The Reaver Road

by Dave Duncan

  "Good evening, your Majesty," I murmured.

  He started angrily. Then he smiled, and it was a comforting sight. He stroked his beard. "The face is familiar. You remind me of a god I knew once."

  "Then you had best stay very humble."

  "That is never easy! Omar, I am worried about the girl."

  "It is not our affair."

  "But she is so lovely! Her father is a snake, her brother has the heart of a fieldmouse, and Gramian Fotius is a killer."

  "I don't think the priests can hope to substitute her for Belhjes, as we thought they would substitute her for Squicalm. That is not the plan."

  "Probably not. So she is safe for at least one more day?"

  "I think so."

  He nodded in agreement.

  Torches blazed in the gathering dusk as the procession entered the great court. Further talk became impossible, and we joined in the universal roar: Maiana! Maiana! Maiana! Thorian probably went no deeper than that, but I enjoy crowds. I joined the crowd. I was no longer Omar, I was Zanadon. Maiana! I was crushed breathless in the surging, sweaty mob, choked by the suffocating odors—garlic is much cheaper in the Spice Lands than soap—but I did not care. Soldiers wrestled to clear us from the path and I fought back frantically, striving with all my strength to draw near to the goddess. I shoved and yelled with the best of them. Maiana! Maiana!

  The litter passed close by me. I had a clear view of the high priestess on her silver throne. Maiana! She stared straight ahead, ignoring the accolades; she was majestic, regal, divine. Surely Immortal Balor would not refuse us again?

  I did not see a big peasant woman in an ornate costume, sick with terror under her paint and jewels. I saw Maiana, and she was beautiful and I loved her, and I was wild with excitement that the goddess had passed so near to me. As I said, I love crowds.

  Maiana!

  The light was too dim and the court too wide to distinguish the dignitaries in the smaller procession that continued on, up the hundreds of steps of the pyramid. I knew that Jaxian and his father would both be there, and the war lord, also. It was a long climb. It must have been hard for fat Nagiak.

  By the time the noble company had reached the House of the Goddess, the sky was dark. We had grown hoarse with cheering, and now we joined in the singing. We all knew the words after the third or fourth repeat, and we sang them over and over, hailing our goddess, calling on her to bring the god. Torches shone out through the doorway as the final ceremonies were performed. Stars shone overhead. Then lights began moving down again, while the archway shone like a beacon above. It was so beautiful that we wept.

  When they had all gone, only poor Belhjes remained, waiting alone for Balor. But I did not think of her then as poor Belhjes. I thought of her as Maiana.

  The court emptied surprisingly quickly, people pouring off down the Great Way like the Jolipi in spate, and in a determinedly jovial mood. Thorian was still with me, holding a ferocious grip on my arm.

  "You think the merriment sounds a little forced?" I asked.

  He peered down at me. "You're better now?"

  I laughed. "Did I scare you?" I was hoarse and exhausted and sore all over. And wonderfully content. "Oh, Thorian, I feel as if I made love to all of them, everyone there, and they all made love to me! But now I don't think we—they—are quite as cheerful as they're trying to seem."

  "Yesterday they were certain. Today they know he is not called the Fickle One for nothing."

  We walked on. My passions cooled further.

  "Poor Belhjes!" I said. "How frightened she must be up there on her throne!"

  "Afraid Balor will not come?"

  "Or that he will."

  Thorian took hold of my arm again. "You are still confused. Why should she be afraid of that?"

  "A great bull like the statue in the chapel? She … Well, never mind."

  When I showed no further signs of raving, he released my arm. "You are coming back to the inn?"

  "Of course. Why not?"

  "What do you expect to find there, then?"

  "That depends," I said. "If Jaxian has talked with his poppa, then we shall be put to death as soon as we enter. Strangled, probably. It's tidiest."

  The lion grunted.

  "On the other hand," I continued cheerfully, "if he did not talk with his father, then he can have talked to no one. He will have concluded that there is absolutely nothing he can do."

  "And in that case?"

  "In that case, he will be there in person. He will apologize to us sincerely and then have us put to death. It is his duty to his family and his city."

  Thorian walked a few paces before he began to laugh. "So why are you going back there?"

  "Why are you?"

  "Because I gave my word, of course."

  "So did I."

  "But I am a warrior!"

  "That means you're crazy?"

  "Sometimes. And you are …" He sighed. "You are whatever you are."

  "Quite," I said.

  We went in by the stable yard and the back door, as we did not know the front entrance. The little hallway seemed to be empty, but the door slammed at our backs. A man had been standing behind it with drawn sword. At that signal, other doors opened, other swordsmen emerged. They were civilians, not soldiers, and Jaxian followed them out, not his father. Tharpit Senior would have brought the city guard, while Jaxian had hired bruisers. It did not matter. They were all muscles and hair and sharp edges. Half as many and half as big could handle any heroism that might occur to us.

  I removed my hat and bowed respectfully. Thorian copied me, a moment later. The merchant's face was haggard—I suppose he had been hoping we would not come. He licked his lips …

  "Before you commit yourself to any particular course of action, milord," I said, "will you grant me a few words in private? There is something I should have told you earlier. I did not, because I was not certain of all the details."

  He hesitated, as he always did. He looked to Thorian, who was probably calculating his chances of taking a man or two with him and who just shrugged in response.

  "A minute, then. In here." Jaxian reached out to the closest henchman and took his sword. Then he retreated into the room from which he had emerged. Thorian and I followed him, and the door was pulled shut behind us.

  We were in the innkeeper's private parlor, I assumed—a small chamber, stuffy with the heat of the day. It was cluttered with several stools. Three candles shed a flickering, deceptive light, muffling the wine stench with an odor of cheap tallow. Sounds of tipsy laughter drifted in through chinks in the plank walls. A small table littered with slates and fragments of chalk stood under the single window, which was small and barred; there was no other exit.

  Jaxian leaned against the table and rested the point of his sword on the floor.

  "B-b-be quick," he said hoarsely.

  I did not presume to sit. "Some families seem to be cursed," I began. "I need tell you of one such. There was a man who had three sons. He was a merchant; his name does not matter. His first two sons did not survive infancy. He himself had several sisters, but no brothers, and he wished to continue the family name. Thus, although he loved his wife dearly, and although her first two labors had been hard, he chose to father a third child upon her. When that third son was born, the mother contracted puerperal fever and died."

  Jaxian's face was already thunderous with anger. I knew I did not have much time left.

  "The third son thrived. He was a strong child, unusually large for his years. But his father could never forgive him for the death of his mother and would have little to do with him. Much later, the merchant married again, and again he met with tragedy. His second wife died in giving him a daughter.

  "Again, he was resentful of his wife's death, and the second death did nothing to reconcile him with his son. If anything, his anger seemed to increase, and he missed no opportunity to remind the boy what his existence had cost. When the son reached early manhood, his father packed him
off to a distant city, where the family had offices. There he was supposed to learn the trade."

  "You p-p-prying, snooping, meddlesome b-b-b—"

  "The son had known the daughter only as a baby. She did not know her brother at all. When the son reached the age of twenty or so, his father sent orders that he must marry, to raise heirs. The young man made an unfortunate choice. The marriage was unhappy, and childless. The woman died."

  I paused for breath, but this time Jaxian did not speak. My skin was running wet in the heat of the room.

  "When war came to the Spice Lands, the son was summoned home to the safety of Unvanquished Zanadon. It was a city he barely remembered, and he had no friends here. He was thirty-two. His sister was seventeen. They met, in truth, for the first time. And then the family curse reached its fulfillment, for there can be no greater sorrow than true love impossibly barred, and theirs is a love forbidden by both men and gods."

  I stooped and waited to see if I had just sealed my death warrant.

  Jaxian Tharpit took several minutes to decide. Then he moved to a stool and sat down, laying his sword on the floor.

  "Sit," he said.

  I sat. So did Thorian. I dared not look at him. I knew what warrior honor would say to such a tale.

  "Shalial told you this?" Jaxian demanded. He was pale now and keeping his hands out of sight. His face shone wetly in the candlelight.

  "No, milord. We overheard your father tax her with having a lover. She denied it. We spoke with her in the temple, later that night—"

  "Impossible!"

  "No, milord. Unlikely, I admit, but it happened." I dared not take the time to explain about the god wanting me to be a witness, and so on. Some people have trouble adjusting to that idea. "She did mention that she herself had woven that hanging I had stolen to use as a garment."

  Jaxian nodded in acknowledgment, and I rushed on.

  "But when I repeated what your father had said, she again denied it."

  He hid his face with his hands. Shalial had spirit—I wondered what on earth she had seen in this human pillow. He barely had the making of a brother, let alone a lover. Forbidden fruits are sweeter, but they ought to look good, too, or who will be tempted to try them?

  And of course a man as shrewd as their father would have seen the problem, and probably almost at once. The woman I had so terrified when I pretended to be a god was Jaxian's concubine, Nilgia. That was why he had gone to her room, of course. Nilgia was a very recent addition to the household. Bedian Tharpit had ordered his son to go out and hire himself a woman, in the same way he might have ordered him to get his hair cut. Apparently the effort had been wasted. Over lunch her sister had told me with much sniggering that Nilgia was finding her new employment very restful.

  Jaxian lifted his head and glared at me with pink eyes. "You damnable prying busybody!" he barked, and suddenly I saw the other Jaxian—the noble, the arrogant wealthy merchant. This one did not stutter. "It is true that my sister and I were already adults when we met, in effect, for the first time. We have found the situation difficult, yes. Do you think I could be blind to beauty such as hers? And she—she meets few men of her class, and suddenly there is one living in the same house … Naturally we have had problems reconciling our family affections with … with other instincts. But if you are implying that my conduct—or hers—has been in any way contrary to the laws of the city or the dictates of the gods, then I will have your tongue!" He glared at me menacingly.

  "I do not question your honor, milord."

  "Wise of you! Now, if Shalial did not tell you, who did? Who is spreading such slander?"

  "It was guesswork. I sensed something wrong when she gave in to your father so easily. Later I told her a story about a nurse who exchanged babies—"

  His teeth showed in his beard. "And you told me some nonsense about your father thinking you were not his child!" Jaxian was a puffball, but he was shrewd.

  "Yes," I admitted. "In both cases I won more reaction than I should have. Persons in what I suspected to be your predicament may well dream fantasies of that type, milord."

  "Because we both had wet nurses? Because I am a cubit taller than my father? The law would require more evidence than that!" He turned his face away from me, breathing hard.

  In the ensuing silence I risked a glance at Thorian. His scowl was everything I had feared.

  "I was not thinking about law, milord," I said. "I am not thinking about happily-ever-aftering. Your love is doomed, I agree. What I am thinking about is an innocent young gift being brutally raped by a sadistic monster, Gramian Fotius."

  Jaxian swung back to stare agony at me. "You think I haven't been thinking about that all d-d-day?"

  "Do you believe the gods will countenance such a crime?" I demanded, raising my voice for the first time. "Do you think Holy Maiana will permit such sacrilege—such desecration of her temple, connived at by her own high priest? Milord Tharpit, I am only a bystander, but I say I am willing to risk my life in this cause. If you will not aid her as your sister, then by all the gods, you should aid her as the woman you love!"

  "Do you know what they d-d-do to men who p-profane the t-t-t-temple?"

  "Yes. Are you not willing to risk even that for Shalial? I will."

  "So will I," Thorian said softly, barely audible over the clamor from the reveling customers.

  "So you can carry her off and rape her yourself?"

  Thorian sprang to his feet. "You will withdraw that remark!" he bellowed.

  Pause. The drunken crowd behind the wall had burst into song. Jaxian's sword was on the floor, the guards were outside the door, and the unspoken threat was mortal.

  I was frozen to my stool by this disaster. Jaxian had turned ashen pale.

  Then he rose, making no attempt to reach for his sword. "Or?" he asked hoarsely. "Or what?"

  I was astounded to realize that his pallor came from fury, not fear. He was face to face with the warrior, meeting his insolent challenge.

  As Thorian lunged, I leaped up and tried to grab him, for I could see us both dying in the next few seconds. He hurled me aside, and I crashed down over a stool.

  Jaxian landed a killer punch on the warrior's midriff—wham!— and then another. Thorian went down, also. He slammed into the door as the swordsmen outside tried to open it.

  "Go away!" Jaxian roared. "There is no trouble here."

  And there wasn't. I was flat on my back and Thorian was curled up, gasping for breath. With my clumsy interference I had spoiled his attack, of course, or else a mere merchant could never have bested a warrior of the same size, a younger one.

  Or had I? Admittedly my observation had been muddled by my own fall, but I had a strange impression that Thorian had pulled his punch. Certainly that would have been the wise thing to do, for a slave does not strike a noble in his own city. It had defused a mortally dangerous situation … but it was emphatically not proper behavior for a warrior. I remembered how his courage had faltered briefly before the temple door, and I wondered disloyally if my elected hero was slightly flawed. Or just human, I reminded myself.

  And Jaxian was obviously not quite the sheep I had believed. Apparently he could be a man when he had no tune to think about it.

  He sat down again, breathing hard, still glaring. I clambered unobtrusively onto my stool, rubbing the back of my head.

  "We shall do no good by quarreling," I suggested weakly. "Our objective is to save Shalial."

  "I withdraw my remark," Jaxian growled.

  There was a pause. "I apologize," Thorian mumbled. He resumed his seat, painfully hunched over and not looking at anyone.

  I began to relax slightly. "Fotius is said to kill women."

  Jaxian moaned.

  "It is true," Thorian remarked, speaking with difficulty. "I watched him with refugees. I saw it happen. His uncle would not let the others interfere."

  Jaxian slumped on his stool as if his backbone had melted.

  I persisted. "And Fotius himself w
ill be put to death by the priests as soon as the Vorkans are defeated. Shalial may very well share his fate."

  "No!" Jaxian protested. "No, no!"

  "There is a crypt under the temple," said Thorian. "I know our story is improbable, but we saw it, and there are old bones there. Balor will be a considerable nuisance after the emergency is over."

  "My father would not have c-c-consented to that!"

  "He can't know. But the temple hierarchy will not long endure a fake god ruling over them. What can your father do then? Or Arksis? Denounce the priests? They will condemn themselves!"

  Jaxian moved as if to stand up, and seemed to lack the strength. "Even if we … It is not p-possible! We should be c-c-cas … c-c-caught."

  He was a rabbit again. I suppose in his boyhood he had always been well behaved, an obedient child anxious to please the father who paid him so little heed. Now two naughty boys were tempting him to commit mischief.

  I leaned back against the wall and smiled encouragingly. "Not tonight, no. We have no idea where she is in that warren and we should need a week to search it. But I don't think she is in any danger tonight. Tomorrow, or the next night—whenever Nagiak feels he has raised the city to the proper pitch of terror and anticipation. Then he will put Shalial on that throne and parade her through the town. That night we shall know where she is!"

  Jaxian shook his head like an obstinate sauce bottle. "This is madness!"

  "It is better than the alternative."

  "But supposing you can reach her, what will you do with her?"

  "Carry her off to some safe hiding place you will have arranged, of course. That is why we need your assistance—for that, and to convince her that she should accompany us. If you are not with us, she may reasonably fear what you yourself suggested a few moments ago. She may prefer to take her chances with Balor."

  Conversation lagged. The sounds of revelry were growing louder yet in the taproom next door.

  There was no chance whatsoever that Jaxian Tharpit would commit himself to my proposal on a moment's notice. He would want a year or two to mull it over. And he would find a thousand objections.