by Janet Morris
They'd never send him back to Mygdonia; he wouldn't go. He'd lived among the Mygdonians long enough. His mother was a blind fool and his father of record was not his father at all. He'd always known it; they were too stupid to be his parents, it had had to be some awful mistake. For years, Shamshi had waited among the idiotic sheep who walked like men in Mygdon for his real father to appear. Eventually, they had found each other, Shamshi of Mygdon was called son of Adrastus, the Unescapable, second warlord of the Alliance He was in reality the son of the most powerful Nisibisi archmage ever to have ruled from Wizardwall.
He'd had scant weeks with his real father, then Tempus's Stepsons and his accursed sister, Cime the mage-killer, had murdered Datan and taken Shamshi hostage.
Tempus would pay for his foul depredations. Shamshi lived among the Riddler's Stepsons and pretended to hark to his teachings. In actuality, Shamshi bided his time. The Froth Daughter loved the boy, and he knew it. She'd help him stave off the Riddler, make Tempus relent and save him from being deported to Mygdon. He wouldn't be traded like a horse, haggled over like a gilded chalice. Jihan was close now, her long legs in his field of view. He stumbled to his feet and, with a distress he didn't have to feign, crashed pall mall through the thicket and threw himself upon her, sobbing out his grief over the pony he'd had to slay.
Her cool, muscular arms enfolded him. Her sweet-smelling breath was upon his cheek as she kissed his tears away, scolding him tenderly, telling him they'd get him another mount—not a pony, this time, but a mighty charger, a warhorse as fine as any man among the Stepsons had.
"These things happen, little love," she crooned. "You must be brave, my prince. For Tempus is right when he asks 'when is death not in our own selves?"
He struggled back in her arms, searching her face for a sinister inference, found none. He lay his head against her scale-armored breast once more. Roxane, the finest and most powerful witch of Wizardwall, had introduced him to the joys of congress with women; he had fantasies of expressing his love for Jihan more substantially. In time, he would; in time, he'd marry her and make her his consort. Now, he was too small in stature, too lacking in power: she thought him a child. But he could speak freely of love to her, and that he did then, reminding her that today was his birthday; from now on, she must think of him as a man.
"Well, my young man, then you must stop crying."
He knuckled his eyes and she slapped his bottom. "Up, now. We'll have to hurry back and tell them I've found you. The Riddler was very angry with me; he thought you ran away. You'd never do that, Shamshi, would you?"
"From you?" He reached out to take her hand and they strolled toward the fenced north meadow together. "Never. Unless…"
"Unless what, beastly boy? I've been out for hours looking for you. It's nearly dusk—"
"Unless you cannot save me from the Riddler's plans. I can't go back to Mygdonia. I hate it there. My mother can't protect me any longer, now that she's gone blind. My father is a craven fool. Lacan Ajami longs to see me dead; he won't have his own sons—my cousins—outshone in valor or intelligence. The time I spent on Wizardwall, I spent there because they say in Mygdon that I'm possessed by demons. What worse, now, might they be saying? If rumors have reached my father's brother that I'm not his son at all, but a child of magic, they'll execute me!" He pulled his hand from hers, peered up at her. "Promise me, Jihan, that you'll not let him send me back."
"I… can only promise that I will let no evil befall you," she said in a deep, troubled voice. "You are as a son to me, Shamshi. I will protect you as if you issued from my own belly."
He hugged her; she kissed his hair.
"Now," she said, "let's get you bathed and fed. Then, if you're up to it, we shall pick out a horse for you, finer than your wildest dreams."
When the soft night fell, Tempus had ridden into town with Kama and Gayle, a former special of Grille's whom Tempus had made a Stepson for services rendered. Gayle was half Nisibisi, half Tysian, sensitive to magic or treachery afoot, and knew nothing which would be damaging if Kama worked her wiles and debriefed him all night long.
He left them on Commerce Avenue, the woman who claimed to be a daughter of his and the game commando he'd thrown to her like a haunch of meat. Gayle's seawater eyes twinkled merrily in his hawk's face. He liked this duty, wasn't underestimating it, and threw himself into the part of tour guide with a confidence Tempus wished he could share.
Still, other matters were pressing, and the man into whose arms Tempus himself had collapsed in the aftermath of a battle with sorcery only the two of them had survived should be able to handle a single woman, even if she was 3rd Commando and spawn of his loins.
She might not be, he told himself. One couldn't recall every ceremonial rape or wench taken in battle. A full quarter of the Rankan nobility claimed him as an ancestor when deep enough in their cups. Kama was looking for a saga, she'd told Crit, a bit of history to make. She wanted to restore the 3rd to its former glory and have its finest hour ready for the telling at next winter's Festival of Man. The festival was held once every four years, and at it the best Rankan charioteers, riders, wrestlers, spear chuckers, runners, bowmen, swordsmen, and poets met to compete. Medals were awarded by the emperor himself, and treaty signatories sent teams of contestants. It was a likely story, but he wasn't sure he believed it. Her eyes told him she was after honor and glory of a more immediate sort, as her bearing and her boldness told him she was deadly serious. Moreover, he remarked to Crit in the Lanes safe haven, while from under a closed door came muffled sounds that meant Straton was making progress interrogating Palapot the horse trader, "she might just be a child of mine. If so, she bears watching. I didn't marry her mother, or even ask the woman her name. In fact, I can't recall the incident at all." "You don't like her, do you, commander?" "Not particularly, no. But it's more accurate to say I'm wary of her. She told you and me two different tales; that in itself confirms much of what she's said. She's from the 3rd, I own, and full of deceit. I don't want you fraternizing with her. I've told her, and I've put Gayle on her. Keep clear of her, Crit, until I decide whether we've any use for her."
"Meaning we can afford to lose Gayle?" "Meaning we can't afford to lose you. We'll see how she comports herself. She'll be here until we hear back from Ranke whether they've accepted the exorbitant terms I've set for the Stepsons' hire. If she causes no trouble by then, perhaps it will prove me wrong."
Crit was rolling a smoke; he lit it from a candle on the single bluestone table in the spartan Lanes haven. The windows' iron shutters were drawn and they'd pulled up benches. Leaning on his elbows in only a linen undershirt and loinguard, Crit dragged deeply on the broadleaf he'd licked into a cylinder and squinted at Tempus over the blue smoke. "Mind telling me what kind of trouble you're looking for from her? What the mission under consideration is? What the tale she told you was?"
From the other room came a muffled shriek of agony; Crit didn't look away toward the sound. Tempus's voice was gravelly and clipped. "Ranke still thinks that we can trade Shamshi to Lacan Ajami for strategic advantage. We'll be emissaries, there to negotiate. The 3rd will be our backup in case of treachery."
"Sounds reasonable," Crit said cautiously. "I've always wanted to see Mygdonia."
Crit had given Tempus the coded message and watched his commander read it without comment. Tempus had volunteered only that the two messages—the one Kama had brought him and this second which Belize had lost in transit—were the same in every particular. Crit had remarked that someone wanted very badly to make certain Tempus received the information.
But intelligence was Grit's specialty; more had to be said. Because this man was task force leader and his second in command, he needed to know not only what was certain, but also what was probable. Tempus said quietly, "After a day of verbal fencing, I'm still not certain what she's holding back. However, she's very interested in our estimate of how many and which Nisibisi mages still fight for Mygdon. Given that the Rankan mageguild insis
ts that victory for the empire is impossible while their Storm God remains plane-locked by hostile magic, my guess is that once we get to Mygdon, we'll find ourselves part of an attempt to exterminate the remaining Nisibisi adepts who fight for Lacan Ajami. Mygdonia has no magic of its own. With the war god freed, Ranke would rally."
Crit was leaning back, nodding slightly, a nasty little smile on his stubble-fringed lips. "Suits me. I have dreams about vengeful witches—especially that Roxane—dancing on my chest. And it makes sense—why else involve the 3rd? We're strong enough without them to protect ourselves on any regular sortie, invited or uninvited. Are we going to do it?"
"Perhaps. I'm not sure I'd welcome the return of my tutelary god at this point in time. I'm doing well enough without him. And we must consider what a Rankan victory will mean to Free Nisibis."
Crit whistled softly, tapped ashes into the pool of hot wax collecting in the candlestick's base, then stared at him.
For a long while, all that could be heard were the soft whines and thuds coming from the next room. Then Crit inclined his head in that direction. "Stepsons have no love for Ranke; every man of us thinks highly of Bashir. What about Grillo's involvement? He won't take kindly to what Strat's doing to that double agent of his."
Tempus and Critias had attended just enough of Palapot's interrogation to determine that the horse trader was a Rankan agent who, unbeknownst to his masters in the capital, had fallen into Grillo's web of power and now served two masters.
"I'll talk to Grillo. But only about the chances of continued autonomy for Free Nisibis." He got up, took his leopardskin mantle from a hook, strode to the door.
Crit said, "That's it, commander? No new orders? Want me to watch Kama from a distance? Dispose of this piece of Rankan rubbish we've got in there?"
"Nothing yet. Just let me know if Strat learns anything more of interest." He didn't want Critias thinking too much about Grillo, or Kama, or a second campaign against Nisibisi magic. "And put a bodyguard on young Shamshi; we don't want him disappearing again. I'll be with Grillo for the balance of the evening, if anything urgent comes up that you can't handle."
"Nothing will," Crit promised. Tempus hoped he was right. This interview with Grillo was going to be very sensitive.
* * *
Gayle was sticking as close to Kama as a loin-guard, squiring her along Commerce Avenue with the insouciant swagger of an old Tyse hand breaking in a new recruit. Worse, he had ideas in his head, communicated to her by the occasional accidental brushing of their girded hips while entering this fortunetelling establishment or that drug den. Worst, whenever he met a garrison soldier or one of his fellow Stepsons or Grillo's lurking specials, he introduced her. She had to shake him.
Kama knew by the time they'd come out of the third of a seemingly endless array of ale houses that she'd never outdrink him; her head was spinning, her steps chancy. "Gayle, I've had enough to drink. You promised to show me Tyse, not Peace Falls." She'd been issued an armband which made her immune to curfew; all she had to do was rid herself of this accommodating soldier and she could be about her own business.
"Tyse. Well, there's not much to see at night. The Maggots are in their tents and the Tysians locked up tight behind their walls. What about a little krrf? Or pulcis?" He didn't quite leer, but his hawk face inclined to her conspiratorially. She fought the urge to put this sanguine-skinned local in his place. Pulcis was a mildly hallucinogenic, aphrodisiac stimulant—rare, expensive, and illegal everywhere but Caronne; krrf was a berserker's drug—the Rankan army ran on it. Perhaps she could outsmoke him or outsnort him. Otherwise, she was going to have to outsmart him and make an enemy. Gayle wasn't her type, but she wanted them to become separated "by mistake," not cause him to fail in his duty or make it clear she'd purposely disobeyed the Riddler's orders. Kama wanted to leave him snoring somewhere, do what she had to do, and get back to him in short order, so that he wouldn't know she'd been gone.
She let him take her elbow as they descended ill-lit stairs into a smoke-filled cellar subdivided by paper partitions (most of which were already pulled shut), wishing that he were Critias, then growled aloud so that Gayle said, "Excuse me?" and she had to cover the lapse. She'd been solitary too long; she had a habit of growling wordlessly when frustrated and of striking out at innocent walls or furniture with a balled fist to quash errant, troublesome thoughts. She'd have to watch herself. Though Tyse seemed primitive and simple by Rankan standards, these men the Riddler had collected were not.
She let Gayle secure them a private booth and wondered who was paying for this debauch, then answered her own question: her father. Kama preferred not to think of Tempus that way, but it was her kinship which had secured her this assignment. Meeting him had been something she'd dreaded. Having him immediately start dictating to her whom she could see and with whom she could keep company had been unexpected. First she'd felt disbelief, then cold fury. And the legendary Tempus sitting across from her had watched her curiously, his high brow smooth, and a defensive little smile dancing at the corners of his mouth. Tempus was all that he'd been reputed to be, that was certain. It was hard to remember that he was older than the city-state of Tyse itself, harder to discount his mystique, his animal magnetism, his sheer power.
Kama liked power in men, the sort which seethed under wraps and was sure enough not to need demonstrating. She liked Critias better than she should; she'd always taken to his type—quiet, intelligent, manipulative. Her father had probably done them both a favor by registering his disapproval, but it only fanned her interest. Crit was just what she needed: someone who shared the Riddler's confidence, who knew what was worth knowing. Any man who could play whore for a possible information advantage, and do it so convincingly, was special. Forbidden fruit. She swore aloud, pushed the hour they'd spent together upstairs at Brother Bomba's out of her mind. Crit be damned.
Gayle was here, now. He must know something, be useful in some manner. She began to open him up with canny questions and careful flattery. When she learned he'd been one of Grille's specials, she redoubled her efforts. "That's what I want to see: the specials' barracks, the east garrison, Embassy Row… I need orientation, not recreation," she said hoarsely over the smoke she'd just exhaled.
He cocked his head. "Rankan 3rd Commando to the bone." He tsk'd. "You'll be sorry. Leave's scarce enough around here. They'll work your butt off, starting tomorrow. Can't you just relax and have a good time on the Stepsons' credit?" He toked deeply on the bubbly pipe between them, then rasped, when she didn't answer or take the pipestem, "Women. All business. Fine. You don't have to worry about me. What's first? Mercenaries' hostel? Mageguild? The Lanes—that's offices and safe havens, drops and such? Want to check in with the Rankan ambassador?"
Then, finally, Kama realized Gayle was a bit smarter than he'd seemed, a bit more than he looked. These grunts of the gods bore watching, especially since they were so concerned with watching her.
So she did take the pipe, and toked again, and while he drew, at her request, a little map of the town with resiny pipewater on the low bronze table between them, she flipped open her ring and emptied the sleeping powder from it into the pipe's bowl. Then she handed him the pipestem.
But he'd had enough. "Not if we're going to do some serious reconnoitering. Is that your job with the 3rd? I like long recon patrol myself… out there, you can win, not like standing in a porking line wondering if your field people really have their strategy down…" He was on his feet. She followed, thinking, AH right, Gayle, let's see what you've got.
What he had was a knowledge of Tyse she began to envy, and a way of letting his questions hang in the air until she had to answer them or appear as what she was—someone who was hiding something.
They'd crossed over into Tyse proper via the mercenaries' hostel ("Pretty quiet, lately. Everybody worth having's already spoken for and deployed out of here"), the mageguild of rose quartz which sat back among giant cedars in a vacant park ("We've got to just ride by quickly
. Sometime when my friend Randal's about, we'll get you in for a look if you've got the stomach for it"), and had turned up Embassy Row toward the palace square ("Never did find the poor royal family when the wizard war brought all that granite down on their heads, but Rankan aid's been sent to rebuild the palace. The stone lions are still standing, though. Lions used to be sacred to the kings hereabouts. Nobody else could hunt them…"), when she noticed Gayle wasn't treating her like a lady any longer.
They stopped at an intersection. "The Lanes," he said, pointing northeast. "Outbridge begins there on your left." His hand gestured west. "There's a Nisibisi eatery a couple of blocks down the Lanes. They've local delicacies and an outhouse that's porking-well bearable."
In the Lanes the streets were narrow and torches far apart. The buildings were ancient, many attached to one another—windowless, mudbrick facades which had been there when the free zone was an independent contoured city and the Lanes its posh suburb. In the Nisibisi tavern he ordered in Nisi and toasted her.
The wine was foul and made her stomach lurch. She grimaced. "What is this?"
"Goat's blood, garlic to keep it thin, and hill wine. Better drink the whole thing; Nisibisi free men are touchy about their cuisine."
She looked around. Sidelocked Nisibisi were watching her; she was the only woman in the place. And Gayle was telling her that she'd better be as tough as she'd given him to think she was. Without a word, she drained her goblet, meeting his challenge. He gestured to the leather-clad bar-keep to refill it. "Hungry?" Gayle asked, deadpan, as a customer eased up to the bar on her right and her escort gave an offhand greeting to someone she couldn't see. She turned.
It was Critias and another Stepson, both in Nisibisi tunics and breeches.
