Part 32 (1/2)
”I understand, Master Underclerk,” Girays murmured gravely. ”You are an official of the Imperium, and you must perform your duty. I leave her with you, then.” Apparently blind to the Grewzian's look of surprise, he turned toward the door.
”Don't you dare, you snake,” Luzelle muttered. Producing a fistful of New-rekkoes, she slapped the notes down on the desk. ”Here! They must be worth fifty grewzauslins or more, probably more. To prove my good faith. Master Underclerk, sir.”
”Ah.” The underclerk counted. ”Good. I am convinced of your honesty. And your doc.u.ments appear valid.” With an air of generosity he stamped and returned her pa.s.sport.
”Thank you, Master Underclerk,” Luzelle forced herself to reply. ”We will be on our way now.”
”As you wish. Your efforts are useless, however. You will never overtake our Overcommander Stornzof, he is destined for victory. He is Grewzian, you see.”
”Watch the gazettes,” Luzelle advised. Together she and Girays departed the office of the Munic.i.p.al Authority.
Moments later they hurried out the front door, past the sentry, and down the steps to the sunlit town square, where Luzelle consulted her pocket watch.
”Eight-seventeen,” she reported grimly, as they trotted along. ”That little brute of an underclerk deliberately delayed us. Those Grewzians have no notion of fair play.” She thought of Karsler Stornzof and the look in his eyes. ”Most of them, at least. And it would have been a lot worse if you hadn't thought to bribe him. That was brilliant. But would you really have left me there just now?”
”We're in a race, aren't we?”
”But-”
”Faster.” Girays quickened his pace. ”Move faster.”
”Can't,” she huffed. ”It's this carpetbag, it's clumsy-”
”Throw it away, then. I won't slow down for you.”
”n.o.body's asking you to.” She wouldn't discard her bag, she resolved. Not again. A labored spurt brought her to his side. Her breath was coming hard. ”How-much-farther?”
Without troubling to answer, he altered direction, leading her off along some anonymous little lane terminating in a makes.h.i.+ft bridge of slime-slicked planks spanning a runnel thick with raw sewage. The neighboring dwellings were small and dirty, their leaf-thatched roofs blotched with black mold.
He knew where he was going, Luzelle a.s.sured herself. He'd said that he had memorized the best route, and Girays v'Alisante was not given to idle claims.
On he led across the bridge, along another garbage-strewn lane, and then the scene was improving, the lane widening, the neglected wooden houses giving way to larger structures, low slung, stoutly built, spotlessly clean, with long windowless walls. Grewzian, beyond question. Warehouses? If so, a good sign, for the wharves must be near at hand.
Another turn into a tight walkway squeezed between warehouses, and suddenly the way was blocked by the wall of an enclosed pa.s.sage linking two of the buildings. They halted.
”This is wrong.” Girays frowned. ”It's not on the map, it shouldn't be here.”
”Could you have taken a wrong turn?” Luzelle took the opportunity to set her carpetbag down for a moment.
He did not deign to acknowledge the suggestion. ”New construction,” he decided. ”The waterfront should be just on the other side. We'll have to go around.”
”Is there any point?” She could not resist another glance at her watch. ”It's eight thirty-two. We've missed it, Girays. That swine of an underclerk has scuttled us.”
”Only if the Water Sprite Water Sprite embarked exactly on time. But how likely is that?” embarked exactly on time. But how likely is that?”
”Is the crew Grewzian?”
”If she's just five or ten minutes behind schedule, we can still make it. So pick up your bag and come along, or else I'll leave you here.”
”I really hate it when you threaten threaten me.” She picked up her bag. me.” She picked up her bag.
He led her back the way they had come, out of the walkway and into the street, along the street to an intersection where they turned left to weave a path among the warehouses. The buildings all looked exactly alike, and presently she began to suspect that they were traveling in circles. She was on the verge of telling him so when they emerged from the warehouse wilderness to find themselves on Wharf No. 1, with the wide mud-colored Ygah rippling before them, the waterbirds swooping and screeching overhead, and a dizzying variety of boats moored at the dock. The crafts ranged in size from tiny native square-sail to modern transport vessel, and in shape from streamlined Grewzian patrol boat to squat Ygahri river-house, but nowhere among them did Luzelle spy anything resembling a commercial steamer. The Water Sprite Water Sprite, she recalled, was scheduled to depart from Wharf No. 12, several hundred yards downriver.
”This way.” Girays was already moving.
She had to scramble to catch up with him. True to his threats, he was making no allowances for her, and now the bag she refused to relinquish was dragging like an anchor, but she managed to keep pace.
Wharf No. 4. She saw the sign, freshly painted in neat Grewzian characters, out of the corner of her eye as she pa.s.sed. She also noted an a.s.sortment of curious heads turning to watch the jogging progress of the breathless western couple, but there was no time for embarra.s.sment.
Wharf No. 7. Wharf No. 8. There was a st.i.tch in her side, and her arm muscles were in rebellion. The carpetbag began to slide from her sweaty hand, and she tightened her grasp almost spasmodically.
Wharf No. 10, and her spirits were rising, for she felt that they were going to make it. Girays had been right, as he so often was.
Wharf No. 11, and then there was No. 12 at last. And there was the Water Sprite Water Sprite, a serviceable-looking side-wheeler with a shallow bargelike hull, pulling away from the dock. The deep hoot of her whistle announced triumphant departure, very nearly on time.
A yowl of grief and fury escaped Luzelle. Sprinting to the edge of the pier, she stood there waving her free arm and shouting. She could see pa.s.sengers and crew on the deck watching and pointing at her, but the Water Sprite Water Sprite did not reverse course. Several inarticulate exclamations shot out of her mouth. did not reverse course. Several inarticulate exclamations shot out of her mouth.
Girays had followed, and now he stood beside her. Turning to face him, she demanded, ”Make them come back!”
”How, exactly?” he inquired politely. ”What do you expect me to do?”
”I don't know! Think of something! You're formerly-Exalted, you're used to ordering people around. It's in your blood-your grandfather had serfs serfs, didn't he?”
”Yes, but I didn't inherit any of them. Luzelle, calm down and face facts. We missed the boat, it won't come back, and there's nothing we can do about it.”
”We have to think of something. Karsler Stornzof is certainly aboard that thing, and if we're ever to-”
”Stornzof isn't the only problem,” Girays interrupted.
His flat tone warned her, and she unwillingly followed his gaze to the deck of the side-wheeler. One of the figures standing at the rail looked familiar. Not Karsler. Somebody shorter, darker, bulkier, dressed in florid foreign style. The pa.s.senger's voluminously cut, full-sleeved maroon s.h.i.+rt was unmistakable even at a distance.
”Porb Jil Liskjil!” she exclaimed. ”I thought we'd left him behind in Zuleekistan. How could he have managed this?”
”Money,” Girays replied succinctly.
”D'you think he bribed that sentry at the city hall? Or the underclerk?”
”It's a safe bet that he bribed somebody.”
”It isn't fair.” She resisted the impulse to shake her fist after the receding Water Sprite. Water Sprite. Jil Liskjil would only enjoy the gesture. ”Not fair at all.” Jil Liskjil would only enjoy the gesture. ”Not fair at all.”
”Perhaps not, but there's no point in agonizing over it. The next boat south leaves tomorrow morning, and we'll be aboard. Until then we're stuck here in Xoxo, which is not, contrary to all appearances, the end of the world. The race is far from over, and somewhere along the way the chance may come to catch up with-”
”No,” she told him firmly. ”No. Not good enough. I don't accept it.”
”Fine spirit, but I'm afraid you haven't much choice.”
”Yes I do.”
”Really. Planning to swim downstream to Jumo?”