by Dave Duncan
Again Jaxian squirmed on his chair. He scratched ash from his beard. "I hope it won't come to that, and it's your d-decision entirely. I really must rush off now. Militia d-duty, sword drill—we're all warriors now in Zanadon!"
"Inspiring," Thorian said solemnly "Oh, one other thing, milord. Your sister may distrust our good intentions. If she chooses not to come with us, how do we persuade her?"
Jaxian fumbled in his swath and produced a folded parchment. Hesitantly he held it out to Thorian. The resulting glare was designed to remind him what true warriors thought of such unmanly affectations as book learning. He passed it hastily to me instead.
I opened it and read it aloud for Thorian's benefit. "'You may trust the storyteller Omar and his companion. Safe refuge awaits you at the place you acquired the silver butterfly.' This is unsigned, milord."
"She knows my handwriting."
"Of course."
Apologetically Jaxian added, "I could not be more specific about the p-p-place … in case that falls into the wrong hands … Unfair to a very loyal retainer."
And he would not name the place to us because we were going to be tortured.
I had nothing more to say.
Thorian certainly did not.
Jaxian rose, but even he had trouble finding words. "I … You … My p-p-prayers go with you, milords."
We bowed in silence.
Jaxian went out with his back stiff and his face crimson.
Thorian lifted the chair the merchant had just vacated and began breaking it up with his bare hands. He continued doggedly until he had reduced it all to kindling.
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22:The Name of Obelisk
We left the inn then, for neither of us was inclined to trust Jaxian in his new mood. If his father asked him what was making him look so glum, he would start vomiting the whole tale. That was why my description of our plans had been so vague. I am not a meticulous person. I rarely plan ahead—I will take any sort of head that comes along. I muddle through. I have been known to change heroes in midstory. But I am not as fanatically suicidal as I had sounded to Jaxian.
With ashen beards and one bare leg apiece, we emerged into a lost city. Not only was Zanadon silent that morning, it was almost empty. Half the people were holding vigil in the Courtyard of a Thousand Gods. The other half were on the walls, stating southward at the heat haze and the dust.
The Vorkans were on the move, apparently. In that hotbed of fear, rumor and fancy bred like maggots. Make those mushrooms if you prefer. Thorian and I formed a good military intelligence department between us. I have skills at encouraging people to talk. He could suggest questions to ask and make sense of the answers. We collected a dozen names for the leader who had organized the refugees, and Thorian eventually concluded that there must be a council or committee in charge, with one strongman dominant. The favorite candidate for the overall leader was a Polrainian prince named Obelisk, and each time he was mentioned, Thorian became more thoughtful.
There were a thousand different accounts of the Vorkans' activities; Thorian dismissed all but one of them. You could see the dust, he snorted. It was obvious—they were circling around to the west, outflanking the refugee horde south of the city.
"Does that make tactical sense?" I inquired.
"Of course. It throws the refugees' defense into chaos. It also makes strategic sense. The Vorkans can't have found much to eat in the hills, but now they're into the larder. Now Zanadon can watch the crops burn. If the western cities send help, then the Vorkans can intercept. Or the Vorkans can just keep going, crossing the river and burning as they go.
"Besides," he added meanly, "people get very uneasy when they're surrounded, and now Zanadon feels surrounded.''
"You think the war lord must do something soon?"
Thorian uttered his lion grunt, but it was an amused lion. "He can't do anything until Nagiak does. They can't move without Balor now. I wonder if the priest has raised his price again?"
We left the crowd to its mourning and wandered westward, trying to follow alleyways and lanes that paralleled the walls. We both knew where we were going, so we did not bother to discuss it.
"I'm pleased at the way Balor is looking at me now," I remarked. "He definitely seems more friendly toward me than he did at first. I expect he approves of what we are doing."
Thorian bared the new gap in his teeth at me and continued to walk without saying anything.
"Maiana, though …" I sighed. "Well, I suppose we're planning further trespass within her temple. No woman can be expected to welcome a man blundering around like that, or trust him to be discreet. Don't you agree?"
Thorian grunted.
"Isn't Obelisk an unusual name for a prince?" I inquired.
"I know of no such prince, but that is not an uncommon name for a warrior."
"Oh, I think it is. I have known many warriors in my time, but never one called anything like Obelisk."
"If you say it is unusual, then it must be unusual, my taciturn friend."
"Do you feel manly when you mock me?"
He twitched as if I had stuck a needle in him. "It takes unspeakable self-control for me to keep my fist out of your throat. You are a permanent pest! You yap and jabber all the time, and sniff at everything like a terrier. Promise me fifteen minutes' masculine silence, and I shall explain Obelisk."
"Ten."
Thorian groaned. "Cheap at the price. Listen, then. In Polrain, when a youth of the warrior caste reaches manhood, he takes his true name and swears certain oaths to Sztatch, whom you call Balor …"
"I usually call him Krazath. Balor is the name he has here in—I beg pardon. Please do continue."
"Grr! His name-giving is the most solemn moment of a man's life. He recalls the feats of the great past heroes he has chosen as his exemplars, acting them out with the aid of his three best friends. This is a very potent ritual for all of them. Very often the same four pledge as name friends for one another and a group of sworn … But you do not need to know all that."
He fell silent, brooding as he walked—despite his height, Thorian walked with a soldier's regulation stride. I wondered if he was testing my resolve to keep silent, or just remembering his own coming of age and boyhood friends now dead. When he spoke again, his voice seemed harsher.
"The new man's name is chosen for him by his three friends, and neither he nor anyone else has any say in the matter. None whatsoever! Even the king has no say in the naming of his sons. Often the name so chosen will be that of one of the exemplars the boy has selected. Obelisk has been used that way for centuries, and thus several Obelisks have been worthy of emulation. But about fifteen years ago a certain Obelisk Pheotin led a great raid over Maidens Pass and returned with cattle uncounted, such as had not been seen in a generation. After that, many young men were hailed by their name friends as Obelisk and sobbed with pride for it. Now do you understand?"
"Not completely," I said happily.
"Hunff! Of course a man's name is often just the baby name his mother gave him continued, or his grandfather's, or a nickname, or the name of a god. But if his friends decide that Obelisk is the most fitting name for him, he will be Obelisk until the hour of his death, and honored to be so. I knew a Godlike, and a Bloodlover. I had a close friend named Hasty. That was his true name and gods pity any man who smiled at it, for he thereby gained four mortal foes. Now you see?"
"This helps explain some tales I gathered—"
"Argh!" he snarled. "You prattle like a woman and you have started me doing it. Be silent like a man."
I assumed the lecture was over, and had already turned my mind to other things when he spoke again, softly.
"If they give their friend a very strange name, then they pay him a very great compliment. Do you see that, Little One?"
"No." I was only little when I was near him!
"It is another pledge of loyalty, of course, but mainly it shows they believe he has the strength to bear the burden. S
uch names are called antler names."
After a few more strides he said proudly, "I had a brother named Dimples." Thereafter he walked in silence, stating straight ahead, letting the wind dry the tears on his cheeks.
We stood on the western wall and viewed half the world. Lookouts paced in the distance on either hand, but otherwise we were alone, for the crowds of Vorkan watchers had not yet worked their way this far around yet. The walls of Zanadon are wide enough for two chariots to pass. In places they stand high on both sides. In others their top is almost level with the ground on the city side, and this was one of those places. I had positioned myself with respect to Maiana's shoulder, and then found the tree with golden flowers.
"There is the road I mentioned," I said. "I have a confession, Thorian—I dreamed of this place."
"Me, too," he rumbled, leaning on the parapet and stating at the distant haze and the white clouds above the horizon. "I am very grateful to you, Omar, despite my snippy remarks."
I choked back a query and took a harder look at my surroundings. I have a storyteller's ear; Thorian had a warrior's trained vision. I had not recognized that the gully just ahead of us was where the wall had been breached and repaired. Now it was tidy. The work was done and all traces of construction had been swept away. I leaned over the battlements and stared down at the ill-used forest far below. I wondered why there were so many birds …
"Thorian! Down there? Do you see?"
"I saw," he said, and continued to look straight ahead.
Zanadon needed its slaves no longer. Had Jaxian not called us away, we should have been lying there also.
We climbed the weedy road between the shacks and came to the yard I had dreamed of. There was no one in sight, for everyone had gone to the temple or the walls. Much of the junk I had observed was equipment left over from the repairs—ladders, pulleys, rope, tools. In time it might be sold off and removed, but at the moment it was there for the taking.
Thorian studied the high stones of the temple wall.
"We could scale that," he agreed.
"We should be in the grounds. But we could not be far from the door we came out of."
"And you were not serious about climbing the outside of the temple, were you?"
"That was for Jaxian's benefit. We were shown the secret stairs inside."
He nodded thoughtfully. "Then we shall need lanterns, and weapons."
"No weapons! Try to buy a sword in Zanadon now, and within an hour you will be shorter by a head."
He chuckled reluctantly. "Which would make me about your size! All right, no weapons. A coil of rope, maybe? Useful stuff. And let us not linger here longer lest we draw attention to ourselves."
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23: Two Up
The rest of that day was a melancholy, nerve-wracking wait. Even after the official mourning ended at noon, the pall of grief and fear did not lift from the city. Ash-strewn beards and bare legs remained everywhere in sight. The weather grew oppressively muggy, so that the least exertion provoked breathless, prickly exhaustion and floods of sweat. Thorian and I stayed together, reluctant companions. I wanted to gather tales, and chatter made him irritable. Admittedly, few citizens were in the mood for talk.
I was encouraged to note that Balor continued to approve of my intentions; he was almost smiling under his golden helmet. Every time I caught a glimpse of Maiana over the roofs, though, she seemed grimmer than before. I did not mention the matter again to Thorian. I did not want to worry him.
Dusk found us on the edge of the crowd near the great gatehouse. We carried a leather bag stuffed with two lanterns and some other supplies we had decided upon. We had full bellies—at Thorian's insistence, for I had lost my appetite. I could see the wisdom of it, though.
The procession began emerging. The crowd stayed silent, waiting. Priests first, then the city dignitaries—and finally the torches and the litter.
The crowd roared in approval, calling echoes from the towering buildings, sending up flocks of startled birds.
It was Shalial. Even Belhjes had seemed beautiful in the guise of Maiana. Shalial was dream made real. Her native beauty shone through paint and jewels and silver and made them all seem tawdry. If she was frightened, no one could tell. She wore a faint smile, but she kept her gaze ahead, not looking at the screaming mob. She did not need to—not a man there would not have died for this goddess.
And now I knew why her face had seemed hauntingly familiar to me since the first glimpse I had of her. I wondered if High Priest Nagiak had noted that resemblance, and if it had influenced his plans. Maiana! The gentle curve of the nose, the proud demeanor … The likeness was not as startling as that between me and the Rosh statue, but it was there if one looked for it, and I thought that mine were not the only eyes seeing it.
I resisted the draw of the crowd and remained myself. It was an effort, but it was required of me. And as soon as she had passed, when everyone else flocked behind her, heading for the temple, Thorian and I slipped away and began running as hard as we were able in the suffocating heat.
We paused for breath below the yellow-flowered tree and looked out over the fertile plain. We both knew we might not see the world like this again. I was just as conscious of danger as Thorian must be. I still had faith in the gods, but not quite as much as usual, for I was well aware I might be straying beyond my mandate. I was not merely observing, I was meddling, and I rarely do that. We were taking a fearful risk, and we both knew it. For me to say so would have been unkind, and for him unthinkable.
The sun had just set, and I thought I could make out the thin crescent of the goddess, low in the sky below a monstrous black storm cloud, whose top was red as blood. The air was thick in the throat, hot and heavy as boiled oil.
"It will be a wild night when that arrives," I remarked.
"Sztatch and Zomapp are brothers. Let us hope it is a good omen. Come." Thorian turned away and headed up the slope.
In the junkyard we stripped off our bulky Tharpit garments and hid them. We donned anonymous black loincloths, skimpy enough not to impede us. Even at that distance, the roaring of the crowd in the Courtyard prickled my skin. I knew that every man there would be looking at Shalial and thinking that if Balor could refuse such beauty then he was no true god. Zanadon could have no finer woman to offer.
We laid our ladder against the wall, and Thorian went over first. I did not argue precedence. The priests would all be occupied with the ceremony … wouldn't they?
We came down in deep shadow in an orchard of lemon trees. Not daring to speak, we hurried toward the temple itself. I was worried by the cropped feel of the grass under my feet, for the light was too poor to make out the droppings. Sheep I could handle, but geese are far better watchdogs than watchdogs ever are. Nothing came screeching and snapping at us. The twilight was both a blessing and a danger. If we could proceed without lights so could others, and we might not see them in time.
The crowd had started to sing, which meant that the procession was already mounting the stairs. Urgency nipped at my heels and tightened my throat. We came to the rear wall of the cloister and then to the place where it abutted the temple itself. The singing was louder now. Here began the real danger. Up to now we had been trespassing, but with the option of running back to the orchard and scrambling over the wall. From now on there would be no fast escape.
Thorian paused. I went past him and boldly threw open the gate. To my left was the temple door. To my right were the cloisters, and torchlight gleamed on Maiana's heels straight ahead in the darkness. I saw and heard the crowd, but I hurried into the temple without a pause, aware of two bare feet padding behind me. The corridor seemed completely dark, but we must show up against the glow of the doorway at our backs. My belly had knotted with the conviction that at any second someone would cry out or I would simply walk into some absentminded priest meditating in the gloom, but I trailed one hand along the wall and hurried toward Nagiak's chamber at the end. My eyes were
adjusting to the darkness by the time I reached it. If the door was locked we were balked.
The door was not locked. We closed it behind us, and I knew that then I drew my first real breath in some time. I recognized the unpleasant, cloying scent of the sumptuous room, but its furnishings and artwork were just vague shadows in the faint glow of the skylights. Marvel of marvels!—the rug had been rolled to one side. That disposed of another worry, that of straightening the cover over the trapdoor when we had entered. Truly the gods seemed to be encouraging us so far. Were we amusing them? I wondered.
Had I been alone, my progress would have ended right there in Nagiak's bedroom, for a secret trapdoor is not equipped with carved ivory handles or bronze rings. Because I knew it was there, I would likely have found the fight flagstone, for I am not completely stupid, but I could never have opened it—not even had I sacrificed all my fingernails and all my toenails and even my teeth. Fortunately, the ever-practical Thorian had observed on our previous visit that the flap was pivoted, not hinged. When he positioned his toes along the back edge and then rose up on tiptoe, the infernal device knew it was beaten. The front lip lifted just enough for me to gain a fingerhold. Up it came. And down we went.
You have probably heard the tale of the nervous spinster who locks her chamber door, and bolts it, and then chains it, and then bars it, and has just finished pushing the dresser against it when a voice from …
All right, you know it. I never said it wasn't old.
But that story was what I thought about as I sat on the hard stone steps in pitch darkness with Thorian at my side. I was panting like a dog, partly from the putrid air, but mostly from release of tension. I could hear his lungs working almost as hard. I was absurdly happy to have reached that cellar. As a charnel house it had appalled me on our previous visit, yet now it was safe haven. I felt as if the worst part of our expedition was over once we had reached the secret part of the temple in safety. After this, anyone who challenged us was probably up to no good himself, and could not summon unlimited reinforcements with a simple shout. The feeling was not very rational, but I felt much better for it. And at the same time I kept thinking of the nervous spinster, and imagining Gramian Fotius putting his lips to my ear in the dark and whispering boo!