" Oh, kyn- alBin, you' re such a lover!" squealed Zarella, sprawled on her huge round bed. She watched with polar eyes as the rotund man dressed. The broad smile playing across his lips told her he would be exceptionally generous this evening.
He' d better be. Having such a pig in bed disgusted her. If he hadn' t been so wealthy, she would have let one of the other pleasure girls have him.
Zarella almost laughed thinking of scrawny Luella with this mountain of fat. He would have suffocated the poor child!
" You' re a gem, Zarella. None like you. Here' s a token of my undying esteem." Zarella' s eyes widened with avarice. She was worldly- wise, but never had she seen such a large drell- gem, easily worth a prince' s ransom. Its rainbow colors filled the room with a cold radiance. She would have stayed the night with a score of demons to gain such a trinket.
" You' re too kind, but then big men have the biggest hearts and:" She let her eyes drop slightly and gave him the chance to mentally finish the rest of her little speech. He was pleased; so was she. It was a business deal like any other. What she had for sale, however, wasn' t open for barter among the usual commodity brokers.
" Till the morrow!" the man said, pleased with her response.
Zarella fell back on the soft bed, holding the drell- gem lightly in the palm of her hand. The depths of the jewel pulled her gaze deeper and deeper until she became lost in the maze of its reflecting planes. It was the most perfect gem she' d ever seen.
Her attention was dragged away by the sound of her door opening. The soft click of the lock brought her to a sitting position. Standing next to her bureau, arms crossed over his muscular chest, stood KynalLyk- Surepta. A vicious sneer marred his good looks.
" What do you want, low- born?" she snapped. He repelled her in a way she didn' t fully understand. That he had joined ranks with the arrogant grey- clad soldiers cast against him, but the distaste ran deeper. He seemed unclean.
" Low- born, is it? Surely you can guess why I' ve come." He towered over her. A hand faster than thought snared the jewel from her palm and held it up to the dimness of the glow- lamp beside her bed. " A drell- gem? A poor one, I' d say. And small, very small. Did DarelLan- Martak give it to you?"
" No. I haven' t seen him since he choked you unconscious. I wish he' d finished you then and there!" She felt a surge of viciousness. To degrade this man meant more to her than her own immediate safety. Besides, one scream would bring four guards able to handle any trouble Kyn- alLyk- Surepta might intend for her.
" Another of your many conquests, then. I think it' s time for you to be shown a real man' s skill." He began stripping off his grey tunic. As he casually tossed it aside, Zarella noticed a tanned leather jerkin next to his skin. The incongruity of the leather with the grey cloth puzzled her. This was something she' d have expected Lan to wear rather than the turncoat soldier.
" Ah, you notice my, hmmm, shall we call it insurance?"
" Insurance? I think you should leave. Already you bore me with your riddles. If you go any further, I might fall asleep from tedium."
He slapped her with the back of his hand. The force of the blow knocked her sprawling across the bed. Zarella tried to escape. A hand gripped a slender white ankle and pulled her back. The man flipped her over and glared at her supine form.
" Don' t ever say a thing like that to me again. I should punish you for what you' ve done this evening. You make a big play for me, then cast me aside. I suspect Dar- elLan- Martak' s been enjoying your charms, hasn' t he? Hasn' t he?"
The man slapped her again, this time with the callused palm of his hand.
Zarella clutched at her brutalized face. Hatred boiled from her eyes. If she' d known the proper spells, Kyn- alLyk- Surepta would have been changed into a bug to be crushed under her heel. But she didn' t. The only course left her was to scream. The guards down the hall would come to her rescue. She would laugh as they quartered this low- born scum and boiled his pieces in thick oil.
His cold words cut off her cry.
" Your four guards are dead. They smile with two mouths." He pulled out a bloodied knife and showed it to her.
" What do you want?" she demanded. For the first time since she was a virgin, Zarella felt fear gnawing at her insides. She didn' t want to die. The fetid odor of death, however, filled her nostrils.
" Isn' t that obvious? Martak humiliates me in front of the entire town. I want revenge." He began running his thumb along the edge of the blade as if to assure himself of its razor- sharpness.
" Why come to me?"
" You' re his woman. I overheard what he said. He wants to marry you, and you weren' t unwilling, just contrary. My revenge on him will be through you."
" So you rape me, is that it? Lan will cut out your liver and eat it raw!"
" No, no, he won' t. I will tell you exactly how clever I am. He can' t really care if I have my way with you or not. A woman of your profession would hardly consider that much in the way of revenge. No, I' ll take my pleasure from you, then kill you."
Zarella went cold from shock. She heard truth ringing in the man' s words. Lips trembling but voice steady, she said, " Lan will track you down. No matter where you hide, he' ll find you. Even in the middle of all your grey- clad soldiers, he' ll kill you."
" Ah, therein lies the beauty of my plan. First, though, satisfaction. And the rest, my dear lovely Zarella, I fear you' ll not live to appreciate."
She fought, but against overwhelming strength. He had his will, then left her corpse for the sheriff to find.
*****
" Well, Sarn, tell me again!" barked the sheriff. It had already been a long night. Now the murder of Zarella turned it into an eternity. " I don' t care if you repeat it a million times."
The bartender swallowed hard, looking as if he needed a drink to steady his nerves. His eyes darted from the sheriff to the body on the bloodstained sheets, then back to the implacable sheriff.
" I: I saw one of the guards on the stairs. I thought he was asleep. When I went to awaken him, I found he' d had his throat slit." Sarn made a descriptive movement with his index finger, showing the exact location of the knife cut. His already sallow face paled even more until he appeared on the brink of fainting.
" I checked, and the other three were dead also. Kyn- alBin had come down earlier, and I' d seen the guard talking to him. Who could believe such a thing of kyn- alBin?"
" Just tell me what you did next. Never mind passing judgment on the customers."
" Y- yes, Honor. I checked a few of the rooms. There were customers in most of them. It was a good night. Then, th- then," he stuttered, " I f- found Zarella. Just like that! It' s horrible. I thought you were supposed to protect us from such things."
" Sometimes even a good sheriff requires more manpower," came a deep voice from the stairway. Lyk Surepta stood there, a smug expression on his face. " I hereby offer the services of my men in finding the murderer of one of this town' s leading entrepreneurs."
" You and your soldiers aren' t required in this, Kyn- alLykSurepta," said the sheriff tartly. " I am perfectly capable of handling the investigation."
" Have you performed the investigatory spells yet?"
" You can go," the sheriff told Sarn. " My deputies and I will do some conjuring and see what we can see. You did well in not staying long in the room. It would only blur the picture. Thank you, Sarn." The mousy bartender scuttled off, glad to be away from the scene of the brutal murder. " And your aid is not required, either, Kyn- alLyk. Go!"
" I would stay to watch the conjurations."
The sheriff started to press the issue, then tiredly nodded. The power of the grey- clad soldiers grew daily, and he wasn' t sure of the public response if he ordered Surepta away so peremptorily.
" All right. Everything ready?" The sheriffs experienced eye looked over the censers gushing out their fumes at each point of a pentagram around the body. He' d trained his deputies well. In less than a minute, they would see a reenactment
of the murder.
The sheriff muttered the appropriate ward spells and settled down to let the chronoregression spell work. Surepta started to speak, but the sheriff motioned him to silence. A ghostlike figure, almost too dim to be seen, entered the room, closed the door, and locked it. The colors mingled and mixed constantly in a translucent haze, flowing from grey to brown to black.
A blur fell across the bed. A large jewel gleamed. Is lambent radiance washed out any picture of the murderer. A frenzy of activity on the bed, then the jewel disappeared. Left was a faint outline of a man dressed in a leather jerkin.
The sheriff began chanting. When he reached the proper resonance, he looked up into the face of the killer. With knife in one hand and body covered with the leather jerkin, Lan' s image swam into hazy focus. It lasted for a split second, then vanished in tangled tendrils of brown, garlic- smelling mist.
" Dar- elLan- Martak!" cried Surepta. " He murdered her when she denied him!"
" Silence!" bellowed the sheriff. He sighed, wiped sweat from his wrinkled forehead, and felt years older in an instant. Of all the people, he hadn' t expected Lan to be the one to kill Zarella. The sheriff sighed again, his frail shoulders slumped with the weight of evidence. He liked Lan, had thought better of him.
The rest of the sordid scene flickered in and out of existence. The death stroke released a murky aura around Zarella' s ghost body. No question remained as to the instant or manner of her death.
Choking on the fumes from the censer, the sheriff ordered, " Clean up this mess, and one of you track down the murder weapon. It' ll leave a trail a blind mage could follow. And be quick about it. Another death with the same knife and you' ll lose the trail!"
" My men will find him," said Surepta confidently. " The murderer will be brought to swift justice."
" None of that," snapped the sheriff. " You can hang all the brigands you catch out in the woods. That' s beyond my jurisdiction. But not this. I want Lan alive to stand trial."
" You' ve seen his guilt."
" It' s not conclusive. Before reduction, I must be certain." The sheriff wished to retire on the spot and let the younger men handle the case. But that would be shirking his duty. A man never let another do a distasteful job. The sheriff looked scornfully at Lyk Surepta and whirled past him. He would find Lan before the soldier. He felt he owed that much to Lan.
Lan looked at his half- sister incredulously.
" It' s true, I tell you," said Suzarra. " I was with Tan when the grey- clads were bragging to one another about it."
" You' re sure they claimed Lyk Surepta had killed Zarella?" Lan sat in the center of the crude log cabin, stunned. Zarella dead? It hardly seemed possible, yet he didn' t doubt for an instant that Surepta was capable of such a deed.
" And they put out evidence to implicate you," the girl said breathlessly. " They mentioned a knife and one of your tunics they' d found in a hut out in the forest."
" I did leave a tunic in my lean- to. But my knife is:" He reached and found only empty sheath.
" Surepta! He took it when he brushed into me outside the Dancing Serpent! No wonder he was so smug!"
" Flee, Lan. They have a web of evidence spun all around you. You can' t get free of it. Those vicious beasts are everywhere; lying and plotting."
" No soldier will:" He stopped in midsentence as he heard the hoofbeats of horses. " Someone comes."
" Hide! Out the window. No, they might be out back already. Down into the cellar, Lan. Hurry!" The girl frantically shoved him down into the storage cellar and slammed the heavy wood trap door above him. Just as the rug pulled across to hide the trap, he heard the cabin door slam hard against the wall.
" You, wench, where' s Dar- elLan- Martak?"
" What do you want of him, grey pig?" shot back Suzarra.
Lan heard his sister moan as if in pain. He started to go to her aid, then stopped. He had counted no fewer than ten pairs of boots entering the cabin. Against one he could prevail. Two would be a battle. Against ten- or more- was suicide.
" Speak!"
Suzarra cried out again in pain.
" He' s suspected of murdering Zarella."
" He murdered no one," gasped out the girl. " That one, KynalLyk- Surepta, he did it! I heard!"
Lan cursed under his breath, fingering his sword in the cool dampness of the black cellar. Silly, stupid Suzarra.
He heard nothing but low moans from above. Deciding it might be suicide to go to Suzarra' s aid, yet knowing it meant her murder if he didn' t, he tried to push up the trap door. The sinews on his arms bulged with the strain. The lock had been turned. The heavy timbers refused to budge. And the sounds from above were all too apparent now. He could never leave his half- sister to the soldiers.
His sword proved useless against the thick door over his head. Frantically looking around the dimly lit cellar, he spied a tiny window. It proved far too small for him to crawl through. Using his fine steel sword as a digging tool, he slowly, painstakingly slowly, widened the window, pulling down handfuls of dirt until his face was caked with sweat and grime.
After what seemed hours of digging, Lan scrambled out, sword swinging wildly. No one was in sight. Cautiously peering into the nowquiet cabin, he sucked in his breath at the sight. Suzarra lay naked on the floor. The soldiers had used her repeatedly, then murdered her.
Just as Kyn- alLyk- Surepta had done to Zarella.
" This shall not go unavenged!" Lan muttered. Silent tears of rage and sorrow cut through the dirt on his face. " I shall feel my blade in your slimy guts, Lyk Surepta! I shall!"
Without another word, he turned and melted into the denseness of the forest.
CHAPTER TWO
Lan sneaked back into town. It was a dangerous thing to do, but he had to know the evidence against him. The sheriff wouldn' t needlessly arrest him; the old man was cagey. He' d be certain of the criminal and the guilt before acting.
Lan heard the few citizens gathered along the wooden walkways buzzing with excitement. A crime always brightened their lackluster lives. This was one of the things he found so repugnant about city life. The people no longer thrilled to nature. They had to have more sophisticated entertainment, such as murder and those coughing mechanical cars that seemed all the rage at the moment.
": so there' s no question about it in our minds," the sheriff was saying to a news- crier.
" How can you be so sure, Honor?" the news- crier asked, his eyes shining brightly like twin black buttons in the sun.
" The usual spells were cast. The three of us saw Dar- elLanMartak' s image in Zarella' s room."
A cold chill raced up and down Lan' s spine. Zarella! He edged closer to hear the entire story.
" He wore a leather jerkin and forest boots, and we' ve found the murder weapon. There is no doubt that it' s Lan' s. I saw him with that same knife earlier in the evening."
" Why do you think he killed Zarella?"
The sheriff shrugged. " I can' t begin to guess. He loved the woman. Perhaps she spurned him. I know he wanted her to leave with him. That caused a fight earlier on with Kyn- alLyk- Surepta."
" What was Surepta' s comment?"
" Nothing. The man didn' t know about Zarella' s death. I am certain Lan is the murderer. My deputies are hunting for him. It won' t be easy for us to track him down, either. He' s wilderness- wise, and if he wants to lead us a long chase, he' s capable of it. But assure everyone that Dar- elLan- Martak will not escape justice. He' ll be caught, tried, convicted, and reduced."
Lan thought there was a tiny catch in the old man' s voice. The sheriff wouldn' t like to summarily reduce him- but he would. Duty required it.
He saw no way to convince the sheriff of his innocence. The magical conjurations had shown his clothing present. That it was probably Surepta wearing the leather jerkin and deerskin boots was something he couldn' t prove. It might have been anyone. Lan knew he had many enemies, and Zarella might have even more. Denying her favors to the wrong man could ha
ve produced this diabolical scheme to even the score before consigning her to Hell.
But it was Lyk Surepta' s doing. Lan knew it. And it was Surepta and his grey- clad soldiers who had killed Suzarra, too. Cold hate began to spread like a polar icecap in the man' s innards. His hand trembled on the hilt of his sword, but he was powerless to act, a leaf tossed on a high wind and nothing more. That helplessness more than anything else rankled.
Lan noticed the sheriffs office door slightly ajar. Boldly, he pushed his way inside. The tiny room was deserted. He crossed to the rack of weapons. The lock on the case yielded to slight pressure from his sword blade. First he took out a knife to replace the one he' d lost. Then he took out two clockwork mechanism pistols.
He' d seen these fired many times. While they were noisy and produced a choking cloud of smoke, they killed at a distance far greater than any mage could hope to accurately conjure a spell. He wound up the mechanisms and primed them with a firing cap, powder, and a lead slug. Thrusting them into his belt, Lan went out the rear door of the office. It wouldn' t do to be seen on the city streets now.
In the alley loomed one of the oil- reeking, demon- powered cars. This wasn' t what he' d hoped to find, but it would suffice. A horse suited him better, but a fugitive had to take what he found and not complain about bad luck.
" Demon! Are you in there?" he called to a tiny iron chamber set next to a heat exchange coil.
" Of course I am, you silly human! Where else would I be?" The demon sounded petulant. Lan couldn' t blame him. Being locked up inside the iron prison and choosing only hot air molecules and discarding the cold ones seemed like tedious work.
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