The Urth of the New Sun (26 page)

They objected at first; but when they saw I was adamant, contented themselves with lengthy (often repetitious) speeches of thanks and the presentation of gifts: a tangled staff for me, the frantic work of the two best wood-carvers in the place; a shawl embroidered with colored wool for Burgundofara that must have been the richest item of feminine apparel there; and a basket of food for us both. We ate the food on the road and threw the basket into the stream; but we kept the other things, I liking the staff for walking and she delighted with her shawl, which relieved the masculine severity of her slop-chest clothes. At twilight, just before the gates were shut, we entered the little town of Os. It was here that the stream we had followed emptied into Gyoll, and here there were xebecs, carracks, and feluccas tied up along the riverfront. We asked for their captains, but all had gone ashore on missions of business or pleasure, and the sullen watchmen left to guard their vessels assured us we would have to return in the morning. One recommended the Chowder Pot; we were on our way there when we happened upon a man robed in tyrian and green, who stood upon an inverted tub addressing an audience of a hundred or so:

"—buried treasure! Everything hidden revealed! If there are three birds in a bush, the third may not know of the first, but I know. There is a ring—even as I speak—beneath the pillow of our ruler, the wise, the transcendent— Thank you, my good woman. What is it you wish to know? I know it, to be sure, but allow these good folk to hear it. Then I shall reveal it." A fat townswoman had handed him a few aes. Burgundofara said, "Come on. I'd like to sit down and get something to eat."

"Wait," I told her.

I stayed in part because the mountebank's patter reminded me of Dr. Tabs, and in larger part because something in his eyes recalled Abundantius. Yet there was another thing more fundamental than either, though I am not certain I can explain it. I sensed that this stranger had traveled as I had, that we had gone far and returned in a way that even Burgundofara had not; and that though we had not gone to the same place or returned with the same gain, we had both known strange roads.

The fat woman muttered something; the mountebank announced, "She begs to be informed as to whether her husband will find a new site for his stew, and whether the venture will succeed."

He threw his arms above his head, clasping a long wand with both hands. His eyes remained open, rolling upward until the whites showed like the skins of two boiled eggs. I smiled, expecting the crowd to laugh; yet there was something terrible about his blind, invocatory figure, and no one did. We heard the lapping of the river and the sigh of the evening breeze, though it blew too gently to stir my hair.

Abruptly his arms fell and his snapping black eyes were back in place. "The answers are:
Yes!
And
yes!
The new bathhouse will stand not half a league from where we are now."

"Easy enough," Burgundofara whispered. "The whole town can't be a league across."

"And you shall have more from it than you ever had from the old," the mountebank promised. "But now, my dear friends, before the next question I wish to tell you something more. You think I prophesied for the money this good woman gave me." He had retained the aes in his hand. Now he tossed them up in a dark little column against the darkening sky. "Well, you're wrong, my friends! Here!"

He flung them to the crowd, a good deal more than he had received from the woman, I think. There was a wild scramble.

I said, "All right, let's go."

Burgundofara shook her head. "I want to listen to this."

"These are bad times, friends! You are hungry for wonders. For thaumaturgical cures and apples from pine trees! Why, only this afternoon I learned that some quack-salver has been touring the villages up the Fluminis, and was headed our way." His gaze locked with mine. "I know that he is here now. I dare him to step forward. We shall hold a competition for you, friends—a trial of magic! Come, fellow. Come to Ceryx!" The crowd stirred and murmured. I smiled and shook my head.

"You, my good man." He leveled a finger at me. "Do you know what it is to train your will until it's like a bar of iron? To drive your spirit before you like a slave? To toil ceaselessly for an end that may never come, a prize so remote that it seems it
will
never come?" I shook my head.

"Answer! Let them hear you!"

"No," I said. "I haven't done those things."

"Yet they are what must be done, if you would seize the scepter of the Increate!" I said, "I know nothing of seizing that scepter. To tell the truth, I'm certain it could not be done. If you wish to be as the Increate is, I question whether you can do it by acting as the Increate does not."

I took Burgundofara by the arm and drew her away. We had passed one narrow side street when the staff I had been given in Gurgustii snapped with a loud report. I tossed the half that had remained in my hand into the gutter, and we continued up the steep slope that led from the embankment to the Chowder Pot.

It seemed a decent enough inn; I noticed that those who had gathered in its public room seemed to be eating almost as much as drinking, which was ever a favorable sign. When the host leaned across his bar to speak to us, I asked whether he could provide us with supper and a quiet room.

"Indeed I can, sieur. Not equal to your station, sieur, but as good as you'll find in Os." I got out one of Idas's chrisos. He took it, stared at it for a moment as though surprised, and said, "Of course, sieur. Yes, of course. See me in the morning, sieur, and I'll have your change for you. Perhaps you'd like your supper served in your room?" I shook my head.

"A table, then. You'll want to be far from the door, the bar, and the kitchen. I understand. Over there, sieur—the table with the cloth. Would that suit you?" I told him it would.

"We've all manner of freshwater fish, sieur. Freshly caught, too. Our chowder's quite famous. Sole and salmon, smoked or salted. Game, beef, veal, lamb, fowl...?" I said, "I've heard food's hard to come by in this part of the world." He looked troubled. "Crop failures. Yes, sieur. This is the third in a row. Bread's very dear—not for you, sieur, but for the poor. Many a poor child will go to bed hungry tonight, so let's give thanks that we don't have to."

Burgundofara asked, "You've no fresh salmon?"

"Only in the spring, I'm afraid. That's when they run, my lady. Otherwise they're sea caught, and they won't stand the trip so far up the river.

"Salt salmon, then."

"You'll like it, my lady—put down in our own kitchen not three months ago. You needn't trouble about bread, fruit, and so on now. We'll bring everything, and you may choose when you see it. We've bananas from the north, though the rebellion makes them dear. Red wine or white?"

"Red, I think. Do you recommend it?"

"I recommend all our wines, my lady. I won't have a cask in my cellar I can't recommend."

"Red, then."

"Very good, my lady. And for you, sieur?"

A moment before, I would have said I was not hungry. Now I found I salivated at the mere mention of food; it was impossible to decide what I wanted most.

"Pheasant, sieur? We've a fine one in the spring house."

"All right. No wine, though. Maté. Do you have it?"

"Of course, sieur."

"Then I'll drink that. It's been a long time since I've tasted it."

"It should be ready at once, sieur. Will there be anything more for you?"

"Only an early breakfast tomorrow; we'll be going to the quay to arrange passage to Nessus. I'll expect my change then."

"I'll have it for you, sieur, and a good, hot breakfast in the morning, too. Sausages, sieur. Ham, and..."

I nodded and waved him away.

When be was gone, Burgundofara asked, "Why didn't you want to eat in our room? It would have been much nicer."

"Because I have hopes of learning something. And because I don't want to be by myself, to have to think."

"I'd be there."

"Yes, but it's better when there are more people."

"What—"

I motioned her to silence. A middle-aged man who had been eating alone had stood and tossed a last bone on his trencher. Now he was carrying his glass to our table. "Name's Hadelin," he said. "Skipper of
Alcyone
."

I nodded. "Sit down, Captain Hadelin. What can we do for you?"

"Heard you talking to Kyrin. Said you wanted passage down the river. Some others are cheaper and some can give you better quarters. I mean bigger and more ornaments; there's none cleaner. But there's nothing faster than my
Alcyone
'cept the patrols, and we sail tomorrow morning."

I asked how long it would take him to reach Nessus, and Burgundofara added, "And to the sea?"

"We should make Nessus day after, though it depends on wind and weather. Wind's generally light and favorable this time of year, but if we get an early storm, we'll have to tie up."

I nodded. "Certainly."

"Otherwise it should be day after tomorrow, about vespers or a bit before. I'll land you anywhere you want, this side of the khan. We'll tie up there two days to load and unload, then go on down. Nessus to the delta generally takes a fortnight or a bit less."

"We'll have to see your ship before we take passage."

"You won't find anything I'm ashamed of, sieur. Reason I came over to talk is we'll be leaving early, and if it's speed you want, we've got it. In the run of things we'd have sailed before you got to the water. But if you and her will meet me here soon as you can see the sun, we'll eat a bite and go down together."

"You're staying in this inn tonight, Captain?"

"Yes, sieur. I stay on shore when I can. Most of us do. We'll tie up somewhere tomorrow night too, if that be the will of the Pancreator."

A waiter came with our dinners, and the innkeeper caught Hadelin's eye from across the room. "'Scuse me, sieur," he said. "Kyrin wants something, and you and her'll want to eat. I'll see you right here in the morning."

"We'll be here," I promised.

"This is wonderful salmon," Burgundofara told me as she ate. "We carry salt fish on the boats for the times when we don't catch anything, but this is better. I didn't know how much I'd missed it."

I said I was glad she was enjoying it.

"And now I'll be on a ship again. Think he's a good captain? I bet he's a demon to his crew."

By a gesture, I warned her to be quiet. Hadelin was coming back.

When he had pulled out his chair again, she said, "Would you like some of my wine, Captain? They brought a whole bottle."

"Half a glass, for sociability's sake." He glanced over his shoulder, then turned back to us, a corner of his mouth up by the width of three hairs. "Kyrin's just warned me against you. Said you gave him a chrisos like none he'd seen."

"He may return it, if he wishes. Do you want to see one of our coins?"

"I'm a sailor; we see coins from extern lands. Then too, there's some from tombs, sometimes. Plenty of tombs up in the mountains, I suppose?"

"I have no idea." I passed a chrisos across the table.

He examined it, bit it, and gave it back to me. "Gold all right. Looks a trifle like you, 'cept he seems to have got himself cut up. Don't suppose you noticed."

"No," I said. "I never thought of it."

Hadelin nodded and pushed back his chair. "A man doesn't shave himself sidewise. See you in the morning, sieur, madame."

Upstairs, when I had hung my cloak and shirt on pegs and was washing my face and hands in the warm water the inn servants had brought, Burgundofara said, "He broke it, didn't he?"

I knew what she meant and nodded.

"You should have contended with him."

"I'm no magus," I told her, "but I was in a duel of magic once. I was nearly killed."

"You made that girl's arm look right."

"That wasn't magic. I—"

A conch blared outside, followed by the confused clamor of many voices. I went to the window and looked out. Ours was an upper room, and our elevation gave me a good view over the heads of the crowd to its center, where the mountebank stood beside a bier supported on the shoulders of eight men. I could not help thinking for a moment that by speaking of him Burgundofara had summoned him.

Seeing me at the window, he blew his conch a second time, pointed to draw attention to me, and when everyone was staring called, "Raise up this man, fellow! If you cannot, I will. The mighty Ceryx shall make the dead walk Urth once more!" The body he indicated lay sprawled in the grotesque attitude of a statue overthrown, still in the grip of rigor. I called, "You think me your competitor, mighty Ceryx, but I've no such ambition. We're merely passing through Os on our way to the sea. We're leaving tomorrow." I closed the shutters and bolted them.

"It was him," Burgundofara said. She had stripped and was crouched beside the basin.

"Yes," I said.

I expected her to reproach me again, but she only said, "We'll be rid of him as soon as we cast off. Would you like me tonight?"

"Later, perhaps. I want to think." I dried myself and got into our bed.

"You'll have to wake me, then," she said. "All that wine's made me sleepy." The voice of Ceryx came through the shutters, lifted in an eerie chant.

"I will," I told her as she slipped beneath the blankets with me. Sleep was just closing my eyes when the dead man's ax burst open the door, and he stalked into the room.

Zama

I DID not know it was the dead man at first. The room was dark, the cramped little hall outside nearly as dark. I had been half asleep; I opened my eyes at the first blow of the ax, only to see the dim flash of steel when its edge broke through with the second. Burgundofara screamed, and I rolled out of bed fumbling for weapons I no longer possessed. At the third blow, the door gave way. For an instant the dead man was silhouetted in the doorway. His ax struck the empty bed. Its frame broke, and the whole affair collapsed with a crash.

It seemed the poor volunteer I had killed so long ago in our necropolis had returned, and I was paralyzed with terror and guilt. Cutting the air, the dead man's ax mimicked the hiss of Hildegrin's spade as it swung past my head, then struck the plaster wall with a thud like the kick of a giant's boot. The faint light from the doorway was extinguished for a moment as Burgundofara fled.