The Gathering Flame Read Online Free PDF Page A

goons. Time to get scarce.”
    “But you said—” Perada began, at the same time as Ransome said, “What about her?”
    “She comes with us,” said Metadi. “We had an interesting conversation after you left.”
    “And that made people madder at you than wrecking fifty Mage warships did?”
    Fifty? Perada wondered breathlessly—she was running in earnest now, gripping the blaster in one hand and her skirt in the other. Her soft blue slippers would never recover from this expedition through the trash and slime of Waycross’s port quarter.
    Boots, she thought. I’m going to need boots.
    She heard the whining, zinging sound of blaster-fire again a second later; the bolts of ugly red light came near to hitting more than one of the people thronging the busy street. The crowd thinned out almost instantly, in what she supposed must be a local survival skill, and Metadi paused long enough to turn and fire back.
    “Teach ’em to keep their damned heads down, anyway,” he observed; and then, in response to Errec Ransome’s question: “Looks like it did. All I know is that somebody sure as hell didn’t like what the lady had to say.”
     
    Amid the welter of broken glass on the floor of the Double Moon, Festen Aringher rolled onto his back. The curtain cords that bound him were tight, but the privateer captain, while thorough and efficient, had not been as ruthless as his words had implied—so long as Aringher didn’t mind cramped muscles, he wouldn’t choke himself by moving.
    He inched back with his shoulders, trying for purchase against a wall. Bits of glass crunched underneath the heavy broadcloth of his coat and scraped against the bare skin of his wrists and hands. He winced as his movements ground the splinters even deeper, but he didn’t stop.
    He needed to find a shard of glass long enough to cut through the cords around him; with luck, he wouldn’t slash any important blood vessels at the same time. Once he’d done the first loop, the rest of the escape would be tedious, but not difficult. Some minutes later he had moved all the way against the wall, and had gotten several small and annoying cuts on his hands and arms in the process of attempting to sever the cord. Otherwise, he was no closer to freedom than he had been when he started. He stopped working, intending to catch his breath for a few seconds before starting over.
    Only then did Aringher notice that he was being watched. A slender woman wearing a coronet of dark braids stood with crossed arms in the broken frame of the mirror.
    “Mistress Vasari,” Aringher said. “I should have known you’d take an interest in tonight’s proceedings eventually. You didn’t consider untying me, did you?”
    “Briefly. But you looked like you were having so much fun I decided to let you go on.” She looked around the tiny, black-walled room. “I didn’t think that you were interested in this kind of thing.”
    “I’m not,” he said. “Come on, untie me.”
    “If you insist.” She knelt behind him, and he felt her fingers tugging at the knots. A little longer, and he was free.
    She helped him to his feet. He stood massaging his wrists and shrugging his shoulders, trying to get back the circulation.
    “If you don’t get off on this,” she said finally, “then what’s the point?”
    “All in good time,” he said, flexing his stiffened fingers. Most of the cuts had stopped bleeding, and the blood had started to dry. He took a few seconds to glance around the inner room where the Domina and Captain Metadi had held their conference. Except for the torn bed curtains and the broken glass—and a black velvet mask lying forgotten on the table—no evidence remained of that earlier encounter. Aringher contemplated the mask for a moment, then almost absentmindedly picked it up and stowed it in his jacket pocket. One never knew when such things might come in useful.
    “I learned something tonight,” he said, “that may be to our