Web of Sand

Chapter Five

The day had begun badly with the new maid breaking an expensive flask of perfume. At midday a storm had seemed to be pending, dust swirling to settle after an hour, but the tension had remained, driving her to a casino there to lose more than was wise, to drink more than was good for the purity of her voice. And now this!

"Cancelled?" Ellain stared at the face in the screen. "You mean I'm not wanted?"

"Of course not!" Dell Chuba smiled his reassurance. "It's just that young Tage Helbrane has heard of a novelty and decided it would hold more appeal for his guests than yourself. A whim, of course, but you know what the young are. Once their curiosity has been satisfied you'll be back in favor."

Dropped because of a novelty! To the agent she said, "What is it this time? A singing jewel? Are you serious?"

He was and she had to accept it. As she had to accept the loss of a fee. And there could be further losses as the news of the thing spread. A bad time for it to happen with Yunus being so difficult. She reached for the phone, half-inclined to call him, then dropped her hand. It was no time to risk his displeasure and yet, now that the evening was ruined, what to do?

The maid had prepared her bath. Irritably she kicked a cushion from her path as she headed toward it. Naked, she slipped into the water, steam rising to condense in a mist of scented dew, the dew running down the mirrored walls in miniature rivers. A singing jewel! Before that it had been a harpist born with seven fingers on each hand, the extra digits giving him a unique mastery of the instrument. He had replaced a dancer of incredible flexibility who had ousted a juggler and before him had been-what? There had been so many. She couldn't remember.

The water broke into foam as she added perfumed chemicals, bubbles rising to break and rise again, each little explosion a tingle against her skin. A stimulation she enjoyed, one introduced to her by Yunus. He had been absent now for too long and she wondered if he had tired of her. She almost wished he had and yet, without him, how to survive?

Water splashed as she rose with impatient energy, small puddles marking where she had stood, droplets tracing her passage into the other room. The maid, eyes appraising, dried her and wrapped her nudity in a robe.

"Your hair, my lady?"

"Yes. After I've gone out, clean up and go." The girl shared a room in the servant's quarters. "I shan't need you until tomorrow."

As the girl started to dress her hair Ellain studied herself in the mirror. Still attractive, still superficially young, but already the small, telltale signs were beginning to show. The skin at the corners of her eyes held more lines than she liked. The cheeks, still firm, lacked a certain bloom. The chin, the set of the lips, the lines of her throat-all carried the subtle scars of time.

"You have beautiful hair, my lady." The maid's hands caressed the thick tresses as she guided the brush. "How shall I dress it? Casual? Formal? A crest or-"

"Casual." There was no need for an elaborate coiffure now that her appointment had been cancelled. "Just something simple. A chignon will do."

"And the gown?"

"No gown. Slacks and a tunic, one with a cowl." A choice dictated by a sudden decision. "Something suitable for the Stril."

If she wasn't to perform then she would watch while others did. Still restless she craved the anodyne of excitement. If nothing else she could watch the baiting or wander among the booths. Take a seat in the arena even-anything was better than just to sit and wait. And, perhaps, she would find adventure.

It was early but even so the area was busy with a life which ebbed but never died. The beat of drums merged with the thin wail of pipes and serpents wound sinuously over a naked, painted body. A man breathed fire and smoke, an ascetic displayed the skewers thrust into his flesh, a woman tittered and spun as she juggled glittering balls.

Before a booth a man threw knives.

He was tall, masked, naked to the waist, his torso marked with red and ugly wounds. His target was a young, dark-haired girl wearing a loose gown held by ties at shoulders and sides. She stood before a board, steel flashing to the clash of a cymbal, the knives thudding into the backdrop. Ties yielded as the blades severed the material, the gown opening to display a hint of the creamy skin and well-moulded body beneath.

Ellain watched with mounting fascination. How would it feel to watch a man hurl razor-edged steel at her naked body? To hear the hiss and thud as the point drove home? The sharp pain too, perhaps if it came too close. To cut and release blood. Had the girl ever been hit? Had any died?

"A sample," roared the barker. "Come inside and see more. Watch as the girl is stripped naked, facing death to be held in a cage of steel. See how a fighter trains. Try your luck at beating a champion with no risk of injury to yourself. Learn how to throw a knife and use a living man as a target. Hit him and win a hundred kren. Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!"

Yielding to a whim, Ellain joined the crowd thrusting money at the woman selling tickets, the girl's mother, she guessed. Inside she took a place close to the wall away from a raised platform. The place quickly filled. In a short while the girl, again completely covered, entered and took her position against a board. The man, still masked, followed. A clash of cymbals and the performance began.

The owner watched with mounting satisfaction. Business was good and would get better as the word passed and the young bloods came to try their luck. He'd been wise. Dumarest was everything he claimed and had done exactly as he promised. Knife-throwers were common enough but he'd added the unusual. To offer himself as a target had seemed to be inviting suicide but, as yet, he'd not been touched. The apparent wounds were nothing but paint, bait for the gullible to try their luck.

And, at a score of kren a time, few could resist the temptation.

Again the cymbals and Gillian stepped from the ring of blades, naked, untouched and smiling. A good girl and one dear to his heart as she was to her mother's. One with courage and, he was afraid, more than a casual interest in the new attraction. A situation which could lead to trouble unless handled delicately but, in the meantime, money was to be made.

He moved forward, announcing the next part of the program, stepping back as Dumarest went through ritual motions; the hold, the cut and stab, the parry, the attack. A short and basic demonstration of fighter technique which fulfilled the promise and whetted the appetite for what was to come. He moved into the crowd as Dumarest showed how to hold a blade, to poise and throw it, taking his time as the owner sold tickets and collected money. In the Stril time was of value. A show had to be short, sharp and cleanly ended. Once the punters had been milked they had to be got rid of so as to make room for more.

The cymbals again and the last part of the program commenced. Dumarest, armed with a short metal bar in each hand, stood with his back to a loosely hung section of fabric. He faced the crowd and Ellain saw the glitter of his eyes through the holes in the mask as he looked at her. The robe she wore was the color of her hair. The cowl was raised.

"And now," said the owner, "a chance to hurt. To kill and to win a hundred kren. Throw your knife, hit the man and collect. You first, sir."

A youth, trembling with eagerness, stepped forward. Awkwardly he threw the knife handed to him, the blade turning, the weapon hitting sidewise against the loose fabric as Dumarest stepped aside.

"And you, sir. Then you. And you." The owner passed out knives. "One at a time, now, but hurry!"

A big man, smiling, confident, sent his blade hurtling through the air. It was parried by a deft swing of one of the metal bars. Another, deflected, buried its point in the floor. More followed, a dozen, a score, then as men clamored for further chances the owner called a halt.

"That ends the show, ladies and gentlemen. Another will begin in a few minutes. If you wish to try your luck again return and you are welcome to do so. This way out, please. Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!"

Hurry and leave to talk and return and pay again to enter. An extra charge at the door added to the fee for using the knife. Ellain lingered until she was the last conscious of the masked man's stare.

She said, "There will be a note waiting for you with the woman who sells tickets."

One written on paper bought from a vendor, sealed with scented wax, given with money into the woman's hand. A note she was certain would bring him at midnight to her door.

The recording was of Dowton's Transpadane, a clever enough composition but one lacking true depth of artistry, though the blended voices of the chorus and duet held a certain charm. She muted it as the bell announced a caller, checking the exterior before opening the panel, throwing it wide to stand haloed by the light from the room behind.

"Well!" She backed as Dumarest lifted his hands toward her. "So impetuous! But, at least, you are on time."

He followed her into the room, annoyed at his own reaction. It had been a trick of the light, the color of the hair now cascading in a thick tress over one shoulder, the golden tunic which ended at mid-thigh to leave the long column of her legs in full view. A coincidence. The possibility of anything else was too remote. Yet even so he had to ask.

"Did you originate on Solis?"

"Solis?" Smiling, she shook her head. "No. Why do you ask?"

"You resemble someone I knew who lived there. The color of your hair is a planetary trait."

"You like it." Spinning she caused it to lift and spread. "I'm glad. But my world is Nyadoma. And yours?"

"Earth."

"Earth?" She added, surprised. "That's odd. I've a friend who mentioned it once."

Dumarest said, carefully, "This friend of yours-could I meet him?"

"Perhaps. Of course he could have been joking. It's an unusual name for a planet. Forget him now. Some wine?"

She poured without waiting for an answer, handing him a goblet half-filled with fluid the color of blood. Drinking she watched him, studying his face, his eyes, the set of his lips, the plane of his jaw. She hadn't been mistaken; the masked man in the booth was the same one who had faced the sannak.

She smiled when he admitted it. "I knew I was right. But what makes a fighter like you waste his skill in a cheap booth? Money? You get a share of the take?" Then as he nodded. "And the girl? Do you share her too?" She shrugged as he made no answer. "You could do better, Earl. Much better."

And perhaps she would help him. Her note had mentioned the possibility of financial gain; shrewd bait to attract a desperate man. And who else would expose himself to thrown knives?

She said, "You're trying to build a stake so as to back yourself again in the arena. The reason for the mask-you want to hide your skill. But it won't work. You are known now and no one in his right mind would be willing to face you. Certainly no one would bet against you. One of the penalties of a small world."

He said, dryly, "But not the worst."

"No." She drank, wishing he hadn't mentioned it, and yet it gave them a common bond. "Debt," she said. "On Harge the route to hell. And one so easy to take. I arrived with the conviction I would achieve fame and wealth. My singing would entrance all who heard it and they would laud me and my reputation would flower. A mistake-here there is no great auditorium and little surplus wealth for the majority to spend. An error compounded by another when I stayed instead of leaving when I had the chance. And I have always been a poor mathematician." Pausing she asked, bitterly, "Have you any idea of how quickly a debt can mount?"

"On Harge it will double in seven months and treble in a year."

"Unless the interest is paid. If not it will mount to ten times as much in two years. Ten times!" This time when she drank she emptied the goblet. "All I earn, everything I get, barely does more than pay the interest on what I owe. And until the debt is paid I can't leave. I'm not permitted to pass through the gate when a ship is on the field. I'm trapped! A prisoner chained for life!" Then, with a sudden change of tone she added, lightly, "Unless, of course, I can find someone to give me help. Someone like you."

"Give?"

"An unpopular word," she admitted. "But the help would be mutual."

He said nothing but looked around the apartment, at the soft furnishings and ornaments of price. She guessed he thought her a liar.

"This place isn't mine, Earl. It belongs to Yunus Ambalo and he is of the Cinque. They own Harge. Yunus thinks he owns me. I have an objection to being regarded as property."

"You could leave," said Dumarest. "You don't have to accept his charity."

The truth, but as unpalatable now as ever. Ellain thought of the alternatives and said, unsteadily, "It isn't as simple as you make it sound. Yunus owns my debt and can be vindictive. Until it's paid-" She broke off, shaking her head, reaching for the decanter. Light glowed from the ruby stream as she refilled her goblet. "I need help, Earl. Not a sermon."

"You think I can give it?"

"I'm sure of it." She came to join him, pushing him on a couch, sitting at his side, one long thigh pressed against his own. Her hair swirled a little as she turned to face him. The scent of her perfume was the cloying odor of lilies. "I watched you when you fought in the arena and even Yunus had to admit you were far above the average. You have speed, strength, can use your brains and watch for advantage."

"I lost."

"Because something happened. What? I remember that you turned and looked at me just before you went down. Was I the cause?" Her full lips parted in a sensuous smile. "Did I stun you with my beauty? Say I did, Earl. Even if it isn't true it would be nice to hear you say it."

A child begging for compliments but, no, she was far from being a child. Seated close as he was he could see now that any resemblance to Kalin was due to the hair, the soft focus of distance. This was a woman who had lived hard and long, one who needed artifice to maintain her youthful appearance. The bones were good, the carriage, but the skin and the tissue beneath betrayed the passage of time.

She said, frowning, "Earl, what are you looking at?"

"Your beauty, Ellain." It was politic to lie. "You are very beautiful."

She smiled and, suddenly, he was no longer a liar. Her beauty still remained, waiting to flower when she relaxed and ceased to act the part she had chosen to play. But even so something lingered. A shadow, the trace of some interior warping which colored her attitude to life and dominated her reaction to events. A thing he had seen before in the eyes of jaded women who had screamed lewd invitations when, victorious, he had walked from the arena.

"Earl, you are so much a man." Ellain rested her fingers on his hand, letting the tips caress his skin. "So wonderfully primeval. A human governed by an animal's simple creed. To eat in order to live. To kill in order to eat." Her voice thickened as she edged closer. "Have you killed often, my dear? Tell me how it feels to kill."

Talk and feed her imagination, stimulating it with thoughts of blood and pain, of combat and wounds and final victory. Triggering her sexual drives so as to render her a willing victim to an ancient domination.

He said, "Is that what you want me to do? To kill Yunus Ambalo."

"What?" The suggestion was sobering, frightening, but even so it held an attraction. Yunus lying on her floor, dead, ripped, bleeding-madness! "No! No, of course not!"

"A mistake. I apologize."

"You should. It was insane even to suggest it." More softly she added, "Would you kill him if I asked?"

"No." Dumarest was blunt. "I'm not that stupid. To kill one of the Cinque would be to invite an unpleasant end."

"One more horrible than you imagine. And it would do no good. His heirs would inherit my debt and I'd still not be free." Her fingers resumed their caress. "Why aren't you drinking? Isn't the wine to your liking?"

It was rich, holding tartness, a hint of an astringent pungency. He drank, holding the fluid in his mouth, tasting, wondering what she could have added to the original brew.

"You're suspicious," she said, watching him. "Earl, you're so suspicious. Have other women invited you to their homes? Tried to drug you? Used chemical artifice to pursuade you to their beds?" Her laughter held a genuine amusement. "Am I so old that I need take such measures? So ugly that I must delude a man into becoming a lover?" Rising she turned, arms uplifted, the thrust of her breasts prominent against the shimmering gold of her tunic. Her hips and thighs were a poem in seductive curves. "Shall I sing for you? Would you like me to sing?"

Without waiting for his answer she crossed to the player, changed the recording, stood poised as music welled from the speakers. A raw, nerve-scratching pulse of drums mingled with the sobbing of pipes, the wail of a lonely flute. Her voice matched the piece; yearning, calling, stimulating an inherent, primitive response so that Dumarest was acutely aware of her proximity, the feminine scent of her body, the aching need of her flesh.

Aware too of the trap into which she was leading him. Tantalizing him with a lure as old as time. As the piece ended he said, bluntly, "Did you ask me here just to provide an audience?"

"You think it such a small thing? For that one song alone I have been paid-" Her anger dissolved in sudden recognition of the absurdity of what she was saying. But still her pride needed to be appeased. "Are you saying you didn't enjoy it?"

"My lady, I enjoyed it too much. And I drink to your talent!" Deliberately he emptied the goblet. To insult her more would be worse than stupid. And, though he recognized the transparent attempt at seduction, she had what he needed; the possibility of money and a friend who knew of Earth. Casually he mentioned him adding, "What does he do?"

"Hunt, I think. You are eager to meet him?" She read the answer in his eyes and recognized the advantage it gave. "It could be arranged."

"When?"

"Perhaps tonight. It's possible he will be at Tariq Khalil's party. Another novelty." Her eyes darkened at memory of the slight. "I should have performed but would be welcome as a guest and you can be my escort Why not?" She smiled, anger forgotten. "Amuse yourself, Earl, while I change."

The room reflected its owner; delicate, fussy, spoiled. Dumarest moved around, looking, halting before an image which sat grimacing with endless pain. Another depicted a scene in the same mode; a couple this time locked in an embrace which blended ecstasy with torment. Gifts from Yunus?

He moved to the player and changed the recording, picking a crystal at random, the throbbing of strings echoing his choice. The air was warm, tainted with a peculiar odor and he guessed that spices had been burned to provide a pungent incense. From the bedroom he could hear small sounds as the woman busied herself. Moving away from the door he reached the masked window. A button cleared the panel.

Under the blazing light of massed stars the desert looked like a frozen, silver sea.

It was calm now, the air free of wind, the undulating dunes locked in a transient stasis. One which held a unique beauty for never again could the sand take on that same exactitude. The shape and flow of the ridges would be changed, the shallow dells, the peaked mounds, the long, sensuous slopes which seemed to reach to eternity. Then, at the limit of vision, looming like a toothed ridge against the glow of the sky, rested a long range of uneven mounds.

"The Gouhen Hills," said Ellain. "In time they too will be desert."

She had come to stand at his side, moving soundlessly on naked feet, her hair lifted and bound with a golden fillet the scarlet strands drawn up tight against the round perfection of her skull. A thick, fluffy robe enveloped her and her face, wiped free of cosmetics, looked startlingly young in its innocence.

A trick of the light; the silver glow from beyond the window was kind. Or an inner relaxation so that now, for the first time, Dumarest saw her as she really was. A child trapped in a woman's body and forced to live in a harsh, adult world. Then, looking beyond her, he saw the images and their depiction of endless pain. No child-or if so one who had more than her share of childish cruelty. He recalled the faces he had seen edging the arenas in which he had fought-they too, at times, could look innocent and young.

"It can be beautiful at times," she whispered, looking at the desert. "The storms come and the world changes and everything vibrates to the fury of the wind. You can hear it screaming as if it's a thing alive. Watching it, you can imagine eyes, a mouth, hands reaching to rend and tear, claws to rip. A destroyer awful and magnificent in its terrible power."

"Wind," said Dumarest. "Sand and dust. There's nothing else."

"No?"

"Creatures, perhaps." He thought of the sannak. "An adapted form of life."

"And ghosts," she said. "Never forget the ghosts. I dream of them at times; those caught in the storms, the others condemned to die in them. The old, the helpless, those so deeply in debt there can be no prospect of them ever getting clear. Those who refused to pay-have you never thought of that, Earl? Wondered how they are dealt with? The Cinque have found a way."

Murder-to expose anyone unprotected to the winds would be nothing else. Legalized, perhaps, justified on the grounds of logic, but murder just the same.

"That's why I've got to get away," said Ellain. The mask of the window rasped across the pane as she pressed the button. "I dream of it at times. Of being out in a storm, lost, hopeless, doomed. To be flayed and, still living, to crawl while the flesh is stripped from my bones. To be skinned, blinded, turned into a thing of horror. God! Earl, I can't bear to think of it!"

"Then don't!"

"To be driven out, left to wait, to watch." Her voice rose, became a scream. "To-Earl! Don't let it happen! Don't-"

She broke off as he slapped her cheek, a gentle blow but one hard enough to quell her incipient hysteria. As she lifted her hand to the mark of his fingers he fetched her wine.

"Drink this."

"Earl?"

"Drink it and stop worrying. No one is going to turn you out into a storm."

Not yet, perhaps not ever, but the threat was always present. Wine slopped as she drank, a ruby stain appearing on her chin, another on her robe. Dumarest took the empty goblet she handed to him.

"Earl, I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"For acting the fool. I didn't come out here to make an exhibition of myself. It was just seeing the desert and you and hoping you could get me away from here-am I asking too much?"

He said, harshly, "You're saying too little. If you have a plan tell me what it is. I need data to work on, facts, information. I can't promise a miracle."

"But you'll do your best? You won't forget me?"

"No." He mastered his impatience. If she offered nothing then he was no worse off than before. And there was always her friend. But to press was to betray his eagerness and to do that was to risk too much. "Hadn't you better get ready now?"

"Yes." She stepped back and took a step toward the bedroom then turned, one hand plucking at her robe, the fabric parting to reveal the smooth sheen of her skin. She was, he guessed, naked beneath the garment. "I came to suggest that you could use the shower if you wanted. Take a bath, even."

"Thank you."

"I just thought that after your work at the booth-" Her gesture was expressive. "And as we're going to a party, well, you understand."

He had bathed before calling and he understood too well. But it suited him to play her game, to strip and stand beneath a flood of scented water, to dry himself, to step into the bedroom and to see her, waiting. To take her. To hold her close, the robe falling, her naked flesh pressed hard against his own. To feel her demanding heat and his own, urgent response. To lift her on the wide, soft bed and there to remember another time, another place when hair the color of flame had burned no brighter than his passion.