The Dead of Winter

THE COLOR OF MAGIC by Diana L. Paxson

The sky was weeping, as if some artist had muddied all the world's colors to gray and now was trying to dissolve them away. Water dripped from the brim of Lalo's floppy hat down his neck and he tried to pull his cloak higher, swearing. The saying went that there were two seasons in Sanctuary-one of them was hot and the other was not-and the most miserable was whichever one you were in. It was not a hard rain-more a persistent drizzle that imposed an illusory peace on the town by encouraging the bravos of the dozen or so warring factions to stay inside.

I should have stayed home too, thought Lalo. But another hour in rooms crowded with children and the lingering odors of wet clothing and cooking food would have driven him into a quarrel with Gilla, and he had sworn not to do that again. The Vulgar Unicorn was closed to him, but last he had heard, the Green Grape was still on the corner where the Governor's Walk joined the Farmer's Run. He'd have a peaceful drink or two there, and figure out what to do....

Lalo ducked under the overhang where the weathered sign with its bunch of peeling fruit knocked forlornly against the wall. The only sign of life about the place was the scruffy gray dog shivering against the door. Then Lalo pushed the door open and the welcome scent of mulling wine overpowered the more familiar odors of mildew and backed-up drains.

Lalo shrugged out of his cloak and shook it. The dog's ears flapped and its collar jingled as it did the same. Then it sneezed and followed him inside.

Lalo sat down next to the stove and draped his already steaming cloak across a chair. A skinny serving boy brought him mulled wine and he clasped his paint stained fingers around the mug to warm them before he let the hot, sweet liquor slide down his throat. He set the mug down, glimpsed his own unprepossessing reflection in a tarnished mirror on the wall, and looked quickly away.

He had looked into a mirror once and seen a god look back at him. Had that been a dream? And he had seen all his own evil come alive on the wall of the Vulgar Unicorn. That had been a nightmare, and too many others had shared it.

The gift of painting the truth of a man had come originally from Enas Yori. Now, he almost wished he had accepted the sorcerer's offer to take it back again. These days, Enas Yorl seemed to be chronically incapacitated by his periodic transformations-it was almost as if the sorcerer's mutations paralleled the degenerating situation in Sanctuary.

But with Enas Yorl handicapped and Lythande out of town, who was there to teach him how to use his power? The Temples were useless, and the stench of the Mage guild made him feel ill.

Quite close to him, someone sneezed. Lalo jumped, set his mug teetering, and grabbed for it.

"Do you mind if I borrow your cloak?"

Lalo blinked, then focused on a thin young man clad only in a metal dog collar who was reaching for the garment Lalo had draped over the other chair.

"It's still wet ..." he said helplessly.

"That's the only trouble with these transformations," the stranger shuddered as he wrapped the cloak around him, "especially in this kind of weather. But sometimes it's safer to travel in disguise."

Lalo shifted focus and saw the blue glow of power. The pride in the stranger's face was tempered by an almost puppy ish eagerness, and a hint of wistfulness as well, as if not all his magic could win him what he really desired.

"What do you want with me, Mage?"

"Oh, you can call me Randal, Master Limner ..." the mage grinned. He smoothed back his damp hair as if he were trying to hide his ears. "And what I want is you, or rather. Sanctuary does ..."

Lalo tried to cover his confusion with another sip of wine. He had heard about the Hazard-class sorcerer who worked with the Stepsons, but during the weeks when Lalo had been trying to learn magic from the priests of Savankala, the Tysian mage had been unaccountably absent. Lalo had never seen him before.

Randal fumbled at his collar and pulled out a tight roll of canvas. With that confident grin that was already beginning to rasp Lalo's nerves, he flattened it against the table.

"Do you recognize this drawing?" It was the picture of that mercenary Niko, in whose background two other faces had so unexpectedly appeared.

Lalo grimaced, knowing it all too well, and wishing, not for the first time, that he had never let Molin Torchholder take the damned thing. Certainly no one had given him any peace over it since. It was that, as much as the conclusion that the Temple teachers didn't know how to train him, that had driven him home again.

"How did you get that?" he asked sourly. "I thought His High and Mightiness kept it closer than an Imperial pardon."

"I borrowed it," said Randal enigmatically. "Look at it!" He brandished the paper under Lalo's nose. "Do you understand what you have done?"

"That's what Molin kept asking me-you should talk to him!"

"Perhaps I can understand your answers better than he did ..."

"The answers are all no!" Lalo said harshly. "I don't know what happens if you destroy one of my portraits. I've never tried to animate a portrait, and I'm not about to start experimenting. Not after the Black Unicorn.... You're the mage you tell me what I can do!"

"Perhaps I will," Randal said winningly, "if you'll help us in return."

"Us? What 'us'?" Lalo eyed him warily. Badly as he needed knowledge, he was even more desperately afraid of being used.

This time it was Randal who hesitated. "Everyone who wants to see some kind of order restored to Sanctuary," he said finally.

"By kicking out the Fish-eyes? My daughter serves one of their ladies at the Palace. They're not all bad-"

Randal shrugged. "Who is?" Then he frowned. "We just don't want them running us, that's all. But the Beysib are hardly the worst of our problems-" His long finger stabbed at the woman's face in the picture, that searingly beautiful face whose eyes were like the eyes of the Black Unicorn.

"She-" hissed the mage. "She's at the bottom of it. If we can destroy her-even contain her-maybe we can set the rest right!"

"You go right ahead," snapped Lalo. "Just drawing her picture was bad enough. Fight your own wars-it's nothing to do with me!"

Randal sighed. "I can't force you, but others may try. You'll wish you had allies then."

Lalo stared sullenly into his wine. "Threats won't move me either, mage!"

There was a short silence. Then Randal fumbled with his collar again.

"I'm not threatening you," he said tiredly. "I don't have to. Take this ..." From the apparently limitless compartment in his dog collar he pulled a wadded cloth. It opened out as it fell and Lalo saw a garish rainbow of red and blue and yellow and black and green. "It'll get you across town when you decide you need help from me. Ask for me at the Palace ..."

He paused, but Lalo would not meet his eyes. Randal got to his feet, and as his movement stirred the drawing, shadows lifted like dark wings in the corners of the room. Like the winged shadows in the picture, thought Lalo, shivering. Very carefully the mage rolled up the drawing. Lalo made no objection. He never wanted to see it, or the mage, again. His vision blurred and images moved just beyond the limits of his perception. He shuddered again.

"Thank you for the loan of your cloak ..." The words trailed off oddly.

Lalo looked up just in time to see his outer garment settle like a deflating balloon across the chair. Something wriggled beneath it, sneezed, and then pushed free. He saw a gaunt, wolfish dog stand up, shake itself, and lift one large ear inquiringly.

Even as a dog his ears are too big for him, thought Lalo. Fascinated in spite of himself, he watched as the animal sneezed again and trotted across the room. The tavern door obligingly opened itself, then snicked shut after him. And then there was only the crackling of the fire and the whisper of rain against the windows to keep him company.

I dreamed it, thought the limner, but the armband still lay before him, striped with all the colors of the lines that sectioned Sanctuary. And what is my color, the color of magic? Lalo wondered then. But there was no one to answer him.

He dropped a few coins onto the table and stuffed the armband into his pouch. Then he jammed his hat on over his thinning hair and wrapped the damp cloak around him. Now it smelled of dog as well as of wet wool.

And as that scent clung to the cloak, the mage's words stuck in Lalo's memory. His step quickened as he headed for the door. He had to warn Gilla-he had to get home.

"You tell me, Wedemir-you see more of the town than I do. Is your father right to be afraid?" Gilla paused in her sweeping and leaned on the broom, staring at her oldest son. Her two younger children were sitting at the kitchen table, drawing on their slates with some of Lalo's broken chalks. Chalk squeaked and Wedemir grimaced.

"Well, you still need a pass to get around," he answered her, "and who's fighting whom and why seems to change from day to day. But having the real Stepsons back in their barracks seems to have calmed the Beysibs down."

Suddenly Latilla screeched and grabbed for her little brother's arm. Alfi's slate crashed to the floor and he began to cry.

"Mama, he took the chalk right out of my hand!" exclaimed Latilla.

"Red chalk!" said Alfi through his tears, as if that explained it. He glared at his sister. "Draw red dragon to eat you up!" He slid down from his chair to retrieve the slate.

Gilla smacked his bottom and pulled him upright. "You're not going to draw anything until you learn some self-control!" She glanced toward the shut door to Lalo's studio. He had said he was going to paint, but she had seen him fast asleep on the couch when she looked in a quarter hour before.

"You're going to your room, both of you!" she told her small son and daughter. "Your father needs his rest, so play quietly!"

When they had gone, she picked up the fallen slate and fragments of chalk and turned back to Wedemir, who had sat through the altercation trying to look as if he had never seen either his brother or his sister before.

"That's not what I meant, and you know it," she said softly. "Lalo is not afraid of the Beysib. He's afraid of magic."

"Name of Ils, Mother-the Stepsons' pet mage is trying to recruit him." Wedemir's black brows nearly met as he frowned. "What do you expect me to do?"

"Stay with him! Protect him!" Gilla said fiercely. She began sweeping again with long, hard strokes, as if she could thrash out all her fears.

"He's not going to like me tagging after him-"

"Neither of you will like it if he runs into danger alone...." There was a sudden heaviness in the air. Gilla heard a faint "pop" and turned, the rest of her words dying in her throat.

Above the kitchen table hovered a sphere of darkness, scintillating with flickers of cobalt blue. As she stared, it quivered and began to drift, still expanding, toward the studio. The floor shook as Gilla started toward it.

"Mother, no!" Wedemir's chair crashed behind him as he tried to get around the table, but Gilla was already standing between the Sphere and the studio door.

"Get out of my kitchen, you demon's fart!" She jabbed at the Darkness with her broom and it recoiled. "Think you'll get my Lalo, do you? I'll show you!" The Sphere stilled as she spoke Lalo's name, then suddenly enlarged. Gilla blinked as colors swirled dizzyingly across its slick surface.

"By Siveni's spear, get you gone!" Gilla recovered herself and struck the Sphere with her broom. The stiff straw faded as if she had shoved it into a murky pool, then the shaft started to disappear too. Her screech of outrage was swallowed as the Darkness engulfed her. She heard the second "pop" of displaced air, and all sense of direction and dimension disappeared.

"Papa, are we going to stay here long?" Latilla looked around the courtyard of the Palace, whose usual splendor was muted by the rain, and pressed closer to Lalo.

"I hope not, sweetheart," he answered, scanning the arches of the cloister anxiously.

"I don' like it," Alfi said decidedly. "I want Mama. I want to go home. Papa, will Mama be back soon?"

"I hope so...." whispered Lalo. His eyes blurred with something more than rain as he knelt to hug both children close against him, finding some deceptive comfort in the warmth of their young bodies. He and Gilla had made these children between them. She couldn't be gone!

"Father, Wedemir told me what happened! What are we going to do?"

Vanda was hurrying toward them with her older brother behind her, her bright hair coming undone from its Beysib coiffure.

"I'm going to get Gilla back," Lalo said harshly. "But you'll have to take care of the little ones."

"Here?" She looked around her dubiously.

Wedemir cleared his throat. "They may not be safe at home."

Vanda frowned. "Well, we already have some other children in quarters in the basement-that child of the Temple they call Gyskouras, and Illyra's boy-it's a regular nursery. Maybe I can work something out ... oh, of course I'll take them!" She scooped Alfi into her arms. "Just find Mother!" She stared at Lalo over Alfi's dark head, her grey eyes so much like Gilla's that something twisted in Lalo's chest.

"I will ..."he managed, and could say no more.

Vanda nodded, shifted Alfi onto her hip and reached out for Latilla's hand. "Come on, levies, and I'll show you some pretty things."

"Toys?" asked Alfi.

"Toys, and other children, and everything ..." Van-da's voice faded as she went under the archway. Then she turned a corner and was gone. --

"At least it was convenient to drop them here," said Wedemir dryly. "Exactly where in the Palace did that mage tell,you to go?"

"I'll have to ask at the wicket. It's like the Maze inside...." Lalo sighed and splashed across the courtyard.

Behind the wicket at the Gate was a little room where litigants had waited to be called to the Hall of Justice in the days when the Prince still pretended to govern Sanctuary. Lalo settled onto one of its inadequately padded benches and closed his eyes. Instinctively he reached out for that current of awareness that linked him to Gilla, but there was nothing there. He had never realized how essential her presence was to him.

Gilla-Gilla! his heart cried, and he did not realize that he had moaned aloud until he felt Wedemir patting his arm.

"You have decided to come to us after all! What is wrong?"

Lalo's eyes flew open. Randal the Mage with his clothes on was an altogether more impressive sight than the man who had borrowed his cloak in the tavern. In this setting, even his freckles seemed less visible.

"Something tried to get him and took my mother by mistake," said Wedemir accusingly. "A black globular sort of thing-it just materialized in the kitchen, and she was gone!"

"A kind of bubble shot with flashes of blue light?" asked Randal, and Wedemir nodded. The mage chewed his lip for a moment, then grimaced. "It sounds like Roxane. She has a habit of kidnaping people, and right now she's hellbent on revenge against anyone connected with Molin Torchholder or Niko...."

Randal's voice had softened as he spoke the mercenary's name, and Lalo sensed the complex of frustrated love, longing, and loyalty that explained why the mage had handled Niko's portrait so reverently. But Lalo could hardly worry about Randal's feelings now. He had heard too many tales about Roxane....

"But why take my mother if she wanted Lalo?" asked Wedemir.

Randal looked at the limner sympathetically. "The witch didn't expect you to give any trouble or she would have come herself. The Sphere was a Carrier, set to react to your identity. And your wife spoke your name-"

"But she must realize her mistake by now. Why hasn't she let Gilla go?"

"Roxane plays for points," said Randal gently. "As long as the woman's no trouble, she'll keep her, maybe use her as a hostage to compel you ..."

No one needed to detail what could happen if Roxane got tired of her captive. Lalo jerked to his feet and Randal pulled him back with surprising strength.

"No, Lalo-Roxane has no honor. You could not be sure of saving your wife even if you offered yourself in her place. To strike against the sorceress is the only way!"

Lalo sank back onto the bench and covered his eyes.

"Are you with us then. Limner?" asked Randal softly.

"I'm with you," interrupted Wedemir, "if you'll teach me how to fight!"

"That can be arranged," said Randal. He waited for Lalo's answer.

"Help me free Gilla and show me how to protect those who depend on me," the words were dragged from Lalo's lips, "and yes, I'll do what I can to help you."

Gilla sneezed, heaved herself upright, and sneezed again. Something round and hard was digging into her side. She looked down, saw a skull, and jerked away. So much for the comfortable conclusion that she had been having a nightmare. She still gripped her broom, but she was not at home; no one had cleaned this place for quite a while.

"Ah-fat lady wake now? Fat lady sleep hard; Snapper Jo was lonely!"

Gilla stared. The voice which had uttered these words of welcome was very deep, with a kind of curdled quality that made her think of the bottom of a vegetable bin that had been left alone too long. For a moment her eyes struggled to sort through a confusion of piled boxes and dusty hangings, then she focused on a shape that was tall, and gaunt, and gray. It made a gurgling sound that could have meant anything, and lit a lamp.

Gilla blinked. The creature's general grayness was more than compensated for by a pair of purple pantaloons and a shock of orange hair. He treated her to a sharp, snaggle-toothed smile.

"Fat lady talk to Snapper Jo now?"

Gilla cleared her throat. "Does this place belong to you?"

"Oh, noooo-" The warts on his gray skin seemed to crawl as Snapper Jo glanced fearfully over his shoulder. "Great Mistress rules here! Great Lady, very beautiful, very strong ..." He ducked his head with a kind of fearful reverence.

Gilla thought he was overdoing it, but it was obvious that whoever had brought her here did have plenty of power. Beneath the dust she caught the unmistakable dank perfume of the White Foal River, so she knew she must still be in Sanctuary, and there were only two sorceresses here with that kind of power. Her skin chilled as she thought about it. It was the kind of riddle children asked in play: Would you rather be eaten by a she-panther or a tigress? By Ischade or by Roxane?

Suddenly the dust and clutter around her seemed stifling. Gilla got to her feet and picked her way, between a dusty carved table and a tall vase of dull brass inlaid with tarnished silver, toward the door. The vase toppled as Snapper Jo leaped with awkward efficiency to block her.

"Fat lady not to go-" the gray fiend said reproachfully. "Orders-Mistress says to keep you here." He favored her with a walleyed leer. "And talk to Snapper Jo!"

Gilla talked to him. She could not tell if it was for hours, really, or only seemed that way. The fiend's conversation was remarkably repetitive, and only long practice in answering the questions of small children while doing something else got her through it still sane. But the light behind the curtains was definitely fading when something moved in the doorway and Snapper Jo's patter abruptly failed.

The room seemed to brighten, or perhaps it was only that this woman left a glamor in the air around her. Local legend had said that Roxane was terrible, but had no words to say how beautiful she was. And surely it was Roxane, for everyone knew that the witch Ischade was pale as a night-born flower, but Roxane's skin bloomed like a rose.

"So, you are enjoying your conversation?" Roxane's little cat smile did not reach her eyes.

You bitch, how dare you ... thought Gilla. Then she met that gaze, and felt her skin grow cold. She bit back the retort that ached in her throat.

"My Carrier was not prepared for such as you." Roxane looked Gilla up and down. "Count yourself fortunate that your weight did not burst it and leave you floating mindless between the planes!" The Nisibisi sorceress laughed, and Gilla's chill drove deeper. This woman reeked of evil like some deadly perfume.

Gilla found herself retreating within the fortress of her flesh; she had never understood until now how her bulk had protected her. Physically her sheer mass had made her formidable. And it had shielded her psychically from all but the most powerful personalities. But Roxane was pure power, and Gilla was afraid.

"Great Lady, I am indeed grateful," she said between set teeth. "But surely you have no use for me here-"

"No? We shall see. There is no need to act hastily!" Roxane gave a throaty laugh, as if she were savoring some private amusement. "I will keep you for a while as a companion for my servant here. But in that case I suppose you must be fed," she looked at Gilla with another laugh. "Though surely it would do you no harm to starve for a while. Snapper-leave one of the serpents on guard and get food for her."

"And food for Snapper, too, Mistress? Nice food-red, still twitching?" The fiend clutched at the air and smacked his narrow lips, his eyes glazing.

Gilla watched him and shuddered, reminding herself not to trust his apparent affability.

"Snapper, be still!" Roxane flickered her fingers casually and the fiend froze, watching her with rolling eyes.

"Great One, please let me go home," Gilla whispered, bowing her head to keep Roxane from seeing her eyes.

"Oh, you don't want to go home," Roxane smiled prettily. "Your home is going to become very damp and uncomfortable very soon. Believe me, Ilsig sow, you will be much safer here with me. Do you hear the rain?" She paused a moment and Gilla heard its soft, steady patter outside.

"You'll hear more rain soon. But don't worry, my wards will keep the water away from here-the rest of Sanctuary is not going to be so fortunate. Water is coming. A great deal of water is coming!" Roxane lifted her arms with a ripple of silken sleeves. "Oh, they will be sorry, when the flood sweeps their fine temples and palaces away! I will bring the great waters down from the north in such a deluge as this place has never seen!"

Gilla grew very still. If there was a flood her children would be in danger. She had to think of a way out of here! But she had always done her best thinking when she was working; her gaze fell on the broom that had come with her through the void.

"If I am to stay, Mistress, then let me keep busy working for you." She tried to simulate humility. It did not sound convincing to her, but she suspected that the Nisibisi sorceress had spent too much time studying men and other beings to know much about how her own sex behaved.

"I'm a very good worker," Gilla went on. "Would you like me to clean?"

Roxane giggled. "Housecleaning? Oh yes-I with my waters and you with your broom will clean up Sanctuary!" Still laughing, she nodded to Snapper Jo. "You let her clean then, do you understand?" Bright skirts swirled as she turned, and she was gone as swiftly as she had come.

For a long moment Gilla stood utterly still. Then she seized the broom that was all she had left of home and began to sweep furiously.

And Roxane, in her witching room, set her Nisibisi Globe of Power spinning in the air before her so that the jewels inset into its High Peaks' clay gathered up the light from the candles that circled her and sent it shimmering into the bowl of water on the stand below.

Through air and water she drew the secret sigils; inhaled deeply the incense that smouldered in the corners of the room and breathed the charged air into the water until it steamed. Then she began to whisper in a language that no one in Sanctuary except Niko or Randal would have recognized.

The light grew aquaeous and dim; the voice of the sorceress deepened. The Globe that spun before her focused her awareness, heightened and transformed it and channeled it into that plane of the Otherworld where the Water Demons had their home. By their secret names she compelled them, and the water in her silver basin misted away.

But over the plains north of Sanctuary great cumulus clouds began to move, at first reluctantly, and then more swiftly, as if they sensed the waiting sea. And when they met the warmer air of the seacoast they released their heavy loads of rain, and the voice of the White Foal River began to change.

"Look-there are laws that govern magic," repeated Randal. "If you understand them you have control. Visualize! You know how to do that, surely-when you plan a picture don't you see it in your mind before you even take the brush in your hand? Use symbols, whatever you need to focus your consciousness on the part of the Otherworld you're working with, and then do your magic!"

Lalo nodded. He could almost see the sense of it, but it was so hard to concentrate when wind rattled the window-frames and rain beat against the slubbed glass. It had been raining hard since the afternoon before.

"If you visualize a shield around you that only lets . specific things out, or in, then you can control what you paint, right?" the Tysian mage went on. He sat back and looked at Lalo expectantly.

The limner nodded. "I think I understand. I don't know if I can do it, but I appreciate your effort to teach me. Worry makes me a poor student. When are we going against Roxane?"

"We're not ready yet-you're not ready. Limner, she would swat you like a fly! Even I-" He broke off, and Lalo was just beginning to wonder if even the mage feared this sorceress, when a heavy tread shook the tower stairs. The door crashed open and they saw Straton, the Stepsons' commander, standing there.

"Vashanka's rod, man, here you are, Randal! You've led me hell's own chase, that's for sure!" Somehow he managed to look even more formidable than usual with his hair plastered to his skull and water from wet steel and soggy leather pooling on the floor.

"Trouble?" The mage stood up, freckles suddenly dark against his pallor.

Straton spat. "Do you use those flapping ears of yours just for balance, or what? Can't you hear the rain? The river's overflowed into the Swamp of Night Secrets, and the whole southeastern promontory will be flooded soon. There's reports that the upper ford is turning into a lake and Goat Creek is over its banks already.

"The Beysa's sticking-hell, her apartments are on the second floor-but rest of the Fish-folk are heading for their ships in schools! There's nothing much we can do about the barracks or Downwind, but if we don't act fast we'll lose the main town too. I've set all the men I've got to building dykes above the bridge, but I need more!"

"Can anyone get a message to Zip?" asked Randal swiftly. "Tell him if we channel the flood maybe it'll sweep the Fish-eyes out to sea-that should persuade him! Use the same argument on Jubal."

Straton's mouth opened as if he were going to object, then it slowly closed again. For a moment he almost smiled. "It would solve a few problems," he said wistfully. Then he shook himself and glared at the mage.

"Fine! I appreciate the advice! But what I want from you, Witchy-Ears, is some wizard's work. You get yourself and your spells out there and do something about those clouds!"

Randal raised one eyebrow. "I will if I can. You know I'm not allowed to alter the balances if this is a natural storm."

"And if it isn't? Have you considered that possibility?"

The mage was still frowning as Straton turned and clattered back down the stairs. He sighed and grasped the knob of the balcony door.

Just a touch on the handle was enough to release it. The door banged back against the wall and a gust of damp wind swirled papers around the room. Ignoring the upset, Randal stepped outside and Lalo followed him.

The wind was coming from the northeast. Ranked banks of cloud rolled steadily seaward as if pushed by inexorable hands. Randal closed his eyes and faced into the wind, then murmured something and traced a Sign upon the air. Lalo shifted focus as the mage had taught him and glimpsed lines of violet fire that wavered a moment and then were torn apart by the wind. Then his vision was sucked upward into the clouds themselves, and he saw as he had Seen in the country of the gods.

Something moved there with, but not of, the clouds- shapes that were subtly wrong, spirits that took a malicious pleasure in manipulating the elements. Oblivious to his presence, they played-it would have taken a more compelling personality than Lalo's to disturb them. But were they demonic? Lalo had never seen storm elementals before. He knew only that he did not like these.

With a wrench, Lalo pulled back into his normal perceptions-Randal's training had done this much for him-and looked quickly at the mage. Randal's eyes were still closed, his face set in a snarl; his hands moved, but it was clear that whatever he was doing was not enough. After a few moments he, also, shuddered and sagged back.

He opened his eyes. "Sorcery ..." he muttered, "black sorcery, and I think I know whose! There's a Nisi stink about those demons. That bitch is working her spells, and she has reset her wards. I doubt even Ischade could get to her now!"

Lalo swallowed. If Roxane's house were impregnable, then Gilla was lost. His gaze moved numbly across slick rooftops, alternately revealed and hidden by tattered gray curtains of rain, to the muddy ribbon of the river. Mist blurred his view of the far bank below the bridge where Roxane's house lay, the house where Gilla was now....

"What will you do?" he asked the mage.

"I have a Power Globe of my own," Randal said thoughtfully. "Perhaps I can use it to counter Roxane's magics. I can try." He looked over at Lalo.

"There's no way I can help you here." Lalo answered the question in the mage's eyes. "But if my hands are no use for magic, at least they can build a dyke as well as another man's. I will be down there." He gestured toward the river. If he could do nothing to save Gilla, at least he could be near her when the river swept everything away.

From the floods, at least, Gilla was not in danger. The bubble of magic with which Roxane had surrounded her house repelled the waters as it repelled all other sorceries. The personnel inside the house were another matter. So far, Snapper Jo had warned off the green house snakes- six feet long with blank ophidian stares more disturbing than the beynit's vicious gleam; undeads with empty eyes and the rotting stink of unburied flesh; and assorted thralls whose bodies yet breathed but whose souls had fled or, worse yet, were locked in some tormented reality from which an occasional gleam of awareness appealed to Gilla for a release from pain.

Even keeping a houseful of children indoors through a solid month of rain-which had been Gilla's previous definition of purgatory-paled by comparison. And of course, even when she had lived in the depths of poverty at the edge of the Maze, Gilla had never allowed her house to reach such a state of squalor.

Despite herself, she was doing the sorceress good service. For two days she had been cleaning- straightening, scrubbing, sweeping away the thick layer of dust. Already several baskets full of offal stood waiting for disposal beside Roxane's kitchen door.

But that was all that Gilla had accomplished. She had thought as furiously as she had worked, but still she had no plan. She stood, leaning on her broom and breathing heavily, gazing out through the dirty window and the oily shimmer of the warding shield at the incessant rain.

"Rain fall up and down the town ..." Snapper Jo said cheerfully. "Wash everything away-shacks. Palace, all. All that fresh meat floating by ..." he added with a sigh.

"Don't you smile about flooding-my children are in that town!" snarled Gilla. She swallowed her instinctive appeal to the fiend's nonexistent sympathy. His only response to her pleas to help her escape had been a reiteration of Roxane's command to guard.

"Fat lady is a Mama? Snapper Jo never had Mama- poor Snapper Jo...." He gazed at her with dim calculation in his mismatched eyes. "Fat lady be Snapper Jo's Mama!" he proclaimed triumphantly.

Gilla looked at that inane grin and shuddered. She thought of her children. Wedemir had somehow turned into a warrior, and Vanda was growing into a beauty that she herself had never had-those two, at least, could take care of themselves now. Her next boy, Ganner, was still apprenticed to Herewick the Jeweler, and with the streets so dangerous, she hardly ever saw him. She could hope that he was safe, but he, too, was started on his own road now. It was the two little ones who still needed her. How could Lalo manage them alone? Gilla straightened with a motion as inevitable as a tidal wave rising to strike the shore. She had to get home!

One of the undeads stumped up the stairs from the basement, wiping moist earth on the remains of its tunic. Gilla wondered if Roxane's wards extended underground, but even to escape she could not bring herself to go down there.

The thing bumped into Snapper Jo, who snarled and shoved it away.

"Dead thing go back to earth!" The fiend pointed to the stairs.

"It is wet in the earth," the corpse said dully. "Let this one go outside."

"No, not outside-" Snapper Jo shook his head. "She says nothing must pass the house shield now. Dead thing try, she finds worse place for it than there.!"

The tattered head turned, and Gilla could almost imagine she saw some emotion in those blank eyes. Then it sagged a little and very slowly thumped back down the creaking stairs.

Gilla sighed gustily to clear the stench from her nostrils when it was gone. She had almost forgotten that this house held worse company than Snapper Jo.

"So you want me to be your Mama?" she asked grimly.

"Mama give boy fresh meat!" The fiend simpered, and Gilla swallowed sickly. She had seen Snapper Jo's table habits. They were not aesthetic. Once blood flowed he became a mindless eating machine.

Mindless.... Somewhere in the depths of her own mind Gilla felt something stir. She looked at Snapper Jo speculatively, and slowly began to sweep once more.

The White Foal River stirred like an awakening animal, expanding through the trees on either side of the upper ford until its shining tendrils crept across the General's Road toward the Street of Red Lanterns. The alleys Downwind were already underwater, and the Swamp of Night Secrets had become a pond.

Water gurgled over the marshy ground above Fisherman's Row and tugged like some marine thief at the small boats tied up on shore. Waterfront merchants labored mightily to protect their wares or fought over the carts that could take them to higher ground. In Caravan Square water stood in muddy pools. But the river roared its frustration where the high banks narrowed it, and nibbled angrily at the supports of the bridge.

Things were not much better elsewhere in the town. Water pounded on tiles and shingles, and roofs which had been at best inadequate turned into sieves. It seeped downward and mud walls began to sag. It pooled in streets and overflowed gutters, floating away the accumulated filth of years. Block after block, the water scoured, hurrying its captured debris toward the gaping mouths of the sewers, whose hollow roar soon became a constant undertone to the drumming of the rain.

Drowned rats and bigger things were swept onward- bodies thought long buried, pieces of rotting wood, wagon wheels, cracked dishes, a mercenary's scabbard, a beggar's precious heap of rags, all became part of the stream. And presently, where pallid waterweed had rooted in the underground channels or where bricks of ancient facings had fallen in, things stuck, each piece catching and trapping more until even the force of the water could not move it forward and it recoiled back into Sanctuary.

Rising waters from the sewer that ran beneath the Maze backed up and overflowed into one of the tunnels leading from the Palace grounds. At the same time, rising river water found an outlet in the escape tunnel that ended near the ford. These waters, meeting, clashed and rose. Some of the overflow splashed into the catacombs beneath the Street of Red Lanterns, but not all, and so, as the day wore on, water began to trickle slowly and inexorably up the tunnel whose entrance was in the basement of the Palace itself.

Water seeped into the dungeons unnoticed except by those few unfortunates who were still imprisoned there. But when it made its way into the portions of the lower Palace that had been remodeled into a nursery for the Child of the Temple, Gyskouras, and Arton and their companions, it was another matter. A storm impelled by alien magics and a flood in their own chambers was not only a threat but an insult as well.

Gyskouras screamed. Arton, face darkening as his own daemon sprang to life within him, screamed louder. The other children who enjoyed the dubious honor of being their companions wept or cowered. Alfi lost completely the edge of superiority that two years' seniority should have given him and clung like a leech to Vanda, while Latilla covered her face with her hands and closed up her fingers each time the noise level rose again.

Seylalha shouted desperate orders as Vanda and the nursemaids scuttled frantically to move children and bedding up to the playroom by the roof garden while above the Palace the sky rumbled echoes of the storm-children's rage. Gyskouras picked up the vase that had been the gift of a royal ambassador and threw it; Arton grabbed a wooden horse and flung it back at him. Lightnings clashed outside and sizzled down the sides of buildings fortunately too watersoaked to burn.

Conflicting winds made a chaos of the orderly banks of cloud, shook the Beysib ships at anchor, plucked off roof tiles and uprooted trees, and folk who had watched the rise of the waters with a nagging dread now trembled with active fear.

And Roxane, sensing the chaos in the heavens, laughed, for this was more than she had hoped for. She changed her strategy, using her control of the elementals to hold back the waters, forcing them to spread sideways into the town.

Gilla could feel the force of the winds even through the witch's wards. Roxane was still secluded, but though her minions knew no particulars, they reflected her emotions, and the growing atmosphere of malicious glee terrified Gilla. What was happening in Sanctuary?

She bent over a crate into which she had dumped half a dinner service-worth of broken crockery which she had found behind the bags of mouldering roots in the pantry and shoved it across the room. What this house needed was not a broom, but a shovel! Still bent over, she glanced around her.

The two house snakes were curled contentedly in their baskets before the stove. Three thralled souls sat at the table, swaying reflexively. Snapper Jo stood between her and the kitchen door, sucking meditatively on an old bone.

He caught her glance and grinned. "Nice and clean! Mistress be pleased. Fat lady make house nice and clean and Mistress wash town!" Overcome with the wit of this observation, he began to laugh. "Wash all the children away, then Snapper Jo be fat lady's boy!"

Gilla clenched her hands in her apron to keep them from closing on the fiend's scrawny throat. At home, she would have thrown something-if she had been at home she would have been throwing things long ago! She felt fury boiling in her belly; she was a lidded kettle ready to explode. Shaking, she hefted the crate of shattered crockery and marched toward the door.

"Fat lady not go out-" Snapper Jo began.

"Great Mistress said to clean her house-I'm cleaning, you wart-upholstered cretin, so get out of my way!" Gilla said between set teeth.

The gray fiend frowned and moved an indecisive half-step, struggling to reconcile the contradictory ideas and unfamiliar vocabulary. Gilla shouldered him aside, shifted her weight, and kicked open the door. Watery light filtered through the shimmering underside of the protective bubble with which Roxane had warded her domain. Gilla took a deep breath of dank air, tensed, and heaved the crate outward with all the strength of her rage.

It arced up and outward, trailing a comet's tail of broken crockery, and burst through.

Gilla was already turning to send another load after it when she heard a sound like a tearing sheet and staggered beneath a gust of wind. Over her shoulder she glimpsed the last shards of the bubble whirling away on the storm.

The wind swept through the kitchen, upheaving the table so that Snapper Jo had to leap aside. Gilla picked up a trashbasket and flung it at one of the thralls, upended another over the serpents, saw the fiend recover and start toward her, and snatched up her broom. Another of the soul-thralls lurched forward. Her swing connected with its head and knocked it bleeding into Snapper Jo's arms.

Gilla steadied herself and cocked the broom for another swing, but the fiend's eyes were fixed on the trickle of red that crossed the thrall's skin. Bony fingers tightened and the body began to struggle. The Snapper's thin lips writhed back from his razor teeth.

"Fresh meat," he said thickly, and then, oblivious to the tumult around him, bent to feed.

Before anything else could come at her, Gilla kicked over the rest of the trashbaskets, launched herself through the door and slammed it behind her, and scrambled, panting, across a soggy wilderness of weeds. Before her loomed the rain-dark walls of the warehouses, and beyond them, the bridge, over the river, to home.

Lalo bent, shivering, grasped the end of the timber, and nodded to Wedemir. Together they hefted it, and staggered forward to the edge of the river where a Stepson, four burly men from the 3rd Commando, and a couple of scrawny youths from Zip's collection of toughs were trying to build a bulwark. It was a motley construction, cobbled together with wood from the market pens nearby, logs from half-drowned woods upriver, and anything else they could carry away.

Already water was lapping at the bank. There was no way to protect the low ground below the bridge, but if they could build a dyke northward from the bridge to the end of the old city wall, they might be able to save the middle part of town.

As others took the weight of the timber Lalo straightened, rubbing his back. Even Wedemir was panting, and he was young. Lalo wondered how much longer he could keep this up-it had been far too long since he had asked much of his muscles, and he feared they were betraying him now.

He looked numbly at the muddy serpent that was the river, heaving ominously as it digested what it had swallowed already and considered what next to devour. He was surprised it was not flowing faster, then realized that a south wind was holding back the waters and forcing them to spread rather than flowing harmlessly into the sea.

Witch-work, he thought grimly, and wondered how Randal was doing. It would take more than one Tysian mage to stop this. His shoulders sagged. He would have welcomed even a Rankan Storm-God's intervention now.

"Father-look at the bridge!" Wedemir shook his arm, shouting over the roar of the wind.

Lalo turned. He heard the moaning of overstressed timbers and saw the structure tremble as it was struck by an especially heavy surge. The waters were almost over the roadway now. Wedemir tugged at him again.

"There's somebody on it-someone's trying to get across!"

Lalo squinted into the rain. Wedemir must be mistaken -any Downwinder not already drowned like a rat in his hole must have sought higher ground by now. But there was certainly something moving there....

Something stirred in him like a flicker of flame. He moved toward the bridgehead and the movement warmed him so that he could go faster. Wedemir started to protest, then splashed after him.

"It's a person-a woman-" panted Wedemir.

Lalo nodded and began to run. He heard the groan of tortured wood clearly now. The bridge shuddered and the woman staggered, then plodded forward again, using the broom she carried as a staff. Her soaked gown clung to limbs with the massive strength of an archaic goddess; one could almost imagine that it was not the assault of the waters that made the bridge tremble, but her stride.

Outer and inner sight were abruptly the same, and Lalo forgot his exhaustion. He sped forward, outstripping his son, knowing beyond impossibility who this woman had to be.

And then his feet thudded on the wood of the bridge; his hand closed on hers and new strength flowed through both of them. Sobbing for breath, Gilla stumbled the last few steps after him to the shore, and Wedemir pulled both of them up the bank.

And as if the will that had held it steady had been suddenly distracted, the wind disintegrated into a thousand whirling eddies. The river, no longer thwarted, raced through its narrow channel bare inches below the roadbed of the bridge and across Sanctuary's harbor in a great surge that lifted anchored vessels to the limits of their moorings and then passed onward out to sea.

As the floodtide passed the bridge it spread over the lower lands below. Spray and fragments of wood were still being tossed up by the billows, but through the confusion Lalo thought he saw something like an oily black bubble lift from beyond the warehouses and wobble through the air toward the hills. But that was only a momentary distraction. It was Gilla he was grasping, Gilla whose warmth he felt through her wet garments, as if she were fueled by a tiny, unquenchable sun. Through the mud he felt earth solid beneath him. She rooted him against the buffets of water and wind.

They paid no attention to the babble of questions around them as they clung together, bedraggled and ridiculous, grinning into the wind.

Then Gilla's face changed. She tightened her grip and shouted into Lalo's ear. "Where are the children?"

"At the Palace with Vanda," he shouted back. "They're safe-"

"In this?" Gilla frowned at the sky. "I should be with them. Come on!"

Lalo nodded. He had done his part here, and he could see that the fury of the river was already abating. But there was still chaos in the heavens, and abruptly he caught Gilla's urgency. With Wedemir close behind them, they picked their way around the lake that had been Caravan Square and slogged past the deserted stalls of the Bazaar.

By the time Lalo and Gilla reached the Palace Gate the terrified tantrums of two two-year-old incipient Storm Gods were bidding to do more damage to the heart of Sanctuary than all Roxane's water demons. The flashes of lightning were almost constant now, and a strong scent of ozone hung in the air. Puddles dotted the great courtyard; doors on the ground floor were open as Beysib servants tried to sweep water outside.

Lalo stopped short, gazing around in consternation, and Gilla gave him a look that said "I told you so!"

"The nursery was in the basement. I don't know where they've moved the children now."

"At least the Palace is still here," said Wedemir.

Gilla snorted, grabbed a fish-eyed female who was hurrying past with a mop and pail and began to question her. Her limited command of the language was no problem-as soon as Gilla mentioned children the maid paled and pointed upward, then slid from Gilla's grasp.

Upstairs, they found there was no need to ask directions. As they toiled up a staircase that had been well-known to Lalo in the days when he used the roof garden as a portrait studio, they could hear shrieks, punctuated by rolling thunder and the despairing murmur of female voices.

Gilla threw open the door to the sitting room and stood a moment, surveying the scene. Then she waded into the room and began smacking bottoms. Lalo stared, but he supposed that even these children would hold no terrors for someone who had managed to escape from Roxane.

There was a short, stunned silence. Then Gilla sat down between the two storm children and pulled them into her capacious lap. Gyskouras took a deep breath and began to hiccup fiercely, but Arton was still crying great, storm-colored tears. Illyra and Seylalha started toward Gilla just as Alfi detached himself from his sister.

Gilla motioned to the two other mothers to sit close beside her and carefully slid the children onto their laps just as her own children reached her. She was still making soothing noises, but the heavens continued their explosions outside.

"Quiet-quiet now, my little ones-see, your mamas are here! We'll keep you safe now, you don't need to make all this noise ..."

"Can't stop!" Gyskouras said between hiccups. His fair hair was plastered to his head and his cheeks were streaked with tears.

"'Fraid ..." echoed the dark child in Illyra's arms.

Both children were still trembling, as if only Gilla's steady voice kept them from giving way to their terror once more. Relative peace had returned to the room, making the noise outside seem louder. Lalo looked around desperately, wondering if it would help to distract or amuse them somehow.

Toys were scattered on the floor and building blocks, art materials, and games were stacked on shelves to one side. Lalo's eyes widened. He remembered abruptly how his colored flies had amused Alfi.

Painfully, for now he felt all the aches from his battle with the storm, Lalo went to the shelves and picked up a slate and a basket of colored chalks. Holding them as if they might bite, he came back to the little group in the center of the room and squatted down.

"Do you like pretty pictures? What do you like- butterflies?" A swift stroke of the chalk laid the sweep of a red wing; another suggested the long body and bright eyes.

Lightning flared in the window, blinding him. When Lalo could see again Arton's chubby hand was rubbing the picture away.

'Wot flutter' by! Bad bright things outside-" His dark gaze held the limner's, and in his eyes Lalo saw the angular, aetherial forms of the demons that lived on the energy of the storm. "Make them go 'way!"

I won't draw them, Lalo thought fearfully, they've too much life already! He took the child's hand gently, remembering how he had comforted his own children when they had spilled their milk or broken some favorite toy, not understanding their own power.

Now he felt Gyskouras's gaze upon him as well, filling him with knowledge of all the powers surging in the storm. Other images came to him too-emotions, desires as yet formless, characteristics that sought to coalesce into a Personality that would encompass the potential, for good or evil, inherent in the two children before him. He recognized the feeling-he had known it himself at the beginning of a project, when colors and shapes and images jostled in his consciousness and he strove for the form and balance that would organize them into a harmonious unity.

But the only loss had been a ruined canvas when he failed. If these children failed, they could destroy Sanctuary.

Thunder clapped great hands above the Palace; the room shuddered and a window blew open on a sudden gust of rain. Gyskouras whimpered, and Lalo reached for his hand. They need a mage to train them, just like me-but there must be something that we can do! Lalo closed his eyes, driven not by fear or the pressure of a stronger mind, but by pity, to seek that part of himself that had been a god.

When he opened them again the window was still banging against the wall. Outside, clouds pulsed with a hundred shades of gray-always gray! Gods, he was so tired of this colorless world! Lalo looked down, and saw that the chalk pressed between his hand and Gyskouras's plump fingers had left a smear of yellow on the slate. For a moment he stared at it, then he reached for an orange chalk and put it into Arton's slimmer hand.

"Here," he whispered, "draw me a line beside the other-yes, just so...." One by one he gave colors to the children and guided their awkward hands. Yellow, orange, red and purple, blue and turquoise and green-the chalk glowed against the dark stone. And when all the colors had been used, Lalo got to his feet, holding the slate carefully.

"Now, let's make something pretty-I can't do it alone. You both come here with me ..." Lalo held out his hand and drew first Arton, then Gyskouras, from his mother's arms. "Come to the window, don't be afraid ..."

Lalo was dimly aware that the room had gone very still behind him, but all his attention was on the two children beside him and the storm outside. They reached the window; Lalo knelt, his greying ginger head touching the dark child's head and the fair.

"Now blow," he said softly. "Blow on the picture and we'll make the nasty clouds all go away."

He felt the children's milky breath warm on his fingers. He bowed his head and expelled his own pent breath outward, saw chalk dust haze the damp air. His eyes blurred with the intensity of his staring, or was the blur in his eyes? Surely now there was more color in the air than they had ever blown into it, and the colors were shimmering. His ears rang with silence.

Lalo sank back on his heels and drew the two storm-children close against him, and together they watched as the rainbow arched over Sanctuary....