People of the Talisman

V

He shook his head, groaning with the stiffness of his body as he moved to rise. “Soldiers?” There was a clamor in the street outside, and a rhythmic clinking of metal that meant armed men marching. Full consciousness came back with a rush. His gaze swept the room, marking the window, the door, an archway into an inner chamber, his muscles flexing. Balin took him by the shoulder.

“No. You can’t escape. And anyway, there’s no need. I think Old Sowbelly made his report, and now you’ll be taken to the King City to answer more questions.” He faced Stark, speaking sharply. “Now listen. Don’t mention Otar or what Ciaran said about the city. They won’t like it, and they might well take your head off to keep you from repeating the story to others. You understand? Tell them exactly what you told the captain, nothing more.”

Stark nodded. “I understand.” Air from the window curled icily around his body and he realized for the first time that he was naked. He had been shaved and washed, his wounds rubbed with salve. Thanis handed him his boots and trousers, carefully cleaned, and a garment he did not recognize, a tunic of golden fur tanned soft as silk.

“Balin stole it from the baths where the nobles go. He said you might as well have the best.”

“And a devil of a time I had finding one big enough to fit you.” Balin looked out the window. “They’re coming up now. No need to hurry. Let them wait.”

Stark pulled the clothes on and looked in quiet panic for Camar’s belt. There came a pounding on the door and the remembered voice of Lugh demanding entrance. Balin lifted the bar and the room filled with soldiers.

“Good morning,” Balin said, bowing with a flourish and wincing visibly at the light dancing on Lugh’s breastplate. Lugh ignored the mockery. He was very soldierly and important this morning, a man with a duty to perform. “The Commander of the City will question you, stranger,” he said to Stark, and gave a peremptory nod toward the doorway.

Thanis lifted Stark’s cloak from a peg on the wall, revealing the belt under it. She brought them both to Stark. “You mustn’t keep the Lord Rogain waiting,” she said demurely, and smiled. She was wearing a red kirtle and a necklet of beaten metal intricately pierced, and her dark hair was combed out smooth and shining. Stark smiled back and thanked her, and buckled on the belt. Then he threw the cloak over his shoulders and went out with Lugh.

There were people in the street below watching as Stark went down the crazy stairway with the soldiers in single file before and behind him and Lugh walking ahead of all like a young cock-pheasant. This time the people only watched and did not say much to the soldiers. The detachment formed up in the street, eight soldiers and an officer to escort one man. Stark thought that they would have been better used to patrol the Wall, but he did not say so. The crowd left them plenty of room. Stark could see the intent faces peering at him and hear the muttered undertone of talk, and he knew that the word he had brought of Ciaran’s coming was all over the Quarter now, and probably over half the city.

Lugh did not speak to him again. They marched through the narrow twisting streets of the Quarter, and then left it for the somewhat broader but even more crowded avenues where the shops of the weavers and the armorers, the silversmiths and the potters, the blacksmiths and the stone-masons, all the multifarious crafts and trades necessary for civilized living, lined the ways that led to the King City. People passing by stopped to look curiously at Stark, and he looked at them, thinking of the riders of Mekh and wondering what their prosperous shops and neat houses would look like after another sun or two had passed.

Kushat was built in the immemorial pattern of Martian cities, a sort of irregular, sprawling wheel enclosed by a wall at its outer rim and with the King City at the hub, a walled enclave of its own containing the great towered hall of the king and the houses of the nobles. The dark turrets, some of them ruined and partly fallen, all of them stained and blackened with time, stood up grim and dreary in the cold sunlight, the faded banners whipping in the wind that blew down from the pass. Beyond them, blotting out the northern sky, were the black and ice-seamed cliffs for a backdrop.

Stark shivered, with more than the cold. He hated cities anyway. They were traps, robbing a man of his freedom, penning him in with walls and the authority of other men. They were full of a sort of people that he did not like, the mob-minded ones, the sheep-like ones and the small predators that used them. Yet he had been in cities that were at least exciting, the Low-Canal towns of Valkis and Jekkara far to the south, as old as Kushat but still throbbing with a wicked vitality. Perhaps it was the northern cold that cast such a pall over these streets.

Or was it something more? Stark looked up at the cliffs and the notch of the pass. Was it living so close under the Gates of Death, and fearing whatever it was that lay beyond them?

They passed into the King City through a narrow gate, challenged by the strong guard mounted there. Here the buildings of carved stone stood wide apart, with paved squares between them. Some were no more than skeletons, with blank archways and fallen roofs, but others showed rich curtains in their slitted windows and signs of activity in their courtyards. Lugh marched smartly, his back straight and his chin in the air, making precise military turns at the corners, going toward the towers of the king’s hall.

They came out abruptly into the wide square in front of it. And Stark slowed his pace, staring.

The men behind him swore, stepping wide to avoid running into him. Lugh turned to see what the trouble was, prepared to be irritable. Then he saw what Stark was looking at, and decided instead to be condescending to the barbarian.

“That,” he said, “is the shrine of the talisman, and the statue of Ban Cruach, who built Kushat.”

The statue was the height of three tall men above its pedestal, massively and simply carved, and the weathering of centuries had smoothed away much of the finer detail. Yet it was a powerful portrait, and somehow Stark felt that just so had Ban Cruach looked in his ancient armor, standing with the hilt of his great sword between his hands and his helmeted head uplifted, his eyes fixed upon the Gates of Death. His face was made for battles and for ruling, the bony ridges harsh and strong, the mouth proud and stern but not cruel. A fearless man, one would have said. But Stark thought that he saw in that stone face the shadow of something akin to fear—awe, perhaps, or doubt, or something more nameless, as though he stared at the portal of some dark and secret world where only he had ventured.

“Ban Cruach,” Stark said softly, as though he had not heard the name before. “And a shrine. You spoke of a talisman?”

Lugh motioned to the soldiers to march nearer to the statue. The pedestal on which it stood was not a solid block of masonry, but a squat building having a small barred window in each side and no door that Stark could see. Entrance to the chamber must be though some hidden passageway below.

“The talisman,” Lugh said, “was the gift of Ban Cruach to the city. As long as it is here, Kushat will never fall to an enemy.”

“Why?” asked Stark.

“Because of the power of the talisman.”

“And what is that?” asked Stark, the rude barbarian, simple and wondering.

Lugh answered with unquestioning certainty, “It will unlock the power that lies beyond the Gates of Death.”

“Oh,” said Stark. He leaned close to the little barred window. “That must be a great power indeed.”

“Great enough,” said Lugh, “that no enemy has ever dared to attack us, and no enemy ever will as long as the talisman is there.” His voice was defiant, a little too emphatic. Stark wondered. Did Lugh really believe that this was the talisman, or was he only trying to believe it, trying very hard?

“I thought that yesterday in the market place I heard someone say…”

“A wild rumor started by the rabble in the Thieves’ Quarter. You can see for yourself. It is there.”

Certainly something was there, set on a block of polished stone. An oval piece of crystal, very like the talisman in shape and size, so much like that they could not be told apart except that this was a bit of crystal and nothing more, inert, hollow, reflecting the light with shallow brightness. Remembering the eerie glow, the living flickering shifting radiance of the talisman, Stark smiled inwardly. And paused to wonder how under heaven Camar had managed to steal the thing.

“I see,” said Stark aloud. “It is. And those are coming who will test its strength—and yours.” He glanced at Lugh. “How is it used to unlock this power you speak of?”

“When the time comes to use it,” Lugh said curtly, “it will be used. Come, the Lord Rogain is waiting.”

In other words, Stark thought, you don’t know how it is used any more than I do.

As he moved to fall in again with the soldiers, Lugh added with positive viciousness, “And I do not believe your barbarian army any more than the captain does.”

He strode off, the soldiers matching step behind him. They marched across the square and into the courtyard of a massive building on its eastern side, where the stone figures of men in ancient mail stood sentry, some without their heads, or arms, some shattered into fragments by the cracking frosts of a thousand winters. Here the soldiers were left behind, and Lugh escorted him through high draughty corridors hung with dim tapestries and through a series of guard rooms where men-at-arms halted them and made Lugh give his name, rank, company, and errand. At length a guard swung open a massive bronze-plated door and Stark found himself in a surprisingly small room, heavily curtained against the cold, smelling of smoke from a couple of braziers, and filled with an assortment of irritated men.

Stark recognized the captain of the guard. The others, old, young, and intermediate, wore various harness indicating rank, and all of them looked as though they hated Eric John Stark, whether for presenting them with unpleasant problems or for routing them out of their warm beds at such an early hour he did not know. Probably both.

Behind a broad table that served as a desk sat a man who wore the jeweled cuirass of a noble. He had a nice, kind face. Gray hair, mild scholarly eyes, soft cheeks. A fine man, Stark thought, but ludicrous in the trappings of a soldier.

Lugh saluted. “Here is the man, sir,” he said. Rogain nodded and thanked him, and dismissed him with a flick of the hand. Stark stood still, waiting, and Rogain studied him, taking his time, his gaze probing and thoughtful.

“How are you called?” he asked.

Stark told him.

“You are not of the Norlands.”

“No. Nor of Mars. My parents came from the third planet. I was born on the world nearest the sun.” He paused, meeting Rogain’s eye without either arrogance or deference. “I say this because I wish you to understand that I am a wanderer by birth and by nature.”

Rogain nodded, with just the hint of a smile. “In other words, I need not enquire what business you had on the northern moors in winter. Or any other time, for that matter.”

The captain of the guard muttered something audible about the business of rogues and outlaws. Stark said to Rogain, “Ask what you will. I was in the south, where I had come to fight with the Drylanders in a war against the Border States. But things went wrong, and that war was never fought. There was nothing for me to do there, and I had never seen this part of Mars. So I came north.”

“You are a mercenary, then?” asked Rogain, and one of the others, a heavy-jawed man with insolent, stupid eyes, made a gesture of relief.

“There is your answer, Rogain. He brings a great tale of war in the hope of selling his services.”

“What do you say to that, Stark?” asked Rogain mildly.

Stark shrugged. “I say that the proof of my story is easily gained. Only wait a day or two.” He looked from one to the other of the assembled faces, finding them hopelessly wanting. They were civilized men, all of them, good, bad, and indifferent—so civilized that the origins of their culture had been forgotten half an age before the first clay brick was laid in Sumer. Too civilized, Stark thought, and far too long accustomed to the peace Ban Cruach had bequeathed them, a peace that had drawn their fangs and cut their claws, leaving even the best of them unfit for what was coming.

“You will defend Kushat or not, as you choose,” he said. “But in either case, my services are not for sale.”

“Oh?” said Rogain. “Why?”

Very softly Stark said, “I have a personal quarrel with Ciaran of Mekh.”

The man who had spoken before gave a derisive laugh. Rogain turned to look at him with pointed interest. “Can you no longer recognize a man when he stands before you?” he asked, and shook his head. The man’s wattles turned a dull red, and the others looked startled. Rogain turned again to Stark.

“Sit down,” he said, pointing to a chair beside the desk. “Now. I would like to hear the story from your own lips.”

Stark told it, exactly as he had told the captain. When he was finished Rogain asked him questions. Where was the camp? How many men? What were the exact words of the Lord Ciaran, and who was he? Why had he ordered Stark to be scourged? Stark found answers for them all that were truthful and yet made no mention of Otar and the talisman. Rogain sat then for some time, lost in thought, while the others waited impatiently, not quite daring to offer their opinions. Stark watched Rogain’s hand moving abstractedly among the seals and scrolls upon his desk—a scholar’s hands, without a callus on them. Finally he sighed and said, “I will arm the city. And if the attack comes, Kushat will owe you a debt for the warning, Stark.” An astonishingly unpleasant look came into his eyes. “If it does not come—we will talk further about the matter then.”

Stark smiled, rather cruelly. “You still hope that I am lying.”

“This part of the world has laws of its own, which you neither know nor understand, and therefore it is possible for you to be mistaken. Firstly…”

“No one makes war in the winter,” Stark said. “That is exactly why Ciaran is doing it.”

“Quite possibly,” said Rogain. “But there is another thing. We have a power here that guards our city. It has sufficed in all the time past.” His voice was very quiet, deceptively unemotional. “Why now should the barbarians suddenly lose their fear of the talisman?”

There was now a stillness in the room, a sense of held breath and stretching ears, of eyes that glanced swiftly at Stark’s face and then away again, afraid to be caught looking lest they betray the intensity behind them. A duller man than Stark would have been able to smell the trap that had opened so innocently under his feet. Stark gave no notice that he was aware of anything, but any thought he might have had of telling Rogain the truth and surrendering the talisman to its rightful owners died then and there. He was on the edge of a trap, but these men were in one. They had lied to their own people to save their skins, and they did not dare admit it. If he told them that Ciaran knew the talisman was gone they would kill him to keep the word from spreading. If he gave them the true talisman, they would weep with relief and joy, and kill him even quicker. The last thing they could afford was to have word get about the city that the true talisman had returned.

So Stark said, “The Lord Ciaran is no common barbarian, and he is a hungry man, far too hungry for fear. If your talisman is as powerful as you say, I would guess he means to take it for himself.” The stillness hurt his ears. He sat with his heart pounding and the sweat flushing cold on his skin, and he added casually, “Sooner or later there is always someone to challenge a tradition.”

It was as though the room relaxed and drew breath. Rogain nodded curtly and said, “We shall see. For the moment, that is all.”

Stark rose and went out. Lugh was waiting to march him out of the building and across the square under the looming statue of Ban Cruach, past the shrine, and back to the grimy Quarter under the wall.