Present Tense [Round Two of The Great Game]

by Dave Duncan

  "What?” D'ward demanded angrily, struggling to break free of the grip. He had not even glanced at Dosh or Ysian. “Oh—it's you!"

  "Who did you expect?” the man in green demanded, in a voice as thunderous as the drums. “What in creation do you think you're doing here, you young idiot?” He was the taller by two or three inches and considerably huskier. He had a dense black beard and a jutting hooked nose. He seemed young, yet he was the sort of man one instinctively addressed as “sir” ... or “master,” in Dosh's case.

  Ysian's fingers were knotting painfully in Dosh's hair. He could hardly breathe in the crush, glancing from the Liberator to the other man and back again. Their faces were directly above his, yet neither of them seemed to know he was there. He did not want to guess who this other man might be.

  D'ward smiled, but the effect was grotesque—all eyes and teeth, as if the skin of his face had shrunk. “You've got the wrong man in there!” His voice was hoarse.

  "I know that, fool! And tomorrow he dies. You think that's an accident? Have you any idea of the trouble that cost us? What do you think you can achieve, coming here?"

  "I can take his place. My place!"

  "You won't save his life if you do! Even if Zath chose to spare him, which he wouldn't, the ephors could not forgive the humiliation. He's dead now, dead as surely as he will be when they dash out his brains tomorrow."

  D'ward grimaced. “I won't let them!"

  "And how are you going to stop them now?"

  The drumming was a continuous menacing roll, rising louder, echoing among the pillars.

  "I can go there and say who I am! I can tell them they have the wrong man. If I say I'm the Liberator—"

  "You would drop dead."

  D'ward's face was white with misery or terror or fury—Dosh could not tell which, and perhaps it was all of them. “Then if you helped me, stood beside me—"

  "Fool!” The big man roared the word, yet none of the surrounding crowd paid him any heed at all. How could anyone resist his authority? “Zath has more power than all the Five together. You can do nothing here except die as well!"

  "There must be something I can do!"

  "No, there isn't! Maybe one day, but not today, nor tomorrow.” The massive fingers squeezed harder into D'ward's arm. The man seemed ready to bite him. “Now—will you live or die? Must I force you?"

  D'ward's eyes glinted feverishly. “Use mana here and you'll attract his notice, won't you? We're on the node."

  "Why are you so anxious to die?” They were bellowing at each other now, yet the mob packed around them seemed oblivious.

  "Why should it matter to you if I die?"

  "Because we want you to fulfill the prophecy! Your time is not yet, that's all."

  D'ward closed his eyes and shuddered. He slumped in despair, as if only the press of the crowd held him upright. “All right! If that's your price, I'll do it. I'll be the bloody Liberator, I'll take your orders, I'll do whatever you want, but you've got to pull the prince out of there. I won't let another man die in my place."

  "Sorry. I can't do that."

  "Then damn you!” D'ward screamed. “Let me go!"

  Before the man in green could answer, the drum roll stopped. A brief silence ... a faint voice making an announcement ... the crowd within the temple screaming in joyful unison ... the crowd outside howling for the news...

  The man in green heaved his great shoulders back to free his other arm and cracked his fist upward against the point of D'ward's jaw. D'ward's head jerked back. He went limp, held upright only by the man's hold on his arm and the squash of bodies.

  Nobody could move, or the crowd would have been dancing. As it was, they all kept bellowing their lungs out. The news spread: The sacrifice would be made. The plague would end.

  The man's eyes came down to Dosh with no surprise or sudden recognition. It was as if he had known all along who Dosh was and that he was right there.

  "Bring her and follow me,” he growled.

  Then he hoisted D'ward effortlessly onto his shoulder and plowed off through the crowd, parting it like tall grass.

  Still unconscious, D'ward dangled head down in a sandwich between the man in green and Dosh, who clung tightly to the man's heavy leather sword belt and let himself be dragged. He was barely supporting himself, sagging under Ysian's weight. As the crush began to slacken, he crumpled to his knees. Ysian broke free and tumbled. The big man turned and hoisted each of them in turn upright. His strength was ... superhuman?

  Who was he? Better not to wonder ... but he probably was ... Who else could he be? Why?

  "Hang on!” the man commanded, leading the way again.

  Dosh was certainly not about to disobey, lest hard experience prove his suspicions correct, and of course Ysian would not let D'ward out of her sight. The crowd was dispersing in jubilation, flowing out along the streets from the temple, cheering and singing. Dosh clung to the man's belt, towing Ysian by the hand. Gradually the mob thinned. South, east, two more blocks south ... the man (the Man?) knew exactly where he was heading.

  He turned into a dark opening. “Stairs!” he growled, and headed down them into blackness. Dosh and Ysian descended warily, fumbling at the rough stone wall for guidance. They descended three sides of a square well, into a littered and putrid-smelling hall. A door creaked open, and they followed their guide into a dim crypt, full of people.

  The air was heavy with a multitude of scents: the dank rot of the chamber itself and its sweating walls overlain by odors of candles; bodies and unwashed bedding, herbs, and strongly spiced cooking—especially cooking. They brought back a rush of memories that stunned Dosh. He recoiled, cannoning into Ysian.

  Men were scrambling to their feet, women hastily covering their heads, small children scampering to the comfort of mothers. There were easily thirty people in that dingy cellar, barely visible in the faint light of a few high ventilation slits. The men crowded forward—stocky men wearing tatters that seemed ready to fall apart, men with golden hair and beards. Their eyes were pale in the gloom, shining like their knives.

  As soon as they had formed a cordon between their families and the visitors, they halted, deferring to an elderly man in the background. He stood amid a litter of bedding, bundles, and broken furniture. He was spare, silver haired, and dignified. He alone wore a rich robe, amid this ragged rabble. He bowed stiffly.

  "You do us honor, noble Warrior."

  It was a tongue Dosh had not heard in a score of years. The lump in his throat was already agony, and it seemed to swell at the sound of those words.

  "Call off your panthers, Birfair Spokesman!” the man in green answered in the same speech.

  The old man barked a single word. The other men reluctantly sheathed their knives. Their pale eyes moved to inspect Dosh. He knew he was in grave, grave danger now. He edged closer to the big man. The Tinkerfolk were granting him respect, although they obviously did not think he was who Dosh thought he was, or they would all be flat on their faces.

  Whoever he was, he slid D'ward loosely to the floor. “This is the one I told you of. He is resting. I suggest the women bleach his hair before he awakens. It will save argument."

  The old man smiled and bowed again.

  "The others—” The big man gestured to indicate Dosh and Ysian. “That one is a woman. The other is one of your own. Take them also, if you will."

  Birfair rubbed his hands. “At the same price, noble Warrior?"

  A snort. “Very well. For the woman.” The big man tossed a pouch to him. It struck the floor with a loud clank. “See she is not molested—she may be important. The man can pay his own way."

  "Certainly, if he is one of ours, as you said.” The old man's poxy, palsied face was more apparent now, as Dosh's eyes adjusted to the dark. “He is a diseased whelp of a degenerate sow, spawned in a cesspool."

  "I shall rip out your stinking guts and thrust them down your throat with your feet,” Dosh retorted. It was only a language test. His acce
nt was rusty.

  Karzon shrugged. “How touching to restore a lost son to the loving bosom of his people! I want all three of them out of the city as fast as possible. I don't care how you arrange it. After that, your brother can work for his gruel. He may have some skills you can use, if you're not too fussy. The other two will need your charity."

  "The noble warrior has already provided most generously."

  "And I expect value! When my muddle-headed young friend awakens, explain to him that he must stay away from Lympus."

  "Lympus,” the old man repeated.

  "Yes. A place. It is being watched and will not be safe for him to approach for a long time."

  "We shall obey."

  "You'd better!” The man in green turned to the door.

  It closed in Dosh's face as Dosh dived after him. Mysteriously, the door was now locked. It had probably been locked earlier, which would explain why the Tinkerfolk had been taken by surprise.

  He spun around to get his back against it, knife in hand. Three young men were moving in on him already, coming cautiously but steadily, eyes and teeth shining. Birfair had made no promises about him. He had gold, a tunic of fine cut, and a valuable sword he did not know how to use. He also had his life. Whether he would be allowed to keep that would depend on how much he charged for the others.

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  VIII

  Endgame

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  47

  LUNCH HAD BEEN BAD ENOUGH, BECAUSE EVERYONE HAD WANTED TO talk about the war news—rumors were floating around Greyfriars that Passchendaele had fallen—but whenever anyone had mentioned it, someone else had changed the subject. Mustn't upset our hero in case he starts weeping!

  That had been bad enough, but after Alice and Exeter departed on the bikes, Smedley found himself alone with Ginger Jones and Mrs. Bodgley, the three of them fighting their way through conversational swamps—nothing safe to take a stand on, nothing safe to talk about.

  He went outside to try gardening, not that he could do much good. Black Dog really hounded him then. His hand hurt. His leg throbbed. He thought of challenging Ginger to a game of one-handed croquet, and that brought on visions of one-handed golf, one-handed grouse shooting, one-handed cricket, and one-handed loving ... as if he would ever find a gal interested in a cripple. One-handed car driving?

  He went for a walk, but it did no good.

  He came back to the Dower House, flopped down on one of the garden benches, and wondered why he had ever been crazy enough to let himself become involved in Exeter's affairs and how he was going to extricate himself. There was no decent alternative in sight, either, just the family mausoleum in Chichester. The last meeting with the guv'nor had ended in both of them yelling and Julian sobbing at the same time. Thousands of aunts. Sunday was his birthday....

  "Cut it out!” said a voice.

  He whipped his head around and saw that Ginger Jones was sitting in a deck chair under a tree. He had a newspaper spread over his chest, as if he had been napping under it and just pulled it down.

  "Beg pardon?"

  The old man's glasses flashed in the sun. “You were never a moper, Julian Smedley. Don't be one now!"

  "I'm not moping.” Smedley turned away.

  "It's just another stage,” Ginger said. “I've seen dozens like you these last couple of years.” There was a rustle of paper and a grunt as he heaved himself out of the deck chair. “At first you're so relieved to be out of it that you don't care what it cost.” His voice came closer. “Then you begin to realize that you have the rest of your life to live and you are not as other men. You think it isn't fair. Of course it isn't fair.” He was right behind Smedley now.

  "I'll try to do better next term, sir."

  He might as well have saved his breath.

  "I've seen dozens, I say! Lots of them would be delighted to give you a hand in exchange for what they've lost. Lungs, eyes, both legs ... There's one chap who was a fairly close chum of yours—I won't tell you his name—and he looks absolutely splendid. It's just that he isn't a real man anymore, at least not as he sees it. Care to swop with him?"

  "Why don't you go and help Mrs. Bodgley knit some warm woolly undies for Our Brave Fighting Men?"

  "Because I'd rather stay here and carp at you. I'm telling you that you were never a whiner and you won't be in future. It's just a stage. It will pass. Soon the real Julian Smedley will surface again."

  "I really can't tell you how much I look forward to that."

  "And then you will start to do what we all have to do, which is play the cards we are dealt. I should have had Exeter give you this lecture. He's better at it than I am. He says he will get you to Nextdoor if you want to go."

  "What!?"

  Ginger shuffled to the other bench and sat down, moving as if his back hurt. “I asked him before lunch. He'll do anything for you, Captain, because of what you did at Staffles. If Nextdoor's what you want, he says, then he'll help. He thinks you would do well there. The Service will take you at his word, he thinks. But is that really what you want?"

  Smedley was, for a moment, speechless. Then, “Do you believe him?"

  "Yes, I do. Don't you?"

  "I don't know. It all fits ... but it's fantasy, Ginger! Ravings! Opium dreams."

  "I believe him."

  "You're not just saying that to cheer me up?"

  Jones shook his head. “You knew him when he was a caterpillar. You were chrysalises together and now you're both butterflies. You know him as well as anyone will ever know him. You shared adolescence. You will never know any man better than you know him. Is there anyone, anyone at all, whose word you would take over the word of Edward Exeter?"

  Smedley considered the question seriously. He had to. After a while he said, “Probably not."

  "Me too. Now come indoors with me, because I want to take a look at that leg of yours. Have you changed the bandages today?"

  The gashes were swollen and inflamed. Ginger wanted to phone for a doctor and only agreed not to when Smedley promised to do so the next day if things got any worse.

  Then they went downstairs for tea.

  It was cooler in the sitting room than in the garden, Mrs. Bodgley said, because it faced east. Smedley thought it gloomy, unlived-in, lonesome. The crumpets were from Thorndyke's, Mrs. Bodgley said, and Wilfred was an even better baker than his grandfather had been, although of course nobody would ever tell the old man so. The jam, Mrs. Bodgley said, had come from the county craft fair and she thought it must be Mrs. Haddock's recipe. The gentlemen agreed it was excellent jam.

  Mrs. Bodgley then narrated several tales of events that had happened when she was in India. The viceroy's court in New Delhi, some jolly times up in the hills in Simla. Something about her visit to Borneo ... the Raffles Hotel in Singapore...

  The Empire on which the sun never sets.

  Smedley laughed at the jokes, taking his cue from Ginger.

  But his mind was on Nextdoor, a whole new world. Civilizing the natives, a worthy cause. His missing hand wouldn't matter there, because he would be Tyika Smedley and have house servants. The war would never be mentioned. He would dress for dinner and the entyikank would wear long gowns. He would do good for the people. He would live forever. He would gain mana and get his hand back.

  Dream.

  Gravel scrunched.

  A car?

  Mrs. Bodgley frowned. “That sounds like a car."

  Inexplicably, the muscles in Smedley's abdomen all tightened up like wire cables. He remembered the bombardment at Verdun.

  The doorbell jangled.

  Mrs. Bodgley rose. “I am not expecting visitors. Do you wish me to introduce you by an assumed name, Captain Smedley?"

  "No,” he said. “If that is necessary, then it will do no good."

  Which made no sense, but his hostess nodded her chins and sailed from the room. He glanced at Ginger, who was scratching his beard, light reflecting inscrutably on his pince
-nez. Neither of them spoke.

  Voices in the hall...

  "...the year Gilbert was elected chairman,” Mrs. Bodgley was booming. “I was probably more nervous than you were!"

  They both rose to their feet as she cruised in again, followed by a man. A man with fishy, protuberant eyes—eyes with a jubilant gleam in them.

  "Of course the captain and I have met.” He extended his left hand. “And Mr. Jones! Or may I call you Ginger now, as we always did before, behind your back?"

  "If I may call you Short Stringer, as we always did behind your back. Oh, blast!” Ginger's pince-nez fell to the floor.

  Stringer reached it before he did, wiped it on his sleeve, and returned it. “Yes, thank you, tea would be wonderful. Driving is dusty work."

  Smedley felt ill.

  Ginger had lost the ruddy glow that the sunny afternoon had given him. He pawed at his beard.

  Mrs. Bodgley seemed quite unconcerned, happy to welcome an old acquaintance, one of her uncountable honorary godchildren. Perhaps she really was unconcerned—had anyone ever given her the Staffles part of the story? Did she realize how impossible this situation was, how deadly? She went to the china cabinet with a hesitant glance at the open door. “Do be seated, please, all of you. Your friend...?"

  "I'm sure she will find us,” Stringer said blandly, selecting a chair. The gleam was back in his eyes again. His flannels and blazer were immaculate, but he seemed weary—as he should if he had driven across the width of England.

  "Just freshening up,” Mrs. Bodgley murmured quietly. “One lump or two, Mr. Stringer? Or would you rather I also called you Short?"

  "Not unless you wish to be challenged to pistols at dawn. My friends all call me Nat. Only a few old Fallovians call me Shorty. Captain Smedley, I fancy, calls me an impossible coincidence."

  "I might call you other things were Mrs. Bodgley not present,” Smedley said, crossing his legs. His fist was clenched. Both fists were clenched. He consciously relaxed the visible one. The other he could do nothing about.

  A teacup rattled on its saucer. He had shocked Mrs. Bodgley. Alerted to the conflict, she glanced from face to face in bewilderment.