All those beautiful women back on the plains, Zayn thought. Beautiful, easy women – and what do I do? Fall for a spirit rider. He took his own glass, returned her salute, and drank as much as he could in one swallow.
For five days Warkannan and his men had been riding like fugitives. They followed country roads that ran like ruts between fields; when those roads threatened to take them to towns, they left them and stayed close to wild country, the rocky stream beds and remnants of the old vegetation that had once covered Dordan. No true-oaks grew here – the pale fountain trees fought for sunlight with tall scarlet lace-leafs and a welter of orange and russet herbage.
They crossed the border from Dordan to Burgunee in the middle of the night. Soutan led them straight to an abandoned barn, where they camped to hide from the dawn. What was left of the walls sagged and split, but the roof covered them enough to thwart the spirit rider’s crystals, or so Soutan said.
‘How do you even know if she’s trying to spot us?’ Warkannan said.
‘I don’t, but I don’t care to be caught napping this time.’
‘This time?’
‘If she tries to kill these crystals, of course. Good God, don’t you remember anything?’
‘Well, if we’ll reach Jezro soon, why does it matter?’
‘Because we have to get him safely out of here and back across the border, don’t we? Back to Andjaro, I mean. How am I supposed to do that without crystals?’
‘That’s true, of course. But I don’t think the spirit rider cares one way or the other if we reach Andjaro.’
For an answer Soutan made a growling sound deep in his throat. Warkannan let the subject drop.
With dawn Soutan’s mood improved. He rummaged through his gear and brought out a small rectangle of some substance that looked like blue quartz. When Arkazo asked him about it, he showed it round.
‘This is a signal imp,’ Soutan said. ‘Once I charge it in the sunlight, it will send a message to Jezro, telling him we’re nearly there.’
Arkazo’s eyes widened. When Soutan handed him the imp, he held it up, studied it, stroked it with a forefinger as if it were a pet animal.
‘We’re nearly there?’ Warkannan said.
‘Oh yes. A day’s ride – a long day, unfortunately, since we haven’t come on the main roads. I’m trying to decide if we should wait till nightfall to move out. Let me scan, and then we’ll know more.’
As the dawn blossomed, Soutan spent a long time out in the sun with his various devices as if he’d forgotten his fears of the spirit rider. Warkannan and Arkazo fed the horses the last of the grain and watered them at a rivulet behind the abandoned barn.
‘I suppose Soutan knows what he’s doing,’ Warkannan said.
‘Of course he does.’
A certain calm faith in Arkazo’s voice caught Warkannan’s attention, but he had no idea what to make of it. It’s the machines he likes, he thought. Power from the sun and all that sort of thing. During their long ride, Soutan had been flooding Arkazo with so much information about the Settlers and their mechanical trinkets that Warkannan had simply stopped listening. Soutan’s lectures did keep up Arkazo’s morale; for that, he was grateful.
Soutan, wild-eyed and grinning, ran back to the barn. ‘They’ve got the message,’ he said. ‘Jezro responded. I’d given my enemies too much credit. I assumed they’d figure out where I’d be taking you. They don’t seem to have done so. The road ahead looks clear. Let’s go. One last dash for safety!’
‘What do you mean, looks clear?’ Warkannan said. ‘Is it clear or not?’
‘My, and don’t we have a literal mind? It is clear, Captain. It runs through fields and the like – nowhere much to hide. I saw no zhundars anywhere.’
‘Good. Remember, you’re the one they want to arrest.’
Warkannan had the satisfaction of seeing Soutan’s smile disappear.
They saddled up and left the barn. By late afternoon, they were travelling along a straight road lined with true-oaks on one side and a canal on the other. The land here was beginning to rise, and at times the road climbed a low hill only to sink on the other side. At the top of one of these waves of earth, they saw ahead of them horsemen on the road, ten by Warkannan’s hasty count, and heading their way.
‘Well, Soutan,’ Warkannan said, ‘what do you make of this?’
‘I don’t know.’ Soutan’s face slowly drained of colour. ‘The Phalanx is below the horizon. Oh my god, there’s nowhere to hide!’ He twisted this way and that in his saddle, then began to tremble. ‘What are we going to do?’
‘Be calm, for starters,’ Warkannan said. ‘Let’s go meet them.’
Soutan squealed, but Warkannan leaned over and grabbed the reins from Soutan’s hand. ‘I said let’s go!’
His horse set off at a brisk walk downhill, and Soutan’s followed with the whining, yelping sorcerer on its back. Arkazo urged his horse up beside his uncle’s.
‘What are you going to do?’ Arkazo said.
‘If those are zhundars, I’m going to pretend we knew they were looking for Soutan, so we caught him. Then we turn him over.’
‘Uncle, you can’t do that! He’s a friend.’
‘Just watch me. We can find Jezro on our own now.’
‘But –’
‘Shut up,’ Warkannan snapped. ‘Here they are.’
With shouted greetings the horsemen spurred their mounts forward. All at once Soutan began to laugh.
‘It’s Marya’s men,’ he called out. ‘We’re safe!’
Warkannan tossed Soutan his reins. Laughing, shouting in Vranz, the horsemen surrounded them. Arkazo leaned forward in the saddle and listened hard. Finally he sat back. ‘I can only catch a few words,’ he said. ‘They talk so damn fast.’
In a few minutes Soutan deigned to translate. He introduced the troop as the bodyguards of a certain Dookis Marya, who was sheltering Jezro Khan.
‘Jezro himself’s waiting at the house,’ Soutan said. ‘It’s some miles on yet. Robear here –’ he gestured at a burly dark-haired man on a blood bay horse, ‘– tells me that Marya’s made sure the zhundars won’t be troubling us.’
‘Excellent! Give him my thanks, will you?’
Soutan spoke briefly. Robear smiled and saluted Warkannan with a casual wave of one hand, then jerked his thumb back the way his troop had come.
‘Yes,’ Warkannan said. ‘Let’s go.’
The twilight was darkening around them when they came to one last hill and saw down below a semi-circular valley, surrounded by hills on three sides. At the base of the hills a high fence surrounded an extravagant stretch of green lawns and elaborate gardens. To one side stood a stand of trees unlike any Warkannan had seen before, pale gold and shaggy with leaves as long and curved as sabre blades. In the middle of the lawn sprawled a one-storey rambling house, built mostly of true-wood and painted white. In windows lamplight glowed and sent shafts of gold out onto the green lawns. Just beyond the house, other structures stood dark in the gathering night.
‘Stables and the like,’ Soutan said, pointing. ‘This is the manor house of Dookis Marya, where Jezro’s been living.’
Warkannan was too tired to do more than smile. When he glanced at Arkazo, he found him staring wide-eyed at the distant view.
‘Almost there,’ Warkannan said. ‘I thank God for it, too.’
Surrounded by guards, they rode downhill. When they dismounted in front of the house, shens came racing out, barking madly to greet them, but the horses were tired enough to ignore them. Soutan aimed a casual kick at the lead shen’s head, caught it in the ribs instead, and smiled when it yelped and drew back. Servants came running to take the horses. One of them, a blond fellow dressed in a shirt of fine, white cloth and narrow, red trousers, spoke quickly to Soutan.
‘The dookis won’t be joining us tonight,’ Soutan told Warkannan. ‘I’m not surprised. She’s something of a recluse.’
The fellow in the white shirt opened the front door and ushere
d them into a bright yellow room, stuffed with gilded furniture and glowing with light from tall glass lamps. More servants appeared, springing forward to take their saddlebags. In the confusion Warkannan almost overlooked the man who stood off to one side, leaning on a stout-looking walking stick; he had dark wavy hair, streaked with grey, and across his face ran a pair of brutal scars like a pucker of tan mountains, from his left jawbone to his right ear and back again. Whatever had gashed him had barely missed both throat and eyes.
It was the smile that finally made Warkannan recognize Jezro Khan, the world-weary twist of a full mouth that went so poorly with the real mirth in his dark eyes. Warkannan started to laugh, just a mutter under his breath, and strode over. Jezro laughed as well and held out his arms, but Warkannan took one step more, then knelt at his feet.
‘What the hell are you doing, Idres?’ Jezro said. ‘Get up, for God’s sake! I’m not even a khan any more.’
‘That’s about to change, your highness,’ Warkannan said. ‘There’s an army waiting for you at home.’
Jezro stared, let his smile fade, took a step back and shook his head as if to say no in a prolonged tremor. Warkannan did get up, then, and held out his hand.
‘We can talk about that later,’ Warkannan said, and all at once he couldn’t stop smiling. ‘You know, it’s good to see you.’
Jezro burst out laughing. ‘A perfect Idres remark!’
‘Oh good God! You remember that? The way you and Benumar used to tease –’
‘Of course I do! I can’t tell you how much I’ve missed you, this past ten years.’
Jezro dropped his walking stick, grabbed Warkannan’s hand and pulled him close. They flung their arms around each other, laughed, nearly wept, laughed some more. Soutan hurried off, muttering about bathing, but Arkazo stood nearby with his hands in his pockets and smiled at them both.
‘Kaz!’ Jezro let Warkannan go and turned towards him. ‘The last time I saw you, you were about this high.’ He held his hand out roughly five feet from the ground. ‘Do you remember? I spent the night at your family’s house on my way back to Haz Kazrak, when my father was dying.’
‘Yes sir,’ Arkazo said. ‘I’ll never forget it, but I’m surprised you remember me.’
‘Don’t be,’ Warkannan said. ‘He’s like that.’
Jezro shrugged, then fished in his trouser pocket and pulled out a handkerchief. He wiped his nose, then gave Warkannan a wry smile.
‘These cuts?’ Jezro touched a scar with one finger. ‘They went right through my nose. Left me with a little problem.’
‘I’m surprised you can breathe out of it at all.’
‘Oh, the comnee hakeem had a rough and ready way of dealing with it. He cut a couple of pieces of hollow water reed, and – well, I’ll spare you the details. I can’t say I enjoyed the procedure. But the nose did heal open. It’s the muscles that let you sniff that got cut.’
‘Sir?’ The blond fellow in the white shirt stepped forward; he spoke in heavily accented Kazraki. ‘Our guests look hungry and tired.’
‘And filthy,’ Warkannan said. ‘My apologies for that.’
‘You’re right, Zhil,’ Jezro said. ‘Guest rooms first. Talk later.’
It took Warkannan only a few minutes to realize that recluse or not, Dookis Marya was very rich. The house rambled because it held at least fifty rooms, added one to another without much plan, but all furnished with things that would have cost a fortune in Haz Kazrak. What they’d cost here in this half-settled country he couldn’t even guess. Zhil followed them to translate their orders; servants stood everywhere, ready to lead them to bedrooms, set up baths, and fill them with warm water. When Warkannan asked for hot water so he could shave, a servant trained as a barber appeared to do the job for him. His own filthy clothing disappeared and clean appeared in its place. Some of Jezro’s, he was told, and since he and Jezro were much of a height, it fitted well enough. During all of this Jezro hovered nearby, grinning, but they could barely say two words to each other in the confusion.
Finally, however, the servants left with a last round of bows. A clean Arkazo, freshly clothed in a shirt and trousers that Soutan had lent him, arrived in Warkannan’s room, and the three of them sat down in cushioned armchairs in front of a pair of glass doors that gave out onto a little garden. Warkannan could just make out rose bushes where the light from the windows fell.
‘I’ve got to say,’ Warkannan said, ‘that God seems to have provided for you.’
Jezro laughed. ‘Yes, I have to admit that things took a turn for the better after I met the dookis. That was five years ago, when she still got out regularly and needed a secretary. That’s what I am, by the way, at least in theory, her secretary. But before she hired me, things weren’t all that bad, mind. I was surprised to learn how decent people can be to a penniless stranger.’
‘But this –’ Warkannan gestured at the elegant room behind them. ‘It’s crass of me, but I can’t help asking. How do you get this rich in the Cantons?’
‘You find a cache of Settler technology and know what it’s worth.’ Jezro turned suddenly serious. ‘Yarl did tell you about the Settlers, didn’t he?’
‘Oh yes. I gather he was telling the truth. I had my doubts.’
‘I figured you would. But yes, it’s true. They were incredibly advanced – well, when it came to machines, anyway. Here and there they left caches, sometimes of devices we can’t even work, but more usually solar accus and various small things like lightwands – replacement supplies, I suppose they were. Finding one is every peasant’s dream. Marya’s father had his dream come true.’
‘Lucky man.’
‘He was, yes.’ Jezro paused to pull out his handkerchief and wipe his nose and upper lip. ‘You know, there’s so much to tell you, I don’t even know where to start. Suppose you tell me more about that army you mentioned. Are you seriously suggesting that I ride home to try for reinstatement?’
‘Not in the least. I’m suggesting you ride home to overthrow your brother by force and become the new Great Khan.’
Jezro gaped at him.
‘Gemet’s gone mad,’ Warkannan went on. ‘Paranoia and greed about sum it up. If someone doesn’t do something, there won’t be any khanate in a few years, just a lot of impoverished provinces in a state of constant war.’
‘He’s quite right,’ Soutan said. ‘Allow me to add my voice to the captain’s.’
Warkannan nearly yelped. As usual Soutan had managed to glide into the room without being noticed. Warkannan twisted round in his chair, started to speak, and felt his tongue lie frozen in his mouth. A middle-aged man, his grey hair newly cut, his wrinkled face still damp and pink from shaving, stood in the room. He had dark eyes, and a raw scabby wound, as if metal had repeatedly scraped the skin, disfigured his forehead. His thin mouth twisted in a smile, and he spoke in Yarl’s voice.
‘Surprised, Captain? You’ll notice the headband I always wore is gone. It’s a bit of old technology, of course, a hologrammatic mask. I was hoping it would help keep my enemies off my trail.’
Arkazo giggled, one high, piercing little shriek. He clapped a hand over his mouth and blushed.
‘It’s all right, Kaz,’ Soutan went on. ‘I’m afraid I gave in to my love of the overly dramatic.’ He smiled at Jezro. ‘I have hopes that the headband will hide our khan when we have to cross the border back into Andjaro.’
‘Now wait,’ Jezro snapped. ‘I haven’t said I’m going anywhere yet.’
‘Are you really going to let your people starve in the streets?’ Warkannan said. ‘How about this? Anyone who speaks out against Gemet is tortured to death. Do you remember your father’s councillor, Ahmed Shiraz? They stretched out his death for three days.’
‘God forbid!’ Jezro went pale.
‘The shock killed his wife, too, though I have to admit she’d been ill for some time,’ Warkannan went on. ‘And his unmarried daughter – her name’s Lubahva – she ended up as one of the palace girls. It’s a
damn good thing she’s a talented musician, or she’d have been working the streets. No one dared take her in but Aiwaz.’
‘Aiwaz would stand up to Iblis himself for a friend’s sake,’ Jezro said, ‘despite his fondness for women’s clothes and yellow handkerchiefs. Is he still alive, or has my brother murdered him, too?’
‘He’s beneath your brother’s notice, just like Lubahva is. I doubt if Gemet realizes that either of them’s in the palace. He knows how much people hate him. He doesn’t go out of the grounds unless he absolutely has to, and even then he’s surrounded by armed guards.’
‘Are things really that bad?’
‘Oh yes. Worse. I –’
The door behind them opened again, noisily this time, to admit Zhil. ‘Dinner, sirs,’ he said. ‘The dookis sends her regrets.’
It was a strange meal, taken in a luxurious white room, off a long, oak table set with fine blue and white china, an abundance of food served perfectly in an atmosphere of horror. Warkannan and Soutan talked of Gemet’s wide-ranging crimes. Arkazo joined them to tell Jezro about the torture-murder of a university professor who had dared criticize the Great Khan. As the meal went on, Jezro ate less and less and talked, by the end, not at all. Warkannan leaned back in his chair and waited, watching Jezro think things through, as he had so often before, back on the border when the consequences of the khan’s decisions had been petty compared to the decision he was facing now.
‘I don’t know why I’m surprised,’ Jezro said at last. ‘My brother’s a great one for eliminating anyone in his way.’ He reached up and touched the scar across his face. ‘No, I really don’t know why I’m so surprised. Idres, tell me. Is there any way out of this but civil war?’
‘No,’ Warkannan said. ‘If there was, I wouldn’t be asking you to start one.’
‘I certainly agree.’ Soutan, this strange new Soutan whose face finally matched his old man’s eyes, leaned forward to join in. ‘What I saw –’
Jezro held up a hand for silence. ‘Yarl, thank you, but Idres’ word is all I need.’ He pushed his chair back and stood up, reaching for his stick. ‘Gemet’s assassins cut a couple of tendons on this leg, in case you were wondering.’
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