by Paula Volsky
“They mean to send us on,” Girays opined.
“I do not allow these slimy overgrown glowworms to dispatch me where they will by magic means, no,” declared Bav Tchornoi. “I walk out of this underground trap on my own two feet, and that creature there—it shows me the way out, else I rip its rickety body apart with my own two hands.” His hands, huge and powerful, appeared capable of performing the feat. He took a purposeful stride toward the motionless guide.
“Stop there, you damned fool.” Girays moved to block the Rhazaullean’s path.
An almost negligent sweep of the former Ice Kings champion’s skilled arm thrust the shorter, lighter Vonahrishman aside. The advance resumed. The White Demon, if such it was, watched inscrutably.
The only demons in sight call themselves human.
Luzelle was not entirely conscious of drawing the pistol from her pocket. She looked down to see it in her hand, aimed quite steadily at Bav Tchornoi’s ample midsection, and she heard her own voice command evenly, “Stop there, Master Tchornoi. You will not lift a hand against these people.”
“People? Hah! That is a joke, yes?” He wheeled to face her. “You are a blind, foolish woman. Before you make me angry, put that silly toy away.”
“It is no toy, I assure you.” Luzelle’s tone remained deceptively assured. Out of the corner of her eye she noted the luminosity of the cave dwellers’ flesh waxing and waning in rapid, erratic sequences that might or might not hold meaning, and curiosity meteored across her mind. Did they know the nature of guns? She heard the music of the alien voices, many voices, but the message was incomprehensible as ever. Her own companions’ reactions, on the other hand, were clear. Consternation showed on every face.
“Have you taken leave of your senses?” Girays demanded. “Where did you get that thing?”
Ignoring the question, she addressed herself to Tchornoi. “These people are very generously attempting to help us”—she privately hoped she spoke the truth—“probably out of some regard for the Lanthian Select. You will not abuse that kindness, Master Tchornoi. Should you attempt violence, I will shoot you through the kneecap, and then we’ll see how well you race.”
“This you could not do.” Tchornoi’s lip curled.
“Try me. I am a dead shot, and very accustomed to handling firearms.” Does this gun have some sort of a safety lock or not? Luzelle wondered. If it does, is it on or off now? Should have asked Karsler when I had the chance. She eyed Tchornoi steadily.
For a few moments he glowered at her, then muttered a few choice Rhazaullean oaths before switching to Vonahrish. “Hah, you preach against violence while waving a gun around like a drunken soldier. You should be locked in a madhouse. It is not worth my time to quarrel with a crazy woman, so for now I humor you.”
“Good decision.” Luzelle took care to conceal every sign of her relief. “Then humor me by stepping onto that glass there, where you will stand still and keep quiet.”
Tchornoi’s glare intensified, but he obeyed without argument. The Festinette twins joined him upon the polished slab, and the tall being with the pebble necklace and the brown bat on its shoulder commenced a melodic, repetitive declamation. Presently the Cognitive whirlwind screamed into existence, filled the room with fury, and departed, leaving the ophelu bare.
The Khrennisov disappeared back into Luzelle’s pocket. She’d possessed it for only a few hours, and already aimed it at an unarmed man. The implications were unsettling.
High, fluting arpeggios stirred the lucent stand of spectators, and she wondered if the sound expressed wonder, or excitement, or some other emotion wholly beyond the scope of her experience. But there was no time to ponder the question, for now it was her turn to step onto the glass for another impossible transference to—she didn’t know where. Then Girays was there beside her, along with Mesq’r Zavune, and this time she managed to keep herself from grabbing anybody’s arm.
The tall being had already resumed its invocation, and the chanting rhythm never faltered, but the radiant gaze shifted briefly to Luzelle’s face, and for a breathless instant she looked straight into the White Demon’s eyes from a distance of inches. She could see the intelligence there, and a quality that she could only inadequately have described as soul, and, she would have bet money, some sort of message meant for her alone—a vital message forever beyond her comprehension.
The moment passed, and the entire scene—stone chamber, stalactites overhead, hexagonal slabs below, luminous beings, alien eyes, and all—vanished in a rush of snow-white wind. Less alarmed this time, Luzelle let herself relax a little into the storm’s power, and thus found herself traveling with the wind, almost riding it, resulting in a far gentler transference.
She was deposited in a new place, and the atmosphere grew calm. She discovered herself standing with Girays and Zavune upon a glass slab set into the floor of a hexagonal closet or small room, with walls of damp old brick. What in the world—? Vertical slits perforating the enclosure just below ceiling level admitted thin streams of reddish light, by which she discerned an old iron ladder bolted to one wall. The ladder led to some sort of a trapdoor in the wooden ceiling, its hexagonal outline just barely visible in the ruddy gloom. Presumably Tchornoi and the Festinettes had already exited by way of the ceiling, for there was no sign of them.
Good riddance.
Valise in hand, Luzelle squirreled up the ladder. When she reached the top, she pushed at the door in the ceiling, which offered unexpected resistance. She increased the pressure, without results, and the too-familiar sensation of impending doom began to swirl at the pit of her stomach.
“Locked,” she told her companions.
“Can’t be. The others got out. Let me try,” Girays requested.
She descended and he took her place. His own efforts to raise the trap were unsuccessful as her own, and following a few straining, quietly profane attempts, he called down, “Zavune—give me a hand.”
The Aennorvi, conveniently moderate of frame, climbed the ladder and squeezed himself onto Girays’s rung. Together the two men pushed at the trap above, sensed progress, increased their efforts, and were rewarded with the groan of old boards reporting the shift of a large weight above, the scrape and shout of tumbling mass, and the shriek of yielding hinges as the trapdoor opened.
Red light gushed in through the opening, along with a fish-scented puff of fresh air. Girays and Zavune stuck their heads out and looked around.
“What’s out there? Where are we?” asked Luzelle.
“Garden,” reported Girays.
“What do you mean, garden? What garden, where garden, whose garden?”
“Overgrown walled pleasure garden, somewhere near the sea, recorded deed of title currently unavailable,” Girays replied, and hurried on down the ladder to claim his suitcase.
Zavune did likewise, and Luzelle seized the opportunity to race on up and out of the mildew-smelling little polyhedron of a place. Her feet clattered on old boards. Fresh air kissed her lungs, while red glory punished her eyes. She blinked, squinted against the light, and the ocular assault dwindled to a minor impertinence.
A six-sided roof peaked overhead. Carven pillars supported the roof, carven railings connected the pillars. Unregulated greenery pushed its advantage on all sides.
But what is it?
A belvedere, she realized. Onion domed, curlicued, and filigreed. A pretty little sop to the senses, set amid soft surroundings. Not the worst place in the world to conceal a sorcerous conveyance.
Who concealed it, when, and why?
She would never know. Her eyes roved. Not far away, only at the top of the garden, rose a dark house—tall, silent, and apparently lifeless. The windows were boarded, the place deserted. It looked as if it had been abandoned for the past century or more. Just the sort of place to which sensible people set torch.
The stray breeze wafted salt and fish.
But where are we?
Girays and Zavune climbed up out of the depths.
“What do it?” demanded Zavune.
“Do it?” For a moment Luzelle stared at him, then understood. Hold them prisoner down below, he meant, for it had not been an accident. Her eyes traveled and lighted upon a recumbent marble nymph, sprawling pinkly between the angle of the open trapdoor and the belvedere floor. The polished beauty must have equaled the weight of two full-grown men, at least.
The others followed her gaze.
“Tchornoi and the Festinettes.” Girays radiated formerly-Exalted disdain. “It would have taken at least a couple of them to place that statue atop the trapdoor, and I don’t think the twins could have managed it. Crooked, the lot of them.”
“Murderers. We starve to death in that trap,” Zavune observed somberly.
“Oh, I don’t think they’d actually kill us, any more than I would actually have shot Bav Tchornoi.” Luzelle realized that she was trying to convince herself. “Probably they just meant to slow us down a bit.”
“Won’t help them much,” Girays remarked. “See, the sun’s setting. Nobody will go much farther along the Grand Ellipse tonight.”
A cool breeze swept the neglected garden. Luzelle’s eyes went to the deserted, disintegrating mansion, with its boarded windows and its air of desolation. She shivered a little.
“Let’s get out of here,” she suggested. “Let’s at least find out where we are.”
The three of them made their way along a gravel path to a door in the high garden wall. The door hung ajar on its rusty old hinges; probably it had been used in the very recent past. They went through, transferring themselves in a disorienting moment from the forgotten rusticity of the silent garden to the bustle of a busy city street.
Luzelle stood still, trying to take it in. Tall buildings of honey-colored stone arose on all sides. Horse-drawn carriages, carts, and hansom cabs filled the wide urban avenue, and there were people, hundreds of people everywhere. The suddenness of the change was almost as startling as transference by ophelu.
“Look. Look at.” Mesq’r Zavune pointed. “There is Rakstriphe’s Victory Column. Very famous. We are in Hurba.”
“By sunset, just as they promised,” said Girays.
“Hansom. Waterfront,” urged Luzelle. “Ticketing agencies. Passage to Aeshno. Come on, gentlemen, let’s grab a cab, let’s go!”
“Whew!” Zavune smiled.
“Couldn’t have put it better myself,” Girays agreed, entertained.
“What are you smirking about?” Luzelle asked him.
“I am not smirking. I never smirk.”
“You are. You do.”
“If you’ve detected some sign of mild amusement, it’s a natural response to your rather—how shall I put it—charmingly impetuous enthusiasm.”
“Girays, you know I can’t stand it when you—”
“Because, you see,” he continued with annoying composure, “in your eagerness you have failed to consider the lateness of the hour, and its effect. By this time the ticketing agencies are shut up for the night. There’s no possibility of booking commercial passage from Dalyon before tomorrow morning.”
“For now, we stuck,” Zavune informed her.
“Unless, of course, you happen to enjoy access to a private yacht,” Girays suggested helpfully. “Or a dependable night-flying balloon, or perhaps some really imaginative newfangled suboceanic vehicle, or a trained leviathan, or—”
“You needn’t belabor the point.” Luzelle scowled.
“The Herald Inn, not far from here,” Mesq’r Zavune told them. “Very excellently clean. Good food.”
Food. Luzelle’s stomach rumbled responsively. She noticed herself smiling.
They took a cab to the Herald Inn, an elderly but immaculate establishment with black half-timbering and a gabled roof, where there were plenty of decent rooms available at stiff city rates.
Luzelle ate a good dinner of Hurbanese winepoachies in the Herald’s old dining room, in the company of Girays and Zavune. The latter, she discovered, was almost feverishly anticipating a very temporary reunion with his wife and children in his homeland of Aennorve. The conversation scarcely touched on the Grand Ellipse, and for a short time it was possible to relax and enjoy the illusion that the three of them were ordinary dinner companions rather than rivals.
The meal ended, and camaraderie began to wane. Luzelle was already wondering if she might somehow find a way tomorrow morning of beating them both to the docks. To her surprise, Girays insisted on walking her back to her room. She suspected that he wanted some sort of private conversation, and this proved to be the case.
They paused in the empty corridor at her door, and Girays turned to face her. His angular face had lost all trace of characteristic amusement or weariness. An odd little frisson—trepidation? excitement?—ran through her at the sight, and she asked, “What is it?”
“That gun,” said Girays.
“Khrennisov FK6 pocket pistol.”
“So I noticed.”
“Good weapon for self-defense.”
“In properly trained hands. Where did it come from?”
“A pawnshop in Lanthi Ume.” She paused, then added with a certain delicious enjoyment that she strove hard to disguise, “Karsler Stornzof helped me pick it out.”
“But how amiable of him.”
“Yes, I thought so.”
“Unfortunately the gallant Grewzian seems to have overlooked a small but possibly telling detail. In his zeal to serve a lady, he has succeeded in placing a deadly weapon in the hands of one who—forgive me if I am mistaken—has not the slightest notion how to handle it.”
“Oh?” She considered denial, but recognized the pointlessness. “Was it so very obvious that I don’t know how to shoot?”
“It was to me, because I know your face; I know your eyes.”
“Bav Tchornoi doesn’t, and he was the one I needed to convince. Worked, too.”
“Yes, but tell me—what would you have done if Tchornoi had called your bluff? Would you actually have fired? Do you even know how?”
“Well, it didn’t go that way.” Even to herself she sounded lame.
Girays smothered a curse. “That irresponsible fool of an overcommander ought to be horsewhipped. Is he trying to curry favor with you, trying to get you killed, or both?”
“Don’t blame Karsler—”
“Karsler?”
“It wasn’t his doing. We were walking together—”
“Indeed?”
“We met by accident, only he thinks it wasn’t altogether an accident.”
“Really.”
“I’d been a little ill, and he’d helped me. He really was wonderful—”
“Wonderful, again!”
“Anyway, we passed a pawnshop, and I told him I wanted to buy a gun. He didn’t suggest it, he didn’t have any say in the matter. It really didn’t matter whether he was with me or not, I’d have gone ahead and bought some sort of handgun in any case. Since he was there, he helped me pick out a good one. That’s all.”
“Perhaps not quite all. He encouraged you, I suppose.”
“Hard though it may be for you to believe, Girays—it was my own decision.”
“And then he washes his hands, he walks away, without troubling to instruct you.”
“He didn’t have any choice, or any time. We are in a race, after all. He told me to practice.”
“Oh, well, that absolves him of all. Will you defend everything that he does?”
“This is ridiculous. I’m not obliged to defend anything or anybody, to you. Why should I?”
“Why indeed? Why should you give the slightest thought to anything in the world beyond your own determination to get whatever you want, at any cost? Only now that you have secured this damned gun, and the golden Grewzian who egged you on is nowhere to be seen, perhaps you aren’t too proud to let me show you how to use it?”
“What?” For a moment she was unsure that she had heard him correctly.
“We’ll probably take the
same ship for Aennorve. We’ll have a few days, I can show you how to handle the Khrennisov. If you wish.”
“Oh.” She drew a deep breath. He had taken her by surprise, and she did not know how to react. After a moment she confessed, “This isn’t what I expected. I was sure you’d think it a dangerous mistake for me to carry a gun.”
“I do. But I can think of an even more dangerous mistake—for you to carry a gun that you don’t know how to use. Will you let me show you?”
“Yes.” The assent emerged easily, but the next words required effort. “Thank you.”
“Tomorrow, then.” He was too well bred to display anything resembling triumph.
“Girays?”
“Yes?”
“What in the world possessed you to enter this race?”
“Let’s talk when we have more time, aboard ship. That’s what long sea voyages are good for, you know—time.”
“Time and talk may be all that this one will be good for. We’ve fallen so far behind, we’ll need a miracle or magic to catch up with the Stornzof kinsmen now.”
7
THE SUN WAS HIGH IN THE SKY when the Inspiration embarked from Lanthi Ume, speeded on its way by the salutes of the Grewzian patrol vessels. For hours she hurried east across the Jeweled Expanse, whose blue waters echoed the color and mildness of the cloudless skies. The air was magnificent, and the scenery uncommonly noteworthy by seagoing standards, for the ship threaded a path among the countless steeply pitched, colorfully vegetated islands that lent the Jeweled Expanse its name.
Karsler Stornzof stood on the deck watching island after island go by, some so close that he needed no spyglass to distinguish the close-packed white-stuccoed houses clambering up the sharp-graded slopes. The grey-green bemubit trees with their gnarled white trunks were likewise distinguishable, along with terraced gardens dripping voluptuous cascades of the purple khilliverigia, known as Youth’s-Excuse, already abloom in these sunny climes.
Not all of the islands were inhabited, or even clothed in flora. Many exposed their naked volcanic rock to the skies. Others, devoid of humankind, sheltered colonies of bright-winged liftzoomers, whose iridescent plumage decorated expensive hats all over the world.