by Dave Duncan
Irona looked quizzically at the commander-elect. “So if the garrison turns a blind eye, oceangoing ships can come up the river and meet dealers from inland right here?”
“And if that is how it’s done,” Bericha said, “then every man-jack of them must know it. I still think you should bring up all your forces, ma’am.”
Irona shook her head. The garrison was changed every year, so they couldn’t all be guilty, or the racket would be common knowledge throughout the Empire and men would clamor to be posted to Vult. On the contrary, it was almost a penal station; a tour at Vult on a man’s record counted against him. The corruption must be limited to those at the top and perhaps a few lower down. The rank and file might suspect, but no more than that. She would have to investigate all this in due course; that was the task that had brought her here.
And “here” was rapidly becoming a steep gray beach that fringed the rock. Two galleys were pulled up on it, both of them smaller than Sea Dragon. The present garrison, Sazen had told her, comprised those two ships and their crews, totaling about six score men. Even without the two support vessels lurking downstream, Quebrada Bericha should have no trouble taking control if push came to thrust.
The rock itself, she now saw, was visible only in its upper two-thirds or so, the lower part being mantled in long slopes of the same gray gravel that made up the beach.
On the beach were shacks, catwalks, a line of rowboats, and what seemed to be ramparts built of rough boulders. Behind all those, a wooden staircase rose about twenty or thirty feet up the rock before disappearing around a spur. Men were hurrying down to meet the new arrivals, but not in large enough numbers to oppose a landing.
It had started raining again.
“Take her in,” Bericha ordered.
The coxswain beat a signal on his drum, oars were shipped, and a moment later Sea Dragon shuddered to a halt, her keel grating on shingle. In a frenzy of well-disciplined movement, the crew vaulted over the sides to drag the galley higher up the beach, but this beach was unusually steep, and they did not, or could not, raise her very far.
The rain shower was becoming a downpour. Irona huddled her robe around her and set off along the ship’s catwalk, leaning into the wind. Her tour of duty was about to begin. It would make or break her career as a Chosen.
“Irona, don’t go there!” Vly called after her. “Please, please!”
She pretended not to hear.
The only concession the navy made to a Chosen’s dignity was a ladder for embarking and disembarking. She clambered down until her feet reached a very odd beach. Shingle should consist of rounded pebbles, but these were angular chips, hard to walk on, sharp through her sandals.
“Worm poop, ma’am,” Sazen explained, right behind her.
Not wanting another lecture just yet, she crunched over to where Quebrada Bericha stood at the start of a boardwalk. He was glowering like an adolescent thunderstorm.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Everything in sight. Look at those galleys’ hulls! When were they last careened? Look at the cables! Half the strakes in those rowboats are rotten. The boardwalks are falling apart. Moss everywhere. See those hairy apes? Beards down to their waists!”
The men in question wore bronze helmets and carried spears, but they did look more anthropoid than marines should. They were lining up at the foot of the staircase as a farcical honor guard.
Then Quebrada Bericha released a thunderclap of profanity such as Irona had not heard since she was sentencing pirates at Udice. Clearly his normal reticence was not caused by a shortage of vocabulary. The subject of his abuse was a procession that had come into view descending the staircase: four men carrying a fifth in a sedan chair. The passenger wore an ornate brass helmet that marked him as Commander Gabulla. Even at a distance, he could be seen to be enormously fat. Irona felt a touch of dread. A very nasty pattern was emerging.
Converting from mariners to warriors, the crew of Sea Dragon had donned armor and were lining up behind their leader. Irona pulled forward the hood on her cloak and clasped her hands behind her, so that her arms would not give her away too soon. Gabulla would be expecting Redkev 676 and she wanted the general closer before he discovered his error.
But then she was distracted by the sight of his companions. The guards who had annoyed Quebrada Bericha were merely slovenly, while Gabulla’s bearers were not even human. They might have been assembled from a random collection of body parts, but not by any well-intentioned deity, and some parts were more animal-like than human. They were asymmetric and misshapen; the jaws below their piggy snouts hung open, slobbering and displaying flat teeth like millstones; their eyes were as dead as eyes painted on masks. One man had gigantic arms and tiny, twisted legs. Another was a muscular hulk, and yet a hunchback. All four sprouted seemingly random patches of mangy fur, and none of them wore more than two squares of cloth hung on a string around their hips.
Were these the dreaded Shapeless? If they were capable of changing form, why look like horrible mistakes? They seemed more ludicrous or pitiable than dangerous. Then she wondered if that was the idea.
“Stop!” the fat man shouted. “Halt!” He whacked at the front pair with a cane, and the chair came to a stop. “Now put me down. Down, I said.”
The chair went down one corner at a time. Gabulla heaved himself upright and stepped forward, leaning heavily on his cane.
“Broken ankle,” he muttered. “Damned thing won’t heal. I suppose—”
“What are those?” Bericha bellowed, pointing at the bearers.
“What those? Oh, those are trogs, General. From Svinhofdarhrauk. Useful. Work for food and eat anything. You are …?”
Bericha recalled the correct drill, presented both himself and Irona. By then the fat man had had time to appraise her, so he was not taken unaware. She looked in vain for guilt, surprise, mockery, dismay, or any of the other emotions she expected. What she thought she saw instead was pity. Gabulla smiled sadly and attempted a bow, so far as one of his shape could bow while balanced on one foot and a cane resting on greasy wooden slats.
“Your Honor is the Chosen who dealt with Captain Shark.” It was a statement, not a question.
“I am. So what?” She could foresee several possible responses, but the one he used was not one of them.
“You deserved better than this.”
She could not disagree with that, but she did not want to agree with him either.
Bericha broke in. “I am sure the commander will lend you his chair for the climb, ma’am.”
Irona didn’t want it. Even indirect contact with that human fungus was a repellent thought. And she dearly wanted out of the rain.
“He needs it more than I do.” She walked around him, crunching on the shingle, and headed along the walkway to the ragamuffin honor guard, which watched her approach with alarm. She picked out the youngest, a wiry youth with skimpy whiskers. The others looked more asleep than awake, but his eyes were as bright as a bird’s.
“Do you know where Governor Zajic is, or is likely to be?”
He nodded nervously.
“I am the new governor. Take me to him. Now!” she barked as he looked to his squad leader for confirmation.
Bericha shouted for her to wait, but she kept going. Her appointed guide padded along at her side, and she guessed that the slapping sandals behind her belonged to Sazen, hurrying to catch up. Even the staircase, which appeared to be the main entrance to the Vult fortress, was in poor repair. It canted sideways in places and changed pitch without warning, so that she was continually stumbling. Her young guide was not doing much better. She heard a curse or two from her secretary.
“Your name, marine?”
“Daun Bukit, ma’am, oar five, lower starboard watch, Royal Genodesan Galley Swiftest.”
“You’re from Benign, though.” What was a Benesh citiz
en doing on a tribute ship from Genodesa? The manpower traffic was usually the other way.
“Yes, ma’am. Overock.”
“Then we’re neighbors. I’m from Brackish.” She glanced at him and saw a glaze of wonder. A Chosen calling him neighbor? A Chosen just speaking to him was marvel enough.
Would the damnable stair never end, never get her out of the wind and rain? As if the gods heard her wish, the steps rounded a corner to the north face, which was more sheltered. Irona paused, mostly to catch her breath, but also to inspect the view. Yes, her follower was Sazen. No signs of the military, and that was good. She began to hope that she could get to Governor Zajic before Bericha and his army arrived and made civilized conversation impossible.
Whatever had happened to Vly? Usually in a strange place he stayed as close as her shadow.
Except for a few low, bare islands, all the land to the north had been flooded by the weir. There were hills in the far distance, with hints of mountains beyond, while gaps in the clouds showed a sickly green sky. The closest island looked inhabited, being completely covered with low shacks, some of which were trailing smoke. Four or five boats were tethered there.
“That is Eldritch?”
“Oh, no, ma’am! That’s just Svinhofdarhrauk. Eldritch’s back in the hills somewhere.”
Irona began to move again, but at a slower pace. Her guide seemed less puffed than she was, so she threw more questions.
“Nobody ever goes to Eldritch?”
“Nobody ever goes inland at all, ma’am.”
“Tell me about that other place.”
“Svinhofdarhrauk? It’s where the trogs live. A really, er, messy place.”
Coming from a resident of Vult, that was probably a gross understatement. “People from here do go there?”
Silence. Lip biting. Flush showing under whiskers.
“Good fucking there?” she asked.
Gulp.
“Talk freely, Daun. I know all the dirty words.”
“Some men go there for that, ma’am. I never, see? Honest! Wait and do it with a real woman, back home. Did go there once, but just to drink and dice and stuff, not that other. Have to be home before dark.”
She did not ask for details. “And the trogs work here, in Vult?”
“Yes, ma’am. Do stupid work.”
“They’re not dangerous?”
He hesitated several heartbeats before he said, “Officially not, ma’am. They’re all sent away at night and we lock the rock up tight. But men have disappeared.”
After another hundred or so treads, she had learned that a few dozen trogs came over from the unspellable place every morning and did whatever they were told and could understand. They were sent home at sunset with the day’s trash as payment.
The staircase had climbed above the slopes of gray gravel and was now more or less attached to bare rock, although in a few places it swayed and sagged alarmingly. Then it ended at a perfectly round hole in a cliff face. A massive bronze door was chained open. It had bolts the size of a man’s arm on the inside.
“One at a time, ma’am,” Bukit said. “You gotta stoop.”
“Lead the way.”
He had to stoop even more and carry his spear at an angle.
She followed him in. At first she advanced very slowly, feeling her way, but the tunnel was smooth and as round as a chicken’s gizzard. After a few moments, as her eyes adjusted, she realized that the walls glowed with an eerie green light and she could just make out the marine’s pale limbs ahead of her. His smock was too dark to show.
A low scratching sound puzzled her. “What’s that noise?”
“The worms, ma’am. Never stops. Hear ’em all through the rock.”
“Tell me about the rock worms.”
“Eat rock, ma’am.” The tunnel seemed to swallow Bukit’s voice; it did not echo. “Spit out gravel. Nobody knows if it’s puke or shit, ’cos both ends have teeth. And they like their food damp. Upper half of the rock’s too dry for them now.”
“So they’re not dangerous?”
“Not much. One broke through in the winter and ate a man. Half of him, anyway. Can hear them coming, usually. Watch your step, ma’am. Is a grating.”
The bronze grille in the floor emitted a cool, damp draft with an unpleasant, sulfurous odor. A few paces farther along, a similar grating showed in the left-hand wall.
“Keeps worms from backing up, ma’am,” he explained.
“Would that stop a rock worm?” Irona asked.
“Hope it would, ma’am.”
Behind her, Sazen chuckled. “Likely not, but it provides confidence. The glow on the walls is some sort of fungus.”
Irona’s back was aching already, and this tunnel seemed to be angling more down than up. “I wish the worms were fatter.”
“Just a little way,” Bukit said, and in a moment they emerged in a much larger, but still tubular, tunnel, high enough to walk upright, two abreast. It sloped steeply, and they headed upward. The floor had been leveled with a layer of rock worm gravel.
Irona made a decision. She suspected the goddess was dropping hints again. “How long have you been here, Bukit?”
“A year, ma’am.”
“Looking forward to going home?”
He glanced at her briefly and made a quizzical noise. Why in the world would a Chosen want to know that about a junior oar puller in a tribute ship? Which confirmed Irona’s suspicion that she had stumbled onto a smarter-than-average oar puller.
“How did you make Benign too hot for you? You have no brand.”
“A girl.” His eyes stayed forward. “Her brothers came looking for me.”
“If you could stand another year or even two here, I need someone who knows his way around this place. Two dolphins a month plus your board. I’ll go higher if you turn out well.”
His eyes went wide. “Doing what?”
“Answering my questions truthfully. Relaying my orders. A bit of spying for me, although no one else will trust you, so you won’t have to betray confidences. Nothing dishonorable, in other words.”
He thought for a while, which raised her estimate of him even higher. Then he nodded.
“I could write and ask her if she’s married and if she had the baby and … And all that?”
“And send her money so she can wait for you. If you can read and write, I’ll make it four dolphins right now.”
He smiled into the darkness ahead. “You just bought yourself a trog, ma’am.”
That dark humor made Irona’s skin crawl. Whether the trogs were human-monster hybrids or massively deformed people, that a healthy young man would compare himself with one, even in jest, showed how low the morale of the garrison had sunk. Although the priests claimed that Maleficence was a malevolent god, many Benesh saw maleficence more as a disease. In that view, all of Vult had been infected.
The higher Irona climbed in the rock, the more the labyrinth confused her. The posted signs made no sense. She passed slouching, ill-kempt marines and brutish trogs carrying loads. She passed side tunnels hung with hammocks or furnished as messes. Every one of them was a stinking pigsty. Now and again she caught glimpses of daylight along laterals, until eventually they came to another whale-strength door. Beyond that, Bukit led her up a short flight of stairs into fresh air and a real building, with stone walls. She blinked in a brightness that seemed as dazzling as if the sun were shining, which it wasn’t.
She was on top of the rock, and the nearest window looked southward, over the delta, where Sea Dog and Sea Demon were advancing up the channel with banks of oars moving in a stately dance. She crossed the floor—which needed a good sweep and scrub but was the cleanest she had seen yet—and looked out again over the interior lake. The closest islet, Svinhofdarhrauk, was hidden by yet another rain squall.
Bukit was waitin
g patiently by the door, so she followed him out to a small, almost flat, area at the summit, a storm-swept yard within a coronet of buildings. He led the way across to the largest, whose grandiose doorway and the faded emblem above it proclaimed it to be the governor’s reception hall. She entered what should have been an impressive chamber, for the floor was well tiled, the walls plastered, the roof supported by massive rafters. But the floor was dirty, the plaster peeling, the roof leaking, all with the same air of decay and neglect that she had seen throughout the fortress.
In proper republican fashion the interior lacked the dais and throne that royalty would require. The only furniture was a row of half a dozen chairs at the far end. The only person present sat on one of the chairs and wore a blue-green tunic. So Irona’s wish had been granted, and she could have at least a brief talk with Zajic before the talons of justice carried him away.
“You,” she told Bukit, “go and bathe and shave and make yourself respectable. In the name of the goddess, clean your fingernails! I hope you have a decent tunic to wear. If not, borrow or steal one. If anyone asks, you are personal aide to Governor Irona. Sazen, wait here.”
She marched off along the hall and Zajic 677 just sat, awkwardly slumped on his chair, watching her approach. She had liked him back in Benign. She had enjoyed his wry humor when they had served on the Harbor Board together. He rarely spoke in the Assembly, and then usually as a peacemaker, proposing some middle ground between factions.
He had always been cadaverously thin. As she drew close, she saw that his limbs were dangerously wasted, his skin sallow, his eyes deeply sunk in a face like a skull. Even when she stopped in front of him, he did not rise to greet her.
“Irona 700!” he murmured, seemingly more to himself than to her.
“Governor?” she said.
He nodded and murmured her name again, as if he was deciding that her presence was surprising at first, but made sense on consideration. “If she can’t, who can?”
She pulled a chair around to face him and sat down. “Tell me, please. What do I have to expect?”
