But Angyos did run. He just did not make it very far.
The next day, his father called on Xanthippus to check on the water heater in the bath chamber, a giant ceramic cask with a fire that burned constantly beneath it. The water inside was kept searing hot and could be added to the bath through a spigot. The thing was clogged, his father said. Xanthippus went to check on it. Inside, he found Angyos' scalded body where he had flung himself rather than giving in to his father's craving.
That night, twelve-year-old Xanthippus cut the old man's throat.
He spent the next week eluding the king's men. He spent the next fifteen years killing the old man, over and over again.
And now, here he was. Still running…Still hiding…Still killing…
At the outskirts of Alaun, they had released the horses they had had since the Crossing and took their bags onto their own backs just as they had in the wilderness of the Tygetian desert.
"The Mejadym will be expecting us to go to Alaun," Nydeon said.
"What choice do we have? It is the only way out of the country."
The idea of going back the way they had come was even less feasible than leaving through the port. Xanthippus remembered the murderous desert, the trained sandrunners. He was no longer interested in making that long suicide run. He wanted to get back to Prathia, not die in some desert, his picked-over bones providing an amusement to passing Albyans. Should've taken the malecs.
"Menleco is behind this," Xanthippus said, even as he watched the latest band of blue men disappear over a rise.
Nydeon nodded. The thought had already occurred to him.
"When I think of his smiling face, offering us this job…" Xanthippus could not finish his thought. He would make it back to Prathia. He pitied the first blue man who tried to stop him. Nydeon put a hand on his shoulder and they trudged on toward the harbor.
Unspoken between them, however, was their absolute knowledge of the odds against them. Alaun was unlike any port either of the men had ever known. It was a strictly Tygetian creation, through and through. Foreigners were not allowed to enter it. When ships came to trade, they put in at a place called Sunder Island, some two hundred miles from Alaun. Closer to Albya than Tygetia, it was as inhospitable a place as any in that wretched country. There, as at the Crossing, deals were struck and foreign crews were swapped out for Tygetian ones. Thus, Tygetians themselves brought the ships into the bustling port. Few Gyriece were in evidence in the streets of the city. Even more than Reeking Town, Alaun was almost purely Tygetian.
"We will not blend in here," Xanthippus noticed. They had at least been able to change out of their all-black attire for Tygetian tunics. But they had no black wigs to hide their pale Gyriecian skin. Fortunately, it was almost dusk by the time they had entered the city. The encroaching darkness gave them some freedom of movement. A few discreet inquiries had led them to Ledios and his silent companion, smugglers of apparently good repute.
Ledios stood, securing the coin pouch to his belt. "Come with me."
The Prathians hoisted their packs onto their backs.
"Leave them," Ledios said, and the men put them down again, hesitantly. Having already rid themselves of silver and horses, Xanthippus realized that their lives were worth nothing now, and even a change of clothes was a pretension ill-suited to condemned men. At least he still had his dagger. Absurdly, it was the loss of their passports, curled neatly in their leather tubes in the bottom of his pack, that caused him the most consternation. That he had not already destroyed them was itself an act of desperation. The passports would only get them killed now. Yet he hadn't been able to part with them. He wondered vaguely what would happen when the documents were discovered, but he knew the forgeries implicated only the bearers, as Seus and Sotheb had explained to them -- in exquisite detail.
They threaded their way through the crowded tables, Ledios' nameless companion bringing up the rear. Outside, the sky was black as ink. Lines of torches sputtered along the docks. They could hear the hollow lapping of wavelets striking the hulls of the merchant ships moored there. Black against the sky, their empty masts were draped with tangles of rigging. They towered over them as they walked. Most of the day's work was done and few workmen remained toiling on the ships. Raucous voices borne on chords of stringed instruments drifted out from waterfront bawdy houses. Ledios led them to a winding set of stairs, cut into a stone wall, leading down to the beach. There they saw a line of shallow draft fishing boats drawn up onto the strand.
"We keep a little boat here," Ledios explained as he led them to the beached craft. Most were single-mast sailing skiffs. Several small rowboats lay crookedly in the wet sand. One lay overturned and a crab came scuttling out from beneath it. Ledios kicked it contemptuously into the lapping surf.
"You are not proposing we take one of these all the way to Prathia?" It was an absurd notion, but by now Xanthippus believed anything was possible. He scrutinized Ledios, giving particular regard to the bag of silver at his belt. If the Prathians were to risk sharks and grasping octolusks, they would at least, by the gods, do it with their coins back.
The short, squat man chuckled sardonically. It was the first sound he had uttered. Xanthippus turned and looked at him, but the cowl covered his face. Only the ugly curl of his sneering lip was visible.
Ledios nodded toward a ship anchored in the harbor. "That will take you to Prathia."
From where Xanthippus stood, the ship was little more than a couple of bobbing lanterns in the darkness. Faintly, he could hear the random clanking of some distant bell.
"Don't look so dubious," Ledios said. In the gloom, the vicious scar that closed his eye made it look like he was winking, though Xanthippus would never have mistaken him for a jolly, light-hearted man. "You might be surprised to know how many people need to escape Tygetia this way. Enough for us to make a good living." Smiling for real now, he patted his pouch of coins, making a soft chinking sound.
"Then again," Xanthippus replied, "I might not. In fact, I should think you might need a bigger boat."
Ledios bent down and heaved on one of the overturned rowboats. "This one suffices," he said, straining. "Help me, you stunted bastard." Short-squat rushed forward and managed to get a hand on a gunwale before Ledios had the boat set aright. When his cowl fell away from his head, Xanthippus saw that Short-squat had a neck as thick as a bull's. There was nothing but a hole where one of his ears had been. The smuggler's life was slowly whittling these boys away. The thick-necked, one-eared man retrieved the oars from the sand and fixed them into their brackets.
Ledios extended a hand and bowed. "Have a seat, gentlemen."
Xanthippus and Nydeon climbed in. Ledios followed. From his seat in the stern, he signaled and Short-squat, bearing down, pushed the boat towards the water. The keel hissed through the sand and then floated free in the surf. Short-squat leapt in and took up the oars. Ledios climbed forward and sat in the bow.
After a few strokes, Xanthippus began to discern the outline of the ship anchored in the harbor, a modest double-masted merchantman. He saw a faint light glowing in a cabin window.
"Who is on board that ship?" he asked.
"You worry too much."
"I worry just right. I want to know who is on the ship."
The only sound in the entire harbor was the soft splashing of the dip and pull of Short-squat's oars. The oars' fittings clanked a little and the wood creaked. Xanthippus watched the ship grow in size as they approached.
"Well, if you must know," Ledios said impatiently, "the crew, obviously. And several more like you. Some others."
"More Gyriece escaping Tygetia?"
"Of course." Ledios sounded angry. "It doesn't matter. The ship is going to Prathia. That's all you need to know. I wouldn't doubt if there were some choice goods down in that hold too. Who knows?"
Short-squat kept rowing. The ship kept getting bigger.
"And we're just going to sail out of the harbor?" On a point of land in the distance, Xant
hippus saw the stone tower of the great lighthouse of Alaun, blinking out into the Middle Sea, its back to them. He saw that they would have to sail right under it to leave the harbor.
"All things are possible in Tygetia -- if you know the right people," Ledios said.
"And you know the right people?"
Ledios' form rose and fell with Short-squat's rowing. The ship grew large and then towered behind him.
"I am the right people," he said. "Here it is."
Short-squat had rowed them around to the stern of the merchantman. There Xanthippus noticed a ladder, descending to the waterline. He looked straight up but saw no faces peering back down at them as he had expected. Had they approached the ship unseen? Seemed unlikely… Rocking, the boat banged against the hull of the larger ship. Ledios stood and clutched one of the side rails of the ladder to steady them. The ship's name was inscribed in huge letters. Falisar. Some Tygetian babble. The meaning was lost on the Prathians.
"Up you go," Ledios said, standing clear of the ladder. The rowboat rose and fell in the shallow little waves. The ripples failed to move Falisar at all. She stood steady as a stone.
"You're not coming?" Xanthippus asked.
The unscarred half of Ledios' face smiled. "You don't think we're all sailing to Prathia, do you? One big happy family? Oh, no, this is the end of the road for us. You're on your own, friend."
Short-squat worked the oar handles to keep the boat steady. Xanthippus heard a noise like a chuckle emanate from him. It was an ugly, joyless sound; he might also have been hacking up phlegm or vomiting. He had replaced his cowl, once again hiding his face, so it was hard to tell. Xanthippus looked back to Ledios.
"Go on," the smuggler urged. "Don't worry. They're expecting you."
Nydeon shrugged. "What choice do we have?"
There was no arguing that point. Xanthippus took hold of the ladder. Before climbing, he leaned in close to Ledios.
"If anything happens to us, I know where to find you."
Ledios' lip curled in an unconvincing attempt at a smile. His good eyelid gave a slight flutter. Tygetians were pigs. Xanthippus would be glad to be rid of the lot of them, once and for all.
He was not halfway up the ladder when he heard the splashing of Short-squat's oars. He glanced down and saw Nydeon on the bottom rung. In their eagerness to be gone, the smugglers had rowed the boat out from under him. Below, there was nothing but the black water of the harbor. By the time Xanthippus reached the top of the ladder, he could no longer hear the oars and the boat had vanished. The smugglers were gone, swallowed by the night.
A hand appeared in Xanthippus' face. He grasped it and felt a strong arm help him climb on board the ship.
"Welcome aboard the Falisar," the man said.
Xanthippus planted his feet on the deck with a sense of relief. The man clapped him on the back. Nydeon came up behind him. Xanthippus turned and gave him a hand over the rail. Now that they were on the ship, he felt that their departure was assured. While in the charge of the smugglers, the issue had been in doubt. He felt in better hands now.
A lantern hung from a mast and beyond that, amidships, stood a little cabin. Through a lighted window, he could see grim-faced men. Five or six of them came out and started across the deck toward them. Something did not feel right. Xanthippus noticed that the men were armed. Even the smiling, friendly man who greeted them had a sword sheathed on his belt. Xanthippus instinctively reached for his dagger, but stopped short. Of course the men are armed, he thought. This is no pleasure barge. Armed men approaching him made him nervous. No pleasure barge, indeed.
"When do we make sail?" Xanthippus asked. The men kept coming. They weren't smiling as their greeter was. He began speaking. If his tone was to be believed, it was a pleasure barge. Xanthippus heard nothing of what he said. He was watching the men. They were picking up speed. He glanced quickly at Nydeon, at the approaching men, and then at the window of the cabin.
"…three days to Prathia," the greeter was saying, his voice riding a wave to Xanthippus' ear. The man seemed to slowly back away from them even as he spoke. "We disembark at Serusi…."
There, in the window, between the backs of a pair of shaved heads, Xanthippus caught sight of a bearded man. A sudden chill ran down his spine. The man was holding a bright yellowwood staff.
"Blue men!" Xanthippus cried. It was the Mejadym man from Jakuk. The greeter lunged out of the path of the Mejadym as they rushed across the last few yards of deck toward the Prathians, unsheathing swords and unleashing staffs. Xanthippus whipped his dagger from his belt just in time to have it clubbed from his hand by the business end of a fighting staff. Nydeon ducked under a blow and took the legs out from under an attacker, dropping him to the deck. They're going for the capture, Xanthippus thought, not the kill. He saw the swordsmen hanging back. The staffmen rushed in. Twirling, Xanthippus eluded a gut-busting lunge and caught his assailant under the chin with the heel of his hand. His knuckles having already been whacked, pain flared up his wrist, but the Mejadym, with a teeth-shattering crack of his jaw, fell limp as a rag doll.
In the next instant, the bearded man himself, the Jakukian blue man, came whirling out of the cabin like a crazy dancer, shrieking a blood-curdling cry. The man moved with lightning speed, his yellowwood a blur.
"Nydeon!" Xanthippus cried in warning.
The yellowwood caught him in the ribs. Unprotected by armor, Nydeon winced in pain, but forewarned of the attack, he managed to catch the staff and, turning quickly, twisted it from the blue man's grasp. He then delivered a fearsome jab to the man's midsection which dropped him to his knees. Certainly, the man from Jakuk had chosen the wrong opponent. Nydeon was famous throughout the Guard as a master of the staff. Xanthippus would almost consider it worth capture to see the Jakukian blue man pay for his folly, but Nydeon, with a conferring glance at his partner, flung the yellowwood at the gathering swordsmen who were just starting to get ideas. They ducked under the whirling staff and it fell with a clatter on the deck behind them. Nydeon leaped over the rail. Xanthippus followed, plummeting feet first into the water below.
When he emerged, he saw Nydeon in distress, sputtering water. Each movement brought a new grimace of pain.
"Can you make it?" Xanthippus called. Gyriece were born to the water. Even Isalan orphan boys could swim before they could walk.
"Don't worry about me. Go!"
"I'll not leave you," Xanthippus said.
"I'll be right behind you. Make for the docks."
Xanthippus understood at once. A party of the blue bastards would no doubt be waiting for them on the beach. They would swim for the docks.
He ducked his head and began swimming as hard as he could. An alarm would soon be raised, and -- who knows? -- maybe men had already jumped in to swim after them. It was important to reach the docks as quickly as possible, for even they would soon be teeming with searchers; he was certain of it. Stroke after stroke, he swam, the beating of his arms and legs soon became a rhythm in his head. Ledios…Ledios…Ledios…He had not a single idea how they would escape from Alaun, but he did know for a certainty that they would not leave unfinished business behind them. His strokes went on and on. Ledios…
A few minutes felt like an hour. He stopped and looked around him. He was in a black sea in the middle of a black world. The docks loomed fifty yards ahead of him. He heard Nydeon thrashing some distance behind, lost in the darkness.
When he surfaced again, he found himself amid massive pilings. Water lapped against the hulls of ships. The dead quiet of his surroundings was amplified by the peal of a distant alarm bell. Faintly, he heard shouting from the men on the Falisar. The entire port would soon be looking for them. He dog-paddled between the dock and the ship moored to it. No sign of Nydeon. Treading water, he waited. The alarm bell continued to clang. He heard a troop of hob-nailed sandals tramping on the dock above him. When he looked up, he could see through the gaps between timbers the passing shadow of running men. The footsteps receded
toward the shore. He would have to move quickly.
"Nydeon!" he called out in a harsh whisper. He might have already surfaced somewhere within the sound of his voice. There was no reply. He tried again. "Nydeon!" A little louder this time. He waited.
"Damn it!" he cursed. His heart sank. He pondered what to do. Whatever it was, he must do it quickly. Nydeon would not want him to wait -- nor to go looking. Time to move on. Under the dock, he paddled for the shore, the distant clanging of the bell in his ears.
The shore rose steeply under the dock and he clambered up onto the rocks and peered over the lip of the embankment. Two men rushed past him on the street. Other figures appeared in lighted windows and doors, looking out to see what the commotion was. Stealthily, he made his way to a crate-filled wagon parked near the dock and crouched behind it. His only hope was to cross the street and get into the dark alleys. Sopping wet and dripping, it was going to be difficult escaping attention.
He heard a skittering of rock, a footfall. There, to his left, something moved. He pulled his head back. When he peered out again, he saw a shadow moving purposefully toward him from the far side of the dock. Was the shoreline being searched? Unarmed, Xanthippus felt naked. He reached over the rim of the wagon bed and began groping blindly. Perhaps he would find a crowbar, a broom handle even. Anything. His hand came away empty. A rock. He had just bent down to find a stone when he heard a voice.
"Xanthippus." His heart leapt at the sound. "Xanthippus," the soft voice repeated. "It is me, Nydeon."
Nydeon!
"Hail, old fellow!" Xanthippus whispered into the dark where he had seen the shadow. When the shape dropped down behind the same wagon, he saw Nydeon's face grinning at him. Nydeon glanced at the rock in Xanthippus' hand.
"I have learned to approach you carefully, my friend."
Xanthippus clapped his partner's sodden shoulder. They were a couple of drowned rats.
"We must arm ourselves," Xanthippus said.
"Do we save a blade for the smugglers?"
Xanthippus nodded. "How is your rib?"
The Blood Gate Page 13