The character of Dr. Who and the concept of Timelords and Tardises belong to the BBC.  Everyone
else seeped up out of my fevered imagination.

This story contains violence, adult situations and bad words. You have been warned.
 

Danner's arm shot out, long fingers closing tightly around Gorham's wrist.  The boy gasped as the floor groaned and gave way beneath him.  For a moment, his legs thrashed over emptiness.  Then he was lying flat on his back in the dust, staring up at his irate guide.

"What did I tell you about floors around here?"  Danner rocked back on his heels and shook his head. "This isn't a game, fool!  I'll get you out of Deet, but you'd damn well better do exactly as I say. Wander off on your own again and you're fish food."

Gorham shuddered, rolling over.  He looked down through the hole where, far below, rank water
moved sluggishly.  The face he turned toward Danner was shock-white in the lamp glow.  Feeling sorry for him, Danner just shook his head.  The kid probably thought he was in hell.

"Stay there," he cautioned the other blackstone. "Keep the lamp shielded."

Gorham nodded fervently and cupped his hand around the tiny flame.  The gloom deepened to near- darkness.

Careful to walk where support beams ran beneath the floorboards, Danner crossed the room to the
only window.  Outside and far below, black water lapped against the wall of the slowly decaying
tenement.  There was a sizeable pool of it, covering an acre or more of the sunken land.  The absence of algae on the pool's surface confirmed what Danner already knew; they were directly over the old  mines.  From here to dry land, keeping their footing would be critical.  Almost a century after the quakes, incredible things were still coming to the surface, legacies of a time when man had more intellect than common sense.

Danner was confident in his own ability to avoid disaster.  He'd been traveling through the Slough for decades, had lived in it, knew every vile inch of the pestilent swamp.  His companion was another story.  A novice in the ways of survival, the boy would never have survived the Slough on his own.

Timothy Gorham had only recently entered the select fraternity of plague-bearers.  A Norm for most of his fifteen years, raised among the privileged in the elegant towers of the City Center, the disease had cut short his safe and sheltered existence.  His loving parents mourned him when they thought the disease would be fatal - as indeed it almost always was - and horrified when he recovered.  As was all too common in rich families or poor, they had reacted by disowning him, tossing him into the unforgiving streets of Old Town.  A fine City Center education was useless to a blackstone, whose employment options, if any, were limited to the meanest manual labor.  Unable to find work, Gorham soon came to the attention of the Contract police.  The moment that happened, his choices became involuntary servitude or flight.  He had chosen the latter, not surprisingly.

Danner rarely paid attention to Norm politics, but even he knew that the Blackstone Contract was a transparent sop to the rich bastards whose industries, farms and businesses depended upon slave labor. Without it, the Norms would have to hire other Norms, something that would decimate high profit margins.  So, as usual, beneath all the fine government rhetoric about compassion and human rights, the same old agendas were being played out.

To Danner's everlasting incredulity, most blackstones were buying into the ruse.  The few pitiable rights being reluctantly extended were not nearly comprehensive enough to justify all the indignities and restrictions that came with them.  Registering with the city, wearing their damn steel ID bracelet (which could not be voluntarily removed), checking into the squalid, filthy Hospice each time you Relapsed, keeping the police informed about where you lived, what you did, where you went -- it was stupid, degrading and dangerous.  Social tides could turn with dizzying speed.  The post-plague years were bloody with blackstone pogroms and massacres.  Danner knew these things from long and bitter experience.  He was an outlaw, had always been an outlaw and could not foresee ever being anything but an outlaw.

He moved away from the window and beckoned to Gorham.   "Walk where I do and keep the light covered.  We're over the old mines, so there's not likely to be anyone about.  Still, you never know."

The boy edged gingerly after him across the creaking floor.  He was shivering when he reached Danner's side.  Danner grabbed the lamp before it could slip from those shaking fingers.  He himself did not need it, enhanced blackstone vision could deal easily with the light from the new moon spilling through the window, but Gorham had not been blackstone long enough; his vision was still very close to a Norm's.

"W..what mines?"

"This part of Deet was originally built on old salt mines."  Danner doused the lamp and slipped it into the specially sewn pocket on his backpack.  "There was a series of 'quakes just after the plague and this whole area caved into the old shafts and tunnels.  The river rushed to fill it up and behold! - the Slough."

The explanation was vastly simplified, but all that Gorham needed.  It was Danner who had to know whether a placid pool or canal was a few feet deep, or hundreds - who needed to locate the powerful, icy currents that could surge unexpectedly from unimaginable depths, then just as suddenly recede, sucking everything back down into a black, watery hell.  One misstep could bring a singularly unpleasant death.

"Nightwalker?"  Gorham's voice was anxious.

"This next part is hard," Danner cautioned.  "You have to concentrate.  I can't stress that enough."

The boy nodded, eyes very wide.

 Danner stood and beckoned Gorham to look up.  "There," he said, pointing.

Just above the window, the remains of a metal ladder clung to the outside of the building.  It looked precarious, but was actually very sturdy.  Danner maintained his routes scrupulously; he had not survived this long by neglecting important details.

Gorham gaped at the ladder in disbelief and balked for a moment, but only a moment.  Gritting his teeth, taking a deep breath, he did as Danner quietly instructed, scrambling onto the window sill.  With Danner holding tightly onto an ankle, he reached up and grabbed the bottommost rung.

"Got it?"

The boy nodded, hands white-knuckled on the metal.  As he had done countless times with other fugitives, Danner pushed hard.  There was a nervous moment of frantic scrabbling, then Gorham hauled himself onto the ladder and began to climb.  Danner followed without difficulty.

"Stand aside," he called.  "Let me go first."

He slid by Gorham and on up, pulling himself over the crumbling ledge and onto the roof.  The flat expanse of concrete was covered by aged asphalt, now reduced to black, dusty crumbs.  Heater housings were still standing although nearly eaten through with rust.  Puddles of algae rimmed with swamp-damp filled low points on the sagging roof, but in spite of appearances, the place was sound.

The younger blackstone made it over the ledge and collapsed beside it.  He lay gasping for breath as Danner crossed to the far end of the building and a pile of debris.  From it he pulled out a long, stout  plank used to bridge the space between this building and the next.

"Time to walk the plank, me hearty!"

Gorham stared at him blankly.   Sighing, Danner pointed to the board.    While Gorham negotiated the precarious span, Danner used the moment for another look around.  Unease had been dogging him all night and he had been not been able to identify a reason for it.  He was positive no one followed them, had been checking constantly.  His meetings with Gorham to arrange passage out of Deet had been conducted like all the others - discreetly and with copious precautions against spies or betrayal.  Yet the misgiving persisted.  He had been doing this for a decade - sooner or later everyone's luck ran out.

The Slough spread out around them, a vast and silent waste.  As far as the eye could see, rising up through the deceptively placid, moon-silvered waters, were small islands covered by the ruins of lost Deet.  It was an aquatic necropolis, balefully, bleakly beautiful.  Danner loathed it.

Nothing moved out there, nothing obvious.  The swamp had plenty of its own inhabitants, none of them particularly pleasant, and all capable of moving unseen through the decaying archipelago.  But the Slough was alien territory to Norms.  They created small, subtle commotions wherever they set foot.  Danner felt slightly better seeing that nothing disturbed the apparent tranquility.

The chasm crossed, Danner removed the board, and concealed it again.  Gorham peered over the roof's edge.  Danner didn't need to look to know it was just more water, this time heavily encrusted with glowing clumps of algae.

"Stuff'll make you sicker than shit -- and it'll kill Norms," Danner said into his ear.  "Coming?"

Jerking aside, Gorham was on his feet.  "Is there anywhere in this place that isn't dangerous?" he asked plaintively.

"Nope."

The main portion of roof here had collapsed long ago.  Only the building's walls remained.  Of steel-reinforced concrete, they were strong enough to allow a man to walk along them, provided that man paid strict attention to his balance.  On the other side, the land was high enough to have escaped the flood.  Here, for a while, they could travel along dry streets.  This was also where they were most likely to meet up with Slough locals.  Danner reached inside his jacket where the gun lay in its shoulder holster, hard against his ribs.  It was a very old piece -- pre-plague, he was willing to bet -- and his mostvaluable possession.  He kept it in perfect working order -- cast the bullets for it himself.  Like most weapons of pre-plague technology, it was devastatingly effective.

For about an hour, they made good time.  Danner led the other blackstone through the maze quickly and efficiently.  They saw few signs of other living creatures: the remains of a fire in the shell of a building, a heap of animal bones in the corner of another.  Just as Danner figured they were going to get lucky, he caught a flicker of movement in one of the blank, black windows ahead.

"How far are we from. . ."

"Quiet!"

Gorham shut up at once, staring nervously at the gun the other blackstone pulled out into the open. Danner studied the disintegrating brick and wooden facades lining the half-submerged street.  It was probably just some poor loony, more scared of them than they were of him. The trick with loonies was to stay out of their way.  Individually, they were easy to deal with.  It was only when they gathered in packs that they became truly dangerous.

There were other possibilities, of course.  Sometimes Norm outlaws were forced into the waste.  They did not last long, but were extremely dangerous as long as they survived..  Even more rarely in these days of easing hatreds, older blackstones could still be found in the Slough, so withdrawn after decades of isolation they were barely human.

"We're almost there," Danner told Gorham in a low voice.  "What I want you to do is to walk just  ahead of me."

"But . .."

"If we're going to be attacked, it'll come from behind.  Trust me."

Gorham did.  He had to.  He gave Danner one more apprehensive look and started walking.  Every sense was stretched to the limit, but the watcher apparently had no stomach for confrontation.  Although Danner could sense its eyes on them as they made their way down the street, it did not show itself again.

The street took a sharp turn and, abruptly, the ruins ended.  They had reached the river.  A stiff breeze hit Danner in the face, blowing back long dark hair and banishing the Slough's ever present stench.  Relief writ clear in his young face, Gorham sank to his haunches as Danner surveyed the shore, breathing the clean, cool air in great gulps.

Not much remained of Deet's ancient port.  Pier fragments and old pilings thrust out of the dark river like frail bones.  Chunks of earth that had once been covered with old warehouses, storage lots and factories, abutted into the river, creating sheltered inlets along the its banks.

"OK, Gorham -- see that?"

The boy followed Danner's finger east and his mouth dropped.  The rusting hulk of an deep-sea freighter was forever lodged in the river bank.  Tossed there by the earthquakes that had followed the plague, it lay half in and half out of the water.

Gorham stared up its fifty-foot hull with disbelief.  Likely it was the first time he'd ever come face to face with a ship that size and without visible means of propulsion.  Modern, wind-powered crafts were not even half as large.

The pitted steel of the hull was breached by a huge gash.  Danner laid a hand on Gorham's shoulder, aiming him toward a nearby hill of brick and tangled metal.  The pile concealed a culvert that was a good hiding place.

"In there," Danner ordered, "and stay out of sight.  I'll be right back."

It was not unusual for the Deet police to patrol the river. Smugglers frequently used this place to transfer contraband;  Danner preferred encountering neither.  He dug into his pack and found his binoculars.  Adjusting the lenses, he scanned the river.

His caution paid off.  There was a sudden gleam, as if a lantern had been lit and hastily shrouded.  He moved along the riverbank to a place where he could get a better view.  Sure enough, a slim shadow rode the pale shine of the river, just the right size for a patrol craft.  It drifted about eighty feet out, oars raised for the moment above the water.

Damn.

There was no telling why they were here, though a number of possibilities existed.  They could be after smugglers, or the Freedom Train agent here to take Gorham east.  And, of course, they might be looking for little old him.  Getting their hands on the first two would mean an instant promotion for the patrol commander.  Snagging the Nightwalker would likely get the lucky cop a Commissioner's post.

Danner continued to watch the boat for several minutes.  Even with the binoculars, it was difficult to make out how many men were aboard and what they were doing.  He would have to assume they were watching the shore as closely as he was watching them.   Keeping out of sight, he headed to the freighter.  Just outside the tear in the hull, he stopped.  Poking his head warily around the edge, he waited for his eyes to adjust to the near-total darkness.  Then he slipped inside.

The deck slanted sharply down into still and oily water.  At the far end, another gaping hole opened the hull to the river.   Nearby, a small skiff bobbed, tethered to a pipe rising from the submerged deck.  The skiff was occupied by a single figure.

"Nightwalker?"

The voice was little more than a whisper,  yet it seemed thunderous in the huge, empty place.  Danner's vision continued to lighten and clear.  He recognized John Smith, a Freedom agent he'd worked with many times before.  John Smith was, of course, an alias.  But, then, none of them in this game went by their real names.

"Yeah."

"You see 'em?"

"Uh-huh."  There was a soft splashing as Smith got off the skiff and made his way up the steep, slick deck.  "They looking for you?"

"Could be. We'd better assume so.  Do you know how long they've been out there?"

"They were here before I was.  I saw 'em searching the shore when I came upriver.  Luckily, I've got a few tricks up my sleeve.  Got in here when their backs were turned, so to speak, but I sure as hell don't want to stick around.  Where's the client?"

"Tucked away safely nearby.  His name's Timothy Gorham.  Young and educated."

"Educated, eh?  That's a bonus.  The colony needs more of those.  It's coming along real well, by the way.  Sure you don't want to cash it in and come east with us?"

"And deprive the Council of its favorite gadfly?"  Danner grinned.  "Not likely.  Anyway, I don't know how to be respectable anymore."

"If you ever change your mind, you know we could use someone like you."

"Yeah, well, much as I'd like to stay and chat, we have the cops lurking out there.  Time to get this show on the road."

"Any idea what to do about them?"

"We could lure them to shore and take them out.  Those boats usually don't hold much more than six men besides the rowers."

"You know that's not an option."

"There are usually fourteen blackstone slaves manning the oars in those things," Danner retorted.  "In my opinion, freeing them is well worth killing a handful of cops."

Smith was a block of a man.  He towered over Danner, who was not exactly short, and probably outweighed the blackstone by about fifty pounds.  Danner had seen him fight and knew he was a good man to have at one's side, but the Freedom Train was as fanatically pacifistic as it was antislavery.  Violence for any other purpose than self-defense was prohibited.  It was a pity.  Dead cops were the least troublesome.

"All right.  I have another idea," Danner sighed.  "I'll bring Gorham in now.  Keep an eye on our friends out there -- you'll know when to leave.  And Smith -- use the Plan B route."

"You're kidding."

"No.  I don't like that boat out there - not at all!  Timing's too suspicious.  And I've been having a very weird feeling all night.  Better to take no chances."

"But Plan B?"

"No fun, I agree, and much too far out of your way.  Still, it's your best bet if the shit hits the fan."

"What are you going to do?"

"Attract their attention."

John shook his shaggy, bearded head.  "You're a crazy one, Nightwalker.  One of these days you're going to run into something you can't handle."

"Will you miss me?"

White teeth gleamed in the darkness. "Hell, no! Good luck, lad."

Lad.  Danner shook his head as he went back out into the night.  He had decades on the Norm, for all he looked like a twenty-year old.

Gorham was still where Danner had left him, thankfully.  He greeted the Nightwalker's reappearance with visible relief.  In short, terse sentences, Danner filled him in.  The kid clearly thought Danner was nuts, but was eager to get away from the Slough and all its attendant terrors.

They made it back to the freighter without incident and Danner left him in the tender care of Smith, cutting off the boy's effusion of gratitude with a gruff, "take care of yourself, kid."

Outside again, Danner could see that the patrol boat had not moved.  With one eye on it, he ran quietly along the shore for a hundred yards or so and, when he was far enough away from the freighter, he clambered onto a low, broken wall within clear view and lit his lamp.  Holding it where it could be easily seen, he turned and started inland.  He moved slowly until he saw the boat suddenly swing around and start skimming towards shore.  Then he doused the light and ran.

Danner figured on drawing them into the Slough for a mile or so before losing them.  His plan fell to pieces when, out of the shadows, four hulking forms suddenly appeared to block his way.

"Halt!  Police!"

The gun was out of its holster and in his hand before Danner himself thought twice.  The cops, hampered by poor night vision, never saw it coming.  The gun barked twice, toppling two of them and sending the others leaping for cover.  Danner was off, zigzagging through the empty streets before they could regain their wits.

Then he heard a sound he had not heard for more years that he could remember - the full-threaded baying of hounds.

Shit!

Dogs -- ambush -- this was a very carefully planned operation.  Norms did not willingly enter the Slough for any but the most compelling reasons.  Apparently, he was a compelling reason.

They'd probably had Gorham under surveillance.  Danner doubted the boy was a knowing dupe - he'd learned long ago to spot the small, involuntary signs of lying.  No - they could easily have been watching and waiting, prepared to move as soon as B.C. Department notified the blackstone that he was about to be conscripted.  Whatever had happened, Danner was in deep trouble.

It had been a long time since anyone had come after him with dogs.  He had forgotten the gut-wrenching, throat-parching terror of it.  Out in the wild, he would have found running water to throw them off the track -- in the Slough, going into the water was a last thing he wanted to do.

There was a distant pop.  He turned his head without breaking stride.  Six shadowy forms appeared behind him, four lean, canine shapes loping on ahead.  Moonlight gleamed off metal in the hands of the men.  Armed, then.  They were pulling out all the stops.  How flattering.  He spun back around and plunged through the nearest doorway.  It was almost disaster.  The floor was nonexistent; an indoor lake was in its place.  Danner teetered on the threshold, clinging to the door frame and cursing, willing his eyes to adjust more quickly.  In a moment, he saw what he was looking for...a hole in the ceiling with a tangle of wires dangling through it.

The barking was louder; there was the heavy thud of boots on pavement.  Fortunately, his pursuit was still about three blocks away - plenty of time.  He took a deep breath and launched himself at the wires.  For one horrible second, he thought they would give way.  Miraculously they did not.  He hoisted himself through the opening and onto the next floor.  Then, panting, he collapsed face down in the dust and damp and ran through his pitifully few options.

He could wait here and hope they would not figure out what he had done.  Considering the dogs, that seemed unlikely.  He could attempt to shoot it out with them, but all they would have to do was fire randomly into the ceiling.  The rotting wood would be no barrier.  It was not necessary to bring a live prisoner back to City Center.

He sat up carefully, feeling how his weight stressed the aged, damp-weakened boards, and had a look at his refuge.  The room had probably been a kitchen.  There were fragments of old linoleum beneath him.  A counter with a sink ran along one wall.  There was even an aged chrome and formica dinette table in one corner, thickly coated with grime.  Watching for the characteristic sagging of the floor, he got to his feet and headed into the next room.

Here, most of the floor had fallen into the water.  Keeping his back to the wall, Danner edged around the room and stepped cautiously out into a hallway.  A stair led up to the next floor.  Half of it was gone; what remained tilted dangerously.

The police had reached the building.  He heard them calling to each other.

"...he's around here somewhere, dammit!...

"...look over there...."

The dogs had the scent.  He heard snuffling and eager whines, the scrabble of  claws on pavement below.

"...watch it...shit!  You think he fell in?"

"...the Nightwalker?  Not likely.  Shine the light over there, maybe there's a ledge.  Hey! Lookit that!"

They'd figured it out.  Through the suite of rooms he'd just left, he saw light shining up through gaps in the floorboards.  Gun still gripped in his fist, he gave the stair another quick, desperate examination.  It looked as if the weight of rat would send it tumbling through the floor and into the drink.  Too bad - it was all he had.  He set foot on the first step and leaned gingerly into it.

"He's up there somewhere.  See if you can flush 'im out."

The first shot nearly sent him out of his skin.  It did banish any last vestiges of caution.  Directing a silent prayer to anything that might be listening, he bolted up the stairs as the floor around him was splintered with flying lead.

Miraculously he got to the top, while below pandemonium broke out.  He had made plenty of noise and they now knew exactly where he was.  His limited options narrowed drastically.

This floor was in much better shape than the previous one.  It complained noisily but held as he ran toward the front of the building.  They stopped firing - for the moment.  He sank down beside a window overlooking the street.

"Nightwalker!"

He closed his eyes, leaned his head back against the wall and listened, trying to second-guess them.

"You're trapped, scum!  Surrender and you might live to see tomorrow!"

"I'm countin' to ten," shouted someone else. "If you're not down here by then, you're gonna fry up there."

Faintly, Danner smelled gasoline.  So.  They were going to burn him out. He opened his eyes and ran back to the opposite side of the structure.

"One, two, three..."

As he had expected, there was only water in the back, with solid ground a good thirty feet further.  No way to know what lay beneath the still surface.  No choice but to find out.

"...seven, eight, nine...."

He heard a muffled clinking and, seconds later, a sudden whoosh.  The wood was old and porous.  Above the damp-line it would burn like paper.

Moving fast now that his mind was made up, Danner shrugged out of his pack.  Opening it, he shoved his gun and the binoculars in.  Digging around the bottom, he found the big, oiled sack he always carried and pushed the entire pack into it.  Drawing the ties as tight as he could, he tossed it out into the night.  Then, taking a deep breath, he climbed onto the window sill and jumped.

The foul water closed over his head, deep and ice-cold.  He kicked desperately, driving himself back toward the surface.  There was some current, but luckily it was not strong.  More dangerous was the water itself.  His head broke the surface and he opened eyes already burning.  Doing his best to neither swallow nor inhale the filthy stuff, he looked around for his precious bag.  It floated a foot or two from him -- safe.  Without wasting another second, he struck out toward it with long, even strokes.  Snatching it up, he kept going until he reached dry land.

Limbs gone weak and slow with the numbing cold, he managed to pull himself out of the water and lie gasping on the slick concrete.  Behind him was a roaring pillar of fire.  There was no sign that the police had heard or seen his escape.  He rolled over and sat up as the flames leapt to the adjoining building.  Fools.  This whole area would be afire in minutes.  They would be lucky to get out of their own trap.

As would he.  Even as he watched, the first building collapsed, sending a shower of sparks across the water to land on the pavement all around him.  He staggered to his feet, and slinging the bag over his shoulder, fled.

Danner had no idea how long he ran.  His only goal was to put as much distance between himself and his pursuers and the inferno they had created.  Eventually, teeth rattling with the cold, breath burning in his lungs, he slowed and stopped to talk stock of his surroundings.

Although he had not been here for a long, long time, he recognized the place.  Over the rise to his right was an old warehouse district that was (at least it had been, years ago) in reasonably good shape.  What he needed was four stout walls and a small fire to keep him warm while he changed clothes.  The cold was bad enough; the thought of possible Slough toxins being absorbed into his skin set his rattling teeth on edge.  He would be lucky if he wasn't deathly ill by dawn.

The neighborhood was exactly as he remembered it.  Huge, barn-like structures surrounding storage lots.  He headed for one place in particular, already feeling an ominous warmth in his blood.

The building was small as warehouses went.  The roof was partially collapsed, but most of the walls were still standing and there were the rotting remains of wooden crates heaped up in the lot outside.  He had lived here for a time years ago, the distance from Old Town and the river making the place hard to reach for the lynch mobs.  Clamping down on his jaw to keep his teeth from chattering, he wriggled through the remains of an old cyclone fence and started toward the silent structure.

Halfway there, his blearing vision caught light, faint and flickering, coming from somewhere inside.  He stopped, heart plunging.  Company.  Just what he did not want.   Then, grimly, he continued on, yanking open the oiled sack as he went.  The gun was near the top of the pack.  He took it out.  If whoever it was had a mind to contest his claim to this place, they were going to lose.

Looking through the window he saw a figure silhouetted before a small fire.  A pile of bags lay on the ground beside it.  A traveler - someone with more nerve than most to wander into this place.  Danner checked the rest of the cavernous interior.  Aside from the stranger it was completely empty.  Alone, then.  Good.

There was an entrance nearby.  Checking once more to make sure the stranger was still sitting by the fire, he let himself in.  Noiselessly, he crept forward.  About ten feet away, the figure - which had not moved the entire time - suddenly rose and turned.  He stopped at once, gun coming up, finger on the trigger.

It was a woman.  His mind went blank.

The plague had decimated the female population of the planet.  The occasional male recovered from it, women never did.  In the subsequent years, female numbers had grown considerably, but they were still too few to be permitted the easy freedom of the pre-plague days.  Her appearance, and his mounting fever, suddenly turned the night surreal.

He regained his wits with some difficulty, and tried to figure out what to do next.  In a moment, she was going to see he was a blackstone and get hysterical -- which would bring her escorts running.  And there were escorts; there had to be.

"Good evening."  She had a pleasant voice.   He could not place the accent.  "You're a little damp.  Would you like to share the fire?"

She had looked right at his forehead, could not possibly have missed the damning 'stone.  Warning bells went off in his mind.  He looked around, wishing his head was clearer.  Whatever had been in the water was seriously snarling his thoughts.

But still he saw no one else.  The echoing chamber remained empty; there were few places to hide.  Perhaps she was a trans-vee.  There was still a lot of that.  At any rate, he was freezing.

"Thanks," he mumbled.

She sank back down on an old wooden box and, after hesitating a moment, he took a seat on the other side of the fire.  Her hood had slipped back and in the firelight her hair was a dazzle of copper and gold.  Her eyes were gold, too, warm and vivid as she regarded him across the flames.

"Are..are you a real female?"

"I beg your pardon?"  Her voice quivered with surprise and amusement.

"It's not always easy to tell...I've seen some amazing fakes."

"I'll bet.  I'm the real thing, I assure you."

He grinned.  "Can you prove it?"

She laughed outright, but there was no mockery or malice in it.  At least he could not detect any through the persistent buzzing in his ears.  He shivered suddenly, involuntarily.

"Are you ill?"

"It's -- not -- not Relapse."

"You're sure?"

"Not due for another month -- fell in the water.  It'll pass..."

Damn, she was good-looking.  There was no possible way she could be here alone.  Bait?  The gun lay on his lap, but he was beginning to wonder if he would have the wits to use it.  Thinking was increasingly difficult.  Why, he wondered vaguely, am I not running like hell?

She was on her feet and walking around the fire toward him.  He stiffened, fingers closing around the gun, but she only put her hand on his forehead.  She seemed utterly unmoved by the 'stone.

"Fever," she pronounced.  "I thought so.  I have something in my pack."

Bemused, he watched her rummage around in one of the leather satchels heaped up by the box.  His hand remained over the gun.  She took out a flask and a small silver vial.

"Dormond," she said, noticing his suspicious regard.  "It brings down fever and helps you sleep."

Right.  Sleep.  So your pals can steal up on me and do whatever they want.

"I'm not tired."

She sifted some of the vial's contents into the cap of the flask.  He saw yellow powder.  She poured a bit of the water into the cap and swished it around.

"It only helps you sleep -- it does not compel you.  See?"  She drank it, showing him the empty cap.

"No trap," she reassured. "And you don't have to drink it."

"All right."

It would not work, of course.  Drugs never did.  But her gesture was kind and for that reason alone, he agreed.  She poured more water and more powder and handed it to him.  He took it, but his hands were now shaking so badly that she clucked in an odd, maternal way and held it for him.  Taking a deep breath, he drank the elixir.  The liquid was slightly bitter and redolent with the taste of herbs.  She nodded her approval and sat down beside him on the floor.  Her nearness was intoxicating -- or perhaps it was the fever.

"What's your name?"  Danner asked.  "What are you doing in the Slough?"

"You can call me Blaze."

"But that's not your name."

"No."

He accepted that with a slight shrug.  Why should she want a blackstone to know her real name?  He was amazed she was actually talking to him.

"I'm on my way to Central Deet."

That figured.  A creature like this would be passed through the gate without so much as a question asked.  Aristocracy was written in every graceful line of her body.  Yet, a lady would have an entourage -- servants at the very least.

"Why are you alone?" he asked.  "Did you lose your escorts?"

"I'm alone because I choose to be."

He didn't believe that for a minute, but decided it would be rude to call her a liar.  And he was starting to feel better.  A lovely glow had settled over him.  He felt a fatuous grin spreading across his face.  So, stronger than he thought.  But it would pass.

"I'm Danner."

Her smile was sudden and blinding.  He swallowed hard, hit hard by the invitation in it.  At least, he thought it was an invitation.  It had been so damned long.

"The fire's getting low," she said.  "Why not throw some more wood on it?  It's a cold night."

There was a small pile nearby; it looked like pieces of the same sort of box she had been sitting on.  He obligingly tossed a few onto the flames and watched them leap.  When he looked back, she had pushed the cape off her shoulders.  The blouse she wore clung silkily to a tiny waist. Full breasts pressed insistently against the shimmering fabric.  He dragged his eyes away with an effort.  He must not misread this.

"You're so wet," she was murmuring.  "You really should get out of those things..."

Oh, lord.

"I'm all right."

"Nonsense."

Oh, God...she was reaching for his jacket.  This could only result in utter disaster.  But he let her help him out of it and watched dreamily as she laid it out beside the fire.  The buzzing in his ears was getting louder.

"The shirt," she ordered.

He tried to shake his head, but instead hauled it off and handed it to her, as well.  The shirt joined the jacket steaming gently in the heat. From somewhere she had found a blanket.  She draped it around his bare shoulders and her fingers brushed his skin, sending small, electric shocks through his body.  He abandoned all vestiges of common sense.

"Join me," he said, holding the blanket open.

"It is rather cold," she agreed and snuggled in beside him.   Neither of them mentioned the fur-trimmed cloak now heaped on the ground beside her.

"Did I thank you for your hospitality?" he asked.

She laughed, a delicious sound.   "You know, I don't believe you did."

"How rude of me."

"Mmm, yes.  What are you going to do about it?"

Danner put his mouth against a very dainty ear and made some suggestions.

INTERLUDE

Incense could not entirely dispel the stench of lingering death in the luxurious, over-heated chamber.  An oil lamp sputtered and shadows danced wildly.  There was a fine tremor in the skeletal hand that reached out of the shadow to adjust the wick.  On the opposite side of the desk, the young priest stood at rigid attention, trying not to let his revulsion show.

"Well?"

"Excellency, the Council has taken its vote."

"I know that, fool!  Did they agree to hire the bitch?"

"I'm afraid so, Excellency."

The man behind the desk leaned foward into the light.  Corpse-pale, face gaunt and shadowed, His Excellency, Cardinal Lermor, regarded the young priest inimically.  The flame, small as it was, did not flatter that pasty countenance, throwing inky shadow into the deep, sharp hollows of his face.  Apprehension crawled along the priest's spine.

"Mercenaries will not stand against the Prophet," the Cardinal said.  "The Council's behavior is increasingly irresponsible!  Was my message read?"

The voice, deep, mellifluous, resonant, was completely at odds with the death's-head bathed in the lamp's glow.  The priest felt its power and clasped his hands convulsively in the wide sleeves of his robe.  His heart was pounding.

"Yes, Excellency, by the Council leader, Jayce, himself."

"And it made no difference!"

The voice sank to a near whisper.  The emaciated hand settled on the desk surface.  Each joint was abnormally large, the nails long and neatly trimmed into rounded points.  On the left middle finger was a ring with a red gem so big that he wondered such a frail member could support it.  There was a darkness in its center; the broad gold band was etched with symbols.  The priest did not recognize them.  Perhaps the runes were from the Arcana of the Cardinal's sect.

"I am sorry, Excellency, to bear such disappointing news."

"Bah."

"But -- your Excellency.  Surely we must have some protection...."

The Cardinal pinned the sweating young man with a dark look.  "Have we not well-trained guard units?   Loyal militia?"

The priest swallowed, courage failing him.  He dared not point out the city guard had its hands full in maintaining order outside the walls of City Center.  It had never been intended as a military defense force.  "They -- they say the Prophet has five thousand troops. . ."

"And this band of mercenaries is a defense against that?"  The Cardinal laughed, a croak that turned into a cough.  "Brother Sebastian, do not be misled by the seemingly reasonable words of the so-called "progressives.   The Prophet is God's scythe, mowing down sinners and the blasphemers.  If Deet holds to the path of righteousness, we need have no fear of him.  Our safety lies in abandoning this vile quest for the things of our ancestors.  The ways of the machine are the ways of Satan.  The plague was punishment, a visitation of the Angel of Death to deliver God's warning. Yet, as we speak, there are those who would plunge us back into the inferno.  They seek to resurrect the old ways!  They elevate the cursed ones from the depths in which the Lord Himself has condemned them!  They teach blasphemy in the schoolrooms!"

The Cardinal's voice had become shrill.  On his feet now, swaying back and forth, he jabbed his finger at the terrified priest.  His eyes were wild and flecks of spittle clung to the corners of his mouth.

"These mercenaries - these devils will only bring more evil into our city.  The fools on the Council have much to answer for!"

Then, abruptly, the tirade was over.  The Cardinal fell back into his chair, slumping deep into it until he was once more shrouded in shadow.  Brother Sebastian saw only his eyes -- his eyes and that ring, winking and glinting in the lamplight.
 
"My dear boy. . ."  It was the voice of the invalid now, breathless and hesitant.  "I apologize for the outburst.  My zeal, my all-consuming devotion to our Lord, occasionally overcomes me.  I do not expect you to understand.  But come closer.  In his infinite and terrible wisdom, God has chosen to test me with ill health.  I am so very tired.  Even speaking exhausts me."

With obvious reluctance, the priest obeyed.

"I will pray that the Councilors see the error into which they have fallen and repent.  In the meantime, be vigilant.  I trust that, should more information be forthcoming, you will return and enlighten us?"

"Y -- yes, Excellency.  Of course, Excellency!"

"Ah.  Good lad.  Go with God."

It was not until Brother Sebastian was well clear of the Cardinal's mansion, with half City Central between them, that he stopped shaking.

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