“A pity,” Darzek muttered. “Sometimes one should weigh the risks before paying off an obligation. This is going to make life hell for perfumers.”
Sajjo was waiting for him at the edge of the forest, and he knew that she had seen everything. He made no explanation to her. They climbed into the cart, and he drove with the stun rifles on the seat beside him. He took the first branch lane they came to and followed it until they had put the duke’s castle safely behind them. Then he pulled into the sponge forest, where they removed the perfumer’s tent from the cart, turned it inside out, and painted the gaudy stripes of a peddler on it. Darzek also buried his perfumer’s cape and hat.
Their success in Fermarz had drastically reduced their stock of perfume. Darzek dumped the rest of it and buried their bottles and crockery. Then they returned to the surlane. At the first intersection, he turned south.
Sajjo spoke for the first time since he had left her in the forest. Where are we going?
To OO, Darzek answered.
Sajjo grinned delightedly. OO had a fairyland reputation.
But Darzek had something else in mind. He had learned as much as he could in Merzkion and Fermarz. It was time to have a look at the province where so many agents had vanished—where the danger was so menacing that the Storoz team had closed its headquarters there.
They had been underway a day and a half before Darzek remembered Bovranulz’s prediction: They would visit the OO-Fair together, though they would not meet there.
CHAPTER 12
Darzek and Sajjo entered the Province of OO as peddlers with nothing to peddle. Darzek had acquired the official peddler’s clothing while passing through the Province of Kiledj, which surrounded OO; and he and Sajjo had been studying peddlers’ wares at the forums and marts they had passed, comparing quality and prices. In OO they were able to buy directly from artisans. They concentrated on choice carvings and soon built up a respectable stock.
The Province of OO was both a summation of Storoz and its culmination. Everything Darzek had seen elsewhere in Storoz was present there in greater intensity. The soil looked richer, the farm land more productive and better cultivated, the villages tidier and more picturesque. Even the wayside forums had their nabrula manure hauled away daily for fertilizer. The province’s crafts—practiced everywhere, for most villages had a lane of artisans—were the finest in Storoz and were eagerly in demand at all of the island’s marts, as well as for export. Young artisans and artists of talent came to OO to learn and remained there to prosper.
By the time they reached the great city of OO, they were ready to peddle; and Sajjo was bursting with excitement at the new venture and dazzled at the charm and richness of the province. Her memory of the village of Karlanklo seemed to rest lightly on her. Darzek wondered if she had not been more perplexed than terrified at the carnage she witnessed only from a great distance.
The city of OO, the only major port on the island that was not governed by the Sailor’s League, surpassed even the Free Cities in its magnificence. The lanes, narrow in other cities, were wide, sweeping avenues in OO. The most vividly hued stone had been employed for pavement and buildings, and the people of OO displayed the most dramatically colored and patterned garments and the most lavish hair styles. The variety of crafts and products was unrivaled.
Even the duke’s castle was a palace with battlements. The brooding gray granite of the other dukes’ strongholds here gave way to gleaming, resplendently hued marble.
It was midmorning when Darzek and Sajjo arrived, and much of the city’s ten thousand population, as well as its throngs of visitors, seemed to be crowding the OO-Fair, a gigantic mart that—like the marts of most port cities—stretched along the harbor. They went directly to the fair themselves, registered, and set up their cart in its allotted space.
Darzek left the proud Sajjo in charge of their merchandise display and took their nabrula to the assigned stable. A sweep promptly cleaned their display area when he left, and another followed him all the way to the stable—evidence enough of the strict sanitation practiced in OO. Darzek, once away from the stable, breathed the pure, tangy sea air and thoroughly approved.
Above the booths and carts and wagons and tents of the fair’s vendors rose the usual Mound of the Sun and hovering Winged Beast—the latter a monstrously large carving. Beyond them, Darzek could see the stubby, rectangular, vividly colored sails of the ships in the harbor and at the docks.
Darzek began a circuit of the fair, wondering in which of those hundreds of tents Bovranulz, the Old Blind One, would be revealing—and keeping—secrets. It would have amused Darzek to stand in line for an interview, since the old man had predicted they would not meet in OO; and there was much that Darzek wanted to ask him.
But there also was much that he had to find out for himself, and quickly. He needed to know at once whether the Duke of OO, too, was guarding something of immense value. Darzek’s apparently aimless wandering about the fair was directed so as to give him a good view of the castle from several angles.
This was the province where the duke, the brother of the Winged Beast’s Protector, was attempting to revive the old religion. The Mound of the Sun had not been dismantled, but even from a distance the atmosphere of neglect was evident. Black capes and hats could be seen everywhere. Whip-armed lackeys, with somber black uniforms to match their capes, moved about in pairs, eying everyone and everything suspiciously. Black knights, wearing lavish black uniforms trimmed with a lustrous velvet-like cloth instead of armor and sporting tall, black, short-toed boots with an image of the Winged Beast embossed upon each shank, patrolled in haughty solitude, and everyone made way for them.
Under the eyes of these priests of the Winged Beast, the people of OO—prosperous, superbly civilized, creative—moved about sullenly in an atmosphere whose repression was as noticeable as the humidity on a muggy summer day. They lived under a shadow, and Darzek, looking up at the hideous black symbol that soared above the fair, knew what had cast it.
The life pyramid, which offered a park-like atmosphere at other marts, was deserted in OO. Black-caped lackeys stood at each corner, and their fingers snapped sharp signals at anyone who seemed disposed to linger there or even look up at it. More lackeys surrounded the image of the Winged Beast, and they halted for questioning those passers-by whose obeisance they deemed less than suitably reverent. Darzek, remembering his experience with irate black-capes in Northpor—where they were subject to discipline by the Sailor’s League if they let their tempers get out of hand—felt profoundly sympathetic.
The people of OO were frightened. Even the children were frightened. Darzek read mute terror in every gesture, in every hesitant purchase, in every pale face.
The tension was exacerbated by the unnatural silence of the place. Darzek had thought Kamm a noisy planet, but here the carts, except for that of an occasional late-arriving vendor, were parked in silence. The nabrula were banished to remote stables. The very uneasiness of the populace seemed to subdue its natural noises. The humming, the grunting, the snorts and coughs that elsewhere were spontaneous emittances of all Kammians, were not heard.
The people even walked silently, their wooden-soled shoes somehow negotiating the cobblestones without clomping. Females and vendors haggled with soundless gestures. Itinerant musicians, such as would have been a prominent feature of a fair on almost any other world, were replaced by shabby performers shaping whirling discs of color into exotic patterns for small groups that watched intently but did not applaud.
Kamm, the Silent Planet. For the first time that concept oppressed Darzek. Silence seemed to hang about him heavily as he watched the slow-moving crowds, watched the triangular-shaped coins fall noiselessly onto the vendors’ padded trays, watched insect-like creatures buzzing in furious silence over a soggy pile of something that looked like sea mollusks. He repressed an urge to cry out; he knew the sound would drop from his lips unheard.
And everywhere were the priests of the Winged Beast, thei
r blackness starkly delineated against the brightly appareled populace. One knight, elegant in his velvet-trimmed uniform, startled Darzek into alertness by walking slowly past and then whirling suddenly to stare at him. He walked on a short distance and again turned to regard Darzek suspiciously.
Darzek told himself sternly, “A peddler on fair day who stands around gaping and doesn’t peddle is not behaving normally, and blackie spotted that with one glance. This may be a primitive planet, but its police aren’t stupid. So move!”
He walked on, making a looping circle of half of the fair and studying the castle when he could. He saw no tent that remotely resembled that of Bovranulz. Finally he returned to his own cart, where Sajjo was displaying her stocks of carvings to a crowd of prospective customers. Darzek was about to join her when he noticed that the black knight was following him. Sajjo observed this at the same time. She glanced quickly from the knight to Darzek, and her eyes widened with fright; but she turned her attention to her customers and did not look in his direction again. “Sajjo,” he thought, “is a better agent than most agents I have known.” He sauntered on, intending to lose himself in the crowd.
“There should be nothing abnormal about my looking at the wares of my competitors,” he told himself. “Other vendors are doing that.”
But apparently something was abnormal. The knight continued to follow him.
Moving with the crowd, he started another circuit of the fair. The sun was high overhead, and pangs of hunger prodded him to what he hoped was a thoroughly normal action. He bought some meat-filled pastry, and after proper hesitation and a brief argument about the price, he had a mess of seaweed measured out for him. He despised this particular Kammian delicacy, but in order to masquerade as a native he had to eat—and apparently enjoy—native foods. Munching on his purchases as he went, he continued to drift with the crowd.
Belatedly he discovered that his particular crowd eddy was approaching the soaring image of the Winged Beast. He moved along with it, performing the required genuflection as enthusiastically as he could manage and even leaving some of his lunch impaled on an offering stick.
After he had safely passed beyond it, he turned and looked back at the massive carving. It had been shaped from a sponge core of amazing size—each of the vast wings was a single carving, as was the body. The figure was completely black except for the fangs that the long, tapering snout bared in its vicious snarl and the knife-like talons that terminated the four feet. These were painted yellow. It was a nightmarish fantasy of a beast of prey, and its heavy shadow did indeed seem symbolic of the mute, brilliantly colored terror that gripped the citizens of OO.
When next Darzek looked behind him, he saw that the black knight was still following. Uneasily he tried to move faster, pushing his way through the crowd. His peddler’s cap probably served as a beacon, so he leaned forward, hoping to make it invisible behind the towering hairdos of a group of peasant females.
He dared another backward glance and saw that the knight had given up the chase and was standing respectfully at attention. At the same instant, the crowd began to draw back in alarm.
A gaudily gilted carriage—actually a wagon with an abbreviated caravan erected on it—moved slowly through the fair pulled by two teams of gold-ornamented nabrula. Behind the carriage staggered a Kammian male, his body nude to the waist and painted black. Behind him marched ranks of the black-caped apprentice priests, each solemnly swinging a short, multithonged whip.
Darzek followed the example of his neighbors in keeping his eyes humbly averted, but he risked an occasional, surreptitious glance. And as the carriage passed him, he photographed its occupants with one swift look. There was no mistaking the Duke of OO, who lounged in resplendent gold robes and kept his bloated face and disdainful grin focused straight ahead. It was the figure beside him that startled Darzek into raising his head and staring at the carriage. This huge, rough-looking individual wore the gold clothing of a ducal retainer with a hood covering his head. By fortuitous circumstance a shift of position made the hood gap at the moment Darzek looked, and he saw clearly the one physical attribute that could not possibly belong to a native of the world of Kamm: The duke’s companion had an ear.
The young priests strapped their victim to the post supporting the Winged Beast, and their ranks filed past him in an orderly manner, each priest giving his back one stroke. They did not even swing their whips hard, but the first lashes of those vicious thongs cut the back to ribbons and subsequent strokes began to peel off long strips of flesh. The blood gushed. The man wreathed in silent agony.
Darzek had to nerve himself to watch. He decided that the halfhearted style of whipping was done deliberately—it kept the victim alive and prolonged his torment.
The duke and his companion watched impassively. The citizens began to edge away. They applauded blood at a knightly gladiatorial contest, but they turned their backs on an act of torture. Soon the crowd had thinned out noticeably, and Darzek could see throngs of people moving along the lanes leading back into the city, headed for home.
As the crowd dispersed, Darzek suddenly realized that he was becoming increasingly vulnerable. The knight had seen him again and was moving toward him purposely. His hands, still too distant to speak clearly, seemed to be signaling something. Darzek’s mind had been totally occupied with the astonishing anatomy of the duke’s companion. Now it occurred to him that he’d have to move quickly if he expected to pass that vital information along to anyone. Other black knights and lackeys were closing in on the market place, questioning the citizens, questioning the vendors, and acting formidably suspicious of everyone. Darzek turned away and lengthened his stride.
Suddenly a whip snapped past his head. A citizen directly ahead of him staggered and spun around, clutching his arm. A dull red stain instantly obliterated the green and yellow pattern of his sleeve.
Darzek began to run even before his mind completely grasped what was happening. The whip snapped past him again, and a male’s purple hat sailed to the ground at Darzek’s feet. Beyond him, a child looked up bewilderedly with a bloody face. Darzek’s mind thundered angrily about the vermin who would use a whip in a crowd, but he ran on without breaking his stride.
By the time he reached the last row of vendor’s carts, he had outdistanced the pursuit. Both knights and lackeys, running laboriously in their ornamental footgear, floundered far behind him. The whips continued to snap, even though Darzek was far out of range, sending the vendors to cover inside and under their carts. Darzek hurdled a low stone wall and found himself on the wide pavement that ran along the docks—empty except for a scattering of huge, weather-worn warehouses. It was a dead end; there was no hiding place.
Darzek did not hesitate. He ducked into the sheltering shadow of a warehouse, crossed the pavement in three leaping strides, darted along a dock, and took a soaring leap to the deck of a ship. He quickly crept behind the stubby cabin.
It was a namafj boat, a boat that fished for the commonest sea food on Kamm, and it smelled as though last week’s cargo was still aboard. The stench was overwhelming. “Better a stinking boat than a place of honor strapped under the Winged Beast,” Darzek told himself.
He opened a door. Clothing hung on pegs. Quickly he ripped off his own clothing and pulled on what came to hand: rough trousers, a long smock with ties, a sailor’s green cape and hat. He transferred his belongings and took a moment to check the setting on his Winged Beast amulet. Then he grabbed at the handle of a tool and decided it was a broom. He hid his peddler’s clothing under a pile of cushions and stepped back onto the deck. The clothing stank as badly as the ship, but Darzek reminded himself that at this moment social acceptability wasn’t his objective.
The docks swarmed with black-capes. For the moment they were ignoring the ships, so Darzek ignored them. Deliberately he turned his back on the docks and began to sweep the deck—which needed it badly. When they came, as they certainly would, his only chance for escape lay in his assuming the gui
se of indignant innocence. He concentrated on that, and by the time the first black-cape landed on the deck with a thud, Darzek had talked himself into the mood of a furious sailor whose status and League were being insulted.
He whirled, jammed the broom handle into the black-caped lackey’s stomach, and then brought the other end down on his head. As the lackey reeled backward, Darzek flung the broom down. Off! How dare you board without permission? Off!
He knew nothing about the authority of a priest over a ship in the OO harbor; but fortunately this novice priest seemed to know even less. He backed away.
Where is the peddler? his hands signaled.
Darzek glared at him insultingly and made his hands speak as though to a child. A seagoing peddler?
He took a menacing step toward the priest, who backed up and asked, almost politely, Have you seen a peddler?
Over there, Darzek said, gesturing toward the fair, I saw a thousand. Here there are none.
The priest stood looking at him uncertainly.
This outrage will he reported, Darzek’s fingers snapped. Off!
The priest turned, made the leap back to the dock, and joined his fellows. Darzek picked up his broom and resumed sweeping. When he tired of that, he entered the cabin, arranged some cushions, and lay down. He thought he might as well rest while he could. He was likely to need the energy before the day was over.
Also, he needed to think.
The Duke of OO’s companion had been an alien from outer space. This could only mean that an Uncertified World—a non-member world—had developed interstellar travel without the knowledge of the Galactic Synthesis.
“The true measure of intelligence,” Darzek muttered, “is one’s ability to adapt to the impossible. I know this is absolutely impossible, but I saw it, and I’m going to believe it. I know that creature did not come from a member world of the Synthesis. Therefore a non-member world has somehow achieved interstellar travel right under the collective noses of agents of Rok Wllon’s Department of Uncertified Worlds without anyone noticing. Rok Wllon will have conniptions when he hears about it, and I sincerely hope we’ll both survive long enough so I can have the pleasure of telling him.”
[Jan Darzek 04] - Silence is Deadly Page 14