by Phil Tucker
Acharsis’ smile faded away. The face was youthful, but his eyes were not. They looked out of place in that handsome visage. Liquid and mournful. The eyes of an old man who no longer believes he’ll get away with it all. Who no longer thinks that all his debts will somehow be paid by another, or forgotten altogether.
No. Not the same after all.
Without thinking, Acharsis reached out and touched polished glass. He craned his head back, but the lack of light made it impossible to gauge how high up the mirror went. With a sigh, he turned back to the others. “Nekuul’s on the other side?”
Sisu finally sat up. “Yes.”
“And how do we get through?”
With a groan Sisu lowered himself to the ground, feet splashing, and hobbled over. “I think I can just push us through. Nothing fancy.”
“Oh,” said Acharsis. “And when we’re done, will you be able to find our way back here? To Jarek?”
“I’ve no idea.” Sisu gave him a ghoulish smile. “He’d better pray I do.”
“No, you’d best pray.” Acharsis looked over to where the other two were still communing. “How long do you think I should give them? Five minutes?”
“The length of time you give them is the measure of your uncertainty over our return.”
Acharsis turned to consider the Nekuulite. “Pretty astute. All right. A little more. We don’t need to breathe down here, but my soul could use a moment to catch its metaphorical breath.”
“Old man,” said Sisu, but it was a halfhearted jibe. He stepped up to his reflection and raised his hand. Green mist swirled from his fingertips and flowed into the mirror. “Do you feel it? What lies on the other side? Nekuul be praised, but it feels amazing…”
Acharsis pursed his lips. “You’re going to remember why we’re there when we pass through, right? You’re not going to go all power crazy and disappear into the sky, carried away by some vortex of bones and screaming spirits?”
Sisu gave him a dirty look. “Part of being your own master is to not be so easily swayed from your objectives. No. I won’t forget why we’re there.”
“Good to hear,” said Acharsis. “So. What can we expect?”
“Nekuul should become immediately aware of our presence,” said Sisu. “And will probably send a vestige of herself to investigate.”
“Will that be a good thing?”
“Hard to say.” Sisu dropped his hand and the green mist faded away. “We’ll be throwing ourselves upon her mercy. Up close she will almost immediately divine our intent. The question then becomes whether she wants us to defeat her daughter or not.”
“Dicey,” said Acharsis, rubbing at his soft, richly curled and roguishly handsome goatee. “Is there any way to evade her?”
Sisu glared at his own reflection. “I’d imagine not. But the value in trying to hide is that it would signal our desire to not be found. Perhaps… perhaps there are degrees to which she’s willing to confront us. If we give her no choice, she’ll act as we expect. But the better we are at hiding, the more likely she is to let us get away with it, for we’ll be giving her a better excuse to ignore us. If she has any inclination to let us speak with the dead gods at all.”
Acharsis gave a slow nod. “Well, Jarek told me she helped him defeat Akkodaisis, even if only indirectly. And that she also granted him permission to harness the power of the dream rhino. Perhaps there’s a desire there to help us after all. The question is: how do we most effectively hide so as to give her an excuse to ignore us?”
Sisu tapped his chin. “Perhaps… I might have an idea. Remember how my mother’s deathless had their souls blocked from entering the netherworld by having their eyes filled with tar, gold, and blood?”
“Yes…”
“Perhaps I could do something along those lines, but in the reverse…” Sisu frowned at his reflection. “The Deathless are able to resist Nekuul by… yes. Though of course, we’re now actually half dead, though, in a way - in a way, being down here, we are…”
“Sisu?”
“Yes?”
“You’re not pouring boiling pitch and blood into my eyes.”
“No, of course not. But this idea of mine, it could be a metaphorical equivalent.” Sisu smiled, showing far too many teeth. “Don’t worry, Acharsis. Trust me. Isn’t that what you always say?”
“Yes,” said Acharsis, turning away. “Fine. But if this is what it feels like when I say those words, you have my permission to smack me upside the head the next time I try.”
“I’ll hold you to that order,” said Sisu.
“Jarek! Kish! It’s time! I can’t stand being with Sisu a moment longer. Come on!”
“Time to enter the real netherworld,” said Sisu as the other two climbed down from their stranded island. “And this time you will have a true guide. Aren’t you relieved?”
Acharsis turned to face his reflection. He was so close. Close to finally seeing Ekillos again after two decades of silence.
Yet all he could think of was the lamassu’s dire warning: should you lose this amulet, your demon’s vengeance will fall upon your head with terrible strength.
CHAPTER NINE
After five days of furious searching Annara’s guards found Pebekkamen in a third-rate brothel. He refused the first three official summons, and rather than have the future regent of Magan dragged bodily through the streets of the capital Annara donned circumspect clothing and descended into the slums on the outskirts of the city.
It was a fascinating experience, one whose natural dangers were ameliorated by the presence of four elite guards, and one which afforded her a refreshing change of scenery after the endless, peril-hiding splendor of the palace.
Life. Vibrant, chaotic, freewheeling life. Voices raised in shouts of anger, cries of laughter, the sing-song chants of merchants peddling their wares, the excited yells of street children, the squeals of semi-feral pigs lounging in the shade and muddiest ruts in the road, the smell of foreign spices and cooking meat, the stench of urine and the bright splash of colorful awnings, robes, and paintings on the sides of buildings.
The vastness of the palace’s open spaces gave way to a warren of side streets and twisting alleys, all of them crisscrossed by endless clotheslines from which shirts and sheets and other brightly dyed clothing hung. Dark windows afforded her glimpses into the private lives of the poor, and endless faces turned to regard her as she passed, eyes solemn, brows lowered in suspicion.
The sheer scale of the poverty was staggering. Annara had expected a fringe of poverty, but instead began to surmise that at least half the city lived barely above subsistence level. Endless little pocket markets hidden in courtyards seemed to be the site of pitched battles between hagglers and stall owners, with voices raised nearly to screams as withered fruit or stringy cuts of lean meat were purchased.
Faces were gaunt with hunger. Far too many men sat listlessly in shadowed doorways, watching her pass in the same manner the very elderly might lie in bed awaiting Nekuul. Annara wished she could converse with her guards, but only their leader spoke a little River City common, and his responses had been laconic at best; still, she preferred their company to the eunuchs from the Women’s Courtyard, any of whom would betray her at the drop of a sugared plum.
The lead guard - Raherka, a hatchet-faced warrior with a lean, sinewy figure and the prowling stride of a panther - indicated at last a final turn, and then there was the shadowed doorway beside which a host of people stood, all of them in their finest, their robes shining and faces carefully painted in the bright Maganian morning light.
Raherka grimaced, then strode forward, arms outstretched, barking orders.
The leader of the crowd was a moon-face older woman wearing an obvious wig of jet black, her robes shockingly luxurious given the slums around her, and she snapped her fingers at which two young boys in pristine white tunics leaped forth to scatter rose petals on the muck while three more set up a jaunty tune on a set of stringed mandolins and drums.
&
nbsp; “Looks like our arrival was anticipated,” murmured Annara.
The woman bowed and refused to straighten when Raherka addressed her, until finally he returned with a scowl to Annara’s side.
“My lady, brothel owner says welcome. Many honors. Wants…” He waved his hand as he searched for the right word. “Make you happy.”
“Understandable. I’ve sent three royal couriers to her brothel in as many days. I don’t blame her for trying to seek advantage. Tell her thank you, and we might converse after I speak with Pebekkamen.”
How much of that Raherka understood she wasn’t sure, but he moved forward once more and barked a new set of orders, at which the brothel madam straightened and stepped aside, beaming and bobbing her head like an curious chicken.
Raherka nodded to his men, and two of them stepped forward to enter the brothel. A few minutes later they emerged and nodded back to their leader, who bowed in turn to Annara.
“Pebekkamen inside,” he said.
Annara lifted the hem of her plain beige robes and entered the shadowed doorway into a surprisingly pleasant lounge; thick carpets and cushions were scattered everywhere, while rose-tinted lanterns shed a soft and intimate light about the environs. A bar was set against the far wall, a half dozen stools arrayed before it, on which a sole man sat, a number of empty clay cups lined up with military precision to his right.
Pebekkamen.
Annara studied the man on whom she’d pinned the future of her son. He had the broad, large look of a once muscular man who had gone to seed. Sloping shoulders, an obvious gut, bandied legs, arms like pythons. His black hair was thinning out up top and tied into a braid at the nape of his neck which hung down between his shoulder blades in a fashion she’d not seen previously in Magan.
She approached and on instinct pulled out the stool next to him. Sat down, ignoring his sideways glance, and pulled the closest full mug over.
Sniffed.
“This smells like shitty beer,” she said, then stirred the contents with the filter straw. She could feel the thick sediment at the bottom.
“That’s because it is shitty beer,” said Pebekkamen, voice rough as if he hadn’t slept in a week and spent that time gargling razors. “It’s all Satiah will lend me on credit these days. A piss sorry state of affairs.”
“Satiah,” said Annara. “The brothel owner?”
Pebekkamen only grunted in agreement and took a long drag from his beer. Then he regarded her sidelong. “Here. You must be the new pharaoh’s mother. The one that’s been sending all those whiny massagers.”
“That’s me,” said Annara, concealing her surprise at his addressing Elu’s parentage so openly. She’d yet to actually look him in the face. Instead, she raised the rough cup and took a sip. This time she failed to mask her wince; even Acharsis would have trouble drinking this stuff.
Pebekkamen grunted. “You must be desperate as well as crazy. Sometimes those are good attributes, but not often. Now, now.”
“You understand my position well. Now, what’s it going to take you to pry you out of this brothel and into the palace?”
Pebekkamen laughed, a guttural, rasping sound. “Why should I want that? What do I gain, exchanging comfort, free beer, and the amorous arms of whomever I can afford each night for - what? Murderous eunuchs, conniving politicians, endless staff meetings, guaranteed assassination within the week -”
“Guaranteed?” At this Annara did look at the man. By Scythia’s blade he was ugly. Face broad and covered in old scars that showed pale against his tanned, leathery skin. A broad nose that looked like it had been trampled on by a herd of stampeding cows, and a left eye that gazed off somewhere to the left. The mass of scar tissue around his left temple explained why. But the one eye that was staring at her - bloodshot and half-lidded as it was - betrayed a shrewd intelligence.
Pebekkamen leaned back, the fingers of one massive hand rippling on the bar. “Guaranteed. Your signing me up for being regent was as close to a death sentence as I could hope for outside a magistrate’s court. What did you think, that Pawura and Nethena and all those other whores and whoresons would just bow their heads to ol’ Pebekkamen and follow his rule till your son got hair on his balls? Ha!” He smacked the palm of his hand down on the bar. “No! One week I’d last before I turned up dead, and then good luck picking your next regent. Pawura would slide in like a whore’s greased finger and then it would be your turn next to show up dead.”
Annara took a deep drag from the beer, not caring what it tasted like. “A fair assessment. I hadn’t thought that far.”
Pebekkamen belched under his breath. “I’d thought not. I have to applaud your staying alive this far, but with Acharsis and Jarek gone, you’re out of your depth. And now you’re intent on pulling my head underwater as you drown. Thanks, but no thanks, revered lady whatever.” He gave a wave of his hand and turned back to the bar.
Frustration welled up within her again. She’d spent her whole life raising Elu in the quiet border town of Eruk, marrying Kenu and playing the role of the dutiful wife. Damn Acharsis for dragging her back out into the wide world, for awakening her again to that dangerous, old romance they’d once had - and then dumping her here in the center of this nest of snakes.
Pebekkamen drained the beer from his cup and carefully placed it beside the others.
“You don’t seem to understand a basic condition of your situation,” she said, fighting to keep her voice steady. “You were ordained regent before the gathered lamassu and the peerage of Magan. Right now, as you sit here, you’re the regent. It’s too late to say no.”
Pebekkamen stilled.
“So you have a choice. Wait to be killed here in a third rate brothel, or come back with me and fight to stay alive from one day to the next. There is no alternative. And to be honest? That first option isn’t really viable either. Because if you refuse to come with me now I’ll order my men to drag you by your heels all the way back to the palace, where I’ll have you locked up and fed only water and stale bread until you’re sober enough to understand the true nature of your situation. Do I make myself clear, regent Pebekkamen?”
The lieutenant commander sat completely still. Only a vein throbbed across his temple. “If I’m to die within a few days’ time, I’d rather do it between the legs of a cheap whore then in some great marble chamber surrounded by whoresons. And if you ask your men to arrest me? I’ll kill them until you’ve either none left or they’re forced to kill me in turn.”
Annara wanted to throw her hands up in anger. Yet restraint, that iron self-control that seemed her only asset these days, kept her as still as the large man. “What happened to you? Acharsis saw a spark of something he liked. He’s never wrong about seeing quality in a man. What broke you so that you’d rather wallow here instead of daring to make a difference?”
Pebekkamen laughed and pulled the next cup of beer closer. “You ain’t getting my sob story that easy, lady.”
“You have the look of a fighting man, but outside they call you a coward. You’re a lieutenant commander, but refuse to do your duty. What broke you?”
He snarled and turned away from her. “Leave me alone.”
Annara took up a cup of beer and flung it at his head. It bounced of his skull, drenching his hair. “Look at me when I speak to you!”
Pebekkamen rose to his feet with an iron control of his own, jaw clenched, and turned to face her. “Don’t waste my beer.”
Annara picked up two more cups and flung them at him. “There! Lap it off the ground like a dog, then!”
“Don’t you dare -”
With a cry Annara swept her arm across the bar, sending the remaining cups tumbling to the ground. “Dare?” She stepped over the broken shards of clay and right into his face. “Don’t I dare? That’s all I’ve got left, you drunken excuse for a man! Day in and day out I’m fighting desperately to keep my son alive, to keep this empire afloat, to mobilize an army to defeat the undead hordes of Irella, and you tell me
not to dare? I’ve been out maneuvered and cornered and forced in desperation to depend on you, and now I realize that I’d have had better luck raising a pig to the rank of regent; now I understand why everybody laughed and smirked in relief when I said your name; only now do I understand how stupid I was to put my trust in a broken coward who pretends to be a world-weary cynic whose too wise for the world when in truth he’s little more than a pathetic excuse for a coward! So yes, I dare. And what of you, Pebekkamen?”
His great face had gone pale, his eyes wide, and his whole frame shivered with repressed emotion as he glared down at her.
Raherka and his men stepped in closer, and out of the corner of her eye Annara could see them half draw their blades.
“Pah,” she said, and shook her head. “Raherka, let’s go. Let’s see what we can do about finding another regent before we’re all killed.”
“Yes, my lady,” said Raherka, not relaxing his grip on his blade.
Annara walked away from the lieutenant commander, the soles of her sandals crunching on claw, and had reached the door when a hoarse voice stopped her short.
“Wait.”
She stared out at the sunlit alley in which the crowd of well wishers and whores awaited her, but didn’t turn.
“Wait,” said Pebekkamen again, voice heavy, and then she heard the protesting groan of the stool as he sat back down. “Fine. I’ll come. I’ll come play at being your regent until they cut my throat.”
Annara allowed herself to close her eyes in relief for but a moment before turning to walk back to the bar. She studied the large man’s profile as he drew lines in the spilt beer upon the bar, and finally managed a jerky nod of her head.
“Thank you.”
“I’d say you’re welcome but that would be a lie. Sit down.”