Kadakithis flicked his purple mantle over his shoulder. He squinted past Tempus, into the waning day. "What kind of cloud is that?"
Tempus swung around in his saddle, then back. "That should be our friend from Ranke."
The prince nodded. "Before he arrives, then, let us discuss the matter of the female prisoner Cime."
Tempus"s horse snorted and threw its head, dancing in place. "There is nothing to discuss."
"But... ? Why did you not come to me about it? I could have done something, previously. Now, I cannot..."
"I did not ask you. I am not asking you." His voice was a blade on whetstone, so that Kadakithis pulled himself up straight. "It is not for me to take a hand."
"Your own sister? You will not intervene?"
"Believe what you will, prince. I will not sift through gossip with any man, be he prince or king."
The prince lost hold, then, having been "princed" too often back in Ranke, and berated the h.e.l.l Hound.
The man sat quite still upon the horse the prince had given him, garbed only in his loinguard though the day was fading, letting his gaze full of festering shadows rest in the prince"s until Kadakithis trailed off, saying, "... the trouble with you is that anything they say about you could be true, so a man knows not what to believe."
"Believe in accordance with your heart," the voice like grinding Stone suggested, while the dark cloud came to hover over the beach.
It settled, seemingly, into the sand, and the horses shied back, necks outstretched, nostrils huge. Tempus had his sorrel up alongside the chariot team and was leaning down to take the lead-horse"s bridle when an earsplitting clarion came from the cloud"s translucent centre.
The h.e.l.l Hound raised his head then, and Kadakithis saw him shiver, saw his brow arch, saw a flicker of deepset eyes within their caves of bone and lid. Then again Tempus spoke to the chariot horses, who swivelled their ears towards him and took his counsel, and he let loose the lead-horse"s bridle and spurred his own between Kadakithis"s chariot and what came out of the cinereous cloud which had been so long descending upon them in opposition to the prevailing wind.
The man on the horse who could be seen within the cloud waved: a flash of scarlet glove, a swirl of burgundy cloak. Behind his ta.s.selled steed he led another, and it was this second grey horse who again challenged the other stallions on the beach, its eyes full of fire. Farther back within the cloud, stonework could be seen, masonry like none in Sanctuary, a sky more blue and hills more virile than any Kadakithis knew.
The first horse, reins flapping, was emerging, nose and neck casting shadows upon solid Sanctuary sand; then its hooves scattered grains, and the whole of the beast, and its rider, and the second horse he led on a long tether, stood corporeal and motionless before the h.e.l.l Hound, while behind, the cloud whirled in upon itself and was gone with an audible "pop".
"Greetings, Riddler," said the rider in burgundy and scarlet, as he doffed his helmet with its blood-dark crest to Tempus. "I did not expect you, Abarsis. What could be so urgent?"
"I heard about the Tros horse"s death, so I thought to bring you another, better auspiced, I hope. Since I was coming anyway, our friends suggested I bring what you require. I have long wanted to meet you."
Spurring his mount forward, he held out his hand. Red stallion and iron grey snaked arched necks, thrusting forth clacking teeth, wide-gaped jaws emitting squeals to go with flattened ears and rolling eyes. Above horse hostilities could be heard s.n.a.t.c.hes of low wordplay, parry and riposte: "... disappointed that you could not build the temple"."... welcome to take my place here and try. The foundations of the temple grounds are defiled, the priest in charge more corrupt than even politics warrants. I wash my hands ...""... with the warring imminent, how can you ... ?"
"Theomachy is no longer my burden."
"That cannot be so."
"... hear about the insurrection, or take my leave!"
"... His name is unp.r.o.nounceable, and that of his empire, but I think we all shall learn it so well we will mumble it in our sleep ..."
"I don"t sleep. It is a matter of the right field officers, and men young enough not to have fought upcountry the last time."
"I am meeting some Sacred Band members here, my old team. Can you provision us?"
"Here? Well enough to get to thecapital and do it better. Let me be the first to ..."
Kadakithis, forgotten, cleared his throat.
Both men stared at the prince severely, as if a child had interrupted adults.
Tempus bowed low in his saddle, arm out-swept. The rider in reds with the burnished cuira.s.s tucked his helmet under his arm and approached the chariot, handing the second horse"s tether to Tempus as he pa.s.sed by.
"Abarsis, presently of Ranke," said the dark, cultured voice of the armoured man, whose hair swung black and glossy on a young bull"s neck. His line was old, one of court graces and bas-relief faces and upswept, regal eyes that were disconcertingly wise and as grey-blue as the huge horse Tempus held with some difficulty. Ignoring the squeals of just-met stallions, the man continued: "Lord Prince, may all be well with you, with your endeavours and your holdings, eternally. I bear reaffirmation of our bond to you." He held out a purse, fat with coin.
Tempus winced, imperceptibly, and took wraps of the grey horse"s tether, drawing its head close with great care, until he could bring his fist down hard between its ears to quiet it.
"What is this? There is enough money here to raise an army!" Scowled Kadakithis, tossing the pouch lightly in his palm.
A polite and perfect smile lit the northern face, so warmly handsome, of the Rankan emissary. "Have you not told him, then, 0 Riddler?"
"No, I thought to, but got no opportunity. Also, I am not sure whether we will raise it, or whether that is my severance pay." He threw a leg over the sorrel"s neck and slid down it, b.u.t.t to horse, dropped its reins and walked away down the beach with his new Tros horse in hand. The Rankan hooked his helmet carefully on one of the saddle"s silver rosettes. "You two are not getting on, I take it. Prince Kadakithis, you must be easy with him. Treat him as he does his horses; he needs a gentle hand."
"He needs his comeuppance. He has become insufferable! What is this money? Has he told you I am for sale? I am not!"
"He has turned his back on his G.o.d and the G.o.d is letting him run. When he is exhausted, the G.o.d will take him back. You found him pleasant enough, previously, I would wager. He has been set upon by your own staff, men to whom he was sworn and who gave oaths to him. What do you expect? He will not rest easy until he has made that matter right."
"What is this? My men? You mean that long unexplained absence of his? I admit he is changed. But how do you know what he would not tell me?"
A smile like sunrise lit the elegant face of the armoured man.
"The G.o.d tells me what I need to know. How would it be, for him to come running to you with tales of feuding among your ranks like a child to his father? His honour precludes it. As for the ... funds ... you hold, when we Sent him here, it was with the understanding that should he feel you would make a king, he would so inform us. This, I was told you knew."
"In principle. But I cannot take a gift so large."
"Take a loan, as others before you have had to do. There is no time now for courtship. To be capable of becoming a king ensures no seat of kingship, these days. A king must be more than a man, he must be a hero. It takes many men to make a hero, and special times. Opportunities approach, with the up-country insurrection and a new empire rising beyond the northern range. Were you to distinguish yourself in combat, or field an army that did, we who seek a change could rally around you publicly. You cannot do it with what you have, the Emperor has seen to that."
"At what rate am I expected to pay back this loan?"
"Equal value, nothing more. If the prince, my lord, will have patience, I will explain all to Your Majesty"s satisfaction. That, truly, is why I am come."
"Explain away, then."
"First, one small digression, which touches a deeper truth. You must have some idea who and what the man you call Tempus is. I am sure you have heard it from your wizards and from his enemies among the officials of the Mageguild. Let me add to that this: Where he goes, the G.o.d scatters His blessings. By the cosmological rules of state cult and kingship. He has invested this endeavour with divine sanction by his presence. Though he and the G.o.d have their differences, without him no chance remains that you might triumph. My father found that out. Even sick with his curse, he is too valuable to waste, unappreciated. If you would rather remain a princeling forever, and let the empire slide into ruin apace, just tell me and I will take word home. We will forget this matter of the kingship and this corollary matter of a small standing army, and I will release Tempus. He would as soon it, I a.s.sure you."
"Your father? Who in the G.o.d"s Eye are you?"
"Ah, my arrogance is unforgivable; I thought you would know me. We are all so full of ourselves these days, it is no wonder events have come to such a pa.s.s. 1 am Man of the G.o.d in Upper Ranke, Sole Friend to the Mercenaries, the Hero, Son of the Defender, and so forth."
"High Priest of Vashanka."
"In the Upper Land."
"My family and yours thinned each other"s line," stated Kadakithis baldly, no apology, no regret in his words. Yet he looked differently upon the other, thinking they were of an age, both wielding wooden swords in shady courts while the slaughter raged, far off at the fronts.
"Unto eradication," remarked the dark young man. "But we did not contest, and now there is a different enemy, a common threat. It is enough."
"And you and Tempus have never met?"
"He knew my father. And when I was ten, and my father died and our armies were disbanded, he found a home for me. Later, when I came to the G.o.d and the mercenaries" guild, I tried to see him. He would not meet with me." He shrugged, looking over his shoulder at the man walking the blue-grey horse into blue-grey shadows falling over the blue-black sea. "Everyone has his hero, you know. A G.o.d is not enough for a whole man; he craves a fleshly model. When he sent to me for a horse, and the G.o.d approved it, I was elated.
Now, perhaps, I can do more. The horse may not have died in vain, after all."
"I do not understand you. Priest."
"My Lord, do not make me too holy. I am Vashanka"s priest: I know many requiems and oaths, and thirty-three ways to fire a warrior"s bier. They call me Stepson, in the mercenaries" guild. I would be pleased if you would call me that, and let me talk to you at greater length about a future in which your destiny and the wishes of the Storm G.o.d, our Lord, could come to be the same."
"I am not sure I can find room in my heart for such a G.o.d; it is difficult enough to pretend to piety," grated Kadakithis, squinting after Tempus in the dusk.
"You will, you will," promised the priest, and dismounted from his horse to approach Tempus"s ground-tied sorrel. Abarsis reached down, running his hand along the beast"s white-stocking"d leg. "Look, Prince," he said, craning his neck up to see Kadakithis"s face as his fingers tugged at the gold chain wedged in the weight-cleat on the horse"s shoe. At the end of the chain, sandy but shining gold, was an amulet. "The G.o.d wants him back."
3.
The mercenaries drifted into Sanctuary dusty from their westward trek or blue lipped from their rough sea pa.s.sage and wherever they went they made h.e.l.lish what before had been merely dissolute. The Maze was no longer safe for pickpocket or pander; usurer and sorcerer scuttled in haste from street to doorway, where before they had swaggered virtually unchallenged, crime lords in fear of nothing.
Now the wh.o.r.es walked bowlegged, dreamy-eyed, parading their new finery in the early hours of the morning while most mercenaries slept; the taverns changed shifts but feared to close their doors, lest a mercenary find that an excuse to take offence. Even so early in the day, the inns were full of brawls and the gutters full of casualties. The garrison soldiers and the h.e.l.l Hounds could not be omnipresent: wherever they were not, mercenaries took sport, and they were not in the Maze this morning.
Though Sanctuary had never been so prosperous, every guild and union and citizens" group had sent representatives to the palace at sunrise to complain.
Lastel, a.k.a. One-Thumb, could not understand why the Sanctuarites were so unhappy. Lastel was very happy: he was alive and back at the Vulgar Unicorn tending bar, and the Unicorn was making money, and money made Lastel happy, always. Being alive was something Lastel had not fully appreciated until recently, when he had spent aeons dying a subjective death in thrall to a spell he had paid to have laid upon his own person, a spell turned against him by the sons of its deceased creator, Mizraith of the Hazard cla.s.s, and dispelled by he knew not whom. Though every night he expected his mysterious benefactor to sidle up to the bar and demand payment, no one ever came and said: "Lastel, I saved you. I am the one. Now show your grat.i.tude." But he knew very well that someday soon, someone would. He did not let this irritation besmirch his happiness. He had got a new shipment of Caronne krrf (black, pure drug, foil stamped, a full weight of it, enough to set every mercenary in Sanctuary at the kill) and it was so good that he considered refraining from offering it on the market. Having considered, he decided to keep it all for himself, and so was very happy indeed, no matter how many fistfights broke out in the bar, or how high the sun was, these days, before he got to bed ...
Tempus, too, was happy that morning, with the magnificent Tros horse under him and signs of war all around him. Despite the hour, he saw enough rough hoplites and dour artillery fighters with their crank-bows (whose springs were plaited from women"s hair) and their quarrels (barbed and poisoned) to let him know he was not dreaming: these did not bestir themselves from daydreams! The war was real to them. And any one of them could be his. He felt his troop-levy money cuddled tight against his groin, and he whistled tunelessly as the Tros horse threaded his way towards the Vulgar Unicorn. One-Thumb was not going to be happy much longer. Tempus left the Tros horse on its own recognizance, dropping the reins and telling it, "Stay." Anyone who thought it merely ripe for stealing would learn a lesson about the strain which is bred only in Syr from the original line ofTros"s.
There were a few locals in the Unicorn, most snoring over tables along with other, bagged trash ready to be dragged out into the street.
One-Thumb was behind his bar, big shoulders slumped, washing mugs while watching everything through the bronze mirror he had had installed over his stock.
Tempus let his heels crack against the board and his armour clatter: he had dressed for this, from a box he had thought he might never again open. The wrestler"s body which Lastel had built came alert, pirouetted smoothly to face him, staring unabashedly at the nearly G.o.d-sized apparition in leopard-skin mantle and helmet set with boar"s tusks, wearing an antique enamelled breastplate and bearing a bow of ibex-horn morticed with a golden grip.
"What in Azyuna"s t.w.a.t are you?" bellowed One-Thumb, as every waking customer he had hastened to depart.
"I," said Tempus, reaching the bar and removing his helmet so that his yarrow honey hair spilled forth, "am Tempus. We have not chanced to meet." He held out a hand whose wrist bore a golden bracer.
"Marshal," acknowledged One-Thumb, carefully, his pate creasing with his frown.
"It is good to know you are on our side. But you cannot come in here ... My -"
"I am here, Lastel. While you were so inexplicably absent, I was often here, and received the courtesy of service without Charge. But now I am not here to eat or drink with those who recognize me for one who is fully as corrupt as are they themselves. There are those who know where you were, Lastel, and why -and one who broke the curse that bound you. Truly, if you had cared, you could have found out." Twice, Tempus called One-Thumb by his true name, which no palace personage or Maze-dweller should have known enough to do.
"Marshal, let us go to my office." Lastel fairly ramped behind his bar.
"No time, krrf-dealer. Mizraith"s sons, Stefab and Marype; Markmor: those three and more were slain by the woman Cime who is in the pits awaiting sentence. I thought that you should know."
"What are you saying? You want me to break her out? Do it yourself."
"No one", said the h.e.l.l Hound, "can break anyone out of the palace. I am in charge of security there. If she were to escape, I would be very busy explaining to Kadakithis what went wrong. And tonight I am having a reunion here with fifty of my old friends from the mercenaries" guild. I would not want anything to spoil it. And, too, I ask no man to take me on faith, or go where I have not been." He grinned like the Destroyer, gesturing around. "You had better order in extra. And half a piece ofkrrf, your courtesy to me, of course. Once you have seen my men when well in hand, you will be better able to conjecture what might happen should they get out of hand, and weigh your alternatives. Most men I solicit find it to their benefit to work in accord with me. Should you deem it so for you, we will fix a time, and discuss it."
Not the cipher"s meaning, nor the plan it shrouded, nor the threat that gave it teeth were lost on the man who did not like to be called "Lastel" in the Maze. He bellowed: "You are addled. You cannot do this. I cannot do that!
As for krrf, I know nothing about... any ... krrf." But the man was gone, and Lastel was trembling with rage, thinking he had been in purgatory too long; it .had eroded his nerves!
4.
When the dusk cooled the Maze, Shadowsp.a.w.n ducked into the Unicorn. One-Thumb was not in evidence; Two-Thumbs was behind the bar.
He sat with the wall supporting him, where the story-teller liked to sit, and watched the door, waiting for the crowd to thicken, tongues to loosen, some caravan driver to boast of his wares. The mercenaries were no boon to a thief, but dangerous playmates, like Kadakithis"s palace women. He did not want to be intrigued; he was being distracted moment by moment. As a consequence, he was very careful to keep his mind on business, so that he would not come up hungry next Ilsday, when his funds, if not increased, would run out.
Shadowsp.a.w.n was dark as iron and sharp like a hawk; a. cranked crossbow, loaded with cold bronze and quarrels to spare. He wore knives where a professional wears them, and sapphire and gold and crimson to draw the eye from his treasured blades.
Sanctuary had sp.a.w.ned him: he was hers, and he had thought nothing she did could surprise him. But when the mercenaries arrived as do clients to a strumpet"s house, he had been hurt like a wh.o.r.e"s b.a.s.t.a.r.d when first he learns how his mother feeds him.
It was better, now; he understood the new rules.
One rule was: get up and give them your seat. Hanse gave no one his seat. He might recall pressing business elsewhere, or see someone he just had to hasten over to greet. Tonight, he remembered nothing earlier forgotten; he saw no one he cared to bestir himself to meet. He prepared to defend his place as seven mercenf aries filled the doorway with plumes and pelts and hilts and mail, and looked his way. But they went in a group to the bar, though one, in a black mantle, with iron at chest and head and wrists, pointed directly to him like a man sighting his arrow along an outstretched arm.
The man talked to Two-Thumbs awhile, took off his helmet with its horsehair crests that seemed blood-red, and approached Hanse"s table alone. A shiver coursed the thief"s flesh, from the top of his black thatch to his toetips.
The mercenary reached him in a dozen swinging strides, drawing a stabbing sword as he came on. If not for the fact that the other hand held a mug, Shadowsp.a.w.n would have aired iron by the time the man (or youth from his smooth, heartshaped face) spoke: "Shadowsp.a.w.n, called Hanse? I am Stepson, called Abarsis. I have been hoping to find you." With a grin full of dazzling teeth, the mercenary put the ivory-hiked sword flat in the wet-rings on the table, and sat, both hands well in evidence. clasped under his chin.
Hanse gripped his beltknife tightly. Then the panic-flash receded, and time pa.s.sed, instead of piling all its instants terri-fyingly on top of one another.
Hanse knew that he was no coward, that he was plagued by flashbacks from the two times he had been tapped with the fearstick ofVashanka, but his chest was heaving, and the mercenary might see. He slumped back, for camouflage. The mercenary with the expensive taste in accoutrements could be no older than he.
And yet, only a king"s son could afford such a blade as that before him. He reached out hesitantly to touch its silvered guard, its garnet pommel, his gaze locked in the sell-sword"s soulless pale one, his hand slipping closer and closer to the elegant sword of its own accord.
"Ah, you do like it then," said Stepson. "I was not sure. You will take it, I hope. It is customary in my country, when meeting a man who has performed heroically to the benefit of one"s house, to give a small token." He withdrew a silver scabbard from his belt, laid it with the sword, which Hanse put down as if burned.
"What did I ever do for you?"
"Did you not rescue the Riddler from great peril?"
"Who?" The tanned face grinned ingenuously. "A truly brave man does not boast. I understand. Or is it a deeper thing? That -" He leaned forward; he smelled sweet like new-mown hay "- is truly what I need to know. Do you comprehend me?"
Hanse gave him an eagle"s look, and shook his head slowly, his fingers flat on the table, near the magnificent sword that the mercenary Stepson had offered to give him. The Riddler? He knew no one of that name. "Are you protecting him?
There is no need, not from me. Tell me, Shadowsp.a.w.n, are you and Tempus lovers?"
"Mother-!" His favourite knife leapt into his palm, unbidden. He looked at it in his own grasp in consternation, and dropped his other hand over it, and began paring his nails. Tempus! The Riddler? Hanse"s eyes caressed the covetable blade. "I helped him out, once or twice, that"s all."
"That is good," the youth across from him approved. "Then we will not have to fight over him. And, too, we could work a certain bargain, service for service, that would make me happy and you, I modestly estimate, a gentleman of ease for at least six months."
"I"m listening," said Shadowsp.a.w.n, taking a chance, commending his knife to its sheath. The short sword too, he handled, fitting it in the scabbard and drawing it out, fascinated by the alert scrutiny of Abarsis the Stepson"s six companions.
When he began hearing the words "diamond rods" and "Hall of Judgement" he waxed uneasy. But by then, he could not sec any way that he could allow himself to appear less than heroic in the pale, blue-grey eyes of Stepson. Not when the amount of money Stepson had offered hung in the balance, not when the n.o.bly fashioned sword he had been given as if it were merely serviceable proclaimed the flashy mercenary"s ability to pay that amount. But too, if he would pay that, he would pay more. Hanse was not so enthralled by the mercenaries"
mystique to hasten into one"s pay without some good Sanctuary barter.