Bazil Broketail (17 page)

What if it had a spell upon it? Such was the way of the Great Witches. Everything about them was magical, from the way they looked to the objects they carried around with them. They never aged, for instance. They had peculiar familiars, cats that could speak, birds that could speak, even dogs that were perfectly loquacious. In addition, of course, they were the absolute mistresses of booby traps and snares.

The bag that lay there so still and enticing might easily turn out to contain some unpleasant guardian: a viper or a biting rat.

She pushed all thought of it out of her mind again and studied the damned boy. There wasn’t anything else to look at, that was for sure.

It was too cold to look out the window at the view, and it was night anyway, so there would be little to see except the stars, which Helena was not interested in. When she was very young her grandmother had informed her that only the lower classes were knowledgeable about things like stars and winds and waves. People of her class were expected to be informed on other matters, primarily commerce and finance and trade.

She shivered and hugged herself and wondered what might be in that bag! And then, almost without consciously thinking about it further, she rose from the chair and went into the other room and stood looking down at the bag.

It lay there mutely on the pale blue blanket that covered the bed. A grey cloth bag with a simple cloth strap. It was stuffed with unknown items.

How she wanted to look at them. What fascinating treasures there might be. Maybe a homunculus. Maybe a radipterous. The Great Witches always carried such things with them, it was well known.

She examined it from several angles. It was plain, it was boring, and it evidently had some things in it. Without touching it she could determine no more.

Eventually she could stand it no longer. Prepared to leap back, jump out of the room and slam the door if a biting rat materialized, she reached over and flicked the bag open.

It wasn’t even fastened!

There were clothes inside, just boring clothes. No biting rat, no viper, nothing in fact appeared to protect the bag.

Having gone this far she could not stop now, so she pulled out a smaller bag that lay inside at the top. It contained a few crude toiletries and some tiny pouches filled with herbs.

Then there was a lightweight robe, of black silk, and a set of woolen underthings. Helena was utterly absorbed by now.

A shirt, very plain in white cotton, and a pair of matching leggings followed, and then three pairs of woolen socks and a black-handled hairbrush.

A pocket version of the Concise Birrak came next. It had the look of a book well used for many years. Then there was a skirt of black cotton and a pair of leather sandals. And then, right at the bottom of the bag, she found a brass box, the same size as the Birrak. It had a keyhole on the front and it was locked tight.

She shook it and felt several things moving around inside.

What might it contain?

Now this was exciting!

This must contain some powerful talisman of great magic. Something she would never be privileged to learn about since she would never graduate to the elite classes.

Abruptly her excitement was cut off with a slice of dread. She heard a noise in the other room and started up with a gasp of horror. Her blood turned to ice in her veins.

Lessis must have returned! And Helena of Roth would be caught red-handed, pawing through the Grey Lady’s things. Helena dropped the box from her nerveless fingers. It bounced on the blanket and fell to the floor with a clatter.

Helena groaned inwardly and stooped to pick it up. Now she was done for; Lessis had ears of legendary keenness, and she must have heard that noise.

She assumed an utterly submissive posture and waited by the door. Long seconds passed but no Lessis appeared. The apartment was silent once more. She hesitated and then, scarcely daring to hope, she crept out of the room and went down the corridor to the other one.

There was cold air in there, and something else—a slight scent, almost as if of sweat. She looked around the room, but it was empty and untouched.

The boy continued to sleep, undisturbed. Perhaps he had rolled over and made the noise that she’d heard.

She went over and examined him more closely. No, there was no sign of movement. The wretched boy continued to breath evenly and slowly, a slight snore fluttering up with each inward breath.

So what had caused the noise she’d heard?

And then a heavy hand came round and clamped across her mouth, and she was jerked backwards and another arm came around her body and held her still.

She had completely neglected to look behind the door!

Her assailant had powerful fingers hooked into her throat, and now he lifted her smoothly off her feet and began to strangle her.

Helena felt the blood pounding in her head; there was a roaring in her ears. She twitched frantically in his grasp and kicked hard. He had to shift his grip and she was turned towards him.

She saw a dark, narrow face, filled with fury. Black eyes glared at her with hate and triumph mixed. The cruel mouth had a fierce smile on it as she choked and thrashed. There was nothing she could do to stop him.

His eyes terrified her. Not being able to breathe was even worse. And then a red darkness fell over her and she knew no more.

Thrembode hefted the body into his arms and carried it into the other room and tossed it on the bed. He covered it carefully with the blanket.

From the disarray on the bed it was obvious that the little slut had been going through the private things of the great Lessis. Thrembode smiled. Snooping came early to witches.

Among the rags there was a little brass box. He looked at it carefully. Such things could be dangerous. What if it recorded his activities and transmitted them somehow to Lessis’s ear? He needed to investigate more carefully.

He relaxed his mind into the Padmasa pathways and repeated the syllables of power. The room became invisible; the walls of the tower melted away.

On a level of perception that was of a different order from the normal, Thrembode saw the pulses of living beings as plasmas in the dark. Even the little mice in their holes shone out like bright little stars.

The boy glowed nearby, and so did the figure of the little slut. She was near death but not yet dead; her glow was an orange color, cooling to yellow at the edges. Well, he chuckled to himself, let her live if she would. She’d never forget this night’s work, that was for sure!

On this plane of consciousness the brass box was invisible, but the contents were not. Four perfectly smooth spheres of energy glowed in the dark like yellow and pink pearls. Thrembode recognized them as gaming pieces in the witch’s game, “Pinti.” He gave a snort of amusement, so the hag had a weakness for games, had she? Thrembode would show her some games!

He broke the trance state with a harsh set of deep breaths and rubbed his face to clear his head. He replaced the Pinti pearls in their locked box on the bed. Now he would conceal himself and wait for the arrival of Lessis.

He wove a dissembling spell that would conceal him in the corner of the inner room. When Lessis entered he would strike. He slid his knife from its sheath. It was an Ourdhi blade, made for the assassin’s trade. A straight stabbing blade, eight inches long with a hollow tip that could be filled with poison.

The Ourdhi, who were the masters of this sort of thing, would use the venom of the spitting cobra, or sometimes that of a certain scarlet tree frog. Thrembode however preferred the blade without poison; a single good blow with it in the upper back was sufficient.

For a moment he reflected on the sad bits and pieces scattered on the blanket. Perfect bait. It would distract the hag for a precious second when she first entered the room. She would not penetrate his spell. She would reach down to touch her things, so brazenly interfered with, and he would strike, the blow passing right through her chest. The work of a fraction of a second and then the great hag would be no more.

She would never even set her deadly eyes on him!

Looking at these small, wretched possessions he could not help but agree with the common wisdom. These witches really thought they were better than the rest of the human race. They thought they owned it all so they didn’t have to bother with possessions of their own. If they saw something they wanted, they simply took it. Of course they were so haughty that they would own to wish for virtually nothing, at least nothing made by man. And that of course was the worst of it—the arrogance of them because of their exalted femininity.

It was enough to give him the shivers, just thinking about being a man on that island of theirs. Run by women, ruled by women, controlled by the damned hags and their mouthpieces. Speak out of line and they shut you away in one of those prisons of theirs. Strike a woman and they castrated you. Rape one and they hanged you. The place was utterly oppressive.

What a horror it must be to grow up as a man under that regime. Thrembode would never have stayed; he knew he’d have found some way to get out.

There was a knock at the outer door. Thrembode froze. The knock was repeated and then someone worked the latch. It was unlocked. Someone entered the other room.

They crossed the room and sat down. Clearly it was not Lessis—why would she knock at her own door?

Thrembode fidgeted with impatience. It would not do to have a witness present when he killed Lessis. Perhaps he would have to finish this one as well.

He waited.

She remained in the other room.

With a curse he broke the dissembling spell and slid into the other room on the balls of his feet.

It was a girl, about the same age as the other one.

He slipped the knife back into its sheath. This little chicken he would take in the same manner as the other one—a quickly wrung neck would do the job and leave no blood spilled for Lessis’s keen eye.

The girl was holding the boy’s hand and whispering to him. Little fool! The boy was unconscious—he wasn’t hearing any of this. What was the point of wasting breath on him, especially when they were the last breaths she would ever take?

Thrembode felt the excitement of the kill take over again. He enjoyed this kind of work sometimes. He stepped towards her and accidentally brushed against the table. The slight sound startled her, and she swung around too soon.

His hands missed the death grip. But he caught her shoulder and snatched her up close. Then things began to go wrong.

The girl emitted a wild shriek and clawed at his face. One finger scraped his eyeball and he flinched from the sudden pain and shock. To his astonishment she kneed him, hard, in the crotch and broke free as he doubled up.

He emitted a scream of rage and dove at her, but she succeeded in putting the heavy table between them, and he slammed against its corner and almost fell.

Then she had the poker from the fireplace in her hand, and she struck at his ankles with it as if it were a sword.

He jumped to evade the blow, and she caught him a smart rap against the ribs with it as he came down on his feet. If it had been a sword, he realized, it would have taken his life. Damn these witch girls!

He shoved the table across the floor and pinned her to the wall, but she slipped down beneath it and slid out across the floor.

He was upon her then, a single bound, his hand out to get a grip on her. But the rug he landed on slipped beneath his boot and he came down with a crash and slid past her.

She was up then and at the outer door. In a second she was through that door and out in the hallway.

Disaster!

The girl was out the door.

He stood there aghast.

The damned little slut had got away; he could hear her shrieking as she ran for the stairs.

Damn!

There were guards out there a few floors down; he couldn’t kill the girl without them noticing. And he probably couldn’t kill all of them before the hue and cry would most definitely be aroused.

Nothing to do but get out and get out fast with whatever he had to hand.

He went back out to the balcony and over the side and down the tower. He went fast. Fortunately, climbing like this was something he was good at, even if he didn’t seem to be able to bring off an assassination when everything was stacked in his favor. By the black guts of Gozubga, he hated to fail like this!

At least he still had the princess, and that might be enough to save him if he could get her back to Tummuz Orgmeen alive. He would have to hope that it would be enough—the alternatives didn’t bear thinking about.

From the edge of the ramp that led to the main entrance to the Tower of Guard, Bazil of Quosh looked up to the stars and shivered against the cold wind.

He easily identified Zebulpator the Red Star, the centerpiece of the Dragon constellation. Above it glittered Hasades and Kelsab, bright white points that marked the Dragon’s eyes, and then beyond these the seven bright stars of the tail.

He recalled nights on the hills of Quosh, when he was but a few years old. In the summertime old Macumber, his handler from when he was fresh from the egg, would sit out under the stars and drink wine and sing ancient songs of the Macumber clan. There had been Macumbers in Quosh from the earliest days of the revival of the Argonath. The Macumbers even recalled the days of mighty Veronath and the kings of the Golden Throne.

And between songs, Macumber would identify the stars to Bazil and give him the stories behind their names and their naming.

The stars, young Bazil, were named by dragonkind who first learned how to use them as a guide for travel at night. Dragons were abroad in the earliest days of the world.

How did human folk learn the names?

In the earliest days there was no conflict between man and dragon. They shared the world and there was plenty for both. It was then that the dragons shared their names for the stars with men.

But the numbers of humanity grew and swelled out across the world, while the number of dragons remained steady and then shrank. In the end the dragons fought to save themselves but were exiled to the distant northland, where they lived apart from men until the founding of the Argonath.