by Джеффри Лорд
Chapter 18
The house that the High Kaireen gave Blade lay high up in the Mountains of Hoga, lonely and isolated. Only a few miles to the west was the tree line. Beyond the trees Blade could see bare peaks of gray and blue rock and even the white glinting of snowcaps.
He could seldom see that far, though. Two days out of three, gray mist or grayer clouds surrounded him. Then the house seemed to be alone in an otherwise empty world.
The days were often cool and the nights usually chilly. Blade did not notice this. He spent all the hours of the day and a good part of the night in his steaming hot workshop. Fires burned there around the clock, under bubbling pots of resin or boiling cauldrons of leaves. Smoke and steam rose up in clouds and swirled around Blade. Sometimes they found a way out through the crude chimney or the cracks in the boarded-up windows. Most of the time they didn't.
Blade set himself a grueling pace as he assembled and tested the distilling apparatus. That took several weeks. He had been right in theory. With threebo stems, resin, and iron or stone pots one could put together a fairly serviceable piece of equipment. Putting that theory into practice took time and effort, much of both wasted. Finally Blade managed to build something that would neither leak nor explode nor catch fire, and he was able to really go to work.
He now worked harder than ever, sixteen and eighteen hours a day. At the end of the day he was frequently exhausted or dizzy and only half-awake from the sleeping water's steam. He could do nothing except stagger to his sleeping room and collapse.
Blade grew lean and hungry looking, his eyes were perpetually red and inflamed, his hands were callused, black with caked soot and sticky with resin. It was probably a good thing that Neena wasn't with him. He would hardly have time to kiss her goodnight!
The High Kaireen gave Blade four carefully chosen assistants. All of them were strong young men, none of them stupid and all of them good at taking orders.
«They were chosen for those qualities,» the High Kaireen told Blade. «Their orders are to do as you tell them, keep you and the house and everything in it from harm, and otherwise keep their mouths shut.»
«What about the guards to be sent by the mountain clans?»
«They will never come within the walls around the house. Nor will they know what you do within, except that you work to do much harm to those of Trawn. That is enough to make sure that the mountain people will keep their mouths closed and their vigil unbroken. They hate those of Trawn in a way you would not understand unless you had spent years among them.»
The four assistants obeyed their orders, as far as Blade could tell. They never objected to working a fifteen-hour day, seldom spoke unless spoken to; and seemed to be able to live without food or sleep. He had no idea of how much they were learning about what he was doing, or how much they would be able to tell anyone else about it. Even if they knew all of his secrets, they would find it hard to get through the mountain clansmen and reach anyone who would listen to them.
The clansmen were also obeying their orders. Blade never saw them from the house during the day. Occasionally he would hear soft footfalls and see shadowy human figures moving past with feline grace in the darkness. At other times he would be out in the woods, supervising the gathering of afresh batch of peza leaves. Suddenly the assistants would start, and sometimes drop their baskets, as two or three fur-clad figures slipped out from behind the bushes. The mountain people never stopped to talk and barely stopped to look. A moment, and they would be gone into the dripping forest as silently as they had come. At times Blade had the feeling that his laboratory was guarded by an endless coming and going of ghosts or spirits..
The youngest of the four assistants, named Kulo, turned out to have a positive genius for woodcarving. This became more and more useful as Blade's work demanded more and more precisely made equipment. Blade set Kulo some nearly impossible tasks, but somehow the young man always rose to the occasion.
That was encouraging to Blade. It would soon be time to make the first of the weapons designed for use with the distilled sleeping water. He was now spending hours with charcoal and parchment, making rough sketches of various ideas. If they could not be turned into usable weapons, all his work here would be wasted.
That was one of the thoughts that always drove Blade back to his workshop. Sometimes it made him wish that there were more than twenty-four hours in a day.
One gray morning, things were going so well in the workshop that Blade slept late and ate a leisurely breakfast. Then he went out to help bring in a caravan of porters bringing more threebo stems. Although the threebo grew this high in the mountains, it grew more abundantly in the lowlands, and the warmer weather down there made the stems grow thicker and stronger. So the High Kaireen sent eight porter loads of threebo wood up to Blade each week.
Blade met the caravan half a mile downhill from the workshop. He saw the porters plod up the path toward him, each man with a bundle of threebo wood strapped across his shoulders. Blade stood while they passed by, sweating in spite of the coolness of the morning, carefully seeking out footholds in the damp earth under their feet. Not for the first time, Blade wished he could tell the people helping him at least some of what he was trying to do. That might make all the sweat and all the long hours seem more worthwhile. But the secret had to remain a secret for a while longer.
Of course Kulo had probably already guessed much of what Blade planned. But Kulo was also the one Blade trusted most, in spite of his youth. Kulo would keep his mouth shut.
Blade watched the last of the porters disappear up the hill into the dripping forest. For the moment he was alone among the trees, and he savored the sensation. He had been busy too long, with too many hours spent in smoke and fume-laden air in the dark, almost airless workshop. The limitless forests of Gleor in all their wild beauty were all around him; he should take more advantage of this.
After the work is over, he told himself firmly. After he had found his answer to the stolofs, he and Neena would come back up here for a few days by themselves. Then there would be time to hunt, bathe in the mountain streams (as cold as they were), make love in-
A soft whistle sounded behind Blade. He turned around, drawing his sword as he did so.
One of the mountain hunters stood beside a huge moss-grown tree, raising a hand in salute to Blade.
«Hail, Prince Blade. One of my brothers has been bitten by a snake. He has need of a Kaireen's wisdom to heal him. We have heard that you have that wisdom, along with your warrior's skills. Will you follow me, and do what can be done to aid my brother?»
Blade didn't recognize the man facing him, of course. That was no surprise. He had seen only a handful of clansmen by daylight, and none for very long. The whole thing seemed safe enough, and he did have sword, knife, bow, and arrows. For all the guards in the forest around him, Blade never went anywhere unarmed.
He followed the hunter off into the forest. They went downhill for about a mile, then struck north. The hunter seemed to know exactly where he was going, and set a fast pace. Several times the path led down into hollows that were filled with mist like thick dirty cotton wool. With the trees and the dampness and mist all around, there was little noise except water dripping and their own feet on the path. Even these sounds were weirdly distorted. Almost anyone except Blade would have begun to feel slightly uncomfortable, this far out in an unknown part of the mist-shrouded forest. Even Blade kept his hand close to his sword hilt and his eyes continuously roving about him, searching the forest on all sides.
The hunter led him onward for nearly half an hour. Then suddenly they were in a small clearing. To Blade's right stood a sagging log hut, with a roof of raggedly piled branches. As Blade turned to look more closely at it, the hunter suddenly darted to the left. Before Blade could move or speak, the man vanished into the forest. A moment later even the thud of his running feet faded away, and Blade was alone.
For a moment he was more surprised than angry. Then the thought flashed through h
is mind that the trees around the clearing could easily conceal an ambush forty men strong.
If there were, then they would most likely be expecting him to turn and run. So he would not do what they expected. Instead of spinning around and dashing off down the path, he dove for the cover of the hut. He would not dive inside, either. Then they could come at him without being seen and burn him out.
Blade flattened himself in the bushes growing up along one side of the hut. He now had cover in one direction and could see in the other three, while he himself was well hidden as long as he kept low. He would do just that, until whoever might be lurking out there made their next move.
Instead, the next move came from inside the hut. Blade heard footsteps, then a low but unmistakably feminine laugh. Still keeping low, Blade crept around toward where he could look into the hut. He had just reached the corner of the hut, when the reed curtain across the door was thrust aside from within.
Queen Sanaya of Draad stepped out into the clearing, threw her head back, and laughed again.
Chapter 19
Blade's first instinct was to go on crouching in the bushes, waiting for the warriors lying in wait in the forest to make their move or for Queen Sanaya to laugh herself into a fit. She was barefoot and wore a flowing blue robe held by an emerald clasp at the throat. Her laughter was low and bubbling, but it somehow echoed around the clearing, and it had a note in it that was not altogether sane.
But Queen Sanaya appeared to know that he-or someone-was close at hand. It would be dangerous to lie here until the queen's unreliable temper broke. It would be less dangerous to rise to his feet and confront her.
Blade thrust his sword back into its sheath and slowly rose to his feet. He kept his arms well out from his side and his fingers spread, to avoid alarming either the queen or some nervous archer or spearman.
Queen Sanaya turned as Blade rose. Her laughter cut off as abruptly as if someone had gripped her by the throat. Her eyes widened. She might have seemed surprised or even frightened, except that her mouth curved into a broad, almost smugly triumphant smile.
«So, Prince Blade,» she said. «You came forth into the woods.»
«I came forth to where I thought I was needed,» said Blade, correcting her in a carefully neutral tone of voice.
«You are a sentimental man.»
«There are two opinions about that, here as in most lands-my Lady Queen.» Blade was tempted to leave out her title, but that would be too crude and deliberate a slight. He wanted her to go on talking.
Sanaya shrugged. «What does one more or less of those dirty mountain men matter to you?»
«It is enough to say that he does matter,» said Blade. «I would rather not spend further time arguing the point with you, if there is a man who needs aid.»
Queen Sanaya laughed again. It was actually more of a low chuckle, and once again Blade had the sense of something not quite sane lurking behind Sanaya's beauty and smiles.
«Then I take it that there is indeed no one who was bitten by a snake?»
«Take what you will, Prince Blade. You seem to be that sort of man.»
Blade looked around the clearing, seeking any signs of either wounded men or lurking warriors. He found no sign of the first, but there were six or seven of the latter. The warriors of Gleor were good woodsmen and skilled at concealing themselves. Blade's eyes were even more skilled at picking men out of any sort of concealment.
Queen Sanaya's presence was still a mystery. From all that Blade knew of her, she was fond of her comforts. She would not be tramping about the forests like this merely to act as bait in an ambush by Blade's enemies. It was a mystery he needed to solve.
«Well, I see no man bitten by a snake,» he said. «But I think I see a snake here in the clearing.»
Queen Sanaya's face hardened. «That may be so.»
«It is so. And I think it is a snake that has bitten a good many men so badly that no Kaireen's skill could hope to save them.»
«You have strange fancies, Blade.»
«Is it certain that they are stranger than yours? You come forth from a perfumed bed in the warm house of the king to these cold damp forests. You draw me into the forests by a lie. You have indeed strange fancies, if you expect to accomplish anything at all by this.»
«Indeed?»
«Yes. And do not pull out that toy dagger from your belt and wave it at me. That will accomplish least of all.»
«You might be surprised, Blade. There may be no serpent here, but there is the power of a serpent's tooth.»
Blade took that to mean that the dagger was poisoned. Well, that was about what he might expect of Queen Sanaya.
«Besides,» she went on, «you have doubtless noticed those who keep watch. They could do even more than my dagger.»
«Perhaps,» said Blade. «And again, perhaps not.» In a split second he shifted position. Now he stood only inches from the queen, on the side away from her dagger. He was also between her and most of the warriors. «Neither spearmen nor archers can easily strike at me without hitting you. If I were to seize you, what could they do?»
Sanaya's dark eyebrows rose. «Indeed, they will probably not attack. They are good men, among the best I could find. Instead they will watch whatever you do, while some of them run to tell the tale to King Embor and the clan chiefs. What do you imagine they will say and do, when they learn that Prince Blade has attacked the Queen of Draad?»
Blade was perfectly able to imagine what might happen in that case. He had no intention of admitting that to the queen, though.
«Things would be interesting, I am sure.»
The queen smiled thinly. «You play your game well, Blade. Your wits are not the dullest of your weapons.» She seemed to hesitate for a moment, then licked her lips and said, «Would you like to know how to keep things from becoming-'interesting'?»
«I think, my lady Queen, you will tell me or show me that way, whether I want to learn it or not.»
That sharp reply silenced the queen entirely for a moment. Apparently she'd expected a more elegant answer. Elegance be damned! thought Blade. Unless it helped him find out what her game was, he was not going to be particularly polite to this royal bitch.
Instead of speaking, Queen Sanaya stepped backward, away from Blade. Then she beckoned him forward. When he was only a couple of feet from her, the queen looked quickly to either side, scanning the bushes and trees around the clearing. Then one hand went to her throat. Her fingers worked at the copper and emerald clasp of her robe, and with a faint click it opened..
Slowly, as though it was caressing her skin as it fell, Sanaya's robe slid down off her shoulders. She let it fall as far as her waist and then caught it with both hands. She stood there, full breasts bare and the nipples already crinkling and hardening as the chill air blew against them. Her eyes were fixed on Blade's face, trying to read his expression.
Blade kept his face expressionless. He wasn't surprised at what the queen had done, even if he hadn't exactly seen it coming. So that was the first part of her plan, was it?
Other parts of his body weren't quite so expressionless. If Sanaya had been able to read them- But she couldn't, at least not yet.
«Well?» said Blade, his voice as cool as he could make it. He suspected the queen was planning to say that word herself, which was why he had used it.
Sanaya was silent for another long moment. Apparently Blade's cool tone was bothering her. Slowly she tied her robe around her waist. Then she brought her hands slowly upward, fingers spread and palms against the smooth, coffee-hued skin of her flat stomach. Her hands rose to cup her breasts. Blade's mind held a moment's vision of his own hands doing the same. The queen's voice was not quite steady when she spoke again.
«Have you hopes, Blade?»
Blade still kept his face straight, although this was becoming more and more of an effort. «Any man has hopes, my Lady Queen.»
«Yes, that I know. I also have hopes, though I am but a woman. Help me reach out and grasp
those hopes, Prince Blade. Help me.» The raw, bubbling desire in her voice was only just under control.
«And if I do not help you?»
Her voice steadied, and for a moment the cold, calculating intriguer looked out of her large dark eyes at Blade.
«Then I will run out into the clearing as I am, crying that you have tried to rape me. Many in Draad will not be happy to hear of your lack of control over your desires.»
That was a grim certainty. King Embor might or might not forgive Blade for trying to rape his queen and wife. The king was a man of vast patience, but that vast?
Neena would have a fit. Although she might not be driven to violence, she would never let Blade hear the end of the matter. He would no longer be able to rely on her help, advice, and influence.
The clan chiefs and principal warriors would be the worst problem. Too many of them were jealous of Blade's arrival, his new influence, his marriage to Neena. Now they would have a plausible cause. Now they would turn their jealousy into action, and that action against Blade. If he refused Queen Sanaya, he might be dead within a week, and all that he might have done for Draad dead along with him.
What the devil! It was a dilemma he had met before. He had survived and even conquered in spite of the worst wiles of lustful and treacherous women. He would see if he could do the same here again in Draad.
«So be it,» he said quietly. «My lady queen, I think your hopes are good ones. Let us step into the but and talk further of them.»
Sanaya's eyes seemed to light up from within with a phosphorescent glow. She swallowed again. «Yes, Blade, let us step into the hut.» She turned her back on him and pulled her robe back up to her shoulders with one hand. With the other she pushed aside the curtain across the entrance to the hut. Blade followed her.
Sanaya's robe did not stay on her body very long after the curtain closed behind them. In the mold-scented dark chill of the but she faced Blade, then let her robe fall again. This time she let it fall all the way to the floor, until it made a crumpled shimmering blue pool around her ankles. Lifting her superb legs, she stepped out of the pool and stood in front of Blade. Except for a small triangle of linen no larger than a handkerchief, she was naked.
