The Song of Phaid the Gambler

by Mick Farren

  This time it was Edelline-Lan. She was wearing a loose, off-white wrap and there was a drink in her hand. Without make-up, she looked a trifle worn. Her face was puffy, with dark circles around her eyes. There was, however, a certain heavy lidded smugness about her. She yawned and then grinned at Phaid.

  'How are you this morning?'

  He grinned back.

  'I feel great.'

  'So you should. Did you remember that we promised to watch the wind games from Roni-Vows' roof?'

  'I must confess that I'd forgotten.'

  'You ought to go. You could pick up some useful contacts, and anyway, I want you with me.'

  'I'd better go, then.'

  'You had other plans?'

  'Nothing specific.'

  'Maybe you were planning to fuck and forget me?'

  'Who, me?'

  'I've met you trash from the hills before.'

  Phaid ignored the jibe.

  'You seen my clothes?'

  'Hud-n took them away to fix them up. They'd become a little cruddy. Also, I told him to pick you up something new. You can't wear the same thing two days running. How do you feel about black?'

  Phaid held up his hands.

  'Hold it a minute.'

  He was starting to get the impression that the woman was taking him over.

  'I don't have the kind of money to go splashing out on new clothes every day.'

  Edelline-Lan brushed his protests aside.

  'Don't worry about it, I do. I'm filthy rich, or hadn't you noticed.'

  Phaid pondered for a moment on what it would be like to be a rich woman's lap dog. Then his pondering was cut short by the return of Hud-n with an armful of packages.

  'Here-are-the-clothes-that-you-ordered.'

  Once again, the android made room for what he was carrying by simply sweeping more things on to the floor.

  'Also-Abrella-Lu-and-Hydranga-Cort-are-here-to-see-you.'

  Edelline-Lan was rummaging in the mess. Finally, she found what she was looking for. She held up a more than half full decanter with a triumphant flourish. She filled her glass.

  'Well, go on then, show them in.'

  'As-you-wish.'

  Edelline-Lan noticed Phaid's expression.

  'What's the matter with you? Both of these women have seen naked men before, plenty of naked men, so I don't see what you're looking like that for.

  Phaid realised that he was being a little gauche by city standards, but still felt uncomfortable.

  'It's a bad way to meet people for the first time. I never know what to do with my hands.'

  'You really do like to keep it all hidden, don't you? Okay, drape yourself in a sheet or something if it makes you any happier.'

  Phaid wound a sheet around himself toga fashion and assumed a strategic position on the bed. Within moments, two women erupted through the door, filling the room with loud, over affectionate, greetings.

  Both had the stamp of the court about them. They had the expensive clothes, the arrogant carriage and shrill, nasal chattering voices that were the hallmarks of Chrys­tianaville's upper crust.

  Both also looked as though they hadn't slept or, if they had, it hadn't been in their own beds and they hadn't their own servants to prepare them for the new day. They were noticeably tousled and slightly soiled round the edges. Edelline-Lan handed around more of the turquoise cap­sules. The sense of being frayed faded, and shortly afterwards both the volume and intensity of the brittle chatter rose to a new peak.

  Phaid was introduced to the pair. In fact, to be more accurate, he was exhibited to them. He had the distinct feeling that Edelline-Lan was, to some degree, showing off her new stud to her friends. This was confirmed by the appraising way in which they ran their eyes over his body. The experience left Phaid a good deal less than comfort­able.

  Once the introductions had been made, Phaid was virtually ignored. They kept up their non-stop gossip as Abrella-Lu and Hydranga-Cort ploughed their way through Edelline-Lan's scattered but extensive wardrobe in search of something suitable to wear to Roni-Vows' wind game party. In the process, they revealed a great deal of bare flesh. Phaid noticed that the women had bodies that were equally as good as Edelline-Lan's. De­spite still having the feeling that he wasn't much more than an item on the high society meatrack, he decided that, if nothing else, Chrystianaville would provide plenty of sexual variety.

  As far as Phaid could tell, Hydranga-Cort was totally vapid. She had fluffed out, orange hair and probably little of substance in the mind beneath it. Abrella-Lu, on the other hand, exhibited a kind of strength in the way that she moved and talked, a certain ruthlessness that indi­cated she possessed a self serving, iron core under the lacquered surface. She seemed the kind who would ele­gantly trample over anything that got between her and what she wanted.

  After sitting around being a spectator for too long, Phaid decided that maybe he ought to investigate the packages that Hud-n had brought for him.

  As Edelline-Lan had indicated, the suit was black. What she hadn't told him was that it was extremely tight. The jacket was short and double breasted while the stovepipe trousers had a fancy design effect around the crotch that made him seem alarmingly well endowed. It was far from being the kind of outfit that he would have chosen for himself, but once he caught sight of himself in a mirror, he had to admit that it had a certain style.

  The sombre effect of the black was offset by a pair of white slip-on shoes with slightly stacked heels that turned sobriety into rakishness. Almost satisfied, he paraded the ensemble for the three women, who greeted it with sly grins and nods of approval.

  As the women were still far from ready, Phaid found the decanter and was able to put away a number of stiff but leisurely drinks before they finally announced that they felt suitably prepared to brave the outside world and Roni-Vows' party.

  Roni-Vows seemed to be totally in his element as a host. Wearing a duck billed hat with little silver wings on the sides, he pirouetted through the grounds, joining and leaving various conversations with a fine honed ability to shock, be shocked, trade epigrams or carve on an absent friend's reputation with equal facility. Android waiters circulated with trays of drinks and titbits, while hired boohooms chopped, sliced, poured, fetched, carried and generally sweated to keep the bar and buffet running.

  As Phaid had expected, the party sparkled. The Pres­idential Court was out in force, accompanied by a large number of lesser, more peripheral mortals like himself. Roni-Vows greeted the four of them effusively, and then quickly drew Phaid to one side.

  'We need to talk later.'

  'We do?''

  'We do.'

  Phaid shrugged.

  'Then you better grab me when you want me.'

  Roni-Vows nodded swiftly, then his serious expression disintegrated and he whirled away, once again the perfect picture of the shallow socialite.

  Edelline-Lan dug Phaid sharply in the ribs with her elbow.

  'Watch it.'

  'Watch what?'

  'I know Roni-Vows when he gets that look on his face. Given half a chance, he'll involve you in one of his million intrigues. He's a born plotter.'

  'You think I'm stupid?'

  Edelline-Lan shook her head.

  'I don't think you're stupid, but you're not a courtier, either. If anything goes wrong, he's limitless contacts to get himself out from under. You'll be the one who ends up in the manure. You understand that, don't you?'

  Phaid suddenly decided that Edelline-Lan had gone just a little too far. It was time to put her in her place.

  'He only wants to talk to me about the elaihim. I've got my own theories about those bastards.'

  'Don't ever tell me that I didn't warn you.'

  'Listen, babe, I didn't just fall out of the tree, I've been managing my own life for a long time before I met you.'

  Edelline-Lan's nostrils flared.

  'Suit yourself. Learn things the hard way.'

  With that, she spun on her heel and wal
ked angrily away. She immediately dived into the nearest knot of conversation and Phaid knew that he'd been dumped. He wondered if it was merely temporary or for keeps. He'd just been getting used to Edelline-Lan. Her jet black hair and long legs hit a spot deep inside him that few other women had reached.

  The immediate effect of being dumped was that Phaid was left with no one to talk to. Roni-Vows was continuing to flit, Edelline-Lan was obviously out and both Abrella-Lu and Hydranga-Cort had vanished in the crowd. He had no choice except to wander and watch.

  Roni-Vows' building was some thirty storeys high and close to the elaborate bulk of the Presidential Palace, the panoramic view of the city was less magical than it had been from the terrace of the night club. The patchy sunlight revealed too many of the scars and blemishes.

  Few people, however, were looking at the view. Both the common people in the streets and the more gilded ones on the rooftops were all staring skywards. The wind games were a major preoccupation, not only in Chrys­tianaville and the Republic, but throughout most of the city states and nations of the civilised world.

  From the spectators' point of view, it was an ideal day for the games. Since dawn, great masses of fluffy, cumulus clouds had been building up, piling themselves into irregu­lar towers in the air. There was a fresh breeze that would enable the players to coax the maximum performance out of their fragile craft.

  Unfortunately, maximum performance also meant max­imum risk to the players. Throwing their fliers through elaborate manoeuvres in a high altitude airstream re­quired the most finely tuned co-ordination. A single slip could rip the delicate, gossamer wings away from the body of the flier, and the player would plummet to his death.

  All too often such slips did happen, and the two or three deaths that provided tragic punctuation to most major games were one reason why the sport was held in such awe.

  Phaid imagined that down on the streets, anticipation was running higher than up on Roni-Vows' roof. In the streets there wasn't a constant supply of drinks and canapes to take the edge off the excitement. In some ways Phaid almost wished that he was down among the crowds. He could imagine the carnival atmosphere, the beggars and thieves, the fortune-tellers and the hucksters selling souvenirs, the shell games for the unwary. He could almost smell the smoke from the garbage food stands and hear the laughter and shouting. For a moment, he felt close to nostalgic, then an android waiter handed him a cocktail and he decided that maybe a swank party wasn't such a bad place to be.

  There was a lot of talk about the games. The name Mylan came up over and over again. Even Phaid, out in the far flung reaches, had heard of Mylan. Mylan had been a genius, a prince among players. He had been able to do things with his flier that other players wouldn't dream of attempting. Despite all his skill, though, Mylan was dead. At the end of an apparently impossible series of stunts that had left the crowds breathless, his craft had suddenly dropped like a stone. The wings had been intact and there seemed to be no logical reason for the crash. Gossip claimed that Mylan's death had been deliberate. Mylan had committed suicide. The gossip told of how there had been a woman, a high class woman, a courtier or the like, who had played so hard with his affections that he'd been driven to kill himself.

  Conversation faded as the first tiny craft appeared in the sky, a red speck rising swiftly, circling a tumbled stack of clouds in tight, neat spirals. At the top of the cloud, when the flier was little more than a red dot, it executed a wide loop and then, to the accompaniment of a citywide intake of breath, it banked to the left and fell like a stone. A small fat man next to Phaid grabbed his arm. He was hoarse with excitement.

  'Are you the gambler I've heard so much about?'

  'Maybe.'

  'A hundred tabs says he doesn't make it.'

  Phaid looked at the fat man in horrified surprise. 'Did I hear you right?'

  'Two hundred?'

  Phaid's lip curled in disgust.

  'Don't you know that nobody bets on the wind players, not with the players up there risking their lives? It wouldn't be decent.'

  The fat man bridled.

  'I thought you fellows would bet on anything.'

  Phaid snarled.

  'Why don't you just get the hell away from me.' The fat man looked as though he was about to protest. Then he noticed Phaid's expression and moved off, mut­tering disgruntedly. Still amazed at the man's behaviour, Phaid could only stand and watch him go. Even the cheapest hustler wouldn't attempt to bet on a wind game. It was considered the lowest act possible. Men who cheated, stole or killed would shy away from such a bet, particularly a bet on whether a player lived or died. The superstition was that it was such a terrible mark of disrespect that it could quite easily jinx the player in­volved.

  It seemed that courtiers couldn't conceive respect in the way that poor folks could. To them everything was simply a transient diversion to be used and then cast aside. Once again, Phaid had the thought that maybe he'd be better off on the street.

  The wind games continued all through the afternoon, but even though there was some spectacular flying as the players rode the thermals and drifted around the clouds on fickle and elusive air currents, the consensus on Roni-Vows' roof was that the day had been something of a disappointment.

  One player had died, but he was generally considered to have been past his prime and slipping. Callous analysis suggested that he had been a damned fool not to have retired at the end of the previous season.

  The courtiers seemed more interested in spotting a new potential star, a new Mylan, than actually appreciating the wind games for what they were. As the afternoon started to turn to chilly evening more and more of them drifted inside, downstairs to Roni-Vows' cavernous reception area.

  From the roof it was possible to see clear over the wide bowl of the city and out to the open sea. The sunset had turned the sky an angry purple. On the horizon, a twisting mass of ominously low cloud was being driven at high speed. It marked the edge of the icy gales that would eventually hit the coast a few hundred miles to the south. Where they touched the land it was locked in the grip of perpetual winter. They were the gales that created the icy plains.

  Phaid watched all this with a not quite defined sense of foreboding. He turned and found that he was the last guest left on the roof, with the exception of a pair of drunks and a couple attempting to make love under a table.

  The boohooms were clearing up the mess and stacking chairs. One was fishing garbage out of the ornamental fountain. A single android stood perfectly still with the lights on its chest flashing on and off in a slow, doleful sequence. Phaid was starting to feel the cold of the night creeping up on him. With a certain reluctance, he went down to join the other guests.

  Edelline-Lan was continuing to ignore him and Phaid had to admit that he had become more than a little bored. The chatter was once again in full swing, and most of it was about people of whom he'd never heard and had no desire to meet.

  There was also a tension about the gathering that did a lot to increase Phaid's discomfort. He wasn't sure if it was because the guests were such a cut-glass, competitive group, or whether it was the design of Roni-Vows' home. It seemed to have been planned for anything but comfort.

  The area in which the party was being held was all hard edged and jutting angles, the decor was close to mechanis­tic except that everything was picked in violent, garish colours. Constantly flickering holograms jumped from scenes of lyrical innocence to the depraved and pornog­raphic with stunning, if evil, effect. Exotic clusters of glo-globes threw out isolated pools of cold violet light that made the people passing through them look like corpses. An incongruously large statue of the mythic winged beast, the thotoll, that completely dominated one end of the room, was big enough to cause everyone to feel just a little dwarfed. All this, plus the constant blasting of the fashion­able hypnotic rhythm made the crowd seem obliged to be continuously jumping. Now that the wind games were over, the conversation turned to the situation at court.

&nb
sp; 'I tell you, half a dozen young men were sent into those private salons that she's had sealed off. They never came out.'

  'If you ask my opinion, she's gone quite mad.'

  'What do you expect from an ex-whore who clawed her way through the corridors of power?'

  'I thought her position was more horizontal.'

  'You have to hand it to her, though . . .'

  'And a lot of people did.'

  'It's not easy for a nude dancer from the cold edge to make it all the way to the Palace.'

  'And get the town renamed after you.'

  'And have your husband assassinated once he'd made you his successor.'

  This last remark drew a number of sharp intakes of breath. Although it was a commonly held theory, only the most foolhardy voiced it aloud. The speaker had been a weak-chinned, overfed young man called Trimble-Dun. He was too drunk for his own good. Roni-Vows smiled wearily at him.

  'You realise that if one of us is an informer, the Secret Police will be waiting for you when you get home.'

  Trimble-Dun struck a defiant pose that Phaid decided hardly suited him.

  'The ways things are going, half the court will be in jail before a month is out.'

  Phaid, who'd also lost count of the number of drinks he'd had, decided that it was time to contribute something to the conversation. He did his best to match the cut-glass manner of the courtiers.

  'It would seem to me that, as an outsider, any court with a perpetually absent president is kind of redundant.'

  This caused more consternation than Trimble-Dun's calling Chrystiana-Nex a killer. The babble stopped dead and every eye seemed to be riveted on Phaid: The only people who looked amused were Roni-Vows and, surpri­singly, Edelline-Lan. Phaid heard a voice whisper from behind.

  'It's Edelline-Lan's bit of rough, what can you expect?'

  Phaid swung around, fists clenched. Roni-Vows moved quickly forward and laid a hand on Phaid's arm.

  'I think this might be a good time for us to have our little talk.'

  Chapter 13

  Row-Vows tilted his head back and let a single drop of colourless liquid fall from the small crystal vial. He smiled and sighed.