Liavek 2

by Will Shetterly

  Across the pit on the opposite side of the room rose an imposing idol, blackened by the flames that kept the smells of charcoal and crisped flesh in the air. Below the neck, the idol was carved into a huge cat, much like the ones ridden by the Bhandaf warriors who had captured them. Where there should have been a head, however, there was a terrifying tangle of at least a hundred living snakes, their bodies rising from the giant cat's neck, their black mouths issuing a chorus of quiet hisses.

  Standing before the idol was a tall figure wearing the head of one of the same black cats. He was clad in robes of black fur. As he held his hands out in front of him, an enormous head of flames formed just above the pit, obscuring the view of the idol and the spirit doctor. The head of flames opened its eyes and spoke. The words were Bhandaf, and they shook the stones.

  "Te, Zayieri, Hidat. Re cogh peh dyad!"

  Zayieri took a step forward, bent over, and spat into the flames. As the flames died, so almost did Elmutt. Tavi had fainted. There was a murmur of shock from the warriors guarding them and from the Bhandafs gathered around the walls.

  Zayieri shouted "Ogume, this is your daughter, not one from the other side of the Forbidden Way. Place your illusions aside and let us talk."

  The cat man on the other side of the pit growled angrily, "Speak not the language from beyond the Forbidden in your father's temple!"

  Zayieri held her hand out toward Elmutt. "My companion does not understand the words in Bhandaf."

  "Hah!" The spirit doctor removed his mask and handed it to an assistant as he stormed around the edge of the pit, coming to a halt facing Elmutt. "Is this the new thing in your bed, Zayieri? I am not surprised at the ways you picked up beyond the Forbidden." Ogume glanced at Hidat and hissed, "I at least thought you to be a man!"

  Hidat lunged at the spirit doctor but was restrained by the two warriors who guarded him. Zayieri stood between her husband and her father, facing Ogume. "Your mind rots with the evil it carries, my father. Hidat is my husband. I have no other bed. We have brought Elmutt of Liavek here upon his own request."

  Ogume faced Elmutt. "Speak!"

  "I...er...uh— "

  "What language is this?"

  "I, uh, do not know what to say, good sir."

  The spirit doctor held his head back and looked down his nose as though he were examining an insect whose extermination was long past due. "My daughter and this man she wed will be consumed by the pit fires and your own bleached skull will join the ranks outside the Forbidden Way as the price of your visit. I would think your reason to be an important one."

  "Oh, woe. Oh, woe!" wailed a tiny voice.

  Ogume turned to his right and looked down at Tavi dangling from the end of the warrior's arm. "A troll? A fat little thing, too." He shook a finger at Tavi. "Take note, hell demon. We shall have that fat flailed off of you before night!"

  "Oh, woe! Oh, woe!"

  The spirit doctor faced Elmutt. "Now speak. Why have you come?"

  "I seek the granddaughter of Yolik, wizard of Liavek. She was sent to the land of the Bhandafs by her grandfather to have a spirit doctor attempt to break the spell that has trapped her."

  Ogume's cat-eyed gaze was unblinking. "She is here. Is that information worth three lives?"

  "I have come to break the spell."

  "You?" Ogume laughed and turned to wave his hand at a darkened arch beyond the pit. "Goth vyad! Almantia nepri." He backed out of Elmutt's view as a Bhandaf girl-child assisted a stooped, black-robed figure in their direction. Elmutt knew it to be Almantia. The knowledge tore at his heart as he watched her struggle. Her head was completely covered by the hood of her robe, hiding her face. She pulled the child to a halt a few paces away. Ogume pointed down at his feet and ordered the child, "Hys, nepri!"

  The child pulled the misshapen figure until it stood before Elmutt. The figure kept its head turned away from the travelers. Ogume pulled her until she faced the picker. With his right hand the spirit doctor drew back her hood, revealing her face. "This is the woman you seek. She was a great beauty of only seventeen years, I have been told. Break that spell, Magician of Liavek."

  The universe was filled with the hideous sight of Almantia's face, her eyes, the tears that flowed from them, the responsibility of it all. Her lips trembled, but she said nothing.

  Ogume released her and folded his arms. "Bhanda does not want this spell broken. I have seen this for two days. Not all of the powers of this temple can change a single wart. What can you do?"

  Elmutt pulled his arms free from those who held them and reached out to the crone. He took her hands in his, stared into her eyes for a moment longer, then drew her toward him. He held her tightly, one hand against the back of her head, his lips next to her ear.

  "Almantia," he whispered, "you cannot forgive me for doing this to you, and I was the one. I was the one. I loved you and you didn't know. When you told me about the one you loved, my heart… But let me restore you to the way you were before. All you must do is ask me for your fortune. But you must limit it. Otherwise my heart, which still loves you, would force your tomorrows onto a path that would shame me. Say only this: What will be my beauty? Say it."

  He heard a whisper in his ear and felt the heat flash through his heart. For a moment longer he held her, knowing as he opened his arms that she would be gone forever.

  Her hair was mussed, her eyes dazed, but she was again as beautiful as before. Her eyelids closed and she sank against Ogume. The spirit doctor, shocked at the transformation of the woman and startled at the sudden weight against him, lowered Almantia to the stones of the floor. Zayieri knelt next to her and placed a hand over Almantia's eyes. She looked back at Elmutt. "There is nothing to fear. She only sleeps." Zayieri moved her gaze from Elmutt to her father.

  Ogume looked shaken. His gaze moved from his daughter to Hidat to Elmutt and back to Zayieri. Although glistening with tears, his eyes and voice were hard. "Forgive me, my daughter. It is the law. It is not my law, but Bhanda's." He gestured with his head toward her guards and the ones holding Elmutt and Hidat.

  They were all dragged to the edge of the pit. Ogume, looking old and broken, stood before his daughter, his words coming hard. "You have gone beyond the Forbidden; it is tabu. You have wed one from beyond the Forbidden; it is tabu. You have come back; the law must be obeyed."

  The spirit doctor glanced down, turned, and stood before Hidat. He looked into the musician's eyes. "You are from beyond the Forbidden; to be here is tabu. You have wed one of our daughters; it is tabu. You have...you have come back; the law must be obeyed."

  He stood before Elmutt. As the spirit doctor talked, Elmutt searched his heart and studied Ogume, seeing not hate or cruelty, but the pain and love the old man had for his daughter, for his son-in-law, even the respect he had for a garbage picker from Dung Alley. "Young man, you have a great power. It is a treasure that you have squandered for a woman's beauty. May it be worth it to you. You are from beyond the Forbidden; to be here is tabu. You are here; the law must be obeyed, and the law is fire."

  Elmutt smiled and asked, "Why?"

  "Why?" Ogume frowned. "Why? The law is from Bhanda."

  "What would happen if you didn't obey the law?"

  The spirit doctor looked outraged. "Not obey the law! What would happen if we did not obey the law? Why..."

  As a familiar heat glowed within Elmutt's breast, Ogume pondered the question. The more he pondered, the wider became his smile.

  •

  Elmutt left the Valley of Bhanda before Almantia awakened.

  Hidat and Zayieri, comfortably established in Ogume's home, had wished him well upon his journey back to Liavek, and had invited him to return someday to see their fine home that they had already started building. Someday, perhaps, the fortune maker replied, and invited them all to visit him. Now that the Forbidden Way was no longer forbidden, a traveling Bhandaf might need a guide sometime. Along the way to Liavek, Elmutt met a traveler and swapped his fine suit of blue velvet for the t
raveler's more comfortable, if rougher, wear.

  Elmutt carried with him a gift of magic from Ogume. The spirit doctor had cast Elmutt's future and had read much trouble for him from the Levar and her Guard as a result of his absence. Even at that moment, the White priest was filling the young girl's head with poison and her life with misery. Elmutt explained to Ogume why the Levar wanted him and the spirit doctor had given him an artifact of great power that would accomplish for the Levar the same thing.

  They were only words, and words in Bhandaf at that. However, as Elmutt read the words, they made for him the future he would have wished for himself. In translation, the artifact read:

  Yesterday was,

  Tomorrow might be,

  Today is.

  I will cherish it.

  Ogume's magic worked and Elmutt, Vavasor of Fortune Way, returned to picking garbage, and it was his festival. With his health, the open sky above him, and all of the people of Liavek for potential friends, he was a man of means. The people liked to see him come by, not just because they might alter their fortunes by asking for it, but because it made one feel good to be in his presence. He was a superlative garbage picker.

  A few of the friends who visit him are Bhandafs, and they come away with tales of a depressed troll. The creature is not depressed, it seems, simply because its victim is always happy. There is more to it. All the troll needs to do to make himself happy is to ask the garbage picker for such a future. And the garbage picker is willing. However, the troll remembers too well the things he did to the picker in the past and is afraid that the picker's secret heart might contain one or two leftover bad turns. With all of his greedy dreams dangling before him, yet not being able to work up enough courage to trust the one who could grant his wishes, the creature remains depressed. The most delightful form of troll torture the Bhandafs had ever seen.

  Some say that the garbage picker's fine home was restored to its former grandeur through his pickings' profits, but his loyal vassals along Fortune Way know differently. You see, if you should go to his home, once called Narkaan's Skull, to have him make you a future, you will be standing upon a fine carpet among expensive furniture and tapestries at the same time that Master Elmutt offers a joke about the squalor in which he lives. If you would ask his wife, she would explain to you that Elmutt refuses to give himself airs, believing that to live the way he always had lived is better for his character. Therefore, the magnificence you see, Elmutt sees as Ghaster's cellar. No one really knows what the place looks like. It's an illusion. After all, his wife is the granddaughter of a wizard. They seem to like it that way

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