She pushed up the lid of the chest, and took out, first, an old backpack, the straps cracked from lack of polish; and then a basket-hilted rapier, oiled and wrapped in silk.
"Scholar-Soldier!"
The White Crow ignored the Lord-Architect's muttered exclamation. She let herself grip the hilt, lifting the sword; and the memory of that action in her flesh made her eyes sting.
"You'll make me maudlin," she snarled. "Here, look at these."
She flung the rolled-up star-charts at Casaubon. Lucas moved to stare over the Lord-Architect's shoulder as he unrolled them. The White Crow rose cautiously to her feet, and sat down in Lucas's vacated chair.
"The Invisible College must know," she said, "that The Spagyrus practices Alchemy. Yes? Up there, in the heart of the Fane. While we turn with the Great Wheel, and return on this earth, he practices sublimation and distillation and exaltation, to discover the elixir of life or so I thought, until this year."
"Mmmhmrm." The Lord-Architect swiveled a star- chart with surprisingly precise movements.
"And since there's no eternal life but the life of the soul, that would have been harmless enough. He is a Decan, eternal, divine. He'd be playing. You see?"
"Oh, yes. Certainly."
She was aware of the dark-browed young man frowning. The White Crow leaned back, struts of the chair hard against her spine. A half-inch of wine remained in the bottle. She held the bottle, tilting it gently from one side to the other.
"Oh, Lucas . . ."
His body brushed her hair as he passed. "Tell me."
"There is a thing that men search for."
She spoke into the rain-scented air, not attempting to watch him as he paced about the room.
"Although the Decans found it long since; or, being gods, never needed it. I mean the Philosopher's Stone: that same elixir that, being perfect in itself, cannot help but induce perfection in all that it touches."
The after-effect of wine dizzied her, and she laughed softly.
"Including the human body. And a perfect body couldn't be corrupted. Couldn't die. Hence it's sometimes called the elixir of eternal life."
The parchment star-charts crumpled in Casaubon's fist as the Lord-Architect heaved himself out of his chair. He knelt down beside the chest. The thud vibrated through the floorboards. He lifted the leather satchel and the sword, laying them carefully in the trunk.
"You can still clean a sword," he said, "but I fear for your scholarship, if that's how you interpret these charts."
She reached across to ruffle his orange-copper hair, and feel the massive shoulder straining under the linen shirt.
"No. No. I was just explaining to Lucas that . . ."
Light shifted from storm-cloud yellow to sun: the evening clearing. A cold air touched her. She sat at table, among the remains of the meal, still tilting the wine- bottle. A deep sky shone through the street-window. She looked at the black-obelisked horizon.
"Lazy, this heart of the world . . . I came here when I thought I would do nothing but listen to it beat, hear the Great Wheel turn; forget I had ever studied magia, wait to die and be reborn."
She thumbed the cork out of the bottle with a hollow sound. The glass was cold at her lips.
"And then, a month after I got here, I saw it. Written in the sky, clear for anyone who could read the stars. A fracture of nature. I didn't know what it was; I hardly believed I saw it. Soah."
She laughed deprecatingly, and waved both hands as if she swatted something away from her; meeting Casaubon's gaze as he got to his feet.
"So just what you'd expect to happen, happened. I'd thought I'd done with study. But I paid with labor for a room, and worked in kitchens and bars for what else I neededoptic glass and books mainlyand stayed here searching the De occulta philosophia, the Hieroglyphika, the Corpus Hermeticum, the Thirty Statues . . . Everything and anything. So much for Valentine's history, hiding out in case the College should find her."
The Lord-Architect still held one chart in his ham-hand. The most recent, she saw.
"Four is too many to be accidental," he remarked.
"Now, I believe that. I thought it might just be an accident, and the second time coincidence. There are god-daemons on earth here in the heart of the world is it so surprising if miracles happen? Black miracles," she said. "Black miracles."
Lucas, tracing a finger down the annotated line of the star-chart the Lord-Architect held, frowned in concentration.
"It's a death-hour, isn't it? The heavens at the moment of somebody's death?"
The White Crow reached up to take the parchment and unroll it among the dishes and plates on the table. She weighed one corner down with the wine-bottle.
"Not some body. Bodies die all the time, young Lucas. The Great Wheel turns. We're weighed against a feather, ka-spirit and shadow-soul both; and then the Boat sails us through the Night, and back to birth."
The last after-effects of the wine tanged melancholy on her tongue. Workaday evening light glowed in through the window.
"It's a chart of the heavens at a moment I've only seen these four times. When the Great Circle itself has been broken."
"It's not possible," Lucas denied.
"It is possible. Black alchemy, and an elixir not of life but of death, true death . . . Four times the Great Circle has been broken by a death that was not merely the body's death."
Her callused finger touched at the alignment on paper of Arcturus, Spica, the Corona, the sphera barbarica. The constellations of animal-headed god-daemons marched across a sky of black ink on yellow parchment.
"In this city the soul can die, too."
Chapter Four.
"But I must keep hostages," the Hyena concluded. She turned her slanting red-brown eyes on Falke and Charnay and Zar-bettu-zekigal.
Plessiez's slender dark fingers moved to his neck, feeling in his black fur for the missing ankh. His piercing black eyes narrowed.
"I need Charnay; the Lieutenant's familiar with the plan. And the Katayan. Keep Master Builder Falke."
The man did not stir. He sat with his back to the sewer wall, head resting down on his arms. Zari sprang up from where she sat beside him. Her dappled tail coiled around her leg, whisk-end wrapped tight about her ankle.
"I could stay!" she volunteered.
Plessiez hid an icy amusement. "You will come with me, Kings' Memory, to repeat your record to his Majesty, and to the General of my Order; I will then send you back here, to tell your Memory to the Lady Hyena."
"So long as I get to come back." Unrepentant, the Katayan grinned.
The Hyena glanced up at Charnay. "The Lieutenant stays here. You won't be concerned if I kill a man, even a Master Builder. If I kill a Rat, you will. She stays, with him."
"Lieutenant Charnay-"
The brown Rat chuckled, and hitched up her sword-belt on her furry haunches, the empty scabbard dangling. She flexed massive shoulders.
"No problem, messire. I'll even keep your pet human alive for you."
"How very thoughtful," Plessiez murmured.
His eyes moved to the crowd of ragged men and women who pressed in close now. Sun-banners and skeletons' shadows danced on the walls, above their heads, in the flickering torchlight. The stench of unwashed flesh and old cooking made his mobile snout quiver.
"I can give no guarantees that I will achieve your demands."
The Hyena swung round, one fist clenched. A babble of voices echoed off the sewer-chamber's walls.
"Our freedom-"
"To walk in the streets-"
"-To carry weapons-"
"Carry swords without being arrested, gaoled-"
"-Defend ourselves-"
"Trade-"
One of the raggedly dressed men drew his sword, holding it up so that it glinted in the light; a rust-spotted epee. Two or three other men and women copied him, then another; then, awkwardly, most of the assembled crowd.
"Freedom!"
"Ye-ess . . ." Plessiez straightened, one slender hand at his side, head high. He gazed around at human faces. Each one's eyes fell as he met them: subservient, angry, afraid. "I'm not impressed by third-rate histrionics."
He turned back to the Hyena, adding: "If only because I know how effective they are with the General of my Order, and with his Majesty the King . . . Lady, you could kill me now. You could let me work to gain you the concession of returning to the world above, carrying arms, and then do nothing of what I've asked."
Her dark face glinted with humor.
"That may happen, Plessiez. Or we may let you try to work your necromancy. Let me warn you: we go above ground secretly, and we know the city. If you don't get the truce for us, we'll stop you dead in your tracks."
Sweetness made saliva run in his mouth. The stench of roses leaked down from the sewer walls, gleaming with a phantom sunlight.
"Come here."
As Zar-bettu-zekigal came to his side, Plessiez rested clawed fingers lightly on the shoulder of her black cotton dress.
"Memory, witness. The Lady Hyena's people to carry arms, to walk the streets above ground, to be free of the outstanding penalties against them as rebels and traitors."
The Katayan nodded once.
The woman folded her arms, metal clicking. "We do nothing until that happens. Very well. Memory, witness. Certain articles of corpse-relic necromancy to be placed at septagon points under the heart of the world, for the summoning of a pestilence . . ."
"Which will happen before very long," Plessiez added smoothly. "I have already placed two; the rest are yours. And if no plague-symptoms appear soon, Desaguliers' police will have words with your people, lady."
Her slanting eyes met his. "If your Order's magia does work, messire priest, then it's everyone for themselves."
The hunger on her dirty face made hackles rise down Plessiez's spine. He abruptly turned, snapped fingers for Charnay's attention, brushing aside humans who sought to stop him. He waved Zar-bettu-zekigal away.
"Charnay and I are old friends. She may have messages for her family . . ."
He caught the skepticism in the Hyena's expression, and the last inches of his scaly tail tapped a rhythm of tension.
"Lieutenant, give me as many days as you can before you escape from here."
The brown Rat matched his undertone. "I'll stay, messire. To tell you the truth, I'd sooner duel Desaguliers' Cadets any day of the week. These scum are amateurs. Just as likely to stab you in the back as fight . . ."
She dropped her resonant voice a tone softer. "Give it a couple of weeks, let the plague get a grip down here, and I'll come out in the confusion. Don't worry, messire! I'll do it."
His hand closed on her brawny arm, dark against the glossy brown fur. "If it's from you that they discover they're not immune to this plague, I swear I'll have you gutted at the square and chasing your own entrails round a stake!"
She nodded, good-humored, still smiling. "Plessiez, man, give me credit for sense! I want to die as little as you do. The only way they'll find out is when they start burying each other."
Plessiez looked up at her. "See that's so."
He stepped back, adding in a louder tone: "We'll leave you now."
The blond man, Clovis, squinted at the woman in ragged armor. "Lady, who'll lead him out?"
"I will." The Hyena pointed. "Take those others and give them food."
A man in the tatters of a satin suit jeered. Youths scrambled to follow Falke and Charnay as they were led off, scooping handfuls of ordure to throw, screeching insults. Plessiez bristled, tail cocked high.
As she turned away, he spoke unpremeditatedly: "And give me back my sword."
The armored woman beckoned, not turning to see if she was obeyed. The great silence of the sewers pressed against his ears. The substanceless brambles of roses brushed his fur.
"No," she said. "Feel how it is to go unarmed, messire, in the presence of your enemies."
Above, in the city, clocks strike four in the morning.
Footsteps echoed down the main aisle of the Cathedral of the Trees.
"You!"
The novice sleeping on the oak altar started awake. Bright starlight showed his patched water-stained robe. He rubbed his eyes. "The cathedral's closed."
The brusque voice said: "We don't close the cathedral."