by David Duncan
In the bitterest hours of the night, he had reproached himself for another blunder. He should have ambushed that sorcerer Sixth as he headed home to Ov, instead of pandering to Nnanji's stupid scruples.
But had he turned the circle? During a discussion that had run halfway to dawn, Honakura had suggested that perhaps he had not yet done so. Seven cities had fallen to the sorcerers; Sapphire had visited but six. The way back ran by Ov, so let the ship call there. No one could think of a better plan, but no one was very happy with the prospect. The sorcerers would be doubly alert for swordsmen now. Moreover, Sapphire had no logical excuse to trade in Ov. Ov was a tin-mining center; the bronze ingots that Brota had purchased at a knock-down price in Gi had themselves come from Ov. To offer them for sale there would make no sense and might rouse suspicion.
A short visit, then, Wallie suggested, and offered to pay the dock fees. Brota accepted that suggestion without argument.
Ov was huge, bigger even than Dri or Ki San, the sailors said. It sprawled in patches and weals on the higher reaches of a low gray landscape, whose hollows were fetid swamp. The buildings themselves were a drab gray, also, monotonous and ugly―a city built of fossilized business suits, Wallie concluded peevishly. Amid such tedious dullness, the sorcerers' tower was a welcome relief, black and vertical, evil instead of merely funereal. It stood, as usual, about a block back from the River. Its exterior seemed to be complete, and sunlight streaked from glass in at least one of the high windows.
The River was shallow, and the dock unlike any other Wallie had seen, a long pier extending far out from shore, branching at the end to form a T Each captain tried to moor as close to the city as he dared approach, so the vertical part of the T was crowded, the crossbar almost empty.
Wallie, Nnanji, and Tomiyano, the three wise monkeys, gathered in the deckhouse as Brota brought Sapphire in. She found a berth about halfway along the vertical, on the downstream side.
"Good position," Tomiyano said. "Cut the cables and the current will sweep us away. Good for a fast escape." He glanced at Wallie.
"Good fighting terrain," Wallie agreed. "No warehouses overlooking us―they could only bring up reinforcements from one side." Then he caught the captain's eye, and each admitted in silence that he was uneasy. Seven times they had risked bringing a swordsman of the Seventh to a sorcerer city in violation of the local laws. This was the end of the line. Superstition said that if something was going to happen, it should happen now. Superstition worked well in the World.
Nnanji had caught the mood, also. Half the night, Nnanji had been in spate on the subject of trysts―the Tryst of Rof and the Tryst of Za, Guiliko's Tryst and Farhanderi's Tryst―honor and glory and blood and immortality. Now he had succumbed to the prevailing dreariness of Ov.
His brother strolled into the deckhouse in his slave costume.
"You don't have to," Nnanji said, "if you don't want to."
Even Katanji seemed more subdued than usual. He hesitated and then said, "My duty, mentor?"
Nnanji bit his lip and nodded.
"Keep it short, though," Wallie said. "Just a quick look at the tower and then right back, okay?"
Sapphire bumped gently against the fenders.
The Fire God was angry... Honakura wandered in. "Too far to town for my old legs," he muttered, and hauled himself up to sit on a chest.
They all felt it, but no one would say it: Something was going to go wrong.
A wagon went by and made a drumming, roaring sound on the roadway that was built of timber over stone piers. It was also narrow and cluttered by ships' loads on both sides.
"Phew!" Nnanji pulled a face. "Now we know why this spot was empty!" The vessel on the opposite side of the pier was a cattle boat, as evidenced by mournful bellowings and an unmistakable stench.
"Must have swordsmen aboard?" Tomiyano suggested, and dodged the ensuing punch. For a moment the two of them indulged in a wrestling match. Wallie was amused, remembering the beginning of the voyage. Sapphire was a much happier ship now.
Nnanji broke free of the unequal struggle and slapped at his shoulder, muttering. If mosquitoes in the World carried malaria, Wallie thought, men Ov could not be a healthy place. Already the deckhouse swarmed with them.
"The circle turned," mused the priest in his corner. He looked tired and even older than usual. "Have you decided what to do next, Lord Shonsu?"
"Yes," Wallie said. "Nothing."
Nnanji gasped. "Nothing, brother?"
'Tell me how to fight sorcerers," Wallie replied.
"Pah!" said the old man. "They're fakes!" His audience swung around to stare at him indignantly.
"Fakes?" Wallie sneered. "If you count up the garrisons and the other stories―how many now, Nnanji?"
'Two hundred and eighty-one," Nnanji said.
'Two hundred and eighty-one swordsmen have been killed. A man died out there on that deck. Fakes?"
'True," Honakura admitted. "But they're still faking. I'm sure of it. Why did the sorcerer offer to put a spell of good fortune on the cargo when he already knew it would fetch an unusually high price? Why was the captain given a demonstration of birds coming out of pots? It all stinks of showing off, like little boys do. They're not as powerful as they want you to think!"
He had argued this before, and certainly the sorcerers did have an aura of showmanship about them. But they also had deadly powers that Wallie could not explain in an iron-age culture.
"So what are you going to do about them?" Honakura demanded again from his perch across the deckhouse.
"The answer is still 'nothing,' " Wallie said. "In every city it's the same story: the sorcerers appear, and the swordsmen march out and―zap! It started fifteen years ago, in Wal, and every couple of years they do another. I expect they'll cross the River soon. Does it matter? The swordsmen have learned nothing in fifteen years―nothing! I don't know what to teach them, and they wouldn't learn anyway. They'll try to take the cities back with the same techniques that lost them. I want nothing to do with it."
The old priest made the sign of the Goddess. "But the edict of the gods!"
"So She doesn't like Fire altars in Her temples? What does it matter? Even the priests don't care much! For thousands of years Her swordsmen have been swatting sorcerers like bugs. Now the foot is in the other shoe, and She starts sending miracles."
Honakura spluttered. "Blasphemy!"
Wallie was beginning to convince himself and was also losing his temper as his sense of failure and frustration boiled over. "All right―blasphemy! So throw me in the River as you did the last time! Denounce me to Brota. I don't know what happened fifteen years ago. Did the sorcerers find a better thunderbolt, do you suppose? Or did they just get tired of being stamped on by swordsmen? The people don't mind. They're just as miserable under sorcerers as they were under swordsmen; no more, no less. And they certainly won't want battles being fought in their streets, civilians killed, swordsmen killed, houses burned. You saw in Gi what a fire can do.
"No. I shall do nothing." Wallie went back to staring out the window.
Nnanji was incredulous and upset. "But the tryst, my lord brother?"
"I think the sorcerers could zap a tryst as easily as they can zap a garrison. It will be a disaster."
Shonsu had failed disastrously, but that was another mystery. In all their inquiries, the Sapphire detectives had heard no further word of Shonsu. He had been castellan of the lodge at Casr, but that was all they knew. They had uncovered no news of any slaughter later than the conquest of Ov. There was no explanation of Shonsu's departure from Casr and his pilgrimage to Hann, driven by the sorcerers' demons.
"Remember the riddle?" Wallie said. "Finally return that sword? I shall return it all right―to the Goddess. I'll give it to Her temple in Casr. Then the tryst can fight over it. I shall buy a blue breechclout and be a water rat. Want a strong back on your ship, Captain?"
"You are lying, Shonsu," Tomiyano said cheerfully. "Swear an oath on that?"
> "Tell me how to fight sorcerers," Wallie growled and turned back to peer out the shutter. Then he added: "Port officer!"
Honakura and Katanji came to the windows as the plank clunked down to the dock.
She was elderly, white-haired, plump―a something of the Third, in a brown wool gown, with pink cheeks and a friendly smile. The big, embossed leather pouch of office hung at her waist. She came puffing up the plank to the deck.
Wallie thought she seemed a motherly, neighborly sort, and at once wondered if that was what he was meant to think. Then he hissed, for there were two sorcerers behind her, a Third and a Second. They glided up the plank with less effort and onto the deck without asking permission; they stood there like hooded statues, faces invisible, hands in sleeves.
"Uh-oh!" Nnanji whispered.
"If they search the ship..." Wallie drew the knife from his boot.
"I'll take the woman," said Tomiyano, who knew that swordsmen had sutra problems fighting women. "Shonsu the brown, Nnanji the yellow."
Oligarro was being captain, and Brota was close beside him. Half the crew hung around the deck, wary and frowning at the sinister intruders.
The port officer made the salute. "I welcome you to Ov, Captain," she said, "on behalf of the king and the wizard. What swordsmen do you have on board?"
Brota stepped forward and made the acknowledgment of an inferior, then accepted the resulting salute.
"Me, my daughter of the Second, and a First."
"That is all?" one of the sorcerers growled, and the watchers could not tell which one spoke, although it was probably the brown Third. "No frees? You will swear that on your ship, Captain?"
"Certainly," Oligarro said. The crew all knew now that their passengers did not classify themselves as free swords.
"Mistress, you also swear that there are no free swords aboard?"
"Certainly," Brota said. The sorcerers pivoted and floated away down the plank.
"That's new, isn't it?" Brota demanded.
The grandmotherly type nodded. "Started today. Something's chewing the baggies' bottoms." She shrugged. "Don't know what."
Wallie knew what. He was relieved to see that Brota looked as suspicious of this sweet old dear as he was. No port officer had ever talked like that before.
"Well, let's do business," Brota said. "How much?"
"Five," the port officer answered sweetly.
Oligarro frowned. "I thought two was the fee?"
"Perhaps it is, perhaps it isn't," she said. "But you are going to pay five, and who's to know?" She shook her leather pouch, making it jingle, and she smiled again.
Brota scowled and Oligarro argued, but he paid in the end.
The dear old lady took the money, made a polite farewell, and limped away. Brota made a vulgar gesture at her back. Then she headed for the deckhouse to collect from Lord Shonsu.
As a slave Katanji could be so inconspicuous as to be almost invisible. Wallie caught a glimpse of him slouching down the plank, and then he had gone. Brota headed out back to supervise, but the crew was already doing everything required. Wallie turned to regard the dock, in time to see two more sorcerers gliding by. "Why do they never show their hands?" he asked, and got no reply.
Holiyi and Linihyo staggered down to the dock with an ingot, then took another and leaned the two together like a tent for elves. Hawkers came by, and Lina haggled with them for groceries and fresh fruit, while other crew members drifted off along the pier in search of information, most going left to the city, a couple heading right toward the River. Brota parked herself in her chair at the top of the plank and waited for business.
People and wagons swarmed along the roadway, with masts and rigging forming a double avenue of winter trees above them and the wheels rumbling thunderously on the hollow planks. The drivers cursed and roared at the sailors and slaves; the sailors replied as loudly and continued to pile goods in heaps along both sides, steadily encroaching on the right-of-way. Pedestrians dodged and jostled. Birds that looked like gulls perched on the yards and made lightning dives into the traffic in search of garbage.
A party of horsemen arrived, and the cattle were unloaded, turning confusion into chaos for a while. Eventually the bawling died away as the herd was driven into the city; the cattle boat cast off and sailed away, leaving no regrets on Sapphire.
Nnanji started to do exercises. Honakura sat on the chest and seemed to be thinking hard. Wallie and Tomiyano took a window each and stared despondently at the crowd. All of them slapped petulantly at mosquitoes.
As usual, sorcerers patrolled the docks in pairs, gliding along unperturbed by the crush, ignoring the impatience of those who wanted to get by them but dared not get too close. They had no set beat, and Wallie could not decide how many there were in total; all he had to go on was the color of their gowns, and they seemed to change partners frequently.
Then Tomiyano suddenly snapped, "Shonsu! That Fourth! Recognize him?"
"Our soft-handed friend from Ov!"
"Ixiphino?" Nnanji came over to look.
It was the port officer from Aus, slim and handsome in orange breechclout and shiny leather sandals; still looking to Wallie like a beachwear model. Beside him walked a sorcerer of the Fifth, red robed, cowled, tall, and stooped. Behind them, and apparently in their service, a slave pulled a cart loaded with cubical baskets. They were heading away from the town.
"That settles any doubts in my mind," Wallie said. "He's a sorcerer! And look there!"
Not far behind was Katanji. He must have met that little procession somewhere and now was tagging along behind, to see where it was going. Sharp kid!
They watched the quarry out of sight behind the next ship, one anonymous slave boy following. Tomiyano went out and ran up the rigging like a squirrel.
Thana came in to ask if they had seen the sailor.
Jja arrived. Wallie kissed her and told her the news.
Two more spies returned. Fala had discovered little of interest, but Lae had seen the fake sailor and his sorcerer companion in the town and had trailed them, also. She had waited a while on the dock to make sure she was not being followed. Lae was competent at anything, even spying.
"They came from the tower, I think," she said, and her sure manner suggested that a theory from Lae was as good as a fact from anyone else.
Tomiyano slid down a rope and hurried in. "They turned right at the junction," he said, and hurried over to one of the stern windows. "That ship there, the white one."
The crossbar of the T was less crowded with shipping, and the ship he indicated was near the end, clearly visible and isolated. It was small and single-masted. If the cart was there, it was hidden by the hull.
"Tell a landlubber about boats," Wallie said. "Surely a small one like that could come much closer in? Why would they berth out there?"
"Doesn't follow," the captain said impatiently. "That babe's built for speed. She probably draws more water than Sapphire―big keel. Too big to use a center board."
Wallie turned back to Lae. "Did you happen to see what they had in the baskets?"
Lae glanced at Tomiyano and her wrinkles deepened in a hint of a smile. "Birds, my lord."
Tomiyano growled obscenities about sorcerers and their birds.
Time continued to pass imperceptibly...
Then a small candle flickered in the darkness at the back of Wallie's mind. Katanji had always seen birds around the towers, birds that walked on the ground. The sorcerers fed the birds. True, they had feather facemarks, but... he tried to recall the bird that he had seen magicked from the pot. Square baskets? "What sort of birds, could you tell?" he asked and held his breath for Lae's reply.
"They sounded like pigeons."
"Great gods!" Wallie said. "Octopus and feathers!" The candle flame blazed up like a bonfire. The others looked at him in surprise, but he was lost in thought and did not notice their stares or the half-amused, half-worried glances they exchanged, His mind raced as he tried to absorb the implications o
f pigeons in baskets and a fast boat.
"My lord brother?" said Nnanji at last, concerned.
Wallie snapped back to the deckhouse and thumped him on the back so vigorously that he almost fell over. Jubilation! "Got it!" he said. "It's not much, but I've solved one of the sorcerers' secrets." He turned his smile on Tomiyano. "You get black stuff out of an octopus?"
"Ink, you mean?" the captain asked, looking annoyed at this puzzle game.
"Ink?" A new word for Wallie. The former Shonsu would have known nothing of octopus, except possibly as food. Sepia―squid ink! And the feather marks meant quills. Quills! Ink! Honakura had said that the sorcerers had once been associated with the priests―scribes, by the gods! And homing pigeons were no use without messages, and messages meant writing. That was how the sorcerers had known of the downed bridge, of the fire in Gi, how word had come so soon about the tryst.
Pigeons, moreover, would only fly one way―homeward. So a messenger service based on pigeons needed a distribution network, and the fastest way of getting around would be a swift boat... and of course the overland shortcut from Aus. That was one reason why the road had been repaired. The sailor they had recognized had brought pigeons from Aus and probably Wal, for use in Ov and Amb. Check!
The implications were immense: find a trader or merchant who kept pigeons in a free city and you had a sorcerer spy. Hawking was a common sport―hawks could cut the lines of communication. Wallie still could not fight sorcery, but he had a start for fighting sorcerers.
"I can't explain now," Wallie said. Perhaps he never could, for writing was beyond their experience. It was also social dynamite, and even to reveal the principle might break the sorcerers' monopoly and rock the whole framework of their culture. The gods might not allow that. No! The sorcerers did not allow it! Now he remembered his half-joke about ensorceling wine. That was why writing was not invented―it had been invented once and it was a sorcerer monopoly. He had discovered the sorcerers' business. That was why they prowled the World in disguise―to stamp out any reinvention of writing. That was how they built identical towers, with blueprints.
