as you please, Orem saw, but even that was so pointed that it was a sign of a quarrel—there were no strangers among the servants.

"Forget it," said Flea.

"Forget what?"

"You'll never get hired by one of the great houses. You'll never get past the gateman." "Then let's not go to the front gate."

"We got away once," said Orem.

"We damn near didn't," answered Flea.

"You play with the snakes, and you're afraid of the servants?"

So Flea went in with him, but this time hung back, forcing Orem to lead the way. The street quickly narrowed, and though the fog still lingered, it only greyed the buildings on left and right. At first there were still gates, for a few of the lesser great houses fronted into the alley rather than the street. Then the gates ceased, and suddenly the street widened to a plaza between the high-walled houses. Within the plaza a little maze of streets, and along the streets little wooden miniatures of the great stone buildings. Were there stone colonnades in the great housefronts? Then there were intricately lathed wooden posts here. Were the great houses pierced with many large windows, all barred? Then these small homes were festooned with small windows, and wooden bars echoed the bronze and iron of the masters. The servants imitated their masters as best they could, though their small homes stood among the kitchens of their lords.

Orem had no notion where to go, now that he was here. He had expected someone to challenge them, but no one did. In fact there were others without livery, dressed as simply as he. It gave him hope. There might indeed be work here.

"It's like a little city," Flea whispered.

"Come on," Orem answered. He strode boldly toward the back gate of a great house, where the kitchen fires burned hot and smoky, sending more fog to thicken and yellow the light.

"Ho, boys!" An old man watched them from the portico of a wooden house.

"Ho, old man!" Orem answered.

"You want work?" the old man asked.

"Nothing less," said Orem.

"Ah, yes, wanting work, all the world wanting work except those who presently have employment. And except for me. I'm handsomely pensioned and I sit on a porch all day and hollo to boys in hopelessly rustic clothing. Do you know that within the house, those who buttle and those who kitch and those who bake and those who wait, they know you're coming?"

"They know? How?"

"The odor of a farmboy and a Swamptown lad can be smelt from rods off. The uncouth clop of your sandals on our stony walks can be heard even farther off, and the rough accents of your speech betray you more than anything. You were seen as you walked from the public fountain. You were noted as you squatted by the portals of our humble alley. And now you are being examined by an old man who has nothing better to do than turn away the pathetic strangers who think there's work for them here."

The old man cackled. "Oh, you should, you should—but you can't. Any man can learn to be a noble or a beggar, but you must be born a true servant."

"I was born to be a cleric or a soldier," Orem said. "I'm not meek enough for the one and not strong enough for the other. Why shouldn't I learn to do what servants do? Someone had to be the first servant—who taught him?"

"There, that's the first thing you have to lose—that insolent manner."

"Let's go," said Flea. "He just wants to talk."

The old man heard him, and shouted angrily. "Go away, then! If you don't want what I have to offer, go away! You'll get no second chance from me!"

"What are you offering?" asked Orem.

"A job and a pass. Does that mean anything to you?"

So they stayed and listened. He beckoned them within his gate, and soon they stood before the old man, who grinned toothily up at them. His teeth were all bronze. It turned him into a statue, at least at the mouth. It was like a miracle watching him speak.

"Stand, yes, stand, that's what a servant does when his lord speaks. Stand and look at me respectfully, and don't glance away, no, and listen to every word in case I ask you a question. You can't ever be caught not hearing what I say. And stand with your foot back so, with a bow always ready, and an answer quick to your lips. You call your own master 'honored sir,' and his son is 'new master' and his second son and all his daughters are 'blest one' and his third son and later are 'hopeless sir,' said always gravely with the right respect and a touch of irony so they'll know you are their friend, though their father is not. And if the man is master of another house, he is 'esteemed sir' unless he and your master are not on good terms, at which time he becomes 'most high and noble eminence,' which is said utterly without irony lest he take its phallic meaning, and his wife you call 'esteemed lady' if she is a friend, but if your lord despises her she is 'most fecund mother of a noble lineage,' and if your lady despises her she is 'envy of nations' and if both despise her you say nothing to her but bow low and touch your brow to the ground, which will be unbearable insult to her but she dare not answer. Have you understood that? Can you do it now?"

"It's all shit, if you ask me," Flea said.

"But you, young fellow, tall and thin as the last smoke from a censer, you have another idea."

Orem smiled. "We had it just as hard at the House of God. If you speak to God with sins heavy in your heart, but there is other company and you want no questions, address God as Holy One Who Dwelleth in Heaven. If you're willing to confess your sins and your repentance, then you address Him as Holy Father Who Loveth the Weak. If you're praying for a company of your betters, the name of God is Master of the Brethren, but if you're praying for a company of common folk or if the company is mixed, you call Him Creator of All, First and Foremost, and if the King is present you—"

"Enough to know I'd never be a priest."

"And never a servant in a great house, either. It's not anyone wishing you ill. Not at all. We wish you well. But a servant's work is to be invisible, to have all done silently; a servant's work is to have no sign that work is done at all. A servant steps his steps like a dancer. An art, that's what it is. An art, and we're born to it and raised to it, and there's no hope for someone stumbling into it. What if the master has had too much wine, and yet asks for more?"

Orem smiled a little and shrugged. How could he know?

"Do you water his wine? Never. Do you refuse him, or give him half a glass? Never. No, you add the strongest gin you can find, so that the next glass puts him out, and then you gracefully stand beside him and bid his guests good-bye in his name, one by one, and they all touch his hand as they leave, so that in the morning you tell him, 'You shook hands with everyone as they left.' No one thinks ill of him because it was done gracefully, and though he knows the truth of what you did he doesn't mind because that's the way it's done. We are what keeps all going smoothly in Inwit. Who do you think serves in the palace? We, the fifty families. We are the only servants of Inwit and have been from the beginning. Back when God was still telling his name to strangers, we were passing the bread and bearing the meat. Does the House of Grell need a boy for stairs? I have a nephew. Does the House of Bran need a woman for children? My wife does children and teaches them dancing, too. My family is the Family Dyer, and we have a man or woman placed in every great house, and with responsibility, too. Nothing happens on Queen's Road but what we know of it."

My feet hurt, thought Orem. What is your offer?

"Do you think these lords rule anything? Nonsense. We do. It's one of us who's major-domo, lording the house. Who is his steward caring for his lands, if not one of us? Oh, the master makes his decisions, but who gives him all the information he uses to decide? We are the masters of Inwit, we are the ebb and flow of everything. We give them allowances and they think that they are the ones who pay us! They even think they hire us!"

"But the offer you spoke of, what could you need us for?"

The old man leaned forward and smiled. "Well, you see, while we're off tending to their estate, what of our own houses? We have lovely houses here, you know, the finest in Inwit, saving our masters' own. Who serves in the house of the servant? That's what we want you for."

The servant of a servant. That's my pass. That's my entry into Inwit. Orem did not feel triumphant at getting work. Instead he kept trying to think if he had ever heard a song about a servant.

"How much?" Flea asked.

"Two coppers a week," said the old man. "Two coppers a week, and an afternoon off, another on holy days if you worship God, and room and two meals besides."

"Here's the best. You'll wed here, you'll bed here, you'll sire here and your sons, your daughters, they'll do what you cannot. They'll wear the livery, they'll learn the words and times, they'll stand at the elbow of great men and be part of our family, the family Dyer, and do us proud forever. You'll be the sires of members of the fifty families, though you'll never belong to us yourselves."

Orem knew then that he must turn it down. He did not understand why, not for a moment. It was work, it was a way to stay inside Inwit, but it was unbearable. His sons and daughters servants, and their sons and daughters, forever and ever, all his children bowing and vanishing, cooking and vanishing, cleaning and vanishing. "No," Orem said. "Thank you, sir, but no."

Flea grabbed at his shirt, pulled so hard that the fabric cut at his neck. "God's name, Scant, this is it! You don't bargain with passes and two a week!"

"The young one's crude but correct," the old man said. "I won't bargain. I know I'm being generous."

"I'm not bargaining," Orem said.

"Then what?" asked the old man.

"Turning you down."

"Then you're a fool," he said contemptuously.

"Yes. No doubt of it."

"What about me?" Flea asked the old man. "Will you take me without him?"

The old man smiled thinly. "At one a week. This one can read. The two a week was for his sake, because you came together."

"One or two a week, fine with me."

"Stay, then, Flea," Orem said. "Thank you for everything. God's gifts with you." He nodded and stepped from the porch. His father had been a mere farmer, too poor to give a portion to his seventh son, but he had been a freeman, and his son was also free, and he would not bring children into the world less free than he was.

He was out of the alley, striding on into the darkening, deepening fog when he heard footsteps behind him. He knew the runner. "Flea," he said.

"You chewer," said Flea.

"That's as may be." "Two meals a day and coppers besides. Why not, in the name of my mother's blood?"

"I thought you came for work."

"Why work? To keep yourself alive. But then, why live? Not for that. Don't blame me. You

could have stayed." "You chewer. I thought you knew what you were doing. A poem! My father's piss!" And Flea

spat on the ground for emphasis.

"Then go back."

"I will."

"All right then."

"Tomorrow."

They walked on in silence, and stood together at the door of the Spade and Grave. The fog was

deep, the night was on them, all but a faint glow above the roofs; the lanterns were lit pathetically, as if they had a chance to cast a light in air so wet. "What sort of poem?" Flea asked softly.

"A true one."

"Such a poem for you, Scanthips?"

"Why not?"

"Heroes do great things."

"I mean to do them."

"My mother's eyes."

"And there's no hope for a servant of a servant."

"So what now, Scant? Tomorrow you got no pass."

"Then I'll go out. And come back in."

"When your cheek is healed! Months from now!"

"I'll come back in another way."

Flea shook his head. "I don't know that end of the city. I don't know them as comes in that way." "Good night, Flea," Orem said. "I'm a fool for sure. Go back to that old man and live well."

Bargains

Orem slept well that night, to his own surprise, and the next day he went downstairs and cheerfully told the innmaster to chew himself, though he still didn't know quite what that meant. Then he went to another inn and ate a copper's worth of breakfast, which made his stomach ache but tasted no worse for that. It was his gesture of defiance after nearly fasting for three days for his coppers' sake.

And as he left the inn, bellyheavy and content, he brushed past a small boy who was loitering at the door, not noticing who it was until he was a couple of steps into the street. Then he turned and said, "Flea!"

Flea looked annoyed. "You could have saved some of that food for me."

They fell into step, heading north toward Piss Road.

"I thought you'd have breakfast with that old man," said Orem. "I thought you'd given up on me."

"I should have," Flea said. "But I'm so damn dumb I believed what you said last night. If you can

have a poem, Scant, why not me? I'll be twice your weight when I'm grown. My father hefted an axe for the King, my mother told me. Told me other things, other times, but who knows? Maybe."

"Maybe."

"Bring me along when you go to earn your song. Promise me."

"By my hope of a name and a poem, I promise," Orem said solemnly.

Flea answered nothing. Just silently touched Orem's hand for a moment. And when his touch went, there were three coins in Orem's hand.

"No," Orem said.

"They aren't mine. You might as well have them."

"I can't take your coppers."

"Because I cut purse for them? I'll lie and say I found them if you like."

"You owe me nothing."

"You're going to put me in your poem. So let me help you get it started." And with that Flea ran off into the crowds of Piss Road. Orem watched him out of sight, and still watched when Flea was utterly lost to him. He was in debt to a thief inside Inwit and to a liar of a carpenter outside. They were the closest thing to honorable men that he had found.

There was Braisy, the weasely man, leaning against a wall watching the discouraged paupers leaving the gate's mouth. Orem walked boldly to the man.

"Five coppers," Orem said.

"A cheerful greeting. Five was all you had three days ago. What do you have now?"

"Five."

Braisy looked at him, eyebrow raised. "Resourceful little chewer, aren't you."

"Five. I want to go in the other way. If there's work there."

"I promise nothing. Hell, I don't even promise all the way in. I know the first portals, and the names of them as has names. More than you know, that's all. And it's five coppers to there."

"Then let's go."

"Eager little bastard, aren't you." Braisy licked his lips. "I tell you, maybe you're better to wait out here till your cheek's healed."

"What, trying to raise the price on me?"

Braisy studied him a moment, then smiled broadly. If he had had more teeth, Orem would have thought his smile menacing. "Well enough, then. Five coppers. Now."

"One now, one at the first door, the rest when I'm as far as you can take me, if I think it's far enough."

"Two now, three at the door."

"One now, two at the door, two at the end."

"Done. But show them all."

Orem stepped back and showed the coins from far enough that they could not be snatched away.

"Learned caution, have you?" "One now." And he tossed the coin. Braisy caught it deftly, weighed it on a finger, and slipped it inside his shirt, under his arm. Must have a pouch there, Orem thought. I need a pouch, too. For safety. There are thieves who know how to snatch from a man's wrap.

15 The Hole

How Orem Scanthips was first recognized as he came into Inwit through the Hole.

A Shadow Does Not Know Him

Braisy led him on a twisting journey through Beggarstown that led at last to a tavern far from the twin towers of the Hole. It was not a bright-painted tavern like the Spade and Grave, but a dingy place, decayed outside and filthy and corrupt within. Braisy flashed a coin, and the innmaster nodded. The coin spun through the air. Before the innmaster caught it, Orem noticed that it was silver. Not copper at all. It was then that he became afraid. If Braisy's first bribe was so much greater than the whole fee Orem was paying him, it surely meant that someone else was paying Braisy for Orem's passage.

"I need to piss," Orem said.

"Not now," Braisy answered. He would not get out so easily. With a tight and painful grip on his arm Braisy hurried him up the stairs and into an open door.

Only a faint light came in through the cracks of a boarded up window. Someone else was in the room. It was too dark to see more than a looming shadow against the crack of light from the window. Heavy breathing from the shadow, and the stench of a foul mouth.

"Name." It was a whisper, and still Orem could not guess man or woman, old or young, kind or cruel.

"Orem."

"Name."

"They call me Scanthips."

"Name."

"Of Banningside. Orem Scanthips of Banningside." More breathing. The shadow still did not believe him.

A sigh like the softest whine of a keener. "I can tell neither truth nor lie."

"Stick him, then?" asked Braisy.

Orem braced himself to run—he'd not die of a blade in a place like this. But Braisy was strong, stronger than such a small man looked to be. And then the shadow's dry hand, crisp and light as paper, stroked his bare arm. "Safe, safe," came the whisper. "Safe, safe." And then a tiny prick on his arm, something edged like a razor or a sharp rock scraping off the blood that surely formed, and the shadow moved away.

"Sweet sweet Sister sister sister," came the hissing from a corner of the room. "Nothing, nothing."

"What then?" asked Braisy. His voice sounded like shouting, the room was so still.

"Pass or stay, stay or pass, all one, what can I tell?"

Hesitation.

"I need to piss."

Braisy's hand squeezed tighter on his arm. "Not now, not now, I'm thinking. What are you, boy?"

I'm scared of dying, that's what I am. You've taken my blood, name of God! Let me go. "Orem ap Avonap," he said. "Try that name."

The shadow returned quickly. "The son of Avonap? But that's a lie, a lie, a lie, there's no goldenwheat seed inside of you."

"Swear to God."

"There's word," said the shadow, "of a learned doctor."

"Would this boy be useful to him?"

"Who can say? Take the low way, low to Segrivaun, and ask for the glass of public death."

"Shit," muttered Braisy.

"Or nothing."

"And I say shit. But yes. Yes, the low way, damn you."

"And damn you," came the whisper. Braisy dragged him now to a far corner of the room, where a deeper black waited in the black of the wall. Braisy stopped there and shoved him in. For a sickening moment he thought he was falling into a pit. Then his foot hit a step. Bad angle. He lurched, he stumbled down three more steps, and when he caught himself his foot was on fire with pain and he was frightened.

"I can't see."

A door closed softly above them. Only then did Braisy try to strike a light. Click; spark. Click; spark. Click; light. A little flame in a wad of dry wool. With his bare hands Braisy gently and slowly moved the burning wool to a small lamp. It took. The stairway went down steeply, and didn't bend. The treads were only inches, the risers a foot at least, and it led far deeper into the darkness than ever the house could be. The low way.

And if I do escape, what then? Must remember my way back. Up the stairs, out this door however it opens, past the whispering shadow, left in the hall, down the stairs, and out. He made it a thread in his mind, a thread of words that became numbers and numbers that became words. Little mnemonics formed. Stone Road Bone Road. The stairs ended in a dirt tunnel that could not go straight for fifteen feet, with turns here and holes overhead and holes down and streams of filthy water crossing the path.

The dirt walls turned to brick, with gaps every few inches, narrow spaces a quarter of a brick wide. Out of some of them came a thin trickle of fluid. Was it raining above ground? Why did they build this place? Fly dog, sky dog, ice water, under water. The thread of the remembered path grew longer, and Orem wondered if he could hold it all in his mind. And all along the walls, the little slits.

The corridor tipped left and down, and the floor was slick hard mud with a thin skiff of water running over it. Orem's foot skidded. He braced himself against the wall. His longest finger slipped into a gap in the bricks. The water flowed down his arm.

"Name of God," Braisy said. "Get your hand out."

Orem retrieved his finger from the slit.

"Look at your arm."

It was wet. Braisy held the lamp over it, studied where the water had flowed. "Should be black. Should be black, boy. It's where they put the ashes of the dead. They fill up the slits with the ashes of the dead, and if you get the water on you, then you—but you don't turn black, do you? What are you, boy?"

They came to a stairway down. The water cascaded over the steps. They descended, a step at a time. Water began dripping from the arched bricks overhead. Now and then the lamp hissed when a drop struck it. Braisy seemed to wince with each drip that hit him.

"Quiet here," Braisy said softly. "The guards have tunnels through here, to listen for people like us, trying for the Hole. And if you think to call for help, remember this—everyone who's taken in the paths of the Hole always says they were forced, always claims they were lost in the Tombs. The guard cuts them up anyway, in little pieces, boy. Cuts them up in little pieces. Think of it before you shout for help."

"What are you going to do with me?" Orem whispered.

"Shut up," Braisy answered.

More twists and turns, and Orem felt the floor of the tunnel begin to incline. They were climbing now, and the water grew shallower and began to run against their path, downward, and finally they were on an upward climbing corkscrew through the rock. When the path had crossed itself three times, the stone walls and steps made way for wood.

"Slowly," whispered Braisy. "No squeaks, no creaks."

A step at a time, placing their feet at the edges of the stairs, they crept upward. Suddenly he cracked his head against a ceiling. There was a roof over them, smooth planks from side to side of the wooden stair, and the stair ran right up into it and stopped.

"That's right, knock," Braisy whispered. "Why not call out a greeting? We'll not pass you for bright, will we?" Braisy clambered awkwardly up beside him and reached with his finger until he found a hole in one of the planks. He waggled his finger around, then held the lamp up against the hole. The flame flattened, then leapt up. For more than a minute he held the lamp there, and then the board flew upward, and the one beside it, and the one beside that, until there was a way to climb out. The boards were subtly hinged and silent.

"Trying to burn us out?" asked an immense fat woman. Her voice was soft but still had an edge to it. "Want to start a flame? Should we roast a rat over the hole? Braisy, you're a rutting hog, that's what you are, come up, come in."

Segrivaun

The woman gave them each a hand and pulled them into a room that was lit, to Orem's surprise, by daylight. Wasn't it night? Hadn't he been hours in the dark? Or could it be the next morning already? No, he wasn't that tired. There was no open window; just a few cracks in the wooden wall, with a roll of heavy black cloth tied above it, ready to be let down at night to hold candlelight inside. Orem wondered if this woman lived all her life here. Perhaps. It paid: Braisy handed her two silvers.

"Ah," said the fat woman. Her breasts hung well below her waist, as if she were smuggling grain sacks under her blouse. Her belly wagged to and fro when she walked. Her face, too, was draped with flesh; even her brow hung loosely over her eyes, and she actually lifted her forehead with her hand so she could look up and see Orem's face.

"What is he? Why this way? Surely not for the King, this one!" "A shadow said to take him to you, Segrivaun, and you'd lead us to the glass of public death."

"Said he was wanting."

"Oh, yes, wanting. They brought what he wanted here just an hour ago, cloven hoof and two men binding. Only four horns, but enough, enough, a little one but enough. I want nothing of him. Go on, through here."

She led the way into a cavernous passageway. Forced to bend in the low tunnel, following right behind the woman, Orem couldn't hide from the stench of her; she was foul. But the way was not long. They came to a room with a round hole in the ceiling and two heavy ropes coming down. One rope was taut and tied to a stout iron ring bolted to the floor; the other was also taut but hung free through a hole near the ring, going down deeper into the house.

The fat woman positioned them opposite her and bade them stand away from the ropes, while she fairly enveloped the fastened one in her belly and breasts, holding to the free rope with both hands. She grunted and pulled down on the free rope. The floor rose under them.

Not the whole floor, but a circle of it, and it wobbled madly. They rose past one floor, past another, and finally stopped at the third. Segrivaun lifted them a few inches clear of the floor, then began rocking back and forth. It was a terrifying motion, and Orem couldn't balance fast enough to keep from falling. But when he fell, the platform fell also, and enough to the side of the hole that it stayed as Segrivaun stepped to the caught edge and held it there with her weight.

Braisy quickly took the lamp a few steps away, to where some heavy boards lay on the floor. He took one up, spanned the hole in the floor with it, it, and shoved it under the edge of the circle of wood. Segrivaun stepped off, and now apparently the need for whispering was through.

"Get up," Braisy said impatiently.

Orem stood, stepping back quickly from the circle and the hole. Fire searing, lecher leering, number finger, Stone Road, Bone Road. The thread was complete. Orem knew that now was his chance, if he swung into the hole and dropped to the floor below, then climbed down the free rope to the bottom, then retraced all his steps—

Segrivaun's huge hand closed on his arm. Orem tried to pull away.

"There's some tried it," Segrivaun said. "They're all dead, though. All got lost in the catacombs."

I won't.

"But Braisy's paid three silvers already, he doesn't want a dead one, does he, doesn't want a lost one. Come on."

Segrivaun opened a door, and they stepped into a tiny chamber. Braisy closed the door after them and set the lamp on a high shelf. He took a deep breath. "Strip," he said. And meant it, for he began taking off all his clothes himself. Orem unbelted his shirt and pulled it over his head, uneasy at not knowing what was going to happen. Segrivaun, too, was undressing; modestly she turned her back to them and pulled acres of cloth over her head. Her buttocks, Orem saw, were as loose as her breasts, and nearly reached the floor.

Orem untied the sandals from his calves, let them drop to the ground. Braisy kicked them into a corner. Then, when Orem was too slow with his winder wrap, he yanked on it, pulled it free. The last of Orem's money dropped to the floor, rolled. Braisy had all three coins before they were still. "The last of what you owe me."

"Never miss a minim, do you?" the fat woman chuckled. She crossed her arms across her chest in a mockery of modesty; the huge black nipples of her dugs hung far below, where her hands could not possibly reach them. "They're ready in there, ready for sure."

Orem reached down and picked up his clothes, bundled them under his arm. Braisy reached out and knocked them down, then opened the door.

It was bright inside. A round room, with stone walls and no windows. A stairway came up one wall, curving. Candles hung all along the walls, and there was a small fire in a clay pot, which stank with some heavy, sweet smell that burned Orem's nose. The stones of the wall were so huge that Orem knew immediately that this was one of the towers of the Hole. One of the towers, and surely the towers were held by the guards; surely he was betrayed.

Then he saw the four-horned hart in the middle of the floor and he had no thought for walls and soldiers.

The Hart in the Tower

The hart was alive, its eyes staring in terror. It lay on its back, a helpless and unnatural pose, its four legs tied and stretched off in the four directions, pegged to the floor. At the joint of the hind leg and the belly a cut had been made, and the hart's blood was pumping out in sluggish flows into a low copper pan held by an old man. An old man who was naked but for a deerskin over his shoulders: a doeskin, for the head was hornless where it rested on his grey and tousled hair.

"Hartkiller!" Orem cried softly. And in the moment that his name for the crime hung in the stony, silent air, the hart died. Its head went slack, its tongue lolled:

It was a deep voice that rumbled out from under the doe's skin. "A boy," he said. "And from High Waterswatch, where they keep the memory of the Hart. What have you brought me?"

"His name is—"

But Braisy was silenced by the wave of a hand. The old man's long-fingered hand seemed to have too many knuckles, too many joints. A single finger rose straight into the air, but from the back of the hand, so that the angle grew painful just to watch: all the other fingers straight down, and this single finger pointing upward.

The fat woman lumbered forward. The old man dipped a finger of his other hand into the copper pan and touched the bright bloody tip of his finger to her tongue. Braisy also tasted, and Orem, too, found the finger reaching for his tongue, and licked the cooling blood. It was sweet, it was sweet, and it burned all the way into his throat.

Braisy and Segrivaun stared at him with wide and frightened eyes. What was wrong? Orem grew afraid and looked behind him, but there was nothing there. It was he who frightened them. What change had the hart's blood wrought in him, that they should look at him with such horror?

"What is the price?" asked Segrivaun in a high voice. "Oh, God, a pilgrim's trap!"

Braisy giggled nervously. "You didn't tell me, boy. Cheater, cheater, God hates all liars."

Orem did not understand. What was this talk of God and pilgrims, with a hart bled to death on the floor, with the taste of hart's blood in all their mouths?

Something hot touched his leg. Orem looked down. It was the wizard's hand, still split wide like a keener's jaws, fastened to him.

"Not a pilgrim, are you?" said the deep voice. It sounded kind. "Not a pilgrim, and yet still we see you, we all see all, when all should have vanished at the taste of hart's blood."

Vanished. They were supposed to disappear. And blamed the failure of it on him.

"Forgive me, Gallowglass," Segrivaun began.

"Forgive you? Forgive you a dozen silvers' worth, that's how I forgive you. What woe you've brought me. What trouble is here in this miserable boy. A dozen silvers, Segrivaun. You little know who guided your footsteps through the low way, Braisteneft. You little know who drew you up the spider's line, Segrivaun."

Gallowglass stood. He was tall for an old man. He faced Orem with gaze level. "And so early, and so young. What haste."

Orem did not know what the old man meant. He only knew that Gallowglass's eyes were filled with tears, and yet his face looked acquisitive.

"How long will they let you stay, do you think?" he said softly, as if to himself. "Long enough, perhaps. Too long, perhaps. But worth this, yes. If you can leant—if I can teach—"

Abruptly Gallowglass's hand flew through the air, paused directly in front of Orem's face, and that single upraised finger lowered swiftly and sat upon Orem's eyeball. Rested on the open eye, yet Orem did not blink. He just stared at the pinkish black of the old man's finger, vaguely aware that it was hot. Suddenly the finger came into impossibly clear focus. Every whorl and twist was visible, and in them he could see, as if a hundred yards below, dizzyingly far down into the finger, thousands of people milling about, screaming, reaching upward to him out of the maze of whorls, pleading with him to release them.

"Oh, but you can," said the wizard. And now his voice was not deep and old. It was adolescent, it was young. It was Orem's own voice, speaking to him out of the wizard's mouth. "You can. It is all I can do with hart's blood to contain you, even that long. What have you stolen from me just by being in the room?"

"Nothing," Orem said. What could he have stolen, naked as he was? The wizard took his finger from Orem's eye. Now the eye stung bitterly, and Orem clapped his hand there and rubbed as the tears flowed to soothe the parched glass of his vision. "Don't you know, Segrivaun, that a pilgrim would stay visible only himself? Yet you are also visible, and Braisteneft, and I, and the hart. No pilgrim. But something that is mine, surely mine. A full purse of silver, Braisteneft. Ten of silver for you, Lady Segrivaun. Enough? Enough?"

"Oh, enough, Gallowglass!" cried Braisy.

"Enough that there is no memory that such a boy was brought?"

"Already forgot."

"Enough that there is no memory of a hart whose blood failed when it was hot?"

"Already, my lord, forgot," said Segrivaun.

Gallowglass laughed. "You're both a hundred times forsworn a day. No, we swear by the Hart, yes? By the Hart." So they all, even Orem, knelt around the groin of the hart, each plunging a finger into the soft bloody slit of a wound, and all, even Orem, swore. It was a terrible oath, and Orem knew that his thread was cut in that moment. He remembered all his incantation, but there was no returning that way now.

A bag of silver changed hands. Orem knew what was happening. He had been sold. He was owned. He had left Inwit passless because he would not be a servant to a servant. Now he would be—something—to this Gallowglass. And not free.

And yet he did not mind.

The others left, and Gallowglass gave Orem his clothing. They dressed together, Orem in his dirty traveling clothes, Gallowglass in a deep green robe.

"What's happening to me?" Orem asked.

"You've been employed."

"For how long?"

"For life, I think, however long that is. But don't despair. You'll have the freedom of the city, and the best forged passes that money can buy, since with you I can't use spells to blind the guards. And all you have to do, my boy, is serve me."

Gallowglass tossed him his belt. "And you have. Or will in a moment."

"What makes you think I want to work for you?"

Gallowglass only smiled kindly and patted the circled pattern on the front of his robe. It looked at first like the seven circles of a God's man. But it was eight circles. Two twos of twos. It was a fearsome thing to spell. For up it said, My blood. And down it said, Dry water. And spun down to the two and the two and the two and the two, it said, No hope.

"You're not afraid, are you, boy?"

"Yes."

"Tell me, how much magic have you seen in your life?"

"Some."

"But how much of it has actually worked in your sight?"

None. It was why he longed so for it. Magic was something that the others had spoken of, that

all had seen from his infancy up, but never in his life had he seen the moment of change. For when he was there it never went right, no matter how hard they tried.

"That's right, boy. None of it. Never in your life. Your mother, did she do magic?"

He nodded.

"But sent you out of the house when she did, yes? When she wove, when she cooked, sent you out of the house."

He threatened to undam a flood of bitterness. "Yes," said Orem.

"They always sent you away. Why, boy? Why? When they said the spell of strength on you, it didn't work, did it? Never grew muscled, never grew strong. No village sergeant would have you, would he? For where you are, boy, wherever you are there's a hole in the fabric of the world. You're a Sink, lad. A Sink."

He had no notion what such a thing might be. Good or evil? If he means to punish me for it, I'll not take it without argument. "I'm Orem Scanthips."

"What do you think magic is, Scanthips?"

"Power. Bought with blood." "Bought. Yes, that's the best you'd be able to know, I suppose. But it isn't buying. Not the way the merchants do, with their money. They separate earning from acquiring, with money in between, so the price can go up and down and lose its tie with the labor. So you can be cheated. But the prices in blood do not change."

"Not earning either, lad. For you can't do more and get more. It's there, in you, just there. In every living thing, according to the blood. The blood of life is a web, a net that we draw with us, catching the life of the world in it as we go. All the living blood draws in power, and holds it, so that when one like me, who knows the uses of that power, when I draw the hot blood I can shape, I can build, I can create and kill. But not your blood, Orem Scanthips. Oh, you catch the life as it passes, yes, the power flows into you like anyone else. Better than others, for your web is great, it trails with you, settles out around you, draws life and power from everyone, draws them to you. But do you fill with power? Is there greater strength in you?"

"No?"

"You rob the magic right from the blood, but then it drains from you, drains back into the earth, waiting for the trees and grass to suck it up, waiting for it to melt into the air, to be eaten by the cattle, to settle into the blood of other men again. You can't use it. It just drains through you and it's gone."

"How much?"

"You drained the blood of a whole hart in an instant, Scanthips. That's power, lad. There's no limit to you. Sisters, Sisters, no limit to you except for the shape of your nets, Lord Fisher, the placement of your web, Master Spider. I will teach you."

"Teach me?"

"How to place your web. How to swallow power where and when you wish. You will rob for me, undo the magic wherever I tell you. Who can resist me then? Who will compete with Gallowglass? Challenge me, all of you, and my Sink, my Scanthips, he will worm to the heart of your power and drink you dry."

"Why you?"

"Because you came to me. It was no accident. Power comes to you, and you come to power. I am the greatest of the learned doctors of Wizard Street. You came to me for power. Oh, it's a risk I'm taking, a sacrifice I'm making. How quickly will you learn? Until you do, there's no magic in my house. You're a danger to me. If you get too dangerous, of course, I'll kill you. So learn quickly, lad. Learn quickly."

"I will."

"All my life I've read the stories of Sinks, but never thought I'd live to see one. Follow me, lad."

The road out was as difficult as the road in, but now Orem did not bother trying to memorize the path. He had come to the Inwit that he had dreamed of, the Inwit of old magic from the time before God.

Then the wizard sent him out into the street while he magically hid the entrance to the passageway. Sent him with a warning: You have no pass, don't try to escape. But Orem did not want to escape. As he stood in the dusky street he was joyful. Hart's Hope. Hind's Trace. The broken tree that would not die. Shrine Street. The city that was before God came. It was the city Orem had come to find.