Istu Awakened

by Robert E Vardeman;Victor Milan

  'Do you have to do that?' Moriana demanded, striding to and fro nervously. 'We've come here to ask for money.'

  'We've come here to demand money, against the Emperor's note,' Fost corrected. He popped another grayish berry into his mouth, sucked cool juice down his throat, chewed the skin and swallowed. 'Besides, you're doing more damage to the place than I am. You're wearing a hole in the carpet.'

  The clerk, sexless in a long brown toga, gave Fost another venomous look and went back to scratching entries in a leather-bound ledger spread across the desktop.

  'You musn't worry, Moriana,' said Ziore. 'Certainly there will be no trouble with the bank honoring Teom's draft.'

  Fost looked thoughtful but said nothing.

  'Remember the good fortune I had the last time I dealt with the bankers of Tolviroth?' Moriana said, her words edged in irony.

  'But you didn't visit this particular institution on your last trip.'

  'That's why I chose it this time. I'm leery of dealing with people who turned me down once before.'

  A squarely built woman of medium height appeared in the painted stucco archway. Her eyes roved over the room, hardly stopping on any of the peopie there, as if she considered all beneath her notice. She turned, as if to leave, then hesitated. Her gaze stopped on Moriana. No hint of emotion tainted her calm face.

  'Princess Moriana?' she inquired in a courteous but cool voice.

  'Yes,' said Moriana. 'Freewoman Pergann?' Fost smiled in approval at her remembering Tolvirot protocol by choosing the proper form of address. The bankers were touchy about such matters. Protocol meant as much to them as did the proper pomp and ceremony to the chamberlains tending the patricians in High Medurim.

  The woman showed even teeth and her manner chilled even more, if possible.

  'A Freewoman Pergann. I'm one of the Daughters of Pergann.' She swept the small group again with a gaze that revealed nothing. Fost vowed never to get into a game of cards with her. He had the feeling Pergann knew everything about him after a single glance while he could never begin to fathom her depths. 'If you would be so kind as to step into my office.'

  Fost lifted his feet from the table, trying not to call attention to himself. The woman wore a severely cut ice-blue tunic with balloon trousers tucked into the tops of low, soft boots. This wasn't the garb he'd come to expect from bankers, nor was her attitude. She lacked the usual supercilious manner of other Tolvirot bankers and even approached glacial coldness toward them. Since he had not been excluded from the invitation, he picked up Erimenes's jug and followed the woman and Moriana, who had scooped Ziore's jar into her arms.

  Freewoman Pergann seemed no more nonplussed to have the odd assembly of mortals and ghosts facing her across her own desk than she had been to discover them in her anteroom. The desk itself was plain, dark anhak wood, of more modest dimensions than the androgyne secretary's in the waiting room. With his usual tact, Erimenes pointed this out before anyone else had a chance to speak.

  'Ostentation,' answered Pergann, with a thin smile, 'is fine out front to impress the customers, or so Mother believes. The company is still hers. I work here and see no need for extravagant display.' She pinned Fost with her cool eyes. He felt like a bug being placed in an exhibit, but without the passion normally the domain of avid collectors. 'Usually folk are somewhat impressed by the lavishness of the waiting room's decor, if not its attention to dictates of taste. But then, most of our clientele falls between the extremes of those too wealthy and those too barbaric to possess taste.'

  Fost flushed at the implied insult and studied the wooden carvings on the wall that were the cubicle's sole decoration. They were Jorean, portraying the equinoctial devotions to the goddess Jirre. They were old, stained by time and Tolviroth's humid climate. Fost glanced down at Erimenes's jug, hoping the genie hadn't noticed the subject matter of those carvings. For a staid banking office, they were quite risque. But the spirit gave no attention to mere bric-a-brac.

  'About the Emperor's draft, Freewoman,' urged Moriana.

  The woman's mouth set into a thin line. At first glimpse, Fost took it for intransigence, but soon realized that the woman was reluctant to say what was on her mind.

  'I can see no profit in being circumspect in this matter, Your Highness,' she said finally, 'though it gives me no great pleasure to tell you this. The cheque is worthless. There's no money in the Imperial account to cover it.'

  'None?' Moriana blinked rapidly. 'But that's impossible!'

  'With all due respect, Your Highness, it does not speak well of your knowledge of Imperial fiscal policy that you find the penury of Emperor Teom's account so startling. A nation that will cast clay slugs, fire them in a kiln, cover them with pewter wash and call that coinage is capable of anything from a financial viewpoint, anything save responsibility.' She spoke of the Imperial Treasury's latest seigniorage scheme in the same tone one might use to speak of someone who enjoyed eating dog excrement for breakfast.

  Realizing she might have been harsher on Moriana than intended, she softened her tone and said, 'Let me explain about money. Economics has few laws. One is that devalued money will soon replace more valuable coin. No one continues to use a one klenor piece of silver when the Imperial pewter klenor buys the same amount of goods.' Pergann leaned back and said, smiling, 'It does speak well of your own fiscal attitudes that you find the Empire's doings so hard to grasp.'

  'I ... I still find it hard to believe there's no money in the Imperial accounts. You're sure? There's nothing?'

  Pergann's eyes and face hardened slightly.

  'I would not be a responsible banker if I made inaccurate reports to my clients,' she said primly. 'Your friend there with the big boots is smiling. You're from Medurim, sir? Or know about it?'

  'I was born there,' admitted Fost.

  'I might have guessed.'

  He wasn't sure how to take that. He reached out and gripped Moriana's hand firmly in his.

  'Don't be upset,' he told her. 'We're not penniless - at least you're not. You're Queen of the Sky City. That withered old goat Omsgib will have to open the Sky City accounts to you.' Realizing the unflattering description of one of Pergann's fellow bankers, he added, 'Uh, sorry, Freewoman.'

  'No pardon needed,' she said gravely. 'I see that for all your roughness of manner and need to elevate your feet, you are an astute judge of character.'

  Moriana rose, saying, 'We won't take up any more of your time, Freewoman. Thank you for seeing us.'

  'You're quite welcome. I hope we can have dealings in the future, dealings of a more mutually productive nature.'

  Fost stood, too, paused uncertainly, stuck out his hand to the banker. She shook it with strong, dry fingers. Then she came around the desk to hold open the door for him and Moriana.

  'Great Ultimate!' Erimenes yelped as Fost passed through. 'Have you seen what they're doing on that hanging?'

  Ostentation at the House of Omsgib-Bir went more than skin deep. Tulmen Omsgib faced his motley visitors across several acres of desk, nodded judiciously, and popped a jellied sweet into his mouth. His thin beard, long face, high-bridged nose and big, sad eyes made him look like a goat, an effect accentuated by the unconscious nodding of his head up and down as he chewed.

  'It is a pleasure to see you again so soon, Your Highness,' he said in a voice so oily it might have been poured from a bottle.

  'Let's not mince words, Omsgib,' snapped Moriana. 'You never expected to see me again when you sent me penniless from your door. You were so smugly sure my sister would win. And did you think she might reward you for failing to release the City's funds to me, the rightful ruler?' She laughed, a harsh, strident sound. 'I'm sure Synalon would have rewarded you amply. But in a coin other than you expected.'

  His goat eyes took on a look of abject pain. Fost, who knew the banker by sight and reputation but had never seen him up close, halfway expected to see a goat's bar-shaped pupils peering forth.

  'I'm sorry Your Highness fails to appreciate my
discretion. Mine is a fiduciary trust; the welfare of my accounts is in my hands.' He held up brown claws dabbed with cornstarch powder to hide the age spots covering them. 'When you have acquired more of the mellowing and maturity that aging brings, you will understand that my caution was motivated by sincere concern for your best interests. I not only look after my client's account, I attempt wholeheartedly to take the welfare of that client into account, too.' He smiled at his small play on words.

  Moriana looked as if she were about to spit on the deeply woven purple carpet. Dolefully, the banker ate another sweet. Fost shifted on the uncomfortable velvet upholstered stool a servitor had brought, and wished it had been Omsgib's table he'd rested his boots on. However, no sooner had they entered the elaborately graven portals of the House of Omsgib-Bir than they were ushered in to see the master himself, after first being courteously but firmly relieved of their weapons. Evidently, news of Moriana's victory in the Sky City, no matter how shortlived, had reached Omsgib's ears. Or maybe the goatlike gleam that came into his eyes whenever they fell on the swell of her breasts accounted for the solicitousness with which he'd greeted her.

  'I don't see any need for further discussion,' Moriana said stonily, marking the direction of the banker's gaze. 'I am the Queen of the City in the Sky. I want the funds held in the City's accounts released to me. And I want them now. Any excuse for not releasing them I suggest you save for a court of arbitration.'

  He looked aggrieved and tossed three more candies into his mouth, one after the other.

  'I do wish you'd not take that attitude, Highness.'

  'So you are going to try to weasel out!' She half-rose. Fost expected to see smoke rising from the roots of her hair, as had happened with Synalon when she was murderously angry.

  Omsgib flung up his hands, as if to protect himself.

  'No, no!' he bleated. 'I mean - well, that is . . .'

  'Yes,' Moriana finished for him. She permitted Fost to take her arm and draw her back into her chair.

  'I believe . . .' started Omsgib, then his voice cracked. He ran a thick, pale worm of a tongue over bloodless lips. He sipped hurriedly from a silver goblet of wine at his elbow and cleared his throat. Seeing that he was in no real physical danger, his composure settled over him once again like a thick, greasy blanket. A small smile curled the corners of his mouth and his eyes regained their luster.

  'I believe, Your Highness,' the banker started again, 'that on your last visit I pointed out that, from my standpoint as administrator of the Sky City's accounts, actual possession of the City accounted for more than legal niceties. A cruel fact, but a fact nonetheless, and as a responsible banker I must deal solely in facts.

  'And the fact is, you are an exile, and therefore not properly Queen of the City in the Sky, any more now than before.'

  Her eyes glowed wrathfully beneath scowling brows. Her fingers tensed into fists, then uncurled again. The princess forced herself to take several deep breaths before speaking.

  'That's as it may be. But there's no denying I'm the sole surviving heir of the royal family of the Sky City. On that basis you cannot deny me access to the funds.'

  He placed his palms together like a mendicant goat. His expression told that he was beginning to enjoy this exchange of verbal sword thrusts and thought he had the winning blade.

  'I could not deny you access to the funds,' he agreed sanctimoniously, 'were that the case.'

  'Were that the case?' demanded Moriana, her face darkening with an inrush of angry blood.

  'That you were the sole surviving heir.'

  She lunged to her feet with such speed that her chair fell over and its back cracked on the floor. Her hands tightened into hard fists and she leaned forward onto the desk. Omsgib cowered back, even though she was a full desk's width distant.

  'What nonsense is this?' she cried.

  Fost had to admire the way the banker recovered to face the raging princess.

  'What I mean,' Omsgib said, satisfaction in his oily voice, 'is that you are the second party in two days to come forward claiming to be sole and rightful heir to the City.'

  'Who's the damned impostor?' Had her arms been long enough, Fost thought she would have reached across the desk to choke an answer from the banker.

  'No impostor at all, or so I believe. She's a quite striking young lady, who goes to no pains to conceal her considerable personal beauty.' He looked meaningfully at Moriana's businesslike garb of tunic and trousers and boots. 'She's tall, like yourself, and as inclined to be overbearing. Her hair is as black as the soul of Darkness, if I may wax poetic. Her name . . .' He drummed thin fingers on the desktop while he studied the ceiling with one eye, the other closed. Moriana quivered with need to hear the name.

  'Ah! I have it now,' said Omsgib, donning a crudely counterfeited expression of recollection. 'Her name is Synalon Etuul.'

  Squinting in the bright sunlight cascading in through the translucent skylight, Fost peered into faces he had only expected to see again in a nightmare.

  'You're looking well, Long-strider,' said Prince Rann Etuul, giving the peculiar Sky City inflection to Fost's Nevrym-given surname. 'You should thank whoever broke your nose like that. It gives you an impressively rakish air.'

  'It was one of your damned lizard friends.'

  'Indeed?' Rann replied, one slim eyebrow arching. 'I had no "lizard friends." If by chance you refer to one of the Zr'gsz, I might remind you it was your comrade Moriana who enlisted the Fallen Ones as friends.' He smiled, showing a hint of fine, white tooth. 'If that's the case, I sympathize. I narrowly escaped death from one of the reptile folk myself.'

  Fost looked down at the tabletop, cursing himself for letting fear-spawned anger speak for him. Even in the most secure room of the most prestigious negotiation and intermediary firm in Tolviroth Acerte, with the company's armed guards standing by in case one of the parties attacked the other, Rann jockeyed for advantage. And letting emotion run away with him, Fost knew, gave Rann considerable advantage.

  'We both made our pacts with the Dark Ones, sister dear,' said Synalon from where she lazily sprawled at Rann's side. 'And they both proved worthless. Let's leave the past and see what the future provides, shall we?'

  For the first time since the Safesure Intermediary Company guards had escorted her into the room, color came to Moriana's face.

  'I made no pact with the Dark Ones!' she flared.

  'You bargained with Their chosen,' the dark haired woman pointed out. 'Surely, you didn't think that the Fallen Ones would do anything contrary to the interests of their masters?' It was Moriana's turn to avert her eyes and berate herself for giving advantage to a foe. She had thought exactly that, and she did not need the studied irony in Synalon's voice to tell her how foolish that thought had been.

  Fost took a drink from the cup of wine at his elbow. One of the attendants, swaddled in white scale armor, looked to his sergeant, who nodded, and then stepped forth to refill the cup. The cup was of thin beaten silver, not for purpose of decoration but because a heavier one might be used as a bludgeon. Even one of ceramic might be broken to provide a sharp-edged, makeshift knife. Silver was too soft to hold an edge, and the flimsy cup would simply collapse if used to strike someone. The wine itself was scientifically diluted and its serving carefully overseen to produce a calming effect. Safesure took its responsibilities seriously, which was why Captain Arindin had recommended them so highly for this ticklish reunion. It was fortunate that the rival royal parties had encountered each other in Tolviroth Acerte, where secure neutral meeting ground could be had for a suitable price. Armed guards remained in the room with them; Wirixer mages were stationed outside, in case magic was called for. Fost tried to imagine dealing with Synalon and Rann in the common room of some country inn and found it too unsettling to ponder long.

  Even in spite of the precautions, the safety of all concerned was beyond the company's ability to guarantee. Even though the Wirixer mages had been assembled, Fost knew all too well that
if the sisters began tossing occult lethality about there was no way anyone in the world could stop it.

  The silence in the room grew dry and scratchy with age. Fost cleared his throat.

  'Excuse me for asking such a silly question,' he said, quailing inwardly at the quick blue light of anger blazing in Synalon's eyes, 'but why aren't you dead?'

  She laughed. Her breasts shook vigorously to the full-throated merriment, threatening to break free of the inadequate restraint of her lacebird silk bodice.

  'Ah, you poor, trusting fools. Moriana, you actually thought I'd step to my death in a fit of pique over a little setback?'

  'As far as I could tell, you did,' said Moriana with an evenness of tone that amazed Fost.

  'Yes, beloved sibling, I did. And before even I stepped from the window, I sent a mental call out for my dear eagle Nightwind. I hardly had the chance to enjoy the feel of falling free when he was between my legs and carrying me safely away.'

  'And you, Rann?' piped up Erimenes, fidgeting at being excluded from the conversation. His and Ziore's jugs had posed a problem for the guards. Since there was nothing visible in either jar, and since the two most potent sorceresses were to be in the same room together anyway, it was decided a couple of genies made little difference. 'How do you come to be sitting here, looking so hale and hardy? I thought Khirshagk's spear brought you down.'

  'It brought my eagle down, may he who cast that damned spear writhe in hellfire!'

  Erimenes paled before the force of the prince's passion. The fury passed from Rann's tawny eyes and he relaxed.

  'But Terror was the greatest of a great breed. The war eagles of the City are trained to preserve their rider's life at all costs. And though his every wingbeat added to his agony, Terror controlled our descent until he could set me safely on a hilltop. Then he died.'