The spikatur cycle, p.25
The Spikatur Cycle, page 25
“That,” said Unmok with immense satisfaction, “has seen them off.”
“By Harg!” I said, leaping forward. “I want to know more about this — who sent them — what the hell they’re up to!”
“Jak—”
The backs of the assassins leaped and dived among the Trifles scattered over the Souk. The roof fell in successive crashings. The fire crackled. Smoke streamered in long layers, stinging the eyes and making us cough. I roared after the fleeing assassins.
The whole area had been cleared of people, and any thoughts that the first roof-falls had finished the business were now seen to be ill-founded. What the sorcerers had begun the fire and the domino effect along the roof would finish.
One of the men running ahead of us skidded on a mess of squishes upended from a basket. His arms flailed. He staggered into a rack of cheap zorca trappings, and before he could recover I put my fist around his neck. He squeaked like a rabbit.
“Let me go!” he shrieked. “The sorcerers—”
I let my dagger make an acquaintance with the space between his third and fourth ribs. “Do not fret over the wizards, dom. They quarrel between themselves. You should rather fear for your fate—” the dagger twitched “—here and now.”
He gasped, twisting, trying to kick, trying to bite. I moved the dagger.
“Tell me who sent you, and I will let you live.”
“I cannot—”
“Very well. You have your stikitche honor. You may adhere to your code and die, here and now. I do not care. I will find your comrades. One will tell me.”
“You devil!”
“So I am told.”
“I cannot tell you!”
“You mean that for a short moment you will not.”
“Listen, dom — take that dagger away. It is sharp!”
“A blunt dagger is like a grave without a corpse.”
He knew that old Kregish saying, which may be taken in two ways, both of them apposite. He went limp in my fist.
“If—”
“Just speak up.”
“I am no stikitche.”
Unmok arrived then and made a disgusted sound.
“We guessed as much. As assassins you would make passable dung-sweepers.”
“So,” I said, “Vad Noran sent you. And you’ve failed him.”
I felt the quiver of him in my grip. “I did not tell you that! I did not! As Havil is my witness, I did not speak!”
I gave him a resounding kick up the backside and let him go. He had merely confirmed what we suspected. I bellowed after him as he scampered off.
“If you dare to face Noran, tell him we will keep our silence. We will keep that and the gold. Tell him.”
He did not answer, did not look back. He just ran.
Unmok rubbed his middle right across his face; his upper right still gripped his sword. “Now that I’ve seen him close to, I do recognize him. He’s one of Noran’s men, all right. They call him Hue the Grasshopper. But the others with him...”
“Of a tougher frame of mind, I would think. But if they are not assassins, I, for one, am profoundly grateful.”
There was no need for me to elaborate. Once stikitches take out a contract, they will, within the framework of their so-called honor codes, fulfill it, or arrange the recompense on annulment. If I was to do what I had to do in Huringa, I did not want a horde of hairy, unwashed assassins breathing down my neck all the time.
What I had to do now was to find some way of taking my leave of Unmok the Nets so that I could bid farewell to Tyfar and Jaezila. If one problem had been resolved the rest remained.
All the same...
“I wonder—” I said as we dusted ourselves off and started off toward the far end of the Souk. “I wonder what the quarrel was between the two sorcerers.”
Unmok gave a little cluck of sound, a dutifully respectful and at the same time dismissive appraisal of all wizardly doings.
“Who can say? They are unto themselves — thank all the gods.”
People began to move about at the far end, creeping out of hiding places, standing up to look with bewildered horror upon the catastrophe. The fires burned fiercely at our backs. We went on and found an arcade with an opening onto a narrow side alley. One or two people evidenced a desire to talk to us; we had no wish to engage them in conversation. By Krun, no!
The fires burst through between the empty walls and threw orange and crimson weals against the evening sky. We dodged along the alley and turned right and then left between shuttered buildings and came out onto the Street of Condiments where people stood about, staring up, talking among themselves, watching the fires. The conflagration would be brought under control by fat Queen Fahia’s officials, for like most monarchs of important cities, Fahia kept up services to deal with emergencies of this kind.
Ashes blew on the evening breeze. We went through the throngs, their eternal chatter about the Arena for the moment forgotten, and thought about a wet.
“My throat is as dry as a Herrelldrin Hell,” said Unmok.
“There’s a swinging flagon.”
We went into the low-arched opening and sat at a wooden table, and the Fristle fifi brought us a jug and two flagons. Unmok poured and we drank. By Vox! I was thirsty. My Och companion scattered a few copper coins on the table, a handful of obs, and we refilled the flagons.
“Talking of money,” said Unmok, which was a perfectly logical process of thought for him, “I am in poor case to see Avec. He will think my talk of gold a cod to catch him.” He started again to bang at his clothes and to pull and tweak them about to make them fit better.
“We have the gold now, Unmok, and no man will quibble when his hand jingles the bag of yellows. Just tell him straight out.”
“I will. You are right.”
Unmok the Nets was a wily enough fellow when it came to money matters, and his banking connections with Avec Parlin, I fancied, would not altogether favor the banker. Unmok’s burning desire now was to buy a cage voller, an airboat fitted for the carriage of wild beasts. With such an airboat in his possession, with his connections, he ought to make money like wildfire.
The Fristle fifi in her yellow apron — for she was not a slave — came over with a wooden tray filled with odds and ends of munchables, and we popped a few into our mouths and chewed as we talked. The wine, a middling Stuvan, lowered in the jug.
“Avec will know the best bargains,” said Unmok, with confidence. “We need a large vessel, but she must be economical to run. A few deldys more on the initial costs to insure that will pay dividends.”
I fretted within myself, for I had more or less promised Unmok I would ship out with him on his next voyage, and yet I could not in all conscience do so. I knew that, although my own country of Vallia was in good and capable hands, I wanted to return there and finish up the business of uniting the land and turning out the villains who had so destroyed and brought low the Empire of Vallia. I sipped wine to conceal the turmoil of my thoughts, and Unmok burbled cheerfully on, already in command of his famous cage voller and soaring through the skies with a full cargo of fearsome, snarling, savage beasts.
Then he stopped talking, and his jowly Och face changed, a frown of concentration drawing down his brows.
“Hue the Grasshopper — Vad Noran’s man you lifted up to inspect — may not have been a stikitche, being at best a stable hand. But the man who followed us, dogging our footsteps — he was an altogether more ugly customer.”
So I guessed Unmok had seen this altogether more ugly customer pass outside the tavern, still seeking us, no doubt.
I felt relief.
The persistence of this tracker afforded me a chance to postpone telling Unmok that I would not be shipping out with him, that our partnership was ended unless he chose to go with me. I stood up.
“Jak?”
“You go and see Avec Parlin. Make sure he lays his hands on the very best cage voller we can afford. All the gold is yours. I may not be able to ship out with you—”
“Jak!”
“—But I will see you again. You know you have my word on that. Now, which way did this ugly customer go? I will sort him out—”
“Jak!”
“—So there is no good arguing, there’s a good fellow.”
Unmok swelled out those jowly Och chops and tilted his head back to look at me. He did not stand up, and in that I felt the smaller of the two of us.
“He went along toward the Avenue of Sleeths. No, there is no profit in arguing with you. You have secrets, that I do know. I will see Avec and arrange the cage voller. After that — you must decide. As for me, we are partners, and remain so.”
Little, are Ochs, puffy and with six limbs, and not apims like me at all. But in that moment Unmok the Nets displayed a dignity surpassing many and many a blowhard apim lout I have known. And that thought should surprise no one in two worlds.
“Although—” and here Unmok shivered his whole body, as though gripped by a vampire spider of Chem. “Although if you go away I will take it hard. We have been partners for only a small length of time, as these things are measured, and yet in that time we have been through much together. It is of value to me to think of that, and those times...”
“It is of value to me, also. I think you know that.” The lamplight glittered on the bronze studs of Unmok’s jerkin beneath the opened fold of his tunic. “Secrets — yes, we all have secrets. It is difficult for me to explain. I believe you would find it well-nigh impossible to credit. But explain I will. I will.”
His regard of me did not waver.
“May the hands of all the gods rest lightly on you, Jak the Shot, and may Ochenshum have you in his keeping.”
I nodded and without the usual remberees on parting, I went out and along the street toward the Avenue of Sleeths.
After all, as I tried to tell myself with some hollow vehemence, how could a partnership with a little Och wild-beast catcher and a half-promise to him possibly weigh in the balance against the preoccupations of an emperor and the fate of an empire?
Chapter two
A rapier twinkles at dinner
The quarrel between the two sorcerers and the resultant disastrous fire forced animation on the people of the city. Parties of the queen’s guards galloped along the streets. The flames continued to light the night sky. People talked of the catastrophe, agog, joying that their premises had not been consumed. I walked along at a good pace, heading west out and along the street toward the Avenue of Sleeths.
Huringa, the capital city of Hyrklana, is not one of the largest capitals of Kregen, but it is impressive in its own way, dominated by the imposing pile of the queen’s palace, the Hakal, with the ominous bulk of the Arena, called the Jikhorkdun, alongside. From the Arena the four main boulevards, lighted by gas, stretch toward the cardinal points of the compass. I saw no sign of the man who had been following us and whom I now followed in order, as I had told Unmok, to settle this business. I did not know, myself, if this were true...
Anyway, if I did not find him I was going in the right direction for the promised meeting with Tyfar and Jaezila.
The idea that I ought to take a part in the fire-fighting occurred to me. I dismissed it immediately. The authorities, charged by fat Queen Fahia with fire-fighting duties would be adequately capable. She’d have them thrown to her pet neemus if they were not.
Moving along among the folk out strolling in this early evening preparation period for the night’s entertainments, I kept a wary lookout. The fourth moon of Kregen, She of the Veils, sent down smoky pinkish rays, wavering and erratic in the smoke pall, paling beside the lurid glow of the fire. Keeping out of the way of sorcerers had always seemed a sound practice, and this latest imbroglio merely confirmed that. The disc of radiance balanced between the two opposed powers of the wizards and casting off the chunks of incendiary material was in itself a potent force. That occult disc of light is called The Quern of Gramarye. When it grinds opposed magics the very fabric of time and space is distorted and fractured.
The Avenue of Sleeths ran straight between private houses fronted by gardens for over five hundred paces. Here lived some of those inhabitants of Huringa who were bracketed in the middling wealthy class, with slaves and carriages and fine clothes, whose tables were well-laden. Down at the far end, a crossing place where the Street of Sleeths joined the east boulevard was always crowded with idlers and ruffians patronizing the taverns and inns there. So it was from gentility into abandonment I walked. And still no sign of the fellow who had dogged our footsteps.
Many torches and lanterns lit up the crossing place which formed a kind of square or kyro, and the taverns stood cheek by jowl. Most strollers approached this place, the Kyro of the Happy Calsany, along the boulevard. When the amphitheater turned out after the games, the place became choked. Amid all the uproar I fancied there would be little chance of spotting my man, so I set off directly for the tavern, the Faerling’s Feathers, where I was to meet Jaezila and Tyfar.
The great cross of the boulevards, with the Jikhorkdun and the high fortress of the Hakal at the center, imposed a certain order on Huringa’s street planning, but the mixtilinear walls made of the alleys and streets in the outer portions of the quarters a mass of interconnected labyrinths. A general assault on this city would be held up there unless airborne troops could land in rear of the defenses.
Wondering why that particular thought had crossed my mind just then, I walked up to The Faerling’s Feathers. We of Vallia had no wish to go to war with Hyrklana; quite the reverse. Tyfar and Jaezila were talking together, engrossed in each other’s company. I looked at them with great pleasure. And I was come to say good-bye!
They sat at a small table under a climbing vine smothered in blue flowers; above their heads a balcony depended silken shawls and tasseled scarves. The light from She of the Veils glowed warmly from the stucco wall. The table was set for three; the empty chair waited for me.
I shook my head as though to clear away cobwebs. I knew that saying good-bye to these two would be a wrench, and now that I watched them as they talked so closely, I realized afresh just how much I did not want to part from them. Blade comrades are rare, and I have been blessed and more than blessed with true blade comrades on the wonderful and terrible world of Kregen. For a true blade comrade one would lay down one’s own life without a second thought, and for these two, for Jaezila and Tyfar, I would — with only the first thought for my Delia to halt me — go through the fire. Delia, Delia of the Blue Mountains, Delia of Delphond, always stood foremost in my thoughts, and against our love I measured all my actions.
The task of saying good-bye would not be easy for another reason. Prince Tyfar, with his shining honor and ideas of upright dealing with all men and women, and Jaezila, with her willful ways and quick bright grasp on living, would certainly attempt to detain me. They had work to do here in Huringa for their own country of Hamal. Hamal was at war with my own country of Vallia, and that was all a stupid nonsense; these two were comrades and we had lived and walked close to the edge of death together.
Jaezila tossed her head back so that her brown hair rippled all gleaming in the moonlight. She laughed full-throated. And, so laughing, saw me.
“Jak!”
“Well, Jak,” said Tyfar, scraping his chair back and standing up to greet me, “and have you freed yourself of your entanglement outside the city? Do you come to stay with us?”
“Lahal, you two,” I said, walking up and grasping Tyfar’s hand, leaning down to kiss Jaezila. “No. I’m not clear yet.” I sat down and the wine was poured as I pulled the chair forward. “But I joy to see you—”
I had told them only the most superficial account of my true life and circumstances out of necessity. They knew I was happily married, although I had — prudently — given Delia a different name. I had said — and I would not want Delia to learn this too swiftly — that her name was Thylda. That was a good name in Hamal. You see what petty shifts one is driven to when friendship is sullied by these monumentally idiotic politics of war! So they knew that my entanglement outside the city was not with a woman.
I asked after the fliers they had come here to buy, and heard that the work proceeded slowly, for the people of Hyrklana deeply resented having to build airboats for Hamal. Only fear of that great empire on the mainland opposite, and its mad Empress Thyllis, kept the Hyrklanians polite to Hamalese in their midst.
“Although,” said Tyfar, looking flushed and annoyed, “a factory was burned to the ground today — ten fliers were lost. They go in for fires in Huringa, I see.”
I told them that the fire in the Souk of Trifles had been started by two sorcerers quarreling.
“Their damned Quern of Gramarye, I suppose?”
“Yes.”
Now that I had joined them, the slaves could bring the food. One thing was sure, despite the enormous difficulties, when Vallia had triumphed over Hamal — as we would! — we’d stop all this slavery. The transformation of a slave-owning society into a free society was causing difficulties in Vallia, and the problems would be worse in Hamal. But in Opaz’s good time, the task would be done.
Jaezila wore a deep crimson evening robe, just such a gown as Delia had once worn here in Huringa, and with a narrow golden belt from which swung not a silly ornate curved dagger but a solid workmanlike rapier and main gauche. She looked stunning. And yet still she teased Tyfar, and tweaked him and, as I looked at them and saw, she was more attached to him that she probably realized. As for Tyfar, his dark blue evening robe concealed a harness of mesh link, I did not doubt; his rapier and main gauche swung from his belts outside the robe. Under the folds of cloth I also did not doubt he had his axe about him. He was not willingly parted from that axe, was Prince Tyfar of Hamal.
Toward the end of the meal he kept darting puzzled looks over my left shoulder. A wary expression crossed his face and then he returned to the squish pie. But again he looked up. Open and frank, bold and fearless — these words describe Tyfar as he carried himself with us, for we were comrades. With his father, Prince Nedfar, and the high notables, Tyfar tended to the withdrawn, the aloof. A bookish man, he had taken up the axe as a kind of defiance of those forces seeking to mold him into the run-of-the-mill Hamalese prince. A good man in a library and a good man to have at your back in a fight, Prince Tyfar.
