Blood Ties tw-9

by Robert Lynn Asprin

  "That's what I mean: None of us will want to stay to oversee that bunch of murderers-not me, not any of mine. Promise me you won't do that to me again, leave me with an impossible job and an intractable lot of disappointed fighters. The Band wants to go with you. I won't be able to hold them here. And Sync's commandos won't take my orders."

  It wasn't like Crit to make excuses, so these weren't excuses: These were points the Sacred Bander urgently wanted Tempus to consider.

  "Fine. I agree. I just want to make sure that you understand that Zip is more useful alive than dead... for one week. And that whatever is between you and my daughter-or not," Tempus held up his hand to forestall Crit's denial, "she's entangled with Torchholder, who's Nisi-an enemy. We leave her here. We take Jihan and Randal if we have to drug them senseless to do it, and we get our tails out of here-yours, mine, Strat's, the Stepsons', the Third's-and that's that. We're clear of a degenerating situation. If we can leave some force or other to help Kadakithis, then we're lily-white."

  "That's why you came here in person? To cobble together some stopgap that won't hold because Theron doesn't want it to? You know what he wants... he wants a tractable, stable Empire's anus. And with the magic screwed up, or downgraded, or whatever it is Randal's been trying to explain to me, he can get it by force of arms. I don't see a winning side for us in that kind of fight, and neither do you ... I hope."

  Tempus grinned fondly at his second-in-command: "Get Straton disentangled, both from the witch and from his local responsibilities, and-on my explicit order-the two of you personally see that Zip manages to make his contacts. And that none of ours, the Third included, obstructs him. Then we're out of here, back to the capital with the best possible report under the circumstances. And, no, I didn't come down-country for this-I came down for Jihan's wedding: to stop it."

  Randal was in the Mageguild, consorting with the nameless First Hazard, trying to make some headway casting a simple manipulative spell to turn the swampy ground between the complex's outer and inner walls to gardens, when Tempus came to call.

  The First Hazard was harried, a Rankan of Randal's age who'd assumed the dignity just when it no longer was one: The Mageguild had held the populace in thrall by fear and power for time uncounted. Now that the Nisibisi power globes' destruction had made simple spells uncastable and love potions useless, now that sympathetic magic was no longer so, the Mageguild adepts feared not merely for their income.

  When Sanctuary's denizens realized that no wards protected the haughty sorcerers, that spells paid for and tendered wouldn't work, that the Mageguild's collective foot had been lifted from llsig and Rankan neck alike, the Hazards' lives would be at risk.

  So finding a way to render the grounds and walls malleable to magic was not simply an exercise: The Hazards might need an unbreachable fortress in which to hide from angry clients.

  And Randal, whose magic was less affected than the local mages', who had a dream-forged kris at his hip and the protection of the very lord of dreams, had been called upon to aid his guild's relatives-though when the guild had been all-powerful, they had not liked the Stepsons' wizard nearly so well as now.

  "It's not me, you know," Randal was trying to explain to the First Hazard, whose war name was Cat and who looked more like a Rankan noble than a practiced adept who'd earned such a name. "My magic, such as it is," Randal went on modestly, "is part curse and part dream-spawned-not dependent on whatever forces have been weakened in the south."

  The Rankan adept looked at the Tysian wizard narrowly, then wondered aloud, "It's not some power play of Nisibisi origin, then? Nothing Torchholder, Roxane, and the rest of you northern wizards have dreamed up?"

  Randal sneezed and wiped his freckled nose on his sleeve, ears reddening in embarrassment: "If I were so powerful as that, couldn't I rid myself of these damnable allergies?" His affliction was back, the one concomitant he'd experienced of the local adepts' distress: Pollen, birds, and especially furred creatures could bring him to a paroxysm of distress. Once he'd had a handkerchief which quelled them, and then he'd had a power which suppressed them. Now he had neither.

  The First Hazard's impolitic retort was interrupted by an apprentice who burst in, saying: "My lords Hazard, a man has breached our wards, a stranger-that is, we think so, but he's coming-up the stairs, now, and he's got his horse with him..."

  The handsome First Hazard hung his head, staring at his twisting fingers in his lap, and lied to the wide-eyed apprentice, "It's a summoning. We were expecting him. Go back to your work... . What is it, for dinner? We'll have guests, of course-man and... horse."

  "Dinner? It's..." The apprentice was a witchling girl, thick-haired, short and comely, with a small waist that accentuated breast and hips despite her shapeless beginner's robe. Her face was rosy-cheeked and heart-shaped, and Randal wondered why he'd never noticed her, then banished the thought: He was betrothed, soon to be wed to Jihan, a source of power he never mentioned in this afflicted Mageguild.

  The girl, composing herself with obvious effort, said, "Parrots, fleas, and squirrel bunions, m'lords Hazard-a stew, if it pleases."

  "What?" snapped the harried First Hazard. Then, when the girl covered her mouth under widening eyes, continued: "Never mind the accursed menu, get out of here. And keep everyone else away until the dinner bell. Go on, girl, go!"

  As she scurried backwards, a clomping of hoofbeats could be heard, followed by a sound like porcelain crashing on a marble floor.

  And then, through the great double doors whence the girl had just fled, a horse and rider came.

  The horseman hadn't dismounted; the horse had eyes of fiery intelligence and pricked its ears at Randal. Its coat was mottled, red and black and gray, but there was no mistaking it: It was the Tros horse of his commander.

  Through a fit of sneezing he miserably endured, Randal hurried forward, saying, "My lord commander, welcome, welcome."

  And the First Hazard, Cat, behind him, uttered a curse which bounced around the room in a gray and sickly pall until, once Tempus had dismounted, the Tros horse flattened its ears at the half-manifested ectoplasm and kicked it to pieces.

  "Hazard," said the Riddler to Randal, "and Hazard," to Cat. "Would you leave us. First Hazard? My wizard and I need to talk."

  "Your wizard" said Cat, still reflexively acting as powerful as he'd once been. Then his color drained as he remembered his circumstances and put two and two together. "Oh yes, your wizard. I see, my lord Tempus. Dinner will be at sundown, if you'd grace us. I'm sure we can find some... carrots ... for your... mount."

  Not a word about the desecration of the Mageguild by a horse, not a single additional attempt to regain control where all attempts were useless: Cat just chewed his lip.

  Even though Randal's eyes were already watering, he felt a deep and abiding sadness for the handsome young First Hazard, although in former times he had wished, more than anything, to be possessed of so fine a form and face and bloodline as the Rankan who scurried out of his own sanctum so that Randal and his commander could confer in private.

  It was what you were, not how you looked, that mattered these days in Sanctuary. And Randal was the only warrior-wizard in a town that soon would value warriors much more than wizards.

  "You need me, commander?" Randal said, trying to speak clearly despite the clogging of his nose which proximity to the Tros horse was causing.

  "Yes, I do, Randal." Tempus dropped the Tros's reins and it stood, groundtied, while the big fighter approached the small, slight wizard, put an arm across his narrow shoulders, and walked with him toward the First Hazard's purple alcove. "I need your help. I need your presence. I need your whole attention-now, and always."

  Randal felt pride course through him, felt himself grow inches taller, felt his neck flush with joy. "You have it, Riddler, now and always-you know that. I took the Sacred Band oath. I have not forgotten."

  Niko had, seemingly, but not even that cloud could block out the light of Tempus's favor-not, at any ra
te, completely, Randal told himself.

  "Nor have we. The Band sets out for Ranke soon, there to meet with Niko and trek east. We want you on that journey, Randal-as a Sacred Bander, purely."

  "Purely? I don't understand. It was Niko who broke the pairbond, not-"

  "This is not about Niko. It's about Jihan."

  "Oh. Oh." Randal slipped out from under the Riddler's arm, its weight suddenly unbearable. "That. She... well, it wasn't my idea, the marriage. You must know that. I'm not even-good-with women. And she's... demanding." The words came out in a rush, now that there was finally someone to tell who would understand the problem. "I've put her off so far, explaining that I can't... you know... until we're wed. But I'll lose so much... power, and there's precious little of that around, these days. She says she'll make up for it, through her father, but I'm not god-bound, I'm bound in-"

  "Other ways, I know. Randal, I think I've a solution that might serve to get you off the hook, if you'll help me."

  "Oh, Riddler, I'd be so grateful. She's-no offense- more your sort of problem than mine. If you could just get me away from her, as long as it's not taken ill by the Band. I'll sneak away, I'll meet you in Ranke, I'll-"

  "No sneaking away, Randal," said Tempus through lips that had parted to bare his teeth.

  That smile was one all Stepsons knew. Randal said dumbly, "We can't. . . hurt her-sir. No sneaking away? Then how... ?"

  "With your permission, Randal, I'm going to woo her away from you-steal your bride from under your very nose."

  "Permission!" Oh, Tempus, I'd be so grateful-so everlastingly and abidingly grateful...."

  "I have it, then?"

  "What? Permission? By the Writ and the devils who love me, yes! Woo away! And may the-"

  "Just your permission will be enough, Randal. Let's not bring any powers into this whose response we can't foresee, let alone control."

  The woman was walking alone in the garden while, within the manse beyond, a civilized uptown party was under way. Her hair was blond and curly, bound up in the fashion noblewomen in the capital had adopted this season: held in place with little golden pins hafted with likenesses of Rankan gods.

  He came upon her from behind and had his left arm crooked around her neck in seconds, saying only, "Hold, I'm not here to hurt you," while within him a god who shouldn't have been there stirred to wakefulness, stretched, and urged otherwise.

  Ignoring the obscene and increasingly attractive suggestions the war-god in his head was making, he gave the woman time to realize who held her.

  It didn't take long: She wasn't a typical Rankan woman of blood-no man without Tempus's supernal speed and talent could have caught her unaware.

  She stiffened and, every muscle tensed so that his body began taking the god's suggestions literally, pressed back against him-the first move toward putting him off balance, ready to use her own arena-training in weight, feint, and misdirection of attention to try to escape.

  "Hold," he said again. "Or suffer the consequences, Chenaya."

  "Pork you, Tempus," she gritted in a surprisingly ladylike voice unsuited to the content of her words. He could feel her hands ball into fists, then relax. Behind him, people indoors chatted and clinked their goblets.

  "We haven't time for that, unless you're ready." He put his free hand on her hip and spread it, moving it forward to press against her belly and slip downward, putting her in a hold she'd never come up against in a Rankan arena.

  "Gods, you haven't changed, you bastard. If it's not my body-for which you'll pay more than it's worth, I assure you-what do you want?"

  "I thought you'd never ask. It's a little matter of an attempt on Theron's life, yours, I believe-something about boarding the barge. Not a smart move for a member of a decidedly ac-royal family: not for you, not for Kadakithis, who'll share Theron's wrath if it's revealed who tried to feed him to the sharks, not for any of what's left of your line."

  "Again, halfling, what do you want?"

  There were two answers at that point in time, one of which had to do with the god in his head, who was whispering. She is a woman, and women only understand one thing. She is a fighter. It's long since We've had a fighter. Give her to Us, and We'll be very grateful-and she will be Our willing servant. Otherwise, you cannot trust her.

  To the god in his head, he responded, / can't trust You, never mind her. To the woman, he said, "Chenaya, beyond the obvious, which we'll see about"-still holding her tightly enough with his elbow that a slight jerk would break her neck, he began to raise her voluminous white skirt from behind-"I want you to do something for me. There's a faction here that needs a woman whom the gods decree cannot be defeated. What I ask, I ask for Kadakithis, for the continuance of your bloodline, and for the good of Sanctuary. What the god asks, I'm afraid, is another matter." His voice was deepening, and into him was pouring all the long held passion of Sanctuary's Lord of Rape and Pillage, Blood and Death.

  She was a fighter, and god-bound. He hoped, as he began to explain the business that had brought him here and the god in him got out of hand, that she'd understand.

  The sentry at the tunnel entrance to Ratfall, Zip's base camp in Downwind, was gagged and flopping in a pool of his own blood.

  Zip had slipped in it, then stumbled over the body in the dusk before he realized what he'd stumbled on: Sync's calling card-the sentry's hands and feet had been lopped off.

  He thanked the god whose swampy altar he still frequented that he'd come home alone as he raised up on hands and knees and, with his belt dagger, made an end to the quivering sentry's agony.

  3rd Commando tactics were meant to terrify; knowing this didn't make it any easier to keep from retching. Knowing that it wouldn't have taken more than a half hour for the sentry to have completely bled out didn't help Zip's frame of mind: Sync's people were probably watching him from the adjacent ramshackle buildings Zip called his stronghold.

  The 3rd Commando leader, Sync, said quietly from behind him: "Got a minute, sonny? Some people here want to talk with you."

  The words weighed on Zip like burial stones and his own pulse threatened to choke him. Through the entire winter, Sync's rangers had never rousted him. The 3rd's leader had professed autonomy, pretended friendship, left Zip's PFLS to its own devices-as long as it followed an occasional suggestion from the 3rd's cold-blooded leader.

  But there had been talk of an alliance then-before Theron had visited Ranke; before Zip's faction had recruited too many and developed factions within its own ranks; before some fools among them had captured Illyra, the S'danzo, and killed a S'danzo child; before an arrow aimed at Straton had been laid at Zip's doorstep; before Kama had left Zip's bed and taken up with Torchholder, the palace priest; before a falling out with Jubal over a slave girl Zip had liberated... before things had just gotten too damned complicated, because Zip couldn't hold the territory he'd gained across the White Foal, territory he'd never wanted, like he'd never wanted to be so damned visible (and thus targeted) as Sync's behind-the-scenes maneuvering had made him.

  "Talk with me? You call this talk?" Zip's voice was shaking, but Sync wouldn't be able to tell whether it was with rage or fear. At that moment, Zip himself couldn't have said which. Blood was all around him, sticky and warm and smelling all too human; the corpse beside him had farted, and worse, once death loosed its bowels.

  On his hands and knees in blood and shit. Zip was thinking that this was probably it-the death he'd earned, in circumstances he'd dreamed too often. He waited to see if it was a blade from behind that would do the talking.

  A sandal splashed in the blood by his hand; Sync's Rankan-accented voice said, "That's right, talk. If your man here had talked before he acted, he'd be alive now." A gloved hand reached down for him; above it, a bracer with the 3rd's unit device of a rearing horse with arrows in its mouth gleamed-silver, polished, spotless, and whispering of a cruelty so legendary that even the Rankans were afraid to use the 3rd Commando.

  Even Theron, who'd come to th
e throne by way of their swords, if rumor was truth, wanted the 3rd disbanded or under a tight rein. That was why, some said, Tempus, who had created them, had got them back: No one else could control them. Left to their own, they'd slaughter Rankan emperors one by one and auction the throne to the highest bidder-Zip had heard Sync and Kama joke about it when the three were drunk.

  Zip let Sync help him up, busy trying to wipe the sticky blood from his palms. He didn't argue about the dead sentry: You didn't argue with Sync, not over something as immutable as the already-dead. You saved it for the plans that could get you killed.

  The rest were emerging now: at least twenty fighters-the 3rd never traveled light.

  The sight of Kama in her battle dress, with the 3rd's red insignia burned into hardened leather above her right breast and campaign designators scratched below it, made his stomach lurch.

  She was unfinished business, would always be. He said, "So, here I am. Talk," and found his tongue unwieldy.

  Around her, he realized (as his eyes accustomed themselves to something other than the dead man, handless and footless, who still flopped helplessly in his inner sight), were others of the uptown gangs who masqueraded as authority in Sanctuary: Critias, a covert actionist from the Sacred Band who seldom ventured forth in uniform and never in daylight; Straton, his wide-shouldered, witch ridden partner; Jubal, black as Ischade's cloak and with a look on his face much blacker; Walegrin, the regular army's garrison commander and brother of the S'danzo whose child Zip's men had killed; and a blond woman he didn't know, who wore arena leathers and had a bird perched on her shoulder.

  He ought to be wary, he realized-this sort of crowd hadn't gathered for something as mundane as his execution. But his eyes kept sliding back to Kama and trying to fit the persona of her father over the woman who'd taught him things about lovemaking he'd never dreamed were possible.