The women and the warlords coaaod-3

by Hugh Cook

  Yen Olass and Monogail were still eating when a shadow blocked out the light. Looking up, Yen Olass saw a big, big man, a hulking brute with ox-yoke shoulders and sheep-strangling hands.

  'Why!' she said, with pleasure. 'Nan Nulador!’

  Nan Nulador nodded gravely.

  'So this is the child,' he said.

  'Yes,' said Yen Olass. 'The last child of the Lord Emperor Khmar. She's got his chin.’

  'I cannot speak for the Lord Emperor Khmar,' said Nan Nulador solemnly.

  'Nobody's asking you to,' said Yen Olass, supposing he was making a clumsy joke of some kind. 'What're you doing here? I thought Chonjara was in Celadric's dungeons.’

  'He is,' said Nan Nulador. 'He released me from my oath of loyalty. I took service with the prince. So I ended up on the Greater Teeth. We-’

  T know the story,' said Yen Olass.

  'We got to meet some of the pirates,' said Nan Nulador. 'One of them was Mellicks.’

  'Yes?' said Yen Olass.

  'Does that name mean anything to you?’

  'No,' said Yen Olass. 'Here, do you want some gaplax? It's very good. They cooked it especially for me. Take some.’

  'No,' said Nan Nulador. 'This Mellicks – he had yellow eyes. He got them from a wishing machine.’

  'Oh, him,' said Yen Olass. 'I'd forgotten about him.’

  'He said you got your child from the same machine,' said Nan Nulador. 'Now I see your child. It has yellow eyes.’

  Monogail munched gaplax, and stared at Nan Nulador, too shy to speak or ask questions.

  'Mellicks rnust've been drunk,' said Yen Olass. 'You were at Nightcaps yourself. You know the child is Khmar's.’

  Nan Nulador picked up her hand. She twisted it away, cutting him with one of her fingernails. He stared at the bright flash of blood burning out of his flesh.

  'Claws,' he said. 'What else changed when you made your pact with the powers of death? What else did vou ask for?’

  There was an ugly expression on his face. Yen Olass got to her feet. 'Hearst!' she roared.

  A guard looked into the courtyard.

  'Get me Hearst!' ordered Yen Olass. 'Now!’

  Very shortly, Nan Nulador was being dragged away by a squad of guards, shouting and struggling. Yen Olass was more than a little relieved to see the last of him.

  'What's that thing he said, mam?' asked Monogail.

  'Eat your gaplax,' said Yen Olass.

  'But what's a dralkosh, mam?’

  'A bad word.’

  'Like tit?’

  'Yes.’

  'And bum?' 'Yes.’

  'And burdok malor skida dik?' said Monogail innocently.

  'That's enough!' said Yen Olass sharply.

  She was a little shocked. Honestly! Where did they learn these things?

  'Eat your gaplax, then go and find Elkordansk,' said Yen Olass, 'and play somewhere quietly.’

  ***

  Hearst was in a bad mood when he met Yen Olass. She had stolen his gaplax, she had quarrelled with one of his allies, and her child had led Elkordansk on a raiding mission into his wine cellar, damaging, among other things, a year's supply of coffee.

  'Don't worry about it,' said Yen Olass. 'That coffee stuff's vomit-making. I tasted it last night. It stinks. You're better off without it. Anyway, once you're master of Argan you'll have no trouble replacing it. As for the gaplax – I want the same again tomorrow.’

  'It's not good manners to make demands like that,' said Hearst. 'A guest has obligations, you know.’

  'I'm the Silent One now. The Silent One always gets gaplax for breakfast. That's the tradition. Now, as for Nan Nulador-’

  'Yes, Nan Nulador. That very valuable warrior-' 362

  'Is harmless as long as nobody puts ideas into his head. But now someone's managed to do just that, and there's so little competition that it's running his brain for him. He thinks I'm a…’

  'A dralkosh?’

  'Yes,' said Yen Olass, relieved that she did not have to explain.

  'So what is a dralkosh?' T thought you knew.’

  'I'd never heard the word until today. Monogail said Nan Nulador had used it. She asked what it meant.' 'So what did you tell her?’

  T told her she had other things to worry about. Yen Olass, did you know these two children broached my only cask of Carvel Squen? What's more, they were drinking it!’

  'A little wine is good for the digestion. Now listen – I'm going to tell you about the Yarglat and the dralkosh.’

  She told him all about it, then said:

  'I'm surprised you didn't know that to begin with.’

  'Yen Olass,' said Hearst, T know bits and pieces of twenty different languages and fifty different cultures, but I can't know everything.’

  'Well you should learn some more about the Yarglat, and fast,' said Yen Olass. 'Before you have to deal with them face to face. Now I've got something else to tell you about.’

  'Before you start,' said Hearst, 'how are we going to punish the children?’

  'If they've drunk as much as you seem to think they have,' said Yen Olass, 'their hangovers will be punishment enough. Now listen. This is important.’

  And she told him of the five monsters she had killed on the flats. Hearst identified them as keflos.

  'Baby ones,' said Hearst.

  'Baby ones? Blood's grief, what do the parents look like?’

  'Well,' said Hearst. 'The adults-' 363

  'No,' said Yen Olass, cutting him off, 'I don't want to know. I just don't want to know.’

  'Don't be afraid of them,' said Hearst. 'They can be killed – you've found that out for yourself. When I rule the west coast of Argan-’

  'If you rule the west coast of Argan.’

  'When I rule the west coast of Argan.' said Hearst, his voice rolling on, 'we'll wipe them out. Eliminate them.’

  Yen Olass knew he would never be able to eliminate her nightmares.

  ***

  That evening, Yen Olass visited Nan Nulador in the dungeon adjacent to the wine cellar. She assured him that he would be released once she and Hearst returned from their dangerous mission – and would also be set free if they died on that mission. Nan Nulador just swore at her.

  She knew what his problem was. He had trusted her, and had benefited greatly from that trust. She had saved his wife, and thus had given him a son. So now, finding that she was a dralkosh, he was faced with an enormous disaster. Since Yen Olass – a dralkosh! – had comforted him when he wondered if he should put his wife to death, that meant his wife must be a dralkosh too. And his son? The child of a dralkosh…

  Yen Olass gave up in the end, and left him. She looked in on the wine cellar, and located Hearst's precious cask of Carvel Squen, which was still nine parts full. She summoned two soliders and pointed them at it.

  'Morgan Hearst has commanded you to take that cask of wine and share it amongst your comrades. So take it – then come back and take this one as well.’

  They were good soldiers – the best. They obeyed without question.

  ***

  Morgan Hearst was woken in the middle of the night when a brawl broke out amongst his roistering soliders. He was enraged to find his men all drunk, and his fury was not mollified when they toasted him when he appeared on the scene. And his anger when he found Yen Olass had escaped would not bear description.

  By dawn, scouting parties were spreading out all over Carawell, searching for the missing woman and her child. But it was not until noon that Hearst got his first news of the fugitives. A fishing smack was reported wrecked on the Dungon Banks, two leagues offshore.

  Hearst mounted a rescue mission, taking a longboat crewed by experienced sailors out to the Dungon Banks. He found the boat wrecked beyond repair. Yen Olass was sitting on deck filing her nails, which, though they were steel, still grew, and needed to be kept in order. Monogail was playing on an exposed sandbank, making sand castles.

  Hearst saw at a glance that the fishing smack would be impossible
to salvage. In the interests of public relations – the islanders could make very dangerous enemies – he would have to pay the owner full compensation.

  'You,' said Hearst to Yen Olass, as he took her aboard, 'are staying under close arrest until we leave.’

  'And when is that?' said Yen Olass.

  'As soon as possible!' said Hearst. 'Before you organize my head onto a platter or something.’

  'I've thought about it,' said Yen Olass. 'It wouldn't be impossible.’

  He hoped she was only joking.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  On a ship in the harbour of Brennan on the island of Carawell in the archipelago known as the Lesser Teeth, the oracle Yen Olass Ampadara said goodbye to her child Monogail, who was given over to the care of a young Rovac warrior by the name of Altol Stokpol. The warrior was scarcely twenty years old, and to Yen Olass he looked like a boy. His wife was even younger; Yen Olass had briefed her successfully on the care of frogs and fish, but had found it difficult to convey the niceties of the feeding, grooming and sleeping habits of the ghosts of long-departed dragons. Yen Olass could only hope that Monogail would be all right.

  The ship slipped out of the harbour that evening, and sailed south by night. Very shortly – in three or four days at the most – they would be landing at Iglis. Yen Olass would once more find herself under the jurisdiction of the Collosnon Empire. She remembered precisely what that empire had done to her. She suffered nightmares in which the coarse breath of men oppressed her, in which a knife cut away her flesh, in which a needle stabbed at her privacy – and, waking from those nightmares, she knew them as memories.

  The ship they sailed on was a big-bellied merchantman. There was a stateroom in the stern, which was reserved for Yen Olass, so she could prepare herself in the little time which was available to them. The day after they left Brennan, the warrior Watashi came to the stateroom and found Yen Olass dressed in white silk, her face veiled. She was positioning Indicators on a Casting Board, muttering to herself as she did so; a copy of the Book of the Sisterhood lay open beside her.

  As the door swung open on its leather hinges, Yen Olass looked up. She drew herself up to her full height, and demanded, in a clear and penetrating voice:

  'Who is it who intrudes upon the Silent One?’

  'What?' said Watashi, who did not understand, because Yen Olass had addressed him in Eparget, the ruling language of the far-distant city of Gendormargensis.

  Yen Olass rephrased the question in the Galish Trading Tongue.

  'You know who I am,' said Watashi easily.

  'I know you as a barbarian from beyond the Pale,' said Yen Olass, still practising the grand manner of the Silent One.

  The Silent One is silent only in that she does not give readings; otherwise, her voice is a formidable weapon. Apart from the need for practice, Yen Olass was genuinely curious to know who Watashi was. They had been introduced, but in the confusion of plotting, scheming, arguments, child-care arrangements, briefings and conspiracies, Yen Olass had entirely forgotten who he was.

  'I am Watashi,' said Watashi, matching her own grand manner. 'Son of Farfalla the kingmaker, ruler of the Harvest Plains. In my own right, I am master of the island of Stokos, which is mine by right of conquest. I am a companion of the quest-hero Morgan Hastsword Hearst, dragonbane; I have fought by his side, matching my sword against his enemies.’

  'Then hear me, Watashi, son of Farfalla. Know that you stand in the presence of the Silent One of the Sisterhood; make reverence accordingly.’

  Watashi laughed.

  'For a slave girl, you've got quite a way with the language,' he said.

  'Whom are you addressing?' said Yen Olass, in a voice that would have frosted dragon-flame at fifty paces.

  'The slave I see before me,' said Watashi, who did not appreciate his danger.

  'An oracle is a pivot,' said Yen Olass. 'The turning point of the destinies of lives and nations.’

  'Pivot?' said Watashi, querying the Eparget word she had used for want of any equivalent in Galish. 'What kind of sex toy is that?’

  'One that castrates the unwary,' said Yen Olass.

  'Then perhaps I should have worn my armour,' said Watashi, amused by the way in which Hearst's slave girl felt so free to contend with him.

  'You are not amusing me,' said Yen Olass.

  'It is not my function to amuse you,' said Watashi, now annoyed at her pretensions.

  Reaching out, he lifted the veil from her face. He kissed her, pressing his lips against hers, grappling with her when she resisted. This was a mistake, as he soon found out. However, by the time he recovered consciousness, Yen Olass was ready to forgive him; she poured him a cup of wine, and, now that he had learnt a measure of respect, they talked as equals.

  For hours, as the ship sailed south, Yen Olass quizzed Watashi about his recent history. She had heard one story from Morgan Hearst, but she wanted to know whether she had been told the truth. Watashi confirmed the outline of the tale she had been told, and filled in some of the details for her.

  Alarmed by the incursions of the Swarms, the Lord Emperor Celadric had ordered his brothers to secure the western coast of Argan. Knowing this task was beyond their combined military strength, Meddon and York had dragged their heels. Urged on by his military advisors Chonjara and Saquarius, the lame-brained Exedrist had declared his brothers traitors, and had attempted to have them executed. Saquarius had bungled the job, which had cost him his life – his had been a brief and inglorious career, from deserter to fighting soldier to general to the gallows – and in the subsequent brief civil war in Trest and Estar, Exedrist had been killed and Chonjara imprisoned.

  Celadric, investigating, had discovered that the Swarms were stronger than his advisors had previously let him know. Realizing that Meddon and York were right in refusing to commit their forces against the full strength of the Swarms, Celadric had sought allies, travelling south in force to Stokos. There, as a seasoned and skilful diplomat bearing gifts and peace treaties, he had been welcomed; the Swarms had been making local incursions across the sea to Stokos, and Watashi was ready to commit himself to a joint operation to recover the west of Argan.

  To celebrate the new alliance, Celadric planned to remove the heads of his two dangerous brothers, and place Watashi in command of all forces in Argan. The armies of the Collosnon Empire, drawn from many foreign parts and united only by their common knowledge of the command language Ordhar, would have no difficulty in accepting a stranger as commander.

  Celadric and Watashi had travelled north from Stokos on the same ship, bound for Estar. However, a storm had scattered their convoy, leaving them without an escort; the pirates of the Greater Teeth had fallen upon their single ship and had taken them prisoner.

  Draven, lord of the Greater Teeth, had sent word to Meddon and York in Estar. If they wanted to see Celadric alive, they would have to hand over a ransom – gold, silver, warm wool and a woman. The woman was the Princess Quenerain, previously a mistress to the General Chonjara.

  Before a reply could come from Estar, Celadric had suborned some of Draven's men with promises of power and money. With that help, the prisoners had broken out of their holding cells; they had fought their way to the pirate harbour; under the command of Watashi, the survivors had escaped to sea.

  'But Celadric…’

  'He died?’

  T don't know. I hope not. We were separated when it was sword to sword. After that, I didn't see him any more.’

  'What about the Silent One?’

  'Everglen Tamara? She got herself killed. An arrow. Through the back and out through the front. You won't be seeing her any more, I'm afraid.’

  'I never knew her, at least not on a personal basis,' said Yen Olass.

  The words she used for 'personal basis' were the Galish words 'ken shen lokday', literally 'bargain-making level'. Watashi continued with his story.

  With pirate vessels in hot pursuit, the escapers had run north, thinking to lose the enemy in a
mongst the shoals and shallows of the Lesser Teeth. They had succeeded in doing precisely that. They had also succeeded in wrecking their ship on a sandbar. Once ashore, they were swiftly rounded up by men under the command of Morgan Hearst.

  Now Hearst was risking his life – and theirs – in an attempt to finesse control of the west of Argan. Their party, ostensibly led by Watashi, was going to land at Iglis and claim the ransom for Celadric, stating that the Lord Emperor was now held prisoner on the Lesser Teeth.

  Once in possession of the ransom, Hearst intended to barter with Draven for Celadric's life. And once in possession of the emperor, he intended to negotiate an agreement with that worthy which would give him, Morgan Hearst, title to at least the west of Argan – preferably all of it – and command of all the imperial forces on Argan.

  The plan was, to put it mildly, hair-raising. So many things could go wrong. What if Meddon and York decided that they would prefer their brother Celadric dead? What if Draven attempted to take the ransom by main force rather than exchange? What if Celadric subsequently reneged on any arrangements made under duress, and made it his business to eliminate Morgan Hearst and his entourage? What if Watashi… well, there was a simple way to find out about Watashi.

  'Don't you feel cheated?' said Yen Olass. 'Hearst is trying to take what was going to be yours – command of the west.’

  Watashi grinned, denied nothing.

  'I've sworn an oath to support him until he gets Celadric in his power,' said Watashi. 'After that, there'll be plenty of time later for a trial of strength.’

  When their interview was at an end, Yen Olass sent Watashi away with orders to fetch Eldegen Terzanagel. The text-master entered the stateroom looking old – Yen Olass had a hazy notion that he was now a bit over sixty-five – and weatherbeaten. And rather ill. Yen Olass realized he was feeling seasick. She had been too busy to pay much attention to the motion of the ship, but she realized they were lubbering through the waves in a way which might well disconcert those with weak stomachs. 'Sit,' said Yen Olass curtly.