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airible, though, he solved her dilemma for her; he licked her nose once, and
bit very gently on her ear. Then he growled, rose, and trotted along the wall
toward the gate. She watched him for just an instant and realized other wolves
waited at the gate for him.
She wondered if she would ever see him again. Then she crawled along the
ground to the gangway of the airible, launched herself up and into it as if
she were wolf herself, and quickly slid her hand under the polished wood of
the control console to the hidden lever. She jerked the lever, heard for a
fraction of an instant the whine of cables slipping, and felt the jolt as the
airible leaped upward in an unpowered, awkward lift and then the wolves
began to howl.
Breezes that blew along the clifftop buffeted the airible; Kait feared that
she would strike the trees or the wall before she could rise above them, so
swiftly did the airible move across the ground. Miraculously, though she felt
the gondola scrape along the top of the wall while the airible shuddered, she
lifted free, and floated upward into the blackness of the night.
Below her the city blinked and shimmered with the soft illumination of
countless thousands of candles glowing forth from countless thousands of
windows; with the brighter fires in the lamps set by the lamplighters each
night as twilight fell; with the sharper glow of the gas flames in the
foundries where, even after dark, men toiled and sweated; and . . . with the
stark bonfire that sent its greasy coils from the grounds of Galweigh House
down into the already smoke-scented city below, taking with it much of her
Family.
But not all. Not all. She would not let herself believe the voice of the
stranger in her head, the voice that said
All gone. All gone.
She would make the Sabirs pay for the life of each loved one they took from
her.
She swore by all her gods that she would destroy them, or die in the attempt.
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Diplomacy of Wolves
Chapter
16
D
ghall permitted himself the smallest of smiles when the wolves began to howl.
He tightened his fist over the cut in his palm; the tiny magical spell that
had drawn them to the fire hadn t been as difficult or cost as much as he had
anticipated. His call had been general to any creature that would slip
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within the walls of Galweigh House and watch Kait until she got safely away,
then signal her escape. He d expected a bird birds responded well to him.
But the wolves answered first, and seemed eager to come, as if they were
familiar with the House and its confines . . . or with Kait. He didn t let
himself worry about the strangeness of that. The night was full of magic, even
yet, and as a Falcon he knew that all forms of life responded in their own way
to it, and for their own reasons but that those summoned from good responded
with good. They wouldn t hurt her.
And their howling let him know that she had somehow managed to get herself to
safety outside
Galweigh House s walls. While curious about how she d managed it, he wasn t
surprised. That image of the wall she d climbed in Halles remained clear in
his mind.
With her safe, the time arrived for his next move. He continued to lie on the
floor, feigning sleep; the
Sabir guards had locked him and the other valuable Galweighs, and such
technicians and artists as they d found, in a windowless inner chamber on the
fourth floor. Two the House seneschal and a brawny distant cousin of
Dghall s lay dead in a corner from injuries they had sustained in an
attempted escape. The guards had refused to summon medical help for them while
they lived, and had
(to Dghall s relief and the rest of his companions dismay) refused to remove
the corpses when they died. Their bodies lay in the corner next to him he d
bedded down within reach of them by choice.
Dghall sent cautious mental tendrils out and touched each of the room s
living inhabitants. Most slept deeply. A few drifted between sleep and
wakefulness. Only one other than himself lay awake. Dghall repressed a sigh
and, with his tiny spare dagger, which had escaped the guards careful search
for what guard would think of checking in the tuck beneath the roll of fat
on a middle-aged diplomat s belly for a knife no bigger than a thumb? he
reopened the shallow cut in his palm and dripped his blood onto the floor, and
summoned for the one who lay awake and the few who drifted or fought
nightmares a peaceful, restful sleep.
He tried no such trick on the guards who sat outside the door, laughing at
each other s stories of the women they d raped and the loot they d stolen that
day. First, the Sabir men wore amulets made by some Sabir master which
protected them from minor magics. Second, he wanted the bastards outside the
door. It was the best place for them.
When he was sure he alone among the room s inhabitants remained awake, he sat
up and crawled
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Diplomacy of Wolves between the two corpses. He reached out and touched their
cold bodies, feeling for their hands. When he found them, he placed both on
the floor in front of him, fighting the stiffness that had set in. He would
get no blood from them; he would have to make the offering one of flesh. Flesh
would make the spell stronger, but also harder to control. And the taint of
wild magic that still pervaded the House and the city gave him pause. No
matter how pure his casting, no matter how entirely defensive its character,
the wild magic could add an uncontrollable twist to it that could send it back
to attack him and his, and the strength of flesh magic could make it deadly.
But he could do nothing and condemn the few survivors of his Family to death
and worse or he could make the attempt at their salvation, knowing death and
worse might still be the result.
In his favor, the Sabirs had burned the other Galweigh corpses. And they would
have, he felt sure, removed their own dead to Sabir House; until the Sabirs
could consecrate Galweigh House to their own use, any other action would be
heretical. An offering of only two corpses would be a meager number for what
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he needed, but if any in the fire lay even partially unburned, they would add
strength to the sacrifice. And the fact that only a few corpses lay within the
House s walls would keep the strength of the spell within bounds he might hope
to control if it ran amok.
Such a delicate balance the narrow strait between not enough and too much.
He pursed his lips and began.
First he cut the corpses hands across the palm and pressed the cuts together.
He lay his own bloody palm across the top of the two dead hands and whispered:
By the blood of the living
And the flesh of the dead, I summon the spirits of Family
Who have gone before.
Without the walls of this room
But within the walls of this House
Enemies have come
And killed, Have plundered
And pillaged, Have conquered
And claimed.
Come, spirits of the dead.
All dead flesh within the walls of Galweigh House
I offer as your payment
If you will chase beyond the walls of this House
All alive beyond the walls of this room.
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Diplomacy of Wolves
Harm none; draw no living blood;
Inflict no pain.
I ask not vengeance;
I ask only relief.
By my own spirit and my own blood
I offer myself as price to ensure
The safety of every living creature, Friend and foe, Now within the House s
walls
Until this spell is done.
So be it.
A cold voice, distant as the dark realm between the worlds yet close as death
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