Reave the Just and Other Tales
Page 39
After a moment, however, the fact that he had just stolen my horse penetrated my thoughts.
Stolen my horse and abandoned me—
Without considering my actions, I pitched my worn limbs into a laborious run. In my mind, I shouted after him, Ho, fellow, fool, thief! Is this how you repay a debt? That is my horse! Nevertheless my lips released neither indignation nor protest. I could not voice what filled my heart. He was too substantial to be touched by my accusations.
Yet I required some outcry—I could not remain silent. Like a madman, I wailed at his back, “At least tell me your name! You are in my debt. Tell me who repays me.”
At that, he turned. The jarring beast I had ridden from Benedic pranced a neat curvette, then struck a pose of disdain while it awaited its rider’s next command. I stopped to hear him, and his answer reached me as clearly as a curse.
“I am Sher Urmeny.”
I was no longer certain of what I saw. My nag may have reared, pawing scorn into the air, before it bore its rider away.
Slack-jawed with astonishment, I stared after them. Had I been bereft of my wits? Perhaps so. Did the traveler mean to ride my horse to Benedic, calling himself by my name? My name? I wished to believe that I had misheard him, but his announcement conveyed too much certainty. First he stole my horse. Then he took my name? Because he was in my debt?
Briefly I became so incensed that I fumed at the sky, stamping my feet and flailing my fists. However, I lacked the energy for such displays, and the heat of the day chastened them. Soon I grew calmer.
It was necessary for me to choose my course.
I could not remain where I was—so much was plain. When I had done railing at dark necromancers and thieving travelers, I would be left alone under the hard sun, hungry and friendless. Therefore I had no alternative but to continue my journey—or to return to Benedic. Wearily, I considered the matter.
In the name of my sanity, if not of my survival, I wished to increase my distance from Sher Abener—and from the traveler as well. I could have crossed the Ibendwey easily now—trudged footsore and beaten as a mendicant along the way I had begun this morning. The journey might slay me, however, unaccustomed as I was to such travel. I had no strength for the task. I also had no robe to protect me when the night grew cold. The man in my debt had taken it with my horse. If I wished to live, I must turn toward my lost home.
The prospect filled me with a dread bordering upon nausea. Yet it seemed unavoidable. Striving to summon courage enough for the hazard, I concentrated my attention, not upon Sher Abener, but upon the madman I had rescued.
Never before had I undertaken an action as perilous as broaching the Ibendwey’s spate. At another time, I might have prided myself on it. But my debtor repaid me by stealing my horse and pretending to my name.
In one sense, I had not the slightest comprehension of what had passed between us. In another, however, I found that I understood it well enough. Stripped of my life, degraded by friend and foe alike, dismayed by sun and thirst and futility, I had become somewhat mad myself. I could account for the behavior of madmen.
Perhaps he sincerely considered that he might repay his debt by confronting the difficulties which had driven me from my home. For that reason, he meant to ride into Benedic upon my nag, proclaiming himself with my name. But he would be laughed to scorn. I was too well known to be replaced by an impostor. If he were fortunate, he would merely receive ridicule and disregard—or perhaps expulsion from the municipality. Otherwise, he might find himself imprisoned by the Thal—or, worse, noticed by Sher Abener.
So it seemed to me that if I followed him I might eventually gain an opportunity to reclaim my horse.
This appeared my best hope. Certainly, I could not imagine another. Therefore I swallowed my visceral alarm, mustered the remains of my strength, and set out upon the course I had chosen.
Sadly, the vitality of decision soon deserted me. By the time I had crested the ridge and put the river behind me, I knew that even this road might prove too arduous. I should have drunk from the Ibendwey when I could. A furnace of thirst had come to fire in the parched tinder of my throat, and my tongue had swollen beyond speech. Yet that distress was no more than a dull misery beside the state of my feet. My sandals had been made for decoration rather than travel—already they had galled my skin to blisters and blood. Yet when I removed them I learned that the roadway was rougher than I had realized. Pebbles and shards gouged at my soles until I donned my sandals again. Then the straps of the sandals ate like acid at my flesh until I removed them again. Though the sun threatened to scald my face and neck and hands, I hardly noticed that hurt through the pain of my abused feet.
Benedic was the only destination I could hope to gain. Any farther goal would have seen me sprawled by the roadway in despair. Only the thought that I might retrieve my mount kept me upright.
Even so, I might have faltered and failed, were it not for the curious fact that the stranger seemed unable to outdistance me. Though the nag moved at a light trot, horse and rider remained in view. Indeed, I appeared to gain on them. By some means which baffled me, my abject trudge closed the distance. I made no effort to hasten after them. Yet I shortened their lead stride after stride.
Thus they lured me on through my misery. By the time they gained the walls of the municipality, they were no more than a pike’s cast ahead of me.
At other times, I had enjoyed the vista of those walls. Their clean and sweeping lines proclaimed Benedic’s kempt grace to all who approached. Now, however, they served principally to restore my apprehension. My feet were so bloody, and my skin so burned—my unhappiness so complete—that I had not thought myself still capable of fear. Yet I valued my survival enough to dread Sher Abener.
I wished to reclaim my mount here, outside the walls—away from the necromancer.
Stumbling, I strove to improve my pace, so that I might draw nearer to the impostor.
It was customary that Benedic’s open gates were guarded. It was not customary that the guards attended to their duties. The municipality had been a place of placid commerce and easy wealth for many years. Guards watched the gates only to inform strangers that they must pay their courtesies to the Thal, both in respect and in coin. When I had ridden outward, I had seen no sign that anyone marked my passing. Indeed, I had assumed that both pikemen slept in the gatehouse.
Yet now they stood against the traveler and my nag, their pikes crossed and clenched between them in righteous trepidation.
“Halt!” one of them called in a voice which may have quavered.
The stranger sat my mount with an air of authority. “What is the meaning of this indignity, fellow?” he responded. “I am Sher Urmeny. Benedic is my home. I am known here. Admit me at once.”
I was near enough to hear him. Nevertheless I believed for a moment that I had mistaken his reply. He could not be such a fool. I was indeed known here. In another moment, he would be answered with mockery.
But he was not. “Still you must halt, Sher,” the guard retorted. His voice gathered the force of duty. “We are commanded to apprehend you. Your offenses have displeased the Thal, Sher Urmeny, and you must appear before his judgment.”
For the space of several heartbeats, I stopped in dismay. The pikeman had called the stranger by my name? He could not see the truth? I felt as though the hard dirt and stone of the roadway had lurched beneath my feet, causing me to totter for balance. I beheld my usurper and the guards, the gates and the wall, distinctly in the heavy light of the sun—and yet they appeared to dissipate as I stared, sacrificing their substance to moonshine and guesswork. I almost expected them to become mist and disappear before me—mirages cast by heat and thirst, and by nothing else that I had ever known.
Nevertheless the man on my nag dared disdain. “This is unjust,” he countered sternly. “I am ignorant of any offense. Why is the Thal displeased?”
Without warning, I staggered out of my immobility. This was intolerable! That man claimed my name—and the Thal pikemen acknowledged him? Did they mean to visit the Thal’s—and Sher Abener’s—displeasure at me upon his demented head? His madness had overtaken them as well as himself.
“Fools!” I cried. My parched throat permitted only a harsh croak, but I gave it what vehemence I could. “Has the sun baked your wits? Have you been bedazzled?” Unsteadily I hastened forward. “I am Sher Urmeny. I am known to you!
“That is a madman.” My arm trembled with indignation as I indicated the traveler. “I am clad in sweat and grime, and close to death from thirst, but I am known to you!”
The man I had rescued paid no heed to my protest—indeed, he appeared not to have heard it—but both guards turned from him to regard me balefully. The one who had yet spoken addressed me.
“Have a care, fellow,” he pronounced. “This man has been apprehended, it’s true—but he’s no wandering caitiff to be insulted by the likes of you. He is a Sher of Benedic, and holds a respected place among us. Be off, or we will cast you to the outer middens. Seek alms elsewhere. Beggary and destitution are unwelcome here.”
This reproof shocked me so entirely that I halted my advance and closed my mouth. Because I could not comprehend what I had just heard, my mind shied from it. Staring aghast at the guards and my pretended self, I thought of nothing except the surprising revelation that Benedic repulsed the ruined and the poor. I had not known our Thal ruled so. I had always conveniently believed that the gates and opportunities of the municipality were open to all who came this way.
By some means I could not explain, the stranger appeared to solidify himself against the guards. His tone assumed an ominous hue—a color of warning. “Nevertheless,” he vowed, “I will not dismount for men who perform such duties. Attend me to the Thal if you must, and I will answer his displeasure. But do not pretend that you compel me.”
Seconding its rider, the nag arched its neck regally and stamped its hooves as though the decrepit, broken-gaited beast had been bred to battle.
Although they sneered at me, the guards blanched visibly before my usurper. They must truly have credited his assumption of my name. Together, they bowed. “As you wish, Sher Urmeny,” said the first, nearly fawning where but a moment earlier he had been peremptory. “If you will ride between us, we will escort you.”
The man inclined his head in condescension. Proud as a suzerain, he rode my mount through the gates into Benedic. Quickly the guards took their places at his sides, but he ignored them.
They appeared to forget me at once when they turned their backs—why, I did not know. Yet forget me they did. Although they had warned me away, they did not close the gates against me, or give any sign that they noticed me as I followed.
The lunacy of my circumstances frightened me more with every stride. Bloody of foot and broiled of body, I lurched after my horse and my name, as lost in what transpired as this eerie traveler had been in the lbendwey’s spate. I had no recourse but to follow, however. My need for a mount remained unaltered. And I had received a blow which seemed to compel me.
That the stranger claimed my name was merely madness. He did not know the peril it conveyed. But that the guards who knew me believed him—ah, that was the stuff of dismay and nightmares. It shook me to my heart, chiefly because it seemed to remove me from existence, depriving me of substance entirely, but also because it implied theurgy, a glamour to confuse the senses of the pikemen. And theurgy could not stand against necromancy.
If the stranger’s power to assume my place held, he would suffer harm meant for me.
I found that this appalled me as much as the loss of my identity. It reft me, not only of my name, but of my value to myself. I had refused Sher Abener’s demands and incurred his wrath—I and no other. If the consequences fell upon the stranger in my stead, my refusal was diminished to the point of triviality.
Even Tep Longeur’s plight had not so thoroughly effaced the worth of my life.
Despite my helplessness to direct events, I must somehow persuade my usurper to give over his charade before he reached the Thal’s estate, or he would find himself at Sher Abener’s mercy.
Fearing each step I took, I clutched at any hope I could conceive. Perhaps my usurper’s glamour would fail before more sophisticated witnesses. If we encountered someone acquainted with theurgy, that individual might pierce and dispel the confusion. Then my name would be restored to me—and I might be able to reacquire my horse.
Thus we passed along the benign avenues of Benedic, the roadways and prospects I had loved throughout my life—he on my mount, the Thal’s guards beside him, and I wincing behind them, so weary and worried that I could hardly keep my feet out of the nag’s droppings.
At first, we passed only a few streetsweepers, a day laborer or two, the occasional artisan abroad in the municipality to procure or fulfill a commission—no one who might meet my need. Soon, however, I saw ahead of us a new test of the stranger’s power to displace me. A sterner test—or so I imagined hopefully. Along the avenue came an open phaeton bearing none other than Sher Obalist and his lady. They knew me well, for they were my neighbors. Their grounds edged mine on the less propitious side of my villa. And they employed a theurgist to entertain, advise, and defend them. Surely they were familiar with the arts and actions of theurgy.
From their route and the time of day, I concluded that Sher and Sharna Obalist were homeward bound from one of the racing festivals at which our Thal celebrated his latest steeds. If so, it was apparent that Sher Abener’s enmity and my flight had not altered ordinary events in Benedic by so much as a shrug.
I reacted without forethought. To the extent that I was still capable of sane intent, I considered that I might help penetrate the stranger’s glamour if I acted promptly. With as much dignity as my damaged feet permitted, I rushed ahead of my usurper and his escort in order to accost Sher Obalist.
His garb and that of his lady confirmed that they had indeed come from the races. On another occasion, I might have taken a moment to compare his raiment with mine—and to congratulate myself upon my better taste. Now, however, the contrast was all to his advantage. Sweat-and road-stained as I was, I compared unfavorably with his grooms and lackeys.
Plump and portentous, he peered out from his phaeton as though he were uncertain of what he saw. Unfortunately, his regard was fixed, not on me, but on the stranger. He might have been unaware of my presence.
Bowing politely to my usurper, he pronounced, “Sher Urmeny,” like a man who felt constrained to deliver unpleasant tidings.
The stranger bowed in response, but did not speak.
I made an attempt to intrude between them. “Sher Obalist.” Although dust and thirst threatened to choke me, I forced words from my abused throat. “Sharna. You must help me.”
His lady noticed me before he did. Her gaze dropped to mine, and at once a look of fright disturbed her lacquered countenance. Around her eyes and mouth, the paints and polishes which concealed her years cracked as she shrank back into her cushions. One hand clutched urgently at her husband’s forearm.
The Sher turned a perplexed frown toward her. He seemed unable to see me until she pointed me out. When he had followed her trembling indication to its target, however, he noticed me at last.
His expression became a scowl of disapproval. Jowls quivering, he commanded, “Stand aside, fellow. You have come between your betters. Here is Sher Urmeny, and I must speak with him.”
Even in my unbalanced state, I observed that he did not refer to me as “my esteemed neighbor, Sher Urmeny,” as was his custom. No do
ubt his familiar fulsomeness had been cooled by the knowledge that the Thal was displeased with me.
“No, Sher Obalist,” I insisted with more ardor than he was accustomed to hearing. “You must speak with me. I am Sher Urmeny.
“Gaze upon me closely,” I urged. “You will see that I speak truth. That man”—I flung an unsteady accusation toward the stranger—“is a charlatan who seeks to impose upon your credulity.” Certainly he failed to resemble me in any particular.
When the Sher did not respond—did not in fact appear to comprehend what I said—I appealed to his lady, with whom I had often flirted out of courtesy, dissembling personal distaste. “Sharna. You know me. You know—”
My supplication went no farther. Without warning, one of the guards dealt me a cuff to the ear, which caused me to stumble against Sher Obalist’s near horse and then fall, tumbling like refuse to the roadway.
I did not lose consciousness, despite my exhaustion. I heard what passed above my head. To some extent, I retained my sight. However, the capacity for movement deserted me entirely. If my neighbor’s horses had stepped on me, I might have been unable to cry out.
Sher Obalist’s voice reached me through a clamor of pain. “Such a fellow has no place here,” he informed the guards indignantly. “He must be ejected from Benedic.”
“He will be, Sher,” one of them answered. “We will return for him when we have conveyed Sher Urmeny to the Thal.”
“See that you do so.”
“You wished to speak to me,” the stranger interjected mildly. He betrayed no interest in my condition.
Disconcerted, Sher Obalist huffed, “Indeed. So I did.” Apparently he could not at first recall what he had intended to say. “That is”—with an effort he mastered the disturbance of his thoughts—“I meant to express my concern, and that of my lady.” He patted the Sharna’s hand as though to console her. “The Thal’s displeasure is severe. It must be appeased. But I trust that you will answer the difficulty for the benefit of us all.” His tone suggested the reverse of this pious sentiment. “And indeed of all Benedic,” he concluded portentously.