‘How do you read it?’
‘No one knows any more, but we do know it’s a book.’ He shook his head. ‘The Ancients had whole libraries of these.’
Zayn spent a pleasant half-hour, learning how to associate the Vransic alphabet, which was completely different from the Kazraki version, with the sounds of Vranz. Learning anything new, whether it was the layout of a town or a language, brought him physical sensations of ease and comfort, the same as many men got from a few bowls of keese. Once he knew the alphabet, he bought a children’s reading book and a dictionary with the luxurious joy others would have found in handling gold.
Yet as soon as he left the shop, his cheerful mood evaporated like spilled keese. As soon as he stepped into the street, he felt eyes watching him. He spun around and caught the gaze of a youngish man with pale hair, a clumsy spy, who bolted and ran the moment he realized Zayn had seen him. Zayn held his ground. In broad daylight he might find the fellow, but what then? He could hardly beat the truth out of him here in a foreign country. As he hurried back to camp, he stayed on guard, but he never saw the fellow again nor any other suspicious person.
Zayn went straight to Ammadin’s tent. He listened for a moment, then raised the flap cautiously and looked in. She had left and taken her crystals with her. Although he’d been planning on merely putting his new books away, he ended up lying on his blankets for the rest of that day in an extravagant orgy of memorizing words in Vranz.
‘I have news,’ Soutan said. ‘One of the Zhay Pay’s men has come back from Nannes. The comnee rode in yesterday just after noon.’
‘And Zayn was still with it?’ Warkannan said.
‘Oh yes. The fellow made a point of telling me that he’d seen the Kazrak down in town. Zayn was still there this morning. Our informant saw him grooming the spirit rider’s horses.’
They were sitting at the long window of the guest room, drinking a pale brown liquid, served hot, that Soutan called ‘tay’. Outside, Arkazo was playing with the shens on the green lawn. One of the servants had given him two leather balls. In the cool morning light he threw them for the shens, who chased them down and brought them back, drooling and prancing, to beg Arkazo to throw them yet again. Shens, Warkannan decided, were not intelligent animals.
‘My worst fear,’ Soutan continued, ‘is of Zayn leaving the comnee immediately and getting a head start on us.’
‘He won’t. He’s got to make his inquiries about you, hasn’t he? The Chosen probably don’t even know which canton you came from. You certainly never told us.’
‘The fewer people who knew, the better.’ Soutan frowned into his cup. ‘If your god is kind, Zayn may not even hear about Jezro, but that’s a bit much to hope for.’
‘Yes, I’m afraid so. I guess we’d better see about getting you those crystals. How far away is that priest you were telling me about?’
‘Not very. A couple of hours’ ride. Alayn says he’ll take us there.’
‘He knows these people well, I take it.’
‘Too well. I’ll explain when I’m sure he won’t overhear us.’
‘Good.’ Warkannan got up and looked out the window at the sky. ‘We should get on our way before the day gets too hot.’
When they rode out, Alayn led them straight into the forest by a path just wide enough for two horses to walk abreast. The pack horses turned nervous, pulling at the lead ropes and tossing their heads. Even Warkannan could smell the rank scent of decay, of animal droppings and dead flesh, of peculiar growths and fungi; to the horses the forest would reek of danger. The light fell broken through the canopy and gave no clear view ahead or to either side. Some sort of tiny black insect swarmed on the path, and while they never bit either horse or man, the horses stamped and switched their tails, tossed their heads and laid their ears back whenever they were forced to walk through the insect clouds.
After two hours of this dank travelling, the trail brought them free of the trees and into a clearing so large that it must have been man-made. Roughly circular, it stretched for several hundred yards across. Behind a thorn-vine fence, it housed a cluster of buildings and a wide lawn of true-grass. Alayn led them straight into the compound. They halted and dismounted in front of the largest building, a two-storey affair with a peaked roof, built entirely of true-wood. Behind it and off to one side stood smaller buildings and a scatter of sheds, mostly woven from rushes and vines reinforced with wood here and there.
When Alayn called out a greeting, the double doors of the true-wood building swung open. Two men trotted out, wearing rusty black smocks over torn and faded blue leggings. The younger began talking with Alayn in Vranz while the older crossed his arms over his chest and studied the rest of the party. He was a tall man, abnormally thin and quite bald, with narrow blue eyes and pale eyebrows, but what caught Warkannan’s attention were the growths on his face. Brown and spongy, some round, some dangling – they clustered around his mouth and spotted his cheeks. A few were as thick as a thumb and crusted in pale grey. The younger fellow carried a scattering of brown warts around his lips to match the growth that hung at the edge of Alayn’s.
‘I’ll explain later,’ Soutan whispered in Kazraki. ‘Disgusting, isn’t it?’
‘I’m afraid so.’
The older man looked at them sharp-eyed for this bit of conversation. Soutan arranged a smile and spoke in Hirl-Onglay. ‘Ah, Father Sharl! How pleasant to see you again! Alayn told me that you’ve acquired some crystals.’
‘Yes,’ Sharl said, and he spoke Hirl-Onglay with no accent. ‘None I want to part with.’
‘We can offer you Kazraki gold and a horse.’
‘No. I’m not haggling, Soutan. I mean it. No.’
‘Ah.’ Soutan paused, considering. ‘You’re sure that there’s nothing we can offer you? They say everyone has his price, don’t they?’
Sharl smiled, and the growths around his mouth danced and twitched. ‘The only price I have,’ he said, ‘is one you won’t want to pay.’
‘You can’t be sure of that until you tell me what it is.’
‘Good point.’ Sharl thought for a moment. ‘My little flock here is getting restless. It’s been a long time since we had a proper ceremony for Sevenday.’ He pointed a bony finger at Arkazo. ‘What about that fellow for the altar?’
Warkannan opened his mouth to snarl but Soutan got in ahead of him.
‘Of course not!’ Soutan snapped. ‘If you need a sacrifice that badly, we can offer you a horse.’
‘Animals won’t do.’ Sharl crossed his arms over his chest. ‘Too boring, too ordinary.’
‘You’re joking, aren’t you?’ Soutan smiled, then let it fade. ‘Or no, I don’t think you are.’
‘I’m completely serious. The congregation likes some thrills when they’re under the influence. Bring me a sacrifice, and you take your pick of my crystals. Three of them, say.’
‘It would have to be five at least, but I’m certainly not going to –’ Soutan stopped talking, glanced at Warkannan, and smiled. ‘Wait. Let’s think about this. We actually know someone who might do, someone who’s just passing through, no family to try to find him, no employer to demand that the zhundars do something about his disappearance.’
‘Really?’ Sharl grinned, revealing black gaps among brown teeth. ‘Three crystals if you get him here.’
‘Five,’ Soutan said firmly. ‘How many assistants do you have here now?’
‘Only three I can trust with an errand like this.’
‘Ah. So Alayn will have to help.’
At the mention of his name the sinyur turned to join the conversation, and all three men began talking in Vranz. Warkannan and Arkazo took a few steps back to stand among the horses and speak softly in Kazraki.
‘Does this mean what I think it does?’ Arkazo said.
‘Probably, if you mean catching Zayn and handing him over to these – well, whatever they are. Priest doesn’t seem like the right word to me. Idolaters, more likely.’
�
�Yes. That Sharl – Uncle, he must be a comnee man. Or he was.’
‘Shaitan! You’re right, aren’t you? I wonder how he ended up here?’
The conversation between Alayn, Sharl, and Soutan grew louder. All three men were waving their hands in the air and looking heavenward as if to invoke various gods – gods of haggling, Warkannan assumed, and quite rightly. Eventually they all shook hands. Smiling, Soutan walked back to the two Kazraks.
‘Well, there we are,’ Soutan announced. ‘I get four crystals, Alayn gets the extra horse, and Sharl gets Zayn. Or rather, Alayn, the younger priests, and I get our hands on Zayn somehow and turn him over to Sharl. Hence the payment to Alayn.’
‘Makes sense,’ Warkannan said. ‘Are they going to kill him?’
‘Of course. There’s only one real drawback,’ Soutan continued in Kazraki. ‘We have to wait till Zayn leaves the comnee. In order to find him once he does, I’ll need to use the crystals. Sharl insists that we stay here. He doesn’t want me taking the crystals and just going on my merry way with them.’
‘Would you do that?’ Arkazo said.
‘I wouldn’t have the slightest compunction. Let us go to the guest house Sharl offered us, and I’ll explain. Oh, and we’re giving Alayn the horse now. He won’t back out, and this way the temple won’t have to feed it.’
‘Temple?’ Warkannan had had enough mysterious remarks for one day. ‘What in hell is this place anyway?’
‘Let me show you.’ Soutan was smiling, but the smile was forced. ‘The young priest there – Gee is his name – he’ll stable our horses.’
‘What kind of a job will he do? I’d rather take care of that myself.’
‘Ever the cavalryman, aren’t you, Captain? Very well.’ Soutan turned and called out in Vranz.
Gee answered, waved, and turned and walked off.
‘He’s just as glad to let someone else do the work,’ Soutan said. ‘But let me show you the temple while it’s still light. You won’t want to be in there in the dark.’
Warkannan tied the horses to a long wooden rail and left them under Alayn’s watch before he and Arkazo followed Soutan into the true-wood building. Sharl brought up the rear. The double doors opened into a narrow porch of sorts, empty of furniture. On the far side another set of double doors brought them to a long room, dimly lit by small glazed windows on either side. They walked down an aisle between two sets of rough wooden benches, enough for a good fifty people, Warkannan estimated. At the far end three stone steps led up to a dais. A pair of dirty dark curtains covered the wall behind it. As they approached the dais, Warkannan became aware of a stink rather like rotting meat, but faint and stale.
In the middle of the dais stood what at first appeared to be a wooden table. As Warkannan’s eyes got used to the gloom, he realized first that it was topped with a slab of stone and second that it was long enough to hold a human being. Down the middle ran a blood gutter reminiscent of a butcher’s shop. Underneath stood an ordinary tin washtub streaked with what might have been rust. Judging from the smell, it was nothing so innocent. Arkazo made a choking noise, as if perhaps he was suppressing the urge to vomit.
Warkannan felt less than well himself. To kill an enemy in a fight was one thing; to put him on an idolatrous altar, quite another. It’s your duty, he reminded himself, and sharply. Soutan turned to Father Sharl and spoke in Vranz. Sharl laughed and trotted up the stairs, went round the altar, and picked up a coil of rope. When he pulled, the curtains creaked back, revealing a statue some eighteen feet high by Warkannan’s rough guess. Carved of a greenish, slippery-looking stone, an enormous male ChaMeech glared down at them; his eyes gleamed with red gemstones. He sat haunched, and in his pseudo-hands he held a wooden spear edged with obsidian.
‘May God protect us all!’ Warkannan muttered in Kazraki. He switched to Hirl-Onglay and said, ‘May I ask who that’s supposed to be?’
‘Aggnavvachur,’ Sharl said. ‘The ChaMeech name means Hunter of Souls.’ He threw back his head and made a high-pitched yipping noise on a single note, echoing in the empty room. ‘Do you know what that sound means?’
‘Yes,’ Warkannan said. ‘A ChaMeech surrender.’
‘Exactly. Sooner or later, Captain, we all submit to his rule.’ Sharl stressed the word ‘submit’ and smiled.
‘Oh yes,’ Warkannan kept his voice level. ‘Briefly. Before our souls go on to the place appointed for them by God.’
Sharl seemed to be about to say more, but Soutan stepped forward with the brisk cheer of a banquet host stepping between two drunken cavalrymen. ‘I know you’re worried about the horses, Captain,’ he said. ‘Shall we go get them stabled and fed?’
‘Good idea,’ Warkannan said. ‘Going to help me, Kaz?’
‘Of course, sir. Let’s go.’
Soutan led them outside through a side door near the dais and marched them quickly along, too, until they were a good ways away from the temple.
‘Sharl’s not following.’ Soutan glanced back the way they’d come. ‘What was that odd exchange about?’
‘The name of our faith goes back thousands of years to the sacred language.’ Warkannan paused, steadying his voice. ‘One translation of Islam is “submission”.’
‘I see. My apologies, Captain. I never expected he’d be so belligerent.’
‘It strikes me that your friend there thrives on doing things people don’t expect.’
‘He’s not my friend. You’re right about the rest of it.’
‘Soutan?’ Arkazo broke in. ‘Where did they get that statue? How did they get it inside?’
‘It was here already, actually,’ Soutan said. ‘They built the temple around it. In better light you would have seen that it sits on bare ground, not a floor.’
‘Then there were ChaMeech in this forest?’ Warkannan said.
‘Not precisely. There were ChaMeech here before the forest. The Cantonneurs planted the trees, and then realized it was some sort of sacred ground in ChaMeech culture. That’s why they let the forest go wild.’
‘What? And waste all this wood?’
Soutan let out his breath in an exasperated puff. They were at the stable door before Warkannan realized that the breath was the only answer he was going to get.
The stable turned out to be decently clean and well-aired. Warkannan and Arkazo unloaded and unsaddled the horses, watered them, and helped themselves to the temple’s stacked hay. Arkazo found a couple of sacks of wheatian; they parcelled that out among the horses as well. While they worked, Soutan actually condescended to carry some of the gear into the guest house, though he left the heavy packs for Arkazo and Warkannan. Still, as Warkannan remarked, it was a nice change.
The three of them were hauling the last of their gear when they spotted a young man walking into the compound from the forest. He wore the usual smock and leggings, but he’d bound a white kerchief over the bottom of his face, and he wore thick leather gloves that reached to his elbows. He was carrying a shallow basket, about three feet across, heaped up with dark red strands of Death’s Necklace.
‘Don’t ask, don’t say a word,’ Soutan murmured. ‘Let’s get inside.’
Fortunately the guest house was only a few yards away. They hurried in and dumped their loads onto the plain wood floor. Soutan shut the door firmly behind them, then for good measure closed the wooden shutters over the unglazed windows.
‘Poisons?’ Warkannan whispered.
‘Not quite,’ Soutan spoke just as softly. ‘Though they might as well be. They have some way of processing the stuff. Then they eat it. It gives them visions, they say, and it’s supposed to enhance all sorts of sensations and make them into wondrous experiences. Very sexual, they say, and exciting.’
‘Experiences like watching a man stabbed to death on that butcher’s table of theirs?’
‘Exactly. Some of their customers are quite highly placed, Alayn among them, so they can get away with things. The drug – it’s terrible stuff, Captain. You’ve seen what it does to
their mouths.’
‘How can they keep on eating it?’
‘It’s addictive, of course. Very very addictive.’
‘Good God! Does Alayn’s father know?’
‘No. That’s why he refused to go buy me the crystals in Nannes. If his father started asking questions about how he was spending his leisure time – well, you can guess what would happen.’ Soutan shuddered again. ‘Sharl and his underlings support themselves by selling this wretched stuff.’
‘Those sores,’ Arkazo said. ‘Or cancers or whatever they are. Don’t they give the customers away? I mean, you’d think someone would ask about them.’
‘Of course. Everyone believes it’s something in the local water that causes the growths, but only on those people who have a predisposition to getting them. Or something like that – it’s rather a garbled story. Every now and then the addicts will have the growths removed, but they always come back.’
‘They don’t sound very bright,’ Warkannan said.
‘No, they’re not, but let’s face it, most members of the H’mai race are stupid.’ Soutan wrinkled a contemptuous lip. ‘Arkazo, what do you think of this?’
Arkazo tossed his head as if trying to shake off an insect. ‘It’s horrible,’ he said. ‘It’s going to eat their faces away, sooner or later.’
‘Oh yes,’ Soutan spoke softly. ‘Eventually, I suppose, it’ll kill them. Good riddance.’
Doubtless because of those highly placed customers, the guest house was comfortable enough. The room in which they stood sported white walls, bright carpets on the floor, a scatter of comfortable-looking wicker chairs, and a cushioned divan. Through an open doorway Warkannan could see a long dormitory-style room with a row of narrow beds covered with clean blankets.
‘I hope no one else is going to be sharing this with us,’ Warkannan said.
‘Don’t worry,’ Soutan said. ‘The last thing they want is for us to learn the names or see the faces of their regular visitors.’ He sighed in a martyred sort of way. ‘I have to go back and talk with Father Sharl. I need to see these crystals of his and pick out the four I want.’
Snare Page 28