by Dave Duncan
“Your troubles pierce us to the heart, Lord Ambassador,” he said, as soon as they were seated. He had a magnificently resonant voice, too. “We sorrow that we failed to guard you well on your journey and that your senior wife has been injured. Let our agreement now make recompense for these sufferings.” He turned to a tray beside him and poured pulque into beakers.
The Chivian ambassador mumbled some suitable retort, keeping careful watch for hints of headache.
“Let us negotiate like warriors,” his host said, “cutting fast to the quick, not maundering for hours like gossipy old women. Already the sky-soaring Amaranth-talon prepares to transport you to the place he went a year ago, you and your wife. That is what you wish?” Two-swans-dancing had a personality to melt limestone. If Athelgar were in the least like him, there would have been no Thencaster Conspiracy.
“Indeed it is, lord. Or can he find a similar place a day’s walk to the northeast if I described it?”
“No. He can go only to a place he knows or can see.”
“It will suffice.” Wolf hoped that the Great Bog had frozen again this year, bringing the Ironhall elementary within reach, but at least Quondam would have conjured bandages on hand.
Two-swans-dancing smiled an invitation: Your turn.
Wolf said, “The floating city is truly the wonder of all the world. What can it possibly lack that humble Chivial could offer to increase the happiness of your mighty Emperor?”
The Conch-flute had his answer ready. “Stags for riding and war dogs, also slaves who can teach ours to care for both. Swords and pikes and crossbows. Armor. The tools your brother seeks. Will you trade all these things?”
“We keep no slaves, lord.” That was stretching a legal nicety, for many Chivian peasants were little better than serfs. “We could loan you skilled teachers, but would it not be better if you sent your men to our land to see how the animals are cared for? Then they can return with the first livestock. We can provide the things you ask if you can transport them across the great water.”
“We can do that. We have many Eagles and Amaranth-talon can show them the way. What do you seek in return?”
So here it came.
“We would know your ways of conjury.” Still no headache.
Two-swans sipped his pulque, cellar-dark eyes fixed on the stranger. “It would be easy for me to send some acolytes with you tonight, who can instruct your acolytes at leisure. But the other Hairy Ones abhor the use of sacrifice and seek to prevent their allies, the traitor cities, from putting prisoners to death. They think it kinder to sell them like fish in a market.”
“But their allies still do use conjury! How else were we attacked today?”
The Conch-flute shrugged. “The Distlish allow it now only because we use it, so they say. Your people do not share their strange ideas?”
“We, too, disapprove of sacrifice, but my wife is an acolyte and hopes to combine our ways of summoning the elementals with your ways of controlling them.”
Two-swans shook his plumes. “She will fail. Our rituals absolutely require the precious jewels of prisoners taken in battle. Unless those are offered, the god of battle will not bless our knights.”
Dolores might be dying at that very moment, but so was El Dorado. These shaky negotiations with Wild-dog-by-the-spring offered the best, if not the only, hope for Two-swans and his people, and yet he was spurning a chance to hide behind a half-truth. He slaughtered prisoners like oysters, yet Wolf would trust him a lot sooner than he would Athelgar.
“You are a man of great honor, lord.”
“I am anxious that both sides benefit from our trading. Can we not offer you gold instead? The other Hairy Ones have a great hunger for gold.”
Wolf tried to imagine himself appearing in the bailey of Quondam Castle with a wagonload of gold—his mind rejected the image. Athelgar would be delirious with joy. No, gold was a distraction. Time was a-wasting, Dolores bleeding to death. It was time to make a specific offer, and it must seem reasonable.
“My wife and those who trained her are confident that your conjury can be made acceptable to our customs, great ruler. Tonight, let the great Eagle transport my wife and myself to the place he went last year. Let us take two wise acolytes with us. This is the rainy season in Chivial, and we will need time to collect great quantities of goods. Let the Eagle return on the first night of the new moon, and we shall have assembled there as much as we can of what you need. We shall return your acolytes, of course. If your conjurations seem of no value to us, then we shall happily accept gold. We can agree at that time on all details.” New moon was nine or ten days away, so the timing would be tight but not impossible.
The Conch-flute nodded at once. “It shall be as you have spoken.” He did not ask for hostages for the two acolytes’ safety. He had Lynx and Celeste.
Negotiations are easy when both parties are desperate.
They sprang up together and embraced. Two-swans-
dancing unfastened a lengthy gold chain from his shoulders and laid it on Wolf’s. “Take this as a keepsake of our friendship, Lord Wild-dog-by-the-spring.”
The weight was amazing. Every link was in the shape of a scorpion, each with claws joined through the looped tail of the next. It was an artistic marvel, but the gold alone, melted down, would make him rich. They had come to the Hence Lands to seek their fortune and here it was. Could he keep Dolores alive to enjoy it?
“This is generous beyond measure, lord. I have never seen such a wonder. If you would honor me by accepting this trifle, which is all I have of my own to offer.” Wolf unfastened the scabbard at his right hip and presented the Conch-flute with his dagger of shiny steel. The Tlixilian exclaimed in joy. It was probably at least a fair exchange in Tlixilia.
When they had embraced again, and Two-swans-
dancing had wished his new friend a good journey, he clapped his hands. Eagle and Jaguar appeared in the doorway to hear his orders.
“This was well done, ruler of the night. Choose four twenties from our pens. To my house, star fisher.” Conch-flute and Eagle disappeared.
Tattered old Basket-fox touched the ground in salute. “Your father bred most noble sons, Wild-dog-by-
the-spring. Between you, you will save our city from the Hairy Ones.”
Wolf said only, “Chance may produce strange wonders, terror of the dark.” This day was far from over yet.
5
Dolores lay propped up on cushions near where he had left her, a gaudy sheet drawn up to her chin. A slave girl kneeling alongside was fanning away insects, and two of the healers squatted within call, keeping watch. In a far corner, Lynx sat on the parapet with Corn-fang and Night-fisher. A bearded Euranian sat at their feet.
The indigo sky was growing starry, but the air was still warm, flower-scented. The moon would not rise for hours yet. Men carrying torches were climbing the stairs of Basket-fox’s pyramid.
“Dolores?” Wolf took her hand. It was cold.
Her eyes seemed enormous in a marble-pale face. She tried to smile. “This was stupid of me.”
“Don’t ever do it again. But everything’s going to be all right.”
“Good.”
“Are you in pain?”
“Not much. Gave me stuff to drink. How did the meeting go?” She was mumbling, either drugged or faint from loss of blood.
“Put it in writing! We’re going home, love. They’ll be here to fetch us in a few minutes. We’ll ride the Spirit Wind back to Quondam and put some conjured bandages on that cut. They kept Lynx alive, remember, and his wounds were a hundred times worse than yours. Then we’ll cart you over to Ironhall and the octogram. See this chain the Conch-flute gave me? We’re rich already.”
“No spell books?”
“Better than spell books. We’re going to take a couple of acolytes with us, so as soon as you’re healed you can start jabbering conjury with them night and day. And they’ll have orders to tell you everything.”
She closed her eyes a
nd her wan smile faded off into sleep. Her grip on his fingers went slack, but her breathing was steady. He looked inquiringly at the healer women, who nodded reassuringly. Somewhere in the distance drums and conches made strange music.
Lynx was beckoning. Wolf rose and went across to the group. An armed man approaching their lord was enough to bring Corn-fang and Night-Fisher to their feet. The bearded man had only one leg and remained seated.
“What does ‘Put it in writing’ mean?” Lynx asked in Chivian.
Wolf had forgotten how acute his hearing was. “Inquisitor talk. Means the plan is going well, targets will be met or exceeded.” He stared out at the fabled city he would never properly see.
“So this is goodbye?”
“At least for now. I promised Two-swans-dancing that we would start delivering materiel to Quondam at the new moon. I don’t know how bad the roads will be, but we’ll get something together by then.” He forced himself to meet the deadly stare of the great cat eyes.
After a few moments, Lynx spoke softly, still in Chivian. “I’ve been trying to decide what to do with the prisoners I took today. With Night-fisher’s I have six. That isn’t enough to make anything spectacular, but I can probably trade them for several days’ invisibility. Would be useful when the war gets here.”
Wolf studied the last rays of the sunset. More men were climbing the pyramid stair.
“You don’t approve, Brother Wolf?”
“No. But I understand better than I did this morning.”
Lynx said, “Miaow, miaow! Transporting you home will take more than six hearts, Brother Wolf.”
“I said I understand!” Wolf snapped louder than he had intended. He knew there must be sacrifices. He did not want to hear numbers.
Lynx’s voice stayed soft, burning like hot cinders in his ears. “I don’t know how many it took to turn Sir Lynx into Bobcat-by-the-spring. I did not ask. I did not protest. I took what was offered. I ate what I was given.”
“I didn’t pass judgment on you, did I?”
“But you thought it. Who’s pot and who’s kettle now?” It was impossible to read expression on the cat muzzle. The Lynx of five years ago would have been wearing a lackadaisical, almost foolish, grin, but that was before the exile to Quondam, and the massacre, and everything that had happened since.
“Needs must.” Wolf’s conscience reminded him that this was the excuse the Distliards used for allowing their allies to continue sacrificing prisoners—if the enemy uses conjury, then so must we, just for now.
“Must needs?” Lynx said. “The high moral ground isn’t quite as high as it was, is it?”
“It isn’t just me. There are more ways of being bound than Ironhall’s, Brother. I’m doing it for my wife.”
“And for Chivial, I hope?”
“Not especially.”
The cat-man chuckled. His bodyguards stared fixedly at the stranger. Wolf’s scalp prickled.
“What did you tender as the price of your ticket?” Lynx asked.
“Survival of the city. Weapons, horses, dogs, tools. Whatever you need to give the Distliards a boot in the cuirass. Drive them into the sea.”
“Ah!” Lynx licked his fangs with a thick pink tongue. “And can you deliver, Ambassador? Will good King Athelgar really trade thousands of crowns’ worth of war gear for a couple of stinking, blood-caked acolytes?”
“He’ll deal. The Conch-flute will pay gold instead of conjury if he wants.”
“That’s better! The Pirate’s Son likes gold.” Lynx switched to Tlixilian. “Jorge, give him the list.”
The Distliard held up what appeared to be a piece of paper. Wolf took it and peered at it, but he could not read it in the dusk. “Paper?”
“It’s some sort of bark,” Lynx said. “They make picture books from it. That’s a list of what the navy needs. You’ll be able to get most of it in Lomouth or Brimiarde. I need all that and the sooner the better. Hide it! Celeste’s coming.”
Before Wolf dared ask how he knew that, a woman came floating up the stair, closely attended by half a dozen maids carrying useful equipment, such as fans, sunshades, even a stool. They were dusky, she was the color of starlight. She gestured for them to wait there, then sauntered across the rooftop to inspect Dolores, ignoring the audience but aware of it. Watching her in motion, Wolf thought of she-jaguars.
“Why is she dangerous?” he murmured.
“Celeste is always dangerous.”
She had started all this. Wolf strode over to join her at the sickbed. Dolores was asleep, or pretending to be so. Celeste wore only a knee-length skirt of white cotton and a scarf of the same cloth hung around her neck, with its ends dangling to cover her breasts, at least in theory. Even in two rags and barefoot she looked as if she were dressed for a coronation—her own.
He bowed. “Good chance, my lady.”
“Hello, Ed.”
“The years have passed you by.”
Celeste decided Lady Attewell was no threat and turned to regard Wolf. She curled her pretty lip. “They have not been kind to you, have they? I understand that this will be a flying visit?” She had extracted the news from Basket-fox, no doubt.
“Regrettably. I must get my wife to an elementary.”
Celeste smiled; the danger level rose. “Must you? Well, I want to know what you’re really up to, Ed. If I don’t like it, I’ll put a stop to it. What game are you playing?”
Seemingly no one trusted him tonight except the Conch-flute. “No game. I am in a hurry to save my wife’s life, certainly, but I am fulfilling my duties as emissary from King Athelgar.”
“You? Athy wouldn’t appoint you ambassador in a thousand years!”
True. “Men change, Amy. You have been away from Grandon a long time.” But nothing had changed. He had to force himself not to stare at the twin roses glowing through the gauzy scarf.
“But for a year before that I had to put up with dear Athelgar’s opinions of you. All night, every night!” She sighed. “Ranting about the beetle guardsman Sir Wolf, and what he’d like to do to you. Pathetic, it was.”
What game was Celeste playing? All Wolf could do was keep parrying, wondering when the acolytes would arrive to take him to the ritual. Already a drum had begun a slow beat from the top of the pyramid.
“The Pirate’s Son’s never liked me, but—What did you tell him about me, Amy?”
She shrugged. “Well, he always wanted to hear how you deflowered me, of course.”
“That’s a lie to start with.”
“And how virile you were, even as a boy. How no man could compare. He would quite wear himself out trying to better your feats. I may have exaggerated a teeny-weeny bit when describing your equipment. The King does not stand above all other men in that respect, you know.”
So Celeste had fanned Athelgar’s animosity toward him, just out of devilry. That might well be true. But what was she after now? Return to Chivial? Would Basket-fox let her go? Lynx would fight it, because he could not go with her.
“I don’t believe much of this, Amy. I do have to leave shortly. Is there something you want of me, for old times’ sake?”
Celeste floated closer to him—dangerously, intimately close. Her scent was sweetly tropical, her allure incredible, even yet, and her eyes reflected the stars. “Yes. I want to borrow the King’s Killer. There is a matter of justice that needs be attended to.”
“What are you talking about, Amy?”
“Justice,” she said. “Justice for my murdered child.”
Startled, Wolf glanced back to the cat-man sitting on the parapet. He had not moved since Celeste appeared.
“I thought your baby died. I had it on excellent authority, sworn in the presence of an inquisitor…” Ah, but that day back in Ironhall something in Lynx’s testimony had rung false. Wolf’s heart sank. He could not recall his brother’s exact words but deceit did not always require actual lying. “What really happened, then?”
Celeste laughed coarsely. “The midwiv
es pulled it out of me, cut it loose, dropped it in a blanket, and handed it out the door to my senior Blade, Sir Lynx. And he killed it!”
Wolf batted away the wheeling insects while he tried to think this through. If it was true, then the moral high ground had sunk to new depths. It was as hard to think of genial, easygoing Lynx murdering a baby as of Celeste being maternal, but a Blade must do anything necessary to protect his ward. She had been given years to brood over an injustice. Without raising his voice, Wolf said, “Brother, you are accused of murder.”
Lynx yowled like an alley cat in heat, but he stayed where he was, sitting on the wall with his guards around him. “So?” he called. “So what can you do about it now, Wolfie? I’m much faster than you are. I carry eight blades to your one. Corn-fang is nimble, too, even at this range. Draw that sword and you’ll have a spear through both ears.”
Light glowed in the stairwell. The waiting maidens twittered and cleared a path for a mighty feathered warrior, who came marching across the roof with seven or eight men at his back. He thumped the butt of his spear down in front of Wolf.
“Lord Ambassador, I am taker of seven captives Raging-stone, son of Lord Basket-fox, who bids me tell you that the ritual is about to begin.”
“We have a few things to settle here first,” Wolf said. Infanticide, perjury, fratricide.
“We have brought you garments in the style of your city and blankets for your wife.”
“That is very kind.” Wolf turned to Celeste. “I don’t believe you.”
She shrugged again. The light of the newcomers’ torches made her long hair shine like copper; her eyes were an intense green flecked with gold.
“Then I shall warn my dear old tabby cat protector that you are a notorious liar, Edwin Attewell. That you will betray his trust. That you do not speak for the King of Chivial, that the King of Chivial wants vengeance on El Dorado for the massacre at Quondam, and that you plan to torture the conjury secrets out of the acolytes and have no intention of delivering any weapons. Old Foxy will get one of his Eagle friends to lay the Serpent’s Eye on you and out will come the truth. So if you’re lying, Ed, you’d better kill that brother of yours for me, by hook or by crook.”