The Anvil of the World aotwu-1

by Kage Baker

  “You do me tremendous honor, my lord,” said Smith, feeling his heart sink. “Though I have some other problems I have to take care of, and I don’t—”

  “Understandable,” said Lord Kashban, making a dismissive gesture. “You don’t have to decide right now. But you think about it, understand? And come talk to me when you’re ready. You know where I live.

  “Here,” he said, turning to his men, who had slung Striker’s corpse between them and were preparing to take it out. He dropped the case with Lord Tinwick’s cup on Striker’s chest. “Take that home, too, and lock it up. I’m going to have a massage.”

  Smith pulled on his coat hurriedly and exited first. He walked quickly through the outer room, with the two that carried the dead man close behind him, and the Yendri turned to look at them. His eyes widened but he made no sound; only shook his head sadly as they stepped out into the street.

  Not caring to watch the body being stowed away in Lord Kashban’s palanquin, Smith faded into the crowd and put some distance between himself and the bathhouse. It was getting dark, just the blue time of twilight he had always found comforting, and yellow lamps were being lit in every street and along the seafront. He found little to comfort him now, however.

  He hated to think that he would have to accept Lord Kashban’s offer, but it was the answer to his current predicament. He’d be able to stop running, he’d have protection from the law. He’d have money. More than enough to compensate Mrs. Smith and the others for the loss of their jobs. All he’d have to do was kill people, though he had promised himself he’d never earn his living that way again.

  Not that there was any societal stigma involved in professional killing, at least among the Children of the Sun. Murder in the cause of a blood feud was honorable, and murder in the service of one’s sworn lord a sure way for a bright young person to advance. Other races had difficulty understanding this cultural tradition, though one crabbed Yendri philosopher had advanced the opinion that, since the Children of the Sun seemed incapable of practicing any form of birth control, perhaps it was best to let them indulge their need to slaughter themselves as a means of keeping their population at manageable levels.

  Smith respected tradition as much as the next man. He just didn’t like to kill.

  But it was what he was best at, and he had no other options that he could see.

  Other than a dinner date with demons.

  He had nearly reached the bottom of the hill, and was in the neighborhood of the grand hotels, the gracious private houses fronting on the sea. Cold waves boomed on the empty beach, but along the Glittering Mile it might have been summer, so many lights were lit, so many well-dressed people were out and promenading on the seafront or being jogged from one fashionable address to another in open palanquins.

  Smith hurried through them with his ragged coat collar turned up, looking for the spa. It was easy to find: it covered several square blocks. Everything was on a grand scale, with a lot of white marble and soaring columns and domes. The main entry hall was lit with barrel-sized lanterns brilliant enough to have guided ships at sea, and Smith felt dreadfully conspicuous as he scuttled in out of the night. The desk clerk stared at him in disbelief.

  Fortunately, however, he was expected, and so the clerk led him out through the scented gardens to the grandest suite in the complex. It looked like a temple from the outside. It looked like a temple from the inside, too, as Smith was to discover.

  “It’s our old friend the caravan master, Nursie,” Lord Ermenwyr yowled in delight, flinging the vast double doors wide. The clerk paled and vanished into the night. Lord Ermenwyr was stark naked except for a flapping dressing gown of purple brocade and what appeared to be a pair of women’s underpants on his head. His smoking tube was clenched in a ferocious grin, and his pupils were tiny. Behind him, a prostitute was attempting to depart discreetly, in evident distress at lacking a certain item of her attire.

  “Welcome, Caravan Master!” The lordling flung his arms around Smith. “My, you smell a lot better. Come in, it’s a catered affair, don’t you know! Lots of lovely excess. What?” he snapped at the girl, who had timidly pulled at his elbow. “Oh, you’ve no sense of romance at all.”

  He yanked off the underpants and handed them to her, then turned with aplomb and took Smith’s arm in his, towing him from the hall. “Look at it all,” he said, waving a hand at the vaulted ceiling with its mural of fluttering cherubs. “Pretty grand after all those nights of wretched wilderness, eh? Of course, a Yendri would purse his sanctimonious lips and say the glorious immensity of the stars was a far more splendid canopy for one’s repose, but you know what I say to that?” He blew a juicy raspberry. “Oh, I love, love, love decadent luxuries! Look at this!”

  Dropping Smith’s arm he ran to the immense canopied bed and hurled himself into the middle of the scarlet brocade counterpane, where he began to leap up and down. The canopy was a good fifteen feet in the air, held aloft on a gilded finial, so he ran no risk of bouncing into it.

  “I—despise—Nature,” he panted. “Whoopee!”

  “Master, did you pay that poor girl?” Balnshik came into the room, attired in a white robe demurely tied shut. “You’ve left the door open, darling. Hello, Smith.” She turned and caught his head in both her hands, giving him a kiss that left his knees weak. “Don’t mind him. He’s overexcited. You haven’t even offered him a drink, have you, you little beast?”

  “Eeek! What was I thinking?” Lord Ermenwyr scrambled down and raced into the next room, reappearing a moment later with a bottle and a glass. “Here you go, Smith. This cost an awful lot of money. You’re sure to like it.” He poured a glass and offered it to Smith with a deep bow.

  “Thank you,” said Smith. Behind him he heard Balnshik slam and bolt the great doors, and realized that it was far too late to run. What the hell, he thought, and sampled the wine. It was sparkling and tasted like stars. Lord Ermenwyr drank from the bottle.

  “Mm, good. Come on, let’s dine,” he said, and pulled Smith into the next room.

  “Oh,” said Smith, starting forward involuntarily. He hadn’t eaten in hours and was abruptly aware of it at the sight of the feast laid out on the table. There were a couple of huge roasts, a hen, oysters, a whole baked fish in wine sauce, various covered tureens, hot breads and butter in several colors, more bottles, a pyramid of ripe fruit and another of cream buns and meringues, as well as a large cake sulking in a pool of liqueur. As is usual for feasts, candied kumquats and cherries decorated nearly everything.

  “Room service,” said Lord Ermenwyr dreamily, lifting the lid on a tureen. “Floating islands! My favorite. Don’t stand on ceremony, Smith.” He plunged his face into the tureen, only to be collared and dragged back by Balnshik.

  “Sit down and put your napkin on, Master,” she ordered. “Look at you, you’ve got meringue in your beard. Simply disgusting. Please be seated, dear Smith, and pay no attention to his lordship. I shall serve.”

  And this she proceeded to do, carving the meats and arranging a plate for Smith with the best of everything, the most prime cuts, the most melting fruit, ignoring Lord Ermenwyr as he happily drank custard sauce straight out of the tureen. Then she loaded a plate for herself, filled Smith’s wineglass and her own, and sat down tête-à-tête with him as though they were alone.

  “You followed that doctor’s advice, I note, and were detoxified,” Balnshik said, shaking out her napkin. “Quite a good idea. It’s a nasty poison on those little darts, just like its inventors. Devious. Lurking. It can lie dormant in the flesh, even if one is treated with an antidote, and leap out into the blood unexpectedly later on.”

  “So—excuse me for asking, but—you really are a nurse, then,” Smith said, trying not speak with his mouth full.

  “Well, I know a great deal about death,” she admitted. “That helps, you see.”

  “Hey! He can’t pay no attention to me,” protested Lord Ermenwyr belatedly, lifting his dripping beard from the tureen. “He’s
my guest.”

  “It’s the other way around, darling,” Balnshik informed him. “You’re supposed to pay attention to him.”

  “Oh. How’s the food, Caravan Master?”

  “Wonderful, thanks,” said Smith earnestly.

  “You should see what we have for the orgy afterward.” Lord Ermenwyr giggled. “Salesh Primo Pinkweed. What fun!” He stuck his head in the tureen again.

  “I really must apologize for his lordship’s manners,” said Balnshik. “It’s a reaction. The journey was quite stressful for him.”

  “I guess we’re all lucky to be alive,” said Smith. “Have those people tried to get him before?”

  “Mm.” She nodded, taking a sip of her wine. “But seldom so persistently. His lord father had no idea they’d have the audacity to make an attempt within sight of his own house. There are probably going to be some rather horrible reprisals. Whatever my master may say, his lord father loves him.”

  “Are the rest of the children like that?”

  “No, fortunately.” Balnshik looked amused. “My master is unique.”

  Lord Ermenwyr fell off his chair with a crash.

  “Excuse me a moment, won’t you?” Balnshik requested, and, rising, she fetched a cushion and tucked it under the lordling’s head where he lay unconscious. She took the tureen from his hands and set it back on the table.

  “Is he all right?” asked Smith, alarmed.

  “It’s just the sugar hitting the drugs. He’ll sleep for half an hour, then he’ll be up and bouncing around again,” Balnshik said offhandedly, sitting back down and picking up a chop bone, which she proceeded to gnaw with unsettling efficiency. Smith noticed that there was nothing on her plate but meat, all of it blood-rare.

  “Uh … I don’t mean to be rude, but… young as he is, and sick as he is, why was he sent to Troon in the first place?” Smith inquired. “Shouldn’t he be kept at home?”

  Balnshik rolled her eyes.

  “A joke got out of hand. One of his brothers and several of his sisters tried to kill him. Not very hard, you understand, but enough to cause terrible conflicts in the servants’ hall. When you are bound by oath to slaughter any who attack one of his lord father’s getting, and then the wretched little gets attack each other—well, what are you to do? It plays havoc with the semantics of one’s geas. Very inconsiderate of them, and their lady mother"—Balnshik bowed involuntarily—"told them so, too. We were all very grateful.

  “In any case, his lord father thought the responsibility of a diplomatic mission would be good for him. My master managed the business very well, but once he’d done what he was sent for he became bored.” She glanced over at him in affectionate contempt. “He got into trouble, then he got sick. But, not being allowed home just yet, he was sent here.”

  Smith felt a wave of sympathy for the lordling. “It’s hell not being able to go home. They ought to reconsider.”

  “It’ll all blow over in time.” Balnshik shrugged. “And he loves Salesh-by-the-Sea. So much to do here.”

  “That’s good anyway,” said Smith. “Should he really have all the drink and drugs and sex he wants, though? Maybe his problem is that he’s been spoiled.”

  “That, and repeatedly raised from the dead,” Balnshik replied. “You have no idea how difficult that makes instilling proper values in a child.”

  They ate for a while in silence. Despite its vast size, the dining room was warm, and Balnshik’s robe didn’t do much to conceal her bosom when she leaned forward. His other appetites having been handsomely assuaged, Smith found himself contemplating matters of the flesh.

  If he thought too hard about who and what she was, his brain began to gibber and tell him to finish his wine, thank her, and leave with all possible speed. He found that he could ignore his brain if he gazed into her eyes and let her refill his wineglass. After the third glass his brain had stopped gibbering and lay in a quiet stupor in the back of his head, which suited him fine.

  “Mmm.” Balnshik pushed aside her plate, stretched luxuriously, and rose to her feet, smiling down at Smith. “I seem to recall making you a promise, Caravan Master. Shall we retire to the adjoining chamber? I’d love to see if you’re a master at other jobs.”

  “That’s right, the orgy!” cried Lord Ermenwyr, sitting up abruptly. He staggered to his feet, grabbed a bottle from the table, and lurched off into the adjoining chamber. Balnshik and Smith followed him. Smith paused to stare.

  This was the private Temple of Health offered in every suite, as promised in the spa’s brochures. It was an oval room with a domed ceiling of glass, through which the stars burned distantly. More white marble columns held up the dome, and between them tall stained-glass windows stood dark and opaque, except when someone passed through the garden beyond carrying a lantern. In the center a blue pool glimmered softly, giving off a fine vapor of sulfurous steam.

  To counteract the smell, censers were suspended here and there from the lamps, sending up long blue trails of perfumed smoke. All the steam and sweetness made it unlikely anyone would feel like using the exercise equipment that was dutifully set up on the far side of the pool. On the near side, the shallow end, were piled silken cushions, and a water pipe was set up beside them.

  “Hey nonny no!” Lord Ermenwyr writhed out of his robe and plunged into the pool. “Light the hubblebubble, Nursie dearest.”

  “Light it yourself,” ordered Balnshik, turning to Smith with an expression of radiant tenderness and opening his shirt. “I have a reward to bestow, you ungrateful little sot.”

  “To be sure, you do,” Lord Ermenwyr replied, leering, and leaned up out of the water and lit the pipe with another blue fireball.

  Smith was self-conscious about his various cuts, but once Balnshik threw off her robe he utterly forgot about his own body. They joined Lord Ermenwyr in the pool and shared the water pipe with him. After that things became somewhat confusing, but quite pleasant if one wasn’t easily shocked.

  Lord Ermenwyr swiftly became so intoxicated he was in danger of drowning, but refused to leave the pool for the silk cushions. Instead he yelled an incantation, and from the suddenly roiling water a swim bladder emerged, of the whimsical sort generally provided for children. Instead of being a swan or seahorse, however, it was a mermaid with immense pneumatic breasts. He clambered into her embrace and bobbed about for a while making rude remarks until he passed out, tethered to the side only by the umbilical cord of the water pipe’s hose clutched in his fist.

  “Now then, my lovely Smith,” whispered Balnshik, gliding with him to the far end of the pool. She wound her arms around him and kissed him, and they plummeted to the bottom of the pool in a long embrace. Smith could have happily drowned then, but she bore him to the surface again and set him against the coping.

  “Just you lean there, darling, rest your arms,” she told him. She kissed his throat, kissed his chest, kissed her way down to the waterline. Then she went below the waterline.

  Moaning happily, he leaned his head back and closed his eyes. In addition to Balnshik’s other talents, she was evidently able to breathe underwater.

  Though not to hear underwater, apparently; which was why Smith was the only one to notice the struggle taking place outside the nearest stained-glass window.

  Dragging his attention back from sweet delight with profound reluctance, he opened his eyes. Yes. Even stoned as he was, he could tell that was unmistakably a fight out there. Blade clanging on blade, scuffling boots, a muffled curse. He was gazing up at the stars in the roof and wondering if he ought to do anything about it when the question became academic.

  Something blocked the stars and then the glass dome shattered inward, as two hooded figures dropped through on ropes like a pair of spiders. Before Smith could react, something else crashed through the window behind him, sending blue and green and violet glass panes everywhere. Smith gulped, aware that he had no weapons of any kind.

  But it seemed he didn’t need any.

  There was a new
roiling in the water, and something rose roaring to the surface. It was not a toy mermaid. It was gigantic, serpentine, scaled, writhing, monstrous, and it was the color of a thundercloud. Its teeth were a foot long. It snarled up at the men who had come through the ceiling, regarding them with eyes like glowing coals. They screamed.

  Smith swam for his life to the shallow end of the pool, where Lord Ermenwyr still drifted unconscious.

  “Up! Up! Out!” he shouted incoherently, grabbing for the first thing he could reach, which happened to be the lordling’s beard. It came off in his hand, loosened by its long immersion in custard sauce and bathwater. He stood, staring at it stupidly. Lord Ermenwyr opened outraged eyes. Then he saw what was happening over Smith’s shoulder, and his little naked punk’s face registered horror.

  “You wear a fake beard,” said Smith in wonder.

  “It’s a facial toupee,” Lord Ermenwyr told him furiously, rolling to the side as something hissed through the air from behind them. It smacked into one of the mermaid’s breasts, which began to deflate. Smith looked down and saw a feathered dart.

  Turning, he beheld Ronrishim Flowering Reed in the act of drawing breath for another shot. A wounded man was dragging himself along the coping after Flowering Reed, stabbing at the Yendri’s ankles.

  Smith acted without thinking. He had a false beard instead of a knife in his hand, so the effect wasn’t as drastic as it usually was, but satisfying all the same. The sodden mess slapped full into Flowering Reed’s face with such force it knocked the little blowpipe down his throat. He choked and fell backward. The man on the coping grabbed him and pulled him close, running the dagger into him several times. A wave broke over the coping and obscured them in bloody foam. Smith tried not to look at what was happening in the deep end of the pool.

  Lord Ermenwyr had splashed out and was running for the dining room, and Smith raced after him. He barely made it through before the double doors slammed. Lord Ermenwyr leaned against them, gasping for breath.