by Glen Cook
“It was here that business with the rats started,” said Ragnarson. “When Greyfalls tried to take over. I was over there, Mocker was up Wall that way, and Haroun was on that roof over there…”
Someone was watching from the same spot Haroun had occupied then, a dark-skinned man who vanished the instant Bragi spotted him. “Watch it,” said Ragnarson. “We’ve got friends here.”
“We’ll be all right on King’s,” Haaken replied.
“Damned rules. Laws,” Ragnarson growled. “Don’t know if I want to see the Minister this bad.” He slapped his thigh where, till the gate guards had compelled him to check it, his sword had hung. The only personal weapons allowed were blades shorter than eight inches. “Wasn’t this way in the old days.”
“There was more killing then, too,” Uthe observed.
“Fallacy,” Mocker interjected. “Same number cadavers in gutter mornings, now as then. Holes just smaller. Self, if decide man wants murdered, will dispose of same. Can exterminate with hands, ropes, rocks, bludgeons…”
“Maybe,” Uthe replied, “but it’s inconvenient, not being able just to grab a sword and stick him.”
They crossed Wall Street and entered King’s, a busy artery sweeping grandly to the heart of the city and kingdom with identical names. Bragi had convinced his companions that they should take rooms near the Royal Palace, where he had business.
In New Haymarket Square in New Town, only a few hundred yards from North Gate, the blow fell.
Two men, dusky and hawk-nosed, exploded from a throng watching a puppet show, hurled themselves at Ragnarson and Mocker with daggers and screams.
The dagger thrust at Ragnarson slid over the mail beneath his sleeve as he threw up an arm, then slashed up his chest and along his jaw. His beard kept the gash from being nasty. He brought his right hand across to strike back. His horse, spooked, reared and neighed wildly, dumping him. As he went down he saw Mocker doing the same, heard the screams and squeals of panicky onlookers. Then his head hit cobblestones.
Mocker had a moment more to react. He threw himself, robes flying, off his donkey. His attacker plunged his dagger into an empty saddle. As the assassin bounced back, Dahl Haas kicked him in the temple.
Mocker came up off the pavement shrieking, “Murder! Watch! Help! Help!” He plumped his considerable weight atop the man Dahl had kicked, began strangling him. “Murder! Dastardest dastard attacks poor old mendicant in middle of street in middle of day… What kind city this where even poor traveler is prey for assassin? Help!” Which only spurred bystanders to flee before they themselves were butchered or nabbed as material witnesses.
Several city watchmen turned up with amazing alacrity—as everywhere, they were wont to appear only after the dust settled and there was little danger to themselves—but were unable to get through the dispersing crowd.
Haaken, Uthe, and Blackfang’s bodyguards piled onto the man who had attacked Ragnarson. Dahl tried to control the horses while complaining that his foot hurt.
The police finally sorted things out. A half-dozen bolder onlookers, who had hung on for the denouement, supported Blackfang’s story. Despite an obvious desire to arrest everyone, the officers settled for two battered would-be assassins and Haaken’s promise to file a complaint.
Mocker and Dahl then brought Ragnarson around. “Damn!” Bragi growled. “I’m going to start sleeping in a helmet, way my head’s getting smacked anymore.” He struggled to his feet, cursing the pain. Dahl and Mocker hoisted him into his saddle. “One thing. I’m going to see the Minister while I’m still hurting. That’ll keep me ornery enough to growl him down.”
“Or get yourself thrown out,” Haaken observed. “But it won’t hurt to stop off. I’ll get my excuses in ahead of time. Moving that gang of mine is touchy. Can’t let them get our passes revoked. The Guild wouldn’t help.”
“Good thinking. Mocker, you need to take care of anything there?”
The fat man shrugged. “Self, always have business at Ministry of War. Ministry has evil habit. Late payment on contracts. No interest, no penalty. Owes guineas six hundred twelve, four and six, on salt pork supplied for winter maneuvers on Iwa Skolovdan border. But let poor old pig farmer be hour late delivering same. Hai! Sky falling, maybe, self thinks when agent shows up threatening repossession of soul.” He laughed. “Can have same. Is already in hock to six devils. Take to Debtor’s Court, scoundrelest scoundrels of state collectors! See who wins case.” He flashed an obscene gesture at the Royal Palace.
v) Secret master, silent partner
The War Minister was a small man, wizened, who had been ancient when Bragi had met him years earlier. Now, within the plush vastness of his private office, he seemed so small and old as to be inhuman.
“So,” said Ragnarson. “The heart of the web. Comfortable. Good to see my taxes well-spent.” Times past, because of their nature, their conferences had been held in less opulent surroundings.
“Rank and privilege, as they say.” The old man extended his hand.
Ragnarson frowned suspiciously. This was going too smoothly. He hadn’t been kept cooling his heels. “You’d think I had an appointment.”
“In a sense. Make yourself comfortable. Brandy?”
“Uhn.” Ragnarson sank into a chair that threatened to devour him. He was not a poor man, but brandy was beyond his means. “Looks like you got something on your mind, too.”
“Yes. But your business first. And pardon me for skipping the amenities. Time presses.”
Ragnarson sketched recent events.
“Oh, my,” said the Minister, shaking his head. “Worse than I thought. Worse. And sure to get worse still. Dear me, dear me. But they wouldn’t listen. Told me to forgive and forget, not to hold grudges.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“Greyfells. They brought him back. Inland Ministry. Wouldn’t listen to me. Even moved Customs to his control.”
“What? No! I don’t believe it.” The Duke of Greyfells, as near an arch-traitor as was boasted by Itaskian history, back in favor? Astounding.
But Greyfells was a bouncer. During the wars, while commander of Itaskian expeditionary forces and prime candidate for supreme commander of the allied armies, he had been in touch with El Murid, plotting treason. Only astonishing victories by Haroun’s Royalist guerrillas, with the aid of Trolledyngjan mercenaries and native auxiliaries, in Libiannin and Hellin Daimiel, had forced Greyfells to maintain his loyalty.
Later, there had been plots to seize the Itaskian Crown. Greyfells, once, had been in the succession. Haroun, Mocker, and Ragnarson had ruined his schemes. One of the favors done the War Minister. Greyfells had renounced his place in the succession to evade the embarrassment of a treason trial.
“Politicians!” Bragi snorted into his snifter. The Duke kept complicating his life, and Itaskia’s, and he was getting tired of it. How many times would the man reach for the throne?
“My Lord the Duke has bounced back,” said the Minister. “My people at Interior think he’s in touch with his old accomplice. They’ve struck a devil’s bargain. El Murid to support Greyfells’s next power grab. And Greyfells to keep Itaskia out of the next war, and refuse passage to troops from our northern neighbors. You know what that means. Hellin Daimiel, Cardine, and Libiannin still haven’t recovered. Dunno Scuttari and the Lesser Kingdoms never were powerful. Sacuescu couldn’t keep a gang of old ladies from plundering the Auszura Littoral. El Murid would be at the Porthune and gates of Octylya in a month. There’ll be a catastrophe if Greyfells has his way. And he probably will. He grows more golden-tongued with the years. The King no longer hears his critics.”
“Then my days are numbered,” said Ragnarson. His dreams were smoke if Greyfells was back. Inland oversaw the management of Royal Grants even when their original issuance was under the purview of War. Greyfells would find an excuse to revoke his charter.
“True,” said the Minister. “He’s working on it. The raid demonstrates it. That, which cam
e to my attention only yesterday, was meant to rid Greyfells of a pain in the neck, and El Murid’s side of a potential thorn.”
“Politics don’t interest me,” said Ragnarson. “That’s a well-known fact. All I ever wanted from politicians was for them to leave me alone.”
“But there’s your friend, the Royalist, and your talent for warfare. Your friend’s a threat to El Murid. That makes you a threat.”
“I’m just one man…”
“And not that important from where I sit. But important in some minds. And in the mind is reality. It’s no objective thing. You pose a threat if only because they think you do. You aren’t the sort who won’t fight back.”
“No. Where do you stand?”
“I always stand opposite Greyfells. And this time, behind your friend. This isn’t to leave this room. The Ministry has been making available certain aid. Funds for which we aren’t accountable, and weapons. This may have to stop. But I’ll remain behind your friend. His success would delay war, maybe prevent it…”
The Minister’s secretary appeared. “Your Lordship, there’s a gentleman who insists on seeing this gentleman.” His nose wrinkled. Ragnarson glanced down to see if he had forgotten to shake the horse manure off his boots.
Blackfang rolled in. “Bragi, one of my lads says they raided your place again. My people caught them. Got most of them. What you want to do?”
For a long time Ragnarson said nothing. Guards came to drag Blackfang away, but the Minister shooed them off. Finally, Bragi said, “I’ll let you know in a minute. Wait outside.” After Blackfang and the secretary departed, he asked, “What would happen if Greyfells were assassinated?”
The Minister frowned thoughtfully behind steepled fingers. “They’d want heads. Yours if they connected you. His son would take his place.”
“If both were to go?”
“He has four sons. Peas from a pod. Chips from the block. But it’d buy a few months. And get the kingdom turned upside down. How many people at your place? Better think about them.”
“I am.”
“Something could be arranged… If I could get them to safety?…”
“You’d have a corpse. I hate to lose the place, but it looks like I’m damned no matter what.”
“Keeping it could be fixed. Your grant runs to the river. That puts it in a military zone. I could take it over till this blows away. I’ll have to put troops in anyway, if you and your eastern friend leave a forty-mile gap unpatrolled. If I don’t, I’ll have the north woods thick with bandits from Prost Kamenets, and trade with Iwa Skolovda cut off. But getting you, and your eastern friend, off the hook would take some doing. You might have to stay away for years.”
“I think,” said Ragnarson, “I’ll have to do that anyway. To get help reaching Greyfells.” He was on the edge of decision. He knew where to buy the knife, but the price would be playing Haroun’s game in Kavelin.
“We’ll meet tomorrow, then. Where’re you staying?”
“King’s Cross, but I may move. We had some trouble in New Haymarket. Greyfells might try to have us arrested.”
“Uhm. Charge would only have to stick till something regrettable happened in the dungeons. He’s foxy. All right. Wansettle Newkirk, ten in the morning. You know it?”
“I can find it.”
“Good luck then.”
Ragnarson rose, shook the Minister’s hand, joined Blackfang. He remained uncommunicative the rest of the day.
F
IVE:
T
HE
Y
EARS 995-1001 AFE
T
HEIR
W
ICKEDNESS
S
PANS THE
E
ARTH
i) But the evil know no joy
At last. The end of a long and tiring journey. Burla glanced back to see if he had been overtaken at the penultimate moment, sighed, slipped into the cave. His friend Shoptaw, the winged man, greeted him with anxious questions. “Fine, now,” Burla replied with a wide, fangy grin. “But tired. Master?”
“Come,” the winged man said.
The old man was solicitous and apologetic. “I’m sorry you had to go through this. But Burla, you did me proud. Proud. How’s the child?”
Swelling in the Master’s praise, Burla replied, “Good, Master. But hungry. Sad.”
“Yes, so. You weren’t prepared to bring him so far. I feared…”
Burla laid the baby before the Master. The old man opened its wrappings.
“What’s this? A girl?” Thunderheads rumbled across his brow. “Burla…”
“Master?” Had he done wrong without knowing?
The old man held his temper. Whatever had happened, it had not been Burla’s fault. The dwarf didn’t have the brains. “But how?…” he asked aloud, wondering how a counterswitch had been made. Then he looked closer. The hereditary mark was there.
The King had lied. To support his shaky throne he had announced the birth of a son when a daughter had been born. The fool! There was no way he could have pulled it off…
Realization. His own schemes had been dealt a savage blow. A wildcat was growling in his embrace. Willy-nilly, he had inherited the Krief’s plot. “Oh, damn, damn…”
Two days passed before he trusted his temper enough to confront his shadowy ally. The failure was the easterner’s fault. He should have used spells to assure the sex of the child. The old man would have done it himself had he suspected the other’s sloppiness.
But no one accused the Demon Prince of incompetence. No sorcerer was more powerful or touchy than Yo Hsi, nor had any had more time to perfect his wickedness. He was an evil spanning unknown centuries. Only one man dared openly challenge the Demon Prince, his co-ruler and arch-enemy in Shinsan, the Dragon Prince, Nu Li Hsi. And, perhaps, the Star Rider, the old man thought, but he was irrelevant to the equation.
The old man, who had taken great pains to remain anonymous, was a noble of Kavelin, the Captal of Savernake, hereditary guardian of the Savernake Gap. His castle, Maisak, in the highest and narrowest part of the pass, had seen countless battles fought beneath its walls. Only once had it been threatened, when El Murid’s hordes, by sheer numbers, had almost swamped it. The Wesson, Eanred Tarlson, had prevented that. That near-defeat had led the Captal to reinforce his defenses with sorcery.
A greater sorcery was in the Savernake Gap now. That of Shinsan. The Demon Prince’s interlocutors had come to the Captal and found a bitter, ambitious man, Kavelin’s only non-Nordmen noble gone sour over the treatment he received in Vorgreberg. The emissaries had tempted him with the Crown of Kavelin in exchange for service to Yo Hsi and eventual passage west for Shinsan’s legions. Yo Hsi was ready to settle his ancient struggle with the Dragon Prince. A united Shinsan would move swiftly to fulfill its age-old goal of world dominion.
The Captal, from his lonely aerie, had seen little of the world but that contained in the caravans flowing past Maisak. Since the fall of Ilkazar, the west had been weak and divided. The major powers, Itaskia and El Murid’s religious state, were deadly enemies evenly matched. Neither showed much interest in using sorcery for military purposes.
Shinsan hinged its strategies on sorcery. Physical combat was a followup, to occupy, to achieve tactical goals. Rumor whispered dreadful things of the powers pent there, awaiting unity to release them.
The Captal had chosen what he thought would be the winning side. Western sorcery and soldiery had no hope against the Dread Empire.
Yo Hsi had established a transfer link between Maisak and a border castle in his sector of Shinsan. The old man now used it. He bore the child in his arms.
The place he went was dark and misty. There were hints of evils out of sight, evils more grim than any he had created in the caverns in the cliffs against which Maisak stood.
A squad of soldiers, statue-like in black armor, surrounded his entry point. He could see nothing beyond them. He, and they, might have been the ent
ire universe.
Was Yo Hsi expecting trouble? He had never been greeted this way before. “I want to see the Demon Prince. I’m the Captal of Savernake…”
Not a weapon wavered, not a man moved. Their discipline was frightening.
From the darkness, a darker darkness still, Yo Hsi materialized. Fear cramped the Captal’s guts. The man hadn’t been the same since losing his hand—though, perhaps, the change had begun earlier, with the failure in the child’s sex. Consistency of oversight suggested that Yo Hsi was developing a godlike self-image that underestimated everyone around him.
“What do you want? You’ve dragged me away from sorceries of the highest and most difficult sort.”
His face came visible in the sourceless light. It was drawn and haggard. The eyes were surrounded by marks of strain. The Captal felt a new touch of fear. Had he made an ally of a man incapable of fulfilling the scheme?
“We’ve got a problem.”
“I don’t have time for guessing games, old man.”
“Eh?” The Captal controlled himself. He had just learned his status in the easterner’s thoughts. “The child. Your Prince changeling. It’s a girl.”
The Captal had been enthusiastic when Yo Hsi had first proposed the switch. Couldn’t miss, what with both Princes their creatures…
The Demon Prince flew into a screaming rage.
It was all the Captal’s fault, of course. Or his minions had betrayed him, or…
After several minutes of abuse, the old man could tolerate no more. The Demon Prince had slipped over the borders of reason. The ship of alliance was no longer sound. Time to abandon it and cut his losses.
With a slight bow the Captal interrupted, said, “I see I’ll find no comfort in the source of our embarrassment. You may consider our alliance dissolved.” He spoke the word that would return him to his own dungeons.
As he flickered away, he grinned. The expression on Yo Hsi’s face!
