2 - Blades of Mars (16 page)

 
          
 
‘My name –
‘ I
hesitated.
‘My name is Michael Kane.’

 
          
 
‘A very strange name.
Yes, I have heard it, as you suspected.'

 
          
 
'What do you think of the name?'

 
          
 
'I think it very strange, as I said. If you
mean what have I heard and what do I think of that - well, what is the truth? I
tell you, my friend, I believe nothing and everything. I am not a good
Guild-member - others who had given you the sign and received no recognition
would have been angrier than I.'

 
          
 
'What is the sign?'

 
          
 
Casually, with his right thumb, he traced a
small cross on his mask.

 
          
 
'I did not notice,' I admitted.

 
          
 
'That sign is necessary when all wear masks,'
he said. ‘I should not have told you that, either. Many have tried to pose as
Jelusa. It is the best disguise there is.'

 
          
 
'Did anyone else notice?' I asked.

 
          
 
‘I told them you had given me the sign but
that you might need help finding a tavern. That was my excuse for following you.'

 
          
 
'You are something of a renegade,' I said.

 
          
 
'Nonsense - I simply live how I can. I do not
believe in these stuffy guilds and the like.'

 
          
 
'Then why don't you leave it?'

 
          
 
'The mask, my friend - the
protection.
I survive.’

 
          
 
'Are there no penalties for speaking openly of
the Guild's secrets?'

 
          
 
'We are more lax than we used to be, all of us
- just a few fanatics keep up the old traditions. Besides, I cannot stop
talking. I must talk all the time - so some of my talk must give away secrets.
Still, what is a secret? What is the truth?'

 
          
 
This last seemed something of a rhetorical
question so I did not bother to answer it.

 
          
 
'Now,' said Toxo. 'What about the palace?'

 
          
 
'I have only been in the main hall,' I said.
'I know little of its geography.'

 
          
 
Toxo reached under the bed covering and
produced a large roll of stiff paper. He smoothed it straight and showed it to
me. It was a detailed plan of the palace, showing all windows and entrances,
all floors and everything on them. It was an excellent map.

 
          
 
'This cost me my ceremonial mask,’ said Toxo. ‘Still,
I never used it - and I can have another made when I am rich.’

 
          
 
I was not sure of the morality of helping a
thief rob a royal treasure house, but I thought the whole of Mishim Tep's
jewels would be a small price to pay to avert the bloodshed that was about to
happen.

 
          
 
'Why is there a guarded treasure house?' I
asked. 'Why, when jewels can be prised from the walls of the city and the
inhabitants treat them like ordinary stones?'

 
          
 
'It is not so much the jewels themselves,
which would fetch an excellent price some thousands of miles north or east of
here, but the workmanship of the objects stored in the treasure-house,' said
Toxo.

 
          
 
He bent forward, his eyes gleaming at me from
behind his ornate mask.

 
          
 
'Here is the best way into the palace,' he
said. 'I rejected this means when I thought I was on my own.'

 
          
 
'Would none of the other Jelusa help you?'

 
          
 
'Only one - and I know him of old for a
bungling oaf. No, I am the only thief here at present - apart from the man I
have mentioned. All the rest are simple fighting men. You should be able to
tell by the mask.'

 
          
 
'I did not know there were differences in the
masks.’

 
          
 
'Of course!'

 
          
 
'Then what is mine?'

 
          
 
'The mask - as it happens - of an assassin,'
Toxo told me brightly.

 
          
 
I felt a shudder run through me. I begged
providence that I would not be forced to kill a woman, no matter how evil she
was.

Woman of Evil

 
          
 
It was very still in the streets of the
Jewelled
City
and Toxo and I, both masked, hugged the
shadows near the palace.

 
          
 
There was a distinct disadvantage to the masks
in that they both caught far too much of the little light there was.

 
          
 
Toxo had unwound a loop of rope from his
waist. It was thin rope but very strong, he assured me. He pointed silently up
at the roof where a flagpole stood close to the edge. The reason two men were
needed was because the rope had to be looped around the pole so that both ends
dangled in the street.

 
          
 
One man had to hold the rope while the other
climbed and secured it, allowing the second man to climb up.

 
          
 
The guard on the roof passed. There was only
one doing a circuit, taking twenty minutes. In normal times there would be
three guards.

 
          
 
Toxo flung the rope expertly upwards. It went
snaking away to encircle the pole and one end flopped down on the other side,
dangling over the edge of the roof. Now Toxo began to make little jerking
movements on the rope and the short end, which had been weighted, began to
slide down the wall.

 
          
 
Soon both ends were of equal length. I tied
one round my waist and took the weight as Toxo began to climb. There were still
more than ten minutes left before the guard was due to return - but it was slow
climbing.

 
          
 
At last, after what seemed an age, Toxo
reached the roof and tied the rope round the flagpole. I began to climb. I felt
as if my arms were dropping off by the time I had reached the top.

 
          
 
Quickly we untied the rope and, ducking, ran
towards the shadow of a small dome on the roof.

 
          
 
The guard came past. He had noticed nothing.

 
          
 
The roof, though flat, seemed rough and
slippery.

 
          
 
Reaching down to touch it, I realised that it
was encrusted with polished gems!

 
          
 
Toxo was pointing mutely at the dome. This,
too, entered into our plan. It was of glass - coloured glass on a soft metal
frame. Noiselessly, we had to remove enough of the glass to let ourselves in.

 
          
 
We began carefully to prise the frame open and
bend it back after first removing the glass.

 
          
 
Twice the guard passed. Twice he did not see
us - his attention was on the street!

 
          
 
Finally, we had made a hole large enough for
us to pass through. Toxo went first, dangled by his hands for a moment and then
dropped downwards. I heard a soft sound as he landed. Then I squeezed through
the
hole
, dangled and let myself fall.

 
          
 
We were on a cat-walk high above a darkened
room -perhaps a banqueting hall, for it was not the throne room where I had
first confronted Horguhl.

 
          
 
Toxo began to run along the swaying cat-walk
and it was only then that I realised if I had missed the cat-walk I would have
fallen to my death!

 
          
 
Now we reached a door, bolted on our side. We
slid back the bolts and went through the door into a small chamber off which
led stone stairs.

 
          
 
Down the stairs we darted but then slowed our
pace when we saw light filtering upwards.
The dim, blue
radiance of the Sheeva near-everlasting light-globes.
Almost all the
Southern Martians had these.

 
          
 
We peered downward into a larger room - a
servant's simply furnished room by the look of it
On
a
bed a fat man lay, sprawled in sleep. Beyond him was the door,

 
          
 
Our hearts were in our mouths as we crept past
the sleeping servant and gradually eased the door open. We managed to do it
without waking him.

 
          
 
Now we came, farther down, to a larger room.
This was better furnished and seemed to be the living room of a larger apartment
- perhaps a noble retainer who lived in the Palace. The man we had passed was
probably his servant

 
          
 
Just as we set foot on the floor of this room
the door opened - and I saw the noble who had encountered me earlier in the
throne room!

 
          
 
With an oath, he turned - probably to summon
help -but I was across the room in an instant, my sword out.
slamming
the door and cutting off his exit!

 
          
 
‘Who are you?
Jelusa, eh?
What are you doing here?'

 
          
 
He seemed a little shaken but not frightened -
very few of the Southern Martians are cowards. He made to draw his sword but I
placed my hand on his and nodded to Toxo.

 
          
 
While the noble was still puzzling out what
was happening - he may have been brave, but he was far from clever - Toxo
unhooked his scabbarded sword from his belt and raised it by the scabbard,
striking the noble on the head with the hilt.

 
          
 
He dropped without a murmur, and we tied and
gagged him.

 
          
 
To Toxo's surprise, I had insisted that there
must be no bloodshed. The folk of Mishim Tep were misguided and had been
influenced by an evil, clever woman, but they did not deserve to die for
believing her lies.

 
          
 
Opening the noble's door we found ourselves on
a landing. Several other doors led off it.

 
          
 
This was where Toxo and I had decided to part.
Judging by his map - which he had bought from a dishonest servant of the palace
- Horguhl's apartments were on this floor.

 
          
 
Toxo had no interest in Horguhl but every
interest in the treasure vaults below.

 
          
 
Silently we parted, Toxo taking the stairs
that led down from the landing, and I creeping further along the landing to the
door I sought.

 
          
 
Cautiously, I turned the handle and the door
did not resist. The room was in darkness.

 
          
 
Had I made a mistake?

 
          
 
I can usually sense if a room is occupied,
even though I cannot see.

 
          
 
This room was not occupied. I crept to the
door leading off the room and found that the adjoining room was empty also - as
were all the rest in the apartment.

 
          
 
I decided to risk switching on the light.

 
          
 
Surely I had not been wrong? Looking about me,
I was sure that this was Horguhl's apartment - and yet she was not in it though
it was late at night.

 
          
 
Had she ridden with the army after all?

 
          
 
I was sure she would not have done. She was
brave enough. I will credit her, but it did not seem to fit into what I guessed
of her scheme. She would prefer to sit back and watch the two old friends fight
one another to the death.

 
          
 
Then where was she?

 
          
 
In the palace.
I was
sure. Now I would be forced to seek her out.

 
          
 
I left the apartments and went out on to the
landing. Evidently the palace was for the most part deserted. All the usual
occupants had left with the army and only a few guards and servants remained -
with the noble we had encountered probably left to supervise them.

 
          
 
I decided to risk a visit to the throne room,
since instinct told me it was a likely place for Horguhl to be.

 
          
 
With a wary step I made my way down the stairs
for several flights, until I reached the ground floor, coming to the entrance
hall I recognised.

 
          
 
I ducked hastily back into the shadows as I
saw that a guard was on duty by the doors of the throne room. Only one dim,
blue bulb burned above his head. He seemed half asleep.

 
          
 
Somehow I had to distract his attention so
that I could enter the throne room.

 
          
 
In my belt was a small knife I had used to
prise away the soft metal of the dome on the roof. I took this out and threw it
from me. It landed near the opposite staircase on the other side of the hall.
The guard jerked himself into full wakefulness at the sound and peered towards
the other staircase. Slowly he began to walk towards it.

 
          
 
This was my chance. Swiftly, I ran across to
the doors of the throne-room, my feet almost silent on the smooth floor. I
inched open the doors, which I had noted earlier opened inward, and closed them
softly behind me once I was through.

 
          
 
I had done it.

 
          
 
And there - on the throne of Mishim Tep - sat
the woman of evil, that wild, dark-haired girl who was so beautiful and yet so
peculiarly twisted in her mind.
As Shizala had said,
partially an innocent, partially a woman of preternatural wisdom.

 
          
 
She hardly saw me. She was sprawled in the
throne looking upwards and murmuring something to
herself
.

 
          
 
I had a little time to act before she called
the guard. If she called, more than one
were
sure to
come. I sprinted up the hall towards the throne.

 
          
 
Then her eyes dropped and she saw me. She
could not have recognised me, for I still wore the silver mask. But, of course,
she was startled. Yet her curiosity - a strong trait in her - stopped her from
immediately calling for help.

 
          
 
'Who are you?' she said.
'You
in the strange mask.'

 
          
 
I did not reply but began to walk towards her
with a measured pace.

 
          
 
Her large, wise-innocent eyes widened.

 
          
 
'What do you hide behind the mask?' she said.
'Are you so ugly?'

 
          
 
I continued to advance until I had reached the
foot of the dais.

 
          
 
'Take off your mask or I will summon the
guards, and they will remove it for you. How did you get in here?'

 
          
 
Slowly I raised my hand to my mask.

 
          
 
'Do you really wish me to remove it?' I said.