Part 3 (1/2)

”I'm always in splendid health,” said Lord Eyrdway. ”Not like you, eh?”

”No indeed,” said Lord Ermenwyr with a sigh. ”I'm a wreck. Too much fast life down there amongst the Children of the Sun. Wining, wenching, burning my candle at both ends! I'm certain I'll be dead before I'm twenty- two, but what memories I'll have.”

”Wenching?” Lord Eyrdway's eyes widened.

”It's like looting and raping, but n.o.body rushes you,” explained his brother. ”And sometimes the ladies even make breakfast for you afterward.”

”I know perfectly well what wenching is,” said Lord Eyrdway indignantly. ”What's burning your candle at both ends?”

”Ahhh.” Lord Ermenwyr lit up his smoking tube. ”Let's go order a couple of bottles of wine, and I'll explain.”

Several bottles and several hours later, they sat in the little garden just outside Lord Ermenwyr's private chamber. Lord Ermenwyr was refilling his brother's gla.s.s.

”...so then I said to her, 'Well, madam, if you insist, but I really ought to have another apple first,' and that was the exact moment they broke in the terrace doors!” he said.

”Bunch of nonsense. You can't do that with an apple,” Lord Eyrdway slurred.

”Maybe it was an apricot,” said Lord Ermenwyr. ”Anyway, the best part of it was, I got out the window with both the bag and the jewel case. Wasn't that lucky?”

”It sounds like a lot of fun,” said Lord Eyrdway wistfully, and drank deep.

”Oh, it was. So then I went round to the Black Veil Club-but of course you know what goes on in those places!” Lord Ermenwyr pretended to sip his wine.

” 'Course I do,” said his brother. ”Only maybe I've forgot. You tell me again, all right?”

Lord Ermenwyr smiled. Leaning forward, lowering his voice, he explained about all the outre delights to be had at a Black Veil Club. Lord Eyrdway began to drool. Wiping it away absentmindedly, he said at last: ”You see-you see-that's what's so awful unflair. Unfair. All this fun you get to have. 'Cause you're totally worthless and n.o.body cares if you go down the mountain. You aren't the d.a.m.n Heir to the Black Halls. Like me. I'm so really important Daddy won't let me go.”

”Poor old Way-Way, it isn't fair at all, is it?” said Lord Ermenwyr. ”Have another gla.s.s of wine.”

”I mean, I'd just love to go t'Deliat.i.tat.i.ta, have some fun,” said Lord Eyrdway, holding out his gla.s.s to be refilled, ”But, you know, Daddy just puts his hand on my shoulder n' says, 'When you're older, son,'

but I'm older'n you by four years, right? Though of course who cares if you go, right? No big loss to the Family if you get an arrow through your liver.”

”No indeed,” said Lord Ermenwyr, leaning back. ”Tell me something, my brother. Would you say I could do great things with my life if I only applied myself?”

”What?” Lord Eyrdway tried to focus on him. ”You? No! I can see three of you right now, an' not one of 'em's worth a d.a.m.n.” He began to snicker. ”Good one, eh? Three of you, get it? Oh, I'm sleepy.

Just going to put my head down for a minute, right?”

He lay his head down and was promptly unconscious. When Lord Ermenwyr saw his brother blur and soften at the edges, as though he were a waxwork figure that had been left too near the fire, he rose and began to divest him of his jewelry ”Eyrdway, I truly love you,” he said. The express caravan came through next dawn, rattling along at its best speed in hopes of being well down off the mountain by evening. The caravan master spotted the slight figure by the side of the road well in advance, and gave the signal to stop. The lead keyman threw the brake; sparks flew as the wheels slowed, and stopped.

Lord Ermenwyr, bright-eyed, hopped down from his trunks and approached the caravan master.

”h.e.l.lo! Will this buy me pa.s.sage on your splendid conveyance?” He held forth his hand. The caravan master squinted at it suspiciously. Then his eyes widened.

”Keymen! Load his trunks!” he bawled. ”Lord, sir, with a pearl like that you could ride the whole route three times around. Where shall we take you? Deliantiba?”

Lord Ermenwyr considered, putting his head on one side.

”No... not Deliantiba, I think. I want to go somewhere there's a lot of trouble, of the proper sort for a gentleman. If you understand me?”

The caravan master sized him up. ”There's a lot for a gentleman to do in Karkateen, sir, if his tastes run a certain way. You've heard the old song, right, about what their streets are paved with?”

Lord Ermenwyr began to smile. ”I have indeed. Karkateen it is, then.”

”Right you are, sir! Please take a seat.”

So with a high heart the lordling vaulted the side of the first free cart, and sprawled back at his ease.

The long line of carts started forward, picked up speed, and clattered on down the ruts in the red road.

The young sun rose and shone on the young man, and the young man sang as he sped through the glad morning of the world.

The Briscian Saint.

We shouldn't have killed the priest,” said the first soldier.

He was one of three who fled from the long high smoke-pall of the burning city and he glanced back now to see what white rider might be flying over the fissured plain, following them.

”Don't be stupid, what else could we have done?” said the second soldier. ”He swung an axe at us.

That made him a Combatant, see? So it was all right.”

”But he cursed us, before he died,” said the first soldier uneasily.

”So what?”

”So then the earthquake hit!”

”It didn't get us, did it?” said the third soldier, as he jogged steadily on.

”It got our side,” said the first soldier, whose name was Spoke. ”One minute we're a conquering army, the next minute the Duke's buried under a wall and we're on the run!”

”It got plenty of the Briscians too,” said Mallet, the second soldier, panting from the weight of the burden he carried. ”And the Duke never paid us much anyway, did he? So to h.e.l.l with him, and the priest, and the whole business. We're clear away with a fortune, that's all I know. That's called good luck.”

”We're not clear yet,” said Spoke, and an aftershock followed as if on cue, making them all stagger.

”Shut up!” said the other two soldiers, and they ran on, and Spoke turned his face too and ran on, peering desperate up at the hills. Only he who rode behind Mallet regarded the flaming devastation, now, staring from the leather pack with wide sapphire-colored eyes. If the prayers of the dying reached his golden ears, he gave no sign, for his faint smile altered not in the least.

By nightfall they had made the cover of the trees and followed a stream up its course, crossing back and forth to throw off anything that might be tracking them by scent. They crawled the face of the wide-exposed stone gorge, expecting any moment to be nailed in place by pistol-bolts; but no one attacked, and when they lay gasping at the top Spoke said: ”I don't like this. It's too easy.”

”Easy!” said Mallet, who had carried on his back a statue weighing more than a child. He slipped off his pack with a groan and set it upright, but it toppled over and the golden figure struck the rock, ringing hollowly. Spoke cringed.

”And that's a bad omen!” he said.

The third soldier, whose name was Smith, sat up. ”If it was,” he said, ”I'd think it'd be a bad omen for the Briscians, wouldn't you? Their saint falling over?”