The Golden Sword

by Janet Morris

  “The Seven were brought to stand before Vedrev, upon whose right was Celendra, and upon her right, the Liaison Second. It became very quiet. I squeezed through the crowd until I was parallel to them, between a number of restless Slayers. Vedrev read the charges. He presented the chalds he had found in the Sabembes. He asked if Sereth denied that he had killed those men and left them chalded.” Water was passed, and Khemi stopped and drank, her dark hair falling over her shoulder.

  “Sereth admitted to that. Vedrev then presented Celendra’s allegations and asked the Slayer to produce, if he could, Tyith and Estri, or explain their absence.

  “Sereth crill Tyris told his story in that chill voice of one who has done so many times and has no hope of being believed. He spoke of the crack that opened before them in the earth, of the malignant spirit that assailed them, of Tyith’s death and Estri’s disappearance beneath the Falls of Santha.

  “At his mention of Tyith, Celendra threw herself upon him, scratching and shrieking, and Dellin needed the help of two Slayers to get her from the common room. He did not return.

  “Vedrev, resplendent in his Stothric priest’s robes, stood on the dais. He said that he had seen the crevice and no man could have crossed it, and therefore all after that point was mere fabrication. He asked again of Tyith and the Well-Keepress. Sereth stood with his head bowed. Vedrev repeated his charge of negligence, unseemly murder and misuse of power and sentenced the Seven to be stripped of all rank and cast chaldless from the gates of Arlet, never to return. Then Vedrev pulled out his curved Stoth blade to cut away the Seven’s sword and chald. When Sereth saw this, he raised his head, and his own sword flashed in his hand, and he cut the belt from Vedrev’s waist with an easy flick.

  “I did not hear the words of his challenge to Vedrev. The common hall erupted in a roar around me. Some Slayers drew their blades to disarm the Seven, and others to restrain them, that Sereth and Vedrev might have what each other had long desired of the other. In moments, death whirred over my head and all around me. There was swordplay everywhere in the great hall as Slayer turned against Slayer. Those who supported the Seven hacked their way toward him, drawing me with them. A Slayer held me against him by the neck as he fought, a human shield. And a good one. None struck at me. I could see anguish upon faces of men suddenly enemies, of men who had slain friends with whom they had this day ridden. I saw two, recognizing each other, put up their swords. One was struck down from behind. The other knelt in the frenzy. The stone slabs were slippery with blood; men skidded and fell. I saw one fall onto a blade and die there. I saw Vedrev dead, and Sereth leaping bodies toward the door. The Slayer still dragged me before him. Out into the Inner Well we went, and from somewhere threx were produced, and, like a number of other wellwomen, I was captive of the renegade Slayers until they had ridden the night long into the south. There I was dumped with no ceremony by the side of the trail. I did not see Sereth at any time once out of Arlet, but I have heard he lives. I would not tell any more, for I do not like to remember what followed, and I have a long day ahead tomorrow.” And Khemi smiled a shy smile and turned upon her side with her back to us, not knowing what effect her words had upon me.

  I was glad for the darkness. I lay down upon my back and stared blindly at the ceiling.

  Aje’s hand touched my hair. His chain, rattled as he shifted his body closer to me. His arm went around my shoulders.

  Khemi’s story, though distorted in gossip and retelling, doubtless had truth to it. It was strange to hear about myself in the third person, and about these affairs from such a different perspective. I rolled against Aje in the darkness.

  How could Dellin have behaved in so unprincipled a manner? I thought bitterly of the M’ksakkan, for putting Celendra’s goodwill and the trade balance in Arlet before his own honor. Perhaps he had none. I could understand Vedrev, for he and Sereth had long been at odds. And Celendra was either a disastrously incompetent forereader or a vicious liar, though I had never seen her as either.

  And Sereth—who could help him now? He had slain a Day-Keeper, a dharener even worse. There would be no straightening out of this tangle by a simple explanation. Estrazi had told me both of us were needed to set the balance aright. But to what authority could we take a plea? And upon what grounds?

  How different things would have been if my father had allowed me to send my word to stand for the Seven. What purpose could be served by Sereth’s ignominy? I worried these thoughts into nightmares that had no sense and no ending.

  I. was awakened by the crellkeep with the others, and went to my first day of crell life upon an empty stomach. Khemi, also on the seven schedule, worked beside me straining the sand in the threx stables of wetness, and muck. Once a set, the sand must be taken out of each stall, and clean sand put in its place, then the soiled sand must be strained and wheeled in carts out the back door of the stable, where other crells wait to tend to its disposal as fertilizer upon certain crops. This was that day. The work was strenuous, and we were soon filthy smelly and coated with the foul sand, which clung to our sweating bodies. Once, when water was brought, I looked up to see Chayin watching me from the harness area, thirty stalls down the row. He was waiting while Saer was made ready. I turned and leaned against the stone partition, the water dipper in my hands. I drank slowly, staring back, but he did not look away.

  Khemi got up off her knees and came to stand beside me.

  “Lower your eyes,” she warned me in a soft voice, taking the dipper from my hands and filling it again. The crell with the water cart fidgeted. “You will bring down his wrath upon us both.”

  “I think not,” I said to her, but dropped again to my hands and knees and took up my two-handed scoop. When Chayin rode out, he chose the long way, which by happenstance brought him past the very stall where I was working. He stopped Saer directly behind me. I could see the threx’s legs by looking between my own. I continued to work on my knees, bending over that I might scoop the sand up from the lower floor of the stall’s doorway. Khemi, inside the stall and facing me, blushed and smiled at the cahndor, but I did not look up. After a time, he rode away.

  Khemi and I did our ten stalls each; we were given some grain gruel for lunch, and a quarter each of a green tuber where we worked. Then the threx were brought in, all filthy from rolling outside, and we cleaned and polished their hides and picked their tripart hooves and set about their feeding. It seemed as if no two of them got the same meal, and each special diet had to be mixed by us from great bags of grains with the device of Yardum-Or upon them.

  Among the threx we fed were Besha’s Guanden and the red threx whose name I never learned. It is possible that somehow I mismixed his feeding. I think more likely it was some previous negligence.

  We were checking stall locks before being taken to our own stalls for the night, when I noticed the red was down upon the sand. Low groaning noises came from deep within him; his nostrils were flared wide and running with mucus. There were bloody chunks upon his bloated belly where he had bitten himself. I was in the stall in a moment, calling Khemi. In vain did we struggle to get the beast up on his feet. We pulled him by the head, but though we could drag him up, we could not keep him standing. He sank back three times, and with a gasping groan upon our fourth attempt he laid his head back on the clean sand and died.

  Khemi looked at me in horror. I was crying. I always cry over animals.

  “Besha will be furious!” she whispered, her eyes wide.

  Sheltering wing of uritheriar cursed the jiask summoned by Khemi’s wails. He in turn got the crellkeep. Khemi and I were not taken back to our chain for the night, but kept there in the threx’s stall to await his owner, Besha, my owner, Hael, and Kherni’s owner, the cahndor.

  The crellkeep and the threxmaster were engaged in spirited debate with three jiasks as to the cause of the threx’s death. They fell suddenly silent.

  The dharener stood in the stall doorway, surveying us. I was crouched by the dead beast’s head, Khemi stretch
ed out on the sand on her back. She sat up.

  Hael put his hand to his forehead and closed his eyes. When he opened them, he said, “Threx upon the square of death,” and sat himself down in the doorway, his bearded chin resting upon his fists, his elbows upon his knees. He stared at us.

  “I am exploring the material sign,” he said to me casually.

  Khemi’s head swung between us as, she listened without understanding.

  “Nothing I cannot survive. Keep in mind that what the helsar sees is shown to me also,” I suggested to him.

  “When are you going to do me the great service yris-tera promised?” Hael inquired. Just then Besha’s bulk loomed dark and menacing behind him. She stepped over Hael and in three strides was at her beast’s head.

  “I have seen your face too often,” she said to me, pushing me away from the corpse. I rolled to the wall near the dharener.

  Having examined the beast, she rose from him and came toward us. Her huge hand came down upon Khemi’s fragile shoulder, and Besha hurled the crell across the stall, so hard that the girl hit the far wall and crumpled senseless at its base. Hael bent over the fallen Khemi. Besha came toward me, hands raised. I could retreat no farther. I put my chained wrists before my face, to defend myself. The tiask struck my wrists away and slapped my face so hard my temple cracked against the stone wall. I saw another universe, and suddenly I could not breathe. I curled into a ball. My back exploded in white pain. Kicks rained upon me where I lay.

  Far away, I heard voices. Eventually I could see the sand beneath me, and I was conscious that they moved me. I remember being carried into the dim crell chamber and locked into place upon the chain. I remember Aje’s voice, but I did not answer. I found no sleep, but worked as best I knew how within my body to ease it. A part of me raged and paced. After a time, I was conscious that the crellkeep came for Aje. Besha wanted her plaything. Aje paid a heavy price that he might be a ten.

  When I felt no pain in me, I lay gaining strength. I had almost calmed the raging within, when Aje was carried into the chamber by two jiasks. The crellkeep scurried along beside them, carrying a torch, and in the torchlight upon Aje’s body I saw for the first time what a Parset huija can do to human flesh. The steel-burred lash had torn muscle and sinew from the crell’s chest. I wondered, as they chained his ankle, if he would live.

  The jiasks who had brought him departed. The crellkeep remained, standing over Aje, holding the torch high. His face was sorrowful. I too felt some sorrow.

  As he moved to lower his torch, I lured the crellkeep toward me with artful moaning. He knelt beside me, setting down his torch upon the stone. As he bent closer to examine my face, I opened my eyes, smiling while I slid his knife from its sheath. My chains rattled as I plunged the knife between his ribs. The crellkeep fell upon me in his death agony. I took the keys from his slitsa belt, removed my wrist bonds, and unlocked the manacle from around my ankle.

  Many of the crells had seen. Some were sitting up staring, but none said a word. I tossed the key ring down the line. I wished Khemi had been there, so I could have freed her. She had not been returned with me this night. I leaned over Aje. He needed skilled attention. I had not much in healer’s skills, but I took precious moments to do what I could.

  The crell who caught the key ring did not free himself, but laid it down, regarding me levelly.

  I looked down at myself, and in the flickering torchlight saw what he saw—that I was covered in the crellkeep’s blood.

  “Free yourself,” I urged him.

  “Why?”

  I looked around me. My chain-mates appeared uneasy and frightened. They were not happy with this choice I offered them. I looked at Aje, once Lalen, musician of Stra. I did not understand the crells’ indifference.

  “I need someone to get me to the court. I do not know the way. Is there not one among you more oppressed by this life than afraid to flee it?” I spoke that the moment might match my vision.

  There was one. I got the keys from beside the crell who would not use them and threw them down the chain to the dark, curly-haired man standing. He unlocked his bracelets, freed his ankle, and came to stand beside me, the keys in his hand, rubbing his wrists.

  “We will need these for the gates.” He hefted the key ring in his hand; grinning around him. “None else for a clean and easy death?” he asked them. The wind blew in his husky voice. His white teeth flashed like a carnivore’s.

  In an easy motion he had the torch and the dead crellkeep’s weapons in his hand. He dragged the crellkeep to his vacant place on the chain, then, motioning me to follow, slipped into the corridor.

  I followed, wondering if I could move in such silence, down the corridor and into the crellkeep’s cubicle before the barred steel gate. There he sconced the torch and rummaged in a deep wooden chest.

  “If you are in for the small wager, would you stay in for the great?” I whispered to his back.

  His curly head came up from out of the chest, followed by his arms, in which he held assorted weapons and belts. Among them was a huija.

  “What mean you?” he said, tossing all but the huija and a short blade at my feet.

  I knelt down and chose a sword belt with a light blade and a gol-knife that suited me.

  “I would exchange a friendly greeting or two with the tiask Besha before I leave this fair land,” I explained, rising.

  “Hold the torch for me,” he said, and I did, as he fitted the key in the lock and slid aside the barred gate, which he then locked behind him. He took the torch from me and discarded it.

  We sidled down the corridor, pressing our backs against the smooth stone.

  “So you would see my mistress,” he grunted, jumping from out one shadow into another. Around the corner, he awaited me, his head flat against the corridor wall.

  “Did you hear something?” His voice was harsh. I strained my ears.

  “I hear nothing,” I said.

  He laughed. “We will both be hearing things soon. We will be here sneaking about at sun’s rising, at this rate. And you would seek audience with a tiask! If I sought out every Nemarsi who has laid hands upon me, we would be still here next Detarsa.” He turned his head, and our faces were very close. “Where would you expect to find her, this time of night, after such a busy evening?”

  “She is your mistress,” I reminded him. He chuckled and sprinted off down the corridor. I followed him down that one, and then to the left and past three, and then to the right. There we halted. I gasped for breath. He whose name I did not know pressed me back against the wall.

  “Up those stairs, “ he whispered, “are the kitchens, and among them one room where food and drink are always provided. They often go there to while away the time. She goes there, when her irascibility invades her sleep. But remember that the Nemarsi use all twenty-eight enths of the day, and others may be there also. Men right out of the desert often have trouble sleeping through the night.” And he did not ask after my fears, but took the stairs in a dozen leaps. These corridors were larger, muffled with tapestries, almost well-lit. He silenced me when I tried to speak, and shook free the huija in his hand.

  Then he simply stepped from the stairwell into the middle of the corridor, the huija slithering like a living thing beside him. I tightened my clammy grip upon the gol-knife and followed.

  After a time of aching silent progress, we stopped, just short of a wide-open doorway on our right. From within, light, sound, and the smell of baking bread poured forth into the corridor.

  “What better could we ask?” he whispered as we peered within.

  The room was intimately lit, and L-shaped, and through three high windows I could see the spent evening sky, the stars fading away. There were a number of plank tables, all deserted save for one, at which sat Besha and a jiask unknown to me. Across the remains of a meal they leaned toward each other, engrossed in earnest conversation. It had been their low, angry voices we had heard out in the corridor. The kitchen help clattered about, som
ewhere around the far corner.

  My companion touched me upon the arm and walked boldy through the doors. The sound of my body’s movements was deafening. My skin prickled, my mouth was dry, yet the soles of my feet seemed slick with sweat. My eyes upon Besha’s broad back, I sheathed the knife and drew the short blade at my waist, for I was reminded of her girth and reach, and knew I must keep my distance to keep my life.

  They did not look up until, standing a man’s length from them in the aisle between the tables, my companion spoke.

  “There is a certain fitness, Diyjar, in meeting death, upon a full stomach,” and the huija flicked out even while the jiask Diyjar was drawing his sword and still rising, wrapping itself around the blade. My companion snapped his wrist back, and the jiask’s blade skittered across the stone floor. Then again did the huija strike, and the jiask wore no longer gol-knife or scabbard at his waist.

  Besha stared, her recurved stra blade wavering, her eyes going from my companion to myself and back again. She took two steps backward, then held her ground.

  My companion had the jiask backed against the wall.

  “Speak my name and petition me for your life,” the curly-haired man suggested to his terrified victim.

  “I know it not,” stammered the perspiring jiask, “but leave me my life, and whatever is mine shall be yours.”

  “You no longer have what I want. You had it once, and it was named Mera. Remember me now, jiask?” And the horrified realization was still on the jiask’s face as the deadly huija curled hissing about his throat and snapped tight. He slid lifeless down the wall, to crumple upon the floor, his neck at an unlikely angle.

  The dark man knelt over him and pulled the burred lash away from the flesh in which it was embedded. He turned and regarded us, coiling it carefully in his hands.

  “Carth.” Besha’s voice was uncertain. She searched for a commanding tone. “Give me that, and naught shall come of this.” She held her free hand out to him.