Mercadian Masques

Chapter 12

Gerrard, Tahngarth, and Karn might not have been crushed by rubbish, but neither had they been coddled by it. The three were spattered and smudged and foul-smelling when they were yanked up from their filthy knees. Soldiers further shackled them, loaded them on their bellies on a wagon, chained them yet again, and hauled them back to the city. No baths-but neither were they executed.

Simple termination was not enough for these three. They had publicly humiliated the chief magistrate and his minions. Their deaths would publicly repair the damage they had done.

So, it was chains and more chains, dungeons, and dank bread, nothing to drink but the septic swill that trickled through the prison catacombs. No baths, and no escape- not by brute force or cunning contrivance, not by ruse or bribe. These rock-hewn cells were too hard, cold, and deep, their bars impassable, their guards implacable.

Then, suddenly, a few weeks into their imprisonment, there were baths. Gerrard, Tahngarth, and Karn were marched out of the hole. Washed, powdered, dressed-but still shackled-they were led by a full regiment of soldiers. Their escorts conducted them toward the Magistrate's Tower in the center of the city. Gerrard scanned the crowd for signs of Atalla, Takara, or Hanna-but no outside aid appeared. He twice tried to improvise an escape but only got yanked back in line and flogged.

The soldiers conveyed their prisoners into a small upper chamber, near the Magistrate's Tower. It was called an "ambassadorial apartment" and looked pleasant enough, though in truth it was as inescapable as the prison had been. Fifteen-foot-thick stone walls, a ceiling of plastered metal plates, triple-barred windows above a fifty-foot drop, three separate iron-banded doors, guard towers watching the four comers of the structure-whatever ambassadors resided here were in truth political hostages.

That's what Gerrard, Tahngarth, and Karn had become- political hostages. Someone had made a deal, and they were the security on the deal. Still, this was a cleaner, warmer, more comfortable prison than below-furniture and books, clothes and beds and "Wine anyone?" asked a familiar voice.

As the soldiers filed out the triple doors, Takara made her way in, carrying a wooden crate. Her red hair seemed flame in the dark entryway, and her lips were equally red around a smile.

Gerrard gaped at her, astonished. "What are you doing here-why have they let you-what is all this-?"

"What is all this?" Takara echoed. She lugged the crate to a low table, set it down, and pulled on the top. Nails complained but were no match for her strength. The lid came away, revealing two dozen corked green bottles carefully packed in straw. "All this is wine."

Shaking his head in confusion, Gerrard approached. "No, I mean all of this? Why are they letting you in here-?"

"I made a deal, Gerrard," Takara replied, hefting a bottle and staring with admiration at it. "In Mercadia, deals are more powerful than armies. The deal I made brought you up out of the pit, sent Hanna, Orim, and Sisay off to get another piece of your Legacy-will even allow us to fix the ship and get out of here. You're still prisoners, of course, but part of the deal is visitation rights-and wine." Producing a corkscrew from her pocket, Takara yanked the cork from the first bottle. "Have some?"

Gerrard shrugged, taking the bottle in hand. "No wineglasses?"

"Don't get uppity," Takara replied, already working over a second bottle. "How about you, Tahngarth? I can't remember if minotaurs like this stuff-"

"Not in such piddling quantities," Tahngarth said, striding across the room to grasp the opened bottle. He smiled ruefully and took a long draw. "Gerrard will owe me a bottle from his case, when it arrives," he said dryly.

Takara laughed. "Then I'll owe you one, also." She lifted her own bottle. Only after a deep draught did she seem to notice Karn, standing like another piece of furniture near the window. "I don't imagine silver golems-"

"You are right," interrupted Karn, his voice a quiet rumble like distant thunder. "I require a different sort of… lubrication."

That brought laughter from everyone except the golem.

Gerrard smiled sadly and slouched into a low chair, his wine bottle hanging from his hand. He shook his head. "How did we ever end up here?"

Takara took a seat opposite him and drew a deep breath. "A dangerous question. I asked it often when I was a prisoner on Rath. The answer always came down to betrayal. I had been betrayed."

After a long swallow, Gerrard said, "Betrayal. Yes, that's awful stuff. Someone betrayed you into Volrath's hands, and then your father betrayed Sisay to get you back. It's the filthiest business-betrayal."

"It was my brother," Takara said, her eyes focused beyond the room. Embers smoldered in her gaze. "He betrayed me."

"Your brother? I didn't realize you had a brother."

"Ha! Of course you didn't," she said acidly. "I never talk of him. He wasn't really even my brother, only a usurping orphan. He was always jealous of me. He was always trying to steal what was mine. He betrayed me, cut me off from my father, destroyed my whole life, and sold me into slavery."

Shaking his head in compassionate outrage, Gerrard said, "That's horrible. You talk about your hatred, how it makes you strong. Now I see just how much reason you have to hate."

She stared directly at him, and her eyes were piercing, almost predatory. "So, how did you end up here? Betrayal?"

A speculative smile crossed Gerrard's face. "Well, there was that bastard Xcric-" he gently shook away the thought- "but, no. I'm through with blaming everyone else for my problems. I'm here because of my own failings, not someone else's."

Takara's look only intensified. "What failings?"

Gerrard laughed heavily, waving the question away. "You haven't time to hear all my failings." He took a long drink.

"Well, then tell me about the big one," Takara replied. "Tell me the first big mistake you made, the one that set up all the others."

"I don't know if there was just one."

"Oh, yes, there was. Every chain of misery has its first link, the one that binds you to all the others. What was it for you, Gerrard?"

He leaned back in his chair, took a deep breath and an even deeper draw, and said, "Of all the regrets I have, the deepest, the earliest, would be my father's death."

"Your father's death?" Takara said, seeming somewhat surprised and strangely angered. "What happened?"

"My brother-" Gerrard hissed- "gods, another wicked brother. He killed my father. He raised an army and marched on my father's village and killed my father and mother-the whole tribe."

Takara leaned forward, as if eager to hear the next bit. "Why?"

It was Gerrard's turn to stare into distant spaces. "He wanted to kill me. He killed the rest because he wanted to kill me… He tried to kill me. He hated me…"

Again, the single-word question. "Why?"

A bleary look was entering Gerrard's eyes, a sad muzziness that only thickened with his next drink. "Well, you see, I saved his life."

"You saved his life?"

"It was during his coming-of-age ceremony-a deadly climb up a nearby precipice. He was stuck, exhausted. He could go no farther. He was going to die. The tribe would have just let him die, but I wouldn't. I climbed up and carried him down. I saved his life."

"And for this, he hated you?"

"Well, yes, because in saving his life, I disrupted his coming-of-age ceremony. He could never be considered a full man from then on. He could never inherit the sidar's rule."

Takara's brow lowered. "Because of what you did, your brother could not inherit your father's kingdom? He could not ever rule?"

"Yes," Gerrard admitted heavily.

Sitting back in her chair, Takara took a drink, though her gaze remained on Gerrard. "I can understand his anger.

You stole his future. Whether you meant to or not, you took his inheritance."

"Yes, but after that, he came to take it back-no, not even to take it back, to destroy it so no one could have it. He murdered our father and burned the village. He took my Legacywhich was never his-and scattered it to the four winds. He joined the Phyrexians. He became Volrath-"

"Your brother… became Volrath?"

"Yes."

"And all because of you. Do you see what I mean?" Takara asked. "What you did to your brother led inexorably to your father's death and the village's destruction, to the scattering of your Legacy-even to my imprisonment in Rath, and Sisay's imprisonment in Rath, and the deaths of all those people who journeyed with you to Rath to save her. Do you see? The first link in a chain of misery. And it is a deep link, Gerrard. A deep, unbreakable link. Betrayal."

"That's enough," Karn rumbled from the window where he stood. "You weren't there, Takara. I was. You don't know what Vuel was like."

"No, Karn," Gerrard said, blinking in dread. "She's right. That's when it all began. All the misery started with that first betrayal."

With slow relish, Takara downed the dregs of her wine. She brought the bottle away from her lips. Wine hung bloodlike across them. A smile spread beneath the red liquid. "I told you, Gerrard, it was a dangerous question. Still, when you're locked away in a small room and there's wine aplenty, what other diversions are there than dangerous questions?"

Karn and Tahngarth stared intently at the woman.

Takara stood and languidly stretched. "I had better be going. I seem to have overstayed my welcome. I'll leave the wine, though. And there will be more. I see you've finished yours, Gerrard. Would you like another?"

He rested the empty wine bottle on the floor and tipped it over in resignation. "It's a bitter drink, but it's better than nothing." He reached his hand out. "Yes. Give me another."

By that evening, Gerrard and Tahngarth had each drained three bottles. As close as the space had seemed during daylight, when the windows were black and the only light came from a single candle beside the wine crate, it felt downright claustrophobic. The sheer bulk of man, minotaur, and golem put them forever in each other's way, and wine headaches put tempers on edge.

It was probably not the right time for Karn to express his doubts about Takara.

"Takara is wrong, Gerrard," Karn blurted. He plodded across the room and, knowing no chair would support his weight, knelt ponderously beside a slouching Gerrard. "You weren't the one who corrupted Vuel."

"What do you know about it?" Gerrard snapped.

"I know that after Vuel failed his test, a young, vicious, conniving man came to live in the village. I remember seeing him with Vuel. They spoke often," Karn rumbled quietly. "Do you remember?"

"Only vaguely," Gerrard replied, rubbing his temples, "but I'm not about to blame my troubles with Volrath on some sinister stranger."

"I had forgotten about that 'sinister stranger'-it had been so long-though now I recollect his face clearly. A young face, but familiar all the same."

"What are you talking about?"

"Starke," Karn said. "It was he who led your brother astray."

Shaking his head in disbelief, Gerrard said, "No, it can't have been. That's too much of a coincidence."

"There are other coincidences. Takara spoke of losing everything because of an orphan brother adopted into her family. You were adopted into Vuel's family, and he lost everything."

"What are you saying? That Starke masterminded every disaster in my life because Takara and her adopted brother didn't get along?"

"I don't know how this all fits together," Karn replied, "but I'm certain it does. And I no longer trust Takara. Why does she question you? Why does she dredge up such guilt and regret?"

Gerrard was suddenly angry. "Listen-Takara is the only reason we aren't dead now. She's our only advocate in the city. I think it unwise to alienate her." He scrubbed his head with sweaty fingers. "If you've got to talk, Karn, talk about something useful."

Karn leaned back on his heels, a sound like scrap metal settling. "Well, I suppose it is safe enough, now…" From within his chest, from the cavity in which he stored the precious elements of the Legacy, he drew forth a wrinkled document. "I found this in the city archives," he remarked. "I feared to show it to you in the dungeon, or with Takara present."

"What were you doing in the archives?"

"Studying. I wished to learn more about the history of Mercadia." The golem shook his great head. "They are not meticulous record keepers. There are a number of documents that date from a very early period of the city's existence. At least, so I was told by the chief archivist. He had little real knowledge of the treasures in his vaults, and when I bore this paper away, I daresay he did not notice."

"All right. It's a piece of paper," Tahngarth said laconically. He had no especial interest in documents, but with no other entertainment, he moved the wine crate from its low table and settled in the seat opposite Gerrard. "Lay it out. What have you found?"

The golem spread the parchment on the table, smoothing it with his great hands. Gerrard and Tahngarth bent over it, puzzling over the symbols that seemed at once both cryptic and tantalizingly familiar.

Gerrard exclaimed, "Hallo!"

"What?" Tahngarth's eyes flicked back and forth over the unknown script.

"Look at Karn's chest."

On the golem's massive chest, a trio of symbols was inscribed by some unknown hand. Tahngarth had seen them hundreds of times but had never asked Karn about them.

"I do not know their meaning," said the golem as if in answer to the unspoken question. "But I know they are in the ancient language of the Thran."

"Thran?" Tahngarth snorted. "You mean you were made by the Thran?"

Again the massive head bowed. "I do not know. I know nothing of my origins. But I do know that in some fashion I am connected to the Thran and their mastery of artifice."

Gerrard looked at Tahngarth. "I don't know why it took me so long to see it. When 1 was a boy, I asked Karn what those symbols meant and got the same answer. But I've always imagined he was made by some Thran long ago." He turned back to the parchment. "So this document is written in the language of ancient Thran?"

"Not precisely, but there is an undoubted resemblance." His massive hand indicated the document. "It would seem that in some way the Thran are connected to the origins of Mercadia."

The Thran. Gerrard was swept away on a wave of thought. He remembered Multani, years before in his cave, lecturing him, Mirri, and Rofellos on the mysterious race who had lived on Dominaria millennia before. Thran artifacts were scattered across the land, hidden beneath the sands. Even the legendary Brothers' War had had something to do with the Thran, something to do with "Wait," Tahngarth growled, "are you saying these Mercadians are Thran?"

Karn said nothing, but looked to Gerrard, who rose and paced the room.

"No," he said at last. "Legend says the Thran became Phyrexians, the machine race that tried to invade Dominaria in the age of the Brothers' War. They were stopped by Urza the artificer."

Tahngarth's brow quirked in puzzlement. "But when we were shackled together, Orim told me the Cho-Arrim had a play about the Brothers' War."

Gerrard stopped pacing. "Then they would have to be…" "Perhaps not all Thran became Phyrexians," Karn supposed. "Some might have come here. If they kept contact with the Phyrexians, they could have learned of the Brothers' War. Their earliest records, then, would have been kept in early Thran. That would explain this document."

"It would," Gerrard replied. "But did you hear what you just said?"

"Which part?"

"You just said the Mercadians must have kept in contact with the Phyrexians. If that's the case, Volrath may know we're here. Perhaps he has been watching us all along."

For nearly a week, Tahngarth had been drinking. The Mercadians, whatever their other vices, were well skilled in the art of producing alcohol. The minotaur had indulged himself considerably this evening.

The candle flared in its stick, and the room was stifling, smelling of its three inhabitants. Air from the windows was no relief. It smelled of hundreds of thousands of human bodies packed together into houses and courtyards, all sweating in the unbearable heat. A stillness had descended on Mercadia, and with it, heat that grew ever more oppressive. The very walls were sweating. Though the Mercadians seemed unaffected by the heat-trading in the marketplace below was as brisk and energetic as ever-the prisoners found themselves increasingly snappish.

The situation was not helped by the conduct of Squee. He visited only occasionally, always garbed in the robes of his kind. After "saving everybody's butt but not getting nothing for it," Squee had begun to spend more and more time with Kyren. That he was far less intelligent than they was patently obvious to everyone but Squee. The Kyren treated him as a dim but beloved cousin. He told stories of the practical jokes played on him, the incessant teasing, but indicated they also defended him against any perceived slight from non-goblins. All of this, he related in singsong questions, like his peers. Squee's ego flourished under these circumstances, and the minotaur had had to restrain himself on several occasions from taking the ship's cabin boy across his knee and giving him a sound thrashing.

And speaking of sound thrashings-what of Gerrard! Tahngarth frowned and took another deep draught of sweet wine. The young man who had stepped into the center of all their lives had been something of an enigma to the minotaur. Now, after regular visits from Takara, Tahngarth knew too much about Gerrard. Despite his outward calm, a great anger dwelt in Gerrard. Takara only enflamed it. He was angry about betraying his brother. He was angry about the deaths of Rofellos and Mirri. He was angry about everything, and every time Takara showed up, he grew angrier. At least she brought wine-and now, cups for drinking it.

Tahngarth poured a deep, dark-red stream into his cup and belched. The minotaur was rarely drunk, but on the few occasions on which he had let himself go, the results had usually been spectacular. His capacity for alcohol was amazing.

"Good wine!" The minotaur thumped his cup on the table for emphasis. Wine splashed from the cup and pooled on the heavy wood.

"Have you not had enough?" Karn asked, standing by the window.

Tahngarth growled in the back of his throat and drained his cup.

The silver golem stood impassively watching him. "Gerrard has slept all day today." "So?"

"I think we should wake him."

"What's the point?" The minotaur scraped his cup along the table, drawing a long, raw gash in the wood. He rose and walked, albeit unsteadily, to the window and gazed out over the lights of the city. Even at night, it seemed to him he saw the waves of heat rising from the rooftops.

Behind him the golem's calm voice said, "We should be sure Gerrard is all right."

"Fine. Wake him. He'll just have another drink." Karn strode to where Gerrard lay, sloppily tangled in a blanket. Stooping, the silver golem nudged his shoulder. "Aw, c'mon, Hanna. Lemme sleep." Tahngarth stomped up loudly, grasped Gerrard by both shoulders, and hauled him to his feet.

"All ri', all ri'." Gerrard stood unsteadily in the light of the room, his dark hair tousled and his clothing askew. He opened bleary eyes, and anger kindled there. "All right, Tahngarth! Challenge me, will you? All right!" Balling fists, he knocked away the minotaur's hands.

"Ah, at last, some entertainment!" Tahngarth said with relish.

Karn stepped back, leaving minotaur and man circling each other. "Fine entertainment for a pacifist," he rumbled.

Gerrard struck first, one hand darting out at Tahngarth's neck. The minotaur blocked the jab easily and countered with a swing to the head. Gerrard ducked under, came up, and brought both hands clenched together against Tahngarth's muzzle. It was a powerful blow, and the minotaur staggered. Gerrard snorted in satisfaction.

"Mutiny, is it?" Gerrard taunted. "You've wanted the ship ever since Sisay was kidnapped. Now she's gone, so you thought you'd have another try, eh?"

Tahngarth swung again. He connected with the Benalian's shoulder, sending him backward over the table and crashing to the ground. "You fool!" roared the minotaur. "You were never worthy to even lick Sisay's boots. You've done nothing for her ship and nothing for her!" He leaped at Gerrard.

The master-at-arms was too quick, rolling to one side and jumping to his feet. Tahngarth crashed past him. Gerrard spun, kicking him in the ribs. It was a blow that would have disabled a man, but a minotaur could shrug it off, and Tahngarth minded it little. He scrambled up, and he and Gerrard, each drawing a breath, rushed together.

Tahngarth was massive, but Gerrard was quicker and lighter on his feet. The Benalian had trained in hand-to-hand combat and had learned tricks that evened the odds.

Tahngarth grabbed him. Gerrard, with an agile twist, slipped through his huge arms and spun around behind him. One foot lashed out at the back of the minotaur's left knee. Tahngarth staggered forward with a cry and stumbled to the ground. Gerrard leaped on his back, clasping his arms around his opponent's throat.

"Admit it, you respect me," Gerrard growled.

Tahngarth merely flung Gerrard over his shoulders and onto the floor. "Admit it, you fear me."

Gasping, Gerrard rolled to his feet. "Who wouldn't fear

… a walking pile of bullsh-?" The taunt was ended by a crushing blow to the stomach.

The minotaur smiled through bloodied lips. "Who wouldn't respect a man almost worthy of the Legacy?" He got a foot in the teeth for that one.

The combatants reeled back a moment, gathered their strength, and lunged. Two fists carved the air. Two jaws cracked. Two sets of eyes spun. The fighters fell in opposite directions to the floor.

Brushing off his hands, Karn walked slowly between them and to the window. He peered out past the bars. "It's going to be a quiet night."