by Dave Duncan
"Finished your beer?" Han inquired. "There's a wallow hole over that way. It should be relatively clean at this time of day, before the masses get to it."
He wants me out of here, the old bastard. "Sure," Paing said. "Good idea."
He departed in a blaze of sunlight, a gust of gritty air. The reek of man and horse dropped perceptibly. Han wiped his sweating forehead.
Nogin Saisith broke off his internal reminiscences of carnal adventures. Apparently he had been paying more attention than Han had noticed. "So what's so terrible?"
Han passed him the first letter, still undecided whether to share the other two. He could always claim that they were personal. As Nogin knew he had no family and Jaulscaths never had friends, the healer would not be deceived. He might pretend to believe, for he was an easy-going fellow, one who liked to stay out of trouble.
"Interesting! What else?" The Ivielscath returned the proclamation. Han passed him the second without a word. He read over the third again.
Confidential to Han a'Lith.
The Academy urgently requires assistance. A party of not more than thirty-five persons will depart from Chan San within a week or ten days, bound for Jarinfarka. It will likely include in that number an armed Nurzian escort. As it will necessarily skirt Wesnarian territory, ask His Majesty for a personal safe conduct, and report his reply to Secretary Chilith. The party will be distinguished by blue flags, or any other suitable means stipulated.
Explain to His Majesty that this Nurzian delegation hopes to persuade Mokth to join in opening a freeway between the two nations so that the Karpana will have clear passage south to attack Wesnar.
Already we hear of atrocities being committed by wandering bands of homeless refugees. Frequently there is a total absence of survivors.
As a gesture of goodwill to His Majesty, the new administration is considering reducing its fees for the services of a Muolscath to one third the amount previously requested. Report promptly by the bearer of this letter.
By authority.
Nogin had completed reading the second letter. Trumpets of alarm brayed in his thoughts. "But this suggests..." Murder! Traitors but not intruders? Assassination! Impossible—how could they possibly sneak a killer into this encampment? "What do you make of it?"
"It suggests," Han said calmly, "that my duty is merely to protect the king from his own subjects. That has always been the case. What one monarch essays against another has never concerned Raragash."
"I think I understand," the youngster said. Mental laughter—It couldn't happen to a nastier bag of shit.
"I think I do, too," Han said. The second letter was easy. It was the third that was so shocking. Again he compared the writing with Labranza's signature on the first. They matched. He knew her hand well enough, which was why the missive was unsigned, but the murderous intent behind the words was not her style. There was a lot of deniability to the document. It did not exactly say what it so obviously meant. If Labranza's writing was identified, then the new president could refuse responsibility.
"What's in the other one?" Nogin inquired from the floor.
"Nothing that would interest you in the slightest."
Seven Curses! More treachery? "Probably not," the Ivielscath agreed hastily. The old boy's trying to protect me. Never seen him so upset.
"I think I shall go and seek audience with His Majesty. If Paing Non returns, warn him that I shall have messages to go to Chan San."
"Chan San? You mean he's not going back to Raragash?"
Han swore a silent curse as he stuffed that deadly third letter into his smock. Paing had not said that, just thought it. "No, he's heading for Chan San when he leaves here. President Tharn and Secretary Chilith have gone to Chan San—but I think that information should not be broadcast around here."
"Oh, I agree!" Nogin said. "Do give my love to the king. If he has an apoplectic fit while you are talking with him, don't hesitate to send for me fairly soon."
"Next week, you mean?"
"No need to be impetuous." Nogin closed his eyes and began to contemplate thighs and buttocks.
#
The plain faded away into haze in all directions. Han wondered if the entire Karpana horde could tiptoe past unseen.
He plodded along the avenue of tents, squinting against the sunshine, blinking at the universal dust. The grass had been trampled away, freeing the soil to rise in pink clouds at every gust of wind. A troop of men went clanking by him at the double, thinking black thoughts. He passed a mule team trailing into the camp, bringing supplies; he saw a punishment squad digging new latrines. The camp was fading into dispirited shabbiness. Armies should never be made to stand still and wait.
Should he show Hexzion Garab the letter, or merely tell him about it? If the fat brute didn't see it, he might not believe in the message. If he got his hands on it, he would likely hang on to it for use as blackmail in future.
Han wondered who the intended victims really were. He did not believe the story of a Nurzian-Mokthian conspiracy against Wesnar. Hexzion might, because that was the sort of treachery he liked to indulge in himself. Yes, he would probably swallow the bait. He would be more than happy to do the Academy a favor. He dearly wanted a Muolscath and the deaths of thirty-five innocent people would not bother him at all.
Whoever had framed that deadly third letter must have a mind like a viper. It did not ring of Labranza's metal.
The camp was laid out as a hollow square, the rows of tents and dusty roads surrounding the royal compound. There some grass survived, a small square park with sharply demarcated edges. In the center of that lawn, well removed from the roil of the commonality, stood a rambling group of pavilions, walls of scarlet silk and roofs of cloth of gold. Above them trailed bright banners. All the fabrics were faded now, impregnated with dust like everything else, but if the Wesnarian army existed for any purpose at all, it was to be the armored skull around this soft and precious brain. Here lodged the king with his hetaerae, catamites, and sycophants.
The entrance being on the far side, Han prepared to walk around the outside of the enclosure. He could easily have stepped over the low fence of posts and silken ropes, but that shortcut would be fatally inadvisable. Every three paces along the perimeter stood a man of the Faceless with shield and spear. They had grass at their heels and bare dirt at their toes.
From time to time the wind stirred the fringes of their fur kilts, as if to prove that they were not, in fact, carved from stone. The life of the camp went on around them and they did not move. In this heat, such duty must be exquisite torment. Han's eyes smarted with the dust already, and he had only been out in it for a few minutes. He could wipe sweat, brush off flies, spit out grit. The sentries were forbidden to do any of those things.
The sight of the killers was a reminder that he was expected to locate Polion Tharn and have a nice chat with him. How simple that order must have seemed to Gwin Tharn, back in Raragash—easy, civilized Raragash, where it was always afternoon in blossom time. Firstly, it was very difficult to tell one Faceless from another and there were more than two thousand of them. Secondly, they rarely condescended to speak to lesser mortals. And thirdly, few of them were sane in the accepted sense of the word. The reason Zarda-type warriors were so deadly in battle was that most of them were close to suicidal. They might not know it, but a Jaulscath did.
Still, while Polion Tharn must be so transformed by now that no one could hope to recognize him by sight, a Jaulscath could identify minds as readily as faces. To scan a crowd for familiar thoughts was as easy as picking out a familiar face, or easier. Han must be within range of a hundred of the warriors at the moment. Although he was always aware of the jabber of the crowd, he could suppress it easily, and normally did so. Now, bracing himself like a diver about to enter cold water, he opened to it. The mental rumble became a thunderous roar of anger and frustration. Amid it all, the thoughts of the Faceless stood out as discordant screams. Their tortured minds were as mutilated as their
faces.
Cringing with distaste, he forced himself to hunt for someone familiar in that riot of madness. He sensed Dreadlord Zorg and skirted quickly by him. This was hopeless—he would go mad too. Wait!... In among that chorus of waking nightmare, he detected an image of himself. Someone was thinking about him. He could even recognize the thinker, although only barely. The lad must have seen him approach, so he was certainly one of the guards along the near side of the royal enclosure—a coincidence worthy of an Ogoalscath.
Shivering in one of the hottest days he could ever remember, Han a'Lith approached and wandered along the line of human statues like an officer inspecting his troops. Not a muscle moved, but the dust-reddened eyes within the skull faces registered his passage. Contempt oozed from their minds: contempt for his age, contempt for his flabbiness, contempt for a civilian. He was everything a Zarda warrior was not and nothing they prided themselves on being. Their disdain and resentment were disguised jealousy, of course, although they were not aware of the difference. How could they not envy a man who had never had to endure what they had endured and must still endure? The Faceless suppressed such insight lest truth shatter the thin crust of illusion. They trained themselves to be perfect warriors—superhuman bodies run by subhuman minds.
Only one man in the sect owed his torment directly to Han a'Lith. The stream of personal loathing had faded away as the thinker lost sight of him; when their eyes met, it intensified abruptly. Han would not have known the boy had he been forced to rely on his vision. Already his chest and limbs had thickened—he was bigger, tougher. Yet he was still a novice—his kilt seemed to have been stitched together from a couple of rabbit skins; his depilation and tattooing were not yet complete. Parts of his face were raw and festering, painted over with chalk, crawling with flies. He was caked in a mixture of pink dust and dried sweat, enveloped in a personal galaxy of insects. His eyes were bloody wounds, almost as gruesome as the hole where his nose had been.
"Hello, Polion."
This was the first time Killer Polion had been allowed to guard the king. It was a great honor for any of the brothers. For him it was a sign that his efforts had been recognized, a source of immense pride that he was already thought worthy. Now this fat old civilian had come up and spoken to him—it was shame beyond belief. Beyond bearing! His knuckles whitened on his spear; his mind blazed.
Han choked, appalled at his own stupidity, but more appalled at the sudden blood lust. He saw his death, held back only by the discipline of immobility—and that was cracking and flaking away before his eyes. He cried out. His knees folding of their own accord and he fell to the dust before the boy's bare feet.
Killer Polion did not look down. For a few moments he was puzzled, like a hound that had lost its quarry; his thoughts quested. Then came a surge of satisfaction. It was fitting that the fat old mind-reader should grovel before a warrior like him. His hand on the haft relaxed slightly. His brothers three paces away on either hand knew what was happening and would approve.
Han knew all that. He was still alive, but any sudden movement might change the situation very quickly. He worked his tongue against his teeth to clear dust off it. "I just came to congratulate you on being promoted to sentry, Killer Polion."
Satisfaction.
"And you've been a warrior for little more than two weeks!"
Intense satisfaction.
Marveling at the reaction he was gaining, Han tried, "That's wonderful recognition!"
Excitement. The boy's pleasure was close to sexual arousal—praise must be a rare experience for him.
Han raised himself to his knees, paused there as he detected flickers of anger returning. Practical Lion Taming for Beginners... "And I wanted to make sure you are happy in the sect."
Error!
A mental scream of panic almost stunned him. That was a question that Killer Polion would not consider, must never consider. That question might lead to doubt, lack of loyalty, cowardice, failure to be worthy of his brothers... Happy? How could he not be happy? His initiation had brought him days and nights of pain, degradation, humiliation. He had been mutilated, deprived of sleep, dehumanized, brutalized. But he had been offered acceptance into the band. The men tormenting him had endured the same ordeal in the past and they wanted him to be one of them. Then his shame would become pride. His captors would become his brothers, helping him to be as they were, brave and cruel and strong. In his weakness, exhaustion, and desperation, Polion Tharn had clutched at the deliverance offered. Now he must never waver in his faith that he had made the right decision, or all that he had endured would go for nought. Happy? Membership in the Faceless was perfection of manhood. How could he not be happy?
Before that rip of unbearable agony, Han's defenses slammed shut, and he was just a frightened old man groveling before a maniac.
Without moving his lips the boy said, "Louder!"
Han repeated the question.
"Louder!"
Han shouted. "I wanted to be sure you are happy in the sect."
"Louder!"
He screamed the question at the top of his lungs.
"Louder!"
The boy's mind was a blank. He could only continue down the path he had chosen. The game had no end or aim but death.
A shadow appeared beside Han. "You are speaking while on guard, killer?"
Han cried out in relief and scrambled to his feet. It was Dreadlord Zorg himself, marked by the five-skull insignia on his shield.
"Yes, Saj!" said the warrior.
"You know the punishment for that, killer?"
"Yes, Saj!"
"Do you know the correct response if anyone tries to distract one of the king's guards?"
"Death, Saj."
"Mm. But you were aware that this civilian is a friend of the king?"
With the barest hint of hesitation, Polion said, "Yes, Saj! With respect, Saj, that does not excuse—"
"I will decide what it may excuse or not excuse. Report to your fearmaster."
The warrior banged spear against shield in salute, spun around, and departed at the double.
Han realized that he was shaking and nauseated, now more with guilt than fear. He would have done far better to let Hexzion have the boy—at least that agony would have ended in a few hours.
"I just recognized the man, dreadlord, and stopped for a word with him. I should have realized that he was on guard duty, and that my actions were improper. I apologize to him and to you..."
"Don't ever do it again." Zorg turned on his heel.
Han shuffled quickly after him. "Dreadlord, that man... He will be punished because of what I did?"
"Of course."
"That is not fair! It was not his fault!"
Zorg stopped and turned, eyes glinting within the skull. "He should have killed you. You volunteer to sit the rail in his stead tomorrow?"
Han shook his head vehemently. He could resist the temptation to peep into the details of Zorg's mind. He had done that once and not slept for a week. Even the petty surface thoughts were bad enough.
"Pity," the dreadlord intoned. "It would probably do you a world of good. It would not help him, though. His comrades would see that he completed the regulation sentence. He would insist on it himself. Now, have you any further business here? His Majesty is busy, if that is where you were heading."
Inspiration hit Han like a flash of light. Frenzkion Zorg undoubtedly knew of Courier Paing's arrival, for he knew everything. Moreover, Zorg took care of everything. Hexzion would certainly turn the problem over to Zorg anyway.
He fumbled inside his smock. "I was just going to deliver a message to His Majesty. A very confidential message. It is also rather urgent, as I am supposed to return the king's response." This was a very neat shortcut. Han could deny ever having discussed the matter with the king. The king could deny ever having heard of it. If attention ever came to Zorg, he would just announce that someone had been executed for carelessness and that would end the affair.
; The dreadlord took the letter and seemed to read it at one glance. He had no eyebrows to raise, but the blackness around his eyes stretched slightly upward. He returned the paper.
"A very trivial matter to take to a king! You may report that it will be taken care of. The northern patrols will be advised to look out for blue flags and act accordingly."
"That is very kind of you, dreadlord."
"My pleasure, Han Saj." Zorg bared his teeth in a smile. He meant that. He was thinking it would be good experience for the lads.
60
"This is laminated!" Thiswion said. "This is composite!"
It looked to Bulion like a broken hoop, or a fragment of a badly wrecked boat. He had been caught napping, quite literally—dozing in a garden in the middle of the afternoon like a spent old man. He was trying not to reveal that, blinking intelligently and searching for something useful to say.
His great-nephew was probably too excited to notice. "The middle is wood, of course. Yew. Heartwood and sapwood both, just like our bows, but then they laminate sinew to the back, see? And this is horn! Look at the craftsmanship! Isn't it gorgeous?"
Thiswion was fairly gorgeous himself. He knelt on the grass in Nurzian trousers that flowed to his ankles in brilliant patterns of gold, scarlet, and peacock blue. His open vest was emerald, canary yellow, and a crimson that clashed horribly with the ginger of his beard and chest fuzz. The bushes behind him were smothered in dazzling purple blossoms. He wore an orange rose in his hair. In the glaring sunlight, it was all too much.
Color was part of the trouble with Chan San. The people dressed like butterflies. They covered their odd-shaped buildings in tiles and mosaics of every hue imaginable. Even the carts in the streets were painted marvels. Color rioted wherever one looked, like a convocation of parrots. The city also sounded wrong, with the jabbering Nurzian dialect. It smelled wrong, scented by unfamiliar spices and dishes. It was far too crowded and busy, packed with the swarming Nurzians themselves. Individually, Bulion would admit, they seemed pleasant enough people, but the mobs of brownish faces were alien to him.