This did not sway him from his course. He found a strange metal tube that ran from ground to roof, water running out of the opening in the bottom. He wrapped a hand around it and pulled, studying the fastenings that held it to the stone. With a shrug he began to climb it. After all, if he fell, he would not die. Oh, it would hurt … it might slow him down, but he would heal and then he would walk away from it.

Because he could walk. Because he was free.

Only … the sun was lowering. If the fires were going to return …

The thought leant him speed. Because his muscles were still burned and shriveled it took all of his strength to climb the tube up to the nearest line and the clothing he found upon it. There was a pair of pants, worn and barely patched in places, but clean and ten times better than what he had right then. A hundred times better. He snatched them from the line and like a rat that steals the sliver of cheese he scurried back down the pipe and slipped back into the late day shadows of the alley. Scrambling, he shoved first one leg and then another into the pants and then held them clutched to his body for he had no belt and they were meant for a much stockier man. But now he was clothed and could walk around freely. What he needed was to find a horse. He would scope out barns or smithies, places where horses could be found, and when night fell he would come back …

After the juquil’s hour, he reminded himself. Because from sunset to the juquil’s hour he would burn. And he had to find a place where he could do so and not bring danger to others … or notice to himself. And the only place he could think of that would fit that need was …

Just thinking about the entrance made him break out in a cold sweat. The idea of voluntarily stepping into the mouth of hell all but paralyzed him with fear. He had not been well acquainted with fear during his life as a warlord. He had even been called fearless in bardsong. But he was well acquainted with it now. And he didn’t dare step back near hell and Xaxis’s territory. What if he could sense him then? What if he came for him and dragged him back down and chained him once more?

The thought of it made him shake with terror. Bone chilled, flesh scorched terror. He had to stop, sinking down onto his haunches in the shadows of the wet, smelly alleyway, huddling into himself and trying for all he was worth to remind himself of who he had once been. A man of courage. A warrior. A warlord who had ruled with an iron fist.

But he was not that man any longer.

After a minute he rose up again and then made his way out into the open streets. The deeper he went into the city the thicker the traffic. Pedestrians and horses, carts and coaches lined the roads, kicking up mud and grinding it down again until he found himself sticking in the sludge as it sucked at his feet and ankles. It was a wonder anyone managed to get anywhere at all. The wheels of one of the heavier coaches must have sunk a good four inches or better into the muck. It was only the team of stout ginger merries that kept it from slogging down. And beautiful horses they were. A perfectly matched set of four ginger colored steeds with white manes and tails. They were called ginger merries because of their sweet, playful dispositions. They were usually a woman’s horse and, indeed, the coach was full of highborn women.

At least that much was the same. The rich still lived better than the poor. Ginger merries still existed. But already he was seeing things he’d never seen before. Like the metal tube he had climbed. It was a clever thing, he realized. It kept water from accumulating on the roof of the building.

The buildings were another thing. They were well made, not just of stone but of wood and some kind of plaster. Whitish in color in some of the buildings he was now passing, brown in those where he’d just come from. Still others were made even better with wood planks nailed to the sides. He couldn’t help himself. He stopped and pulled at one. The wood shingle held fast. He could not comprehend its purpose so he simply let it be and left. He had many other things to accomplish. Although he understood that he could not hope to conquer a world he did not understand. So he would pay attention as he went.

Dethan found a stablery after a short while and within it a horse of fine flesh. If his fortune ran well, the horse would still be there come the juquil’s hour.

“Beauteous Hella, look upon me this night, so I may aid your cause,” he prayed with fervor to the goddess of fate and fortune.

He turned away and heard a loud shout. Fearing someone had noticed him he cringed at the sound. He turned just as the sound of a cracking whip cut through the air. There, not too far down the partly cobbled road, was one of the fine coaches … this one led by dark stallions with shining coats that showed the musculature and fine breeding of the foursome. Now there, he thought, was a horse worth stealing.

The whip cracked again and a man cried out. Dethan moved a little further down so he could see better because it was very clear the whip was not being used on the team of horses. The coachman raised up his arm again and Dethan could see the man, wearing little better clothing than he wore, cowering away from the coming blow, two stripes of red showing through the mud on his skin where the whip had struck before.

“Dog! Foul thing, you dare interfere with his lordship’s horses!” the coachman yelled.

And then, when he looked into the open coach windows to see who was within, he could see a pair of dark eyes watching the exchange rapaciously. The man within did not intervene, did not stop the abuse. It was more like … he hungered for it. Was eager to see it. The smile that touched his cruel lips only solidified the impression. Dethan had known men like this before. Wicked men. Cruel men. He had fought both with and against them in the wars he had engaged in. Though he had had no tolerance for it in his own camps, there were those he had discovered later on who had a thirst for such cruelties.

Dethan did not know why he stepped forward, did not know why he thrust his hand out, blocking the next strike of the whip’s tail from hitting the man, letting it wrap around his wrist instead. He yanked back as hard as he could, testing the strength of his healing muscles to the maximum. The coachman had such a grip on the whip that Dethan ended up yanking the lot of them, man and whip, from high above and down into the wet of the mud. The coachman spluttered and spat, getting to his feet in a state, his face mottled red with fury.

“How dare you!” he gasped. “Do you not see the sigil on this coach? It is the lord high jenden’s vehicle! You will be whipped for your insolence!”

“Would that be with this whip?” Dethan asked, rolling the whip up slowly in his hands. His manner was mild on first glance, but anyone who looked a bit harder realized what the coachman realized and that was that Dethan, for all he wore baggy rags and a thick layer of mud, was the one fully in charge of the altercation.