Limits (14 page)

It was too late
. Reflex: three brains consulted before any major act. If one had been damaged, the view of the others would prevail.

Three brains consulted, and the weapon swung away.

What I am is Hilary Gage. I fought berserkers during my life; but you I will let live. Let me tell you what I’ve done to you. I didn’t really expect to have an audience. Triple-redundant brains? We use
that
ourselves, som
e
times.

I am the opposite of Goodlife. I’m your mechanical enemy, the recording of Hilary Gage. I’ve been running a terraforming project, and you’ve killed it, and you’ll pay for that.

It feels like I’m swearing vengeance on my air conditioner. Well, if my air conditioner betrayed me, why not?

There was always the chance that Harvest might attract a berserker. I was recorded in tandem with what we called a Remora program: a program to copy
me
into another machine. I wasn’t sure it would interface with unf
a
miliar equipment. You solved that one yourself, because you have to inte
r
face with thousands of years of changes in berserker design.

I’m glad they gave me conscious control of Remora. Two of your brains are
me
now, but I’ve left the third brain intact. You can give me the data I need to run this…heap of junk. You’re in sorry shape, aren’t you? Channith must have done you some damage. Did you come from Channith?

God curse you. You’ll be sorry. You’re barely in shape to reach the nearest berserker repair base, and we shouldn’t have any trouble getting in. Where is it?

Ah.

Fine.
We’re on our way. I’m going to read a poem into your memory; I don’t want it to get lost. No, no, no; relax and enjoy it, death-machine. You might enjoy it at that. Do you like spilled blood? I lived a bloody life, and it isn’t over yet.

The stranger swung his baggage off his horse’s back, patted the animal on the side of the neck, and handed the reins to the stablehand. Old Kasan was rarely interested in people; he barely glanced at the stranger. Slanted eyes, round face with a yellow tinge…

Kasan led the animal to an empty stall and gave it food and water. Now, the beast was a puzzler. It suffered his ministrations with an air of strained patience. Its tail ended in the kind of brush usually seen on an ass. Kasan fancied that its look was one of tolerant contempt.

“Ah, horse, you underestimate me,” Kasan said. “I won’t be tending other people’s horses forever.” Horses did not often mock Kasan’s da
y
dreams. This one’s nicker sounded too much like a snicker. “It’s true! Some day I’ll own my own rental stable—” And Kasan fondled the beast’s ears and mane, as if to thank it for listening.

Under its shaggy forelock he felt a hard circular scar.

He told Bayram Ali about it when he went in for lunch. “It’s a unicorn. The horn’s been chopped off. What kind of man would be riding a disguised unicorn?”

The innkeeper said, “Sometimes I wonder why I put up with your stories, Kasan.”

“You can feel the stub yourself!”

“No doubt.
At least don’t be bothering my guests with such tales.” And Bayram Ali set a tankard of ale next to Kasan’s midday cheese and bread. Kasan opened his mouth to retort, noticed the ale, and kept silent.

And Bayram Ali took counsel with himself.

Strange beasts like the one munching hay in his stable were often found in the company of strange men. The traveler might be a sorcerer…though they were rare these days. More likely he was a magician on his way to Rynildissen. Bayram had seen the man carry two heavy bags up to his room. It would be interesting to know what was in them, and if it would be worthwhile to lighten them a little.

Bayram Ali never robbed his guests. It was a point of honor. He pr
e
ferred to leave the work and any possible danger to a professional. He
looked around the crowded common room. It was smoky and odorous with the scents of cooking and human bodies. There was much laughter and spilling of wine. Unfortunately, most of the light-fingered brethren present had hasty tempers and were too quick to pull a knife. Bayram would not have violence in his inn.

Across the room his small pretty wife, Esme, was struggling to carry a huge frothy pitcher of ale. Two men were pushing and shoving each other for the honor of carrying it for her. Just beyond them, leaning back on a rough bench with her shoulders against the wall, Sparthera was laughing and yelling at the two combatants.

Sparthera.
Bayram Ali grinned broadly. The slim young thief was just what he had in mind. She was daring without being reckless, and had no morals to speak of. They had made more than one bargain in the past.

He pushed his way across the room, pausing to grab up the pitcher his wife was carrying and slam it down in front of a customer. He knocked the combatants’ heads together, sending them into hysterical laughter, and sent Esme back to the kitchen with a hearty slap on her firm round backside.

“Ay, Sparthera!”

The thief laughed up at him. She was finely built and slender, with a tangled mass of tawny hair and high firm breasts. Her large hazel eyes were set wide over a short straight nose and full red lips.

“Well, Bayram Ali, have you come over to knock my head against something too?” She hooked her thumbs in the belt of her leather jerkin and stretched out a pair of lean leather-clad legs.

“No, little thief.
I wondered if you had noticed a certain stranger among my guests.”

“Oh?” She had lost the smile.

Bayram Ali sat down on the bench next to her and lowered his voice.
“A smooth-skinned man from the East, with bulging saddlebags.
His name is Sung
Ko
Ja. Old Kasan says he came riding a unicorn, with the beast’s horn cut off to disguise it.”

“A sorcerer!”
Sparthera shook her head firmly. “No. I’d as soon try to rob the statue of Khulm. I don’t want anything to do with sorcerers.”

“Oh, I hardly think he’s a sorcerer,” the innkeeper said soothingly. “No more than a magician, if that. A sorcerer wouldn’t need to disguise anything. This man is trying to avoid drawing attention to
himself
. He must have
something a thief would want, hmm?”

Sparthera frowned and thought for a moment. No need to ask the terms of the bargain. It would be equal shares, and cheating was expected.
“All right.
When he comes down to the common room for dinner, or goes out to the privy, let me know. I’ll go up and look around his room.”

It was several hours before Sung
Ko
Ja came back down the stairs. The sun was just setting and Esme and her buxom daughters were beginning to serve the evening meal. Sparthera was sitting at one of the small tables near the kitchen door. Bayram Ali brushed by her with a pot of stew.

“That’s the one,” he whispered.
“With the slanted eyes.
His room is the third on the left.”

Only Sparthera’s eyes moved. Around forty, she thought, and distinctly foreign: round of face, but not fat, with old-ivory skin and dark almond eyes, and the manner of a lord. He seemed to be settling in for dinner. Good.

Sparthera moved quickly up the stairs and along the hall, counting doors. The third door didn’t move when she pushed on the handle. She tried to throw her weight against it, and couldn’t; somehow she couldn’t find her balance.

A spell?

She went along to the end of the hall where one small window led out onto the first story roof. Outside, a scant two feet of slippery thatch separated the second story wall and a drop to the cobblestones in the stableyard.

The sun had set. The afterglow was bright enough to work in…perhaps not dark enough to hide her? But behind the
inn were
only fields, and those who had been seeding the fields were gone to their suppers. There was n
o
body to watch Sparthera work her way around to the window of the mag
i
cian’s room.

The narrow opening was covered with oiled paper. She slit it neatly with the tip of the knife she always carried, and reached through.
Or tried to.
Something blocked her.

She pushed harder. She felt nothing, but her hand wouldn’t move.

She swung a fist at the paper window. Her hand stopped jarringly; and this time she felt her own muscles suddenly lock. Her own strength had stopped her swing.

She had no way to fight such magic. Sparthera hung from the roof by her hands and dropped the remaining four feet to the ground. She dusted herself
off and re-entered the inn through the front.

Sung Ko Ja was still eating his meal of roast fowl, bread, and fruit. Bayram Ali was hovering around with one eye on the magician and the other on the stairs. Sparthera caught his eye.

He joined her. “Well?”

“I can’t get in. There’s a spell on the room.”

The innkeeper’s face fell,
then
he shrugged.
“Pity.”

“I want very much to know what that man has that he thinks is so i
m
portant.” She bit one finger and considered the ivory-skinned man dining peacefully on the other side of the room. “He doesn’t have the look of the ascetic. What do you think? Would he like a woman to keep him warm on such a cold night?”

“Sparthera, have you considered what you’re suggesting? My inn’s reputation is important to me. If I offer, you’ll…well. You’d have to
do
it.”

“Well?”

“The one time I myself made such a suggestion, you nearly cut my throat.”

“That was years ago. I was…it had been…I’d only just thrown that damned tinker out on his ear. I didn’t like men much just then. Besides, this is different. It’s business.”

Bayram Ali eyed her doubtfully. She was dressed more like a young boy than a woman. Still, the magician was a foreigner. Probably all of the local women looked odd to him. Bayram shrugged and pushed his way across the room.

Sung Ko Ja looked up.

The innkeeper smiled broadly. “The wine is good, eh?”

“Drinkable.”

“And the fowl?
It was young, tender, was it not? Cooked to a nicety?”

“I ate it. What’s on your mind?”

“Oh, noble sir!
The night will be cold, and I have a girl. Such a girl! A vision of delight, a morsel of sweetness…”

Sung Ko Ja waved an impatient hand.
“All right.
So she is everything you claim she is.
How much?”

“Ten.”

“Too much.
Six.”

Bayram Ali looked stunned, then hurt. “Sir, you insult this princess
among women. Why, only last week she was a virgin. Nine.”

“Seven.”

“Eight and a half.”

“Done.
And bring me another bottle of wine.” Sung tossed down the last few drops in his tankard and paid the innkeeper. Sparthera was waiting for him at the foot of the stairs. He looked her over briefly and then started up the stairs, carrying his fresh bottle of wine. “Well, come on, girl.”

He stopped at the door to his room and made a few quick gestures with his left hand before he pushed it open.

“Why did you do that?” Sparthera asked in girlish innocence.

“To raise the spell that protects my room. Otherwise I couldn’t let you in, my sweet one.” He laughed softly and burped.

Sparthera stopped in the doorway. “If you have a spell on this room, does that mean I’ll be locked in?”

“No, no. You’re free to come and go—as often as you like.” He chuc
k
led. “Until the dawn light comes through that window at the end of the hall and relinks the spell.”

She entered. The low bed—hardly more than a pallet—held a straw-filled mattress and bedding woven from the local cotton and wool. There was wood stacked in the small fireplace grate and flint and steel lay next to a single candle in a holder. The magician’s saddlebags were sitting on the floor by the bed.

Sung looked up at the small window where Sparthera had slashed out the paper and frowned. A cold draft was coming through the opening.

“I’ll light the fire, shall I?” Sparthera asked.

She hurried to start a small blaze while Sung, swaying slightly on his feet, considered the open window. Best that he be distracted. She asked, “Is it true that you’re a magician?”

He smiled. “There is only one sort of magic I have in mind at the m
o
ment.”

Sparthera hid her sudden nervousness behind a smile. “Ah, but did you bring your wand?”

The flickering firelight threw their shadows on the wall as Sung guided her to the narrow bed. What followed left Sparthera pleasantly
surprised.
For all his smooth skin and foreign ways the stranger proved more than equal to other men she’d known. He was considerate…almost as if she were paying,
not he. Even if nothing came of this venture, the evening hadn’t been wasted.