Bladesman of Antares

Chapter Nine

“No, no, no, Hamun! Your body behind the line! The arm straight before you lunge!” Rees flicked his rebated point away from my chest where his stop thrust would, had the point been sharp, have skewered me. He laughed even as he looked crestfallen. “I swear by Havil the Green — and no man should have to do that, by Krun! — you grow worse every day instead of better!”

He stripped the mask from his massive lion-face and hurled it at one of his slaves. The light from the southerly-aspect windows lay cool and shadowless within the salles d’armes. I stripped my mask off in turn. Had I pretended too far? Had I been too clumsy for belief? It is a sobering task to have to fight, even in practice, with a man and allow his point to reach in past your guard and thunk against your chest. It gave me a shivery queasy feeling, I can tell you.

“We’ll make a Bladesman of you, yet, Hamun!” boomed Trylon Rees. “Ho there, you rascals. Wine!”

His slaves bounded up with wine and clean cloths and sponges dipped in aromatic oils to cleanse him. From his seat under the windows Nath Tolfeyr laughed. “You’ll never make a Bladesman of friend Hamun!” Nath Tolfeyr was an indolent-seeming youth, with long arms and legs, an apim, and very skilled with the rapier and main-gauche. He wore gaudy clothes, all frills and bows and lace, and a hard-brimmed hat with a square outline and round upon the head. . very Spanish. “Never, I swear by Le — by Krun! — never while there are two suns in the sky.”

I did not miss the hesitation as Nath Tolfeyr changed the god he would swear by, as I had not missed that betraying hesitation before, and I filed it away. Tolfeyr was one of many young men who had taken up with extraordinary excitement and energy the exercise of rapier play. The thraxter as the chief sword of Havilfar had developed from its own origins; now these sporting young men felt they needed a new pastime. Duels were common. Ruffling the streets, bravo-fighting, riots, all these things flourished in the sacred quarter of Ruathytu. I had been inducted into this magic circle as the friend of Trylon Rees, a great brawler, and everyone recognized me as his protege. In addition, when my flier had been brought in and I had been found rooms in the fashionable inn patronized by Rees, and I was able, unostentatiously, to show I had money and was wealthy enough to ride and shoot and play and ruffle with them, they accepted me. But as to my prowess with weapons, they laughed and jested and, probably but for the protection of Trylon Rees, would have sought to amuse themselves by cutting up my hide. I was properly contemptuous of the lot of them. For one thing, with their famous empire at war on three fronts, what were they doing at home?

Their lives consisted in the main of drinking, gambling, racing, wenching, and fighting. Some of these occupations may be pleasant, too many and too often and the pace destroys, the sport palls, the fun goes out of it all. These young men kept up their facade of great and luxurious amusement and smothered most effectively the boredom from which their kind suffer as an epidemic. The infection brushed me, but I had work to do and so was inoculated.

There were certain taverns they would frequent at certain times. There were various unpleasant forms of animal combat. There was the Jikhorkdun, the great Arena of Ruathytu; I went there with a professional interest, as you may well imagine. The shouts of “Kaidur! Kaidur!” as a kaidur performed well stirred the sluggish blood and brought phantasmal memories rushing in of the Arena in Huringa in Hyrklana. This Arena in Ruathytu in Hamal was much grander and larger — and messier. I saw the new queen there, this Queen Thyllis. Very smug and supercilious, she looked, and very beautiful, with more than a hint of cruelty in her lips; her tongue caught between sharp white teeth as the swords went in and the bright blood spurted. She had many slave girls in chains. She had male slaves, also, in chains. Everyone yelled when she appeared, standing up and giving the Hamalese salute, and again when she left, surrounded by her retinue. I did not see the sleek, shining forms of coal-black neemus, those gorgeous and lethal hunting cats that surrounded Queen Fahia of Hyrklana on similar occasions.

This Queen Thyllis was named for a goddess in an ancient myth. Thyllis the Munificent had been born to a god and a goddess and had been locked into a lenken chest, bound with iron, and nine bronze locks. She had been cast into the deepest depths of the Ocean of Clouds, but instead of drowning had been suckled by the green-and-turquoise deep-sea-god. She had grown into the most beautiful woman beneath the sea — and whatever race happened to be telling this story, then she was of their race, also (unlike many legends and myths which have identifiable central figures). And then, Under a Certain Moon, Thyllis the Munificent had broken the nine bronze locks and sundered the iron bands, and her dazzling beauty brought the whales to fawn upon her, and to give her assistance to the surface, where she waded ashore. She took the sword of the swordfish with her, for he, poor beast, perished of love, and she walked into the palace of her father and mother, the god and goddess, and she did to them what they had done to her. She did this with the help of the whales and the sword of the swordfish and a colony of local godlings, who lived on a nearby hill and who hated the god and goddess, her mother and father, because they would not let them play upon the hill near the palace.

Well, no one knows the names of the goddess Thyllis’ parents to this day, for they are banished. This Queen Thyllis was inordinately proud of the story and her name, foolish woman; and even at the distance in the Arena between our respective seats, I could see Trylon Rees was quite correct to warn anyone to give her a wide berth.

One night, after a day when everyone had been sated by a particularly horrific bloodletting in the Arena, and when the largest moon of Kregen, the Maiden with the Many Smiles, was already setting, and the fourth moon, She of the Veils, had not yet risen, with the Twins, the two second moons, not due to rise until later still, I prepared myself in my private room in the inn. . After the Jikhorkdun I had been beset by the very question that had kept me on tenterhooks, and for which I am sure you have been waiting.

In the long corridor beneath the private seating we strolled along, Rees and Nath and the others, gorgeously attired in our foppish clothes, our rapiers and daggers swinging from baldrics or belts in exaggerated display, the scent bottles to our noses. Oh, we must have made a pretty picture! A smiling ruffler stepped to my side, his rapier hung ridiculously low, and his boots of a fashion that amused me so that I had to look away or burst a vein.

“Amak, Hamun ham Farthytu?”

Remember, I told myself, remember you are a weakling and a bit of a fool, you onker!

“Why, yes, I have that honor. To whom do I have the honor of speaking without a Llahal between us?”

That made no impression on him at all. “The same Amak of Paline Valley who ran away from a challenge?”

“What’s that?” boomed Rees, immensely huge, towering, swinging back from talking to Strom Dolan, a fussy Bladesman with exaggerated ideas of his own importance. “A challenge? Running away?”

“But yes, Trylon,” smirked the fellow. “The story is true. It was all over town-”

Trylon Rees started to rumble, deep in his throat. I had to get in here, and quick!

“Why, as to that,” I said in my best foppish offhand manner, “I was taken ill just before a challenge with Strom Lart ham Thordan” — I chanced my arm — “a very peculiar fellow.” A few snickering laughs rose at that, so I had guessed right, and I pressed on: “I was out of town for some time and, really, I haven’t got around to seeing the tiresome fellow again. If he’s still around.”

The sneering one was clearly taken aback, particularly as Rees said in his best lion voice: “Well, if this Strom wants to make something of it, let him see me! I’ll fry his ears in a pan for him, if he’s a mind to!”

All our cronies laughed, and the sneering fellow took himself off, much discomfited. There were gangs, and clans, and clubs, and enclaves of friends in this sacred quarter of Ruathytu, and one would stand by one’s associates. I breathed again. .

So, then, just as I was making my preparations for the night’s work, a loud rapping on the door heralded the entrance of Trylon Rees. He bore a bottle of wine.

“And tell me about this cramph of a Strom, Hamun, you cunning rascal! Taken sick just before a duel!

Hey!”

We cracked the bottle and I told him a story and he laughed and promised he would stand as my second if Strom Lart persisted in the challenge, and he added: “And then, Hamun my boy, get sick again. Then I’ll deal with the rast!”

“That is most kind of you, my dear Rees.”

“Kind? Kind nothing! I’ll stick him and joy in the doing of it, by Krun!”

We proved the bottle honest — that is, we emptied it and so checked its measure — and then Rees rolled off, roaring a song about a lion-gal and her proclivities, and I could get on with my mission. The interruption had made me late. I had to reach the factory called the Blind Wall over on the far side of the Black River, down in a heavily guarded quarter, where, I had been informed in idle conversation, “. . the jolly old guls who can be trusted filled up the voller what’s-its, don’t you know, old son.”

The incredible idea had occurred to me that these rich idle layabouts had no more idea than I how a flier worked. If they needed service, they told their slaves to take the voller to the repair shops, where guls would do the work. Only guls who had proved completely trustworthy were employed on the work. The state kept voller production, as one of their infernal laws, very much under their thumb. The decision not to fly was an easy one to make. I had to keep to the shadows, slink from cover to cover, make sure I was not seen. With a thrill I believe you may try to imagine, I belted up soft hunting leathers about me, drew the gleaming gold buckle tight, brought the broad leather belt around my waist, and cinctured it home. I strapped on a fine rapier given me by Delia, and a main-gauche. Over my right hip I carried a trusty old sailor’s knife. Also, as a little swank, I suppose, I carried a sheaf of terchicks over my shoulder. The terchick, the throwing knife of my plainsmen, could well be even quicker and more deadly this night than a Lohvian longbow — although I wouldn’t let Seg hear me say that. I took no shield. The dark russet-brown of the hunting leathers brought back memories of hunting in Aphrasoe and I sighed. As always, I vowed that when the current excitement was over, I would go and seek out the Todalpheme of Hamal and find out directions to the Swinging City. As a final gesture to the fates, I glued a beard onto my smooth-shaven chin. This beard was made up -

so Delia had told me with much laughter — from hairs I had myself sprouted and she had cut off. She had saved them and worked them up into a neat daggerlike beard, and used cunning silk bases to hold them in position. When I looked at myself in a tall pier mirror, I looked much as I had appeared out on the trail.

Over all I swirled a great dark gray cloak and then I padded out. If mere costume could get me past the guards, I was in and among the silver boxes already.

My soft leather hunting boots made no sound. I walked steadily across the Bridge of One Thousand Vosks over the Black River. Here lay rows of dark houses, suburbs where the guls lived. This kind of dark desperate errand struck me as very different from previous occasions when I had been about nefarious business on Kregen. Far sooner would I be back in Valka with Delia and the twins. But what I did now I did from the duty I conceived I owed my people of Valka, and to Vallia, also. In addition it was terribly clear that the Hamalians were conquest-bent, desirous of creating a huge empire, perhaps one to rival the old and half-remembered Empire of Loh. That meant the Miglas would suffer. That meant Djanduin would be overrun. That meant I had to do my utmost to put together some kind of alliance against Hamal, and equip the fighting forces with vollers that would not constantly break down. The darkness between moons was not that of Notor Zan, for one of the lesser moons of Kregen hurtled across the night sky.

Keeping to the shadows and creeping stealthily along the dark streets I avoided detection, a sly furtive creature indeed. Few people were about, for the guls were working long hours and they needed their sleep. The gates of the Blind Wall were patrolled by watchful Rapa guards, mercenaries who would not hesitate to kill to fulfill the terms of their hiring contracts. The strict laws of Hamal ensured the Rapas would carry out their guard duties with the same faithfulness to orders as a soldier of Hamal. Slinking along in the shadows, which lay so thick the small fleeting dot of light of the lesser moon merely served to heighten the intervening darkness, I made my way around the circuit of the walls. The Black River washed the northern face of the building and here I found the only place I thought might afford me ingress. Water plants grew along the wall, their hair-fine roots clinging to narrow cracks in the masonry. Up these vines I went, testing each handhold, my legs kicking free. I can move silently when necessary, an art learned even before I spent those educational seasons with my clansmen, and the parapet felt hard under my hands as I looked down from the summit of the wall. Darkness, silence, mystery, lay below. It did not take me long to find steps down from the parapet and a path across to the likeliest-looking building. The wooden door was padlocked; but with a muffling fold of my cloak and a savage wrench with the knife, the padlock snapped. I eased inside.

Well, I will not weary you with a recital of my disappointment. And yet — what else was there, truly, to find? Here lay the piles of boxes, some filled, some waiting to be filled. Piles of minerals, earth, and sand lay neatly ranked, the scoops and shovels — and every one with a stamped number! — regimented in their racks. I sifted the earth through my fingers, barely able to see. I had brought a globe of fireglass containing fire, with a wood-and-metal carrying box with shutters. I chanced opening one of the shutters and the firelight within flashed upon the piles of earth, on the ranked rows of silver boxes. I felt anger, and crushed it down.

With two silver boxes in a voller, you could fly.

By bringing the boxes closer together or moving them farther apart, and by changing their attitude, you could control a flier, make it rise or fall, move faster or slower.

I knew what the silver boxes contained.

Earth and air.

Air and earth.

I looked around. Dirt and air! How could they be the secret I sought?

This shed contained silver boxes for the mineral half of the controls. The next shed contained silver boxes that were empty of all but air. The faint smell of tainted malsidges, a fruit of which I am fond, made me wrinkle up my nostrils. Well, I did not think they crushed up malsidges and somehow conveyed the smell into the boxes. But they might. Then I forced myself to realize this was in reality a reconnaissance mission. I was establishing parameters of action here in Ruathytu. Soon, by listening to my rich acquaintances during the day, and following up the clues by night, I would work nearer to a solution of the mystery.

Besides being a world of great beauty, Kregen is also a world of great and sudden violence, and there was no anticlimax to this night’s work. Or, rather, the true anticlimax of my failed mission was masked by a flurry of action as four Rapa guards, carrying flaring torches, burst into the shed as I bent over an opened silver box.

The sight of them in the torchlight with their ferocious beaked faces, the war-feathers flaunting from their helmets, and the swords and shields, snapped some link in my brain. I flung myself upon them, ripping the rapier free, my left hand still cumbered by the small cube of the fireglass box. They shrieked in their high obscene Rapa way as our blades crossed glittering in the torchlight. My cloak flared out, swirling, as I spun away, slicing a Rapa beak down, avoiding the vicious thraxter slash, stuffing the box back into my breechclout.

“Apim rast! Die!” They were shrilling at me, incensed by the death of the first of them, absolutely confident they would overpower me. They were making an infernal racket, and as the blades crossed and rang and screeched, the noise grew and I knew guards would come running to reinforce these three. I dropped the next, my main-gauche slapped into my hand, and deflected the next one’s thrust. My blade gonged against a shield and I had to skip and duck away. A sword-and-shield-man against a rapier-and-main-gauche-man provide endless room for argument; but it always all boils down in the end to who is the better practitioner with the weapons he uses.

Luckily for me I was able to prove superior. The torchlight splintered from the blades as they chopped and crossed. The two remaining Rapas’ blades were shining and silver; my blade gleamed starkly dark with blood.

“Yetch!” one Rapa shrieked at me, foam flecking from that beaked face. “When we take you it will be the Heavenly Mines for you!”

“Aye!” panted the other, as he thrust up his shield and so managed to deflect my blade. “The Heavenly Mines, cramph, where you will slave until you die!”

These guards would know the Heavenly Mines by hearsay only, by their fearful reputation. There was no information to be gleaned from them. I had slaved in the Heavenly Mines already, and nothing would drag me back there, so I thought, as I twisted a slash and feinted left, then dropped and was able to thrust the rapier through the guts of number three.

Number four shrieked again, in fear this time, and turned to rush from the shed to the safety of his friends. I could hear them coming running, now, shouting the alarm.

He had seen my face. It was bearded, true, and many Rapas cannot tell one apim from another; although with experience I was growing more and more capable of differentiating between Rapa faces. He was a guard and would also be experienced. He would be questioned.

As the fool turned to cast back a frightened glance, the terchick stood out quiveringly from his eye. He collapsed against the door as those outside sought to thrust it open, and the slight delay gave me time to leap for the far end, bash a plank out, force more away from the beams, and so dart out into the darkness. Still the Twins were not up, but over the eastern horizon, She of the Veils rose, ominously lifting pale level streaks of gold and pink.

Time was running out.

The way back to the inn — an inn I had already made up my mind to leave for a more convenient billet

— lay across either one of two bridges across the Black River to the sacred quarter. I chose to return over the built-up and arcaded bridge the Ruathytuans called the Bridge of Sicce, for its massive pillars and piers supported a pressing multitude of houses and shops, with promenades running as many as three or four stories above the main street level. From this high perch many and many a poor devil cast himself or herself into the dark waters in suicide to be swept away to the Ice Floes of Sicce. These galleries and arcades and narrow roofs gave me a fine time as I fled back. My cloak flared in the wind of my passage. She of the Veils rose clear of the jumbled horizon and shone benignly down as I scampered across the rooftops and jumped down from the ledges, level to level, passing across the river and so plunging back into the sacred quarter. Here I could leap from balcony to balcony, hang from ledges, crawl along a razor-backed gable, cling to a chimney, and hurl myself across the gulf of an alley far below. I do not think any eyes spied me as I cavorted across the tiles of sleeping Ruathytu. What kind of devilish figure, half beast, half gargoyle, I created, hurdling the rooftops, I did not know. I slid down the roof of my inn, plunged to the balcony of my room, and crept stealthily in by the window. I employed a couple of harmless Hamalian servants, and they were not disturbed in the next room. As I turned for a last look at this alien sky I saw She of the Veils floating clear. And against that luminous golden-pink orb floated a long bank of jagged black cloud like a reflection of the city below.