"These are forgeries," the other said.
Xanthippus felt his pulse quicken. Seus would die, but not before these two.
His eyes darted about the crowded square. No one paid them any attention. Half a dozen malecs with crates and full packs strapped across their backs loped by, temporarily blocking his view. When the malec-train had passed, he spied an official-looking group of mounted men coming toward them, riding with confidence and authority through a crowd that parted before them fearfully. They were dressed all in blue. For the first time since entering the country, Xanthippus felt a twinge of fear. They would never make it out of the square. It was too public.
"Of course, as you know, the punishment for the possession of a forged passport is a fine."
Xanthippus looked from the group of mounted men riding towards them back to the watchman.
"A fine?"
"A fine."
"Yes, a large fine."
"You can either pay us..." the watchman began.
"...or we can take you to the magistrate," his companion concluded. "Not a good option for you, I'm afraid."
"It is easier if you pay us," the first said.
Xanthippus relaxed. So that was it, was it? He had half a mind to dispense with these boys at once--
With a crack, the watchman's head suddenly jerked forward. The blow came swiftly, out of nowhere. The watchman yelped.
"Who are you harassing today, Watchman?" The weapon was a yellowwood fighting staff. The official in blue cracked the watchman again on the back of his head. The blow knocked his wig and crimson headscarf askew. They sat crookedly atop his shaved head, covering half his face and he scowled petulantly at the group of horsemen who now surrounded him. They were the men Xanthippus had spied riding across the square. "You have no business with these men."
There were four of them. Dressed identically, they appeared to be all of a company. Their headscarves were blue with yellow stripes. Draped behind their ears to their shoulders, the scarves framed strong, unmistakably Tygetian faces. Rings of bronze around their foreheads bore the crest of a rearing cobra. They carried fighting staffs of the brightest yellowwood and wore long curved blades sheathed at their waists. The one who spoke wore a thick black beard that hung halfway down his bare chest, unusual for the normally clean-shaven Tygetians. Xanthippus perceived in the company none of the watchmen's doltishness. Apparently, no friend of local officials, Xanthippus was nevertheless troubled by their arrival.
"But they are stinking Gyriecians," the watchman complained. He straightened his head coverings and rubbed the base of his skull, wincing.
The bearded man raised his yellowwood again as to a dog and the watchman cringed. "These men are none of your concern. Be gone with you."
The watchman ducked under the next blow and heeled his horse. When he and his companion were out of range of the yellowwood, he shouted some choice Tygetian oaths at the blue men, but rode away without daring to gauge their effect.
"Go back to pilfering offering dishes…" the bearded man shouted after them. "What a repulsive lot," he said, turning back to Xanthippus and Nydeon. He grinned at them. Dazzling white teeth flashed amid his bush of black whiskers. "I'm surprised you fellows made it as far as you did before those jackals found you."
"Mere extortionists," Xanthippus said. "Our business was nearly concluded."
"Did they tell you that your passports were forged?"
Xanthippus and Nydeon exchanged a glance.
"Sir," Xanthippus began after a pause, "we must be on our way, as we have business to attend to--"
The bearded man burst out laughing. "Of course they did," he said. "But I tell you, these watchmen wouldn't know a passport from a steaming dung heap. Doubtless, they can't even read. Don't worry; we have no interest in your passports, or much of anything else. I am Jorem. We have come to escort you to the governor."
"So you know who we are?" Xanthippus asked.
"We know you are to meet Sotheb," Jorem said with an expression of utter innocence, which Xanthippus found troubling in its insincerity.
Jorem led them at a rapid pace through the city. Two of the blue men flanked them and another brought up the rear. In their blind haste, there was no time to ponder the twists and turns through the narrow streets. Xanthippus felt as if he were being herded. The traffic parted easily for the blue men. Where it did not move fast enough, a swat of the yellowwood convinced laggards to step aside.
They dismounted at the base of the wide steps and Jorem led them past scurrying functionaries into the palace. Guards moved to intercept them. Seeing the blue men, however, they stood down. A man carrying a wax writing tablet stepped into their path, cutting them off.
"Sotheb," Jorem demanded.
"Quite impossible," the man said, scanning his tablet.
"Stand aside," Jorem said all at once. He pushed the little man out of the way and strode into the heart of the palace. The other blue men shepherded Xanthippus and Nydeon after him. "Where is he?" Jorem bellowed to the room, his voice echoing in the high-ceilinged hall amid the fat columns. He stopped and turned and the palace man scurried toward him.
"You can't barge in here making demands," he said. "I will call the guard."
"I am the guard, little man," said Jorem. He snatched the tablet out of his hands and ran his eyes over it. Then he flung it away, where it clattered across the marble floor. "He is in the bath…"
"You can't--" Sotheb's man began.
"Shut up…"
The bath chamber was an immense columned hall, dimly lit and full of shadows despite the torches that burned on the walls. The air was thick as steam rose in misty fingers from the surface of the bath. At first, Xanthippus heard the play of moving water, as ethereal as wind chimes, but the clacking of the blue men's hobnailed sandals made it sound like an army was marching through.
"I found your men for you," Jorem shouted into the reverberant chamber.
There rose a surprised splashing from the bath. Expanding ripples of the suddenly roiled water caught the torchlight and seemed to surround a startled body in rings of orange fire. Unable to identify the thing that splashed in the water, Xanthippus gave a start. What form of great naked beast is this? When he saw that it was in fact the form of a great naked man, he squinted and frowned, disbelieving his eyes. It was the fattest man he had ever seen.
"Who is it?" the fat man uttered in alarm. He reached over the lip of the bath for his wig and hastily thrust it onto his smoothly shaved head. It sat perched there, limp and crooked. It was like draping a hand towel over the peak of a mountain.
"I tried to stop them, my lord Sotheb." The voice of the governor's secretary sounded from the doorway behind them. Without looking, Jorem raised a finger and one of the blue men strode to the door and pushed the secretary back into the outer hall. He closed the door after him, muffling the secretary's pointless protestations. The blue man remained at the door against any further intrusions.
"Your pathetic watchmen were having a go at them when we found them."
"But I am not expecting anyone today," the governor said. Xanthippus saw a look of fear edging toward panic in the governor's eyes.
"These are your Gyriecians, you fat fool. You would leave them wandering about aimlessly. Do with them as you will. I have little interest in your expectations. Here are your men. Take them." Jorem stepped aside and swept his yellowwood toward the two Gyriecians. "I would stay, but I'm afraid you might get out of your bath and I'd have to look on you."
With that, Jorem called his men together and they strode out of the bath chamber. When they opened the door, all inside could hear the shrill voice of the secretary until the sharp crack of the yellowwood put a perfunctory end to it.
Sotheb gazed after the blue men until the clacking of their hobnails had receded into silence. Then he exhaled loudly. He removed his wig and mopped his fleshy brow with it. He flung the wig aside, clapped his hands, and a serving girl rushed out of the back of the chamber. She was carryin
g a silver platter of fruit and bread.
But what she carried barely registered when Xanthippus noticed that she was, effectively, naked. A diaphanous gown covered her from shoulder to heel. Even in the dim light, he could see that it hid nothing of the woman's form. Stranger still, she had not a single hair on her entire body -- not on head, nor eyebrow, nor even--
Xanthippus wrenched his eyes away rapidly as if he had been caught peeking into the girl's private chambers.
"This land is madness," he said to Nydeon under his breath.
Nydeon had not ceased staring at the woman, even as she retreated a score of paces to stand on station at the beck of the governor. He merely shook his head in reply. When Xanthippus looked up again, he spied two more of the girls gliding like ghosts through the gloom at the back of the chamber.
"So you are my Gyriecians?" Sotheb asked as he tore a handful of bread from a loaf. They could hear his husky breathing, though it was not caused by fear and panic this time, but by the strain of even a small exertion like tearing bread. Emotionally, his manner had changed abruptly. He suddenly gave the impression that he might linger in his bath all day. "Come. Have some fruit," he said, taking a deep breath.
Xanthippus had just about had enough.
"Who were those blue men?" he asked. "Who is this Jorem? I demand--"
"Oh, no, please," Sotheb said, raising a hand in which he held a tiny silver butter knife that looked like a child's toy in his fat fingers. "There is no need for anger. It is all well that has a happy ending," he said, going back to spreading jam on his bread. His next words were spoken through a mouthful of food as he breathed noisily through his nose. "You are here now. That is the important thing. The blue men are... Well, they're my people. My personal guard, you might say."
"They don't treat you with much respect," Xanthippus said. Had Jorem been his personal guard, he would have soon found that yellowwood staff uncomfortably placed. As it stood, he was uncertain whether or not Jorem had been friend to them. He was maddeningly uncertain whether any of these people were.
"They badly misused your man in the hall," Nydeon added, but he was scarce paying attention. As he spoke, he was peering into every corner of the torch-lit chamber, fascinated by the gliding hairless ghost-girls and other wonders that might still be found there in the shadow-draped recesses. In niches along the walls stood the ubiquitous carved gods, torchlight dancing across their stony faces. Their old friend Crocodile-Face was among them.
"Jorem is by nature a violent man," Sotheb said amiably. "Seriously, now, fellows. Come and have some fruit. You have had a long journey. Perhaps you would like to bathe. There is plenty of room." He laughed, indicating the vast expanse of the steaming pool. The entire palace staff could bathe in it. "Let my girls take care of you. Soap, food, fresh clothes, whatever you want."
"I wouldn't mind getting out of this Albyan garb," Xanthippus said.
At that moment, something darted out of the shadows, a knee-high monkey. It ran swiftly on feet and knuckles, seeming to grin. The monkey did a shoulder-roll, grabbed two peaches from Sotheb's platter and waddled away on its hind feet, carrying its sweet prizes held high in its hands.
Sotheb chuckled. "I tried to tell you boys. The fruit won't last long here, so you must be quick. Last chance?" He held up the last peach before biting into it. "Okay, to business then," he said with a sigh.
"Juicy peaches! Oh, my! Peaches! Peaches! Juicy Peaches!"
The screeching, hollow voice made them jump. It came from the gloom in the back of the chamber -- from where the monkey had disappeared. The sound of it gave Xanthippus gooseflesh. If he didn't know better, he would have said--
"In the name of all the gods, what on earth was that?" Nydeon asked.
"Oh, that?" Sotheb asked as he moved through the water toward a ramp. "That was the 'cursed ape.' The little fellow you just met. He loves peaches. Keep listening. He may start in again."
The ramp was doubtless added to the bath to accommodate the governor's enormous obesity, as never would he have been able to lift himself from the pool without it. As he climbed, he gradually rose above the waterline, revealing himself. Xanthippus had never seen anything more repulsive. It would have been hard to describe the shape of the man. He was nothing but folded rolls of flab. Xanthippus averted his eyes even as the smooth ghost-girls emerged from the shadows to tend him.
"That voice was the monkey?" Nydeon asked. He peered into the distant shadows with an open-mouthed grin and began creeping fearfully in that direction, as if stalking an unseen foe. "Show him to me..." he said.
"They are called 'cursed apes'," Sotheb explained. He stood with his arms outstretched like a scarecrow. Two of the girls were drying him while a third prepared his clothes. "The Darkmen bring them to us from their kingdom in the south. Oh, here he is back..."
Without his peaches, the monkey knuckle-walked out of the shadows, perhaps looking for more fruit. The thing saw Nydeon and sat down calmly on the floor. Nydeon approached him cautiously, still grinning. He had forgotten all about the naked girls and the giant mountain of man-mush, so near he could touch them all.
He gave a shallow bow. "Good day to you, monkey," he said.
The 'cursed ape' stared at him insensibly. Then it shrieked, "Good day to you! Juicy Peaches!" It did a backward shoulder-roll and ran away into the darkness. Nydeon straightened with a start.
"Oh, I should have told you," the governor said, laughing. "The 'cursed ape' is a senseless beast, like any other." He fell silent while the naked girl pulled his tunic over his head. When his face emerged from the neck hole, he said, "They can't communicate. I don't know what the Darkmen call them, but here they're called 'cursed apes' because they are blessed with vocal cords that allow them to perfectly mimic human speech. Their blessing is our curse." One of the girls was putting jeweled rings on his outstretched fingers. "We used to be entranced by them, as you are now. Visitors still love them. But over time-- Well, along with their ivory and rare skins, the damned Darkmen continue to bring them to us, even though we beg them not to. They really are savage beasts, you see." The girl laid out his sandals and he stepped into them. She began strapping them to his calves, unwinding leagues of twine. "We eat them now, before they become too large to control."
"Eat them? How could you eat a creature that speaks?" Nydeon asked. He was still fascinated by the idea of a monkey speaking with a human voice.
"Oh, we kill them first," the governor said with a laugh. He began moving toward a door leading out of the bath chamber. He waved to the men to follow him. "Believe me, you listen to these things babble on for a while and eating them is the least you'd like to do to them. But let me know if you see any dead monkeys talking," he chortled. "That might revive interest in them."
Sotheb led them into an adjoining office. The governor had to turn and twist to squeeze his great bulk through the doorframe. Sunlight poured through the open windows and after the bizarre dreamland of the bath chamber Xanthippus felt that he was back in the rational world. He sat down with a sense of relief. Unfortunately, Sotheb was even more repulsive fully clothed in the bright light of day than he had been naked in the bath.
The slightest exertion seemed to exhaust him and he took heavy rasping breaths between words as he spoke. He handed them new passports and gave them the same speech given them by Seus.
"When you leave here, you are no longer my concern," he told them. Engulfed by the round globes of his fat cheeks, his piggish nostrils flared as they struggled for breath. It was hard to concentrate on his words. Xanthippus wondered what they would do if he keeled over dead at his desk.
"Yes, yes," Nydeon said impatiently, yielding up his old passport. The governor took both the men's papers and dropped them in a brazier that flickered behind his desk. The little pyre burned in the offering dish to a dual-headed god the Gyriecians had never seen before. Perhaps less frightening than the typical Tygetian deity, its nature was no less mysterious. Xanthippus wondered what Two-Head would mak
e of a burnt offering of forged passports. Then he noticed Crocodile-Face hovering against the wall behind them. This fellow seemed to follow them.
Sotheb saw him notice it and sat back, locking his fingers over his mountainous belly. His fingers were almost as thick as they were long and looked incapable of gripping anything.
"Ah, Hra," he said. "God of the unwary, among others -- travelers, merchants, traders... Gruesome, isn't he?"
"The unwary!" Nydeon exclaimed. "It is just like Promenion back home, who delights in protecting drunkards and fools--"
"Oh, Hra does not protect them," Sotheb said. "He devours them." He paused to study their faces with a curious expression. "You're not in Gyriece anymore, gentlemen," he said grimly.
"That much has become painfully obvious," said Xanthippus.
After being given new clothes -- standard Tygetian tunics -- they left the palace and set out along the Royal Road for Archentethe, a five-day ride. Once they had cleared Jakuk and entered open country, Nydeon broke their silence.
"You know what?" he asked.
"What?" Xanthippus replied, giving him a cursory glance. He had already begun contemplating the task that lay ahead of them in the capital. The wine house in the Reeking Town district of Archentethe was where they were bound.
"I will admit it now," Nydeon said. A smile began to spread over his face, but he seemed hesitant to continue.
"Admit what?" Xanthippus urged vaguely.
"I really wanted to converse with that monkey," Nydeon blurted out all at once.
The remark caught Xanthippus off guard and he burst out laughing and couldn't stop. Nydeon threw his head back, too, slapping his own thigh in mirth.
"Was that a little bow I saw you give him?" Xanthippus asked between spasms.
Nydeon broke down again in fits of laughter. "Good day to you, monkey!" he gasped.
They rode on in this manner for some time, thinking of different things a monkey might want to say to them, and each was funnier than the last.
The Blood Gate Page 5