Part 3 (1/2)

'Fame at last,' the wizard said wryly. 'Do you know why you're here?'

'You ... Well, I guess you set a trap for me. I don't know why, unless it has to do with that scroll.'

'Hmm! A perceptive child!' Had he possessed eyebrows, one might have imagined the wizard raising them. And then at once: 'Forgive me. I should not have said ”child”. You are old in the ways of the world, if not in years. But after the first century, such patronizing remarks come easy to the tongue ...' He resumed his chair, inviting Jarveena with a gesture to come closer. She was reluctant.

For when he rose to inspect her, he had been squat. Under the cloak he was obviously thick-set, stocky, with a paunch. But by the time he regained his seat, it was equally definite that he was thin, light-boned, and had one shoulder higher than the other.

'You have noticed,' he said. His voice too had altered; it had been baritone, while now it was at the most flattering a countertenor. 'Victims of circ.u.mstance, you and I both. It was not I who set a trap for you. The scroll did.'

'For me? But why?'

'I speak with imprecision. The trap was set not for you qua you. It was set for someone to whom it meant the death of another. I judge that you qualify, whether or not you know it. Do you? Make a guess. Trust your imagination. Have you, for example, recognized anybody who came to the city recently?'

Jarveena felt the blood drain from her cheeks. She folded her hands into fists.

'Sir, you are a great magician. I recognized someone tonight. Someone I never dreamed of meeting again. Someone whose death I would gladly accomplish, except that death is much too good for him.'

'Explain!' Enas Yorl leaned an elbow on the table, and rested his chin on his fist ... except that neither the elbow, nor the chin, let alone the fist, properly corresponded to such appellations.

She hesitated a second. Then she cast aside her cloak, tore loose the bow that held the cross-lacing of her jerkin at her throat, and unthreaded it so that the garment fell wide to reveal the cicatrices, brown on brown, which would never fade, and the great foul keloid like a t.u.r.d where her right breast might have been.

'Why try to hide anything from a wizard?' she said bitterly. 'He commanded the men who did this to me, and far far worse to many others. I thought they were bandits! I came to Sanctuary hoping that here if anywhere I might get wind of them - how could bandits gain access to Ranke or the conquered cities? But I never dreamed they would present themselves in the guise of imperial guards!'

'They ...?' Enas Yorl probed.

'Ah ... No. I confess: it's only one that I can swear to.'

'How old were you?'

'I was nine. And six grown men took pleasure of me, before they beat me with wire whips and left me for dead.'

'I see.' He retrieved the scroll and with its end tapped the table absently.

'Can you now divine what is in this message? Bear in mind that it forced me hither.'

'Forced? But I'd have thought -'

'I found myself here by choice? Oh, the contrary!' A bitter laugh rang out, acid-shrill. 'I said we're both victims. Long ago when I was young I was extremely foolish. I tried to seduce away the bride of someone more powerful than me. When he found out, I was able to defend myself, but ... Do you understand what a spell is?'

She shook her head.

'It's ... activity. As much activity as a rock is pa.s.sivity, which is conscious of being a rock but of nothing else. A worm is a little more aware; a dog or horse, much more; a human being, vastly more - but not infinitely more. In wildfire, storms, stars, can be found processes which with no consciousness of what they are act upon the outside world. A spell is such a process, created by an act of will, having neither aim nor purpose save what its creator lends. And to me my rival bequeathed ... But no matter. I begin' to sound as though I pity myself, and I know my fate is just. Shall we despise justice? This scroll can be an instrument of it. Written on it are two sentences.

'Of death.'

While he spoke, there had been further changes under his concealing garb. His voice was now mellow and rich, and his hands, although very slender, possessed the ordinary number of joints. However, the redness still glowed.

'If one sentence is upon Commander Nizharu,' Jarveena said firmly, 'may it be executed soon.'

'That could be arranged.' A sardonic inflection coloured the words. 'At a price.'

'The scroll doesn't refer to him? I imagined -'

'You imagined it spelt his doom, and that was why he was so anxious about its loss? In a way that's correct. In a way ... And I can make certain that that shall be the outcome. At a price.'

'What - price?' Her voice quavered against her will.

He rose slowly from his chair, shaking his cloak out to its fullest; it swept the floor with a faint rustling sound.

'Need you ask, of one who so plainly is obsessed by l.u.s.t for women? That was the reason for my downfall. I explained.'

Ice seemed to form around her heart. Her mouth was desert on the instant.

'Oh, why be so timid?' purred Enas, Yorl, taking her hand in his. 'You've endured many worse bedfellows. I promise.'

It was true enough that the only means she had found to cross , the weary leagues between Forgotten Holt and Sanctuary had been

to yield her body: to merchants, mercenaries, grooms, guards-' men ...

'Tell me first,' she said with a final flare of spirit, 'whose deaths are cited in the doc.u.ment.'

'Fair,' said the wizard. 'Know, then, that one is an unnamed man, who is to be falsely convicted of the murder of another. And that other is the new governor, the prince.' Thereupon the light faded, and he embraced her unresisting.

5.

She woke late, at least half an hour past dawn. She was in her own bed; the dormitory was otherwise empty. All her limbs were pervaded by a delicious languor. Enas Yorl had kept his promise. If he had been equally skilled when he was younger, small wonder his rival's bride had preferred him to her husband!

Reluctantly opening her eyes, she saw something on the rough pillow. Puzzled, she looked again, reached out, touched: green, iridescent, powdery - Scales!

With a cry she leapt from the bed, just as Melilot marched in, red-faced with fury.

'So there you- are, you little s.l.u.t! Where were you all night? I watched until I could stay awake no longer! By now I was sure you'd been taken by the guard and thrown in jail! What did Nizharu say?'

Naked, bewildered, for a long moment Jarveena was at a loss. Then her eye fell on something infinitely rea.s.suring. On the wooden peg over her bed hung her cloak, jerkin and breeches, and also her precious writing-case, just as though she herself had replaced them on retiring.

Seizing the case, she opened the compartment where she hid such things, and triumphantly produced the gold she had accepted from the commander - but not the silver he had allotted to herself.

'He paid this for a false rendering of the scroll,' she said. 'But you're not to make one.'

'What?' s.n.a.t.c.hing the coins, Melilot made to bite them, but checked.

'How would you like to be scribe by appointment to the governor's household?'

'Are you crazed?' The fat man's eyes bulbed.

'Not in the least.' Heedless of his presence, Jarveena reached under the bed for her chamberpot and put it to its appropriate use. Meantime she explained the plot she had hatched.

'But this means you're claiming to have read the scroll,' Melilot said slowly as he tried to digest her proposals. 'It's enchanted! How could you?'

'Not I, but Enas Yorl.'