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a muscle. His attention focused upon a stairstep a couple above that where his
feet rested.
Even knowing where to look it was a moment before he spied the black thread
stretched taut an inch above the worn and grimy tread.
Tricky, setting the trap for a point where an intruder would begin worrying
more about what lay ahead. He examined the steps above with even more care.He
would have set a back-up.
There it was. A step set to trigger an alarm when weight fell upon it.
He stepped over both carefully.
The stair ended on a balcony which ran athwart the building and L-ed to his
right. Several doors along the back leaked light beneath them. But Odehnal
waited out along the L.
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He paused to scatter pop seeds at the elbow of the L, then moved to Odehnal's
door. He listened, sensed. The dwarf seemed to be sleeping.
He examined the doorknob minutely. The crystal's light revealed no trap.
Below, he heard the slightest breath of sound. Sunlight poured inside. He saw
a shape the size of Chaz slip inside, followed by one of Su-Cha's slightness.
He frowned. It was too soon for them to come.
Move quickly!
He turned the doorknob, passed through the doorway swiftly... and stopped,
startled, awed.
The room was as opulent as an eastern potentate's private quarters. Odehnal
lounged upon huge down-stuffed pillows, face asmile and dreamy. Burnt opium
embittered the air.
Quickly, now!Before Chaz or Su-Cha called attention to their presence.
He cast a small spell which sealed Odehnal's lips. He used a modified form of
the same spell to join the dwarf's ankles, then his wrists, and even his
fingers one to another.
Odehnal stirred once, but only to make himself more comfortable.
A gong hammered in the rear of the house.
Rider hurtled out of the room, into intense light. Chaz stood upon the trap
step, a dumb look on his face.
Two men charged out of rear rooms, weapons in hand. Su-Cha materialized
between one's legs. He pitched off the balcony with a shriek. The other saw
Rider, whirled, charged into the room where Rider knew Caracene and another
man to be.
Rider followed, pop seeds exploding beneath his feet. He hurled a shoulder at
the door. It burst inward. Chaz breathed down his neck as he entered a room
outshining Odehnal's. A thrown knife ripped between them.
In the rear of the room, in shadow, Caracene stood with hands at mouth,
looking down. The man who had preceded Rider slammed her out of the way,
dropped like a badger plopping into its hole. Caracene scrambled...
Then Chaz had hold of her and Rider was staring down at a man thrashing
through brown water, chasing a boat which meant to waste no time on him.
Rider's gaze fixed on the man in the boat, a lean, powerful oriental with
astonishing green eyes. "Shy key, Vlazos said," he murmured. "Shai Khe." One
hand came from a pocket clutching a phial. He hurled it.
The man in the boat dropped his oars, raised hands, loosed a warding spell.
The phial plopped into the river.
The man saved himself from the misery in that fluid, but lost his oars. He
drifted at the mercy of the current.
Rider heard shouts. Soup and Greystone. They had spotted the fugitive. Someone
threw a line to the man abandoned.
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The oriental's long fingers began weaving sparks. Rider snapped, "Out of here,
Chaz. Take the woman. Su-Cha. Get Odehnal." His tone brooked neither questions
nor argument.
He drew on the web, began binding it around the sorcerer. Chaz and Su-Cha
pounded away.
Too late Rider realized what the oriental was doing. Not attacking him
directly at all.
A piling snapped like a twig. The house lurched. Another piling went. The
house began to shift, to groan, to tilt toward the river.
Rider did not hesitate. He dropped through the hole, hit the water feet first.
He drove himself deep with one powerful stroke, then swam with the current.
His strokes were strong and practiced.
The water screamed with the sound of the building collapsing. The scream grew
to a roar. But no building comes down in seconds.
When Rider surfaced he was beyond danger of the collapse. Indeed, the
structure's main mass smashed into the river as he came up. It raised a wave
that lifted him five feet. From the wave's crest he looked at the man in the
boat.
The sorcerer's face betrayed frustration. His fingers began weaving again. But
the wave caught the boat and toppled him into its bottom. When he recovered
Rider had made the riverbank. The oriental wasted no time on an enemy in a
position to best him. His boat flew away as though upon a lightning current. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]