Sung In Blood

XXXVII

"What brought you here?" Chaz demanded when Rider reached him.

"Caracene twisting the web. What happened?"

"She tried to stop that bird. 1 don't know where it came from, but I know how it got here.

Shai Khe brought it."

"But ... " Su-Cha piped.

"I saw him. Caracene pointed him out. Where is she? He had greyed his hair and was wearing oldtime clothes, like one of the Cynics, but it was him. Not his brother or cousin or uncle or whatever you're going to say, but him. There aren't any other eyes like his eyes. Where's Caracene gotten to?"

"There is no strain on the web," Rider said, scanning the crowd. "Su-Cha, start looking for him."

Chaz was looking around now, quietly desperate, seeking Caracene. He did not catch a glimpse of her. He had remained calm throughout the crisis. Now he was ready to panic.

"Keep a watch for the woman, too," Rider told Su-Cha. He started down toward Procopio's box.

"Can't you feel her?" Chaz demanded.

"She isn't leaving any trail in the web."

"It's his fault. Shai Khe. He did something to her. She was almost ready to come over to our side. How could he have survived an airship's destruction? Especially with that shadow of his trying to gobble every soul in sight?"

"I don't know," Rider confessed. "I'm as mystified as you. I was convinced that he was dead.

But he is old and powerful and tricky."

"I'm going looking too. He isn't getting away with Caracene if I've got anything to say about it."

"I don't know how he could have gotten through that alive," Rider repeated. "Unless he was not aboard the airship at all. Which could have been, though I don't see how he could have managed the airship so deftly from ashore."

Chaz, a glob of moroseness feeling sorry for itself huddling in a corner, did not look up. No slightest trace of Caracene or the green-eyed man had come to light yet.

"We'll hear from Shai Khe again," Rider said. "If, indeed, it was he that Chaz saw." Rider was not convinced that his only witness was reliable. "His ego wouldn't let it be otherwise." What was meant to be a feather of hope fell flat with Chaz.

"If it was Shai Khe, I'm convinced he has left the City. He would have to do so. He would need to restore the edifice of terror that began crumbling with the report of his death. If he lives, and Caracene is with him, he will be in the east and we will have report of them soon enough."

But the big northerner refused to be encouraged. "I'll find her," he mumbled. "I'll find them both. And when the dust settles there won't be no more green-eyed spook doctor hanging around. No more slave-master for her to be afraid of."

Rider looked at his friend with compassion, but he said nothing more. There was nothing to say. What was needed now was the passing of time. It would be a time shorter than any of them imagined.