The Warrior Returns - Anteros 04 (41 page)

away from Pip's steady glare. He didn't let up and the silence grew uncomfortable.

Finally Queenie cleared her throat. "What'd we do, Pip," she asked, "to make ya think we don't believe ya? She's whatever ya say she is, Pip. Rali Antero, if ya like. Lookin' not a day older'n thirty-six, thirty-seven. Even though she's been gone more'n fifty years. And was that age then, accordin' to all the tales we've heard since we were just wee dabs."

"Aha!" Pip roared. "So yers don't believe me!"

Queenie raised a meaty hand in protest "I didn't say that, Pip."

"Might as well've," Pip growled. "Now, lissen to me. All a yers. Spit it out. Whatcha believe and whatcha don't. Old Pip'11 set yer square."

More silence. The group obviously was too frightened of Pip to say what they plainly thought, which was that he was crazier than a chimney bird.

I came forward, raising my golden hand, making it glow like a beacon—emanating power enough to make their hackles rise. I smiled to lessen their fear.

"Forgive me for what I am about to do, my friends," I said. "But I don't have time for doubts, tricks, or quarrels. You must be with me to the end, no matter where that end lies."

I chanted:

"Draw the veil,

Part the curtain,

See what's lying tale,

And what is certain."

I sliced the air with my etherhand, and it was like a great window swept open. A frigid wind blasted through and the knaves all jumped and cried out in alarm.

Spread out before them was a wasteland of ice and swirling snow. Perched on the black rocky coast and washed by frozen seas was my citadel of ice, a hunched half globe so white it burnt the eye.

"My home," I said.

The rogues shifted and muttered.

I gestured again and the view changed. We were looking inside the citadel now. There were weapons racks set in the great hall. There was the empty wooden cradle where my silver ship once perched.

And set in a wide alcove was the tomb with the lid of ice as clear as glass.

Inside was the sleeping auburn-haired Salimar. My heart wrenched when I saw her, and I felt ashamed for bringing these strangers into our bower. She stirred, and I thought I heard her whisper my name. I wanted to answer but it was too far. And only a vision.

I gestured at Salimar. "My queen," I said. "And the woman I love above all others."

I heard the knaves murmur in wonder and sympathy.

Then Salimar stirred in her tomb. Her lips moved and she called out, quite faint, "Rali, dear. Please. I'm cold. So cold."

And she stretched out her arms.

I could bear it no longer. I pawed at the air and the vision collapsed.

Queenie, leader of th
e Thugs' Guild, sn
iffled and wiped her eyes. The others seemed equally affected.

Only Garla, Master of the Beggars' Guild, seemed unmoved. He had a knowing smirk on his handsome lips.

Pip must have noticed it, too. "Whatcher problem, Garla?" he snarled. "Yer think what yer saw was just caused by gas from bad eats?"

Garla shook his head. "Not at all, Pip," he said in surprisingly cultured tones. "I was only admiring the display. I consider myself a master at tugging heartstrings. But that"—he looked at me, sardonic grin growing wider—"was truly the work of genius. I wept a tear myself and I don't mind saying so, Lady Antero."

"She don't like bein' called 'Lady,'" Pip snapped. "It's Cap'n Antero."

Garla dipped his head in a slight bow to me. "Captain, is it?" he said. "How
...
equal
of you."

Pip started to get angry but I waved him down. "Speak your mind," I said. "No one will harm you."

Garla shrugged. "Oh, I believe you, Captain Rali Antero. Who could deny what they just saw? Coupled, most importantly, with Pip's claim. Which I never doubted from the beginning. No, I'm a strong supporter of the King of Thieves. Who, after all, has seen enough and done enough for a dozen lifetimes, and is definitely no one's fool. You're Captain Antero, all right. Miracle though it may seem."

"Then why the sneer, my friend?" I asked. "Why the hostility toward me?"

"Not to you in particular, Captain Antero," he said. "But what you represent" He made an elegant gesture of disdain. "All the lords and ladies who were so quick to desert their fellow Orissans to keep their comforts and win a greater share besides."

He indicated the rest of the group. "We're all thieves here. We make no pretense we're anything else. But how is it that it's Orissan castoffs who stand for her now, when all else have bowed down or fled?"

"I can't answer that" I said. "And I must admit it amazed me."

"What will happen, Captain Antero," Garla continued, "if we win this fight? Who will rule when this lot is gone? The noble families again? A different group, perhaps, but of similar breeding, mind you."

"What do you want to happen?" I asked.

Garla raised an eyebrow, surprised. Then he nodded and said, "Why, if I were given the choice, the new leaders would be common folk with uncommon experience and strength." He gestured at Pip. "The King of Thieves would be one such man."

"If that's what you want" I said, "work to accomplish it when this fight is done. I have no future in Orissa after this.

Make your own. Just make it fair for all, and you'll have no quarrel from me."

"That was honestly spoken, Captain Antero," Garla said. "And I'm your man. On
your
say so now. Not just Pip's."

He looked around at the others. "Do we all agree?" he asked.

The ragged chorus of agreement was quite loud.

in the days
that followed, Orissa was struck by the greatest wave of knavery in its history. No lord, lady, or merchant baron could walk a public street with purse or person intact. These were the true knaves, as Garla pointed out. And we punished them severely.

We pilfered their carriages, looted their shops, and when they retreated into their homes, Pip sent his ratboys through the privy entrances and held them hostage while we stole all their worldly goods, carrying the loot away in their own carriages.

The assault was so furious and unprecedented that the nobles and merchants descended on Kato, gnashing their teeth. They demanded that soldiers be deployed, according to our spies. And Director Kato was hard-pressed to explain why he didn't have those soldiers to spare. This was a particularly sore point with the rich families who'd betrayed Orissa's citizens. The expense for keeping the populace down and maintaining the siege at Galana was entirely theirs. They chafed first at the high cost, and second that even with that too dear a cost, they weren't getting their money's worth if they weren't safe in their own homes. Kato promised to do something, but was so vague, our spies said, that the nobles went away grumbling and dissatisfied.

But harassing those rich traitors, satisfying though it might have been, was not my sole purpose. Not by half it wasn't.

What Kato lacked in troops, Novari made up for with an elaborate web of spies. They noted every suspicious act or word, endangering every plan Pip had worked out I had to tangle that spy network into knots if any plan was to succeed.

The series of raids on the rich was a good start on the job. The peeries were pulled from their normal spidery tasks and hurled into the breach to stem the criminal assault.

At the same time, we created our own network of spies. The beggars and barrow boys and purse cutters were our key to the streets. The jewel thieves and ratboys were our snoops in the enemy's homes. And as the tension among the rich mounted, it spewed out in their vices. The harlots and gamesmen kept us busy listening to their reports from the dark side.

Those initial gains came as much from the new breed of sorcery as from the fervor of Pip's rogues.

I created spells for the pickpockets to make their game easier. Usually they worked in teams: a woman such as Palmer, who looked like a great-eyed innocent waif, and a man such as Lammer, who was fleet of foot. I gave the women charms that would make them seem even more appealing, innocently alluring. And I gave the men amulets that would cloud their victim's mind with greater confusion.

"All I do is gives 'em a bump," Palmer said to me, giggling. "I falls to the street wi' me best maidenly shriek. But makin' sure, yer knows, that I flashes more'n a maiden oughter. An' when they help me up, I makes sure they gets a good grab of me tit."

She winked at me. "It's a fact," she said, "that men got less brains'n women. Let 'em get a holt of a tit and they lose half of that."

Lammer groaned in mock protest. He'd heard this before.

"If I didn't get his purse when I bumped him," Palmer went on, ignoring him, "I gets it fer sure then. What with that spell you give us, they melts in their toes, they do. Dust me off. Feel me up. Try to buy me a little grog to make up fer the accident."

"Whilst she's plyin' her womanly wiles," Lammer broke in, "I rubs the amulet you give us. Say the verse, which I don't understand, but it works so good, who cares? 'N' they go goggle-glirnmed 'n' almost ferget their names. Palmer hikes me the purse 'n' I'm off lickety-split wi' no one the wiser."

Palmer slipped a small hand inside her bcdice, which was cut just low enough to weaken her prey but high enough to retain her waif-maiden pose. She drew out two sheets of folded paper.

"Someone'll be missin' these real bad about now," she said as she handed them over. "Got 'em off a squint not two hours ago. Bumped into him wi'out really lookin' at his face first. Careless of me, but tha' spell you give me's made things so easy, I'm formin' bad habits." She snorted in disgust with herself. She had a reputation to maintain.

"Anywise, I got his purse like I always do, and the squint's got his glims down me dress an' his hands are comin' up the other way, dustin' me off. Soon as I saw who he was, I got away 'mos' as quick as Lammer."

"It was Calin, it was," Lammer broke in. "Chief peery of the Central Market. Makes him the biggest peery in Orissa. Had those inky bits in his purse."

I hastened to open the papers. These were the documents of the Central Market's master spy.

The first was a list of names in a small cribbed hand. There were numbers beside the names: money amounts.

'That's a list of all a the peeries in Central Market," Palmer said, teeth glittering. " 'N' their pay. That's what old Calin was doin'. Handing out their money and collectin' the news."

"From the fat purse we took off a him," Lammer said, "he didn't get too far today."

I opened the next. It was in an official hand and bore the seal of the Lyre Bird. The document swore that the holder was in the employ of the Goddess Novari and was not to be detained from her business in any way.

"Tha's a pass for the peeries," Palmer said. "Show it to a soldier 'n' they let 'em go."

"Now
that
was a good day's work," I said. "And you can be sure just the right person will get each one."

I gave the list of names to Queenie. And within two days all the spies in the Central Market were gone. Her thugs did such a clean job of it, there wasn't a speck of blood or blurted cry to alarm anyone. Vanishing without a trace.

The second item I used in a duplication spell, creating scores of documents for Pip to hand out to
^v
his men and women. And by and by our own peeries were passing through the enemy's defenses like whey through cheesecloth.

I also made potions for the harlots, which they used to spice the wine they gave their marks to put them at ease. The potion made them randy as goats and babbling fools glad to burble secrets into the harlot's perfumed ears. It almost made them permanent customers: They became impotent except in the arms of their favorite whore.

"We've got every whore's rocker in Cheapside bouncin' on its springs all night long," the beauteous Pearl said one day as she poured a sack of jewels and coins into an already overflowing oak chest.

She shook the pouch to loosen a few small stubborn gems. Her lush body jiggled under the sheer wrap, a sensuous reminder of why she was Mistress of her guild.

"Got all this from jus' one panter," she said. "Las' one of the night, thank the gods." She groaned and rubbed her back. "Bumped me till near dawn 'n' was beggin' for more when I threw him outter the carriage.

"The panter said he loves on'y me and give me this." She indicated the pouch, then laughed. "Threw it back in his face and cursed him for bein' so tight-fisted wi' the woman he loves. But with that potion in him, he was whoreified through and through. Begged me to take it back and said he'd bring twice that tonight to make up for it."

Then she sat, crossing her fine, long legs. "But I got more'n that panter's balls in my fist wi' that potion," she said. "He's one a Director Kato's diplomats. Likes to brag on how important he is whilst he's bumpin' my poor arse into the carriage seat. He told me a lot last night about the latest doin's wi' King Solaris."

I jolted in my seat 'The King of Tyrenia?"

"That's what the panter said," Pearl replied. "Seems old