Murder in Tarsis

by John Maddox Roberts

  Few of the guests were of the nonhuman sort, for Tarsis was not hospitable toward such persons. Once a cosmopolitan port, the city had withdrawn into itself, growing insular as the sea receded. Even the human transients, of whom there were many, were left in no doubt that their welcome would not outlast their ability to spend money.

  Whatever the attitude toward them of the city fathers, merchants, and other residents, the company in the tavern were convivial, spending and gaming away their pay; resting and finding recreation after the rigors and austerities of long travel; preparing for the next, long leg of their various journeys, whether to the sea, to Thorbardin across the Plains of Dust, to the storied lands of the east, or to other, nameless destinations. The wine and ale flowed freely, songs in a half-dozen languages rang out at intervals, and the rattle of dice was unceasing.

  In this gregarious company one figure was distinguished for his solitary aloofness, seated as he was by himself at a tiny table in a corner far from the hearth. He seemed a young man, yet the expression on his dark, weathered face was that of embittered age. Straight, somewhat unkempt black hair brushed his shoulders, and he gazed broodingly into the bottom of a near-empty tankard. As he raised the vessel his hand began to tremble, and he hastily set the cup back on the table, glaring at his hand with hatred, as if it had betrayed him.

  As the lone man raised his tankard for a second try, the door opened to admit a short, stout fellow in a wide, feathered hat and winter cloak whose neat, almost delicate appearance seemed somewhat at odds with the raffish nature of the regulars of the Drowned Sailor. He spoke for a moment with the barkeep, and that worthy nodded toward the lone man at the corner table. The man in the hat crossed the common room and paused beside the little table until the solitary man looked up at him.

  “Pardon me, sir,” said the standing man, “but I am given to understand that you are of the mercenary profession.”

  “I am that,” agreed the other.

  “My name is Nistur. Might I be permitted to join you?”

  “Suit yourself,” said the lone man ungraciously. He raised his tankard again. The hand trembled slightly, and he steadied it with the other.

  Nistur sat. “If you will forgive my observing, sir, you have the look of a man gazing into the bottom of his last cup.”

  “And if I am, what of it?”

  “Only that I wish to buy you another.” Even as he spoke, the barkeep arrived with a pair of very large tankards.

  “Two bumpers of my best, as ordered,” he announced with pride. As he set the tankards on the table a small figure, cloaked and hooded, passed behind him. With a speed creditable in so burly a man, the barkeep whirled and snatched the hood back, revealing the fine-boned, somewhat smudged face of a young person of indeterminate gender.

  “Shellring!” the barkeep snapped. “How many times have I warned you about coming in here? I’ll not have you troubling my guests!”

  The huge, gray eyes widened with offended innocence. “I came in only to get away from the cold for a while. Would you drive me forth on so cruel a night?” The voice might have been a young boy’s or that of a girl just coming to womanhood. Shellring’s reddish hair was shorn irregularly to a bristly stubble, rendering judgment of sex no easier.

  “I would indeed. Begone! Jump for the door or I call the watch forthwith!”

  With a hiss, the person called Shellring fled. The barkeep turned back toward the two he had just served.

  “Sorry about that, sirs. I try to keep the riffraff out of this place, but it’s like trying to block a cold draft. They always seem to find a way in.” He bustled away to see to his other patrons, leaving the two isolated in the midst of the crowd.

  “I thank you,” said the man who had been alone, grudgingly. He raised the fresh tankard and drank. This time his hand did not tremble. He set the tarred, wooden vessel down with a thump. “Now, what’s your proposition?”

  “Proposition?” said Nistur, startled by his abruptness.

  “Aye, proposition. You have named me mercenary, and mercenary I am. You must know that the word means ‘motivated by money.’ I suspect that you are going to offer me some.”

  “Oh, yes. Indeed,” Nistur mumbled, examining the man even as he drank from his own tankard. As the barkeep had suggested, the ale was superior. The man before him appeared to be in his twenties, but there was something about the shape of his eyes and ears that hinted at elven blood, and this might call for a reassessment of his age. The hands now loosely nested around the base of the tankard were large, with thick palms and prominent knuckles. A thin band of gold winked from one finger. They were fighting man’s hands, but they also resembled the hands of a dwarf. What sort of fellow was this?

  That he was indeed a mercenary there could be no doubt. He was clad in armor of a most unusual sort: a close-fitting suit of tiny, glistening scales that covered him from neck to wrists to the tops of his knee-length boots. Whether the scales were some sort of metal or the hide of a strange reptile Nistur could not tell. Gauntlets of the same construction hung from the man’s belt, which also supported on one side a rather short curved sword and on the other a long dagger with an exceptionally wide blade. On the table next to his tankard rested a helmet that was no more than a light skullcap of steel.

  “To be sure, I wish to employ you. I am a merchant, you see, engaged on an expedition to Zeriak. It is a trading venture, to determine whether a profitable market exists there for certain dyestuffs and spices. I serve as broker for these goods, representing a syndicate of traders.”

  “Zeriak? There is a great stretch of near-trackless land between here and that place.”

  “Wherefore I require a guard who is an experienced fighting man and a traveler. You appear to be such a man.”

  “So I am. So are half the men in this tavern. Why do you not approach them?”

  “They belong to bands. Hire one and you must hire all. I require only a single escort. The barkeep here assured me that you are alone.”

  The man barked a humorless laugh. “Alone! Aye, I am that. And for reasons more than adequate.”

  Nistur sighed. “You seem reluctant, sir. In my previous experience, mercenaries becalmed by an extended peace are more than anxious to find employment. If you are not of that inclination, I shall inquire elsewhere.” He began to rise.

  “Stay!” the mercenary said with a forestalling gesture. “I am interested. But I am not a trusting man. If the pay be agreeable, I will go with you. Just now, anything that gets me away from this dismal city sounds more than tempting.”

  Nistur resumed his seat. “Excellent. How may I call you, sir?”

  “Ironwood.”

  “And what land do you call home?”

  “None. I gave up my past when I adopted the mercenary trade. It is not wise to investigate too deeply into the past lives of my colleagues.”

  “I am acquainted with the custom. Mercenaries are not the only persons who prefer to make their own lives, rather than continue those to which they were born.” He took a meditative sip. “Well, then. I intend to get an early start in the morning. Will you come with me now?”

  Ironwood drained his tankard and stood. “I am ready.”

  “Have you no belongings to gather?”

  “What you see is all I have. Lodging and provisions are dear in Tarsis. I have sold off or gambled away all else. I kept only the wherewithal to earn more.” He clapped the steel cap on his pate. “Let’s be off.”

  They left the inn, and Nistur saw that Ironwood lacked even a cloak. The armor could be little protection from the cold, and a cutting wind swirled the snow crystals along the narrow streets. He felt a momentary pang, knowing that he had no quarrel with this man who had fallen upon such hard times. He tried to shake off the mood, for it boded ill for a man of his profession. Compassion was no concern of his, only the accomplishment of a clean, elegant kill for his client.

  In a place where two narrow streets met, there was a tiny square with a fountain at
its center. Crossing this square, they paused at an unwonted sound from overhead. It was like muted, distant thunder, and Nistur, frowning, studied the silvery clouds advancing toward the moon from the south.

  “Those clouds mean more snow, not rain,” he mused. “Strange to hear thunder at this time of year.”

  “It isn’t thunder,” said the mercenary.

  Startled at what sounded like dread in the man’s voice, Nistur looked at him and saw that the man’s expression was as unsettled as his voice. He followed the line of the mercenary’s gaze back toward the cloud bank and for an instant thought he saw an uncanny form flit from one billowy tower to another, leaving behind nothing but an impression of a vast, winged shape.

  The assassin shook himself. Now, when he needed all his professional faculties, was no time to be distracted by apparitions in the heavens. “Come along,” he said, moving back into the street with short, quick strides.

  They turned along an alley that the moon overhead, shining down between rooflines, turned into a silver ribbon. Coming to a place where the alley widened a bit, Nistur halted.

  “This seems like a good place,” he announced.

  “Eh?” Ironwood said suspiciously. “A good place for what? Where are we going, anyway?”

  Nistur turned and bowed with profound courtesy. “My friend, a certain party desires your death, and I have been retained to satisfy this desire. Please do not take this personally; it is a professional matter. You may now consider yourself to be in mortal peril.” Having delivered this warning, he drew his basket-hilted sword.

  “An assassin, eh?” Ironwood said with contempt, but without surprise. Clearly he had received more bad news than good in his life. “And you want to fight it out? Your kind usually favor a dagger in the back, or poison in the cup.”

  “Only the dregs of the profession,” Nistur assured him. “They give us all a bad name.” He dropped his cloak and slid forward, the little buckler extended before him.

  In a single, fluid motion Ironwood thrust his hands into the gauntlets at his belt and drew his short sword and broad dagger. The weapons, Nistur noted, were as unusual as his own. This should make for an interesting match, but it could have only one outcome. He knew himself to be a great master of the sword, and he had never met a soldier who was more than merely competent with the weapon. Soldiers depended upon strength and valor and protective armor, seldom possessing the sheer skill of a man who had devoted every day for many years to practice at arms.

  The straight blade of Nistur flickered and was opposed by the mercenary’s broad dagger. Ironwood sent his curved sword toward Nistur’s head, knee, and flank, and each time it rang from the boss of the small shield, which the shorter man seemed to maneuver with an adroitness little short of miraculous. There was no great clamor, for these were experts, not brawlers flailing away like fools. The blades rang with the clear chime of perfectly tempered steel, but the noise would not have been heard a score of paces distant.

  Nistur was amazed at the mercenary’s skill. Rarely had he encountered a soldier with such exquisite command of his weapons. Even so, the parries of the broad dagger were getting a bit wide, and twice his parry failed entirely, forcing Ironwood to deflect the straight blade with his armored forearm. It did him no harm, but it showed that his timing was flagging as the fight progressed.

  The armor, Nistur saw, was going to present a problem. He could hack through it in time, but that would lack style, and even his fine, dwarf-forged edge would be damaged by such misuse. Thus far, he had employed only the edge, but his sword had a point and was useful for thrusting as well. He decided that, when the duel had progressed to the proper stage, he would thrust unexpectedly just above the neckline of the scale suit, making an appropriate closing verse to this poem in action.

  Nistur was preparing the final combination of cuts and parries that would end with the fatal thrust when, abruptly, Ironwood staggered sideways. The hand that Nistur had seen trembling on the tankard now shook violently.

  Ironwood gritted his teeth and cursed in a language Nistur did not recognize. “Not now!” the mercenary growled, his right knee seeming to buckle beneath him.

  Nistur was tempted to try the rare but effective full-body lunge and end the match instantly, but caution told him to hold back. There was many a ruse in swordplay calculated to gull an opponent into an unwise commitment: the false stumble, the exaggerated effects of a trifling wound, the feigned distraction, all of them were ways by which reckless duelists were drawn into premature assaults. Every truly dangerous, killing attack left the attacker momentarily open to a deadly reply, and such moves were to be essayed only when it was certain the opponent would be unable to take advantage of this opening.

  So instead of lunging in, Nistur stood back, fully on guard. Instead of attacking the man before him, he beat strongly at the curved blade. The hilt flew from a hand that seemed to have become nerveless. Ironwood seemed to be devoting all his efforts just to keeping on his feet. But Nistur knew full well that the defensive dagger was also a weapon of assault. Using his point to threaten the other’s face, he slid in and rapped the broad blade with the edge of his buckler. The weapon skittered musically on a snow-bare patch of paving stones.

  Slowly, Ironwood’s knees gave beneath him, and he fell to the alley with a rustle of scales. Reptile hide after all, Nistur decided. Not metal. With a foot he turned the man over, and the black eyes glared at him, the limbs twitching uselessly.

  “I fear I must finish this, my unfortunate friend,” Nistur said, resheathing his sword. “Do not take it too hard. I do not know from what condition you suffer, but clearly you had little future left as a mercenary, and I now understand why you were so alone.”

  He drew the dirk from his thigh boot. The beautifully polished ten-inch blade flashed in the moonlight. Like his sword, it was single-edged, intended primarily for thrusting but with a thick spine that added power to a cut, a handy feature to use against an opponent not expecting such a maneuver.

  As he knelt by the fallen mercenary, Nistur was overcome by a wave of revulsion. There was no honor in this. The man was helpless through no fault of his own nor through any efforts on Nistur’s part. A fine but unlucky swordsman was going to die at the behest of some repulsive aristocrat who hated the mercenary and despised the assassin, but who wished to keep his own velvet-gloved hands clean.

  These were profitless thoughts, he told himself. He placed his point against the man’s throat. Even as he performed the act, Ironwood’s left hand flashed upward, something glittering in it. Nistur felt a blow beneath his chin and a spreading numbness. He tried to drive his point downward but found he could not. A concealed dagger! What infamy! He sat heavily, and the snow sent a chill through the seat of his breeches.

  “I am slain—and justly—for my unmanly hesitation,” Nistur said, wishing he had some better last words prepared. It was an unforgivable oversight in a poet. “Nonetheless, sir, that was dishonorable, even for a mercenary! I would have expected better from you.”

  Ironwood creaked out a laugh. “Had that been a dagger, would you be talking now?” He seemed to be forcing the words past a half-paralyzed larynx. “Nay, your tongue would be nailed to your palate. Here is the maid that kissed you.” The mercenary’s left hand shook, but Nistur saw clearly the gold ring on the smallest finger. Now turned so its thin band was inward, it displayed ribbons of gold worked into an intricate knot. The assassin had seen its likeness before.

  “The Knot of Thanalus!” he wheezed.

  “Aye. Even one such as I keeps back one defense against need. Now, assassin, you are bound to me and may do me no harm.” He tried to laugh, but at last his powers of speech failed him. He seemed to have lost control of his limbs utterly. Nistur expected to see the man’s eyes roll back, but they remained steady, still doing his bidding when all else had failed him. Clearly, the assault with the ring had been Ironwood’s last act of volition and must have required a great effort of will.

 
Nistur was in a quandary. He was now bound to serve the man he had tried to kill. He did not question the fact. Had the spell not been potent, he would have succeeded in driving his point home, even having suffered a mortal wound. The problem was, what could he do? He had no idea what ailed the mercenary. Was it mortal, or would it pass? Either way, a freezing alleyway was no place for either of them to spend the night.

  The assassin got to his feet and retrieved his cloak; then he gathered Ironwood’s dagger and sword. He turned to see a cloaked form crouched over his former victim and current master.

  “Here, now! Who are you? Get away from that man!”

  The figure looked up. Within the cowl, Nistur saw the face of the one called Shellring, expelled from the tavern by the barkeep. “He needs help,” said he or she, Nistur was not certain which.

  “Truly I never would have guessed, left to my own poor mental devices.”

  “I’ll get help,” said Shellring, straightening and bumping into Nistur as he came forward to thrust the odd person away. “Oops. Excuse me, sir. I’ll be back presently.”

  Before Shellring could go two paces Nistur grabbed a thin shoulder, spun the figure around, and performed a quick, practiced frisk. This satisfied him of two things. One was that Shellring was female, although young and thin to the point of emaciation. The other was the nature of her profession. He held up before her eyes two purses, one bulging and the other flat. The suspension strings of both had been neatly severed.

  “Getting his was no great feat, but please accept my compliments upon your appropriation of mine. I never felt a thing.”

  Shellring seemed not in the least abashed. “How did you know, then?”

  “In the first place, acts of disinterested charity have been woefully rare in my experience. In the second, I have seen you move with great adroitness this evening, yet you jostled me like the veriest oaf. This alone was sufficient to warrant a closer look. I am astonished that you did not get his ring.”