Halcyon The Complete Trilogy (19 page)

“I am.” Qhora relaxed at the sudden change in the older lady’s demeanor.
What just happened? Did she decide to befriend me, or not? Perhaps I can test her.
“Although, I must confess, I had heard stirring descriptions of the wealth and power of her country, but thus far have not seen the same country that was described to me. The explosion at the train station, the bandits on the highway. You understand, of course.”

“Of course.” Lady Sade nodded knowingly. “These are difficult times, but all transitions are difficult. You must tear down the old to make room for the new. Everything in Marrakesh is changing, and for some people it is changing too rapidly. The cities, the factories, the jobs. It can be a bit overwhelming.” She smiled. “I know just the thing. I will invite several of my friends to supper with us tonight and we will show you the real Marrakesh, the Marrakesh of the future. And then tomorrow I will escort you myself to Orossa to introduce you to Her Highness. You will arrive refreshed as well as enlightened.”

Qhora smiled in return, but not too brightly.
Almost too good to be true. She wants to give me everything I want, everything I might have asked for. Have I found a friend or just another sort of thief, another liar, another viper? Well, if so, then at least this viper doesn’t know that my fangs are sharper than hers.
Qhora said, “I can’t thank you enough, my lady. You are as thoughtful as you are generous.”

A few minutes later, the coach rumbled to a halt and the driver opened the door to reveal a paved courtyard bordered by thousands of flowers blooming in freshly mulched beds and on blindingly whitewashed trellises. The house itself walled the courtyard on three sides and rose three stories above the street, three stories of pale granite and gleaming windows crowned with arched red roof tiles. Lady Sade led the way into the house and Qhora followed through room after room of marble tiled floors and lush Persian carpets, slender Hellan columns and dark hardwood stairs, enormous stone and iron fireplaces from España, stained glass doors and paper-thin screens, and more types of chairs and tables than she could name. The governor of Arafez deposited her guest in small bedroom on the second floor, promised to send refreshments and her hidalgo as soon as he arrived, and left her to stare at the plush upholstery surrounding her.

Qhora sat down on the edge of the bed, noting the five or six layers of blankets, each of a different color and cloth. Her body sank down into the bedding and she lay back and closed her eyes.
Well, perhaps some of these people are wealthy after all.

Chapter 18. Syfax

Black slime and green moss covered the bottom half of the high stone walls of the Zemmour Canal. A golden sun hung high in the sky, bleaching the heavens into pastel blues and yellows. And while there was no spray from the ferry’s huge paddle wheel, the smells of salt and dead fish and wet birds were everywhere, sometimes faint but often with burning acuity. Only a handful of the other passengers had left the main cabin to walk about outside between the warm spring sun and the cold sea breeze, including quite a few elderly couples slowly pacing the length of the deck, their bare feet slapping softly on the warm metal deck plates. Syfax leaned forward on the rail and watched the foamy waves sliding past the steamer’s hull.

“So I’ve been wondering,” Syfax said. “Should I snap your wrist and arrest you now, and sit on you until we get to Nahiz, or should I just stand here and act scared of your little toy until we arrive? I’m not a big fan of babysitting.”

“Of course not.” Chaou stared out across the grassy fields beyond the canal walls. “You’ll do your duty, which leaves me to decide what to do with you now. I don’t want to kill you, major. I hope you believe that. I extended my offer to you more out of hope than anything else. Usually we approach people much more gently and carefully, developing a rapport over time. You understand. More diplomatically. But this has all been a complete fiasco. It’s all the Espani’s fault, really.”

Syfax tried to focus on anything other than the ambassador’s voice. Over the past hour, he had heard the same self-pitying whining and excuses again and again. Hamuy, politics, the queen, the Espani, the weather, the harvest, wages, strikes. At first he had hoped to coax out a few names or dates or plans, something specific so he could round up a few more of her friends, but so far she had been very careful in choosing her words and now Syfax was ready to dump her on someone else. As he listened to the endless shushing of the water against the hull and the low huffing of the steamer’s engine, a distant whine caught his ear. He looked up to the west and saw a small dark shape approaching high above them. “Here comes the cavalry,” he said.

“Probably not. And the next time I need an airship captured I will have to send more capable persons.” Chaou peered up, her hand still resting lightly on the major’s. “I’m sure the maneuver would be quite spectacular if attempted, but no airship could ever hope to land on a moving boat. At most, they could try to lower someone down with a rope, or lift you away with one, but that would mean flying very low and very close to this large pointy boat and all these trees for several minutes. No, I don’t think your comrades will risk that.”

Syfax glanced once at the small woman and then focused on the airship.
What is Kenan up to?
The airship continued to grow in size and detail, and attracted the excited waves and shouts of several children standing near the stern of the ferry, but as the minutes passed the
Halcyon
made no sign of descending or even angling toward the ship. It passed overhead half a mile to the north and proceeded east, the drone of its propellers fading as it cruised over a low ridge on its way to…
where? Are they going to Nahiz or straight on to Khemisset?

“You see?” Chaou leaned against the rail, a gentle smile curling the corners of her mouth. “They must be going ahead to Nahiz to intercept us. It’s a small town, with no real means for us to blend into a crowd, so to speak. Especially if they’re standing on the pier, watching us disembark.”

“Yeah, well, unless you plan to hijack the ferry, it looks like your little adventure’s almost over, lady.” Syfax studied the older woman, wondering if she might actually try to hijack the ferry. The longer he looked at the grim-faced ambassador, the less ridiculous it sounded.

Chaou gestured to the people in the cabin. “And inconvenience all these hard-working women and men? Families and business travelers? I wouldn’t dream of it. No, the ferry will reach Nahiz on schedule. I shall simply have to arrange some other means of transportation before we arrive, that’s all.”

“Sure you will.”

“I’ll just have to make do with whatever is at hand.” Chaou turned slightly to study the little crane mechanism holding the ferry’s lifeboat just a few yards away.

Now she’s really getting squirrelly. Time to wrap this up
. Syfax whipped his hand free of her grip and lunged at the bulge of his revolver in the ambassador’s coat pocket. His fingers fumbled against the hard edges of the grip, and then a brilliant spidery arc of light struck his arm. He pulled back, whipping his stunned hand to beat the feeling back into it.

“I’m running out of patience, major!” The little woman’s eyes flashed with rage, her lips trembled as she extended the two fingers tipped in copper. “You’re not special, you’re not clever, and you’re not going to trick me or even overpower me.”

Syfax beat his tingling hand against the metal rail and the feeling began to return. “Seriously, lady? I have bowel movements scarier than you. You really think you’ll make it past the marshals, and the police, and the Royal Guards? Oh, don’t look so surprised. I’ve heard all of your speeches before, from other killers and delusional psychopaths. You’re not the first person who wanted to kill the queen.”

Chaou blinked and swallowed.

“All that blather about foreign people and money and machines? You think I haven’t heard that before?” Syfax grimaced. “You’ll be caught, and probably killed. By now, half the country knows you’re missing and half of
them
probably suspect you caused the mess in Tingis. Dozens dead. Train blown to hell. Airship blown to hell. People don’t like being scared, you know. They’ll crawl through sewers to rip your head off just so they can all sleep better at night, knowing they got their precious justice. You’re living on borrowed time, ambassador. And your little toy can’t hurt what you can’t touch.” He rolled his hand into a heavy fist and smashed it into Chaou’s forearm, grabbed her wrist, and twisted her arm up behind her back nearly to her neck. She gasped and squealed.

Syfax tightened his grip and felt the ambassador weakening, losing her balance. When Chaou’s legs buckled, both of them stumbled forward and Syfax bumped Chaou’s hand against the railing. Instantly, a dozen sharp wails filled the air and Syfax shoved the ambassador away to scan for the source of the cries. It was the elderly couples. All of the little old men and women,
the barefoot couples
, who had been walking nearby had fallen to the deck, shuddering and wailing, their limbs flopping and twitching.

And then it was over and dozens of horrified and baffled onlookers were bending over the shaken couples, babbling and pointing, passing bottles of water and blankets among them.

“Back away, major.” Chaou stood panting, one hand massaging her neck while the other hovered over the metal railing. “I hated every instant of that, and I hate you for making me do it!” She screamed through a raw throat.

“Get away from the rail!” Syfax pointed at the woman’s hand. “Don’t touch it. You could kill them!”

“You’re the one killing them, major.” Chaou began edging backward, closer to the lifeboat. “Don’t come near me. Don’t do anything. As soon as I’m gone, you can take care of those poor old grannies. That would be best. But if you do anything, anything at all to stop me, I will shoot you.” She touched the bulge of the gun in her pocket.

Syfax raised his empty hands and watched the woman in black glance nervously at the little crane holding the lifeboat. She shook her head and banged her palm on the railing, making Syfax wince. “No,” she said.” You, over the side. Now. Into the water.”

The major cocked an eyebrow, then shrugged. He stepped to the railing and glanced down. Twenty feet into dark churning waters thick with algae and oil stains. Above them, the slick walls of the canal rose ten sheer feet above the water, and it was more miles than he could guess until the next landing or lock.
Crap
.

“By the time you find someone to fish you out, everything will be over,” Chaou said. “You’ll be working for a very different crown, and nothing you report will matter to anyone.”

His instinct was to make a smarmy retort about how her plan would fail, how stupid it was to leave him alive.
Then again, maybe she’s planning to shoot me after I fall in the canal so she won’t have to deal with my body.
Glaring at Chaou’s smug smile, he grabbed the railing, hurled himself over, and plunged boots first into the cold black slime of the Zemmour Canal. His last dry thought was,
I think she was reaching for the gun
.

When his head broke the surface, he felt the trickles of thick pond scum sliding down his scalp and neck. He tried not to think about the other things that might be thriving in the filthy, sluggish waters of the canal. Syfax reach across the oil-stained surface and began swimming, dragging himself up the canal toward the huge paddle wheel churning away to the east. His long red coat quickly swelled and clawed at the water like a sea anchor, and his boots became concrete blocks on his feet keeping his legs down beneath him. Unwilling to shed the weight, he fought across the canal to the sheer stone wall and jammed his fingers into the cracks between the blocks. But the cracks were only a hair deep, clotted and mortared with slick mossy gunk that denied him any hope of climbing out. The major pulled his broad knife from his boot and stabbed at the wall here and there, looking for a few spare inches of purchase. He worked his way left and right, and finally began lurching up out of the water to jab at the higher cracks that were drier and a bit deeper. Each time Syfax fell harder and deeper back into the canal. The stench of rotting wood and bird droppings and spent engine oil burned his nostrils and eyes.

He kicked about and found a sludgy bit of footing somewhere down in the dark at the wall’s edge. Planting his feet deep in the muck, he leapt up one more time. When he jammed his knife into the wall, it slid in to the hilt and stuck fast between two stones, holding the man up with only his legs dangling in the water. Syfax wiggled his naked toes in the cold water and rolled his eyes. “Damn it. I liked those boots.”

After several minutes of swearing and scrambling, he levered himself up on his knife handle and leapt for the top of the wall. He caught it on the second try and hauled himself up onto the warm dry grass. As he lay there, he tugged off his belt and then rolled back over to start fishing his knife out of the wall. It took several minutes and the knife nearly fell back into the canal at the last moment, but he caught the blade between two fingers and pulled it up.
Well, that’s better than nothing.

He shrugged off his soaking, stinking coat and squeezed out as much of the canal as he could. Then he slung the coat over his shoulder on the hook of his finger and started walking. He’d only taken a few barefoot steps before he stopped short and looked across the canal at the outline of Port Chellah, far in the distance. Port Chellah, full of horses and trains. Port Chellah,
on the other side of the canal
.

“Aw, damn it!”

Across the water, a wide dirt road ran parallel to the canal and to his right Syfax spotted two young boys coming toward him. “Hey! Hey, kids!”

The boys stopped and waved. “What?”

“How do I get across?”

The boys looked at each other and shrugged. One of them pointed back toward the ocean and yelled, “Train bridge!”

To the west, the entrance to the canal at the mouth of the Bou Regreg River looked to be at least five miles back, judging by the hair-thin line of the Atlanteen Ocean beyond it. There was a faint arch across the canal back there that might have been the bridge.