Empire of the East

by Fred Saberhagen

  He stood gazing dazedly through the fragile-seeming fence of wands. The gold circlet had vanished, lost in the dazzle of the yellow metal stacked and strewn there…and now that he was freed of it, he did not want it back. Nor her. She would be with Tarlenot now, or Hann, or someone else. And Chup realized that he no longer minded that.

  The thought broke in upon him that she must have known he would be freed by tossing away the charm. Or did she think he was still bound to her and blinded by the simple magic of her attraction, like the other men she used? No, he never had been enthralled by her before he picked up the charm. She must have known that he would, at this point, be set free.

  To do what? Where did his best interests lie? Was he now committed irrevocably to helping her against Som?

  Remembering now her face and voice over the last few days, he concluded that she still hated him for not being manageable without magic, especially for once slapping her to put an end to a mindless hysteria of noise. Was she done with using him now, and was her revenge already set?

  At best his time of safety here was passing quickly. Cautiously he turned to leave the treasure chamber. Above his head the little furry animal still writhed and squeaked, impaled upon the demon’s dangling talon. Chup put up a hand in passing to rob the demon of its toy; he tossed the small beast ahead of him up the curving stair. There it might find a crevice in which to die in peace. The curses of three thousand wizards on all demons! He could not slay them, but he would take the chance to rob one of a toy. When he had climbed round the first turn of the ascending stair he paused, and uttered in reverse order Hann’s three words. The light changed subtly, down below, and no longer was there perfect silence.

  When he had climbed to the darkened level of the centipede, he was glad that he had wasted no more time below, for already the beast was stirring. It was not moving yet, but trying to rise, its feet a-scratching on the pavement in the darkness. He waited briefly, to give his eyes a better chance to see.

  Now that he had thought a little, it seemed to him that he would have no more usefulness to Charmian. No longer bewitched, he could do nothing for her that someone more manageable—Tarlenot—could not do almost as well. She hated Chup, he felt quite sure of that, and she was not the girl to leave her hate unsatisfied.

  He could see the dim shape of the centipede now, lying on its side, curling and uncurling like a slow snake swimming in the dark. Its feet scraped but were not yet ready to support it. Chup moved in the utmost silence, stepping toward the place where they must let down the ladder for him…here? Would this be where Charmian meant for him to die?

  The more he thought, the likelier it appeared. This whole scheme could have been accomplished in a different way. Hann could have given the two deformed guards dried fruit, and magic words. They could have taken the circlet in and thrown it on the pile as easily as Chup. Except in that case Chup would have been left above ground, live and active, and with his own will back again.

  Holding his breath, he listened for any sound above. They must be standing silent and listening too. Suppose he called up for the ladder and they lowered it. When he, unarmed, climbed to the top, the two Guardsmen would be there, one on each side, with weapons drawn…or suppose they did not lower the ladder, but laughed at him. They could have some means to grapple his body and hoist it up, after the centipede had struck him. Either way, once he was dead, put him down a crevice somewhere. He would vanish, or seem to be the victim of an accident or some chance quarrel or casual assassination—only there would be nothing to connect him with the treasure vault.

  Behind Chup now, the sounds of the centipede grew louder. Looking back, it saw it was now managing to drag itself along the floor. It moved in his direction.

  And close above him now he heard the faint sound of a sandal-scrape, and the intake of a nervous breath. “Where is he?” came a Guard’s low whisper. “If the demons took him after all, they’re certain to report him. Then we’re through!”

  Chup’s eyes had now adapted well enough for him to see the beast in some detail. Thin as an arm its body was, though longer than a man, about as long as the many-weaponed tail that flicked and twitched behind it. A man with good arms might easily break the beast’s thin neck, it seemed. Except that as soon as he tried to get a grip that tail would come snapping like a whip in the gloom, impossible to block or dodge…the clustered poison-spines grew longer than fingers on that tail. How could a man fight such a thing barehanded?

  Why, thus, and so. And he would have a fighting chance, if it was dazed and slow. The cold calculation of tactics led Chup on into the outline of a larger plan. He trusted what his instinct told him, in a fight; the reasons came clear later, if he took the time to think them out.

  The animal was trying now to stand, was on the verge of success. Chup drew a deep breath and moved into action. He scraped his sandals on the paving, making hurried footsteps, and in a low clear voice he called out: “Let down the ladder.”

  From up above, the laughter came.

  The centipede was still sliding toward Chup, with a whispery scraping of its feet and body on the stones. Moving more quietly than the dazed beast, Chup circled to its rear and closed in. He grabbed in the near darkness with his unprotected hand for the tail, and caught it, just under the cluster of poison-spines at the tip. He set his foot against what might be called the creature’s rump and shoved it down and pinned it when it would have tried to rise. Holding the tail straight was easy enough, but the multitude of slender legs had strength in numbers, resilient power surprising for their size. He was in for a struggle as soon as the drug had worn off completely, the more so as he must not kill this beast. The fighter’s intuition on which he relied had grapsed that point at once, though he had not thought it through with conscious logic: he must keep for himself the option of making Charmian’s plan succeed or fail. To leave this animal dead would mean alerting Som and the plot’s eventual discovery.

  Up above, the Guardsmen’s low voices were cheering on the beast.

  “Put down the ladder, quick, by all the demons!” Chup cried out. Out of sight of those above, he was now sitting on the body of the beast to hold it down. His right hand was still vising the tail, his left hand feeling for the neck.

  “Fight it out, oh great Lord Chup!” called down a voice. “What’s wrong, did you forget your sword?”

  He answered with a wordless cry of rage, as he shifted his grip upon the creature just slightly and stood up, lifting it across his shoulders. The weight was quite surprising for the size, it must be half as heavy as a man.

  “That sounded like it did for him.”

  “It must have. Wait a moment, though.”

  The hundred legs remained in agitation, pounding softly, coldly, at Chup’s head. He moved with his hideous burden, carefully keeping out of direct sight of the men above, stepping soundlessly.

  One of the hidden voices said: “Toss down a bait. We’ve waited long enough. It got him, or he’d still be running.”

  Said the other, doubtfully: “He might have gone back down to the vault.”

  “Dimwit! The words won’t work twice in one night, remember? Hann told us that. No man’ll run to a wakeful demon, not even if a hundred-legger’s chasing him. Throw a bait, we don’t know when an inspector’s going to come.”

  “All right, all right. Where’s the beast? I’ll toss one before his nose.”

  Chup twisted his burden off his shoulder and lowered it carefully in straining arms, just enough to let the little feet make scratching sounds upon the floor.

  “There, there, hear it?” Chup heard the tiny spat of Hann’s dried fruit, landing a meter or so before him. He waited, counting slowly to ten, his captive’s body prisoned now under his left arm, its deadly tail still clamped safely by his tireless sword hand. Then he pressed the hundred legs down on the pavement once again, and this time let the writhing sides make contact too, to make the sounds of staggering and collapse.

  “It took the bait.
Go down.”

  “You go down, if you’re in such a hurry. Wait till it falls, I say.”

  Chup lifted the animal again, and moved silently to a new position.

  “It’s quiet now. Go down and haul out the mighty Lord Chup.”

  “We had it settled, you were going down!”

  “You’re the stronger, as you always brag. So now be quick about it.”

  A snarl of fear and anger.

  “Quick! What if an inspector comes?”

  It was the dwarf who eventually prevailed; the tall scarred man came down the ladder, slowly and hesitantly, frowning into the shadows where he thought Chup and the beast must both be lying. He had his sword drawn, and he spun round quickly when he heard Chup’s soft step behind him. Then he screamed and jumped away and fell when he saw what weapon Chup was brandishing.

  Without hesitation Chup turned and charged up the ladder, the writhing beast held above him and in front of him. He saw the dwarf’s face, peering down incredulously, then tumbling backward out of sight in terror.

  The dwarf was far too late in trying to draw his stubby sword. Chup by that time had reached the ladder’s top, pitched the animal back down the hole, and was reaching for the little man. The dwarf’s thick sword arm, caught, was twisted till the weapon clattered to the floor, then he himself was flung away across the room.

  “Hold back!” Chup barked out, with his back against the door. “I mean no killing here, no valkyries buzzing down the tunnel to haul you out and bring investigators. Now hold back!”

  The disarmed dwarf was sitting, scowling, where he had been tossed, and gave no impression of any eagerness to attack. Nor did the tall, scarred man, who, having beaten the maltreated centipede to the ladder on one lap or another of what must have been a lively race, now halted at the ladder’s top. The tall one was armed, but so now was Chup, who had scooped up the dwarf’s sword; and what Chup had just accomplished without a blade must have augmented his reputation considerably in the present company.

  The men held back. Chup nodded, and reached behind him with one hand to slide back the massive bolts that sealed the door. “The scheme you were enlisted for goes forward, and if you play your parts I will see to it that you are rewarded.” As you deserve, he thought. He went on speaking, with his field commander’s voice: “The plan goes on, but now I am in charge, and not those who first bribed you and instructed you. Remember that. Raise that ladder.”

  The tall man hesitated briefly, then jumped to obey, sheathing first his sword. The dwarf was snuffling now like some schoolboy caught in an escapade.

  Chup demanded: “What were you to do next? What signal were you to give her, that I am dead?”

  The tall one said: “Your…your body, lord. To be left where it would be found; as if some feral centipede had…there are some in these caverns. To make your death look accidental.”

  “I see.” Chup could now take time to think. “Maintain your guard here as if nothing had happened. If an inspector comes, say nothing. I left no traces down below. I will be back, or will send word, to tell you what to do.” Now he could see the logic and the details of his plan, and he was grinning as he went out and shut the door.

  VI

  Be As I Am

  The corpse’s face had been shattered into unrecognizability, as if by a long fall onto rock, and the appearance of the rest of the body suggested that it had been nibbled by some kind of scavenger; reptiles, perhaps. The soldiers who had brought the body to Charmian—led by two officers who were not of her small group of plotters—stood by watching stolidly, as she attempted to make the requested identification.

  She looked long at what had been the face, and at the heavy limbs that had once been powerful. They did not seem to have anything to do with Chup, but in their present state they might be his as well as not. Charmian was not squeamish about death—in others—and put out a hand and turned the ruined head. The build and hair color of the dead man were Chup’s, and the tattered black uniform might be. She could see no marks of weapons on the body.

  Half a day after Chup had set out upon his mission for her, she had sent word to Som’s chamberlain inquiring whether her husband had been detained on any business. Word came back that nothing was known of his whereabouts. Half a day after that, the search was begun in earnest. Now another day later, this. Events were proceeding as she had planned.

  “Where was this man found?” she asked.

  “Wedged in a deep crevice, lady, in one of the deep caves. He might have fallen from a bridge.” The officer’s voice was neutral. “Can you make an identification?”

  “Not with certainty.” She lifted her eyes calmly; no one high in the councils of the East would be expected to show much grief for the loss of any other. “But yes, I think this is the body of my husband. Tell the Viceroy Som that I am grateful for his help in searching. And if it was no accident that killed the Lord Chup, then those who did it are as much Som’s enemies as mine.”

  The officers bowed.

  And half a day after they and their men had gone, wheeling their gruesome charge upon a cart, other messengers came from Som, more cheerfully garbed and with far merrier words to speak—it was a summons for her, to appear before the viceroy, but it came couched in the welcome form of gracious invitation.

  Soon after those emissaries also had departed, leaving her time for preparation, the wizard Hann sat watching Charmian. They were in a central room of her elaborate suite. Hann sat a-straddle of a delicate chair turned back to front, his sharp chin resting broodingly upon his wiry, somehow unwizardly forearms, crossed upon the chair’s high back.

  The clothes that Charmian was to wear, close-fitting garments of raven black, hung thin and shimmering beside a screen. She herself, swathed in a white robe and soft towels and newly emerged from her bath, sat primping before an array of mirrors. She would make an imperious motion of her finger or her head, or merely with her eyes, and Karen or Kath would jump to adjust the angle of a mirror or lamp, or Lisa or Portia would fetch a different comb or brush, jar or phial, most of which their lady considered and rejected. Samantha was upon some errand for Charmian, and Lucia had earlier been judged guilty of some gross error and was not here; there was blood drying on the small silvery whip that lay at one end of the long dressing table. Charmian’s face, utterly intent on appraising itself in all its multiple reflections, was for the time devoid of youth and softness, was ageless as ice and equally as hard.

  Hann, observing her thus disarmed and charmless, was able to appraise her with something of the feeling he had when watching another magician pull off a perilous feat; professional respect.

  He need never have worried about her nerves, he told himself. This girl-woman had matured considerably in the half year since she had come here as a frightened refugee. From the start she had been enormously ambitious; now she could be cold and capable, self-controlled. She probably could command an army, given a tactical adviser and mouthpiece to pass on orders—a man like Tarlenot. And she would have the nerve and ruthlessness to manage the other powers that were the viceroy’s, even the power called Zapranoth—given the aid of a wizard of great skill, Hann.

  The rulers of the Empire of the East would not care if Som were overthrown by one of his subordinates; that would mean only that a more capable servant had replaced a less. And now it did seem that Som’s hand was faltering. (Only in the back of Hann’s mind the question waited: why had the body been so mutilated, impossible to certainly identify? Well, why not? The Dwarf and Scarface swore that they had put the Lord Chup down a crevice as planned. And there were little scavenger beasts, that strayed out from the dungeons where they bred…)

  Charmian was dismissing her attendants. As soon as the last of them had left the room she turned to Hann a questioning look. Hann, understanding, quickly made use of the best developed of his powers to quickly scan the suite and its environs. In this branch of magic he thought that he was unexcelled. The voices of invisible powers, inhuman and abjec
t and faithful, muttered their reports to him, speaking close and softly so none but he could hear.

  “Speak safely,” he said to Charmian. “No one is listening but me.”

  Fingering a tiny perfume bottle, she asked: “How did our viceroy and master acquire his name?”

  Hann was perplexed. “Som?”

  “Who else, my learned fool? Why is he called ‘The Dead’?”

  He sprang up from his chair, aghast. “You don’t know that?”

  A light danced in Charmian’s eyes. Looking at Hann in her mirrors, she was quite relaxed, save for her fingers on the little phial. “You know that I have met Som only twice, both times briefly. I realize of course that the purpose of his name must be to frighten those who hear it. But in what sense is it true?”

  “In a very real sense!” Alarmed at her ignorance, Hann tilted his head from side to side in agitation.

  “In a real sense, then. But tell me more.” Charmian’s voice was soothing and deliberate, her eyes tranquil.

  Hann absorbed some of her calm, turned his chair around, and sat down properly. “Well, Som does not age at all. He is immune alike to poison and disease, if what I hear is true.” The wizard frowned. “He has reached some balance, struck some bargain with death. I admit I do not know how.”

  Charmian appeared to disbelieve. “You speak as if death were some man, or demon.”

  Hann, who had been to the center of the Empire of the East, said nothing for a moment. He had tied his fortune to this girl, and now her inexperience and rashness were beginning to frighten him. There was not time to teach her much. “I know what I know,” he said at last.

  She inquired, calmly enough: “And what else do you know of Som?”

  “Well. I have never seen him enter battle. But it is said on good authority that any man who raises a weapon against Som finds himself smitten in that very moment with the same wound that he is trying to inflict.”