Sung In Blood

XXIII

"So what do we do now?" Chaz asked. "He's outguessed us right down the line."

"He is here to eliminate men who threaten his imperialist dream. I've looked over the list of candidates for assassination. I want one of you to attach yourselves to each of the most likely.

Excepting you, Su-Cha. I want you to shift again and fly around looking for places that might hide an airship."

"Come on!" Su-Cha protested. "You know how much energy shifting takes? You know how much a bird has to eat to keep going? My bones still ache from the last time. And I lost ten pounds. When you're my size you can't afford to lose ten pounds." He spun on Chaz, source of a volcanic, rumbling, mocking chuckle.

But it was Preacher who sank the spurs with a scriptural quotation about shirkers and malingerers.

"How does a guy get any respect around here?" Su-Cha demanded. "Without wearing a skirt? I'm the only one who's contributed anything in this business. But do I get any appreciation? Oh, no!

What I hear is a chorus of disdain from a bunch of losers."

Soup and Spud made violin noises. Squeaky violin noises. Only Greystone refrained from baiting the imp. Su-Cha glowered his way, expecting one of his rare but powerful jibes.

Chaz asked, "What're you going to do, Rider?"

"Barhop. And ask about the Devil's Eyes." He looked at the woman. "Do you have anything to report on the subject, Caracene?"

She shook her head.

Rider watched closely. He concluded that she knew nothing.

He did not understand women well. His life was too busy for them. But he knew the small twitches and evasions of eye that came with the slightest of lies, and believed women and men to be much alike in that respect.

He turned to his list of prospective murder victims. In a moment he began writing letters of introduction he hoped would place his followers near the men most at risk. He sent a man out as he completed each letter. The last gone, he began donning the disguise he would wear. Su-Cha watched.

And ate.

The imp became bottomless when he did a lot of shifting, though in normal times he seldom ate at all. Su-Cha's metabolism was a mystery Rider could not penetrate. He suggested, "If you've learned the khando well enough, you might assume its shape. If the opportunity arises. After you have yanked the web to let me know where you are."

Su-Cha lifted a honey bun in salute. "My thoughts exactly."

Rider looked at the woman. "You're satisfied to be here?"

"I am safe here."

Rider betrayed no expression. But he wondered. "Su-Cha. Time. I'm ready, and I want to lock up behind me."

"Right. Any time." The imp grabbed two more buns. Once they had departed the room, he asked,

"When are you going to rest, Rider?"

"I can't right now."

"A tired man makes mistakes."

"True. I haven't forgotten that."

"You think Shai Khe will run now? After the latest roundup?" The easterner's men from the warehouse had been collected by the City Guard.

"Not till he is under more pressure that we've managed so far. He should limit his ambitions, though."

"Later, then."

Rider watched Su-Cha rise and fly southward, toward the Golden Crescent. The warehouses were among the largest structures in Shasesserre. If Shai Khe were to hide an airship inside the City, he almost had to do so there.

Rider drifted into alleyways where he would have no trouble ambushing anyone following him.

Setting several ambuscades yielded nothing. Finally, confident that he was not followed, he donned the rest of his disguise and returned to the streets as a Tiberian sailor. The hour was yet early for the taverns to bustle, but those that catered to sailors were busy enough. Rider faded in, looking as rough and fierce as the worst. A livid false scar, down his left cheek from temple to chin, leaving his left eye partially closed, lent him an especially piratic air.

A stranger in a sailors' bar dared not ask too many questions too directly. The distinction between merchant and smuggler was a matter of commercial or imperial viewpoint, and the crown was known for sending King's Shadows to look for customs evaders.

Rider, though, had a creditable story. He was hunting the man who had given him his scar, the man supposedly having struck him from ambush and left him for dead. He had come all the way from Tiberia seeking revenge. He had a perfect Tiberian accent, knew that land well having been there in service, and, as a Tiberian would on such a quest, he vacillated between frugality and offering drinks to anyone who might help him. The man he described to all listeners was Emerald.

Few Tiberians came as far east as Shasesserre. But other westerners sympathized with Rider's tale, and a few began accompanying him from one stew to another, seeking his mythical adversary.

He had been legitimized among the sailors.

In time he felt safe enough to insert questions about the Devil's Eyes.

Many a man had known Emerald, and none had become his friend. But no one recalled seeing him around lately.

The hunt widened as westerners with their own grievances began taking more active roles. Rider noted a growing uneasiness among eastern sailors, many of whom must have known who Emerald was and now feared being lumped together with him.

Rider suspected his imposture was getting out of hand.

It might have been the thirtieth tavern. He kept no count. But he was as alert as ever. He noted, amidst the rowdiness, one eastern face which remained quietly thoughtful. After a few minutes its owner began edging toward the door.

Before the man was halfway there Rider excused himself from his companions and headed for the rear of the tavern.

He ducked out the back and loped through the nearest breezeway to the street, arriving moments before the easterner marched past, oblivious to watching ayes.

Rider shed most of his disguise. He tore his sailor's clothing, making himself look less prosperous. He slipped a pebble into a shoe, donned a stoop, and set out after the easterner.

Rider's precautions were wasted. The sailor was not concerned about his backtrail. He merely meant to report news probably of minimal interest.

The trail, inevitably, led toward water. Toward the river again. It seemed Shai Khe had to have water at his back. As he hurried through the gathering shadows, Rider pondered the significance of that.

He reached through the web and touched his men. Without exception he found them bored. Then he reached for Su-Cha.

He found the imp perched among the gargoyles surrounding the statue of an old king atop a commemorative pillar facing the sea the king had conquered. Su-Cha had assumed the shape of a gargoyle. He was sleeping.

Rider nudged him.

The imp squawked and launched himself from the pillar, to the astonishment of witnesses below.

He filled the web with conflicting excuses for his having taken a nap.

Rider ignored them all. Come help me follow a man, he sent. Disguise or no, his continued presence behind the man he stalked meant ever-increasing risk of discovery, especially as the gathering night made it necessary to remain close.

Su-Cha arrived quickly. His night vision was superb. Rider drifted back.

The stalk led up the bank of the river, beyond the water gate and wall, and then past suburbs into marches where country folk hunted waterfowl and gathered wild rice. The easterner seemed well acquainted with the path he followed through the boggy land.

Su-Cha dropped down to confer with Rider, who followed a safe quarter mile behind. "He's probably heading for an old hulk that's on the river's edge over yonder," the imp said. "The trail is hard to spot from up there. But I did notice two places where men like that Emerald are hanging around. Good ambush places."

Rider gave the imp two green eggs. "Drop these on them after the man goes past. Wait for me outside the hulk." Su-Cha grunted and flapped away.

An hour later Rider met the imp a hundred yards from the hulk, which loomed like the corpse of a beached whale against the night. Su-Cha said, "I think we and our friend have had a long walk for nothing." "How's that?"

"Right after I egged the first ambush I noticed a boat leaving the hulk. Headed downriver. I'm pretty sure Shai Khe was in it."

"Uhm." Rider stared at the hulk. "Do we hit it anyway? Take it away, too?" "Did those men seem suspicious before they fell asleep?" He had slipped past both sets of guards without bothering either.

"I don't think so."

"Then we'll leave things be. For now. Except to add a few flourishes." In his pockets Rider carried several stones, cousins to that through which he had tracked Soup and Spud. He showed them to Su-Cha, who grinned as much as he could with a beak. Then the imp began changing shape.

He became one of the huge semi-aquatic rodents that inhabited the marshes, a beast variously called a waterbear, a waterdog, or a waterrat. The creatures were known for their curiosity, stupidity, and a fearlessness based primarily on the fact that their flesh was so tough and illflavored even a crocodile avoided eating them. The men aboard the hulk would be accustomed to occasional inspections by itinerant waterbears.

Su-Cha filled his rat mouth with Rider's stones.

Ten minutes later the hulk reverberated to shouts of exasperation. Five minutes more and Su- Cha had returned, grinning. He changed again. "I marked most of them."

Rider sensed the stones through the web. "Their movements should tell us a lot. Let's get back to the City. Shai Khe will be up to some deviltry."