Child of the River

Chapter Seven The Warlord

In the darkness outside the door of the tavern, Dr. Dismas clapped a wide-brimmed hat on his head and exchanged a few words with the landlord, who handed something to the apothecary, knuckled his forehead, and shut the heavy street door. The cluster of ghost lanterns above the door creaked in the breeze, glimmering with a wan pallor that illuminated nothing but themselves. The rest of the street was dark, except for blades of light shining between a few of the closed shutters of the houses on the other side of the wide canal.

Dr. Dismas switched on a penlight and waved its narrow beam at Yama, who blinked stupidly at the light; his wits were still dulled by sleep and the residue of the drugged beer.

“If you are going to be sick,” Dr. Dismas said, “lean over and don’t spatter your clothes or your boots. You must be presentable.”

“What will you do with me, doctor?”

“Breathe, my dear boy. Slowly and deeply. Is it not a fine night? There is a curfew, I’m told. No one will be about to wonder at us. Look at this. Do you know what it is?”

Dr. Dismas showed Yama what the landlord had given him. It was an energy pistol, silver and streamlined, with a blunt muzzle and a swollen chamber, and a grip of memory plastic that could mold itself to fit the hands of most of the bloodlines of the world. A dot of red light glowed at the side of the chamber, indicating that it was fully charged.

“You could Burn for that alone,” Yama said.

“Then you know what it can do.” Dr. Dismas pushed the muzzle into Yama’s left armpit. “I have it at its weakest setting, but a single shot will roast your heart. We will walk to the new quay like two old friends.”

Yama did as he was told. He was still too dazed to try to run. Besides, Sergeant Rhodean had taught him that in the event of being kidnapped he should not attempt to escape unless his life was in danger. He thought that the soldiers of the garrison must be searching for him; after all, he had been missing all day. They might turn a corner and find him at any moment.

The dose of cantharides had made Dr. Dismas talkative.

He did not seem to think that he was in any danger. As they walked, he told Yama that originally the tavern had been a workshop where ghost lanterns had been manufactured in the glory days of Aeolis.

“The lanterns that advertise the tavern are a crude representation of the ideal of the past, being made of nothing more than lacquered paper. Real ghost lanterns were little round boats made of plastic, with a deep weighted keel to keep them upright and a globe of blown nylon infused with luminescent chemicals instead of a sail. Ghost lanterns were floated on the Great River after each funeral to confuse any restless spirits of the dead and make sure that they would not haunt their living relatives. There is, as you will soon see, an analogy to be made with your fate, my dear boy.”

Yama said, “You traffic with fools, doctor. The owner of the tavern will be burnt for his part in my kidnap—it is the punishment my father reserves for the common people. Lud and Lob too, though their stupidity almost absolves them.”

Dr. Dismas laughed. His sickly sweet breath touched Yama’s cheek. He said, “And will I be burnt, too?”

“It is in my father’s power. More likely you will be turned over to the mercies of your department. No one will profit from this.”

“That’s where you are wrong. First, I do not take you for ransom, but to save you from the pedestrian fate to which your father would consign you. Second, do you see anyone coming to your rescue?”

The long waterfront, lit by the orange glow of sodium-vapor lamps, was deserted. The taverns, the chandlers’ godowns and the two whorehouses were shuttered and dark. Curfew notices fluttered from doors; slogans in the crude ideograms used by the Amnan had been smeared on walls.

Rubbish and driftwood had been piled against the steel doors of the big godown owned by Derev’s father and set alight, but the fire had done no more than discolor the metal. Several lesser merchants’ offices had been looted, and the building where Dr. Dismas had kept his office had been burnt to the ground. Smoldering timbers sent up a sharp stench that made Yama’s eyes water.

Dr. Dismas marched Yama quite openly along the new quay, which ran out toward the mouth of the bay between meadows of zebra grass and shoals of mud dissected by shallow stagnant channels. The wide bay faced downriver.

Framed on one side by the bluff on which the Aedile’s house stood, and by the chimneys of the paeonin mill on the other, the triple-armed pinwheel of the Galaxy stood beyond the edge of the world. It was so big that when Yama looked at one edge he could not see the other. The Arm of the Warrior rose high above the arch of the Arm of the Hunter; the Arm of the Archer curved in the opposite direction, below the edge of the world, and would not be seen again until next winter. The structure known as the Blue Diadem, that Yama knew from his readings of the Puranas was a cloud of fifty thousand blue-white stars each forty times the mass of the sun of Confluence, was a brilliant pinprick of light beyond the frayed point of the out-flung Arm of the Hunter, like a drop of water flicked from a finger. Smaller star clusters made long chains of concentrated light through the milky haze of the galactic arms. There were lines and threads and globes and clouds of stars, all fading into a general misty radiance notched by dark lanes which barred the arms at regular intervals. The core, bisected by the horizon, was knitted from thin shells of stars in tidy orbits concentrically packed around the great globular clusters of the heart stars, like layers of glittering tissue wrapped around a heap of jewels. Confronted with this ancient grandeur, Yama felt that his fate was as insignificant as that of any of the mosquitoes which danced before his face.

Dr. Dismas cupped his free hand to his mouth and called out, his voice shockingly loud in the quiet darkness. “Time to go!”

There was a distant splash in the shallows beyond the end of the quay’s long stone finger. Then a familiar voice said, “Row with me, you bugger. You’re making us go in circles.”

A skiff glided out of the darkness. Lud and Lob shipped their oars as it thumped against the bottom of a broad stone stair. Lob jumped out and held the boat steady as Yama and Dr. Dismas climbed in.

“Quick as you like, your honor,” Lud said.

“Haste makes waste,” Dr. Dismas said. Slowly and fussily he settled himself on the center thwart, facing Yama with the energy pistol resting casually in his lap. He told the twins, “I hope that this time you did exactly as I asked.”

“Sweet as you like,” Lob said. “They didn’t know we were there until the stuff went up.” The skiff barely rocked when he vaulted back into it; he was surprisingly nimble for someone of his bulk. He and his brother settled themselves in the high seat at the stern and they pushed off from the rough stones of the quay.

Yama watched the string of orange lights along the waterfront swiftly recede into the general darkness of the shore.

The cold breeze off the river was clearing his head, and for the first time since he had woken from his drugged sleep he was beginning to feel fear.

He said, “Where are you taking me, doctor?”

Dr. Dismas’s eyes gleamed with red fire beneath the brim of his hat; his eyes were backed with a reflective membrane, like those of certain nocturnal animals. He said, “You return to the place of your birth, Yamamanama. Does that frighten you?”

“Little fish,” Lud said mockingly. “Little fish, little fish.”

“Fish out of water,” Lob added.

They were both breathing heavily as they rowed swiftly toward the open water of the Great River.

“Keep quiet if you want to earn your money,” Dr. Dismas said, and told Yama, “You must forgive them. Good help is so hard to find in backwater places. At times I was tempted to use my master’s men instead.”

Lud said, “We could tip you overboard, doctor. Ever think of that?”

Dr. Dismas said, “This pistol can kill you and your brother just as easily as Yamamanama.”

“If you shoot at us, you’ll set fire to the boat, and drown as neat as if we’d thrown you in.”

“I might do it anyway. Like the scorpion who convinced the frog to carry him across the river, but stung his mount before they were halfway across, death is in my nature.”

Lob said, “He don’t mean anything by it, your honor.”

“I just don’t like bad-mouthing of our city,” Lud said sullenly.

Dr. Dismas laughed. “I speak only the truth. Both of you agree with me, for why else would you want to leave? It is an understandable impulse, and it raises you above the rest of your kind.”

Lud said, “Our father is young, that’s all it is. We’re strong, but he’s stronger. He’d kill either of us or both of us, however we tried it, and we can’t wait for him to get weak. It would take years and years.”

Dr. Dismas said, “And Yamamanama wants to leave, too. Do not deny it, my boy. Soon you will have your wish. There! Look upriver! You see how much we do for you!”

The skiff heeled as it rounded the point of the shallow, silted bay and entered the choppier waters of the river proper.

As it turned into the current, Yama saw with a shock that one of the ships anchored at the floating harbor half a league upstream was ablaze from bow to stern.

The burning ship squatted over its livid reflection, tossing harvests of sparks into the night, as if to rival the serene light of the Galaxy. It was a broad-beamed carrack, one of the fleet of transports which carried troops or bulk supplies to the armies fighting the heretics at the midpoint of the world.

Four small boats were rowing away from it, sharply etched shadows crawling over water that shone like molten copper.

Even as Yama watched, gape-mouthed, a series of muffled explosions in the ship’s hold blew expanding globes of white flame high above the burning mastheads. The ship, broken-backed, settled in the water.

Lud and Lob cheered, and the skiff rocked alarmingly as they stood to get a better view.

“Sit down, you fools,” Dr. Dismas said.

Lud whooped, and shouted, “We did it, your honor! Sweet as you like!”

Dr. Dismas said to Yama, “I devised a method so simple that even these two could carry it out successfully.”

Yama said, “You tried to burn a ship a few days ago, did you not?”

“Two barrels of palm oil and liquid soap. One at the bow, one at the stern,” Dr. Dismas said, ignoring the question, “armed with clockwork fuses. It makes a fine diversion, don’t you think? Your father’s soldiers are busy rescuing sailors and saving the rest of the floating harbor while we go about our business.”

“There is a pinnace anchored farther out,” Yama said. “It will investigate.”

“I think not,” Dr. Dismas said. “Its commander is most anxious to make your acquaintance, Yamamanama. He is a cunning warlord, and knows all about the fire. He understands that it is a necessary sacrifice. The heretics will be blamed for the burning of the ship, and also for your disappearance. Your father will receive a ransom note tomorrow, but even if he answers it there will, alas, be no reply. You will disappear without trace. Such things happen, in this terrible war.”

“My father will search for me. He will not stop searching.”

“Perhaps you won’t want to be found, Yamamanama. You want to run away, and here you are, set on a great adventure.”

Yama knew now who the sailors had been searching for.

He said, “You tried to kidnap me two days ago. Those burning rafts were your work, so my father’s soldiers would chase after imaginary heretics. But these two failed to get hold of me, and you had to try again.”

“And here we are,” Dr. Dismas said. “Now please be quiet. We have a rendezvous to keep.”

The skiff drifted on a slow current parallel to the dark shore. The burning ship receded into the night. It had grounded on the river bottom, and only the forecastle and the masts were still burning. The fisherfolk were abroad, and the lanterns they used to attract fish to their lines made scattered constellations across the breast of the Great River, red sparks punctuating the reflected sheen of the Galaxy’s light.

Dr. Dismas stared intently into the glimmering dark, swearing at Lud and Lob whenever they dipped their oars in the water. “We got to keep to the current, your honor,” Lud said apologetically, “or we’ll lose track of where we’re supposed to be.”

“Quiet! What was that?”

Yama heard a rustle of wings and a faint splash.

“Just a bat,” Lud said. “They fish out here at night.”

“We catch ’em with glue lines strung across the water,” Lob explained. “Make good eating, bats do, but not in spring. After winter they’re mainly skin and bone. They need to fatten up—”

“Do shut up!” Dr. Dismas said in exasperation. “One more word and I’ll fry you both where you sit. You have so much fat on your bodies that you’ll go up like candles.”

The current bent away from the shore and the skiff drifted with it, scraping past young banyans that raised small crowns of leaves a handspan above the water. Yama glimpsed the pale violet spark of a machine spinning through the night. It seemed to be moving in short stuttering jerks, as if searching for something. At any other time he would have wondered at it, but now its remote light and unguessable motives only intensified his feeling of despair. The world had suddenly turned strange and treacherous, its wonders traps for the unwary.

At last Dr. Dismas said, “There! Row, you fools!”

Yama saw a red lamp flickering to starboard. Lud and Lob bent to their oars and the skiff flew across the water toward it. Dr. Dismas lit an alcohol lantern with flint and steel and held it up by his face. The light, cast through a mask of blue plastic, made his pinched face, misshapen by the plaques beneath its skin, look like that of a corpse.

The red lantern was hung from the stern of a lateen-rigged pinnace which swung at anchor beside a solitary banyan. It was the ship which had returned Dr. Dismas to Aeolis. Two sailors had climbed into the branches of the tree, and they watched over the long barrels of their rifles as the skiff came alongside. Lob stood and threw a line up to the stern of the pinnace. A sailor caught the end and made the skiff fast, and someone vaulted the pinnace’s rail, landing so suddenly and lightly in the well of the skiff that Yama half rose in alarm.

The man clamped a hand on Yama’s shoulder. “Easy there, lad,” he said, “or you’ll have us in the river.” He was only a few years older than Yama, bare-chested, squat and muscular, with an officer’s sash tied at the waist of his tight, white trousers. His broad, pugnacious face, framed by a cloud of loose, red-gold hair, was seamed with scars, like a clay mask someone had broken and badly mended, but his look was frank and appraising, and enlivened by good-humored intelligence.

The officer steadied the skiff as Dr. Dismas unhandily clambered up the short rope ladder dropped down the side of the pinnace, but when it was his turn Yama shook off the officer’s hand and sprang up and grabbed the stern rail.

His breath was driven from him when his belly and legs slammed against the clinkered planks of the pinnace’s hull, and pain shot through his arms and shoulders as they took his weight, but he pulled himself up, got a leg over the rail and rolled over, coming up in a crouch on the deck of the stern platform at the bare feet of an astonished sailor.

The officer laughed and sprang from a standing jump to the rail and then, lightly and easily, to the deck. He said, “He has spirit, doctor.”

Yama stood up. He had banged his right knee and it throbbed warmly. Two sailors leaned on the steering bar and a tall man in black stood beside them. The pinnace’s single mast was rooted at the edge of the stern platform; below it, three decads of rowers, naked except for breechclouts, sat in two staggered rows. The sharp prow was upswept, with a white stylized hawk’s eye painted on the side. A small swivel-mounted cannon was set in the prow’s beak; its gunner had turned to watch Yama come aboard, one arm resting on the cannon’s fretted barrel.

Yama looked at the black-clad man and said, “Where is the warlord who would buy me?”

Dr. Dismas said querulously, “I dislike doing business with guns pointed at me.”

The officer gestured, and the two sailors perched in the banyan branches above the pinnace put up their rifles. “Just a precaution, Dismas, in case you had brought along uninvited guests. If I had wanted you shot, Dercetas and Diomedes would have picked you off while you were still rowing around the point of the bay. But have no fear of that, my friend, for I need you as much as you need me.”

Yama said again, loudly, “Where is he, this warlord?”

The, bare-chested officer laughed. “Why here I am,” he said, and stuck out his hand.

Yama took it. The officer’s grip was firm, that of a strong man who is confident of his strength. His fingers were tipped with claws that slid a little from their sheaths and pricked the palm of Yama’s hand.

“Well met, Yamamanama,” the officer said. His large eyes were golden, with tawny irises; the only beautiful feature of his broken face. The lid of the left eye was pulled down by a deep, crooked scar that ran from brow to chin.

“This war breeds heroes as ordure breeds flies,” Dr. Dismas remarked, “but Enobarbus is a singular champion. He set sail last summer as a mere lieutenant. He led a picket boat smaller than his present command into the harbor of the enemy and sank four ships and damaged a dozen others before his own boat was sunk under him.”

“It was a lucky venture,” Enobarbus said. “We had a long swim of it, I can tell you, and a longer walk afterward.”

Dr. Dismas said, “If Enobarbus has one flaw, it is his humility. After his boat was sunk, he led fifteen men—his entire crew—through twenty leagues of enemy lines, and did not lose one. He was rewarded with command of a division, and he is going downriver to take it up. With your help, Yamamanama, he will soon command much more.”

Enobarbus grinned. “As for humility, I always have you, Dismas. If I have any failing, you are swift to point it out. How fortunate, Yamamanama, that we both know him.”

“More fortunate for you, I think,” Yama said.

“Every hero must be reminded of his humanity, from time to time,” Dr. Dismas said.

“Fortunate for both of us,” Enobarbus told Yama. “We’ll make history, you and I. That is, of course, if you are what Dismas claims. He has been very careful not to bring the proof with him, so that I must keep him alive. He is a most cunning fellow.”

“I’ve lied many times in my life,” Dr. Dismas said, “but this time I tell the truth. For the truth is so astonishing that any lie would pale before it, like a candle in the sun. I think we should leave. My diversion was splendid while it lasted, but already it is almost burned out, and while the Aedile of that silly little city may be a weak man, he is no fool. His soldiers searched the hills after my men set fire to the first ship, and they will search the water this time.”

“You should have trusted my men, Dismas,” Enobarbus said. “We could have taken the boy two nights ago.”

“And the game would have been up at once if anyone had seen you. We should move on at once, or the Aedile will wonder why you do not come to the aid of the burning ship.”

“No,” Enobarbus said, “we’ll tarry here a while. I have brought my own physician, and he’ll take a look at your lad.”

Enobarbus called the man in black forward. He was of the same bloodline as Enobarbus, but considerably older. Although he moved with the same lithe tread, he had a comfortable swag of a belly and his mane, loose about his face, was streaked with gray. His name was Agnitus.

“Take off your shirt, boy,” the physician said. “Let’s see what you’re made of.”

“It’s better you do it yourself,” Dr. Dismas advised. “They can tie you down and do it anyway, and it will be more humiliating, I promise you. Be strong, Yamamanama. Be true to your inheritance. All will be well. Soon you will thank me.”

“I do not think so,” Yama said, but pulled his shirt over his head. Now he knew that he was not going to be killed, he felt a shivery excitement. This was the adventure he had dreamed of, but unlike his dreams it was not under his control.

The physician, Agnitus, sat Yama on a stool and took his right arm and turned the joints of his fingers and wrist and elbow, ran cold hard fingers down his ribs and prodded at his backbone. He shone a light in Yama’s right eye and gazed closely at it, then fitted a kind of skeletal helmet over Yama’s scalp and turned various screws until their blunt ends gripped his skull, and recorded the measurements in a little oilskin-covered notebook.

Dr. Dismas said impatiently, “You’ll see that he has a very distinctive bone structure, but the real proof is in his genotype. I hardly think you can conduct that kind of test here.”

Agnitus said to Enobarbus, “He’s right, my lord. I must take a sample of the boy’s blood and a scraping of the skin from the inside of his cheek. But I can tell you now that his bloodline is not one I recognize, and I’ve seen plenty in my time. And he’s not a surgical construct, unless our apothecary is more cunning than I am.”

“I would not presume,” Dr. Dismas said.

“A proof by elimination is less satisfactory than one by demonstration,” Enobarbus said. “But unless we storm the library of the Department of Apothecaries and Chirurgeons, we must be content with what we have.”

“That is true,” Dr. Dismas said. “Haven’t I sworn it so? And does he not fulfill the prophecy made to you?”

Enobarbus nodded. “Yamamanama, you’ve always believed yourself special. Do you have a clear view of your destiny?”

Yama pulled his shirt over his head. He liked Enobarbus’s bold candor, but mistrusted him because he was clearly an ally of Dr. Dismas. He realized that everyone was looking at him, and he said defiantly, “I would say that you are a proud and ambitious man, Enobarbus, a leader of men who would seek a prize greater than mere promotion. You believe that I can help you, although I do not know how—unless it is to do with the circumstances of my birth. Dr. Dismas knows about that, I think, but he likes to tease.”

Enobarbus laughed. “Well said! He reads us both as easily as reading a book, Dismas. We must be careful.”

“The Aedile would have made him a clerk,” Dr. Dismas said with disgust.

“The Aedile belongs to a part of our department that is not noted for its imagination,” Enobarbus said. “It is why men like him are entrusted with the administration of unimportant towns. They can be relied upon precisely because they have no imagination. We should not condemn him for what, in his office, is a virtue.”

“Yamamanama, listen to me. With my help, the world itself lies within your grasp. Do you understand? You have always considered yourself to be of special birth, I know. Well, Dismas has discovered that you are unique, and he has convinced me that you are a part of my destiny.”

And then this powerful young man did an extraordinary thing. He knelt before Yama and bowed his head until his forehead touched the deck. He looked up through the tangle of his mane and said, “I will serve you well, Yamamanama. I swear with my life. Together we will save Confluence.”

“Please get up,” Yama said. He was frightened by this gesture, for it marked a solemn moment whose significance he did not fully understand. “I do not know why I have been brought here, or why you are saying these things, but I did not ask for any of it, and I do not want it.”

“Stand fast,” Dr. Dismas hissed, and grasped Yama’s upper arm in a cruel pinch.

Enobarbus stood. “Let him alone, Dismas. My lord . . . Yamamanama . . . we are about to embark upon a hard and perilous journey. I have worked toward it all my life. When I was a cub, I was blessed by a vision. It was in the temple of my bloodline, in Ys. I was praying for my brother, who had died in battle a hundred days before. The news had just reached me. I was praying that I could avenge him and that I could play my part in saving Confluence from the heretics. I was very young, as you might imagine, and very foolish, but my prayers were answered. The shrine lit and a woman arrayed in white appeared, and told me of my destiny. I accepted, and I have been trying my best to carry it out ever since.”

“Yamamanama, to know one’s fate is a privilege granted only to a few men, and it is a heavy responsibility. Most men live their lives as they can. I must live my life in pursuit of an ideal. It has stripped me of my humanity as faith strips an eremite of worldly possessions, and honed my life to a single point. Nothing else matters to me. How often have I wished that the obligation be lifted, but it has not, and I have come to accept it. And here we are, as was predicted long ago.”

Enobarbus suddenly smiled. It transformed his wrecked face as a firework, bursting across the dark sky, transforms the night. He clapped his hands. “I have spoken enough for now. I will speak more, Yamamanama, I promise, but it must wait until we are safe. Pay your men, Dismas. We are at last embarked on our journey.”

Dr. Dismas pulled out his pistol. “It would be well if your boat put some distance between their miserable skiff. I’m not sure of the range of this thing.”

Enobarbus nodded. “It’s probably for the best,” he said.

“They might guess, and they’ll certainly talk.”

“You overestimate them,” Dr. Dismas said. “They deserve to die because they endangered my plans by their stupidity. Besides, I cannot stand boorishness, and I have been exiled amongst these uncivilized creatures for an entire year. This will be a catharsis.”

“I’ll hear no more. Kill them cleanly, and do not seek to justify yourself.”

Enobarbus turned to give his orders, and at that moment one of the sailors perched in the branches of the banyan to which the pinnace was moored cried out.

“Sail! Sail ahead!”

“Thirty degrees off the starboard bow,” his mate added. “Half a league and bearing down hard.”

Enobarbus gave his orders without missing a beat. “Cut the mooring ropes fore and aft. Dercetas and Diomedes, to your posts at once! Ready the rowers, push off on my word! I want thirty beats a minute from you lads, and no slacking or we’re dead men.”

In the midst of the sudden rush of activity, as oars were raised and sailors hacked at mooring lines, Yama saw his opportunity. Dr. Dismas made a grab for him, but was too slow. Yama vaulted the rail and landed hard in the well of the skiff.

“Row!” Yama yelled to Lob and Lud. “Row for your lives!”

“Catch hold of him!” Dr. Dismas shouted from above. “Catch him and make sure you don’t let go!”

Lud started forward. “It’s for your own good, little fish,” he said.

Yama dodged Lud’s clumsy swipe and retreated to the stern of the little skiff. “He wants to kill you!”

“Get him, you fools,” Dr. Dismas said.

Yama grabbed hold of the sides of the skiff and rocked it from side to side, but Lud stood foursquare. He grinned.

“That won’t help, little fish. Keep still, and maybe I won’t have to hurt you.”

“Hurt him anyway,” Lob said.

Yama picked up the alcohol lantern and dashed it into the well of the skiff. Instantly, translucent blue flames licked up. Lud reared backward, and the skiff pitched violently.

Unbearable heat beat at Yama’s face; he took a deep breath and dived into the river.

He swam as far as he could before he came up and drew a gulp of air that burned all the way down the inverted trees of his lungs. He pulled at the fastenings of his heavy boots and kicked them off.

The skiff was drifting away from the side of the pinnace.

Flames flickered brightly in its well. Lud and Lob were trying to beat out the fire with their shirts. Sailors threw ropes down the side of the pinnace and shouted to them to give it up and come aboard. A tremendous glow was growing brighter and brighter beyond the pinnace, turning everything into a shadow of its own self. The cannon in the prow of the pinnace spoke: a crisp rattling burst, and then another.

Yama swam as hard as he could, and when he finally turned to float on his back, breathing hard, the whole scene was spread before him. The pinnace was sliding away from the banyan tree, leaving the burning skiff behind. A great glowing ship was bearing down toward the pinnace. She was a narrow-hulled frigate, her three masts crowded with square sails, and every part of her shone with cold fire. The pinnace’s cannon spoke again, and there was a crackling of rifle fire. And then Dr. Dismas fired his pistol, and for an instant a narrow lance of red fire split the night.