Read The Dead of Winter- - Thieves World 07 for Free Online Page B

his maat would understand, bore all he needed to know. She stepped forward and kissed him, and a moan escaped his lips. It was hardly more than a sigh, but enough of a sign to Roxane, who could read his heart, that Niko had come to her at last-of his own free will, to the extent that free will was possessed by mere men.
    "Go to Ischade. Free Janni's spirit. Then get you both here to me, and I shall succor you."
    She touched his forehead and he sat up straight. His free hands reined the horse around and he rode away-ensorceled, knowing and yet unknowing, back to his hostel where he could sleep undisturbed.
    And tomorrow, he would do evil unto evil for her sake, and then, as he had never truly been, Nikodemos would be hers.
    In the meantime, Roxane had preparations to make. She quit the Foalside, went inside, and looked in upon the Hazard Randal. Her prisoner was playing cards with her two snakes-snakes which she'd given human form to guard him. Or sort of human form-their eyes were still ophidian, their mouths lipless, their skin bore an ineradicable cast of green.
    The mage, his torso bound to his chair with blue pythons of power, had both hands free and just enough free will left to give her a friendly wave: She had him tranquilized, waiting out the time until his death day-the week's end, come Ilsday, if Niko did not return by then.
    A little saddened at the realization that, if Niko did come back, she'd have to free the mage-her word was good; it had to be; she dealt with too many arbiters of souls-Roxane waved a hand to lift the calming spell from Randal. If she had to free him, she'd not keep him comfy, safe and warm, till then. She'd let him suffer, help him feel as much pain as his slender body could. After all, she was Death's Queen. Perhaps if she scared him long enough and well enough, the Tysian magician would take his own life, trying to escape, or die from terror-a death she'd have the benefit of but not the blame. And in his chair, Randal's face went white beneath his freckles and his whole frame began to rock while, with every lunge and quaver, the nonmaterial bonds around his chest grew tighter and the snakes (stupid snakes who never understood anything) began querulously to complain that it was Randal's bet and wonder what was wrong as cards fell from his twitching fingers.
    Strat was out at Ischade's, where he shouldn't be but mostly was at night, just taking off his clothes when the damned door to her front room opened with a wind behind it that nearly doused the fire in her hearth.
    Accursed Haught, her trainee, stood there, arch mischief glowing in his eyes. Strat hitched up his linen loinguard and said, "Won't you ever learn to knock?" feeling a bit abashed among Ischade's silks and scarlet throw pillows and trinkets of gem and noble metal-the woman loved bright colors, but never wore them out of doors.
    Woman? Had he thought that, said it to himself? She wasn't exactly that, and he'd better remember it. Haught, once slave-bait, looked at Strat and through him as if he didn't exist as he entered and the door closed behind him of its own accord.
    "Best remember that you're mortal, Nisi boy. And that respect is due your betters, be you slave or free," Strat warned, looking at his feet where, somewhere in a confusion of cushions, his service dagger lay buried. Best to teach this witch's familiar some manners before he'd have to do worse. But behind him he heard a stirring and a soft step as sinuous as any cat's.
    "Haught, greet Straton civilly," came her voice from behind him and then her hand was on his spine, pouring patience into him where patience had no right to be.
    "Damned kid comes and goes like he owns the-" Haught was abreast of him, then, speaking to the necromant beyond. "You'd want this warning, if you weren't so busy. Want to be ready. Trouble's on the way." Then something unspeakable happened: Ischade, hushing the Nisi ex-slave, came round Strat and did something to the other man, something