Secret Scorpio

Eighteen

The chief lady of the Sisters of the Rose, whose rank and title and name would never be revealed to me if the Sisters had their way, condescended to see me. The message reached the Iron Anvil as I sat, not drinking, sharpening up my old knife, sitting alone in a dark corner of the inn. The smiths talked about their trade and of bad times for business and of the latest consignment of copper to arrive down the Great River and of the price of tin. The serving girl, a little Fristle fifi, whispered that strangers wished to speak with me, so I rose and went outside, the bamboo held ready. Cloaked figures riding zorcas awaited me. I mounted the animal they provided and with only the single word “Rose!” uttered between us, followed where they led.

While it would not be proper for me to reveal all the circumstances of the meeting, I can say that through it all I had no sense of being ridiculous, of acting the fool. Here was I, a fearsome fighting warrior, renowned swordsman, savage clansman, told to strip off, to wrap a piece of white cloth about my loins, to stand meekly in a room with two samphron-oil lamps shining up, leaving the end of the room partitioned by a pierced ivory screen in absolute darkness.

From the screen the soft rustle of feminine garments told me that the chief lady did not wear hunting leathers or the grim panoply of war, as many of the Sisters did. And this was fit and proper. The Sisters of the Rose, after all, is a female order, and girls do not have to ape the ways of men. Although when they do, by Zair, they often are very good indeed.

“You wished to speak with me, Kadar the Hammer. Your request was put most forcefully; a very strong case was made out for you. Why do you plead to see me?”

I said, “I think, lady, you know my name.”

“Kadar the Hammer.” A light tinkle of laughter. “Is that your question? You had forgotten your name?”

“I can never forget. I do not know yours. In that, you have the advantage, lady.”

The laughter stilled. Then: “I know you. I can tell you nothing.”

I flared up. “This is not good enough! I must know where my Delia is. Is she safe? Is Dayra safe? Just that, just that to put my heart at rest.”

If this powerful and secret woman decided to obey the emperor’s orders and handed me over to him, there would be a few broken skulls. That I knew. But that was a trifle.

“A man’s heart, aye! Now there is a wonderfully elastic object.”

“I did not come to bandy words. Tell me, for the sweet sake of Opaz.”

“Your Dayra has been. . is causing. .” A hesitation and then, in a sharper tone: “Your Dayra is proving a true daughter of a wayward father.”

“And if I am wayward that I do not quarrel with. But you have educated Dayra! I have been away and I own my fault in that. But Dayra-”

“Do not blame the SoR for all! We teach chastity and humility and pride. We teach a girl that she is a girl, and in this world a girl must be as good as a man. Not better. As good. We are all people in the sight of Opaz, the manifestation of the Invisible Twins. Dayra could not exist without a man and a woman.”

“And I am that man!” I bellowed, despite my promise to myself to behave. “And I ask about the woman!”

An indrawn breath. Would I be hurled out? Would a steel-tipped shaft drive through? Would — exotic thought — a bevy of half-naked damsels seek to destroy me by women’s wiles?

Then: “I shall tell you, Kadar the Hammer, that the woman of whom you speak is alive and well and reasonably happy. She goes with her eldest daughter in search of her wayward daughter. When they are successful they will return.”

So that explained why Lela, as well as Dayra, had not visited their father in Vondium. “Suppose they are not successful?”

“That may well be. The task is difficult. But Opaz is all wise. If that should be her will then so be it.”

Naturally Opaz, being the twinned life-force, could be either male or female. “If so, your lady and her elder daughter will return.”

“And is that all you will tell me?”

“There is nothing more to tell. You are supremely fortunate even to have spoken with me, Kadar the Hammer. The emperor is looking for a smith to sharpen up the edge of his headsman’s ax.”

That was as clear a warning as you could desire, or not, considering. The rustle of clothes told me she was leaving. There were a thousand questions buzzing in my stupid head, but I could speak none of them. I was led out by competent girls who carried their bows nocked and their rapiers naked in their hands. Of what use or value my knowledge that I could have fought and beaten them all? Would that bring my Delia any closer? Of course not. Only half reconciled to what I considered a fobbing off I dressed and, once more clad in the old brown blanket cloak and with my bamboo stick in my horny fist, I was seen off into the moons-shot darkness. I have said nothing of the rites surrounding this interview or of the room itself. Or of what I observed. Quite so.

One thing I believed with all my heart: my Delia was safe. And Lela and Dayra — whatever that little minx had been up to — were safe, also.

So, and not as easily as I may make it sound, I could go back to the more congenial task of mayhem and murder and smashing up these Opaz-forsaken rasts of the Great Chyyan. The last thought I allowed myself about the Sisters of the Rose was the reflection that a fellow had to brace himself up and keep a brave face on it when these scheming women put on that kind of show. Many a man would have been half dead with fright at all the mumbo jumbo, and his knees would have knocked together when he stood in the dread presence of the chief lady of the SoR. Before I went back to see Natyzha Famphreon and try to shake some sense out of the dealings — or apparent lack of them — of the racters, I’d have to nip back to the Iron Anvil. I had no real desire to investigate her warren of a villa with only a bamboo stick, despite the concealed sword, although if it came to the fluttrell’s vane I would do so.

“By Odifor!” spat a Fristle who balanced an enormous load on his head. He staggered against the doorway of a house whose overhanging balcony dripped vines and moonblooms. I was scarcely aware of bumping him. “Look where you’re going, you apim rast!”

I turned my head away and walked on. There were far more important demands at work this night in Vondium than a stupid affray with a Fristle. His cat-face looked fierce and his whiskers shone in the light of torches. I supposed then that I might some day learn to rub along with Fristles. Walking thus in a heightened frame of mind, to put my frame of mind in a certain light, I realized that all Vallia could go hang to the Black Feathers just as long as Delia and the girls were safe. But then I reconsidered. That was only a half-truth. It is often easy for the outcast — and I had been chucked out of Vondium — to look at himself in the role of poor Pakkad. No one of Kregen could say with certainty if Pakkad had been a real person of if he was a figure from myth. He had been cruelly treated by the arch devil, Mitronoton, the Destroyer of Cities, the Leveler of Ways, and nowadays, although seldom referred to, Pakkad stood for the image of the pariah and the unwanted. As for Mitronoton, the Bane of the ib, the Reducer of Towers, he was a devil of horror that no sane man would approach. The Fristle snarled some obscenity or other and hitched his bundle straight; a string snapped and the bundle burst, and a glittering shower of trinkets and trashy bangles and rings cascaded to the cobbles. An uproar began at once as, from nowhere and at this time of night with the moons shining above, a torrent of children burst out and fell upon the gewgaws.

Young girls and boys were scrabbling along the cobbles, snatching up the rolling bangles and rings, stuffing little ornamental figures into their breechclouts. I realized in my half-blind wanderings I had blundered into a net of poor alleys off one of the jewelry souks. The hullabaloo was rather splendid. The Fristle was frantically attempting to preserve his wares, yelling threats and trying to bash kids away and being tripped up and — it was all over in a twinkling — standing up and shrieking his anger and casting about upon the empty cobbles.

He found one trashy little figure of Kyr Nath made from cast brass and he flung it down so hard it bounced and hit a laughing fellow in the eye. That started more trouble. I ambled off, deliberately not going fast.

Of such trifles are the destiny of empires made.

The last I heard of that incident — as I thought, as I thought — was a fat apim with an apron yelling:

“The Fristle stole this stuff! Thief! Thief!”

The Fristle let out a yell and raced off. The apims followed all a-yelling and a-screeching and the whole pack vanished into a side alley, even more odiferous than this one. So, going on, I came out at last into the silversmiths’ wharf running alongside a canal that gleamed limpid and pinkly golden in the night. I saw the Fristle running across an arcaded bridge. He saw me too, for the moons-light picked me out brightly. Only a handful of other people were walking near. He knew me. He vanished into the shadows. I dismissed him — thieves would have to be treated as rulers usually treated the devotees of Diproo the Nimble-Fingered — and walked on to the Iron Anvil in the smiths’ quarter. My surprise was complete when I found the Wizard of Loh Khe-Hi-Bjanching waiting for me in my room. As I came in he started up; the steel in my fist winked at his throat and then I recognized him. I drew back.

“Dangerous to do that, San.”

He laughed a nervous laugh and felt his throat.

“All right, Turk.” As he spoke the curtains over the window shook and Turko the Shield climbed in. He was followed by Balass the Hawk. Then Oby wriggled in, most fierce, slapping his long-knife into his sheath.

Well!

It turned out that Khe-Hi wished to obtain a piece of my skin, a hair and a piece of toenail. I do not give these things lightly, for although it is all stupid superstition, there is no doubting the power of the Wizards of Loh.

“Phu-si-Yantong has been searching for you, Prince,” said this wizard who had followed me. “I need to create a new and somewhat different. . ah. . arrangement to hold him off. He has let you slip out of his range of observation. But he has been in lupu and spying a very great deal lately. I think” — and here Khe-Hi chuckled in a very down-to-earth and unwizardly way — “I really think the old devil is worried.”

“Amen to that.”

I had noticed that Khe-Hi did not mention that he was creating a spell or an enchantment. They were for the lesser sorcerers.

So needing the simple artifices of that trade, he had come to find me. And the others would not let him go alone. I asked, “And how did you know where I was and my name?”

“We had a flier letter from Seg, from Falinur, and-”

“And from now on I’m staying where I belong,” said Turko the Shield truculently. “By Morro the Muscle! At your side with my shield lifted.”

“That will not be very practical in Vondium.”

“Well, my long-knife will arouse no comment,” said Oby.

We all told him coarsely that his long-knife would not arouse comment anywhere — except Khe-Hi, who was above that kind of nonsense, of course — whereat he grew most enraged and lively and started swinging his arms about.

Balass the Hawk butted in with: “I know most about the Black Feathers so I am the one to go with the Prince.”

While they wouldn’t have started in on each other with the weapons each knew so well how to use, they waxed exceedingly warm. I said, “No one goes with me. This is a lone task. Balass, what of the Black Feathers?”

His story confirmed what I had seen. Someone had brought a temple into Vondium. Wandering priests had gathered. The city was like an overripe shonage, ready to burst and spray every which way.

“By the brass sword and glass eye of Beng Thrax!” I used the old arena oath talking to Balass, the hyr-kaidur. “When will your spies find this Opaz-forsaken temple! By Kaidun! Time grows perilously short.”

“We have men out everywhere. The racters also search.”

A thought occurred to me and I turned to Khe-Hi. “If Phu-si-Yantong has missed me and is searching, will not your visit here put him on my trail once again?”

“No, my Prince. I can cover myself and those with me. He cannot find you through us.”

“That is some comfort. But if he really is this Makfaril, and there is no proof, what chance is there he will come to Vondium himself?”

Khe-Hi pursed up his lips. “Very little. He can work his mischief through his agents.”

“Quite so. Well, be off with you then, the pack of you.”

They wanted to contest this, but I would have none of it. So they climbed out through the window, agile as monkeys, even Khe-Hi, who had done a little climbing with me on Ogra-gemush. Working swiftly, I donned my familiar scarlet breechclout and strapped and buckled my weapons about me. This time, to be on the safe side, I shrugged on a close-fitting coat of mail, a mail shirt presented to me by Delia, one of those superb harnesses of mesh mail manufactured in the Dawn Lands around the Shrouded Sea in Havilfar. The value of that single piece of armor would leave a rich man breathless. I swirled the big buff cloak over all as usual, but this time hung the Krozair longsword scabbarded at my left side. I picked up the faithful old bamboo and went to place it safely in a cupboard when those confounded Fristles arrived to ruin that particular scheme.

The Fristle thief, no doubt calling on Diproo the Nimble-Fingered, had rustled up some of his friends. The door burst in with a smash and they catapulted into the room. For the tiniest fraction of time I thought they were my comrades, come back this time to insist on going with me. Then I saw the fierce snarling cat-faces, the up-pricked ears, the lean jaws and the furry hides. Spitting their fury, they charged straight for me.

They carried long-knives and wharf-rat knives, and two had stout staves tipped with bronze. The bamboo switched up and deflected the first stave, bounced off the skull of its owner, lined up and prodded deeply into a furry midriff. Two Fristles staggered out of the fight. But the others, three or four, bored in. A flung knife whistled past my head as I moved and smashed into the horn window. A stave swirled down at me and I ducked and stepped back, making no attempt to strike with the bamboo. I was annoyed. I was quite unsure whether to bash them over the head with the bamboo or to whip out rapier or djangir and settle their hash.

So stepping back, I trod on a forgotten gregarian and skidded. I skidded across the floor, flailing my arms to remain upright. I lost my balance and staggered back.

With shrieks of feline glee the Fristles flung themselves on me. They had no compunction. The thief had lost his night’s swag and he wanted to take his revenge out on my hide. I rolled, ready to spring up and bash them all properly, when a great booming numim voice roared joyfully: “Now, by Vox! What a pretty pickle!”

And in rage Rafik Avandil waded in, his clanxer deftly cleaving down a Fristle skull and slicing back to chop another. The other Fristles screamed now, screams far different from those shocks of savage fury of a moment ago.

“If I make a habit of this, Nath the Gnat, blame only yourself!”

And the golden numim, Rafik Avandil, joyfully dispatched the next Fristle and kicked the last headlong out the door and down the blackwood stairs.