The Fallable Fiend (5 page)

IV

MADAM ROSKA

Ir is a peculiar city, lying at the edge of a cluster of hills beside a small tributary of the Kyamos, the Vomantikon. Save for the huge cylindrical tower surrounding the entrance, it is built entirely underground. It was conceived as a stronghold by Ardyman the Terrible, when he sought to unite all twelve Novarian nations under his rule. Finding a mass of solid granite in the hills of Ir, he caused the city to be dug into the mountainside, with tunnels and caverns serving the offices of streets and houses.

When Madam Roska’s agent, Noïthen, had tucked my contract of indenture into his doublet, he said: “Come along, O Zdim. We wait upon my mistress.”

A short, gorbellied man, Master Noïthen led me to the tower. This was a structure of well-fitted granite ashlars, over a hundred feet wide and thrice as great in diameter. A ramp, wide enough for a laden wagon, wound spirally about the cylinder, going up in such wise that he who ascended had his right or unshielded side towards the wall.

A third of the way up, the ramp ended at a huge portal, with valves made of whole tree trunks squared and held together with bronzen brackets. This portal now stood open. From the platform whereon it looked, a narrow, spiral stair continued up around the tower for one complete turn, ending at a higher and smaller door.

The castellated upper rim of the tower was higher yet. The booms of catapults projected out over the edge. The roof also upheld a complicated structure, which I saw from afar but did not understand until I had followed Noïthen through the main portal, past a pair of tall, blond guards.

“Who are those fellows?” I asked Noïthen. “They look not like Novarians.”

“Mercenaries from Shven. We are no warmongers, but a nation of peaceful farmers and merchants. Hence we hire the Shvenites to do our bloodletting for us. In peacetime, as now, they serve as our civic guard and police.”

Inside the portal, a spacious circular courtyard, open to the sky, filled the center of the tower. Around the walls, a series of huge casemates, upheld by arcades, provided space for the city’s defenders and their equipment. Above the topmost of these rows of chambers rose the ring-shaped roof whereon stood the catapults.

There also arose the structure I had seen from without. It was a huge mirror on a clockwork mounting, so that it followed the course of the sun during the day. In planning his city, Ardyman had slighted the problem of ventilation. To see in their burrows, the Irians had to burn lamps and candles, and to cook they had to burn fuel. The smoke and soot of these fires distressed them, to say nothing of the vitiation of the air. Furthermore, this condition worsened as the city grew and its galleries extended farther and farther into Mount Ir.

At last, an ingenious syndic persuaded the people to install a system of lighting by reflected sunlight. This at least made lamps superfluous on sunny days. The main mirror, mounted atop Ardyman’s Tower, cast the sun’s beams down into the courtyard, whence another mirror reflected them down the main street—Ardyman Avenue—of Ir. Smaller mirrors diverted the rays down side streets and thence into individual dwellings.

###

When I speak of cave dwellings, do not envisage a natural cavern, bedight with stalactites and inhabited by a handful of skin-clad primitives. Ir City had been hewn from the rock by the ablest Novarian masons. Its aspect, save for the roof of rock overhead in place of sky, was not unlike that of any rich city of the Prime Plane.

The house fronts, which reached up to this stone roof, were like other house fronts. The masons had even carved lines on them to simulate the joints between the bricks or stones of ordinary houses. Since the structure was one solid mass of rock, these carvings served no useful purpose save to make the scene look more familiar.

Most of the dwellings of Ir were on the same level as the courtyard of Ardyman’s Tower. There were other levels, above and below the main one, but these had been built after the original. As we wound our way along Ardyman Avenue, through the passing throngs, Noïthen asked: “Were you not once indentured to Maldivius the diviner?”

“Aye, sir. He evoked me from my own plane and later sold my contract to Bagardo the showman.”

“Did Maldivius suffer some grave loss whilst you were with him?”

“That he did, sir. A thief made off with his scrying stone, which he called the Sibylline Sapphire. He blamed me for the loss; hence the change in my indenture.”

“Who took the stone?”

“It was—let me think—Maldivius said the thief was one Farimes, whom he had known erewhile. Why, sir?”

“You’ll find out when you know your new mistress, Madam Roska sar-Blixens.”

“Master Noïthen, have the goodness to explain your system of names and titles. I am but a poor, ignorant demon—”

“She’s the widow of the Syndic Blixens, and now she’s fain to become a Syndic on her own.”

We turned into a sidestreet and stopped before one of the larger edifices. We were admitted by a servant: a small, swarthy, hook-nosed man in the robe and head cloth of Fedirun. Presently we entered my new mistress’ study, where the furnishings were as much superior to those of the chamber in Maldivius’ maze, or in Bagardo’s wagon, as fine wine is to ditch water. Although it was a sunny day and private citizens were not supposed to use artificial light, drawing all their illumination from the great mirror, three candles natheless glowed in a sconce on the wall.

###

Madam Roska sat at her desk, clad in a long robe of some sheer, filmy stuff, through which the natural Roska was plain to see. The sight of a human female in this state fascinates and excites the male, but that is just one of the oddities in the reproductive behavior of this species.

Roska was a tall, slender woman with gray hair, painstakingly done up into a graceful coiffure. She had narrow, refined features of a kind that, I was told, is deemed highly beautiful in Novaria. (I cannot judge such matters myself, since to me all Prime Planers look much alike.) Although well past her youth, she had retained much of her youthful smoothness and regularity of feature.

She smiled at us as the Fediruni ushered us in. “I see you got him, my good Noïthen.”

“Your ladyship,” said Noïthen, sinking to one knee and then rising again.

“Dear Noïthen, so faithful! Do show Master Zdim about my dwelling, present him to the rest of my staff, and explain his position—nay, I’ve changed my mind. Come hither, O Zdim.”

I was flattered at being addressed as “Master,” which title is not usually given to servants in Novaria. I approached.

“Are you in sooth he who served Doctor Maldivius, in his lair near Chemnis?” she asked.

“Aye, madam.”

“Heard you him speak of some danger overhanging Ir?”

“Aye, mistress. He chaffered with the Syndic Jimmon over the price of revealing this peril.”

“And didn’t he sell your indenture in resentment of your allowing Farimes of Hendau to steal his magical gemstone?”

“Aye.”

“Didst ever watch him whilst he scried?”

“As to that, madam, he insisted that I stand guard over him during his divinatory trances. So I am well acquainted with his methods.”

“Ah! We shall see. Let us proceed at once to my oratory and try your knowledge. You may go, Noïthen.”

Noïthen: “If your ladyship consider herself safe alone with this—this—”

“Oh, fear not for me. My little dragon-man is a model of propriety. Come, Zdim.”

The oratory was a small, eight-sided room in a corner of the house, cluttered with magical paraphernalia like that of Maldivius’ sanctum. On a table in the center stood a bowl holding a gem exactly like the Sibylline Sapphire.

“Is that Maldivius’ gem, madam?” I asked.

She giggled. “You’ve guessed it. ’Twas naughty of me to let Noïthen buy it from a notorious purveyor of stolen goods, but the welfare of our land demands that it be in responsible hands. Besides, Maldivius has too many old enemies in Ir City to return hither and sue me. Now tell me just what Maldivius did when he scried!”

“Well, my lady, first he prayed. Then—”

“What prayer said he?”

“The common one to Zevatas—the one that begins: ‘Father Zevatas, king of the gods, architect of the universe, lord of all, may thy name be honored forever . . .”

“Yes, yes, I know. Then what?”

“Then he made a preparation of herbs—”

“Which herbs?”

“I know not all of them; but I think one was basil, from the smell . . .”

Madam Roska got out one of her books of magic and checked through the recipes. Between this book and what I could recall of Maldivius’ procedure, we reconstructed most of the spell that put Maldivius into his trances. At last we could get no further.

“Most naughty of you, Zdim darling, very naughty indeed, not to have watched more closely and remembered better!” she said, patting a yawn. I was taken aback by being addressed as “darling” and wondered if this would be repetition of my embarrassing encounter with Dulnessa the bareback rider. My tendrils, however, failed to detect any lustful emotions, and I soon learnt that this was merely Roska’s usual mode of address. To get along on the Prime Plane, one must realize that human beings do not, half the time, mean what they say. She continued: “But I do weary of this pursuit, and my art calls me. Awad!” The Fediruni appeared, bowing.

“Take Master Zdim away,” said Roska, “and put him to some simple household task until the morrow and whilst I remember—tell Philigor to put him on the payroll at ninepence a day. Thank you.”

As Awad led me away, I asked: “What is Her Ladyship’s art?”

“This year, ’tis painting.”

“What was it whilom?”

“Last year, ’twas making ornamental feather sprays; the year before that, playing the cithern. Next year ’twill be something else, I’ll wager.”

During the next few days, I learnt that Madam Roska was a very talented and energetic woman. She could never, however, adhere to any one course long enough to follow it to its outcome. She could change her mind and her plans oftener than anyone I have known, even among these fickle Prime Planers. Remembering Jimmon’s words, I wondered how so light-minded a person had not only kept but even augmented the estate she had inherited. I suppose that, beneath her superficial volatility, she hid a core of hard-headed shrewdness, or else that she had had a run of astounding luck.

On the other hand, she was always poised, polite, and gracious, even to the meanest of those she commanded. When she had driven them frantic by her sudden changes of plan, and they muttered and growled against her in their quarters, someone was sure to defend her by saying: “After all, she
is
a lady.”

These gatherings of the twenty-odd servants were frequent, since Roska rode her help with a light rein. They were also hotbeds of gossip. I learnt among other things that half the unattached men of the upper classes in Ir City were suitors for Roska’s hand—or at least for the Blixens fortune. Plenty of attached ones, for that matter, would have been glad to shed the wives they had and replace them by Roska. The servants had a pool on who would succeed, but there was no sign yet that any bettor would soon collect the pot.

###

Between us, Roska and I reconstructed Maldivius’ entire spell. We were ready to embark upon this magical work when she said: “Ah, no, darling Zdim; I am suddenly terrified of what I might see. Here, take my place. Canst scry?”

“I know not, madam, never having tried it.”

“Well, try it now. Begin with the prayer to Zevatas.”

“I endeavor to give satisfaction,” I said and settled myself in her chair. I recited the prayer, but without feeling, since the gods of Ning are not those of Novaria. I sniffed the fumes and spake the Mulvanian cantrip:

Jyū zormē barh tigai tyūvu . . .

Sure enough, the flickering lights in the Sapphire began to take form. First came a cloudy confusion of scenes: bits of sky and cloud, land and sea, all mixed up and shifting. One instant, I seemed to be looking down upon the earth from a height, as if I were a bird; the next, it was as if I lay on a meadow, looking out between blades of grass. Then I seemed to be sunken in the sea, where dim, finny forms moved in and out of the blue distance. After a while I learnt to control these effects, so that my viewpoint became fixed.

“What shall I look for?” I said. Speaking while in such a trance is like trying to talk with one’s head wrapped in a blanket.

“The menace that Maldivius said threatens Ir,” she said.

“I heard of this menace, but Maldivius did not reveal its nature.”

“Think, now. Was it that some neighboring nation plans mischief?”

“I heard of no such thing. Are any of these neighbors at enmity with Ir?”

“We are at peace with all, said peace being no uneasier than usual. Tonio of Xylar is unfriendly, being leagued with Govannian against our ally Metouro; but that pot’s on a low simmer for the nonce. Besides, Tonio loses his head within the year—”

“Madam! What has this man done, that you speak so casually of depriving him of his head?”

“ ’Tis the custom in Xylar to cut off the king’s head every five years and toss it up for grabs by way of choosing the next king. But enough of that; back to our menace. Could it be that danger threatens from some more distant land—from Shven beyond the Ellornas, perchance, or Paalua beyond the seas?”

“I remember!” I said. “Bagardo quoted Maldivius as saying that the Paaluans should make his fortune.”

“Then let’s fly—I mean, let your mystic vision fly—to Paalua, to see what those folk are up to.”

“Whither, my lady?”

“Westward.”

My vision in the Sapphire had become blurred during this colloquy, and it took another sniff of the fumes and a repetition of the cantrip to bring it back into focus. I forced my point of view to rise and moved it westward, steering by the sun. My control was still far from perfect; once I blundered into a hill, whereupon all went black until I emerged on the further side.

The hills of Ir fled beneath me, and then the coastal plain and the valley of the Kyamos. I flashed over Chemnis with its ships, out the estuary, and over the broad blue sea.