God Stalk

by P. C. Hodgell

  Everyone knew the story of the old man who had embroidered their high, shimmering cuffs with threads gleaned over a lifetime from the floor of the city's finest textile shop and how, when they were at last finished, the Prince had bought them for his new bride. The sum he had paid would keep their creator in luxury for the rest of his life, but it was a trifle compared to what His Glory must have spent on nearly everything else under this dome. Then too, the bride must soon have tired of them for them to have found their way here, to this forgotten table littered with cosmetic bottles.

  Jame, however, thought they were the loveliest things she had ever seen. She was trying them on when behind her someone sighed. She whirled, and saw the figure on the couch change position. It was the princess, the virgin bride, fast asleep among the ivory warriors and the stuffed monstrosities.

  Well, why not, Jame found herself thinking wildly. She's part of the collection too, isn't she?

  She stood there frozen, waiting for the eyes to open, for the first scream. Nothing happened. Warily, she crossed over to the couch and looked down at its occupant. The princess lay curled on her side like a sleeping child. Her lips were slightly parted and her eyelids quivered, a hint of moisture on their long lashes. Over her stood the other, the predator come in from the night, tense, watchful, but slowly relaxing. Then with great care, she reached down and pulled the displaced sheet up over the sleeper's bare shoulder, turned, and silently left.

  Down on the main balcony again, Jame disengaged the grapnel from above, caught it as it fell, and hooked it over the rail with the full one hundred forty feet of line dangling from it. The wind, even fiercer now, battered her. She checked the sleeves of her costume to be sure they covered the gloves' ornate cuffs, then, fighting down a sudden tremor of nervousness, reached for the catch on one of the tall, glowing windows.

  * * *

  OZYMARDIEN'S chamberlain was thoroughly exasperated. Had he not transformed the entire upper chamber into this opulent forest glade? Did not the most beautiful courtesans and finest performers in all Tai-tastigon grace these silken bowers and cavort under the jeweled boughs where hidden birds sang so enchantingly? Was there not present everything that should promote a glorious celebration of this, the Feast of Fools? Yet there sat His Glory on the velvet sward beside a wandering brook of chilled wine, sulking, bored. It was so hard to find a genuine novelty to whet that jaded pallet. Now, if that little tavern dancer—the Bitter? the Bat-ears?—had come, there might have been some hope. But then again, probably not. What he needed was a miracle.

  What he got was the thunderclap of a window slammed open by the wind and a slender figure standing on the sill, looking startled. On the far side of the tower, three other costly windows crashed shut, two of them shattering. The wind howled through the hall, lashing the artificial trees to frenzy, dislodging clockwork song birds, candied fruit, and dwarf musicians from their branches, overturning candles everywhere.

  "That's not a woman, it's a natural disaster!" the Chamberlain's assistant cried, making a futile grab at a passing marzipan thicket. "Somebody, quick—catch that oak!"

  The figure from the window was walking across the room through the clusters of shrieking courtesans. It stopped before the Prince, bowed and, with no prologue whatsoever, began to dance. The wind still roared, the flames leaped, but bit by bit the human clamor died away as all watched, hypnotized. To the Chamberlain, it seemed as if he was no longer in the Tower of Demons at all but in another, larger chamber with darkness pressing tangibly, obscenely against the windows. There was a curtained bed decked with red ribbons. A figure danced before it with a white-bladed knife in its hand and something like a pallid, five-legged spider crawled feebly across the floor toward it. Then both the vision and the memory of it were gone. The dancer was walking back to the window by which she had entered. His Glory, suddenly coming out of his trance, began to clap wildly, ecstatically. The Chamberlain, with a great effort, took himself in hand.

  "Put out those fires," he ordered the guards, "and somebody, stop that woman!"

  * * *

  JAME, OUT on the balcony, heard the shout. She couldn't remember if she had performed or not and rather thought they were after her for breaking those beautiful windows. Either way, a quick retreat seemed in order. She grabbed the rope and swung over the railing. Fifteen feet down, a blast of wind caught her like the blow of a fist, knocking her sideways through a window onto the lit levels. The rope slid through her fingers. She crashed to the floor and lay there half-stunned in a confusion of broken glass.

  From somewhere nearby came a confused mutter, as though many voices were whispering hoarsely together. Bruised and bleeding, Jame staggered to her feet. The rope was gone, either blown away from the tower or detached from above. Her first line of escape had been cut off.

  The noise was getting closer, louder . . .

  She must try to reach the spiral stair that circled down the tower's main shaft—but the stairway that would bring her closest to it was the same up which that abominable sound was coming. She should have left her soul with Ishtier, Jame thought wildly . . . but no: he couldn't be trusted to return it. Should she wait for the Prince's guards to find her? Not that either—it would mean her skin for the theft of the gloves, even if they arrived in time. Think, fool, think . . . there was another flight of stairs on the west side of the tower. She backed toward it, extinguishing each light sphere as she came to it with a whispered "Blessed-Ardwyn-day-has-come." The sound faded, grew again, so confused by the strange turnings of the semi-maze that it sometimes seemed behind her, sometimes ahead.

  It was ahead. She whirled and saw Thulig-sa coming at her around the curve of the passageway, a patchwork thing of stolen shadows exuding dull malice and hunger. A dozen piping voices accompanied it, all crying, "Run, thief, run!"

  She ran. The darkened corridor swallowed her and her precious shadow, concealed them both as she darted into a side passage and stood there trembling, her back pressed against the wall. The demon rushed past in the dark, trailing the moans of its previous victims. Then she was out in the open again, racing along the western wall and down the steps. No time for the spiral stair now; no time for anything but the third escape route, which must be taken without pause for thought or fear.

  The window stood open before her as she had left it. Without slacking pace, Jame was through it onto the shoulders of the stone demon, in the air, falling.

  It was a very long way down. The wind spun her like a dry leaf, let go in time for her to see the spear-tipped wall, the steps, her own shadow leaping up to meet her on the torch-lit water.

  It was like hitting a stone wall.

  Deep beneath the surface, Jame fought for her life. The air had been slammed out of her, and the current was savage. She surfaced, gasping, went down again, and came back up.

  A bridge soared over her head, then another one. Any minute now she would either be dashed against the Guild island figurehead or swept past it into the white water of the channel. Someone was running along the bank, trying to keep up. Dally. It had to be. If he dove in now, they would probably both drown. Where the hell was . . .

  Something splashed into the water just ahead. She made a wild grab, felt her fingers close on the rope and slide down to, the cork-bound hook. On the upper span of the Asphodel Bridge, Sparrow (who, it seemed, had received her message after all) gave a triumphant whoop and braced himself to take the strain. A minute later, Dally hauled her up onto the quay. Leaning against him, she shook down her sleeves, held up the Peacock Gloves, and began to laugh hysterically.

  * * *

  IF THE SUDDEN appearance of the Cloud King's britches at the Moon could have been said to have caused a stir, it would be hard to describe the reception of the Peacock Gloves. There was a moment of stunned recognition, then pandemonium. It was as if a great insult had finally been avenged, a haughty arch-enemy humbled, and every thief there was caught up in the wild exultation—all, that is, but one.

  Ever sinc
e her arrival, Jame had been surreptitiously watching Scramp, whose miserable silence seemed louder to her than all the commotion that surrounded them both. Silently, she willed him to be sensible, to realize that for the first time in months nobody was goading him on, but she was the only one not caught by surprise when he suddenly pushed back his tankard, stood up, and, in a shrill voice, said, "I don't believe it."

  The others stared at him, some puzzled, some beginning to snicker.

  "I don't believe it," he repeated, louder, as though to blot out the laughter. "Either those aren't the real Peacock Gloves or you didn't get them in the Tower of Demons." He took a deep, shaky breath and said, very distinctly, "You're lying."

  A look almost of physical pain crossed Jame's face. "Don't, Scramp," she said very softly. "Don't push. Please."

  "You're LYING!"

  It was almost a shriek, like some small animal caught in a trap. He backed away from the table, knife in hand.

  "C'mon, you—you coward!"

  This time Jame followed him slowly, feeling sick. The smashed furniture had been cleared away, leaving an open space now ringed with shouting apprentices. As Jame entered the circle, she hesitated, then shifted her knife from right to left hand. Dally was appalled. Not only would this force her to depend on her weaker side, but it rendered her d'hen's full left sleeve useless for defense.

  Scramp lunged. Cloth ripped as Jame sprang back. Forgetting the jacket's uneven construction, she had tried to block with her unpadded right arm. The boy slashed at her face, barely missing as she slipped aside in a wind-blowing evasion.

  "Do something!" Dally shouted at her. Her reluctance to fight was so obvious that several voices had taken up Scramp's cry of coward.

  "Damnation," said Jame in disgust and threw down her knife.

  Scramp leaped at her, steel flashing. She caught his hand. The blade flew out of it as she twisted, and Scramp came crashing down. Pinned, he recanted, then burst into tears. The others rushed in on her cheering. At that moment, she would gladly have gutted the lot of them.

  "Good work!" said the luckless Dally, coming up half-wild with relief, and received such a look that he fell back a step. A boy slid up to him through the crowd and tugged at his sleeve. He bent to listen to the urgent whisper, then turned quickly back to Jame.

  "You've got to get out of here fast," he said in a low voice. "Someone told the guards about the gloves, and now there's a full squad converging on the Moon. Here—" He handed her the articles in question, which he had taken charge of when the fight began. "You'll be safe enough in the Maze, if you can get there. I'll stay and help confuse the trail."

  "As you wish," she said coldly. "Just be sure they leave that boy alone." She disappeared out the front door, tucking the still-damp gloves in her wallet.

  Penari's house was only about three furlongs from the Moon, and Jame usually reached it by going upstream a ways, then cutting due south. As she emerged from the inn, however, she found a brace of guards bearing down on her and so turned hurriedly down the side of the Moon, hearing a shout of recognition and the heavy clump of boots behind her as the chase was joined. The streets behind the tavern formed one of those sordid little tangles that all but those forced to live there and the guards assigned to the district soon learned to avoid. Jame, in fact, had never been through it before and soon found herself in difficulties, especially since the overhanging walls prevented her from taking to the rooftops. She could hear the guards behind shouting. Other voices answered them to the left and right. The squad had arrived in force and was closing in.

  Ahead, the dirty lane branched in an unusual and rather slipshod way. Jame was reminded of a similar formation in the Maze, which she had often passed on her way to Point A, Master Penari's favorite intersection for some obscure reason and the one to which he most often had her find her way. If she were going there now, she would take the right fork, go past three alley mouths, turn left. . . well, why not? As she followed this course, she suddenly realized that each step of the way was recognizable. Looking up to the second, third, and fourth stories, even more familiar patterns abruptly emerged.

  She was running now, aware of voices close behind her but too excited to care, when, rounding a corner, she crashed into something that she at first thought was a wall. Then it put out brawny arms and caught her on the rebound. Far over her head, a bearded face looked down at her, rather bemusedly.

  "Pardon," it said in a remote, polite rumble. The language was formal Kens.

  "H-honor be to you," she stammered in the same tongue, almost by reflex.

  "Who speaks?"

  "One who would have further words with you . . ." A guard appeared at the end of the passageway, came lumbering down on them. ". . . later. Meet me at the Res aB'tyrr in the Red Wax District." She ducked under his arm and ran. Behind, there was the sound of a mighty collision, then of two voices, one swearing luridly, the other rumbling an apology.

  A Kendar! She remembered his counterparts at the keep, their gruff kindness to her despite her father's disapproval. How wonderful it would be to have one of her own kind for a friend again—if only he would accept her. This might turn out to be quite a special night after all. Then, as though in confirmation, she turned the last corner and saw, just as she had known she would, Point A in all its solid glory, the Maze itself.

  Penari looked up from his overflowing table as she burst out onto a ground level balcony some two stories above him.

  "Sir!" she shouted down, "I know the secret of the Maze! It's a street plan of the old city—all five levels of it plus the basements and sewers with walls instead of houses. That's it, isn't it? Isn't it?"

  'Talisman," said Penari, "you may amount to something yet. Now come down and tell an old man how you young fools have spent the festival."

  She did, in considerable detail, and concluded by laying the gloves on the table before him. It was the story, however, more than the plunder that delighted the old thief, as Jame had expected it would. Hence she was not surprised when, after chortling himself dry, he made her a present of the Peacock Gloves.

  "Just take them over to the Shining Court and have Master Chardin assess them," he added. "Tell him to put the Guild dues on my account and don't you go strutting them in public until it's safe, boy. Remember that!"

  She left him grinning to himself like some ecstatic death's-head and chanting "I to the temple, you to the tower," over and over again with great satisfaction.

  The Shining Court, fortunately, was near at hand. To her surprise, she found Master Chardin waiting for her in the hall, a robe thrown over his night shift.

  "You think I could sleep through this racket?" he said, leading her into his brightly lit workroom. "You've set the Guild in an uproar, young man—again. No, don't apologize. It's the results that count. Now, let's see these famous gloves."

  He took them, making soft, reproachful sounds at their dampness, and stretched them out under the multiple light spheres. As he examined them, Jame regarded him curiously. She had never met this thin, prematurely balding young man before; but like everyone in the Guild, she had heard much about him. He was perhaps the only one of Theocandi's appointed officials who would have nothing to fear if the present Sirdan was overthrown: Men-dalis would never be fool enough to dismiss anyone so supremely competent. No one, however, knew how Chardin himself would vote. He was a man who lived for his work, for the pure pleasure of handling the rich things that came into his court each day, and was known to be almost constitutionally apolitical.

  "I'd value these at fifty-one, no, fifty-three altars," he said at last, straightening up. "That's five altars, three crowns Guild duty. You say your master will settle? Very good. He or you, depending on who keeps possession, will be at jeopardy for the next thirty days. Now, in case the Prince wants them back, what ransom?"

  "No ransom," said Jame firmly, "No bids, either."

  "How about rewards? There's an unconfirmed rumor that the Princess will pay very well for their retur
n, perhaps as high as seventy-five altars. No? Well, I can't say that I blame you. Just look at that needlework, those colors. . . you've got a real prize there, my lad, one I wouldn't mind bidding for myself."

  After a few more minutes of rapture on one side and quiet gratification on the other, Jame left. Homeward bound through the noisy, windblown streets, one eye wary for guards, she wondered about the Princess's offer. Had it been made, as Master Chardin had implied, without her husband's knowledge or backing? What funds other than the bride's portion of her dowry would be available to her? Not very extensive ones, probably. Seventy-five altars was a great deal of money, suggesting an unexpectedly ardent desire to regain her stolen property. It was unpleasant to think that she, Jame, had deprived that child of something so valued, when she had only meant to take a trifle; but would any real thief allow such considerations to distress her? Of course not. It was time, she told herself, to start acting like a professional; but oh lord, what would that giant Kendar think of all this?"

  Someone very big suddenly stepped out of the shadows, barring the way. At first she thought it was the Kendar himself, then, with greater alarm, that it was a guard. Neither, however, was the case.