by D. J. Butler
“But what do they eat?” Fix asked. “Ambrosia? Soma?”
“Fish. Sadly.”
The limping Zalapting finished with the party directly before Indrajit and Fix, which consisted of a heavy man in plain white cotton, face veiled, sitting on an open sedan chair. He turned and headed toward the two jobbers, his face a blank slab.
Indrajit felt uneasy.
A second Zalapting joined the first—this one had a dent in his snout, and blood crusted on his upper lip.
They were Handlers.
“Fix,” Indrajit murmured. “Run.”
They turned, and found themselves facing directly into the broad, open mouth of a Grokonk female.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The Grokonk swung one enormous yellow fist and knocked Fix sideways. The smaller man tumbled through a procession of dromedaries led by a muleskinner swathed in linen and armed with two curving tulwars, and then the Grokonk was bounding after him.
The Grokonk Third emerged from a crowd of faces, bearing down on Indrajit with a spear. The Recital Thane leaped back, pulling a pair of drunken young noblemen in silk tunics and kilts between himself and his attacker. The young men, interrupted in a rowdy drinking song that seemed to be about the score of a legendary Rûphat game that decided the holding of the Imperial throne, several hundred years earlier, objected boisterously. When one caught the edge of the Third’s spear in his side, his objections became more fierce.
“Who do you think you are?” he demanded in a slurred voice, and then thin dueling swords whisked from their sheaths.
Indrajit chased after Fix. His friend had got out a sword and a long knife, but the Grokonk’s longer reach and its spear meant that Fix was on the defensive, backing away through a crowd that had begun to scream and doing his best to parry and dodge each new blow that came thundering his way.
Over the shrieking of the crowd, the Grokonk female roared like an angry elephant.
“I know that tunic!” one of the drunk lordlings harrumphed. “That’s one of Gannon’s—”
His identification was cut off in a sudden gurgle as the Third ran him through.
The big female cut the outside of Fix’s biceps. Swinging with the backward motion of her attack, she clubbed him in the temple with the spear’s shaft, knocking him to the ground.
Indrajit had no time to draw his sword. He jumped with hands raised, planning to grab the Grokonk’s ankle and at least slow down her advance. But as he charged, the slimy mass heaped up on the big female’s shoulders trembled, like an aspic in an earthquake. It might have been his imagination, but Indrajit thought he could see circular black eyes quaking in the gelatinous heap. He felt sick.
The female spun, insanely quickly, and with the back of her hand she struck Indrajit across the face.
The Third tried and failed to yank his spear from the belly of the man he’d killed and advanced on Indrajit.
Indrajit’s head spun. Somewhere, he heard Fix shouting. Surely, the Grokonk female would now pound the four hundred twenty-seventh Blaatshi Recital Thane into a paste, and there would be no four hundred twenty-eighth.
Shame filled him, and sorrow.
But somehow, he wasn’t pounded. Instead, his vision returned to him, just in time to see two things. First, the Grokonk female wheeled back around and swung the butt of her spear at Fix again. And second, the Grokonk Third ran toward Indrajit, short sword raised to attack.
Indrajit kicked. Raising his legs, he planted both feet in the Third’s belly, hoisting the neutered Grokonk up into the air—
The Third screamed in surprise—
And Indrajit planted him, face-first, in the gelatinous mass covering the female’s back.
The female shrieked. Indrajit rolled aside, expecting her to turn and trample him. The slime shook and bounced like water on a hot iron skillet; twisting abruptly, the female reached back and gripped her Third by the back of his neck, yanking him from her body and then holding him up before her.
Indrajit stood. He definitely could see black eye-dots within the jelly, shaking. He drew his leaf-bladed broadsword—could the Grokonk be any more warned by her mates? Opposite, standing below the Grokonk herself, and under the dangling feet of the Third, Fix stood. The Grokonk had dropped her spear, and Fix now held it, a look of grim resolution on his face.
But the Grokonk attacked neither of them. She stared at her Third.
In its mouth, the Third had something that looked like a fish with tiny legs, or maybe a very fat, slime-covered yellow lizard, or a tadpole that had developed halfway into a frog. As Indrajit looked, the tadpole—a fertile Grokonk male, if Fix was right, spasmed in the Third’s mouth, and then its viscera erupted over the Third’s puckered lips.
The Grokonk roared. Her back quivered even faster, and she punched her fist through the Third’s face.
The Third’s skull disappeared in a sudden red mist.
Fix leaped up from below, driving the Grokonk’s spear into her belly with the strength of both legs. Seeing Fix’s attack, Indrajit stabbed with the leaf-bladed sword, pushing it as deep as he could, through the slime, through the body of at least one tiny fertile male, and then, with more resistance, into the muscle and between the ribs of the big female.
She screamed in rage and thrashed, spinning like a child’s string toy that scooted across a kitchen floor. As she lost her balance, Indrajit raised one leg to kick her from behind. She fell forward, impaling herself more deeply on the spear, falling and flailing, almost crushing Fix before sliding to an abrupt halt.
Indrajit whooped once, a reflex from his days of hunting river horses in the waters of his home, but then spun around. His hands were empty, but he dropped into a defensive stance, prepared to dodge, or punch, if necessary. He half expected a wave of Zalaptings to flood over him.
Instead, he saw shocked onlookers.
“Constables!” someone shouted. “Get the constables!”
Feet ran off, presumably looking for whatever jobber company had the law enforcement contracts for the Crown.
“Help,” Fix grunted.
Indrajit considered several quips that struck him both as clever and also, in the context of having just defeated the Grokonk female, debonair, but decided instead to help. Fix was trapped under the dead weight of the Grokonk, but the heavy spear protruded now from her back, and by hanging from it and throwing all his weight into it as if onto a lever, Indrajit was able to turn the yellow-skinned frog-woman off his friend.
Fix stood. “This is going to sound odd, but I know what to call our jobber company.”
“Later.” Indrajit pointed. “Here come the constables.”
The first order of business was to get out of sight, so that onlookers wouldn’t simply point them out to the pursuit. The second was probably to get Grokonk blood and slime from their clothes and their bodies, but Indrajit was scarcely thinking that far ahead. He planted a foot against the big female’s side, yanking his sword free—the males were still trembling, and one or two had fallen to the ground—and they ran.
“A latrine?” Indrajit suggested, panting. Pain lanced through the wounds in his legs.
“They’ll know we…did that before,” Fix pointed out.
“We should…leave false trails. Into latrines!” Indrajit tried to grin nonchalantly, but his footing was tricky in the deepening shadows, and he heard the cries of pursuit.
“If we had…more time!”
They dashed down a relatively narrow lane, gaining a few moments’ lead, perhaps, on their pursuers. The lane, still wide enough to allow a Rover clan to pass through, opened into a market square from which exited six streets. In the center of the square, on a low wooden platform, a street bawdy company performed. A rapt crowd, done with the day’s shopping and now prepared to stroll and spectate, filled the square. At the edge of the stage, beside bang-harp players and unwatched, sat an open wooden chest, bound in bronze, in which were piled costumes and oversized masks.
“There!” Too tire
d to point, Indrajit flung himself upon the chest.
Fix followed. They each grabbed a mask first, quickly knotting the leather bands behind their heads. Then they shrugged into loose togas, not the real togas that required folding and holding and marked the city’s true upper class, but fake togas, which were easier to slip into and out of and move while wearing, because they were stitched into their hanging pattern permanently.
Indrajit flung a tunic over his shoulders without looking at it, then spun and sat behind the harpists. Finding a timbrel on the earth, he picked it up and shook it gently, large masked head swaying side to side in time with the music. Fix grabbed a black toga and picked up a gourd, patting it with the heel of his hand.
“My sword has slain a Grokonk,” Indrajit said. “It has earned a name.”
“What?” Fix answered.
“I am thinking of calling it Vacho, after the famous blade of Inder. Vacho, the Voice of Lightning.”
Fix tapped his gourd. “That certainly sounds like the weapon of a hero.”
“Your timing is off,” Indrajit whispered. “If you can’t find the beat, use the tips of your fingers and be more gentle.”
Fix grumbled wordlessly, but reduced his volume.
Zalaptings and Yuchaks rushed into the square from the direction from which Indrajit and Fix had come. They all wore Gannon’s gray tunics and glyph, and they cast bewildered looks about them.
“Who am I dressed as?” Fix asked.
“Plays and stagecraft are not part of your fund of knowledge, I guess?”
“Not even a little.”
Indrajit struggled to refrain from laughing. “Your toga’s colors suggest one of the Xiba’albi Lords of Death, who are customarily portrayed in black, with thin red lines, such as you see in your garment. Your mask, on the other hand, shows that you are one of the Spring Maidens.”
Fix cursed obscurely.
“Keep your voice down,” Indrajit counseled. “If anyone notices us, they will expect you to sing in the chorus. Also, if there is a dominant randy character, such as a king or a particularly fierce warrior, he will be expected to chase you around the stage at least three times.”
“This is why I hate stagecraft,” Fix muttered.
“You’ve been cast in this part before?” Indrajit chuckled slightly at his own joke. “But what does my costume look like?”
The Sword Brother arrived, along with Green Skin and the Thûlian. Perhaps the Luzzazza was getting healing somewhere. The Zalaptings and Yuchaks took direction from the Sword Brother, and then the Handlers split up, marching with determination down the different lanes. None of them gave Indrajit and Fix a second glance.
“I think you’re Orem Thrush,” Fix said.
“Skull and horns mask?”
“Yes.”
“So I could be the current Orem Thrush, or one of his predecessor Lords Chamberlain. In either case, it’s probably incumbent upon me to chase you about the stage. Would you like a head start?”
“Would you like a punch in the throat?”
“No.” Indrajit looked down at his own toga. “White. A priest or a scholar, a newborn or someone who is very old. White shows us someone who is mortal, but marked apart from the rest of society somehow. Someone upon whom the ordinary obligations and limitations are not imposed. Someone above it all or outside it all.”
“So your costume actually makes sense,” Fix said.
“I suppose,” Indrajit said. “In a play about the Lord Chamberlain being an infant, or dying, or perhaps getting away with things for which he should be punished.”
“Isn’t that exactly the play we’re in?” Fix asked softly.
Indrajit didn’t want to answer that question. He wasn’t sure he could, if he wanted to. Instead, he changed the subject. “Okay, then. Tell me the name.”
“Of the spear that killed the Grokonk? I left it behind. That was hers.”
“Your name for our jobber company. You said the Grokonk had smushed a new idea into your head.”
“The Protagonists,” Fix said.
“The Protagonists.” Indrajit let the word roll around in his mouth. He liked it, and said it again. “The Protagonists.”
“It means—”
“I know what it means,” Indrajit said. “The heroes of the story.”
“Right. But also, someone who acts on someone else’s behalf. Someone who fights for someone else’s cause. A proponent.”
“Also, it means the first actor. And here we are, actors upon the stage of life.”
“In the Palace of Shadow and Joy,” Fix said.
“It sounds much better than the Mercenaries.”
“It means much more.”
“Good. We were already in business together. Now we have a bond and a name.”
“We have a name,” Fix said, “and a promise from a risk-merchant to post a bond for us.”
Indrajit shrugged. “We make progress. But for now, we must survive.”
Fix looked as if he might comment, but he didn’t. “So, what do we do? We could get into the basement of one of these buildings and break through a wall, try to get down beneath the city and make our way to the Spill.”
“No thanks.” Indrajit shuddered. “I don’t like doing that when we have a guide. I like doing it much less without one. What about climbing the wall?”
“What, building a ladder? Or throwing a lasso? I don’t know how to use a lasso.”
“I’m game to try,” Indrajit said.
Fix laughed.
“We could try bribing guards at the gate,” Indrajit suggested.
“Unless they all work for Gannon. Or have taken his money to keep an eye out for us.”
“I think this would be much easier if we were wealthy and powerful,” Indrajit said.
“Someday, we may be wealthy and powerful.”
“But Orem Thrush is wealthy and powerful now. Perhaps he can help us.”
“He may want Ilsa dead.”
Indrajit considered that. “Yes,” he agreed. “He may. But we can cross that bridge when we come to it. In the meantime, he has money to bribe guards, or soldiers to escort us.”
“Or lassos, to use to climb the wall.”
One of the bang-harp players, a narrow-shouldered Kishi with a sunken chest and long arms, leaned back and whispered loudly over his shoulders. “Shut up.” Then he cocked an eye at Indrajit and Fix and frowned. “Say, who are you guys?”
“We,” Indrajit said, “are leaving.”
With one quick visual sweep of the square to be certain there were no gray tunics, he undid his mask, shrugged out of his toga, and stood. Fix followed his example, and they walked briskly up toward the Spike and, just beyond it, Orem Thrush’s city palace.
“Watch for gray tunics,” Indrajit said.
“And orange,” Fix added. “And don’t forget your friend Hossarian—his boys didn’t wear livery at all.”
“Fortunately, Yashta Hossarian himself is completely unmistakable. Short of by falling directly out of the sky, he will never be able to sneak up on anyone.”
They had only walked a block when Indrajit realized they were being followed. Swinging his head from side to side, he noticed the Thûlian trailing them a dozen paces back. With their faces obscured, all Thûlians looked awfully similar, but Indrajit led Fix down two sharp turns, and the Thûlian, though he—or she—fell back slightly, continued to follow them.
The Thûlian’s match smoldered, visible in the night that grew ever gloomier.
“The Thûlian’s behind us,” Indrajit murmured. “He must have been hiding in the crowd by the bawdy troupe, waiting for us to reveal ourselves or recross our trail.” He left out his suspicion that the powder-warrior might be a woman.
“I’d rather not face the musket,” Fix said. “But he can’t really shoot at us in this crowd. Let’s just pick up the pace. Carrying that long gun, he’ll never catch us.”
They broke into a jog.
Bang!
Indra
jit heard the explosion. Looking back, he saw the Thûlian standing with his musket pointed at the sky. In the greasy yellow light of a winery, the plume of smoke from the gun mingled with the smoke rising from the Thûlian’s head and gave him a demonic appearance.
“That’s a signal,” Fix said. “Run!”
“I do this way too much!” Indrajit grunted, but ran anyway.
His legs hurt. Fix must hurt as much, or maybe more, having been shot and stabbed and beaten, and they were both many hours short on sleep, and hungry.
But they were motivated, and they ran fast.
The Lord Chamberlain’s palace hove into view. They were approaching from the side nearest the tradesmen’s entrance, which was just as well, since it was the only entrance Indrajit knew. Taking a deep breath, he lengthened his stride, ducking past a horse pulling a two-wheeled cart stacked high with small casks—
Something struck him from the side and knocked him down.
The Sword Brother loomed over him, looking unnaturally tall in the darkness, with yellow lamplight running up and down his two long swords like twin lightning bolts poised to strike. He kicked Indrajit in the ribs, which hurt.
But as he was in the act of kicking, a smaller, more compact shadow bowled into him, hitting him between the belly and the knee. In a flash of fair skin, the Ildarian disappeared. Then Fix pulled Indrajit to his feet with hands under both shoulders.
“Knock!” the shorter man yelled, pushing Indrajit.
Indrajit sprinted to the door. Behind him he heard cursing, the clash of steel on steel, and another gunshot. He hammered on the door and the peephole slid open. In the dim light, he could see nothing of the face looking out at him.
“Here to see the Lord Chamberlain! Business about Ilsa without Peer!” Not waiting for an answer, Indrajit whipped back around and drew his leaf-bladed sword.
Vacho, the Voice of Lightning. A sword for a hero.
Fix gave ground step by step, fighting with his ax and his falchion against the Sword Brother’s longer weapons. His defense was conservative and brilliant, each step as short as could be, each arm motion as direct as possible. He made bold moves, hooking with the head of his ax, clubbing with the flat of it, darting within the Sword Brother’s guard to deliver a sharp elbow to the man’s sternum.
