The Gandalara Cycle I (49 page)

I pretended to search my memory. "Tarra? Torelli?"

“Tarani!" Thymas crowed, the loudness of his voice quite in keeping with the act he was putting on.

One of the guards knocked on the door.

"Yes, that's it," I agreed. "Great show. Wouldn't mind seeing it again. Is she performing in Chizan?"

"Let's go ask her," Thymas urged. "I'm sure she's still down there somewhere, wearing a desert rig with yellow tunic and trousers. With two of us, we ought to find her."

The door had opened a crack. One man was talking into it; the other was saying something now and then out of the corner of his mouth. He was watching us closely.

"Later, maybe," I said. "Right now, I'm more interested in getting my money back from this table."

"Losing, are you? How much have you dropped so far?" The guard lost interest.

"A hundred zaks," I told Thymas, keeping up the act. "Here, why don't you try your luck for a while? Mind if I just watch for a round or two?" I asked the table attendant, who indicated it would be all right. Thymas took the dice, and I tried to watch the door and the table at the same time.

When a man came out of the office and headed for the stairs with one of the guards in tow, I began to breathe again. We had counted on Molik wanting to see for himself.

As the round ended, Thymas gave up his bet with a shrug.

"That's all I can afford to lose," I told the attendant. "See you next trip."

"Health and wisdom to you, sir," the man said.

Thymas and I strolled slowly toward the stairway, idly watching the tables, waiting .. .

Someone in the far corner said: "Why, these mondeana are made of gold!"

"Let me see those," said a voice which had to be an attendant's.

"Fleabite you," came the response. "I'm taking these with me for a souvenir. Some repayment for all I've lost in this filthy place."

"Those are the property of ..."

"Let him have 'em. He's right about this place. Hey are they really gold?"

"Yeah, they just changed ..

"Maybe I'll take some, too ..

It was in character for us to stop to watch the incipient riot. When the door guard, along with the other heavies stationed around the wall of the salon headed toward the trouble. Thymas and I made a dash - to the door and through it.

Thymas flattened himself to the wall on the hinge side of the door. I knelt on the far side of the big desk. Behind me was the door into Molik's living suite.

We waited for five long, tense minutes before the outer door opened. Tarani lurched through it as though she had been pushed from behind. Molik sauntered in. holding Tarani's sword and baldric. He swung the door shut behind him and turned to fasten the bar-and-pin lock.

He froze when he saw Thymas. By then I was behind him. I got one hand over his mouth and the other arm locked around his throat, before he could recover.

"I'm going to let you go, and you're going to talk to us quietly and tell us what we want to know. If you call for help, you'll be dead before it gets here. Understood?"

If he hadn't sensed that I could kill him with my hare hands - Ricardo's combat training, as well as Markasset's wrestling skill - he would have been convinced by the point of Thomas's sword which was pricking his chest. My hand felt the movement as he tried to nod agreement.

I released him slowly, staying ready to grab again if he started to yell. The first thing he said was: "Somebody will die for letting this happen."

He turned around, and I stepped back trying to get a good look at him. He was about my size but slimmer. He had the look of a man who had once been tough, but lately had gone soft - at least, physically. His head fur was a pale brown. His eyes were set deeply, wide apart under jutting supraorbital ridges and his mouth was a thin line, never quite still.

Tarani had called him "presentable." and I approved her choice of words. A smile, a spark of laughter in the eyes - these might have made him handsome. But they weren't there.

Molik looked me over with the same close attention a bird pays a worm.

"Who are you?" he asked. "What do you want to know?"

"We're Tarani's friends," I answered sharply. "We want the location of Volitar, plus instructions from you to free him - with no tricks. And we want to know where Gharlas is.

Molik's gaze shifted to Tarani, who was standing behind me and to my right, leaning against the desk. When he looked at her, there was something in his eyes. It wasn't laughter.

"Volitar is a matter to be settled between the two of us, my love," he said, caressing her with his voice.

"Thymas," I cautioned the boy, as I saw his face darken. "Why have you brought outsiders into our small quarrel?" Molik continued. He had a soft, smooth voice.

"Be glad they are here, Molik," Tarani said. "If I had come alone, I'd have killed you by now, and taken my chances of finding Volitar alive."

"Oh, why so violent, darling?" he asked. His lip corners twitched upward in a mockery of a smile. "We have been ... many beautiful things to one another. Why spoil that memory now?"

Thymas made a choked sound. Molik heard it, and stepped aside so that he could see Thymas as well as me.

"I see this one has enjoyed you," he sneered. "Well, I don't mind having shared you for a while, my dear, now that you've come back . . . to . . . to . . ."

Molik's voice shrank to a whisper, and then faded altogether. His eyes strained open and his mouth began to work frantically. He wasn't trying to talk - he was trying to breathe. He fell to his knees.

"Tarani!" I cried, whirling. She stood in a fighting crouch, her fists and jaw clenched. She was focused entirely upon Molik, who was crawling toward her, lifting a hand in supplication. She backed away, hatred almost tangible in the air around her.

"Stop it, Tarani!" I ordered.

"Let her do it," cried Thymas. "Let her kill the fleason.”

“He hasn't told us anything, yet!" I said.

Tarani had backed up against the connecting door to Molik's apartment and Molik was clawing weakly at her legs. His face had a bluish cast he couldn't last much longer.

I dragged him out of the way, stood in front of Tarani and slapped her hard across the face. Her head snapped aside and I heard a huge, raspy gulping sound from Molik as her concentration broke. Tarani's face came front again and that look of hatred focused on me. I began to feel a constriction in my throat. I grabbed the girl's shoulders and shook her and the pressure at my throat relaxed.

Tarani stared at me, and slowly sanity returned to her dark eyes. She put her hands over her face, sat down in one of the big armchairs, and curled up into a small, shaking ball.

Molik was still on the floor, but he was beginning to breathe almost normally again. I grabbed his fancy tunic near his throat and hauled him up into a chair. Then I knelt beside him so that our eyes were almost level.

“Answers,” I said.

"I don't know," he whispered. He stopped, coughed and started again, speaking in a high strained tone. "I don't know where either of them are."

He saw what I thought of that answer so he hurried on.

"It's the truth, I tell you. When I arranged things with Tarani, two of my men were on their way here with Volitar. They didn't show up on time so I sent out a search group. They found the two men in the Zantro Pass - dead. There was no sign of the old man.”

"Are yon telling me that you don't
have
Volitar any more?" He nodded, swallowing. "He's not in Chizan - I would know if he had made it here.”

"What about Gharlas? Where was he headed?"

“I’d tell you if I knew. That creepy-eyed - I swear I don't know where he is. He left Chizan the day after he paid for Tarani’s job.”

“Did he know Tarani would be involved?”

"Of course not," he said, his voice regaining its smoothness. "My clients pay for results, not methods. In this case, I would accept commissions only for an attempt since the odds were so high against success. What happened anyway?"

"Your killers missed their target, whichever one it was." I said. "Were they after Dharak, or me?"

"I'll ask again: who are you?"

"Rikardon is my name."

Molik's eyes narrowed and he pulled himself into a straighter sitting position. "If I had known it was you Gharlas wanted, I might have charged him less. The reward Worfit is offering for your tusks would have made up the difference nicely."

"Am I the one he wanted?"

"Are you the 'leader of the Sharith'?" Molik retorted. "Those are the words Gharlas used, and I passed them on to Tarani."

So I still don't know which one of us Gharlas wanted dead.

I went over to Tarani. When I touched her shoulder, she jumped slightly, and then uncurled. Her face was calm but strained; her eyes were clear.

"I heard what he said about Volitar," she said.

"Can we believe him?" I asked her.

"I - I don't know, Rikardon."

"Well, can't you . . . uh, reach into his mind, and find out whether he's telling the truth?"

"That's preposterous," she said flatly. "What made you think I could do that?"

"Oh - just a guess."

Maybe Tarani's power wasn't as much like Gharlas's as we had thought. The idea was oddly comforting.

Tarani stood up and followed me over to Molik. He flinched back from her, but the gleam of lust was even stronger in his eyes.

Thymas saw it, too. He lifted his sword.

"Thymas wait," I said. The sword stopped, ready for a cross-cut that would slice through Molik's neck.

The roguelord looked fully into Thymas's face, and saw his death there.

"Have you told us the truth, Molik?" I asked.

"Yes. I swear it's the truth."

"Then we don't need him anymore," Thymas growled.

"We don't need to kill him, either," I said. "You know the plan - knock him out so that we can get away from Chizan.”

“And you know I never liked that plan," Thymas retorted.

"He can send word to Dyskornis to stop us."

"Molik," I said, and the frightened eyes turned to me. "Will you guarantee to leave us - and Volitar - alone, in exchange for your life? Will you stop harassing Tarani?"

"Yes. Anything."

"You expect a roguelord to keep his word?" Thymas asked. He lifted the sword slightly.

“He will keep it," Tarani said softly. “I know him that well. And our association is over now. Forever, isn’t that right, Molik...?”

The fear faded from Molik's eyes, and was replaced with something new as he looked at Tarani. Tenderness.

"I regret it," he said. “But I do accept it. Goodbye, Tarani.”

“This fleason has come between us!" Thymas exploded at the girl. "You told me you hated him. You wanted him dead. Prove it now. Say to kill him, and I'll do it. Say Molik's death," he challenged her. "For us, Tarani.”

“Rikardon ...” Tarani said uncertainly.

Years of hating him, and hating what she did for him.
I thought myself.”

“I’ll step aside’” I said to Tarani, “The decision is yours."

There was a full minute of silence. Molik seemed frozen in his chair, his gaze locked to the girl's face. Then Tarani said: "Let him live."

Molik slumped back.

Thymas let out an angry roar . . . and swung his sword. Molik's headless trunk slid down into the blood-soaked chair.

I grabbed Thymas's sword wrist and squeezed until I felt the bones grinding together. The sword fell to the carpeted floor. Then I buried both my hands in the boy's tunic and shoved him hard against the wall.

"If you weren't Dharak's son, I'd tie you to that corpse and leave you for the Living Death to find. Now, we are going to continue with the plan as scheduled. After we're safely out of Chizan we'll ride for Inid and see if we can trace Volitar from there. And if you so much as blink when I've told you not to, I'll cut off your ears and feed them to you. Got that?"

Thymas swallowed, and nodded.

I looked over my shoulder at Tarani, who had one hand pressed over her mouth. She looked ready to go into shock. "Do you know where Molik keeps his cash?" I asked. She nodded numbly. "We'll need some traveling money."

She went over to a corner of the room and began to fiddle with the stones in a section of the wall.

I turned hack to Thymas. "Tell Ronar to come to the outskirts of the city, grab the first vlek or glith he sees, and eat it. We'll meet the sha'um an hour or so out, toward the Zantro Pass."

I let Thymas go as Tarani came up with a small, heavy, brass chest. We took a handful of coins each.

"Are you all right?" I asked Tarani. "Can you manage the illusions?"

"Yes. Let's please . . ."

I wanted out of that blood-stinking room, myself. I opened the door and called in both the guards. They saw me, and heard me, as Molik - until they lay unconscious on the floor. Then Thymas, Tarani, and I walked out of Molik's office.

Everyone in the salon saw Molik, the girl he had taken to his office a few minutes earlier, and one of the guards. We even got a salute from the Living Death beside the stairway. On the first floor, I ordered two men to watch Molik's door, saying that I had assigned the others elsewhere.

It wouldn't be too long before they got to wondering why Molik had gone out during his habitual sleeping hours. But it was the best we could do, and we had to hope for an hour's grace, at least.

Outside, it was growing light. As soon as we were out of range of the gaming house, Tarani let the illusions fade, and we scattered, each of us to find water and food for ourselves. In our room, half an hour later, we packed our supplies, and then checked out of the inn.

Less than two hours after we'd left Molik's office, Tarani and I was astride Keeshah, riding beside Thymas toward the Zantro Pass. I was glad enough that the boy hadn't spoken a word to either one of us; I was still seething over Molik's death. I didn't want to think of the chaos Chizan would be in a few hours.

Tarani's hands rested on my shoulders. Every now and then, they tightened for a few seconds, then let go.

She didn't want him dead,
I thought.
But he's gone, now, for good. His memory can't hurt her any more, unless she lets it.