Rebel of Antares (3 page)

Then he stopped talking, and his jowly Och face changed, a frown of concentration drawing down his brows.

“Hue the Grasshopper — Vad Noran’s man you lifted up to inspect — may not have been a stikitche, being at best a stable hand. But the man who followed us, dogging our footsteps — he was an altogether more ugly customer.”

So I guessed Unmok had seen this altogether more ugly customer pass outside the tavern, still seeking us, no doubt.

I felt relief.

The persistence of this tracker afforded me a chance to postpone telling Unmok that I would not be shipping out with him, that our partnership was ended unless he chose to go with me. I stood up.

“Jak?”

“You go and see Avec Parlin. Make sure he lays his hands on the very best cage voller we can afford. All the gold is yours. I may not be able to ship out with you—”

“Jak!”

“—But I will see you again. You know you have my word on that. Now, which way did this ugly customer go? I will sort him out—”

“
Jak
!”

“—So there is no good arguing, there’s a good fellow.”

Unmok swelled out those jowly Och chops and tilted his head back to look at me. He did not stand up, and in that I felt the smaller of the two of us.

“He went along toward the Avenue of Sleeths. No, there is no profit in arguing with you. You have secrets, that I do know. I will see Avec and arrange the cage voller. After that — you must decide. As for me, we are partners, and remain so.”

Little, are Ochs, puffy and with six limbs, and not apims like me at all. But in that moment Unmok the Nets displayed a dignity surpassing many and many a blowhard apim lout I have known. And that thought should surprise no one in two worlds.

“Although—” and here Unmok shivered his whole body, as though gripped by a vampire spider of Chem. “Although if you go away I will take it hard. We have been partners for only a small length of time, as these things are measured, and yet in that time we have been through much together. It is of value to me to think of that, and those times...”

“It is of value to me, also. I think you know that.” The lamplight glittered on the bronze studs of Unmok’s jerkin beneath the opened fold of his tunic. “Secrets — yes, we all have secrets. It is difficult for me to explain. I believe you would find it well-nigh impossible to credit. But explain I will. I will.”

His regard of me did not waver.

“May the hands of all the gods rest lightly on you, Jak the Shot, and may Ochenshum have you in his keeping.”

I nodded and without the usual remberees on parting, I went out and along the street toward the Avenue of Sleeths.

After all, as I tried to tell myself with some hollow vehemence, how could a partnership with a little Och wild-beast catcher and a half-promise to him possibly weigh in the balance against the preoccupations of an emperor and the fate of an empire?

Chapter two

A Rapier Twinkles at Dinner

The quarrel between the two sorcerers and the resultant disastrous fire forced animation on the people of the city. Parties of the queen’s guards galloped along the streets. The flames continued to light the night sky. People talked of the catastrophe, agog, joying that their premises had not been consumed. I walked along at a good pace, heading west out and along the street toward the Avenue of Sleeths.

Huringa, the capital city of Hyrklana, is not one of the largest capitals of Kregen, but it is impressive in its own way, dominated by the imposing pile of the queen’s palace, the Hakal, with the ominous bulk of the Arena, called the Jikhorkdun, alongside. From the Arena the four main boulevards, lighted by gas, stretch toward the cardinal points of the compass. I saw no sign of the man who had been following us and whom I now followed in order, as I had told Unmok, to settle this business. I did not know, myself, if this were true...

Anyway, if I did not find him I was going in the right direction for the promised meeting with Tyfar and Jaezila.

The idea that I ought to take a part in the fire-fighting occurred to me. I dismissed it immediately. The authorities, charged by fat Queen Fahia with fire-fighting duties would be adequately capable. She’d have them thrown to her pet neemus if they were not.

Moving along among the folk out strolling in this early evening preparation period for the night’s entertainments, I kept a wary lookout. The fourth moon of Kregen, She of the Veils, sent down smoky pinkish rays, wavering and erratic in the smoke pall, paling beside the lurid glow of the fire. Keeping out of the way of sorcerers had always seemed a sound practice, and this latest imbroglio merely confirmed that. The disc of radiance balanced between the two opposed powers of the wizards and casting off the chunks of incendiary material was in itself a potent force. That occult disc of light is called The Quern of Gramarye. When it grinds opposed magics the very fabric of time and space is distorted and fractured.

The Avenue of Sleeths ran straight between private houses fronted by gardens for over five hundred paces. Here lived some of those inhabitants of Huringa who were bracketed in the middling wealthy class, with slaves and carriages and fine clothes, whose tables were well-laden. Down at the far end, a crossing place where the Street of Sleeths joined the east boulevard was always crowded with idlers and ruffians patronizing the taverns and inns there. So it was from gentility into abandonment I walked. And still no sign of the fellow who had dogged our footsteps.

Many torches and lanterns lit up the crossing place which formed a kind of square or kyro, and the taverns stood cheek by jowl. Most strollers approached this place, the Kyro of the Happy Calsany, along the boulevard. When the amphitheater turned out after the games, the place became choked. Amid all the uproar I fancied there would be little chance of spotting my man, so I set off directly for the tavern, the Faerling’s Feathers, where I was to meet Jaezila and Tyfar.

The great cross of the boulevards, with the Jikhorkdun and the high fortress of the Hakal at the center, imposed a certain order on Huringa’s street planning, but the mixtilinear walls made of the alleys and streets in the outer portions of the quarters a mass of interconnected labyrinths. A general assault on this city would be held up there unless airborne troops could land in rear of the defenses.

Wondering why that particular thought had crossed my mind just then, I walked up to The Faerling’s Feathers. We of Vallia had no wish to go to war with Hyrklana; quite the reverse. Tyfar and Jaezila were talking together, engrossed in each other’s company. I looked at them with great pleasure. And I was come to say good-bye!

They sat at a small table under a climbing vine smothered in blue flowers; above their heads a balcony depended silken shawls and tasseled scarves. The light from She of the Veils glowed warmly from the stucco wall. The table was set for three; the empty chair waited for me.

I shook my head as though to clear away cobwebs. I knew that saying good-bye to these two would be a wrench, and now that I watched them as they talked so closely, I realized afresh just how much I did not want to part from them. Blade comrades are rare, and I have been blessed and more than blessed with true blade comrades on the wonderful and terrible world of Kregen. For a true blade comrade one would lay down one’s own life without a second thought, and for these two, for Jaezila and Tyfar, I would — with only the first thought for my Delia to halt me — go through the fire. Delia, Delia of the Blue Mountains, Delia of Delphond, always stood foremost in my thoughts, and against our love I measured all my actions.

The task of saying good-bye would not be easy for another reason. Prince Tyfar, with his shining honor and ideas of upright dealing with all men and women, and Jaezila, with her willful ways and quick bright grasp on living, would certainly attempt to detain me. They had work to do here in Huringa for their own country of Hamal. Hamal was at war with my own country of Vallia, and that was all a stupid nonsense; these two were comrades and we had lived and walked close to the edge of death together.

Jaezila tossed her head back so that her brown hair rippled all gleaming in the moonlight. She laughed full-throated. And, so laughing, saw me.

“Jak!”

“Well, Jak,” said Tyfar, scraping his chair back and standing up to greet me, “and have you freed yourself of your entanglement outside the city? Do you come to stay with us?”

“Lahal, you two,” I said, walking up and grasping Tyfar’s hand, leaning down to kiss Jaezila. “No. I’m not clear yet.” I sat down and the wine was poured as I pulled the chair forward. “But I joy to see you—”

I had told them only the most superficial account of my true life and circumstances out of necessity. They knew I was happily married, although I had — prudently — given Delia a different name. I had said — and I would not want Delia to learn this too swiftly — that her name was Thylda. That was a good name in Hamal. You see what petty shifts one is driven to when friendship is sullied by these monumentally idiotic politics of war! So they knew that my entanglement outside the city was not with a woman.

I asked after the fliers they had come here to buy, and heard that the work proceeded slowly, for the people of Hyrklana deeply resented having to build airboats for Hamal. Only fear of that great empire on the mainland opposite, and its mad Empress Thyllis, kept the Hyrklanians polite to Hamalese in their midst.

“Although,” said Tyfar, looking flushed and annoyed, “a factory was burned to the ground today — ten fliers were lost. They go in for fires in Huringa, I see.”

I told them that the fire in the Souk of Trifles had been started by two sorcerers quarreling.

“Their damned Quern of Gramarye, I suppose?”

“Yes.”

Now that I had joined them, the slaves could bring the food. One thing was sure, despite the enormous difficulties, when Vallia had triumphed over Hamal — as we would! — we’d stop all this slavery. The transformation of a slave-owning society into a free society was causing difficulties in Vallia, and the problems would be worse in Hamal. But in Opaz’s good time, the task would be done.

Jaezila wore a deep crimson evening robe, just such a gown as Delia had once worn here in Huringa, and with a narrow golden belt from which swung not a silly ornate curved dagger but a solid workmanlike rapier and main gauche. She looked stunning. And yet still she teased Tyfar, and tweaked him and, as I looked at them and saw, she was more attached to him that she probably realized. As for Tyfar, his dark blue evening robe concealed a harness of mesh link, I did not doubt; his rapier and main gauche swung from his belts outside the robe. Under the folds of cloth I also did not doubt he had his axe about him. He was not willingly parted from that axe, was Prince Tyfar of Hamal.

Toward the end of the meal he kept darting puzzled looks over my left shoulder. A wary expression crossed his face and then he returned to the squish pie. But again he looked up. Open and frank, bold and fearless — these words describe Tyfar as he carried himself with us, for we were comrades. With his father, Prince Nedfar, and the high notables, Tyfar tended to the withdrawn, the aloof. A bookish man, he had taken up the axe as a kind of defiance of those forces seeking to mold him into the run-of-the-mill Hamalese prince. A good man in a library and a good man to have at your back in a fight, Prince Tyfar.

He said, “I think—”

Then he stood up, very quickly, overturning his glass of wine. His rapier snicked out and thrust past my ear as he flung himself forward. I was off my chair and rolling on the ground, without thought. I heard the scream of surprised pain and then I was up, rapier in hand, to see that damned assassin fellow who had been following Unmok and me writhing with Tyfar’s rapier through his guts.

Jaezila’s own sword flicked about, checking the sudden surge of interest from other diners at adjoining tables.

The wretch skewered so neatly fell down. Tyfar withdrew.

“Friend of yours, Jak?”

“My thanks, Tyfar — not exactly. He’s been following us — me — around Huringa tonight. I’m glad I know where he is now.”

“He’s on his way to the Ice Floes of Sicce, that’s where.”

“May his ib rest in peace — although I do not think that likely.”

“Pay the reckoning, Ty, and let’s go.” Jaezila spoke evenly.

“Agreed.”

I started to shuffle coins out and the prince checked me, as he always did in these matters. He was a real prince.

The landlord waddled up, protesting, but a dead man who might or might not be an assassin was no new thing in this Kyro of the Happy Calsany. A few gold coins jingling, a smile and a word or two, and the matter was settled. We were known to be strangers, and rotten damned Hamalese at that, but gold was gold.

We walked away, and Jaezila picked up a ripe shonage to eat as we went along.

So I told them about my dealings with Vad Noran.

“Unmok the Nets and I sold Noran a parcel of wild beasts. We were up at his villa when the slaves broke out.” I didn’t tell him why the slaves had escaped. “Some schrepims were released from their cage and the reptilian warriors went berserk.”

“Schrepims,” said Tyfar. He pursed his lips. “Nasty.”

“Quite. Unmok and I managed to beat them off with the aid of a lion-man, and this great Vad Noran appeared and was given the credit for the fight. We did not care. Unmok just wanted his money and to get out, and the numim escaped, for he had been a slave there. So now, I think, Noran wants to shut our mouths in case we spread the true story. He has been dubbed a great Jikai because of his supposed fight—”

Jaezila laughed, striding along, munching shonage, the juices running down her chin. “It is strange, for we have heard of the Jikai Vad Noran performed. And it was like that!”

“We heard more about this Noran, also,” said Tyfar, and he spoke seriously.

“He builds vollers and no doubt sells the airboats to you?”

“Yes. It was not his factory that was burned to the ground. But—”

“But he seemed most pleased that the vollers had been destroyed.” Jaezila wiped juice. “No. Not seemed. He was damned pleased — and it is easy to see why.”