Two-Bit Heroes

by Doris Egan

  "Well, what would be the point? You're still a novice, you couldn't help that much with the calcs, and you had a higher profile with the band. If you'd kept going off somewhere to scribble figures, you'd've been missed—"

  "That's not the point!"

  Something in my voice must have made an impression on him. "Uh, well, I…"

  The full enormity of the task was still sinking in. "Great gods, it must have taken you weeks. And without a Net terminal!"

  "Months," he said smugly. "I could only work on it a few minutes at a time. It was hell trying to hold it together mentally."

  "You must have started almost as soon as we got here."

  "Well, of course—hey, stop it! That arm's still sore! What's the matter with you tonight?"

  "You've been working on this for months and you didn't tell me? Why do you always have to be this way? What is this terminal, paranoid, keep-it-to-yourself silence—"

  I was standing there ranting when I saw that Ran (an appalled look on his face) had gone to his knees, and from that supplicant's position he took my hands and spoke. "Theodora, my dearest love and, uh, most trusted companion. Please yell at me later. I will try to improve my habits. But I feel compelled to point out that we need to be as far away as possible by dawn."

  Of course, we both knew he was squirming out of it, but it's still very difficult to yell at somebody who's on his knees calling you his dearest love and most trusted companion. "Oh, get up. Your pants must be a mess from all this wet grass."

  He got up, cautiously. "So we're going to Kynogin?"

  "Well, apparently. You're the first in Cormallon, you outrank me. I'm just here to follow orders."

  "Right," he said, rubbing his arm, "of course. You're not going to hit me again, are you?"

  "Probably not tonight."

  It was still night when we reached the market town. Sabba-moon was halfway up the sky, and Jekka was low. Most of the tents and cabins were quiet, but noise came from the larger stone and wood building in the center of town.

  "The wineshops here never really close," said Ran. "There'll be food, shelter, and with any luck, information."

  We entered a warm, yellow-lit room with a stone hearth and a crackling fire. I looked at Ran and we both grinned. It had been a long walk. There were benches and tables,

  as well as a surprisingly ornate bar, but the place was two-thirds empty.

  We headed for the bar. There was a very old, very tiny woman in blue trousers leaning against it, with an enormous mug of ale in front of her. The bartender stood at the other end, wiping clean some winebowls. He wore a white apron with bloodstains on it; being a Sector establishment, there was probably an abattoir in the back. He glanced our way.

  "A jug of Fortune Red, if you've got it," said Ran.

  I murmured, "I'm impressed. I didn't think you'd ever heard of anything but Ducort vintages."

  Ran smiled at the bartender as he approached, ignoring my remark. A jug and two earthenware bowls were put in front of us, the seal broken and the stopper removed.

  Suddenly the very old woman down the bar spoke. "To what do I attribute my longevity," she said.

  "I beg your pardon?" said Ran.

  "Ask me," she said, "to what I attribute my longevity."

  Ran blinked. I said, "Gracious lady, to what do you attribute your longevity?"

  "A mug of ale every day at noon, and another every evening. Nothing like it to keep the system functioning. And never, never, never drinking jugged red wine." She met my eyes suddenly. "You wouldn't believe the things they put in the vats to get it that color."

  I saw Ran peering down at his bowl.

  I said, "A lot of people drink it."

  "A lot of people die like rats," she announced, tilting back her mug. She wiped her lips with her spotted hands. "Ask me how old I am."

  "I really don't think," began Ran.

  "Ask me how old I am!"

  "How old are you?" he asked.

  "Ninety-eight," she said firmly. She added, "I haven't had my own teeth in three decades."

  Clearly this was more information than Ran needed to know, but I was fascinated. When somebody like this says "ninety-eight," they mean in Ivoran years, which made it even more impressive. In fact, considering the lack of high-level medical care in the provinces, it was a downright sta-

  tistical anomaly. I said, "Are the rest of your family so long-lived?"

  "My father died at fifty. Wouldn't drink the ale. My mother refused to pass on, though—still sitting round the table when she was a hundred. Like somebody who won't take a hint that the party's over."

  "Really. Did you—"

  Ran took hold of my elbow. "Theodora, is this the time?"

  I said, "Gracious lady, I don't suppose you'd know the best way of getting some transportation. We'd prefer a groundcar, but we'll take mounts if that's all that's available."

  She snorted. "Won't find neither one, I'll save you the trouble of looking. People who have 'em want to keep 'em."

  "We can pay—"

  "Not enough to take a person's livelihood away. Where are you from, anyway?"

  When I hesitated she added, "Why not take a job with a convoy to get where you're going? From your accent, I'd say you're meaning to aim south. Convoys through here all the time, heading for Shaskala mostly. Ask Grandin."

  She nodded toward the bartender. He looked up, hearing his name.

  Ran said, "You'd know about convoys?"

  "If you'd read the notices on the walls you'd know about them, too," said Grandin. I followed his glance to the poster over one of the tables; it seemed to be a hiring notice. "Convoy-master's upstairs," he said. "I know he's a few people short. If you line up with the others in the morning, he'll probably take you on."

  Ran looked wary. "It's not a tah convoy, is it?"

  "Wine, stranger—Fortune Red, from above Ordralake. Just your speed. Although you're a little old for them, uncle, they like workers who can move heavy crates. And your friend's a little small."

  "Old?" came the disbelieving protest from the ale-woman. "He's fresh as a new-minted coin, a sweetrose still budding. If I were a century younger, I'd wed him myself. By the Wheel, Grandin, you don't only serve the most overpriced drinks on the Plateau, you're blind as a ground-hermit's chick."

  "Wheel of illusion yourself, grandmother," muttered the bartender, as he turned away.

  She muttered right back, addressing her empty mug. "I haven't deceived myself since I was twenty-two and married my second cousin. I ought to know a good-looking youngster when I see one. And his face is all over town, even if I can't read what it says."

  The bartender, who'd only caught about half of that, yelled from the other end, "Anyone not yet on his funeral pyre looks young to you!"

  Ran interrupted. I saw that he was wiping his palms on the side of his trousers. "Could we take a room for the night, and have you call us when the convoy-master rises?"

  The old woman made a nasty-funny face, like a schoolgirl, and walked out of the winehouse.

  "This isn't the city, uncle, we've only got about three rooms up there altogether, and two of them are occupied. You'll have to take mine."

  Ran said, "We'll take what we can get. My niece here is tired."

  "Your niece looks about as much like you as I look like my left boot. But if you want to pay for a room, who am I to complain? Just leave the furniture intact." He felt around under the bar, and I heard a jingle of keys. "You want to bring any food or drink up?"

  "Our thanks, but we just want to sleep for a couple of hours."

  He led us up the stairs. There was a clatter on the landing above, and a young man appeared. His legs were bare and he looked chilly, with only a long white dress shirt with a stiff collar, and a belt and holster he was buckling as he spoke. "What goes on here, Grandin? The Steward just sent me out to get hold of you. Who the hell is that crone in the street outside? She just threw a stone at our window, and when we looked out she pulled back her lips
and waggled her tongue."

  "I'm very sorry, sir."

  "One of your many relatives? I'll tell you right now, it's not the kind of thing the Atvalids are used to. The Steward was taken aback, to say the least."

  The bartender had gone all cold and formal. "I regret that my establishment is the best that Kynogin can offer—"

  "I know, I know. It wasn't my idea to come, Grandin. I'd as soon be in bed in Shaskala, on a finer mattress than it will ever be your privilege to know, from what I've seen of your offerings tonight."

  "I would have thought you'd prefer to be encamped with your regiment over the hill, noble sir."

  "That isn't funny, Grandin." He finished working his belt buckle and sighed. "Well, I suppose the excitement's over. Just try to keep the less sane elements out of the way, could you?" He peered down the steps at Ran and me in a polite, nearsighted way. It was rather dark on the stairway. "Not more of your relatives."

  "Guests for the night, sir, like your own party."

  "Oh? Well, no offense meant, gracious sir and lady. —She won't come back and throw more rocks, will she, Grandin?"

  "It's unlikely, sir."

  "Uh-huh. Well, I'll see you in the morning." He bowed to us and started unbuckling the belt all over again as he walked away. His gold militia officer's collar was crooked.

  Now we knew who was in the third room.

  Ran had had two shocks one after the other. It was bad enough that an old provincial woman in shabby trousers could see right through his projected illusion, but now we were lying on a cot just a wall's thickness away from Vere Atvalid, Steward of the Province, the man whose professional aim was the destruction of Stereth Tar'krim.

  We talked in whispers. "I can't believe this had to happen to us," I said. "I've only been to Kynogin twice in my life, and each time I run into the Atvalids."

  "It's not that strange. This is the biggest market town in the Sector, and this building is the most likely place to put up the Steward." It was an odd sensation, lying there in the arms of my middle-aged farmer, my cheek against his scratchy wool jacket.

  "Maybe I really am bad luck for you, Ran."

  "No," he said distantly, "luck doesn't work that way. I'm a sorcerer and I know." He kissed my forehead, his mind elsewhere. I wondered for a moment what it was like to have a father. "And if it did, it wouldn't matter."

  "You're not even thinking about the Steward."

  "No. I'm thinking about the old woman."

  I can't say I got any rest. Cloudy dawn light crept into the room an hour or so later. Ran was asleep, damn him. I shook him gently. His eyes opened and met mine, and it was one of those moments when you feel closer to another soul than you ever expected to be. I said, uncomfortably, "We want to get hold of this convoy-master early."

  "Yes." He got up and pulled the door handle very quietly. He was still wearing his boots. I'd taken mine off to avoid dirtying the innkeeper's bedsheets; but months of servitude in the wilderness or not, I don't think the idea ever entered Ran's head. If it had, he would have removed them as well. You see, it wasn't that he was inconsiderate.

  The hall was empty. Blessed, blue-ribbon snoring came from the room next door. We padded downstairs to find a barroom that was dingy and used-looking under the burden of daylight. Grandin was still awake. He ignored us. A tired drunk lay against a table, the sole patron present. Ran turned to me. "You may as well get a little more sleep. I'll wait down here for the convoy-master and sign us both up as soon as he comes down."

  "I'm not tired. Well, yes, I'm tired, but I don't think I could sleep."

  "Then lay and rest. Who knows when you'll next get the chance." His voice was cynical, depressed, the voice of a man who was not expecting a happy ending. The voice, in fact, of a man without any expectations at all. I didn't know how much of that came from an evaluation of our plight and how much from the surroundings.

  "You'll wake me, if I fall asleep."

  "I'll wake you. Relax, Theodora, look around you. You won't miss anything."

  So I went back to our room and stripped off my boots again.

  Suddenly the room was lighter; I must have fallen asleep after all. Ran wasn't back yet. My head was fuzzy and it took me a moment to become aware of the sounds out in the hall. The people next door were coming out—that must have been what woke me.

  I saw my ghost in a small pane of window-glass across

  the room: Small-looking, washed out, face puffy from sleep; a half-familiar, half-alien reflection. Just right for a half-familiar, half-alien planet. Such a lot of trouble it is to be an organic consciousness—you have to feed your body and dole out hours of unconsciousness to it and cater to its tiredness and crankiness, all to support the few seconds of friendship and courage and beauty that can be pulled from the fabric of horror known as daily life. Really, I should just sit here and dive into some meditative pool of inertia—

  Footsteps quickened in the hallway. I ran my fingers through my hair and jabbed my feet into the boots and got myself to the door. I pulled out a scarf and tied it around my head to hide my barbarian hair.

  "But Guardian sir, I had no idea you knew the woman," came the voice of the young officer from last night. It was clear whom he was addressing. The Steward is the "Guardian of the Province"; if he'd been nobly born, it would have been "lord Guardian," instead.

  "I met her once," returned a young, sour voice. "That doesn't mean I want her tossing stones against my window all night. I didn't want her irritated, though, either—she's clearly unstable."

  "She's a crazy old lady, is what she is, with all respect—do you want me to bring down the waterbags now, sir, or should we wait? I don't trust that landlord to do a proper job."

  There was a sound of belongings being moved. The door was shut and there was a jangle of keys. The innkeeper hadn't offered us any keys. I supposed we were lucky not to have been put in the back with the slabs of meat and the kegs of plateau beer—

  "No good ever comes of hiring civilians, sir. Especially not crazy provincial civilians who say they're past a century old—" The voice grunted and shifted some bags. Evidently these two were on familiar terms, in spite of their differences of rank. But then, the Atvalid boy was new to his position, wasn't he? Probably new to public life entirely, from what Sembet Triol let drop.

  "She's a kyrif," said the Steward peevishly, "from a family of kyrifs. What do you expect, normalcy?"

  I froze.

  He went on, "If she says she'll strip the place at two

  hours after dawn… well, we'll have to hope she'll strip it

  between sun-up and mid-afternoon. What more can we

  do?"

  "We could send some more bands out to the farms."

  "To do what, take tah with them? We've hit every farm

  between here and Shaskala, and half the western ones, too.

  Face it, they like Stereth Tar'krim. They don't like us." The voices faded as they went down the stairs. "I guess

  we'll have time for breakfast, anyway," I heard the officer

  say. I stepped out into the hall, closed my door and leaned

  against it. Kyrifs?

  Back when I was collecting Ivoran legends for that doctorate I never quite got, I heard about kyrifs. The story ends:

  "Face west and fading sun. Close your eyes. Strip away the people from the hills and the roads. When the world is empty, strip away the buildings, the farms, the wells, the domestic animals. When they are gone, strip away the groundhermits, the hawks, the nighthunters, the insects, all life but the sound of your own heart. When you know the world is empty but for the sound of the wind running over the grass, open your eyes."

  The farmboy, who was the first kyrif followed the advice of the dragon. When he opened his eyes, he saw the farm, the hills, and the village beyond, as busy as ever; but there was no sorcery left anywhere. Thus did he strike back at his enemy, the sorcerer, who was now defenseless against his victims.

  There was no sorcery in the wo
rld until that kyrif died.

  When I first heard the story, I thought, they probably killed him young. There were a lot of people around who depended on magic, and Ivoran tales are full of revenge at a high price. Did kyrifs really exist? The Steward thought so. Still, history is rife with people in high office who fell for superstition. But then, the Steward and his officer were both so matter-of-fact about it, and that jaded take-it-for-granted attitude was the hallmark of real Ivoran sorcery.

  She was going to "strip the place" at two hours after

  dawn. Ran had been right, Cantry's illusion in the crossroads had come back to haunt him: The powers-that-be knew that a sorcerer was involved. Did the Steward imagine that the market towns were full of bandits, coming and going freely under a cloud of illusion? How far had his paranoia gone? Not fair to the Atvalids, I suppose; it was a reasonable assumption that people with prices on their heads would make use of illusory identities if they could. But we weren't the great force in the villages that they seemed to think. Hell, we only came in by ones and twos, just long enough to trade and leave. In fact—

  In fact, the only false identity down there right now was Ran.

  I hit the stairs.

  Below it was a peaceful sight: A few people at the tables downing some fine-looking eggs and foul-looking chocolate; an immense decorated tah pot on the bar; Ran in his farmer guise, standing with a knot of hopefuls by the far wall, where a notice said to wait for the convoy-master… and eight militiamen, eight—I counted—standing about looking awkward, attending on the pleasure of their superiors. The Steward and his personal officer took seats at a table and ordered breakfast. Ran threw me a helpless glance and stayed where he was.

  Should I go and join him? What was happening? Was anything happening?

  The danger of acting warred with the danger of not acting. I wouldn't attract special notice with this scarf round my head, but I was still clearly a barbarian to anybody who cared to look closely. Maybe I shouldn't call attention to Ran by going over and whispering to him, badly though I wanted his technical expertise.

  The old woman from last night walked in. She spotted the Steward at his table, spooning a bowl of lumpy meal, and sauntered over with the walk of a promiscuous eighteen-year-old. "Well-met, Sonny," she said as she straddled the bench and lowered herself down to join him. The Steward winced very slightly.