Silence is Deadly (14 page)

Since the forums belonged to no one, no one cleared away the mountains of nabrula dung, and a night in that environment, surrounded by the stench of manure and the reek of the night creatures that came to feed on it, was almost more than Darzek could stand. He meditated again on the Kammians’ strange ability to smell selectively.

On the ninth day out of Northpor, they crossed an unmarked boundary into the province of the Duke Merzkion. The same day they encountered their first sponge forest. The spongy bark of these trees grew in tough layers like a thin parchment with porous material interleaved. Darzek recognized the parchment. It was used as wrappings for bread and other merchandise at the Northpor mart. The soft core of this tree, when dried and cured, was the basic building material of Kamm, and it could be processed to a toughness difficult to believe in a non-metal.

On the tenth day they were following a lane that took them obliquely past the Duke Merzkion’s castle. They found a vantage point and studied the massive stone building with binoculars. The stones were a foreboding gray; the dukes had no money to squander on costly imported colored stone and no ships that could occasionally bring such luxuries back as ballast.

As they studied the castle, Wenz made his final plans. While he investigated the fortress, Darzek and Riklo would explore the countryside, looking for traces of the missing agents. Their carts, equipment, and nabrula had vanished along with them. Peasants may have appropriated these, or they may simply have been abandoned. Either way, traces should have survived.

When Wenz had accomplished as much as he thought he could, he would signal them to meet him at the rendezvous point.

He left them with a grin, looking rather silly in his lackey clothing. The tight-fitting blouse-like tunic and the ankle-length apron that completely concealed his flopping trousers gave him an appearance of someone’s grandmother—except that not many grandmothers wore red, a highly appropriate personal color for the Duke Merzkion.

That night Wenz signaled on schedule from the highest window of one of the turrets. They answered him with a single flash of light, and then they moved off to begin their own search.

At dawn they were exploring the byways in the neighborhood of the castle, searching for abandoned camp sites. By midday they had found nothing at all, so they turned onto a principal surlane to take their search to the territory north of the castle.

And there the black knights overtook them on their way to a rendezvous with the dead Wenz, who had looked for the duke’s pazul and found it.

* * * *

Shrugging off Darzek’s protests, Riklo carried Wenz’s body all the way back to the cart. When they reached it, she proceeded with her own autopsy, trepanning the skull, removing the brain and the organs and nerves of sight, hearing, and smell. These she placed in a perfume jar, filled the jar with an essence that might serve as a passable preservative, and sealed it. She did the same with the lungs, with a length of intestine, with samples of tissue from various parts of the body.

While she worked, Darzek dug a grave. And when she was quite satisfied that she had enough samples for a careful study of the effects of a pazul, they buried Wenz.

The first light of dawn made little impression on the gloom of a sponge forest, but the night creatures knew what time it was. They were scurrying to their daytime lairs when Darzek and Riklo finally were able to wash up from their nighttime exertions. When they finished, they faced each other across the cart.

“Feeling squeamish again, Earthman?” Riklo asked hoarsely.

Darzek did not answer.

“He’d been dead almost a day—he must have died shortly after he signaled us.” Riklo added defensively, “We couldn’t take his body back. By the time we reached the lab it would have been too decayed to study. This way, we’re certain to learn something about the effects of a pazul. At least his life won’t have been completely wasted.”

“His life won’t be wasted,” Darzek said. “Now we know where the pazul is. All we have to do is find out what it is.”

She turned quickly. “You’re going into the castle?”

“Of course. How else can we find out what it is?”

“You’re going to walk into a castle you know nothing about, containing a pazul that looks like you don’t know what, located you don’t know where, and expect to come out alive? The pazul might be triggered to go off automatically. Wenz was the most alert and resourceful person I’ve ever known, and he didn’t survive in that castle for an hour.”

“That’s all right,” Darzek said. “I’ll watch the duke and be careful not to step anywhere he doesn’t.”

Riklo faced him in silence for a moment. “What do you want me to do?” she asked finally.

“I want you to get these specimens back to the lab as quickly as possible and get them into a proper preservative. And I want you to write a complete report on everything that’s happened and leave a copy in plain sight in the moon base. There’s no guarantee that either of us will survive until help comes.”

She said incredulously, “You’re going alone?”

“Of course. And I’m going tonight.”

“I’ll come with you.”

“No. Positively not. We’re the last two agents on Kamm. One of us has got to hurry back and write that report. Too bad Rok Wllon isn’t available to read it.”

This proof that there actually was a pazul would have pleased Rok Wllon immensely. It was one of the few times Darzek could remember when the Director of the Department of Uncertified Worlds had been right.

By midday they were back at the scene of the previous day’s altercation. While Darzek retrieved one of the dead knight’s riding nabrula, which were still grazing in the forest, Riklo dug up clothing and equipment for him. Then they found themselves a secure clearing deep in the forest where Darzek could prepare for his foray.

He improvised a stunning set of mustaches for himself out of nabrula bristles, gave his hair a dark wash, and stained his face to produce the effect of the deep tan acquired by traveling knights. While he worked on himself, Riklo converted the blotched yellow nabrulk to a black- and purple-spotted creature of a different breed.

By midafternoon both of them had finished. Darzek was the complete knight of the Winged Beast, riding a steed that no one in the duke’s castle could possibly recognize. He parted from Riklo where the surlane forked—he to head for the castle and she to turn north. They cached a change of clothing and a package of emergency supplies for him in a clearing near the fork. He would leave a message there when he completed his mission—just in case something happened to him before he made contact again—and he would adopt the identity of the lowest of peregrinating vendors, a wandering foot peddler, and travel only by night until he reached the neighboring province of Duke Fermarz. Riklo would rush to Northpor and take the specimens to the moon lab. Then she would travel to Fermarz by ship and meet Darzek there.

Darzek turned his nabrulk and lopped away, whip raised, mustaches fluttering defiantly, a formidable picture of aggressive confidence. He practiced the fierce expressions he’d seen knights use and felt ridiculous. Fortunately he met no one on the lane, and when he was able to glimpse a corner of the castle roof above the trees, he retired to the forest to rest. The nabrulk grazed contentedly on young sponge shoots, and Darzek stretched out on a pile of fallen bark, closed his eyes, and mulled over his tactics. Since he had a long wait, he even dozed a little.

Shortly after nightfall, at the grunz, the hour of the Kammian evening meal, he started his reckless gallop toward the castle. By the time he swerved into the steeply ascending branch of the lane that led to the castle gate, he was traveling with all the speed he could coax from the lumbering nabrulk. He brought the beast to a snorting halt with its bulging nose pressed against the gate in the outer wall.

His dramatic arrival went for naught. Even to his impaired hearing, the clattering hoofs of his nabrulk had sounded as though they could be heard for kilometers—but in this castle there were no ears. Disgustedly he uttered a shout and leaned over to pound on the gate before he thought to look around for some kind of signal pull.

He saw a dangling rope. He grabbed it and jerked. Somewhere in the distance it set something in motion; the return stroke snatched the rope from his fingers.

He looked about him. The lane branched off on either side, probably leading to side entrances. There could be no rear entrance because of the cliff. Darzek held the nabrulk’s nose against the gate, snatched at the swinging rope, and pulled it again.

A panel covering a barred peephole in the gate opened. A moment later one of the massive sections began to swing aside. It stopped when the opening was wide enough to admit the nabrulk, but Darzek sat scornfully motionless and kept his mount from moving until the gate had been opened all the way. Then, without a glance on either side, he deigned to ride through.

The gate clumped shut behind him, and the dozen or so lackeys who had manipulated it chased after him through the castle grounds and overtook him before he reached the main entrance. In their grandmother costumes, they looked as ridiculous as Wenz had.

At the main entrance to the castle, other lackeys were waiting to raise the heavy, portcullis-like doorway. Darzek rode through it reflecting that Kammian history must have recorded some spectacular siege horrors to produce such a massive castle and a tradition of precautions still being faithfully adhered to even though no Duke of Storoz had been besieged for centuries. He had noticed how promptly the lackeys had closed the outer gate after admitting him; and he had noticed how the lackeys at the main entrance studied the landscape to see whether an army had accidentally slipped through the outer gate with him before they opened the castle to a solitary knight.

Darzek did not need an ultrasensitive Kammian nose to identify the ground level of the castle as its stable. He had hoped to arrogantly ride his nabrulk into the duke’s presence, wherever he was, for the name of Darzek’s game was bluff, the more insolent the better; but a single glance convinced him that he could coax the massive beast up the long ramp to the next level only by walking ahead of it and hauling on the reins, which would contribute very little to his necessary air of hauteur.

He looked about him. The corridor was lit by perfumed torches. The arched doorway off to his left led to the stables. The doorway on his right stood open, and he could see storage rooms beyond. Obviously his route lay upward.

He dismounted, tossed the reins to a lackey, tucked his whip under his arm. His hands spoke disdainfully.
Take me to the duke.

One of the lackeys turned at once and headed for the broad ramp, and Darzek followed him. He was enormously relieved that it was not a staircase. Probably its width and gentle slope were planned so that carts could be hauled from one level of the castle to another, but the knights of Kamm could have preferred ramps for the same reason that Darzek did: so they could ascend or descend without stumbling over the outlandishly long, curved toes of their riding boots.

Long before Darzek reached the top of the ramp, he could hear the clatter of the banquet room. Noises produced by the unrefined guzzling of food blended with the racket of other revolting table manners that would have affected the appetites of fellow diners anywhere except in a land of the deaf. As the lackey started down the broad corridor past more flickering, perfumed torches, Darzek lengthened his stride to overtake and pass him. Through a wide archway at the end of the corridor, he could see diners seated at rough tables. None of them looked in his direction. They were totally occupied with the heaping platters of food. Darzek strode toward them.

As he approached the arch he began to run. He ran carefully—his planned dramatic entrance would be a farce if he stumbled over his toes. He burst through the arch at top speed, leaped, landed perfectly on the nearest table, scattering the platters. Miraculously he retained his balance. Two tables away, on a raised platform, sat the duke and his superior advisers, a solemn row of red-clad, gluttonous knights. Other knights, lackeys, servants, and retainers sat at the lower tables. Beyond the duke’s party, the castle females were eating.

The duke’s face went white with fear and surprise, Darzek, the glowering black knight of the Winged Beast, transfixed him with his most formidable stare.

The previous day, for some nefarious purpose known best to himself, the duke had sent out three of his own knights disguised as knights of the Winged Beast. Darzek guessed that he wanted their misdeeds blamed on the black knights rather than on his own. Now the duke found himself suddenly confronted by an apparently genuine knightly priest who arrived at an unheard of hour on an unknown mission that easily could have concerned the duke’s own transgressions. Darzek had gambled that the duke would display a thunderingly guilty conscience the moment he appeared, and the effect was gratifying.

The silence that filled the room quickly became stifling. Not a single mouth ruffled that ominous hush by chewing. No hand reached for food, and what the hands already held remained frozen between platter and mouth. The plump little duke, whose mustaches were designed for a much larger face, had been caught on the upstroke of mastication. He opened his mouth and forgot to close it, and the mouthful of food rested revoltingly on his tongue.

Darzek paused long enough to make the most of the tense tableau, and then he aimed his fingers at the duke.