Aftermath- - Thieves World 10 (25 page)

"Because the taste of vengeance was not sweet," Jarveena muttered

"It turned to ashes in my mouth "

"Even so, even so ... Reverting to the point when I discerned that you had taken up with a companion, I rejoiced I watch you sometimes m my scrying glass, you know "

"I didn't'" she said, startled "I don't know whether to be flattered, or

—Never mind' Continue'"

"As I say I rejoiced, hoping that our attachment would thereby be weakened Despite my best intentions, though, I grew curious concerning him what manner of man, I asked myself, could win Jarveena from her wild, her willful ways9 Inevitably, in the moment I found out, I was ensnared "

"I don't see— Oh'" Jarveena leaned her elbows on the table, goblet cradled in brown hands "If he is truly innocent, the curse on him must be stronger than the spells that bind yourself Break his, and you may find the way to break your own "

"Did I not know you to be ungifted in that area, I might well say you read my mind "

There was silence between them for a while At last Jarveena looked him straight in his unhuman eyes

"What are you going to do9"

"I have already begun You would not know what day it is today, the calendar that counts it has been long disused But it was necessary that you and he should come here now—not yesterday and not tomorrow Otherwise one would have had to wait a quarter year "

"You conjured up the wind that delayed our ship'"

"It was imperative "

"Then you must think there's a chance'"

144 AFTERMATH

"Of freeing Klikitagh? Perhaps. First, though, I must learn the reason why the curse is on him."

"But you said already that he doesn't know! So how—?"

"Wait." The magician raised one hand which no longer matched his handsome youthful countenance—not that he was so handsome any longer, either. "What I said was that he honestly believes it was put upon

him unjustly. That does not mean there was no reason for it. I assure you, even a thousand years ago no one would have undertaken such a work without a reason. Klikitagh may indeed be innocent; if so, there is a

great and long-outstanding blame to visit on the perpetrator of a crime against him. Or, more like, descendants of those who benefited by its perpetration."

"But how can he not be innocent, having sworn by—? I waste my breath. You must already know."

"Indeed I do. That is perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the matter." Enas Yorl rose. "Now I must further the business. Time is wasting."

"May I wait? May I be of assistance?"

"You may not," The wizard's tone was final. "You will go hence about your own affairs. About now Melilot is rising, and he will be eager to discuss your trip. He will display great reluctance to mention Klikitagh,

and you yourself will give the fellow not a second thought, save perhaps to hope occasionally that I can rescue him. Until sundown. At the moment when the sun cuts the horizon, you may return. Approach the entrance on Prytanis Street; address the basilisks by name—I'll teach you

how—and they will let you by. If the work is not complete by dark, it will have failed."

"But these winter days are so short!" Jarveena cried.

"That is precisely why you must go now. It lacks less than an hour of dawn. Be on your way! No, wait! There's one thing more."

"Yes?"—as she turned to obey.

"No need to bring your customary fee. Reserve that for my final onslaught on your scars. It is enough that you have given me my greatest challenge in a hundred years of weary life, the first of all that holds out

hope for me ... Begone!"

And she was gone, with further words unspoken on her lips. All transpired as had been promised. Jarveena spent the morning closeted with Melilot, snatched a brief lunch, and in the afternoon went to the wharf where goods that she had purchased with the money he advanced her had been disposed in tidy piles: here, bales of cloth; there, jars

of wine and oil; over there again small chests of spice, ingeniously

carpentered, that had a resale value of their own when empty. A certain portion being set aside for her, he paid her due commission on the rest. He might at one time have dreamed of cheating her, as he was used to cheating everybody else; her friendship with the powerful magician Enas Yorl prevented that. Besides, there was an additional advantage. It was not done to steal what Jarveena or any other associate of Enas Yorl's left

on the wharf before it was transferred to guarded warehouses. Or not done more than once, at any rate . . .

"Well, that concludes our business for the day!" said the master scribe heartily, handing his compendium and his account scrolls to a boy-inwaiting. "And in good time, what's more; it isn't even sunset, quite. Now

I'm athirst. Shall we adjourn to yonder ale house and sample their midwinter brew? Unless, that is, you're eager to rejoin your man and find him different lodging for tonight—"

Klikitagh!

Jarveena clapped hand to forehead. How was it possible? All day, since finding herself back at Melilot's, she had thought of nothing but cargo manifests and market prices and percentages! And^ the fat one had not even commented on her willingness to spend the time with him, when normally she would have been with the magician . . .

And sundown now impended!

"No! No!" she cried. "Don't hold me back an instant more!" Incontinently she took to her heels,

The way from the harbor to Prytanis Street had never seemed so long, or so beset with moving obstacles. She lost count of the number of people

she jostled against, the number of futile curses that were hurled after her.

the times she herself cursed patrolmen shouting to know why she was running, imagining her to be a thief or cutpurse fleeing from her latest victim.

Somehow, though, they realized: she was not running away from, but toward . . .

The twin pillars of her destination loomed in the gloaming, accorded a wide berth by the foot passengers on their way to sunset service at the nearby temples. And small wonder. At the foot of each reposed a sleeping basilisk, secured at neck and leg with silver chains. As Jarveena rushed toward them, they became alert. Heads raised, they snuffed the air and listened, pondering in their slow reptilian way whether or not to

open their eyes and cast their petrifying glare upon her. Enas Yorl had said, "I'll teach you how to call them by name—" But he hadn't!

She stopped dead, searching the corridors of memory. No! She had no idea what she must say!

146 AFTERMATH

"He forgot!" she moaned, clenching her fists in rage. And then, suddenly, she heard a groaning, grinding sound that made the pavement shudder underneath her feet. Looking up, she saw that the bronze door of the palace was sliding open, revealing a hall full of luminescent mist. And on its threshold—

"Klikitagh!" she exclaimed.

Still in the homespun robe, barefoot, he seemed to respond to her cry. Shaking his head, he staggered down the five marble stairs that fronted the doorway. He accorded Jarveena a brief glance, but it was vacant, as though she meant no more to him than any chance-met passerby.

"Klikitagh?" she said again, uncertainly.

He struck her aside with violence, and staggered off into the darkness. In a moment the throng of temple-bound worshipers concealed him from Jarveena's view, while their chattering drowned out her shouts.

"Death and destruction!" she exploded. She spun on her heel and dashed up the marble steps, desperate to pass the door before it ground shut again.

The basilisks relaxed; lay down; resumed their former immobility. She was inside the misty hall before she realized what had happenedA great metallic slam announced the final closure of the door. She was alone, and more terrified than she had ever expected to be again in this life. The mist, though bright, was dense; she could not make out the walls. When she glanced down, she could barely see her own two feet. Abruptly she was gripped with pure cold rage.

"Enas Yorl!" she shouted. "Damn you! What have you done?" Her surroundings shifted in unpleasant fashion, as though someone had taken normal space in either hand and given it a spiral twist. She felt

she was about to lose her balance, though the weight remained on her soles. Clawing her knife from its scabbard, she prepared for an attack, knowing even as she clasped the hilt that any physical action here must be pointless.

Then the mist cleared, and she recognized the subterranean hall where she had first met Enas Yorl against her will. There was the table so long it

could have seated the entire nobility of Sanctuary; there was the caped figure seated at its farther end; and all around her she heard echoes that

brought shivers to her spine, as of cantrips which had set the thick stone

walls to ringing like a new-stuck bell.

She stood as immobile as on that first occasion, this time not by constraint, purely from her mingled fear and anger.

"You failed!" she accused.

Her words, themselves echoing along the monstrous room, drove away the fainter echoes. At long last Enas Yorl bestirred himself.

"No," he said in a thin voice. "I succeeded."

"What?" Jarveena took a pace toward him. It seemed not to diminish the distance that separated them; in any case, she had no wish at this moment to be in his presence at all, let alone come closer. "Then why did

Klikitagh brush past me without a sign of recognition—worse: shove me out of his way like a persistent streetwalker?" Recollections crowded in.

"Besides, you said that if you did succeed, he'd die!"

"Yes, so I did. Nonetheless . . ."

As she stood striving to unriddle the mystery, he heaved a sigh.

"Come hither. I'll explain."

The hall and table contracted to more customary dimensions; in a twinkling she found herself where she had been at daybreak, seated in the

same chair. Unseen hands, as ever, had set it behind her knees just as she

was about to lose her self-control completely.

Cautiously she returned her knife to its sheath, staring at the magician.

But for the emberlike glow underneath his brows one could not have guessed this to be the same personage. His arms, in particular, were far too flexible. His? Might one not better say its?

But the voice remained, and was uttering slow words, as though each syllable exacted agonizing effort.

"I did succeed, Jarveena. At what cost I dare not say. Perhaps the cost of every shred of hope left in my inmost heart. I worked a rite such as has

not been attempted in living memory—not, certainly, in mine , . . And worked it well."

"With what result?" she whispered.

"I learned the reason for the curse on Klikitagh." She waited. When she could bear the waiting no longer, she demanded.

"Tell me'"

"I shall not. This only will I say: His punishment is just."

"I don't understand!"

"Better you should not. Better that no one should. Had I known what a burden of knowledge I was taking on—no! Condemning myself to!—I'd never have set out to offer help."

Guessing at the meaning behind the words, Jarveena bit her lip. Tears sprang unbidden to her eyes, and yet were welcome, for they disguised the ghastly form that Enas Yorl was melting into.

"Here, then, in brief, is the secret Klikitagh has hidden from everybody in the world, himself included.

"His punishment is just. He told me so."

"It cannot be! No one could deserve that fate!"

"Until today I would have said the same," Enas Yorl said solemnly, shifting on his chair as though his new form had grown unsuited to it. 148 AFTERMATH

"But how can he have told you so?" Jarveena persisted.

"I chose this of all days rather by enlightened guesswork than by proper knowledge. As it happened, I was right. On one day of the year, in

the proper circumstances, he is able to remember why he deserves his curse."

"Tell me! Tell me!" Jarveena pleaded.

"Though you crept to me on hands and knees, bleeding in the extremity of death, begging to be told before your final breath, I would not let

description of such foulness pass my lips!"

Not that, strictly speaking, it was lips he now must use to speak with . . .

"Know only this: after committing it, he bethought himself of his crime and repented. Haunted by self-loathing, he became a court to try himself, and passed the only sentence that was fitting. He wanted so to suffer that no person who had heard about his evil deed, and might be tempted to emulate it, would fail to hear as well about its perpetrator's

punishment and change his mind—not considering that the time might come when any such would be long dead and all his victims totally forgotten. Therefore he made the sentence cruel past conceiving—save by one who was evil to the fiber of his nerves.

"He decreed that for all time he would believe, in total honesty and full

conviction, that he'd done not a thing to warrant such a doom-Perhaps this affords some insight into the enormity of his misdeed."

"But what can he have done?" Jarveena shouted.

"You'll never guess. It isn't in your nature to imagine, let alone enact,

so foul a crime."

"Has it tainted you?" She leaned forward accusingly, glad that she could only vaguely see the shape he now endured. "Has it deformed your mind as much as your body?" That was cruel, too, in its way, but she uttered the words regardless. "Have you no mercy? Is not a thousand years enough for even the foulest of villains?"

"Oh, yes." Enas Yorl's voice had become like the sough of wind in bare-branched trees. "More than enough, in my view.

"Not in his."

"You—you mean . . ." Jarveena's mouth was suddenly dry. "You mean you tried to release him from the curse he wished upon himself?"

"I did."

"And he refused to let you, being a more powerful magician?"

"Not exactly."

She threw her hands in the air. "For pity's sake, Enas Yorl! Whether or not you pitied him, pity me who calls you friend! Never in my life before