by Larry Niven
Lovely evening for a stroll, he thought.
And then they were in the alleyway. Three of them, bulky but not clumsy, each with a fistful of sharp steel. One was cloaked, one wore partial armor of some kind, and one was one-handed, with a cleaver-like blade welded to the stump.
For a time they just looked at him, their outlines reduced to darkness, eyes burning in their faces. No one spoke.
“How did you lose your hand?” Aros asked. He was genuinely interested in such things, and, after all, in a few seconds either he’d be unable to ask the question, or Stumpy would be incapable of answering.
But that really didn’t matter, because Stumpy didn’t answer. Instead, two of the three split off, walking down the alley side by side. The one with the armor cocked his head a little to the side, as if trying to determine where Aros was.
The shadows were doing their job. Which was nice, because his enemies also didn’t notice when his left hand slipped the throwing knife from his belt, and the shadows were apparently too dark to see him hurl it underhand, such that none of the three had any idea what was happening until the knife sprouted from the armored man’s throat like a rose crafted entirely of thorns. Armored Man gave a wet groan and collapsed onto his side.
Stumpy turned to look at his friend and turned back just in time to avoid being beheaded by a lightning-fast swing, catching it on the cleaver welded to the stump of his left hand.
That was fine, because Aros was taking a step, setting his weight. He swung his left foot up in a short arc, planting it directly in Stumpy’s groin.
To his credit, the brigand made hardly any sound as he slid against the wall. Aros would have loved to gut him, but the third man was moving in, and this one was no slouch.
He was slightly shorter than Aros, but stocky, one of those rare, dangerous men who seemed constructed of bouncy muscle and lightning nerves. Fast! If they hadn’t stepped into the light, the blade would have disappeared entirely. As it was, dim moonlight still required careful attention to the swordsman’s shoulders and instinctive reaction to the sound of his footwork, music on the slimy tiles.
Fierce, rat-like eyes locked with his, and he knew his opponent had survived a dozen back-alley skirmishes. Dangerous.
But that was all right. Aros had survived a hundred. He backed up until even with Stumpy, and took a moment for Flaygod to hack down into the man’s right leg. Stumpy groaned and crumbled to the ground.
The tallest swordsman was, predictably, leaping forward. Aros slid back, found what he was looking for and then retreated again.
The swordsman came forward, into shadow …
And tripped over the armored guy, lying there in the shadows bleeding. To his credit, the swordsman recovered quickly, or would have, if Aros had not struck hard in his moment of unbalance.
The head tumbled one way, the body another.
Stumpy had lost his sword, but the cleaver on his left was still a threat. Aros looked into the man’s small, pig-like eyes. “I can cut off your right hand, and then see how your pet blacksmith will correct it. Would you like to see how that goes?”
Stumpy shook his head.
“Who hired you?” he asked.
To his credit, the man seemed to possess a smidgeon of loyalty. Aros swept his leg out from under him and planted his own foot on the cleaver. For some reason he didn’t want to kill the man. Perhaps he admired Stumpy’s fortitude in continuing to work after a debilitating injury, not resorting to begging or simple theft. Certainly there was something admirable to be found in that.
Stumpy tried to move, but when he did Aros did a little hop and planted his left foot on the wounded leg. Stumpy squealed, which was no surprise. That had to hurt.
“Tell me who hired you,” Aros said.
“C’Vall!” Stumpy hissed.
He should have known. “All right,” he said. “Don’t ever let me see you again.” Stumpy nodded emphatically, and Aros turned and walked away.
He heard the slither of steel against cobblestone, and turned just in time to deflect Stumpy’s blade and riposte, his sawtooth Macuahuitl cleaving Stumpy to the spine. The workman-like part of his mind appreciated the precision and economy of the motion. The animal part, the part he ordinarily sheathed when among city dwellers, bared its teeth. Blood had been spilled, awakening the barbarian’s ancient and feral hunger. There would be more.
TWO
The Talisman
Like light reflected from a silver shield, the moon’s rippling twin shimmered on breaking waves.
Neoloth-Pteor had walked out onto the beach, leaving his elfish assistant Fandy and the coachman on the road behind, around a curve. Down the beach a mile or two south nestled a small fishing village, and north an hour’s ride was a commercial fishery. But here, and now, there was privacy.
The wizard spread his arms and began his incantation, his voice drifting out along the waves as they rolled inward toward him and then out again. They were words of power, but he remembered when they had been more powerful still. In boyhood, ages before, magic had been magic, and magicians were able to work their will without endless manipulations and machinations to separate a single miserable swordsman from his life.
But even if the days had changed, Neoloth was still the greatest wizard the Strellines had ever produced, and he would be damned if memories of glories past would deny him the workings of magic present.
The surface of the ocean roiled, as if plucked by a wind he could not feel. The image of the moon dimpled, shimmered, and then was still.
He stood on the beach feeling something of a fool, wondering if he had misjudged his spell, or the time, or place. A seagull “skawed” above him, wheeling in the night sky. Neoloth perched on the rock, and felt his foot slip a bit to one side. Righted himself, and waited.
And then … there they were. Five silvered wakes against the blackness of the waves, snaking toward the shore. Three bearded faces, two smooth. A family pod of Merfolk, males and females. He caught his breath: never so many at a single time, in all his long experience. Instinct told him it was important, somehow, spoke of a changing world even if he did not fully comprehend all the changes.
The males approached the rock, the two females a little farther back. He saw gray in the largest female’s flowing locks, and reckoned that she was a grandmere, that perhaps the younger was a daughter, with other children and grandchildren hidden beneath the waves.
“Come,” the largest of the mermen said. His voice was very clear, even with that slight gargling quality common to his people. They were coiled in the shallows, the waves washing over their scaled torsos. Neoloth clambered over a boulder and slid down to stand just above a tide pool where they could reach each other, human and Mer, each without leaving the comfort of his native environment.
“I am here, M’thrilli,” Neoloth said. “As always, you call, I come.”
“We have what you seek,” the merman said. “Do you have what we agreed to?”
“Yes.”
“Then … see,” M’thrilli said. As if he had made an invisible gesture, one of the other males swam forward and held out his hands. The object was no larger than an infant’s forearm, a cylinder of brass sealed with threaded caps. It was covered with glyphs Neoloth had seen before on one of the great Mayan time wheels. He held his breath.
The fabled device was a reality … at least real in that it conformed to descriptions in whispered myth. It was a talisman, the talisman in fact, an object of fabulous value that had not, as feared, disappeared forever beneath the waves.
If the legends were true, it was a relic of Azteca, used to store mana from the bodies of the sacrificed. What was it doing here, half a world from its origins? Again, if the legends were true, then it was simply a matter of a wizard who had outstayed his welcome, seeking to flee north when his vessel was caught in a storm.
Or was it pirates? Or sudden illness? True, a mighty enough wizard should have been able to deal with any of those things … but perhaps not
several at a time. Looking at it, Neoloth understood that he might have been grasping at straws, but in times like these, one grasped at whatever floated.
The merman saw the hunger in his eyes. “Your part,” he said.
Neoloth opened his pouch, presenting M’thrilli with a variety of tempered steel spearheads. Their eyes were now the ones burning with hunger. Craft the Merfolk possessed in plenty, and strength, and clever hands. But the workings of fire were known only to those on the land, and that was a good thing for those who spoke the Mer-tongue.
It gave such men something to trade. What did they want with spear points? Hunting? Protection? Fighting over territory? Now that the magic was dwindling, did the surviving Merfolk find themselves battling over good hunting currents?
“We fight not with each other,” M’thrilli said. And, again, Neoloth was not certain if his mind was being read or they simply anticipated his chain of thought. It was not the first time he’d had that impression.
“The magic wanes. Our numbers wane. There is fish for all,” he said.
“Then why?” Neoloth asked, sorry as soon as the words left his mouth.
“Our bones have power,” M’thrilli said solemnly. “We must protect ourselves from those who hunt us.”
The merman’s eyes were sad. “Soon. Today, or in ten thousand years, we will be nothing but myth. But for now, we stay in the deeps, where the mana is still strong.”
The mermen to either side took the tools and deposited the talisman in its stead. Fearing even to breathe, Neoloth bent and gathered it into his hands. Even with the precious thing in his possession, he could barely believe it.
“Why?” he asked. “Why would you trade this to me?”
“We have no need for it,” M’thrilli said. “It requires spells our tongues have never shaped. We are magic. We do not wish to be a part of men’s workings of it. Perversions of it. We could have lived for eons. It was your spells that used up the world’s mana too rapidly.”
Neoloth-Pteor considered. “Then why don’t you destroy it. Why sell it to me?”
M’thrilli’s expression was not pleasant. “The sooner the mana is used up on the land, the sooner men will forget magic. And if you forget magic, you may leave us alone, in the depths. We know you of the old days, Neoloth. There are better men than you. But there are also worse.”
The slight, sad smile thinned. “Be well in the last days. We have served each other before. Likely, this is the final time.”
And with that, the Merfolk slipped back into the waves and were gone, leaving Neoloth on the shore, alone with the dancing light of the moon.
* * *
Neoloth-Pteor slipped back into the coach without looking back at the ocean, holding the oilcloth in both hands. He did not unwrap it again until he was safely behind the coach’s wooden door. The coachman cracked his whip, and their conveyance was on its way.
“Master?” his elf asked. Neoloth gave Fandy a single look: do not ask. And then leaned back against the back wall and closed his eyes. Everything was working.
* * *
Two hours later they were still in the thick of the night but drawing near to the castle. Quillia’s grandest dwelling perched on a low hill, surrounded by gardens and hedge mazes, smaller mansions, and an army barracks whose soldiers doubled as emergency bodyguards. The coach bounced up the final cobbles to a small castle—or a large stylized house—just east of the main dwelling. Neoloth’s own personal lodgings.
A dwelling worthy of Quillia’s chief wizard.
He felt a deep sense of satisfaction as the coach drew into a tunnel formed by sculpted hedges, into a shadowed arbor. “I will want you in the morning,” he said to Fandy.
Neoloth carried his package into his study, which was lined with scrolls and books and odd memorabilia, detritus of a life lived more in the shadows than in the light. He swept scrolls cluttering his desktop into a pile and laid down the oilskin. Peeled it away. Then for the second time, he beheld the talisman.
A little water had leaked out of the cracks in machining. The joining edges were so precise and delicate that they almost eluded the naked eye. Still, water had seeped into the works.
He wondered if that would damage the workings. If workings there were.
Neoloth turned the cylinder over and over again, until he saw something that looked like an entry point. He rummaged in his desk until he found a magnifying glass. He inspected the cylinder carefully. Could it be booby-trapped?
He had not been to Azteca, but in visions had seen the pyramids and sacrificial pyres, the lines of war captives and criminals, the rivers of blood running in the shadows of Quetzalquatl’s titanic wings. Part of him hungered to witness that spectacle, while another part was glad that he never had, or would. There were ways that his soul was too close to a tipping point, and Neoloth knew that just as there were deeds that could not be undone, there were sights that could not be unseen, changes in the composition of the soul that could not be healed or reversed.
Yes. There was something daunting about the cylinder. The Merfolk had been wise to rid themselves of it.
Neoloth’s nails were long, tapered and blackened by tarry substances beneath it, either extruded from or growing into the quick. He wiggled his fingers to get the stiffness out and then drew up his sleeves. Neoloth’s arm was covered by tattoos, mostly in dark primary colors, many faded by time. With one fingernail, he drew a cut in his skin, just over a tattoo of a spider.
Blood welled and then … was absorbed into the spider. The inking swelled and shook itself to wakefulness and crawled off his arm. It seemed confused and sleepy but gained confidence and purpose as it crawled across the desk and to the cylinder.
For a minute the tattoo had been rounded and corporeal, but, as it crawled up on the cylinder, it lost dimension again, became flat, and slipped into a crack through which no earthly insect could have passed.
Neoloth pressed his ear against the cylinder. He heard soft scraping sounds, as if someone was drawing a pen against the inside, scratching it about. Then … something that might have been a gasp or cry of dismay, on the tiniest possible scale.
Then … a tiny click, and a door opened on the smooth part of the cylinder. The entire machine seemed to blossom.
The spider tattoo was waiting as patiently as a trained dog. It crawled out of the cylinder and back onto his arm, where it sank into his skin again, sinking into a well-deserved rest.
Neoloth peered into the workings. Yes, there had been a trap. The inside of the cylinder was covered with engravings, miniature hieroglyphs. One of them had peeled away, a brass equivalent of the tattoo. Something poisonous no doubt, and native to the jungles of Azteca. The battle between it, and the spider, must have been exciting, and he was sorry to have missed it.
But now he wanted to look at the workings. Other than a few small gears, the compartment was largely occupied by a scroll constructed of beaten gold, gold so fine it was almost translucent. Never had he seen gold beaten that finely. And like the interior of the talisman it was covered by minute, hand-graven glyphs. The result might have taken an army of miniature artisans months to produce. The scroll was wound onto a spindle. How long was the entire thing? A hundred feet, perhaps. And the thing was designed so that it wound from one spindle to another, perhaps at the movement of the tiny gears.
“Brilliant,” he whispered. A watchmaker’s precision in service to a sorcerer’s secrets. He bowed his head in respect to the unknown Aztec craftsman, and the wizard who must have paid dearly for the device.
Two important questions remained: Was there still power in it? And if not, could it be charged up once again?
Neoloth carefully folded the device back together again into its cylinder form and ran his fingers along the outside edge. Closed his eyes. Yes, a slight sensation of warmth.
He held his arm next to the device, slowing his breathing so that he contributed no mana to the process to come. Neoloth’s right arm was inscribed with countless tattoos, s
ymbolic of adventures, or memories, or simple magical designs … but hidden among them were patterns of greater significance. And two of them were small butterfly-like creatures the size of gnats, tattoos that could only have been created by the smallest of hands. Fairy tats, earned in a far-off land, performing favors to a dying kingdom of the little people.
He could withdraw his own mana, his own natural life force, but by placing his arm close, if there was anything left at all …
He held his breath.
There.
The slightest twitch of a wing. Oh, yes. The little creatures, sealed to his flesh, were stirring to life. Rousing from long slumber and death-like dream. They seemed to yawn, scratch themselves, and pull up away from his skin like little inchworms, thin as hairs, fragile as cobwebs.
He pulled his arm away. The butterflies sank back into his flesh and were still.
So. Even after decades beneath the waves, magic remained. Not much, but enough to convince him the device still worked …
A knock at his door.
Neoloth looked up at once. Sunlight streamed through his window. His contemplations had lasted hours longer than he had intended.
“Yes?” he asked, opening the door.
A red-bearded member of the royal guard stood there, head high, quite appropriately respectful of the court’s grand vizier. The guard clicked his heels. “Her majesty the queen requests your presence.”
“Tell her that I will be there quickly,” Neoloth answered. Damnation! He had been up all night. His clothes would be ruffled, his hair a mess, his breath like something that had crawled out of a swamp and died.
“I will wait,” Redbeard replied.
Neoloth closed the door. Well. Magic might be in short supply, but a simple spell … another test of the talisman, he told himself.
Neoloth held the cylinder at arm’s length and passed it over his body, chanting an incantation as he did. He felt the tingle as dirt and sand fell from his body and clothes. His hair straightened itself. Fatigue, collected in his joints like sand in a watch, just … dissolved.
