Demon Lord Of Karanda (20 page)

‘Very shrewd, Prince Kheldar.’

‘I’ve been around for a while,’ Silk replied.

‘The consortium is meeting this week in Melcene,’ the factor reported. ‘They’ll be setting the prices of common items. We really want to get our hands on that price list if we can.’

‘I’m in the palace,’ Silk said. ‘Maybe I can pry it out of somebody.’

‘There’s something else you should know, Prince Kheldar. Word has leaked out that the consortium is also going to propose certain regulations to Baron Vasca of the Bureau of Commerce. They’ll present them under the guise of protecting the economy, but the fact of the matter is that they’re aimed at you and Yarblek. They want to restrict western merchants who gross more than ten million a year to two or three enclaves on the west coast. That wouldn’t inconvenience smaller merchants, but it would probably put us out of business.’

‘Can we bribe someone to put a stop to it?’

‘We’re already paying Vasca a fortune to leave us alone, but the consortium is throwing money around like water. It’s possible that the baron won’t stay bribed.’

‘Let me nose around inside the palace a bit,’ Silk said, ‘before you double Vasca’s bribe or anything.’

‘Bribery’s the standard procedure, Prince Kheldar.’

‘I know, but sometimes blackmail works even better.’ Silk looked over at Garion, then back at his factor. ‘What do you know about what’s happening in Karanda?’ he asked.

‘Enough to know that it’s disastrous for business. All sorts of perfectly respectable and otherwise sensible merchants are closing up their shops and flocking off to Calida to enlist in Mengha’s army. Then they march around in circles singing “Death to the Angaraks” while they wave rusty swords in the air.’

‘Any chance of selling them weapons?’ Silk asked quickly.

‘Probably not. There’s not enough real money in northern Karanda to make it worthwhile to try to deal with them, and the political unrest has closed down all the mines. The market in gem stones has just about dried up.’

Silk nodded glumly. ‘What’s really going on up there, Dolmar?’ he asked. ‘The reports Brador passed on to us were sort of sketchy.’

‘Mengha arrived at the gates of Calida with demons.’ The factor shrugged. ‘The Karands went into hysterics and then fell down in the throes of religious ecstasy.’

‘Brador told us about certain atrocities,’ Garion said.

‘I expect that the reports he received were a trifle exaggerated, your Majesty,’ Dolmar replied. ‘Even the most well trained observer is likely to multiply mutilated corpses lying in the streets by ten. In point of fact, the vast majority of the casualties were either Melcene or Angarak. Mengha’s demons rather scrupulously avoided killing Karands—except by accident. The same has held true in every city that he’s taken so far.’ He scratched at his head, his close-set eyes narrowing. ‘It’s really very shrewd, you know. The Karands see Mengha as a liberator and his demons as an invincible spearhead of their army. I can’t swear to his
real
motives, but those barbarians up there believe that he’s a savior come to sweep Karanda clean of Angaraks and the Melcene bureaucracy. Give him another six months or so, and he’ll accomplish what no one has ever been able to do before.’

‘What’s that?’ Silk asked.

‘Unify all of Karanda.’

‘Does he use his demons in the assault on every city he takes?’ Garion asked, wanting to confirm what Brador had told them.

Dolmar shook his head. ‘Not any more, your Majesty. After what happened at Calida and several other towns he took early in his campaign, he doesn’t really have to. All he’s been doing lately is march up to the city. The demons are with him, of course, but they don’t have to do anything but stand there looking awful. The Karands butcher all the Angaraks and Melcenes in town, throw open their gates, and welcome him with open arms. Then his demons vanish.’ He thought a moment. ‘He always has one particular one of them with him, though—a shadowy sort of creature that doesn’t seem to be gigantic the way they’re supposed to be. He stands directly behind Mengha’s left shoulder at any public appearance.’

A sudden thought occurred to Garion. ‘Are they desecrating Grolim temples?’ he asked.

Dolmar blinked. ‘No,’ he replied with some surprise, ‘as a matter of fact, they’re not—and there don’t seem to be any Grolims among the dead, either. Of course it’s possible that Urvon pulled all his Grolims out of Karanda when the trouble started.’

‘That’s unlikely,’ Garion disagreed. ‘Mengha’s arrival at Calida came without any kind of warning. The Grolims wouldn’t have had time to escape.’ He stared up at the ceiling, thinking hard.

‘What is it, Garion?’ Silk asked.

‘I just had a chilling sort of notion. We know that Mengha’s a Grolim, right?’

‘I didn’t know that,’ Dolmar said with some surprise.

‘We got a bit of inside information,’ Silk told him. ‘Go ahead, Garion.’

‘Urvon spends all of his time in Mal Yaska, doesn’t he?’

Silk nodded. ‘So I’ve heard. He doesn’t want Beldin to catch him out in the open.’

‘Wouldn’t that make him a fairly ineffective leader? All right, then. Let’s suppose that Mengha went through his period of despair after the death of Torak and then found a magician to teach him how to raise demons. When he comes back, he offers his former Grolim brethren an alternative to Urvon—along with access to a kind of power they’d never experienced before. A demon in the hands of an illiterate and fairly stupid Karandese magician is one thing, but a demon controlled by a Grolim sorcerer would be much worse, I think. If Mengha’s gathering disaffected Grolims around him and training them in the use of magic, we have a
big
problem. I don’t think I’d care to face a legion of Chabats, would you?’

Silk shuddered. ‘Not hardly,’ he replied fervently.

‘He has to be uprooted then,’ Dolmar said, ‘and soon.’

Garion made a sour face. ‘Zakath won’t move until he gets his army back from Cthol Murgos—about three months from now.’

‘In three months, Mengha’s going to be invincible,’ the factor told him.

‘Then we’ll have to move now,’ Garion said, ‘with Zakath or without him.’

‘How do you plan to get out of the city?’ Silk asked.

‘We’ll let Belgarath work that out.’ Garion looked at Silk’s agent. ‘Can you tell us anything else?’ he asked.

Dolmar tugged at his nose in a curious imitation of Silk’s habitual gesture. ‘It’s only a rumor,’ he said.

‘Go ahead.’

‘I’ve been getting some hints out of Karanda that Mengha’s familiar demon is named Nahaz.’

‘Is that significant?’

‘I can’t be altogether sure, your Majesty. When the Grolims went into Karanda in the second millennium, they destroyed all traces of Karandese mythology, and no one has ever tried to record what few bits and pieces remained. All that’s left is a hazy oral tradition, but the rumors I’ve heard say that Nahaz was the tribal demon of the original Karands who migrated into the region before the Angaraks came to Mallorea. The Karands follow Mengha not only because he’s a political leader, but also because he’s resurrected the closest thing they’ve ever had to a God of their own.’

‘A Demon Lord?’ Garion asked him.

‘That’s a very good way to describe him, your Majesty. If the rumors are true, the demon Nahaz has almost unlimited power.’

‘I was afraid you were going to say that.’

Later, when they were back out in the street, Garion looked curiously at Silk. ‘Why didn’t you object when he burned those documents?’ he asked.

‘It’s standard practice.’ The rat-faced man shrugged. ‘We never keep anything in writing. Dolmar has everything committed to memory.’

‘Doesn’t that make it fairly easy for him to steal from you?’

‘Of course, but he keeps his thievery within reasonable limits. If the Bureau of Taxation got its hands on written records, though, it could be a disaster. Do you want to go back to the palace now?’

Garion took out his list. ‘No,’ he said. ‘We’ve got to take care of this first.’ He looked glumly at the sheet. ‘I wonder how we’re going to carry it all.’

Silk glanced back over his shoulder at the two unobtrusive spies trailing along behind them. ‘Help is only a few paces away.’ He laughed. ‘As I said before, there are many uses for policemen.’

During the next several days, Garion discovered that the imperial palace at Mal Zeth was unlike any court in the West. Since all power rested in Zakath’s hands, the bureaucrats and palace functionaries contested with each other for Emperor’s favor and strove with oftentimes wildly complicated plots to discredit their enemies. The introduction of Silk, Velvet, and Sadi into this murky environment added whole new dimensions to palace intrigue. The trio rather casually pointed out the friendship between Garion and Zakath and let it be generally known that they had the Rivan King’s complete trust. Then they sat back to await developments.

The officials and courtiers in the imperial palace were quick to grasp the significance and the opportunities implicit in this new route to the Emperor’s ear. Perhaps even without formally discussing it, the trio of westerners neatly divided up the possible spheres of activity. Silk concentrated his attention on commercial matters, Velvet dabbled in politics, and Sadi delicately dipped his long-fingered hands into the world of high-level crime. Though each of them subtly let it be known that they were susceptible to bribery, they also expressed a willingness to pass along various requests in exchange for information. Thus, almost by accident, Garion found that he had a very efficient espionage apparatus at his disposal. Silk and Velvet manipulated the fears, ambitions, and open greed of those who contacted them with a musicianlike skill, delicately playing the increasingly nervous officials like well-tuned instruments. Sadi’s methods, derived from this extensive experience in Salmissra’s court, were in some instances even more subtle, but in others, painfully direct. The contents of his red leather case brought premium prices, and several high-ranking criminals, men who literally owned whole platoons of bureaucrats and even generals, quite suddenly died under suspicious circumstances—one of them even toppling over with a blackened face and bulging eyes in the presence of the Emperor himself.

Zakath, who had watched the activities of the three with a certain veiled amusement, drew the line at that point. He spoke quite firmly with Garion about the matter during their customary evening meeting on the following day.

‘I don’t really mind what they’re doing, Garion,’ he said, idly stroking the head of an orange kitten who lay purring in his lap. ‘They’re confusing all the insects who scurry around in the dark corners of the palace, and a confused bug can’t consolidate his position. I like to keep all these petty bootlickers frightened and off balance, since it makes it easier to control them. I really must object to poison, however. It’s far too easy for an unskilled poisoner to make mistakes.’

‘Sadi could poison one specific person at a banquet with a hundred guests,’ Garion assured him.

‘I have every confidence in his ability,’ Zakath agreed, ‘but the trouble is that he’s not doing the actual poisoning himself. He’s selling his concoctions to rank amateurs. There are
some
people here in the palace that I need. Their identities are general knowledge, and that keeps the daggers out of their entrails. A mistake with some poison, however, could wipe out whole branches of my government. Could you ask him not to sell any more of it here in the palace? I’d speak to him personally, but I don’t want it to seem like an official reprimand.’

‘I’ll have to talk with him,’ Garion promised.

‘I’d appreciate it, Garion.’ The Emperor’s eyes grew sly. ‘Just the poisons, though. I find the effects of some of his other compounds rather amusing. Just yesterday, I saw an eighty-five-year-old general in hot pursuit of a young chambermaid. The old fool hasn’t had that kind of thoughts for a quarter of a century. And the day before that, the Chief of the Bureau of Public Works—a pompous ass who makes me sick just to look at him—tried for a solid half hour in front of dozens of witnesses to walk up the side of a building. I haven’t laughed so hard in years.’

‘Nyissan elixirs do strange things to people.’ Garion smiled. ‘I’ll ask Sadi to confine his dealings to recreational drugs.’

‘Recreational drugs,’ Zakath laughed. ‘I like that description.’

‘I’ve always had a way with words,’ Garion replied modestly.

The orange kitten rose, yawned, and jumped down from the Emperor’s lap. The mackerel-tabby mother cat promptly caught a black and white kitten by the scruff of the neck and deposited it exactly where the orange one had been lying. Then she looked at Zakath’s face and meowed questioningly.

‘Thank you,’ Zakath murmured to her.

Satisfied, the cat jumped down, caught the orange kitten, and began to bathe it, holding it down with one paw.

‘Does she do that all the time?’ Garion asked.

Zakath nodded. ‘She’s busy being a mother, but she doesn’t want me to get lonely.’

‘That’s considerate of her.’

Zakath looked at the black and white kitten in his lap, who had all four paws wrapped around his hand and was gnawing on one of his knuckles in mock ferocity. ‘I think I could learn to survive without it,’ he said, wincing.

CHAPTER NINE

The simplest way to avoid the omnipresent spies infesting the imperial palace was to conduct any significant conversations out in the open, and so Garion frequently found himself strolling around the palace grounds with one or more of his companions. On a beautiful spring morning a few days later he walked with Belgarath and Polgara through the dappled shade of a cherry orchard, listening to Velvet’s latest report on the political intrigues which seethed through the corridors of Zakath’s palace.

‘The surprising thing is that Brador is probably aware of most of what’s going on,’ the blond girl told them. ‘He doesn’t
look
all that efficient, but his secret police are everywhere.’ Velvet was holding a spray of cherry blossoms in front of her face, rather ostentatiously inhaling their fragrance.