by Glen Cook
“Probably would,” he admitted. “I’ll be a new man once I get some dirt under my feet.” He knew his companions were tired of his complaints.
“We’re looking forward to it, pal.”
It did take almost all day to climb the Sawn River to Sonsa’s great waterfront. Else marveled at the strange, busy buildings, all so tall, so ornate, so gaily painted. Al-Qarn was a dun city of mud brick, low, square buildings, the only color the awnings merchants used to identify their trade. The Kaif did not like color.
Vivia Infanti passed berth after open berth. Else asked one of the sailors why.
“Those don’t belong to us. They’re Red or Blue. Infanti is a Durandanti ship. The Durandanti are Greens.”
Color was a facet of Chaldarean culture that baffled Else. In the Eastern Empire, in the Firaldian kingdoms and republics, in the principalities along the Promptean coast, anywhere that the Old Brothen Empire had had an enduring impact, the populace divided into two or more Colors. These days those usually identified political factions. Colors had begun, in antiquity, as wagering societies and fan groups of team events at the circus and hippodrome.
Sonsa claimed it was the most important mercantile force on the Mother Sea. Aparion and Dateon disagreed. Platadura, over in Praman Direcia, offered a nay-say of its own. Sonsa showed a unified, determined face to the world but the squabbles of the factions at home were worse than those of spoiled children. Without rational basis in the eyes of outsiders.
There were no doctrinal or ideological conflicts. Just a perpetual, intractable contest for control of the state. As in local politics everywhere in Firaldia, it all came down to families.
The Durandanti had the largest merchant fleet. They were of the fixed opinion that that made them the foremost Sonsan family.
The Scoviletti and the Fermi did not concur.
The Scoviletti possessed the smallest fleet but the mercenary army they managed, and rented out, mainly in Chaldarean Direcia, gave them a big edge in crude sword power.
And the Fermi, of course, always had a cousin who married the brother of the Patriarch, a daughter who married into a great family of Dateon or Aparion, or made loans to the princes of the city states on the northern plain, or in some other way forged alliances that sheltered them from the envy of the Durandanti and the Scoviletti.
Else grumbled, “Somewhere in Sonsa I’m supposed to find a solicitor who represents most of the families of Tramaine. The letter I got in Triamolin told me to find him. He’d know the latest.”
“Makes sense,” Scolora said. “So you do need to find him. But will he put you up?”
Yes, probably. There were Dreangerean agents in Sonsa. He was expected to make contact. “I’ll hunt him down. If we ever get ashore. Here’s my plan. You and Tonto and Adrano go get us set at the factor house and see about our passage to Sheavenalle. I’ll find my man, then catch up with you there.”
“Good plan. Except for one angle.”
“And that would be?”
“I want to find out who’s been hiding in the captain’s cabin since we left Staklirhod. We can hide on the dock and watch until whoever it is sneaks ashore.” Scolora’s tone left no doubt of his conviction.
“You sure you want to take that chance?”
“Don’t you?”
“I think it’s a waste of time.” But he did want to know if some Brotherhood of War sorcerer had followed him across the Mother Sea. “But, all right. Let’s just be careful.”
“MUST BE A HOLIDAY,” SCOLORA SAID. “HARDLY ANYBODY SEEMS TO BE working.” He dragged everybody behind a cluster of fat cotton bales a hundred yards from the ship.
Else was appalled. This much cotton had been smuggled out of Dreanger? By just this one Firaldian house to just this one Firaldian port?
Scolora had chosen a good spot. It offered an excellent view of Vivia Infanti without the watchers being exposed to the curiosities of the few men working the docks.
“Can you understand these people?” Scolora asked. The Sonsan dialect was almost impenetrable. Else shook his head. He had trouble understanding Scolora.
Tonto whispered, “Something’s happening. Shit. You cocksucker, Enio. I didn’t believe you. Nobody believed you. But you were right.”
They all found places to peek over or around the bales.
Sure enough, there was a stir aboard Vivia Infanti. Only moments earlier the ship had seemed dead, the crew having gone ashore right after the passengers.
“That isn’t a Brother,” Else said. Two men were leaving the ship. The first was tall and arrogant in bearing, looking around as though daring the universe to try something. The other was older, bent, and struggling with an unreasonable amount of luggage. The tall man did not help. Neither had been seen during the voyage.
“You think they’d run around in their black and red yelling, ‘Hey! Here I am?’ Whatever they’re up to, we already know it’s supposed to be secret.”
A closed coach drawn by a two-horse team clopped to the foot of the gangway.
“There’s what I call timing.”
The older man began wrestling baggage aboard the coach. The driver helped. The tall man examined his surroundings intently.
“I don’t like this,” Tonto said. “Something’s wrong. I’m out of here.” He slid away into shadows, fast and silent.
“Damn!” Scolora said. “What was that all about?”
Adrano had known Tonto in the Holy Lands. He said, “I don’t know. But him and me are still alive because his instincts were always right around the Wells of Ihrian.”
“Then we’d better listen,” Else said. He was accustomed to crediting the undirected misgivings of Bone and al-Azer er-Selim.
“Coach is moving,” Scolora said. “Coming our way.”
“Damn! Get down, then. Get invisible.”
Scolora protested, “There’re other people around.”
The coach, moving fast, drew abreast of their hiding place. Else glimpsed its polished ash flank through a gap between bales. Then all the darkness went out of the world.
A god’s fist smashed into his chest and flung him against a warehouse wall. As he flew he heard shredded screams from his companions. Cotton fountained, some of it on fire.
Unconsciousness came.
It did not last long. A few numb-looking dock wallopers were just starting to get in amongst the bales, chattering too fast to be understood. Else picked out the word for sorcery, though.
He became aware of pain in his left wrist.
“God is merciful,” he murmured. His wrist had been burned. Blisters were rising already. His amulet had protected him.
He staggered to his feet, covered in cotton, startling the Sonsans. “What happened? Where are my friends?”
In an exchange made difficult by language problems Else explained that he and his friends had thought that they could save money by sleeping amongst the cotton bales. Then there had been an explosion.
That was all the Sonsans knew. Just, Boom! and the quay was covered by tons of smoldering cotton. They thought it might have something to do with the squabbles between the great families.
They found Scolora right away. The Direcian was dead. Thoroughly and gruesomely so. He had been torn into four pieces loosely connected by strings of skin and flesh. And Adrano was scattered almost as extensively as the cotton.
At that point the dock wallopers really caught on. They had used the word sorcery before. Now they saw the proof. They scattered immediately.
The quay was a complete ghost town, now. Where were the workers? The crews from the ships? Where were the curious, drawn by the explosion? Did bad news spread that fast here?
Else considered Scolora and Adrano. He could do nothing for them now. He felt guilt and anger.
He collected their gear and helped himself. Then he eased out onto the quay. No one was watching. All was still. Darkness was falling. He had to disappear into the city.
He could not turn up at that factor house now.
>
A light shown through the leaded glass stern lights of Vivia Infanti. From the captain’s quarters.
ELSE MOVED QUIETLY INTO THE STERN CASTLE. NO LIFE HAD YET RETURNED to the quay. But that would not last.
Someone in the master’s quarters played a lute, a dolorous tune that Else did not recognize. It was a sad song of unrequited love. Like most of its kind, it originated in the End of Connec, where such things had been invented.
Else pulled the latch string slowly, swung the door inward without a sound.
The ship’s master sat in a plush chair, beyond a chart table, staring out the stern lights at stars coming to life as indigo skies gave way to true night. His back was to Else.
He ceased playing his sad song. “I didn’t think you’d keep your word, sorcerer.” The seaman made that final word a curse and an expression of boundless contempt.
He turned. And was startled. “Who the hell are you?”
“An unhappy man. Your secret passenger just killed two friends of mine. You’re going to tell me about him.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“He’s bad. But I’m here. And I’m angry enough to make you wish you were carrying a lamp, to light the road to Hell for my friends.”
The ship’s master struggled but was past his prime and never had been a fighter. Else was in his prime, a fighter, and he knew how to get prisoners to talk.
Once the inevitable was obvious, the ship’s master said, “The man was a stupid, arrogant, bigoted pig. I’ll actually wish you luck if you go after him.”
That was not Else’s plan. It was not his mission. He just wanted to know what was going on in case it affected future planning.
The ship’s master talked. Else prowled. He considered relics that said this man’s whole life was right here aboard this ship. That there was nowhere else he would rather be. He had collected exotic souvenirs in interesting places, including swords with unusual blades; a composite bow of the type used by the steppe horse peoples; a Ghargarlicean infantry bow six feet long, of a type that had gone out of use centuries ago; and a Lucidian crossbow of a sort mass-produced for use by local militias tasked with defending city walls. It did not have much power but any idiot could use it at close range. This one had been painted, then decorated with sutras from the Written and given a quality string. None of which had done its user any good, obviously, or the weapon would not be in a Chaldarean sea captain’s weapons collection.
“Be careful with that,” the Sonsan pleaded. “It has a hair trigger.” There was, of course, a bolt in the mechanism.
“It isn’t a good idea to leave the bow bent all the time. Takes the spring out.” From questions about the Brotherhood sorcerer Else moved on to broader questions. What were the attitudes of Sonsans toward the Church? Toward Sublime V? Toward the Patriarch’s apparent determination to launch a new crusade?
“Crusades are good for Sonsa,” the ship’s master replied. “The Patriarch is a raving lunatic, but we don’t mind as long as his gold pours into our coffers.”
Else settled into the master’s chair. The master himself was strapped down on his own chart table. Else finally broke out his letters from Gordimer.
Those letters did not contain much that he could not figure out for himself. Keep low. Keep his eyes and ears open. Learn whatever he could, even if it did not appear relevant. Try to discover why Arnhanders thought the way they did. Sow seeds of conflict between Dreanger’s potential enemies so they would have no attention to spare for overseas adventures. Work his way closer to Sublime and the Collegium when he could. And so on and so forth, with not one word about what to do when attacked by murderous spies. Or sorcerers from the Brotherhood of War.
He did find out how to contact two Dreangerean agents in Sonsa, neither of whom knew about the other. He was to keep it that way.
“Idiot crusader,” the ship’s master barked, harshly enough to recapture Else’s attention. “Wake up. Somebody just came aboard.”
Else did not ask how the man knew. It was his ship. Else collected his letters and the Lucidian crossbow and faded into a shadowed corner.
The latch on the cabin door rose. The door swung inward. A shape in black stepped inside, saw the ship’s master laid out, blurted, “What the hell?”
Else triggered the crossbow. “Give my regards to Enio and Adrano.”
The invader moved like a cat but not fast enough. He grunted in pain, pierced through the right arm and shoulder.
Else discarded the crossbow and moved in, hoping to strike before the man could use his sorcery.
But the Brother met him with a short sword. He showed no lack of confidence despite being wounded and having to fight left-handed. Until he realized that he faced a skilled opponent.
He lunged, pressed Else back a step, fled through the doorway. Else thought better of charging into whatever awaited him out there. It was nighttime now. And a major sorcerer was afoot.
He found another quarrel for the Lucidian weapon, made sure his letters were safely stowed inside his shirt, then extinguished the one lamp burning and opened the leaded-glass stern light.
He clambered outside, grabbed a mooring line and spidered down to the quay. He was crouched behind a big wooden bollard, catching his breath, when the wounded Brother clumping down the gangway looked over his shoulder.
Why had he not used his sorcery?
Else loosed his second bolt.
He heard it strike but it did not hamper the man’s flight. Maybe he was wearing something under his Brotherhood clothing.
THE DREANGEREAN AGENT WHO ACCEPTED ELSE INTO HIS SHOP AT AN IMpolite hour was a dwarf, a twisted little Devedian scarcely four feet high. He was not pleased. “I knew this day would come. I tried to pretend it wouldn’t. I told myself it would just be a few pieces of silver now and then in exchange for the occasional letter. But this is what it was all about, isn’t it?”
Else examined his surroundings by the weak light of the tiny lamp the dwarf carried. The place was a miniscule silversmith’s shop. The dwarf’s clients would be mostly Devedian. Almost everything Else saw looked like Devedian religious paraphernalia. Which seemed likely, the shop being located in the heart of Sonsa’s Devedian quarter. “Yes. You’re right. This is what you’ve waited for. What you’ve been paid to wait for. I need to disappear. And to stay disappeared. I have a letter for you from al-Qarn.”
The dwarf’s name was Gledius Stewpo. “That’s how they say it here and that’s good enough to get by.” Stewpo might not be pleased about developments but he was prepared to deal with them. He had a secret room underneath his house. It pretended to be a hidden workshop, in case somebody stumbled in. A man could hide there in relative comfort. “They won’t find you here without using some heavyweight sorcery.”
Stewpo had several ticks that Else found distracting. First, his head was in constant motion, nodding or shaking. And he ended every other sentence with a strained laugh, as though he was enjoying a joke he had just told himself.
Else did not find a single thing the dwarf said even vaguely amusing.
Worse, when the dwarf sat down, he rocked. Forward and back, forward and back, quickly and incessantly. And he was unaware of his ticks.
Stewpo read the letter from al-Qarn. “All right. Here we go. I’m ready to help any way that I can.”
Else told him everything. Anything less seemed pointless. “I rigged Adrano’s remains so it would look like it was me that got blown apart, then I went through everybody’s stuff and took whatever might come in handy.”
“That’s good. What about the Brotherhood assassin who got away?”
“I don’t know if that’s what he really was. I know they’re not rational people. But they must realize that murdering people like that ship’s master, after all he did to help, is counterproductive. People don’t pitch in if you kill them for their trouble.”
“I was thinking more about what became of him.”
“He got away.”
“A
nd never smacked you around with any sorcery?”
“That’s right.”
“They snookered you. The one you assumed was the servant was the sorcerer. The other one was his bodyguard and assistant.”
“You could be right. How safe are we from the night here?”
“Quite. This country was civilized before the Old Brothen Empire rose up. The spirits have been winnowed a thousand times. Only the benign ones are still around. The malignant ones have all been driven away or bound into stones and trees and streams. There isn’t much left that a sorcerer can use. Sonsans want it that way. They want a world shaped by the laws of economics, not those of pain and chaos.”
“The laws of chaos?”
“Even disorder is orderly if you look close enough.”
“Suppose this sorcerer brought his own spirits?”
The dwarf had wild white hair not well acquainted with a comb. He ran his fingers through that when not indulging another tick. “That’s a possibility. But you said he’s from the Special Office of the Brotherhood of War. Those people want to end the tyranny of the night. They don’t drag it around.”
“Will they employ the tools of evil in order to conquer evil?” A common human failing, even in the Realm of Peace.
“They’d say not. Whatever, they won’t find you. If you stay in this room. Rest. In the morning I’ll find out what they’re saying in the streets.”
“Don’t change your routine. And I really could use a snack. I haven’t eaten since this morning.”
“I could be your grandfather, Sha-lug. Don’t teach me my craft.”
“I wasn’t . . . I see.”
GLEDIUS STEWPO BROUGHT SUPPER NEXT EVENING. “SHA-LUG, YOU DON’T want to be out there now. I assume you didn’t lie to me. Yet your story is nothing like what the Brotherhood says happened. They say they were chasing a foreigner who wants to spy on the Church.”
“Really? That sounds a little silly. Do they say who? Or why?”
“No. Around here nobody believes anything the Brothers say, anyway. Unless you’re a Blue and beholden to the Fermi.”
“So there’s a lot of excitement. And Color politics is trying to take it over?”
