by Victor Milán
"In a manner of speaking," the baron said, "yes. Specifically, that part you might play in the remaking of Zazesspur-and all Tethyr."
"And what might that be? I'm not much for stone-masonry, nor religion, for that matter."
The baron goggled slightly, then recovered and emitted a hearty laugh. "Ah, a joke. You were ever the sly wit, Zaranda. No, the greatest part of the task that confronts us requires neither trowel nor chisel nor level. It will re-quire the skills of the tongue, and when they fail, the sword. You are remarkably adept with both."
"We do not overlook your skill in matters magical," the cleric added.
"I thought you were trying to clamp down on the mystic arts," Zaranda said. "Swordsmanship too, for that matter."
"Those are actions the council is contemplating," Hardisty said smoothly. " I have no official standing With that body."
"You did get them to build this palace and let you live in it."
They recognize the beauty and strength of our ideas," Armenides said, "and indeed, their inevitability."
He paused to engage her gaze fixedly with his own. She felt a moment's jarring dislocation, a passing loss of balance as if a chasm had opened suddenly at her feet. She rocked back, trying to keep surprise from showing in her face.
"— certainly see the benefits of such a program," the priest was saying. His eyes were only eyes now, not spiritual hammers. "Magic and the sword do much grievous harm. For the sake of all, is it not wisest to restrict their usage to those with the training, wisdom, and moral perspective to use them properly?"
"Meaning us," Zaranda managed to croak.
Baron Hardisty leaned forward on the balls of his feet "The you'll join us?"
"What exactly-beyond the satisfaction of a job well done-is in it for me?"
"You would have a voice in restructuring our anar-chic society," Hardisty said, "as well, obviously, as a hand in running it. Confirmation of your title as Countess Morninggold, as well as a grant-in-aid to secure your possession of it."
"Isn't that a bit ambitious, seeing as you don't yet control even Zazesspur?"
The two men laughed. "Have you never heard the saying that one doesn't hit what one doesn't aim at?" the cleric asked.
"You would certainly not want for material reward," Hardisty said. "During the Tuigan War you displayed considerable waywardness of thought and spirit. Yet al-ways you fought for what you thought was right. Your greatest reward, I warrant, would be the power to help people."
To keep my house, she thought, and win the power to do unlimited good: what more could I ask for? She could think of a thing or two, certainly, such as the companionship of men who bathed and didn't have biceps big-ger than their brains; but she suspected such amenities would be included in the bargain. All he's offering me is everything I've striven for all my life.
And then, in what seemed a different mental voice And all it will cost me is my soul.
"What do you ask of me?"
"Your loyalty," Hardisty said. "Your support. Swear yourself to my service, and you shall have all we've spoken of and more. How say you?"
Zaranda laughed and held up a hand. "I say things are moving rather rapidly for me. I have some friends, who depend on me for their livelihoods, just now. What of them?"
"Certainly you can employ whatever retainers you choose," the baron said, "provided they pass a minor investigation."
"Investigation?"
"A trifle of magic," Armenides said heartily, "to ensure the purity of their minds and motives. It is a a sad truth that many minions of evil move at large through our chaotic world, and we cannot always know them by surface appearance."
"Indeed," Zaranda said. She drew a deep breath and expelled it through pursed lips. "Gentlemen, your offers are most kind. But I need time to assimilate all you've told me, and what you have proposed."
Hardisty gave an airy wave of his big square hand. "I should doubt your wisdom did you not want time to contemplate-may I now call you Countess?"
"Take all the time you need," Armenides said. His forefingers each traced a semicircle in the air before his face, completing the circle at the bottom. "And may the blessings of Ao the Universal follow wherever you walk in this wide world."
The six half-hour bells of midafternoon were still reverberating through the streets of Zazesspur when a company of civic guardsmen entered from either end of the block of the Winsome Repose and took up blocking positions. A squad often men in morions and breast-plates, under the command of a young lieutenant and his sergeant, marched up to the front door of the inn.
The innkeeper, a small weasel-sleek, dark-haired man whose name was Quarlo, met them on the steps. The lieutenant, whose hair hung in black pomaded ringlets to the shoulders, wore a bronze breastplate gorgeously wrought in the likeness of impressive chest and belly muscles, which surely were not mirrored by anything beneath. From the hilt of his rapier hung a scented ball as big as his fist, to help shield his nostrils from assault from the nearby stables. He unrolled a parchment scroll and read aloud "-therefore require you to deliver unto arrest and sequestration the persons of one Zaranda Star, self-styled Countess Morninggold, as well as all companions and chattels. In the name of the city council of Zazesspur, herewith attached the seal of Shaveli, captain of the guard."
Scrubbing his hands compulsively in his apron and rolling his beady eyes, Quarlo listened to the peroration. Then he said, "But, Excellent One, I cannot!"
The youthful lieutenant gave him a terrible eye, which he had devoted much mirror time to perfecting. "And why not?" he asked, in rage that was meant to thunder but squeaked instead.
"They're gone."
The lieutenant opened his mouth to pronounce doom upon the contumacious innkeeper. Then his eyes stood out from his olive-skinned face. "Gone?"
Quarlo nodded. "She paid her reckoning not an hour ago, for herself and her whole menagerie, and went trooping off to the harbor. She spoke of taking ship for Halruaa, or Zakhara even. Said she felt the climate here wasn't warm enough."
"Too warm for her, more like," rasped a voice from the patrol at the lieutenant's back. The other guards laughed, until a hard look from their sergeant-whose face looked as if it could be used to hammer nails, and had been-quelled them.
The lieutenant turned green. "Search the building!" he commanded in a voice strangled to a bat's ranging cry.
The patrol did, with sufficient thoroughness that more than one guest afterward had words with about valuable but readily concealable personal effects that had turned up missing. The only sign they turned up that Zaranda and company had ever been there was a series of complaints from the grooms that her war mare used loaded dice, which the lieutenant could not make heads or tails of.
"To the harbor!" the lieutenant commanded in a more robust voice than he'd been able to muster earlier. The sergeant bellowed orders, and the little patrolset out past the puzzled cordon at double-time toward the harbor.
In the rear marched the grizzled sergeant, looking grimmer than usual. He secretly believed the rest of the little unit-Lieutenant Flower Petal in particular-had missed their calling when they took up the blue and gold of the civic guard instead of the motley of the Jesters, Fools, amp; Harlequins Guild. If you asked him, this tale of taking ship for exotic lands was thinner than beer would be if that blue-nosed old grassquit Armenides had his way with Zazesspur. If Zaranda was at the harbor, he himself was the Simbul, Queen of Aglarond.
On the other hand, the patrol had been most particularly warned that Countess Morninggold and her accomplices were clever as dragons and about as tractable. And there was that which his wife had never understood, back when he served in the army of Ith-mong before Ernest Gallowglass was deposed by do-gooders, which lay behind what she chose to regard as his slovenly lack of ambition: that while sergeants never stood first in line when spoils were doled out, neither did they when it came time to apportion blame. In this present case, Shaveli had hinted that, should the fugitives not be apprehended
, someone's head and neck might soon come to a parting of the ways.
So the sergeant thought it best to hold his tongue. Thus he marched down to the harbor, alleviating the ache in his feet and lower back with visions of the so-superior young lieutenant spending the rest of his career as a civic guard officer leading darkling-hunting patrols through the notably extensive and noisome sewers of Zazesspur.
And so, in the fullness of time, did it come to pass.
Part II
Career of Evil
16
It was dusk along the Trade Way north of Zazesspur. Like mauve fog, nighthawks coursed on scimitar wings through twilight and sought prey. Off in the west, clouds rose like fanciful mountains above the unseen Trackless Sea, all slate and indigo and molten copper where the last rays of the fallen sun struck them.
The lure of honestly gotten gain being almost as powerful as the other kind, several families of southern Tethir foresters, related by marriage, had banded together to purchase a number of wagons and attempt the trip through the Starspire Mountains and south to Zazesspur. The wagons were piled high with animal skins, a kind of bark used in tanning, and other vegetable stuffs for the manufacture of dyes. The great merchant caravans no longer plied the Trade Way from Amn and points north down to Calimport. And, so, if these enterprising foresters could reach Zazesspur, they could expect to reap a rich return from the city's leather-workers and dyers.
They had made it through the mountains and most of the way to the city. Unfortunately, ill-gotten gain still had its allure. Consequently, there had come a sudden drum of hoofbeats as evening came on, and suddenly the little caravan was surrounded by a score of robbers, who swung down from horseback to menace the foresters with drawn bows. The foresters were no mean fighters themselves under most circumstances. But as their destination grew nearer, they had relaxed their guard, a process expedited by the passing around of a couple of stone crocks of berry brandy by way of celebration, now seen to be premature.
The robbers, initially elated at the bloodless capture of a half-dozen wagons, grew surly when they threw back the canvas covering the loads and found bales of bark and sheaves of dried herbs. The leader of the bandits, a burly, black-bearded ruffian clad in rude black leather garments, which summer's heat would soon render quite unthinkable, had the makeshift caravan's master brought before him as he stood by the roadside.
"Where are the valuables?" he demanded as Wyancott-a towheaded, middle-aged chief among the foresters-was thrust to his knees before him.
"Valuables?" the caravan master repeated as if confused. "What's in the wagons is all we have. What wealth we possessed went to buy the wagons and the mules to draw them."
"You mean we went to all this trouble over nothing but a mess of twigs and branches?" the bandit chieftain roared. "Are we aarakocra, to make nests for our dwellings? Produce some real wealth, and quickly, or prepare to suffer accordingly!"
But Wyancott could only shake his head numbly. The leader, scowling ferociously, drew back his arm to strike.
Then he toppled into the poorly maintained ditch beside the road and commenced to snore.
Another flurry of hoofbeats. Riders swept past along the road. From his knees Wyancott looked wildly right and left to see infantry with leveled crossbows surrounding the halted wagon train in the gloom. The marauders who held his arms let him go and hurriedly raised their hands.
A bandit atop one of the wagons uttered a defiant cry, snatched up a short bow, nocked an arrow, and began to draw upon a tall woman riding up the road toward Wyancott on horseback. An arrow smote him in the center of the forehead. He rolled off the wagon to lie unmoving in the soft spring grass.
With the exception of the rash bowman, the bandits ' surrendered readily. Zaranda dismounted from Goldie, glanced down at the bandit leader she'd sent to sleep in the ditch. She extended a hand to the man with the thatch of white-blond hair, who was still on his knees looking thoroughly confused.
"Up you come," she said as he took her hand and hauled himself upright. "What's your name?"
"Wyancott," he said. He rubbed his jaw, rolled his tongue around in his mouth. "I thank you."
Zaranda nodded. A mercenary with a crossbow slung across his mail-jacketed back, one of the original escorts she'd brought into Tethyr, was kneeling in the ditch and binding the bandit chieftain's hands behind his back. The bandit chieftain snored loudly.
The rest of Zaranda's small but intrepid — she hoped — band was rounding up the demoralized bandits and disarming them. They were beginning to gripe at the realization of just how small a party they had surrendered to. Not that the outcome would likely have been different, save for more bloodshed; so intent had the marauders been on their haul that Zaranda's group had half surrounded them before making their presence known, and likely would have completed the job had not Zaranda feared the leader might hurt the cara-vanner, and so put him down for his nap. But Still-hawk's dropping of the lone man who showed fight had had a salutary effect on morale.
Which reminds me — Zaranda turned and gestured through the gloom at Chenowyn, who was trudging along the road, looking disgruntled but almost pretty in the simple white linen blouse and green linen breeches Zaranda had bought her, with her dark red hair brushed gleaming and bound back from her well-scrubbed face. She couldn't ride a lick, and hence had been riding postilion behind Zaranda, arms locked firmly about the older woman's waist. She was disgrun-tied because Zaranda had made her dismount before riding up to engage the bandits.
"Why couldn't I ride with you?" the youth demanded as she approached.
"Because I didn't want you to get hurt. Also I didn't want you to get excited and turn me and Goldie into voles by accident. Now come along."
She took Chen gently by the arm and led her to the wagon beside which lay the man Vander Stillhawk had shot. The mute ranger had his foot on the dead man's face, pulling out his arrow. The task completed, he stood back, scrubbing the recovered missile with a handful of bunchgrass.
"Take a good look," Zaranda said, indicating the dead marauder, who lay on his back staring sightlessly at the first stars appearing in the purple sky above.
Chen craned forward without much interest. "He's dead," she said. "I've seen dead men before."
"Look at him," Zaranda insisted. "You never had a hand in anyone's death before, did you? Well, you had a hand in his."
Chen stared at her. "What are you talking about? I didn't shoot him!"
"No. But you were part of an armed party that engaged his in battle. That entitles you to a share of whatever spoils there are. It also entitles you to a share of responsibility."
Chen's face crumpled, and tear-shine was visible in her eyes, even in the dimness. "What did I do? What do you want me to do, mourn for him?"
"No," Zaranda said. "He got what he had coming. But whether it's something to grieve or not, taking life should never be easy."
Chen covered her face in her hands and ran off sobbing. Her tears, Zaranda was acutely aware, were because she thought she had incurred Zaranda's anger without knowing why, not from any emotion concerning the dead bandit. Fine job of moral instruction, there. There are reasons I never became a mother.
Stillhawk came up, laid his hand on her shoulder and gently squeezed. She looked into his dark, steady eyes, smiled, touched his cheek.
"Thank you," she said.
She walked back to where Wyancott stood. Balmeric rode past on his chestnut gelding, placing some of the small troop to keep watch in case other bandits turned up, either from the same band or another-always a lively possibility in modern Tethyr. Stillhawk went off to help the lookouts.
Despite the seizure of her own caravan and the attendant financial difficulties, she had managed to interest the former captain of her caravan guards and seven adventurers, including four of her crossbowmen, in following her on her latest wild scheme. In all she had twelve followers, including Chen, Farlorn, Still-hawk, and Shield, who had been waiting at a rendezvous point she
and the ranger had arranged in advance, having themselves escaped the city without incident.
Not many to challenge the fabric of a whole country, she thought. She grinned.
"What was that all about?" Goldie asked. The mare tossed her head toward Chenowyn, who stood about twenty paces back up the road, weeping.
"My ham-handed attempt to civilize my young charge."
"I suppose somebody had to take the little beast in hand. I just wish it didn't have to be you."
"Goldie, be nice," Zaranda said. She turned to Wyancott, who was staring. "My horse talks," she told him, as if that explained all. Then back to Goldie: "She hasn't done anything to you."
"Nothing but increase my burden," the mare said primly. "And she rides, I might mention, with the grace of a sack of coal. Come on, Randi, allow me to blow off a little steam. I don't have anything against the girl, really-and I, at least, have not been giving you grief about your orc."
"Orc?" echoed Wyancott.
As if on cue a clamor rose from the other foresters: "Betrayed! Ware orcs! Rim for it, boys!"
The forest folk were pointing at Shield of Innocence, who stood keeping guard over the prisoners, his scimitars in his clawed hands. His hood had fallen back in the battle, revealing his great head in all its tusked and snouted glory.
"Settle down!" Zaranda cried. "He's with me."
A young caravanner glared at her. "Decent folk don't have truck with no orcs! You're evil, just like him!" Several of the others cried assent. Zaranda was glad they hadn't yet gotten their weapons back.
"He's not evil," she said. "He's converted to the worship of Torm-see his medallion? Besides, I don't see what his beliefs or mine have to do with anything, inasmuch as we just rescued you. Or don't they practice common courtesy in Tethir Forest nowadays?"
Wyancott rubbed his nose with his thumb. "She's right," he said.
