Fantasy: The Best of 2001 Read online

  A lean, grizzle-bearded, squinting man, clad in a sil­very robe, entered. At his back hulked another, red-skinned, seven feet tall, so broad and thick as to seem squat, armed with steel cap, leather cuirass, and unfairly large scimitar. Cappen did not need Peridis’s gasp to inform him that they were Nerigo and a Makali bodyguard.

  The woman sprang to her feet. As the bard did, the little volume slid off his lap. Almost without thinking, he snatched it and tucked it down his half-open blouse. A bargaining counter—?

  For an endless instant, silence held them all.

  When Nerigo then spoke, it was quite softly, even impersonally. “I somewhat hoped I would prove mis­taken. But you realize, Peridis, I cannot afford blind trust in anyone. A sortilege indicated you were receiving a visitor in my absences.”

  She stepped back, lifting her hands, helpless and imploring. Nerigo shook his head. Did ruefulness tinge his words? “Oh, fear not, my cuddly. From the beginning, I knew you for what you are. It’s not rational to wax angry when a cat steals cream or a monkey disarrays documents. One simply makes provision against further untowardness. Why should I deny myself the pleasure that is you? No, you will merely be careful in future, very careful. If you are, then when I want novelty you shall go your way freely, unharmed, with only a minor spell on you to lock your lips against ever letting slip anything about me or my doings.”

  Cappen heard how she caught her breath and broke into sobs. At the back of his mind, he felt a burden drop off himself. He would have hated being the instrument of harm to her. Not that she had been much more to him than frolic; yet a man wishes well-being for his friends. Besides, killing beautiful young women was a terrible waste.

  Hope flickered up amidst his dismay. He bowed low. “My lord, most reverend sir,” he began, “your magna­nimity surpasses belief. No, say rather that it demon­strates, in actual incarnation, the divine benevolence of those gods in whose service you so distinguish yourself. Unworthy though I be, my own humble but overwhelming gratitude—”

  Nerigo cut him off. “You need not exercise that flat­tering tongue which has become notorious throughout Sanctuary,” the sorcerer-priest said, now coldly impersonal. “You are no wayward pet of mine, you are a bra­zen intruder. I cannot possibly let you go unpunished; my demons would lose all respect for me. Furthermore, this is an opportunity first to extract from you everything you know. I think especially about the eminent Molin Torchholder and his temple of Savankala, but doubtless other bits of information can prove useful too. Take him, Yaman.”

  “No, no, I beg you!” Peridis shrieked, but scrambled aside as the giant advanced.

  If he was hustled off to a crypt, Cappen knew, he would welcome death when at last it came. He retreated, drawing the knife at his belt. Yaman grinned. The scim­itar hissed forth. “Take him alive,” Nerigo called, “but I’ve ways to stanch wounds once he’s disabled.”

  Cappen was no bravo or brawler. Wits were always his weapon of choice. However, sometimes he had not been granted the choice. Thus he went prepared. His knife was not just the article of clothing and minor tool commonly carried by men. It was razor-honed, as bal­anced as a hawk on the wing. When in his wanderings he earned some coins by a show of prestidigitation, it had often figured in the act.

  He poised, took aim, and threw.

  A hoarse, gurgling bellow broke from Yaman. He lurched, dropped his weapon, and went to his knees. Blood spurted. The blade had gone into his throat below the chin. If Nerigo wanted to keep his henchman, he’d be busy for a while. Mainly; Cappen’s way out was clear. He blew Peridis a kiss and darted off.

  A yell pursued him. “You’ll not escape, Varra! I’ll have you hounded to the ends of the Empire. If they’re Imperial troopers who find you, they’ll have orders to cut you down on sight. But first demons will be on your trail—”

  By then he was in the vestibule, retrieving his rapier and cloak, whence he slipped forth into the street. Walls and roofs loomed black along its narrowness. A strip of stars between barely gave light to grope by. Oh, lovely gloom! He kept to one side, where the dark was thickest and there was less muck to step in, and fled as deftly as a thief.

  What to do? tumbled through his head. The incon­spicuous silver amulet hanging on his breast ought to baffle Nerigo’s afreets or whatever they were. It pro­tected him against any supernatural forces of less than divine status. At least, so the wizard who gave it to him years ago had said, and so it had seemed to work on two or three occasions since. Of course, that might have been happenstance and the wizard a liar, but he had plenty of worries without adding hypothetical ones.

  Equally of course, if such a being did come upon him, it could seize him or tear him apart. Physical strength was a physical quality. Likewise for human hunters.

  Yes, Nerigo would have those out after him, while messengers sped north, south, east, and west bearing his description to castles, cantonments, garrisons, and watchposts. Once he had aroused the indignation of his colleagues, Nerigo would have ample influence to get such an order issued. Cappen’s connections to Molin were too slight—how he wished now that he hadn’t thought it best to play down his role in that rescue—for the high priest of Savankala to give him asylum and safeguard across the border. Relations between the tem­ples were strained enough already.

  The westbound caravan wouldn’t leave for days. Well before then, Nerigo would learn that Cappen had engaged a place in it. There were several others, readying to go in their various directions. He could find tempo­rary refuge and get information in one of the disrepu­table inns he knew. With luck, he could slink to the master of whichever was departing first, give him a false name and a plausible story, and be off with it—maybe even tomorrow.

  That would cost, especially if a bit of a bribe proved advisable. Cappen had deposited his money with a reliable usurer, making withdrawals as desired. Suddenly it might as well be on the Moon. He was back to what lay in his pouch. It might barely stretch to getting him away.

  He suppressed a groan and shrugged. If his most recent memories were dearly bought, still, they’d be something to enjoy on an otherwise dismal journey.

  * * *

  It was a long annual trek that Deghred im Dalagh and his followers made. Northward they fared from Temanhassa in Arechoum, laden with spices, aro­matics, intoxicant herbs, pearls, rich fabrics, cunningly wrought metal things, and the like, the merchants and hucksters among them trading as they went. The route zigzagged through desert and sown, village and town, across dunes and rivers, by highroad and cairn-marked trail, over the Uryuk Ubur and thence the cultivated plains of the Empire, Sanctuary its terminus. That city produced little other than crime and politics, often indistinguishable, but goods of every kind flowed to its marts and profitable exchanges could be made. The return journey was faster, as direct as possible, to get be­yond the mountains before their early winter closed the passes.

  Well, Cappen consoled himself, this was not the des­tination he had had in mind, but needs must, he had never yet seen yonder exotic lands, and maybe he could improve his luck there.

  It could stand improvement, his thoughts continued. Instead of the comforts he paid for and forfeited, he had a single scrawny mule, which he must frequently relieve by turning to shank’s mare; a greasy third-hand bedroll; two similar changes of clothes and a towel; ill-fitting boots; a cheap knife, spoon, and tin bowl; and leave to eat with the choreboys, not the drovers.

  However, he remained alive and at large. That was ample cause for cheerfulness, most of the time. Making friends came naturally to him. Before long his tales, japes, and songs generated a liveliness that drew the attention of the merchants. Not long after that, they in­vited him into their mess. Deghred gave him a decent kaftan to wear while they ate, drank, and talked; everybody concerned was fluent in the Ilsig language, as well as others. “I think you have possibilities, lad,” the car­avan master said. “I’ll lodge you for a while after we come to Temanhassa and introduce you to certain peo­ple.” H
e waved his hand. “No, no, not alms. A modest venture, which in the course of time may bring me a modest profit.”

  Cappen knew he had better not seem a daydreamer or a fool. “The tongue of Arechoum is foreign to me, sir. Your men can scarcely teach me along the way.”

  “You’re quick to pick things up, I’ve seen. Until you do, belike I can help.”

  Cappen understood from the drawl and the bearded smile that Deghred meant also to profit from that help, perhaps considerably. Not that he was ever unnecessar­ily unkind or hostile. Cappen rather liked him. But busi­ness was business. At the moment, nothing better was in sight.

  Beasts and men plodded on. The land rose in bleak­ening hills. Now and then, when by himself, Cappen took from his meager baggage the book he had borne from Peridis’s house and paged through it, puzzling over the text and staves, smiling at the pictures, mainly recalling her and their nights. Thence he harked back to earlier recollections and forward to speculations about the future. It bore him away from the trek.

  At a lonely fortress on a stony ridge, the commander routinely let them cross the frontier. Cappen drew a long breath. Yet, he realized, that frontier was ill-defined, and Nerigo’s agents might still find him. He would not feel altogether safe until he was on the far side of the Uryuk Ubur.

  Those mountains reared like a horse. Mile by mile the trails grew more toilsome, the land more cold and stark. Unseasonably so, Deghred said, and burned some incense to his little private gods. Nevertheless the winds lashed, yelled, and bit, clouds raced ragged, snow flur­ried.

  Thus they came to the hamlet Khangaii and heard that if they went ahead, they would almost surely die.

  A storm roared about the huts. Sleet hissed on the blast. Mosschinked stone walls and turf roof muffled the noise, a dung fire and crowded bodies kept the dwelling of headman Bulak odorously warm, but somehow that sharpened the feeling of being trapped.

  “Aiala is angry,” he said. “We have prayed, we have sacrificed a prime ewe—not in feast, but casting it into a crevasse of Numurga Glacier—yet she rages ever worse.”

  “Nor has she sent me a dream to tell why, though I ate well-nigh all the sacred ulaku left us and lay swooned through two sunrises.” His elder wife, who was by way of being the tribal priestess, shuddered. “Instead, nightmares full of furious screams.”

  Flames flickered low on the hearth and guttered in clay lamps. Smoke dimmed what light they gave and blurred uneasy shadows. From the gloom beyond gleamed the frightened stares of Bulak’s younger wife and children, huddled on the sheepskins that covered the sleeping dais. Three favored dogs gnawed mutton bones tossed them after the company had eaten. Several men and the senior woman sat cross-legged around the fire, drinking fermented milk from cow horns refilled out of a jug. They were as many as could well have been crowded in, Deghred and such of the merchants as he picked. The rest of the travelers were housed elsewhere. Even in this bad time, hospitality was sacred. Cappen had persuaded the caravan master that he, come from afar, might conceivably have some new insight to offer.

  He was beginning to regret the mix of cockiness and curiosity that led him to do so. He had more or less gotten to ignoring the stench, but his eyes stung and he kept choking back the coughs that would have been im­polite. Not that things were likely any better in any other hut. Well, maybe he could have slept. It was a strain trying to follow the talk. Bulak knew some Ilsig, and some of the guests had a smattering of his language. Between stumbling pidgin and awkward translations, conversation did not exactly flow.

  At least, though, the slowness and the pauses gave him a chance to infer what he could not directly follow, correcting his mistakes when context revealed them to him. It became almost as if he listened to ordinary speech. He wasn’t sure whether or not the drink helped, if only by dulling his discomfort. Foul stuff, but by now his palate was as stunned as his nose and he readily accepted recharges.

  “Have you not gods to appeal to other than this—this Aiala?” asked the merchant Haran im Zeyin.

  Deghred frowned at the brashness and shook his head. The wife caught her breath and drew a sign which smoke-swirls traced. Bulak took it stolidly. “She rules the air over the Uryuk Ubur,” he answered. Light wa­vered across the broad, seamed face, almond eyes, and thin beard. “What shall they of the Fire, the Earth, and the Water do?”

  “It may be she is even at odds with them, somehow, and this is what keeps her wrathful,” whispered the woman. “There is a song among the olden songs that tells of such a time, long ago, when most of the High Folk died before she grew mild again—but I must not sing any of those songs here.”

  “So it could worsen things to call on them,” said Deghred with careful gravity. “Yet—may she and you bear with an ignorant outsider who wishes only to understand—why should she make you suffer? Surely you are blameless.”

  Bulak half shrugged. “How else shall she vent her anger than in tempest and chill?”

  Irreverence grinned within Cappen. He remembered infuriated women who threw things. The grin died. Men were apt to do worse when beside themselves, and be harder to bring to reason. More to the point, he hap­pened to be on the receiving end.

  The headman’s stoicism gave way for a moment. “I have had my day. Our tribe will live through the winter—enough of us—I think—and may hope that then she has calmed—”

  “For she is not cruel,” the priestess said as if chant­ing. “Her snows melt beneath her springtime breezes and fill the streams, while the pastures turn green and starry with tiny flowers and lambs frisk in the sunshine. She brings the fullness of summer, the garnered riches of autumn, and when her snows have returned we have been snug and gladsome.”

  Isn’t that the sort of thing a goddess or god is supposed to do? thought Cappen.

  “—but how many of our young will freeze or starve, how many of our littlest ones?” croaked Bulak. He stiff­ened his lips. “We must wait and see.”

  And, Cappen reflected, few gods are noted for tender solicitude. In fact, they often have nasty tempers.

  If this is even a goddess, properly speaking. Maybe she ranks only as a sylph or something, though with considerable local power. That could make matters even worse. Minor functionaries are notoriously touchy.

  Supposing, of course, there is anything in what I’ve been hearing.

  Deghred said it for him: “Again I pray pardon. No impertinence is meant. But is it not possible that what we have met is merely a freak, a flaw in the weather, nothing for the Lady Aiala to take heed of, and very soon, perhaps already tomorrow, it will go back to what it should be?”

  Bulak shook his head. “Never in living memory have we suffered aught like this so early: as well you should know, who have passed through here, to and fro, for year after year. But there is the sacred song . . . . Push on if you will. The higher you go, the harder it will be. Unless we get respite within the next three or four days, I tell you that you will find the passes choked with snow and yourselves in a blizzard, unable even to go back. If afterward your bodies are found, we will make an of­fering for your souls.” His smile held scant mirth. “Not that I’m at all sure ‘we’ means anyone here tonight.”

  “What, then, do you counsel we should do?”

  “Why, retreat while still you are able. Tomorrow, I’d say. We cannot keep you through such a winter as is upon us. Barely will we be able to keep ourselves—some of ourselves. Go back north into the lowlands and wait. Could we High Folk do likewise, we might well, but if naught else, the Empire would seize on the chance to make us impoverished clients. We have had dealings with it erenow. Better that a remnant of us stay free. You, though, need but wait the evil out.”

  “At cutthroat cost,” muttered Haran.

  “Better to lose our gains than our lives,” retorted Deghred. His tone gentled. “And yet, Bulak, we are old friends, you and I. A man should not turn his back on a friend. Might we, your guests, be able to do something? Maybe, even, as foreigners, give reverence and s
ome unique sacrifice to the Lady, and thus please her—?” His voice trailed off.

  “How shall we speak to her? In our broken Uryuk?” wondered another merchant. “Would that not be an in­sult?”

  “She is of the winds,” said Bulak. “She and her kind ken every tongue in the world, for the winds hear and carry the knowledge to each other.” He turned to his elder wife. “Is that not so?” She nodded.

  Deghred brightened. “Then she will understand us when we pray and make offerings.”

  The priestess pinched her lips together above the few teeth left her. “Why should she heed you, who are outlanders, lowlanders, have never before done her homage, and clearly are now appealing only to save—not even your lives, for you can still escape, but your mongers’ profits?”

  “Treasure? We have jewelry of gold, silver, and gem-stones, we have garments fit for queens—”

  “What are such things to Air?”

  “To Earth, maybe,” Bulak put in. “Aromatic woods might please Fire, spices and sweetmeats Water. Yet with them, too, I fear you would be unwise.” Shrewdly: “For in no case will you offer your entire freight, when you can better withdraw and come back with most of it sev­eral months hence. It is . . . not well to try to bargain with the Powers.”

  That depended on which Powers, Cappen thought. He knew of some—But they were elsewhere, gods and tu­telaries of lands less stark than this.

  The drink was buzzing in his head. Dismay shocked through. Why am I jesting? It’s my life on the table tonight!

  Slowly, Deghred nodded. The one sensible thing for his caravan to do was retreat, wait out the winter, and cut its losses as much as might be. Wasn’t it?

  And absolute lunacy for Cappen Varra. Once he was back in the Empire, he himself would not bet a coun­terfeit lead bawbee on his chance of getting away again. The alert was out for him. If nobody else noticed first, one or another of his fellow travelers was bound soon to hear the description and betray him for the reward. Fleeing into the hinterlands or diving into some thieves’ den would hardly buy enough time. Though his amulet might keep Nerigo’s demons off his direct track, they could invisibly watch and listen to others, everywhere, and report everything suspicious to the sorcerer.