Istu awakened wop-2

by Robert E. Vardeman

  Fost ran a finger around the inside of his linen collar beneath the cuirass. The armor sweltered fearsomely.

  'I know more of those who aren't here,' he said in an aside to Moriana, who nodded, busily mopping her own brow with a cloth from a bowl of scented water brought by a page.

  Harek was absent, the small argumentative Assemblyman from Duth; he had fallen under the blades of the Zr'gsz. The immense bulk of Magister Banshau of the Wirix Institute of Magic was conspicuously absent, fortunate in the light of the bleachers' continuing threat to collapse. He still lay recovering from wounds received during the abortive coup. Nor was the Dwarven Jorean Ortil Onsulomulo on hand. The half-breed captain was on board his ship making preparations to sail with a cargo of Medurimin patricians who were less than optimistic about the outcome of the new War of Powers and thought this a propitious time to relocate to Jorea or the Sword Kingdoms.

  Also missing was the gaunt old knight, Sir Tharvus, last of the three Brother Knights of the Black March. He had disappeared after the victory in his home country. Dark, dire rumors were whispered about his current doings.

  The first to the platform were duly honored. Ch'rri accepted the rank of marquessa by seizing Teom's head with both hands and kissing him deeply, so that he flushed red from lack of air. Lascivious hoots rose from the crowd. This being High Medurim, such doings were not wholly alien even to the elaborate Imperial punctilio, so proceedings were not delayed, though it looked as if Teom wished they could be to pursue Ch'rri's further gratitude.

  The herald cleared his throat. His eyes darted over the bleachers and signalled to Fost an instant before the call went out.

  'Fost, called the Long-Treader, Marshal of High Medurim, arise and come forward,' he intoned in a voice several sizes too large for him. Fost managed to grimace only slightly at the mangling of his name, got to his feet, crossed his arms and waited.

  The herald blinked myopically. This was irregular, but Fost was not going to walk down in front of all those people alone. It had been arranged in advance that he and Moriana should go forward together. Obviously, arrangements had been mislaid.

  The waiting game stretched on for long seconds. Fost began to regret the whole thing, particularly since he roasted inside his armor. At last, the herald blinked, cleared his throat again, and boomed, 'The Princess Moriana, Pretender to the Throne of the City in the Sky, step forward and be recognized.'

  Moriana rose and the two went down hand-in-hand, she tight-lipped at being called second. They were halfway down when Fost became aware of the weight bumping at his right hip. 'Damn,' he swore. Moriana squeezed his hand.

  'It's all right. I forgot to leave Ziore behind, too.'

  'Just as well we brought them, I suppose. Erimenes would probably heckle me from the stands.' 'Very perceptive, friend Fost,' the genie tittered.

  'Quiet!'

  They approached the kiosk and, after a slight hesitation, fell to one knee before it. 'Fost Long-Treader,' the herald said again.

  'Longstrider, you dunce!' hissed Erimenes.

  Paling at being corrected out of thin air, the herald cleared his throat again. 'Fost Longstrider, rise and approach the Presence.'

  His hand itching to clout the spirit's jug, Fost rose, stepped forward the requisite three paces and went to one knee again, thanking Zunhilix silently for providing padded greaves.

  'For Honors Won and Services Rendered on the Field of Battle,' the herald began, his words ringing with pomposity, 'it pleases his Sublime and Imperial Majesty, Lord of All Creation, Conqueror of the Barbarians, Caster-down of the presumptuous Fallen Ones -' Erimenes snickered. Fost squeezed his eyes shut and prayed to be struck by lightning. '- to invest you Archduke and Knight of the Empire.' Fost started up but the herald droned on relentlessly.

  'As such you are elevated to the highest ranks of Imperial patrician. Know that from this day forth you shall receive all perquisites appurtenant to your exalted rank: the right to stand between Sub-Archdukes and Grand Archdukes in the bedchamber of Their Imperial Majesties -' 'Is that good?' whispered Erimenes. 'It means I outrank the boy who empties the chamberpots.' 'I thought the Palace had waterclosets?'

  'The Guilds won't let them abolish the job. Now shut up!' Fost felt a million eyes on him. He was sure that the herald heard the byplay but the man plowed ahead with his recitation. '- and of droit de seigneur -'

  'That's promising,' said Erimenes, this time not even bothering to whisper. 'Hush!' '- and to administer the High Justice, and the Low Justice -' 'What's that?'

  'It means,' said Fost, exasperated, 'I can hang thieves and collect taxes. Or maybe hang tax collectors. Same thing.'

  '- and to be immune to seizure of person and all real property without direct order of His Celestial Majesty, wherever the Writ Imperial shall run.'

  'Ought to be safe as long as you don't wander off the Palace grounds,' Erimenes said. Fost shook the satchel. Erimenes's words were cut off by his sputtering attempts to avoid the buffeting.

  The herald's words droned to an end. Fost felt the heavy jeweled scepter Teom held thump him on first the left shoulder, and then the right. The clanging seemed to fill the entire Plaza as his armor quivered under the onslaught.

  'Arise, Sir Fost, O well-beloved subject and servant of the Sapphire Throne.'

  None too thrilled at having attained the exalted rank of servant, Fost pushed himself upright. His left knee emitted a splitting crack. He wobbled to be caught and kissed full on the mouth by the Emperor. Released, Fost staggered backwards to Moriana's side. The Emperor's aphrodisiac perfume made him unsteady and decidedly aroused, even though this was hardly the time or the place for such things. Backing up a half pace, he stumbled again. Moriana's strong arm circled his waist and held him upright until he cleared the cloying perfumed vapors from his head and regained his balance. 'Well done, Your Grace,' Erimenes told him sarcastically.

  'Moriana Etuul,' the herald roared, pointedly ignoring the extra voice chirping in from time to time, 'Princess and Pretender to the Beryl Throne, Mistress of the Clouds, beloved cousin of our Emperor Teom the Magnificent, arise and approach the Presence.'

  Moriana did as she was bid, but before she could step forward, a loud rumble like an avalanche in progress rolled from left to right across the Plaza. 'Thunder?' asked Fost. 'We should be so lucky,' shot back Erimenes. 'Look to your left.' His heart nearly jumped free of his chest.

  'Death!' shouted the mob as it crashed like surf against a line of blue-plated Watchmen, who stood their ground with halberds levelled. 'Death to the foreign sorceress!'

  A sergeant rapped an order. The gleaming blue line of the Watchmen took a step back and prepared for the crowd.

  Across the cordon of armored Watchmen a figure arthritically mounted the steps of the Ministry of Sanitation. A tall figure, thin almost to the point of emaciation, clad in torn and faded tunic and trousers that had once been as red as freshly shed blood threw up his frail matchstick arms and emitted a wordless screech of pure hatred. The crowd surged, rallying to him.

  'Seize the witch, the traitress!' shrieked Sir Tharvus of Black March, flinging out an accusing arm and pointing straight at Moriana. 'Slay her, slay the betrayers of humankind who shelter her in their bosoms! They are traitors and deserve to die with her!' Roaring like a rabid animal, the crowd surged forward.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The halberds flailed, blades rising to flash white-hot in the sunlight, rising again to the company of screams to gleam the dull red of blood. The mob faltered. It momentarily lacked a leader, someone to urge them forward into the face of death. The faint-hearted in the crowd began to edge away from the soldiers. But the crowd didn't disperse. In the back rallied tight knots of angry citizens. Parties of stout men in dusty aprons finally pushed forward, hauling great chunks of pale-veined white stone. The others in the mob heartened and began to chant cadence as their newfound heroes cast the hundredweight blocks. Unwieldy in their carapaces, a half-dozen Watchmen went down beneath the crushing
chunks of marble.

  It was enough. The crowd rushed forward again while Sir Tharvus's voice whipped it, crying out for blood. The remaining Watchmen fought, then vanished from sight as if they were sailors drowning in the vast Joreal Ocean. Teom stared, his eyes wide with terror at what befell his troops. Fost gripped the hilt of ceremonial sword and swore. Moriana had her own straight blade, but Fost's broadsword had been judged too unorthordox for the investiture. That left him armed with a weapon hardly fit for swatting flies.

  The soldiers assembled down the avenue held ranks, though whether by design or confusion of their officers there was no knowing. Across the hundred yards of cleared space in the Plaza raced the crowd, waving sticks and bats and other makeshift weapons. Above their shrill cries came the shriller chants of Sir Tharvus. Madness had seized him and lent his frail frame power beyond reckoning. And that power transmitted to the crowd and fed their pent-up hostilities. There was carnage.

  'You hoped things would get better,' Fost told Erimenes, pulling the satchel flap back from over the jug inside. If he and Moriana were about to be murdered by the mob, Erimenes might as well get an unobstructed view.

  'Stop!' The voice rolled like a great bell, drowning even the strident cries of Sir Tharvus.

  Quiet descended over the crowd scattered across the marble flagstones of the Plaza. Down from the bleachers strode Foedan, tall and unafraid, holding his arms wide as if smoothing the jagged emotions of the crowd. The crowd faltered, lost impetus. He walked toward the bloodstained leaders. Fost and Moriana clearly heard the padding of his soft suede boots on the marble.

  'Cease this display,' he said. The mob stared at him, weapons hanging limp in a hundred hands. 'This woman has saved you from destruction. You should fall on your knees with gratitude, not attack her like so many jackals.'

  'But… but she's a witch!' a voice faltered from the middle ranks of the crowd.

  'She is a sorceress. Were she not, the Fallen Ones would have arrived in these streets by now, bringing with them flame and thirsty blades. You and all your families would be dead, the death meted out by the damned reptiles!'

  'Don't listen to him!' Tharvus shrieked. 'Slay her! She sold out humanity to regain her throne. Slay her!' Stil! the mob remained poised on the knife edge of indecision. 'No,' Foedan said, not loudly but distinctly. 'He'll never hold them,' said Ziore. 'Moriana, do something.' Fost's stomach twisted to a sudden premonition. 'No!' he shouted. But it was too late.

  Moriana raised a hand, swept fingers in an intricate gesture. A globe of pure white light appeared over Foedan's head, competing with the sun in intensity. A moan of fear and awe swept through the crowd. The knight gazed at the mob, not seeming to notice the luminous display above his head.

  'See? He's sold out, too!' Tharvus cried. His eyes blazed with a mad light as bright as the mystic sphere hanging over Foedan. 'Behold, the witch has set her mark upon him!'

  The crowd gave throat to an animal cry of rage. They fell upon the lone, unarmed knight with club and cleaver and bare fists. He stood unmoving until the seething bodies hid him from view.

  Teom yelped like a scalded cat and raced to the steps of the Temple crying, 'Sanctuary! Give me sanctuary!'

  The platoon of Life Guards that had attended him on the bleachers went clattering by the kiosk and up the wide steps after their master. They ran as much to protect him as to save their own hides. No amount of training prepared their officers to face sure suicide by standing and fighting off this mob. 'What ho!' Erimenes sang out. 'A battle!'

  'I'm glad the prospect pleases you.' Fost drew his blade and held it in front of him without conviction.

  One of the members of the masons guild who had helped strike down the Watchmen raced at Moriana, swinging a long pry-bar he had used to lever up chunks of the paving marble. She snapped out of her fog of horror at what her attempt at help had won Sir Foedan and backed with a ringing clang of steel on iron. She fought to retain her grip on the sword as the stonemason attacked again and again. A laborer swung a hammer at Fost, and he had no time to worry about Moriana.

  Fost's blade crossed the haft of the hammer with an odd sound. The workman reeled back, mewling like a lost soul. 'Shrewdly struck,' congratulated Erimenes.

  Fost stared. The man's right hand hung from a rag of skin, yet Fost's parry hadn't come anywhere near it. Then Fost saw that his sword had bent itself into an L shape around the hardwood shaft nearly severing his assailant's hand at the wrist.

  'Come on!' he shouted to Moriana. She thrust into the twisted face of an attacker and spun, following him back to the bleachers with the mob hot after them. The flimsy wooden structure thundered and vibrated beneath frantic feet as the assembled notables fled the wrath of the populace. The mob was pouring into the Plaza from both directions now. As hazardous as the bleachers were, they offered the only ground on which to make a stand. As Fost and Moriana went booming up the stands, a hairy-armed man made a grab at Erimenes's wavering form. 'Unhand me, you rogue!' shrilled the genie.

  'Oh, my darling, are you hurt?' cried Ziore. Fost moaned. The man snatched again and seized one of the straps flapping wildly on Fost's kilt. His sword useless, Fost swung Erimenes's satchel and caught the man squarely on the side of the head. The man fell backward and went cartwheeling down the tiers of benches. One of the benches at the bottom gave way under the added weight with a loud snapping noise. The man's back was obviously broken.

  They made the top of the bleachers and turned, momentarily ahead of the pursuit. Here the angry crowd could only come at them with difficulty, and some of the most vocal members of the mob sheered off short of the steps, wary of the bleachers' penchant for falling. The would-be killers came in ones and twos. Moriana was able to send them reeling down again, gashed and bloody, while Fost propped his sword tip against the bench and tried to kick it straight again.

  He slipped, slashing his right calf, cursed, looked accidentally over the edge. The hard marble of the Plaza was a good forty feet below. There was no escape that way.

  'Where the hell are the soldiers?' he shouted, swinging his almost-straight sword against a long-haired man hacking at him with a billhook. The blade struck edge-on and didn't bend. Fost put a sandaled foot in the man's belly and sent him staggering into the sweat-streaming faces of a dozen fellows.

  'Don't expect help from them,' Moriana panted through a lull in the attacks. She pointed her chin up the street.

  'It appears your elevation is resented more than anyone anticipated,' Erimenes said dryly. 'Or perhaps the Twenty-third is paying off some long-standing grudges against the City Watch.'

  The lightly armed but more numerous infantrymen had thrown themselves against the massively armored Watch, preventing them from coming to the aid of the Imperial party. In the other direction, Imperial troops fought each other, too. Fost shook his head and spat blood. A blow had caught him in the mouth, and he hadn't noticed it until now.

  'Their commanders won't even stand trial for this,' he said bitterly. 'Look. Teom's out of it.'

  Moriana glanced across the sea of bobbing heads that flooded the Plaza. Teom and the innumerable clerics had disappeared. The great gilt valves of the Temple were shut and guarded by a line of Life Guards with raised shields and lowered spears. A fresh wave of attackers flowed against Fost and Moriana leaving no time for talk.

  An apprentice stonemason dressed in a leather jerkin thrust at Fost with a shortsword taken from a dead Watchman. Fost disengaged and ran the man through. Screaming, the apprentice toppled off the verge of the bleachers, but not before the courier had wrenched the sword from his grasp.

  Fost turned back and found a big man almost on top of him, swinging a makeshift club at his head. He caught the thick wrist in his free hand and aimed a disembowelling stroke at the giant belly squashed against his hips.

  'Ellu!' he gasped into a face he knew well from the streets of his childhood. He faltered.

  He recalled in a flash the foundling kitten they'd found and nursed toget
her with scraps of food purloined to ease the complaining of their own bellies. No such memories stayed Ellu's now-fat hand.

  'Traitor!' he snarled through spit and a cloud of reeking breath. He twisted his burly arm free of Fost's grip and cracked him across the face with his cudgel. Fost saw blackness and dancing sparks, fought to keep his balance with heels dangling over emptiness.

  Ellu raised the club to finish him off. His arm stopped in midstroke, as if caught and held by an invisible hand. A look of consternation gripped the man's florid features. Then Moriana seized his shoulder, spun him from her lover and struck him down, crying her thanks to Ziore for staying the man's hand with her emotion-confusing powers. Dizzy and nauseated, Fost dropped to his knees.

  'It's lost,' he croaked. 'We can't stand them all off. The War of Powers is lost here and now.' A blackness beyond physical oblivion clutched at him.

  He felt Moriana's hand on his shoulder, looked up through red mists of agony. He heard barks, snarls, screams, saw the crowd streaming away to the right, eastward toward The Teeming in which he'd been born. No one had reckoned with Captain Mayft and the outland cavalry. Now they came with lances couched and war dogs snapping left and right and made reckoning of their own with the mob.

  Slow and lazy the stained wooden deck rocked beneath Fost's bare feet. He smoothed wet hair from his face, drank in the salt air rich with the tar and cordage smells of the big ship and felt more relaxed than he had in days.