Storm over Vallia Page 9

  Arachna was the name by which she was known; but still San Fraipur did not know what she was, of what race she might be.

  When he thought of her that agile brain of his pained him.

  He did know, with very great certainty, that he stood in mortal terror of her and her assistants.

  Beside that continuing horror this summons from the kov who must now be called king meant — almost — nothing. Alloran wanted to see him. That, in itself, made this day different from very many that had been blown with the wind.

  These interior corridors were never as busy as those outside the green door. Slaves hurried everywhere, of course; but they were a normal part of life. Fraipur did not incline his head as stupid fat old Naghan the Chains the chamberlain passed with his fancy woman on his arm. Fraipur knew little of women. They had been denied to him in his youth during training and he’d never bothered to open new relationships when all the worlds of thaumaturgy lay awaiting his inspection.

  Naghan the Chains trembled so that his chins shook; the woman on his right arm looked quickly away, and made a secret sign. Tosie the Hiffim and Naghan the Chains both devoutly believed in San Fraipur, despite the kov’s — the king’s — apparent recent slighting of the Wizard of Fruningen.

  For Fraipur, the fact that Naghan and Tosie were walking together like this meant the chamberlain was off duty and was going out. Stupid and fat he might be, but he oversaw protocol at audiences. Anxiety grew in Fraipur like an ulcer.

  As he walked through the various sentry-guarded rooms and passageways he saw the changes made since his last visit. This villa was large; but it was overcrowded in the outer parts where everyone was jammed up together and that was largely caused by the amount of space given over to these secret inner areas. The name of the villa had been banned from everyone’s lips by the king, and he was in the process of choosing a new name. He did not wish to give the place a too resounding name, for obvious reasons. He also did not wish to give it a mean-sounding name, for equally valid reasons.

  At a green velvet door with golden strigicaws decorating the panels, Fraipur halted. The two Chuliks looked at him, and one used the butt of his spear to hit one of the slaves crouched by the door. The two slaves jumped up and opened the double-doors. Fraipur walked through.

  In the old days Alloran, like everyone else, used slaves. He had used them with some consideration. Fraipur had not bothered his head overmuch about the new emperor’s edict that slavery was to be abolished. He could quite see that the slaves here would welcome that law.

  In the anteroom beyond the door he was met by Jiktar Rakkan, who was a Kataki. Fraipur, like any honest citizen, detested Katakis. Now, he kept his face expressionless and followed the Kataki Jiktar, walking as though he trod on eggs.

  The next archway, swathed by cloth of gold curtains and guarded by four Katakis, gave ingress to the chamber where Alloran sat in his throne waiting for the wizard.

  “Come in, San Fraipur! Advance!”

  “Majister,” said Fraipur, and he went into the full incline, nose on the carpet and bottom in the air. He was never one to take unnecessary chances. Alloran showed his pleasure at this slavish display, ordered Fraipur up, and waved a slave forward with a stool. The three-legged wooden stool was provided with a green and red cushion, and Fraipur understood this to be a mark of distinction.

  He sat down, thankful to get off his knees, which resembled jellies.

  “Majister?”

  “You have not served me well lately, San. I forgive you in this, as a mark of my pleasure. Now I am king. That washes away all that is past. Now we look to the future.”

  “Yes, majister.”

  “I shall test your powers, San. Tell me what I wish to know, and great rewards shall be yours.”

  “Majister?”

  “Strom Rosil Yasi, the Kataki Strom, does not fare as well as he might upon the mainland. You see I am well-served by the Katakis.” He waved a beringed hand around the chamber and Fraipur saw the guards along the walls, harsh in black and green, feathers still in the hothouse atmosphere. Low-browed are Katakis, snaggle-toothed, owing little to humanity. Each has a long flexible whiptail to which is strapped six inches of bladed steel. A whiptail can slip that deadly dagger up between his legs and into your guts in a twinkling.

  Fraipur swallowed. “So I see, majister.”

  “Strom Rosil sends news that he needs more men. He has recently been held by that brat, the Prince Majister, and has conducted a strategic withdrawal across Venavito into Ovvend.” Alloran lifted a hand and a Sylvie wearing pearls and tissue placed a golden cup of wine into the outstretched paw. Sylvies are so voluptuous that they appear as though dreamlike, capable of gratifying all the hothouse desires of men. Fraipur did not look at the slave girl as Alloran continued: “You know, San, what province lies to the west of Ovvend.”

  “Your own Kaldi.”

  “Quite.”

  “The question then, is one of the relative powers and strengths of Strom Rosil and the Prince Majister, of the numbers of troops to be sent, if any should be sent, and of the chances of success or failure—”

  “There will be no failure.”

  “Naturally, majister.”

  “Can you tell me, San Fraipur, what is going to happen? And, then, what I must do?”

  “As to the first, majister, I will try. As to the second, the king will decide.”

  Fraipur sat a little straighter on the stool. Yes, he was just deciding in a congratulatory way, that was a most cunning and crafty answer, when the king frowned and leaned forward spilling the wine onto the carpet.

  “I shall decide, Fraipur! But you will tell me the issues on which to base my decision! By Vox! Must I always deal with imbeciles.”

  Fraipur shrank on the little three-legged stool. He could feel the hardness of the wood through the cushion.

  From nowhere, slave girls appeared like ghosts to swab up the spilled wine and to pour more. The tinkle of their ankle bells affected Fraipur oddly, as though the Bells of Beng Kishi, instead of ringing in his skull, came clamoring in from the far distance. He opened his mouth, not quite sure what to say, when King Vodun spoke with the snap of command.

  “Clear out, Fraipur. Return in four burs, and then tell me true. Dernun?”[8]

  “Majister!” yelped Fraipur, and scuttled off the stool and out the golden-swathed doorway, trembling.

  The sound of those eternally damned ankle bells followed him, mockingly.

  Alloran swigged the wine back and threw the cup casually over his shoulder where a slave girl — a Fristle fifi — caught it expertly.

  “Sorcerers!” he said. “And to think I once doted on that man and all he told me.”

  A figure cloaked all in deep blue velvet, silver trimmed, glided toward Alloran’s throne from a narrow side opening. The hood extended in a cup shape to enclose the vast mass of dull black hair, springy as wire. Alloran stood up as the blue-cloaked figure halted before him.

  “Is all prepared?”

  “All is prepared.”

  With great satisfaction, Alloran took up a fresh goblet of wine and with this in his hand followed the blue-cloaked figure through the side opening into a passageway. The room at the end of the passage, although fitted out as a bedroom, with a broad canopied bed in the center, and dressing tables and mirrors and stools, conveyed the impression of the sanctuary in the inmost recesses of a temple. The walls were draped with blue velvet. The ceiling’s blue velvet hangings depended from five central points toward the cornices to create the impression of a blue star. Silver glitter heightened other impressions, and the waft of hidden fans blew pungent scents upon the air.

  If this place could be likened to a sanctuary, then the bed represented the high altar.

  In the near right-hand corner stood a tall chair facing the bed. Alloran walked steadily to the chair and sat down, resting the wine goblet on his knee. The five other blue-cloaked figures all gave him a slight perfunctory nod of the head, whereat he lifte
d his goblet to them. He was well aware of the power of these Mantissae. Their wiry hair frizzed into bowls of blackness, their lowering foreheads and snaggle teeth, the ferocity of their natural expressions, gave little clue to the fact they were all female. Their whiptails were curled up into their cloaks; Alloran knew that even here and engaged in these holy rites they would still have six-inches of bladed steel strapped to their whiptails...

  When Arachna entered the chamber she formed, as it were, the centerpiece of a small but imposing procession.

  The figure of Arachna was entirely covered by a swath of blue silk cloak with a mask drawn across the opening of the hood so that only the two eyeslits gave humanity to that impression of power. Alloran shifted on his chair. Humanity? Well, he trusted so...

  The little procession included half-naked boys waving fans, two more of the blue-cloaked Mantissae, a giant and stupid Womox bearing a massive double-headed axe over a shoulder, and a Fristle fifi holding the silver leads of a couple of baby werstings. The bundles of black and white behaved with a docility amazing in spirited puppies.

  Arachna was assisted onto the bed by her retainers who then took up positions which did not obstruct Alloran’s view.

  One of the Mantissae struck a silver gong.

  At once another door concealed by the blue hangings opened and a second procession entered.

  Fascinated by these slow and deliberate proceedings, Alloran took a sip of his wine. His throat was dry. He looked at the figure of Arachna on its back on the bed, and saw only the two eyeslits. Was she looking at him? What could she be thinking? He dragged his own gaze away to stare at the man selected for this day’s investigations.

  He stood between four of the Mantissae, naked, his wrists bound at his back. He was a Khibil, with a proud foxy face, with reddish whiskers that now were not brushed up arrogantly but drooped in dejection. A supercilious, superior race of diffs, Khibils, and this pleased Alloran, for the best results could only come from the best material.

  A thread of red wine dribbled down the Khibil’s chin.

  Arachna’s voice rustled like bats’ wings.

  “You have your question ready to ask at the right time, Vodun?”

  “I have, Arachna.”

  “Do you continue to deny Opaz?”

  “I do.”

  “Do you continue in steadfast loyalty to Takar?”

  “I do.”

  “Are you content that Arachna and her Mantissae serve you so well?”

  “I am.”

  With a single sweeping movement as of a bird opening its wings, Arachna threw the cloak wide.

  On the bed lay a Khibil girl. Artful strings of jewels enhanced her beauty and the lushness of her body glowed into the overheated air.

  The Khibil jumped, staggered, was caught and held upright. He could see nothing else in all of Kregen but the most beautiful and desirable girl in that terrible and beautiful world.

  “Your question, Vodun!”

  Rapidly yet carefully, Alloran asked of Arachna what he had demanded of Fraipur.

  Groaning, spitting, fighting with his bonds, the Khibil struggled to break free.

  One of the Mantissae slashed his bonds loose.

  Instantly, without hesitation, he flung himself forward.

  Alloran knew that had the girl on the bed been apim he would himself have been demonically impelled forward by passions bursting into flame all over his body. The Khibil had been given to drink, and had no control over himself of any sort.

  Watching with a fascination that grew on him each time he witnessed this sacrifice, Alloran saw the climax approaching. A Mantissa moved to the side of the bed. She carried a heavy-hiked dagger. The blade was not a Vallian dagger, being snake-curved; Alloran blinked involuntarily, and took another sip of wine.

  From under the figures on the bed a hand showed, a left hand. It moved between their legs with deliberate speed down the bed. The hand opened at the end of a long and flexible tail, stringily muscled, ridged, glinting in a shade far removed from the reddish skin tint of the Khibils’ bodies.

  Into that tail hand the Mantissa placed the snake-curved dagger.

  Alloran sucked in his breath and the wine slopped from the goblet.

  The tail hand struck. Viciously it sliced the dagger upwards, upwards and in, deeply in. The Khibil’s scream compounded of agony and ecstasy shrieked into that blue-draped room. He collapsed. With a gesture finicky yet savage, Arachna pushed him off and he fell limply to the carpet. The Mantissae did not move. No one moved. Blood smothered the breast of the Khibil girl.

  The voice from Arachna was entirely different from that with which she had spoken to Alloran. It husked as though reaching in past cobweb veils of mystery and distance, remote yet penetrating, the voice past reason.

  “Strom Rosil will continue to retreat. His powers are limited and grow weaker. You must seize the leem by the throat, not by the tail. Water will not always wash away blood.”

  The voice swelled so that undercurrents of passion shook the husky words.

  “You must choose to drink water or drink blood!”

  The voice ceased.

  Arachna lay still, eyes closed, the blood shining upon the glorious Khibil body. The Mantissae closed in and wrapped the blue silk cloak about her, drew the concealing mask across those glowing features.

  Slowly, Alloran stood up. He was shaking with the passions of the sacrificial ceremony.

  He was King Vodun of Southwest Vallia! That could not be denied. There was no more to be discovered here and he walked purposefully to the exit. If Strom Rosil failed him...

  Water or Blood? Would he drink Water or Blood?

  Which was more fitting for a king?

  Chapter ten

  At the Leather Bottle

  Lon the Knees said: “If you insist, Lyss...”

  “I do damn-well insist, so that’s an end to it.”

  “The Leather Bottle is not the place for—”

  “Look, Lon. A poor weak defenseless girl has been known to stick a knife into a hulking great brute of a man insulting her. Well, is that not true?”

  “Aye, aye. But—”

  “That’s an end, Lon! Queyd-arn-tung!”[9]

  They were standing in a shadowed doorway of a respectable street, the Lane of Sweetmeats, and the evening drew on in long mingled shadows of emerald and ruby. Already the Maiden with the Many Smiles floated over the rooftops of Rashumsmot casting down her fuzzy pink light to blend oddly with the last trailing remnants of the radiance from Zim and Genodras. The air tanged with spicy odors. Folk moved with purpose, to reach home after the day’s labors, to find the first wet of the evening, to see what pickings there might be in any of the thieves’ quarters abounding in any town where an army is quartered.

  Lon stared at this glorious girl, and shook his head.

  She wore a beigey yellowish dress that gave a dusty impression and the patterns of green leaves threaded in the material did not please Lon in an obscure way he couldn’t fathom. The dress was halfway thigh length and her legs were bare. She wore sandals tied up with, on the left foot, a leather thong and on the right foot a piece of string. She carried her brown leather and canvas knapsack on her left hip.

  Over her right hip a frippery of the dress created a flounce that effectively concealed the long Vallian dagger scabbarded to her belt there. Her hair, lustrous and sweetly clean, was tightly bound up. As a Battle Lady she did not habitually let her hair grow long; but she was too much a woman to allow it to be cropped mercilessly, as so many of the Jikai Vuvushis did. Her face, though was not sweetly clean. That gorgeous face was decidedly grubby.

  Black spots dotted it here and there, her eyes were smudged, and an unwholesome looking sore extended down from the right corner of her mouth. She’d painted that on herself in this quiet doorway, with her back to the Lane of Sweetmeats and with Lon standing vacantly at her back.

  In one of her belt pouches reposed a small vial of a secretion from the skunk-like ani
mal called a powcy. It really did, as one of her dear friends would say, pong ’orrible. So far she had not had the courage actually to daub the nauseating gunk over herself.

  If the going got too rough, though, she would — by Vox, she’d stink the place out!

  Lon tried one last time.

  “Look, Lyss. Yes, all right, we’ll go to The Leather Bottle. But if you wore your black leathers and carried swords—”

  “D’you think anyone in there would trust me, talk to me? I’d be more likely to be stuck through than I am now, dressed like this.”

  “Women!” said Lon to himself. “By Black Chunguj! There’s no way past them.”

  With which piece of sage internal logic he set off with Lyss the Lone toward their rendezvous at The Leather Bottle.

  As for Lon the Knees himself, his finery had had to be returned from whence it came, that is, back to those from whom he’d borrowed the attire. He wore his own decent rough homespun, a tunic that was improbably hard wearing and might even see him out. The color was indeterminate but tended to the brown. The main gauche was stuffed down inside in its scabbard. He carried a cudgel. He was a Vallian citizen, not a koter, out for the evening and dressed for the occasion.

  At that, he’d never really got on with those danged breeches. Yes, so all right, his legs were on the — curvy — side. But there was nothing like a clean breechclout and bare legs. He felt limber as he walked along beside Lyss, reveling in this aspect of the evening alone.

  Even had there not been mineral oil in abundance, folk tended these days not to be so strictly bound by the twin suns in their going to bed and rising. The seven moons of Kregen among them, at different times, cast down light. The Leather Bottle, therefore, at this early hour, had not yet begun to hum.

  The place looked snug under its low ceil, with wooden benches aptly situated in nooks and with a rotund barrel-row mounted on trestles behind the bar. The landlord polished up a tankard with his upper hands while his middle pair poured drinks for the two Fristles leaning against the bar. They were giving inconspicuous glances to the six Rapas sitting in the bay window, making a deal of noise and clearly intending that this should be the start of a night to remember.