Part 9 (1/2)

Now the man was giving orders, dismissing most of his party. Blade peered harder as Nizra stepped full into the glare of a torch. The man wore a flowing robe and a skullcap, as had the others, but the skullcap was a gleaming scarlet. A badge of office, Blade supposed, as was the gleaming chain that encircled the scrawny neck and at which the man continually fumbled with spidery fingers.

Nizra, with four soldiers in attendance, walked a short way around the lake, following a well-worn path, and disappeared into a tall, narrow house of the usual stone and wood. The soldiers did not enter. Blade watched as they spoke for a moment, then split into twos, one party remaining before the house, the other disappearing in the gloom to the rear. This Nizra was well guarded. So much the better. He would be that much more impressed when Blade appeared like a wraith from the very walls. For Blade was counting heavily on the first confrontation. It would decide his fortunes, and whether he would live or die.

He waited patiently until things quieted down. He had about two hours until dawn. Barge traffic between the landing and the pavilion ceased, though the dim lights still glowed and music came everlastingly over the quiet water. Blade made ready. He watched the two guards in front of the house intently. They were bored and sullen and patrolled back and forth, hardly speaking, each intent on his own thoughts. The only light was a guttering torch in a sconce over the door of the house that enlarged and distorted the shadows of the guards as they pa.s.sed to and fro. Blade moved in closer.

He had only the stone knife. This killing, for he meant to kill them for his own safety and for the effect of it, must be a matter of skill and timing and luck. The skill involved did not worry him, when he had to be, Blade was a most efficient killer.

Still he waited and at last the guards paused to chat for a moment beneath the torch. Blade had been waiting for that. He ran swiftly across the path and ducked into the shadows of a hedge that lay near the end of the near guard's beat. Blade crouched there, stone knife ready, waiting. It must be noiseless.

The guards resumed their pacing. The man was coming toward Blade now, leather harness creaking, short sword swinging in its scabbard, the faintest of star sheen reflected from polished iron armor. Blade took a deep breath and held it.

The guard pa.s.sed him. He was humming, very softly, a s.n.a.t.c.h of the refrain that came from the old Empress' pavilion. Blade let him get three paces past, then took him from behind with one brawny arm about his throat to stifle any cry. With his free hand he brought the stone knife around and sought for the man's throat just above the breastplate. The guard was strong and struggled mightily for his life, but Blade held him as he might a babe and slit the jugular neatly. Blood spurted, drenching the dying man and Blade as well. He did not mind. He wanted the blood on him.

Time was important now. The other guard would have reached the end of his run and turned back. Blade held the guard erect until he bled himself out, then lowered him and s.n.a.t.c.hed off the swordbelt and scabbard. The sword was short and wide, double-edged with a thick hilt, and very heavy. Very like an old Roman sword.

Blade hauled the body into the shadows, fastened the swordbelt around his slim waist and started walking toward the torch over the door of the Wise One's house. He went slowly, with a measured tread, matching his pace to that of the other guard now approaching. As he drew near the aura of light cast by the torch, Blade drew the heavy sword from its scabbard. He let it dangle by his side, concealing it as much as possible with his leg. The other guard must experience a split second of shock and surprise and terror, and Blade was counting on that.

Both men strode into the flickering circle of light. The guard said, ”I have been thinking, Topah. How did you say it was that, ”

He stopped, staring, his mouth gaping in surprise at the thing that approached him. This was not Topah! This was not a Jedd! This was not anything in the world he had ever seen before, this yellow-clad and blood-drenched corpse-burner with blazing eyes, this towering and muscular thing that was lunging at him now. Topah? Where was Topah?

”Topah, ”

It came out as a mere squeak of death. Blade used all his ma.s.sive strength and put the iron sword into the guard just below the breastplate and above the groin. As he thrust, he twisted the blade in a cla.s.sic disemboweling cut. At the same time he used a backhand chop to smash the man's throat and voice box. It was over.

Blade put his foot on the corpse and tugged out the sword. He left it b.l.o.o.d.y. He dragged the body out of range of the torch and then turned and went into the house of Nizra, the Wise One.

He found himself in a short hallway. A taper burned starkly on a barrel-like table. Blade took blood from the sword and daubed it on his face, drawing a crude pattern around his eyes. As a part of his long-ago training as a secret agent, he had studied the ways of American Indians and the ways in which facial paint could be used to induce terror. He could have used a mirror.

At the end of the hall, a steep flight of stairs led upward. Blade leaped up them like a great cat, the b.l.o.o.d.y sword held at the ready before him. There might be more guards in the house. He hoped not. Dawn would be on him soon and time was at a premium. He wanted to get on with the business at hand.

There were no guards. Another taper gleamed in the upper hall. There was a single door, half open, and through it Blade saw the Wise One asleep in a great bed with a canopy over it. This, if it could be called a luxury, was the only one. The room was barren, stark, with nothing but a chair and a table, on which were piles of books and papers, and a large clay pot near the bed.

Blade went softly into the room, carrying the taper, and closed the door behind him. There was a bolt and he slid it to. He walked to the bed and poked at the enshrouded figure with his swordpoint.

”Wake up,” said Blade. ”Wake up, Nizra. Wise One. Wake up!”

The head, like a huge bald melon, emerged from the covers. Small dark eyes, like dank moths, fluttered at Blade. The taut white skin, stretched over the ma.s.sive skull and marred not even by a hair root, mirrored the taper like an ivory ball.

Blade, towering by the bedside like a demon, glowering with his b.l.o.o.d.y face and clothes and the threatening sword, forever gave Nizra credit for his first words.

The dark eyes blinked. The thin mouth, tiny in the big head, said, ”You are a fool. I am not dead yet, corpseburner. Get back to your proper work and leave me to my rest.” The voice was another surprise. A rich and robust baritone with the promise of ba.s.so.

Blade covered his own surprise with a laugh. ”I am not a corpseburner and you know it, Nizra. But that is all you know. Are you awake now? Do you hear and understand me? There is little time for us to reach an understanding.”

The black eyes were studying him. Trying to understand, to cope, to sort matters out and decide if this was a dream or reality. And if real, how near was death? Because no man, no matter how dull and sleepy, could stare at the terrible figure Blade made and not know that he was very close to dying. The great bald head nodded and the little dark eyes blinked and the Wise One conceded this.

The marvelous deep voice slid down a note. ”True. You are no corpseburner. Who are you then, and what do you want with me? And how came you into this house? My guards, ”

Blade held up the blood-gummed sword. ”Your guards, the two before the house, are dead. This sword and this blood prove that. I killed them easily and with a purpose, to convince you, Nizra, that I am what I will presently tell you I am. And to show you that I will kill you also, as quickly and as easily as I killed your guards, if you do not cooperate with me absolutely and without question. From this moment on, Nizra, I will order and you will obey. You understand?”

Blade took a step toward the bed and raised the sword a bit. He watched the spidery hands lying on the coverlet. Near the bedpost was a bell pull. The long fingers twitched once or twice, but the hand made no move toward the pull.

”I understand,” said Nizra. ”What do you want of me?”

There was no fear in the deep voice. The black eyes, for the first time Blade noted that they had no lashes, stared back at Blade. He knew then that he had very nearly met his match. For now he had the upper hand, by brute force, but one mistake could change that. For a moment Blade actually felt disappointment and a sense of pique, this Wise One, this Nizra, was either not afraid at all or he was a master of hiding fear. What he was displaying was curiosity. Plain and simple curiosity. Blade could not help wondering whether he, if awakened in the dead of night under similar circ.u.mstances, would have been able to summon such aplomb.

The man in the bed seemed to understand all this. He folded his skinny fingers across his chest and repeated, ”What is it you want of me?”

Blade thrust his sword into the scabbard with a ring of iron. He kicked the single chair toward the bed and sat down. He crossed his own brawny arms and matched the dark eyes stare for stare. Blade knew that the time for violence, or the threat of it, was for the moment past. Now was a time for guile and cunning and the matching of wits. For self-interest. For compromise. He had won the first round, but the wedge was barely in the door.

Blade leaned toward the bed. ”You will listen. You will not ask questions or interrupt. I will explain as best I can, but I tell you now that you will not understand. Or you will understand very little. It is in the nature of things.”

He paused. Nizra nodded slightly and kept silent.

”I am not a Jedd,” said Blade. ”As you must know. I am not even of your world. Of your universe. I cannot even be properly called a stranger, because that would signify some slight connection with your world. I do not even claim that. I come from out in time and s.p.a.ce, from a place you never dreamed of, or ever will, and it would be useless for you to speculate on that, ”

The little opaque eyes moved and glittered. Nizra was already speculating. Blade could almost hear the huge brain, beneath its bony carapace, clicking and whirring as the gears meshed and raced. It occurred to him that this Wise One was not so much a man as a thinking machine. It would be his bad luck, he thought sourly, to encounter a genius in Jedd. To make matters more difficult.

But he continued: ”I am not a G.o.d nor a devil, if you understand those words. I have been sent to your world on a mission, to do certain work, and when I have completed that work I will leave and return to my own world. I would like to complete my work in peace and without more killing. I would like to be a friend and not an enemy. If you will understand this, Nizra, and believe it and work with me and not against me I can finish my task and be gone that much sooner. Now speak, of all that I have said, how much have you understood?”

The ma.s.sive head lolled on its delicate stalk of spine. The eyes narrowed at Blade. A hand came slowly up to stroke the s.h.i.+ning bald dome.

”I understand your words. They are plain enough. If there is a concealed meaning in them I will in time understand that also. If you speak truth or not I do not yet know, but I will know. At this moment I only accept. I do not believe or disbelieve. Let us leave it that way then. I have no wish to be your enemy unless it is to my gain to be so. It may be that you do speak truth, and I would be a fool indeed not to accept that and learn from you. I am not a fool. And I am not afraid of you. Not now. If you were going to kill me you would have done it at once.”

Blade raised the b.l.o.o.d.y sword. ”There is still time.”

The little mouth smiled. ”No. Not now. Because it is plain that you have come to make a bargain of some sort. So get to it. We will leave all explanation and questions for later. What do you want of me? And how are you called?”

”My name is Richard Blade. It will mean nothing to you.”

Nizra blinked. ”A man must be called something. Richard Blade? Two names? We in Jedd have but one. Did you come alone into our world?”

Blade kept his face impa.s.sive. ”I came alone. I will leave alone.” Ooma must be protected at all costs. He would not have her questioned, probably under torture. Nor the aunts, for that matter. Not even the fat drunkard, Mok, must be placed in danger. They had nothing to do with all this.

Nizra said once more, ”What do you want of me, Richard Blade? It will be dawn soon with people astir and if we are to be friends and work together there are preparations and explanations to make ready. So what do you expect of me, and what do you offer me in return?”

Blade answered a question with a question. ”How long will the old Empress, the Jeddock, stay alive?”

Nizra blinked three times. The scant brows over the lashless eyes raised in slight surprise, but he only said, ”I am called the Wise One by the Jedds, and it is true that I am wise in many things, but I cannot answer that question.”

”Guess, then. An estimate.”

The tiny mouth pursed, then: ”A minute, an hour, a day, a month or a year. That is my guess.”

Blade glared, but gave it up. He tried another tack. ”Is she senile? What is her mental condition?”