The Mark of Ran (10 page)

Rol started. “Sometimes.”

“Have you always been able to see in the dark?”

“No. Listen, why do you make Rowen do these things—why do you torture her?”

“She is making payment.”

“For what?”

“Knowledge.”

“Where did you get all this knowledge that you withhold? What gives you the right to withhold it?”

Psellos waved a hand. “A man goes out into the fields, he harvests his crops, he takes them to market. Would you have him give them away for nothing? The laborer, we are told, is worthy of his hire.”

“Your prices destroy people’s lives.”

“I do not force people to bargain with me. I name a price. Either they pay it or they do not.”

Rol pushed the palm of one hand into his eye. It was the scarred palm, and it seemed to cool the hot tumult of his brain.

“What are we?” he whispered.

“Ah, the matter in hand again. I believe I told you.”

“No. I am just a man, like you. I don’t believe in—” Rol stopped, realizing that his words were absurd, after the things he had seen and done even in the short span of his life hitherto. He no longer felt sure even of the ground beneath his feet.

“The world is not what you think,” Psellos said, and there might even have been an edge of sympathy in his voice. Had he, too, once been a bewildered boy confronted by the strangeness of his own nature?

“What do you want with me?” Rol asked wearily.

“That is difficult to say,” Psellos said. “I tell you what, young Cortishane, as a gesture of goodwill, I will give you some of this precious knowledge of mine for free. It may help your aching head. Now, bear with me.

“Once, this world of ours was a different place. The gods walked openly upon it, and the Weren communed with them, learning from them wisdom that had been handed down by the Creator Himself. The Word of God, if you will. But it is in the nature of all sentient things that they must remain dissatisfied with their lot, and mighty and noble though the Elder Race might be, yet they hungered after more knowledge always, and felt constrained by the waking world that bound them. The gods withdrew their friendship, and thus the spinning of the world was hastened, and all things within it felt their mortality more keenly.”

Psellos paused. “What that must have been like, that Elder Time, when the stones still remembered the footfalls of the gods. It was so long ago that the ages since can barely be quantified in years. What a world to have lived in!” He smiled, eyes staring out into empty air. “But of course, it passed, as all things must.” His voice changed, grew harder.

“Man came upon the world in this waning era—the last gift of the Creator, some say. Others believe he is a curse, set here to complete the destruction of the Weren, and short-lived though he might be, he is fecund, and curious, and impatient. At first the Elder Race tutored the early men, but as time went on a rivalry grew between them. Man was envious of the Weren even as they envied the gods. That is the nature of things. But many of the Weren, as they declined, interbred with Man. The two races are very close, physically, save that the Weren are more robust, longer-lived of course, and not subject to disease. In every way superior to the lesser race that came after. In every way but one. They were few, and mankind had become a teeming multitude. So they thought that by merging the two races they might have the best of both. But there was a problem with this … interbreeding. While it boosted the dwindling numbers of the Elder Race, it had its dangers. Some of the first hybrids went awry. They issued from their mothers’ wombs as twisted monsters, sound in mind but warped in body. These Fallen ones were meant to have been destroyed at birth, but a parent’s love is a strange thing. Many of the Weren who had these maimed creatures as children fled the cities of their peers to keep the changelings from being killed. They took to the seas, to compassionate Ussa of the Swells, and she took pity on them, and brought them to a place far in the south of the world where they began life anew, where their poor offspring might be raised without prejudice or ridicule. These Weren had a leader, a gray sorcerer whose children were all of the Fallen kind, but who loved them nonetheless. His name was Cambrius Orr.”

Something in Rol stirred at the name. He looked up, frowning. Psellos nodded. “Always that name conjures up a shadow in the memories of men, even if they do not know why. He is a myth, a dark children’s tale. He is a story, nothing more. I have been seeking out references to him in half a hundred libraries and word-hoards up and down the known world for over forty years now, and I can tell you that he actually existed, as did the kingdom he founded, out there in the wastes of the limitless sea. The kingdom of Orr existed, and the gods know Cambrius’s great palaces and observatories and ballrooms may molder yet, stone upon stone in some lost jungle untrodden by man.”

Psellos poured himself more wine, and paced up and down before the windows without tasting it. There was a passion about him, an honest enthusiasm Rol had never seen before, like that of a man chancing across a stranger who shares the secret obsession of his life.

“The Orrians dropped out of recorded history over ten thousand years ago, and in the rest of Umer their kin the Weren dwindled further, and intermarried with the sons of men, and declined, and became not much more than legend themselves. One by one the great kingdoms of the Weren fell into obscurity, their lands ruled by princelings and chieftains of the race of men. New kingdoms arose, and the world we know now came slowly into being. We were left merely with the ruins of their great cities, now jumbled piles of marble and stone dismantled and quarried by those who came after. But that was not the end. The Mage-King arose, in the land of Kull, and around him the creatures men name Banemasters. Some say they are the last of the Weren, others that they are some awful Third Race visited upon the world of men by the jealousy of the gods.” Psellos paused again.

“They struggle among themselves, the Lesser Gods, now that the Maker has left them. They have their feuds, their cabals, their underlings flitting about the world and doing their business. But the Mage-King is not one of these. No mortal man has ever set foot on Kull, and the Banemasters go about their master’s business for the most part in anonymity. What are they? What hidden knowledge does the Mage-King hoard in his Halls of Bronze? I believe he is a Were, the last great scion of an ancient race whose blood flows in you and me. But he and his minions frown upon the use of sorcery by anyone or anything not of Kull. And they do not like those who ask questions, who seek out the truth behind the myths. Thus have I had to keep one step ahead of them all down these years. But my time is running short.”

Here Psellos paused in mid-stride, fixing Rol with a piercing eye. “The blood of the Elder Race still flows in the veins of a few who walk about our waking world. Stronger in some than in others. Our eyes give us away, it is said.” He smiled. “It was in the man who called himself your grandfather, in Emilia, his lovely wife. The Lesser Men will kill you for the ichor that beats within your heart, Rol.”

“Why?”

“It extends life.”

“Extends— How old are you?”

“I have seen out two centuries. I hope to see a third, if the gods are kind.”

Rol was dumbfounded. “Where are you from?”

Psellos’s face closed over. “No place of significance. I am not a prince in waiting or the heir to a lost throne. I am not of noble blood—not as it is deemed noble in this day and age. I began as you, a lost boy. I was lucky enough to find a pair of mentors who trained me as I will—as I am training you.”

“My grandparents.”

“Emilia and Ardisan. Yes. Emilia died at the hands of a mob in Perilar. They collected her blood in pots. Her body Ardisan recovered and buried on Dennifrey, where he made his last home. He was always something of a romantic. I mourn his passing, but I am not surprised by it.

“So you see, Rol, we are brothers beneath the skin, you and I.”

Rol was repulsed by the very thought. “You have taken my blood these last weeks, but not for some experiment or treatment—it is sold to the highest bidder.” He remembered the sight of Rowen tied to a bed down on the waterfront. “Do not try to tell me you took me in out of charity. You set a price upon everything—one I will no longer pay.”

Psellos halted, and in a heartbeat he had crossed the ten yards separating them and was leaning in close to Rol’s face. There was a feral sheen to his eyes, and his lips were drawn back from his teeth.

“You ungrateful little wretch. Who do you think you are? I make the rules here. Others abide by them. Including you. Especially you.”

Rol was not cowed. “What if I say you and your knowledge and your
training
can go bury yourselves?”

“You would be lying. And you are getting too old for such empty bravado. I see now that your education must be moved forward.”

Rol hesitated. “Don’t send Rowen back to those animals.”

“Why not? Are you smitten with her, Cortishane? Best stick to the serving-maids. She’s not good for you.”

“If you send her back, I’ll leave this Tower.”

Psellos snarled audibly. “You simpleminded—I see Ardisan’s absurd romanticism has rubbed off. Better for you to do as you’re told.” A black snake of a tongue snapped out from between his teeth and disappeared again. His eyes glowed.

“No. You want something more than my blood from me, else I would be dead already. Sticking my head in a jar will not get you it, I think. So that is
my
price. Leave her alone. Don’t send her out again.”

Psellos straightened. His face grew calm. “Very well—by all means. Have your absurd chivalry. A piece of advice, though. You cannot bargain effectively when you do not know the value of that which you are selling.”

He retreated, becoming a shadow limned by the light from the windows once more.

“I have told you a little of your history—”

“Who were my parents?”

“All in good time. We must save something for later.”

“Killing those men down at the waterfront—was I able to do that because of—of what I am?”

“Had you been any ordinary stripling they’d have had your throat out before you made one step toward them. But do not think yourself some kind of champion. There was luck involved also. You are fortunate to be alive. As it is, your debt to me is increased.”

“Why?” Rol asked angrily.

“Because, you young fool, I must find some other means of payment now that our dear Rowen is off the menu. And should they suspect that I had a connection with the killings—which they will in time—I will have to stump up weregilds to avoid having the King of Thieves at my door.”

“What did they have that was worth so much anyway?” Rol did not mention the scroll that had so delighted Psellos two nights before.

“That is not your business.” Psellos stared at Rol thoughtfully, sipping his wine. Finally he sighed, and said: “Rowen.”

She stepped noiselessly from a curtained alcove behind Rol. He twisted round to stare at her in astonishment and dismay. She was dressed in a close-fitting suit of sable leather, long knives strapped to her thighs, her hair tied up behind her head. Her face was still bruised, and there were smudges the color of plums under her eyes. She did not look at Rol.

“Your shining knight has seen fit to preserve the rags of your chastity from the minions of the Thief-King. He is your responsibility now. Teach him well.”

“What shall I teach him?” Her voice was as low as the beat of a swan’s wing in flight.

“Everything, Rowen. Teach him everything.”

Seven

SCIMITARS AND
SEAMSTRESSES

SWEATING, THEIR BODIES SLAPPED TOGETHER BRUISINGLY
. His bare toes dug for purchase in the earth floor, gouging furrows. They strained breast to breast, each trying to overthrow the other by sheer force for half a second; realizing it would not work, they immediately began writhing for advantage, arms locked together, hot breath mingled, trying to hook their feet around the other’s ankles.

She slipped fractionally, her grip slithering on his sweat-slick bicep. At once he shifted, committed his weight. She gave way smoothly, deliberately, and his balance tilted out of kilter. Somehow she spun in his grasp. Her thigh pushed between his legs, knocking one foot clear of the ground for a moment. Her tensed arm came round and the tricep impacted against the side of his neck. He went down face-first in the dirt and felt the weight of her foot set on his nape.

He slumped in defeat, and felt the pressure of her sole ease. As it did, he flipped onto his back, knocking her leg aside with his left elbow. His right fist came up in one smooth blur with all his remaining strength behind it. It connected with her abdomen in a sickening slap of meat, and the breath was concussed out of her lungs as her diaphragm buckled into her rib cage. She staggered backwards, and he rose unhurriedly. Her eyes remained fixed on his as she fought for breath, color rising red from her collarbones up. She fell to her knees, whooping, and he watched her dispassionately.

“Yield,” he said.

She shook her head and began to rise to her feet, still struggling for air.