by Jack Lovejoy
“It’s hard for you, isn’t it, young Branwe?” said the kindly old mrem. “Well, well, we all must follow whatever destiny the All-Mother has decided for us. Now do you remember any of the history taught in class this last week?”
He listened patiently while Branwe recited the major dates and events since the foundation of Ar, down to the death of the great Talwe. He had two of the early half-legendary kings confused, and won a battle for Ar that in fact had been lost, but otherwise recited with credit.
“Very good, my boy. And don’t worry about not getting the names and dates of the early kings down pat. A lot of that history has no more substance than the tales in the Dragon Book. Although even those tales have at least some substance. After all, there are dragons, and some herd animals do wield magical powers.”
“What about the All-Mother sinking the ancient homeland of the Old Race beneath the sea? Did that really happen too?”
“Who can say?” The old schoolmaster smiled whimsically at him. “We know so little about the rest of the planet, that I suppose even such wonders as that are possible. But now you’d better run along. I know what your master thinks about schooling, and I don’t want to get you in trouble. I also know, alas, how much work there is for you at festival time. So run along, my boy. Run along. Don’t forget, classes resume the second day after the festival ends.”
Branwe did hurry away down the street, but not in the direction of the Blue Dragon. The early dismissal today was an unexpected boon. So long as he returned to work on time, Grujekh would have nothing to complain about—except as a matter of principle. Turning the corner, he wove his way through the festival crowds toward the armory.
The crowd here was already ten deep around the courtyard-like drill field. The soldiers did not like drilling under civilian eyes; their captains were still angry about it. But the new governor had thrown open the drill fields to the public at festival time, as a donative in the name of his patron, Tristwyn the boy king of Ar. Military discipline had relaxed since his accession to the throne. Branwe had overheard rankers at the Blue Dragon whisper that morale would have plain collapsed, but for old Severakh.
It was as much to see that legendary old warrior as to watch the drill itself that Branwe had come here today. He saw Severakh standing in full battle armor at the far side of the field, which was nearly a half city-block in dimension, surrounded on all four sides by two-story barracks, an infirmary, an administrative office, and a multi-doored refectory. He recognized the martial dance now being performed—also in full battle armor, despite the official relaxation of this old tradition—as a maneuver popularly called the “grope.” The complex sweeping, weaving movements were not merely ornamental; at least, not under Severakh’s stem eye. In real combat, a horde of bandits or desert marauders would have found itself quickly outflanked and their defenses shattered. It was fascinating to watch the grace and agility of such powerful, heavy-armed mrem. All eyes were upon them.
Then all at once he was fascinated by a movement closer by. Hookpurses sometimes lodged at the Blue Dragon, and he had been taught their techniques, so he could alert Grujekh or Mamre of any attempt to rob a guest. This particular hookpurse had the look of an old professional: well dressed, but not too well; well groomed, but not conspicuously so; everything about him nondescript. He too seemed to keep his eyes on the martial dance. But slowly, smoothly, almost imperceptibly, he extended a single digit of his right hand; then just as slowly, smoothly, and imperceptibly he extended its retractable claw.
Hooking the purse of what looked like a prosperous village merchant, he locked his arm, and rose stealthily on his tiptoes, so no rotary movement of his hand would betray him. The purse vanished up his sleeve, and he began to insinuate himself backwards through the crowd.
“Well, well,” said a brawny young mrem, as he seized one of the hookpurse’s elbows, while his assistant seized the other. “If it ain’t our old pal, Fefo. We just dropped by to tell you that we’ve reserved your usual lodgings for you. They’re underground, and some folks say they’re a trifle damp, but you can get used to anything in time. And you’ll have plenty of that, Fefo.”
The assistant, who was even brawnier, chuckled at the crude sarcasm. He was joined by a few people in the crowd nearby, who understood what was happening.
“Keep a grip on him,” ordered the brawny young policemrem. ‘I’ll round up our witness. All right, lad. Come along.”
Branwe was surprised to see the policemrem looking right at him. He started to protest, but was brusquely silenced.
“You saw it all,” said the guardsmrem. “We were watching you. Don’t worry, you’re not in any trouble. We just need your testimony down at the lockup, then you can go home and we won’t bother you any more.”
Branwe sighed and followed obediently. There was no point in arguing. He was more worried about how he would explain his presence here at the armory when he reported late for work.
The Sentinel
THERE WAS no pattern to the labyrinthine dungeons. The first settlers in Kazerclawm had stored their water supply in underground cisterns. As the city expanded, so did its need for water, and the new cisterns were delved in conformity to the underlying rock structure, rather than to any ongoing plan. Then, with the completion of an aqueduct under the auspices of the late King of Ar, the cisterns were abandoned. Those directly below the fortress were now used as the city’s lockup.
“Hello, Fefo,” said the turnkey, a pawky little mrem with a humorous round face and neat whiskers, whose principal object in life seemed to be taking good care of himself. “Been sticking your claws where you shouldn’t again? You know what we said the last time you were our guest.” He picked up a metal beaker from his desk and shook it, grinning waggishly at the tinkle of hundreds of extracted claws. In the settled regions of the land, declawing was reserved for murderers; but Kazerclawm was a frontier city, the resort of rogues and vagabonds, and its criminal penalties accordingly more severe. “Amazing how fast my collection grows at festival time.”
This section of the old cistern had been partitioned off into tiers of small cells. Several of the prisoners had bandaged hands. They glowered evilly through the bars at the waggish turnkey.
“The registrar’s on his way,” he continued in the same bantering tone. The insignia on his uniform indicated that he was a career soldier, in his fourth hitch of service. That he was still a mere turnkey, literally as well as figuratively the lowest rank in the army, bespoke his military repute. The only light came from an oil lamp on his desk, and he had to peer into the shadows to see who was standing behind the two brawny policemrem and their prisoner.
“What? Is that you, Branwe?” he exclaimed. “I’m astonished to see a good lad like you brought here.”
“Hello, Cajhet.” Branwe stepped forward. “I haven’t done anything wrong. I’ m just a witness.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” said the turnkey. “The Blue Dragon wouldn’t be the same without you.”
Branwe smiled to himself. He had saved the pawky little mrem more than one sound thrashing at the claws of his fellow rankers. An inveterate gambler, Cajhet was at times not only reduced to mooching drinks but even to pocketing loose change from the bar and tables, when he thought nobody was looking. His reputation for skulking timidity seemed well known to the two brawny guardsmrem.
“Right under old Severakh’s nose.” The chief shook his head at the sullen hookpurse. “Remember how strict his orders were? Gnashing his teeth and pounding the table, he was.”
The assistant took up his cue: “Never saw the old mrem so mad. Think we should bring Fefo here to him in person?”
“Say, you may be right. The trouble is we can’t do it ourselves. We’re already overdue back at our posts. We have the legal right to impress any public official into police service, of course. But who could we get?”
“Why not Cajhet here?” asked the ass
istant.
“The very one! I should have thought of that myself. As soon as the registrar takes our evidence and that of young—what’s his name, Branwe—here, Cajhet can take the prisoner straight to old Severakh in person. Not only will he be doing his duty, but it’ll be a grand opportunity for him to really get acquainted with his commanding officer. What about it, Cajhet? Want to talk to Severakh? Should we send him word to expect you?”
The turnkey looked so mournful at this prospect that the two brawny guardsmrem could no longer restrain their laughter. Even Branwe had to smile. Cajhet was often teased by his fellow rankers over his mortal dread of ever meeting the fierce Severakh face to face. He grinned weakly as he realized it was all a joke.
There was nothing funny about it to the prisoner, however. A bandit or sneak thief could still make a living after being declawed, but a hookpurse was out of business if he no longer had anything to hook purses with. He remained sullen and motionless while the registrar completed the legal documents, only raising his eyes once, with a look of vindictive malice, as Branwe ended his testimony. The evidence of guardsmrem could be discredited in court, but not when corroborated by an independent witness, even a common potboy.
Branwe caught the malicious look. If he himself remembered every detail of the crime, there was no doubt this Fefo would remember every last detail about him. What if he got word to confederates on the outside? Branwe was not afraid of danger. It might even be a blessing. What better excuse for carrying a sword in the streets, or drilling until he was master swordsmrem? Perhaps he would mention the incident later to Mamre.
Right now, he needed an excuse for his tardiness in returning to work. The Blue Dragon would be thronged by now with soldiers, tourists, merchants, and festival revelers, drinking, dancing, laughing, gambling—and angrily pounding their tables when there was no potboy to refill their goblets quickly enough. No excuse was valid with Grujekh, if it cost him money....
The snowcap of the Kazerclaw glowed red-violet in the setting sun. More celebrants than ever thronged the streets. Branwe skirted a crowd straggling around a troupe of acrobats. The towers of the Watersmeet Cate were silhouetted against the twilight at the end of the street. If the garrison now seemed merely ornamental to some, and patrols beyond the city walls—against the protests of old Severakh—had been curtailed by the new governor as an unjustified expense, the gates were still shut punctually at sunset. There had been more and more reports lately about attacks by liskash upon travelers benighted outside the walls, and the last stragglers were even now pouring in from the countryside.
The sounds of revelry from the Blue Dragon meant that he would not get to bed until hours after midnight, but they were also a consolation. He might be so busy that Grujekh would not find a chance to berate him for his tardiness—
“Branwe,” a voice called softly to him out of the crowd across the street, and he at once forgot all about being late, or the long hours of drudgery before him. “I came looking for you, but Mamre said you had not yet returned from school.”
Slender and delicate, with all the enchanting grace of a White Dancer, Srana had never seemed more beautiful than she did now. She was a flawless cream white, and wore a simple white gown and chaplet; her white scarf framed her lovely young face like a halo.
Shy and self-conscious as always in her presence, he stammered out the incident of the hookpurse. He did not want her to think him slack or undutiful.
“My grandfather sent me.” She lowered her eyes sadly.
“Can you help him tomorrow or the next day? He needs someone to bring down a case of books from the loft and, well, Nizzam isn’t very strong.”
Except in conceit, thought Branwe, but he only said: “There’s usually a slack period in the early afternoon. I’ m sure Mamre will give me a couple of hours off, when she knows it’s to help your grandfather. How is he today?”
Again her eyes looked sad and distant. “He sleeps poorly, and hardly eats anything at all. He doesn’t complain, but I know his dreams trouble him. His mind is being probed, and he’s worried that he will soon no longer have the strength to resist.
Branwe had heard many rumors explaining the presence of so mighty a wizard in so remote a frontier city: that he had been banished here by the great order of wizards known as The Three, that he was their agent on some cryptic mission, even that he was treacherously in the service of the Eastern Lords. Nor did anybody really know why he was called the Sentinel. Whatever the reason, he had first settled here early in the reign of the late King of Ar, and was now an old mrem, sick and dying. But for the nursing of his granddaughter Srana he would probably not be alive at all.
As Branwe tried awkwardly to comfort her, he was alerted not by an unusual noise, but an unusual quiet. Having grown up at the Blue Dragon, he knew instinctively its every mood. Nothing could be more ominous than sudden silence on a festival night. He knew what he was supposed to do, but could not leave Srana just standing alone in the street.
“You must do your duty, Branwe,” she ‘said, “I understand. Go now, but be careful. Evil has entered the Blue Dragon. I sensed it there. Farewell, until tomorrow.”
He was not sure what she meant, but did not take her warning lightly, as he dodged and jostled through the crowded street toward the rear of the old sprawling caravansary. He had witnessed her powers of healing, and suspected that her danger sense was no less magical.
The brawl erupted just as he reached the kitchen door. He was nearly bowled over by two scullery wenches, then had to jump out of the way of several timid patrons also seeking cover. Shouts, curses, cries of pain and anger, daggers and claws bared; it was the most vicious brawl he had witnessed in years. He dived into its midst with the recklessness and agility of youth.
Not to fight, but to salvage as much inn property as he could. This was not much, as it turned out. The old rankers from the garrison remained aloof, taking up defensive positions at one corner of the dance floor. Nor did the female dancers—other than with shrill curses and swipes of their claws at any male so imprudent as to accost them—really get involved. The heavy fighting, surprisingly, was concentrated around the bar. He heard a cry from Mamre, and raced in that direction.
She was trying frantically to claw her way past the brawlers, so angry about something that tears stood in her eyes. Then one of the strange outlanders, who seemed to have instigated the fight, blindsided her with a cowardly punch, knocking her against the wall. Branwe snatched up a stool, leapt like an acrobat onto the bar, and brought it crashing down on the skull of the nearest outlander, unfortunately not the wretch who had punched Mamre.
Then he in turn was knocked sprawling. Bruised, his left arm cut by a shattered wine jar, he picked himself up ready for more. But the fight was over. The strangers had carried the man he had stunned out the front door, and were gone. He heard Mamre weeping, and was afraid she had been injured, but discovered it was only her prize mirror. It lay shattered on the floor behind the bar, its gem-encrusted frame hacked and broken.
She knelt beside it as if it were a stricken child. One by, one she picked up the loose gemstones, carefully dusted them off, and laid them in her apron. Then in an agony of loss she began searching all over the floor.
“The wretches!” she cried. “They’ve stolen the big violet stone. Why did they have to go and do that? It’s just cut crystal. It doesn’t mean anything to anybody but me. It was my favorite.” She dabbed at her eyes with the corner of her handkerchief.
Then Branwe realized that Grujekh was lowering at him, as if none of this would have happened if he had returned to work on time.
Reeking alleyways; secondhand clothing shops; stalls peddling rags, broken crockery, and rancid-smelling meats and fish; beggars and thieves (often indistinguishable); cheap lodgings to let; gambling dens; and abandoned fire-scorched buildings. The taverns here were the lowest in Kazerclawm, their dancing girls the most lascivio
us. The sun had barely set and there had already been two murders in the quarter. Of the several robbery attempts, all but one was successful, and in that one the thief had been taken red-handed and stoned to death with paving blocks by a street mob.
And yet Srana walked these grim streets unmolested. The meanest bowed to her; the most vicious stepped aside to let her pass. Her mystique as a Dancer elevated her above the plane of everyday squalor. That her powers of healing served even the most downtrodden without payment lent her a kind of awe.
She kept her eyes on the wretched pavement before her as she crossed the street to her grandfather’s humble dwelling. A high garden wall screened it from the neighborhood; stepping through the gate was like entering another world.
“I was beginning to worry about you,” Nizzam greeted her in the vestibule. His sleekness and fine grooming left no doubt that he was inordinately pleased with his own person. He considered exercise a waste of effort, and high round-shouldered paunchiness made him look years older than his true age, an image his pompous manner tended to confirm. “It’s already after sunset.”
“I was detained.” She removed her white scarf, and smoothed her gown. “The two Sanandazh kits were more seriously ill than I had expected. Did my grandfather rest comfortably while I was away?”
He shrugged resignedly, both at her grandfather’s chances of recovery, and her frittering away precious healing powers on slum urchins. He also seemed to have resigned himself to spending the festival night at home. His nondescript, almost shabby attire was in contrast to the priest-like robes he generally affected in the streets.
He said, “I missed you while you were gone, Srana. You know that I consider you worthy of my affection, and that when your grandfather at last passes on—not soon, let us hope—and I assume my proper station, for which I have long, perhaps too long been qualified—”
