His partner laughed himself into a fit of hiccuping. Moriana teetered back to the bed and sat. Strength flowed from her. Her sword tip fell to the floorboards and stained them with dark, rich blood. She felt sick. She glanced down at the familiar cool hardness of the amulet between her breasts. The blackness that had predominated was giving way to equilibrium.
'You hurt?' asked Darl. His voice was rough. Danger and death so soon after love had jarred his composure. Moriana shook her head. 'Well, then, let's see what Chuckles has to say about whoever hired the Brethren of Assassins to come for us.'
'Ask me anything,' the assassin said. 'Dear friends, how can I refuse you?'
Imin Dun Bacir knew opportunity when he saw it.
For fifteen years he'd held the coveted post of Chief Trade Factor for the Sky City in Tolviroth Acerte. In that time he had absorbed the true Tolvirot's appreciation for opportunity. And today fortune had granted him the most delectable opportunity of his career.
He had seized it. When Derora V had died and Synalon assumed the Beryl Throne, Bacir had considered dropping everything and leaving. Synalon was utterly mad. He had never taken much interest in politics, but he knew that anything less than active support for Synalon would be construed as opposition. He had accumulated enough money as chief factor to make any Tolvirot proud. He could have gathered his treasure, bought passage on a fast ship, and spent his retirement in a villa in Jorea.
To do so, however, would have been to pass up a fabulous opportunity.
It had called just as he was sitting down to dinner in his Medurim-style mansion in the suburbs of Tolviroth Acerte.
'Tulmen Omsgib to see you, Notable,' Trune, his majordomo, announced. Bacir looked longingly at the steaming spread before him. He could not delay speaking with the banker. To defer business until after a meal would gain him a reputation for frivolity. To a Tolviroth the pursuit of gain was not like a sacrament, it was a sacrament. He arranged an expression of heartiness on his ample features and followed Trune to see what Omsgib had to say.
Imin Dun Bacir heard from Tulmen Omsgib how the Princess Moriana had come begging for money and how her request had been turned down on the grounds of not wishing to alienate his bank's best customer. Bacir solemnly thanked the banker for the interest in the Sky City, but his brain shifted into high gear as he figured ways of turning this tidbit to his own interest.
Omsgib gave him a clue by mentioning that he had assigned agents to watch the princess surreptitiously. Bacir quickly assured the banker that the Sky City's own men would assume these tedious duties.
Synalon would be lavish to whoever informed her that her sister still lived. And to the person who finally rid her of the threat Moriana posed, her generosity would know no bounds. Bacir considered capturing Moriana, then regretfully discarded the idea. Part of success in business was not to allow greed to overcome good sense. If Rann had been unable to eliminate Moriana, Bacir was not eager to risk capturing her alive.
The Brethren of Assassins was notified of a task as soon as Omsgib left. Bacir then turned back to his long-awaited meal. He scarcely noticed the food was cold. He wolfed it down, barely tasting it, then retired to his leisure rooms to inhale narcotic fumes and soothe his jangled nerves listening to a quartet of naked female musicians play archaic Medurimin chamber music.
Naked girls and archaic chamber music were his twin passions, after the accumulation of wealth. But not even they kept him diverted. After an hour, he dismissed them with an irritable wave of his hand. He turned to pacing grooves in his plush rug, waiting for word that the Brethren had fulfilled their commission.
The water clock had just dripped the eleventh hour when Trune appeared at the door of the leisure room.
'The assassins?' Bacir demanded harshly. Seeing his majordomo nod, he said, 'Well, don't stand there. Send them in at once.'
He quivered with tension and felt as if fat blue sparks would leap from his fingers like static electricity. He bounced up and down on the balls of his feet, chins jiggling, until he heard Trune's subtle footsteps padding down the corridor.
'G-good evening, Notable,' the assassin said. He laughed a squealing laugh through his nose. Bacir wondered if he'd been sniffing vapors, too. It hardly seemed appropriate for an assassin to indulge in such vices while on business.
Another, much larger man came in behind the first. Bacir sensed a third presence in the corridor. He frowned. Three assassins? The Brethren evidently considered Moriana formidable.
'Did you kill the princess?' he demanded, using the word 'kill' in spite of the Brethren's touchiness about its use. Bacir was in no mood to humor the hired help.
'Why, no, Notable. I've done much better than that.' He interrupted himself with a giggle. 'I've brought the princess to you.'
The third member of the small party came into the room. Her hair was spun gold, her eyes green balefires.
'Princess!' gasped Bacir. Trune started to move for a bell rope hanging by the wall. Darl's sword materialized and touched its tip to Trune's neck. The majordomo grew very still.
'That's right, cur,' said Moriana. 'Grovel. Grovel for your worthless life. You've earned a traitor's death, Bacir. I may not be as cruel as my sister, but do not mistake my motives. Give me one reason why you shouldn't pay for the attempted murder of your rightful sovereign.'
'Mercy,' sobbed Bacir. Tears rolled down his round cheeks onto the rings on his fingers, now clutched beseechingly before his face.
'There is a way, foul one,' she said, her voice low and menacing, 'for you to redeem yourself. You can aid me, dropping off a carrion-eater. To do so is no more than your sworn duty, but if you perform your task well, I shall be magnanimous. I will allow you to continue your wretched existence.'
'Mercy, bright one! Have mercy on me, O Mistress of the Clouds!' He rolled a tear-sheened eye at Moriana. She remained unmoved by his use of the title reserved for the Queen of the Sky City. 'I dare not help! Synalon will have my life for it!'
That may be, but Synalon is far away. ‘ am here.' Baric stopped snuffling and peered at her from beneath quivering brows. It might have been a trick of the light, but at that moment Moriana bore a startling resemblance to her cousin Rann.
Squalling seabirds rode on the morning wind. Captain Uin Ragalla lounged at ease on his poop. He puffed great clouds of blue smoke from his pipe and contemplated the day's sailing. The wind blew northerly and the sky was blue. He could ask for nothing more. The Black Flame could warp out of harbor, run south with the wind through the Karhon Channel till it cleared the southern tip of the island, and be well on the way to Jorea by the noon bell.
A hail from the dock roused him from his reverie.'What's that?' he demanded, looking up at the annoyance. 'Hail the ship.' The man calling to him was short and so fat as to be almost globular. The roundness of his face was accentuated by a black fringe of beard clinging to the uppermost of his myriad chins.
'What would ye?' Ragalla asked. His grasp of the Imperial Tongue spoken throughout the Realm was good for a Jorean.
'I would take passage to Jorea’ the man said, clutching a ragged cloak about him as the wind whipped up.
'And what'll ye pay with, then?''I have no money.'Ragalla spat. 'Some chance. Nothin' for nothin' - that's what you Tolvirot always say, innit? Well, then.' He nodded and sucked aggressively at his pipe. Blue clouds rose from the bowl.
'But I'm not a Tolviroth’ the fat man protested. 'Nooo,' he said, studying the man. 'I suppose ye ain't. Fact be, I suppose you're that Factor fellow from the Floating City, then? Hey?'
The fat man nodded. 'Well, fancy that. The high-and-mighty trade fellow from that Sky City a'beggin' passage 'cross the sea without two sipans to clink together.'
'I've fallen on misfortune,' the man said with a certain dignity. 'So? May happen I'll fall and get misfortune all over my face one day, then.' He motioned to the man. 'Come aboard. I can always use another cabin boy, hey?'
Imin Dun Bacir took ship for Jorea as he had long pla
nned. He left without the fortune he had spent so long accumulating. But he went with his life, and where he went not even Synalon's wrath could reach.
Imin Dun Bacir knew an opportunity when he saw one. The Sleeper sensed a Presence.
The demon's subconscious groped for that nearness, a response born of loneliness. The first outpouring of joy crusted over with bitter resentment.
Words formed in its mind: Why turn away? Blank refusal met the query. Again the Presence probed, gently, insistently. Why turn your (ace from those who love you?
Asleep, the demon could shape no coherent thought. Yet the emotion wrenched from it was as unmistakable as it was inchoate.
Betrayed! The Presence read the outpouring of agony, the loneliness and helpless cruel confinement.
Help me! silently shrieked the demon. You could have helped me! The Presence recoiled from the plaintive violence of the last emotion. It poured forth its own thoughts like balm into the tortured Sleeper's mind. ‘ have not the power to help you. Not even those I serve - whom you serve - can free you unaided. But I bring tidings of joy. Soon, your time may come. You must prepare yourself to again serve.
NO! The Sleeper's denial was an eruption of negation. The Presence rode the blast like a free-floating leaf making no attempt to oppose its strength with the Sleeper's. Even asleep, the Demon of the Dark Ones possessed power of cosmic scope.
But freedom, the Presence promised. You may soon stretch your limbs to the skies again. Is that not worth much? All?
The Sleeper felt anger. Betrayal had come ingrained in its view of the universe. It knew the Presence lied. The emotion dropped low and sullen. It knew it would receive no help. It was alone, doomed, betrayed!
The Presence stifled its own surge of annoyance lest it anger the Sleeper more. The sleeping demon's mind only functioned in the most basic fashion, considering only appetite and the simplest of feelings. In its hurt anger the demon would spurn any offer of help hoping to wreak infantile vengeance on those who had betrayed it.
The Presence bided its time. It felt Istu's hatred. Reason would never pierce the shell of truculence.
Yet time grew short. The Aspects neared a critical conjunction. And the Lords of Infinite Dark had to know that their sole begotten child would be obedient to their wishes were he released.
A child cannot be reasoned with, the Presence thought to itself. Yet a child can be bribed. It turned from the sleeping, imprisoned giant and fled through the corridors of night. A plan formed in its mind.
CHAPTER EIGHT
'I have been betrayed before,' Synalon raged at Rann. 'I have been spurned by my own family, I have been schemed against, lied to, abused, and made to suffer for the failings of others. But never have I been subjected to a more humiliating failure. Never!'
Rann's guts trembled before his cousin's fury. If he got away with only being skinned alive, his luck would be extraordinary.
It was impossible for anyone else to have survived the ice fall. It had been only the wildest chance that an edge of the block had struck the portico of the Palace of Esoteric Wisdom and thus failed to crush all life from Rann; for all his resilience and the sorceries of the palace mages he had still not healed. None of the others could possibly have gotten out alive. Not Moriana, not Fost. Even the demon Erimenes should have had his jar pulverized.
Yet not an hour ago a messenger had arrived from Tolviroth Acerte with the stunning message: Princess Moriana lived.
Bringing the word to his royal cousin had been the hardest task the warrior-prince had ever faced.
Synalon stalked paving stones that carried the scars of her last foray into demonomancy. Not even Rann knew what the queen had done that night, though he had a few shrewd guesses. The next morning five mages of the palace had been found dead in their beds with expressions of horror twisted into their features. Whatever Synalon had done was potent.
It had also left her in a state of nerves that had sent eight of her lovers and three advisers into exile through the Well of Winds. Whatever else Synalon's ensorcellments had granted her, she had not been given peace of mind.
'You have my life, Your Majesty,' the prince said, eyes locked on the floor. 'You should have taken it before when I allowed your sister to escape.'
She gazed at him narrowly. Today she wore a gown of rich purple, almost indigo, which clung to her like mist. The fanciful condiment of feathers adorning her head fell in wild disarray.
'You -' she began, but her lips trembled so badly she had to start over. 'You dare accuse me of misjudgment in leaving you with your foul life? Oh, you wretch, you rogue, you groundling!' Along with the epithet Synalon hurled a bolt of lightning that shattered a five-thousand-year-old statue. Guards and attendants scattered in all directions.
'Dark Ones!' she shrieked. Her hair began to crackle. 'Witness my mortification! I am served by dolts!'
She hauled a quivering Anacil from under the Beryl Throne by one skinny white ankle.
'Must I cast all my advisers down the Skywell? Come out of there, you miserable old fool!'
'Majesty,' he quavered. 'Y-your headdress, O Mistress of the Clouds. It's on fire!'
Synalon raised a hand to cinder her chamberlain. The hand stopped in the region of her right temple. With it frozen there, the queen cocked her head and sniffed. Then she snatched her bonnet, now billowing smoke, and hurled it into the arms of a guard.
'Throw that out the window, worm!'The man trotted to obey. 'Very well,' Synalon said at length, struggling to control her rage. 'We are on the verge of taking the first step on our road to conquest. I know the penalty of failure as well as any. I cannot dispose of you, my cousin, if for no other reason than that your Sky Guardsmen will follow only you. But be warned. I will tolerate no further failure from you. The invasion will succeed or you will know my full wrath.'
Rann's mouth went dry. He remained kneeling, unable to believe what he'd heard. His cousin allowed him to live.
'Do not fear, Majesty,' he cried, springing to his feet. 'I will lead our troops to victory!'
He bowed and turned to go. 'One moment.' Synalon stopped him with that smoothly seductive, bitchy voice she used when she had something particularly vicious in mind. He swung slowly to face her. 'Those captives we took, spies trying to get into the City. How many still live?'
'Twelve, Majesty.''And they are in your safekeeping?' 'Certainly, Your Majesty. I plan to attend to their disposal personally.'
'How thoughtful.' She touched a finger to her chin and smiled wickedly. 'You have so much to do with the preparations for the coming invasion. I cannot ask you to sacrifice your time on such pursuits. Captain Tro!' The commander of her personal guard stepped forward. 'Send a party for my cousin's prisoners. Convey them to my dungeons. I shall see that they receive due punishment.'
The queen favored all in the room with a special look, seductive and promising. Rann's groin was empty but the nerves remembered. Too well, they remembered.
'See what a gracious sovereign you're blessed with,' she declared. Rann tightened his face into an impassive mask. Twelve prisoners, twelve! And she robbed him of them. The torments he'd planned, the sweet expectation he had been nurturing, carefully allowing it to grow so that his ecstasy would be complete-all wasted.
'Your Majesty is too generous,' he said. 'I only hope to repay you in kind someday.' He left quickly before his queen spoke again.
The rulers of Bilsinx officially scoffed at the notion that their town had anything to fear from the Sky City. The townsfolk were in an uproar and weren't calmed when a score of rumormongers were flogged in the Central Square. The rumors stopped totally when Mayor Irb had five housewives dismembered by dray hornbulls.
Despite his official posture, the good lord mayor was plagued by a private uneasiness as he revealed to a distinguished visitor on the eve of the City's arrival.
'We are honored by your presence in our fair city, Count Ultur,' he said, slopping rakshak into his visitor's cup. 'Quite honored.'
&nb
sp; 'I thank you, my lord mayor,' said the Count Ultur V'Duuyek as he sipped at his potent liquor.
The mayor plunked his mug down on the arm of his chair. The green velvet upholstery was a mass of circles matching the underside of his mug. Irb was a man who liked his rakshak.
'Well? You're bound for the Sjedd, is it? Helpthem put down those beastly Thail savages?' He looked closely at the count and framed his eyes with what he thought to be a look of perspicuity. Dissolute shrewdness was all he managed.
'My dog riders are versatile and up to the task, I'm sure,' said the count. 'Besides, theThails are quite low at their southern end, and the Sjedd is mostly savannah. A shaman has identified some of the southern tribes as those who've seized Sjedd territory. I will retake the country, then proceed into the foothi I Is to chastise the tribesmen.'
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