"T-that was decades ago," I said, glad to find that my teeth had almost stopped rattling. "Seems to m-me, we had a touch of that same madness six quarters ago, and again tonight. Why?"
She shot me a side-long look, both rueful and bleak. "Clever, Sam. Because twice now, that bastard Mang has stirred up all the Shanir darkness in me, and that in turn has called up the ancient enemy. I'm to blame for everything that's happened tonight—and I will pay, darkness against darkness, the only way a Shanir can. Any more questions? Then let's get on with it."
* * *
HALF AN HOUR LATER, I was sitting on the floor in St. John's apartment with Mama's big knife 'cross my knees and my back to the wall next to the bedroom door. The numbness in my legs had 'bout worn off. Was alone 'cept for Ammie, asleep in the next room, and Tania ditto, locked in the closet.
Had been a pretty grim scene when we got back. Ammie had fought clear of the sedative twice since we'd left and was coming up again as Jame helped me through the door. While she was in the bedroom putting the kitten under again and Lancaster stalked back and forth muttering, I folded myself into a corner and tried to put my head back together. All I could think of was the time I'd found Ammie sitting on the bed b'side a sleeping St. John with all those bright, useless bits of scrap metal spread out 'round her on the blanket like broken keys to the past. She was playing with them and chattering happily at him. Didn't bother her a bit that he was too zoned out to pay attention. She just wanted him to be there. Always.
Then Lancaster said my god now what and I realized that the moaning I'd been hearing was coming from the chair b'side me, not from the bedroom. There was Tania, looking like an out-patient from the morgue, carrying on the way Ammie had been when we came in. Psychic shock, said Jame, and put her down fast. Seems the poor kitten had been locked into Ammie's grief so long that she couldn't tell it from her own anymore. So we made her as comfortable as possible in the closet and locked her in. Not even sleep could ease those lines out of her face.
Turn 'em both over to the psych people, said Lancaster.
Be damned if she would, Jame said, what with psych finals starting the next morning. She picked up the knapsack with the Book Bound in Pale Leather still inside. I tried to stand up.
"You stay put this time," she said, pushing me back down. "Keep watch. Lancaster will run with me—worse luck. We'll be back soon; before Mang, anyway, if Mama can only manage to hold him a bit longer."
"What're you going to do?" I demanded.
"Take advantage of the night's qualities," she says, one gloved hand on that weird, warm book. "life and death overlap tonight, remember? And I made a promise: one way or the other, St. John is coming home."
Then she swung the knapsack over her shoulder and herded Lancaster out the door, bound for the morgue. Twenty minutes to get there, I thought. Twenty minutes to get back. And in b'tween, what? No idea, or at least none that I wanted to think through. Anyway, all I could do was wait and hope, like Mama, that Jame knew what she was doing.
A pale bar of moonlight was creeping toward me 'cross the floor. I watched it thinking 'bout all that had happened that night, 'bout St. John, Ammie, Jame and all the rest. It had been a good pack, but now it was bound to change, maybe even to fall apart. Without St. John, we were nothing but a bunch of strays again, misfits with nothing to hold us together but some scraps of friendship and the will to survive. Only Jame was fit to take over, but she never would on a permanent basis. Which was probably a good thing. Our unit was only set up for self-defense, and Jame, near as I could tell, lived in an atmosphere of perpetual violence. Running with her even for one night had pulled my muscles and nerves to pieces. Jame as a pack leader would have run us all to bloody tatters in a week.
'Til I started thinking 'bout that, I didn't realize how tired I'd become. Was so peaceful there and felt so good to be sitting down that I thought I'd close my eyes for a second, just to rest them.
I woke with a jolt in a pool of radiance. The moon was glaring at me over the window ledge, decaying mountains flecked with jade, valleys in suffocated blue. The room was humming with light. I lay on my side listening. Something had jerked me out of a deep six sleep. The whoosh of the tube? Had Jame come back? Was she standing there in the hall? Why didn't she come in? Then the sound, a weak scratching at the door. I scrambled to my feet and stood there swaying, Mama's knife clenched in my hand.
Silence.
Then it began again: scree . . . scree . . . screeee . . .
A shadow fell 'cross me and I heard plastiglass shatter.
"Well, well," said Mang, opening the broken window and stepping in from the outside ledge. "If it ain't the dwarf."
The door lock snapped with a sharp click. Another of Dillon's toms grabbed my knife hand b'fore I could turn 'round and twisted 'til the blade dropped.
"Think I wasn't smart enough to give the slip to a buncha Tungs, or to go out one window blow and climb up?" Mang grinned at me, broken-toothed. "We were expectin' a warmer welcome, though. Where's the hellcat?" He grabbed my wrist and bent it. I think I screamed when it snapped. "You, wait outside," he said to the other tom, "I got some business here." Then he pulled the metal bands over his knuckles.
I stumbled back a step. The sudden pain had driven the shock out of my mind with a fire wind, and I knew damn farking well, as soon as I saw those bands, that if I didn't do something I was going to be beaten to death in the next few minutes.
The first swing, a rush of air breaking on the gleam of steel. I tried to use the fourth figure of the water flowing form, and found out fast it couldn't be done one-handed. The initial side step got me out of the way, but set me up like a picture for the reverse blow. The band caught me 'cross the mouth and almost lifted me off my feet. I staggered back, tasting blood. He came at me again, with that mad fixed grin on his face and a thread of saliva hanging from the corner of his mouth.
Think, dammit, I said to myself, backpedaling like mad. It's your growth that's retarded, not your head. You can't use a water flowing technique b'cause the only ones you know take two hands. Fire leaping you don't know from a hole in the wall. Wind blowing . . .
And there it was. The toughest form on the sheet, one not even Jame had mastered yet, but I did know this 'bout it: there was no contact. You found the lines of force and flowed 'round them. Like moonlight. Like a shadow. A long shot, lord, yes, but I knew my only chance when I saw it. So I took a deep breath and tried to relax.
For the first few minutes, it actually worked. That tom was a mass of mean muscle, all right, but he counted on scoring with every punch. The more he missed, the wilder he got. I was no master, though, and my legs had the strength of wet cardboard to start with. I knew my luck had 'bout run out.
Then I heard the sound in the other room, the squeak of bedsprings. Ammie was surfacing. I'd slept through the time when she should have been doped again.
The noise snapped my concentration. Next thing I knew, Mang had tagged me fit to cave in my chest, and my legs had turned to pulp. I was down flat b'side the bedroom door, fighting to breathe, when it opened. Didn't need to look up to know that Ammie was standing there.
Mang chuckled. The notch blade was in his hand, burning cold as death. He was coming toward . . . us? No. To get at me, he would have to bend; he wasn't. It was Ammie he wanted.
I was trying to get up and failing when something soft hit the hall door. It slid down the length of the outer surface. Wasn't even sure I'd heard it 'til I saw Mang swing 'round, the knife weaving in front of him. The door opened. Dillon's other tom fell into the room. His hands were over his face and blood was streaming out b'tween his fingers B'hind him I saw boots spattered red, the hem of a med tunic, a pair of hands with scythe-curved fingers dripping scarlet, and finally Jame Talissen's slow smile like a bitter sharp edge of a blade.
Then she stepped aside. Someone stood b'hind her, too big to be Lancaster, not Mama either . . . who? Couldn't see the face, but Mang must have. The knife with the notched hil
t slipped out of his hand and clattered on the tiles. He started to back up, slowly, making a gurgling noise. The square of the broken window framed his shoulders, moonlight flooding in 'bout them.
The knife was burning silver on the floor. I wanted that piece of honed steel. Now, b'fore Mang recovered and made a move for it. My good hand groped for it through the mist gathering b'hind my eyes.
Ammie got there first. She slipped past me on bare feet and scooped up that blade so fast that for a moment I thought I'd dreamed it; but there she was with it balanced on her palms, moving fast toward Mang. To this day, I don't know if she meant to pounce him with it or simply to return the damned thing. Mang didn't wait to find out. He jerked back another step as the kitten swept down on him. The back of his knees caught the edge of the window frame. For a second he was there, bending backward in a slow arc. Then he was gone. Not a sound. Nothing but hands circling in the air and plunging away. Ammie watched 'til the body must have hit bottom. Then she threw the knife out after him.
Was as if everything was b'ginning to move away from me. I saw Ammie turn, spot the large, shadowy figure in the doorway, and run toward it with a cry of joy. Then the darkness came rushing in.
* * *
WHEN I CAME TO AGAIN, it was early morning. The blue moon had set at last and thin sunlight was pouring through the broken window. First thing I saw was Lancaster, sitting on the floor with his head on his knees, like a man who's been sick and expects to be sick again. Second thing was the open bedroom door. Ammie was gone. The closet door was open too, but Tania was still there, asleep in a tangle of blankets. For the first time since I'd known her, she was smiling.
A hand brushed 'cross my cheek and I saw that it was Jame who was supporting my head. She was leaning 'gainst the wall and looked half zonkers with exhaustion. When she saw I was awake, she gave me a tired smile.
"It's all right, Samuel," she said, brushing more hair off my face. "Everything's all right. Mang is dead. St. John and Ammie have gone down to the Under-Earth. Rimmon promised to find a place for them where they'll be safe, and together."
I stared at her. Hurt like hell to speak, but finally I got it out.
"B-but St. John is dead!"
"Of course," she said, and smiled.
A MATTER OF HONOR
An introduction to "A Matter of Honor"
This was the story out of which God Stalk grew. My idea at the time was to put Jame in a Fritz Leiber-esque setting and see what happened. For the Gray Mouser, see Jame; for Fahrd, see Marc. For the gods, well, see them for themselves, whatever the hell they are. It was supposed to be a five-finger exercise, to see if I could write a novel. I wrote the first draft at Clarion, the workshop for would-be science fiction and/or fantasy writers, and Kate Wilhelm bought it. That was my first professional sale.
P. C.
It was sunset in the free city of Tai-tastigon. To the west, fire rimmed the Ebonbane Mountains, streaking their summits with veins of snow-kindled crimson. Far below, the last light was climbing the towers of the city's thousand temples. Shadows flowed into the labyrinthine streets.
In the southeast quarter the merchants were closing their shops. Strongroom doors swung shut, traps were set, guards emerged from the dusk to take their posts. Darkness settled there bit by bit, but to the north torches flared as the thieves' bazaar began its nightly trade. Those favored by the Master of the Brotherhood had set up their stalls within the protection of his great courtyard offering cream furs and emeralds, jacinth and blood velvet. Others, less fortunate, established themselves in nearby passageways, as wary now of the street merchants gathering up their wares for the night as the latter had been of them earlier. Meanwhile, everywhere the temples had begun to speak. Night came as always to Tai-tastigon with the murmur of chants and hawkers' cries, bells and barter.
This night, from somewhere in the maze of passages near the eastern gate, a sudden howl sliced through the twilight hum of the city.
"Ai, Baio-caina, Baio-caina, ai!"
The merchants on Half Moon Street who had not yet taken down their stalls paused, listening. Then they hurriedly gathered up all they could carry and ran.
Two figures rushed down the street. They were women, hardly, in fact, more than girls. Each held something out before her as though to keep it as far from her body as possible, something long, red, and dripping. Wailing, they raced on toward the Judgment Square where all roads met.
A low roar followed in their wake: many feet, many voices. Preceded by torches, a black mass surged. In another second, the tide of bodies swept Half Moon Street, crushing the abandoned stalls under foot. There were hundreds, thousands of them, young, beautiful, terrible. They ran hand in hand in five long chains.
The Talisman Jamethiel stopped at the mouth of the narrow lane, biting her lip in exasperation. In the excitement of her own chase, she had forgotten about the festival of the goddess Baio-caina, she had forgotten that certain roads would be inaccessible because of it. It was inexcusable for an apprentice of the Brotherhood, much less for a Kencyr. If they caught her here, by the third face of God, she deserved it.
The celebrants had seen her. They were calling to her.
"Talisman, Talisman! Join us! Dance with us!"
Jame glanced quickly over her shoulder. Two large forms had appeared at the other end of the alley. She jerked her cap down over her ears, took a deep breath, and plunged forward into the rushing mass. Hands closed eagerly on her hands. She was swept away. Baffled, the two guardsmen stopped just short of the spot where the girl had stood a moment before.
The celebrants moved swiftly, filling the street from side to side. As the way broadened, some hundred paces from the entrance to the central square, the five lines began to weave themselves into intricate patterns. Jame whirled with them. Despite precautions, her cap had been lost in the first few minutes and her long jet hair whipped in her eyes, half blinding her. She threw back her head, laughing out loud at the swift grace of the dance.
Then they were in the Judgment Square. Jame twisted free and slipped out of the crowd. A moment later she stood on the edge of the square. The celebrants were dancing around the Mercy Seat in the center of the area. So many flowers had been thrown on it that not a stone was visible. There was something sticking out near the top of the fragrant hill, something that looked at a distance like a large, dark red spider streaked with brown. It was a human hand, stripped of its skin. The rest of the body, as flayed as the single protruding member, was buried in white and amber blossoms. Up until the third hour of the afternoon it had still twitched at the touch of every fly. Not so now. The captured thief was at last dead.
Jame gave him and the worshippers a solemn salute, dodged two of the latter who wanted her to stay, broke the wrist of a third who was more persistent, and set off for home.
The inn where Jame lived and earned the honest part of her living as a senetha dancer was located on the north side of the Belching Kinka marketplace in the southwest quarter of the city. It was a popular place and did a roaring business from about the eleventh hour on, but this early in the evening it was usually deserted. It was a surprise, as she pushed open the heavy oak door, to see a wine goblet flying at her head. It was so much of a surprise that she almost forgot to duck.
"Whore . . . pervert . . . defiler of the one true temple! I saw you! I saw you dancing with them. I saw you honor that . . . that . . . "
The tirade turned into a sputter, and the sputter into a scream of rage as a Gorgo high priest rushed at her in a storm of whipping gray and silver fabric, brandishing a pudgy fist and continuing to shriek. Jame stared at him. The sheer ineptitude of the attack filled her with something very like awe. It would be almost a desecration not to let it fall apart of its own accord, she thought, but then, as the would-be assassin rushed toward her, she found herself instinctively slipping under the wild swing. The edge of her foot clipped the priest's left ankle, caught the right as it swung forward, and then, as the little man's momentum shot h
im forward over the threshold, swept up both sharply in a fine, high kick. It was a perfect demonstration of a senetha dance step altered into a movement of the lethal senethara fight form of the Kencyrath.
Tubain the inkeeper was waddling toward her across the room, wiping sausage fingers on his apron as he came.
"I don't think the honorable Loogan likes me very much," she said, closing the door. "Never play a joke on a priest. They have no sense of humor and they never forget."
"Priests," said Tubain with a fine rumble of contempt, "are not what you would call normal people. You should know that after all your trouble with M'lord Ishtier. Were you down in the square worshipping the goddess?"
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