Two-Bit Heroes

by Doris Egan

  Unless of course the man gets her in a pin, as Lex did now. He fell on top of her, holding down her arms and legs. I remembered Carabinstereth's warnings: Let a man land one good blow on your head or face, and you're done for. And Juvindeth had no protective helmet.

  Lex released one wrist to administer the blow. Quick as a cat, Juvie went for his eyes with her one free hand. Lex's head went back, but he got hold of her wrist again. This

  time he pulled her left arm over by her right and laid part of his weight on top of them. She was now open to have her jaw or skull broken, and there was nothing she could do about it.

  Carabinstereth was supervising, of course, but she made no move to interfere. She and Lex had always assured us that they would never hold back, and a fight would only be over when it was over. But for the gods' sake, they weren't going to let Juvindeth be beaten to a pulp for the sake of some stupid rule! Why didn't Carabin purse her lips and let out that damned whistle that marked the end of a drill? This was crazy!

  Lex raised his arm. Suddenly—and I must say that I'd made no decision to do so—I was running for the mat. My foot connected beautifully with Lex's padded helmet. It felt like kicking an overripe melon. Lex toppled over, and all three of us were down. Juvie rolled out immediately and positioned herself for some follow-up blows to Lex's head. I'd hit the floor like a ton of bricks and the wind was knocked out of me; I watched as Juvie smashed into Lex's face mask twice, and saw the helmet roll off across the mat. She seemed unaware or unconcerned about this; she had her heel above Lex's face, about to administer the coup de grace, when Carabinstereth's whistle froze her in place.

  Juvie blinked and slowly lowered her foot. She went to her knees. Carabin bent over Lex, who seemed dazed. She helped him up and over to a pile of pillows at the side of the hall. By the time she returned I was starting to get my breath back, and was sitting up on the mat, gasping.

  "Well!" she said in a voice that sounded, of all things, pleased.

  I looked up at her accusingly.

  She smiled. Addressing the line of women she said, "Our Tymon seems to have broken custom and jumped into somebody else's fight. I think we might give her a round of applause."

  And they all started clapping and stamping. I felt my face get hot for the second time that day.

  "Let's hear it for Juvindeth, too!" called Carabin.

  Redoubled enthusiasm from the line. But she wasn't getting off that easily. When the clapping died down I said,

  still sitting there, "Juvindeth could have been hurt badly. Maybe even killed."

  Her eyes danced. "We knew that if something like this happened, one of the people nearest in line would run in. It was bravely done, Tymon."

  She was holding out a hand to help me up. I was still resentful, but I took it and got to my feet. "It wasn't brave," I said honestly, "it just happened."

  She grinned.

  "How could you be sure it would happen?" I pursued. "How could you know it if I didn't know it?"

  She kissed me. "Get back in line, Tymon, you haven't had your turn yet."

  Gods! But I felt I had to say: "Carabin—I don't know that I would be able to do something like this in a real battle."

  "Of course you would do it, sweetheart; you couldn't help it. You're trained."

  How many other things will change me when I don't want to be changed? Waiting in line again, in a dream of exhaustion, I heard someone ask, "Why are we going through this? The militia could walk in any time they want, and we just don't have the firepower to stop them."

  It was a question that was always on everybody's mind, but one we never asked. The mood really was different that day.

  Carabinstereth's voice was cool and ironic. "Well, if we never have the chance to fight, you've still had good practice. But if the Steward wants to bring a string of us in for public display, he'll hold back that firepower. And then, children, you have to choose—you can go quietly and face torture and death; or you can fight back, and face probable torture and death."

  "I guess you're going to fight," said someone.

  "I always fight," said Carabin, "but that's who I am. Of course," she added thoughtfully, "that's who you are now, too."

  Chapter Nineteen

  I slept for four solid hours after class, and woke up to darkness and lit candles in the hall.

  People were finishing up the day's chores, playing cards, resting. Cantry was sweeping the stone floor down through the middle of the room. There was a figure in shadow, sitting alone off by a pile of tattered scarlet cushions that flickered into rhythmic brilliance from the light of a nearby candelabra: Mora Sobien Ti. The streaks of light gray in her hair were unmistakable.

  There was something I needed to do. I took a candle and went up the newly repaired spiral stone staircase to the roof of the hall. A parapet enclosed the edge; unless I stood on my barbarian tiptoes, all I could see were the stars overhead.

  I sat down on the cold stone, put the candle about an arm's length in front of me, and took the pack of cards out of the pouch that hung from my belt.

  Card one: In this configuration, Significator. By rights this should be Ran, as this pack had been dedicated to him at birth, but what I saw was The Burning Tower. Ran was no burning tower, even metaphorically—I stay away from people like that, they scare me. If I'd seen The Prisoner card, I would not have been surprised, but this made no sense. I looked down at the picture, so beautifully rendered: Thundercloud, lethal lightning bolt, and the screaming face in the window, wreathed by flames. I closed my eyes. I didn't want to see into this picture any further.

  Card two, pulled out swiftly and snapped down. The Wheel of Luck. On Ivory, this card is rendered as a torture device, with pitch and sharpened nails at the bottom of the wheel. Where were these cards coming from tonight? I grabbed a third before I could have time to think. I took a breath. My

  eyes were closed, and I was in no hurry to open them. There was something wrong with me too, tonight—with the atmosphere in the monastery fort, with the cards, with all of us. Do your job, I told myself, and opened my eyes.

  The Hunter, Stereth's card. Well, and nothing wrong with that, was there? I forced myself to watch it until it changed.

  The man in brown and green holding two dead ground-hermits came to life; his face was cruel, and the birds in his hands were moving in feeble terror. As I watched, he wrung their necks. Then, his clothing changed to a yellow and crimson robe with fashionable boots, and he turned and looked out of the card as though he could see me sitting there on the roof, under the distant stars. Looked out at me with a hatred so hard I was physically afraid. Nor Atvalid, Governor of Tuvin Province, was The Hunter tonight, not Stereth Tar'krim.

  I turned over the card and sat back. Three cards of death and destruction, as though the pack had no time to fool with Significators and configurations. No time for anything but an immediate warning. I'd never seen hatred like that on anyone's face; people had done some awful things to me in the past, but out of indifference or spite or small-mindedness—not this heavy weight of personal obsession.

  I gathered up the cards, shivering. It's a cold night, Theodora. Yes, and maybe colder before it was over. I got to my feet and started down the staircase at a run.

  Where was Ran?—That huddle in the blankets by the fire. Good, he was safe. I looked around for Stereth and found him sitting knee-to-knee with Cantry while they fed each other little bits of stew. They were the ones who ought to be on a damned honeymoon.

  Hey! Wasn't tonight three-quarter night? I dismissed that thought at once—nothing pleasant was going to happen now, maybe nothing pleasant would happen to any of us ever again. I marched up to Stereth and blurted, "We have to talk."

  He saw at once that I was upset. He wiped his fingers on a rag and told Cantry. "See if you can dig out some more wine." Then he motioned for me to sit.

  "Stereth, something's happening. I think—I think the mi-

  litia are going to attack us tonight. Any time now,
maybe any second."

  He studied me. "Cantry's reported some negative feelings as well. Is this barbarian premonition, or is it some kind of women's thing?"

  "I'm serious!"

  His voice was reasonable. "On what evidence are you serious?"

  Well, they were no longer a secret. I took out my deck of cards and slapped it down on the floor beside our cushions. "I help Ran—Sokol—with professional projects. Sorcerers use cards as a guidepost to keep themselves out of trouble. This deck is Ran's personal mapping device."

  "And yet you read them? You're not a sorcerer."

  "It's a long story. Take my word for it. I ran these cards five minutes ago, and all they can talk about is violence and death. I have every confidence in you, Stereth, but I think we ought to get out of here."

  He accepted the data—as data—and considered. "If I were the Steward, I would be home asleep now. They had a long day today, and there'll be more problems tomorrow. Why keep the troops going on double shifts? It's not like there's a deadline to capture us."

  "Asleep!" Usually he was more perceptive than that. "That family won't sleep a full night till they've seen us die personally. The Governor hates you—and me—and I guess Can try. The others he just despises normally."

  He seemed genuinely puzzled. "Why?"

  "Why? Stereth, I don't think you have any idea of the effect you have on people. I wish Des were here, he could explain it to you." I took a deep breath. "Look at how you've turned our lives upside-down. You knock people over and leave casual bootprints on their necks as you step by on your way—never mind. This isn't why I'm here. We have to run for it, I'm trying to get through to you."

  "Tymon—"

  He looked past me, toward the door. Des was coming in from outside. I called, "Des! Come here and explain—" I stopped short.

  Des was staggering. He held his left arm and rested for a moment against the door. Then he continued, dazed,

  through the hall. He knelt down by Stereth and looked at him, bewildered.

  "The kid with the yellow headband—" he began. "The kid with the yellow—" He stopped. He frowned. I leaned forward to say something to him, but Stereth motioned me back. Des began again. "The kid from Deathwell was helping me feed the tah people." Des never called them hostages. "We started outside with the empty dishes, and this light hit him."

  That seemed to be the end of the story, so Stereth asked, "Where is he now?"

  "He's dead," said Des. "The light hit him."

  We ail glanced involuntarily toward the door. "Don't go out there," I said at once.

  The card game in the corner had stopped. People were looking at us.

  I saw that the cloth on Des' arm was torn away, and the flesh underneath it was blistered and red, as though it were sunburned. Cantry appeared from nowhere, holding a basin of cool water, and she knelt down and helped Des out of his jacket, and placed his forearm gently in the water.

  "Des, your arm—" I said.

  He glanced down at it, uninterested. "That's the side the kid was on, the kid with the yellow—"

  There was a wailing sound that filled the world, getting louder and louder. Suddenly the hall was flooded with a sunlit brightness that never happened on the Plateau. The full shabby dustiness of the place was palpable, with the blank faces of its inhabitants hanging there as though on some ancient, dead tapestry.

  Then dimness again. Whole, blessed dimness, with nothing broken and nobody hurt.

  Nor Atvalid's invitation to surrender could not have been plainer if he'd walked up and tapped on the door.

  As the minutes stretched into a quarter hour, then a half hour, then the sort of eternity you find in a hospital waiting room, it became clearer that Atvalid was holding off. till sunrise—for the convenience and safety of his troops, and to give us a chance to break apart mentally. There was an occasional scream from outside, marking somebody from one of the outbuildings or stable who'd tried unsuccessfully

  to run to the main hall. I could understand their wanting company. "I'd tell them to sit where they are," muttered Stereth, "if there were some way I could tell them."

  Des looked up at us. The shock was wearing off. "I hope the tah folks know to stay inside," he said.

  This was met with silence. Nobody had much altruism to spare in concern for the tah caravan hostages. The Governor's warning shot had awakened Ran, who was sitting beside me, holding my arm. "The hell with this," said Stereth suddenly. He stood up and crossed the room. "Lex, pick up your cards and deal. We'll have a hand of Thistle, that always helps me think. Cantry, get out the good stuff. We've had some fine times here, all of us, and if this is our last night I refuse to give them the satisfaction of cowering through it."

  I can't say this was greeted with enthusiasm, but a case of wine did seem to ease the tense silence we'd been in before. Gradually card games started up again, and brede-smoke conversations, and I think, in the back of people's minds, there was a vague and undefined hope that somehow Stereth would do something that would get us all out of this. No one crossed the line and expressed it, however, for that let the door open to the cold knowledge that there wasn't much he could do. When I thought back on the remarkable things he'd accomplished in the past I could see that most of what he had done was by misdirection: An illusion in the road to make a car swerve; a flame by a sensor to convince someone their vehicle was on fire; a disappearing outlaw leader who wasn't even an outlaw leader to begin with. Now an obsessively hating and powerful official stood outside, with a militia regiment and heavy weaponry. Short of trying to convince him he had the wrong address, I failed to see what misdirection could be applied here.

  I had half a bottle of Sector wine myself. Carabinstereth was comforting Mora, Lex and some people from the new bands were playing Thistle, and I was trying to figure out which of us might still be outside. Ran didn't join in the wine or the game; he sat by me and frowned. Stereth came over to join us.

  "Kanz outside has Tellys weapons. His troops probably

  don't even know how to use them. What the hell is he thinking?"

  Ran finally spoke up. "He wants to win."

  "He's cleaning out a troop of outlaws, not conquering a city. There aren't more than thirty of us here tonight— forty-three if you count Des' tah friends."

  I said, "Maybe they'll go easy on us for not killing the prisoners."

  They both looked at me. I said, "I'm just mentioning the possibility."

  "We could threaten to kill the prisoners," said Ran.

  "If we could get to them," pointed out Stereth, "and if they even knew we had prisoners."

  The employees of the Keldemir Tah Company were probably the only people who were going to get out of this trouble alive.

  "You think it was Paravit-Col told them where we were?" asked Ran.

  Stereth shrugged. "The more surprising thing is how quickly they dropped everything and hauled out the heavy artillery. Don't these people have anything else to do with their time?"

  I gave a short laugh. "Stereth, you made his son look like a fool. You ruined his capture of a famous outlaw leader. Besides—look, I guess Des reported to you a long time ago that the district Steward is Torin Atvalid's grandson."

  "Of course he did. Though I'd already heard."

  "It must have made you feel good to score off an Atvalid."

  "It didn't make me feel bad." He pulled off his spectacles and began wiping them with his handkerchief. The moisture in this climate was always clouding them up, one problem I guessed he wouldn't be worrying about in the future. "Do you have a point here, Tymon?"

  "They know you, too, they feel responsible for the chaos you've caused. Look, doesn't knowing about Nor Atvalid and his son, and their problems, doesn't that make them more real to you? Nor's reaction is to hate—but doesn't knowing people make you less want to hurt them?"

  He replaced his glasses and looked at me straight-on. I always felt a little nervous when he did that, and I remem-

  bered that
icepick feeling I got from Des when he did his Stereth impression. "Tymon, you seem to have a personal problem, if you don't mind my saying so. These people are enemies. They're not there for you to identify with just because you know their stories."

  People and their stories. I said nothing. He went on, "You're a little too adaptable, that's all. Something to guard against. You're not really barbaric in other ways, so… I don't see what's amusing about this, Tymon. Out-worlder standards of humor must be very odd." He got to his feet, a trifle offended, and went to join the card players.

  I turned to Ran, who'd been silently taking in this last part. "You're not the only one who thinks I'm too adaptable."

  "And I also don't see the humor in it."

  "Come on, don't you perceive a pattern here? I'm fine as long as I'm going along with what you want. It's only when I take the enemy's point of view that I'm 'too adaptable.' "

  We were leaning against a pile of stolen Andulsine rugs. "Theodora," he said very gently, "if you went around taking the enemy's point of view, he wouldn't be the enemy anymore."

  "This is my point. Ran."

  He muttered something that sounded like "outworlders."

  I said, "It's ironic. The Governor hates us like poison, yet until the Kynogin Bank we never even met him. And he's the one we were sent to check up on!"

  "I met him," said Ran.

  "What?"

  "I met him. In the Shaskala jail. He was crazy even then, he had two of the guards hold me down while a third one twisted my arm." Ran's voice was calm, reminiscing.

  "You never told me this!"

  "Well, there wasn't much point, and you had other things on your mind. And I know how you get, Tymon."

  "How I get—"

  He added hastily, "And I thought I'd wait till we were both out of trouble, and could plan out a nice revenge together."

  Typical Ivoran motivation. "That was a sweet thought,