Secret Scorpio (24 page)

The Fristle snarled some obscenity or other and hitched his bundle straight; a string snapped and the bundle burst, and a glittering shower of trinkets and trashy bangles and rings cascaded to the cobbles. An uproar began at once as, from nowhere and at this time of night with the moons shining above, a torrent of children burst out and fell upon the gewgaws.

Young girls and boys were scrabbling along the cobbles, snatching up the rolling bangles and rings, stuffing little ornamental figures into their breechclouts. I realized in my half-blind wanderings I had blundered into a net of poor alleys off one of the jewelry souks. The hullabaloo was rather splendid. The Fristle was frantically attempting to preserve his wares, yelling threats and trying to bash kids away and being tripped up and — it was all over in a twinkling — standing up and shrieking his anger and casting about upon the empty cobbles.

He found one trashy little figure of Kyr Nath made from cast brass and he flung it down so hard it bounced and hit a laughing fellow in the eye. That started more trouble. I ambled off, deliberately not going fast.

Of such trifles are the destiny of empires made.

The last I heard of that incident — as I thought, as I thought — was a fat apim with an apron yelling: “The Fristle stole this stuff! Thief! Thief!”

The Fristle let out a yell and raced off. The apims followed all a-yelling and a-screeching and the whole pack vanished into a side alley, even more odiferous than this one. So, going on, I came out at last into the silversmiths’ wharf running alongside a canal that gleamed limpid and pinkly golden in the night. I saw the Fristle running across an arcaded bridge. He saw me too, for the moons-light picked me out brightly. Only a handful of other people were walking near. He knew me. He vanished into the shadows. I dismissed him — thieves would have to be treated as rulers usually treated the devotees of Diproo the Nimble-Fingered — and walked on to the Iron Anvil in the smiths’ quarter.

My surprise was complete when I found the Wizard of Loh Khe-Hi-Bjanching waiting for me in my room. As I came in he started up; the steel in my fist winked at his throat and then I recognized him. I drew back.

“Dangerous to do that, San.”

He laughed a nervous laugh and felt his throat.

“All right, Turk.” As he spoke the curtains over the window shook and Turko the Shield climbed in. He was followed by Balass the Hawk. Then Oby wriggled in, most fierce, slapping his long-knife into his sheath.

Well!

It turned out that Khe-Hi wished to obtain a piece of my skin, a hair and a piece of toenail. I do not give these things lightly, for although it is all stupid superstition, there is no doubting the power of the Wizards of Loh.

“Phu-si-Yantong has been searching for you, Prince,” said this wizard who had followed me. “I need to create a new and somewhat different . . . ah . . . arrangement to hold him off. He has let you slip out of his range of observation. But he has been in lupu and spying a very great deal lately. I think” — and here Khe-Hi chuckled in a very down-to-earth and unwizardly way — “I really think the old devil is worried.”

“Amen to that.”

I had noticed that Khe-Hi did not mention that he was creating a spell or an enchantment. They were for the lesser sorcerers.

So needing the simple artifices of that trade, he had come to find me. And the others would not let him go alone. I asked, “And how did you know where I was and my name?”

“We had a flier letter from Seg, from Falinur, and—”

“And from now on I’m staying where I belong,” said Turko the Shield truculently. “By Morro the Muscle! At your side with my shield lifted.”

“That will not be very practical in Vondium.”

“Well, my long-knife will arouse no comment,” said Oby.

We all told him coarsely that his long-knife would not arouse comment anywhere — except Khe-Hi, who was above that kind of nonsense, of course — whereat he grew most enraged and lively and started swinging his arms about.

Balass the Hawk butted in with: “I know most about the Black Feathers so I am the one to go with the Prince.”

While they wouldn’t have started in on each other with the weapons each knew so well how to use, they waxed exceedingly warm. I said, “No one goes with me. This is a lone task. Balass, what of the Black Feathers?”

His story confirmed what I had seen. Someone had brought a temple into Vondium. Wandering priests had gathered. The city was like an overripe shonage, ready to burst and spray every which way.

“By the brass sword and glass eye of Beng Thrax!” I used the old arena oath talking to Balass, the hyr-kaidur. “When will your spies find this Opaz-forsaken temple! By Kaidun! Time grows perilously short.”

“We have men out everywhere. The racters also search.”

A thought occurred to me and I turned to Khe-Hi. “If Phu-si-Yantong has missed me and is searching, will not your visit here put him on my trail once again?”

“No, my Prince. I can cover myself and those with me. He cannot find you through us.”

“That is some comfort. But if he really is this Makfaril, and there is no proof, what chance is there he will come to Vondium himself?”

Khe-Hi pursed up his lips. “Very little. He can work his mischief through his agents.”

“Quite so. Well, be off with you then, the pack of you.”

They wanted to contest this, but I would have none of it. So they climbed out through the window, agile as monkeys, even Khe-Hi, who had done a little climbing with me on Ogra-gemush.

Working swiftly, I donned my familiar scarlet breechclout and strapped and buckled my weapons about me. This time, to be on the safe side, I shrugged on a close-fitting coat of mail, a mail shirt presented to me by Delia, one of those superb harnesses of mesh mail manufactured in the Dawn Lands around the Shrouded Sea in Havilfar. The value of that single piece of armor would leave a rich man breathless. I swirled the big buff cloak over all as usual, but this time hung the Krozair longsword scabbarded at my left side. I picked up the faithful old bamboo and went to place it safely in a cupboard when those confounded Fristles arrived to ruin that particular scheme.

The Fristle thief, no doubt calling on Diproo the Nimble-Fingered, had rustled up some of his friends. The door burst in with a smash and they catapulted into the room. For the tiniest fraction of time I thought they were my comrades, come back this time to insist on going with me. Then I saw the fierce snarling cat-faces, the up-pricked ears, the lean jaws and the furry hides. Spitting their fury, they charged straight for me.

They carried long-knives and wharf-rat knives, and two had stout staves tipped with bronze. The bamboo switched up and deflected the first stave, bounced off the skull of its owner, lined up and prodded deeply into a furry midriff. Two Fristles staggered out of the fight. But the others, three or four, bored in. A flung knife whistled past my head as I moved and smashed into the horn window. A stave swirled down at me and I ducked and stepped back, making no attempt to strike with the bamboo. I was annoyed. I was quite unsure whether to bash them over the head with the bamboo or to whip out rapier or djangir and settle their hash.

So stepping back, I trod on a forgotten gregarian and skidded. I skidded across the floor, flailing my arms to remain upright. I lost my balance and staggered back.

With shrieks of feline glee the Fristles flung themselves on me. They had no compunction. The thief had lost his night’s swag and he wanted to take his revenge out on my hide.

I rolled, ready to spring up and bash them all properly, when a great booming numim voice roared joyfully: “Now, by Vox! What a pretty pickle!”

And in rage Rafik Avandil waded in, his clanxer deftly cleaving down a Fristle skull and slicing back to chop another. The other Fristles screamed now, screams far different from those shocks of savage fury of a moment ago.

“If I make a habit of this, Nath the Gnat, blame only yourself!”

And the golden numim, Rafik Avandil, joyfully dispatched the next Fristle and kicked the last headlong out the door and down the blackwood stairs.

Nineteen

In the Cavern of Abominations

The way I extricated myself from the possible little embarrassment of this golden numim’s discovering all my arsenal of weaponry buckled up about me, when I was a mere wandering laborer, amused me at the time. Afterward, well, as they say, no man or woman born of Opaz knows all the secrets of Imrien. I gave an almighty yawn and covered my mouth, palm out, and said, “I crave your pardon, Koter Avandil. I am for bed. I have had a plaguey day. How did you find me here?”

If he thought I shot the last question out a little sharply, he gave no sign.

“I heard the commotion and ran up, hoping for a little exercise. It seems I was in time, once again.”

“And much am I beholden to you, Koter Avandil. What are you going to do with the Fristles?”

“The landlord will take care of them. Come with me. You cannot stay here now.”

This was an eventuality I did not relish. I reached up and touched the bowstave. He nodded, half smiling, his whiskers fierce.

“Yes. I see you have bought yourself a bow with the money you acquired, to go along with your zorca. You should be careful how you spend your cash. Buying things you cannot use is a dangerous pastime.”

“Yes,” I said with a fine free meekness, adding, “koter.”

He laughed again, that great booming numim laugh. “I warrant the fellow whose throat you slit for the money wishes he was here to spend it instead of rotting in a ditch.”

“If you think that, why bother your head over me?”

“You ask questions, Nath the Gnat, more than is seemly.”

“I crave your pardon. But the landlord will throw these cramphs out and I can sleep.” I kept forgetting, the more he pestered me, to add the required
koter
into the conversation.

He saw I meant it when I again refused his invitation, so at last he left. I pondered. One more day, would that make so much difference? I could go up and see Natyzha Famphreon later, after sleep. Yes, that would be the answer. I somehow or other did not relish the thought of slipping out the window and finding Rafik Avandil smiling and waiting below for me.

Had I not sent my comrades away they would have created a diversion. Those Opaz-forsaken Fristles. But for them I’d have been halfway to Natyzha Famphreon’s villa by now. So, cussing away in my stupid fashion, I stripped off the gear and slept.

The sleep was needed and I awoke refreshed before dawn with that old sailor’s knack of setting alarm bells ringing in my skull, echoes of Beng Kishi’s Bells. I ordered up a huge breakfast which I demolished in short order.

The fate of empires hangs on tiny threads.

But for the Fristles I would have been long gone to the racters; but for the state of the haggard old crone who served the breakfast I would have left at once. Now there is disease on Kregen, as seems to be inseparable from man and his nature and the state of the universe in which we live. The ordinary ailments are treated matter-of-factly, and the needleman of Kregen are skilled at relieving pain, even during surgery, with their cunning twirling needles. I have not so far mentioned the disease which strikes horror into the heart of a Kregan. It is seldom mentioned in polite conversation, just as once on this Earth cancer was not a subject for decent conversation. Kregans can confidently look forward to two hundred years or so of life. Right up until their very last years they do not change much, do not appear to alter. This disease — I will tell you its name just the once — this chivrel prematurely ages its victims. Oh, the men and women stricken down live on. They tend to die around their two hundredth year or before, rather than living that extra golden autumn, but their appearance and their strengths are those of ancients of days. This, as you will readily perceive, explains the appearance of old crones and decrepit men in my narrative of life on Kregen.

The serving woman was old, suffering from that disgusting disease. How it was caught, how transmitted, no one knew. No cure was known. Whenever I think back to my days on Kregen as I fought for what I believed was worth fighting for and recall the conversations and the oaths spoken, always I change that particular curse into a different English equivalent — leprous is an example. People were not afraid to live with the sufferers. Body contact, breathing the same air, none of these things caused the disease.

So instead of flinging my cloak around me and rushing out, I stayed and helped her stack the tray and lifted it so that she might open the door. I was in the act of closing the door after her, ready to don my equipment, when the ghostly form of Khe-Hi-Bjanching materialized across the chamber. He stared at me, peering, as though his trance state of lupu was not perfect. Then his misty body solidified. It seemed the wizard stood in the chamber with me.

Never had I seen the lupal projection of Phu-si-Yantong spying on me as clearly as I saw Khe-Hi. He held out a paper. Like an onker I stretched out my hand to take it. My fingers passed through the yellow paper. I cursed. Khe-Hi pointed. So, a fambly to the end, I looked down and read what he had written.

Famphreon’s villa is under observation by the emperor’s spies.

As I finished reading, the lupal projection of my Wizard of Loh thinned and wisped and vanished. I stepped back. By Krun! Was I to be foiled by a pack of miserable imperial spies?

I debated.

A hot gratitude to my friends for their work made me realize that they, having discovered the information and sending it as fast as they could via wizardly sorcery, would feel poorly rewarded if I simply barged up there anyway. Mind you, they’d half expect that kind of oafish barbarian behavior from Dray Prescot. But intrigue breeds intrigue, plot conjures forth counterplot.

No, by the Black Chunkrah! I said to myself. I’d play this one very coolly indeed, like a warrior prince rather than a naked, hairy, howling barbarian.

And then the door opened and I swirled about ready to use whatever weapons might be necessary. Rafik Avandil started back.

“Nath! You look—”