Storm Season tw-4

by Robert Lynn Asprin

  "They question you, don't they, about me?- each time. And what do you tell them?"

  "There's nothing to tell them, is there?"

  "I doubt that they are kind. Are they? Do you love them, these masters of yours? Do you know what you're really for?"

  A flush stained his face. "No," she said sombrely, answering her own question. "Or you'd run, even knowing what you'd pay." She touched him as she might some fine marble, and there was such hunger, such desire for something so fine-it hurt.

  "This time," she said after measuring that thought, "I take the gift... but I do with it what I like. My back door, Haught, is on the river, a great convenience to me; and bodies often don't surface, do they? Not before the sea. So they won't expect to find you ... So just keep going, do you hear? Serves them right. Go somewhere. I set you free."

  "You can't-"

  "Go back to them if you like. But I wouldn't, if I were you. This message doesn't need an answer. Don't you reckon what that means? I'd keep running, Haught-no, here." She went to the closet and picked clothing, a fine blue cloak many visitors left such remembrances behind. There were cloaks, and boots, and shirts-all manner of such things. She threw it at him; went to the table and wrote a message. "Take this back to them if you dare. Can you read?"

  "No," he said.

  She chuckled. "It says you're free." She took a purse from the table (another relic) and gave that into his hand. "Stay in Sanctuary if you choose. Or go. Take my word. They might kill you-but they might not. Not if they read that note. Do as you please and get out of here."

  "They'll find me," he protested.

  "Trust the note," she said, "or use the back door and the bridge."

  She waved her hand. He hesitated one way and the other, went toward the front and then fled for the back, for the riverside. She laughed aloud, watching his flight from her doorway, watched him run, run down the riverside until the dark swallowed him.

  But after the laughter was dead she read the message they had sent her a second time and burned it in the lamp, letting the ashes fall and scorch an amber silk, carelessly.

  So Vashanka's faction went on wanting her services, and offered three times the gold. She cared nothing for that at present, having all she cared to have. She cared not to be more conspicuous, no, not if they offered her a palace for her services. And they could.

  How would that be, she wondered, and how long till neighbors rebelled at the steady disappearances? She could buy slaves... but enter the Prince's court, but live openly-?

  The thought amused, the way irony might. She could herself become Jubal, in a trade that would well suit her needs. A pity she had already taken hire-

  But the irony of it palled and the bitterness stayed. Perhaps the Vashanka lovers suspected what they did. Perhaps they had some inkling of her motives or the need-and so they sent the likes of Haught, a messenger they expected to have had thus silenced on the first visit, then to supply her with more and more; or a lure they dragged past her with cynical cruelty, to ascertain how much they believed was truth-what she was, and how long her restraint might go on.

  She thought on Haught and thought, as she had each time he came to her; and that too they had surely intended. The hunger grew. Soon it would be too strong.

  "Vis," she said aloud. The images merged in her mind, Vis and Haught, two dark foreigners, both of whom she had let go-because she was not pitiless. There was hell in the slave's eyes, like hers. Time after time he had passed that door in either direction, and the hell grew, and the terror that was itself a lure-one could develop such a taste, for the beauty and the fear, for gentility. Like a drug. She had more pride.

  She had had no intention of going out at all tonight. But the restlessness grew, and she hated them for that, for what they had done, that now she would kill, the way she always killed-but not in the way they thought. It was the luck that followed her, the curse an enemy had laid on her.

  She slung on her black cloak and pulled up the hood as she went out by that back way as well, through the small vine-tangled garden and past the gate to the

  river walk, pace, pace, pace along the unpaved way.

  And pace, pace, pace along the bridge, a striding of small slippered feet, soft against the wooden planks; and onto the wet pavings and then the paveless alleys of the Downwind. She hunted, herself the lure, as the slave had been-

  Perhaps she would find him, lingering too long in his flight. Then she would have no compunction. A part of her hoped for this, and savored the trust there might be at first, and then the terror; and part of her said no.

  She was fastidious. The first accoster she met disgusted her, and she left him dazed by the close encounter of her eyes, as if he had forgotten why he was in this place at all; but the second took her fancy, being young and with that arrogance of the street tough, the selfish self-doubt that amused her in its undoing, for most of that ilk recognized her in their heart of hearts, and knew that they had met what they had hated all their twisted lives-

  That kind was worth the hunt. That kind had no gentler core, to wound her with regret. This one had no regret in him, and no one in all the world would miss him.

  There was an abundance of his kind in Sanctuary and its adjuncts; it was why she stayed in this place, who had known so many cities: this city deserved her... like the young man who faced her now.

  She thought of Haught still running, and laughed a twisted laugh, but soon the assailant/victim was too far gone to hear, and in the next moment she was.

  iv

  "Money," Mor-am said, sweating. His hands shook and he folded his arms about his ribs under his cloak, casting a furtive look this way and that down the alley of Shambles Cross, on the Sanctuary-ward side of the bridge. "Look, I've got a man in sight; it just takes a little to get him here. Meanwhile even Downwind takes money-leading a man anywhere takes money."

  "Maybe more than you're worth," the man said, a man who frightened him, even in the open alley, alone. "You know there's a string on you. You know how easy it is to draw it in. Maybe I should just say-produce the man. Bring him here. Or maybe we ought to invite you in for a talk. Would you like that,-hawkmask?"

  "You've got it wrong." Mor-am's teeth chattered. The night wind felt cold even for the season; or it was Becho's stuff working at his stomach. He locked his arms the tighter. "I take chances for what I get. I've got connections. It doesn't mean I'm-"

  "If we hauled you in," the man said, ever so softly with the animals grunting softly in the distance, doomed to the axe in the morning, "if we did that they'd just change all the drops and meeting places, wouldn't they? So we dribble coin into your hand and you supply us names and places and times, and they do work don't they? But if they should be wrong-maybe I've got someone supplying me yours. Ever wonder that, Wriggly? Maybe you're not the only hawk-mask who wants to turn coat. So let's not make up tales. Where? Who? When?"

  "Name's Vis. At Mama Becho's."

  "That's a tight place. Not easy to get at."

  "That's my point. I get him to you." There was a silence. The man brought out silver pieces and dropped them into Mor-am's hand, then clenched fingers on his as they closed. "You know," the Rankan said, "the last one named your name."

  "Of course." Mor-am tried not to shake. "Wouldn't you want revenge?"

  "Others have. You knew they would."

  "But you want them brought out of the Downwind. And I do that for you." He clenched his jaw, a grimace against the chattering of his teeth. "So maybe we get to the big names. I give you those-I deliver them to you just like the little ones. But that's another kind of price."

  "Like your life, scum?"

  "You know I'm useful. You'll find I can be more useful than you think. Not cash. A way out." His teeth did chatter, spoiling his pose. "For me and one other."

  "Oh, I don't doubt you'll be cooperating. You know if the word gets out on the streets how we got our hands on your friends-you know how long you'd last."

  "So I'm loyal," Mor-
am said.

  "As a dog." The man thrust his hand back at him. "Here. Tomorrow moonrise."

  "I'll get him." Mor-am subdued the shivering and sucked in a breath. "We negotiate the others."

  "Get out of here."

  He went, slow steps at first, and quicker, still with a tendency to shiver, still with a looseness in his knees.

  * * *

  But the man climbed the stairs of a building near that alley and made his own report.

  "The slave is gone," one said, who in his silk and linen hardly belonged in the Shambles, but neither did the quarters, that were comfortable and well-lit behind careful shutters and sealing of the cracks. Two of the men were Stepsons, who smelted of oil and light sweat and horses, whose eyes were alike and cold; three had the look of something else, a functionary kind of coldness. "Into the Downwind. I think we can conclude the answer is no. We have to extend our measures. Someone knows. We take the hawkmasks alive and eventually we find the slaver."

  "We should pull the slave in," another said. "No," said the first. "Too disruptive. If convenient... we take him."

  "This woman is inconvenient."

  "We hardly need more inconvenience than we've had. No. We keep it quiet. We destroy no leads. We want this matter taken out-down to the roots. And that means Jubal himself."

  "I don't think," said the man from the street, "that our informer can be relied on that far. That's the one who ought to be pulled in, kept a little closer ... encouraged to talk."

  "And if he won't? No. We still need him."

  "A post. Security. Get him into our steady employ and we'll learn where all his soft spots are. He'll soften up fast. Just twist the screws now and then and he'll do everything he has to."

  "If you make a mistake with him-"

  "No mistake. I know this little snake." A chair grated. One of the Stepsons had put his foot on the rung, folded his arms with elaborate disdain for the proceedings. "There are quicker ways," the Stepson said. No one said anything to that. No one debated, but slid the discussion aside from it, arguing only the particulars and a slave who had finally run.

  * * *

  The bridge was always the worst part, coming or going. It narrowed possibilities. There was one way and only one way, afoot, to come into the Downwind, and Mor-am took it, sweating, feeling his heart pounding, with a little edge of black around his vision that might be terror or something in the krrf that he had bought, that tunnelled his vision and made his heart feel like it was starting and stopping by turns, lending an unreality to the whole night, so that he paused in the middle of the bridge and leaned on the rail, wishing that he could heave up his insides.

  Then he saw the man following-he was sure that he was following, a walker who had also paused on the bridge a little ways down from him and delayed about some pretended business.

  Sweat broke out afresh on him. He must not seem to see. He pushed himself away from the rail and started walking again, trying to keep his steps even. The shanties of Downwind lurched in his view under the moon, closer and closer, like the crazy pilings of the fishing-dock beside it and the sway and flare of someone's lantern near the water below. He found himself walking faster than he had intended, terror taking over.

  Others used the bridge. People came and went, a straggle of them passing him in the dark, passing his pursuer and still he kept his steady pace. But one of them had veered into his path and sent his hand twitching after his knife, coming rapidly toward him.

  Moria. His heart turned over as he recognized his sister face to face with him. "Walk past me," he hissed at her in desperation. "There's someone on my track."

  "I'll get him."

  "No. Just see who it is and keep walking."

  They parted, expert mimery: importunate whore and disgusted stroller. He found his breath too short, his heartbeat pounding in his ears, trying to keep his wits about him and to concoct lies Moria would believe, all the while terrified for what might be happening behind him. There might be others. Moria might be walking into ambush set for him. He dared not turn to see. He reached the end of the bridge, kept walking, walking, walking, toward the shelter of the alleys. It was all right then, he kept telling himself; Moria could take care of herself, would recross the river and find her own way home. He was in the alleys, in his element again, of beggars crouched by the walls and mud squelching underfoot.

  Then one of the beggars before him unfolded upward out of the habitual wall braced crouch, and from behind an arm encircled him, bringing a sharp point against his throat.

  "Well," a dry voice cackled, "hawkmask, we got you, doesn't we?"

  * * *

  Moria did not run. Gut feeling cried out for it, but she kept her pace, in the waning hours of the night, with thunder rumbling in the south and flashing lightning in a threatening wall of cloud. It was well after moonset. Mor-am had not gotten home.

  And there was a vast silence in the Downwind. It was not nature, which boomed and rumbled and advised that the streets and alleys of Downwind would be aswim. The street-dwellers were up seeking whatever scrap of precious board or canvas that could be pilfered, carrying their clutter of shelter-pieces with them like the crabs down by seamouth, making traffic of their own-It was none of these things; but it was subtle change, like the old man who always had the door across from their alley-door not being there, like no hawkmask watcher where he ought to be, in the alley across the way; or again, in the alley second from their own. They were gone. Eichan might have pulled them when their lair became unsafe.

  But Mor-am had been followed on the bridge, and that follower had not led her back to Mor-am, when she had turned round again after passing him. Panic ran hot and cold through her veins, and guilt and self-blame and outright terror. She had become alone, like that, in the space of time it took to walk the bridge and turn round again; and find that the follower did not lead her to Mor-am, or to anything; he himself had hesitated this way and that and finally recrossed the bridge.

  Mor-am would be at home, she had thought; and he was not.

  She kept walking now, casual in the mutter of thunder, the before-storm movements of the street people, moving because if something had gone wrong, nowhere was really safe.

  They hunted hawkmasks nowadays; and Eichan had cast them adrift.

  There was one last place to go and she went to it, toward Mama Becho's.

  The door still spilled light into the dark, where a few patrons sprawled, drunk and unheeding of the storm. Moria strode into it in a gust of wind, but the bodies sprawled inside in sleep were amorphous, heaped, drunken. There was no sign of Mor-am. A further, darker panic welled up in her, her last hope gone.

  He still might be hiding, she tried to tell herself; might have gone to earth and determined to stay there; or it was bad and he was still running. Or even sleeping off a drunk.

  Or dead. Like the murdered hawkmasks. Like one who had been nailed to a pole by the bridge.

  She turned and strode for the door, almost colliding with the human mountain that suddenly filled it.

  "Drink," Tygoth suggested.

  "No."

  He lifted his stick. "You come here to steal-"

  "Looking for someone." Her mind leapt this way and that. "Vis. Boarder of yours."

  "Asleep."

  She dodged past and ran, down the alley, the only lighted alley in the Downwind, that got the light of the ever-lit lantern at Mama Becho's door.

  "Vis," she called softly, rapping at the door. Her hands clenched against the wood. "Vis, wake up, get out here. Now." She heard Tygoth coming, shambling along after her, rapping the wall with his stick. "Vis, for the gods' sake, wake up." There was movement from inside. "It's Moria," she said. The rapping was closer. "Let me in."

  The door opened, a rattling of the latch. She faced a daggerpoint, a half dressed man wild-eyed and suspecting murder. She showed her empty hands.

  "Trouble?" Tygoth said behind her. "No trouble," Vis said, and reached out and caught her by the wrist in a cr
ushing grip, pulling her inside, into the dark. He closed the door.

  * * *

  They brought Mor-am through the dark muffled in a foul-smelling, greasy cloak; gagged and with a bandage over his eyes and his hands so long tied behind his back that they had gone beyond acute pain to a general numb hurt that involved his chest and arms as well. He would have run but they had had his knees and ankles tied too, and now he was doing well to walk at all, with his knees and ankles beyond any sensation of balance, just stabbing pain. They jerked him along in the open air, and he remembered the hawkmask they had nailed to the pole near the bridge; but they had not yet hurt him, not really, and he was paralysed with hope, that this was all some irritation of the men he worked for; or fear, that they were his own brothers and sisters, who had found out about his treason; or, or, or-His mind was in tatters. They were near the bridge now. He heard the moving of the water far away at his left, heard the mutter of thunder, that confounded itself with the sounds about him. The image flashed to him of a sodden body crucified against a pole, in the early morning rain.

  * * *

  "Just put more men on it," the Stepson said, never stirring from where he sat, in the too great warmth of the room. The naivete of the operation appalled him. But there were necessities and places too little apt for his kind. "If you can do it without sounding the alarm through every alley in the Downwind." Something had gone wrong. The abruptness of the vanishing, uncharacteristic of the informer, smelted of interventions. "This had better not go amiss," his companion said meaningfully to the man who sat and sweated across the table. "It was far too productive. And you've botched the other avenue tonight, haven't you? That contact more than failed. It went totally sour. We don't like incompetence."

  * * *

  "I haven't seen him," Mradhon Vis said, in the dark, in the narrow room. The woman- Moria-had a knife; he was sure of that, sure where she was too, by her breathing. He kept where he was, having all the territory measured, thinking, in one discrete side of his mind, that he dealt with a fool or they thought he was one, a solitary woman coming at him like this.