The Eyes of Sarsis

by Andrew J Offutt

  The roast beef she had praised was a cold heavy lump in Tiana’s stomach. Although the night was cool and three doors hung open, she was sweating and her mouth was dry.

  Tiana was vain of her courage, far too vain ever to make conscious admission of fear. Her voice emerged angry.

  “I’m not about to hoist the surrender flag. We’ve won. There’s an explanation, somewhere.”

  “In the mind of a sorcerer or demon!” Caranga gestured sweepingly to show her an empty tavern. “Who’s to see the flag of surrender? These flea-bitten curs have run away with their tails between their legs. White men were never cut out to be pirates — they know it’s ill to see what we’ve seen and they flee lest the dark powers ensnare them. I’ve no curiosity about that scroll.”

  Tiana said, “Dung!” And then, “By the mud on the back of the Turtle that bears the world … ’

  Then her voice and face softened. “Dear Father. As usual you are doubtless right … but do tell me this: were you alone, which would be stronger, your prudence or your curiosity?”

  “The dead do not walk for friendly purpose, Tiana!”

  “No, and you didn’t answer me either, old fearless.”

  “Oh all right, open the Susha-blasted thing and then we’ll burn it!”

  The scroll was sealed with wax and before breaking the seal she examined it. Some figure had been impressed on the wax, but the impression was poor and not recognizable. She broke the seal and unrolled the scroll. It was completely blank.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “By the Great Cow’s Cud,” Tiana swore, “what madness is this?”

  Caranga started to reply, but his ears pricked and he stood silent. His hands made a rapid set of signs. Tiana nodded. They continued to talk but neither paid attention to what was said.

  The Wayfarer Tavern’s only doorless wall housed a large open fireplace. Since no fire had been laid tonight, the tavern was lit only by three candles on tables about the room. Both Tiana and Caranga stood facing the fireplace and neither seemed to glance back or to the side. While she spoke banalities, Tiana rerolled the blank scroll and placed it in a pocket of her cloak.

  The room behind them was silently filling with King’s Own Guardsmen. Oddly they were not in the normal Guard uniform tonight; they were barefoot. Helmets and short swords were standard issue but instead of steel body armor, each man wore hard leather. The guardsmen were equipped for stealth, and their captain was well pleased with the surprise they were achieving. Tall, proud of bearing and countenance, Captain Despan watched as his men entered. Now he had twenty inside the tavern, grouped about the three doors, and a like number outside. That female pirate had a reputation for being slippery but Despan was confident she would not escape his grasp. Now his men were in perfect position. Captain Despan, from the northern province, called out in the nasal accent peculiar to that region.

  “Captain Tiana, in the name of the King I arrest you on charge of treason and witchcraft. Surrender or be instantly slain.”

  Despan should have realized that in a pirate tavern, lights were readily extinguished. Caranga kicked one table, sending it flying into the soldiers’ faces while extinguishing the candle it bore. Tiana’s rapier swept with a wheep and the other two candles died. The darkness was sudden and total.

  “Quick, father,” Tiana called, “up the secret ladder in the fireplace.”

  Caranga had moved so that he was not far from the captain. In a reasonably good imitation of Despan’s nasal voice, he shouted, “Quick men, after them! They’re escaping up the chimney.”

  The captain tried to countermand this false order but as soon as he opened his mouth, Caranga’s sledgehammer fist slammed into it. Most of the King’s Own were jamming themselves up the chimney. Though it did not contain a secret ladder, it did contain a great deal of soot.

  The pirates hied themselves to the back door where Caranga grabbed a short guardsman. “Here,” he called, “I’ve got her. Help me hold her.”

  He then threw his victim into the arms of the soldiers who guarded the alley. While the alley guards industriously beat one of their fellows, Caranga and Tiana slipped into the alley and ran. Tiana’s black cloak made her no less a nearly invisible shadow than Caranga. Nevertheless, behind them came the roar of pursuit. Tiana took the lead and dashed down a side street. After they had run a few blocks, she turned a corner and stopped. Gesturing to Caranga for silence she peered around the corner, back the way they had come. The guardsmen came racing pell mell down the street — and were abruptly reduced to a howling mass, hopping from one foot to the other, seemingly unable to stand on either. They gave forth an intense chorus of profanity.

  Caranga whispered, “What happened to them?”

  “They were barefoot. Gormansot the fruit merchant is having a little war with the street urchins. The boys steal his fruit, so he retaliated by spreading these about.” Tiana held up a small object with four short prongs. No matter how it fell, one of its projections would be pointed upward. “He thought these jacks would not bother adult customers wearing boots, but would be rather hard on barefoot small boys.”

  ‘They did rather well on barefoot King’s Own Guardsmen too,” Caranga murmured.

  “What makes soldiers such lackwits?”

  “Maybe they put something in their food so they’ll obey orders better.”

  “You think? Well — best we gather our crew and leave Reme behind us. Where did you leave them?”

  “In Zolgis’s House of Heavenly Pleasure. Come along.”

  *

  Zolgis’s House was the scene of a recent battle. Blood gleamed in the gutters and the unconscious bodies of sailors were stacked in heaps like cordwood. Tiana saw no dead and none of her crew. Zolgis’s girls were running around like a decapitated flock of chickens while acid black smoke poured from the windows. Tiana spotted plump Zolgis and grabbed her. The woman was highly agitated but the sight of a large gold coin in Tiana’s hand calmed her.

  “I want to know what happened here.”

  “It was awful! The monsters! How dare they do this to an honest business woman?”

  Tiana continued to display the gold coin in her left hand — and now she held her shining dagger in her right. “Just tell me what happened.”

  “It seemed chilly tonight, so I built a fire. The monsters must have climbed on the roof. As soon as my fire was burning well, they dropped a great length of oily rope down the chimney, then stopped it up. We couldn’t breathe or see in that terrible smoke. They had nailed shut all the doors save one, and that one they’d blocked so that the men must stoop to leave. They were clubbed down as they emerged.”

  “Where are my men , Zolgis?”

  “They loaded your crew into wagons and drove off with them. They must be in prison by now, Captain.”

  Tiana glanced at Caranga. “You mean the King’s Own did this, Zolgis?”

  “A squad of about twenty of them.”

  “By all the mud on the Great Turtle’s back! Our crew numbers eighty good fighting men, as well as a host of other sea reavers, all in your house! You’re telling us that a handful of men treated them like a sweet herd of penned cattle?”

  “Yes, Father, it would appear that not all the guardsmen are fools.” Tiana tossed the coin to Zolgis, who hastened away. “Now, Father, we have a problem.”

  “Truly. To storm the prison and free our crew, we’d need at least two thousand well-armed men. There might be half that many sharks in port, but they’re drunk and most of the scurvy dogs wouldn’t fight to save their own mothers anyhow.”

  “This whole thing makes very little sense. The Guard acts on orders from either King Hower or the Duke of Reme. The king is a harmless cipher — why should Duke Holonbad suddenly attack us? His share of our plunder helped make him wealthy.”

  The black pirate considered, then slowly replied. “The duke is a greedy man, Tiana. I see only one possibility: for some reason he now fears us. I adopted you many years ago but your natural father wa
s Sonderman, Duke of Reme before Holonbad. Perhaps there’s been some change in the law and you could now inherit … ”

  “No, Father; once a bastard, always a bastard. Besides, why did the Guard take our men alive? It would have been less work to kill them. Too, why didn’t the duke use treachery? If he had simply summoned us to his castle, we’d have walked into the trap.”

  “Tis a night of puzzles. No doubt the duke would explain it, if we asked him politely, while holding a knife to his sweet throat. Daughter, you grew up in the castle. Seems to me you once said there were secret passages the duke did not know about.”

  “Yes! Let’s just visit my lord Holonbad.”

  Although the city was filled with Guardsmen searching for Tiana and Caranga, they arrived without incident at the outskirts of the castle. It gloomed down on them from atop a rolling hill. A corner of the hill had once been subject to erosion and a stone retaining wall erected long ago.

  Tiana pointed to the wall. “My thrice great-grandfather planned that if the castle were stormed and taken he could escape via a tunnel. The exit is a hidden door right here.”

  “Does it open from the outside or do we have to force it?”

  “My twice great-grandmother liked to sneak out at night, so the door opens from both sides. The release is hidden in a small hole in the wall.”

  “I’m surprised no one found that in all these years.”

  “The wall’s full of holes and vipers use them for lairs. If memory serves, the release is in here.” Tiana thrust her rapier several times into the hole. “There doesn’t seem to be a snake in residence,” she said, and started to put her unprotected hand into the hole.

  Caranga stayed her. “Best you let me do this.”

  “No, the hole is small and your arm is too thick.”

  While Caranga looked nervous and disapproving, his foster daughter’s bare right arm slipped into the hole. Slowly it went deeper and deeper. Suddenly her face convulsed with terror and Tiana whipped forth her arm.

  Caranga saw what she held, and his face went blank in horror. “A death adder. Where did it bite you?”

  Tiana sat down and laughed heartily. “Look again, father. It’s not a live adder, only the long-dead remains. Now I remember. When I was nine, I killed this snake and put it in the release hole as a joke, to scare my brother Bealost.”

  Tiana put her hand back into the hole. With a snapping sound, a section of the wall shifted slightly. Caranga placed his shoulder to it and with a groan of rusty hinges the door opened. After lighting a candle filched from Zolgis’s, they hastened along the tunnel and thence through a maze of narrow passageways. Tiana’s memory and sense of direction soon led them to a peephole. She peered through it — into the duke’s bedroom.

  Plump Duke Holonbad was sitting up in bed, talking with a tall blond man. The latter wore shining torso armor, gorget, and no helmet. He was armed with a light straight sword. Though he was pale, as if he had recently lost blood, his movements had a graceful easy flow about them. Tiana heard Holonbad call him Kathis, and knew she was looking at a dangerous opponent, combining speed and perfect coordination. She let Caranga replace her at the peephole.

  He soon whispered, “This is the best chance we are likely to get. It will take speed to keep the duke from pulling the alarm bell, so that is your task. I should be able to take the soldier by surprise — the door opens behind him.”

  “It might be wise not to kill him.”

  “Aye. Likely the dog’s reporting how he clubbed our crew like cattle. When we open the door, he’ll turn. While he’s at it, I’ll knock his sweet head in with the flat of my cutlass. We’ll see how he likes his own medicine.”

  They held no hope that the secret door could be opened silently. Caranga kicked it in with an awful crash and the adventurers leapt into the duke’s bedchamber. Caranga rushed at the warrior Kathis — who did not turn. Instead he stepped rapidly back and to the right, while swinging his left elbow backward. Caranga’s cutlass struck the other’s armored shoulder at the same time that the point of Kathis’s elbow slammed into the pirate’s unprotected stomach. The warrior whirled, driving his mailed fist into Caranga’s face. The pirate shot backwards, smashed an ornamental chair, and lay motionless.

  Tiana saw it happen; she was halfway across the room, and the jowly Holonbad was close to the alarm bell rope. Faced with the need to fight on two fronts, she acted rapidly. Her dagger leaped into her hand and flew at the duke. It pierced an untenanted fold of his robe and pinned it to the wall. She now had a moment or two to kill the warrior. Now that they faced each other’s shining steel, Tiana saw Kathis’s face for the first time. The warrior’s were a calm handsome set of regular features, clean-shaven — and bright green eyes. The eyes were cruel but without conscious evil and now they burned with a lust to kill.

  Tiana’s attack was rapid and furious. His armor was hardly perfect protection. There were plenty of places her strong slender rapier could pierce and take life. Kathis’s blade, however, was a perfect defense. Her every thrust was stopped by a smooth easy parry. His sword was a shimmering wall of steel that she could not penetrate. He was not quite as quick as the pirate; no one was. Yet his every motion possessed a perfect unhurried accuracy. He was poetry in motion, speed without haste.

  Tiana’s peripheral vision told her the duke was free and had sounded the alarm. It did not matter, for now her antagonist was taking the offensive. Kathis had taken her measure, and his attack was as calm and smooth as his defense. Desperately she parried the thrusts of a sword that sought her life. With each exchange, she was driven back and off balance. Each thrust she deflected or avoided by a slender and decreasing margin. Abruptly she realized that her opponent was playing with her: Despite her speed he could kill her at any time, but was prolonging the agony. Killing was a sport this man savored.

  A door burst open and archers boiled into the chamber.

  “Tiana!” Duke Holonbad called. “Lower your point and surrender or my archers will feather you.”

  Tiana was willing. Kathis was not. He gave her no opportunity to surrender. Instead he pressed for the kill. It required all of her fading reserves of speed and strength to stop him. Before the deadly efficiency of the warrior’s attack, her defenses were rapidly crumbling.

  “Last chance, Tiana,” shouted the duke. “Archers: pull and aim!”

  She threw her rapier into the warrior’s face. Though he easily deflected it with his sword, she had gained a chance to leap beyond his reach. He raised his sword and started toward her. The green eyes were ugly.

  “Kathis!” the duke snapped, loudly. “Stop !”

  The soldier’s eyes turned toward his lord and they blazed with an almost tangible green fire. Holonbad gasped as this psychic force hit him. One of the archers panicked and his string twanged. The bolt struck to glance harmlessly off Kathis’s chest plate, but it broke the spell. He lowered his sword and turned his eyes from the duke. Reassured of his command of the situation, Holonbad straightened to stand in manner ducal.

  “Kathis: you’re the best fighting man in Reme, but unless you learn to take orders, I’ll have you drawn and quartered.” Turning to his servants, the duke continued, “Chain these pirates and bring them to my council chamber at once. I’ll hold court and pass sentence on them tonight.”

  *

  The council chamber was a large room, decorated lavishly in poor taste. The duke, in a fine brocaded chamber-robe, looked down on Tiana and Caranga from a high throne chair. “Because I am a just and merciful lord, I am giving you two a completely fair and impartial trial. I shall act as prosecutor and fair and impartial judge. I have appointed as your advocate my trusted advisor, Illdabar. Thus you shall have the best possible defense, although you clearly deserve to be executed out of hand.”

  Caranga’s voice rumbled from his big chest: “May we know the charges against us?”

  “High treason and witchcraft.”

  “What specific acts did we commit and what is th
e evidence?”

  “There is no need to delay these proceedings with those details, pirate. Your advocate has already been informed.” The duke turned toward his advisor. “Illdabar, what defense can you offer on their behalf?”

  The advisor bowed. “Your Grace, their crimes are such that no defense or well-founded plea for mercy may be offered.”

  “I see,” purred Holonbad. “Before I sentence you to death by slow torture, do you wish to say anything?” Holonbad stroked his overly pointed beard.

  Tiana ended her silence. “No, we have nothing to say.”

  “Nothing?” Holonbad repeated, clearly surprised.

  “No, not a thing.” Tiana stood tall and clear-eyed. Caranga glanced frowning at her.

  “But surely you can find something to say,” the duke said, practically pleading.

  “Yes, but I don’t need to say anything.”

  “Explain yourself, girl.”

  “Look about you at all the wealth displayed in this room,” Tiana said coolly. “I suppose you decorated it yourself. I can tell because the room is done in such extremely bad taste. A council room should give the impression of grace and wisdom, rather than make you look the greedy pig you are. Still, that’s beside the point. The point is that we pirates stole most of this wealth for you. I personally … acquired the ermine robe you’re wearing, those cloth-of-gold-bordered drapes, and these silk rugs. The pirates of Reme are a river of gold flowing into your pockets and you would never harm us.”

  “Then why,” thundered the duke, “do you suppose you’re here?”