Snare (56 page)

‘And now we may have another source of information. This is called a recept-screen, Captain.’ Soutan laid one hand on the slate. ‘I’m trying to figure out how to use it properly. I can get it to show a series of views, but I can’t make it identify what they are.’

‘Views?’ Warkannan said.

‘Pictures of different locations, all indoors – somewhere. Some of the rooms look very much like the written descriptions we have of the inside of the ships, but I don’t know if these are merely stored images from eight hundred years ago, or if they show me the interiors as they are at the present moment.’

‘Why would they?’

‘This thing might be a security monitor, that’s why. One guard could keep track of a lot of different places if he could see them on one of these.’

‘I suppose. But if the slate won’t tell you where the rooms are, it won’t do you much good.’

‘No.’ Soutan looked sublimely sour. ‘It won’t. Still, I persevere. Success may just be a matter of finding the right command words.’

‘The slate might give us faster results than I can, putting clues
together.’ Jezro waved a hand at the heaps of rushi spread across the table. ‘You practically need to have everything memorized before you can see the correspondences.’

‘I can see why you were hoping that Benumar would come with me,’ Warkannan said.

‘That memory of his – yes, I need it, all right.’ Jezro turned to Soutan. ‘Speaking of which, is there any sign of him?’

‘Not in the crystals.’ Soutan slid off the stool, set the slate down carefully on the table, and began to pace back and forth. ‘I’ve been looking everywhere, every direction – nothing. I can’t find the spirit rider. I can’t find Zayn. They could be up on the hill and ready to pounce for all I know.’

‘Calmly, Yarl, calmly,’ Jezro said. ‘We still have actual eyes, you know. I asked Robear to send a couple of men down to Kors to warn people to watch for him. We’ve stationed other men up on top of the hills.’

‘Of course.’ Soutan gave him a sheepish smile. ‘I forgot about that. Stupid of me!’

‘Not at all,’ Jezro went on. ‘It would be better if we could track him, but if we can’t, well, there are old-fashioned ways of dealing with assassins.’

Soutan winced and shuddered.

‘I’m not dead yet, Yarl.’ Jezro grinned at him. ‘I’ll tell Robear to order his men to leave Benumar strictly alone. They’d better be safe inside once he actually gets here.’

‘Safe inside?’ Soutan sneered. ‘One man against ten?’

‘You don’t understand the Chosen.’ Jezro paused for one of his twisted smiles. ‘I don’t want my crazy idea to cause someone’s death. Huh, I’d better have Robear lock up the shens, too, come to think of it.’

‘Jezro, please, don’t do this!’ Soutan stretched out both hands, imploring. ‘It’s too risky.’

‘I’m sorry.’ Jezro looked away. ‘I’ve got to. It’s for me as much as for Benumar, you see. I had my moment of cowardice. Before I decide what I’m going to do about the khanate, I’d better find out if I’m still a coward.’ He turned to Warkannan and raised an eyebrow.

‘Oh, I understand perfectly,’ Warkannan said. ‘But I intend to stick close to you, anyway.’

‘That’s some comfort, I suppose,’ Soutan said.

‘Something just occurred to me,’ Warkannan continued. ‘Suppose Zahir never returns to the khanate, for whatever reason. The Chosen will send someone else, and then someone else if that man doesn’t return, and so on. Sooner or later, word is going to get back that you’re alive. Even if Gemet heard you say you don’t want the throne with his own ears, do you think he’d believe you? The only way you’re ever going to be really safe again is to win this rebellion.’

Jezro scowled at him. ‘Get out and let us get back to work, will you? I want to finish piecing together this passage.’ He picked up a sheet of rushi. ‘I think it must refer to the first history book about the age of kings.’

‘Kings,’ Warkannan said. ‘Ah yes, kings.’

‘Get out, you bastard!’ Jezro shook a fist in mock rage.

‘I’m going.’ Warkannan grinned at him. ‘But think about it.’

With Soutan safely occupied, Warkannan decided that the time had come for a talk with Arkazo. He found him in his guest room, a small but pleasant space with windows on one wall, a bed on the other, and an armchair and table in the middle. A scatter of shiny black tubes and wires lay on the table – some device of Yarl’s, Warkannan assumed. Arkazo was sitting in the chair and reading.

‘What’s that?’ Warkannan said. ‘It must be pretty interesting stuff.’

‘It is, yes.’ Arkazo looked up with a grin. ‘You never caught me studying like this when I was at university.’

‘You took the words right out of my mouth.’

‘It’s a kind of maths called al zhebrah.’ Arkazo held up the open book to show him pages of numbers and little symbols, interspersed with the occasional line of writing. ‘Our people invented it, way back in the old days in the Homelands, but they don’t teach it any more in our schools. I don’t understand why.’

‘I don’t, either, if it’s just numbers.’

‘Yarl gave me this.’ Arkazo shut the book and laid his hand upon it. ‘It’s really something, Uncle, all the things he knows.’

‘That’s true, yes, but what about Soutan himself?’

‘What about him?’ Arkazo’s voice turned sharp.

Warkannan hesitated, considering words.

‘I know you don’t like him,’ Arkazo said. ‘I didn’t myself at first, but we didn’t know him then, really know him, I mean.’

‘Well, you should never judge a man by your first impression, no, but sometimes Soutan worries me. This talk about the lost ships, going home, that sort of thing.’

‘Oh, that! It’s kind of demented, isn’t it?’

‘I thought so, yes. So does Jezro.’

‘It’s the other stuff I like, the things he knows, the books he has. When you live for knowledge like he does, I can see how your mind would slip over the edge now and then.’

‘He lives for knowledge? What about that girl?’

‘Well, he’s only human.’ Arkazo waved a hand in dismissal. ‘And she was lying.’

‘So
he
says.’

Arkazo sat up straight and glared at him. Warkannan decided to let the subject drop – for the moment. ‘Well, enjoy your book. I’m going to go for a stroll around the estate.’

That same afternoon, while Jezro and Warkannan talked of prophets, Zayn was camping some ten miles from the estate. At sunset he took his horses and left them in a convenient farmer’s field. His gear he hid in the tall weeds and grasses nearby, then started off on foot for the manor house. By twilight he reached the first hill, covered in high grass, and a perfect spot for a lookout. Zayn crouched down among a tangle of pink and orange shrubs at the bottom and waited, watching, until he could be sure that no one was walking or sitting up on the hill crest.

He walked part-way up, then crawled the rest of the way to avoid standing out against the dark sky and the rising silver light of the Herd. Indignant midges flew from the grass and whined around his ears. He stopped, waiting, but he heard no one moving on the crest, and when he reached the top, he found areas of flattened grass where guards had kept watch, but no guards. Why had they withdrawn? Surely Warkannan would know that the Chosen generally came by night. Maybe they’d had no reason to stay. Maybe Jezro and Warkannan were already on their way back to Andjaro Province. Zayn crawled to the edge of the slope and looked down over the long green lawn and the sprawling manor house, golden with light from open windows. To one side stood a long, shrubby line of pale yellow trees with dangling branches, thick with long reddish leaves – possible shelter when the time came. All round the edge of the lawn ran a ten-foot-high wire fence.

Someone came striding across the lawn, someone with the sort of straight back that the cavalry gave a man, but at his distance Zayn could pick out no details. The fellow stopped walking, raised his hands to his mouth, and began to shout. At first Zayn could distinguish nothing but his summoning tone of voice, but he started walking again, heading closer to the hill where Zayn lay hidden. The night breeze brought him a drift of words.

‘Kaz, where are you? Kaz! Dinner!’

Idres’ voice. Shit! Zayn thought. They’re still here. A slender man came running from an outbuilding and called back – the nephew. Together they jogged across the lawn and hurried into the house, which, he now knew, hid in a maze of rooms Jezro Khan, Soutan, and a pack of armed guards. He was looking at the hardest job he’d ever undertaken for the Chosen.

Zayn had reached the point where magic imps meant nothing, since ordinary human eyes could see him well enough. He crawled backwards over the crest into the shelter of the hillside, made his way down, then jogged back to the farm. He thought of Ammadin, heaping scorn on his ideas about damnation and demons. Did she realize, he wondered, just how thoroughly she’d destroyed all his old excuses, his old justifications? Probably she did, but he doubted if she realized just how badly he needed them. Easy for her to say he should live without them! Her inborn talents had brought her rank, wealth, and respect, while he’d had nothing – nothing, that is, until Idres and Jezro had given him respect and rank both.

‘But I never earned that, it was all lies, they never knew what I really am.’

He was shocked that he’d spoken aloud, but the words were nothing new; he’d thought them thousands of times. He wondered if he’d have joined the Chosen if he hadn’t believed that the khan was dead, and if he hadn’t been transferred away from Idres’ regiment to the Second Bariza. What would he have done when the first hints were dropped in his hearing, when the first intimations came that he might be worthy of some special place in the Great Khan’s service? He doubted if he would have listened if he’d been facing Idres every night in the officers’ mess. He knew he never would have listened had Jezro Khan been alive to be disappointed in him.

‘So what the hell are you doing here?’ Zayn said aloud. ‘He is alive.’

With that he realized that he had to act quickly or he never would. For a moment he considered taking his comnee bow, but he was too poor an archer to strike from a distance. From his saddlebags he took out a set of lock picks and a wire garotte and secreted them in his clothing. The Chosen! he thought. We’re nothing but thieves. For a moment he stood hesitating, then hurried off, running on level ground, jogging on rough.

Zayn circled around the boundary of the estate to climb a different hill, the one directly behind the stand of golden trees. For some hours he lay hidden on the crest, watching the lights go out, one at time, in the various windows, waiting for the Herd to set and give him darkness. Early on he heard shens barking, but a man came out of the stables and whistled them inside. At last, under the arch of black sky, the house slept.

While Zayn couldn’t see in the dark, he could remember precisely how the grounds looked and navigate by the images in his mind. He moved down the hillside slowly, crouching often, listening, waiting in utter silence. He reached the gate in the fence at last. He brought out the lock picks, but the gate swung open at his touch. He could only assume that he was walking into an ambush. He hesitated, then decided that if they killed him before he could reach Jezro, so much the better. Still, he had reflexes, he had training. He ran through the gate, dropped and rolled, used the momentum of the roll to leap to his feet, and darted into the yellow trees. He stood among the wind-driven leaves and caught his breath.

Ahead he could see the dark rise of the house, about a hundred yards away. In a lower window at the right-hand side, a light went on; on the far left, one set of curtains glowed. The rest of the windows stayed dark. Were they expecting him to come to the lighted room? Or did they think he’d see the light as a trap and thus come round the other side, where they were waiting for him? Moving carefully, one step at a time, he sidled through the long stand of trees till he reached its right-hand limit. From there he could see around to the side of the house and a little garden, set off by a low wall – too low. The outbuildings beyond the walled garden provided the only shelter between him and the house.

Zayn dropped full length into the high grass and began to crawl. Midges flew, biting, but he ignored them. A few feet, and he’d pause, wait, listen, then crawl a few feet more, then do the same
again, moving in an arc that brought him at last to level ground behind the cluster of outbuildings. The longest of them had to be the stables from the smell. The shens inside would make a racket if he got too close. He set off crawling again and ended up directly behind a shed. He risked standing and sidled along the back wall until he could peer around it.

The house stood only some twenty feet away. In the glow from the window he could see the garden and the low wall. As he stood considering his next move, he heard a door open, the scrape of metal on stone, and footsteps. He drew his long knife and waited. The fellow coughed – a deep sound, probably a man’s voice – and struck a match. Light bloomed behind the wall, an oil lamp from its soft gold colour.

‘Hey, Benumar?’ The voice sounded familiar, especially in the way it hovered on the edge of a laugh. ‘Is tonight the night? Are you here? Hurry up, will you? I’m sick and tired of all these damned bugs.’

The voice – Jezro Khan, waiting for him – the best bait any ambush could have. Zayn looked around him, but he saw no one moving on the lawn, no one rising from cover off to the side, no one at all. He damned caution and stepped out of cover. Still no guards – he strode across the lawn to the garden wall.

Dressed only in a pair of loose trousers and a plain white shirt, Jezro was standing by a chair. Wingbuhs swarmed around the oil lamp burning on a nearby table. By its light Zayn could see the double welt of scars running across his face – a little gift from the Chosen. The wall stood just low enough for Zayn to swing one leg over, then the other, without having to sheathe his knife. He took a few steps, then stopped. Jezro was standing his ground. When he smiled, the scar twisted around the side of his mouth.

‘You can see I’m not armed,’ Jezro said. ‘Are you really going to kill me, Benumar? When I can’t even put up a fight?’