The sun burned relentlessly. The sea moved in azure and aquamarine curves around the foam-laced reefs. The sky tinted to copper with the dust and heat. And Port Tinarana stank.
Keilin stared out at it from the bridge, and tried not to wrinkle his nose at it. How many years of his life were tied up in this stench? And he didn't even remember it. There was the Patrician's palace, hanging above the water. There on the hill stood a burned-out shell of a building too. It was definitely the right town. But . . . how had it become so small?
"You're sure you won't stay, son?" The captain's heavy hand rested heavily on Keilin's shoulder.
He shook his head, slowly, "Thank you, sir, but no. There are things I have to do."
The stern-faced man blew out between his teeth. "I wish I didn't understand what you meant, Keil, my lad. Still, you go carefully. That's some unchancy folk you're mixing with there. Don't you trust that supercilious Cap fellow. You watch that Leyla woman too. She knows too damn well that when a man's balls start thinking, his head doesn't. That," he said, with an almost smile, "is hell of advice from a sour old man that girls steer clear of, but I wasn't always that way. When they start looking at you like that little one does, it's time to take a berth, any berth, to any place else."
"She's a princess, sir. This is her idea of fun. She knows she'll marry some high muck-a-muck sometime, but in the meanwhile she uses me to keep her claws sharp. I wish she'd pick on someone else," Keilin said with wry acceptance.
The old sea captain laughed. "You've certainly spent a lot of time up here dodging her. Well, good luck, boy. If you ever need a berth, there's a place for you on Starchaser."
The captain watched from the bridge as they disembarked onto the crowded quayside, making no effort to come down and speak to his departing passengers. Finally he turned to his first mate. "Notice, Mister Mate, how that boy keeps himself mighty quiet and in the background. Did it here on the ship too. But I found miserable beggars like the purser, and even young snots like that cabin boy of mine listened to him, and did him favors. I've been a ship's captain half my life. I can see a good officer a mile off. That one's got a way about him that breeds loyalty. No high-flying orders and heroics like yon Cap feller, but folk'll do more for that boy in the end, than for him. When that Cru high an' mighty sees that, he'll not like it. I reckon the girl's not stupid either. Reckon they taught her to choose good ones, even if she'd no marriage in mind."
The crowd at the dockside had a haunting familiarity to it. It was strange to Keilin to walk those streets in daylight, and to be an outsider. The shrill cries of the vendors, the whores in their windows, the sharp scents of spices and curries, the overwhelming stink of the drains, the smell of camel-dung fires . . . they all brought it back to him sharply. He kept looking about for faces that he might recognize.
A military party was coming their way, down from the Patrician's palace. As they drew closer Keilin realized with shock that he did recognize the face of the man who was leading it.
It was not a face Keilin would ever forget. But the Guard-Captain had obviously seen promotion. He was now Commander of the Patrician's personal Guard, escorting that individual's litter through the streets. Cap's group was wedged against the walls of the narrow street. Keilin lowered his face, wishing the wall would open up and swallow him. This was no alley, but he had his back to a wall again.
The Guard Commander's eyes washed across them . . . across Keilin's face, and on without pause. Keilin started to breathe again, as the man passed by. He felt the tension run out of him.
"Yeth? And what do we have here?" The lisping voice was cruel. There was no fear in the voice now—just power. Silence fell. "Commander." Kemp turned, the forty armed men of the bodyguard halting too, readying weapons. Keilin looked for a place to run, and saw no breaks. "That girl. I want her."
His beringed plump white finger with its exquisitely manicured nail poked at Leyla.
The silence was torn by the sound of Beywulf's terrible jagged-edged sword being drawn. His lips drew back exposing his own yellow snaggle teeth. "Leave her alone."
Cap looked over the heads of the crowd, who were doing their best to melt away in a hurry without being obtrusive. "Bey. Let me handle this."
"Withe. Tell your thervantth that rethithtanth meanth death. Put that ugly thword away and I'll forget it." The Patrician was plainly not that cowed by Beywulf's threat.
"Hold, Beywulf. Don't sheath . . . yet. Patrician Vedas," Cap said in a clear carrying voice, the voice of a power, speaking as if to one of his councillors, with whom he was a little out of charity, "we're not your citizens. We are simply on our way through your charming city. I don't think you want to delay us. By this patch you know that I speak for the Crew. Remember, you are mine to command. I don't need to tell you about what happens to those who obstruct the Crew's ends."
The Patrician smiled. Those white teeth were filed. Keilin would swear to it. He wished he'd spent more time telling them about his city and what to avoid. But they had planned a quick walk to the camel yards and then to be away. And he really hadn't wanted to talk about it. "Commander, thee that theth people accompany me back to the palathe. Thereth thomeone I want them to meet."
Leyla laughed. It cut through all tension. "I don't see what all the fuss is about. After all I've just received a very flattering bit of attention." She looked under lowered lashes at the plump, white-robed man. "I'm dying to see your palace."
The Patrician gave a high-pitched giggle. "Dying . . . yeth! I mutht thow you my pleathure roomth . . . in the thellars. I'm thure you'll jutht be devoured with pleathure. Come along then." He giggled again.
Keilin desperately wished he'd told her just what the Patrician's particular perversion was rumored to be.
They found themselves marched away from the direction of the camel yards, away toward the many-turreted white marble palace. Keilin wondered what had replaced the treasury. He was afraid he might find out. "There. You don't have to solve everything with a sword blade, Sergeant-Major. A little harmless entertainment on Leyla's part, something she's hardly unfamiliar with, and a bit of `big brother is watching you' from me and we'll be on our way without any trouble, and very possibly with some help."
"Sir," whispered Keilin urgently, "I must . . ."
"You must learn to keep your long nose out of what doesn't concern you, boy. Now, shut up."
So Keilin retreated, to find himself buttonholed by Shael. Her childhood training stood her in good stead. "What's frightening you so badly? Does Cap really trust the plump little snake of a local ruler?"
"Yes. He thinks everyone will still be overawed by his Cru badge. He doesn't understand that it only works with ordinary people nowadays. I don't think Patrician Vedas is superstitious, and anyway he obviously believes that he's above any law, now. He used to have women stolen for him by night . . . now he comes and demands them in the street."
Beywulf had dropped back to walk just in front of Keilin. In an undervoice he said, "Keil . . . what were you trying to tell the man?"
"He kills them, Bey. Nobody knows what happens to the girls that go into his cellars." He didn't add that rumor, and the frequency at which girls disappeared, suggested it wasn't a quick death.
Shael took a long sharp look at him. She could see his fear. She realized that she had often seen him afraid, but always facing that fear. This was the first time she'd seen him ready to break and run. His face was sweat-beaded and almost gray with terror. With shock she realized she could actually feel his fear. The core section in his ankle pouch must be freezing. Any minute now they'd have the Morkth on top of them. He had met other terrible foes along their travels, but this . . . the fear was inculcated in early youth, and distance and experience had done nothing to lessen it. Well, she'd been warned. She'd better prepare for it. "Lend me your small knife for a minute, please, Cay. I need to trim my nails, and put my moisturizing cream on," she said calmly.
Mutely he handed her the tiny blade from his pocket. Biting the inside of her lip slightly, she set out to manipulate him. At least this time she was doing it for his own good. He was scared, desperately scared for himself. She would shift the fear to worrying about the rest of them. Worrying about her. She knew he would react. He always did. He'd put his own problems behind him somehow, and find the courage and resource to help his companions. She knew she had to break his funk before panic took over, but she still felt despicable doing this. "He's going to kill me . . . and Leyla. Help us, Keilin, please!"
Her appeal did the trick, as she had known it would. He nodded, and the very act broke through his wall of fear. He felt the assegai shaft. Who was Kemp to be petrified of anyway? Old Marou would have made mincemeat of three of him. He felt a gentle touch on his shoulder. It was S'kith. There was almost a trace of expression on his face. Worry. With shock Keilin realized the emotional spillover from his mind must have touched the otherwise puzzled man. The shaven-headed man forced his face . . . into a sort of smile. "Friend," he said quietly. It was only one word, but Keilin knew exactly what it meant. It meant that Keilin's enemies were S'kith's enemies. And S'kith's answer to any threat was a preemptive strike. Right now that would get them all killed. He'd have to stop S'kith from going off the deep end too soon.
Shael handed back the small knife as they walked through the archway into the palace. Keilin wondered vaguely if her trimming had been judicious, while walking. She'd cut her nails, that she'd so carefully cared for, into rather pointed things. By the look of them she ought to rather have just cleaned them. They were plainly dirty, very unlike her, with her vanity. He must buy her some more cream too. He'd no idea where she'd got this lot from, but it smelled of fish. Then, as the heavy gates clanged shut behind them, it occurred to him that he might not get an opportunity to buy anything again.
It was a large hall, with a balcony, lined with crossbow men. The Patrician turned, "Take thith girl, and that other one over there down to my . . . chamber. I'd never thought of two. How exthiting. I'll enjoy one while the other getth into the mood, watching." The giggle would have frightened crocodiles.
"Wait, you promised . . ." Cap burst out.
"And the retht of them. Take them to thee my withard," the Patrician said with a lighthearted wave. "Ditharmed of course. He'll be fathinated to hear what thomeone claiming to be Crew wantth here. Abtholutely fathinated. You thee, my landth are not platheth of tranthit. We're a dead end, thurrounded by dethert or thea, or Morkth territory."
He stepped through an archway and disappeared, leaving them to face the aimed crossbows.
"It's no use thinking of hostages," the Guard Commander sneered. "The only hostage worth taking just left. Drop your weapons." They had little option but to comply. A couple of men led Leyla and Shael away, as the rest were searched. As one of the searcher's hands travelled down Keilin's leg, S'kith stood on the man's foot, while looking the other way. The searcher turned to cuff him. S'kith simply stood, but Keilin's ankle pouch remained undiscovered. The pile of confiscated weapons grew. Jewels and money were also removed. When they took the core sections from Cap, danger flashed in his eyes. However, all their goods were simply piled onto a low trolley, and not looted. "The wizard will examine it first," commented one searcher, replying to Beywulf's sarcastic comment.
"Come now. Take me to this magician or whatever. I am in a hurry to sort things out, and be on my way," said Cap with a show of his customary arrogance. Keilin just kept his mouth shut. He noticed with relief however that while they were being searched Kemp had left and followed his master.
One of the soldiers shuddered. "I'd rather be questioned by a shark, mister."
"Shut up, Trooper. March them through." Something in the corporal's tone suggested that he agreed with what the soldier had just said.
The wizard had a long beaky nose and a too-broad face. He also sat too still in his robes on the high-backed carved chair. The air outside was hot, and dry. Here in this room it was positively steamy. "Close the door, soldier. It's too dry out there." The voice was curiously atonal, and its cadences somehow wrong. Keilin found himself staring carefully at the speaker's face. Something else was tugging at the sleeve of his memory.
"You claim to be part of the Crew, on business here. Explain." The man's lips were not in perfect synch with the words. The memory tugged more urgently. Smell . . . lavender . . . and something far less pleasant?
At his side S'kith began bioenhancement rituals. "Morkth," he said quietly. And Keilin recognized the smell.
"I am the senior surviving crew officer. Those who thwart me will regret it. My business is not here, it is with the Morkth invasion. Tell your master he'd better return my property and my female companions immediately, and I will say no more of the matter."
A snort came from the seated figure. "The real Crew were killed. The Patrician chooses what females he wants. Tell me more of your business with the Morkth."
Keilin had sidled up behind Cap. "He is Morkth!" he whispered urgently.
Cap's eagle eyes narrowed.
"Answer or I will have one of your number killed. Painfully." The voice remained atonal.
"Voice synthesizer." Cap spoke with grim satisfaction. There was a brief searing bright scarlet bolt from the hand he had tucked into his jacket. There were twelve guards in the room, with four unarmed prisoners. In seconds Keilin realized that Cap didn't need anything more than his hands and feet. These were chopping blades themselves. And the blades of the fallen were in the hands of Beywulf and S'kith. S'kith bioenhanced and Beywulf headed into berserker madness.
But Keilin was outclassed and unarmed. A few seconds later he found the burly corporal's chin bristles brushing his ear, with a sword at his throat. "Hold off, or the boy is dead!"
Cap laughed. "Kill away. He's not particularly valuable to me."
But both S'kith and Bey had halted. Keilin felt an inner calmness, despite his dire situation. By the looks of the corporal's dark broad face he'd been recruited from the refugee swarm from across the narrow sea. Keilin spoke as if having a sword at his throat happened twice every morning before tea. "Corporal. Look. The wizard is a Morkth warrior."
The hand which was twisting and forcing Keilin's arm upward went slack. The man's eyes goggled at the corpse. As well he might. The thing's death rictus had shredded its robes, and pieces of non-human body were exposed. A clawed gray limb kicked at the sky.
The corporal was old enough to have been an adult when the Morkth hoards swept through the rich irrigated lands of Beshtan, killing, destroying and enslaving. By the bitterness in his voice he remembered it only too well. "Motherfucking shiteaters! What the hell is going on?"
"You are fighting the wrong people, Corporal." Keilin made no attempt to move. "My master is one of the Cru. He has come to rid Tinarana of the Morkth filth."
"Hold your swords, boys." The corporal spoke to his surviving compatriots.
"But, Corp, they've killed—" protested one of the men.
"Hold, I said! Shut your face, Josen. I don't blame people for killing bugs. Or anything that fights on their side." The corporal let go of Keilin. "Come on, boy. Let's go and have a look." They walked over to the body. The corporal prodded the face with the sword point. The rubbery mask split, revealing the huge faceted eye beneath.
"Holy . . . we must tell the Patrician at once," said Josen. His paler cast of skin and narrower features made him likely to be a local man.
"I'll bet the bastard knows," the corporal said harshly. "He's been behaving like a mixture between a mouse and a rabid dog ever since this"—he kicked at the Morkth's body—"turned up a couple of years ago."
"He knows," said Keilin, with absolute conviction. Somehow it would have been impossible to doubt him.
"We'll kill the bastard!" Red fury burned in the other young trooper's eyes. He too looked to be the offspring of a refugee.
Cap looked at them. "Very well. You may take part in my plan. Corporal, send this young man to fetch others to view this . . . thing. Men who do not love the Morkth. Help me now and your serving of the enemy is forgiven. I will see if I can help the fallen. I am a doctor, as well as a member of the Crew. Keep this . . . Josen fellow in here; he is not to be trusted."
The corporal looked at him and then at Keilin, as if seeking confirmation. Keilin nodded imperceptibly. "Serra. Fetch Captain Belvin, and Sergeant Rood. Tell them I sent you. Tell them `red lentil,' nothing else, and say to come now."
He looked around the chamber, and then turned and calmly hit Josen over the head with his sword butt, and watched him fall. "Can't trust him, the bloody little brown-nose squeaker. He's always up the Guard Commander's butt. These other lads are right enough. Been a tide rising against this `wizard' and Vedas. We were planning a coup in maybe a month's time."
Minutes later two men came back with the guardman. Both of the newcomers were plainly also from across the narrow sea. The spare gray-haired one was already talking as he came in. "Halen. What do you mean using this boy as a messenger? Plain bloody stupid—oh!" He saw the "wizard" and his half displayed face. "Oh, holy Dana!! I see. Sergeant. You and Corporal Halen go and muster your troops. I want them in here within three minutes."
Keilin's mind could not leave Shael's need in other's hands. He turned to the captain. "Can I have a guard please? To show me the way down to the chambers underneath. I must go there." She needed him now.
The captain looked at him strangely. "Things happen down there, boy, that I don't know about. Lots of screaming. That's one reason I'm neck deep in this mess. Now you want me to send you down there?"
Keilin nodded. "My friends are down there." The fear demon was gone now. All he knew was the need for haste.
Cap's eyes narrowed again. "Would our gear be accessible?" he asked the guards.
One of the remaining men nodded. "They'll be in the red vestibule off the great hall."
Cap smiled, all teeth. "Captain, I must insist that the boy is right. Send these two with us to collect our gear. Then we'll give you a good deal of commotion. Just leave down below to us. Do you want your Patrician alive or dead?"
The captain looked startled. "Uh, what?!"
"Two escorts," Cap said impatiently.
With a blinding suddenness Keilin realized that all Cap really wanted was to recover the core sections.
They were marched as if they were still prisoners across to the entrance hall and into a vestibule hung with red drapes. It was all Keilin could do not to run.
Keilin reached for his assegai, S'kith and Beywulf for their swords. Cap burrowed through the pile of belongings until he found a black leather pouch. Only then did he take his sword. Stashing knives hastily, Keilin grabbed his small pack . . . and Shael's. "Bey, better bring Leyla's gear. Likely they'll need clothes."
Now Keilin didn't even wait for his escort. He was off and running for the archway down which the girls had been taken. He heard Bey thundering along behind him, and an abruptly cutoff word of challenge. He ran on heedlessly around the corner.
The two guards on the door were chosen for size. But they weren't really expecting anyone. One even had his helmet off and was picking nits out of his long hair when Keilin arrived at a full sprint.
The helmet went flying. But Keilin's second stroke missed. He wrenched at the door-embedded assegai desperately.
And then S'kith and Beywulf barrelled up, closely followed by Cap.
"Bugger me, youth. Don't run so damn fast next time," panted Bey, kicking the door in, as he wrenched his sword out of the dead guard's chest.
It didn't stop Keilin again totally outpacing them down the stairs.
It was a huge room. The walls were hung with grisly mementos . . . and implements of torture. And a terrible thin screaming came from the far side of it.
Commander Kemp knocked Keilin butt-over-tea-kettle as he ran for the door. The Guard Commander didn't stop, but he did yell "Need a doctor!" in his sprint for the stairs. And he did evade the rest of the party, and gain his freedom via the stairs.
Keilin staggered to his feet and continued to run toward the screams.
Both of the women were stark naked. Leyla had been strapped to a vast bed. In the candlelight he could see both the old and the new blood stains. Shael was spreadeagled on a hanging steel pentacle, steel manacles about her ankles and wrists. On either side of her head jutted vicious spikes so that she had to look at the bed. Around the victims stood racks of cruel, sharp-edged things. A small brazier burned, despite the heat . . . and the air was tainted with the smell of burnt flesh, as well as the reek of blood and fear. Shael's back was scored with five fine lines, with trickles of blood running down onto her buttocks. Keilin ran forward. The screaming did not come from her.
On the floor writhed a naked Patrician Vedas. He was plainly in terrible pain, his face blueish and contorted, his muscles jerking in uncontrollable spasms. Blood trickled from his nose, and from deep scratches on his shoulder.
Keilin moved forward to spear him.
"Leave him." The words came from Leyla. "Just get us loose, and out of here." Keilin's assegai blade made short work of her straps, and by the time S'kith came up, he'd found a key and was struggling to unlock Shael's manacles. S'kith too was about to make an end of the man on the floor, but Leyla told him to leave the vermin.
Bey arrived, his face white. "Hell's teeth." He kicked the writhing man. "We lost the other one, I'm afraid. Cap's gone to secure the stair. Come away. You can put clothes on there. Keil said you'd need your packs, so we brought them."
Half carrying the girls, they ran back. Shael still hadn't said a word. Keilin noticed she had her arm tight around him, but she was keeping her fingers very carefully straight. When they arrived at the staircase, she said in a small voice. "Cay . . . please take my dress out of my pack, and . . . and help me put it on. I'm scared to scratch anything. I've got tetrodotoxin on my fingernails."
"What?" Keilin started.
"Puffer-fish liver. That's how I killed him. Please give me some clothes. I'm cold." She shivered.
The air in the room was hot and still. Yet her arm was chilly, and her body beaded with a fine cold sweat. Her eyes were very wide. Hastily Keilin took the first garment from the top of her pack, and helped her into it. Then, still with his arm around her, they hurried up the stairs and out into the light.
Cap had been busy. Six more bodies lay there. "Come on," he said roughly. "That captain couldn't organize a piss-up in a brewery, never mind a bloody coup."
Whatever the captain's organizational abilities were, the coup attempt had bred phenomenal chaos. The sounds of fighting, shouting and running echoed down the passages, and the gate was deserted. "Now, local boy. Get us the hell out of here." Cap pushed him forward.
Keilin wove them down the maze of alleyways, keeping away from the main roads, except for one hurried crossing. He stopped them just short of the North Gate, in the shadow of one of the overhanging buildings. He wondered if any of the others had even seen the gang boys watching their passage. He wondered if any of the watchers had recognized him. He doubted it. He didn't even feel like the Keilin who had lived like a rat in these alleys. It was almost as if that life belonged to someone else now.
The gate was open, but the guards were doing a spot of contraband and dutiable goods examination, as well as a bit of freestyle direct taxation. "Keep my assegai and pack. I'll tell the guards there are Morkth loose in the palace."
Keilin ran up, panting, to the gate guard, who was in the act of appropriating a juicy tomato from an angry vendor, on the grounds that it could possibly be infectious.
Keilin grabbed the guard, getting a spear butt poked in his midriff for his presumption. He ignored it and gasped his message. "Go to the palace . . . Captain Belvin's orders . . . Morkth killed the Patrician . . . Run! . . . Need you all!"
The guard looked at him owlishly, then grabbed Keilin, and started to run to the palace, accompanied by five of his fellows. Keilin tripped himself and sprawled on the cobbles when he was opposite Beywulf. Bey seized him. "I'll hold him for you, sir. You go after the other soldiers." In a minute they'd slipped through the gates with the crush of locals who were taking advantage of the lack of supervision. Within five minutes they were at the camel market, to find Keilin's rumor had beaten them there, and was already driving up the price of the beasts.
Keilin could see fires raging inside the walls as they rode away from the market, their newly acquired beasts laden with saddlebags and water skins. He wondered vaguely who would win . . . and whether Kemp had escaped? They circled the outer wall of the city and then rode along the beach. When they arrived at the sea, Shael spoke up. "Can we stop? I need to wash my hands . . . and I'd also like to change out of my nightdress."
This drew a chuckle even from Cap. "You might as well have a swim. This is the last time you'll see water for a good few weeks. We'll keep watch from the rocks over there."
It was enough of an invitation for Leyla. She was already stripping off her clothes. There was an angry red welt across one nipple. "Come on, little sister. Let's wash the filth of that place off us. You lot, b' off for a few minutes. There are times for looking at the merchandise, and this isn't one of 'em." She ruefully felt her breast. "In fact, I think the shops are closed for a while. Go away."
Soon the girls were back, wet haired, and dressed for riding. As they headed through a familiar melon field, this time with an angry farmer shouting at them, Keilin felt the hot wind coming out of the interior, full of dry dust and emptiness. It was like a welcoming kiss. Without a backward glance at the city or the sea, he urged the camel into an ungainly trot forward, into the barren lands. He'd always thought about going back to the port. To pay off old scores. To show the people what he had become. He realized suddenly that it didn't actually matter a damn. He wanted the future now, not the past. And he wanted to get the Princess far away from the pain.