The Reaver Road

by Dave Duncan

  14: The Tale of Omar

  She looked up with a gasp.

  "Or Osian Pomaniuk," I added. "Or Soshiak Quairt, for that matter. Or even that Waus fellow."

  "Fathmonian?"

  "Precisely. The name was on the tip of my tongue."

  "Who are you?"

  "A friend. If you scream, or raise the alarm, then I will be apprehended, mutilated, and probably put to death."

  "I rarely treat my friends so," she said coldly. "At least not without provocation."

  "Then may I come down and talk with you?"

  "Drop in by all means. I can spare you several minutes."

  "I would not willingly disturb your devotions."

  "I was asleep, actually. Now you have wakened me, we may as well talk."

  Muttering warrior-type obscenities, Thorian removed his swath and lowered me into the chapel. I fell the last few feet and collapsed in a sitting position in front of Shalial. As there were no chairs available, I stayed there.

  Her eyes were tinged with pink, yet she was still lovely—even in the dim lantern light, even with only her face visible. The rest of her was swathed in a shapeless white garment, and a headcloth concealed her hair. She seemed quite unperturbed by my unconventional intrusion, even amused. There was no softness in the line of her jaw, her nose was too much a Tharpit nose to be conventionally beautiful—and she was inexplicably, maddeningly, intoxicatingly beautiful.

  No, it is not only skin deep. Ashfer starts with the soul.

  I pulled my sleepy wits together. "I am Omar, a trader of tales, and you are Shalial Tharpit."

  "Wrong. As of an hour ago, I am the Postulant Sanjala."

  "I prefer Shalial."

  "So do I." She looked up at the stars. "Who is your accomplice?"

  "Just a strong-arm man. He is useful to have around but tends to speak in grunts and monosyllables. I doubt that he would interest you."

  Fire flickered in her midnight eyes. "You presume to know my tastes upon very brief acquaintance! Loquacity is no virtue in a man."

  "But in this case he is just a hulk of rippling muscle, of depressingly rigid moral standards and incorrigible recklessness. A serious young woman of religious bent would find nothing of value in his constant merriment and revelry."

  The fires burned hotter. "It occurs to me now that I also should incur severe penalties were I to be discovered in this compromising situation. Flogging with willow twigs, I think, is traditional. I shall minimize censure by turning you in as soon as possible. State your business quickly so I may proceed."

  "We come to rescue you, of course."

  "From what?"

  "From here."

  "From here to where?"

  Seldom have I been cornered so swiftly. Thorian and I knew nobody in Zanadon. We had no safe haven awaiting us, but Shalial must have lived in the city all her life, and she knew another interested party—her unnamed lover. Her father's mention of the man had caused her to blush with guilt. There was the refuge the gods had prepared for us! Surely the man would make us welcome if we arrived with his distressed beloved? If he did not—if he turned out to have a wife already, for example—then he could be blackmailed into cooperation.

  However, I felt that to demand his name and address from Shalial at this stage in our friendship might seem premature or even presumptuous. First I must win her confidence. She was keeping vigil, and the old crone slept in the outer room—we would not be interrupted before dawn.

  "I dare not state our objective until I know that you will collaborate."

  Her expression became grim. "I recall very little of my mother, as she died when I was born. But I am certain that, were she here beside me now, she would—on balance—advise me against rushing off in the middle of the night in the company of two improperly dressed male burglars, one of whom speaks in grunts and monosyllables and the other who refuses to answer the simplest of questions.''

  "For a maiden in distress, you are less malleable than I had hoped."

  "I think I feel a scream coming on," Shalial Tharpit said firmly.

  "Were I to tell you why and how I came here to aid you, would that ameliorate the compulsion?"

  "It might postpone the results," she said, and arranged herself cross-legged to listen.

  I spurred my drowsy brain to a startled gallop.

  "The mighty Jolipi River," I said, "flows from its source in Sourmere across the breadth of the Spice Lands, even to the Pearls of the Sky, where it laps the walls of the great metropolis of Urgalon."

  "Spare me geography. I majored in it."

  "Ah. My apologies. The details are germane to my tale, though, so bear with me while I provide a little local color. South of Urgalon, the mighty flood enters the dread gorges known as the Gates of Rosh. Rosh, you recall, is the god of tides, and the river is tidal there, unlike the Nathipi when it similarly passes through the mountains.

  "Within those awesome canyons, the river god does battle twice daily with the mighty sea. Water surges in waves higher than houses, scouring high upon the cliffs, rinsing out the side chasms, and roaring fearsomely."

  "I have heard of this," she said quietly. "My brother has told me of it.

  I hate audiences who interrupt all the time. "These fateful passes are known as the Gates of Rosh."

  "You already said so."

  "Quite. But in the coastal lands, they have another name. There the people call them the Wrath of Nusk. The sprightly Nusk—who may be more familiar to you by the name of Nask—is the god of doorways and beginnings."

  "And defloration!" Shalial grinned an imp's grin.

  "You are getting ahead of me. As the river is the coast's doorway to the Spice Lands, the alternative designation is appropriate, also. All right so far?"

  "I am agog."

  "Thank you," I said politely. "Through this devilish trap must pass the produce of the land, and the trade goods inward bound to pay for them: lumpish bales of cotton, rosy planks of cedar wood, and dusty sacks of ore."

  "You omit all mention of the dewy pearls and fire-flecked diamonds, rainbow-tinted parrot feathers, gossamer silks from mysterious lands at the rim of the world, desert gold of Shaifu, bloodred rubies like pigeons' eggs from the devil mines of Arkraz, and potent potions fashioned from ibex horn and powdered mummy?"

  I began to feel more sympathy for median Tharpit's handling of his domestic problems. "You are a merchant's daughter!"

  She smirked pertly. "My father will not discuss business with a woman.''

  "But your brother does."

  She took my guess for knowledge and was surprised. "He was until recently the family agent at Urgalon," she admired.

  "Did he ever mention the exquisite porcelain finger bowls of Leilan?"

  "Not that I recall."

  "A regrettable oversight. If I may continue? Perilous is the journey through the Gates of Rosh, and at some times of the month impossible. At ebb and flow the waters career madly through those rocky mouths, and innumerable fair craft have been dashed to fragments. Only at the full and again at low water may a vessel essay a brief voyage through the passes, darting from one known haven to another. Disaster awaits any who miss their required landfall even by minutes, and the entire passage of the range may take many days."

  "Four and a half, usually."

  "Thank you. Now among this mountainous land dwells a hardy race of rugged disposition. Their humble houses cluster around the known harbors, and they eke a skimpy but honest living by selling provisions to the sailors, repairing damage to the ships, and so on."

  She smirked again, hoping to shock me. "With lucrative sidelines in prostitution and petty theft."

  "True!" I said stiffly. "I was about to mention their dishonest livings. They also gather up the flotsam from the many wrecks, for they know the crannies where the waters will carry them, and from time to time they adjust the buoys and markers to maintain the supply of such materials.

  "My own family dwelt apart, on a lonely slope above a narrow a
nd treacherous side canyon known as Last Resort Cove. Ships would anchor there only rarely, when in dire distress and unable to reach the popular objective of Sweet Water Bay. On such occasions, my grandfather and uncles would venture forth, even in the worst of weathers, and drop rocks on them from a great height. Such was the velocity imparted to these missiles by their long descent that the victims would invariably be holed through the hull, and sink before the tide released them."

  Shalial drummed fingernails on the floor and for once remained silent, eyeing me narrowly.

  Pressing my advantage, I continued. "A tricky undertow disposed of the crews, and the next nor'wester would break up the wreck and distribute its contents on a convenient beach. My family had been in business at the same location for generations and had established quite a reputation.

  "My mother was an only daughter, who never knew her own mother, for she had died bearing her. She—my mother—was raised by her father and six brothers. It was a hard and lonely life she led, and so isolated was their abode that only once a year, at the annual Wreckers' Ball, did she even get to meet any of the neighbors. She is generally reported to have been a person of gentle disposition and unusual beauty."

  "I think I could have guessed that."

  "Her name … I should mention this because the romantic atmosphere is diminished if I must keep referring to her as 'my mother' … her name was Nugga. At the time of which I now tell, Nugga was seventeen and just come into the fullness of her wondrous beauty."

  I gave Shalial an appraising stare and was rewarded with a faint blush.

  "One day, then," I went on, "in springtime, Nugga and her brothers were down by the water's edge, picking over the rocks and shingle in search of trinkets and the trivial bounty of the sea. The weather was clement, but somewhat foggy. Engrossed in her task, Nugga had failed to notice the passage of time and had wandered too far from dry land.

  "As a matter of strict fact, she had been tempted out by the opportunity to loot a couple of dead sailors, but I usually omit that particular detail."

  "Understandably so."

  "Tragedy struck—or so it seemed. For now my tale diverges. What my grandfather and his sons saw was this. The great bore of the incoming tide normally announces its arrival by a blood-freezing roar, like to the bellowing of a thousand sea lions. That day the breeze was off the land, and they failed to hear the warning until it was almost too late. Shouting to one another, they all fled, and only when they were almost to the safety of the cliffs did they realize that Nugga was no longer with them. They turned in dismay and saw her running seaward, seemingly heading for the shelter of a jagged rock of some height, although she must have known that it would afford her no protection in that season of spring tides. Then the wall of water came sweeping up out of the mist and engulfed her, and she was gone."

  "Seventeen, you said?" Shalial bit her lip.

  "Seventeen years and four days."

  "You were not born yet?"

  "Of course not. What my—what Nugga saw was completely different. She heard a note as of great music, sweet and tuneful and totally dissimilar to the gargling of numerous sea lions, and she observed, to her great surprise, a young man come running out of the mist, his arms open to her. He was smiling, and he was exceedingly fair to look upon, especially to a maiden who so seldom met men other than her immediate kin."

  Shalial raised her eyebrows—very lovely eyebrows they were, too. "May I inquire how he was dressed?"

  "I doubt that it is necessary. On the face of it, of course, he must have been Rosh, god of the tides, for that is his realm. Those are his Gates. But Rosh has not often been credited with exploits of the type that now transpired, but which I need not describe in detail. You see why I mentioned that the region is also known as the Wrath of Nusk, for Nusk is notorious … well, let us say that he is the god of openings and defloration, and a god does not get that sort of reputation for nothing.

  "Perhaps Rosh may take on certain attributes of Nusk in that region. Similar convergence has been reported elsewhere. Be that as it may, Nugga knew at once that he was a god, and she made her decision without hesitation. Ignoring the obvious danger, she hastened to his embrace."

  I fell silent for a space, and finally my listener inquired shyly, "What happened then?"

  "In detail I cannot say. I suppose the usual, only more so. One does not discuss such matters with one's mother. She spoke to me sometimes in a general way of being swept up in a glory of mist, and suchlike. The particulars were always vague, often containing clumsy symbolism of spray and surging tides, and so on.

  "Eventually, of course, came the ebb. My uncles went sadly down to the sea again, fervently praying that they might find Nugga's body, to give it decent burial. They found her alive and well, sleeping peacefully on a small stretch of white sand. Her clothes were missing, but she was unharmed."

  "Rosh, of course, would have returned her?"

  "One assumes it would be in his nature to do so."

  "And nine months later …"

  "Eight. I was a premature baby, which may explain a slight tendency to impetuosity in my character."

  Shalial said, "Mmm," thoughtfully. "What exactly does all this have to do with me?"

  "Ah. I am getting to that. The one incident that Nugga clearly recalled and was willing to relate—indeed she never tired of telling it—was this. Right at the end, she lay in the god's arms on the sand as the last waves were sweeping around them.

  "'I must go,' he said sadly, 'for it is my invariant resolve to wait for no man, or woman, either. And you now must choose. You may come with me and I will see you safely to Morphith's realm, or you may return to the world of mortals. If that is your choice, know that you will never meet me again. Nor will you ever love a mortal man, for none who has known the love of gods can ever be satisfied by less.'

  "'And of course I will bear your child?' she said.

  "'It is obligatory,' the god remarked, somewhat smugly."

  Shalial sighed. "A touching tale! Not overly original, but embellished with some notable digressions."

  "It is not done," I said. "For now Nugga inquired of her lover, 'But is it not customary for a god who has sired a child upon a mortal to honor his offspring with some divine gift?'"

  "Aha! Resourceful of her! We come to the bones of the matter?"

  "Verily.

  "'It is so,' the god said, smiling the radiant smile of his divinity. 'Choose, then, what blessing I may bestow upon him.'"

  Shalial sighed again, and even in her shapeless novice's cloak, her sigh was an endearing motion. "And what did your mother—Nugga, I mean—what did she say then?"

  "She said, 'I would rather have a girl.'"

  Shalial opened her dark eyes very wide and pursed her scarlet lips. "Oh! A little tactless, maybe?"

  "The god was perturbed, yes. He frowned divine anger and told her she should have said so sooner. So Nugga made the best of it, and demanded that the son she was to bear might be granted the gift of foretelling the future."

  Shalial whistled silently.

  "'You ask much,' the god said. 'The gift of prophecy is rarely bestowed, and invariably brings such unhappiness to mortals that I shall not wish it upon any child of mine.'"

  "Nugga insisted?"

  "She had a stubborn streak, I fear. And she knew her rights."

  "'Very well,' the god said, rising to his feet. 'He shall see the future in dream, but in my divine mercy, I shall so limit his gift that he may foresee only the future of others, and even then only when he may use it to avert great sorrow.'

  "And so he ran off the way he had come, and vanished in mist."

  The chapel fell silent with the wistful stillness that follows the conclusion of a fine tale well told, a bittersweet nostalgia as the fable dissolves away into memory.

  I could see that Shalial was impressed. She was very young, of course, and my heart was warmed by her innocent loveliness, as revealed in the gentle light of the lamp upon the altar. That la
mp had begun to flicker and jump in a way I had not previously registered …

  "You can foretell the future?" she asked.

  "I dream of things yet to be. The gods speak to me in dream as they speak to us all, but to me they seem to speak more clearly."

  "You have dreamed of me?" she asked, and again a faint pinkness suffused her cheeks.

  "Indeed I have, many times. The dreams began almost a year ago, when I sojourned at a distant city named, er, Fogspith."

  "I have heard of Fogspith," she said, frowning.

  "This is another Fogspith, much farther way. Summoned by the terrible sorrow I sensed in my dreams, and knowing that by the god's gift to me, I—and only I—could avert that tragedy, I set out at once in search of you. I have journeyed far and long, and ever as I drew nearer, the dreams grew clearer."

  She twisted her hands together, staring down at them. "What did your dreams tell you?" she whispered.

  "They told me of great beauty, of course, and of youth and innocence and virtue. They told me of love denied."

  "Oh?" The hand-wringing grew more urgent.

  "They told me of the awful choices thrust upon you—Fathmonian and that gang. They showed me how you spurned them, how you were cruelly cast out in the middle of the night, and brought here, to the temple, to face a lifetime of deprivation and hard service. They told me of a faithful lover weeping, never knowing what had become of the woman who owned his heart."

  "Oh!" Shalial kept her eyes averted from me, but her hands fell still. Somewhat perturbed by that, I continued.

  "And they showed me that I must risk my own well-being and even perhaps my life to break into this fastness, spurning the awful risks involved, to bring you these tidings. And lastly, they showed me how I would spirit you away now, in the dead of night, and guide you to the eager arms of the man who loves you."

  In the ensuing silence, I dared to wipe my forehead. I thought I had done rather well, considered how weary I was. Yet I had to wait a long time for her response, and when it came it was almost too quiet to hear.

  "It is a fanciful yarn."

  "But the gods work in fanciful ways, oftentimes. And I have given you proof of my tale by naming for you the four men who were offered to you—the four foul demons who sought to usurp the place of true love in your heart. How else could I have known them?"