by Tad Williams
“He’ll kill him,” Vash said, fascinated.
“No, he’ll just choke him until he gives in,” said Captain Hijam. “Yaridoras won’t kill anyone needlessly, especially another White Hound. He is a veteran of such matches.”
Daikonas Vo’s purpling face was sinking closer and closer to the floor, his elbows bowing outward as the bigger man’s weight overcame him. To Pinimmon Vash’s astonishment, Vo deliberately took one hand off the tiles and, just before he was driven to the ground, brought his elbow down so hard against the floor that a noise loud as a musket-shot echoed through the room. A moment later the two of them collapsed in a writhing, grunting heap, and for a moment it was hard to make sense of the tangle of limbs. Then the two bodies lay still.
Face and upper body shiny with blood, Daikonas Vo at last pulled himself out from under Yaridoras, rolling the giant aside so that the shard of stone floor tile sticking in the yellow-bearded man’s throat rose into view like a sacred object being lifted above a parade of believers. The audience of White Hounds gasped and cursed in shock, then a roar of anger rose from them and several of them moved toward the exhausted, bloody Vo with murderous intent.
“Stop!” cried Pinimmon Vash, and as they realized that it was the autarch’s chief minister speaking, the White Hounds halted and fell into surly, murmuring attention. “Do not harm that man.”
“But he killed Yaridoras!” growled Hijam. “The autarch’s law was that no weapons could be used!”
“The autarch said that no weapons could be brought into the arena, Kiliarch. This man did not bring a weapon, he made one. Clean him up and bring him to the Chamber of the New Sun.”
“The Hounds will be angry. Yaridoras was popular . . .”
“Ask them to consider whether keeping their heads will be compensation enough. Otherwise, I’m sure their autarch will be happy to make other arrangements.”
Vash shook his robe free of wrinkles and passed from the room.
The Golden One was reclining on the ceremonial stone bed in the Chamber of the New Sun, naked except for a short kilt decorated with jade tiles. On each side of him a kneeling priest was binding the cuts in his arms, delicate wounds made only moments earlier by sacred golden shell-knives. The small quantity of royal blood, enough to fill two tiny golden bowls which at the moment were on a tray held by the high priest Panhyssir, would be poured into the Sublime Canal just after sunset to assure the sun’s return from this, its farthest yearly distance from its bride the earth.
Sulepis turned lazily as the soldier Daikonas Vo was led in. The man of Perikal had been wiped clean of blood, but his face and neck were still crisscrossed with raw, scraped flesh.
“I am told you killed a valuable member of my White Hounds,” the autarch said, stretching his arms to test the fit of the bandages. Already tiny blooms of red could be seen through the linen.
“We fought, Master.” Vo shrugged, his grey-green eyes as empty as two spheres of glass. There was nothing notable about him, Vash thought. He had forgotten the man’s face in the short time since he had last seen him, and would forget it again as soon as the man was gone. “At your request, as I understand it. I won.”
“He cheated,” said the captain of the Leopards angrily. “He broke a floor tile and used it to stab Yaridoras to death.”
“Thank you, Kiliarch,” said Vash. “You have delivered him and nothing more is required of you. The Golden One will decide what to do with him.”
Suddenly conscious that he was drawing attention to himself in a place, and in front of a ruler, where attention was seldom beneficial, Hijam Stoneheart paled a little, then bowed and backed out of the chamber.
“Sit,” said the autarch, surveying the pale-skinned soldier. “Panhyssir, bring us something to drink.”
A strange honor, to be served by the high priest of Nushash himself, thought Pinimmon Vash. Panhyssir was his chief rival for the autarch’s time and attention, but it was a contest Vash had lost long ago: the priest and the autarch were thick as thieves and always full of secrets, which made it seem all the more odd that the powerful Panhyssir should be serving drinks like a mere slave.
As the high priest of Nushash moved with careful dignity toward a hidden alcove at the side of the great chamber, one of the autarch’s eunuch servants scuttled up with a stool and placed it so that Daikonas Vo could seat himself within a few yards of the living god. The soldier did, moving gingerly, as though his wounds from the combat with Yaridoras were inhibiting him. Vash guessed that they must be painful indeed: the man did not seem the type to show weakness easily.
Panhyssir returned with two goblets, and after bowing and presenting one to his monarch, gave the other to Vo, whose hesitation before drinking was so brief that Vash could have almost believed he had imagined it.
“Daikonas Vo, I am told your mother was a Perikalese whore,” said the autarch cheerfully. “One of those bought and brought back from the northern continent to serve my troop of White Hounds. Your father was one of the original Hounds—dead, now. Killed in Dagardar, I’m told.”
“Yes, Golden One.”
“But not before he killed your mother You have the look of your people, of course, but how well do you speak the language of your ancestors?”
“Perikalese?” Vo’s nondescript face betrayed no surprise. “My mother taught it to me. Before she died it was all we spoke.”
“Good.” The autarch sat back, making a shape like a minaret with his fingers. “And you are resourceful—and ruthless as well. Yaridoras is not the first man you have killed.”
“I am a soldier, Golden One.”
“I do not speak of killings on the battlefield. Vash, you may read.”
Vash held up a leather-bound account book which had been brought to him by the library slave only a short while before, then traced down a page with his finger until he found what he sought. “Disciplinary records of the White Leopards for this year. ‘By the verified report of two slaves, Daikonas Vo is known to have been responsible for the deaths of at least three men and one woman,’ ” Vash read. “ ‘All were Xixians of low caste and the killings attracted little public attention so no punishment was required. ’ That is just the report for this year, which is not yet over. Do you wish me to read from earlier years, Golden One?”
The autarch shook his head. A look of amusement crossed his long face as he turned back to the impassive soldier. “You are wondering why I should care about such things, and whether you are to be punished at last. Is that not true?”
“In part, Master,” said Vo. “It is certainly strange that the living god who rules us all should care about someone as unimportant as myself. But as to punishment, I do not fear it at the moment.”
“You don’t?” The autarch’s smile tightened. “And why is that?”
“Because you are speaking to me. If you only wished to punish me, Golden One, I suspect you would have done so without wasting the fruits of your divine thought on someone as lowly as myself. Everybody knows that the living god’s judgments are swift and sure.”
Some of the tension went out of the autarch’s long neck, replaced by a certain stillness, like a snake sunning itself on a rock. “Yes, they are. Swift and sure. And your reasoning is flawed but adequate—I would not waste my time on you if I did not require something of you.”
“Whatever you wish, Master.” The soldier’s voice remained flat and emotionless.
The autarch finished his wine and gestured to indicate that Daikonas Vo should do the same. “As you have no doubt heard, I am no longer content merely to receive tribute from the nations of the northern continent. The time is coming soon when I will take the ancient seaport of Hierosol and begin to expand our empire into Eion, bringing those savages into the bright, holy light of Nushash.”
“So it has been rumored, Master,” Vo said slowly. “We all pray for the day to come soon.”
“It will. But first, I have lost something that I want back, and it is to be found somewhere in that
northern wilderness—the land of your forefathers.”
“And you wish me to . . . get this thing, Master?”
“I do. It will require cunning and discretion, you see, and it will be easier for a white-skinned man who can speak one of the languages of Eion to travel there, seeking this small thing which I desire.”
“And may I ask what that thing is, Golden One?”
“A girl. The daughter of an unimportant priest. Still, I chose her for the Seclusion and she had the dreadful manners to run away.” The autarch laughed, a quiet growl that might have come from a cat about to unsheathe its claws. “Her name is . . . what was it? Ah, yes—Qinnitan. You will bring her back to me.”
“Of course, Master.” The soldier’s expression became even more still.
“You are thinking again, Vo. That is good. I chose you because I need a man who can think and plan. This woman is somewhere in the lands of our enemies, and if someone learns I want her, she may become the object of a contest. I do not want that.” The autarch sat back and waved his hand. This time it was only an ordinary servant who scurried forward to refill his goblet. “But what you are wondering is this—Why should the autarch let me go free in the lands of my ancestors? Even if I sincerely try to fulfill his quest, if I fail there is no punishment he can visit on me unless I return to Xis. No, do not bother to deny it. It is what anyone would think.” The young autarch turned to one of his child servants, a silent Favored. “Bring me my cousin Febis. He should be in his apartments.”
As they waited, the autarch had the servant refill Vo’s cup. Pinimmon Vash, who had some inkling of what was to come, was glad he was not drinking the strong, sour Mihanni wine, so unsettling to the stomach.
Febis, a chubby, balding man with the reddened cheeks of an inveterate drinker made even more obvious by the pallor of fear, hurried into the chamber and threw himself on his hands and knees in front of the autarch, bumping his forehead against the stone.
“Golden One, surely I have done nothing wrong! Surely I have not offended you! You are the light of all our lives!”
The autarch smiled. Vash never ceased to marvel at how the same expression that would bring joy if it were on the face of a young child or a pretty woman could, just by transferring it to the autarch’s smoothly youthful, bony features, suddenly become a thing to inspire terror. “No, Febis, you have done nothing wrong. I called you here only because I wish to demonstrate something” He turned to the soldier Vo. “You see, I had a similar problem with those of my relations, like Cousin Febis, that remained after my father and brothers had died—after I, by the grace of Nushash, had become autarch. How could I be certain that some of these family members might not ponder whether, as the succession bypassed several of my brothers upon their deaths and came to me, it might not continue on to Febis or one of the other cousins after my untimely death? Of course, I could have simply killed them all when I took the crown. It would only have been a few hundred. I could have done that, couldn’t I, Febis?”
“Yes, yes, Golden One. But you were merciful, may heaven bless you.”
“I was merciful, it’s true. Instead, what I did was induce each of them to swallow a certain . . . creature. A tiny beast, at least in its infant form, which had long been thought lost to our modern knowledge. But I found it!” He smirked. “And you did swallow it, didn’t you, Febis?”
“So I was told, Golden One.” The autarch’s cousin was sweating now despite the warmth of the Chamber of the New Sun, great droplets the size of pearls that dangled from his chin and nose before splashing to the floor. “It was too small for me to see.”
“Ah, yes,” said the autarch, and laughed again, this time with all the pleasure of a young child. “You see, the creature is so small at first that the naked eye cannot see it, and it can be swallowed in a glass of wine without the recipient even knowing.” He turned to Daikonas Vo. “As you received it when you first drank.”
Vo put down his goblet. “Ah,” he said.
“As to what it does, it grows. Not hugely, mind you, but enough that when it lodges at last in the body of its host, it cannot be dislodged no matter what. But that does not matter, because the host will never be aware of it. Unless I wish it to be so.” The autarch nodded. “Yes, let us say, for the sake of argument, that its host fails to carry out a task I have given him in the specified time, or in some other way incurs my anger . . .” He turned to burly, sweating Febis. “As, for instance, telling his wife that his master the autarch is mad and will not live long . . .”
“Did she say that?” shrieked Febis. “The whore! She lies!”
“Whatever the crime,” the autarch went on evenly, “and no matter how far away its perpetrator, when I know of it, things will begin to happen.” He gestured. “Panhyssir, call for the xol-priest.”
Febis shrieked again, a bleat of despair so shrill it made Pinimmon Vash’s toes curl. “No! You must know I would never say such a thing, Golden One!” Febis began to scramble toward the stone bed, and two burly Leopard guards stepped forward and restrained him, using no little force. His cries lost their words, became a sobbing moan.
The xol-priest came in a few moments later, a thin, dark, knife-nosed man with the look of the southern deserts about him. He bowed to the autarch and then sat cross-legged on the floor, opening a flat wooden box as though preparing to play a game of shanat. He spread a flat piece of fabric like a tiny blanket, then took several grayish shapes which might have been lumps of lead out of the box and arranged them with exacting care. When he had finished, he looked up at the autarch, who nodded.
The man’s spidery fingers picked up and moved two of the gray shapes and Febis, who had been twitching and sobbing obliviously in the grip of the guards, suddenly went rigid. They let him go; he tumbled to the floor like a stone. Another movement of the shapes on the little carpet and Febis began to writhe and gasp for breath, his arms and legs thrashing like a man about to sink beneath the water and drown. One more and he suddenly vomited up a terrible quantity of blood, then lay still in the spreading red puddle, eyes wide with horror. The xol-priest boxed up his gray shapes, bowed, and went out.
“Of course, the pain can be made to last much longer before the end comes,” the autarch said. “Much longer. Once the creature is awakened it can be restrained for days before it begins to feed in earnest, and each hour is an eternity. But I made Febis’ end swift out of respect for his mother, who was my own father’s sister. It is a shame he should have wasted that precious blood so.” Sulepis looked a moment longer at the gleaming pool, then nodded, allowing the servants to rush forward and begin the removal of both blood and Febis’ body. The autarch then turned to Daikonas Vo.
“Distance is no object, by the way. Should Febis have gone to Zan-Kartuum, or even the northern wastes of Eion, still I could have struck him down. I trust the lesson is not lost on you, Vo. Go now. You will be a hound no longer, but my hunting falcon—the autarch’s falcon. You could ask for no higher honor.”
“No, Golden One.”
“You will learn all else you need to know from Paramount Minister Vash.” Sulepis started to turn away, but the soldier still had not moved. The autarch’s eyes narrowed. “What is it? If you succeed, you will be rewarded, of course. I am as good to my faithful servants as I am stern with those who are less so.”
“I do not doubt it, Golden One. I only wondered if such a . . . creature . . . had been introduced to the girl, Qinnitan, and if so why you would not use such a certain method to bring her back to Great Xis.”
“Whether such a thing has been done to her or not,” the autarch said, “is beside the point. It is a clumsy and dangerous method if you wish your subject to survive. I wish the girl returned alive and well—do you understand? I still have plans for her. Now go. You sail for Hierosol tonight. I want her in my hands by the time Midsummer’s Day arrives, or you will be the most sorrowful of men. For a little while.” The autarch stared. “Yet another question? I am minded to wake the xol-breast no
w and find someone less annoying.”
“Please, I live to serve you, Golden One. I only wish to ask permission to wait until tomorrow to set out.”
“Why? I have seen your records, man. You have no family, no friends. Surely you have no farewells to make.”
“No, Golden One. It is only that I suspect I have broken my elbow fighting the bearded one.” He held up his left arm. The sleeve was a lumpy bag of blood. “That will give me time to have it set and bandaged first so I can better serve you.”
The autarch threw back his head and laughed. “Ah, I like you, man. You are a cold-blooded fellow, indeed. Yes, go now and have it seen to. If you succeed in this task, who knows? Perhaps I will give you old Vash’s job.” Sulepis grinned, pale eyes as bright as if he were fevered That must be the explanation, thought Pinimmon. Vash: this man—or rather this god-on-earth—was in a perpetual fever, as though the sun’s fiery blood really did run in his veins. It made him mad and it made him as dangerous as a wounded viper. “What do you think, old man?” the autarch prodded. “Would you like to train him as your replacement?”
Vash bowed, keeping his terrified, murderous thoughts off his face. “Whatever you wish, Golden One. Whatever you wish.”
1 Coming soon in hardcover from DAW