by Dave Duncan
The captain was a rough-faced character with an unfashionably forked beard. He did not look friendly. "Only one of them, milord."
"Make him talk, then."
"Why, you must be Jaxian's father!" I exclaimed. "I am honored, milord." I attempted a bow, but the sword flicked at my face. I straightened up hastily.
"Where are your accomplices, rogue?" demanded the captain.
I allowed my face to indicate shock. "Accomplices?" I looked an appeal to Tharpit. "Milord, is there some misunderstanding here?"
An amused expression merely increased the menace in his face. "I don't think so. The facts seem plain enough. Or are you merely one of my son's drinking companions come looking for a final nightcap?"
I was aware of Jaxian standing in the background, peering over heads. I pretended not to be.
"I am a business associate of his," I said confidently. "He must have mentioned me—Omar of Arkraz, a dealer in gems?"
A faint trace of doubt glinted in Tharpit's eyes, or it may have been cupidity. The soldiers were grinning in anticipation of the coming interrogation. A sidelong glance encouraged me to believe that Jaxian's hangover despair was now tempered with confusion.
"Your business attire is unorthodox, Merchant," Tharpit said.
"Urniamist."
"What?"
"I am a devotee of Urniam," I explained, "goddess of babes and innocence. To avoid the temptations of vain display, the Ingenuous forbids us to wear clothes except in public places or within assemblies of unbelievers. Had I realized that this gathering would be so large, I would have stretched the point and remained clad. If it distresses you, I will waive my scruples and accept a suitable garment."
"Incredible impudence," Tharpit muttered. He turned his head and bellowed. "Jaxian?"
The tall man pushed through the crowd. His eyes were storm-weather sunsets. I could hear his headache.
His voice was a thin croak. "Father?"
"Do you know this man?"
Jaxian blinked blearily at me. I was wearing Rosh's cryptic smile, although it required considerable concentration under the circumstances.
"P-p-perhaps his face d-d-does seem familiar," Jaxian said uneasily.
"Balor preserve me!" his father growled. "One of your tavern cronies, I suppose?"
"Sir!" I barked, making Jaxian wince. "I have told you that I am a follower of Urniam! Red meat and spiritous fluids are strictly forbidden to the Elect. No, your son and I were introduced in Urgalon by a mutual friend, a shipping broker. We opened negotiations on a sizable shipment of the arterial rubies for which Arkraz is infamous, but Jaxian's departure ended discussions for the time being. I promised to look him up when I arrived in Zanadon. Then last night we met by chance in the street—"
"No," Jaxian said with an effort. "No, I do not know him."
"You're sure?" his father asked, as if that situation would be unusual.
Jaxian closed his eyes and mumbled. "C-c-completely. I never forget voices."
I had been hoping that the large young man's memories of the previous evening would be less distinct. That plan had just collapsed, evidently. I needed another right away. I shot him a glance of incredulity and then chuckled with sudden understanding.
"What he means is," I whispered, "that the matter is highly confidential and we should repair to some more private place to discuss the details."
"What he means is that you haven't spoken a true word yet!"
I am always disconcerted when the chosen villain turns out to have a sense of humor—the only truly satisfactory villains are the utterly despicable. On the other hand, it can be an advantage in the confrontation scenes. Bedian Tharpit was enjoying my performance. His pleasure was nastily reminiscent of small boys vivisecting a kitten and not the sort of artistic esteem I normally pursue, but at least I had not started to bleed yet.
Starting to run short of good ideas, I decided to gamble that Jaxian's tortured expression indicated some remaining shreds of doubt and was more than the effects of his thunderous hangover.
"Naturally," I said, "in a matter so confidential, I have spoken more elliptically than is my wont. Once we are rid of the spectators, I shall disclose the meat of the matter."
"You have nothing left to disclose that is not already visible," said Tharpit Senior. "Captain—"
Jaxian groaned. "I'm not sure!" he wailed. "P-p-p-p-perhaps I have seen his face b-b-b-before!"
His father, the captain, and I all looked up at him in disgust. Jaxian Tharpit had no more substance to him than a bad smell.
"Did you invite him to this house?" his father snapped.
"Oh no! Never."
A grunt of satisfaction. "Then we can proceed with confidence."
"Insanity?" I said. "Not Urniam but Foofang? Obviously I must be insane to return here. If this approach interests you, I can do very good convulsions. You'll have to stand back and give me more room, though."
Tharpit ignored my offer. "Well, let's see what the charge is." He looked up at the spectators in the gallery. "Mandial? Was the woman harmed?"
An elderly, hard-faced matron answered the question. "No. Just fright. He didn't touch her."
"He would have had to be a very fast worker," the captain remarked, eyeing me with distaste.
"But he left this by the door." The Mandial woman unfurled the wall hanging, dangling it over the rail for all to see. My night's activities had not improved its condition. Filth from the temples catacomb fell off like smoke.
"So where are your accomplices?" The captain prodded the top of my right thigh with the point of his sword, drawing blood.
"I have no accomplices. I never had accomplices."
"You wore two slave collars?" Left thigh, closer.
"I don't know where he is. We parted when we left here." I am chagrined to admit that I could think of nothing constructive to say. That is a very rare experience for me, and always unpleasant. In this case the truth was going to be of very limited use. If I mentioned priests or temples, or even Balor, Tharpit would have my tongue out in an instant.
I set to work on Jaxian again, applying my best You-are-making-a-terrible-mistake look.
Up in the gallery, the Mandial woman howled. "Bedian! Where is Shalial?"
Four or five other women screamed in chorus as they recognized the absence. A group of them rushed to inspect one of the bedrooms.
I caught Jaxian's eye meaningfully.
His father flushed with fury. He would have preferred a more discreet family gathering to make his announcement.
"Shalial is well!" he bellowed. "Her absence has nothing to do with this man."
I raised my eyebrows at Jaxian and shook my head. He blanched, or perhaps the greenish tinge above his beard turned bluer, but he definitely changed color. Progress!
Bedian noticed. He regarded me with startled suspicion. I felt a cold trickle of sweat emerge from my left armpit. I needed to pass a message to the son without informing the father—who was smarter, better informed, and infinitely more clear-headed at the moment. To inform the father of my knowledge would be worse than failing to inform the son.…
Everyone was waiting on Bedian to explain. He did so without taking his eyes off me. "The lady Shalial has chosen to enter the service of the Holy Mother. We discussed the matter last night, and I gave her my blessing. I delivered her safely into the hands of the temple."
Evidently young Jaxian had not been informed earlier. His jaw hung slack and his eyes bulged. I could forget about help from him.
"May we move the prisoner outside for questioning, milord?" inquired the captain. "I don't want to get blood and stuff all over your floors."
Tharpit frowned. He was working out the timing. He must see that I could have overheard his talk with Nagiak. He wasn't sure what I might start spilling in addition to my bodily fluids.
"I think we can assume he is just a common thief, Captain."
The soldiers looked disappointed, especially the captain.
"Whate
ver you want, milord. We can turn him in for rape and burglary, or just kill him here, if you wish to be merciful."
"That would be very messy," I complained, "and contrary to due process. I have a good line in curses, too."
The twin prongs of the soldier's beard twitched. "Take what you can get, lad. Rape executions are the most popular of all."
"Slain while resisting arrest?" Tharpit was obviously attracted by the thought.
I had no wish to be the main event at a public execution, but I have always believed that death should be faced with the firmest possible procrastination. "You have far too many witnesses who know I made no resistance!" I said.
The witnesses had lost interest in me, though. Servants and family alike were whispering excitedly about Shalial. They would neither care nor notice if I was embalmed alive where I stood.
"He could try to escape when you get him out in the yard?" Tharpit suggested.
"Oh, certainly," said the captain. "We can set up something convincing with that spiked gate."
"I protest!" I said bitterly. "I have religious scruples against shedding blood." I was ignored.
"Oh, Bedian!" said the Mandial woman. "You won't leave him hanging there screaming for hours like the last one?"
"What about the Escaped Slave reward?" I said, having nothing better left up my sleeve—and no sleeve.
Soldier and merchant suddenly became thoughtful. Tharpit's eyes glinted as they had when I had mentioned rubies. "That would cover your fee?" Tharpit said.
"Most of it." That warrior must have merchant blood in him!
"More than cover it, Captain, if I recall the amounts correctly." Who could doubt that Bedian Tharpit would recall the amounts correctly?
He eyed me appraisingly again, weighing my monetary value against the risk of letting me live. Inevitably, cash won. Even if I knew something—even if I told it to every slave on the walls—what harm could I ever do to Bedian Tharpit? I would be dead in a few days anyway.
"That's best. You can have him, Captain. Turn him in and keep the reward in lieu of a fee. See your men get a fair share."
I jumped as the warrior swung his sword up in salute. I looked for Jaxian, but he had gone. He had worse things to worry about than a mad burglar. And I had worse things to worry about than him.
At this point I could attempt to narrate how it feels to be marched in fetters across a city, being driven at sword point by a squad of sadists who have just been deprived of an enjoyable interrogation. I could outline the sensation of arriving starving at a slave camp after the daily meal has been served, too late to partake of it. I could perhaps even sketch my feelings during a day of enforced hard labor on an empty stomach after a whole night without sleep—all under the merciless sun of the Spice Lands.
I won't, though.
It might sound like complaint.
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18: The Tale of Omar
The ancient walls of Zanadon stand at the top of the precipice that encircles the hill, but no cliff is ever unbroken. Here and there, even that impregnable escarpment is notched by gullies which the battlements must span. At one of these, on the western face, water had undermined the foundations, and the wall had collapsed. From the look of the trees growing amid the debris on the slope, the failure had happened generations ago. Lazy and secure, the citizens had never bothered to mend the gap—until now, with the Vorkans almost upon them.
I was assigned with five others to a capstan, and that was a comparatively easy posting. The job description was well within my comprehension. All I had to do was push on a beam and walk around and around and around and around …
Every hour or so, a halfwit boy brought us a smelly waterskin. Gears and ropes creaked, and blocks of stone rose from the depths. The overseer preferred to sit in the shade and watch. When he felt required to motivate, though, he tended to express his irritation with excessive zeal.
There was a fair breeze on top of the walls there, and a splendid view, and those helped lighten the day. The sky of the Spice Lands is enormous and deep blue. Westward the paddy fields and orchards of the plain stretch off to eternity, for they meet the Huli Desert somewhere beyond the curve of the world.
The work site was a busy, bustling place. Slaves and slavedrivers toiled together under the watchful eyes of clanking soldiers. Far below us, gangs of men and ponies gathered up the fallen blocks, uprooting forest to get at them. Along the rising wall, masons and more slaves levered and hammered and slapped mortar, rebuilding the noble buttresses. On a better day, I could have felt proud to be helping raise such a monument, knowing it would endure for centuries to come.
My neighbor to the fore was a farmer from the Farbloo Hills. He was cheerful enough, considering that he had lost his wife and four children and had no idea what had happened to them, while having a very good idea of what was going to happen to him. The younger man at my back was a deserter from the Forbin militia, who regarded his present torment as divine punishment for cowardice. I was disinclined to argue the point. His guilt and melancholy made him very poor company.
The blocks we raised were deposited on sleds and then dragged to the construction site by teams of four men. Thorian appeared an hour or so after I did and was assigned to dragging one of the sleds. He had obviously resisted arrest, for his face had been pulped and his back was a shambles of bleeding welts. I waved a cheerful greeting, to which he responded with a gesture I did not recognize. I am still not sure what sentiment it conveyed, but it amused his companions.
Yes, that day was irksome. I passed most of it with my eyes closed and in a taciturnity foreign to my nature.
But I had come to Zanadon and I was still alive. I had been shown the truth behind the Balor legend, and now the gods had put me away in a safe nook to await the events I must witness. They could have chosen a more comfortable nook, of course, but this one was at least secure.
I assumed that I was being instructed to meddle no further in the affairs of Shalial Tharpit and Gramian Fotius. I had no means to do so anyway—a slave's life is mercifully free from worrisome decisions.
My only danger was that of dying from heart strain and exhaustion, and those are relatively unlikely perils. Another major benefit of being a slave is that there is nothing much left to fear.
The sun was drooping near the horizon when a sudden shout halted our work. Chocks were thrown in to immobilize the mechanism while the block we were raising still spun in midair. Our minds were all so blurred by exhaustion that we did not question this change in routine; we just collapsed over our beams with gasps of joy.
Suddenly I was hauled upright and the overseer unlocked my chains. I slumped to the ground. He kicked me a few times, but I was beyond responding to kicks. Eventually two soldiers arrived to drag me to my feet and march me forcibly over to the shade of the supervisors' awning. I heard cracks and groans as the remaining five men were set to work once more. I felt badly that … No, to be honest, I didn't.
I peered blearily at the group waiting for me. Half a dozen or so were unusually shiny soldiers, two or three were civilians, who looked notably clean and colorfully garbed. One of those was obviously the leader. He was tall and broad. He had a proud beak of nose above a magnificent jet beard. He was clad in a swath of rainbow hues, clasped by a richly jeweled pin. His flower-pot hat almost touched the canvas overhead, and he stood with thick arms folded across an admirable chest. I was swaying on my feet in front of him before I realized that he was Jaxian Tharpit.
"I think that's the one," he said. "Is he conscious?"
Someone punched me in the kidneys to see. Then they picked me up again. I tried to make my eyes focus, struggling to reconcile this splendid noble with the drunken, stuttering ninny I had seen earlier.
"What is your name?" he demanded.
"I told you," I said, drifting out of focus again.
I was punched again and lifted to my feet again. That time someone had kicked dirt in my face, and I had to blink away tea
rs.
"Omar of Arkraz?"
"Correct."
He frowned threateningly. I could guess that he was wary because of all the listeners, but I had no sympathy for him. I assumed that he had spent all day in an agony of irresolution, trying to find out exactly what had happened to Shalial, trying to remember where he had seen my face before, trying to screw up his courage to come to the work site and screw down his dignity to interview a slave, trying to imagine what his daddy would say if he found out, and meanwhile I had been going around and around and around and around …
"Why did you come back to the house?"
"To talk with you, of course."
He barked, "Leave him be!" just in time to save me another blow. I was running out of kidneys, and knees.
"I'm a very busy man. I didn't come here to play guessing games. What did you want to talk with me about?"
I pulled my wits in another notch. "About a very confidential matter."
He shrugged and glanced at the sun impatiently. "You will have to do better than that!"
"It is not something I can discuss in this company," I retorted, indicating the military with a shaky wave. A few hands went to sword hilts, fists clenched, and the overseer raised his whip.
Jaxian cleared his throat and they all froze. "Put him on that chair. And the rest of you may withdraw. This will only take a moment."
I turned around and departed. I must have surprised everyone, because I had staggered halfway to the capstan before I was grabbed and hauled back to the presence. I was dropped onto the chair, and all my joints cracked at the sudden change of position.
Jaxian eyed me with a little more interest. "What was that for?"
"Just give me a few minutes, milord," the overseer begged, "and he'll cause no more trouble. A dozen lashes? Six at least!"
"Silence! Explain, Omar."
"If you want to hear what I have to say," I retorted, "then you will have to make me a better offer than a few minutes in a chair. If I talk now, you will go away, and Musclehead there will beat me to shreds. I haven't slept in two nights or eaten in days, and all because I tried to do you a good turn."