Liavek 8

by Will Shetterly

  The presence of the slender woman standing before his desk assured him it would not.

  "You recognize this." On her thumb was a ring with an ebony stone inlaid with a white bird of prey.

  He nodded; that was all she expected, so he would give her as much. This philosophy had served him for the forty-seven years of his life. Through his office window came a beautiful Liavekan song about fate and the aroma of a street vendor's roasting almonds, beckoning him to loiter outside on the curb where he could hum off-key while sharing nuts with the embassy guards and the passersby.

  He rested a hand on his belly, sighed inaudibly, and gestured toward several thin cotton cushions. "Please. Be seated."

  "My name is Djanhiz ola Vikili. You do not know me?" The woman crossed her legs and sat gracefully. She was very dark and very tall; though he had three cushions and she, two, she remained taller than he. Her hair was a cap of tight gray coils cut close to her skull, and her face bore a light tracing of weather or age. If she was a magician, she was not vain in the ways he understood.

  "No," Rangzha Fon replied. In Liavek, Djanhiz was conspicuous for her height and her skin's hue; since she could hide neither, she used them in her disguise. Travelers from many nations came to trade and study and live in the City of Luck. During his twenty years here, Rangzha Fon had been visited by his short, swarthy, and rather sullen Zhir countrymen in their bleached cotton tunics and trousers, by very dark and excessively courteous Tichenese in long brocaded robes of sea-green or saffron or indigo silk, and even by ghost-white, round-eyed Farlanders in high-collared wool jackets and heavy boots. He had never been visited by any of the tall, ebony-skinned women of Ombaya, but he had seen them striding through Liavek's streets in their hooded linen tunics and tight trousers. In her green-and-gold tunic and her tan trousers, Djanhiz would pass as a comparatively short and pale Ombayan, a people who had never been Liavek's enemy, and never be recognized as a tall and dark Tichenese, a people who had never been Liavek's friends.

  When she smiled at him, he added, "You wear the Ombayan clothing like a native, but not the accent." He kept his tone courteous. Djanhiz frowned, and her glance carried a new weight of respect or suspicion. "Speak with more sibilance," he suggested. "Perhaps a lisp—"

  "Thank you."

  Her voice said he had gone too far, so he nodded and waited, wondering why a Tichenese woman in Ombayan clothes came to Liavek with the ring of Prince Jeng of Ka Zhir.

  Djanhiz looked around the pleasant clutter of his office, the shelves of books that filled one wall and the collection of masks from many cultures that covered another. "I need your help."

  He could not deny her, whatever she asked, but he was grateful that she had not ordered him. "I am your slave," he answered in Zhir.

  She lifted an eyebrow and said in Tichenese, "We are the hands, another is the mind."

  "What does my prince require?"

  "We must capture The Magician of Liavek before Festival Night."

  Rangzha Fon kept his smile while he nodded. The muscles of his stomach tightened to check his fear in case the woman was making a joke. The muscles of his face tightened to check his amusement in case she was not. "The Magician's house is on Wizard's Row," Rangzha Fon said gently. "And Wizard's Row is never to be found during holidays. If we did find it, the house is guarded—"

  The dark woman shook her head once. "I have encountered The Magician before. That is why your prince accepted my aid in this matter."

  "Ah." And why you offered it, Rangzha Fon thought. Her expression disconcerted him, and he glanced at the wall of masks. The painted leather Casoe, god of sandstorms and murder, watched the world with the same mad serenity.

  Djanhiz reached across his desk to center his letter opener, a knife of chipped jade, on top of an unfinished report to King Thelm. "Fortunately, we do not need to find The Magician. We only need to find one of his friends."

  •

  "What use is magic?" a woman asked, and The Magician stopped to listen. The speaker, small and boyishly slim in multicolored cotton trousers and a maroon silk shirt, stood with legs wide and arms akimbo on a boulder in the Levar's Park. Her head, shaven as clean as a ship's captain's, reflected the afternoon sun. A small crowd of people eddied at her feet, waiting to see what entertainment she offered.

  "What will magic profit you?" she called, and The Magician smiled, knowing she knew her audience. "Who would hire a magician?" The bald woman grinned and shook her head. "Only the very wealthy. Only those who need a service that will last no more than a few hours or a few days. Certainly not those who need a service that will last a year or more."

  He knew too well the limits of his trade. The intricate rhythms of many drummers came from a crowded open-air restaurant, accompanied by the laughter of dancers and the smells of cinnamon Festival cakes and spiced apple wine. The Magician began to walk on.

  "Who would become a wizard?" the bald woman asked. Again she paused, and so did he, telling himself that he stopped to watch a fleet of toy sailboats racing across the Children's Lake.

  "Spend years studying magic when you might be studying life? Knowing you're as likely to die as to live when you finally try to invest your birth luck in some object to become a magician?"

  On the little lake, a schooner as large as a swan took the lead. On the far shore, a small girl jumped and cheered. On the near shore, a red-bearded man waded knee-deep in the water, awaiting the schooner's arrival. Most of the toy ships had sails or pennants of rich Liavekan blue, but a sloop bearing the yellow of Tichen closely followed the schooner, and a Zhir warship raced aft and starboard of the Tichenese sloop, so close together that they threatened to collide.

  "You must love power much and life little, to risk everything to become a magician."

  The Magician glanced back at the speaker. He wanted to ask her what she knew of life and power, but he did not care to call attention to himself today. He touched his left hand to the bracelet on his right wrist, and felt his birth luck throbbing there, ready for any use he might find for it.

  If he could find a use for it, he would not be wandering the Levar's Park in search of entertainment.

  The red-bearded man who cheered the schooner seemed familiar. The Magician imagined him with a shaven chin and wearing a blue sash over a gray tunic, and recognized Lieutenant Lian Jassil of the Levar's Guard. Did that mean the girl—

  He glanced back at her. Sessi Jassil had grown a head taller since she and her brother came to 17 Wizard's Row, and her dark hair had been cut short. People changed so quickly when they remained in the world.

  "But you do not need magic!" the bald woman cried. "You do not need magicians! With every year, we learn to harness the natural forces of the world—" The race had attracted several of her listeners, so she pointed it out to the rest. "Like those boats, powered by the wind. Like the trains of the Levar's railway, powered by steam. Like the airships that will soon ply Liavek's skies, lifted by great bags of water-gas and powered by small engines—"

  "It's Featherlake's Folly again!" someone yelled from the audience.

  "The engines are new, and lighter—" the bald woman replied. The Magician saw where her speech was going, and saw also that she had lost the crowd's interest. The Margrave of Featherlake had built an airship twenty years earlier. It had risen from a field outside the city walls like a newborn calf struggling to its feet, then sagged and burst into flame. Some said the fault had been the engines, some said the design, some blamed poor construction, others claimed the magicians had acted to keep their monopoly on the air.

  "Adding a big balloon to the Festival fireworks?" someone else yelled.

  "Wait!" the bald woman said. "Soon you'll see the Luck of Liavek fly over this park!"

  "Fly to pieces!" another heckler called.

  The bald woman shook her head. "The Tichenese have designed an airship that will carry one hundred people or more. Will Liavek be kept to the seas while Tichen rules the sky?"

  A new boat, mod
eled after the Farlanders' razored galleons, threatened to steal the lead from Sessi Jassil's schooner. The girl put one hand to her necklace and made a tiny gesture that only a wizard might recognize. The sails of her schooner filled with a sudden wind.

  The Magician smiled, thinking that was appropriate; the purpose of magic is to cheat: to cheat nature, to cheat death. Then he laughed, for the schooner listed in the wind, toppling toward the razored galleon, and the Tichenese sloop and the Zhir warship both rammed its stern. The razored galleon escaped the tangle, only to veer off course. A simple fishing boat, probably carved by a parent or a grandparent from Minnow Island, took the lead. It reached a small, delighted boy, and a group of congratulators surrounded him.

  Atop her boulder, the bald woman still talked about the opportunity to buy shares in the Luck of Liavek Airship Company, but most of her audience had wandered to newer diversions. The red-bearded man was wading out to fetch the capsized schooner; his sister was walking around the small lake with her head bowed, as though her muddy toes fascinated her. Someone had stretched ropes across Lake Levar, and two acrobats began a comic act on them. A young wizard created illusions of fanciful. improbable, yet exquisite flying creatures. A troupe of people in brightly colored gauze danced in complex patterns for the patrons of the open-air restaurant. There was nothing entertaining in the Levar's Park. The Magician turned to leave.

  Sessi Jassil looked up, catching his eye. She threw her arms wide and began to run toward him. "Master Trav! Master Trav! It's me, Sessi!"

  He could hurry into the crowd as though he had not heard. He could disappear in smoke or rise into the air and let her wonder if he had heard her. Instead, he smiled. "Hello, Sessi. I remembered that you raced boats every Birth Day."

  "Oh?" She stopped before him and let her arms come to her side. "I cheated."

  "I saw. You're coming along. I hadn't invested my luck until I was twice your age. Don't worry; most first-year magicians trying that trick would've blown every boat up into the trees."

  "Well." She glanced down again. "Cheating and winning would've felt wrong, anyway."

  "Ah."

  "But cheating and losing feels really stupid."

  The red-bearded man approached with the toy schooner in both hands. "Master Marik," he said.

  The Magician nodded, acknowledging another of his names. "'Lo, Rusty. How's Hell Week so far?"

  "Someone burned down Cheeky's yesterday, A temple or a tax collector's, anyone could understand, but a good tavern should be sacred."

  "You'd think—" Trav Marik let the sentence die. On the boulder, the bald woman pointed in triumph. From over the trees and rooftops came a cylindrical bag as long as one of the Levar's triremes. Beneath it hung a wooden platform shared by a bulky engine and a single pilot.

  "The Luck of Liavek!" the bald woman called. "We'll dock here for the rest of Festival Week. Interested investors may ride …"

  The Magician felt the air for unusual magics, but there were none. The Luck of Liavek came on, ponderous and ugly, no faster than a landsailer, as remorseless as the future, driven by a grinning girl who sat in a cage of levers and cords. The crowd cheered, seeing nothing more than another Festival Week novelty. Trav Marik felt his throat grow thick with a feeling he did not recognize. Unnoticed by Rusty or Sessi, he turned to go, certain that the bald woman was right. The age of magic had ended.

  Procession Day, Remembrance Night

  The Pardoners had always been Sessi's favorite of the many religions who marched in the Procession of Faiths. They danced and sang in the streets in comradely chaos, with no apparent intent to display their devotion to any other gods than those of celebration. Several Pardoners parodied priests of other faiths: A man draped a wine-stained white sheet about his shoulders and announced, "All is illusion!" "Oh?" said a woman in a red blanket. "Then I'm not doing this." She slapped the man, and he spun about, whirling his arms and saying, "Uh, n-nno, I guess not." "Or this," said the woman, giving him a loud kiss while yanking his moneybag from his sash and tucking it into her own. "Well, n-n-no," said the man in white, rolling his eyes, and all the spectators cheered. "Or this," the woman said, kicking the man in the rear, who jumped high, grabbing his buttocks. Sessi held her arms around her stomach and laughed as though she could not stop.

  "Ah, the subtleties of Liavekan humor," said a woman behind her.

  "Well, if you knew a little about the Reds, the Faith of the Twin Forces, and the Whites, who're the Church of Truth—" The man's voice reminded Sessi of the Zhir sailors who frequented the docks and the Canal District.

  "Is there any reason why I should?"

  "Probably not," the man said.

  Perhaps forty people in golden robes came next in the procession, singing gentle, ecstatic, wordless notes. They were interrupted by something like firecrackers exploding at the far end of the street.

  Before Sessi could look, someone behind her touched her bare neck. She gasped; the touch stung like a wasp. She could not hear her own voice in the concatenation of explosions or the babble of the crowd. She started to turn, to confront the foreign couple to tell them she didn't think this was funny at all, but the street had begun to whirl as if the world was a tornado and she stood at its eye.

  Then she was not standing. Someone caught her shoulders.

  Someone said, "Poor dear's had too much excitement. She'll feel better when she's safe at home."

  Someone lifted her and added, "We all will."

  •

  "Night leaps upon the unresisting body of the day," said a mustached man in black clothes, "much as I shall leap upon you, my dear."

  His companion, a handsome woman whose scarlet jacket and tight trousers were a subtle mockery of the man's, laughed delightedly. "With twenty seconds of enthusiasm followed by an hour of drunken apologies?" Her amusement emphasized her exotic features, the small nose and high cheekbones characteristic of mixed Liavekan and Tichenese ancestry. Her face had been powdered as white as a corpse's.

  The couple strolled arm in arm through Liavek's oldest graveyard, a place of urns and mausoleums and high marble beds littered with leaves and human bones, as though they passed through a crowded ballroom. Directly before them lay a glass case containing a perfectly preserved old woman, plump and coiffed and dressed in an elegant, archaic fashion. Glowing letters at the woman's feet proclaimed, "Kaelin Marik, 2906—3013. 'All things considered, I hope I'm dead.'"

  The woman in red, sipping a black liquid from a green glass skull, pointed, sputtering, "Ari, look!" A drop of her drink dripped from the corner of her mouth, leaving a dark path on her powdered face. She winced, dabbed at the drop with her sleeve, then drank from a ruby vial that the man gave her.

  He rested both hands on a silver-topped cane and studied the old woman's body. "She is surely an artistic piece now, the creation of her own life and her embalmer's skill. But it's the whole of the presentation, the audacity of the setting, that truly makes …” His words trailed off as he looked up at the neighboring mausoleum, a miniature fortress with walls of gray lava.

  The woman followed his gaze. A young man in a green robe, apparently immune to the evening breeze, sat cross-legged on the slate roof.

  "Forgive us for intruding," the woman said. "We were—" She shrugged. Her embarrassed smile hinted that a blush lay beneath her white powder.

  "Remembering the dead," said the young man. "What could be more natural on Ghoul Night?" He swept his hand wide to indicate the dark graveyard or, perhaps, Liavek beyond. The air smelled of dried leaves and mold. A nighthawk pirouetted in the sky, streaking the twilight with the white bars beneath its wings.

  The man in black reached for the woman's arm as if to lead her away, but let his hand fall and addressed the seated man. "Haven't we met? At a party—"

  The young man touched both hands to his forehead. "Indeed we have, Aritoli ola Silba. I am The Magician of Liavek."

  "I think he's drunk," said the woman. "Whoever he is."

  "I am The Ma
gician!" the man cried. "The woman you admire was my first wife."

  "I meant no disrespect," Aritoli said softly.

  "Of course not." Trav smiled at the woman. "He admires so many wives. How is your husband, Countess ola Klera?"

  "We should go," the woman whispered.

  "Please, no." Trav, still cross-legged, floated down from the mausoleum and bobbed in the air before them. His robe was stained and torn. "It is a Remembrance Night party. Surely you'll share drink and conversation with an … old friend? No, old acquaintance, but new friend." Extending his legs to the ground, he added, "Never drink and fly."

  "I shall try to remember that," said Aritoli. "There was a notice for you in this evening's Cat Street Crier. Have you seen it?"

  ''I'm not in need of clients." Trav laughed. "You have not asked me about Gogo. You remember Mistress Gogoaniskithli?"

  Aritoli nodded. "A charming creature."

  "Indeed," said Trav. "When she intends to be, and when she does not. Did you know that we lived together for almost two hundred years?"

  "No," said Aritoli. "I considered living with someone once. For an entire week, I considered it. Ah, the mad passions of youth."

  The nighthawk cried, and they all glanced at the sky.

  Trav shrugged. "My apologies, ola Silba. I had not meant to bore you. What're you drinking?"

  "Green God's Nectar," said Countess ola Klera, lifting the heavy glass skull in her right hand. "Ari and I began with a drop a day to build up a tolerance. We still need the antidote after every drink." She indicated the ruby vial in her other hand. "A taste of death, a taste of life—"

  "Ah, something new. Delightful." Trav held out both palms. "May I?"

  The Countess glanced at Aritoli, who shrugged. She gave Trav the skull. "If you want a sip …"

  Trav raised the skull to salute each of them, and then held it toward the dead woman in the clear coffin. Putting the skull to his lips, he drained half of the contents.