“Well, sir, when Padan woke up yesterday morning, he noticed right off that Veltan’s sloop wasn’t there anymore.”
“You said what?” Veltan demanded.
“It’s gone,” Gunda replied, “but this gets even better. Padan told me that Commander Narasan had stripped Jalkan of his commission and had him put in chains. After a while, Padan put a couple of things together and he ran down to the little room in the hold of the ship where Jalkan had been chained to the wall—and guess what? Jalkan wasn’t there anymore either. I suppose it might just be a coincidence that the sloop and Jalkan both vanished on the same night, but I don’t think I’d want to wager a month’s pay on it.”
“Are you just about through joking around, Gunda?” Narasan demanded.
“I was just reporting what had happened, sir. If I remember correctly, you did order me to tell you about this, and a good soldier always obeys orders.” He feigned a look of wide-eyed innocence.
And then he burst out laughing.
Upon reflection, Omago realized that the outlanders were quite a bit more advanced than the people of the Land of Dhrall, but their social structure left much to be desired. They were very much like children—except that they all carried deadly weapons, and they’d go to war on almost any pretext.
That childish aggressiveness did work to the advantage of the people of the Land of Dhrall, though. The current situation required many hired killers, and it appeared that Veltan and his sister had found exactly the ones best qualified to meet the servants of the Vlagh.
Omago smiled faintly. The outlanders had all appeared to be astonished by several of the innovations he’d suggested. Evidently they all had the notion of “primitive savages” locked in stone in their minds. The possibility that anybody in the Land of Dhrall could come up with improvements in weaponry was beyond their comprehension.
To some degree, perhaps, that blank spot in the minds of the outlanders could have grown out of their lack of awareness of—or interest in—the extensive education Omago had received from Veltan since his early childhood. He was fairly sure that no outlander from the Trogite Empire or the Land of Maag had ever had a god for his teacher. The “connections” which had come to Omago had been second nature, actually. Omago habitually moved from “effect” to “cause,” and that seemed to be unnatural for the outlanders. They always seemed to think in the opposite direction. Evidently it had never occurred to them that the source of most inventions was “I need something that will do that,” not “I wonder what I’ll be able to do with this thing if I make it.”
Omago was forced to concede that he had made a serious blunder, however. Jalkan’s insult had been a perfect opportunity to eliminate what might well turn out to be a serious danger down the line. “I should have killed him right there on the spot,” Omago muttered regretfully. “Narasan even went so far as to offer me the opportunity, and I passed it up—probably because I didn’t want to offend the Trogites. I’m almost certain that we haven’t seen the last of that foul-mouthed lecher.”
Then a peculiar notion came to him. Could it be that Ara had deliberately instilled that lust in Jalkan? Omago was almost positive that she could have done that. She’d certainly done it to him when they’d first met in his orchard. Just the sight of her had made him her captive. If she had, in fact, set Jalkan’s mind to moving in that direction, it was quite obvious what she’d been after. Omago cursed himself. He’d failed her. She’d almost certainly have wanted him to respond in the most primitive way—bashing Jalkan’s brains out or ripping him up the middle with that iron knife.
“If that’s what she really wanted, I wish she’d told me what she had in mind.” He shrugged. “Ah, well,” he sighed. “Maybe next time.”
THE BETRAYAL
1
Jalkan of Kaldacin was the sole remaining member of a once-prominent family of the Trogite Empire. Many of his ancestors had served with honor and distinction in the Palvanum, and others had been advisors to historically significant emperors. The family had accumulated wealth, prestige, and power over the years, and the names of several members were prominently displayed on various public monuments.
In the past century, however, Jalkan’s family had gone into a steep decline. Various ne’er-do-wells had squandered away the family’s wealth in wanton debauchery, gambling, and drinking to excess. Moneylenders pursued them, and a fair number of Jalkan’s recent ancestors had spent their final years in assorted debtors’ prisons.
By the time Jalkan himself reached maturity, the family’s reputation had been irrevocably tarnished, and there were very few career opportunities available to him.
He considered the possibility of joining the ranks of the assorted Trogite syndicates that were currently amassing vast fortunes in the Land of Shaan. The notion of swindling ignorant savages out of their gold had a certain appeal, but he quickly discarded that idea when word of a colossal disaster reached Kaldacin. Evidently some idiot, far gone in drink, had boasted about his success in the wrong place and in front of the wrong people, and the natives of the Land of Shaan had gone on a rampage, slaughtering (and feasting on) every Trogite they could lay their hands on.
Jalkan, now facing the prospect of hard, honest work for scant pay, turned instead to the last refuge of the scoundrel. Dressed in his most sober clothing and wearing a somberly pious expression, he began to attend holy services in the local Amarite convenium three or four times a day.
In due time, one of the minor Hieras in the hallowed convenium noticed Jalkan and brought him to the attention of the Oran as a potential member of the clergy. The Oran interviewed Jalkan and enrolled him as a novice, demanding scarcely more than a third of Jalkan’s very limited remaining assets as a sign of good faith.
Jalkan winced, but finally agreed.
His first few months as a very junior member of the clergy were moderately unpleasant, since the Amarite hierarchy devoted much effort to weeding out apprentices who were excessively unworthy. Jalkan was clever enough not to steal too much and to discredit those of his fellow novices who were overly honest or obviously more clever than he was.
His cunning was noted by his superiors, and it generally met with their approval.
Jalkan’s most immediate goal as a novice had been to take the next step up to the rank of Hiera. A Hiera in the Amarite faith was not required to do much hard labor, and he was even assigned his own room. The rooms of the Hieras were called “cells,” and they were very tiny, but they were far better than the rank-smelling first-floor dormitories where the novices were crammed together like cattle.
Because he was marginally literate, Jalkan’s duties as a Hiera were largely limited to administration, and he was somewhat startled to discover that nearly half of the Empire belonged to the Amarite church. The vast church estates produced much of the Empire’s food—for a handsome price—and the annual rent on various buildings in the capital city of Kaldacin brought in staggering amounts of money.
It was on a gloomy afternoon in late winter that Jalkan came across an ancient document that gave an account of the closing of a run-down convenium in one of the poorer districts of the imperial city of Kaldacin. If the time-faded document was correct, the structure had been closed for nearly a century, and the financial records of the church showed that it had not brought in so much as a single copper penny in all those years. If that were indeed the case, Jalkan realized that he could very well be the only man in the world who even knew of the existence of the building.
Overcome with curiosity, Jalkan bundled himself up in his heavy cloak and walked across town to the district where the convenium was supposedly located.
There was a crumbling old stone wall surrounding the tired-looking structure, and the building itself was quite nearly hidden by trees and bushes.
Jalkan was very disappointed. He’d hoped that the abandoned convenium might prove to be of some value, but it was quite obvious why the place wasn’t bringing in any money. A good sneeze would probably bri
ng it tumbling down.
Then, even as he was turning away in disgust, his eye caught a faint glimmer of light coming through a crumbling board that partially covered one of the windows. Unless it happened to be on fire, the ancient building was obviously not as deserted as it had seemed at first glance.
This might turn out to be useful, so Jalkan clambered over a low place in the crumbling wall and approached the disreputable structure. As he drew closer, he began to hear some people talking inside. He raised up on his tiptoes to peer through the cracked board that covered the window.
Inside the supposedly empty convenium there was an extremely fat man seated at a rough table with a smoking lamp at one end, and the fat man was holding up a rather splendid metal tray. “This is solid silver, Esag. It’s worth a lot more than just one gold crown.”
“I could maybe go as high as one and a half, Rabell, but it’s got that coat of arms engraved on it, so I can’t just put it in the window of my shop. If that silly aristocrat your people stole it from happens to walk by and sees it there, he’ll have the law on me before the sun goes down.”
Jalkan nearly choked. “It’s a den of thieves!” he gasped, “and they’re not paying us so much as a penny for its use!”
“I can let you have the tray for two crowns, Esag,” the fat man conceded, “but that’s as low as I’ll go.”
“You’re an out-and-out swindler, Rabell,” Esag grumbled.
“You don’t have to buy it if you don’t want to, Esag,” the fat man said. “I’ve got a lot of other customers.”
Esag took two gold coins from his purse, slapped them down on the table, and left with the silver tray.
Then a burly-looking ruffian with a little girl at his side came out of the shadows. “You bargain real good, Rabell,” he said in a raspy voice.
“I could have that idiot for lunch any day of the week, Grol,” Rabell sneered. He held out one of the gold crowns. “Here’s your half, good friend.”
“I’ve been meaning to talk with you about that, Rabell,” the ruffian said. “It seems to me that your arrangement just ain’t none too fair. I mean, Baby-Girl and me are sort of partners, and she ain’t getting her fair share.”
“That’s between you and her, Grol. Half and half is our standard arrangement. You and Baby-Girl steal it, and I sell it.”
Grol grumbled a bit, but he did take the gold coin. “I don’t know how much longer Baby-Girl’s going to be able to do our stealing for us, Rabell,” he said. “She’s growing awful fat for some reason, and it’s getting harder and harder for her to wiggle through them little windows to get inside them houses to steal stuff. It ain’t going to be too much longer afore I’ll have to find some new little child to do the stealing.”
“That’s your problem, Grol,” Rabell replied. “Now move along. There are quite a few other people waiting to show me what they’ve stolen.”
Jalkan did not sleep well that night. As a member of the clergy, it was his duty to bring the matter to the attention of his Oran, but he knew his superior well enough to be fairly sure that Oran Paldor would most probably approach the fat thief Rabell who was operating the business in the abandoned convenium and demand a sizeable share of the profits. He was almost positive also that Paldor would neglect to tell his superiors about the arrangement. Paldor would be most grateful to Jalkan, of course, but not quite grateful enough to share the profits.
There was an alternative, of course, and the alternative was much, much more attractive than doing his duty.
“This is church property, Rabell,” Jalkan told the fat man the next afternoon in the crumbling old convenium. “You can’t just walk in off the street and take it over without church permission. I think you might just be in a lot of trouble.”
“Don’t get excited,” Rabell told him with a note of resignation. “I’ll be out of here before the sun goes down.”
“I didn’t say that you have to leave, Rabell. All I meant was that you should pay the church for the use of this splendid convenium. I think the term is ‘rent.’ You can stay if you pay.”
“Get to the point, Jalkan. How much do you want?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Half sounds about right to me.”
“Forget it. I can set up shop in some other place.”
“Don’t get excited, Rabell. That was only a suggestion. It’s open to negotiation.”
“Not until you stop lying to me, it isn’t. The church has no part in this, and all the money I give you will go into your own purse. Isn’t that what you’ve got in your greedy little mind?”
“Well . . .”
“I thought so. Don’t blink, Jalkan, because if you do, I won’t be here when you open your eyes again.”
“I can really make it worth your while, Rabell,” Jalkan said a little desperately.
“You’d better make it good,” Rabell growled.
“I’m a Hiera in the Amarite church, and I’ve frequently been inside the palaces of the higher-ranking clergymen. I can tell you exactly where in those palaces the valuables are kept. That should be worth something, wouldn’t you say?”
“Well, maybe. I’d also need to know how well those palaces are guarded. The little children we use to do the stealing for us are extremely valuable, so I won’t take any chances with them.”
“How in the world did you ever come up with this idea?” Jalkan asked curiously.
“Where have you been, Jalkan?” Rabell demanded. “This has been going on for generations. When I was just a little boy, I was the best thief in the whole city of Kaldacin. I could wriggle through the bars on any window in town, and if there weren’t any windows, I could crawl in through rat holes.” He reached down and put his hands on his paunch. “I’ve gained quite a bit of weight since then, though.”
“I noticed that, yes. What do you think, Rabell? Would the information I give you about the location of valuables be worth a fair share of the loot?”
“We can give it a try, I suppose—but only what we get from those places you tell me about. I’ve got quite a few teams out there, and they’re robbing fancy houses all over town.”
“There’s something I don’t quite understand there, Rabell,” Jalkan admitted. “Couldn’t you make more money if you eliminated the ruffians who tell the children which houses to rob?”
“You want me to stand guard out in the street while the children are inside the house stealing anything they can lay their hands on? Are you out of your mind?”
“Ah,” Jalkan said. “I guess that does make good sense.”
“Let’s get down to business here, Jalkan,” the fat man suggested. “I’ll need to know quite a bit about one of these church palaces before I risk one of the children.”
“I know just the place, Rabell,” Jalkan said, rubbing his hands together.
“How are things going, Rabell?” Jalkan asked the fat man a few days later.
“Better than I’d expected,” Rabell replied. “That house you pointed out to me was almost a gold mine. I turned that one over to Grol and Baby-Girl. She had to make eight trips from the kitchen to the window to haul out all the loot. That set of dishes and the silverware brought in a lot of money.”
“I’ve been looking into a few other houses,” Jalkan said. “There are a couple of them that we might want to consider. Let’s settle accounts, and then we can talk about them.”
2
I think I must have offended my Oran,” Jalkan complained to the elderly servant in Adnari Radan’s palace. “He claims that we need exact measurements of every church building in all of Kaldacin for church records, but I think he’s lying through his teeth. This is the most tedious chore I’ve ever had laid on me since I first entered the church, and I’ll be old and grey before I get even halfway through it.”
“We live but to serve,” the servant said piously.
“Of course we do,” Jalkan agreed sardonically. “Is this the Adnari’s study?” he asked, pointing at an ornate door. “I wouldn’t want to disturb
him.”
“He’s over in the convenium right now.”
“This won’t take more than a few minutes,” Jalkan said. “I’m sure you have other matters to attend to. I won’t disturb anything, and I’ll close the door when I leave.”
“I do have some chores to take care of, Hiera Jalkan,” the old man said. “Are you sure you won’t need me?”
“I’ve been doing this for weeks now, my friend,” Jalkan replied. “A few more times and I should be able to do it in my sleep.”
The old man smiled and went off down the hall. Jalkan went into Adnari Radan’s study and looked around. This one seemed to be filled with all sorts of valuable items. Jalkan quickly began to scribble notes describing some of the more valuable objects. It appeared that Adnari Radan had some very expensive tastes. He had to get this place on Rabell’s list.
He was whistling as he returned home and bounded up the stairs to his second-floor cell.
Then he stopped suddenly. There were three iron-faced men in the distinctive uniforms of the church Regulators, the internal police of the Amarite church, waiting.
He turned to run back down the stairs, but the Regulators were too quick for him. They seized him and slammed him up against the wall. “You’re under arrest, Hiera Jalkan,” one of them announced in an almost bored tone of voice.
“But I haven’t done anything!” Jalkan protested.
Almost casually, one of the Regulators drove his fist into Jalkan’s belly, knocking the wind out of him. Then, while he was gasping for breath, the Regulators slapped him into chains.
“You’re in custody now, Hiera Jalkan,” another Regulator declared. “You will come with us, and if you give us any trouble, the three of us will beat you to within an inch of your life.”
“What are the charges?” Jalkan demanded.
“That’s none of our concern,” the Regulator replied. “We were told by Adnari Estarg to bring you in, and that’s exactly what we’re doing.”
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