Part 23 (1/2)

Watching Stepson's six formidable companions, waiting like purebred hunting dogs curried for show, he spied a certain litheness about them, an uncanny cleanliness of limb and nearness of girded hips. Close friends, these. Very close.

Abarsis's sonorous voice had ceased, waiting for Hanse's response. The disconcertingly pale eyes followed Hanse's stare, frank now, to his companions.

'Will you say yea, then, friend of the Riddler? And become my friend, also?

These other friends of mine await only your willingness to embrace you as a brother.'

'I own,' Hanse muttered.

Abarsis raised one winged brow. 'So? They are members of a Sacred Band, my old one; most prized officers; heroes, every pair.' He judged Hanse's face. 'Can it be you do not have the custom, in the south? From your mien I must believe it.'

His voice was liquid, like deep running water. 'These men, to me and to their chosen partners, have sworn to forsake life before honour, to stand and never retreat, to fall where they fight if need be, shoulder to shoulder. There is no more hallowed tryst than theirs. Had I a thousand such, I would rule the earth.'

'Which one is yours?' Hanse tried not to sneer, to be conversational, unshaken, but his eyes could find no comfortable place to rest, so that at last he took up the gift-sword and examined the hieratic writing on its blade.

'None. I left them, long ago, when my partner went up to heaven. Now I have hired them back, to serve a need. It is strictly a love of spirit, Hanse, that is required. And only in Sacred Bands is a mercenary asked so much.'

'Still, it's not my style.'

'You sound disappointed.'

'I am. In your offer. Pay me twice that, and I will get the items you desire. As for your friends, I don't care if you b.u.g.g.e.r them each twice daily. Just as long as it's not part of my job and no one thinks I am joining any organizations.'

A swift, appreciative smile touched Abarsis. 'Twice, then. I am at your mercy'

'I stole those diamond rods once before, for Tem-, for the Riddler. He'll just give them back to her, after she does whatever it is she does for him. I had her once, and she did nothing for me that any other wh.o.r.e would not do.'

'You what? Ah, you do not know about them, then? Their legend, their curse?'

'Legend? Curse? I knew she was a sorceress. Tell me about it! Am I in any danger? You can forget the whole idea, about the rods. I keep shut of sorcery.'

'Hardly sorcery, no need to worry. They cannot transmit any of it. When he was young and she was a virgin, he was a prince and a fool of ideals. 1 heard it that the G.o.d is his true father, and thus she is not his sibling, but you know how legends are. As a princess, her sire looked for an advantageous marriage. An archmage of a power not seen anymore made an offer, at about the time the Riddler renounced his claim to the throne and retired to a philosopher's cave. She went to him begging aid, some way out of an unacceptable situation, and convinced him that should she be deflowered, the mage would not want her, and of all men the Riddler was the only one she trusted with the task; anyone else would despoil her. She seduced him easily, for he had loved her. all his young life and that unacceptable attraction to flesh of his flesh was part of what drove him from his primogeniture. She loved nothing but herself; some things never change. He was wise enough to know he brought destruction upon himself, but men are p.r.o.ne to ruin from women. In pa.s.sion, he could not think clearly; when it left him he went to Vashanka's altar and threw himself upon it, consigning his fate to the G.o.d. The G.o.d took him up, and when the archmage appeared with four eyes spitting fire and four mouths breathing fearful curses, the G.o.d's aegis partly s.h.i.+elded him. Yet, the curse holds. He wanders eternally bringing death to whomever loves him and being spurned by whomsoever he shall love. She must offer herself for pay to any comer, take no gift of kindness on pain of showing all her awful years, incapable of giving love as she has always been. So thus, the G.o.ds, too, are barred to her, and she is truly d.a.m.ned.'

Hanse just stared at Stepson, whose voice had grown husky in the telling, when the mercenary left off.

'Now, will you help me? Please. He would want it to be you.'

Hanse made a sign.

' Would want it to be me?' the thief frowned. 'He does not know about this?'

There came the sound of Shadowsp.a.w.n's bench sc.r.a.ping back.

Abarsis reached out to touch the thief's shoulder, a move quick as lightning and soft as a b.u.t.terfly's landing. 'One must do for a friend what the friend cannot do for himself. With such a man, opportunities of this sort come seldom. If not for him, or for your price, or for whatever you hold sacred, do this thing for me, and I will be eternally in your debt.'

A sibilant sound, part impatience, part exasperation, part irritation, came sliding down Shadowsp.a.w.n's hawkish nose.

'Hanse?'

'You are going to surprise him with this deed, done? What if he has no taste for surprises? What if you are wrong, and he refrains from aiding her because he prefers her right where she is? And besides, I am staying away from him and his affairs.'

'No surprise: I will tell him once I have arranged it. I will make you one more offer: Half again the doubled fee you suggested, to ease your doubts. But that is my final bid.'

Shadowsp.a.w.n squinted at the heartshaped face of Stepson. Then, without a word, he scooped up the short stabbing sword in its silver sheath, and found it a home in his belt. 'Done,' said Hanse.

'Good. Then, will you meet my companions?' The long-fingered, graceful hand of Stepson, called Abarsis, made a gesture that brought them, all smiles and manly welcomes, from their exile by the bar.

5.

Kurd, the vivisectionist who had tried his skills on Tempus, was found a fair way from his adobe workshop, his gut stretched out for thirty feet before him: he had been dragged by the entrails; the hole cut in his belly to pull the intestines out was made by an expert: a mercenary had to be at fault. But there were so many mercenaries in Sanctuary, and so few friends of the vivisectionist, that the matter was not pursued. The matter of the h.e.l.l Hound Razkuli's head, however, was much more serious. Zaibar (who knew why both had died and at whose hands, and who feared for his own life) went to Kadakithis with his friend's staring eyes under one arm, sick and still tasting vomit, and told the prince how Tempus had come riding through the gates at dawn and called up to him where he was checking pa.s.s-bys in the gatehouse: 'Zaibar, I've a message for you.'

'Yo!' Zaibar had waved. 'Catch,' Tempus laughed, and threw something up to him while the grey horse reared, uttered a shrill, demonic scream, and clattered off by the time Zaibar's hand had said head: human; and his eyes had said, head: Razkuli's and then begun to fill with tears.

Kadakithis listened to his story, looking beyond him out of the window the entire time. When Zaibar had finished, the prince said, 'Well, I don't know what you expected, trying to take him down so clumsily.'

'But he said it was a message for me,' Zaibar entreated, caught his own pleading tone, scowled and straightened up.

'Then take it to heart, man. I can't allow you two to continue feuding. If it is anything other than simple feuding, I do not want to know about it. Stepson, called Abarsis, told me to expect something like this! I demand a stop to it!'

'Stepson!' Tall, lank Zaibar snarled like a man invoking a vengeful G.o.d in close fighting. 'An ex-Sacred Bander looking for glory and death with honour, in no particular order! Stepson told you? The Slaughter Priest? My lord prince, you are keeping deadly company these days! Are all the G.o.ds of the armies in Sanctuary, then, along with their familiars, the mercenary hordes? I had wanted to discuss with you what could be done to curb them-'

'Zaibar,' interrupted Kadakithis firmly. 'In the matter of G.o.ds, I hold firm: I do not believe in them. In the matter of mercenaries, let them be. You broach subjects too sensitive for your station. In the matter of Tempus, I will talk to him. You change your att.i.tude. Now, if that is all... ?'

It was all. It was nearly the end of Zaibar the h.e.l.l Hound's entire career; he almost struck his commander-in-chief. But he refrained, though he could not utter even a civil goodbye. He went to his billet and he went into the town, and he worked wrath out of himself, as best he could. The dregs he washed away with drink, and after that he went to visit Myrtis, the wh.o.r.emistress of Aphrodisia House who knew how to soothe him. And she, seeing his heart breaking and his fists shaking, asked him nothing about why he had come, after staying away so long, but took him to her breast and healed what she might of his hurts, remembering that all the protection he provided her and good he did for her, he did because of a love spell she had bought and cast on him long since. and thus she owed him at least one night to match his dreams.

6.

Tempus had gone among his own kind, after he left the barracks. He had checked in at the guild hostel north of the palace, once again in leopard and bronze and iron, and he was welcome there.

Why he had kept himself from it for so long, he could not have reasoned, unless it was that without these friends of former times the camaraderie would not have been as sweet.

He went to the sideboard and got hot mulled wine from a krater, sprinkling in goat's cheese and grain, and took the posset to a corner, so the men could come to him as they would.

The problem of the eunuch was still unsolved: finding a suitable replacement was not going to be easy: there were not many eunuchs in the mercenaries' guild. The clubroom was red as dying day and dark as backlit mountains, and he felt better for having come. So, when Abarsis, high priest of Upper Ranke, left his companions and approached, but did not sit among the mercenaries Tempus had collected, he said to the nine that he would see them at the appointed time, and to the iron-clad one.

'Life to you. Stepson. Please join me.'

'Life to you, Riddler, and everlasting glory.' Cup in hand, he sipped pure water, eyes hardly darker never leaving Tempus's face. 'Is it Sanctuary that has driven you to drink?' He indicated the posset.

'The dry soul is wisest? Not at the Empire's a.n.u.s, where the water is chancy.

Anyway, those things I said long ago and far away: do not hold me to any of that.'

The smooth cheek of Stepson ticced. 'I must,' he murmured. 'You are the man I have emulated. All my life I have listened after word of you and collected intelligence of you and studied what you left us in legend and stone in the north. Listen: ”War is sire of all and king of all, and some He has made G.o.ds and some men, some bond and some free”. Or: ”War is ours in common; strife is justice; all things come into being and pa.s.s away through strife”. You see, I know your work, even those other names you have used. Do not make me speak them.

I would work with you, 0 Sleepless One. It will be the pinnacle of my career.'

He flashed Tempus a bolt of naked entreaty, then his gaze flickered away and he rushed on: 'You need me. Who else will suit? Who else here has a brand and gelding's scars? And time in the arena as a gladiator, like Jubal himself? Who could intrigue him, much less seduce him among these? And though I -'

'No.'