“Marshal,” acknowledged One-Thumb, carefully, his pate creasing with his frown. “It is good to know you are on our side. But you cannot come in here … My—”
“I am here, Lastel. While you were so inexplicably absent, I was often here, and received the courtesy of service without Charge. But now I am not here to eat or drink with those who recognize me for one who is fully as corrupt as are they themselves. There are those who know where you were, Lastel, and why—and one who broke the curse that bound you. Truly, if you had cared, you could have found out.” Twice, Tempus called One-Thumb by his true name, which no palace personage or Maze-dweller should have known enough to do.
“Marshal, let us go to my office.” Lastel fairly ramped behind his bar.
“No time, krrf-dealer. Mizraith’s sons, Stefab and Marype; Markmor: those three and more were slain by the woman Cime who is in the pits awaiting sentence. I thought that you should know.”
“What are you saying? You want me to break her out? Do it yourself.”
“No one”, said the Hell Hound, “can break anyone out of the palace. I am in charge of security there. If she were to escape, I would be very busy explaining to Kadakithis what went wrong. And tonight I am having a reunion here with fifty of my old friends from the mercenaries’ guild. I would not want anything to spoil it. And, too, I ask no man to take me on faith, or go where I have not been.” He grinned like the Destroyer, gesturing around. “You had better order in extra. And half a piece of krrf, your courtesy to me, of course. Once you have seen my men when well in hand, you will be better able to conjecture what might happen should they get out of hand, and weigh your alternatives. Most men I solicit find it to their benefit to work in accord with me. Should you deem it so for you, we will fix a time, and discuss it.”
Not the cipher’s meaning, nor the plan it shrouded, nor the threat that gave it teeth were lost on the man who did not like to be called “Lastel” in the Maze. He bellowed: “You are addled. You cannot do this. I cannot do that! As for krrf, I know nothing about… any … krrf.” But the man was gone, and Lastel was trembling with rage, thinking he had been in purgatory too long; it had eroded his nerves!
Chapter 4
WHEN THE DUSK cooled the Maze, Shadowspawn ducked into the Unicorn. One-Thumb was not in evidence; Two-Thumbs was behind the bar.
He sat with the wall supporting him, where the storyteller liked to sit, and watched the door, waiting for the crowd to thicken, tongues to loosen, some caravan driver to boast of his wares. The mercenaries were no boon to a thief, but dangerous playmates, like Kadakithis’s palace women. He did not want to be intrigued; he was being distracted moment by moment. As a consequence, he was very careful to keep his mind on business, so that he would not come up hungry next Ilsday, when his funds, if not increased, would run out.
Shadowspawn was dark as iron and sharp like a hawk; a cranked crossbow, loaded with cold bronze and quarrels to spare. He wore knives where a professional wears them, and sapphire and gold and crimson to draw the eye from his treasured blades.
Sanctuary had spawned him: he was hers, and he had thought nothing she did could surprise him. But when the mercenaries arrived as do clients to a strumpet’s house, he had been hurt like a whore’s bastard when first he learns how his mother feeds him.
It was better, now; he understood the new rules.
One rule was: get up and give them your seat. Hanse gave no one his seat. He might recall pressing business elsewhere, or see someone he just had to hasten over to greet. Tonight, he remembered nothing earlier forgotten; he saw no one he cared to bestir himself to meet. He prepared to defend his place as seven mercenaries filled the doorway with plumes and pelts and hilts and mail, and looked his way. But they went in a group to the bar, though one, in a black mantle, with iron at chest and head and wrists, pointed directly to him like a man sighting his arrow along an outstretched arm.
The man talked to Two-Thumbs awhile, took off his helmet with its horsehair crests that seemed blood-red, and approached Hanse’s table alone. A shiver coursed the thief’s flesh, from the top of his black thatch to his toetips.
The mercenary reached him in a dozen swinging strides, drawing a stabbing sword as he came on. If not for the fact that the other hand held a mug, Shadowspawn would have aired iron by the time the man (or youth from his smooth, heartshaped face) spoke: “Shadowspawn, called Hanse? I am Stepson, called Abarsis. I have been hoping to find you.” With a grin full of dazzling teeth, the mercenary put the ivory-hiked sword flat in the wet-rings on the table, and sat, both hands well in evidence, clasped under his chin.
Hanse gripped his beltknife tightly. Then the panic-flash receded, and time passed, instead of piling all its instants terrifyingly on top of one another. Hanse knew that he was no coward, that he was plagued by flashbacks from the two times he had been tapped with the fearstick ofVashanka, but his chest was heaving, and the mercenary might see. He slumped back, for camouflage. The mercenary with the expensive taste in accoutrements could be no older than he. And yet, only a king’s son could afford such a blade as that before him. He reached out hesitantly to touch its silvered guard, its garnet pommel, his gaze locked in the sell-sword’s soulless pale one, his hand slipping closer and closer to the elegant sword of its own accord.
“Ah, you do like it then,” said Stepson. “I was not sure. You will take it, I hope. It is customary in my country, when meeting a man who has performed heroically to the benefit of one’s house, to give a small token.” He withdrew a silver scabbard from his belt, laid it with the sword, which Hanse put down as if burned.
“What did I ever do for you?”
“Did you not rescue the Riddler from great peril?”
“Who?” The tanned face grinned ingenuously. “A truly brave man does not boast. I understand. Or is it a deeper thing? That—” He leaned forward; he smelled sweet like new-mown hay “—is truly what I need to know. Do you comprehend me?”
Hanse gave him an eagle’s look, and shook his head slowly, his fingers flat on the table, near the magnificent sword that the mercenary Stepson had offered to give him. The Riddler? He knew no one of that name. “Are you protecting him? There is no need, not from me. Tell me, Shadowspawn, are you and Tempus lovers?”
“Mother—!” His favourite knife leapt into his palm, unbidden. He looked at it in his own grasp in consternation, and dropped his other hand over it, and began paring his nails. Tempus! The Riddler? Hanse’s eyes caressed the covetable blade. “I helped him out, once or twice, that’s all.”
“That is good,” the youth across from him approved. “Then we will not have to fight over him. And, too, we could work a certain bargain, service for service, that would make me happy and you, I modestly estimate, a gentleman of ease for at least six months.”
“I’m listening,” said Shadowspawn, taking a chance, commending his knife to its sheath. The short sword too, he handled, fitting it in the scabbard and drawing it out, fascinated by the alert scrutiny of Abarsis the Stepson’s six companions.
When he began hearing the words “diamond rods” and “Hall of Judgement” he waxed uneasy. But by then, he could not sec any way that he could allow himself to appear less than heroic in the pale, blue-grey eyes of Stepson. Not when the amount of money Stepson had offered hung in the balance, not when the nobly fashioned sword he had been given as if it were merely serviceable proclaimed the flashy mercenary’s ability to pay that amount. But too, if he would pay that, he would pay more. Hanse was not so enthralled by the mercenaries’ mystique to hasten into one’s pay without some good Sanctuary barter. Watching Stepson’s six formidable companions, waiting like purebred hunting dogs curried for show, he spied a certain litheness about them, an uncanny cleanliness of limb and nearness of girded hips. Close friends, these. Very close.
Abarsis’s sonorous voice had ceased, waiting for Hanse’s response. The disconcertingly pale eyes followed Hanse’s stare, frank now, to his companions.
“Will you sa
y yea, then, friend of the Riddler? And become my friend, also? These other friends of mine await only your willingness to embrace you as a brother.”
“I own,” Hanse muttered.
Abarsis raised one winged brow. “So? They are members of a Sacred Band, my old one; most prized officers; heroes, every pair.” He judged Hanse’s face. “Can it be you do not have the custom, in the south? From your mien I must believe it.” His voice was liquid, like deep running water. “These men, to me and to their chosen partners, have sworn to forsake life before honour, to stand and never retreat, to fall where they fight if need be, shoulder to shoulder. There is no more hallowed tryst than theirs. Had I a thousand such, I would rule the earth.”
“Which one is yours?” Hanse tried not to sneer, to be conversational, unshaken, but his eyes could find no comfortable place to rest, so that at last he took up the gift-sword and examined the hieratic writing on its blade.
“None. I left them, long ago, when my partner went up to heaven. Now I have hired them back, to serve a need. It is strictly a love of spirit, Hanse, that is required. And only in Sacred Bands is a mercenary asked so much.”
“Still, it’s not my style.”
“You sound disappointed.”
“I am. In your offer. Pay me twice that, and I will get the items you desire. As for your friends, I don’t care if you bugger them each twice daily. Just as long as it’s not part of my job and no one thinks I am joining any organizations.” A swift, appreciative smile touched Abarsis. “Twice, then. I am at your mercy”
“I stole those diamond rods once before, for Tem—, for the Riddler. He’ll just give them back to her, after she does whatever it is she does for him. I had her once, and she did nothing for me that any other whore would not do.”
“You what? Ah, you do not know about them, then? Their legend, their curse?”
“Legend? Curse? I knew she was a sorceress. Tell me about it! Am I in any danger? You can forget the whole idea, about the rods. I keep shut of sorcery.”
“Hardly sorcery, no need to worry. They cannot transmit any of it. When he was young and she was a virgin, he was a prince and a fool of ideals. I heard it that the god is his true father, and thus she is not his sibling, but you know how legends are. As a princess, her sire looked for an advantageous marriage. An archmage of a power not seen anymore made an offer, at about the time the Riddler renounced his claim to the throne and retired to a philosopher’s cave. She went to him begging aid, some way out of an unacceptable situation, and convinced him that should she be deflowered, the mage would not want her, and of all men the Riddler was the only one she trusted with the task; anyone else would despoil her. She seduced him easily, for he had loved her all his young life and that unacceptable attraction to flesh of his flesh was part of what drove him from his primogeniture. She loved nothing but herself; some things never change. He was wise enough to know he brought destruction upon himself, but men are prone to ruin from women. In passion, he could not think clearly; when it left him he went to Vashanka’s altar and threw himself upon it, consigning his fate to the god. The god took him up, and when the archmage appeared with four eyes spitting fire and four mouths breathing fearful curses, the god’s aegis partly shielded him. Yet, the curse holds. He wanders eternally bringing death to whomever loves him and being spurned by whomsoever he shall love. She must offer herself for pay to any comer, take no gift of kindness on pain of showing all her awful years, incapable of giving love as she has always been. So thus, the gods, too, are barred to her, and she is truly damned.”
Hanse just stared at Stepson, whose voice had grown husky in the telling, when the mercenary left off.
“Now, will you help me? Please. He would want it to be you.”
Hanse made a sign.
“Would want it to be me?” the thief frowned. “He does not know about this?” There came the sound of Shadowspawn’s bench scraping back.
Abarsis reached out to touch the thief’s shoulder, a move quick as lightning and soft as a butterfly’s landing. “One must do for a friend what the friend cannot do for himself. With such a man, opportunities of this sort come seldom. If not for him, or for your price, or for whatever you hold sacred, do this thing for me, and I will be eternally in your debt.”
A sibilant sound, part impatience, part exasperation, part irritation, came sliding down Shadowspawn’s hawkish nose.
“Hanse?”
“You are going to surprise him with this deed, done? What if he has no taste for surprises? What if you are wrong, and he refrains from aiding her because he prefers her right where she is? And besides, I am staying away from him and his affairs.”
“No surprise: I will tell him once I have arranged it. I will make you one more offer: Half again the doubled fee you suggested, to ease your doubts. But that is my final bid.”
Shadowspawn squinted at the heartshaped face of Stepson. Then, without a word, he scooped up the short stabbing sword in its silver sheath, and found it a home in his belt. “Done,” said Hanse.
“Good. Then, will you meet my companions?” The long-fingered, graceful hand of Stepson, called Abarsis, made a gesture that brought them, all smiles and manly welcomes, from their exile by the bar.
Chapter 5
KURD, THE VIVISECTIONIST who had tried his skills on Tempus, was found a fair way from his adobe workshop, his gut stretched out for thirty feet before him: he had been dragged by the entrails; the hole cut in his belly to pull the intestines out was made by an expert: a mercenary had to be at fault. But there were so many mercenaries in Sanctuary, and so few friends of the vivisectionist, that the matter was not pursued. The matter of the Hell Hound Razkuli’s head, however, was much more serious. Zalbar (who knew why both had died and at whose hands, and who feared for his own life) went to Kadakithis with his friend’s staring eyes under one arm, sick and still tasting vomit, and told the prince how Tempus had come riding through the gates at dawn and called up to him where he was checking pass-bys in the gatehouse: “Zalbar, I’ve a message for you.”
“Yo!” Zalbar had waved. “Catch,” Tempus laughed, and threw something up to him while the grey horse reared, uttered a shrill, demonic scream, and clattered off by the time Zalbar’s hand had said head: human; and his eyes had said, head: Razkuli’s and then begun to fill with tears.
Kadakithis listened to his story, looking beyond him out of the window the entire time. When Zalbar had finished, the prince said, “Well, I don’t know what you expected, trying to take him down so clumsily.”
“But he said it was a message for me,” Zalbar entreated, caught his own pleading tone, scowled and straightened up.
“Then take it to heart, man. I can’t allow you two to continue feuding. If it is anything other than simple feuding, I do not want to know about it. Stepson, called Abarsis, told me to expect something like this! I demand a stop to it!”
“Stepson!” Tall, lank Zalbar snarled like a man invoking a vengeful god in close fighting. “An ex-Sacred Bander looking for glory and death with honour, in no particular order! Stepson told you? The Slaughter Priest? My lord prince, you are keeping deadly company these days! Are all the gods of the armies in Sanctuary, then, along with their familiars, the mercenary hordes? I had wanted to discuss with you what could be done to curb them—”
“Zalbar,” interrupted Kadakithis firmly. “In the matter of gods, I hold firm: I do not believe in them. In the matter of mercenaries, let them be. You broach subjects too sensitive for your station. In the matter of Tempus, I will talk to him. You change your attitude. Now, if that is all… ?”
It was all. It was nearly the end of Zalbar the Hell Hound’s entire career; he almost struck his commander-in-chief. But he refrained, though he could not utter even a civil goodbye. He went to his billet and he went into the town, and he worked wrath out of himself, as best he could. The dregs he washed away with drink, and after that he went to visit Myrtis, the whoremistress of Aphrodisia House who knew how to soothe him. And
she, seeing his heart breaking and his fists shaking, asked him nothing about why he had come, after staying away so long, but took him to her breast and healed what she might of his hurts, remembering that all the protection he provided her and good he did for her, he did because of a love spell she had bought and cast on him long since. and thus she owed him at least one night to match his dreams.
Chapter 6
TEMPUS HAD GONE among his own kind, after he left the barracks. He had checked in at the guild hostel north of the palace, once again in leopard and bronze and iron, and he was welcome there.
Why he had kept himself from it for so long, he could not have reasoned, unless it was that without these friends of former times the camaraderie would not have been as sweet.
He went to the sideboard and got hot mulled wine from a krater, sprinkling in goat’s cheese and grain, and took the posset to a corner, so the men could come to him as they would.
The problem of the eunuch was still unsolved: finding a suitable replacement was not going to be easy: there were not many eunuchs in the mercenaries’ guild. The clubroom was red as dying day and dark as backlit mountains, and he felt better for having come. So, when Abarsis, high priest of Upper Ranke, left his companions and approached, but did not sit among the mercenaries Tempus had collected, he said to the nine that he would see them at the appointed time, and to the iron-clad one.
“Life to you. Stepson. Please join me.”
“Life to you, Riddler, and everlasting glory.” Cup in hand, he sipped pure water, eyes hardly darker never leaving Tempus’s face. “Is it Sanctuary that has driven you to drink?” He indicated the posset.
“The dry soul is wisest? Not at the Empire’s anus, where the water is chancy. Anyway, those things I said long ago and far away: do not hold me to any of that.”
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