Liberator Of Jedd

Chapter Fourteen

It was amazingly easy. Blade sent his cart rumbling through the filthy, narrow streets of the city, pausing now and then to ask directions of men and women who fled even as they answered. He in turn ignored those who carried bodies from their houses and implored him to take them as he passed.

An hour after entering Jeddia, he was concealed in a small copse of trees near a lake. In the center of the lake, mounted on stilts, was a large pavilion. Dim lights glowed through its cloth sides and the strains of music wafted plangently over the water to Blade. The same melody played over and over again by horns and stringed instruments. The old Empress had composed the tune, so Mok had told Blade, and had decreed that it be the national anthem of Jedd, and now she was dying to it. Blade, who could take his music or leave it, admitted that the thing had a certain haunting bittersweetness about it and that, once heard, you would never forget it.

He waited and watched. Barges scuttled constantly from the pavilion to a landing near him. Soldiers — most of them officers, judging from the gilded iron breastplates they wore — and solemn men in long, rich robes and skullcaps of what appeared to be velvet. Ministers of state, advisers, lawyers, merchants and the like. Blade paid them little heed. He was waiting for one man. The Wise One.

Whose real name, Mok had confided, was Nizra.

The moon was falling down the sky when Nizra came from the pavilion to the shore. The music still played on and on, so Blade knew the old Empress still lived. He moved to the edge of the little wood and stared hard as Nizra, the Wise One, stepped from his barge onto the landing. He was accompanied by a sizable retinue, with servants bearing torches, and in the flaring light it was easy enough to see.

Blade saw at once that this Nizra was a macrocephalic. His head was enormous, twice the size of that of an average man, like a giant, pallid flower blooming on a slender stalk. The head drooped continually to one side or the other, as though the weak spine could not bear the weight of it. Blade observed and whistled softly to himself. It was a giant of a braincase and if the brain in any way matched it in size, and in proportional acumen, he had best beware. The Wise One might be just that — and cunning into the bargain.

Now the man was giving orders, dismissing most of his party. Blade peered harder as Nizra stepped full into the glare of a torch. The man wore a flowing robe and a skullcap, as had the others, but the skullcap was a gleaming scarlet. A badge of office, Blade supposed, as was the gleaming chain that encircled the scrawny neck and at which the man continually fumbled with spidery fingers.

Nizra, with four soldiers in attendance, walked a short way around the lake, following a well-worn path, and disappeared into a tall, narrow house of the usual stone and wood. The soldiers did not enter. Blade watched as they spoke for a moment, then split into twos, one party remaining before the house, the other disappearing in the gloom to the rear. This Nizra was well guarded. So much the better. He would be that much more impressed when Blade appeared like a wraith from the very walls. For Blade was counting heavily on the first confrontation. It would decide his fortunes — and whether he would live or die.

He waited patiently until things quieted down. He had about two hours until dawn. Barge traffic between the landing and the pavilion ceased, though the dim lights still glowed and music came everlastingly over the quiet water. Blade made ready. He watched the two guards in front of the house intently. They were bored and sullen and patrolled back and forth, hardly speaking, each intent on his own thoughts. The only light was a guttering torch in a sconce over the door of the house that enlarged and distorted the shadows of the guards as they passed to and fro. Blade moved in closer.

He had only the stone knife. This killing — for he meant to kill them for his own safety and for the effect of it — must be a matter of skill and timing and luck. The skill involved did not worry him — when he had to be, Blade was a most efficient killer.

Still he waited and at last the guards paused to chat for a moment beneath the torch. Blade had been waiting for that. He ran swiftly across the path and ducked into the shadows of a hedge that lay near the end of the near guard's beat. Blade crouched there, stone knife ready, waiting. It must be noiseless.

The guards resumed their pacing. The man was coming toward Blade now, leather harness creaking, short sword swinging in its scabbard, the faintest of star sheen reflected from polished iron armor. Blade took a deep breath and held it.

The guard passed him. He was humming, very softly, a snatch of the refrain that came from the old Empress' pavilion. Blade let him get three paces past, then took him from behind with one brawny arm about his throat to stifle any cry. With his free hand he brought the stone knife around and sought for the man's throat just above the breastplate. The guard was strong and struggled mightily for his life, but Blade held him as he might a babe and slit the jugular neatly. Blood spurted, drenching the dying man and Blade as well. He did not mind. He wanted the blood on him.

Time was important now. The other guard would have reached the end of his run and turned back. Blade held the guard erect until he bled himself out, then lowered him and snatched off the swordbelt and scabbard. The sword was short and wide, double-edged with a thick hilt, and very heavy. Very like an old Roman sword.

Blade hauled the body into the shadows, fastened the swordbelt around his slim waist and started walking toward the torch over the door of the Wise One's house. He went slowly, with a measured tread, matching his pace to that of the other guard now approaching. As he drew near the aura of light cast by the torch, Blade drew the heavy sword from its scabbard. He let it dangle by his side, concealing it as much as possible with his leg. The other guard must experience a split second of shock and surprise and terror, and Blade was counting on that.

Both men strode into the flickering circle of light. The guard said, «I have been thinking, Topah. How did you say it was that—»

He stopped, staring, his mouth gaping in surprise at the thing that approached him. This was not Topah! This was not a Jedd! This was not anything in the world he had ever seen before — this yellow-clad and blood-drenched corpse-burner with blazing eyes, this towering and muscular thing that was lunging at him now. Topah? Where was Topah?

«Topah—»

It came out as a mere squeak of death. Blade used all his massive strength and put the iron sword into the guard just below the breastplate and above the groin. As he thrust, he twisted the blade in a classic disemboweling cut. At the same time he used a backhand chop to smash the man's throat and voice box. It was over.

Blade put his foot on the corpse and tugged out the sword. He left it bloody. He dragged the body out of range of the torch and then turned and went into the house of Nizra, the Wise One.

He found himself in a short hallway. A taper burned starkly on a barrel-like table. Blade took blood from the sword and daubed it on his face, drawing a crude pattern around his eyes. As a part of his long-ago training as a secret agent, he had studied the ways of American Indians and the ways in which facial paint could be used to induce terror. He could have used a mirror.

At the end of the hall, a steep flight of stairs led upward. Blade leaped up them like a great cat, the bloody sword held at the ready before him. There might be more guards in the house. He hoped not. Dawn would be on him soon and time was at a premium. He wanted to get on with the business at hand.

There were no guards. Another taper gleamed in the upper hall. There was a single door, half open, and through it Blade saw the Wise One asleep in a great bed with a canopy over it. This, if it could be called a luxury, was the only one. The room was barren, stark, with nothing but a chair and a table — on which were piles of books and papers — and a large clay pot near the bed.

Blade went softly into the room, carrying the taper, and closed the door behind him. There was a bolt and he slid it to. He walked to the bed and poked at the enshrouded figure with his swordpoint.

«Wake up,» said Blade. «Wake up, Nizra. Wise One. Wake up!»

The head, like a huge bald melon, emerged from the covers. Small dark eyes, like dank moths, fluttered at Blade. The taut white skin, stretched over the massive skull and marred not even by a hair root, mirrored the taper like an ivory ball.

Blade, towering by the bedside like a demon, glowering with his bloody face and clothes and the threatening sword, forever gave Nizra credit for his first words.

The dark eyes blinked. The thin mouth, tiny in the big head, said, «You are a fool. I am not dead yet, corpseburner. Get back to your proper work and leave me to my rest.» The voice was another surprise. A rich and robust baritone with the promise of basso.

Blade covered his own surprise with a laugh. «I am not a corpseburner and you know it, Nizra. But that is all you know. Are you awake now? Do you hear and understand me? There is little time for us to reach an understanding.»

The black eyes were studying him. Trying to understand, to cope, to sort matters out and decide if this was a dream or reality. And if real, how near was death? Because no man, no matter how dull and sleepy, could stare at the terrible figure Blade made and not know that he was very close to dying. The great bald head nodded and the little dark eyes blinked and the Wise One conceded this.

The marvelous deep voice slid down a note. «True. You are no corpseburner. Who are you then, and what do you want with me? And how came you into this house? My guards—»

Blade held up the blood-gummed sword. «Your guards, the two before the house, are dead. This sword and this blood prove that. I killed them easily and with a purpose— to convince you, Nizra, that I am what I will presently tell you I am. And to show you that I will kill you also, as quickly and as easily as I killed your guards, if you do not cooperate with me absolutely and without question. From this moment on, Nizra, I will order and you will obey. You understand?»

Blade took a step toward the bed and raised the sword a bit. He watched the spidery hands lying on the coverlet. Near the bedpost was a bell pull. The long fingers twitched once or twice, but the hand made no move toward the pull.

«I understand,» said Nizra. «What do you want of me?»

There was no fear in the deep voice. The black eyes — for the first time Blade noted that they had no lashes — stared back at Blade. He knew then that he had very nearly met his match. For now he had the upper hand, by brute force, but one mistake could change that. For a moment Blade actually felt disappointment and a sense of pique — this Wise One, this Nizra, was either not afraid at all or he was a master of hiding fear. What he was displaying was curiosity. Plain and simple curiosity. Blade could not help wondering whether he, if awakened in the dead of night under similar circumstances, would have been able to summon such aplomb.

The man in the bed seemed to understand all this. He folded his skinny fingers across his chest and repeated, «What is it you want of me?»

Blade thrust his sword into the scabbard with a ring of iron. He kicked the single chair toward the bed and sat down. He crossed his own brawny arms and matched the dark eyes stare for stare. Blade knew that the time for violence, or the threat of it, was for the moment past. Now was a time for guile and cunning and the matching of wits. For self-interest. For compromise. He had won the first round, but the wedge was barely in the door.

Blade leaned toward the bed. «You will listen. You will not ask questions or interrupt. I will explain as best I can, but I tell you now that you will not understand. Or you will understand very little. It is in the nature of things.»

He paused. Nizra nodded slightly and kept silent.

«I am not a Jedd,» said Blade. «As you must know. I am not even of your world. Of your universe. I cannot even be properly called a stranger, because that would signify some slight connection with your world. I do not even claim that. I come from out in time and space, from a place you never dreamed of, or ever will, and it would be useless for you to speculate on that—»

The little opaque eyes moved and glittered. Nizra was already speculating. Blade could almost hear the huge brain, beneath its bony carapace, clicking and whirring as the gears meshed and raced. It occurred to him that this Wise One was not so much a man as a thinking machine. It would be his bad luck, he thought sourly, to encounter a genius in Jedd. To make matters more difficult.

But he continued: «I am not a god nor a devil, if you understand those words. I have been sent to your world on a mission, to do certain work, and when I have completed that work I will leave and return to my own world. I would like to complete my work in peace and without more killing. I would like to be a friend and not an enemy. If you will understand this, Nizra, and believe it and work with me and not against me I can finish my task and be gone that much sooner. Now speak — of all that I have said, how much have you understood?»

The massive head lolled on its delicate stalk of spine. The eyes narrowed at Blade. A hand came slowly up to stroke the shining bald dome.

«I understand your words. They are plain enough. If there is a concealed meaning in them I will in time understand that also. If you speak truth or not I do not yet know — but I will know. At this moment I only accept. I do not believe or disbelieve. Let us leave it that way then. I have no wish to be your enemy unless it is to my gain to be so. It may be that you do speak truth, and I would be a fool indeed not to accept that and learn from you. I am not a fool. And I am not afraid of you. Not now. If you were going to kill me you would have done it at once.»

Blade raised the bloody sword. «There is still time.»

The little mouth smiled. «No. Not now. Because it is plain that you have come to make a bargain of some sort. So get to it. We will leave all explanation and questions for later. What do you want of me? And how are you called?»

«My name is Richard Blade. It will mean nothing to you.»

Nizra blinked. «A man must be called something. Richard Blade? Two names? We in Jedd have but one. Did you come alone into our world?»

Blade kept his face impassive. «I came alone. I will leave alone.» Ooma must be protected at all costs. He would not have her questioned, probably under torture. Nor the aunts, for that matter. Not even the fat drunkard, Mok, must be placed in danger. They had nothing to do with all this.

Nizra said once more, «What do you want of me, Richard Blade? It will be dawn soon with people astir and if we are to be friends and work together there are preparations and explanations to make ready. So what do you expect of me — and what do you offer me in return?»

Blade answered a question with a question. «How long will the old Empress, the Jeddock, stay alive?»

Nizra blinked three times. The scant brows over the lashless eyes raised in slight surprise, but he only said, «I am called the Wise One by the Jedds, and it is true that I am wise in many things, but I cannot answer that question.»

«Guess, then. An estimate.»

The tiny mouth pursed, then: «A minute — an hour — a day — a month or a year. That is my guess.»

Blade glared, but gave it up. He tried another tack. «Is she senile? What is her mental condition?»

Nizra smiled faintly and interlaced his long, white fingers. «Her mind is filled with mists of the past. She is in a stupor and understands very little of what is said to her. But one thing — if the music halts but for an instant she knows it and complains.»

Blade nodded and was silent for a moment, thinking hard. Nizra took advantage of the silence. «How got you past the Api, Blade? I speak of the main post at the valley entrance. I know how you killed Porrex and got past the frontier station, for I received signals, but then you vanished and now here you are. How did you avoid the main body of the Api?»

No mention of the girl. Just as well. Blade said, «I came around, over the mountains.»

For the first time, Nizra showed clear disbelief. «That is impossible, Blade. No one can cross those mountains. Nobody ever has in all the history of Jedd.»

«I did,» Blade said curtly. «I am here, am I not? Threatening your life and giving you orders. But enough of that— Would you say that the old Empress, in her dying state, is highly susceptible to suggestion?»

The great head lolled and the little mouth twitched in understanding. «Yes,» Nizra answered. «I would say that she is. At least I hope so. I have been suggesting many things to her these past few days and she has seemed amenable.» Dryly he added, «She signs any document I put before her.»

Blade gave him a knowing grin. «That will be many documents, I wager. All designed to perpetuate and consolidate your power when she is dead, Nizra? All designed to give you control over the Child Princess, Mitgu?»

The dark eyes met his without flinching. «It would seem,» said the Wise One, «that we are men who think alike in certain things. Perhaps we can be friends after all, Blade. Or at least not enemies. Now suppose you tell me — what is it that you wish me to whisper into the old Jeddock's ear about you? And what document must be signed pertaining to you?»

Blade leaned closer to the bed.

«You read me well, Nizra, to a point. You will have a private audience with the Empress and you will tell her that, on this very night, you had a vision—»

The huge head rolled on its frail backbone and the mouth smiled in dry derision. «That will be no lie, Blade. I did. I am having a vision. A most grotesque and horrible vision — and visitant.»

Blade made an impatient motion. «Listen. Listen well. You will tell your Jeddock that in this vision I came to you, in my very person, as I now stand here, and proclaimed myself as the avatar come to save Jedd. As the savior of your people. There is such a promise, I think, in the Books of Birkbegn? Mention is made of someone who will arrive one day to lead the Jedds to a better way of life?» He leaned to stare hard at the man in the bed.

This time the little eyes avoided him, but not before Blade had seen the surprise and the beginnings of respect and even fear in them. Blade, of course, was only remembering what he had extracted from Ooma and Mok.

«You are most well informed about the Jedds, Blade.»

He nodded shortly. «I am. It would be well to remember that, Nizra. But answer my questions. Am I right?»

«Yes. To a point. There is some vague reference in the Books to the coining of a — of such a personage as you mention.»

Blade leaned back and crossed his thick legs. His thigh muscles ached and quivered and he began to realize how tired he was. He must sleep soon. When it was safe to do so.

He grinned at Nizra. «I see. You, my friend, are not a true believer in the Books?»

For the first time, the tiny mouth opened in a genuine laugh and he saw that Nizra was toothless. The shrunken gums snapped at Blade. «I have told you,» said Nizra sourly, «that I am not a fool. I see what is in your mind and I will do it. I foresee no difficulty there. I will do it because, if you keep your word to me, it will be to my advantage to do so. I will gain by it. When you return to your own world — if indeed you spoke the truth about that — I will have gained even more. I am a practical man, Blade, and not so much interested in methods as in results. We have a bargain, Blade.»

Blade smiled at him. «A good one for you, Nizra, as well as for me. If I am accepted as the avatar promised by the Books, and I am on your side, you will have a powerful ally against the captains who plot against you and who plan a palace revolution as soon as the old woman is dead. Not so?»

Once again respect glinted in the dark eyes. Respect and a degree of puzzlement.

The great head swayed in a nod. «I could almost think, Blade, that you are the avatar spoken of in the Books of Birkbegn.»

Blade laughed. «Do not begin our partnership with more lies than you must, Nizra. You do not believe a word of it.»

Nizra did not answer. He was getting out of bed. Blade retreated a few steps, sword ready, and watched. It was in its own way fascinating, this little scene within a scene, this mere act of watching Nizra disrobe and dress again. For the man was no more than a skeleton, a walking corpse whose bones showed clearly through the stringy, discolored flesh. Nizra was about five feet tall and Blade doubted that he weighed a hundred pounds. It was as though all the substance of the body had gone to the great head and the brain it encased.

Nizra wore a tent-like gown of a cloth that Blade thought of as tussah, a crude silk. This he took off before Blade without hesitation and with no shame. Then he donned a single undergarment of the same material. Over this he donned the same rich robe he had worn when Blade first saw him. Then the scarlet skullcap to partially hide the bald head. Lastly he took from beneath his pillow the chain of office.

«A moment,» said Blade bluntly. He took the chain from Nizra and examined it. It was very heavy, of iron polished to a high sheen, and formed of many small and exquisitely forged links. Blade dangled it in his hand, weighing it, watching Nizra closely. There was anxiety in the dark eyes and the spidery hands reached impatiently for the chain.

«It is nearly dawn,» said Nizra. «I must see the bodies of my guards, for if you are a liar I must know it now, and if you are not a liar they must be disposed of and a tale told.» Again he reached anxiously for the chain.

Blade handed it back to him. Inwardly he was content He had judged Nizra correctly. Power, and only absolute power, was all the meat and drink this man craved. Lord Leighton had been right. This Dimension X did, in many ways, closely parallel Home Dimension.

Nizra slipped the chain over his massive head and settled it into place. He looked at Blade with a speculative eye and with an openness that belied the cunning that Blade knew lurked in the man.

«I have been thinking,» said Nizra. «There is nothing of it written in the Books of Birkbegn, and I have read them well and know them by heart, but it would be as well if the Child Princess Mitgu had a husband. A certain special type of husband, naturally. Would you be averse, Blade, to marriage with a child of ten? Who, like most Jedd females at that age, is very nearly a woman?»

Blade was completely surprised and taken aback. Nothing like this had remotely entered his planning. He took refuge in brusqueness.

«You look too far into the future,» he said harshly. «There is no sense in discussing such matters now.»

The vast skull swayed toward him. «I agree, Blade. But think on it. Think well on it.»

The dark eyes glittered at Blade.