The Virgin of Zesh & the Tower of Zanid

by L. Sprague De Camp

  Fallon asked the gatekeeper: “Where’s Turanj the Seer?”

  “Second story, room thirteen. Go you right up.”

  As he started across the courtyard, Fallon was forcibly bumped by one of a trio of Krishnans. As he recovered his balance, glaring, the burly character bowed, saying: “A thousand pardons, good my sir! Tashin’s wine has unsteadied my legs. Hold, are you not he with whom I got drunk at yesterday’s festival?”

  Simultaneously the other two closed in on the sides. The man who had bumped him was saying something genial about stepping over to Saferir’s for a snort, and one of the two who had flanked him had laid a friendly hand on his left shoulder. Fallon felt, rather than saw, the razor-sharp little knife with which the third member of the trio was about to slit his purse.

  Without altering his own forced smile, Fallon shouldered the Krishnans aside, took a step and then a leap, turning as he did so and whipping out his rapier, so that he came down facing all three in the guard position. He was not a little pleased with himself for still being so agile.

  “Sorry, gentlemen,” he said, “but I have another engagement. And I need my money, really I do.”

  He glanced swiftly around the courtyard. At Fallon’s words there came a ripple of derisive laughter. The three thieves exchanged glowering glances and stalked out the gate. Fallon sheathed his weapon and continued on his way. For the moment, he had the crowd with him—but if he had tried to kill or arrest the thieves, or had yelled for the law, his life would not have been worth a brass arzu.

  Fallon found the thirteenth room on the second level. Inside, he confronted Qais of Babaal, who had been inhaling the smoke of smoldering ramandu from a little brazier.

  “Well?” asked Qais sleepily.

  “I’ve been thinking of that offer you made me yesterday.”

  “Which offer?”

  “The one having to do with the Safq.”

  “Oh. Tell me not that further reflection hath braced your wavering courage.”

  “Possibly. I do mean to get back to Zamba someday, you know. But for a miserable thousand karda . . .”

  “What price had you in mind?”

  “Five thousand would tempt me strongly.”

  “Au! As well ask for the Kamuran’s treasury entire. Though perhaps I could raise the offer by a hundred karda or so . . .”

  They haggled and haggled; at last, Fallon got half of what he had at first asked, including an advance of a hundred karda to be paid at once. The twenty-five hundred karda would not, he knew, suffice in itself to put him back upon his throne. But it would do for a start. Then he said: “That’s fine, Master Q—Turanj, except for one thing.”

  “What’s that, sir?”

  “For an offer of that size, I don’t think it would be clever for anybody to take anybody’s word—if you follow me.”

  Qais raised both his eyebrows and his antennae. “Sirrah! Do you imply that I, the faithful minion of great Ghuur of Qaath, would swindle you out of your price? By the nose of Tyazan, such insolence is not to be borne! I am who I am . . .”

  “Now, now, calm down. After all, I might attempt a bit of swindling too, you know.”

  “That, Terran creature, I can well believe, were I so temerarious as to pay you in advance.”

  “What I had in mind was to deposit the money with some trustworthy third party.”

  “A stakeholder, eh? Hm. An idea, sir—but one with two patent flaws, to wit: What makes you think I bear such tempting sums about with me? And whom in this sink-hole could we trust on a matter of business concerning us of Qaath, for whom the love of the Balhibuma is something less than ardent?”

  Fallon grinned. “That’s something I figured out only recently. You have a banker in Zanid.”

  “Ridiculous!”

  “Not at all, unless you’ve got a hoard buried in a hole in the ground. Twice, now, you’ve run out of money in dealing with me. Each time, you raised plenty more in a matter of an hour or two. That wouldn’t have given you time to ride back to Qaath, but it would let you go to somebody in Zanid. And I know who that somebody is.”

  “Indeed, Master Antané?”

  “Indeed. Now who in Zanid would be likely to serve you as a banker? Some financier who had cause to dislike King Kir. So I remembered what I know of Zanid’s banking houses, and recalled that a couple of years ago Kastambang er’Amirut got into trouble with the Dour. Kir had got some idea that he wanted all his visitors to approach him barefoot. Kastambang wouldn’t, because he has fallen arches and it hurts him to walk without his corrective shoes. He’d loaned Kir a couple of hundred thousand karda some years before, and Kir seized upon this excuse to fine Kastambang the whole amount—and the interest, too. Kastambang has never dealt with the Dour since then, nor appeared at court. Logically he’d be your man. If he’s not your banker already, he could be. In either instance, we could employ him as stakeholder.”

  Fallon leaned back, hands clasped behind his head, and grinned triumphantly. Qais brooded, chin in hand, then finally said: “I concede nothing, yet, save that you’re a shrewd scrutator, Master Antané. You’d filch the treasure of Dákhaq from under his very nose. Before we walk out further upon the perilous Bridge of Zung that connects heaven and earth, tell me how you propose to invade the Safq.”

  “I thought that if we made our arrangement with Kastambang, he might know somebody who, in turn, knew the inner workings of the place. For instance if he knew of a renegade priest of Yesht—they exist, though they find it safer not to admit the fact—he or I might persuade the man to tell us . . .”

  Qais interrupted: “To tell you what’s in the monument? Cha! Why sirrah, should I pay you in such a case? You’d run no risk. Why should I not pay the renegade myself?”

  “If you’ll let me finish,” said Fallon coldly. “I have every intention of examining the thing myself from the inside—no second-hand hearsay report.

  “But I shall, you’ll admit, have a better chance of getting out alive if I know something of the plan of the place in advance. Moreover I thought the fellow might tell us the Ritual of Yesht, so that I could slip into the temple in costume and go through a service . . . Well, further details will suggest themselves, but that gives you an idea of how I propose to start.”

  “Aye.” Qais yawned prodigiously, forcing the sleepy Fallon to do likewise, and thrust the ramadu brazier aside. “Alack! I was just working up a most beautiful vision when your importune arrival shattered it. But duty before pleasure, my master. Let us forth.”

  “To Kastambang’s?”

  “Whither else?”

  V

  Out in the street, Qais hailed a khizun—an aya-drawn Balhibou hackney-carriage—and got in. Fallon’s spirits rose. It had been some time since he had been able to afford a ride, and Kastambang’s office lay in the commercial Kharju District, over on the far side of the city.

  First they wound through the odorous alleys of the A’vaz; then through the section of the northern part of the Izandu. They emerged from this region to pass between the glitter of the theaters of the Sahi on their left and the somber bustle of the industrial Izandu on their right. Smoke arose from busy forges, and the racket of hammers, drills, files, saws, and other tools mingled in a pervasive susurration. Then they clop-clopped along a series of broad avenues which carried them through a little park, across which the wind from the steppes sent little whirls of dust dancing.

  At last they plunged into the teeming magnificence of the Kharju with its shops and houses of commerce. As they angled toward the southeast, the city’s one hill, crowned by the ancient castle of the kings of Balhib, rose ahead of them.

  “Kastambang’s,” said Qais, pointing with his stick.

  Fallon cheerfully let Qais pay the driver—after all, the master spy was merely dipping into the bottomless purse of Ghuur of Uriiq—and followed Qais into the building. There were the usual gatekeeper and the usual central court, variegated with tinkling fountains and statues from far Katai-Jhogorai.
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br />   Kastambang, whom Fallon had never met, proved to be an enormous Krishnan with green hair faded to pale jade, his big jowly face furrowed by sharp lines. His tun of a body was swathed in a vermilion toga in the style of Suruskand. Qais, after ceremonious introductions, said: “Sir, we would speak privily.”

  “Oh,” said Kastambang. “We can manage, we can manage.”

  Without any change of expression he struck a small gong on the desk. A tailed man from the Koloft Swamps of Mikardand stuck his hairy head into the conference room.

  “Prepare the lair,” said the banker, then to Fallon: “Will you have a cigar, Earthman? The place will soon be ready.”

  The cigar proved excellent. The banker said: “Have you enjoyed our city fair on this visit, Master Turanj?”

  “Aye, sir. I went to a play last night: the third of my life.”

  “Which one?”

  “Saqqiz’s Woeful Tragedy of Queen Dejanai of Qirib, in fourteen acts.”

  “Found you it effective?”

  “Up till about the tenth act. After that the playwright seemed to repeat himself. Moreover, his stage was so littered with corpses that the actors playing quick characters had much ado to avoid stumbling over ’em.” Qais yawned.

  Kastambang made a contemptuous gesture. “Sir, this Saqqiz of Ruz is but one of these ultra-clever moderns who, having nought to say, conceal the fact by saying it in the most eccentric manner possible. You’d do better to stick to revivals of the classics, such as Harian’s Conspirators, which opens tomorrow night.”

  At that moment, the Koloftu reappeared, saying: “ ’Tis ready, master.”

  “Come sirs,” said Kastambang, heaving himself to his feet.

  He proved less impressive standing than sitting, being short in the legs and moving with difficulty, wheezing and limping. He led them down the hall to a curtained doorway, the Koloftu trailing behind. A flunkey opened the door and Kastambang stood to one side, motioning them in with an expectant air. They stepped into a cage suspended in a shaft. The cage presently sank with jerks while from above came the rattle of gear wheels. Kastambang looked at his passengers with expectation, then with a shade of disappointment. He said: “I forgot, Master Antané. Being from Earth, you must be accustomed to elevators.”

  “Why, yes I am,” said Fallon. “But this is a splendid innovation. Reminds me of the lifts in small French hotels on Earth, with a sign saying they may be used only for going up.”

  The elevator stopped with a bump against a big leather cushion at the bottom of the shaft. Kastambang’s elevator was, after the Safq, the leading wonder of Zanid, though Qais had ridden in it before and Fallon was hardly awed. It was raised by a couple of stalwart Koloftuma heaving on cranks, while its descent was checked by a crude brake. Fallon thought privately that it was only a matter of time before the lift crew got careless and dropped their master to the bottom of his hidey-hole with a bang. In the meantime, however, the contraption at least saved the financier’s inadequate arches.

  Kastambang led his brace of guests along a dimly lighted hall, and around several corners, to a big solid qong-wood door before which stood a Balhibou arbalestier with his crossbow cocked. Fallon observed a transverse slot in the floor a few meters before he reached the door. Glancing up, he saw a matching slot in the ceiling, a portcullis, evidently. The crossbowman opened the door, which was equipped with loopholes closed on the farther side by sliding metal plates, and led the party into a small room with several more doors. A hairy Koloftu stood in front of one door with a spiked club.

  This door gave into another small room, containing a man in the Moorish-looking armor of a Mikardando knight with a drawn sword. And this door let into the lair itself: an underground vault of huge cyclopean blocks, with no apertures other than the door and a couple of small ventilation holes in the ceiling.

  On the stone floor stood a big table of qong-wood inlaid with other woods and with polished safq-shell in the intricate arabesque patterns of Suria. Around it were ranged a dozen chairs of the same material. Fallon was glad that he had settled among the Balhibuma, who sat on chairs, rather than among some of the Krishnan nations who knelt or squatted or sat cross-legged on the floor like yogis. His joints were getting a little stiff for such gymnastics.

  They sat. The Koloft man stood in the doorway.

  “First,” said Qais, “I should like to draw two thousand five hundred karda, gold, from my account.”

  Kastambang raised his antennae. “Have rumors then come to your ear that the House of Kastambang’s in sore financial straits? If they have, I can assure you they’re false.”

  “Not at all, sir. I have a special enterprise.”

  “Very well, good my sir,” said Kastambang, scribbling a note. “Very well.”

  Kastambang gave directions to the Koloftu, who bowed and disappeared. Qais said: “Master Antané is undertaking a—let us say a journalistic assignment for me. He is to report to me on the interior of the Safq . . .”

  Qais gave a few further details, explaining that the money was to be paid to Fallon on the completion of his task. The Koloftu came back with a bag which he set down with a ponderous clank (it weighed over seven kilos). Kastambang untied the drawstring and let the pieces spill out upon the table.

  Fallon consciously kept his breath from coming faster; kept himself from leaning forward and glaring covetously at the hoard. A man could spend his whole life on Earth without seeing a golden coin; but here on Krishna, money was still hard, bright clinking stuff that weighed your pants down—real money in the ancient sense—not bits of engraved paper backed by nothing in particular. The Republic of Mikardand had once, hearing of Terran customs, tried paper money. However, the issue of notes had gotten out of hand, and the resulting runaway inflation had prejudiced all the other nations of the Triple Seas against paper money.

  Fallon casually took one of the ten-kard pieces and examined it by the yellow lamp-light, turning it over as if it were of mild interest as an exotic curiousum, rather than something for which he would lie, steal, and murder—for the throne that he hoped to recover by means of it.

  “Be that arrangement comfortable to you, Master Antané?” asked Kastambang. “Suits it?”

  Fallon started: he had gone into a kind of trance staring at the gold piece. He pulled himself together, saying: “Certainly. First, please pay me my hundred . . . Thank you. Now let’s have a written memorandum of the transaction. Nothing compromising, just a draft from Master Turanj.”

  “Ohé!” said Qais. “How shall my friend here be prevented from cashing this draft ere he’s fulfilled his obligation?”

  Kastambang said: “In Balhib, we observe the custom of tearing such instrument in half and giving each half to one of the parties. Thus neither can exercise his monetary power without the other. In this case, methinks we’d best tear it in three, eh?”

  Kastambang opened a drawer in the table, brought out a stack of forms, and started to fill out one of them. Fallon suggested: “Leave the name of the payee blank, will you? I’ll fill it in later.”

  “Wherefore?” asked the banker. “ ’Twill not be safe, for then any knave could cash it.”

  “I might wish to use another name—and if it’s in three pieces, it’s reasonably safe. By the way, you have an account with Ta’lun and Fosq in Majbur, don’t you?”

  “Aye, sir, aye; we have.”

  “Then please make the sum payable there as well as here.”

  “Why, sir, why?”

  “I might be leaving on a trip after this job’s done,” said Fallon. “And I shouldn’t want to carry all that gold with me.”

  “Aye, folk who deal with Master Turanj do oft become appreciative of the benefits of travel.” Kastambang entered a notation on the face of the instrument. When Qais had signed the paper, Kastambang folded it along two creases and tore it carefully into three pieces. One he gave to each of his visitors and one he placed in the drawer, which he locked.

  Fallon asked, “In case of a
rgument, will you arbitrate, Kastambang?”

  “If Master Turanj agrees,” said the Banker. Qais waved an affirmative.

  “Then,” said Kastambang, “you’d best meet again here in my chambers this transaction to consummate, so that I can judge how well Master Antané has carried his end of the ladder. If I award him the fillet, he can, as he likes, take the gold, or all three parts of the draft and get his money in bustling Majbur.”

  “Good enough,” said Fallon. “And now perhaps you can help me a bit with this project.”

  “Eh? How?” said Kastambang suspiciously. “I am who I am: a banker, sir—no skulking intriguant . . .”

  Fallon held up a hand. “No, no. I merely wondered if you, with your extensive connections, knew anybody familiar with the rituals of Yesht.”

  “Oho! So that’s how the river runs? Aye, my connections are indeed extensive. Aye, sir, truly extensive. Now let me contemplate . . .” Kastambang put his fingertips together, exactly as his Terran cognate might have done. “Aye, sir, I know one. Just one. But he’ll not give you the secrets of the Safq proper, for he’s never been within the haunted structure.”

  “How then does he know the ritual?”

  Kastambang chuckled. “Simple. He was a priest of Yesht in Lussar, but under the influence of Terran materialism broke away, changed his identity to avoid being murdered in reprisal, and came to Zanid where he rose in the world of manufacture. As none knows his past save I, for a consideration I can—ah—persuade him to divulge the desired facts . . .”

  Fallon said: “Your consideration will have to come out of the funds of Master Turanj, not out of mine.”

  Qais yelped a protest, but Fallon stood firm, counting on the Qaathian’s avidity for the information to overcome his thrift. This course proved the correct one, for the master spy and the banker soon agreed upon the price for this transaction. Fallon asked, “Now, who’s this renegade priest?”