The Man of Gold t-2 Read online

  There were also patches of the poisonous purple vegetation called the “Food of the Ssu.” Tlayesha did not recall seeing so much of the stuff when she had passed this way the previous year. Now whole areas, mostly the inaccessible islets in the midst of the swamps, were covered with pulpy vines and clusters of leaves like slashed liver, fleshy blooms of reddish-violet hue, and sticky pods, veined and ichorous, resembling nothing so much as a naked human lung. In the Time of the Gods, it was said, the world was covered with the “Food of the Ssu.” The Ssu, hideous monsters that they were, ate it, cultivated it, and dwelt with their cousins, the Hliiss, alone upon Tekumel. Then the Gods came and tried in vain to destroy the Ssu and their habitat. None succeeded until Lord Vimuhla, the Master of Flame, blew His fiery breath upon the world and made it a fit place for humankind to dwell, together with certain nonhuman species. Now there was an Imperial decree ordering the eradication of these plants, but who was going to enforce it in such a dismal place? Once Tlayesha had thought to pick some of the ugly flowers for examination, and her fingers still smarted from the remembered pain of the bums! No useful medicines were to be had there!

  The landscape became more and more a gloomy land of dark waters and hidden, secretive undergrowth. The Sakbe road was reduced to only one level, and this was frequently replaced by a wooden causeway carried on black-tarred pilings and balks of timber. The Gods knew how the old Emperors had constructed this highway! During its repair a generation ago so many workers had died that the Imperium had decreed the building of a new route along Thenu Thendraya’s mighty flank where the cliffs plunged down from the heights into the bogs to the west. But “the Sentinel of Hrugga” had shaken himself and thrown down their bridges and tunnels, and at last the priesthoods had persuaded the Emperor to desist.

  Twelve days after leaving Tsuru the slaver’s caravan sighted the first of the villages of the Hehecharu, the “First Dwellers” of the Great Morass. Rickety hovels of grey sticks and reeds rose from the swamp upon stilts and were connected by bridges of woven grass. Sections of the wooden causeway had been widened at regular intervals and made into wharf-like platforms. Travellers along the Sakbe road used these as halting places, and the First Dwellers came there, too, to sell their swamp-fruits, eels, reptile skins, bird plumage, and fangs of ivory-white Ssar — wood from which all manner of batons and staffs were carved. No tax-gatherer ever visited the villages of the Hehecharu, and as long as their inhabitants left the Sakbe road in peace and surrendered a few copper Qirgals a year, no administrator bothered them.

  Even so, everyone distrusted the First Dwellers. They were indisputably human, but they were squat, wide-mouthed, and of a mottled greyish tinge, like meat left too long in the sun. They were clearly related to the Old Ones of Purdimal, the Heheganu, who were similar, if still uglier. But one rarely saw those latter creatures any more, except deep in Old Town in Purdimal. One of Chnesuru’s Mu’ugalavyani overseers held the theory that both of these odd races were related to-or intermarried with-the nonhuman Swamp Folk who lived along the Putuhenu River in his own land. The slaver himself heaped scorn upon this idea: was it not well known that the slave-breeding clans had tried all of the possible combinations of races in the past and had ended with nothing save frustration?

  Whatever the truth might be, the Hehecharu behaved meekly enough, spoke little, and never stayed the night on the platforms along the Sakbe road.

  Chnesuru followed his usual custom and did not halt at the first of the wayside platforms. He decided instead to go on to the second one some ten Tsan farther into the swamplands. The quicker one marched, the quicker out of these fens-though Purdimal itself was but little more appealing.

  Like the other platforms, the one the slaver chose extended out some ten man-heights to the side of the roadway. It was perhaps twenty man-heights long, and at its southern end stood a handful of rude pavilions used by the Hehecharu peddlars during the day. To the north, the platform ended in a crumbling guard tower, its stones hauled from great distances and sunk who knew how far down into the ooze to provide a firm foundation.

  There were few other wayfarers: two or three parties of merchants, soldiers from several legions, a courtesan and her retinue, and the litter belonging to the nobleman whom Tlayesha had seen at Village Tkoman. Just after dark, however, a company of about forty Shen mercenaries arrived, members of one of the Imperium’s nonhuman auxiliary legions, possibly “The Splendour of Shenyu” itself, to judge by their crested helmets and the tail-plumed Kaing — standard that two of the huge reptiles set up before their officer’s tent.

  These new arrivals crowded the sleeping accommodations beyond reasonable capacity. The Shen arrogantly took over the best places near the tower, and Tlayesha observed their commander and two of his hulking black troopers go in to pay their respects to the captain of the road-guard garrison. (In Avanthe.’s name, what had the man done to deserve posting to a place like this?)

  Some of the merchants joined with Chnesuru in occupying the peddlars’ hovels-in spite of the fact that Chnesuru was a slaver, a Salarvyani, and of low clan-status. At this point no one cared. The courtesan and her servants were allowed to sleep there as well, but the rest were left to put up their tents beside the roadway wherever they could.

  No one wanted to sleep near the platform’s outer railing, and Qoyqunel had to use both words and blows to persuade some of the older male slaves of the wisdom of this. The supply wagons and the sick-cart were stationed in front of the row of huts, and Old White-Side presently emerged from one of these buildings to order the cookfires lit, the armoured Chlen-beasts fed and watered, and the women and children to begin the evening meal.

  The insects were unbearable. Even now, during the month of Halir, there were so many pests that cooking was slowed by half! Slaves slapped and scratched and grumbled until they were issued sleeping-shawls in which to swaddle themselves, and some of the men were set to flapping cloths at the bumbling Agpiz-beetles lest these fly into the cookpots and become unwelcome additions to the stew. The Hu — bats and the black and purple Qasu — birds were even greater nuisances, for they dived to snatch morsels not only from the pots but from peoples’ bowls and fingers as well. Qoyqunel was forced to remind Miiru the cook with the flat of his sword that the gasK-birds were sacred to Lord Wuru, the Cohort of mighty Hru’ii, and hence not to be swatted with a spatula.

  Tlayesha was happy to share space in a tent with one of Chnesuru’s nonhuman overseers, a beautiful bone-white female Pe Choi named Itk t’Sa. These creatures were so graceful, the males a gleaming ebony and the females just the opposite: the hue of summer clouds, with shadings of pearl-grey along their ear-ridges. Female Pe Choi were uncommon outside of their homeland in the Chakan forests, but Itk t’Sa had joined the caravan in Mrelu a year or so before. She gave no reasons for leaving her people but quietly took charge of Chnesuru’s occasional nonhuman slaves and aided Tlayesha with the human women and children. She was marvellously deft. Tlayesha had attempted to befriend her but had met with a wall of placid, amicable-and unbreachable-aloofness.

  Itk t’Sa gave her human companion a polite nod and went on preparing herself for sleep. She used the chitinous ridges on the outside of her upper pair of hands to scrape and brush her face and limbs, refused the water Tlayesha offered her (did the Pe Choi ever bathe, or did they only rub themselves clean in this fashion?), squatted down, folded her six limbs tightly, and curled her segmented tail around her body.

  Tlayesha undid the laces of her high leather walking boots, removed her sleeveless over-tunic, and loosened the drawstring of her skirt. Her veil, too, she laid aside. Automatically she glanced over at the Pe Choi, but Itk t’Sa had her long head down between her two upper limbs, asleep. What would a Pe Choi know or care about human uglinesses anyway? From her medicine bag Tlayesha brought forth a piece of Baliir-bark to bum in their clay lamp; its pungent smoke would make their tent uninviting to any insect guests.

  She had just begun to wash herself as best she. co
uld in the narrow confines of the tent when she heard a scratching sound at the tent-flap. She fumbled her veil back over her face and peered out.

  The sick boy stood in the doorway. She had forgotten about him! His face was spotted with scarlet insect bites. Although she had given him a sleeping-shawl, it was obvious that it had provided little protection. She made an impatient sign for him to enter and close the flap. There was room for him to sleep at her feet.

  She turned away to find the Pe Choi staring at the boy. The intensity of the lambent green gaze surprised her.

  “Do you know this slave?” she asked.

  Itk t’Sa did not reply at once. The slave boy returned her look with the same fierce concentration. He was not trembling now.

  “No,” the Pe Choi replied at last, “I think not. Yet he is familiar…” Abruptly, surprisingly, she said something guttural and clicking in her own harsh language.

  The boy strained forward, seemed to listen, and then made a monumental effort to reply. Once this would have been enough to convince Tlayesha that he was witless indeed; no human had ever mastered a nonhuman tongue! Yet he was so determined, so serious! He opened his lips with such care that lines of muscle stood out upon his jaw. Then his malady overwhelmed him. His whole body shook, and he strove to keep his clenched teeth from chattering.

  The Pe Choi looked at Tlayesha. “He is-how do you call it? — mind-harmed?’ ’

  “Yes. The shaking sickness. Some intelligence is left to him, more than most cases, I think. With training he may make a useful household slave. Certainly any master will be able to discuss his secrets in this man’s presence without fear of disclosure.” Tlayesha found herself speaking rapidly, as though to hide something. She discovered, to her own bewilderment, that she harboured certain further, unformed suspicions. She did not know how to put these into words.

  “You have examined him well? It is really the shaking sickness?”

  “I–I believe so. I am no skilled physician, of course, like those in the temples of Thumis or Ketengku…”

  The Pe Choi looked from Tlayesha back to the boy. Then she put her head back down between her forearms. Her attitude suggested that human affairs were no concern of hers. Tlayesha could not see the boy’s expression; he had turned his head so that his face was in shadow.

  Later, Tlayesha awoke in total darkness, jolted from sleep by a stab of pain in her wrist. She slapped with her other hand and felt a fuzzy something wriggle weakly and squish under her fingers. The clay lamp had gone out. Where one insect could find a way a thousand others would follow! The bowl of the lamp was dry. There was nothing for it but to get up and beg more oil from whichever of the overseers had been given the miserable duty of guarding the supply cart this night. She prayed it would not be Old White-Side.

  She retied her skirt, settled her veil over her head, and arose. The slave boy was instantly on his feet as well.

  “It is all right,” she gentled him. “Come, we go to get more oil.”

  Both of the moons were up. Kashi’s dim ochre light mingled with Gayel’s paler green radiance to splash weird double shadows over the sheds and crumbling pilings. Water gurgled and bubbled beneath the platform, and she felt a momentary twinge of fear of falling through some rotted board into the slime below. Slaves huddled under sleeping-shawls around the black bulk of the supply cart, and she saw that Chnesuru had loaned some of his elegant Khirgari carpets to provide cover for the women and children. Not out of any altruistic motive, she thought wryly, but because there was no profit in merchandise all red and puffy with insect bites.

  Cawing, alien laughter eddied to her from the Shen tents across the platform. The reptiles would not be bothered with insects-they were probably snatching them from the air and eating them! Tlayesha was a little afraid of Shen. She almost stumbled over a pair of slaves rhythmically copulating under a coarse sleeping-shawl. At least that never stopped, no matter what else! Chnesuru must have given permission tonight for the male slaves to sleep with those women who were willing. Not only did it keep his wares occupied and uncaring of their insect tormentors, but there would also be more babies to add to his sales. A woman with a child drew a better price, and such a one could expect less arduous duties than a female who had none.

  Something was happening there by one of the tents. She paused to squint, and the slave boy stepped on her heel from behind.

  A struggle was going on. Two men-they looked like soldiers, though they wore mantles with cowls-were wrestling with somebody. Whose tent was it? One of the merchants? No, the pavilion belonging to the noblemen. Clan tabards dangled limply from the pole before the entrance.

  Looters? Bandits? Drunk, perhaps? She started forward with the vague intention of calling to the guards in the tower.

  A flapping black shape loomed before her, and she gave an involuntary squeal of fright. It was another soldier, an officer in dully gleaming armour, a thick cloak about his shoulders. He held a naked sword.

  “Be still and return whence you came, my Lady.” His voice was calm, almost detached. “What is not perceived makes no tangled knots in one’s Skein.”

  As her eyes adjusted Tlayesha had a better look at him: a tall, gaunt man, his face shadowed by the helmet visor. His armor glinted with the red-gold of copper: an officer of one of the Legions devoted to Lord Sarku or his ugly Cohort, Durritlamish, probably. A man of status anyway. His cheeks bore the triple cicatrices of one of the mountain clans of the Kraa Hills. She started to obey him, motioning blindly behind her for the slave boy to move back as well.

  The struggle before the tent was apparently over. The two soldiers had subdued a third man-the nobleman or one of his servants (did he have any-she had not noticed?). He hung between his captors as though unconscious. Light flared up within the tent. Someone had uncovered a lantern, and dancing shadows upon the tent walls told her that the nobleman’s possessions were being ransacked, the Gods alone knew why.

  Three more men appeared in the doorway of the tent. Two were soldiers, and the third was a bent, sharp-featured old man attired in a voluminous robe that showed black-brown in the light. They seemed to have found what they sought, for the elderly man pushed past his two comrades and made an imperious gesture to the officer who still barred Tlayesha’s way.

  The captive was almost halfway across the open space in the middle of the platform. As the soldiers brought him nearer Tlayesha recognised the young nobleman, a thin, raffish-looking fellow, now wearing only a breechcloth of some fine material. He had obviously been surprised as he slept.

  • Without warning the prisoner jerked one arm loose from one soldier and dealt the other man an openhanded blow in the face. The trooper’s head rocked back, and his helmet went rolling and clattering upon the planks. Then the young nobleman was free of both of them and racing on bare feet towards the guard tower.

  He could have reached it easily. But he seemed to falter and change his mind. Then he sprinted off in a tangent toward the Shen commander’s pavilion. The soldier he had struck still stood spraddle-legged, hands to his face; the other ran out to intercept him.

  Tlayesha knew better than to interfere. There were sounds behind her now, and heads appeared from under sleeping-shawls. A Shen guard arose to bark a question at the soldiers but went unheeded. On her own side of the platform she heard Old White-Side’s bass voice rumble a challenge as well.

  The officer in front of her shouted to the soldiers still before the tent, and these sprang off to block the nobleman’s access to the roadway. Only the elderly man stood motionless, staring, seeming to concentrate without actually looking at the scene before him. He raised one hand toward the fleeing prisoner.

  The half-naked young man was apparently confused-or bewitched? He had almost reached the Shen guardsman when suddenly he threw up his hands as though confronted by some terrible apparition. He gave a hoarse yell, veered away, and stumbled over a just-awakening slave. He ended with his back against the western parapet, that which overhung the blacknes
s of the swamp below.

  The first soldier came up to cut his quarry off from any further flight, feinting with his sword but not actually striking a blow. The nobleman must be wanted alive! The second trooper was almost there too, running hard, and the remaining pair were not far behind. The officer cursed and left Tlayesha to join his men.

  The nobleman dodged his opponent’s clumsy swing, reached nimbly past the man’s guard, and caught his wrist. A deft twist, and the sword went skittering away along the planks, its owner after it to sprawl headlong. Before the second soldier could interfere, the thin-faced dandy had scooped up the weapon and swung to face this new foeman.

  The second soldier saw his doom, but his momentum was too great to stop. Horrified, Tlayesha watched the sword point skid against the lacquered cuirass and slip smoothly up to lodge in the man’s throat. He jacknifed, coughing blood. The noble youth retreated gracefully to the parapet again, like a trained duellist after a match. Somewhere in the darkness a slave snapped his fingers in applause, the way the crowds praised a winning gladiator at the Hirilakte Arenas.

  The first soldier was on his feet, dark blood oozing from an abrasion on his cheek. The remaining two men joined him and circled in from opposite sides, their officer just behind them. The latter bawled a command to surrender.

  Their quarry swung his weapon from side to side, assessing the situation. He was outnumbered. There was only one avenue of escape, perilous though it was. Before anyone could stop him he whirled, took one quick stride up onto the wooden railing, and teetered there undecided for a long moment. He seemed to be looking for help-did he have accomplices amongst the slaves? His servants? No one moved.

  He shouted something then. Tlayesha thought he cried, “-I told you mother-suckling clanless dung-eaters that it would never work-!”

  He turned and jumped outward, into the swamp. A splash and an oily squelching sound came up from below. Then silence.

  Without knowing how she got there, Tlayesha found herself at the parapet, jostled by merchants, slaves, overseers, soldiers, and some of the Shen. People seemed to crowd in from everywhere now that danger was past. A trooper called for torches, and a youth in the shabby livery of the Sakbe road guards (and now cleverly they had stayed out of the fray!) shouted for a rope. A crag-faced older man, a tanner by his leather tunic and the checkerboard design on his headband, snatched a spare tentpole from a cart and pushed it down to probe the dark bog beneath. A little fellow with a huge hooked nose-the tanner’s apprentice, probably-came up beside him and took the pole from his master’s hands.