by Dave Duncan
“You have a precious jewel,” the eagle warrior said. “It beats.”
“Why did you think I might not?”
“It is a sad song.”
“Songs may speak true. Sing me the song.”
Heron-jade nodded, thought for a moment, lips moving. Then he began to chant, hoarsely at first, gathering confidence as he went.
Words rarely translated exactly, so that even in ordinary speech Wolf had trouble seeing the world his slaves described. Heron-jade would refer to Sky-cactus as his father and himself as Sky-cactus’s fledgling, yet he would also tell of his father having been a taker of three captives who had given his precious jewel to a jaguar knight of another town many years past—which meant he had been sacrificed in the ghastly conjuring ritual, of course. When it came to song, meaning was as intangible as mist.
Great the gifts—myriad the precious jewels
Lizard-drumming of perfect valor—spotted slayer
brings to the halls of Amaranth-talon—unconquerable soaring one
Hear words of my father—Quetzal-star blood spiller
after many years whispering on night winds
Terrible the battle—more terrible the Hairy Ones I slew
most terrible—the house of demons that holds me
Thus speaks Quetzal-star—prowler of darkness
crying out for aid
Far-seeing one take these cloaks, these rings, these riches
the myriad precious jewels—bear me thence
Send with me—Plumed-pillar
my brother—silent slayer
Amaranth-talon—hears the clawed one
the cloud chaser rises—wings spreading
calls his brother—Bone-peak-runner
Swift and terrible—the sky darkener
comes storm-riding
They spill the precious jewels—knives drink
A wind they raise—blowing into the cold, the dark
the hell—where demons torment Quetzal-star
Wind-borne they go—dread slayers of demons
Lizard-drumming—Plumed-pillar
Great the slaughter—demons bleeding
the soul of Quetzal-star—is brought forth
Alas
Demons rally—falls Plumed-pillar
ax strikes—mighty cedar falling falling
Out from the cold, the dark, the hell
Bone-peak-runner—Amaranth-talon
Lizard-drumming—heroes triumph
But weep weep for the new lost—Plumed-pillar
Wasted—mighty jewel wasted
The Chivians exchanged smiles of triumph. Even Flicker looked pleased.
“Lizard-drumming was the true-born son of Quetzal-star?” Wolf asked.
“And mightier,” Heron-jade said solemnly. “Uncounted precious jewels wept for him.”
“Questions?” Wolf asked in Chivian. “Pass them through me.”
Flicker jumped in before Dolores could speak. “What can the witness tell us about the warriors who accompanied the four knights?”
“Just their regular war bands, I expect.” Wolf translated the question.
Heron-jade’s eyes seemed to turn even darker than usual. “Many great warriors. Men of great courage. Mighty lords.”
“Well done, Flicker! Of course an expedition into demon hell would call forth the show-offs. Volunteers, likely.”
Flicker looked smug. “It explains all the finery you collected.”
Boy Genius had seen what Wolf had not, that regular troops would not have worn so much gold, every amulet and talisman available.
“Any more questions?”
“How did they work the conjuration?” Dolores asked.
“I suggest we leave that for another session, love. I don’t want to push too hard. We have several days before we reach Sigisa. Quin, my lad, you will repeat this testimony to Grand Inquisitor, but how will you interpret it for them?”
Quin’s face went blank for a moment as he pondered. That plain, honest, workaday face was a good inquisitor face, dangerously easy to underestimate.
“Interpretation,” he said. “The attack on Quondam Castle was a unique event, not the opening of a general offensive. The Baroness’s jaguar pin had been regalia of a jaguar knight named Quetzal-star, who fell early in the Distlish invasion. Its new owner sent it home to Distlain and King Diego, who passed it on to Queen Malinda, who left it behind when she departed, and His Majesty gave it away to Marquesa Celeste. The implication is that nobody wanted to own it, and the effect it had on the White Sisters when it was worn is further evidence of its residual spirituality. At Quondam the Baroness wore it constantly and thus stimulated this remnant power to action. Lizard-drumming, Quetzal-star’s son and successor, sensed it in use and interpreted the call as his father’s spirit requiring rescue, so he and another jaguar knight purchased the aid of two eagle knights to go in search of it. Implication is that the eagle knights provided the transportation and the jaguars did the fighting. The jaguar knight killed by Sir Lynx was Plumed-pillar.”
“Very concise analysis, Quin. Any comments, anyone?” Wolf turned to Heron-jade. “Your words move us, Taker of Four Captives, but it is only a song. That was our land the great warriors saw. It is not always cold, not always dark. It bears flowers in abundance, in season. Nor was Plumed-pillar the only corpse they left behind. Many of our warriors and your warriors died. The person they took back to your land with them—what of her?”
“Her?”
“It was a woman they brought back.”
The giant howled, startling the entire ship. “The demons did this? Weep, weep for Quetzal-star!” He beat on his head with his fists.
Dolores’s face turned bleak, as if Heron-jade had just made his muscles seem less sexy. Quin and Wolf exchanged manly grins.
When the warrior stopped wailing, Wolf asked, “What happened to Quetzal-star after the rescue?”
He did not know. Lizard-drumming was not his lord. But if Celeste had since been murdered—to release Quetzal-star’s soul?—then Lynx would have sensed it, wherever he was. Had that most unfortunate of Blades gone mad in some foreign port?
Wolf told Flicker to escort Heron-jade back to the hold and bring up Pulse-obsidian and Serpent-night so they could have their turns on deck. They did not dance or sing; they just went straight into calisthenics. Despite the cramped conditions and although they could never have practiced together before, they put on an incredible acrobatic double act of warrior gymnastics.
Later they were questioned about their youth and training, none of which turned out to be of interest. They did confirm that Tlixilian politics were as complex as Euranian. El Dorado was ruled by an aristocratic warrior-caste, with the Emperor only chairman of the council. He would be succeeded by a close male relative, not necessarily a son. The greatest lords were the warrior-conjurer knights, but birth alone would not admit a man to the great orders; he must also be a great fighter. Pulse-obsidian let slip that Blood-mirror-walks stood highest among the four ex-slaves, being of very high birth, related to the imperial family. That and his growing battlefield prowess had destined him for eventual knighthood until he was wounded and captured by the Distlish.
Those two were sent back to their chains and up came Blood-mirror-walks himself. He was probably the youngest and certainly the shortest of the four, although almost as wide across the shoulders as Heron-jade. He might also be the smartest. He had limped when Wolf first bought him, but the healing had cured that. Seeing him looking curiously at Diligence, Wolf drew her and passed her over to him to study. Dolores glared at him for this foolhardiness.
“We Hairy Ones have better weapons than you do,” Wolf said.
The young warrior fingered the edge and tried the balance. “Sky metal. And you ride on deer. This is the regalia of a knight?” He pointed to the cat’s-eye.
“It is…How did you know that?”
“I was told so by someone.” Blood-mirror-walks returned the sword, hilt first. “But not
all flowers bring fruit.”
“Why do you not acquire weapons like ours? We will trade them.”
The dark eyes were expressionless. “That is for the lords to say.”
“But when the knights went to the cold hell to rescue the soul of Quetzal-star, there were many weapons of sky metal there and they took none. Why?”
“I do not know.”
He did know. He just wasn’t going to tell. He had already learned from Heron-jade that the soul of Quetzal-star had been imprisoned in the body of a woman, and was equally appalled. This, in his opinion, was what came of fighting Hairy Ones. “A warrior must give his precious jewel to an honorable conqueror,” he explained.
“It is best to win, surely?”
He sneered. “And die of old age?”
“Had it been the rebels who captured you, instead of the Hairy Ones, would they have taken your precious jewel?”
“Of course.”
“And you would have submitted?”
“Proudly.”
His smile was chilling. To a Tlixilian, ritual vivisection was the finest death.
“Why did the jaguar knights ask the eagle knights to raise the wind? Do jaguar knights have lesser power?”
“Our knights have other powers.”
That was the last information Wolf got out of Blood-mirror-walks that evening, and next day the others were much less communicative than before. Quin overheard some of the harangue. They had been tricked, Blood-mirror-walks argued. It was better to die a slave than be indebted to a Hairy One of any sort in any way, and if the new kind imprisoned knights’ souls in female bodies, then they were even worse than the Distliards. He ordered his companions not to cooperate with their captors and they swore to obey.
4
This is romantic!” Dolores said.
Which merely demonstrated, in Wolf’s cynical view, that one could get accustomed to anything, even shipboard life. They were up on the forecastle, sitting close, hugging tight while Glorious ploughed onward through a moonless night. Her sails were plumped by the warm trade wind, the sky was a glory of unfamiliar stars, and even the waves had a spooky glow. The rhythmic swish of waves against the bow and the creak of cables added a sort of lullaby. But this was the downwind end of the ship and somewhere ahead was a continent full of cannibals.
“Anywhere is romantic when you’re there, my love.”
“You’re learning.” She kissed his ear, the larger one. “Anyone but an inquisitor would be utterly deceived and swept off her feet.”
“I don’t have to sweep you off your feet. You are putty in my hands.”
She chuckled happily. “True.”
He was about to try a serious kiss when he heard voices and the rest of the team came trotting up the ladder to join them. A fiddle struck up amidships, a sailor began singing a lament, and others joined in.
Wolf began with a lament, also, stressing the problems that lay ahead. “Conference. We were sent to discover the How and Why of the attack on Quondam. Heron-jade has answered the Why question for us, so you get to go home and report, Quin, you lucky fellow. Why was easy, How will be hard. We were told in Mondon that in all their years here, the Distliards have learned nothing about Tlixilian conjuration. If even their allies guard the secrets so closely, would we do better if we were free to walk the streets of El Dorado? Who feels that we should declare our mission impossible and all go home with Quin?”
He was appealing to Dolores, although he knew she would be the last to quit. Tlixilian conjuration was to be her life’s work or the death of her.
Flicker said, “No one.”
“Let’s talk about it,” Megan said. “We did confirm that the How is human sacrifice. Chivial would never tolerate that. Do we even want to know any more about how they do it?”
“Yes!” Dolores never wavered in her enthusiasm. “I’ve told you! Conjuration requires both summoning and commanding. We summon the spirits inside an octogram and it’s almost impossible to apply their power outside it. Things or people can be enchanted and then taken out of the octogram, the way we were enchanted against fevers. The eagle and jaguar knights don’t cut out hearts on the battlefield, but they certainly do apply power there. It sounds as if they can enslave the actual spirits and take them away to use at another time and place. That’s the How we need to know! They just use sacrifices to summon the spirits, but we can do that in other ways.”
She was the expert. The sailors’ chant ended and for a moment only the ship and the waves spoke.
Wolf sighed. “Forsooth, then we press on, my hearties. We have our four messengers. We send them off to El Dorado, and stay put in Sigisa, drinking rum and dancing till dawn. Tell me what we do about de Rojas.”
Their sources in Mondon had known little of affairs in the interior, where Caudillo Cuenca battled the Tlixilian Emperor, but they had been well-informed about the scandalous, depraved island of Sigisa. King Diego’s writ did not run there. The government comprised an Alcalde, Ruiz de Rojas, and a city council. The council elected him and he appointed the council—a very tidy arrangement that kept all the crime under one management. Every saloon, dice game, and brothel paid its toll to Rojas. Not a bean was sold or a water cask filled without his sanction.
Rojas was said to be discreet in what he skimmed off the army’s supplies, though, and the Caudillo was currently too engrossed in the war to pay much attention to the racketeer at his back. That situation could not last very long. Even if Rojas was tolerated as a welcome control over inevitable corruption that might grow even worse without him, sooner or later King Diego and his general would move to establish the rule of law. Or the Tlixilians would win and no Distliard would be left breathing in Sigisa. Rojas must be amassing loot as fast as he could by any means he could. To the Chivians he was a monstrous looming threat. Why should he cut them in on the smuggling?
“Quin?”
Again Quin smiled and shrugged. “I won’t be staying, Sir Wolf. Doesn’t feel right for me to speak.”
“We can use anybody’s good ideas. Flicker?”
Flicker’s teeth shone in the starlight. “Why waste our prisoners just as messengers? Use them as guides. Ignore Rojas. Slip by him before he notices and head inland. Go straight to El Dorado.”
Wolf had expected this. “You are proposing a major change of plan.”
“The situation has changed. The bats didn’t know about the Alcalde. He’s more dangerous than the mainland would be. Can’t you see that?”
“It’s possible, but you can’t prove it yet and the only place to find out is Sigisa itself. Secondly, you’re assuming we can slip by Rojas. Efficient robber barons keep a very close watch on the road—or harbor, in this case. I’m sure his goons will go through the ship like a business of ferrets, and they’ll want to look in our baggage. Thirdly, eventually we hope to come back out. I don’t want to burn our bridges. Or boats. Let’s hear the others. Megan?”
Megan was just as predictable. “Stay away from him as much as we can. We have ways of being unobtrusive.”
Dolores said, “I agree we must try and avoid trouble, but I’d rather tell him what we’re planning than have him torture it out of us. His price will go up, but we have lots of gold.”
Flicker made a snorting noise. “Offer him a thousand pesos and he demands ten thousand? Give him ten and he demands a hundred? Give—”
“Point made,” Wolf said. “You want to bypass him, Megan wants to hide from him, and Dolores wants to cut him in. I have another idea.” For several nights he had been dreaming of his stepfathers, especially the last one. Normally he paid little heed to dreams, but sometimes they offered warnings, and one should at least try to understand their advice. “You’re snoops. I’m a bully boy. I don’t think the way you do. I agree with Dolores that we’ll have to cut Rojas a slice of our imaginary goose. I’d like to have him as an ally, but I prefer to negotiate on my feet, not on my knees.”
“Meaning what?” Flicker sneered.
�
�Meaning I’d start by kicking his shins.”
They talked amicably. Megan stuck to her original position. In the end Dolores supported Wolf out of loyalty. Surprisingly, so did Flicker, either because he just enjoyed brawling or because he hoped to watch Wolf botch up the mission.
Quin had the last word. “Keep me out of it, Sir Wolf, so I can report on your funerals.” Another six months at sea might not be such a terrible prospect after all.
Captain Clonard had refused to hire a pilot in Mondon. Finding Sigisa, he had explained, was a feat of navigation within the abilities of the average spaniel. All you did was sail due west until you made landfall and then go north, keeping an eye out for Smoking-woman, one of the great volcanic peaks of Tlixilia. When you had passed that and were almost halfway to an even bigger one, Sky-is-frowning, you made a left turn and entered the river mouth.
Fortunately he was right, and one sunny morning Glorious was towed into the harbor. Wolf leaned on the rail beside a wildly excited Dolores, admiring the gateway to the mainland, of which they had heard so much. Baron Roland had described Sigisa as two miles of brothels and dens, but since his day it had grown longer and wickeder, until now it was a dull night when no bodies departed on the morning tide. Into this pestilential pit had poured Distlish soldiers, sailors, and adventurers by the thousand, plus all the human parasites that fed on them. Having seen how big the world was, Wolf had almost given up hope that Lynx would ever reach the Hence Lands, but if he did, his quest to find his ward must lead him through Sigisa. The brothers would meet again here or nowhere.