Jedit

Chapter 5

"Johan! Uh, I mean, milord! You're-"

"Alive, yes," said Johan dryly. "Let us in, quick."

Flustered, the woman fell back from the door. Johan told Jedit to remain outside, then glided into the tiny house.

The woman's voice was a low contralto, husky from breathing incense smoke. Shifting blue clouds threatened to smother a visitor. Johan glanced about. A baby dozed with tiny snores in a cradle. The house had only one room, too small to hide anyone else. The mage bolted the door and sat on the only stool at a rickety table.

"Milord Johan, we thought you'd vanished, swallowed up by the desert."

The witch had the underfed look of a girl, though her mahogany skin was laced with fine wrinkles. Her black hair was raked back in even rows. She wore only a brown felt vest laced across her small bosom and baggy trousers of wrinkled silk. Her eyes were outlined in kohl, and her long nails were red as if dipped in blood. She was clearly nervous confronting her master, for she'd served as one of Johan's spies before the invasion.

"I did vanish, but I've returned," said Johan enigmatically. "I need your skills. Recall you your lessons?"

Back straight, the slim woman said, "Of course. What do you require?"

Johan told her.

The witch gazed at the door with dark-rimmed eyes. "That would be… very costly. I'd have to quit Palmyra for good. Very costly indeed."

"In gold or magic?" Johan dug in his many pockets, sifting items with his nimble fingers. He hadn't planned for expenses, having hatched this latest plot on the spot. Irritated at mundane concerns, he dumped trinkets on a tiny table. "This charming crystal disguises guile when rubbed against the forehead. This claw is a petra sphinx's. This psionic whistle will drive men mad as long as you blow it… Gold coins here. Electrum."

He stopped. The witch's eyes were wide in their black circles. Panting, she swept the items and coins into a velvet sack. "T'will do. Bring in the brute."

Stooping under roof beams, still in his barbarian guise, Jedit plunked on the three-legged stool that threatened to shatter under his weight and gazed curiously around. The witch lit new sticks of incense until smoke billowed in lazy curls. She walked around the false barbarian as if considering how to cut his hair. Gingerly she touched Jedit's ear, chin, and nose with a red-nailed finger. The foreigner watched crosseyed.

The witch frowned. "This is no barbarian."

Johan scowled. To ensorcell someone not in their true skin could make magics conflict, muddying spells like mixing two colors of paint. Too, the witch must wonder why, if Johan were a mage, he didn't enchant the victim himself.

Johan snarled, "It won't matter. Earn your pay." — The witch shrugged but arched an eyebrow in warning.

Opening a small metal box, the witch signaled Jedit to hold out both palms. The disguised tiger did, but asked, "Why are we here?"

"Kismet." The witch draped across both huge brown palms a long white veil. "Do you know the word?"

"No." Jedit began to toy with the dangling veil.

"Be still. Kismet is an old word, one of the oldest in our language. It means fate." The witch tugged the veil from Jedit's hands, then laid it on again. Jedit's nose wrinkled in confusion. She said, "Do you believe in fate?"

"How so?" asked Jedit. "Do you mean, how our fates are engraved beforehand? Scratched in bark before our birth, our every deed?"

"That's kismet." The witch tugged the veil away, then draped it again over Jedit's palms. As she flicked it away, the false barbarian tried to catch it but missed. The veil seemed diaphanous as incense smoke. The more Jedit stared, the more it shifted.

The witch crooned, "In large, our fates are cast in stone when we first draw breath, and nothing can alter the plan. But in small, we can seize control by our actions. A strapping man like you, so handsome and generous, could surely rule himself. Kismet lets us do that."

Johan watched a long while as the woman talked, cooing, flattering, running rings around logic. With every "Kismet" she flicked the veil away. Jedit tried to catch it in vain. He couldn't take his eyes off the cloth but watched it glassy eyed. The witch talked on and on.

"One way to take control is to remove despots who tax us, who rule our lives, who command us willy-nilly. Strong and clever, you could smite the rulers of Palmyra and become a hero. Do you know our rulers? No? Your friend can finger them. One's a strumpet with unruly hair and the manners of a gutter rat, Adira Strongheart. The other is an old goat, a cruel man, Hazezon Tamar. Could you command fate, good sir? Could you embrace kismet and kill those two for the good of all?"

"Yes." Jedit Ojanen stared at nothing. "Easily."

"Good." Raising the veil before Jedit's eyes, the witch shimmied it like a lure before a trout. Gently she steered Jedit toward the door. Ready, Johan guided the tiger into the frosty darkness before dawn. As Johan slunk after the mesmerized Jedit, the witch whispered, "Fret not, milord. I'll tell no one of your return."

"I'm sure you won't." Johan actually smiled, a chilling sight. From a pocket he gave the witch a small lump of coal. "This will buy your silence."

The witch looked indignant but accepted the fragment, so polished it might have been a black jewel. Gently she closed the door and turned to check on her baby.

Jedit and Johan turned a corner of the crooked street when the witch's house exploded with fire. Flames shot from the windows and smoke hole. Yellow hell outlined the door until it charred and crumbled. Neighbors came stumbling and shouting in their nightshirts and blankets but couldn't approach the tiny house for the fearsome heat.

Jedit noticed nothing.

"You're wasting wind, Haz!" snapped Adira Strongheart. "And my time! Your honeyed words might make fat-bottomed merchants roll over and drool, but my people think for themselves, and we've had enough of Brycer bellyaching! So haul anchor and shove off!"

"Sweetheart." Hazezon Tamar tried patience and reason, knowing both were useless. He'd resolved not to shout. "This is your famous shortsightedness. Just because Johan's vanished into the desert doesn't mean he's dead, any more than a smooth sea portends no storms. All I'm asking is for you to lend me a score of your cutthroats to scour the eastern reaches for sign of the plagued tyrant."

"Don't call me sweetheart, Haz." Adira juggled a stoneware mug ominously. "Or I'll kick your plums so far past your liver your palace eunuchs will call you sister."

"Here we go," said Badger to the air.

"Here we go what?" asked Murdoch, the young soldier bested earlier.

"Knives and curses," said the old sailor.

"Or kisses and cuddles," smirked Simone the Siren.

Without looking, Adira Strongheart hurled the mug. Badger and Simone jerked back their heads as crockery smashed on the wall.

The damage hardly showed in the abandoned inn that served as Palmyra's town hall. The big room had walls of scabby adobe, naked wooden beams, and a dirt floor. Torches at four comers and cheap candles shed a watery, sooty light. Scarred tables and rickety stools and chairs were the only furniture, and many were broken, for fights were common as cockroaches in Palmyra.

Yet the message was clear enough. Chastened, the onlookers shut up and let the unhappy couple squabble.

To see the two glare, it was hard to believe they had ever been married. Adira Strongheart was a stunning beauty with wild chestnut hair barely contained by a green silk headband. She wore tight trousers and a faded shirt that only emphasized her proud bosom. Bangles of gold, silver, and copper jangled at earlobes, wrists, and ankles even over her brown boots.

Hazezon Tamar had also been a pirate and freebooter, but decades ago. Now he looked a governor's part, a man who plied wits and diplomacy, not magic and might, and prospered in his trade. An embroidered vest of satin and a silk shirt met flaring pantaloons above yellow boots. His seamed face and white beard were framed by a nomad's keffiyeh that swished at his broad shoulders. Clearly he was thirty years or more Adira's senior. Yet the divorced pirate queen and prominent governor could still glare with murder in their eyes and hands itching to jerk a brass-hilted scimitar or twin matched daggers.

Adira's Circle of Seven and Hazezon's clerks held their breaths as if awaiting lightning.

It came from the wrong direction.

Roaring loud enough to raise the roof, still clad in his barbarian disguise, the outlander warrior Jedit Ojanen exploded into the room like a thunderbolt.

Chairs and stools upset, papers and mugs flew, and tables tumbled as if a whirlwind struck the town hall. Hazezon, Adira, scribes, soldiers, and pirates vaulted from their seats and ripped weapons from scabbards, blades glittering in torchlight.

"Who in the seas is this squid?" roared Badger.

"Who cares?" shrieked Simone. "Kill him!"

"Adira, get down!" shouted Hazezon.

"Fend for yourself, puffer fish!" Adira hoisted an overturned table for a makeshift shield. Twin daggers appeared as if by magic in her right hand. She hobbled stiffly, for in months past she'd broken a leg and arm battling Johan's troops, and now another skirmish came calling.

Masked as a barbarian, with his brain befuddled by sorcery, Jedit Ojanen charged blindly at Hazezon and Adira. He'd never seen them before, had only glimpsed them through a window, pointed out by Johan. It was unlikely he even noticed the dozen other people in the room. With the bestial fury of a berserk jungle warrior, Jedit plunged headlong, mindless as a ballista bolt. A fairykin and swordsman were hurled aside like rag dolls. Jedit kicked a table aside, knocked down two others, trampled a trio of stools. Both hands were out straight as he raced in magic-mad rage at Adira.

When the monster closed to six feet, the pirate queen pegged both daggers at his head. Jedit flicked a great hand and the daggers cartwheeled, one bouncing into a corner, the other sticking in a ceiling beam.

"I don't believe it!" gasped Adira. "No one could-"

Jedit the juggernaut smashed into the table she held aloft. The wooden legs shattered, boards broke. Only a crazy leap over another table kept Adira from being crushed.

She shouted, "Pitch me a cutlass, someone!"

Mindlessly, Jedit bashed the wall, cracking adobe in great flakes, then rebounded for another target. Hazezon Tamar stood with his mouth hanging open. Many people had tried to kill him of late, but nothing matched this fury.

"It must be magic!" the desert mage blurted, then plied his own attack. "Blast of winters past!"

Hazezon blew across his hand at the barbarian. Instantly frost rimed Jedit's thatched hair and broad, stupid face. Ice crystals clotted his eyebrows and pug nose, even made his huffing breath blow like steam. The man-killing cold didn't slow him. Roaring like a tiger, Jedit charged the mage.

Old he might be, but Hazezon had long ago learned a pirate's habits. Rather than bobble another spell, the mage flung a heavy candlestick while ripping his scimitar from his sash.

Too late. Jedit smashed into Hazezon with a bone-breaking crunch. The mage toppled across spindly furniture that crumbled underneath him. The barbarian clutched Hazezon by the throat with two hands and shook him like a terrier shakes a rat.

"Love of Lustra, stop him!" Simone the Siren was buxom in clothes brilliant as a tapestry. She slung a round iron-rimmed shield that bounced off Jedit's back.

"He'll snap Haz's spine!"

"Stand aside!" Murdoch, the brawny ex-sergeant in green and gold, snatched a spear from the corner. A boar spear, it had a diamond-shaped head and stout crossbar meant for stabbing, not throwing. Yet the soldier made do. Slinging it past his shoulder, he skipped twice to gain momentum, then hurled the wicked lance. The shaft whistled in the close hot room, and every watcher flinched as it struck.

Yet it didn't. Alerted by inhuman jungle senses, Jedit dropped Hazezon with a thump and squatted, cocking an elbow so the flying spear spanked off the wall.

Murdoch barked, "Impossible!"

More attacks came thick and fast. A small, dark-skinned nomadic woman named Echo, formerly a clerk of Hazezon's, drew her sword and dashed behind Jedit to jab his spine. One flick of a hand like a ham, and she caromed off a wall to tumble in a tangle. A woman in a purple-blue tunic and skirt flicked open a sling, plopped in a round knot of hardwood, whipped the weapon twice, and let fly at the barbarian's head. That too the brute dodged.

The druid sang, "Mask of Makou! That's no northman! He's too fast!"

"Children!" Badger carped and lobbed whatever came to hand at the invader: stools, a book, a candlestick, two redware jugs that slopped red wine in artful spirals. Simone the Siren cocked a crossbow and fumbled a quarrel to the nock, but her sizzling bolt only thudded into a chair someone else pitched. A female fairykin no taller than a fawn drew a rapier and slithered under two tables. Skidding behind the barbarian, she whisked her blade at the back of his knee to hamstring him. Dodging, she was still clipped by a foot kicking backward, a foot she'd supposedly crippled forever. She was stamped underfoot to howl like a banshee.

In the whirlwind of flying feet and fists and furniture, the battle was difficult to follow, for two torches had been wrenched from the walls and many candles spilled, and dust swirled as the brawl raged. A hardwood sling ball cracked adobe by Jedit's head, but more objects hurled his way failed to hit, for the barbarian launched his own offensive. — "Adira," shrieked Simone, "look out!"

Adira Strongheart ruled her mercenaries with her heart, head, and fists, but her game leg slowed her down. Terrifying as a tiger, the towering barbarian snagged Adira's sore leg, his hammy hand encasing ankle to calf. The pirate queen was hoisted in the air, so her chestnut hair dangled on the dirty floor. Anyone else might have panicked, but even upside down, Adira snatched a table leg from the floor and rapped the stranger's knee and ankle with fearsome cracks. When she tried to slam his crotch, he dropped her with a shoulder-crunching jolt. Bravely she bounced and rolled and grabbed for any kind of weapon while keeping one eye on her enemy.

"Adira!" croaked Hazezon Tamar, still half-strangled by his earlier throttling. Choking and spitting, he lurched to rescue Adira with scimitar raised. Simone the Siren rushed with her cutlass, as did Badger and the new crew member Murdoch. Four converging blades threatened Jedit, but he charged anyway with hands outspread. Roaring, he swiped left and right with his fingers, raking the adventurers across the heads, shoulders, and chests. Badger was stunned and knocked spinning, and Simone had her vest ripped clean off, but otherwise no one was hurt, which some onlookers found strange.

"What kind of attack is that?" Scrambling to her feet, cursing her stiff leg, Adira Strongheart still could observe the fight coolly. She asked aloud, "Why does he slash like a sawfish in a school of mackerel?"

No one heard. The barbarian's stiff fingers swatted Murdoch's nose and made it spurt blood. The sergeant lashed out with a straight-arm sword jab that skidded off the barbarian's ribs and punctured the wall. Badger, sprawled on the floor, whisked his cutlass in one hand and pegged it like a throwing knife. The blade pinked Jedit's knee. Yet Badger frowned.

"This's one queer sea-wight! It's like he's there and not there!"

Slower, Hazezon Tamar rushed from the side. He gasped with pain from cracked ribs as he threw his weight behind a stroke to lop off the barbarian's head. The shaggy assassin sliced at Hazezon with stiff fingertips that only ticked his embroidered vest. The curious attack fuddled the mage, then he tumbled backward as fearsome hands tried to rake his face.

"That's a tiger's attack!" Adira's shout rose above the havoc. "He's slicing with claws! He's Jaeger!"

Even bewitched, the name of Jedit's beloved father made the disguised cat man whip his head around. Jedit hesitated, hands in the air, while the cogent part of his brain warred with the spellbound portion. For the briefest instant the room was silent, hung in a lull like that between lightning and thunder.

A rapid pattering resounded as two more of Adira's Circle of Seven made a concerted attack. The glum Virgil and the iron-armed archer Wilemina charged, huffing, lugging a heavy oak table. Jedit turned from Adira's astonishing pronouncement just as the table rammed his midriff at a full run. Jedit smashed into the back wall so hard chunks of adobe cascaded from the ceiling and wall. Winded, he slashed feebly as Virgil and Wilemina rammed him again with the table. Jedit crumpled, skidded, and sat down hard, dragging table and pirates on top of him.

"Quick!" bleated the fairykin. "Slit his throat!"

"No!" Adira shouted as if hailing from the quarterdeck in a hurricane. "Anyone touches him gets keelhauled! That's Jaeger, I tell you!"

In the hush, people canted weapons and sobbed for air and cast about in total confusion. Questions spilled.

"Why's he look like a barbarian?"

"Why's Jaeger attacking us?"

"Why don't he speak?"

"If he's bewitched, who did it?"

Badger, canny veteran, jumped quickest on the truth. "Someone sicced him on us!"

In a wink, the mariner, Wilemina, and Simone bolted for the door. Jamming in the doorway, the three looked both ways down the nighttime street. Simone gasped, "Whoever 'witched him might've run-"

The sharp-eyed archer pointed. "There he goes!"

"Johan!" barked all three and took off running.

"Wait!" cried Adira but too late. Cursing a blue streak, she limped on her sore leg to tend Echo, who'd dented plaster with her skull. Bidding the ex-clerk to stay seated, Adira saw the rest of her crew was equally battered. Murdoch's nose streamed blood, Hazezon huddled against the wall wheezing, the fairykin Whistledove bore a sprained arm. Adira rubbed her upper lip not to sneeze in all the dust. "Give us light, someone!"

Virgil and Murdoch and two clerks knelt on the heavy table pinning the prisoner. Picking up the fallen boar spear, Adira tilted the tip against the table.

"Drag it away. Handsomely!" ordered the pirate chief. "That means slowly, you cockeyed codfish! Brace up to gaff him if-Ten thousand virgins! It is Jaeger!"

"No. Jedit. Ojanen."

A hulking northman had fallen, but under the table and four people lay a living, breathing tiger. Past the tip of her spear Adira stared into round eyes that glowed an eerie amber-green. The face was a riot of orange, black, and white stripes, and white whiskers jutted from the blunt muzzle. A fourth color was smears of red blood. The eyes were slitted, Adira realized, for the tiger was still furious, eager to spring and rend and kill given half a chance.

"Jedit Ojanen?" Doubting everything, Adira tipped the spear against the prisoner's throat, one strong hand on the haft ready to thrust. "Same name, so what relation?"

"My father was Jaeger."

A dangerous rumbling growl. The yowling accent was barbaric and old-fashioned, with words twisted out of shape. Only by concentrating could Adira understand him.

Jedit said, "You should know the name well, being his most dire enemy."

A confused murmur arose from Seveners and clerks.

Murdoch blew blood from his nose. "Someone's cockeyed."

"Shut up." Not retracting the spear, Adira fought to think this mess through. "You've been gulled, tiger-boy. If you've tramped around with Johan, I can swear to it, for that devils' tool never spoke a true word in his life."

"Johan's back?" Still crouched on the table, the scruffy Virgil huffed. "Is that what Badger yelled? Our troubles are starting all over?"

"I said, belt up, you lot!" Adira whapped Virgil on the head, he being nearest. If she read an enemy rightly, the tiger was only resting up for another attack. She had to talk fast but should also rouse her Robaran Mercenaries to ferret out Johan. But one menace at a time.

Whipping sweaty auburn curls from her face, Adira snarled, "Listen to me, Jedit son of Jaeger! Your father fought on our side against Johan! That red-striped fiend and his followers marched down from Tirras to stamp over Palmyra and seize Bryce! It's no secret he hopes to conquer all Jamuraa! We fought like furies just to stay alive, and Jaeger braced us in every battle, never flagging, always faithful! You disgrace his memory to side with Johan, the most treacherous snake that ever crawled out of a dung heap!"

Seconds ticked away. The room might have been frozen but for the flicker of torches. Jedit Ojanen continued to glare, his thoughts unknowable. Once he squirmed, half-crushed by the table and crouching pirates, and Adira stifled him with a pinprick under his white-whiskered chin. Eventually, Jedit snorted through his black nostrils. Near panic, Adira thought. He doesn't believe me. I'll have to kill him!

"If I might say a word."

Eyes shifted to Hazezon Tamar, hunched over and clutching his ribs. Hovering near Jedit, but not too close, he plied years of political persuasion through clenched teeth.

"Adira speaks the truth, tiger-son. I found your father in the desert and drove away vultures and hyenas. For my rescue, he returned the favor a hundred times. He saved me and Bryce and Palmyra and a thousand others. You needn't take our word for it. I propose to let you go-"

"Haz!" chirped Adira, leaning the spear. "Have you fractured your skull?"

"Hush, Dira." Hazezon had no breath for argument. "Forgive her, friend tiger. Adira would contradict me if I said the sun arose each morn. I propose we back away. You'll be free to go. Leave this room and ask anyone in Palmyra whether Jaeger was our savior and champion. Even the dullest porter or smallest child will sing his praises. Then ask about Johan and sift the answers, if not a fist or spittle. See for yourself."

As Jedit ruminated, suspicious and sullen, Hazezon added, "Before you go, tell me something. I recognize certain symptoms. You are lucid now but were befuddled before. Your thoughts swam in a fog within your mind, true? Johan cloaked you in sorcery, arguing Jaeger was unloved here, but then he laid on another spell, did he not?"

"No!" Jedit frowned in concentration. "No. He brought me to the house of a woman. She… she… I can't remember!"

"That enchantment was knocked out of you." Hazezon waved for a clerk to bring a stool. Painfully he sank onto it. "If it consoles you, young Jedit, many are bewitched by the Tyrant of Tirras, whom we call Johan. Let him up, you fellows and girl. Adira, put up your spear. I'll not see the son of Jaeger Ojanen, the fiercest warrior and finest friend I ever knew, mistreated a second longer."

Carefully, with weapons poised, pirates and clerks backed away. The table dumped over. Framed in flaring torchlight so he glowed orange and black as a stormy sunset, Jedit Ojanen stood up, and up, until he towered over Adira Strongheart, Hazezon Tamar, and their astonished retainers. Black-clawed paws smoothed the tiger's whiskers and tufted mane. Amber-green eyes peered as the muzzle wrinkled. A pink tongue passed over white fangs. Still, the tiger had to lean against the cracked wall for dizziness.

Glaring about, he demanded, "I am free to go?"

Hazezon Tamar waved expansively toward the door but winced as ribs squeaked. Everyone watched the tiger warily,

A step to one side, a coiling of haunches, then in a flash Jedit Ojanen sprang to the door and vanished into predawn darkness.

Pirates and clerks gaped, astonished by the tiger's lithe speed. They jumped as Adira cracked the spear haft on a table.

"What're you gawking for, you wall-eyed mothers of moon-fish! Find Johan! Rouse the militia! Move!"

As people jammed in the doorway, Adira slumped on a chair and raked chestnut curls off her face. Her arm ached, and her throbbing leg wouldn't support her. She tried to spit but only sighed.

"Dratted weakness! Some freebooter I be!"

"Don't blame yourself. Blame Johan for running his army over you." Hazezon clutched both arms around his ribs. "Now another tiger's arrived, bigger, faster, and far more powerful than Jaeger, and more impulsive. Whiskers of Wullab, why do the spirits of the sands mock us so in times of strife?"

"Who can say?" For once, Adira didn't argue with her ex-husband. "Life is struggle and suffering."

"Speaking of suffering," groaned Hazezon, "might you fetch a leech? And stretcher bearers?"

"Make it two. Echo's blacked out." The pirate queen dragged off her chair. "You know, it's just as well Johan showed up. This town's been palling dull lately. But oh, I almost feel sorry for that murderous mage when this tiger-lad pounces."

The Tyrant of Tirras and Emperor of the Northern Realms was doing two things unusual: running headlong and cursing outright. His brown robe flapped around his skinny shanks as he dashed with bare feet through dusty alleys and crosswalks. He couldn't believe the fell luck that dogged him. Siccing Jedit on Adira and Hazezon, old friends of Jaeger's, seemed too outlandish a joke not to succeed. But contradictory spells, one to deceive others and one to deceive the self, had conflicted and sputtered out. Now instead of Jedit rending Tamar and Strongheart into bloody gobbets, they'd ceased fighting and dispatched pursuers. Thus Johan ran for his life. He'd been too clever. Better he'd killed Jedit outright and assassinated the twin rulers later.

Craning his neck, pelting along, Johan glimpsed Adira's lackeys hot on his trail. Skidding to a halt at a corner, the mage scooped up a loose stone and rubbed it vigorously between his palms.

He panted, "No matter. Once free of these clattering clods, I'll order my spies to smuggle me out of town. I can reach Tirras in a fortnight. No matter. Let us end this nonsense!"

Down the alley rushed Adira's pirates, as unalike as comrades could be. A sailor rife with gray streaks that earned him the nickname Badger. A devotee of Lady Caleria, Sister Wilemina, in a blue cloak and blonde braids like a girl's, and in her knotty hand her talisman, an ornate bow of horn and ivory. A buxom woman in every color of clothing, skin black as a cauldron, grinning at the chase, almost singing with joy, who'd earned the name Simone the Siren. Such an odd trio could spring only from Adira's Robaran Mercenaries, whose only credo was a craving for adventure. Heedless and headlong they rushed after Johan, arguably the most dangerous man on Jamuraa.

Johan leaned past the corner. The alley ran straight forty feet between adobe walls. Johan rubbed the stone more briskly, then flicked it into the air.

"Die, gutter trash!"

A flash answered. In mid-air, the stone exploded into a pulsing yellow light too bright to behold. Light sparkled from the sphere like the crackling rays of a shooting star. The light-spiked globe sizzled down the alley toward the pirates, soaring fast as a ball of burning pitch hurled from a catapult.

Forced to avert their eyes, squinting for a way out, Sister Wilemina chirped, "Call of Caleria! We're trapped!"