by Brian Lumley
“D’you think the law will get after us?” Eldin gruffly inquired, the while smiling at an old lady who fried honey pancakes and shaped them into hearts for courting couples.
“What, for sinking the Craven Lobster?” Hero shook his head. “We could end up on the city’s roll of honor!”
“No,” Eldin grunted, “for killing the seer. Not to mention a Kledan—or possibly two Kledans.”
“We didn’t kill the seer,” said Hero. “And the slavers tried to kill us! That was self-defense.”
They crossed the street between stalls, avoided bags of sweets thrust at them by a man dressed as a toffee-apple.
“We know that,” said Eldin. “But what about that gang of cutthroats we left in the swim back there?”
“Oh, yes?” said Hero scornfully. “And can you honestly see one of that lot reporting the matter to the law? They might eventually be questioned about it—I mean, someone’s bound to notice sooner or later, the loss of an entire tavern and whatnot—but they’d hardly go volunteering the information, now would they? I’ll bet every man-jack of ’em has a record long as your gangly arm!”
Eldin reckoned he was probably right.
By now they’d reached the foot of a wide wooden staircase, set back from the street, that led up an otherwise sheer cliff face to a cavern eatery. In the back, the choicest dishes of dreams were prepared by a team of experts; out in front, on a great balcony under a mighty red-striped awning, said viands and morsels and gobbets were gobbled by Bahama’s most demanding gourmets. A hand-painted sign made an arch over the stairway, saying:
THIS WAY TO PAZZA’S PANTRY!
Not the cheapest restaurant by any means, but Ula and Una were worth it.
Ula and Una were the twin daughters of one Ham Gidduf, a rich merchant of Andahad, a small but opulent seaport on the far side of Oriab. They’d shared adventures with the questers before—indeed they’d been with them in the affair of the Mad Moon—and there was an ongoing amorous affair, too, however sporadic. Now, hearing coos and giggles, Hero and Eldin stood at the foot of the stairway and elevated their eyes to the balcony under the awning. Seated at a table on the very rim, their pretty elbows on the ornate stone balustrade, Ula and Una waved down at them.
The questers grinned, waved back, started up the steps. On the way Eldin queried: “Now say, am I all spruce? I mean, will she look right on my arm?”
“You’re fine,” said Hero. He heaved a sigh of relief. “And obviously they’re fine, too. So the seer’s vision hasn’t come to pass just yet. And if we stay close to the girls—keep our eyes peeled, our swords ready and senses alert—then when it does happen we’ll be there to make a quick end of it.”
“Yes, yes, all of that’s understood,” said Eldin. “But are my boots shiny? Is my jacket tucked into my belt at the back? Are my eyes bright?”
“You’re a vain old bugger,” said Hero matter-of-factly, eyeing the other up and down. “But yes, all of those things are correct—and your seams are straight, too.”
“Eh, seams?”
“Er, ‘seems all’s in order,’” Hero answered, for already the source of his remark was fading in his mind. A revenant of the waking world, he supposed. “Anyway, what about me?”
They reached the landing that opened on to the balcony. Fabulous food smells invaded their nostrils, tickled their saliva glands, activated their appetites. “What about you?” asked Eldin, his mind on other things. With his eyes fixed on the girls, beaming as he went, he began to make his way to them between tables choked with delirious devourers.
“Am I in good order?” Hero growled under his breath.
“Hell, no!” said Eldin, with the merest glance of disapproval. “Disgusting!” Then they were at the girls’ table.
Ula and Una, as fine and desirable a pair of ladies as ever the dreamers had lusted after (and “won,” however contrived—by the girls themselves—the double “conquest” had been) were obviously delighted that Hero and Eldin had shown up. The girls knew this pair for what they were, questers, and that their adventurings often took them away, at a moment’s notice, into far strange parts and ports.
Dark-haired, green-eyed, and delicately elfin-featured (despite their very worldly prominence in other areas) the girls were supple but something a little more than willowy, and they were very plainly excited to be back in the company of these two likely lads. They stood up laughing as the pair closed on them, and:
“’Lo,” said Hero. “Who’s who?”
Eldin, on the other hand, bowed low and with a sweep of his arm said: “The brightest stars of night are fallen on Oriab, and come now into Bahama in the shape of these lovely Loreleis. Good even’, O fairest of the fair; but pray, before the festivities commence, may we not inquire which witch is which?”
Then Ula threw herself into Hero’s arms: “Oh!” he murmured, almost caving in under her onslaught, “and that’s you, is it?”
And Una, hanging on Eldin’s neck, saying: “Can’t you tell us apart yet, great oafs? I’ve a slightly longer neck than Ula!”
“All the better for necking, my dear,” growled Eldin, in good imitation—indeed in perfect imitation—of a great wolf.
“And I’m a bit longer in the leg,” admitted Ula.
“Do you mind if we go into that later?” said Hero, which set the girls giggling again. And so the two pairs stood, locked in each others’ arms—but only for a moment more. Then the girls glanced at each other, drew back and smoothed down their pretty frills, finally seated themselves and lifted their noses not a little disdainfully. Their green eyes left the faces of the questers, looked elsewhere, settled for gazing out over the lanthorn-lit city.
“Oh?” said Hero and Eldin together. “And what’s all this?” They sat down, each beside his lady.
“Do you need to ask?” Una sniffed. She drew her elbow sharply away as Eldin tried to stroke it. The Wanderer raised bushy eyebrows, glanced at Hero and found his likewise peaked.
“Of course we need to ask,” said the younger quester, not unreasonably. “Else how’ll we get to know?” But in his secret mind:
Have they heard about our diversion in Dylath-Leen?
And in Eldin’s: P’raps someone’s mentioned our carousing in Karkellon!
Hero: Was it my serenading in Serannian?
Eldin: My how-d’ye-do in Hlanith!
And together, out loud: “Our consciences are clear! So out with it—what’s your complaint?”
“We are maidens,” said Ula, her glance biting where it fell on Hero’s handsome, frowning face, “and yet we are not maidens!”
“Shh!” said Eldin at once, peering this way and that in only half-feigned alarm. “Last time you two said things like that you brought all Bahama down on us!”
“But it’s true,” insisted Una, pouting prettily. “You made us women, and yet have not made us wives! Are we toys to sit around waiting for the children to come and wind us up? Then dance for them and sing for them and … and …”
“And do other things for them,” prompted Ula.
“That, too,” Una gave a sharp nod of agreement, “—until they’re tired of the game and go off to play at something else?”
“I swear you’re my only plaything!” cried Hero to Ula.
“So do I!” said Eldin to Una.
“That’s not what we meant!” Ula stamped her foot. “We meant simply that …” She tried again. “That …”
“Not so simple, eh?” said Hero.
“That we can’t marry a pair of questers!” Una finished it for her sister.
For a moment the comrades were silent, astonished—but in the next their frowns turned to beaming smiles. And: “Thank goodness for that!” sighed the Wanderer. “For a while there we thought it was something serious!”
“Buffoon!” cried Una. She jumped to her feet and gave Eldin a ringing clout on the ear.
Hero stopped grinning just in time to receive Ula’s punch in his eye. Half-deaf (Eldin) and half-blind (He
ro), they too staggered to their feet. At which point—
“Hold!” came a deep, throaty voice—the unmistakable Voice of Authority—from close at hand. For while the questers had been involved with their lady-loves, there had been several late arrivals at Pazza’s Pantry.
The girls, furiously miffed and still not aware of anything untoward, made to stalk off, but were grabbed at once by a pair of gray-clad Regulators. As the questers reached for their swords-an almost entirely automatic reaction on their part-so a party of pikemen stepped forward, formed a circle around them. And. Pazza’s Pantry was suddenly still, with not a chomp to break the silence. As the pikes closed threateningly, so the questers relinquished their grips on their swords, looked to see who led this party of law officers.
And there stood the one who had spoken: a slim, pale fellow of aristocratic mien, his gray uniform complemented by a short cloak of moss-green. And green was the color of high officialdom in Bahama.
“What now?” the stranger throatily inquired, his dark eyes made darker by the pallor of his flesh, his face expressionless. “First mayhem and vandalism on an unprecedented scale, and now rowdyism in a public place? You two are for the jump, I fear!”
“Mayhem?” Eldin tried to look innocent. Almost impossible. His scarred, less than gentle features had “rogue” written all over them.
“Vandalism? Rowdyism?” Hero stood up straighter, radiated indignation. “We were sharing a jest with our fiancées here, that’s all.”
“How dare you!” cried Ula, suddenly coming to life and struggling in the grip of her Regulator. “We’re the daughters of. Ham Gidduf, and he’ll—”
The pale police chief turned on her, cut her off with a snarl. “He’ll do nothing at all, my dear! There are laws in Bahama, and I enforce them. I’m the one who takes care of lawbreakers and their women, not Ham Gid—”
“Man,” said Hero quietly, but with something in his voice that attracted the Chief Regulator’s attention. “Whoever or whatever you are,” Hero continued, his eyes steely as to strike sparks, “and whatever you ‘take care’ of, ‘ware! You’ve a nasty tongue. These are ladies, not women, and we’re King Kuranes’ questers, not lawbreakers. Now if you’ve more noises to make, make ’em and be on your way. And you two,” his eyes drilled into the pair who held Ula and Una, knew them at once as the men in the dead seer’s eyes, “you two ‘gentlemen’: be careful how you handle those ladies. You should know that I’m David Hero, Hero of Dreams, and my friend here is Eldin the Wanderer.”
Now Eldin spoke, his voice the soft rumble of a pregnant volcano: “Be advised,” he said to the bully who held Una’s chin aloft, “not to bruise that lass. I’m a very gentle soul and the sight of a bruise on her would give me nightmares for a month. But you’d be lucky, for your nightmare would be of the very shortest duration …”
“Treats, too!” said their cold-eyed chief. He glanced around at Pazza’s gaping patrons, shrugged uncomfortably. “So you two are the famous—or perhaps infamous—Hero and the Wanderer, eh? Very well, maybe it would be best if we saw about all of this in private.” And to his party of Regulators: “Right, lads, bring ’em along!” He stared directly into Hero’s eyes for a moment: “Their women, too,” then turned on his heel.
Hero and Eldin smoldered as they looked at each other, at the pikes, the gray-clad pikemen. Beyond the balustrade was thin air, one hundred feet of it. Only one way into this place, and the same way out. And down there at the foot of the stairs, another party of Regulators. They began to breathe again, letting out the air they’d been holding on to in a great double-barrelled sigh.
“So be it,” growled Eldin. “Lead on.”
But the Chief Regulator was already leading on, and the questers, deprived now of their swords, could only allow themselves to be poked and prodded along in his wake …
In the main, Bahama is built of porphyry, from its wharves to its topmost terraces. Its streets are frequently arched over, by bridges or co-joining buildings, and go up in a great “V” from a central canal which, landward, passes through a tunnel and a series of shallow locks into an inland lake. The land about this lake is mainly desert, for its waters are tidal and therefore impure; but there are several oases and even a village or two, though these stand all on that side toward Bahama. For on the far side of the lake, called Yath, there lie ruins prohibiting the presence of men. They are lonely and silent, those ruins, and all of great clay-bricks: the tumbled building-blocks of some primal city whose name is not remembered. Or which used not to be remembered. Except that lately …
Tellis Gan, father of the present Law Officer-in-Chief, Raffis, had been Bahama’s Lord Regulator for more than twenty years, as had his father before him. He had seen the city through some strange times and had been much respected in his day. In the Bad Days he’d set himself and his force of Regulators firmly against the squat, wide-mouthed “traders” who came in their black galleys from “somewhere east of Leng,” keeping a watchful eye on all their dubious doings in Bahama and Oriab in general; and driving them out en masse when their kinship with dreamland’s enemies became more fully realized. He had been a great-hearted man, Tellis, earning all the trust of the city’s elders and keeping their laws wisely, the way laws should be kept.
When the elders had come down on slavery, Tellis Gan and his Regulators had put an end to the slavers’ markets on Silver Street; and when the elders taxed muth-dew for the upkeep of Bahama’s twin lighthouses, Thon and Thai, (following which, the muth became subject to much illicit importation) Gan was the man who gave the smugglers short shrift. The populace had faith in him; his Regulators, apparently, had loved him to a man; not once had he used his position except in the interests and to the welfare of his fellow men, and those of Bahama itself.
Alas, but just a year ago, in a brave assault upon a slavers’ den, Tellis had been mortally wounded; sad too that it could only be some traitor among his own Regulators who gave advance warning to the Kledans; sadder still, perhaps, that Gan’s only son—who would assume his father’s rank and position as his birthright—was spoiled and mean, with little or nothing of his father’s love for the rightness of things. But so far Raffis Gan had proved himself efficient; as yet he had given the city elders no reason to demand his resignation from office, as was their right; indeed, apart from his love of legend and archaeological matters (his spare-time wanderings in Bahama’s hinterland, poking in the old ruins there, especially on the far shore of Yath), he seemed to go about his duties zestfully and with no small measure of enthusiasm.
Too much enthusiasm far, in the case of Hero of Dreams and Eldin the Wanderer. Or at least, from their viewpoint.
Regulating Branch, like most of Bahama’s administrative offices—loose authorities at best—was situated over the canal close to the inland-leading tunnel, where light was largely shut out. Built beneath an overhang, in the very face of the cliff, which Bahama’s more prosperous terraces and much more precipitous streets and alleys had somehow bypassed or climbed over or simply ignored, its office windows and barred cells looked up in the shadow of the sprawling city that climbed and clung overhead, and down on the darkly lapping water of the canal fifty feet below. Even in midsummer it was cool here; porphyry pillars and stone flags are not the warmest materials, and the constant shade and dankness of the canal lent a murky miasma which touched everything. But there again, Regulating HQ had not been built for comfort. In the old days, the brawnier Kledan barbarians had kept slaves here—fellow blacks, mainly: Pargans, as often as not, and a few Kledan pigmies from the dense interior of that jungled land, who made good houseboys or chimney sweeps or ratters in the sewers—before selling them off in Bahama’s markets.
Their buyers had been sea-merchants of Inquanok, horned Lengites (as they were known now), who had only ever bought fat Pargans, even a handful of lords and ladies from dreamland’s so-called “more civilized” regions. That was all long finished with, but certainly the inmates of this place had had a very rough t
ime of it. This was the unspoken conclusion of the questers, anyway, as they stood before Raffis Gan’s great desk and were made to feel small.
By now they’d been handcuffed and only two Regulators were in attendance, the same pair who’d laid hands on the girls. Ula and Una were elsewhere, however, separated from the questers as soon as they’d arrived here at Regulating Branch. They would find out where the girls were later. But meanwhile:
Raffis had been silent for some seconds, toying with a quill and a scrap of parchment. Now he looked up, focused on the questers and smiled a thin smile. “Do you have, well anything, to say for yourselves?” he asked.
“Something to ask!” growled Eldin. “What’s the charge?” Suddenly something clicked in the Wanderer’s mind: déjà vu, waking-world memories, he didn’t know, but words were on his lips before he even realized it:
“What’s on your mind, Gan?” he drawled out of the corner of his mouth. “What’s the rap, hey? What do you hope to pin on us, eh? You drag us in, cold-shoulder us, stick us in bracelets … so OK, bring on the bright lights to scorch our eyeballs, the rubber hoses that won’t leave tell-tale bruises. Go ahead, have yourself a ball, Gan. But do you think we’ll talk? Hell, we’ve been worked on by experts! You feel angry, Gan? You want to throw something? So throw the book at us! So what?” He grinned coldly, his mouth aslant, twitching.
“Steady, old lad!” Hero whispered, thoroughly alarmed. “He just might!”
Gan was frowning. “Throw the book? There’ll be no tome-hurling here, ruffian! As for bracelets: those iron cuffs must needs suffice! But if I also heard you hinting at torture, that might be arranged!”