The Anvil of the World (12 page)

"Drink the tea," said a disembodied voice. Smith looked up and saw a grate in the wall, high up. He could just discern the Yendri's face behind it.

"You're going to watch me?" he asked.

"Sometimes your people faint," the Yendri replied. "The tea, please."

"All right." Smith sipped it grudgingly, but found it surprisingly good, hot and spicy. He drank it all and only when he had emptied the teapot did he notice the aftertaste.

"This isn't a purge, is it?" he asked.

"Yes," the Yendri replied. Smith groaned.

In the next hour a great deal of nasty stuff went down the drain, including a couple of old tattoos, exuding from his frantic skin like black syrup. Smith saw dirt from every place he'd ever lived coming to the surface, the yellow dust of Troon, the red dust of Mount Flame City, some gray residue he didn't want to think about. Occasionally jets of hot water shot from the ceiling, flooding the filth down the drain and almost washing Smith away with it. He clung to the stone perch and cursed the Yendri steadily. The Yendri watched him, impassive; and at the end of the hour shut off the water and came to let Smith out.

Smith had planned to throttle him the minute he could reach him, but collapsed on him instead. He let the Yendri support him back down the hall to a room with a tepid pool. The Yendri toppled him in and told him to swim. Smith decided to drown, but found to his astonishment that his strength was returning, and with it an extraordinary sense of well-being. After he had splashed about a while a pair of hulking bath attendants came to haul him out, slap him with cold towels, and make him drink a lot of plain water.

They led him at last to a massage chamber, where he was soaped and rinsed and oiled and kneaded. Then they applied fresh bandages to his wounds.

By that time Smith felt wonderful and no longer wanted to kill anybody. This made the events of the next few moments all the more unfortunate.

When the attendants had done with him, they indicated he should dress himself again. He floated out to the changing room, seemingly ten years younger than he had been when he left it.

A bulky man in very fine clothes was removing them in there, and three other men stood attendance on him, taking his garments one by one and folding them with care. Smith nodded as he passed them and went to his shelf. It didn't occur to him until his hand was on his clothes that he knew one of the men. Apparently it occurred to the other man at the same moment.

Smith heard the muttered exclamation and grabbed frantically in his right boot. He turned with a knife in his hand in time to see the other man advancing on him, drawing a blade fully ten inches long.

"This is for my cousins, you pig," snarled the man, preparing to slash at Smith. Before he could do so, however, Smith acted without thinking and threw his little knife.

Acting without thinking was something he generally did under circumstances such as the one in which he presently found himself. The details of circumstance might vary, but the result was always the same: a corpse at his feet and a great deal of trouble.

He looked down now at the body that had his knife hilt protruding from its left eye socket, then looked at the other three men. Was that his heartbeat echoing off the tiled walls? The fight had taken place in almost complete silence.

"I'm sorry," he gasped. "I'm dead, aren't I?"

The bulky man nodded, staring at him with mild amazement. "Nice work, though," he said. "Striker was one of my best." He gestured, and his remaining vassals seized Smith, and forced him to his knees. He turned to draw a blade from his clothes. Smith spotted a tattoo on his bare back.

"You're a Bloodfire," he stammered. "You wouldn't be Lord Kashban Beatbrass, by any chance?"

"I am," the lord replied, turning with a curved ceremonial blade.

"I've got something of yours!"

"And I'll have something of yours in a minute." Lord Kashban grabbed him by the hair.

"No! Listen," cried Smith, and hurriedly explained what had happened to Parradan Smith.

"That's his case on the shelf," he said, tilting his head in its direction with some difficulty. "I promised him I'd deliver it to you. He said you'd pay well. I was on my way to your house, I swear."

The lord paused, looking thoughtful. He got the case down from the shelf and opened it. Lord Tinwick's cup gleamed at him. He lifted it out, examined it, checked the inscription on the base.

"What did you do with Parradan's body?" he inquired.

"It's in a stone cairn on the north side of the road from Troon, about two days' journey from the Red House up there," said Smith.

"All right," said Lord Kashban. He looked down at Smith, studying him. "You worked in Port Chadravac for a while, didn't you? Weren't you one of the Throatcutters?"

"Not exactly," said Smith miserably. "I was sort of a consultant for them. A specialist."

"Yes, you were," the lord agreed, and awe came into his face, though his voice remained level and quiet. "Artist is more like it. Nine Hells!
Nobody
ever saw you coming. They said you could vanish out of a locked room. What are you doing running from anyone?"

"I didn't want to do it anymore," Smith explained. "Just because a man's good at something doesn't mean he enjoys it."

Lord Kashban shook his head. "Unbelievable. All right; Parradan said I'd reward you, so I will. You have your life. Let him go," he told his men, who dropped Smith's arms at once.

"Honor on your house," said Smith, staggering to his feet. He grabbed his clothes and pulled them on.

"What do we do about Striker, my lord?" one of the men wanted to know.

"What do we do about Striker?" Lord Kashban pulled at his lip. "Good question. I've lost a good man. All right, wrap a towel around his head and carry him out to the palanquin. Tell the greenie he's sick. We'll give him a nice funeral in the garden tonight. You." He looked at Smith. "Had enough of retirement yet? Getting a little tired of looking threadbare? It pains me to see a man of your talents in the gutter. You could come work for me."

"You do me tremendous honor, my lord," said Smith, feeling his heart sink. "Though I have some other problems I have to take care of, and I don't--"

"Understandable," said Lord Kashban, making a dismissive gesture. "You don't have to decide right now. But you think about it, understand? And come talk to me when you're ready. You know where I live.

"Here," he said, turning to his men, who had slung Striker's corpse between them and were preparing to take it out. He dropped the case with Lord Tinwick's cup on Striker's chest. "Take that home, too, and lock it up. I'm going to have a massage."

Smith pulled on his coat hurriedly and exited first. He walked quickly through the outer room, with the two that carried the dead man close behind him, and the Yendri turned to look at them. His eyes widened but he made no sound; only shook his head sadly as they stepped out into the street.

Not caring to watch the body being stowed away in Lord Kashban's palanquin, Smith faded into the crowd and put some distance between himself and the bathhouse. It was getting dark, just the blue time of twilight he had always found comforting, and yellow lamps were being lit in every street and along the seafront. He found little to comfort him now, however.

He hated to think that he would have to accept Lord Kashban's offer, but it was the answer to his current predicament. He'd be able to stop running, he'd have protection from the law. He'd have money. More than enough to compensate Mrs. Smith and the others for the loss of their jobs. All he'd have to do was kill people, though he had promised himself he'd never earn his living that way again.

Not that there was any societal stigma involved in professional killing, at least among the Children of the Sun. Murder in the cause of a blood feud was honorable, and murder in the service of one's sworn lord a sure way for a bright young person to advance. Other races had difficulty understanding this cultural tradition, though one crabbed Yendri philosopher had advanced the opinion that, since the Children of the Sun seemed incapable of practicing any form of birth control, perhaps it was best to let them indulge their need to slaughter themselves as a means of keeping their population at manageable levels.

Smith respected tradition as much as the next man. He just didn't like to kill.

But it was what he was best at, and he had no other options that he could see.

Other than a dinner date with demons.

He had nearly reached the bottom of the hill, and was in the neighborhood of the grand hotels, the gracious private houses fronting on the sea. Cold waves boomed on the empty beach, but along the Glittering Mile it might have been summer, so many lights were lit, so many well-dressed people were out and promenading on the seafront or being jogged from one fashionable address to another in open palanquins.

Smith hurried through them with his ragged coat collar turned up, looking for the spa. It was easy to find: it covered several square blocks. Everything was on a grand scale, with a lot of white marble and soaring columns and domes. The main entry hall was lit with barrel-sized lanterns brilliant enough to have guided ships at sea, and Smith felt dreadfully conspicuous as he scuttled in out of the night. The desk clerk stared at him in disbelief.

Fortunately, however, he was expected, and so the clerk led him out through the scented gardens to the grandest suite in the complex. It looked like a temple from the outside. It looked like a temple from the inside, too, as Smith was to discover.

"It's our old friend the caravan master, Nursie," Lord Ermenwyr yowled in delight, flinging the vast double doors wide. The clerk paled and vanished into the night. Lord Ermenwyr was stark naked except for a flapping dressing gown of purple brocade and what appeared to be a pair of women's underpants on his head. His smoking tube was clenched in a ferocious grin, and his pupils were tiny. Behind him, a prostitute was attempting to depart discreetly, in evident distress at lacking a certain item of her attire.

"Welcome, Caravan Master!" The lordling flung his arms around Smith. "My, you smell a
lot
better. Come in, it's a catered affair, don't you know! Lots of lovely excess. What?" he snapped at the girl, who had timidly pulled at his elbow. "Oh, you've no sense of romance at all."

He yanked off the underpants and handed them to her, then turned with aplomb and took Smith's arm in his, towing him from the hall. "Look at it all," he said, waving a hand at the vaulted ceiling with its mural of fluttering cherubs. "Pretty grand after all those nights of wretched wilderness, eh? Of course, a Yendri would purse his sanctimonious lips and say the glorious immensity of the stars was a far more splendid canopy for one's repose, but you know what I say to that?" He blew a juicy raspberry. "Oh, I love, love,
love
decadent luxuries! Look at this!"

Dropping Smith's arm he ran to the immense canopied bed and hurled himself into the middle of the scarlet brocade counterpane, where he began to leap up and down. The canopy was a good fifteen feet in the air, held aloft on a gilded finial, so he ran no risk of bouncing into it.

"I--despise--Nature," he panted. "Whoopee!"

"Master, did you pay that poor girl?" Balnshik came into the room, attired in a white robe demurely tied shut. "You've left the door open, darling. Hello, Smith." She turned and caught his head in both her hands, giving him a kiss that left his knees weak. "Don't mind him. He's overexcited. You haven't even offered him a drink, have you, you little beast?"

"Eeek! What was I thinking?" Lord Ermenwyr scrambled down and raced into the next room, reappearing a moment later with a bottle and a glass. "Here you go, Smith. This cost an awful lot of money. You're sure to like it." He poured a glass and offered it to Smith with a deep bow.

"Thank you," said Smith. Behind him he heard Balnshik slam and bolt the great doors, and realized that it was far too late to run.
What the hell,
he thought, and sampled the wine. It was sparkling and tasted like stars. Lord Ermenwyr drank from the bottle.

"Mm, good. Come on, let's dine," he said, and pulled Smith into the next room.

"Oh," said Smith, starting forward involuntarily. He hadn't eaten in hours and was abruptly aware of it at the sight of the feast laid out on the table. There were a couple of huge roasts, a hen, oysters, a whole baked fish in wine sauce, various covered tureens, hot breads and butter in several colors, more bottles, a pyramid of ripe fruit and another of cream buns and meringues, as well as a large cake sulking in a pool of liqueur. As is usual for feasts, candied kumquats and cherries decorated nearly everything.

"Room service," said Lord Ermenwyr dreamily, lifting the lid on a tureen. "Floating islands! My favorite. Don't stand on ceremony, Smith." He plunged his face into the tureen, only to be collared and dragged back by Balnshik.

"Sit down and put your napkin on, Master," she ordered. "Look at you, you've got meringue in your beard. Simply disgusting. Please be seated, dear Smith, and pay no attention to his lordship. I shall serve."

And this she proceeded to do, carving the meats and arranging a plate for Smith with the best of everything, the most prime cuts, the most melting fruit, ignoring Lord Ermenwyr as he happily drank custard sauce straight out of the tureen. Then she loaded a plate for herself, filled Smith's wineglass and her own, and sat down tete-a-tete with him as though they were alone.

"You followed that doctor's advice, I note, and were detoxified," Balnshik said, shaking out her napkin. "Quite a good idea. It's a nasty poison on those little darts, just like its inventors. Devious. Lurking. It can lie dormant in the flesh, even if one is treated with an antidote, and leap out into the blood unexpectedly later on."

"So--excuse me for asking, but--you really are a nurse, then," Smith said, trying not speak with his mouth full.

"Well, I know a great deal about death," she admitted. "That helps, you see."

"Hey! He can't pay no attention to me," protested Lord Ermenwyr belatedly, lifting his dripping beard from the tureen. "He's my guest."