by Glen Cook
"What can you tell us about him?" Greystone asked.
"Nothing. While he lives, nothing."
"Me, I lost something somewhere, beautiful lady," Chaz said.
"I am his slave." She said that as though it explained all. In her native land, perhaps it did.
"Who?" Chaz insisted. "Odehnal or Shai Khe?"
Caracene bowed her head. Softly, she replied, "Shai Khe."
"Why? You're in Shasesserre."
"There are no slaves in Shasesserre?"
Chaz had to think his way around the side of that. "He is an enemy of the state. As such he has no rights. You have been freed. We could get you manumission papers by tomorrow."
She looked at him with eyes in which tenderness warred with exasperation. "Paper has no meaning while Shai Khe lives."
Gallantly, Chaz offered, "I'll kick his head in, then. Just tell me where he is."
"I cannot betray him. He is my master."
Soup snickered. Even Greystone smirked.
"I give up," the northerner said. He began muttering about "Women!" under his breath. He cleared his plate and cutlery away, then prepared a tray for the prisoners.
During the afternoon and evening he made every opportunity for Caracene to escape. She did not seize her chance.
Rider reached the laboratory quite late. He examined the prisoners while the others prepared themselves a supper. "Any message from the King?" he asked.
"Nary a word," Chaz replied. "Nothing from anybody."
"I suppose that means he's decided to accept me as Protector—to the extent that he'll ignore me. Till he wants something."
"That's what most of them did with your father. How long you reckon Belledon will last?" Few Shasesserren kings fulfilled normal lifespans. Some years there were three or four self-coronations. Jehrke had held the opinion that the city was its empire's worst enemy. The Protector had provided more stability and continuity than the crown.
"He could be a good one. If he stays alive. Suppose we skip the hired hands and deal with Odehnal directly?"
"A truth-drawing?"
"Get it ready. I'll eat first."
Odehnal’s eyes were wild. He was hopelessly caught, for the first time ever at another's mercy. Judging his captors by himself, he was frantic.
"Ought to be interesting," Chaz said, closing the lumber room door. Softly, "The girl wouldn't run."
"I noticed. We'll find him another way."
After eating they brought a more composed Odehnal into the library and strapped him into a chair the twin to that Greystone had used to monitor the web. Rider exercised the utmost caution while unbinding the spells which restrained the dwarf. Odehnal was dangerous still.
"Bit backwards from the way you're used to?" Rider asked. "You willing to tell me what I want to know?" Fear still lurked behind the dwarf's eyes. "Got in over your head when you joined up with Shai Khe, didn't you?"
Odehnal betrayed a flicker of surprise.
"Oh, yeah," Chaz said. "We know about your friend and his pirate airship."
"That being the case, you have no need to question me," Odehnal concluded with a snarl.
"Where is he?" Rider asked.
Silence.
"Do you consider yourself more valuable than Vlazos? He killed Vlazos."
Again Odehnal betrayed a moment's surprise. Vlazos, Rider believed, had been the foot in the Shasesserren door, the lone contact between outsiders and conspirators.
"Let's get on with the truth-drawing, Rider," Su-Cha chirruped. "I love it when they squeal." His cherubic face darkened. "And this one has abused so many of my kind. Let me have him when you're done."
Kralj Odehnal was not to be manipulated by psychological maneuvers. He was old and tough and tempered, and knew all the games interrogators played. He believed he had invented some himself.
Rider shrugged. "Since we have no choice, then."
Greystone placed a contraption on a stand in front of the dwarf. Odehnal looked puzzled. "Spud's special design," Greystone said. "More efficient than candles and mirrors."
Odehnal drew a deep breath ...
Chaz stepped behind him, clapped a hand over his mouth. The hand held a wad of cotton impregnated with a fluid of Rider's devising. In moments Kralj Odehnal wore a drugged smile. His head lolled to one side.
Su-Cha stuck him with a hot pin. "Just to make sure he isn't faking."
Rider said nothing, though he knew the Odehnal who was a legend among assassins had self-control sufficient not to start at a pin's prick. "Start it."
Greystone cranked a handle, opened a tiny door. Light flickered upon Odehnal's face. Greystone made a few adjustments.
This was a truth-drawing much less unpleasant than the traditional, which combined a bit of witchcraft with subtle torture. "Waken him," Rider said.
Chaz buried Odehnal's face in cotton moistened with ammonia. The dwarf sputtered and spat and wakened. His eyes met the light and glazed.
Rider asked several hundred questions, each phrased so a yes or no answer would suffice. Greystone recorded questions and answers and kept his notesheets positioned so Rider could refer to them. The others stayed back, conferring in whispers. Occasionally Soup would dart forward with a note suggesting a question.
The picture that shaped was not one to gladden men devoted to Shasesserre's welfare.
For several years Shai Khe had been recruiting among the sorcerers of the world. Those who refused to make common cause, under his command, he crushed. Those who joined him he gave gifts like Caracene, and powers torn away from those who would not serve him. Now he felt strong enough to test Shasesserre and its Protector.
Rider worked with especial care when he began drawing the names of those Shai Khe had recruited. Yes and no answers were not possible.
Some names amazed him. Some chilled him. Some left him blank, for they were names unknown to him. Those he did know were widely scattered, proving the eastern master had a far reach indeed.
He had drawn just over a dozen names when Odehnal suddenly bucked against his restraints, made squealing noises, and began foaming at the mouth.
"What's wrong with him?" Greystone demanded.
"I don't know ... He's dying. Somebody get the medical kit."
Blood flecked the foam on Odehnal's chin.
Rider brushed the hypnotic engine aside, laid hands on the dwarf's heaving chest. He felt the inner wrongness instantly. "Poison!"
"What kind?" Soup demanded, yanking a battery of antidotes out of the medical kit.
"Can't tell. Something different ... Complex."
Odehnal's eyes opened. Hatred and the knowledge of his own murder filled them. "Polybos House," he croaked. "The Devil's Eyes." His eyes rolled up. He began to shudder violently.
"Rider!" Chaz shouted from the laboratory. "There's something out here."
Rider ripped away from Odehnal, rushed into the darkened laboratory. Chaz was at the window. "Where?"
"Down there now."
Rider leaned out. A shadow clung to the face of the tower, seventy feet below. Points that might have been eyes blinked. A limb of shadow moved. Rider whipped back, into the laboratory an instant before something tickled against the window frame. "Light," he said. "Get lamps in here." And, "We have to get that pane replaced." He moved to the library door behind Chaz, blocked that against the rush of his men.
"Whatever it was, it shot something at me. It ricocheted off the window frame into the laboratory. Watch where you step. Find it." He took an oil lamp from Preacher, cautiously returned to the window. He leaned out and dropped the lamp.
Down it plunged to smash on the foot of the Rock. He caught one glimpse of something scuttling into darkness. "What was it? A demon?" Chaz asked. "No. It was mortal. There was no strain on the web. But exactly what manner of mortal I don't know." "Here," Soup called.
Rider joined him, looked where he pointed. "A dart. Get tongs. Handle it with care. Let's see if we can't find another around Odehnal."
"This Shai Khe is som
e nice fellow," Chaz observed. "Kills anybody ... Caracene. Where did that woman get to?"
"I think Odehnal getting got got her moving," Greystone said. He indicated the exit door. It stood open a crack.
"Su-Cha," Rider said. "You follow her. I'll keep in touch through the web."
"Thought you had her on the web," Chaz said. "Not anymore. She figured she was marked and negated it. Su-Cha."
"Yes sir, boss, sir." The imp dived out the window. This time he did not howl on the way down.
Rider moved back to Kralj Odehnal. In a moment he found the lethal dart. "The bodies pile up. And still we make no progress."
"At least they aren't our bodies," Chaz said. "That thing could have gotten one of us as easily as it got Odehnal."
"A point we were meant to take, I'm sure," Rider observed. "A bit more caution from now on, friends. Omar. I want you to fix that window. Soon."
"What do we do now?" Preacher asked.
"We find a place called Polybos House and something called the Devil's Eyes. We stay in touch with the web. And we wait for something to happen."
In the other room the dead eyes of Jehrke Victorious seemed to gleam with approval.
XIV
Su-Cha returned soon after daybreak. He wore a chagrined look. "She shook me in the Protte rookery. I figured she'd cross to Henchelside, so I staked out King's Ferry. She never showed."
Soup snickered. Spud said, "We'll hear from her again. How can she resist that great chunk of beef?" He indicated Chaz, snoring in a chair.
Rider returned from setting Preacher and Greystone to searching land titles for a place called Polybos House. "Soup, you and Omar head down to the Golden Crescent. Look at ships recently in from the east. Find ships that carried unusual cargoes or passengers."
"Why?" Soup asked.
"Shai Khe's airship is a small one. He may have brought more men and equipment than it could have carried. He strikes me as careful and methodical. He would not have come unprepared for a difficult campaign."
Soup and Spud departed. They returned that evening with nothing to report. Preacher and Greystone had no luck either. Greystone said, "If a Polybos House exists it has to be outside the Wall." By that he meant outside the legal corporate limits. The city wall proper lay well inside those, and had been in decay for a century.
"Try again tomorrow," Rider said.
"What're you doing?" Preacher asked.
"Trying to analyze the poison on these darts. It's eluded me so far. Looks like something drawn from an insect, though."
Spud said, "The jungles of Maijan fester with poisonous bugs. And lizards and snakes and bats."
"I'll remember that next time I'm in the far east," Chaz grumbled. He was in a sour mood. He had spent the day washing alembics and retorts under the dead, cold eyes of Jehrke.
"Patience, friend," Rider chided. "Our turn will come."
"Soon, I hope." Chaz tested the window Spud had installed, for the hundredth time. "My nerves are getting me."
Soon did not come for four days.
It began with Soup and Spud. They had, at last, found a vessel whose origins and crew were suspect. After watching the ship, and noting the presence of men of both Emerald's and Shai Khe's races, they decided to contact Rider.
But their persistent presence over several days had betrayed them.
The attack was sudden and bold, initiated by a seaman who stepped into their path and shouted, "At last my brother's daughter's honor will be avenged!" Another half dozen seamen joined him, a wild, scruffy gang of cutthroats.
Spud and Soup were not fooled. The easterner pointed a finger, declared, "You have the wrong men, friend."
The sailor collapsed.
Spud pointed at another man. He went down too.
Blades came out. A howl went up. More sailors materialized.
Soup, meantime, dipped a hand into his pocket and crushed a crystal. That sent a screaming shock through the web. Then he activated an amulet which Rider could track. Then he scattered fistfuls of what looked like gold coins.
Attackers and onlookers alike dived for the money.
Spud dropped another two men with his pointed finger, ducked inside a clumsy cutlass, buried a fist in a fat belly.
Soup's coins started an independent brawl. Then they exploded in the hands or pockets of those who had seized them.
Spud pushed away from the man he had punched. "Let's get out of here!" he yelled.
In the confusion that was not difficult. But ...
Soup laughed. "The idiots! Hoist by their own greed!"
"Oh-oh," Spud said.
"Yeah."
They had slipped into a breezeway to make their getaway. Their path, suddenly, was blocked by men of Emerald's ilk.
Retreat, too, vanished.
Tough-looking Orientals had appeared behind them.
"The coin trick won't work this time."
"I didn't reload my spring gun."
"Been nice knowing you. Take it out on the gnarly guys?"
"Let's get them."
Preacher and Greystone had been butting their heads against a stone wall. There was no Polybos House within fifty miles of Shasesserre, at least on record. They were with Rider, plotting a new strategy, when the web relayed Soup's trouble cry.
"Ask around the merchants' taverns," Rider said, and loped out. A minute later he passed out the Citadel gate in a racing chariot, sounding a warning trumpet. Though the way was longer, he took the Via Triumpha, which by law was closed to wheeled vehicles. Because there was no commerce there, few pedestrians were about.
The Via's prime function was as a processional for military holidays, and for the celebration of major victories.
Rider swung off the Via Triumpha a quarter mile from where his men had found trouble. During his mad flight he had acquired an escort of City Guards, who had recognized him and were carrying warning ahead. They made passage through the waterfront district much easier.
So quick was Rider to reach the scene that the crowd had not yet dispersed. A dozen people lay unconscious, not yet carried off by comrades. "Collect these and deliver them to the Citadel," Rider told his escort. He left his chariot and set off after the moving disturbance the web noted as the location of his men.
He found the back-up ambush. There were signs of a vigorous fight, and spilled blood. Had Soup and Spud been slain, their bodies carried off with those of their enemies?
His heart sank. Shai Khe was a relentless and merciless opponent.
He allowed his wizard's senses to extend. This was a good time and place to jump someone tracking the missing men.
They were there, just ahead in the breezeway, hidden beneath trash and inside shadows. There were eight of them. They had several mystical devices that would have been potent had they taken Rider unaware. They were growing impatient.
Rider produced a deck of plaques the size of tarot cards. He shuffled out the one he wanted. It portrayed a man asleep, dreaming hideous devils. The devils were about to seize and drag him through a fiery gap in a background wall. There were graven words around the plaque's margin. Rider read them aloud.
As he spoke each word, it disappeared. After he spoke the last, the picture itself faded. The plaque crumbled into dust which dribbled between his fingers.
Rider went back and told the City Guards they could collect another eight customers in the breezeway. Then he set out after the receding disturbance marking the location of his men.
He loped to the waterfront, where he immediately identified both the vessel they had unmasked and the outbound fishing smack carrying them. The ship reeked of old sorceries forgotten by all but their victims.
Rider raced back to his chariot, pounded through the streets to the airship yards, where, in accordance with standing instructions, his airships were ready for immediate flight. He selected the fast vessel he had used before.
Liftoff was hectic, as he had to cover the places of crewmen not present, but once he was aloft he had no tr
ouble. He reached through the web, touched Chaz and Preacher, told them he wanted everyone atop their tower of the Citadel. He tried to reach Soup and Spud, but a grey null intervened. They might be unconscious. Or worse.
Chaz and Su-Cha were in the parapet when Rider halted the airship above the Citadel. Both carried packs. Rider hastened to the gondola door, dropped a rope ladder. As Chaz and Su-Cha scrambled up, Greystone and Preacher appeared.
"What's up?" Chaz demanded as he clambered aboard.
"The game is afoot. They snatched Spud and Soup. What are the packs?"
"Some odds and ends we threw together. Just in case."
"The laboratory secure?"
Su-Cha chuckled. "And then some."
XV
Chaz repeated the news for Preacher and Greystone. Rider ordered the ship demon to proceed toward the Golden Crescent at speed, for the fishing boat was near the limit of the web. He had to get the vessel in sight first or lose it among a hundred others.
"I think I've been outmaneuvered," he said.
"How's that?" Chaz asked.
"The boat is leaving the web. To follow we'll have to keep it in sight. Which means they'll be able to see us, too."
"How about an invisibility spell?"
"Wouldn't hide something this big."
"What about an angel?" Su-Cha asked. Already he had shed his shirt and sprouted wings.
Rider understood immediately. "An albatross or eagle would be less flashy."
"Dig out some of those mirrors and flares," Su-Cha told Chaz. Already his head was avian.
"A shape to go with his brain," Chaz said, ransacking the packs. He produced signal mirrors and four small flares, which he placed in a pouch the imp grew among his ventral feathers. Su-Cha retained rudimentary hands beneath his wings.
Rider spread a maritime chart. "The ship is here, now, and headed so. If there are others around, watch the one that is in a hurry. They're making all the speed they can."
Su-Cha squawked and plunged through a hatch Preacher opened. In a moment he was headed out over the strait on long white wings.
Greystone looked over Rider's shoulder. "They headed for the HurmIslands?"
"Maybe. They could shift course once they're sure they're clear of the web."
