[Jan Darzek 04] - Silence is Deadly

by Lloyd Biggle, Jr.

  Darzek moved close enough to scrutinize the banner.

  It contained only a large line drawing of a face, and the face seemed to be a fair likeness of the old man who sat in the tent opening. There was no hint of who he was or what he did.

  Darzek asked one of the waiting customers. Bovranulz, was the answer. It meant, “Old Blind One.”

  He was a clairvoyant, a fortuneteller, a keeper of secrets; and since the mere unfurling of his banner brought a rush of business, he had local fame and a following. Probably he had been traveling the same circuit for years and making a regular stop here.

  His popularity did not interest Darzek. Any keeper of secrets who put on a good act and kept his gibberish vague enough so that all of his predictions seemed to come true could achieve popularity. Darzek wanted to know who had designed the Old Blind One’s folding tent. He returned to his own cart, seated himself in its shade, and continued to watch.

  That evening, the ducal inspection team of two knights and a scribe made its usual visit to record the day’s arrivals. This time, instead of striding into the mart to curtly administer their inquisition, the three halted at the mart entrance. One of the knights signaled to the scribe, who remounted his nabrulk and clattered off up the ascending lane to the castle. The two knights quietly got in line with those waiting to consult Bovranulz.

  A short time later the duke himself arrived, accompanied only by the scribe who had carried the message. And the duke, a lank, mournful-looking individual whose mustaches seemed always destined to droop, took his place in line and quietly awaited his turn.

  Darzek went to Sajjo. Did you ever hear of a keeper of secrets named Bovranulz? he asked.

  Of course, she answered. Everyone knows of Bovranulz.

  Of course, Darzek agreed. Obviously. Everyone knows of him. Do you know the names of any other keepers of secrets?

  She did not. Bovranulz was one of a kind. He was unique. Darzek left Sajjo to her customers, strolled over to the far corner of the mart, and got in line. To see Bovranulz.

  Dusk was approaching. Normally the vendors would have closed for the night, but some of them remained open to importune Bovranulz’s customers as they left the mart. The line moved slowly, shortening in front of Darzek and lengthening behind him.

  As Darzek edged along with the patient crowd, he experienced a sensation he had not known before. A mystical feeling of oneness with the People of Kamm overwhelmed him. With it came a sharpened sense of urgency.

  Ahead of Darzek was a tottering oldster who perhaps wanted to know if his rheumatism would ease. Behind Darzek was a young female carrying an infant—was the problem hers or the child’s? There was the duke, quietly waiting his turn like any commoner. “We are all commoners before the forces of fate,” Darzek mused. Next to the duke stood a female who on Earth would have been in her mid-teens. Her fingers twisted and intertwined nervously, and her need seemed far more compelling than that of His Highness.

  The People of Kamm. The dukes were choosing up sides, a super-weapon was waiting to be used, and these, the innocent commoners, would pay the high price of ducal folly.

  If Bovranulz had genuine powers, Darzek thought, he would speak of the horrors of destruction to a white-faced duke.

  But when the duke finally had his turn, he strolled away peacefully, nodding to a subject who performed the Kammian genuflection to him, half bow, half curtsy. He seemed in a complacent mood—had the seer assured him that there was no plan afoot to raid his castle?

  The line moved up.

  The seer was seated in the recessed tent opening with a rug hung before him on a frame. The suppliant leaned over the rug, bringing his head close to that of the seer. The seer’s hands were concealed by the rug and visible only to the suppliant. As darkness set in, the seer lit candles on either side of him to keep his hands visible, and the glow of candlelight suffused the aged face. It was a rudimentary but effective system of confidentiality, and it underscored the seer’s role as keeper of secrets.

  But Darzek was completely unable to figure out how the suppliant asked his questions.

  The line moved up again. Finally Darzek was close enough to see what was happening, and his perplexity deepened. The suppliant merely leaned over the rug and studied the seer’s concealed hands. He asked nothing at all; he merely read the answer. Then came the clink of a coin in a coin pot, the suppliant stepped aside, and the next in line took his place.

  Finally it was Darzek’s turn. Uncertainly he took two steps forward and leaned over the rug. Since he had no notion of what was expected of him, he did nothing at all. The deeply wrinkled face loomed close to his; the clouded, sightless eyes stared at him—stared through him, and Darzek gazed into the infinity of their nothingness.

  Suddenly the fingers moved. Darzek looked down at them.

  You have come far.

  Darzek had to will himself to remain motionless. Then he decided he was being foolish—half the people in the mart, the vendors and their families, had come far. As the Kammians measured distance, this place was a long way from Northpor.

  The sightless eyes continued to stare at Darzek. The fingers moved again.

  I thank you for your concern for my people.

  Again Darzek had to will himself to remain motionless.

  Do not he alarmed. I am keeper of secrets. What do you wish to ask me?

  He was a mind reader. Darzek did not believe in mind readers. He knew too many of their tricks—he even had performed mind-reading tricks himself—but he could not disbelieve what he was experiencing. He struggled to bring his thought into focus. Rok Wllon—

  Your friend is alive.

  “Where?” Darzek thought.

  He travels.

  Again Darzek thought the word, “Where?” This time he got no response.

  Then his mind formed a question about the pazul. Again there was no reply, so he reshaped the thought and reshaped it again.

  It is a frightening question, Bovranulz’s fingers said finally, but I do not understand it.

  Darzek dropped two coins into the pot and turned away.

  Sajjo had closed their perfume display and was preparing their evening meal. Darzek lit a small torch and sat down beside her. What do you know about Bovranulz?

  He is a keeper of secrets.

  Does he speak truly?

  She seemed astonished at the question. Of course! He is a keeper of secrets!

  The first bold night creatures of evening were uncertainly venturing forth and then scurrying back into hiding. Sajjo glanced at them uneasily. Then, with a shy smile, she handed Darzek his bowl of stew and a chunk of heavy bread to dip into it. She served herself, and the two of them ate sitting side by side, with Sajjo occasionally glancing up at him and smiling. A purple lock of hair kept slipping from her hairdo; each time it happened she scowled and tried to tuck it back into place. Darzek marveled again at the way she had matured in the short time he had known her.

  And she seemed as completely happy as any individual Darzek had ever known. It was not due to the sudden transformation from stark poverty to affluence. It was because she now belonged to someone. She had an adopted father at hand, and a warm family unit in Northpor to which they would return. Also, she was herself an important economic cog in that unit.

  They finished eating, and she expertly cleaned bowls and stewing pot. When finally she turned to him, Darzek said, Have you a question for the keeper of secrets?

  She gazed at him in astonishment. Only people with problems, with troubles, sought out a keeper of secrets. Obviously she had none.

  Darzek gave her a coin. Go to him. Think a question for him. Ask him if the Winged Beast really took your father.

  She took the coin and hurried away.

  The torch burned out, and the night creatures became more daring. Darzek waited in the dark for a time, and then he lit another torch, thinking that Sajjo might be uneasy about returning to darkness. Also, he wanted to know how Bovranulz answered her.

 
; Finally she came, hurrying from one patch of light to another where an occasional vendor was still eating an evening meal by torchlight. She plunked herself down beside him, her face aglow with happiness.

  He said—the Winged Beast goes only where it is welcomed or feared. Her smile broadened. My father never feared it.

  Did he tell you anything else? Darzek asked.

  She looked away shyly. My new father will triumph over the Winged Beast.

  That was kind of him, Darzek said and wondered what it meant. He sent Sajjo off to bed in the cart, and then he walked across the mart again toward the tent of Bovranulz.

  The line was shorter now. Some of those waiting carried torches. The spectacle of Kammians, who feared the night, waiting in line with torches to see a keeper of secrets amused Darzek. He paused to talk with a peddler he had become acquainted with, and he asked, Why don’t they see him in the morning?

  The peddler seemed surprised. Bovranulz leaves in the morning. He never stays but one night at the small marts.

  Darzek considered this, and then he got in line a second time. Suppliants continued to arrive, but there were fewer of them, and the line seemed to move faster.

  Again Darzek took his place leaning over the rug and looking into the sightless eyes. He thought a series of questions about Rok Wllon.

  He is alive, Bovranulz answered. He travels.

  Darzek shaped a thought about Rok Wllon’s health.

  He survives, the fingers answered.

  Darzek formed a question about the other missing Synthesis agents. After a long pause, Bovranulz answered, Some live. I count three, but there may he more. They are captives. They are in a place under the ground.

  Darzek risked one more question. The seer had not understood his earlier thought about the pazul. Now he formed a mental picture of the probable devastation a pazul could wreak upon the innocent People of Kamm. He visualized a village street strewn with bodies, and then he focused in like a zoom camera on the agonies of a dying child.

  The seer winced. Pain distorted his face. For a long moment he sat rigidly, head bowed, sightless eyes clenched shut, and then his fingers spoke. The village of Karlanklo.

  “Where? When?” Darzek’s mind demanded.

  The Province Merzkion. The day the Mother Moon is full.

  Darzek did a fumbling calculation. Four—or perhaps it was five—days hence. He would have to move quickly.

  You will go, the fingers said, but the picture has been drawn.

  Then, as Darzek hesitated—eager to be off but reluctant to leave while there was the possibility of another revelation—the fingers continued to speak. We visit OO-Fair together, though we do not meet there. But much will he revealed to you in OO—including the danger that you carry with you.

  Darzek dropped his coins into the pot and turned away. He walked swiftly across the mart to his cart, where he maneuvered the nabrula into place one at a time and harnessed them. Sajjo had conscientiously put everything away except the cooking pot and its frame, and Darzek shoved those into the cart and got the nabrula moving.

  A moment later Sajjo’s head appeared. Darzek pointed a finger, and she obediently returned to her bed. At the intersection below the castle, he took the surlane north, and he drove leisurely, letting the nabrula follow a lane they could see better than he and plod along at their own pace. Long before he reached his destination, the test would become one of endurance rather than speed.

  It made no sense to Darzek that the Duke Merzkion would destroy one of his own villages; but if he did, Darzek wanted to see his pazul in action.

  Either way, this provided him with an excellent opportunity to test Bovranulz’s revelations.

  * * * *

  They traveled both day and night and reached the unmarked boundary between Fermarz and Merzkion on the third day. As they moved into Merzkion Province, Darzek began to ask peasants about the location of a village named Karlanklo, a phrase that meant, “village in the shadow of the half-hill.” There were enough villages with similar names to keep him in perpetual confusion and uncertainty and give him the feeling of approaching a linguistic horizon where the meanings of all words merged. Every commoner they met had to be questioned; every village they saw had to be investigated—sometimes to the immense surprise of its occupants, who of course saw no reason to confuse their village of Barmarklo with the village of Karlanklo—which, as everyone knew, was located an uncertain number of travel units in the direction from which Darzek had just come.

  They wandered on. The Duke Merzkion’s castle appeared on the horizon, was next seen far off to their right, and finally could be glimpsed behind them. Its foreboding presence made Darzek cautious despite his haste, and this caution enabled him to avoid an entire company of knights by taking to the sponge forest at precisely the right moment.

  The knights galloped past. Darzek pulled back onto the lane and followed after them slowly—anxious not to overtake them and equally anxious not to meet them on their return.

  He was worried about Sajjo. He easily could have left her with the family of a friendly vendor in Fermarz, but instead he had brought her into a danger that could prove deadly. She could sense his growing anxiety, and now she sat quietly beside him, no longer fluttering her fingers in gay chatter about the things they were passing.

  Then the lane curved out of the forest and along the crest of a hill, and the village was spread out across the valley from them: a tiny collection of stone houses crowded up against a truncated rise of ground that made the name inevitable and the place identifiable at a glance.

  And they were too late. Death was there before them.

  Males lay in the tiny fields that had so grudgingly yielded these peasants a livelihood. Males, females, and children lay in the one village street. As Darzek brought the cart to a halt and stared aghast at the carnage, a few pathetic moans drifted up to him—the more pathetic when Darzek reflected that he was the only living thing within earshot that could hear them.

  It was not the pazul that had done this, but the company of the Duke Merzkion’s knights on a rampage. Their vicious, cutting whips had sliced the bodies of these innocent villagers to the bone, severing veins and arteries, cutting through tissue and muscle and nerves. The victim of a severe lashing lay helpless until he bled to death—which mercifully did not take long.

  The knights were still there, ransacking the humble dwellings on foot and searching in silent fury for any life that had escaped them.

  Darzek backed the cart into a crosslane, a mere wagon track that led into the forest. As soon as they were out of sight of the surlane, he halted. He crawled into the cart, folded the hand-woven carpet out of the way, and took two stun rifles from a secret compartment. He set both rifles on full power.

  Then, looking sternly at the wide-eyed Sajjo, he said, Hide in the forest. Stay away from the cart—if the knights find you near it, they’ll kill you. If I don’t come hack, wait until dark and take the surlane north. Travel only by night until you leave Merzkion. Understand?

  She gave him a grave affirmative.

  Darzek left the forest and set off down the lane on foot. The knights were still intent on their looting, and he reached the middle of the village before anyone saw him.

  The blood orgy had stirred all of the knights to frenzy. They were throwing things about, grunting in fury, kicking and lashing at bodies long dead. The first knight to glimpse Darzek through a window was in a short whip range. He came charging out at him, multithonged side arm poised, intent on the pleasure of lashing one more victim to death, and Darzek cut him down with a squeeze of his weapon’s handle.

  Before the knight’s body had crashed to the ground, Darzek whirled, the weapon buzzed again, and he disposed of two knights who were charging at him from the rear. Then, as the houses erupted knights, Darzek backed up against a windowless facade and sprayed the street with both weapons. In a moment the entire company of knights was spread the length of the tiny village’s lane.

  D
arzek went from house to house searching for anything that lived, knight or peasant. He found neither. He had deliberately set the rifles at killing power—that was neater than cutting their throats.

  Darzek turned and trudged back along the lane. Halfway to the forest, he turned again and looked down on the village. The scene of carnage was precisely the one he had imagined for Bovranulz.

  “The problem with a clairvoyant,” Darzek told himself, “is the same as the problem one has with a computer—asking the right question, in the right way, and interpreting the answer. If I could learn to do all three, Bovranulz would be extremely useful.”

  Taking a last look at the village, he wondered if he should have intervened. Massacring one company of knights wouldn’t improve conditions in the Duke Merzkion’s province. It was much more likely to cause additional reprisals.

  But Darzek had considered it a solemn obligation. In a pen near the village stood two large, yellow riding nabrula—now backed into a corner and quivering with terror at the reek of blood that permeated the village. They were the nabrula of the phony black knights Darzek and Riklo had disposed of. The peasants had found them and probably reported that fact themselves—they’d know they couldn’t safely make use of stray riding nabrula—and the knights instantly concluded that the villagers had ambushed their brethren.

  Darzek turned again and started toward the crosslane where he had hidden the cart. Just before he reached it, three knights came galloping out of the forest. They halted to ponder this strange tableau, where dead knights and peasants filled the village lane, nabrula wandered about disconsolately, and a perfumer in professional dress calmly strolled toward them carrying glittering objects.

  They had missed the blood orgy, and they were wary, rather than vengeful. One of them started a charge and then turned back at once. The others continued to ponder the scene. Then, in a single movement, all turned and fled.

  Darzek got off three shots at them, but the distance was too great to bring down the nabrula or do more than temporarily stun the knights. Two of them slumped in their saddles, but their nabrula, thoroughly frightened by the shocks that hit them, fled in terror.