The Crystal Seas

Chapter FIFTEEN

Richard Blade was prowling the streets of Mestron, at an hour when they were normally deserted by all honest people. No, that was not true. The Sisters of the Night, the high-class courtesans, were honest in that they gave value for money received. But none of their elegant carriages were within sight or hearing now.

Tonight Blade was not moving through the waterfront warehouses and taverns. He slipped along paths and alleys in a residential quarter, high on a wooded hill a good three miles from the harbor. It was also where Duke Tymgur's agent had promised a meeting.

Blade didn't know the quarter nearly as well as he knew the waterfront. The wooded villas and estates around him could easily hide an ambush. But he had no choice. If Duke Tymgur's agent seriously wanted to do business, that was fine. If he was setting a trap-well, no one could ask better proof of the Duke's treachery than an effort to murder the agent probing into his affairs. Blade hoped that if there was a trap, he could spring it and make his escape. He remembered what he had told Alanyra about getting the word out.

He had taken and was taking all the precautions he could think of. For the last mile he had followed a wandering, unpredictable course toward the rendezvous, to throw off anyone trying to follow him. He avoided patches of light as though they were quicksand and watched from the shadows each time he rounded a corner. His eyes flickered endlessly from side to side, his footsteps were light, and his hand was never far from his sword hilt.

He wore a short-sword and a broadsword on his belt, and all of his garments from hood to boots were dark gray or black. Under his tunic he wore a shirt of fine mail that would keep out all daggers and most swords. In sheaths at wrists and ankles, Blade carried four knives equally well-suited for stabbing or throwing. If there was a better concealed weapon than a good knife for silent killing in any dimension, Blade hadn't met it.

He also carried three signal pots in a pouch on his belt. Thrown down hard, they broke, ignited, and poured out vast clouds of thick greenish-white smoke. They made a signal clearly visible by day. By night they could also make a fleeing man invisible in a moment. Blade wasn't sure whether he was going to be cat or mouse in this game. But he knew that he might change from one to the other in a matter of seconds.

He checked behind him, looking down the street and then searching the wall tops to the left and right of him. No movement, not even a prowling cat or a waving branch. Blade took advantage of the pool of shadow to do a few limbering-up exercises. Then he stalked on.

He came to the street that led to the agent's villa. He flattened himself against the base of a vine-grown wall. The street stretched out of sight, the gate of the villa clearly visible in the moonlight. There was no other light in the street and none visible through the trees rising above the villa wall. But there was plenty of light for an archer to aim by, and the street was open and bare of cover.

He wasn't going to walk down that street, an easy target for any archer lying in wait. If the agent was honest, and Blade's cautious approach made him uneasy, that was too bad. He could always say that he suspected the villa was being watched by the Emperor's agents. (Probably it was. And suppose they chose this moment to move in? That would solve the problem of Duke Tymgur, to be sure. But it wouldn't be much help to Blade if the Emperor's men stabbed first and asked questions afterward.)

Blade waited until a patch of cloud drifted across the moon. Then he flitted catfooted by the crossroads and dove into a ditch. Now he was at the foot of the villa's wall, around the corner from the gate.

Blade looked up, to the top of the wall. It was no more than eight feet high, overgrown with vines and jostled by small trees. He could see no spikes on top. He waited for another moment of dimmed moonlight. Then he was up the wall with a rush.

He flattened himself on the loose, crumbling bricks on top just long enough to listen for any signs of alarm and look down inside the wall. Vines, bushes, and weedy patches of grass crowded up against the wall. He swung himself down inside the wall, and flattened himself on the damp earth behind one of the bushes.

Still no signs that anyone in the villa was awake, alert, or even alive. If this was a trap, they were obviously waiting until he was well inside to spring it. There it might be hard to fight and impossible to run.

Once more Blade was doing something he had done a score of times before in as many different places. Not always for stakes as high as tonight, though. Tonight was not a matter of scoring points against the Russians or the Chinese or the Albanians. Tonight could make or break the future of two, brave peoples.

In the garden Blade did not need to look for pools of shadow. It was practically all shadow under the trees. He had to look instead for enough light to see where he was going, and also where he had been. He wanted to have an escape route firmly in mind, so that he could make a fast retreat if any of a dozen things went wrong.

Blade moved on. He would dart across thirty feet of open grass and go to earth under a bush. Then he would look in all directions and listen to all the sounds coming in from all sides. There were night-birds giving off gurgling coos, insects whining, and somewhere the sound of water running over stones. No human sounds-no footfalls, no clink of weapons, no voices. If he hadn't known this was a garden, Blade would have said he was alone in a forest miles outside the city.

Then he would creep forward on his hands and knees under the bushes. The slick, close-woven fabric of his clothes shrugged off thorns and branch stubs, but there were always stones and roots to leave bruises. Sweat ran down his face. It would not damage his dark camouflage grease, but it did attract swarms of insects. They whined and darted around his face and into his eyes.

Blade's caution paid off just when he had nearly decided that it wouldn't. As he flattened himself against a vast, gnarled tree nearly eight feet thick, he saw a high hedge about fifty feet ahead. Light shone through it, revealing a stone-flagged walk on the other side. The light also silhouetted a number of human heads on the nearer side of the hedge.

Blade practically stopped breathing while he counted the men lying in wait. There were at least ten. Two had crossbows; the others seemed to carry swords or battle axes. As one of them half rose, the light revealed his face more clearly. Blade sucked in his breath. It was Stipors' henchman, the officer who had helped conduct the interrogation of the prisoners returning from the Sea Masters.

So Tymgur's agent was laying a trap for him. That meant Tymgur's plots were proved beyond any further doubt. With Stipors' man involved, that also meant the Autocrat for War was deep in the plot with Tymgur.

Did he have notions of being Tymgur's Viceroy over Talgar when the Sea Cities were weakened enough to be easy prey for the Duke? Blade didn't know or care. Right now, the best thing for him to do was to glide quietly away into the darkness, his mission accomplished, and get himself and his men out of Mestron as fast as possible.

But he didn't want to leave yet. Even a few minutes' eavesdropping might add details that could help break up the plot faster. Blade had always been reluctant to drop an inquiry until he had found out everything possible. He crept forward another ten feet and flattened himself under a bush. Again he hardly breathed as he lay and listened.

The Talgaran renegade seemed to be in command. He also seemed to be in a vile temper, swatting noisily at the insects and muttering under his breath. Blade caught snatches of those mutterings.

«Why-we out here-eating us alive-Durkas staying inside with his pleasure girl-trouble for us if-«

Another voice floated out of the shadows. «Is the gate open?»

«Course 'tis, you fool,» said a third voice. «We want-«

«Shhhhhhhh!» came from the officer. Apparently he had suddenly realized that silence might be wise for a party lying in ambush. The silence descended.

It lasted for less than a minute. As that minute drew to a close, a raw, full-throated scream tore through the night air. It was a woman screaming in terrible agony and fear. In the few seconds after the scream, things happened very quickly.

The officer rose to his feet with a curse. «Damn Durkas! His games-«He turned toward the bush where Blade lay.

In the house voices shouted and feet pounded. Another scream came, then a window flew open with a crash.

Yellow lamplight flooded out into the garden through the open window.

By that light, the officer saw Blade crouching under the bush.

In the next few seconds, Blade made several more things happen.

In a single snap of trained muscles, he was on his feet. His arm jerked once, and a throwing knife slipped down into his right hand. His arm rose and jerked a second time. The knife flashed once in the air, then flashed a second time as it buried itself in the officer's chest. Blade beard a solid chunk as the hilt slammed hard up against the ribs and knew that it was in more than deep enough to kill. The ambush party had lost a leader and Stipors had lost a henchman.

But nine more men were too many to fight in the dark on unknown ground. Before the officer had hit the ground, Blade was sprinting along the hedge, away from the house. The hedge was just too high for Blade to leap with this much armor and weaponry on his body. Instead he covered fifty feet in a matter of seconds, ducked behind a tree, and hauled himself up into its branches. Pushing off with arms and legs together, he sailed down over the thick hedge. He landed lightly on his feet on the walk, facing the house. It was blazing with lights now, but there was no sign of anyone coming out the bronze-shod door. Blade didn't wait. He spun about and headed for the gate.

He went down the path like a lion running down a fat buck, and came pelting up to the gate.

It was unlocked but not unguarded. A man stood on either side of it, one armed with a bow, one with a sword. The archer backed away and the swordsman came forward, so that Blade had to defend himself against the second man first. He would rather have taken out the man with the long-range weapon, but there was no way to manage that.

His own sword flew clear of its scabbard and up under the thrust of the guard. It struck the other's sword up with a clang. Before the man could bring it down again to restore his guard, Blade thrust upward. His point went up into the man's chin and kept on going until it rammed into the brain. The man's mouth and eyes opened and gushed blood. Blade jerked his sword from the falling body and a smoke pot from his pouch.

He was a little too slow. As the green smoke rolled up around the gate and hid him from the archer, the crossbow went spung. Sharp steel tore through the flesh of Blade's thigh, clattering on the stones behind him. Blade winced but kept moving. His second wrist dagger dropped into his left hand as he closed with the dim shape of the archer. The other was still backing away, struggling to reload his bow, when Blade's dagger drove up into him below the ribs. Blade left the dagger in the body and bolted out of the gate.

He did not stop to examine his wound. There wasn't time to do anything but run as fast as he could for as long as he could. If he could lose himself in the darkness before Durkas's bravos started combing the streets-

But as he ran, he knew that he wasn't going to be able to keep going that fast for that long. It was only a flesh wound the bolt had given him, but it was a flesh wound deep enough to be costing him a lot of blood. He could not run on too long without stopping to bandage the wound. Even after that, it would give him a stiff leg before too long.

He would have to go to earth somewhere among the villas, under the bushes in somebody's garden, and stay there for a while. Certainly until the immediate hue and cry had died down; perhaps until daybreak increased traffic on the streets enough that he might slip along unnoticed. He would have to move fast and hope that Durkas would balk at searching the villas of all his neighbors-or they would balk him.

Blade kept on without slowing or looking back for a good five minutes, ignoring the burning flame in his thigh. He turned each time he came to a corner, zigzagging away from Durkas's villa on what he hoped would soon become a completely unpredictable course.

Eventually the pain reminded him that be could not run much farther without paying attention to the wound. He dropped into a ditch, then poked his head up from the long grass. As far as he could see in either direction, the road was empty under the moonlight. That light was getting paler too. Blade looked up and saw a solid mass of clouds marching up from the west, slowly shutting out the stars. And there was the smell of rain in the air. Good. In half an hour it would be pitch-dark and hopefully pouring down rain. An army of men with bloodhounds would find it hard to follow his trail then.

He looked up the wall on the other side of the ditch. This wall was a good twelve feet high, and there were no handy trees or vines close by to help him. He looked along the wall. On the other side of the entrance road and the ornate gate, two stout saplings grew within a foot of the wall and rose high above it. Blade started crawling along the ditch. It was overgrown with rank grass and occasional nettles, and its bottom was slimy mud and foul-smelling water. By the time Blade reached the gate, he was soaked to the skin and plastered with slime, sweating, gritting his teeth at the pain in his leg, and thoroughly foul-tempered.

He reached the entrance road and flattened himself in the grass, getting ready for a quick rush into the ditch on the other side. He checked up and down the road. The darkness was increasing, and he heard a distant rumble of thunder to the west.

Then two things happened together. Far down the road, Blade saw ghost-dim figures moving purposefully toward him. With a squeal of long-unoiled hinges, the villa gate began to open. From inside he heard the clop-clop of hooves and the rumble of wheels.

The searchers were still a good hundred yards away, so Blade risked a quick look through the opening gate. Coming down the road at a good walk was one of the ornate four-wheeled carriages of the Sisters of the Night. High on the upholstered driver's seat rode the driver and his assistant. They both had their eyes fixed firmly on their horses and the road ahead. Blade grinned. Not for a moment did the two men look to either side of the carriage, still less behind it.

Blade tensed. If he could make his move before the searchers got close enough to see him make it. He looked behind him. The searching party had stopped and spread out across the road. They seemed to be poking spears or poles down into the ditch on either side. This was going to be bloody close!

The carriage rumbled past. Blade came out of the ditch like a striking rattlesnake. His wounded leg almost betrayed him, slowing him by a heart-stopping fraction of a second. He felt the left rear wheel of the carriage brush his foot. Then he was safely under the carriage, hauling himself up into place to cling like a monkey to the center-pole as it rumbled out into the road. He twined arms and legs around the polished wood to lock his grip, then settled down to enjoy the ride.

A second later he wondered if there would be any ride, except perhaps in a covered cart to a dumping ground for unwanted bodies. A harsh voice shouted «Halt!» from ahead, carrying over even the rumble of iron-tired wheels and the creak of the leather cords that acted in place of springs. The carriage slowed and stopped, and Blade heard the same voice calling out.

«We are of the service of the Lord Durkas. We seek an escaped slave, a most dangerous and wicked man.»

«Durkas?» came a voice from inside the carriage. It was a woman's voice, full-bodied, bell-clear, strong. It held a note that Blade couldn't quite identify.

«Yes, Sister Brigeda,» said the man. His voice seemed a little less harsh.

«I have seen no one pass by,» said the woman. «I have only-«A prolonged rumble of thunder, very close, drowned out the rest of her sentence.

As the thunder died away, Blade heard the man saying, «I grant that you have not had much chance. But it is the Lord Durkas's orders, Sister.»

«The Lord Durkas is not my master, soldier,» said the woman. This time the harshness was in her voice. «If he wishes my carriage searched, let him come himself.»

Blade tensed. If the carriage was searched, and if the soldiers had half a brain, they would look underneath, Then-

Before he could complete that thought, a sound like the crack of doom slammed down from above. Blade felt the whole carriage jerk as the horses jumped in fright, and he nearly lost his grip on the center-pole. Then came a sulphurous blast of hot air, the sound of cracking, splintering wood, a heavy thud, and the swelling roar of falling rain.

Blade heard curses from the bravos standing all around the carriage and the sound of thudding feet as they ran for cover. Then the driver's whip cracked and the carriage lurched forward, rapidly picking up speed. The sound of the bravos faded rapidly away behind. Blade grinned again. Whatever the argument with Durkas's bravos, Sister Brigeda obviously wasn't going to sit around in the rain to finish it. And he doubted if the bravos would feel much like taking up pursuit. Not in this weather, and not without Stipors' officer driving them on.

Before too long Blade had to stop grinning in triumph and concentrate on holding on. The whip-crackings came almost continuously as the driver steadily lashed the horses up to a gallop. The carriage thundered along in a deafening chorus of rattles and bangs and creaks and groans. Every shock and jar seemed to go clear through Blade, until he felt that his flesh was about to be shaken off his bones and his bones shaken apart. He could only hang on and grit his teeth at the pain of his wound.

The carnage rumbled on through the rainstorm, jolting and lurching from side to side. Either Sister Brigeda didn't care how much she was bounced around, or she was more interested in getting home and out of the rain than anything else. Blade didn't blame her.

The streets were becoming slick with the rain. Several times the carriage swerved violently and nearly went into a skid. The fast-turning wheels began to throw up spray. Bit by bit, it soaked through Blade's already damp and filthy clothes. He began to feel cold water trickling down inside his collar and a prickling in his nose. He had to fight back an urge to sneeze violently.

Before much longer he was having to fight back an even more dangerous urge. It was an urge to loosen his grip, drop to the pavement, and lie there quietly and fade away. He knew where it came from; loss of blood was getting to him. He also knew he had to fight it. But that didn't make the fighting any easier.

He clenched his teeth until he could taste the salt of blood on his lower lip. He tightened the grip of his hands until he felt the nails digging into his flesh. He ran mathematical formulas, remnants of his public-school Greek, orders for long-forgotten missions through his head. Anything to fight off that urge to let go, to give up.

Blade was concentrating so completely on the fight to hold on that it was a while before he realized the carriage was slowing down. The rumble of the wheels was softer, the jolts less violent, the spray not so high. Blade had just realized this, when the driver's voice shouted out from above.

«Whoa!»

The carriage rumbled to a stop. Then Blade heard the door open, and the carnage tilted slightly as Sister Brigeda climbed out. Blade got ready to let go and duck for cover. Then another door opened and footsteps and voices sounded all around the carriage. From the words, Sister Brigeda's household staff was welcoming their mistress home. Blade gritted his teeth again and held on. When they had all gone-

But before the voices died away, the driver's whip cracked and the carriage started up again. Blade nearly swore out loud. He held on grimly while the carriage rolled slowly down a short stretch of cobblestones, then turned to the right.

More voices and footsteps sounded around the carriage. Men's voices, this time. Sister Brigeda's stablehands were going to work. Blade saw rag-bound feet around the carriage and heard the sounds of horses being unharnessed and led away. The carriage moved slowly and jerkily forward for perhaps thirty feet. Then it stopped. A moment later the feet vanished, the voices died away, and then a large door shut with a thump and a rattle.

Blade clung to the center-pole for a little longer. He wanted to be absolutely sure that everybody was gone away to stay. Then he let go, and dropped with a thud onto the floor of the coachhouse.

He lay there quietly, not moving until he felt his head clearing and some circulation and feeling returning to his cramped limbs. Then he rolled over on his side and began tearing away the cloth around the wound in his thigh. The blood had clotted so solidly that he finally stopped, rather than risk reopening the wound to pack or dress it.

Presently his leg stopped throbbing and he tested it. It still hurt like blazes, but he could walk if not run. Now to get out of Sister Brigeda's coachhouse and limp to the rendezvous with the sailors. Fortunately he wouldn't have to-

On the other side of the coachhouse, a door opened.

Blade froze where he was, then silently crawled back under the carriage. He felt like cursing, not silently. Of all the damned times for someone to come in!

He heard footsteps, the sound of the door shutting, then two voices, both young, one male, one female. The footsteps moved along the wall to Blade's right. A faint glow crept in under the carnage as one of the newcomers lit a candle. Then Blade heard the unmistakable rustle of clothes being taken off and the plop of them dropping on the floor.

A moment later the girl gave a soft little whimper. There was another kind of rustling sound and a grunt from the boy. Then another unmistakable sound-the furious thud of flesh against flesh as the couple went at it with all the eagerness in their young bodies.

In the pale yellowish light of the candle, Blade could see writhing shadows on the gray stone floor of the coachhouse. He could also see a slim tanned leg, obviously female, hanging down in front of a background of hay bales.

It was also obviously moving in the grip of steadily mounting passion, kicking higher and higher.

Blade sighed. It was tempting to make his break now, while the two were approaching climax. Odds were they would neither notice nor bother him, not in that state of mind and body. But he decided to play it safe. Unless they were going to go to sleep and spend the night? Unlikely. He lowered himself off his elbows and tried to relax. The chorus of gasps and flesh surging against flesh was getting louder and faster.

Then something bit Blade sharply in the ear. He was so completely surprised that he snapped with a yell. His head crashed into the underside of the carriage with a jolt that dislodged the rat and nearly knocked him unconscious. For a moment blackness shot with sparks, and explosions swirled in front of his eyes.

The girl let out a scream like a steam whistle at Blade's yell, and jerked violently. With a thud the young lovers toppled off the hay bales, landing still entangled on the coachhouse floor.

Half stunned, Blade came out from under the carriage too slowly. By the time he had lurched to his feet, the young man had done the same. He had also grabbed up a pitchfork.

As Blade slowly stood up, the girl kept on screaming. In fact she was too busy screaming to make any effort to put her clothes on. The young man-he could hardly be more than seventeen-was wide-eyed and naked as a baby. The pitchfork shook in his hands. But he held his ground, meeting Blade's eyes with the determined stare of a man willing to die to defend his woman.

Normally Blade would have drawn his sword and dispatched an opponent like this in ten seconds flat. But damn it, he couldn't kill this boy and his girl! So he held out both hands in a peaceful gesture. «Be quiet, please. I'm not-«

But the boy apparently thought Blade was going to attack him bare-handed. The tines of the pitchfork darted forward like the head of a snake. Blade had to step aside in a hurry to avoid being pinned like a butterfly against the door of the carriage.

He drew his broadsword and raised it, intending to chop in a disarming stroke. He still didn't want to hurt or kill the young idiot!

But fatigue and loss of blood and the blow on the head had slowed Blade more than he had realized. As he closed in, the boy reversed his grip on the pitchfork and swung the handle in a roundhouse arc. Blade's sword rose, but not fast enough. Instead of being chopped in half, the pitchfork handle swung through its arc and smashed into the side of Blade's head.

Again he saw blackness shot through with fireworks. He reeled back against the carriage, trying desperately to hold onto his sword. But the boy stepped back and brought the pitchfork handle down full-strength on Blade's sword arm. His fingers opened numbly, and the sword clattered to the floor.

Blade was trying to stay on his feet and draw his other sword, when the door of the coachhouse flew open. Three men waving pikes dashed in and formed a circle around Blade. He bared his teeth in a defiant grin. Normally three men and a boy would have been easy meat for him. But this time he knew he would be too weak, too slow. But at least he was going out on his feet.

Blade had drawn the short-sword and was getting ready to fend off the pikeheads when light, fast-moving footsteps sounded outside the door. Then a slim, white-clad figure with dark hair was silhouetted against the darkness outside.

«Sister Brigeda!» exclaimed one of the pikemen. «This isn't-«

«Wait!» the woman said sharply. «Where did this one come from?»

«He was hiding under the carriage when-when-«the boy began. Then he stammered and blushed scarlet all over as he remembered how Blade had caught him and the girl.

A smile flickered across the courtesan's face as she looked at the naked boy and girl. «Go and get some clothes on, children,» she said calmly. «The rest of you, escort this man up to the Fourth Chamber.»

«Sister?» said one of the pikemen inquiringly. «I do not under-«

«You fool,» Brigeda said, not angrily, but as though she was stating a simple fact. «This must be the escaped slave of Durkas.»

«But if he is, then he is dan-''

«You do ill to argue with me, Fturn,» said Brigeda. «Do you think Durkas would ever tell the truth in such a matter?»

«No, but-«

«The man will go to the Fourth Chamber,» said Brigeda. «At once. Or you will go to the quarries tomorrow morning.»

There was a dangerous moment of tension before the man's shoulders slumped and he nodded and turned away. Blade had been wondering what he could do to help Sister Brigeda if her servants turned on her. But obviously she had the force of character to keep them all in obedience without his help. A formidable woman. If she was really interested in helping him- But if she was going to be an enemy, it would be like falling into the den of a she-tiger.