The offer was accepted by default; at least none of the family spoke up to reject it out of hand, and none appeared really ready to assume leadership of their own cause. So, with Zoltan at her side, and guided by a servant, the former queen proceeded through the kitchen to deal with the mercenaries. Lady Yambu took her time about getting to the door, while Bonar brought her up to date on the clan’s relationship with their hired soldiers.
“You said there were fourteen or fifteen of them. Are you sure that number’s accurate?” Yambu asked him.
The siblings conferred briefly among themselves. “Can’t be more than a dozen,” Bonar reported.
“Too many for us to overawe, I suppose. Then let us buy them off with gold, for the time being at least,” Yambu suggested. “I suppose you do have some modest stock of gold available?”
“Gold?” Violet looked almost shocked. “Hardly.”
“But there are pearls.” This came from Rose in a fearful whisper.
“Do you mean freshwater pearls?” asked Zoltan. “Not worth much, are they?”
“These are.” Violet expressed a certain indignation. “Of high quality indeed.”
The other family members, after some hesitation, admitted that a few good-quality pearls were available. Urged on by a savage pounding on the door, they at last produced a small handful of pale rounded gems, which Yambu pronounced more than sufficient to buy off a dozen rascals. Shaking her head, she thrust most of the gems back into Bonar’s unsteady hands. “To offer them too much at this stage would be worse than to give them too little. Now, Zoltan, attend me. Stand here, and let them see that you are armed and ready!”
When Gesner unbarred and opened the door at last, the two men outside started to push their way into the house. But then they halted on the threshold. The appearance in the kitchen of an unexpected stranger, armed and resolute, and of an unknown lady of queenly bearing, was enough to delay them momentarily. And that moment was long enough for the Lady Yambu’s commanding presence to take over. In a firm voice she demanded to know just who these intruders thought they were and what they thought they wanted.
“Captain Koszalin, ma’am. I’m in charge of the defenses here. This is Shotoku, first sergeant in my company.”
“Are you indeed? Those defenses seem singularly ineffective, not to say inoperative. My party was not challenged approaching the house, and I daresay that if we had been a full company bent on an attack, the result would have been the same. Were I your commanding officer, you’d be in trouble.”
Zoltan grinned inwardly, in admiration of the way Yambu had managed to suggest the presence of an armed escort besides himself.
Koszalin was not a large man, but gave the impression of fierce energy, now under tight control. He and the massive Sergeant Shotoku, who stood stoically behind him, both wore scraps of armor and dirty green scarves, evidently as a kind of company insignia.
Under pointed questioning by Lady Yambu, Koszalin claimed to have twenty men at his command. He had come pounding on the door, he said, to collect the gold that was due him in back pay. But after a brief hesitation he accepted four small pearls, and then withdrew with his sergeant.
“He’ll need a conference with his men now, I suppose,” said Yambu when the door was closed. “Very unreliable troops, in my judgment. Doubtless the two of them will now hold a conference with their men on how best to enjoy their sudden wealth. From our point of view it will be best if they go to the nearest large town to spend—it how far is that?”
“A good day’s journey,” said Rose, thoughtfully.
Within a few minutes after the two mercenaries had left the house, a servant looking from an upstairs window reported that eight or ten of the ruffians, all heavily armed and moving on foot, could be seen at the bottom of the hill. They appeared to be going upon their way.
For a minute or two the members of the family were loud in their rejoicing. But the celebration was brief. First Bonar and then Violet began to voice their misgivings that the mercenaries would be likely to come back, as soon as they had spent the pearls.
Yambu nodded. “But in the meantime we can expect to enjoy a respite of about three days that should give us the time we need to decide upon our next move.”
When the servant on lookout reported that the irregular soldiers were now completely out of sight, the brother and two sisters more volubly expressed their gratitude to Yambu and Zoltan.
Meanwhile the party was drifting back into the great hall. There, some of the few active servants remaining in the household were called upon to begin a belated cleanup, and provide something in the way of hospitality for the honored guests.
But the survivors of the Clan Malolo and their visitors had not been seated long at the table before Bonar, unable to relax for any length of time, began to have doubts as to whether they might need the mercenaries after all, and before the three days were up. The damned Senones, he felt sure, were almost certain to mount a fresh attack by then.
Yambu spoke sharply to the young chief. Would he prefer that she and her companion moved on at once?
No, all three family members protested hastily. On that point all three siblings and Gesner were in agreement.
Thinking it would be hard to find a more propitious moment, Zoltan decided the time had come to let his hosts know the real reason he had come calling on them.
He cleared his throat and addressed the chief. “I wish to speak to you on a matter of some importance. To you in particular, Chief Bonar.” Zoltan avoided the eyes of Lady Yambu, though he could see that her face was turned toward him.
“Of course, friend Zoltan,” said Bonar in mild surprise. “What is the matter of importance?”
“It’s about a mermaid.”
Bonar blinked. There was a silence in the room. Lady Yambu, when Zoltan glanced her way at last, looked as if she were ready to tell him I told you so.
The clan chief cleared his throat. “Well, of course, if you wish to have a mermaid, friend Zoltan, we will do what we can to get one for you.” Bonar sounded dubious. “Usually only entertainers and magicians find those creatures of much interest.”
“I don’t think you understand yet, Chief Bonar. I do want to talk about a mermaid, and the subject will not keep indefinitely. It is a particular mermaid that I wish to talk about. Black Pearl is her name.”
The faces of the family members and Gesner grew even blanker than before, with incomprehension and vague anxiety. It was obvious that the name of Black Pearl meant nothing to anyone in the household. But before Zoltan could press his hosts on the topic, a renewed argument had broken out among them on the subject of the mercenaries.
He could see that it was going to be difficult to get them to think seriously on the subject of mermaids.
Turning back to face the sharp look Yambu continued to level at him, Zoltan sighed, and nodded his acquiescence. Any discussion of Black Pearl was going to have to wait.
Dinner began to arrive, piecemeal. And while the group was still at the table, Rose mentioned the subject of mermaids in passing once again. She thought vaguely that Cousin Cosmo, who had been the only current member of the clan much interested in magical research, had once tried to do something to counteract the evil spell that kept the poor fishgirls in their bondage. But all agreed with Rose that Cosmo had got nowhere in his efforts. There were just as many mermaids in the river as ever—or there seemed to be. No one was actually counting them, of course.
Gradually the remnants of the meal were cleared away, and winecups were refilled. As desultory efforts to clean up the room continued around them, talk among the surviving family members turned, as it was wont to do again and again, to that damned cowardly relative of theirs, Cosmo. Bonar and Violet were particularly incensed. That scoundrel Cosmo, instead of retaliating like a man when he’d finally had the chance to do so on the Night of Death, had stolen the Sword and run away with it like a coward.
“He ran away?” asked Yambu. “Where?”
“We
don’t know.”
Toward the end of that terrible night, Bonar, having become clan chief by default, and pressed by the other survivors to do something, had sent a search party of mercenaries after Cosmo. At the time the only conceivable explanation of his cousin’s behavior was that Cosmo had defected to the enemy. But the searchers had come back empty-handed, reporting failure to find any trace of Cosmo along the lake or river. And in the long days since then nothing had happened to confirm the supposed defection.
“I wonder if the mercenaries killed him. I wonder if they have the Sword now,” said Rose, and shuddered.
“If any of those men had come into possession of the Sword,” Lady Yambu sniffed, “they would have begun to kill each other over it by now. Whichever of them survived with such a treasure would take it to a city to sell. We wouldn’t have seen two of them begging at your back door today.”
“No,” said Violet. “The Senones must have it. But they’re waiting for something before they strike again.”
“Waiting for what?” asked Yambu. There was no answer.
Zoltan thought to himself that there had evidently been no more active feuding of any kind since that terrible night, unless you counted the aborted attack on the fishing village. But despite that fact, the people in this stronghold were maintaining at a high level their fears that a formidable force of their enemies must still exist, and that an attack by that force must be impending at any moment.
Rose had now begun to explain how she, her brother and sister, and Gesner, had been staying in each other’s company almost continuously, day and night, ever since the massacre. If at any moment the Sword should claim a new victim from among them, someone would be on hand immediately to exact revenge.
Listening to the hatred and determination in her youthful voice, Zoltan wondered if he ought to try to argue her and her siblings into a different frame of mind. But he decided to concentrate on his own problems, at least for now.
Winecups were refilled again, and presently it began to look as if Bonar at least might be on the way to serious drunkenness. Yambu and Zoltan sipped moderately from their cups the vintage was passable and Bonar’s two sisters drank even less than their visitors. Meanwhile Gesner, seated at the far end of a table by himself, clutched a forgotten flagon and stared at nothing, while the servitors, still looking frightened by the presence of the visitors and the authority of Yambu, continued working on their belated job of cleanup.
Wondering if the wine could be enlisted as his ally, Zoltan made one more attempt to bring up the subject of mermaids with the chief. But at his first words, Bonar gave him a single, scornful, drunken look that said: Mermaids again? Forget it. We have more important things than that to worry about.
Zoltan sighed, and once more abandoned his efforts. But he had already decided that if the survivors of the Malolo clan wanted his continued help, and that of the Lady Yambu, they would eventually have to help him in turn.
Yambu, drawing her young companion aside when the opportunity arose, cautioned him again against impatience. “If you want the active help of these people for your Black Pearl, there is no point in irritating them unnecessarily on the subject. Also it may be better not to let them see how important she is to you.”
With that, Zoltan had to agree.
Perversely, just after this private exchange, Bonar raised the subject of mermaids yet again himself. After he had rambled on about it for a while, spilling and drinking his wine meanwhile, all of the members of the household were firmly under the impression that Zoltan wanted to rent a mermaid for some magical stunt or entertainment somewhere.
Zoltan suppressed his angry reaction to this idea. Outwardly he decided to go along with it, hoping such a plan would offer some way to get Black Pearl away. If he could not present himself convincingly to these half-mad people as a magician, maybe they would take him seriously as the proprietor of a traveling show.
Of course, Zoltan meditated, even if he were able to take Black Pearl away from here, she would still be a mermaid. So simply to take her away would be of doubtful help. If he brought her back to Tasavalta, would Old Karel or some other wizard be able to cure her?
Zoltan had no idea.
Now Bonar, who should have fallen asleep or gotten sick some time ago, was instead working himself up to a drunken effort at diplomacy. He made a formal offer of alliance to Lady Yambu.
She responded vaguely and diplomatically. Very diplomatically, Zoltan thought, considering the chief’s condition.
Gradually the day had passed, and sunset was now imminent. Zoltan walked out by himself to scout the grounds before darkness fell. When he returned to the house, he found Bonar at last snoring with his head down on the table. Violet, the more diplomatic and practical sister, issued a formal invitation to the two visitors to stay indefinitely. Then Yambu and Zoltan were assigned sleeping rooms upstairs—since last month there were plenty of rooms available and a dour servant to wait upon them.
As they were on their way upstairs to bed, Zoltan whispered privately to Yambu: “If only there were some trustworthy and halfway competent magician available, closer than Tasavalta!”
The lady only shook her head. Both of them knew there wasn’t a wizard available that either of them would want to trust, not just now. Certainly not Gesner. It appeared that for the time being any direct attempt to help Black Pearl by means of countermagic would have to wait.
Zoltan looked forward to his clandestine meeting, scheduled for this very midnight, with Black Pearl.
Chapter Seven
At nightfall on that same day, just after Zoltan had finished his reconnaissance of the Malolo grounds, the man who had called himself Chilperic was making his lonely camp in a small clearing on the wooded north bank of the Tungri. Shortly before sunset Chilperic had crossed the river from south to north, making use of a rope suspension bridge that for some years had spanned the lower end of the gorge. The bridge spanned the river just above the deep pool in which the Tungri at last ceased its deadly plunging, its white self-laceration upon rocks, and widened out again into a calm flow.
Despite the feud—so Chilperic had been informed by a chance met peasant—the bridge had remained in place for many years. Members of both feuding clans sometimes found it advantageous to have the means of a dry crossing, and so except on rare occasions both sides were willing to let the span of ropes hang there unmolested, though often they posted sentries to warn of an enemy crossing in force. Today there had not been a sentry in sight at either end.
Chilperic had been reasonably cautious in choosing a site in deep woods where his little camp would not readily be seen. With practiced and efficient movements, he erected a small shelter tent of magically thin, strong fabric in an inconspicuous place. He also took care to keep his fire small. The one visitor that he was more or less expecting would need no help in locating his bivouac. Meanwhile Chilperic’s mount, also an experienced campaigner, moved about on its hobble calmly, foraging as best it could upon the new spring growth.
The man’s face, as he went about the routine chores of making himself comfortable in the woods, was set in a thoughtfully attentive expression. He looked like a man who was waiting to receive some special signal, but uncertain of at just what moment or even in what form the signal might come to him.
And then Chilperic paused in the act of gathering firewood; a frown came over his face and he stared at nothing. The signal he had both feared and anticipated had arrived at last.
The first indication of his visitor’s approach was neither a visual appearance nor a sound. Rather an aura of sickness began to grow in the very atmosphere Chilperic breathed, and a special gloom, which had nothing to do with clouds or sunset, seemed to fall over the earth around him. Very quickly he also began to experience a sensation of unnatural cold. His riding-beast, hardened as it was to these matters, ceased to browse and stood still and silent, quivering lightly. The cries of animals in the surrounding forest changed, and presently fell silent. Even
the insects quieted.
No more than a few minutes passed from the first manifestation of the demon until the creature made its presence known in a more localized and immediate way. But somehow to the man, shivering involuntarily, the interval seemed considerably longer.
The full manifestation, as he knew well, was apt to vary substantially from one occasion to the next. On this occasion there was not very much at all in the way of an optical appearance. There was only a cloudiness that might under ordinary circumstances have been taken for a temporary blurring of vision, a little water in the eyes. And simultaneously with the cloudiness there came a strange unearthly smell and a slight sensation that the world was tilting. Had there been any lingering doubts about the nature of the presence thus establishing itself, those doubts would have been dispelled by what came next, a rain of filth falling out of nowhere into the light of the man’s small fire, and into the pan of food that he had begun to prepare beside the fire.
Chilperic’s expression did not change as he picked up the pan and with a snap of his wrist threw the polluted contents into the woods behind him.
“So you have come, Rabisu,” he said quietly. He spoke to the ghastly thing without the least surprise, addressing it with the reluctant firmness of a man who wants to avert both his eyes and his thoughts from something horrible, even though he knows the confrontation will be even more difficult and dangerous if he fails to meet it directly and unflinchingly.
And now at last he heard the demon’s voice. It sounded more in the mind of Chilperic than in his ears, and it came in the form of a noise that reminded the man of the chittering of insects, and also of the tearing of live flesh. Still, the words which modulated this noise were clear enough: “I have come to learn what you have to report to the master.”
“I want you to tell our master this.” As he spoke, Chilperic sat down on a log beside his fire, put his head down, let his eyes close, and rubbed his temples. He spoke in a tired voice. “Tell him all indications are that the Sword he seeks is still somewhere in this area, between the Second and Third Cataracts and near the river Tungri. But whether it will be found north or south of the river I know not.”
The Fourth Book Of Lost Swords : Farslayer's Story (Saberhagen's Lost Swords 4) Page 8