by Glen Cook
Salom Edgit had not gone home after leaving the General, though his lieutenants were there awaiting his report. Instead, he had gone a half mile out of his way, to an upthrust of rock called the Parrot’s Beak by most but remembered as the Kraken’s Beak by a few of the old folks. It was supposed to be haunted by the shades of eight brothers who had been murdered there in the year of the city’s founding.
Salom had been fleeing to the Parrot’s Beak for time out to think for as long as he could remember. If ghosts there were, they accepted him. He’d never been discommoded by a supernatural intervention.
He perched on the tip of the Beak and without focusing on anything, stared out at what could be seen of Qushmarrah by starlight. A tide of mist was rising from the harbor.
He spent an hour there, then went off down into the Hahr.
Salom hammered till Ortbal’s man opened up. “Yes, Khad-ifa?”
“I need to see Ortbal.”
“His Lordship is sleeping, sir.”
“His Lordship? You go tell Ortbal to get his fat royal butt up before... Never mind. I’ll tell him myself. His Lordship. Aram have mercy on fools.” He pushed past the protesting batman, stamped through the house. It had several storeys but Ortbal, being lazy, seldom left the ground floor. He noted that the house, like Ortbal himself, had begun to take on airs. He kicked open Sagdet’s bedroom door.
There was light aplenty inside. Ortbal was at his pleasures.
“You! Out!” Salom snapped at the woman.
She fled like a whipped dog.
Ortbal reddened, but he restrained his anger. Salom Edgit was not the kind of man who busted in on people. And he was mad as hell. You were careful with Salom when his temper was up. He was unpredictable. Dangerous. Ortbal Sagdet was not the sort to put himself at risk. “You’re upset, Salom.”
“Damned right, I’m upset. Look at you!... Yes. I’m upset. I’m overreacting. I know it and I can’t stop.”
“Rough meeting?” The slightest concern edged Sagdet’s voice.
“You should have been there.”
“I was making a statement by staying away.”
“Your statement was heard, understood, and dismissed as trivial. That wasn’t a blind, senile, dying old man, Ortbal. That was the General and he was in charge every second. He did the talking. Not a word got spoken that he didn’t ask for. He didn’t ask, he didn’t argue, he just told. And he knew about everything that’s been going on.”
“King.”
“No. More than King.”
“You’d better give me the details.” Sagdet’s concern was plain now.
Salom told it. Sagdet interjected questions as he progressed.
“No reprisals at all?”
“Those were his orders.”
“My people are going to be real irritated about that.”
“I don’t think he cares, Ortbal. You know that? I don’t think he’s concerned about your...”
“Stuff the moralizing and get on with it.” And a minute later, “Did he say how I’m supposed to raise operating funds?”
“If the old man was here he’d just look at this bordello and tell you he lives where he lives.”
“He would. The old bastard expects us all to live like vermin.”
And later, Sagdet exploded with incredulity. “He said I’d be there tomorrow night?”
“He did. And you’d better show. You miscalculated your time and started your break too early. You’d better back off. Let time finish its work.”
“Time, huh?”
Ortbal asked several questions. Then, “What did he hit you with, old friend?”
“He told me I had to decide if I was a thief or a soldier.”
“And you’ve made up your mind, haven’t you? You still buy this foolishness called the Living. After six years of Herodian occupation you still think that crazy old man can do what armies couldn’t.”
“That isn’t the question, Ortbal. I don’t know if he can do it or not. Probably not. That doesn’t matter. He told me to decide if I’m a thief or a soldier. I’m not a thief. I came here because I owe you the debts of friendship. I had to caution you. I’ve acquitted my obligation.”
“Probably expected you to run straight here, too. Twisted your tail just so and here you came.”
“Maybe.”
“So we come to a parting of roads. If I don’t show up tomorrow night. What will he do if I don’t show?”
“I don’t know.”
“What can he do?”
“You take that attitude you might find out. He for sure won’t sit still.”
“So I’d better do some thinking.”
“Will you be there?”
“You’ll find that out when you walk in the door, Salom.” Sagdet smiled. That only made his pudgy face look malicious. Edgit knew he had no intention of showing.
Azel paused to lengthen the wick in the little lamp inside the door. A voice croaked, “I’m in bed.”
Azel stepped into the bedroom. The old man looked terrible. He set the lamp down. “You were waiting? You were that confident I would get your message right away?”
“No. I sleep a lot but I’m a very light sleeper. You woke me when you opened the door.”
Azel felt he had not made enough noise to disturb a mouse. “I’ll have to lighten my step.”
“I have very good ears. Was that you with the boy in the alley today?”
“It was. It was a close thing.”
“The Dartars were so interested Fa’tad himself came out to poke around.”
Azel was astonished. “Really?”
“Yes. You be careful. That man has a nose better than my ears. Lay off for a while. You don’t have to round up the whole population overnight.”
“Tell it to the Witch. I tried. She’s got a thirty-brat backlog and it takes three days to make sure each one isn’t the one she’s looking for. But she won’t slow down. She’s gotten obsessed with the idea that she’s got to get all the kids rounded up before any of them kick off. Like she’s sure that if even one of them croaks that’ll be the one she wants and she’ll have to do the whole damned thing over again.”
“Behind another five-or six-year wait. I can understand her anxiety. I share it. I won’t live that long and I’d like to see results before I go. But not negative results, which is what we’ll get if Cado or Fa’tad catches on. Fa’tad’s behavior today indicates that caution is necessary. Would it do any good if I were to admonish her myself?”
“No. Her deal with us is a marriage of convenience. She’s only interested in getting what she wants.”
“Any suggestions?”
Azel answered with an uncharacteristic shrug. “I walked out. For the time being. That’ll slow her down.”
“But she has other help.”
“Yeah. Two other guys.”
“Are they any good? Who are they?”
“They’re good. Not as good as me, but good. One is named Sadat Agmed. He’s in it for the money. The other is Ishabal bel-Shaduk.”
“Comes of religious stock, no doubt.”
“Very. He’s the fanatic.”
“The other sounds Dartar.”
“His father was. He hates them.”
“Could you persuade them to lay off for a while, too?”
“I doubt it. I’m not supposed to know who they are.”
“I’ll think about the problem. Anything else? Anything from Cado’s direction?”
“He’s expecting a new civil governor any day now.”
The General smiled. A rare event. “That would be what? The eighth since the conquest?”
“Ninth. They just send people they’d rather not have around but don’t dare kill in Herod.”
“And the Living take the blame.”
“Or harvest the credit. Was there some reason you sent for me?”
“The problem in the Hahr has become critical. As I feared. Quick action now appears to be the only long-term solution.”
“Ah?”
“This is a difficult thing.”
“Is it? How soon do you need it?”
“Sunset tomorrow at the latest. But the sooner the better.”
“That’s tight.”
“It will become difficult after that time. I thought you were going to scout the terrain should action become necessary.”
“I did.”
“Can you manage?”
“If I must.”
“You must. Will you need help?”
“No.”
“Let me know when it’s done.”
“Right.” Azel walked away from the old man. He tapped the lamp wick down and put it back where he had found it. Then he went out into the fog. He did a careful circuit to make sure no watcher had taken station while he was inside.
He believed in being careful.
Bel-Sidek stood staring out at the fog that covered most of Qushmarrah. He could not see much. On a night with a moon, that fog would have stretched like a sprawl of silvery carpet from which parts of buildings grew. To his right, on a slightly higher elevation, the blot of the citadel of Nakar the Abomination masked the stars. Funny. Six years and still a black odor leaked out of the place.
The Witch and her crew were still in there, still holding out, untouchable behind the barrier only Ala-eh-din Beyh had been able to penetrate. How the hell did they survive in there?
One popular theory held that they hadn’t. It contended that the Witch and all of Nakar’s people had killed themselves after their master’s fall.
Bel-Sidek did not believe that, though he had no evidence to the contrary.
From behind him Meryel asked, “Is it the old man?”
Without turning, he replied, “How did you know?”
“You only brood when you’re troubled by someone you love. I think you’ve made your peace with yourself about your son and your wife.”
Bel-Sidek’s son, Hastra, was another of those who had not come home from Dak-es-Souetta. As Meryel’s husband had not. Hastra, his only child, the star of his heart. For years he had brooded the what-ifs. What if there had been no Dartar treachery at Dak-es-Souetta? Win or lose, would the poisonous hatred still blacken his blood? Was he, like so many men he knew, hanging
everything on the horns of the Dartar demon, so to evade taking any responsibility that was his own? He’d never worked that out, only come to realize that the brooding was as pathetic and pointless as the howling of a dog over the still form of a fallen master.
The wife was another story. The wife had nothing to do with win or lose or Dartar treachery. The woman, whose very name he strove to drive from his mind, had deserted him almost before his wounds had healed. With the connivance and blessing of her family. Almost unheard-of in Qushmarrah, a dowry abandoned.
But they’d had an eye for the main chance. And who wanted a cripple in the family? Political or physical?
“There’s you,” bel-Sidek said.
“I never give you cause to brood.”
True. Quite true.
The wife had run to one of the new breed of Qushmarrahans, that the Herodians were making over in their own image. The man had adopted all the approved dress and manners and had taken the conquering god for his own. And he had prospered, collaborating with the army of occupation. And then he had died of an inability to breathe, for which bel-Sidek had had no responsibility at all. He suspected the General had given the order. He had not asked, and never would.
“Is it something you want to talk about?”
“I don’t think so.” Out there, beneath that fog, men were moving. Some were villains and some were soldiers of the Living. There would be bodies in the morning. And who would know which had been slain by whom? The General, perhaps.
Let Fa’tad play his transparent games and take away the day. The night belonged to the old order, and would come out of the shadows someday soon.
“Maybe I do want to talk,” he said. He closed the filigreed doors to the balcony, turned to face his companion.
Meryel was seven years older than he. Her skin was too dark and her features too coarse for her ever to have been thought beautiful. Or even pretty. A generous dowry had helped her marry well.
She was too short and too fat and dressed with the eye for style of a goatherd. She drank rivers of date wine, proscribed by both Aram and the Herodians’ tempestuous god. She was, invariably, inevitably, an embarrassment in public. She said the wrong things at the wrong times and burst into giggles in the wrong places.
She was his best friend.
“He’s shutting me out. More and more, he’s hiding things from me. He didn’t used to send me away when he wanted to meet with somebody. But the last six months...”
“You distrust his reasons?”
“No.”
“Does he distrust you?”
“No. Of course not. How could he and live with me?”
“You don’t think it’s the normal course of security?”
“No.”
“You do talk where you shouldn’t.”
Bel-Sidek looked at her sharply.
“Here. To me.”
“I’m sure you’ve been checked every way he can imagine.” He knew she had, knew the General trusted her almost as much as he trusted her himself.
“Should I be flattered? Is it just that your feelings are hurt, then?”
“No. Maybe. I guess that’s part of it. But I’m worried for him, too.”
“And have you considered the chance that his ego is involved, too?”
“How so?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what he’s up to. I do know he thinks enough of you to have made you his adjutant. Of all those who would have taken it. To me that says he values your opinion. Maybe that’s why he’s shutting you out.”
“I don’t follow that.”
“He’s a sick old man. He doesn’t have much time. He knows that. He’s desperate for results before he goes. Maybe he has a scheme he knows you wouldn’t approve.”
“That’s possible.”
She really was quite a remarkable woman, so inept in some ways and so damnably competent in others. In a culture wholly dominated by males she had established her independence, if not equality. She had managed that because she understood money, power, and the power of money.
The one truly daring thing she had done was, on hearing the first grim whispers from Dak-es-Souetta, to assume that her husband was among the dead. She had moved instantly to assume an iron grip on both his fortune and her dowry, and had not been the slightest bit hesitant to use force and terror to stay the claims of both families. They said she had had her own father beaten.
And yet... she could not cope in the society into which her wealth had propelled her.
Nor did she care, apparently. Apparently all she wanted was the power to make half the human race leave her alone.
Amazing contradictions these days, bel-Sidek reflected. Meryel was a boil on the face of all the old man held holy, yet he must approve of her, if not for bel-Sidek’s sake, then for the sake of the coffers of the Living. She was one of the movement’s strongest supporters.
What a tangle of ethics and traditions had come out of one day’s dying.
“That could explain it,” bel-Sidek admitted. “But I don’t like it.”
“Of course you don’t. If you were going to like it you’d know everything there was to know already. Wouldn’t you?”
“I suppose.” He opened the filigreed doors and stepped out onto the balcony. Qushmarrah had not changed in his absence. The tide of fog had risen a little higher, that was all. The air was so damnably still that the boundary between fog and not-fog was as sharp as a saber’s edge. As he watched, a man came striding up out of it like some thing of dark legend marching out of the mists of nightmare.
What a turn of mind tonight, he thought. The man was probably a baker on his way to work.
Meryel said, “Since you aren’t in a mood for anything else, why not talk busi
ness? I have two ships coming in from Benagra. I’ll need reliable men to unload them.”
It was how they had come to meet. He was khadifa of the waterfront. She had strong interests in shipping, gently helped to grow by the gentlemen of the Living. Her captains imported the arms that dared not be smithed anywhere in Qushmarrah.
As Azel strode up out of the fog he was thinking that there was still a chance he could get some sleep tonight, but he’d have to forget about getting away for any fishing or hunting. He had been out of touch in several directions and it looked like things were going to happen. A week away and he might return to a chaos he could not unravel.
He glanced at the hulking blot of the citadel, wondered if the Witch was getting any sleep tonight. Probably. She thought she was like the citadel itself: above the dirt and turmoil of Qushmarrah.
She might end up learning the hard way.
He crested the hill, putting the harbor side behind him. Ahead lay the Hahr, the most prosperous quarter of the Old City. Behind lay the Shu, the poorest and most densely populated quarter, where sons had stacked homes beside and atop those of their fathers till half the quarter was like some enormous mad mud daubers’ nest where anyone who lived off the thoroughfares first had to climb up to the sunlight and cross the rooftops in order to reach a street. The labyrinth underlay it all, sometimes open all the way to the sky, more often built over and now with old doorways sealed lest doom slip up by that route. The maze was so deadly that even the most desperate homeless seldom stole in for shelter. That territory belonged to the boldest of the bad boys.
Azel had met people in there who made him nervous. Weird people. Crazy people. People you had to deal with harshly to get your message across. And some who just could not learn.
Azel had grown up in the Shu. At seven he had been orphaned and left homeless. He did not remember much about his parents except that his mother had cried all the time and his father had yelled almost as much and had beaten them all a lot. He had a notion that it might have been he who had set the fire that consumed them-except that he had an equally fuzzy recollection of his brother giving the old man fifteen or twenty good ones to the head with a hammer before the fire.
He hadn’t seen his brother since.
There was nothing he wanted to remember from those days, no little heirloom he carried around and treasured.