The shadowy corridor exhaled a breath of offal and of cooking bread. Unhurried footsteps echoed off the rickety buildings leaning almost together overhead. A cat sat on a windowsill, amber eyes glazed with introspection. Tarek was a dark silhouette at the end of the alley.
Gard stepped cautiously amid the piles of garbage, dodged the contents of a chamber pot hurled from above, and flattened himself against a peeling wooden wall to peer into the next street. Vendors’ calls and the shouts of the drill centurions echoed faintly from the maidan, but this area seemed to be deserted and silent . . . Wait. He frowned. Surely that was the tink-tink-tink of a smith’s hammer.
The sound came from behind an arched gateway, scabrous wooden doors hanging ajar. His pentacle wriggled in its pouch, and the wings whirred like a hummingbird against his chest. The dragonet raised its forepaws and set them firmly against his ribs, pushing.
Gard glided along a brick wall that was, despite the noon sun, cold. His boots barely stirred the sodden straw on the ground. His shoulder brushed the door and it creaked faintly. He froze. Nothing happened. The hammer went on, accompanied by a murmur of voices.
Holding his breath, Gard set his eye to the crack between the doors. He saw a courtyard, its stone walls stained with soot. Boxes and bales lay carelessly about a small forge where a smith worked . . .
The odor of sulfur filled his nostrils. His head seemed to take wing and swoop from his body to smash upon the paving stones. The dragonet spread-eagled itself against his breastbone. The smith hammered away at a miniature silver crescent. His body was wiry, his hair and beard like a haymow, his eyes gleamed sleet-gray. Senmut.
“No,” said Tarek’s voice. “The time is not yet ripe. There are still omens I cannot interpret.”
Control, inhale, exhale; Gard secured his head, tamped his thoughts, looked again through the crack.
The smith looked right at the doorway. No, by Ashtar’s green eyes, he looked just beside the doorway. Tarek must be standing a hands breadth to the side of the gate. Gard quieted his breath to a shallow sigh and prayed the sorcerer would not hear the incessant keening of his bones.
The smith’s beard rustled. He smiled in a leer unlike any expression Gard had ever seen on Senmut’s face. “Omens you cannot interpret?” he repeated tauntingly. “The premier wizard of the Mohan, still at a loss over a minor goddess and a dimwitted girl?” He dipped the tiny scythe into a pot of water. Steam hissed upward, muting the lines of his body. No, it was not Senmut. This man did not have a clubfoot.
Tarek said imperturbably, “Saavedra is no minor goddess. And Amathe’s girl is far from dimwitted.” He appeared in the slit between the boards, straightening slowly from a languorous posture against the wall. His aura fluttered like a gauzy cloak around him.
Amathe’s girl? Deva? Gard coiled like a taut runner of morning glory. The smith lifted a bag onto his anvil. “Here, the formula I told you about. Saltpeter, sulfur, and charcoal. Most impressive.” He took a pinch of black powder from the bag and threw it on the fire. The fire flashed with a sudden detonation, and a trail of black smoke twisted upward. Gard jumped away from the doorway, heart and dragonet in his throat—what kind of hellish stuff was that? He forced himself to creep back.
“I am suitably impressed,” said Tarek. “Can you control it?”
“I made the twin saltcellars,” returned the other testily. “I made Jofar’s shield. I made the golden pomegranate you wasted in Raman’s crypt.”
Pomegranate? Raman threw that pretty toy down among his brother Hurmazi’s wives?
“Things, not powers,” Tarek said. “Answer my question.”
“How can you claim to control your power? Only the gods have true power. Man flatters himself with delusion. My work may not be gaudy, but it is certainly effective, more than you can say about magic.” The last word was a sneer, spat out upon the fetid ground.
Revelation swept Gard from crown to toe. The dragonet’s mouth rippled in a growl. The man was Bhai. He was Senmut’s brother. No wonder the old monk cursed him. Tarek’s sorceries smelled positively fresh compared with the reek of evil that hung about Bhai. But by his own admission he had no magic. If still he stank so badly, then he must be—Gard’s thought stammered—all malevolence, untempered by the wizard’s refined sensibilities . . .
Gard braced himself against the wall, dizzy. Somewhere in his crazed imagination a thin version of Bhai’s voice whined, “Mamma always liked you best!”
The dragonet cleared its throat. Gard grimaced in concentration. Bhai placed the cooled silver scythe in a box. “It is magic,” said Tarek, quietly and deliberately, “that will tip the balance in the war to come.”
War? He was so sure there would be a war?
Gard’s pentacle sneezed. A tendril of indigo snaked out beneath the gate and tapped inquisitively at his foot. He spun away from the doorway and flattened himself against the brick wall beside it. A breeze crept querulously down the street, sending puffs of smoke and brimstone before it.
“What is it?” Bhai asked.
“My sword,” said Tarek with an arid chuckle. “It was used by that fool Bogatyl, in the dance of the young fire-wizard in Ferangipur.”
Gard emitted a silent but heartfelt curse. Tarek’s sword is imprinted on me; if I can sense his presence he can sense mine! His thought detonated like the mysterious powder. The dragonet lunged upward, spreading its wings, expanding—a cat, a cat had watched him in the alley . . .
“I wondered why my bones were aching so,” purred Tarek, “especially since this stinking little cesspool of yours contains no real power. But the sword tells me: speak of a fire-demon and it appears!” The gate crashed. Tarek lunged into the opening, his scimitar glistening in his hand.
A large tomcat hurtled across the street and disappeared into an alley, its tail flicking disdainfully. Odd color for a cat, a bright chestnut red. “Ho,” called Tarek, his words as sweet as hazelnut liqueur. “Is the performing monkey out without a leash? Take care; there are tribes in the mountains who eat monkey’s brains for dessert.”
The cat yowled defiance. Laughing, Tarek kicked aside the pile of clothing lying at his feet, slammed and secured the gate.
Gard crawled into a doorway and huddled there, trembling. Whiskers, tail, padded paws; existence fractured, pelted him with image and sense, contracted into coherence. The dragonet shriveled and lay gasping in his chest cavity, limbs limp, wings crumpled like soiled sheets. His own limbs were splayed in the dirt. Beneath his hands were shards of stone and bone pounded by many passing feet into a macabre pavement.
He wrenched his being into the mold that was himself. He ran his hands over his face. No, his nose was not sprouting out of his chin and his ears were not pasted in the middle of his forehead. Stupid, to challenge Tarek. Stupid, to let the man think his plots, whatever they were, could go unchallenged. Gard should have faced him, demanded just what he was plotting, what he intended for Amathe’s girl. And been turned into a newt for his pains.
But then, if Tarek had known he was listening, the entire discussion could have been a charade for his benefit. Menelik would like Gard to return to Ferangipur whining about the arcane powers of Apsurakand.
Groaning, he stood. He summoned his discarded clothing and it squirmed to him. He dressed. The dragonet sat up, gurgled disgruntlement, began to groom its wings.
So he could change instantly. Nothing like terror to concentrate the thought. Now if he could achieve the same effect without terrifying himself with morbid fancies of conspiracy and divine intrigue—Raman was supposed to go about sowing discord, that was his infernal role—so Tarek served the evil brother instead of the good, where was the surprise in that? So he worked with Senmut’s evil brother; apparently the man had his uses . . .
A man who had no magic might well resent a twin who did, if one were punished and one petted for skills that could only be innate. Parents laid dreadful burdens upon their children, as though implanting grains of that black powder to explode
years later in nightmares and malfeasances.
Interesting black powder. It could be turned to some very nasty uses—I shall have to tell Deva—Tarek knew more about Deva than he had any right to know . . . Gard’s mind bumped down a long stair of supposition and crashed to a halt. Damn Bhai, damn Tarek, damn Apsurakand!
Forcing a whistle, Gard sauntered back toward the maidan somewhat more loose-limbed than he would have liked, the dragonet snoring sonorously beneath his heart, and was promptly lost in a maze of alleys. He cast one way, and another, and asked directions of a woman hanging out her wash. He stopped whistling, needing every breath; the heat in the airless passageways was stifling, the teetering walls threatening to fall and crush him. His steps grew faster and faster.
He shot out of an alley and caromed off a wall. A squat, ungainly building lay before him, its glazed tiles chipped and faded. It was shabby enough to have been there for centuries, suffering but not surrendering to fire, flood and invader. Myrtle and heliotrope, lily and rose, spread like crumpled skirts around it. The dragonet sputtered in its sleep.
Gard squinted; yes, a few pale blossoms of asphodel and anemone stirred in the wind. Of course the flowers of Ashtar would appear in the temple of Saavedra. Goddesses ran in packs; sacred or profane, women were all alike.
Priestesses wearing broad faience collars moved up and down the steps and through the garden, serenely ignoring the jeers of passing children. Had Deva said they were safe within their own walls? Gard scowled. Just what had Deva said about Amathe and Apsurakand and the prophecy? At the time, he had been more intent on her lovely body than on her reminiscences.
And she wanted to come here, did she? She was so certain he would bring her here she did not even play tawdry feminine tricks to persuade him. Well, she could not play tricks on him, he had powers, too.
A light flickered from the temple like a sentry’s lantern flashing between crenellations. Gard warily opened one corner of his thought. No, it was not a real light. It was a pale aura, violet and blue, leaking from between the very stones of the temple. The glazed tiles brightened into brilliance before his eyes, shining with gilded images of moons and stars that circled slowly, implacably, through the heavens. Several priestesses turned, looked directly at him, smiled and beckoned.
Oh no. One supernatural experience a day, thank you. Gard turned on his heel and paced away. As long as Menelik ruled Apsurakand, Saavedra was and would remain a minor goddess, Deva or no Deva.
The sun was coasting down a sky bled white by its glare. Almost dinner time. A few hours in banal company would be good for his exacerbated senses. He trotted back to the palace.
* * * * *
The food was bland compared to the throat-searing curries of Ferangipur, the wine was strong and harsh. The incense in the air was that of meat, swirled by an occasional whiff of myrrh. Menelik’s warriors even ate in armor. They were certainly not going to be surprised by berserk pumpkins.
Here, Gard was definitely seated below the salt, several places beyond the silver cellar that was a twin of the one on Jamshid’s table. Of course Menelik would have one, too; no king would give away anything finer than what he had himself. But the elegant shell-and-silver artifact, more a sculpture than a table implement, stood out amid the earthenware plates and cups like Yasmine among a group of caravan whores, accentuating their poverty.
The dragonet dozed, ears folded, eyes closed, paws tucked comfortably under its breast. Gard shoved his plate away. Boiled vegetables reminded him too much of Dhan Bagrat. So did Jofar’s unaffected laugh, booming out above the conversational undertow. Musicians played harp and shenai in the corner, competent but uninspired, as if to play the grace notes of a Ferangi melody would be to admit weakness.
Gard strained toward the talk at the head table; he could already hear Rajinder grilling him on the modifier of every verb.
“Has my dear friend Jamshid,” murmured Menelik, “regained his health?”
Vijay said smoothly, “He is well, thank you.”
The young prince was handling himself superbly in the thrust and parry of diplomacy. Raj might have whittled away at the glossy phrases until each kernel of meaning was revealed beneath, while Vijay merely applied a polishing cloth to the surface. But how much could one learn from banquet small talk?
“My brother Shikar,” Menelik said, “returned from hunting the other day looking as if he had been trampled in Mohendra mud. It appears that his horse threw him when a buffalo charged!” His laugh rattled the rafters.
Gard lifted his cup in a salute to fraternal affection.
“My brother Rajinder,” Vijay said, “recently tracked and killed a gharial that had carried off a fisherman. He followed it through the mangroves, and gave the skin to the widow.”
“Shikar could not track his own ass into the privy!” Menelik guffawed. On cue, his followers howled derision.
Jofar’s eyes found Gard’s. He grinned and nodded. Is this not the life? he seemed to say.
Oh yes, Gard responded mutely. Adolescent humor suits all of you.
The chief priest of Hurmazi, his fringed robes making him appear an ambulatory shop awning, began to expound the catechism. Raman the lord of delusion and darkness, Hurmazi, the storm lord, ineffectual Pallias, Ranithra, Kyphasia, impotent Saavedra. Ineffectual? Gard queried silently. Impotent?
Dancing girls wafted about the smoky hearth, their plump bodies so well-covered in saris and jackets that Gard’s blood continued flowing unhindered. A few dim figures passed in and out of the entrance doors . . .
The pentacle on his chest snapped. Gard stiffened. A man-shaped cloud shot with lightning: Tarek. The daemon opened one eye, considered, opened the other. Its lip shivered, revealing a glint of needle sharp teeth.
Gard patted it down. The wings on the pentacle shifted and settled. Tarek leaned impassively against the doorframe as Menelik’s chamberlain pounded his staff upon the floor and bellowed something about honored visitors and noble ladies. A rustling went through the hall, like a paddock of horses catching the scent of a stalking lion.
Or lioness. A woman stood before the zenana screen, drawing the eyes of every man in the room. Not a young woman, not especially beautiful. But her presence was commanding. Chin high, eyes lidded with knowing appraisal, mouth set upon what might be sorrow or might be resentment. Gard set down his cup and blinked. Persis, who had never borne Menelik an heir.
Persis reached behind her and pulled a willowy young girl to her side. Her daughter, obviously, though the girl’s shy and good-natured smile had yet to harden into a cynical curl of the lip, her taut flesh had yet to sag beneath the burden of experience. Zoe, the Padishah’s only legitimate child.
But of course, Deva had said upon sharing Zoe’s name, most people believe Persis to be entirely childless, as women do not count at all. Gard sighed, Yes, Deva. I should have gone ahead and brought your body with me, too, since your mind is so close behind. And with a qualm, But if I brought you here, would you leave again with me . . ?
Persis glided to Menelik’s left hand, steering Zoe before her. She acknowledged Jofar’s bow with a crisp nod. She accepted Vijay’s gift of the tiger skin with thanks and compliments, waiting until the Ferangi’s back was turned before letting the servants dump the magnificent skin to the floor behind her cushion. She gazed at Menelik through slitted eyes.
Menelik waved at his wife as if idly shooing away a fly.
“Ho, wizard!” bellowed the chamberlain. “You, named Kundaraja.”
Gard looked right and left. Elaborately—oh, is he talking to me?— he replied, “Nazib?”
“The Padishah commands that you show your skills.”
He does, does he? Vijay grinned, made a proprietary gesture and said, “You may perform, Gard.”
Gard inhaled, tickling the daemon, exhaled. He removed his turban, his hair eliciting a murmur of amazement. “At your command, Vijay-ji.”
Menelik glared at Vijay. Vijay sipped delicately from his cup. Gard rose. F
ocus, breath, focus, step and turn . . . The dragonet stretched and bent. Gard pointed. The abandoned tiger skin stirred, filled out, rose with a—well, a purr. Gard made a face. No one is perfect.
Silence. Every eye stared as the reanimated skin stalked the khaddi, claws jangling upon the floor, tail swishing in the air. Zoe gasped in fear. Persis interposed herself between her daughter and the fierce apparition.
Now! Gard shuddered. The skin lunged and draped itself over Jofar as affectionately as a pet ferret. The shield, propped against Jofar’s chair, fell clangorously to the floor. Zoe dissolved in giggles. Persis sat down and forced a stiff smile. Menelik grinned.
Jofar stood, the skin dangling empty and powerless around him. “Excellent!” he shouted, applauding boisterously. “Another, wizard-ji!” If Persis looked at a bucket of milk the way she glanced at Jofar, the cream would curdle instantly.
He turned, gathered several cups and plates, sent them skimming across the room like the turquoise butterflies in the enchanted glade. The bits of crockery circled the head of Hurmazi’s priest, clinking and rattling. The man said through his teeth, “Very amusing.”
“I have heard,” said Persis, “that the wizard’s skills extend much farther than these cheap conjurings. Will he not dance for us?”
Gard chilled. The dragon’s hackles rose. Tarek. He had spread the story of the Festival of the Fool in Ferangipur. Tarek was prowling in the doorway even now, his probing eye sending frissons down Gard’s spine.
“Yes, yes,” said Jofar. He leaped up and drew his sword. “With me, Gard? We used to spar quite a bit.”
Vijay curled indolently on his chair. “With just the one warrior, please, Nazib-ji,” he said to Menelik. “I do not want to tire him; he serves me in many ways . . .” He let his voice trail away and smiled, dripping charm like a baked peacock dripping basting juices.
Persis gazed at the Ferangi prince as if considering a painting or statue that was marred by a small but vital flaw. Menelik’s smoky eyes brightened, a ray of interest falling upon Gard like a beam of hot sunlight. “Yes, Jofar. Go on.”
Wings of Power Page 19
