The Lantern of God

by John Dalmas

  When he aroused, Panni didn't remember in any detail what he'd seen or done, or really where he'd been. By that time the sky was paling, the first meadow birds breaking their nocturnal silence. During his psychic absence, Little Firtollio had calmly sailed over the rim of the ocean, leaving no wake.

  The sage got up knowing two new things, two items from the data base that he'd been able to bring back with him. Brokols' assistant was dead, his body beneath the sea. And Hrum was testing his foster children—humankind on this world. Standing, the sage looked out over the ocean, raised both arms, and called/whispered/felt out psychically to any who might wish to join him. Did this very lightly, with perfect willingness to be refused. Those who would hear would hear and know they heard. Those who wished to play a role would play one.

  * * *

  Vessto sat on his outcrop, pondering rather than meditating. It is difficult to attain the necessary calm when one is anxious or troubled. Or strongly polarized. And he was all three. Thus he did not overtly hear. But neither was he totally unaware. Simply, the awareness was at a level he'd lost touch with.

  * * *

  Birds were numerous in the palace grounds. They were beginning to waken and give voice, their sleepy chirpings increasing. One began to sing his morning challenge. He was answered. In a minute or two the combined birdsongs would build to a brief clamor.

  Leonessto Hanorissio's body shifted restlessly as he dreamed. What he listened to was not birdsong.

  * * *

  The sellsu surfaced in the shallow trough between two swells, audibly exhaled warm wet breath, and the nictitating membranes slid away from shining pupils. The pack had been traveling north. Now it rested dozing on the surface; he'd been on sentry go. In the west the stars were still bright, thinning and paling toward the zenith. In the east, only the brightest still shne.

  Someone had called, someone not a sellsu had beckoned to him in the spirit. For a moment it had seemed like a human, but that wasn't possible. The Lord of the Sea, that's who it had been.

  Softly he spoke to the pack in the sullsit air speech, an articulated mouthing, grunting, clucking. Vaguely it resembled human speech, but metallic, exotic.

  Two answered. Now Sleekit turned back southward, the two following. The remaining fourteen would continue as they had been. It wasn't unusual for pack members to separate themselves for varying periods. Each always knew where all its packmates were, at whatever distance, and they'd rejoin eventually unless something happened to prevent it.

  * * *

  The faint dawn badn't yet penetrated the smoky, pungent room. Gripping the wooden spoon, the disciple made swirl marks in the thick porridge. Master Dazzlik had assigned him breakfast duty, no great chore since there was only one dish on the menu. His finger dipped, a cautious tongue tested; almost cool enough.

  A cackling laugh startled him, and he looked at the very old man who sat crosslegged on a mat. Tassi Vermattio laughed again, although his eyes were unfocused. A bit awed, the disciple wondered what that was about.

  Twenty-Four

  Tirros's judgement was always apt to be poor. When he'd been drinking, it got poorer. He'd been buying—the tavern wasn't crowded and as usual he had money—and when he bought a round, he naturally included himself in.

  In most respects his ability to hold his liquor—wine, actually—was good. He wasn't given to staggering or slurring or loud singing. But his judgement, or more properly his slyness, deteriorated notably with the third drink. Just now he was on his fourth. His ambitions had been taking a beating lately, and he intended to get drunk.

  At the moment though, his attention was on a young woman with quite an ordinary fece, as Hrummeans went, but outstanding physical development. He was sure she'd given him the eye. The young fisherman with her hadn't noticed, besides which he was somewhat smaller than Tirros. And anyway people tended to give way to him because he was the mirj, though in law, in a place like the Red Mare, he had no more rights than the next man.

  Tirros nudged Karrlis Billbis. "What do you think?" he asked. "Is she interested? How do you read her?"

  Karrlis leaned toward Tirros, swinging his torso in an arc to murmur near the mirj's ear. He was on his fourth, too, and more susceptible than his companion. "She knows you've been looking at her," he said, "but she isn't ready to dump her friend yet. He's a good screw."

  "Huh! She doesn't know what a good screw is! Want to see me move in?" He'd had to raise his voice a bit; the three musicians had begun to play and sing another song, and several people had started dancing.

  Karrlis's head moved from side to side as if he were trying to look around a tree. Tirros told himself his friend was getting drunk. "Sure," Karrlis said. "But be careful; he thinks he's pretty good in a fight."

  "Shit! Won't have to fight. And anyway, I could whip his ass in a minute." The mirj got up and walked over to the couple. "Excuse me, sailor," he said. "I'm looking for someone to dance with." He held out a silver coin. "Why don't you take this crown and buy yourself the best drink in the house. And keep the change. I'll bring her back when the music's over."

  The fisherman looked at the coin, then at his girl friend. She nodded. "It's 'The Bosun's Slowdance,' " she said. "It's short."

  His expression was distrustful, but he nodded, and Tirros led the girl onto the dance floor.

  "I'm the mirj," Tirros said.

  "That's what I told Tarrni when we came in. That's the mirj, I told him." She smiled up at Tirros. "He wasn't much pleased at it."

  "Why not?"

  " 'cause you've got a reputation."

  Tirros grinned, first at her, then at the watching fisherman whose expression was distinctly surly. "A reputation for what?"

  "The girls are supposed to go for you." She looked up at him coyly. "I don't know why."

  "How'd you like to find out why?"

  "Tarrni wouldn't like that."

  Tirros grinned again. "Makes no difference whether Tarrni likes it or not. You'd like it. All we need to do is dance our way over near the back door. Then out we pop and run up the alleyway. There's always a hansom on the block. We'll hop in and be gone before he can decide which way we ran."

  She giggled. "Sounds like fun."

  In half a minute they'd come even with the door. Abruptly he stopped dancing, and with her hand in his, slipped through it; it should take a few seconds before the fisherman reacted. Still holding hands, they ran across the back utility area and down a dark alleyway to its narrow opening onto the street.

  Where Tarrni stood with his hands clenched into knuckly balls. Tirros almost ran into him. The fisherman threw a knobby fist that caught him on the nose and knocked him into the wall, then missed with a followup. Tirros kicked at him, his foot striking the man's shin; an elbow took the mirj in the side of the face. He grabbed wildly, trying to throw Tarrni to the paving stones, but the fisherman had hold of his shirt, which ripped down the back from collar to tail as Tirros himself went down. A stoutly-shod foot struck his hip before onlookers pulled his assailant back.

  "Leave be," said one. "You don't want to go to the lockup."

  "Right," said another. "Come on in. I'll buy you a drink."

  The cluster of men began melting back toward the door and in. The girl hesitated, then followed them. Tirros sat on the concrete holding his nose, from which blood had flowed onto his trousers and ruined shirt.

  One of the working men paused and looked back at him. "You gonna be all right?" he asked.

  Tirros nodded, and the man followed the others inside. He'd get that sonofabitch Tarrni, Tirros told himself. Feed him to the fish, like he had the little foreigner.

  Karrlis had watched from near the door. Now he came over and offered Tirros a hand, hoisting him to his feet. "Let's go down to the wharf," he said. "Take a swim. Sober us up and wash the blood out of your clothes before it sets."

  Tirros didn't answer, but followed along, still pinching his nose. He didn't give a damn about his clothes; he had plenty at home. What wa
s worrying him was something his father had said the last time he'd been in a tavern brawl: "If you like to fight so much, the next time I'll take you to the recruiter and we'll see how you like the army. As a common foot soldier!"

  After a couple of blocks, the bleeding seemed to have stopped. Shrugging out of his shirt, he threw it into a trash station at a public latrine. His left eye was swelling, but not alarmingly, and his nose didn't seem to be broken. He didn't even have a split lip; the blood he'd been spitting was from a cut inside his cheek. If the eye didn't get too discolored, and if he kept out of his father's way, he might escape without even a tongue-lashing. A little powder on his scratched forehead had gotten him by at supper.

  They swam for about half an hour, then sober he walked home, approaching by a back way and scaling the garden wall where he'd be sheltered by a tree from the eyes of house-guards. From there he kept to the shadows of shrubs and trees and climbed a familiar, well-used vine to the balcony outside his room.

  All's well that ends well, he told himself.

  * * *

  Next morning his mirror showed him how discolored his eye was—bad enough that his mother would surely mention it to his father. Bad enough that the house servants would talk. It wouldn't do to go down to breakfast.

  And the crowd at the tavern would be talking about him, about how someone inches shorter had bloodied him and knocked him down. The man had taken him by surprise, he told himself. Otherwise things would have gone differently. But that's not how they'd tell it. Wait till he was the emperor's regent; he'd see what tune they'd sing then.

  That reminded him that the small foreigner was dead, and he hadn't figured out how to get at Brokols, get into the ambassador's favor. Leverage. He needed leverage.

  He looked in his purse: not much there, two gold coins and a few silver. The porcelain bowl on his dressing table held miscellaneous coins, including gold.

  He donned traveling clothes and belted on his shortsword, then emptied the bowl into his purse. It was time to get away for a few days, out of town into the countryside. Till the swelling in his eye went down and the color faded, and he'd come up with some way to get close to Brokols. It would worry his mother, too.

  In the stable, he put bridle and saddle on his kaabor himself, then rode out, headed for the back gate. As he stopped his kaabor before it, the gateman came out of the gatehouse less than ten feet from him, with a sergeant of police and a constable. The police moved quickly, the constable reaching for the bridle as the sergeant opened his mouth to speak. Leaning, Tirros slashed the constable across the face with his crop, and the man let go, covering his stricken eyes, while Tirros turned the kaabor toward the sergeant and reined sharply back, so that the kaabor reared, striking with its forefeet, knocking the sergeant on his back.

  Tirros drew his shortsword and shouted at the gateman: "Open for me or I'll cut you down!"

  Instead the man ducked back into the gatehouse and slammed its heavy door. Cursing, Tirros jumped from the saddle and struck with his shortsword at the constable who was stepping forward again to grapple with him. His blade caught the man's shielding arm, sending him staggering back to fall with a quavering cry. Tirros turned the gate bar on its pivot, then vaulted into the saddle, and forcing the kaabor against the gate, pushed it open. He crowded through, galloped out into the street and was gone.

  * * *

  Travvos Disotto was with the amirr when an excited guard interrupted to report what had happened at the gate.

  "My men," Disotto asked, "how badly hurt are they?"

  "One's arm was sliced to the bone," he said, showing on his own forearm where the wound was. "That's the constable. He's lucky it was an angled blow, or it would have been lopped off, but it's an awful wound. The sergeant's up and walking, but I think his arm is broken."

  The inspector had more than the man's words to go by; as he'd talked, Disotto had seen the mental images beneath them. "Your Eminence," the inspector said, "I must go to the gate and see what I can scan."

  The amirr nodded and went with him. At the gate was a psychic mass of pain, anger, a stink of murderous fear, but he could find nothing to tell him where the mirj planned to go.

  "Inspector," said the amirr, "we'll mount no manhunt for my son."

  Disotto turned sharply, as if to argue.

  "Find the scoundrel who was in this with him," the amirr went on, "and question him. Probably the one the ambassador mentioned to you. Find out who Tirros might run to, to hide, and capture him that way."

  "Your Eminence, he is mounted. He could easily leave the city, flee the district."

  "If he does . . . but he won't. He has too little self-control to fend for himself. He needs others to take care of him, and he knows it. We'll find him hiding in the home of one of his low-life associates, perhaps the Vencurrio's."

  For a moment the inspector seemed unsure, then he nodded. "Yes, milord. By the ambassador's description, we believe your son's associate was a Karrlis Billbis. I'll take some men there at once, and question him." He turned then and strode off.

  The amirr blew through rounded lips. The wait was over, the wait he hadn't consciously known he was waiting. Looking back, something like this had been inevitable. Now the suspense was over, though the waiting wasn't.

  Twenty-Five

  Juliassa Hanorissia came in to lunch from a long morning on a hill, painting, and hung her sun hat on a rack. At first she didn't pick up on her parents' moods.

  "Hello, father," she said cheerily. "Hello, mother."

  The naamir didn't reply, didn't look at her. The amirr grunted and spooned in another bite of melon.

  Umh! Something to do with Tirros, the namirrna decided. She looked the table over, crystal a transparent yellow, with yellow napkins on a snow-white cloth, harmonizing aesthetically with the golden-fleshed melon, ripe greenberries, milk and breadfruit. She reached, not bothering the serving girl to serve her, not bothering her parents with questions. They'd tell her if they wanted to.

  She'd mostly finished eating when her father spoke.

  "I want you to go back to your aunt in the morning," he said quietly. "For a week or two."

  She looked up at him. "Is something the matter?"

  "Your brother is in serious trouble. It has to do with the foreigners—and other things. There will be unpleasantness."

  This piqued her curiosity. "I can stand unpleasantness."

  The amirr shook his head. "And you will no longer see Ambassador Brokols. That is best for both of you. He is a source of serious troubles for Hrumma, and albeit inadvertently, for the family."

  She opened her mouth to speak, but her father's gesture and warning look stilled her. "I will brook no argument on this," he said.

  Green eyes flashing, Juliassa Hanorissia got stiffly from the table and left the room.

  * * *

  Leonessto Hanorissio knew the news was bad. Travvos Disotto was a hard man, but just now his face expressed regret. "We arrested Billbis," the inspector said. "And questioned him. He confessed to practicing as an untrained adept. The mirj has employed him on a number of occasions for purposes immoral and sometimes criminal. He confessed to five burglaries in company with the mirj, and to being an accomplice in the kidnapping and murder of the ambassador's assistant."

  He paused, avoiding the amirr's eyes. "It was Tirros who actually killed the man. He didn't know what else to do with him, so he stabbed him. Through the eye into the brain, to avoid a large flow of blood. Billbis has offered to show us where they dumped the body—into the sea with a rock tied to his neck and another to his ankles. On Brindossi Cove."

  The inspector paused, looked up now at the amirr's gray face, and continued. "He knows of no place except the Vencurrio's where the mirj might hide. We've checked there, but they haven't seen him. I have men watching the approaches, but I don't expect he'll show up."

  An evening-warbler sang in the early dusk outside the window, sounding like a trill pipe but purer, more perfect. It was the amirr's e
yes that had fallen now, and Disotto turned his mind away. He felt for this man and preferred not to see his pain.

  "Have you told the ambassador?" the amirr asked.

  "No, milord. I intend to when I leave here."

  "Do not. I'll tell him myself. In the morning, when he comes to the Fortress. Or failing that, I'll send a messenger to fetch him. But not tonight." Now their eyes met.

  "As you wish, Your Eminence."

  The inspector excused himself then and departed. Leonessto Hanorissio stood alone with his thoughts, which perhaps surprisingly turned to his daughter. He'd been unjustly severe to her. But still, it was better for her to be away from here now. And it was better if she stayed away from the foreigner, Allbarin's presentiment notwithstanding.