by Nathan Long
Shal-Hau waved a finger. “No, I do not believe the church knows.”
It was a few hours later, and me and my “escort” were still in our cabin, talking everything over. Well, actually, I was out in the hallway with the door open, while Sei-Sien paced like a caged cat, and Lhan and Shal-Hau sat on their bunks.
Why was I in the hall? Three reasons. One, it smelled better out there. Two, I didn’t want anybody sneaking up and listening at the door. And three, Yal-Faen’s cabin was just down the passageway. He’d been marched back to it by two of Paar-Il’s finest about a half-hour before, and they’d left him there without a guard. That seemed a bit slipshod to me, so I decided I’d be the guard. That little weasel wouldn’t be sneaking past me.
“But they must.” Sei-Sien’s hands were clenching and unclenching. “Who else would give such an order?”
“Anyone but the church,” said Lhan. “If the church knew, they would not have sent a single messenger. We would have been met here with temple guards and wands of blue fire.”
Shal-Hau nodded. “Precisely. Whoever he is, our betrayer does not want to inform the church. Not yet. I believe instead, that he wishes to bring the Aldhanan to them in chains. He wants to have the credit of exposing him and capturing him all to himself.”
Sei-Sien held out pleading hands. “But with that fool Dhanan Paar-Il speaking for all the world to hear, the traitor must know he is exposed, and will go to the Temple now! He is likely already there! We must escape before the hammer falls!”
“Easy, Sei. None can leave the ship. No one will come. Now let us cease this arguing and spend our time trying to discover our traitor’s identity.” Lhan sat back, thinking. “Who was it? Was it one of our company? One of the crew? Or have we betrayed ourselves? Did we somehow let slip that we traveled with the Aldhanan when we were in Rivi?”
Sei-Sien glared. “I said nothing of the kind!”
“Nor did any of us,” said Shal-Hau. “We would have scared our heretic brothers to death with such talk.”
“It still might have been us.” Lhan shook his head. “We might have spoke too loudly here in the cabin and been overheard by some zealot sailor who saw a chance for advancement.”
I looked down the hallway. “Or it might have been that red-lipped little Don Knotts down there like I’ve been saying all along.”
Shal-Hau frowned. “Dhan who?”
“Sheesh. Sorry. Yal-Faen, I mean.”
“Ah, yes. But he has always been under guard. How can he have slipped away to warn anyone?”
“Are you kidding?” I waved my hand around to indicate the ship. “There’s no reason he had to slip away. He’s got a ship full of accomplices right here. He finds one sailor who’s as much of a fanatic as he is, and he tells him about the Aldhanan. The sailor slips off the ship, and tells a pal to send word to Paar-Il.”
Sei-Sien went as pale as a corpse. He grabbed his pack from under his cot and slung the strap over his shoulder. “Then it is certain. The church knows. They are coming. We must flee!”
And this guy had been accusing Lhan of cowardice? “Dude. Nobody can get off the ship, remember? Anan’s up there keeping watch. It doesn’t matter if liver-lips tells anybody. Everybody’s just as trapped as we are.”
Sei looked at me with eyes like ping-pong balls. “You think Anan is enough to stop a determined sailor? They know the ship! They will have sixty ways out!”
Down the hall I saw Yal-Faen pop his head out his door and look toward the noise. I whispered out of the side of my mouth. “Dude, shut up. You woke the baby.”
“Sei-Sien, calm yourself!” Shal-Hau stood and put a hand on nervous nelly’s arm. “We will relay our concerns to the Aldhanan when he returns, but until then we must—”
“No!” Sei-Sien shoved Shal-Hau back and tried to push past him toward the door. “I cannot be taken! I must be free to spread the word. My voice must not be allowed to be silenced! Let me by!”
I stepped forward, but Lhan was quicker. He grabbed Sei by the arm and pulled him back. “Sit down, Sei! You embarrass your—”
Sei snarled and threw a punch, which caught Lhan over the eye. That was it. Great orator or not, I’d had enough of this jackass. I ducked through the door and pulled him off Lhan, then threw him against the bulkhead hard enough to drop him. Only he didn’t drop. Fear had made a wolverine outta him and he bounced back swinging. Fortunately, his punches were as wild as his eyes. I backed up, then slapped him on the ear so hard he hit the floor like a flapjack that missed the pan, then curled up and covered the side of his head with trembling hands. The handprint of my slap was dark purple on his violet face.
I put a foot on his neck. “You gonna ease up now, goof ball? Or do you want another—”
I cut off as a sound from the passageway made me turn my head. I stepped off Sei and crossed to the door. The passage looked the same as it had. Yal-Faen’s door was closed. There was nobody in sight. All the same…
“Keep quiet. I’ll be right back.”
I tiptoed down the hall and listened at Yal’s door.
Nothing.
I knocked.
“Yal-Faen? Are you in there?”
No answer. I pushed open the door. The cabin was empty.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
MAN HUNT!
“Shit. Lhan! Guys! He flew the coop!”
I pounded back down to our cabin and grabbed my sword from under my bunk, then ran out again, strapping it on as I went. Lhan did the same and followed me. Shal-Hau was helping Sei-Sien to his feet. Sei wailed after us.
“Did I not tell you he would?”
I wanted to slap him again, but no time. We ran to the stairs and up to where the captain and his officers had their quarters. I tried all the doors. Locked.
Lhan pointed past me. “To the deck.”
We burst out and looked around. It was late afternoon, and quiet except for faint cheers coming from the arena next to the palace. Paar-Il’s blood games sounded like they were in full swing. The crew looked back at us, sullen. We were the ones who’d canceled their shore leave. Captain Anan and his men were there too, on guard at the rails, looking sleepy and bored. Had Yal-Faen slipped by them?
Captain Ku-Rho came down from the poop deck, goggling at my sword—which was a change. “Ah, Priestess? Is something wrong?”
“Yal-Faen. The bookkeeper. Did he come out here?”
“He is in the latrine.”
“Crap.”
I bounded to the prow where the poop hole was as the crew gasped and Captain Anan shouted a question. I pulled aside the curtain. The shitter was empty.
“Crap!”
With the ship winched to its mooring rings, the deck was more than twenty feet above the ground. A hell of a jump for a wimp like Yal-Faen, but then I saw the rope—right down through the hole. I scanned over the rail. The landing area was empty except for a few guards patrolling the edges, but they were few and far between. The shifty little bastard coulda slipped through them easy. I turned back. Sei-Sien was staggering out onto the deck behind Lhan, a sword in one hand and the other still holding his ear. I shouted to them both.
“Yal-Faen took off! We gotta go find him! Come on!”
Sei-Sien hesitated, but Lhan and I started for the rail. The crew all cheered and followed. I guess they figured helping was their chance to slip off and go raise some hell in town.
Captain Anan must have figured the same way. “Stand down! All of you!”
Everybody turned as he stepped to the center of the deck. “No one is to leave the ship. Aur-Aun’s orders!”
The sailors groaned and turned back, but I was hopping mad.
“But Yal-Faen’s the spy! We’ve gotta catch him before he betrays the—”
“Silence!”
I clapped my hand over my mouth. I’d almost betrayed him myself. “Okay, okay! But we still have to catch him! He could be going to the you-know-who!”
Anan nodded, then turned to his guards. “Hou-Doan, go look f
or the bookkeeper.”
The guard saluted and ran down the gangplank. I stared at Anan.
“One guy? You’re sending one guy? He could have gone anywhere.”
“The ship must be watched. I can spare no more.”
“Then let us go. I can cover more ground, and Lhan—”
“No-one is to leave the ship.”
“Oh, come on! You know us. We were with you when—well you know.”
“I only know my orders. No one is to leave the ship!”
I stood in front of him, trying really hard not to smash him in the nose. “You know, I’d shove a spear up your ass, but that’d just be redundant.”
He didn’t bat an eye.
I turned away with a snort, then started for the rail. “Come on, Lhan. I’ll catch you.”
Anan started after me. “Where are you going?”
“To look for Yal-Faen.”
He tried to grab me, but I shoved him back and hopped up onto the rail. His men converged on me, but way too late. I jumped down to the ground and turned. Lhan was on the rail above me, kicking free of the guards, then he fell backwards like the guy in that iced tea commercial. Didn’t even look. Fuck. I wondered if I trusted him that much.
I caught him and set him down, but just as we turned to run, Sei-Sien slid down the rope from the shitter and waved us on.
“Hurry! Find him or we are all dead!”
I shot Lhan a look. He shrugged.
“We cannot send him back without being caught ourselves.”
With a sigh, we started for the city after our fearless leader, while Captain Anan shouted for us to return. He didn’t follow though. Like he said, he couldn’t spare the men.
***
The area around the Dhanan’s palace was all massive temples, government buildings and plazas, all kinda run down and covered in the same red-brown grime that coated the whole city. And it was a ghost town. The buildings were dark and the streets empty except for a few people hurrying in the direction of the arena. It should have been easy to spot Yal-Faen, but it wasn’t. Like most buildings on Waar, the temples and government offices were all hexagons, and that made the streets in between them all crooked and zig-zag. All the intersections had three arms, and you could never see any further than the next one. There were no lines of sight.
While Lhan and Sei-Sien checked doors and courtyards, I ran around like a maniac, bounding from intersection to intersection, trying to see down as many streets as I could. But it was Sei-Sien who finally found our man, drawing his sword as I bounced over his head to look over the wall of a temple.
“Ha! I have him! The dirty traitor!”
I dropped down in beside him and looked around. “Where?”
He pointed down the north arm of the intersection we were in and I caught a glimpse of a stoop-shouldered shadow limping around a corner. Fortunately, it didn’t look like he’d heard Sei-Sien shouting.
I frowned. “You sure it’s him? Yal doesn’t have a limp.”
“It is he. I saw his face. Now hurry before he flees!”
“Wait!”
We turned. Lhan was running up to us. “Let us see where he goes, and who he visits. Spy on him as he has spied on us.”
Sei-Sien’s eyes bulged. “Are you mad? He might go to the temple! We must kill him now!”
I exchanged a look with Lhan. The guy needed a Valium. Lhan patted his arm.
“If he nears it, we will act, but I would follow first. After you, Mistress.”
I didn’t wait to see how Sei took it. Instead I ran to the end of the alley, then looked around the corner. Yal-Faen was still in sight, and now I could see that it was him, though he was limping like a dog had bit him. Maybe he’d hurt his leg sliding down the rope.
Lhan and Sei-Sien caught up to me, and we followed him. I kept expecting him to do what Sei had said, and turn toward the Temple of Modgalu, which loomed off to our right the whole time, but he didn’t. He kept going south, into a market area, which was all closed up at this time of night, then through a rowdy, red-light district where the streets seemed to be paved in shit. The place was like something out of a cowboy movie—streets lined with taverns, drunk prairie-men staggering around arm in arm, hitching posts full of krae, and hookers leaning over the balconies of the tenements above.
Yal-Faen limped on until he got to a little hexagonal building right in the middle of it all. Then he stopped and looked over his shoulder.
Lhan ducked back. “A chapel of the Seven.”
Sei-Sien growled and drew his sword. “I knew it. Come, before he betrays us all.”
We tip-toed toward the church as Yal-Faen slipped inside. Sei-Sien was ready to charge in after him, but I stepped in his way and we listened at the door. There were muffled sounds of low talking inside, and another sound I couldn’t quite figure out.
I drew my sword, then turned to Sei-Sien and put a finger to my lips. “Easy, alright?”
He bared his teeth, but finally nodded, and Lhan opened the door as quietly as he could. We slipped in, ready for anything. It was dark in there, but a light from below showed me a little six-sided amphitheater with paintings of six noble-looking guys and gals on the walls, all looking down toward a crude statue of an even nobler-looking guy on a pedestal down in the middle of the pit. There were two figures down by the statue. An old priest held a lamp over Yal-Faen, who was on his knees in front of the statue, his shoulders shaking. Sei-Sien tensed like he was gonna charge, but I held him back.
“Is he crying? What the fuck is he crying for?”
“I know not, Mistress.”
The priest looked up, peering in our direction. “Who is there?”
Sei-Sien tore outta my hand and jumped down into the pit, howling and swinging his sword like a four-year-old pretending to be he-man. “Justice is here, traitor! And it brings you death!”
“Goddamn it!”
I leapt after him as he slashed at the priest, and kicked him in the back before he could take a second swing. Fortunately, the priest had ducked the first one, and was cowering back against the statue as Yal-Faen shrieked and tried to get in front of him.
“Stop! Do not kill him, I beg you!”
Sei-Sien staggered up again and was raising his sword for more, but Lhan held him back as I grabbed Yal by the front of his robe and shook him. I woulda rather eavesdropped on him and the priest, but since Sei-Sien had started with the “death from above” routine, I decided to run with it. I put my sword to his neck. “Fine. I’ll start with you first, you two-faced fuck! Talk or die!”
The priest caught at my sword arm. “Please, Mistress! Stop!”
I elbowed him to the floor, then put my foot on him. He didn’t shut up. He raised his hands, begging. “Yal-Faen is no traitor to you. That is the reason he sought me out!”
“Lies!” Sei-Sien tried to squirm past Lhan. “You protect your spy!”
I looked to Lhan. He shrugged. I dug my heel into the priest’s ribs. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
It was Yal-Faen that answered. “Do not harm him, Priestess, please. Modgalu is my home, Ru-Zhera my family’s priest. Who else should I turn to when… when….”
Sei-Sien bared his teeth. “When what?”
The priest, Ru-Zhera, took a breath under my foot. “Yal-Faen was confessing a crisis of faith when you entered. He is torn between his loyalty to his Aldhanan and to his church.”
Yal-Faen clutched my wrist. “They mean to kill him, Priestess! The Aldhanan! They will kill him within the hour!”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CONFESSION!
I set Yal-Faen down with a thump and stepped off Ru-Zhera. “What! How? Where?”
Yal slumped against the statue and buried his face in his hands, sobbing again. “It is all my fault. I should have acted, but how could I dare go against the church?”
Sei-Sien pointed his sword. “How could you dare go against your Aldhanan? Traitor!”
The priest pushed to his feet. “Calm y
ourself, my son. Tell us what has happened.”
“Fuck what happened!” I shook Yal-Faen so hard his teeth rattled. “What about now! Who’s going to kill the Aldhanan? Where?”
“Aur-Aun,” he squeaked. “At the arena. Paar-Il has taken the Aldhanan there to introduce him to his most trusted Dhans and—”
“Aur-Aun you say?” Lhan let go of Sei-Sien. “Now I know you for a liar! Aur-Aun has been the Aldhanan’s most loyal servant since he was his banner guard. He has saved the Aldhanan’s life!”
“Aye,” said Yal-Faen. “And the Aldhanan repaid him by giving Wen-Jhai to another, when he feels she should have been his.”
Lhan stared, stunned. “I cannot believe it. To allow jealousy to turn him against the man who has been his friend and benefactor all these years?”
Yal-Faen shook his head. “It is ambition as well. He believes the church will make him Aldhanan when he shows them the Aldhanan is plotting war against them.”
Lhan looked at me. “Then has it been Aur-Aun all along? Is it he with whom the church wished to replace the Aldhanan? But he was not at Durgallah. How—?”
I cut him off. “Not now, Lhan! We gotta go!” I started up the steps. “Come on!”
Sei-Sien was right beside me, but Lhan was still hanging back.
“Wait. We must take them with us.”
I turned. “Are you nuts? They’ll slow us down! Poindexter was slow even before he hurt his leg.”
Lhan pointed at Yal-Faen. “We will need him to speak against Aur-Aun, and…” He pointed at Ru-Zhera. “We cannot let a priest free when he knows so much.”
Sei-Sien snarled. “Then kill him!”
Lhan looked at him, disgusted. “You have a blade. Kill him yourself.”
Now that it was cold blood, Sei hesitated, eyes wide. Lhan snorted and grabbed both Yal-Faen and the priest.
“Come. We must hurry.”
We hustled them up the stairs and out into the street as Sei-Sien followed behind. I started back the way we’d come, but Lhan stopped and looked around, then pointed to a couple of burly guys unloading a wagon full of wine jars in the alley beside a tavern.
“That is what we need.” He turned to Yal-Faen. “You have coin?”
