Istu awakened wop-2

by Robert E. Vardeman

  The wind came from the port quarter, fair for passage west to the turning of the land, fairer still for Tolviroth. They made good time to the place where the outflow of the Lo stained green seawater brown. Their escort made a slow turn, dipped flag in salute and began to pull back for High Medurim, a proud and lonely remnant of lost Imperial might and grandeur.

  Despite Fost's apprehensions, there was not real trouble. A flotilla of galleys with drab sails set had come out of North Cape Harbor when the Endeavor passed in sight of the Northernmost Peak to try to claim this rich prize for the Dwarves' revolutionary government and its new allies, the Zr'gsz. Big as she was, Endeavor was a smart sailor with a good Tolvirot hull, and she put them easily in her frothy wake.

  Down came the sails, out went the oars, and the Dwarven ships began a waterstrider crawl in pursuit. Endeavor's master, a native Tolvirot only a few years Fost's senior, medium built with the broad shoulders and dancing tread of a fencing master, casually ordered an onager unwrapped from its oiled cloth coverings. The Endeavor had been laid for deepwater and open sea storms. She was much more strongly built than any oared war craft, and could carry heavy engines, true shipkillers, whose workings would damage the lighter hull of a war ship. Captain Arindin stood with one hand in the voluminous pocket of the embroidered green coat he was never without, calmly munching a fruit held in the other, while his crew unshipped the onager and set it bucking, hurling great rocks against the pursuing galleys. The fourth shot sent a hundredweight stone smashing through the bottom of the leading vessel, breaking her back and foundering her in the rollers heaving in from the line of squalls hanging far to the north. Abruptly less avid for the chase, her companion ships crowded around to assist in rescue operations. One was so intent on breaking off the chase and aiding the damaged ship that the would-be rescuer rammed another just aft of the bow and holed her. The last sight the Endeavor had before twilight drew a dark curtain over the scene was a confusion of uncontrolled ships and angry heads bobbing in the swells.

  'If the wind'd died we might have had hot work,' was Captain Arindin's only comment.

  An eeriness, a foreboding, attended the rest of the voyage, or so it seemed to Fost. Dark clouds hung like a line of distant cliffs in an unbroken wall across the northern horizon, sometimes sending down dark mutterings of thunder, flaring by night with maroon lightnings like no other Fost had seen. Sometimes it seemed that huge shapes stalked among the clouds, and sometimes there were splashings and tumults in the sea, too far for Endeavor's lanterns to reach even with their cunning lenses of Tolvirot manufacture. The loudness became all the more unsettling for that. Alarum was cried shortly after midnight and Fost and Moriana came tumbling onto deck, she in a cloak, he naked except for his woebegotten mail vest. No attacker threatened.

  A huge wheel of light, eight-spoked and hundreds of feet across, rose from the depths to make the surface bubble and glow a yellow-green a thousand yards ahead of the Endeavor. As the astonished passengers and crew watched, the monstrous colored wheel sank a score of feet, then, still clearly visible, moved toward them, spinning faster and faster as it came. It cleared the keel of Endeavor and passed beneath them without sound or heat, though the heavy ship rocked at its passage. It crawled along under the long wake of the ship and was soon gone from sight. Arindin ordered wine broken out and, fortified with drink, the vessel's folk went back to duty or bed.

  Erimenes and Ziore chattered brightly about what the apparition might have been and where it might have come from. The Tolvirot mariners, hardheaded as they were, seemed disconcerted and exchanged muttered speculations of their own as they clambered into the rigging to dress the furled sails. Fost and Moriana said nothing about it between themselves. Privately Fost thought the wheel was a sign, a proof, that the reality he had grown up to accept was unraveling all around him. The Powers intruded more and more into his daily life.

  No further disturbance occurred until Endeavor rounded the coast, headed south for the Karhon Channel and Tolviroth. Fost was on deck drinking wine, enjoying the double moons, the stars, the velvet sky, the warm rich smells of the land breeze and the comfortable speculation as to what awaited him when he joined Moriana in their cabin in a few minutes. His reverie was broken by a footfall behind him. He turned to see Moriana, her face strained and pale. At first he thought the cunning light playing down on them from the twin moons caused the effect. Then he knew it was no illusion. Tears glowed brightly in the corners of her eyes. 'Come,' she said urgently, gripping his sleeve.

  'What's wrong?'

  'Come on!' she hissed at him. He went.

  A lantern shed mellow light in their cozy cabin. Fost looked around, saw nothing unusual, said so. 'On the bed,' Moriana said tonelessly.

  For the first time, he noticed the flower lying across the pillow they shared.

  'A gift from the crew? Is that what's bothering you?' He laughed reassuringly and slipped his arm around her waist. 'It seems more thoughtful to me than anything else. Besides, I thought your emblem was a rose.' 'Look at the color.'

  He frowned, took his arm away and went to the bed, bending down to more closely examine the flower.

  'Don't touch it,' she said. He shrugged. To humor her, he didn't reach out for the flower.

  He went cold all over. The flower was black. Not just the bloom itself, but the stem and long, long thorns, as well. He recoiled, fear clutching at his stomach. 'What…?'

  'It means the Dark Ones wish us to know they've not forgotten us,' she said.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Wholly at ease and hoarding the sensation like a marooned man hoards crumbs of a rapidly dwindling food supply, Fost ate small, tart berries from an iced bowl and admired the scuff marks his boot heels made on the marble table in front of him. The bankers of Tolviroth Acerte had given the city its name. But the other residents of Tolviroth did not have to like the bankers, and his birthplace notwithstanding, Fost had come over the years to consider himself as much a Tolvirot as anything. So he ignored the scandalized looks from the reed-thin clerk behind the reception desk and propped his feet on the marble table while he relaxed in a soft chair and plied himself with iced fruit.

  'Do you have to do that?' Moriana demanded, striding to and fro nervously. 'We've come here to ask for money.'

  'We've come here to demand money, against the Emperor's note,' Fost corrected. He popped another grayish berry into his mouth, sucked cool juice down his throat, chewed the skin and swallowed. 'Besides, you're doing more damage to the place than I am. You're wearing a hole in the carpet.'

  The clerk, sexless in a long brown toga, gave Fost another venomous look and went back to scratching entries in a leather-bound ledger spread across the desktop.

  'You musn't worry, Moriana,' said Ziore. 'Certainly there will be no trouble with the bank honoring Teom's draft.' Fost looked thoughtful but said nothing.

  'Remember the good fortune I had the last time I dealt with the bankers of Tolviroth?' Moriana said, her words edged in irony. 'But you didn't visit this particular institution on your last trip.'

  'That's why I chose it this time. I'm leery of dealing with people who turned me down once before.'

  A squarely built woman of medium height appeared in the painted stucco archway. Her eyes roved over the room, hardly stopping on any of the peopie there, as if she considered all beneath her notice. She turned, as if to leave, then hesitated. Her gaze stopped on Moriana. No hint of emotion tainted her calm face. 'Princess Moriana?' she inquired in a courteous but cool voice.

  'Yes,' said Moriana. 'Freewoman Pergann?' Fost smiled in approval at her remembering Tolvirot protocol by choosing the proper form of address. The bankers were touchy about such matters. Protocol meant as much to them as did the proper pomp and ceremony to the chamberlains tending the patricians in High Medurim.

  The woman showed even teeth and her manner chilled even more, if possible.

  'A Freewoman Pergann. I'm one of the Daughters of Pergann.' She swept the small group again wi
th a gaze that revealed nothing. Fost vowed never to get into a game of cards with her. He had the feeling Pergann knew everything about him after a single glance while he could never begin to fathom her depths. 'If you would be so kind as to step into my office.'

  Fost lifted his feet from the table, trying not to call attention to himself. The woman wore a severely cut ice-blue tunic with balloon trousers tucked into the tops of low, soft boots. This wasn't the garb he'd come to expect from bankers, nor was her attitude. She lacked the usual supercilious manner of other Tolvirot bankers and even approached glacial coldness toward them. Since he had not been excluded from the invitation, he picked up Erimenes's jug and followed the woman and Moriana, who had scooped Ziore's jar into her arms.

  Freewoman Pergann seemed no more nonplussed to have the odd assembly of mortals and ghosts facing her across her own desk than she had been to discover them in her anteroom. The desk itself was plain, dark anhak wood, of more modest dimensions than the androgyne secretary's in the waiting room. With his usual tact, Erimenes pointed this out before anyone else had a chance to speak.

  'Ostentation,' answered Pergann, with a thin smile, 'is fine out front to impress the customers, or so Mother believes. The company is still hers. I work here and see no need for extravagant display.' She pinned Fost with her cool eyes. He felt like a bug being placed in an exhibit, but without the passion normally the domain of avid collectors. 'Usually folk are somewhat impressed by the lavishness of the waiting room's decor, if not its attention to dictates of taste. But then, most of our clientele falls between the extremes of those too wealthy and those too barbaric to possess taste.'

  Fost flushed at the implied insult and studied the wooden carvings on the wall that were the cubicle's sole decoration. They were Jorean, portraying the equinoctial devotions to the goddess Jirre. They were old, stained by time and Tolviroth's humid climate. Fost glanced down at Erimenes's jug, hoping the genie hadn't noticed the subject matter of those carvings. For a staid banking office, they were quite risque. But the spirit gave no attention to mere bric-a-brac. 'About the Emperor's draft, Freewoman,' urged Moriana.

  The woman's mouth set into a thin line. At first glimpse, Fost took it for intransigence, but soon realized that the woman was reluctant to say what was on her mind.

  'I can see no profit in being circumspect in this matter, Your Highness,' she said finally, 'though it gives me no great pleasure to tell you this. The cheque is worthless. There's no money in the Imperial account to cover it.' 'None?' Moriana blinked rapidly. 'But that's impossible!'

  'With all due respect, Your Highness, it does not speak well of your knowledge of Imperial fiscal policy that you find the penury of Emperor Teom's account so startling. A nation that will cast clay slugs, fire them in a kiln, cover them with pewter wash and call that coinage is capable of anything from a financial viewpoint, anything save responsibility.' She spoke of the Imperial Treasury's latest seigniorage scheme in the same tone one might use to speak of someone who enjoyed eating dog excrement for breakfast.

  Realizing she might have been harsher on Moriana than intended, she softened her tone and said, 'Let me explain about money. Economics has few laws. One is that devalued money will soon replace more valuable coin. No one continues to use a one klenor piece of silver when the Imperial pewter klenor buys the same amount of goods.' Pergann leaned back and said, smiling, 'It does speak well of your own fiscal attitudes that you find the Empire's doings so hard to grasp.'

  'I… I still find it hard to believe there's no money in the Imperial accounts. You're sure? There's nothing?' Pergann's eyes and face hardened slightly.

  'I would not be a responsible banker if I made inaccurate reports to my clients,' she said primly. 'Your friend there with the big boots is smiling. You're from Medurim, sir? Or know about it?' 'I was born there,' admitted Fost.

  'I might have guessed.'

  He wasn't sure how to take that. He reached out and gripped Moriana's hand firmly in his.

  'Don't be upset,' he told her. 'We're not penniless – at least you're not. You're Queen of the Sky City. That withered old goat Omsgib will have to open the Sky City accounts to you.' Realizing the unflattering description of one of Pergann's fellow bankers, he added, 'Uh, sorry, Freewoman.'

  'No pardon needed,' she said gravely. 'I see that for all your roughness of manner and need to elevate your feet, you are an astute judge of character.'

  Moriana rose, saying, 'We won't take up any more of your time, Freewoman. Thank you for seeing us.'

  'You're quite welcome. I hope we can have dealings in the future, dealings of a more mutually productive nature.'

  Fost stood, too, paused uncertainly, stuck out his hand to the banker. She shook it with strong, dry fingers. Then she came around the desk to hold open the door for him and Moriana.

  'Great Ultimate!' Erimenes yelped as Fost passed through. 'Have you seen what they're doing on that hanging?'

  Ostentation at the House of Omsgib-Bir went more than skin deep. Tulmen Omsgib faced his motley visitors across several acres of desk, nodded judiciously, and popped a jellied sweet into his mouth. His thin beard, long face, high-bridged nose and big, sad eyes made him look like a goat, an effect accentuated by the unconscious nodding of his head up and down as he chewed.

  'It is a pleasure to see you again so soon, Your Highness,' he said in a voice so oily it might have been poured from a bottle.

  'Let's not mince words, Omsgib,' snapped Moriana. 'You never expected to see me again when you sent me penniless from your door. You were so smugly sure my sister would win. And did you think she might reward you for failing to release the City's funds to me, the rightful ruler?' She laughed, a harsh, strident sound. 'I'm sure Synalon would have rewarded you amply. But in a coin other than you expected.'

  His goat eyes took on a look of abject pain. Fost, who knew the banker by sight and reputation but had never seen him up close, halfway expected to see a goat's bar-shaped pupils peering forth.

  'I'm sorry Your Highness fails to appreciate my discretion. Mine is a fiduciary trust; the welfare of my accounts is in my hands.' He held up brown claws dabbed with cornstarch powder to hide the age spots covering them. 'When you have acquired more of the mellowing and maturity that aging brings, you will understand that my caution was motivated by sincere concern for your best interests. I not only look after my client's account, I attempt wholeheartedly to take the welfare of that client into account, too.' He smiled at his small play on words.

  Moriana looked as if she were about to spit on the deeply woven purple carpet. Dolefully, the banker ate another sweet. Fost shifted on the uncomfortable velvet upholstered stool a servitor had brought, and wished it had been Omsgib's table he'd rested his boots on. However, no sooner had they entered the elaborately graven portals of the House of Omsgib-Bir than they were ushered in to see the master himself, after first being courteously but firmly relieved of their weapons. Evidently, news of Moriana's victory in the Sky City, no matter how shortlived, had reached Omsgib's ears. Or maybe the goatlike gleam that came into his eyes whenever they fell on the swell of her breasts accounted for the solicitousness with which he'd greeted her.

  'I don't see any need for further discussion,' Moriana said stonily, marking the direction of the banker's gaze. 'I am the Queen of the City in the Sky. I want the funds held in the City's accounts released to me. And I want them now. Any excuse for not releasing them I suggest you save for a court of arbitration.'

  He looked aggrieved and tossed three more candies into his mouth, one after the other. 'I do wish you'd not take that attitude, Highness.'

  'So you are going to try to weasel out!' She half-rose. Fost expected to see smoke rising from the roots of her hair, as had happened with Synalon when she was murderously angry. Omsgib flung up his hands, as if to protect himself. 'No, no!' he bleated. 'I mean – well, that is…'

  'Yes,' Moriana finished for him. She permitted Fost to take her arm and draw her back into her chair. 'I bel
ieve…' started Omsgib, then his voice cracked. He ran a thick, pale worm of a tongue over bloodless lips. He sipped hurriedly from a silver goblet of wine at his elbow and cleared his throat. Seeing that he was in no real physical danger, his composure settled over him once again like a thick, greasy blanket. A small smile curled the corners of his mouth and his eyes regained their luster.

  'I believe, Your Highness,' the banker started again, 'that on your last visit I pointed out that, from my standpoint as administrator of the Sky City's accounts, actual possession of the City accounted for more than legal niceties. A cruel fact, but a fact nonetheless, and as a responsible banker I must deal solely in facts.

  'And the fact is, you are an exile, and therefore not properly Queen of the City in the Sky, any more now than before.'

  Her eyes glowed wrathfully beneath scowling brows. Her fingers tensed into fists, then uncurled again. The princess forced herself to take several deep breaths before speaking.

  'That's as it may be. But there's no denying I'm the sole surviving heir of the royal family of the Sky City. On that basis you cannot deny me access to the funds.'

  He placed his palms together like a mendicant goat. His expression told that he was beginning to enjoy this exchange of verbal sword thrusts and thought he had the winning blade.

  'I could not deny you access to the funds,' he agreed sanctimoniously, 'were that the case.'

  'Were that the case?' demanded Moriana, her face darkening with an inrush of angry blood. 'That you were the sole surviving heir.'

  She lunged to her feet with such speed that her chair fell over and its back cracked on the floor. Her hands tightened into hard fists and she leaned forward onto the desk. Omsgib cowered back, even though she was a full desk's width distant. 'What nonsense is this?' she cried.

  Fost had to admire the way the banker recovered to face the raging princess.

  'What I mean,' Omsgib said, satisfaction in his oily voice, 'is that you are the second party in two days to come forward claiming to be sole and rightful heir to the City.'