The Pharaoh Contract

Chapter 12

But Denklar did not come. Laborers took Rontleses’ coffin away, and the square emptied. The temperature dropped, until Ruiz stood shivering in the center of the cage, unable to bear the icy touch of the metal on his naked body. He wrapped his arms around himself and hopped from foot to foot, minimizing the time each foot must spend in contact with the iron, and also attempting to generate a bit of internal warmth.

Hours passed, and the lights of Stegatum went out, until the town lay silent and dark under the starblaze. Still Denklar did not come. Ruiz’s teeth chattered and his spirits sank.

Long past midnight, he heard the scuff of careful feet just outside the cage, and he suppressed a laugh of hysterical relief. But the steps seemed lighter than Denklar’s could be, and a voice too soft and melodious to belong to the innkeeper spoke from the darkness. “Wuhiya? I’ve brought a water reed. Here.”

A slender tube slid through a chink in the iron, and Ruiz took it gratefully. “Thank you; you’re kind.”

“It’s little enough,” said Relia the doxy. “I’d do more if I could, but what help could I be? Here’s another one; keep it till you need it.” She slipped another reed through the chink.

Ruiz snapped off the end of one reed, and allowed the slightly sour watery sap to drain into his mouth, which was dry as ashes, both from the effect of the day’s deprivation and from terror. The fluid tasted wonderful, and for a brief instant he was entirely content. The sensation dissipated almost as swiftly as it had come. “Relia,” he said, leaning against the cold iron, peering out. “Tell me, have you seen Denklar this evening? How did he seem?”

Relia sniffed. “He always seems the same, but tonight? I can’t say. He’s gone; no one knows where. The cooks were most put out, what with all the extra custom tonight, yokels in for the killings and so forth. Very odd, if you ask me — Denklar’s always on hand when silver’s to be had.”

Ruiz’s spirits plummeted again. Where was the innkeeper? Had he run away, for some reason beyond Ruiz’s comprehension? Or was there something else wrong, something that hadn’t yet occurred to him? A conviction grew in him that the latter explanation was somehow the true one, but his day in the cage and his witnessing of the coercer’s Expiation had combined to slow his wits in some subtle way. He pounded his forehead with his fist. Think, Ruiz Aw, he exhorted. But nothing came.

“Well,” said Relia, in a voice of soft regret. “I’ll have to go in now; the night’s cold and I’m not dressed for it.”

“Wait!” Ruiz cast about for a purposeful course. Relia constituted his only avenue of action. “You said you’d help if you could.”

“Yes. But what could I do?”

“Could you bring me something else?”

“Perhaps. The cages aren’t watched at night. No one is clever enough to unlock them, from the outside or the inside.”

“Good. Good. In my room, the one I slept in before I went to the keep… I left a packet of religious articles, hidden in one of the bed’s pipes. Could you fetch it to me?”

Relia stirred uneasily, and Ruiz sensed her reluctance. “I’d do the Lord in the eye, if I could do it and suffer no grief,” she said. “I hate him, as would anyone with a heart. But I don’t care to Expiate my feelings here.”

Ruiz put his head against the iron, striving for a voice of calm persuasion. “No, no. Nor do I.”

“I guess not. I don’t want to see your tall pretty body all opened up on the stage; a waste that’ll be.” Relia chuckled throatily, a sound which under the present circumstances Ruiz found a bit grotesque.

“As you say,” he said fervently. “Can you bring it?” She drew a deep breath. “I’ll try. Why not? How big is it, this packet?”

“Not large; it will fit through the chink, though you might have to hand it in a bit at a time. It’s wrapped in a brown oilcloth, and has a number of little metal fetishes, which mean a lot to me. Don’t play with them,” Ruiz cautioned. “They’re sacred.” The bits in the packet, if activated inadvertently, might easily kill Relia before she could bring them to Ruiz.

“I’ll try,” she said again. She started to leave.

“Wait! Have you got a bit of wire about you? A pin, perhaps?”

She seemed to consider. “It’ll do no good, Wuhiya.”

“It’d occupy my time; I’m too cold to sleep.”

“All right. Here’s a rusty hairpin, which no one could say was mine if you’re discovered with it. Still, if I can’t bring your fetish bag… promise me you’ll push the pin out the chink before it gets light. Or if you decide to open a vein, wipe the blood off before you push it out, so they’ll think you used your teeth.”

With trembling fingers he took the pin, which was long and slender and springy, and perfect for his purposes. “I promise.”

Ruiz struggled with the lock for an hour, until his sore fingers were numb with cold and exertion. But the lock remained obdurate; its apparent crudeness concealed wards of unusual cleverness. Finally he desisted and admitted defeat. Not surprising, he thought, that the locks should be good, on a world full of magicians. He lapsed into a brief period of despair, but then he recalled that Relia would be bringing his tools soon. Soon.

He kept hoping, until the Pharaohan sky began to grow light.

Stegatum woke early, and tradesmen clattered back and forth across the square, rousing Ruiz from his apathy. He found that he looked forward to the heat of the day after the icy night; such was the shortsighted instinct of the body.

He was watching the light strengthen over the town, conscious that he might never see such a thing again, when a peremptory rap brought him across the cage to the shadowed side. He looked out and saw nothing, and then thought to apply his eye to a lower chink. There he saw the smallest of the boys who had greeted him on his arrival into Stegatum.

“Hello,” he said.

The boy watched him earnestly for a moment. “We’re sorry you’ll die.”

“Me too.”

“It ain’t a good way to die… though they say you’ll bring a good rainstorm.”

“Do they?”

“Yeh. They say your Exp’ation been put off till tomorrow night, so the Lord’s foolkiller have time to come up with some fine new tricks. Not a drop did fall, for the coercer’s dying… old stuff. We seed it all before.”

“Old stuff, huh?”

“Yeh. It’s no easy job, being the Lord’s foolkiller, ‘cause we got so many fools here, so the Lord’s always having to do ‘em down. Hard to come up with new ‘lusions.”

“I suppose.” The conversation was disheartening on one level, but also a great relief. He might live another night, if the boy could be believed. Then again, the boy might only be reporting a rumor.

The boy showed no signs of departing. “Say,” he said tentatively. “Since you not be needing your tricks, maybe you could show me how you did that gem and bug trick you shown us. I never saw that one before.”

A notion occurred to Ruiz. “Perhaps I could. But I need my apparatus, and they took everything.”

“Oh,” said the boy regretfully, and started to turn away.

“Wait! I have an idea.”

“What’s that?”

“Well… listen. Did you see Relia anywhere about, this morning?”

“Denklar’s whore? Nope. Didn’t see him neither. Maybe they run off together.” The little boy snickered in a manner much too old for his years. “Why?”

“Hmmm. Let me think.”

He thought. Denklar gone? Relia gone? The only two people who were in a position to help him were missing. What did that suggest? Perhaps someone was actively working against him, someone he didn’t know anything about.

“What’s your name?” he asked the boy.

“Brumbet.”

“Brumbet, eh? A promising name. You want to be a conjuror, then?”

“Who don’t? But if I can’t be a conjuror, I won’t be an oil man. Who wants to hear voices all day, and spend the night having bad dreams? Then like as not I’d end trussed up on the stage, like you done.” The small boy delivered this speech in phlegmatic tones.

“Good thinking. I wish I’d been as smart as you when I was your age. Tell me, Brumbet. Seen any new faces around town?”

The boy guffawed. “Yeh. Town’s fall of ‘em, here for the killings.”

“Hmmm. Well, what about before… say, a couple of days ago?”

The boy rubbed his chin in a curiously adult manner. “You mean, like t’other oil man, the rich one?”

“Right! When did he come?”

“Night you left, and then he went away again, but he’s back now. Though I ain’t seen him.”

“How do you know he’s here, then?”

Brumbet looked scornful. “His striderbeast’s in the stable. You think I smell like this ‘cause I spend all day shoveling moonpoppies?”

“I hadn’t noticed. What’s he look like?”

“Tall man, but not ‘risto-faced like you. Though he’s got a striderbeast and you don’t. Still, he looks to be a lizardcutter, you ask me. Up to no good, but too mean to get caught. Not like you.”

“Mean man, eh? Where do you think he might be?”

“Don’t know, but could be Denklar put him in the back corner, same room you stayed in, away from the decent folk. Maybe he’s there, sleeping off a binge.”

“Maybe. Maybe so. Well, that’s a problem. I left my little bag of tricks hidden in that room, before I went up to the keep. If they’re still there… well, I could show you how to work a couple of them, if I’m still here tonight.”

The boy leaned close and his narrow face was alight with anticipation. “For real? I’ll fetch your tricks; you tell me where to find ‘em.”

Ruiz forced himself to sound reluctant. “Well, but what if the mean man is in there? I’ll show my tricks to you, but I’d rather they rusted away than go to a stranger.”

“No worry. I’ll wait till he goes to the shitter, or to supper, or I’ll yell ‘Fire!’ in the hallway.” The boy grinned. “I ain’t stupid, no matter what my brother says.”

“All right,” Ruiz said. “I’ll tell you where to find the tricks, and you bring them to me. You mustn’t play with them before I show you how to work them — they’re dangerous, some of them.”

Brumbet curled his lip, “I told you I ain’t stupid.”

Ruiz remembered that he was on Pharaoh, where illusions could be very grim indeed, and nodded. “I believe it. Be very careful of the tall lizard-cutter. He might well be even meaner than you think.”

The day passed slowly. The women came to pour water on the roof, but this time they were disinclined to gossip.

As they were reattaching their buckets to their yokes, Ruiz asked them if he was to make Expiation that night. They exchanged pitying glances.

“No,” said the woman who had spoken with him the day before. “The Lord’s executioner researches novelties.”

“Ahh…” Ruiz said glumly, concealing his elation.

The women left and Ruiz waited.

Night fell, and no one came to set up the stage. Ruiz was briefly wilted with relief, then taut with hope and dread. Where was the boy? Had he disappeared down the same hole as Denklar and Relia?

An hour after sunset, he heard a patter of small bare feet and the rasping breath of a frightened child.

“What is it?” he whispered.

No reply came for a moment, but then a small quavering voice spoke. “Dead things,” Brumbet said. “The room got dead things in it. I waited till the man went down to supper, an’ crawled over the roof and in the hall window. There was dead things under the bed, two of ‘em, a fat man and a girl, but I wouldn’t look at the faces.”

Ruiz’s heart sank. “Did you get the tricks?”

“‘Course — they hid right where you said. I ain’t stupid. Didn’t go to Provost’s hut neither. Dead things’ll keep till you show me. Maybe I won’t need to tell anyone, ‘cause they’re starting to stink.”

“Good thinking. Well, give me the tricks.”

Brumbet seemed to consider. “Now wait. How do I know you’ll show me all?”

“You’re smart. Tell you what: I’ll do one at a time, and then give them back to you.”

“All right. Which first?” The boy unrolled the bundle, and metal bits glimmered in the starblaze.

“Hmmm,” Ruiz murmured, pretending to consider. “First, a simple passing-through-metal illusion.”

Brumbet sniffed, unimpressed. “Everyone knows the ring trick, even babies.”

“This version has a clever twist. Give me the fluted cylinder… yes, that one. And the silver half-ring, and that thing that looks like a pipe with lugs at one end.”

Somewhat reluctantly, Brumbet passed the pieces through the chink. When he had them all, Ruiz began to feel alive again.

He snapped the pinbeam laser together and burned off the lock in a shower of pink sparks.

He stepped out into freedom and drew a deep breath. The square was deserted, and he detected no rustle of alarm from the town. Brumbet stared up at him, shock masking his small features.

Ruiz snatched the bundle of tools from the boy.

Brumbet started to protest, but Ruiz looked at him and the boy skittered back, as though he had seen something dire in Ruiz’s face.

“Never mind,” said the boy, suddenly resigned. “You’re a mean man, too, meaner than he is — I see it now. I ain’t stupid.”

“No, you’re not. I’m sorry to have deceived you, but it was necessary. I’m grateful, too, but I can’t reward you just now.”

Brumbet sniffed. “I be young yet. Next year you wouldn’t a tricked me.”

“Probably so. Go home, Brumbet, and say nothing to anyone. Else I’ll have to hurt you,” advised Ruiz absently. He was already thinking of the man in the inn, and how best to capture him. He happened to look down at Brumbet one last time, and was startled by the contempt he saw in the small face. Then Brumbet ran away.

No light shone from the window. Perhaps his enemy was still at supper. Though Ruiz would have preferred to confirm the man’s whereabouts, he was still naked, still a condemned felon, and he could conceive of no safe way to reach the dining room. So he jumped, caught the edge of the window, and pulled himself up cautiously.

The smell of death was strong, but nothing moved in the darkness inside the room. Ruiz cut away the bars with his pinbeam and slithered in. No one attacked him.

He stood motionless for a moment, extending his senses, reaching out for any evidence that the room was booby-trapped or otherwise dangerous. He heard nothing, felt no vibration, saw no gleaming telltales. He twisted the pinbeam’s vernier, so that it gave a soft red glow, and examined the room thoroughly.

The man’s saddlebags hung from a peg. These Ruiz did not touch, fearing alarms or mantraps. He found no other obvious security measures, and marveled at the man’s confidence or ineptitude. He found the bodies of Denklar and Relia, jammed together under the bed, which showed evidence of recent use. The innkeeper had been dead for a day or two, Relia for a shorter time — her body showed cuts and bruises and other signs that her death had not been an easy one. Ruiz permitted a chill anger to fill his heart.

He squatted against the wall by the door, and readjusted his pinbeam. He felt no exhaustion; rather, his body sang with the need for violence, and he waited eagerly, growing more impatient with each minute that passed.

By the time heavy steps came down the corridor toward the room, he felt more like a feral animal than a human being. He felt his face; his lips were skinned back in a grin, so that his cheeks ached. He reached for calm and was partially successful.

The assassin threw back the door and swaggered inside heedlessly. Ruiz almost laughed at the man’s foolishness. To so disregard the possibility of Ruiz’s vengeance — incredible! The light from the hallway was perfectly adequate to Ruiz’s purposes. Without rising, he swept the pinbeam through the man’s spine. Before the legs had begun to collapse, he put a beam through one elbow, then the other.

The man fell facedown, legs paralyzed, arms useless. He screamed, a high breathless sound, expressing almost as much surprise as pain. Ruiz advanced cautiously, ignoring the screaming, relying on Denklar’s assurances regarding the room’s soundproofing.

He turned the assassin onto his back, using his toe, pinbeam aimed at the man’s forehead.

“We meet at last,” Ruiz said, fall of the purest joy.

The man gulped air and stopped screaming. In the dimness, his face was unclear.

“What shall I do with you, now I have you?” Ruiz mused pleasantly.

The man remained silent, except for the hiss of his breath.

“Can’t you speak? If you’ll tell me why you’ve done these things to me, and to the League, I can promise you an easy death. Otherwise I’ll leave you for Brinslevos. He’ll be distressed by my escape, but he’ll have you — I was careful with the beam and you’ll live another day or two. I imagine he’ll be happy to uncover a conspiracy of oil men, and one’s as good as another, eh?”

Finally the man smiled. “You won’t give me to Brinslevos.”

“Why not?” Ruiz leaned forward, full of interest.

But the man twitched and died, as suddenly as the technician had aboard the orbital platform.

This is a frustrating thing, Ruiz thought. All his energy drained away, and he sat down to rest and consider. The assassin’s death had the same texture as the technician’s death. Coincidence? Probably not. He thought of the Gencha, and wondered.

After a bit, he shook himself and lit the lamp. He searched the room, finding nothing new. He approached the saddlebags with elaborate caution, but found them unprotected. Such insouciance, Ruiz thought, marveling. The pack contained a water flask, a sack of dried meat and fruit, a bundle of oil vials — less complete than Ruiz’s had been. Beneath a false bottom he found a collection of pangalac skinjectors, several neural inducers, and a bandolier of entertainment skeins. Under these trade goods, at the very bottom, he discovered a dataslate.

He drank from the bottle, hoping that the dead man’s apparent lack of subtlety was real and that the water was unpoisoned. He activated the slate and probed its architecture carefully. The slate’s access security was rudimentary, and Ruiz easily penetrated it. The slate held nothing but a list of conjuring troupes. Appended to each troupe’s file was a list of personnel, a synopsis of the troupe’s major illusions, a schedule of upcoming performances, and a priority number.

Ruiz studied the listings with intense interest. One troupe was identified with a priority number higher than any of the others. In three days, the troupe would perform a great Expiation in a town named Bidderum, a hundred kilometers to the south.

Luck indeed, he thought. Here was a member of the poachers’ organization, beyond a doubt. He wondered how this list would compare to the official League list. Beyond a doubt, the lists would not be identical.

He would be at Bidderum in three days.

He overcame his distaste and stripped the corpse, and then dressed in the assassin’s rags. The assassin had carried a number of weapons concealed under his rags; these Ruiz took also, as well as the man’s identity plaque. He picked up the saddlebags and slipped out of the room.

The inn was quiet. Apparently the folk of Stegatum were abed. Ruiz reached Denklar’s apartments without meeting anyone, and retrieved his staff.

In the stable, Ruiz had a bit of difficulty saddling the assassin’s striderbeast, which apparently smelled the death on its former master’s clothes.

But finally he was safely away from Stegatum, riding over the waste under the moon, and the sensation of escape, of freedom, was as fine a feeling as he could remember.