Mistress of the Empire

by Raymond E. Feist

  'We're waiting,' Hokanu cut back. 'I think that tapestry rod in the next room would serve very nicely as a lever. And I know where we can find those flesh-eating insects close by -'

  'Wait! No!' Korbargh screamed.

  'Then,' Arakasi interjected reasonably, 'you will tell us the recipe for the antidote that should have gone in this vial.'

  Korbargh's head twitched frantic affirmative. 'Leaves of sessali steeped in salt water for two hours. Sweeten the mixture with generous amounts of red-bee honey so your Lady doesn't vomit the salty herbs. A small sip. Wait a minute. Another. Wait again. Then as much as she can take. The more she swallows, the faster she'll heal. Then, when her eyes clear and the fever leaves her, a small cup of the mix every twelve hours for three days. That's the antidote.'

  Arakasi spun to face Hokanu. 'Go,' he said curtly. 'Take the horses and run for home. Any healer will have sessali herb in his stores, and for Mara, time is of the essence.'

  Anguished, Hokanu glanced at the strung-up figure of Korbargh, sobbing now in hysterical relief.

  'I will pursue his connections,' Arakasi said urgently, and found himself addressing empty air. Hokanu had already disappeared through the broken door.

  Night air wafted through the opening. Chilling Korbargh's sweating flesh. Down the block, two drunken comrades reeled their way homeward, singing. Someone threw a pot of wash water out of a window, the splash of its fall broken by a startled yelp from a street cur.

  Arakasi stood motionless.

  Unnerved by the silence, Korbargh stirred in his bonds. 'Y-you are g-going to let me g-go?' He finished on a note of crispness. 'I did tell you the antidote.'

  A shadow against the darkened wall, Arakasi turned around. His eyes gleamed like a predator's as he said, 'But you haven't said who purchased the poison, in the bottle disguised as an antidote.'

  Korbargh jerked against his bonds. 'It's worth my life to tell you that!'

  Cat-quiet, Arakasi stepped up to his prisoner and wrenched the knife out of the beam; of incalculable value in the metal-poor culture of Kelewan, the blade flashed in the dimness. The Spy Master fingered the steel, as if testing the edge. 'But your life is no longer a bargaining point. What has yet to be determined is the manner of your death.'

  'No.' Korbargh whimpered. 'No. I cannot say anymore. Even were you to hang me, and the gods cast my spirit off the Wheel of Life for dishonor.'

  'I will hang you,' Arakasi said quickly, 'unless you talk: that is certain. But a blade can do hurtful damage to a man, before a rope is used to dispatch him. The question is not honor or dishonor, Korbargh, but a merciful end, or lingering agony. You know the drugs that can bring blissful death.' Touching the tip of the knife to the fat of the prisoner's upper arm, he said, 'And you know which drugs on your shelves make you writhe in torment before death, drugs that heighten pain, keep you alert, and make time seem to pass slowly.'

  Korbargh hung from his wrists, his eyes huge with fear.

  Arakasi tapped his knife point, thoughtful, 'I have all the time I need, but none I'm willing to waste listening to silence.'

  'My wife -' began the desperate poison seller.

  The Spy Master cut him off. 'If your wife gets home before you have told what I need to know, she will join you. Your bodyguard will die before he can cross the portal, and you will watch me test my methods on her. I will dose her with drugs to keep her conscious, then carve the flesh from her body in strips!' As the big man began to weep with terror Arakasi asked, 'Will your dwarf apprentice sack your house, or give you both an appropriate funeral rite?' Arakasi shrugged. 'He'll steal everything worth selling, you know.' Looking around, he added, 'Given your location and your clientele, I doubt anyone will be quick to report your murder to the City Watch. It's possible no priest will ever say a prayer for either of you.'

  Korbargh snarled something unintelligible, and Arakasi stopped threatening. He stepped forward, grasped the hem of his captive's robe, and cut away a strip of fabric. The cloth was not silk, but the weave was fine, and ribbon embroidery adorned the hem. Arakasi expertly twisted the length into a gag. Before he could bind it over Korbargh's mouth, the huge man gasped and pleaded.

  'If you gag me before your fiendish tortures begin, how can I give what you wish, even if I were of a mind to talk?'

  Arakasi never paused, but jammed the cloth between the poison merchant's teeth. As the larger man bucked and twisted, the Spy Master tied the ends with knots as secure as any sailor's. 'I am anything but a fool,' he said in a voice of velvet consonants.

  Arakasi left the bound man to dash upstairs. He returned with several vials which he held before Korbargh's eyes, one at a time. 'Tai-gi root, to heighten perception and pain,' he began. 'Powder from ground jinab bark, which will keep a man awake for a week. Sinquoi leaves, which will make time pass slowly. You will shortly discover that I know these as well as any healer. And I was instructed in the use of knives by an expert. You will not be permitted to scream when the agony starts, and if you wished to spare yourself pain and speak first, you have forfeited that chance already.' With a gentleness that inspired shudders, the Spy Master loosened Korbargh's robe. He bared a hairy expanse of sa drinker's belly to the night air, then turned away and disappeared briefly into the next room.

  Korbargh thrashed against his bonds like a hooked fish. He stopped when he had exhausted himself, and was hanging limp when Arakasi returned, bearing the oil lamp used to illuminate the desk when the hired clerk came to do the accounts, and the basket the day servant used for sewing.

  Mara's Spy Master placed these items on a small table, which he lifted and set to his left. Then he removed the knife from his sash, and squinted to check the edge for flaws. It being a metal blade, the razor-sharpness of the weapon shone balefully perfect.

  The poison merchant moaned into his gag as Arakasi said, 'I will begin without using the drugs. You may imagine how this will feel after I administer them.' He moved forward and, stroking carefully, opened the top layer of skin from his victim's navel slantwise toward his groin. Blood pattered onto the tiles, and Korbargh gave a muffled shriek. He kicked and flopped.

  'Keep still,' Arakasi cautioned. 'I despise a messy job.'

  His victim was in no position to heed, but the Spy Master seemed not to care. His quick hand compensated for Korbargh's jerks and jumps. He made another light cut and removed a triangle of skin, which he tossed aside. Then he nicked through the fat layer beneath and, as if he were performing dissections at a physician's college, bared the muscle below.

  'Will you talk now?' Arakasi said conversationally.

  Korbargh jerked his head in the negative. He was dripping sweat, along with his blood, and his hair and beard were soggy. He moaned into his gag, but the look in his eyes stayed belligerent.

  Arakasi sighed. 'Very well. Though I warn you, the pain has hardly begun yet.' His knife hand moved, in utmost precision, and the muscle of his victim's abdomen parted.

  Korbargh gave a muffled screech. Unheeding, the Spy Master picked out the severed veins and tied them off with thread. Then his blade set to work on the bared entrails beneath, and the blood ran faster.

  The floor underfoot grew slippery as in a slaughterhouse, and the air took on the same reek. Korbargh lost control of his bladder, and rank wetness added to the puddle.

  'Now,' said Arakasi, his shadow straightening with him as he looked up into the poison seller's face, 'have you anything constructive to say? No? Then, I fear, we will have to work next on the nerves.'

  The knife dipped into living tissue, separated a nerve sheath, and scraped, very gently.

  Korbargh thrashed, unable to howl. His eyes rolled, and his teeth pierced deep into the sour cloth of the gag. Then he fainted from the pain.

  Some dim time later, his head snapped back as a pungent aroma filled his nostrils. As he blinked away confusion, strong hands poured foul-smelling liquid between his lips while clamping his nostrils closed, forcing him to swallow.

  Pain redoubled to
blinding agony, and his mind became gripped by horrible clarity.

  'You will speak now,' Arakasi suggested. 'Else I will continue this until morning.' He wiped his sticky blade, fastidiously tucked it into his sash, and reached up to loosen the knots that prevented Korbargh from speech. 'Then when your wife arrives, I will begin on her, to see if she knows anything.'

  'Demon!' gasped the wounded man. 'Devil! May you rot in body and mind, and come back next life as a fungus!'

  Arakasi, looking bland, reached into the gore of his handiwork and tweaked.

  Korbargh released an air-shattering scream.

  'The name,' the Spy Master pressed, relentless.

  And words tumbled out of Kprbargh's mouth, giving him the name that he sought.

  'Ilakuli,' Arakasi repeated. 'A rumormonger who can be found on the Street of Sorrowful Dreams.'

  The poison seller gave a miserable nod. He had begun to sob, his face like yellow grease. 'I think he was of the Hamoi Tong.'

  'You think?' Arakasi sighed as if correcting a child, 'I know so.'

  'What of my wife?'

  'The tong may seek her out. That is a risk you knew when you agreed to sell to them. But I will be hours gone when she returns, so in that, she's safe.' Arakasi reached up very swiftly and cut Korbargh's throat.

  He jumped back as blood sprayed, and his victim kicked his last in this life. Arakasi immediately snuffed the wick of the oil lamp. Merciful blackness fell and hid the carnage in the foyer.

  Arakasi worked on in the dark, his hands now trembling in spasms. He pulled Korbargh's robe closed and tied the sash, so that the young wife would not be greeted with the full grisly details of the night's events upon her return. The Spy Master cut down the body and laid it in a posture of repose on the floor. About the blood he could do nothing. His earlier search for the lamp had revealed that the household kept no wash water to hand. He wiped his fingers as best he could upon a tapestry, a prayer mat being the only other choice that would serve for a towel. Then, in the corner of Korbargh's bedchamber, he succumbed to his nerves at last. He knelt clutching an unemptied night jar and vomited violently.

  He retched long after his belly was emptied. Then, unwilling to pass,through the foyer again, he made his exit through a window.

  The streets were all but deserted, the riot long since quelled. A few stragglers hastened homeward, and more shadowy figures lurked in the darkened alleys. A shivering, bedraggled priest had nothing of value to rob; Arakasi was left alone. The night wind in his face helped to steady him. A brief stop by an ornamental pool in the entry of what was probably a brothel allowed him to rinse the rest of the gore from his hands. Blood was still crusted beneath his fingernails, but right now he lacked the stomach to use his knife to scrape them clean. He jogged, and to drive back the nightmares that lingered from Korbargh's foyer, he turned his mind to the information he had sickened himself to win.

  Ilakuli he had heard of; and there was a man in the city who would know his whereabouts. Arakasi hurried into the night.

  Hokanu ran on foot. His two spent mounts jogged at his side on leading reins, their chests lathered, and their distended nostrils showing scarlet linings. Fear for Mara's life kept him on his feet, long after muscle and sinew were exhausted. He still wore the loincloth of a penitent. Of the clothing he had recovered from the inn, he had paused only to lace on his sandals. The rest he had stuffed into the roan gelding's saddlebags, never mind that he looked like a beggar, half naked and coated with dirt and sweat.

  His sole concern was the recipe for the antidote that offered the last hope for his wife.

  Mist clung in the hollows, rendering trees and landmarks ghostly in the predawn gloom. The prayer gate to Chochocan hulked up out of whiteness like something from the spirit lands ruled by Turakamu, God of the Dead. Hokanu raced under its spindle arches, barely aware of the painted holy figures in their niches, or the votive lamp left lit by a passing priest. He stumbled on, caring only that this gate marked the beginning of the end of his journey. The borders to the estate lay over the next set of hills, and through a defile guarded by his own patrols. A runner would be posted there, along with a trusted officer and another man trained as a field healer. With any luck, he would have the herb for the antidote in his stores; and every Lord's kitchen stocked red-bee honey.

  Hurting in every joint, and gasping in the extremity of exertion, Hokanu hoped the Good God would forgive him for neglecting the prayer of passage the gate was intended to inspire. He lacked the breath for speech, and he knew if he stopped he would fall prone and pass out. Immersed in a misery of tiredness, Hokanu crossed through the arch into the pearly mists beyond.

  The horses sensed the ambush before he did.

  The big roan gelding plowed to a stop, snorting, and the mare shied. Jerked forward by the sudden halt, Hokanu gasped in frustration. But the arrow fired from a thicket by the roadway missed him by inches, clattering harmlessly on the verge.

  Instantly, he banged the gelding with his elbow, sending it into a maddened pirouette. The snorting mare curvetted into its quarters, and the gelding let out a squeal and a kick. Hokanu snatched his sword from the saddle scabbard. Under cover of the milling animals, he doubled back into the arch of Chochocan's prayer gate.

  Hokanu dared not assume there would be only one ambusher. He offered a brief prayer to the Good God that, whoever they were, they would not be familiar with horses from the barbarian world, for the beasts offered his only chance of staying alive.

  Still tied together by their leading rein, his mounts thrashed before the archway, the gelding determined to land a defensive bite or kick, and the panicked mare spinning, jerking, and rearing, in an effort to bolt. Hokanu chanced that no assassin born on Kelewan would dare those stamping, striking hooves to rush the archway and take him. The ambusher's only option was to flank him through the entrance on the other side, and praise be to Chochocan, whatever dead Minwanabi Lord had raised this offering to the god had spent with a lavish hand. This gate was massive, built of stone and timbers, with flying buttresses to support its great height. It had intricate carving, rare gilt spires, and a multiplicity of interior vaulting, niches, and prayer nooks. Six archers could conceal themselves inside and seriously impede traffic: no doubt the real reason behind the ancient Lord's gesture of devotion.

  Hokanu could only be grateful for such impiety now, as he left the shield of the frightened horses and climbed the fluted scrollwork, then hauled himself hand over hand along a beam below the rafters. He swung himself up and ducked into a nook behind a painted face of felicity. Gasping silently from overexertion, Hokanu pressed himself into the shallow shadow. He lay back against the side of the nook, eyes blindly open, while his body took in air. A moment passed like eternity. As the dizziness left him, the Shinzawai noble noticed that the face above him was hollow. The backside was built like an embrasure, with holes drilled through the eyes from which a man in concealment could observe anyone who entered the prayer gate, coming or going.

  Had Hokanu not been breathless, and in deadly danger from an assassin, he might have laughed aloud. Within the Empire, not even religion was free of the Game of the Council; obviously, past Minwanabi Lords had stationed watchers here to give warning of arrivals to the estate, and also to spy upon traffic and commerce that chanced by upon the road. Whatever subterfuge had been launched from this place in the past, Hokanu seized the advantage of the moment. He grasped the support beam that held the mask in its niche, pulled himself up into its hollowed back, then looked out the eye holes.

  The mare and the gelding still spun, now hopelessly entangled in the leading rein. One or the other had kicked a support post, for there was a hoof shaped depression in one of the caryatids that supported the entry arch. Suddenly the animals turned as one, the gelding with a snort. Both stared into the night, tense, ears forward listening. Warned by the horses, Hokanu saw movement in the shadows beyond the prayer gate.

  Black-clad figures stalked there, spread out in flank
ing formation. The three in the lead carried bows. Two more followed, as rear guard, and to the profound relief of the man they hunted, all of them scanned the prayer gate's crannies and corners at ground level.

  The mare sighted the men before the gelding. She flung up her head with such force that the rein snapped, and with a whistling snort she bolted back down the roadway. Fear drove her to a flat gallop, a horse's instinct guiding her back toward home and stable. The marauders in black leaped out of her path and re-formed. The more phlegmatic gelding watched, ears and tail tautly lifted. Then he shook out his mane, rubbed an itch in his neck against the arm of the dented caryatid, and trotted a short distance away, dropping his nose to graze by the roadside.

  In the night-damp cavity of the prayer gate, all fell suddenly silent; Hokanu knew a stab of dismay. His starved lungs still labored from his run, and an effort to quiet his breathing left him dangerously dizzy. Left with an ugly decision, he chose to be discovered and to fight, rather than to pass out and allow enemies to take him unconscious.

  His five attackers heard him immediately. They stiffened like dogs pointing game and faced their quarry's hiding place. Then two slung their bows across their shoulders. The three others arrayed themselves in defensive formation, while the lead two began to climb.

  Hokanu turned his sword and flung it like a javelin. The weapon caught the bulkier man through the throat, piercing him down behind the breastbone, through the heart. Silenced before he could scream, he fell with a dull thud that made the gelding start and look up. Hokanu was peripherally aware of the horse moving nervously around the pillar beyond the gateway; more immediately, he flung himself down and back into cover as three arrows whizzed toward his hiding place.

  One smacked wood with a thunk, while two others chiseled splinters out of the fortune mask's ear, and deflected on, to imbed themselves in the timbers behind. Hokanu grasped the knife he had kept hidden in his loincloth. He shoved back, as far into the cranny as his size would allow, and reached up left-handed to wrench one of the arrows from the wood.