by Lynn Abbey
Common foods had been prepared as no ordinary man had seen them before. The bread had been baked in fluted shapes then arranged on a platter so they resembled a bouquet of flowers. Cold sausage had been twisted and tied into a menagerie of parading wild animals. The uncommon foods had been prepared less fancifully. There was a bowl of fruit in varieties that Pavek had never seen before and Ruari, even with his greater druidic training, could not name. There were heaping plates of juicy meats, sliced thin and garnished with rare spices. But the feast's centerpiece was a silvered bowl filled with a fragrant beverage and with colorless stones that were cold to the touch.
"Ice," a slave explained when the stone Pavek had been examining slipped through his numbed fingers. "Solid water."
Pavek picked the stone up and gingerly applied his tongue to the surface. He tasted water, wet and cold. There could be only one explanation for a stone that sweated water:
"Magic," he concluded, and returned the unnatural lump to the bowl.
The bowl's liquid contents, a blend of fruity flavors that were both tart and sweet, were more to Pavek's liking, but no amount of wonder or luxury could erase from his memory the images of Lord Hamanu's transformations. Ruari and Zvain were similarly affected. They ate, as boys and young men would always eat when their throats weren't cut, but without the energy they would have brought to such a meal had it been served in any other place, at any other time.
Orphanage templars learned what was important early in their lives. Pavek could sleep in just about any bed, or without one, and he could eat whatever was available, be it mealy bread, maggoty meat, or Lord Hamanu's rarest delicacies. He filled a platter with foods he recognized, then wandered out to the porch where the setting sun had turned the sky bloody red.
Zvain followed Pavek like a shadow. Since they'd left the audience chamber, Zvain had rubbed his cheek raw, doing far more damage than the Lion-King had done, at least on the surface. The boy's eyes were haunted, and he was clearly afraid to wander more than a few steps from Pavek's side. When Pavek sat on a bench to eat his meal, Zvain sat on the floor next to him. He leaned back, not against the bench, but against Pavek's leg and heaved a sigh that ended with a shudder.
Feeling more obligated than sympathetic, Pavek asked, "Do you want to talk?" and was relieved when the boy's reply was a sulky, sullen shrug.
Predictably, Ruari's misery took a noisier form. The half-elf joined them on the balcony, set his plate down, and paced an oval around Pavek's bench. Muttering curses under his breath, he seemed to want the attention Zvain didn't.
And when Pavek's neck began to ache from tracking Ruari's movements at his back, he relented and asked the necessary question:
"What's wrong?"
"I was scared," Ruari sputtered, as if he had betrayed himself earlier in the Lion-King's audience chamber. "I was so scared I couldn't move, I couldn't think."
Pavek set his plate beside Ruari's. "You were face-to-face with the Lion of Urik. Of course you were scared. He could kill you ten different ways—all ten different ways."
That was not the reassurance Ruari needed.
"I stood there. I just stood there and watched his hand-that horrible hand with those claws—as it swiped my staff. And then I fell down. I fell down, and I stayed down while you argued with him!"
"Be grateful you were on the floor. Fear makes me stupid enough to argue with a god."
Ruari's laughter rang false. "I'd rather be your kind of stupid than on my hands and knees like a crass animal, too scared to stand up. Wind and fire! She was laughing at me." She. The only person to whom Ruari could be referring was Mahtra. But Mahtra hadn't laughed. She might have smiled; with that mask they didn't know what her face actually looked like, much less her expression. But she hadn't laughed aloud. Pavek was confused, wondering why, or how, the half-elf thought Mahtra had laughed at him; wondering why or how it mattered; confused until Zvain explained it all in a single, disgusted statement:
"Am not!" Ruari retorted with a vigor that convinced Pavek that Zvain knew exactly what he was talking about. "Wind and fire—she walked out of there with him." The long coppery hair whipped around to hide Ruari's face as he turned away from them. "How could she? Didn't she see anything?"
"Who knows what Mahtra sees, Ru?" Pavek said gently. "Except it's different. She's new and she's eleganta—"
"She walked off, arm-in-arm, with a monster—Hamanu's worse than Elabon Escrissar!"
"She walked off with him, too." Zvain pointed out, effectively pouring oil on Ruari's inflamed passions.
Ruari responded immediately by taking a swing at Zvain; Pavek caught the fist before it landed. If he'd had any doubts about what was eating at Ruari, they vanished the moment their eyes met. Pavek didn't want to argue, not over this. He certainly didn't want to defend the actions of either Mahtra or the Lion-King. What he wanted was to finish his meal, half-drown himself in the bathing pool, and then fall into a dreamless sleep.
But when Ruari roared a slur at him without hesitation, he roared right back, also without hesitation. Nothing they said made sense. It was tension and fear and exhaustion that neither of them could contain for another heartbeat. He couldn't stop it; didn't want to stop it because, like a two-day drunk, it felt good at the start.
They traded accusations and insults, backing each other across the balcony and to the brink of bloodshed. In any physical fight, Pavek would always have the advantage over a half-elf. Even if the half-elf struck first and struck low, Pavek's big fists and brawn could do more damage and do it quickly. Ruari tried to land a dirty punch, which Pavek expected. He seized the half-elf by the shirt, pinned him against the palace wall with one hand and took aim at a copper-skinned chin. But before he landed the punch, a shrieking annoyance leaped on his back.
"Stop it!" Zvain yelled, as frightened as he was angry. "Don't fight! Don't hurt each other."
Pavek caught his rage before it exploded at both youths. He looked from Ruari to his fist and willed his fingers straight. He could hurt Ruari—that's what he intended to do—but he'd kill a boy Zvain's size with one unlucky punch. Ruari's shirt came free and, wisely, Ruari retreated while Zvain slid slowly down Pavek's back until his feet touched the floor, his arms were around Pavek's ribs, and his face was pressed against Pavek's back.
"Don't fight," Zvain repeated. "Don't fight with each other. Please, don't make me take sides. Don't make me choose. I can't choose. Not between you."
Without a word, Pavek looped his arm back and urged the boy around. Ruari edged closer, keeping a wary eye on Pavek while he nudged Zvain above the elbow.
Still breathing heavily, Ruari said, "Nobody's asking you to choose," to the top of Zvain's head, but his eyes, when they met Pavek's, made the statement into a question.
It was one thing for Pavek to comfort a boy whose head didn't reach his armpit. It was another with Ruari who stood a head taller than him. Maybe that was the root of the problem between them, and the source of Ruari's unexpected attraction to Mahtra. The New Race woman was, perhaps, the only woman Ruari'd ever met who was tall enough to look him in the eye, and being neither elf nor half-elf, she touched none of Ruari's painful doubts about his heritage.
"Have you... talked to her?" Pavek asked, feeling awkward as Ruari's shrugged reply appeared. "She might—In the cavern, she felt something that made her control that power of hers. Hamanu's infinitesimal mercy, Ru, if she doesn't know how you feel..." He shrugged and stared into early twilight, unable to find the right words. This was more difficult than talking about Akashia.
"If she doesn't know," Zvain advised, fully recovered now and putting a manly distance between himself and Pavek again. "Then, don't tell her. Forget about it. Women are nothing but trouble, anyway."
He sounded so wise, so certain, so very young that Pavek had to struggle to keep from laughing.
Ruari lost the battle early, sputtering through lips that loosened into a grin. "Just wait a few years. Your time'll come."
"Never. No w
omen for me. Too messy."
By then Pavek was also laughing, and the day's tension was finally broken. The feast looked more appetizing and the bathing pool became irresistible—once Pavek persuaded the slaves to share both the food and the water. Even the musicians emerged from hiding and, whatever Lord Hamanu had intended, for one evening honest people enjoyed innocent pleasures in his palace.
With his pulse pounding, Pavek waited for the next sound, acutely conscious that he was half-naked and completely without a weapon. Last night he'd slipped so far into complacency that, although he could remember removing the sheath that held his prized metal knife along with his belt before he stepped into the bathing pool, he couldn't remember where he'd put it.
"Lord High Templar! Your presence is requested in the lower court."
Requested or required, Pavek didn't dawdle. He called the messenger into the room and ordered him to light all the lamps with the glowing taper he carried for that purpose. Slaves had cleared the remnants of the feast while he slept. Clean clothes in three sizes were piled on the table in place of food. A new staff, carved from Nibenese agafari wood and topped with a bronze lion-head, leaned against garments meant for a half-elf's slender frame. The gold medallion lay atop the pile intended for Pavek. Ruari pronounced himself satisfied with his gift, but once again Pavek left the medallion behind.
It was still pitch-dark when the messenger led them to the lower court, a cobblestone enclosure on the palace's perimeter. A maniple of twenty templars from the war bureau and their sergeant, a wiry red-haired human, were waiting. All twenty-one appeared to be veterans. Each wore piecemeal armor made from studded inix-leather. Vambraces covered their forearms and sturdy buskins, also studded, protected their feet, ankles, and calves. For weapons, they had obsidian-tipped spears and short composite swords that were edged with thin metal strips or knapped stone. Composite swords were common issue in the war bureau; like the templars who wielded them, they were tough and lethal.
Despite the metal sword hanging from his belt—an adjutant's weapon at the very least, if not a militant's—Pavek was in no way qualified to lead these men anywhere. He knew it, and they knew it. But orders were orders, and the sealed parchment orders the sergeant handed to Pavek said, after they were opened, that he was in charge.
"What have you been told?" he asked the sergeant, a grim-faced woman his equal in height.
"Great Lord, we've been told that you'll lead us underground and then to Codesh, where there's to be another maniple meeting us at midday. We're to follow your orders till sundown, then return to our barracks—if we're still alive."
The words on the parchment were different and included a warning from Hamanu to expect trouble in the cavern because he, the Lion of Urik, had decided not to send templars to claim the bowls. He preferred—in his words—to let Kakzim safeguard the simmering contagion until Pavek could destroy it completely. Hamanu's confidence that Pavek would succeed was less than reassuring to a man who'd watched Elabon Escrissar die. Pavek crumpled the parchment in his fist and faced the sergeant again. "I can lead you to the cavern, but if there's fighting—and I expect there will be—I won't tell you how to do it."
"Great Lord, you might be a smart man," the sergeant said, giving Pavek a first, faint glimmer of approval.
"I've lived this long; I'd like to live longer. Were you told anything else? Anything about the bowls?"
"Bowls? What bowls?" the sergeant shot a look over her shoulder. Pavek didn't see which templar's eye she was trying to catch or the results of their silent conversation, but when she faced him again, the faint approval was gone. "Great Lord, we're waiting for one more, aren't we? Maybe she's got your answer."
Mahtra. In his mind's eye, Pavek could see Hamanu telling Mahtra how they were supposed to dispose of Kakzim's sludge. It was amusement again: Hamanu could resolve everything himself, but he was amused by the efforts of lesser mortals.
They didn't have long to wait. Mahtra entered the lower court from another doorway. As always, she wore the fringed, slashed garments typical of nightfolk. The sergeant sighed, and Pavek shrugged, then Mahtra handed Pavek another sealed scroll.
"My lord wrote his instructions out for you. He says you must be careful to do everything exactly as he's described. He says you wouldn't want to be responsible for any mistakes."
"Who's your lord?" the sergeant asked, apparently puzzled that her lord was someone other than Pavek, who occupied himself breaking the seal while Mahtra answered:
Hamanu's instructions weren't complicated, but they were precise: flammable bitumen, naphtha, and balsam oil—leather sacks and sealed jars of which would be waiting for them at the elven market guardpost—had to be mixed thoroughly with the contents of each of Kakzim's bowls, then set afire with a slow match, which would also be waiting for them. The resulting blaze would reduce the sludge to harmless ash, but the three ingredients were almost as dangerous as the sludge. With bold, black strokes across the parchment, Hamanu warned Pavek to be careful and to stay upwind of the flames.
Pavek committed the writing to his memory before he met the consternated sergeant's eyes again. They were, after all, not merely templars, but templars from opposing bureaus, and the traditional disdain had to be observed.
"These instructions come from the Lion himself," Pavek said mildly. "He mentions bitumen, naphtha, and balsam oil—" The sergeant blanched, as any knowledgeable person would hearing those three names strung together. "The watch at the elven market gate holds them. We'll take them underground with us."
He'd spoken loudly enough for the maniple to overhear, and Pavek, in turn, heard their collective gasp. They were only twenty templars, twenty-two if they counted Pavek and the sergeant. There were hundreds of traders, mercenaries, and renegades of all stripes holed up in the elven market, every one of whom would risk his life for the incendiaries they were supposed to carry underground.
"Great Lord," the sergeant began after clearing her throat. "Respectfully—most respectfully—I urge you to leave your kinfolk behind. Wherever we go, whatever we do today, it will be no place for the unseasoned. Respectfully, Great Lord. Respectfully."
Pavek should have been insulted—beyond a doubt she included him among the unseasoned, respectfully or not— but mostly he was startled by her assumption that his motley companions were his family. Denials formed on his tongue; he swallowed them. Let her believe what she wanted: a man could do far worse.
"Respectfully heard, but they know more than you, and they've earned the right to see this through."
"Great Lord, if there's fighting—"
"Don't worry about me or mine. Your only concern is keeping those bowls secure on their platforms until you've eliminated the opposition. Now—let's move out! We've got our work cut out for us if we're to catch that other maniple at midday in Codesh. I hope you're paid up with your fortune-seller. We're going to need a load of luck before the day's out."
The sergeant shot another glance behind her. This time Pavek saw it land on a young man in the last row of the maniple, another redhead. He called the man forward. The sergeant stiffened, and so did the rest of the maniple. Whatever was going on, they shared the secret. Pavek asked for the redhead's medallion. More grim and apprehensive glances were exchanged, especially between the two red-haired templars, but the young man removed the medallion and gave it to the high templar.
Lord Hamanu's leonine portrait was precisely carved, delicately painted, but that vague aura of ominous power that surrounded every legitimate medallion was missing. Without saying anything, Pavek flipped the ceramic over. As he expected, the reverse side of the medallion was smooth— the penalty for impersonating a templar was death; the penalty for wearing a fake medallion was ten gold pieces. The medallion Pavek held was fraudulent, but the mottled clay beads he could just about see beneath the "templar's" yellow tunic were genuine enough.
Underground, an earth cleric would be more useful than all the luck a fortune-seller could offer.
"When the fighting starts," Pavek advised, returning the medallion, "stay close to Zvain and Mahtra," he pointed them out, "because they'll be staying out of harm's way—as you should."
"Great Lord, you are indeed a smart man. We might all live to see the sun rise again."
Pavek grimaced and cocked his head toward the eastern horizon, which had begun to lighten. "Not unless we get moving."
Corruption, laziness, and internecine rivalries notwithstanding, the men and women who served the Lion-King of Urik mostly followed their orders and followed them competently. The sergeant brought her augmented maniple through the predawn streets to me gates of the elven market without incident or delay. Three sewn-shut leather sacks were waiting for them. Their seams had been secured with pitch; each had been neatly labelled and branded with Lord Hamanu's personal seal. The sacks had been brought from the city warehouse by eight civil bureau templars, messengers and regulators in equal numbers, who remained at the market gates with orders to join the war bureau maniple when it was time to move the sacks again.
The elven market was quiet when a wedge-shaped formation of nearly thirty templars passed through the gate. It was much too quiet, and what sounds they could hear were almost certainly signals as they passed from one enforcer's territory to the next. There were silhouettes on every rooftop, eyes in every alley and doorway. But thirty templars were more trouble than the most ambitious enforcer wanted to buy, and there'd been no time for alliances. Observed, but not disturbed, they reached the squat, old building in its empty plaza as the lurid colors of sunrise stained the eastern sky.
She sent two elves and a half-elf down the tunnel first, not to take advantage of their night vision, but to chant a barrage of minor spells meant to give them safe passage. Privately, Pavek was dismayed by the sergeant's tactics. He told himself it was only civil bureau prejudice against the war bureau's reliance on magic—a prejudice born in envy because the civil bureau had to justify every spell it cast and the war bureau didn't.