Liavek 5

by Will Shetterly

  Arianai nodded and went out. In front of the shop, Thyan was demonstrating eat's cradles for Theleme, who watched in amazement as the knots appeared and vanished. Arianai said, "Time to go, Theleme. Thank you, Thyan," and handed the young woman a copper.

  "I shouldn't take this," Thyan said. "It's part of serving the customers…"

  "I didn't buy anything."

  "Oh. I guess it's all right, then." Thyan grinned. From within the shop came the sound of a single clock striking nine, and Snake's voice calling, "Thyan!"

  "Oops," Thyan said, "see you later," and ducked inside.

  Theleme held up her fingers, tangled in brown string. "See, Anni? You pull, and snap she closes!" She tugged at the figure.

  "Yes, dear, I see," Arianai said, and licked her dry lips. "Let's go home, now, and you can nap."

  •

  "Well," Quard said as Arianai entered the shop, "you are by far the most regular customer I have ever had." He had some of the miniature soldiers arrayed on the counter, with books piled up to represent hills and a blue scarf for a river.

  "Tell me about shiribi puzzles," she said, trying not to look at the little metal men.

  Quard shrugged. "They involve rods and strings. The object of the puzzle is to take it apart, and then to reassemble it." He went to one of the shelves behind the counter, took down one of the puzzles; it was the size of a small melon, of dark oiled wood and white cord, with a blue glass ball caged inside. "Some, like this one, have a thing inside them, which is supposed to be 'freed,' but the problem is the same."

  "Where do they come from?"

  Quard looked up. "Toymakers, when they're not being interrupted."

  "I mean—"

  "I know what you mean. I was being hateful again. I don't know who invented them, but they're old, several thousand years at least. And most of them come from the far West, beyond Ombaya." He turned the puzzle over in his fingers. "The White priests have decided they mean something important, and wear them as symbols of whatever-it-is."

  "You make them for the Whites?"

  "I haven't yet. But then they haven't asked me."

  "Have you made them to order?" she asked carefully.

  Quard blinked his clear light eyes. "I was once asked to make one as a cage for an animal—a chipmunk, say, or a large mouse. I'd seen them before; the puzzle has to be made of something the pet can't gnaw, of course, but it can easily be fed through the openings, and when it runs for exercise the cage rolls around on the floor, which also cleans it…however, this customer wanted a bit more. The puzzle was to be designed so that a mistake in opening it would crush the animal to death."

  In her mind Arianai heard the snap of metal. "Did you build it?"

  "Is it any of your business if I did?"

  She said slowly, "Do you know Shiel ola Siska?"

  "The jeweler-mage. I know she's dead."

  "It only happened this morning."

  "They print the half-copper rags so fast these days, isn't it a wonder?" He put the puzzle back on the shelf. "Time I was going back to work. Theleme is well?"

  "Yes. Theleme is well."

  "I don't suppose I'll be seeing you anytime soon, then. Do come back if you need a toy."

  "I'm still interested in shiribi puzzles."

  "Well." Quard took down the puzzle again, spun it between his palms. "There really isn't much more to be said about them. Do you know the match take-away game, where a player can always force a win if he knows the right moves? Well, there's a general solution to these, a set of moves that will unravel any shiribi. Once you know it, they're no fun any longer."

  "Any of them?"

  "Quite simple and obvious, once it's occurred to you." He brought the puzzle down on the countertop and smashed it to pieces.

  "Quard—"

  "You did ask me for an answer, Healer. There it is. Good day."

  •

  Gorodain looked over his glass gameboard. The bronze mask was gone now; the flame had been almost greedy to receive it. The key was in the lock, and turned.

  There had been a great deal of news-rag speculation on Shiel ola Siska's apparent attempt to break into the Tiger's Eye in her last moments. Gorodain was not displeased. It would confuse and distract the temporal authorities in looking for an answer, which they would not find. He had acquired the small mask from Snake's shop some years ago, through a series of intermediaries, all of them now comfortably dead; even if Snake should recall the item's sale, there was no way of tracing it to him. And the thing itself no longer existed.

  It was just like ola Siska, Gorodain mused, to try to dispose of the thing by selling it, casting it to the winds of luck, so to speak; it was Shiel's habit of playing with sharp things that had brought her into the circle to begin with.

  Just as it would be the pretty young healer's boldness that would bring them together, that would open the bottomless spring of death and let it flow. There were, in round figures, three hundred thousand living human beings in Liavek. Three hundred thousand deaths! The thought alone was wine to the senses.

  Gorodain reached his magic to the carved glass and touched the knotted shoelace.

  •

  Teyer ais Elenaith lived in the entire top floor of a squarely dull old building in the Merchant's Quarter, fronting on the Levar's Way. The ground floor was occupied by a firm of admiralty lawyers, and the level between was packed with the lawyers' files and records, so that no one but the occasional tired clerk or nautically inclined mouse ever heard the thump of a foot from above.

  The loft was one large room, closets and a tiny bath chamber along one wall, heavy trusses and skylights overhead. Folding screens could fence off sleeping or dressing areas as needed. On the walls, dancing shoes and performance props, canes and bells and caps, hung from pegs. There were several full-length mirrors and a balance rail, and in a corner were a stack of music boxes and a large metronome.

  A few sweet-scented candles were burning, but most of the light came from the moon through the skylights. All the folding screens had been set up on the studio floor in rectilinear boxes and corridors. Moonlight, direct and from the wall mirrors, added panels of silver light and black shadow to the maze.

  Teyer ais Elenaith leaned against the wall, arms folded, one foot on the floor and one on the wainscot, examining the puzzle she had set up. She wore a loose shirt over trousers, all crimson silk of Tichen, with a broad leather belt, something she had once fancied on a sailor's hard body, riding low on her hips. Her dancing slippers were red kid, laced around her strong slender ankles. A nine-strand braid of gold wire wrapped twice around her long throat; a compromise, but one had to keep one's luck vessel within three steps—ordinary steps, not dancer's leaps—and make certain it didn't go flying during a particularly active movement. Probably the reason there weren't more dancer-magicians; of course, it also required a bit more working room than most rituals. She looked up at the ceiling beams; ais Elenaith was not a tall woman, barely five feet, and still the trusses were inconveniently low at times. Better, she supposed, than having columns interrupting the open floor.

  She went to the corner and set the metronome ticking, its brass pendulum catching moonlight on each beat. She took a few loose-jointed steps, rolled her shoulders. One, she thought to the rhythm. Two. One, two, three.

  She leaped into the shadow-maze, landing on the ball of a foot barely a span from one of the screens. She arched her back, stroked her hands down the screen without touching it, spun on her toe and sidestepped, froze again, leaped again.

  Ais Elenaith worked the maze with her whole body, threading through it start-stop-turn-leap, moving ever faster, coming ever closer to the screens without touching them, the smell of sweat mingling with the candles, the only music the tick of the metronome, the steady chord of her breathing, the bang of her feet on the floor, all in harmony.

  She came through the maze, stepped, stretched, then repeated it, faster. She came through and repeated, and now there was music in the loft, ins
truments called up through the luck around her neck, cittern and hammered harp and horn. Once again and there were bells and drums; once again and there was a chorus, and sparks showered from her hands and feet as she moved.

  Once again, and she saw him, standing by the metronome, in front of the mirror, which did not reflect him.

  He wore trousers tight enough to show every muscle—every one—of black silk that glistened in the moonlight, and around his broad bare chest was a leather harness with small gold bells, as the temple dancers of eastern Tichen wore. One gold earring, one bracelet, one anklet. He was barefoot, and his hair was tied back like a sailor's.

  So, ais Elenaith thought, was this why so many went willingly? But she was more than a heart and a will. He would have to dance for her life. She spun, clapped her hands, stepped again into the maze, hearing the temple bells chiming behind her.

  Step, turn, pause. Her music was now a bright passage for horn, counterpoint to the golden bells. One, two, leap, four. She waited for him to falter, to touch the maze. He did not. Perhaps he would not; it was not necessary. Arch, step, pivot, kick—

  Her foot snapped out, and a panel swung on its hinges, slamming closed against another with a crack and a streak of red fire. She danced on, two, three, kick, and another screen closed up.

  She circled the maze of screens, kicking higher than her chin, shutting the panels like a puzzle box, luck in her throat like the lump of arousal. Sweat spattered from her as she moved, the droplets crackling with waste luck. The candle flames were drawn toward the center of the room.

  The spell drew close. Ais Elenaith cartwheeled heels-overhead three times and drove both feet into a painted wood panel. The screens all collapsed, one on another with a crescendo of slams. All the candles blew out.

  Teyer ais Elenaith wavered on her feet. There were no more sounds of footsteps or bells or music, nothing but the metronome's tick, tick—

  It stopped beating.

  Ais Elenaith turned. The man held his finger on the pendulum. Then he held out his hand, palm up; he did not have to speak. She knew an invitation to the dance.

  She bowed. She pulled the metal braid from around her neck; it only chafed, and she was out of magic for this night. It was a strain on the strength, so much more than dancing. She pulled the lacings of her kid slippers, kicked them off. Teyer ais Elenaith took the offered hand, and saw pale green light shimmer and bounce from the mirrors in the loft.

  She began to dance. There was no hesitancy in it; she had always called hesitancy the death of the dance. And it was not hard at all, even without her luck. The stiffness that she had tried to ignore these last years was gone truly. She moved with her partner like two hands at the same task, and she danced for joy—what other way is there?

  They spun to the door, and kicked it open, and moved lightly down the stairway to the moonlit street. The partner held out his hands, and she leaped into them, was lifted into the clear night sky. Something fell away from ais Elenaith, the last concealment of the veil dance she had done so long; it crumpled beneath her feet but did not hinder her step, the green light of its bones through its flesh only a backlight to her firework movements, as she danced away from Liavek with the partner she had always known would come.

  •

  The House of Responsible Life was a boxy building at Liavek's northeast corner, between the Street of Thwarted Desire and Neglectful Street. Though not far from a city gate, it was not in a heavily traveled part of Liavek. So the occupants of the House, the religion whose color was green, did see the crowd around them.

  The Green order did not do anything at first. It was not their way to do anything: They were a faith of sworn suicides, concerned only with fulfilling all their earthly obligations and responsibilities before making an artistic exit from life. This was not too clearly understood by most Liavekans, and crowds had stared at the House before. The Order simply took no notice; there was work to do in the House and its gardens.

  They noticed the first stone through the window.

  Suddenly there were more stones, and angry shouts. Glass was breaking, and people were running, and wood splintered. A hole was battered in the garden fence, and bodies crowded through, trampling vines and crushing fruit, doing more damage by accident than design. Someone tossed in a little pig, which ran about rooting and squealing.

  At the front of the House, a novice came out of the main double doors and hurried to close the window shutters; a shower of stones drove her to cover. Voices were loud and without meaning. Someone lit a torch. The crowd, some fifty people, moved forward.

  The front doors opened again, and a man in green robes came out. He was not tall, with long hair and large brown eyes in a soft face. He walked down the three green steps, and went straight toward the mob, to the man holding the torch. Missiles shot past him; he ignored them.

  The Green priest put both hands on the burning roll of papers and jerked it out of the holder's grip. He threw it down and stamped on it.

  The crowd faltered, fell back a step. They muttered in a low rumble that was not quite speech. The Green priest stood still. The crowd started to surge forward again.

  There was a gunshot, and then a voice: "All right, that's enough!" To one side, pressing in on the crowd, was a line of City Guards in gray. Most had swords out; a few carried flintlock shotguns, clumsy but able to splatter men like thrown tomatoes. The shot and the voice had come from a Guard captain with black hair and a fierce expression. Her double-barreled pistol was still leveled, and people were backing away from her as from a plague carrier.

  The crowd was breaking up, people colliding with one another, drifting away from the House, falling down, getting up and running.

  It was over almost as quickly as it had started, the street emptying out as the line of Guards pressed forward. The Green priest had not moved. The captain walked up to him.

  "Hello, Verdialos," Jemuel said. "Nice morning."

  "I can recall better," the priest said, "and worse." He turned to survey the damage to the House, then walked quickly to the bush where the novice was still huddling. "Are you hurt, my dear? No, that's good. Go inside now, and tell Cook I said to give you two honeycakes and some strong tea." He turned back to Jemuel. "The gardens?"

  "I've got some people back there." She took her pistol off cock and put it away. "Dialo, I realize you're sworn to kill yourself, but weren't you trying rather hard at it just then?"

  "Oh," Verdialos said, and his eyes went very round and white. "I didn't…well, it was their stoning the girl. It made me angry."

  "Angry. You? If I put that in the report, no one will believe it."

  "Would you then also put down that my order takes complete responsibility for the green deaths, so that won't be believed either?"

  "We're doing what we can, Dialo. Do you want guards full time?"

  "I'll put it to the Serenities, but I don't think so. It might only encourage another mob. We were fortunate today." Jemuel nodded. "I wanted to tell you that I've been put on special duty to deal with this green mess. No offense."

  "None taken. If we learn anything, of course we'll let you know."

  "Thanks. Dialo."

  "Thank you, Jem. Good death to you."

  "I'll just say good day, thanks."

  Jemuel took a footcab back to the Guard offices in the Levar's Palace; the runner grudgingly took a city credit slip for the fare, but insisted on a cash tip.

  Jemuel made out the reports on the night's dirty work and the incident at the House of Responsible Life. The riot—she had to call it that—was really bad news; the Regent would want to know if Liavek were being pushed to the edge by the deaths, and the truth, that in a city of three hundred thousand you could get fifty people together to throw rocks on any excuse at all, would not reassure him a bit.

  Only three deaths, she thought. More people than that died every night in the Old City, of starvation or other sharp edges. But these were all wizards, and even people who knew better—like oth
er magicians—tended to think of wizards as immortal. And it was certainly a creepy way to go. Sen Wuchien's body was four days cold in the morgue, with nobody to claim it, and still glowing. Somebody wanted to keep him on the slab, to see how long he did glow. There was a typically morgue-ish joke about saving money on lamp wicks.

  Her pen was starting to wobble. So this was special duty: she was supposed to end her shift with the end of the night watch, and here it was morning with a vengeance. She shoved her chair back from her littered desk, put her feet up, and closed her eyes. Immediately there was a knock at the door.

  Lieutenant Jassil put his red-haired head in. "Captain? Someone here to see you. It's Thyan, from Snake's place."

  "Sure, Rusty."

  The Tichenese girl came in. Jemuel gave her forehead a pat in greeting. "What news, mistress?"

  Thyan held out a small shiny thing. "Snake thought you'd want to see this."

  Jemuel looked at the object. "Fhogkhefe," she said.

  Thyan giggled and blushed slightly. "That's a good one, Captain."

  Jemuel said, "You speak Bhandaf?"

  "I work in Snake's shop, Captain. I can swear in sixteen languages."

  "Come visit this office on a holiday night, you'll learn sixteen more," Jemuel said. "Come on, let's go talk to Snake."

  •

  Quard was reading when Arianai came in. He put the book down, said, ''I'm sorry about yesterday. I was upset."

  "Would you like to tell me what you were upset about?"

  "No."

  She nodded. "I guess the apology will have to do, then. Would you mind talking about Theleme?"

  "She's not ill again?"

  "No. She's fine. I wanted to ask—you seemed to slip into her dream so readily."

  "You wondered if I knew something about green men?" Quard said, an edge in his voice. "Green men who kill?"

  "That's not it at all," Arianai said. It was at least halfway the truth. "I was wondering…if we could work out where the nightmare came from, so she could be protected from having it again."