by Janet Morris
* 3 *
Niko was on his way out of the free zone, his purse nearly empty and his heart heavy, when two mounted 3rd Commando rangers took it into their heads to roust him.
He'd been everyone's favorite target of harassment since he'd quit the band a week before; he'd had about enough of it. He was tired of talking and unwilling to explain—it sounded too much like complaining when he did.
There was only one way to stop it: when the two horsemen came up on either side of him, he grabbed the booted foot of the ranger on his right and wrenched it around and upward, pushing the man from his saddle, while with his left hand, he dug into the tender nerves above the other rider's knee, simultaneously unhorsing the temporarily paralyzed second commando also.
The two men, cursing, scrabbled in the dirt while all about, the free zone crowd thinned out: none of the refugees wanted to be a witness, be too close, be involved.
Before their horses shied away, Niko grabbed a crossbow from one saddle.
By this time, one ranger had gained his knees, his dirk out; the other, his leg still useless, was trying to draw his sword, telling Niko, "You'll pay for this, Whoreson, and wish you'd—"
Niko nocked an arrow and levered the crossbow to ready, stepping in between the two, the bow pointed now at one, now at the other. "Drop your blades, hilts first."
"Can't you western women count?" the one with the palmed dirk retorted. "There's two of us; you'll bleed your life out among these Maggots if you don't put down that bow."
Niko took another step, toward the one whose leg he'd numbed, bending as he did so: "Open wide, princess," he told the soldier, whose eyes crossed, looking at the business end of the crossbow bolt. "Now!"
As the prostrate ranger opened his mouth to argue, Niko shoved the crossbow in it up to its flare. The man froze, eyes wide; Niko looked at the other. "You want to kill your friend, here? Say one more word."
The fighter with the dirk met Niko's eyes; seconds passed. Stealth's training in the western isles had taught him to read auras—not minds, just the colors a living being gives off in joy or war or treachery.
So he knew the first commando was going to rush him, even as the man lurched to his feet, his dirk cast Niko's way.
Reflexively, his finger squeezed the trigger and the bolt shot from the bow, through the mouth and skull of the commando on the ground, as Niko ducked the thrown dirk and prepared to meet the first ranger's assault.
The man barreled into him with concussive force. It was one-to-one, hand-to-hand, the kind of combat Niko liked. The ranger went for Stealth's throat with both hands, their faces so close it was clear that the ranger had had onions with his lunch.
Bringing up his arms, Niko snapped the hold, kicked up with his knee, and slammed down with his open hand on the commando's neck as the fellow doubled over.
His assailant went to his knees.
"More?" Niko asked, standing over him as the soldier, in fetal position, groaned upon the ground. "I'll wait."
But the soldier only gritted that Niko had started something he couldn't finish. He knew that. He picked up the crossbow, nocked another bolt, and backed away, looking right and left, hoping to melt into the free zone shadows, lose himself among the Maggots—refugees from the war-torn north who had the freedom of the camps.
There were tunnels underneath the free zone, and he headed for them, crouched low, wishing he'd let the rangers rough him up. It was a private war now, declared—Niko against the growing contingent of Rankan elite shock troopers wintering here.
He was breathing hard when he squeezed into a tunnel entrance beneath a fall of rock. He didn't understand why he'd let things escalate, why he'd shot the first ranger and wrestled with the second. Niko was a master of Death Touch. He could have marked each man for death with a finger's jab or an elbowed bruise during a scuffle they would have thought was real, let them take the few coppers and the bit of pulcis he had on him, endured their slurs and insults, and walked away free and clear, comfortable in the knowledge that both men would die of unexplained causes within a day: that was the way of Death Touch.
He could have, but he hadn't. In the tunnel, alone with his raspy breathing and his shaking hands, he tried to understand. He'd needed to lash out, to fight a living, breathing enemy, wrestle with those unlucky fighters because he couldn't wrestle with his fate.
Niko was what they were calling him—a Maggot, a Tysian refugee, a child of the streets grown cold and hard over years of mercenary war. But he was also a western-trained adept, a specialist in silent kill, a Bandaran initiate of the mystery called maat—balance and equilibrium and the intuitive edge that meditation brings.
Maat, in Bandara, was peaceful. Maat, in the world, was an expression of nature's search for balance, of chaos devouring itself, of the flux called war.
Because of his maat and his past, Niko had become sought after by the Nisibisi witch, Roxane, known as Death's Queen, who fought the Rankan empire as an ally of Mygdon; and by Aŝkelon, regent of the seventh sphere, lord of shadow and of dream.
An initiate of maat acquires a purity of soul, a serenity of spirit that no worldly strife can despoil. It was this that the dream lord Aŝkelon wanted from Niko, and this that made Roxane come to him repeatedly in all manner of women's forms.
Between the two of them, the lord of dreams and the queen of depredatious magic, Niko was like a contested haunch of meat. They tugged on him and pulled at him so that meditation was a torture, sleep was fraught with danger, and even the comfort of his fellows was denied him.
Niko, who needed touch and love and human contact, who was never happier than when he could do a favor for a friend or end the suffering of an unfortunate, was afraid to seek a woman's arms—she might be Roxane in disguise. Barred from the peace of his mystery by Aŝkelon's dominion over his mental rest-place, Niko was unwilling to bring his curse upon his unit or his friends.
All that was left in him now was anger. He wanted to hit back, to shake off these supernatural beings who coveted his soul.
Slinking through the free zone tunnels with no destination in mind, he admitted finally, in words, what he'd decided: the drugs and drink he used to keep sleep and misery at bay might be the cure for all that ailed him. If he could degrade his mystery, despoil his soul, become less than he was, neither Roxane nor Aŝkelon would want him. He'd no longer be a talisman of power craved by beings who sought to use him like a pawn.
He had to win this fight, even if it cost him all he'd once struggled to obtain. Rejection by the Sacred Band had convinced him that he had no other choice.
But he was so lonely and so tired, so angry and so at war within himself, that when he came up out of the tunnels at a randomly chosen exit, his mood was blacker than the warrens he'd just left. It was night by then, and that suited him. Above the alleyways leading to Peace Falls, he could see the mountain range called Wizardwall gleaming in winter's pale moonlight.
He could climb its peaks and ask Bashir to help him. Bashir and he still had a bond of sorts, and Bashir was Father Enlil's priest, a man of devout character who had the northern Storm God's ear. But that was trading one master for another. In the alley, Niko shook his head and paused to lean against a closed door, shivering and sweating all at once. There was no answer but to continue what he'd begun. Running to Bashir was just running, as staying with Tempus was hiding behind the Riddler's skirts.
A born warrior and son of the armies, he was going to become a criminal, a drug dealer, a man free of scruple, if it killed him, for the sake of owning his own soul in whatever afterlife he'd earn.
But it hurt. It hurt to hate the world and to know it hated him back. It hurt to hurt his friends and make them hurt him. Whenever he wasn't drugged or drunk, it hurt so that he could hardly stand it.
There was a cure for that: he pushed away from the alley doorway, headed for Brother Bomba's inn. Madame Bomba and he had an arrangement, a profitable trade in drugs between the Bombas and Niko's uncle in Caronne.
One of the cook's helpers, a free zone boy Niko had recommended to the Madame, dropped a pot of stew when he spied him: "Niko, my lord! The specials were here looking for you. They said you killed a man… a 3rd Commando." The youth's pale eyes were wide.
"That's right. What of it? I killed him in the free zone, where Tyse's laws don't apply. And don't call me 'my lord." If you've a lord, he's up in heaven, not stumbling around with blood on his clothes and dirt on his face."
He pushed by the boy. "Clean that up before the Madame finds you incompetent to serve."
"But…"
"What is it, pud? I don't have to explain myself to you."
The boy's eyes sparkled. "But they left someone here, in case you showed up. The Madame told me, if I saw you, to be sure and let you know."
"I'll go up the kitchen stairs. Tell her I'm here and waiting."
He didn't blame the Madame for wanting to avoid trouble in her bar.
Up the back stairs and three doors down the hall he had a room. In it, he broke the ice on a water basin and splashed the slush on his face, stripped off everything but his breech and washed the free zone grime from his skin.
Then, shivering, he knelt to build a fire in the sooty hearth, lighting a broadleaf soaked in pulcis from it as soon as the sparks began to catch.
Pulcis was slightly hallucinogenic, an aphrodisiac and stimulant only the wealthy or corrupt could afford.
By the time Madame Bomba came knocking, Niko was lying stretched out on the sheepskin rug before the hearth watching colors waft across the plastered ceiling, so forgetful of reality he merely called out, "Come," without thought to safety or security.
Madame Bomba came in first, leaving someone Niko didn't recognize waiting in the hall.
She frowned down at him, gigantic from his vantage on the floor. "Get up, Stealth. Put on some clothes. Wipe that silly grin off your face. I've brought someone to see you…" The Madame knelt in a rustle of skirts that sounded like Bandaran windchimes to Niko's drug-sharpened ears.
Then she had his face in her hands, turning it slightly, squinting. "Stealth, boy, try to listen to me. This is important—dangerous. Here drink this."
She pushed a faience vial against his lips, uptilted it. Bitter liquid flowed onto his tongue, spilled out and down his chin.
She let his head fall back; seconds later, his euphoria fell away, leaving him nearly sober and resentful.
"What is it? Who's there? Someone from these specials?"
"Get dressed and listen closely." She stood up and paced back and forth as Niko dressed, explaining: "The specials left a Rankan here, some muckety-muck from the capital who wants to talk to you. He won't tell me what he wants, but he's up to no good, that's certain from the way the specials were acting. This is a secret meeting, just you and him, and I've already been threatened with mayhem should I reveal it even happened."
Niko, pulling on hillman's trousers, said: "Ran-kans killed my parents; I served Tempus, not the empire. Now that's done, I want nothing to do with them." He struggled into a woolen chiton and buckled his workbelt over it; on it were strung what weapons he might need to convince a Rankan to let him be.
The Madame's hand closed heavily on his shoulder, spinning him around. "Niko, boy, this is serious—you're in no position to snub an overture from the empire, and we've our business to think of. See the man. Be polite. If there's no commission or pardon in the offer, don't worry—I've arranged for you to spend a week or two with friends of mine north of town… until the 3rd calms down or Tempus can be prevailed upon to help you."
"I don't want his help… I don't want any help."
"That's all too clear," the Madame said, her face showing all its lines. "But you've other folk to think of… we who love thee."
When Madame Bomba lapsed into "thee's and thou's," things were serious indeed.
"How do you know this Rankan isn't going to arrest me—free zone or not? It was a Rankan ranger I—"
"Hush, child. This man couldn't arrest a sneeze. You'll see. Trust me. Now, ready?"
He shrugged and she showed her yellowing teeth, then opened up the door and ushered in a short plump man with a beard only on his chin.
"I'll leave ye now," the Madame offered, and when the little Rankan only nodded, she left and closed the door.
The Rankan wore a fur-lined robe and boots which, in the capital, a man would buy for hunting tigers with the emperor. His cheeks were pink and his eyes cold. He said, "Stealth, called Niko-demos?"
"The same." Niko crossed his arms. "I'm Brachis, priest of the Storm God, Conservator of Heaven, Sole Confidant of the—"
"Spare me a recitation of your titles. If you've come to save my soul or claim it for an affront against the armies, priest, you're wasting your time either way. The Madame said I had to listen to your proposal. If you've got one, make it. Now."
The priest unlatched his cloak and let it fall; the garments underneath substantiated his claim: Niko hadn't seen such high-caste priestly raiment of the hierarchy—worked in golden thread with the bulls and lightning of the Storm God and the mountain— since he'd fought with Abarsis, the southern Storm God's dead warrior-priest.
"As you wish, Stepson… ex-Stepson, that is." Though his flush was spreading and priestly anger lit his eyes, Brachis signed a blessing Niko almost fended off, and minced close: "We have a proposition for you, your Madame Bomba is right. What is said hereafter cannot be repeated on pain of becoming anathema to the gods and losing your place in heaven." Brachis's eyes met Niko's solemnly. "Fine. I understand. Get on with it, priest." "May I sit?"
"Go ahead," Niko said, exasperated. Priests were a different matter than Rankan henchmen of the secular sort. This one had true power to damn, even though the Rankan Storm God was missing, some said dead.
The priest said: "We're here because Abarsis came to us in a dream and singled you out for glory."
"We? Glory? I've given up glory. I'll settle for survival." A superstitious chill ran up Niko's spine: Abarsis had been called the Slaughter Priest; no man who'd served the god in his Sacred Band could forget what it was like to be an instrument of heaven.
"We' in the sense that I'm the temple's representative. As for survival, we're offering you no obvious exoneration in the world of men—you'll have to take your chances with the 3rd Commando. We do, however, offer expiation in the world of gods. Abarsis's ghost came down from heaven and laid your name upon our altar when we asked how to go about making an end to accursed Abakithis, that travesty of an emperor who has caused the Storm God to turn his face away from the Rankan people—"
"Hold, priest. Let's not get theological… I'm not as pious as I used to be. You want me to what?"
"To assassinate the emperor, for the good of Ranke, the Storm God's temple, and your own soul."
Niko, who'd been leaning against the wall, slid slowly down it into a squat. "And for the good of the next faction that comes to power. Whose man are you, priest?"
"Brachis, my son; call me Brachis." The priest, having said what he'd come to say, was now paling visibly, so that his pink cheeks seemed like disfiguring birthmarks. "Abarsis chose you, and the death of that commando tonight is a sign that he was right: you're free of allegiances and pure as—
"Ghosts don't benefit from coups; men do. Is it Theron's faction? Tempus has worked for him off and on."
"You don't want to know, my son. Will you accept this commission that the gods have laid upon you? Joyously labor to release the Rankan people from this bondage of ineptitude and return our missing Storm God to us? We shall be very grateful—all the funds and covert aid you ask for shall be yours. The only thing we cannot do is associate ourselves with you openly."
"I know," Niko muttered. "And when it's done? Wil
l you then pack me off to heaven to let Abarsis thank me personally? I won't die for your cause; I won't hang or endure the Endless Deaths traitors earn without mentioning your names. You'll have to grant me some kind of immunity, and do it publicly."
The priest scowled. "We shall find a way. Are we agreed? You'll do the deed?"
"I want something for it, something more." Niko's mind raced: Abakithis had been the Rankan emperor when Tyse was sacked and made a Rankan satellite; his family—mother, father, sister—would be avenged. And Abarsis, up in heaven, the holy spirit who looked after all the living members of his Sacred Band and even personally appeared on earth to escort the fallen heavenward, had chosen him. "I want your word and the word of whomever you're grooming to sit on the Lion Throne of empire that Free Nisibis will remain free—an independent nation, with Bashir its recognized ruler." "We… will consider it." "You do that. I'll consider it, too." "Nikodemos," the priest shifted, "your immortal soul is at stake here."
Niko chuckled harshly: "You're right about that. And my physical person, too, I'd wager. You can't very well let me walk away if I refuse you, is that it?"
"The gods say you will not refuse." Niko's hands were cold, and his heart also. No matter what he did, he was always being pressed into service by nonphysical beings for reasons he didn't understand. "Then the gods are on the side of the Nisibisi free men. Yes or no, priest?"
Brachis sighed and made a spirit-invoking sign with his plump fingers. "Yes. We agree. And you must agree not to say anything about our arrangement, not to tell even the Riddler what has transpired. You must accomplish your task at the Festival of Man, in the third week on the third day, during the evening's celebration. The emperor will be among the winners then—you must be one." "Festival of Man? A winner? I'm not even among the contestants. I don't have a sponsor—I'm not a Stepson, not a member of Tyse's garrison. I certainly can't go as a Rankan entrant, after I've just slain a Rankan ranger!"
"Perhaps Bashir will sponsor you. Free Nisibis has a right to send a contingent to the games, as does any other buffer-state of empire, city-state, or powerful lord. If Nisibis refuses, you'll have to make your peace with Tempus or go as a Tysian entrant." The priest waved his hand. "These are political matters, and politics are only one weapon of the gods. A way will be shown to you; you have only to do what the gods desire."