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  Then one night, they did not come. She woke on her own and waited, waited until well past midnight, waited until she was certain they were not coming at all. She dozed off for a moment, when she felt a presence. She rose with one swift motion, pulling her sword from the scabbard on her back.

  The first of her trainers held out empty hands. “It has been a year, Sworn One. Are you ready? Your foes lair in the town not two hours’ ride from here, and the town is truly their lair, for they have made it their own.”

  So near as that? His words came as a shock, ripping the protective magics that veiled her mind and heart, sending her to her knees with the shrilling pain and raging anger she had felt before the winds of the Goddess answered her prayers. No longer was she protected against her own emotions, and the wounds were as raw as they had ever been.

  He regarded her thoughtfully, his eyes pitying above the veil. “No, you are not ready. Your hate will undo you, your hurt will disarm you. But you have little choice, Sworn One. This task is one you bound yourself to, you cannot free yourself of it. Will you heed advice, or will you throw yourself uselessly into the arms of Death?”

  “What advice?” she asked dully.

  “When you are offered aid unlooked for, do not cast it aside,” he said and vanished.

  She could not sleep; she set out at first light for the town , and then hovered about outside the walls until just before the gates were closed for the night. She soothed the ruffled feathers of the guard with a coin, offered as “payment” for directions to the inn.

  The inn was noisy, hot, and crowded. She wrinkled her nose at the unaccustomed stench of old cooking smells, spilled wine, and unwashed bodies. Another small coin bought her a jug of sour wine and a seat in a dark corner, from which she could hear nearly everything said in the room. It did not take long to determine from chance-dropped comments that the brigand-troop made their headquarters in the long-abandoned mansion of a merchant who had lost everything he had to their depredations, including his life. Their presence was very unwelcome. They seemed to regard the townsfolk as their lawful prey; having been freed from their attentions for the past year, their “chattels” were not pleased with their return.

  Tarma burned with scorn for these soft townsmen. Surely there were enough able-bodied adults in the place to outnumber the bandit crew several times over. If by nothing else, by sheer numbers the townsmen could probably defeat them, if they’d try.

  She turned her mind toward her own quest, trying to develop a plan that would enable her to take as many of the enemy down into death with her as she could manage. She was under no illusion that she could survive this. The kind of frontal assault she planned would leave her no path of escape.

  A shadow came between Tarma and the fire.

  She looked up, startled that the other had managed to come so close without her being aware of it. The silhouette was that of a woman, wearing the calf-length, cowled brown robe of a wandering sorceress. There was one alarming anomaly about this woman—unlike any other magic-worker Tarma had ever seen, this one wore a sword belted at her waist.

  She reached up and laid back the cowl of her robe, but Tarma still was unable to make out her features; the firelight behind her hair made a glowing nimbus of amber around her face.

  “It won’t work, you know,” the stranger said very softly, in a pleasant, musical alto. “You won’t gain anything by a frontal assault but your own death,”

  Fear laid an icy hand on Tarma’s throat; to cover her fear she snarled. “How do you know what I plan? Just who are you?”

  “Lower your voice, Sworn One.” The sorceress took a seat on the bench next to Tarma, uninvited. “Anyone with the Talent and the wish to do so can read your thoughts. Your foes number among them a sorcerer; I know he is responsible for the deaths of many a sentry that otherwise would have warned their victims in time to defend themselves. I judge him to be at least as capable as I; rest assured that if Ican read your intentions, he will be able to do the same should he care to cast his mind in this direction. I want to help you. My name is Kethry.”

  “Why help me?” Tarma asked bluntly, knowing that by giving her name the sorceress had given Tarma a measure of power over her.

  Kethry stirred in her seat, bringing her face fully into the light of the fire. Tarma saw then that the woman was younger than she had first judged; they were almost of an age. Had she seen only the face, she would have thought her to be in the same class as the townsmen; the sorceress was doll-like in her prettiness. But Tarma had also seen the way she moved, like a wary predator; and the too-wise expression in those emerald eyes sat ill with the softness of the face. Her robe was worn to the point of shabbiness, and though clean, was much travel-stained. It was evident from that, that whatever else this woman was, she was not one who was overly concerned with material wealth. That in itself was a good sign to Tarma—since the only real wealth in this town was to be had by serving with the brigands.

  But why did she wear a sword?

  “I have an interest in dealing with these robbers myself,” she said, “and I’d rather that they weren’t set on their guard. And I have another reason as well—”

  “So?”

  She laughed deprecatingly. “You could say I am under a kind of geas, one that binds me to help women in need. I am bound to help you, whether or not either of us are pleased with the fact. Will you have that help unforced?”

  Tarma’s initial reaction had been to bristle with hostility—then, unbidden, into her mind came the odd, otherworldly voice of her trainer, warning her not to cast away unlooked-for aid.

  “As you will,” she replied curtly.

  The other did not seem to be the least bit discomfited by her antagonism. “Then let us leave this place,” she said, standing without haste. “There are too many ears here.”

  She waited while Tarma retrieved her horse, and led her down tangled streets to a dead-end alley lit by gay red lanterns. She unlocked a gate on the left side and waved Tarma and Kessira through it. Tarma waited as she relocked the gate, finding herself in a cobbled courtyard that was bordered on one side by an old but well-kept stable. On the other side was a house, all its windows ablaze with lights, also festooned with the red lanterns. From the house came the sound of music, laughter, and the voices of many women. Tarma sniffed; the air was redolent with cheap perfume and an animal muskiness.

  “Is this place what I think it is?” she asked, finding it difficult to match the picture she’d built in her mind of the sorceress with the house she’d led Tarma to.

  “If you think it’s a brothel, you’re right,” Kethry replied. “Welcome to the House of Scarlet Joys, Sworn One. Can you think of a less likely place to house two such as we?”

  “No.” Tarma almost smiled.

  “The better to hide us. The mistress of this place and her charges would rejoice greatly at the conquering of our mutual enemies. Nevertheless, the most these women will do for us is house and feed us. The rest is all in our four hands. Now, let’s get your weary beast stabled, and we’ll adjourn to my rooms. We have a great deal of planning to do.”

  Two days after Tarma’s arrival in the town of Brether’s Crossroads, one of the brigands (drunk with liquor and drugs far past his capacity) fell into a horsetrough, and (bizarrely enough) drowned trying to get out. His death signaled the beginning of a streak of calamities that thinned the ranks of the bandits as persistently as a plague.

  One by one they died, victims of weird accidents, overdoses of food or drugs, or ambushes by preter naturally clever thieves. No two deaths were alike—with one exception. He who failed to shake out his boots of a morning seldom survived the day, thanks to the scorpions that had taken to invading the place. Some even died at each other’s hands, goaded into fights.

  (“I dislike this skulking in corners,” Tarma growled, sharpening her swordblade. “It’s hardly satisfactory, killing these dogs at a distance with poison and witchery.”

  “Be patient, my friend,�
�� Kethry said without rancor. “We’re better off thinning them down somewhat before we engage them at sword’s point. There will be time enough for that later.”)

  When the deaths were obviously at the hands of enemies, there were no clues. Those arrow-slain were found pierced by several makes; those dead by blades seemed to have had their own used on them.

  (Tarma found herself coming to admire the sorceress more with every passing day. Their arrangement was a partnership in every sense of the word, for when Kethry ran short of magical ploys she turned without pride to Tarma and her expertise in weaponry. Even so, the necessary restrictions that limited them to the ambush and the skills of the assassin chafed at her.

  “It will not be much longer,” Kethry counseled. “They’ll come to the conclusion soon enough that this has been no series of coincidences. Then will be the time for frontal attack.”)

  The leader, so it was said, ordered that no man go out alone, and all must wear talismans against sorcery.

  (“See?” Kethry said then. “I told you you’d have your chance.”)

  A pair of swaggering bullies swilled ale, unpaid for, in the inn. None dared speak in their presence; they’d already beaten one farmer senseless who’d given some imagined insult. They were spoiling for a fight, and the sheeplike timidity of the people trapped with them in the inn was not to their liking. So when a slender young man, black-clad and wearing a sword slung across his back entered the door, their eyes lit with savage glee.

  One snaked out a long arm, grasping the young man’s wrist. Some of those in the inn marked how his eyes flashed with a hellish joy before being veiled with cold disdain.

  “Remove your hand,” he said in a harsh voice, “dog-turd.”

  That was all the excuse the brigands needed. Both drew their weapons; the young man unsheathed his in a single fluid motion. Both moved against him in a pattern they had long found successful in bringing down a single opponent.

  Both died within heartbeats of each other.

  The young man cleaned his blade carefully on their cloaks before sheathing it. (Some sharp eyes may have noticed that when his hand came in contact with one of the brigand’s talismans, the young man seemed to become, for a fleeting second, a harsh-visaged young woman). “This is no town for a stranger,” he said to no one and everyone. “I will be on my way. Let him follow me who desires the embrace of the Lady Death.”

  Predictably, half-a-dozen robbers followed the clear track of his horse into the hills. None returned.

  The ranks of his men narrowed to five including himself and the sorcerer, the bandit leader shut them all up in their stronghold.

  (“Why are these—ladies—sheltering us?” Tarma demanded one day, when forced idleness had her pacing the confines of Kethry’s rooms like a caged panther.

  “Madam Isa grew tired of having her girls abused, and they were more than tired of being abused.”

  Tarma snorted with scorn. “I should have thought one would learn to expect abuse in such a profession.”

  “It is one thing when a customer expresses a taste for pain and is willing to pay to inflict it. It is quite another when he does so without paying,” Kethry answered with wry humor. Tarma replied to this with something almost like a smile. There was that about her accomplice—fast becoming her friend—that could lighten even her grimmest mood. Occasionally the sorceress was even able to charm the Shin‘a’in into forgetfulness for hours at a time. And yet—and yet—there was never a time she could entirely forget what had driven her here....)

  At the end of two months, there were rumors that the chieftain had begun recruiting new underlings, the information passed to other cities via the arcane methods of his sorcerer.

  (“We’ll have to do something to flush at least one of them out,” Kethry said at last. “The sorcerer has transported at least three more people into that house. He may have done more—I couldn’t tell if the spell brought one or several at a time, only that he definitely brought people in.”)

  A new courtesan, property of none of the three Houses, began to ply her trade among those who still retained some of their wealth. One had to be wealthy to afford her services—but those who spent their hours in her skillful embraces were high in their praise.

  (“I thought your vows kept you sorcerers from lying,” Tarma said, watching Kethry’s latest client moaning with pleasure in the dream-trance she’d conjured for him.

  “I didn’t lie,” she answered, eyes glinting green with mischief. “I promised him—all of them—an hour to match their wildest dreams. That’s exactly what they’re getting. Besides, nothing I’d be able to do could ever match what they’re conjuring up for themselves!”)

  The chieftain’s sergeant caught a glimpse of her spending an idle hour in the marketplace. He had been without a woman since his chief had forbidden the men to go to the Houses. He could see the wisdom in that: someone was evidently out after the band’s hearts, and a House would be far too easy a place in which to set a trap. But this whore was alone but for her pimp, a thin beardless boy who did not even wear a sword, only paired daggers. She should be safe enough. Nor would he need to spend any of his stored coin, though he’d bring it to tempt her. When he’d had his fill of her, he’d teach her that it was better to give her wares to him.

  She led him up the stairs to her room above the inn, watching with veiled amusement as he carefully bolted the door behind him. But when he began divesting himself of his weaponry and garments, she halted him, pinioning his arms gently from the rear and breathing enticingly on the back of his neck as she whispered in his ear.

  “Time enough, and more, great warrior—I am sure you have not the taste for common tumblings that are all you can find in this backward place.” She slid around to the front of him, urging him down onto the room’s single stool, a water-beaded cup in her hand. “Refresh yourself first, great lord. The vintage is of mine own bringing—you shall not taste its like here—”

  It was just Kethry’s bad luck that he had been the official “taster” to a high lordling during his childhood of slavery. He sipped delicately out of habit, rather than gulping the wine down, and rolled the wine carefully on his tongue—and so detected in the cup what he should not have been able to sense.

  “Bitch!” he roared, throwing the cup aside and seizing Kethry by the throat.

  Kethry’s panic-filled scream warned Tarma that the plan had gone awry. She wasted no time in battering at the door—the man was no fool and would have bolted it behind him. It would take too long to break it down. Instead, she sprinted through the crowded inn and out the back through the kitchen. A second cry—more like a strangled gurgle than a scream, which recalled certain things sharply to her and gave her strength born of rage and hatred—fell into the stableyard from the open window of Kethry’s room. Tarma swarmed up the stable door onto the roof of the building, and launched herself from there in through that window. Her entrance was as unexpected as it was precipitate.

  Kethry slowly regained consciousness in her bed in the rented room. She hurt from top to toe—her assailant had been almost artistic, if one counted the ability to evoke pain among the arts. Oddly enough, he hadn’t raped her—she would have expected that, been able to defend herself arcanely. He’d reacted to the poisoned drink instead by throwing her to the floor and beating her with no mercy. She’d had no chance to defend herself with magic, and her sword had been left back at the brothel at Tarma’s insistence.

  Tarma was bathing and tending her hurts. One look at her stricken eyes, and any reproaches she might have uttered died on Kethry’s tongue.

  “It’s all right,” she said as gently as she could with swollen lips. “It wasn’t your fault.”

  Tarma’s eyes said that she thought otherwise, but she replied gruffly, “Looks like you need a keeper more than I do, lady-mage.”

  It hurt to smile, but Kethry managed. “Perhaps I do, at that.”

  Four evenings later, all but three of the bandits marched in force
on the inn, determined to take revenge on the townsfolk for the acts of the invisible enemy in their midst. Halfway there, they were met by two women blocking their path. One was an amber-haired sorceress with a bruised face and a blackened eye. The other was a Shin‘a’in swordswoman.

  Only those two survived the confrontation.

  “We have no choice now,” Kethry said grimly. “If we wait, they’ll only be stronger—and I’m certain that sorcerer has been watching. They’re warned, they know who and what we are.”

  “Good,” Tarma replied. “Then let’s bring the war to their doorstep. We’ve been doing things in secret long enough, and it’s more than time that this thing was finished. Now. Tonight.” Her eyes were no longer quite sane.

  Kethry didn’t like it but knew there was no other way. Gathering up her magics about her, and resting one hand on the comforting presence of he sword, she followed Tarma to the bandit stronghold.

  The three remaining were waiting in the courtyard. At the forefront was the bandit-chief, a red-faced, shrewd-eyed bull of a man. To his right was his second in command, and Tarma’s eyes narrowed as she recognized the necklace of amber claws he wore. He was as like to a bear as his leader was to a bull. To his left was the sorcerer, who gave a mocking bow in Kethry’s direction.

  Kethry did not return the bow, but launched an immediate magical attack. Something much like red lightning flew from her outstretched hands.

  He parried it—but not easily. His eyes widened in surprise; her lips thinned in satisfaction. They settled down to duel in deadly earnest. Colored lightnings and weird mists swirled about them, sometimes the edges of their shields could be seen, straining against the impact of the sorcerous bolts. Creatures out of insane nightmares formed themselves on his side, and flung themselves raging at the sorceress, before being attacked and destroyed by enormous eagles with wings of fire, or impossibly slim and delicate armored beings with no faces at their helm’s openings, but only a light too bright to look upon.